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halfcourtyeet · 3 months ago

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The Encounter with Elliot, and Mill Valley

On leaving the library today, I noticed an attractive girl in an outfit similar to mine, with shoulder-length brown hair. Let’s call her Elliot. Her deep voice I noticed first, so she may be non-binary. Elliot and I talked about many things — her trip to Japan, comic book artists, furries — and then parted abruptly. She said she moved here from Britain, she talked about her struggling to get her giant parents’ SUV in the local car wash, mentioned her trips home to England and her study abroad in Japan. Soon, though, I noticed her polite discomfort, her skills at social ballet. Finally, I noticed the ease at which she brushed me off to resume her business.

It is only now that I have taken time to manifest myself away that I can express my distaste for her.

As soon as I knew she was from Belvedere — the small, ultra-wealthy island in the Bay that hosts the San Francisco Yacht Club — I thought of a simple but memorable Prince lyric: “Right then and there, I knew I was through.” Her family possesses wealth immeasurable and incomprehensible to me. My family possesses poverty and economic trauma immeasurable and incomprehensible to her. How could we ever understand each other?

My middle school and high school peers were just like this (in fact, Christian G., who I went to Tam with, walked past me as I was talking with her. Even if we had locked eyes, I would have not said hello.) I am sure this is the same with any other upper-class (now borderline high-class) suburb. Their children are raised without struggle in sunny green locales, without community in giant family houses, and without emotional awareness in a culture that promotes capitalizing on others even over its own blasé hedonism. The children grow up to be adults working in (ideally) engineering, health, law, or management, and at worst, Wall Street. They pick up on their parents’ careful social movement from a young age and learn no other language, certainly not the language of the working-class, despite their urgency to imitate and emulate the cultural works of the poor (black and brown people, mainly.) They build a wall of pleasantries, excuses, and economic euphemisms around their hearts, and let nobody in, even those closest to them.

I hate this town!

It is class. It has always been class. As she cut me off from conversation, I left the library in a half-jealous stupor and noticed school had ended for the day. The children flooded the street in their white and white-passing brilliance. High-end SUVs orbited the roundabout, and slim white women in visors and sunglasses walked strollers briskly and escorted their children to safety once again.

Down at the pizza place, I noticed the arrogance of the kids leaving “North Bridge Academy,” the perfection of their haircuts, the willingness to be loud and make noise with no adult nearby to reprimand them. North Bridge itself is in the same building as Greenwood School, where I went to school on financial aid for a sorry five years of my childhood. That was before Mill Valley had the full audacity to host a children’s “academy.” Nothing from their behavior on the street showed me they were learning manners, at least.

I continued home, my mood worsening in the midst of all these thoughts. Mill Valley’s East Blithedale Ave., one of its two de facto main streets, is basically set up to give victory laps to the privileged trophy wives that wander the town — lines of salons, boutiques, art galleries, furniture stores and wineries pack the air-brushed rows. Any history that once existed here is sanitized or priced out of its rent. Its affluence possesses tyrannical villainy: it is rich to the point of being evil. Even the Mexican laborers I’ve noticed have a certain smugness to them for screwing their employers over pricewise, which seems to do nothing but repeat the cycle of vengeful exploitation the town’s residents cultivate. (Still, this is probably something I should figure out by interviewing.)

I know I sound like an old man here, but I cannot shake this feeling any longer without saying anything about it. Does this atmosphere not bother anyone here? Does it not frustrate them or make their stomach churn with gall like it does mine? Is everyone in this town so fucking tone-deaf to their own conscience that they think this fucking over-gentrified yuppie-tech wax museum is how people should live?

Elliot couldn’t understand why I didn’t like Mill Valley; she said she liked it just fine. Why wouldn’t she? Her blindness to the truth of things, I can’t even begin to imagine. She is so lost in the sauce that she opens her mouth and fails to taste the bitterness of her own words.

I stopped to get a slice at Stefano’s Pizza. This is one of the few locations in town from my childhood that has never changed or been gentrified, save for the price being increased in the wake of America’s inflation crises. I don’t even remember the name of the man at the counter, but he still works here day in and day out, just like he did when I wore cargo shorts and light-up sneakers. He did not smile at me or ask how I have been. He has seen what happens in this town. I tried to say a few kind words as I order, but to establish something with him now would require a confidence bordering on arrogance.

