#conscious of the king

[anewstartrekfan]

People make fun of snw for having tarsus iv survivor on Jim’s Starfleet bio but honestly all of this was public information in conscience of the king. There are two scenes dedicated to Jim and Spock separately finding out Kevin Riley was one of the other survivors. It’s public information but the public doesn’t care.

Yes it’s fun for fanfiction to have the tarsus 9’s names redacted from the survivors lists and to have Jim go out of his way to keep that shit private but the reality is that the massacre is regarded by the galaxy at large as a horrible thing that happened, but that it was one of many horrible things and the case is closed.

Bones trying to brush Spock off when Spock is explaining everything he’s learned, and Bones’ response to Spock bringing up Kodos had his own theories of eugenics, are the most telling here.

“Unfortunately he wasn’t the first.”

The general public know the basic details of what happened, and the person who orchestrated the crimes seemingly died. And despite no positive ID on the body, Starfleet stopped looking into it. Everyone wanted it to go away. They choose not to bring it up. I’d argue that’s part of the point. All of this is public data but almost everyone involved wanted it to die. Even some of the victims. (Jim). But the thing about an untreated wound is that it can fester, and get worse until it’s impossible to ignore. And now you’re in a situation where 7 out of 9 survivors of a massacre are dead, all around the same time a company of actors performed in the area they lived.

Conscience of the King stands as a greater lesson on why willfully ignoring uncomfortable history will lead to people not learning from their parents’/ancestors’ mistakes and/or worse, make the same mistakes/commit the same crimes.

[lizzyinfandoms]

Uh, just to make sure I’m not going completely insane.

Kodos was very much the very much the villain of Conscious of King, right? And a eugenicists? Because i got into an ugly fight with a friend of my boyfriend’s last night about it where he says Kodos was justified” and “wasn’t actually an eugenicists” and I can’t tell if I’m going crazy or not.

[demonicseries]

rereading the Spider-Man/Deadpool comics

[starry-bi-sky]

Danielle and Danyal's meeting... very, very quickly goes very sour from, basically, the moment Danny steps into his room and finds Ellie sitting on his bed (strike one) and reading the comic books Tucker introduced him to (strike two). By the time she's looked up to address him, Danny has the door locked, and a hand hovering near the knife hidden under his shirt.

She gets her third strike when Danny, in a voice that could make the mountains tremble, demands to know how she got into his room, and she lies (with uncertainty of her decision growing in her chest) that Jazz let her in. Danny's hand shifts closer to his weapon, and he turns towards her fully, and says that Jazz would never let someone he didn’t know into his room, and who was she.

(Vlad Masters had underprepared Danielle for her meeting with Danny -- not out of any completely direct malicious intent, but he failed to mention just how... 'touchy' Daniel could be -- he failed to mention the scars littering up his arms, unhidden by the hoodie tee he meets Ellie in. He failed to mention that along with those scars, that Danny was visibly lean, capable of doing very real damage without the use of his powers.)

(He tells Ellie that he’s adopted, and that he is observant and clever, but ungrateful and has a bad attitude.)

Her final strike occurs when Ellie, trying to keep her facade of cheeriness, tells him that she’s his third cousin once removed. Immediately, Danny has his dagger pulled out, and Ellie finds herself with the cold metal of a blade pressing against her throat.

Danyal 'A.G' Fenton hasn’t killed since he arrived in Amity Park. At first it was because mother told him to keep a low profile, and killing would do the opposite of that. But, he's been slowly learning from his sister and friends over the years the value of human life. So it's become a combination of keeping his head down, and also that life has value to it.

But. That doesn’t mean he can’t kill, nor is he opposed to doing it if the situation calls for it. It just means that he doesn't do it. And ‘Danielle’ is an unknown in his room, claiming to be family to him, and appearing uncannily similar to him and his family. Either someone hired her and she was trying to pass herself off as a relative to him because that someone realized Danny was the biggest threat, or, his false death has been compromised, his mother was unable to tell him, and the league was aware he was alive.

No matter how he looks at it, this Danielle was a threat to him, his sister, his friends, to Damian, and to the Drs. Fenton. Danyal Fenton doesn't kill, but he has no problems doing so.

(Ellie, pinned under Danny’s knee and the blade to her neck, is too terrified to think of phasing out of his hold. Not that it would help, he would just chase after her.)

“You have broken into my home, dared to lie to my face, and when I demanded to know the truth, you dared lie to me again." Danny's scowl could cower even Skulker, his glacier blue eyes burning. "Your continual breath has been a favor from me, that I have graciously allowed, from the moment you entered my room, dahkil."