To him, I must also be the problem. Even though I was a transfer student, I went off to college and left the town behind. But consider how I spent two years largely surrounded by other transfers, and even those who went for four years often got financial aid (or predatory loans) to help mitigate their tenuous economic circumstances.. Their desperation to be, their ambition to escape, their imagination in telling their stories, all had a beautiful familiarity to me.

Even now, somewhere south, far and away from this evil little town, is a transgender girl in a messy room, half-dressed and overworked. She does not know how much longer she can stay in Santa Cruz with rent this high. She is poor and she is scared.

You will never know her, Elliot.

#autobiographical #class consciousness #classism #wealthy privilege #capitalism

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gaia-aviva · 2 years ago

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In more than three dozen recent interviews with NorthJersey.com, Jewish students shared stories of harassment that bring those statistics to disturbing life. They spoke of slurs endured in class, expulsions from campus clubs and eggs thrown at Jewish fraternities. Of swastikas carved into their dorm walls, Holocaust-denying flyers and a growing feeling that they needed to conceal their Jewish identities to be accepted.

'Looming presence of antisemitism'

At Tufts University, outside Boston, Micah Gritz said he feels "a looming presence of antisemitism ... I always have to evaluate where I feel safe as a Jew."

"My father, who passed away last year, wore a Star of David necklace," said the 20-year-old. "I wear it now but find myself tucking it in in certain classes because I have to worry about what my professor might think of me or what classmates might say. It's a balancing act every day."

The federal Department of Education has opened several investigations into whether U.S. colleges have violated Jewish students' civil rights by allowing a poisonous environment to fester. The agency has opened reviews at at least 10 schools, including the City University of New York and its law school, UCLA, UC Berkeley, George Washington University, the University of Vermont, the State University of New York at New Paltz and the University of Illinois.

Last week, the White House unveiled what it called the first-ever national strategy aimed at combating antisemitism in America, and college campuses played a prominent role in the plan. The Biden administration called on colleges to condemn all forms of hate, to implement clearer mechanisms for reporting incidents and to create task forces to combat religious bias and ensure Jewish students are included in campus diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

While the concept earned wide praise from Jewish groups, some complained that it lacked the substance to be effective. Alyza Lewin, president and attorney at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a nonprofit that combats antisemitism on campus, applauded the Biden administration for the initiative because it "demonstrates that they take antisemitism seriously" and recognize "that it's not just a Jewish problem, but one that needs to be addressed by the entire society."

But she also said the document was undermined by not embracing a definition of antisemitism that includes denials of Israel's right to exist. "Targeting Jews on the basis of their connection to the state of Israel is just as antisemitic as targeting them on the basis of their Sabbath observance. Both are components of their Jewish identity,” she said.

Israel-Palestine at the heart of the rancor

While antisemitism has come from both right- and left-wing sources, the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is at the heart of much of the rancor. Students said they are often blamed collectively for missteps by Israel's government, although they themselves may disagree with those policies. The ADL said it received a sharp increase in complaints during a deadly flare-up between Israel and Palestinian forces in May 2021.

Ten years ago, such incidents were rare at U.S. colleges, said Matthew Berger, executive director of the Foundation to Combat Antisemitism, a nonprofit founded by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

"Many college campuses have been experiencing these incidents now for the first time," said Berger, who previously worked at Hillel International, a Jewish campus organization.

by Deena Yellin

"I just noticed your ring."

To Maya Satnick, it had seemed like a compliment. As the first-year student walked across the campus of San Diego State University four years ago, another student, a stranger, had approached her.

Satnick's silver ring bore a Star of David, a symbol of the 18-year-old's Jewish faith. It had been a gift from her grandmother, who had connected her to her family's traditions.

But the moment quickly turned menacing.

The shock would stay with her: "I took off my ring and began hiding the fact that I was Jewish," Satnick said in a recent interview. When she headed to synagogue or the campus Jewish center, she kept it to herself. She worried about how other students would react.

For Jews on American campuses, it's become an all-too-familiar tale.

Tracking a surge in antisemitism across the culture, U.S. colleges and universities have seen a rapid rise in anti-Jewish activity, according to government agencies and private watchdogs that track bias incidents. In April, the Anti-Defamation League said such reports had spiked by 41% in 2022 compared with the previous year, with incidents recorded at more than 130 schools.

#Anti Semitism #college #United States #Israel

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whoiwanttoday · 2 years ago

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Well guys, this is a post that has been brewing since I was 13 it turns out. Squeeze has announced some tour and for some reason Google and YouTube both really thought I needed to know about this. I mean, I say some reason, it's not entirely unheard of, I remember once responding over the loudspeaker at tower records to someone with, "I said please, my favorite band is Squeeze, I have all of their CDs except for Babylon and On". Not that they were actually my favorite band but you never want to pass up a decent rhyme scheme and a good obscure reference. But the tour is in the UK and while I do quite like Squeeze I can't imagine flying to England just to see them. Not now. Maybe in 1984. Hate to be too judgy but I do think nostalgia is the enemy of all art and as anti Rock n Roll as things get. So allow me to wax nostalgic here. I discovered Squeeze (not like discovered discovered but you know what Europe, turn about is fair play. I discovered your fucking band, deal with it) when I was 13 because the song Pulling Muscles (from the Shell) was a mainstay on radio and no one knew who they were. So I decided to figure it out and I bought Squeezes greatest hits. Greatest Hits are also anti Rock n Roll, it's why the Eagles greatest hits is like the 4th best selling album of all time. This was a good entry point though for an amazing bit of pop song craft that was almost unknown in the US, again on the account that no one had discovered them until I did. It did lead to me owning all of their records to this day (except for Babylon and On). Anyway, this is a long way of getting to the fact that Up the Junction was my favorite Squeeze song because it's absolutely heartbreaking. It's the story of a poor guy trying to rise above his station with a higher class woman and it all falls apart eventually. He stays poor, she moves on with his kid, he is drunk and alone and miserable. I was a depressed child and always gravitated to this kind of thing, especially for real adult problems with the thought of, "That's the life I want one day". Romantic misery. It is fucking stupid beyond belief but when you are depressed and your life sucks sometimes you just crave the visual signifiers that other people can see so they get it. No one has sympathy for, "I am sad because my brain doesn't work". Suck it up Buttercup, there are real problems out there. But man, if you can get one of those real problems? Like an actual cinematic one with what you assume to be some cool British slang about Junctions? Oh, that's the stuff, everyone will get it then. I mean, they don't, they won't, but it's part of the fantasy of misery porn. Anyway, the song describes a world that might as well have been the fucking moon to an American Teenager 20 years after the song was written but I latched onto it and it starts by saying, "I never thought it would happen/With me and a girl from Clapham". I didn't know what Clapham is and to my knowledge I have never met a girl from Clapham (I can't be sure, I have met many a woman from England but I always forget to ask) so I am way behind on my plan to meet, impregnate, fall apart, lose my job, lose my family, turn into a drunk and disappoint her. Look, it maybe was never my best thought out plan as a kid but I was always confident I could grow up to disappoint a woman, so I knew I could stick the landing. Anyway, that's a long way of saying I went to see what the fuck Up the Junction meant and that lead me to the wikipedia article about Clapham Junction and notable people from Clapham and guys, Holly Willoughby is from Clapham. Does this explain why I have always been attracted to her? Maybe. I mean, I haven't always been attracted to her. I didn't even discover her until like 2012 or something. Weird pictures of her exist from before then given she was undiscovered. Anyway, my point is this is the sort of convoluted experience that deamnds two things. One, a long post that exactly two people will read, the rest of you stopped after the first line. And two, that I post Holly Willoughby specifically. Today I want to fuck Holly Willoughby.

#Holly Willoughby #blonde #Actress #whoiwanttofucktoday

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oumaheroes · 3 years ago

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hii its bougie <3 if you're still taking hc requests, i was wondering if you'd have thoughts on something that's been on my mind for a while. i was interested in the nuance to english culture due to regional differences. eg.,dinner being called "tea" in the north of england, rugby being more popular in the south, the difference in how scones with jam and cream are enjoyed in Devon and Cornwall?? or how certain english accents are perceived as... "less attractive" i guess (the black country accents are unpopular apparently?) -- you'd probably know more about these particularities than me ;u;

i was wondering how these cultural differences might map onto hws England's character, and how they might influence his attitudes and behaviours. because there's such a clearly defined stereotype of the english that i think shape people's expectations of what the english are like, i usually think that Arthur usually consciously acts according to what counts as positive interpretations of himself. however, i love nuanced and somewhat subversive interpretations of his character, and am very curious if you might have any ideas on how these kind of internal regional differences might shape him.

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Bougieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee <3

I’m not gonna lie this sent me down a RABBIT HOLE of thoughts, so hang on tight cos we're gonna get messy.