"So I will ask one more time," he hisses, "who. are. you."

Danielle, only a few months old, unprepared for the ice storm that is "Daniel" Fenton, and his clone in only flesh and blood, and not memories, immediately breaks. And tells him that she was his clone, that Vlad sent her to come capture him, and to please not kill her.

Danny's face twists with anger, Ellie thinks he's going to kill her anyways. Instead, he withdraws his knife and gets off her, stringing out curses in Arabic as he sheathes his weapon back into its hiding place faster than Ellie can blink.

He switches to English as she is collecting her bearings (and contemplating fleeing), and Danny paces the room like a tiger in a cage. "--of course that wretched, arrogant, peacocking little ingrate would do something so infuriating. I should have driven my sword into the shrivel of his heart when I had the chance--"

Ellie, for a moment, thinks of leaving while he is distracted. And starts to slowly creep away. But Danny notices instantly, and whirls on her. His too-bright eyes bore into her head: "Where do you think you're going."

"...I'm leaving."

And Danny scoffs at her, "Why? So you can fly back to Masters and tell him that you failed to capture me, and that I know that he cloned me?" He says, and Ellie remains silent -- that's exactly what she was going to do. "He will destroy you within seconds."

Of course, Ellie rears back in offense, and she finds the footing to glare at him. "He would not! He's my dad, he loves me!"

Danny gets in her face, glowering back with an equal intensity. "He does not." He snaps, "Vlad Masters has not a soul in his body nor a heart in his chest. He would sooner cut off the hand that helps him stand, than to take it along with him."

"If you're really made of my blood, then I will teach you only this: we bow not our heads nor our hearts to anyone." Danny's too-blue eyes narrow, and his voice dips into a hiss, "Especially not to a conniving snake like Masters. Your heart: cut it off, or cut it out. He will sooner leave you to bleed."

Then, he unlocks the door and drags her out before she has much time to act. And as he drags her down the hall he shoots Sam and Tucker a text, and they meet up at Nasty Burger. Ellie is a spitfire, but Danny has her too intimidated to leave.

"This is Danielle," he tells them bluntly as he corners her into the booth, "she's my clone. Masters created her."

Ellie is with them for a week, and somehow throughout that time, Danny manages to actually get her to like him throughout that time. He's callous, blunt, and full of sharp edges that you can cut yourself on. But when he's not spitting venom, he's fretting.

When he drags her back to the house after being with Sam and Tucker, he pulls her to Jazz's room and opens the door to tell her the same thing. "This is Danielle." He says upon abruptly opening the door, interrupting Jazz's studying as he pulls Ellie inside. "She is my clone, Masters created her. She needs clothes."

Then he turns and leaves, shutting the door behind him. Ellie, in that moment, thinks that now's her chance to flee. But Jazz then squeals, and she is trapped in new arms, shaken around by Jazz Fenton, excited for a sister.

(Ellie finds herself complaining to Jazz that night, shoved into old pajamas. She's in utter disbelief that Jazz could care about a jerk like Danny.)

("He's rough around the edges, but Danny does care." Jazz tells her, combing through her hair with her fingers. "We've been working on it ever since he joined the family, but Danny warms up slowly. He's usually less stoney; I think your arrival spooked him.")

("Spooked him?" Ellie repeats, she doesn't believe it at all. "He has a funny way of showing it, he threatened to kill me!" And she turns around just in time to see Jazz's press her lips into a line.)

("He's... very protective. He'll deny if you ask him, but he worries a lot." Jazz's fingers find her hair again. "What I do know for certain though, is that he wouldn't have kept you here if he wasn't worried about you at least a little bit.")

(Ellie doubts it.)

But Ellie is indeed there for a week, and the day after her initially rocky introduction with Danny, he is a little bit kinder to her. Still kinda a bitch, but he's less harsh to her, if... almost uncomfortable around her. Flighty, kinda.

Whenever she gets mouthy at him though, he looks oddly smug about it and, infuriatingly enough, praises her attitude. He is very, very annoying. And still kinda terrifying. But hearing him shout insults via puns at someone during a ghost fight that happens that week lessens the intimidating factor,,, a little bit.

Things go about,,,, relatively,,,, similar to canon. In the sense that it ends with Ellie defecting from Vlad because she finds out that Danny was right and that Vlad didn't actually care about her. (And that Jazz had been right too; Danny, in his weird, mean way, had been worried about her as well)

Danny looks out of his depth as she talks about how he was right, and he cuts her off with a vaguely uncomfortable clearing of his throat. And gives her the most awkward, but genuine apology he can muster.