Accents:

Let’s start with my personal favourite, so excuse me whilst I geek out for a second. I’ve gone into this area already in this headcanon, but I personally see England being a very proud little dragon regarding English accents, those both native and non-native to the British Isles. Focusing just on accents within England for this post, the way Arthur himself sees them, (regarding class and general preference), comes a lot down to how I see him feeling about language and the unification of England in general.

England is a tiny country. It’s really teeny, compared to some, and yet holds an incredible number of regional accents and dialects (from digging about the internet for a good source, I keep finding numbers ranging from 37 to 43). There are a number of reasons for this, but the one that I love the most is that accents are influenced by the previous/ influential other languages spoken in a given area. Accents on the East of England are more influenced by Viking invaders, both phonologically and via the dialectal words used, and accents/ dialects in the West are more influenced by Welsh, for example.

Accents and dialects tell the history of a place, all who ever came there and influenced it to some degree. The map of English accents is a patchwork quilt of old cultures and people now lost to time, but their ways of speaking have been preserved in the modern tongue. The old English kingdoms might now be mere counties- Kent, Essex, Sussex, East Anglia, etc- they may not have their own influence or language these days as they used to, but their old ways have been imprinted on their people of today whether they know it or not and they carry pieces of the past in their words and how they speak them. Older speakers of the Northern English dialects liek the Yorkshire dialect still use ‘thou/thee’ where this has fallen out in other areas, the Midlands and parts of the South-East still keep the ‘-n’ ending for possessive pronouns (‘yourn’ instead of ‘yours’, ‘ourn’ instead of ‘ours’), and there’s even some linguistic research into how Brittonic, the ancestor of Modern Welsh, influenced English structure and phonology (for references, see notes at the end).

Back to England the person (to contain myself slightly), his regional accents are a story of himself, his history being kept alive in all of its variety every day. He doesn’t hold a classist view of a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ accent because he knows why they’re all there- what languages and people influenced them and how these events affected him- the older generations now lost and forgotten being kept alive in the smallest of phonemes.

Every dialect, every accent, and every language tells the story of a people, from the smallest phonological marker right up to a language as a whole and England takes comfort and pride in his dialects and accents’ longevity and variety. He is as much of the North as he is the South, as much of the East as the West and a patchwork man born of patchwork cultures it makes no sense for him to favour one particular accent over another.

That being said, he is aware that there is a common cultural stance on accents as well as an opinion regarding ‘ugly’ ones, ‘common’ ones, and ‘classy’ ones, but he himself doesn’t partake in these ideas. I like to think that a nation takes on the speech of the people and the area they’re in, matching the person they speak to or the area they visit to relate to their people. So, for me a Chav Arthur exists as much as a Brummie one does, or a Scouser, or a Geordie, or a Cockney. They’re all English, and thus they’re all a part of him.

Class

I have to include this one, if only to touch on it lightly regarding accents and dialects. Class does influence which words you speak, arguably just as much as which accent (this is known as a sociolect). Although I said that England adopts the accent of whatever area he’s in, or whomever he’s talking to if they’re English, the class people are will also affect which words he choses to use.

Here’s a short example from here:

'It is pudding for the upper class. Dessert is sometimes used by upper middles, but afters and sweets very clearly put you below stairs.'

Have some more!

Upper class: Spectacles, Lavatory or loo, Die, Napkin, Sofa

Middle class: Glasses, Toilet , Pass on, Serviette, Settee or couch

(Working class is a mix but harder to find sources for).

This is where England treads a fine line. It could be that he again adopts more of a class lexicon regarding who he is speaking to, matching his people word for word. However, England is not unaware of the affects of class, regardless of how he himself feels, and also although class snobbery and divide frustrate him, he cannot deny using this understanding to benefit himself, which also conforms to how his own people behave. (I myself have, many times, diluted and filtered my speech to be seen as ‘better’).

Want to be seen as more reliable and powerful? Want to be taken more seriously? RP and Estuary English (a lot more so these days), hold undeniable sway and England is not above adopting a manner of speaking to come across ‘better’ or more polite, or a more ‘common’ accent to fit in with the working classes. I think of England as leaning more towards a working-class mindset- he’s very hands on, very up for and used to manual labour and this particular English class has always made up the bulk of his population. It makes no sense for a nation, who represents all of their people, to have a snide view or a preference for a particular group and England as a person I see is someone who does not enjoy the foppery and false airs of aristocracy.

That being said, England is an intelligent man. He knows how to work a room and use a crowd to his advantage, knows what must be done and what he needs to do to achieve a goal and if this entails courting the upper classes for a time then he will do so. He’s adepts at switching himself like a chameleon, blending his behaviours, accent, and dialect to match who he’s talking to to achieve a goal or to fit in with someone’s perception of him, or to gain influence or prestige. He also doesn’t hate his upper classes- they are of him too, and the middle and working class have their own prejudices and ideas against the others. But he doesn’t adopt a stereotypical distain of lower classes because to him, it really doesn’t make much sense.

Abroad, this need to cultivate a particular perception defiantly comes under greater pressure. RP and Estuary English are more well know, more heard and taught, and more recognisably ‘British’, and so these are what he uses when speaking English to other nations or foreigners, either wanting to uphold an image of himself (more so in the Victorian/ Edwardian period than nowadays) or just for the ease of being understood.

Regional Differences

Okay, this one is a lot more fun. Does England put in his milk first or last when making tea? Does he put jam first, or clotted cream when having a scone? Does he have chips with gravy, or curry sauce? Does he have dinner at 6, or 9? To marmite, or not to marmite.

Ah, that is the question, and England does not know the answer. Does he do what he does because that’s what he likes, or because that’s what his people do? He didn’t grow up with these habits, after all, they’re all relatively recent in his lifetime, and so these habits are defiantly things he cultures for a particular audience.

I’m not really sure if the above preferences are class based, (well, milk first when making tea is argued to be, but I can't find any sources I'd consider entirely credible. I put the ones I did find in the notes below, in case any one's interested), so it’s hard to get a sense of which one to use. Overall, it doesn’t matter which you do and neither is right or wrong, but the English feel strongly about them, one way or another, and often Arthur the man isn’t sure at all which one he himself actually thinks is better.

Food in another sense though is something he can be surer of. A Cornish pastie not from Cornwall is not worth eating, nor is a Bakewell tart outside of Bakewell. England can be very particular about this sort of thing and enjoys maintaining and supporting the ‘original’ flavour or recipe of a thing where he can, considering this to be the ‘best’. Sally Lunn Buns from Bath, Gypsy tarts from Kent, Eccles Cakes from Eccles.

England wants to preserve his food and culture and has what could be considered a snobbish view on the ‘best’ way of creating or eating his national foods. Some things he is more lenient with: he will eat cheddar cheese, whether or not it is from Cheddar, same from Cumberland sausages not from Cumbria. But he certainly has a preference and he is not afraid to voice this when asked for his opinion.

Okay, we're done

Phew! This had me digging out my old linguistic student brain. To anyone who has made it this far down, gosh golly miss molly thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the ride, and especially @prickyy who was kind enough to want to hear my opinions about all of this <3

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Notes:

Brittonic influence on English:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brittonicisms_in_English

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://journals.mountaintopuniversity.edu.ng/English%2520Language/Celtic%2520Influences%2520in%2520English%2520A%2520Re-evaluation.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2ohDYdq3BoWImwHn6oWQAg&scisig=AAGBfm29zTF0FBCpd1KqDiAbjM-0X7nfoA&oi=scholarr (PDF)

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar_url?url=http://www.oppi.uef.fi/wanda/unicont/abstracts/14ICEHL_MF.pdf&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2ohDYdq3BoWImwHn6oWQAg&scisig=AAGBfm3UvOXbJEb0b51J73eBnTJvgGaQOA&oi=scholarr (PDF)

Sociolects and class distinction within language in English:

https://languageawarenessbyrosalie.weebly.com/social-dialects.html

https://www.grin.com/document/313937

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U_and_non-U_English

Milk in tea first and the potential class reason:

https://www.theteaclub.com/blog/milk-in-tea/

https://qmhistoryoftea.wordpress.com/2017/05/11/milk-in-first-a-miffy-question/

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zephycluster · 3 years ago

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Precolonial HWS SEA Rant Post, feel free to ignore

If you're still reading, then you're probably looking for evidence or some juicy tidbits to throw back at me or to try and find dirt to cancel me, like typical Tumblr/Twitter. Go ahead, I don't really care.

First off, let me just say that If you like Precolonial South-East Asia AUs, feel free to keep enjoying them. I will respectfully support your passions from afar. This post is just to explain why I don't like it, especially the way they keep insisting/portraying PH in it.

Still here? Then let me begin.