"I should've used more tact when telling you about Masters, and I... apologize for threatening you when we met. I was..." he makes a face like he's sucked on a particularly sour lemon, "worried. First about my family, and then later about you."

(Ellie will be damned: Jazz was right)

Before Ellie leaves, Danny puts a hand on her shoulder and tells her: "I wasn't kidding about what I said to you when we first met: you are of my blood, and as such, you do not bow your head nor your heart to anyone."

Ellie looks at him, thinks about the last week, and smiles like she's caught him in a trap. "What about Sam and Tucker then? And Jazz?"

Danny smiles, it's awkward and tilted, like his face isn't used to the gesture. "We bow not our hearts, but that doesn't mean we can't share."

[jojo-schmo]

I'm updating my personal ref sheets and it's really hitting me just how SMOL Kirby, Bandee, and Elfilis really are compared to the rest of the cast.

[tubbytarchia]

Sorry for forcing yall to look at a very indulgent cryptid dragon but anyway um. its an attempt!! I'm so iffy on the colors but urgg. I wanted it to be an approximate mix of Grian's various "lives". I wanna draw dragons!!! So bad!! I love dragons!!!!!!! So much!!!!

Some other lifer dragon concepts/sketches below cut

If people still wanna see me dragonify lifers then sure!! These are just quick ideas I wanted to get on paper

[grandcovenant]

who's pulling the strings of the puppet king?

[heart-wit-strength]

One of my fave headcanons for Amphibia's harmful social structure is the idea of possessing a tail being overly pushed for a superiority complex in the caste system. And newts, aside from axolotls, as the only ones to evolve to have one, resultantly categorise it as the "superior evolution" to put frogs and toads beneath them

There's literally an entire concept of Newtopia having a fake-tails replacement shop that further feed the idea of a newt losing their tail, being stereotyped as disreputing and mocked upon in the society they set up (to adresss the fact pollywogs of frogs and toads do lose their tails in reaching adulthood), leaving them fetching for a fake one to cover up their "shame" through the period it takes to fully regenerate

And the stake of which, "tailless" could even be a used potential slur against targeted amphibians

[spiralingguitarist]

i know this isnt exsctly the best question ive ever asked but uh. does anyone else have trouble calling people from their media characters. like for example feferi peixes. i personally knew her so to me it doesnt make sense to call her a fictional character but idk why this exactly happens

[fuctacles]

Edzio Gąska

For @steddiemicrofic "fool" | M | 454 | no cw | medieval AU, hoh Steve, mute Eddie, fade to black, established relationship

Dingdingdingdingding.

The constant jingle was surprisingly easy to get used to. In a way it became a part of him, alerting others of his presence, warning them, "shut your yaps! The Royal Fool is listening."

Not many cared about the warning, though. In their eyes, a jester without a tongue was as good as dead. He heard them whispering that the king should get someone actually entertaining more than once. None of them complained when he flipped out his lute, though. 

When his king sat alone on his throne, disinterested and weary, he'd lean down and shake the hat in his face. 

Dingdingdingdingding.

King Harrington would look up with a smile, without a hitch. Sometimes it was an amused smile, sometimes tired, and sometimes, it was dark. His fool liked all of them equally, but the dark smile was the most special.

When the guests leave and the servants gather to clean up, his real job starts. No one bats an eye as he follows the king to his chambers, he has a room adjecent to them anyway. He's a busy guy, playing the role of a personal servant on top of being the court's entertainer. He helps his king dress up in the morning and get ready for bed at night. He helps him plan and rule.

Behind closed doors, Eddie has his king's full attention.

His hands were flying, mouth forming words he couldn't voice, passing information he'd gathered around the party. 

"Slow down, damn it," the king told him from the bed. "Got somewhere to be?"

Eddie glared at him. He looked down pointedly at the king's lap then back up. The king laughed. 

"What did he say? Go on," he signed the words as he spoke. It always made Eddie more compliant, knowing he and his king had their own language, known only to them. He signed back all he had gathered from the courtier's gossip that day. 

Good job, fool, he signed, when Eddie's arms dropped at his sides.

Dingdingdingdingding.

The hat jingled when the man shook his head. 

"No?" The king raised his eyebrow.

Not fool, Eddie explains.

"Ah," the king nods in understanding and corrects himself. Sorry, love.

He barely has the time to reach out, when he gets a lap full of colorful fabric, bells, and long limbs. His jester settles against him with a content sigh and starts grinding almost immediately, the horny little creature. Without further prompting, he flips back and rolls them on the expensive sheets, his jester's hair losing the hat and splaying against the pillows.

"A kiss and I'll ride you?" he offers.