Since the recent confirmation that the ASEAN Six Majors (Can't really say ASEAN 10 atm since it's still missing some people) Were completed and the Ma-Phil-Indo Trio was included, there has been a large surge in 'Precolonial' fanarts and portrayals of South East Asians, those three especially.

Even long, long before, circa 2010's ish, a rather well-known fan universe known as 'Maaf' dealt with their story and how their Author thought their intertwined histories went. Written by (my best guesstimate) an Indonesian writer who wants to explore the old, SEA bond.

When I first stumbled across Maaf (I was in Highschool at the time, around age 16-ish), I took a casual interest in it and tried to read it through. But, I will wholeheartedly admit that at the time, Pre-Colonial cultures of South-East Asia in general, let alone Philippine, did not really interest me that much. The focus (I think) was mostly on Indonesia, a country I didn't really know back then, and the liberal use of 'ancient' names and artwork just made it feel like an entirely Original Work (that needed a degree in History to really appreciate) and not something from Hetalia. I also completely disagreed with what I could gather was the story's portrayal of PH but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Do I hate 'Maaf'? No, I don't hate it. Do I wish I never came across it or that it didn't exist? Of course not. Just because I didn't enjoy it or appreciate it that well doesn't mean I wish any ill toward it, its fans, or its creator.

Fast forward to April 2021, the long awaited inclusion of South East Asia to the canon Hetalia verse. I was happy, the other fans were happy, all was good.

Then started the questionable fanarts, fan theories and fan pairings.

Especially the expansion of Precolonial! PH.

Let's go back to Maaf for one moment. From what I understood of Maaf, PH there was a character who once was like all the other South East Asian cultures, trading with them, all around being a nice family.

But all that changed when the Spaniards attacked, so cry the precolonial buffs. They destroyed everything, ransacked and marginalized the tribes, erased everything that PH was!

Did that happen? ABSOLUTELY. The Spaniards had this vision in mind that they must spread Christianity to all of the 'savage, unchristian heathens' of their realm. :V /s

But back up a second, back to PH's portrayal in Maaf. The way she (yeah, she) was portrayed there was that she was slowly losing her memories of being a 'true' South East Asian and grew more and more westernized in the process, like some sort of Culture-specific Alzheimer's or something.

Firstly, that is seriously depressing, and secondly, I just really don't see that happening.

Here's why.

Point 1: Even before Colonial Masters, Filipinos as a people cannot agree on anything.

I'll just begin this segment with a Philippine proverb that outlines what Filipinos call 'Crab Mentality' or 'Crab Bucket Mentality'.

"You don't need a lid for a container when you're keeping multiple crabs. If you keep at least two crabs together, they will just pull each other down instead of helping each other up."

I don't know how it goes with Indonesian or Malaysian history class, but what I know of my homeland, both pre- and post-colonial history, we were never really 'united' or 'together' in the sense that Indonesia and Malaysia were (from what I assume).

Let me pull up a somewhat related question on r/AskHistorians.

The reason I brought this up as it shows the reasons why, in my opinion, a single entity that is 'Precolonial Philippines-tan' is an impossibility.

The answers are long and would extend this already long post to stupid proportions, so I'll just quote relevant sentences. The link is here for those that wanna deep-dive into the answer.

"All this to say that there wasn't a name used for the entire Philippine islands before the Philippines that people now would agree to. An interesting comparison would be the Holy Roman Empire, which might also be characterized as disparate politico-geographic groups of relatively small size that had a history of relations between each other, but one thing they had that the Philippines did not was a common language, or at least a family of mostly mutually intelligible languages, so that the name Deutschland or Germany isn't terribly offensive to anyone. If you called the Philippines the 'Lupang-Tagalog' or even 'Lupang-Tao' the other ethnic groups would protest."

For those in need of translation, 'Lupang Tagalog' means 'Land of the Tagalogs' and 'Lupang Tao' means 'Land of People', specifically. The first one is already exclusive and offensive, as the Tagalog peoples are but one of many ethnicities here.

And for the 'Lupang Tagalog' suggestion specifically, it's even more offensive as they are the majority ethnicity (not by much, just around 28%) From this chart from Geography Now! It would basically be alienating everyone else in the 72% remainder that isn't 'Tagalog'.

And even 'Lupang Tao', the most generic name in a local language you can think of, would be met with contempt because the name itself is in the Tagalog language.