Eddie rolls his eyes but reaches up, tangles his fingers in the man's hair, and pulls him down.

[notdrawingwhileasleep]

the choke hold they have on me is surreal.

funny enough I wanted to try an easier style with the lineart but then i got possessed and this happened during the coloring processes. so much for easier, huh. <-took like 4 hours.

[msue0027]

In bbc merlin you hear all the time about the Old Religion - which implies existence of the New Religion. Only recently i worked out what it's ought to be.

It's Christianity.

[blackstarlineage]

In Rastafari, particularly within the Bobo Ashanti Mansion, the trio of Marcus Garvey, Haile Selassie I, and King Emmanuel Charles Edwards is known as Rastafari Holy Trinity or the Black Christ Trinity. It represents prophet (Garvey), king (Selassie), and priest (Edwards), symbolizing liberation, divinity, and spiritual leadership.

[trihallow746]

Imagine going to the arcade where Wreck-it Ralph takes place as a normal person and you play sugar rush and your main is king candy and you love king candy so you try and look him up but you literally can’t find him online anywhere??? But this only makes you love him more and then you go to the arcade on a random Tuesday and king candy is fucking gone and is replaced with the chick on the side of the console

[jojo-schmo]

Gently kisses you like you’re my greatest treasure, my most precious partner

bonus for top right doodle:

[dragomfry]

Non-Binary Reading of Yashiro

Some may be wondering, “Isn’t it obvious that Yashiro is a cis man? He’s always referred to with he/him and doesn’t mind. Can’t he just be a more feminine man?” Sure, Yashiro can be read that way. And maybe that was the intent to begin with. I’m not saying you can’t read him as cis because there’s lots of meaning we can interpret from that, too.. I actually was hesitant to accept a non-cis reading because I thought it wasn’t plausible, but then I considered this: is it not a bit odd that there are many aspects and scenes, consistent ones I add, that may suggest he isn’t cis? So I took my chances, and I found potential that I think is realistic. Considering a non-cis reading, imo, opens up even more exciting layers to Yashiro and can be interpreted as representation if we wish. So that’s what I choose to do. Without further ado, I’ll dissect evidence in support of a non-binary reading below.

But first, we must consider the opposite. What objective evidence do we have to show that Yashiro perceives himself as a man? The way he dresses can be. Even after he’s banished from the Shinsekai, he still presents himself as masculine (though his hair is longer now and can lean into other readings/hmm notice how most yakuza men have shorter hair). It can also be when he explicitly states that he’s not a woman/he is a man. “I’m not a woman, so you don’t have to treat me gently.” Ryuuzaki asks him if he wants to be a woman twice, and Yashiro mostly brushes it off, saying life could’ve been easier that way (I think a trans reading still works in both cases). He says he is a man to Tsunakawa, etc. But even in the times Yashiro refers to himself as a man, is it really himself he’s referring to, or the expectations of men generally?

Masculinity and femininity are loosely defined concepts, so we can’t really say that his “feminine” traits (wtf does that even mean honestly, traits not toxically masculine?) are indicative of a non-cis gender identity. But he does seem relatively comfortable expressing both, which could lean into a non-cis reading (I say relatively b/c, for example, he caught himself “speaking like a woman” at the hotel; could just be b/c he’s insecure, which I lean towards)

Considering a non-binary reading, then, there are many things we can focus on.

*Note: I’ll use he/him to refer to events in the canon in order to measure how likely they are to be interpreted as evidence of the reading, even though Yashiro would use they/them now. I’ll switch to they/them when I think Yashiro should be interpreted that way. Hope this makes sense.

Honestly, this interpretation was formed pretty recently, and I thought I didn’t have much to go off of with this reading even if it felt right (I always loved the implication of “beautiful person”). After taking another look at things through a gendered lens, I think this reading is what I find most comfortable. In this case, Yashiro uses he/they. They’re okay with he/him (don’t have much of a choice) but prefer gender-neutral pronouns. Yashiro does not fully feel like a man but also not fully like a woman. To me, they seem most comfortable with expressing both masculine and feminine traits and don’t like fitting either of those gender roles. They feel like a mix of both.

The scene that really made me consider this reading was the flashback in ch.10 to Yashiro’s young adult years, in which he was in a woman and a man was in him, and he says the woman felt good but the pressuring sensation of the man “felt unbearably dear” to him… Yashiro cries in this scene, and he rarely cries, so this moment really sticks out even if it was brief. Even if you don’t take a gendered look at the scene, it’s still very ambiguous in its meaning. (I will talk about the other implications of the scene in a post about Yashiro’s struggle w/ bisexuality) I interpreted their tears as distress with thinking they are supposed to choose which identity they want in this scene. They feel like they have to choose between the two sexes, the penetrating or the penetrated role, but can’t reconcile with their identity being either a man or woman. So, they cry; they cry because they do not, in fact, fit either role. They’re… in between.

There are a number of cases where Yashiro responds to or seems to prefer gender-neutral terms. Based on the translation by Kagerou Scans on Mangadex, in ch.9, Misumi calls Yashiro a wh*re (usually misogynistic) and a h*mo, but he replies to neither. But, the one he does reply to is the more neutral “pervert.” On a better note, for my favorite gender affirming example, they like it when Doumeki calls them a beautiful person or just a person in general 🤍. Yes, it’s because someone acknowledges that they are not an object, but now it’s also because that’s part of their identity they prefer.

I mentioned this before; even in the times Yashiro refers to himself as a man, is it really himself he’s referring to, or the expectations of men generally? Based on Blue Spring Scans translation of ch. 10, Yashiro refers to Misumi and Hirata as homophobes, people against homosexuals, in reference to himself. Later in ch. 10, he says to himself that he isn’t a homosexual (isn’t a gay man) but doesn’t bother correcting any of the men that think that. This supports that Yashiro could be speaking of how men perceive them as a man and not how Yashiro actually views themself.

With this reading, rather than saying he feels inadequate as a man (which makes sense for a cis interpretation), Yashiro feels inferior to cis men as a nonbinary individual. Society (yakuza) says that they are a man, and deserve to be punished for being effeminate and gay. Yashiro internalizes some of the abuse, subconsciously thinking they should be punished (it’s part of why they think they want to be treated roughly; “I’m not a woman so you don’t have to treat me gently” = “I’m supposed to be a man who is treated roughly”) because society has told them that they are an individual less than men, that they “ruin” perfectly good, straight men… but after the timeskip, they start feeling a bit more confident in their gender. They have, for the most part, left the abusively patriarchal environment of the yakuza and can now be more themselves (can we not interpret Yashiro wanting to leave the yakuza as them wanting to part with being forced into a male role? Yakuza = toxic masculinity/manhood are metaphors I want to explore more later). They grow out their hair. They start to speak up against men who want to use them and stand up for their right to determine who they should have sex with. Although they don’t think they should be punished for being less than cis men anymore, they still think they deserve to be punished by Inami (ch.47) and even Doumeki (ch.57) for being hypersexual in the past and physically unable to accept gentleness, for having developed trauma responses out of their control.

To recontextualize some other aspects with the nonbinary reading…

The prevalent straight fantasies of Doumeki and a woman would be explained by Yashiro believing Doumeki to be mainly straight, but they could still be imagining themself in the woman’s role. It’s still a mystery why they don’t imagine themselves with Doumeki. In the case of Izumi, they may feel like they aren’t good enough to be with Doumeki because they aren’t a woman. Them wanting to be treated gently is not necessarily because they think they are a woman and should be treated as such, but to be treated as just who they are without those gender roles. They don’t want to be treated roughly because Doumeki perceives them as a man, and they don’t want to be treated gently because Doumeki perceives them as a woman. They want to be treated as the person they are. It’s unfortunate because even though they want to be comfortable with their more “feminine” traits (Ig, sometimes how they speak or joke around, generally the way they act sometimes, sexual preference, wanting gentleness), society and especially their trauma prevent them from expressing those traits freely or w/out ridicule.

If you consider this reading, or the trans woman one which I also really appreciate, but still are not sure they’re quite plausible, let’s then bring up the opposite again. Has Yashiro ever expressed comfort in being a cis man or expressed fraternity among men? For both questions, I mean, it just seems like plain no. In ch.10, we find that he views men of the yakuza quite negatively, especially in his description as a young adult of why he seeks them out. He seeks them out because they’re only supposed to find sexual release with his body, nothing more. Why would he like/be comfortable being a man or being associated with them if he has just been abused by them all their life, specifically because they perceive him as a man (and to make matters worse, because he also likes men)? To add on, he seems to separate himself when speaking about men generally. Ch.3, “men, guys, males”; men do this, men do that; has it ever really been “we, us, our, my” iykwim? Yashiro feels isolated/othered in the yakuza not just because of his sexuality, but with these trans interpretations, also because “he” doesn’t fit in with men at all

Since I prefer the nonbinary reading, I believe it is more like “men, women, and me” to Yashiro.

Look at them. They’re so beautiful ;)

I said this before but I think all of the above discussion highlights how, regardless of how we interpret Yashiro’s gender, they are a distinctly queer character. And that subtext is definitely worth considering.