Just travelling between two individual island groups today would sometimes require a translator because the words can change very rapidly and very drastically. Here's a sample of some differences coming from a friend living in Visayas (in Red) vs. the words I know living in Luzon (In blue).

Ate vs. Manang = Older Sister

Ibon vs. Pispis = Bird

Tumawa vs. Kadlaw = To laugh

Takot vs. Hadlok = Fear

Kain vs. Kaon = To eat

Ngayon vs. Subong = Now, at this point in time

Iyak vs. Hibi/Gibi = to cry

Talampakan vs. Tiil = Foot (in Tagalog, the word retains its 'body part AND unit of measurement' meaning)

Tulog vs. Tuyo = to sleep (Tuyo in Tagalog is either a dried salted fish or 'to dry')

The kicker is that just like Tagalog is just one of many languages here, so too is the language my friend speaks. Ask an entirely new person, like someone from Mindanao, they'll probably have an entirely new set of words.

It's not just Luzon vs. Visayas vs. Mindanao, either. Here's a map listing some of the ethnic groups here.

Even the way they're written differs from location to location.

While we're on the subject of Island divisions, a casual skim across Twitter and Tumblr has shown that their Precolonial PH has been one of the following ancient civilizations: Tondo, Butuan, Sugbu, Namayan. There may have been others but that was what I have found.

Notice how even today, the posters of Precolonial PH can't seem to agree on what he's supposed to be? With Indonesia it's either Majapahit or Srivijaya and Malaysia it's usually Malacca iirc.

What is the big deal? Well, let's go back to the Ask Historians post. "Why didn't the Philippines ever change its name to remove the colonial mark that being named after a Spanish King has?" The answer: "If you suggested something dating to precolonial times, the other ethnic groups would protest."

Since we're on a roll with maps, let me bring this up.

As you can see, the precolonial PH posts have a reason to not be able to agree on one thing, as there is a LOT of options. Do you also see how THAT list is also split up?

It's split up into those aligned with China (Sinified), aligned with India (Indianized), aligned with the Middle East (Islamicized), and no alignment (Animist). Now, let's go back to the main suggestions for which Kingdom/Polity/Civilization/whatever Modern Philippines used to be.

If the Filipino peoples' couldn't agree on something as simple as WHAT TO CALL THE LAND THEY'RE LIVING ON, what more a living, breathing, walking, talking entity that is supposed to be a beacon of all of their 'unified' culture? ESPECIALLY if that entity used to be a currently existing Kingdom/Polity/Rajahnate/Sultanate/whatever.

Tondo? "Of course, always the damn Tagalogs. Tagalog this, Tagalog that. First the capital city, then the language,* THE REST OF US EXIST, YOU KNOW! What about us in Visayas? Mindanao?"

*The national language known as 'Filipino' is just standardized Tagalog*

Butuan? "Wait, you want Butuan to represent us? They're they only Indian-aligned city in the Islam-majority Mindanao! They're not even that many of them! I'm not gonna change my religion!"

Sugbu, the other name for the Rajahnate of Cebu on the map? Lemme bring back my Visayan friend again. According to her, she hails from the Hiligaynon part of Visayas.

"Sure :v and the other islands are what?

Chopped liver?

Not to mention the language and writing barrier helloooo"

And Namayan? Well. I'll let this pic speak for itself.

To summarize, no matter who you pick as Modern PH's previous identity, it will not end well nor be accepted by the other Kingdoms at the time.

"So where does that leave Modern PH, he had to have been ONE of them, right?"

Well, not really. He doesn't HAVE to be one of the Ancient Kingdoms that lasted till the modern day. I mean, predecessor representatives exist in Hetalia canon, after all. Like Modern Greece is a different character from Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt and Modern Egypt, heck even England and his brothers have a canon mother that was the rep before them.

Or you could even use the same logic that Germany does, in that each specific region has/had its own representative and that Modern!PH is just the 'mediator' between them (cause gawd does PH need one). There could be a Tondo, a Namayan, a Butuan, and a Sugbu, all arguing and this Proto-PH is just trying to make headway in making them all satisfied.

But, even after all this, there is another reason why I personally don't subscribe to the 'Precolonial PH' idea, and by tangential extension, the Indo x Phil pairing.

Point 2: Even without intending to, Precolonial Indo x Phil just comes off as patronizing

This second point is just ENTIRELY personal preference and barely has any facts to back it up.

Again, if you like the pairing and disagree with me, You do you. I will respectfully support you and your passions from a distance.

But for me, Indo being Phil's seme/bae/boyfriend and consistently bringing up precolonial times just comes off as patronizing.

Just one more time, I'd like to point out that I am NOT bashing Indonesia, its people or the subscribers of Indo x Phil. This is just how the pairing feels to ME specifically.

The way I see it, Indo x Phil as a pairing, especially if it extends back into precolonial times, reads the same way as a long-since married couple where the husband/wife CONSTANTLY brings up that ONE outing you had together, or that ONE prom night where you kissed while dancing, even it happened like 30 some-odd years ago and so much more happened since then.

Even in a platonic sense, It reads like two besties where one ALWAYS mentions stuff like 'Yeah but you looked so much cooler back in High School' or 'Back in Grade School you would've known that', or 'Remember back in Pre-school we did X? How could you forget that?'

How does one respond to the notion that no matter what you do now, it will never compare to a past you've already forgotten or barely remember? That the best version of 'you' is already long gone?

"That's because the westerners made you forget your culture! You gotta take it back!"

While it is true, yes, as a collective we barely remember the Kingdom that commissioned the Laguna Copperplate, or created the Banaue Rice Terraces, or created the millennia old bonds that we still share with Indonesia and Malaysia.

But to keep pushing the precolonial identity would be to neglect and cast aside the one REAL binding belief and culture that spans the entirety of these islands we call the Philippines.

We take on all the bad stuff that happens to us, conquer it, and make it our own. Be it natural disasters, foreign powers, or negative stereotypical mentalities.

Yes, we've forgotten the ancient kingdoms of old and are just now digging through the closet for those remnants of the past. Yes, the colonizers imposed that on us, and made us forget. But in the process we've also taken everything that they left behind, everything that they threw at us, and created something that can only come from us.

The lanterns that the Spaniards used to light the way to the morning masses they made us attend became our globally known symbol of Christmas. The junked vehicles that the Americans left behind in World War 2 are now rolling works of art that announce themselves loud and proud on the streets (for better or for worse). The iced dessert recipe that the Japanese forced us to learn while they were occupying the country is now so distinct and famous it is synonymous with us, and is so delicious even Italy has taken notice.

Even after all this? Even after all the 425-ish years total we have been under a foreign power, with all the progress we've made as a country, a people, and a nation, you would still imply our fragmented, jigsaw puzzle state of being in the past was better just because it was pure 'South East Asian' like everyone else?

We might not be as well put-together as Indonesia or Malaysia, but we made this melting pot of angry, leg-pulling, dogpiling, Native, Mestizo, Chinoy, and Fil-Am crabs OURS, damnit!

It's now 4:30 AM and I have work in 5 or so hours. I'll be going to sleep now.

#hws #hws philippines #precolonial philippines #hws theory #hetalia #hetalia world stars #hetalia world series #hetalia headcanons #aph #axis powers hetalia #aph philippines #hetalia philippines #aph hetalia

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hetalia-has-a-secretary · 4 years ago

Note

allies + eje human au headcanons

I had to look up what eje meant, which was Axis in Spanish 🌮 (there's no sombrero emoji, and I'm mad about it). This is mostly a college Human AU, but there's still some future stuff in there. Enjoy the longest list of Headcannons in one post lol

Human AU Hetalia!

Allies:

America:

Has rich parents, but doesn't tell anyone, and somehow his big house that everyone parties at doesn't give it away.

The only person who knows is Japan, and that's specifically because Japan's dad works for America's dad.

Is a college student, hoping to go for some kind of music degree.

A first year.

Black T-shirt and jeans. Has a plaid button up for everyday of the month, usually has it tied around his hips.

Has like, one basic tux and refuses to wear anything but converse or airwalkers.

Space nerd #1, except he's more into what's beyond our boundaries, and loves the constellations.

One of the most popular kids, and no matter how hard you try he's not easy to hate.

Gives off dumb college kid energy even though he's one of the A+ students.

His glasses are for show. It was meant to be a rebellious thing since Canada use to get bullied about his own glasses, now it's just an esthetic.

Skate boards and plays the acoustic guitar in his free time.

Jeans are usually missing the knee section.

Once set off firecrackers in a metal trash can as a school prank.

England:

Last year of college, majoring in history after failing his cooking classes.

Graphic tee central. We are unsure how many he has but he's up to 43 different shirts worn on campus.

Usually has his earbuds in, listening to punk rock.

Has an ungodly amount of bracelets. His favorite one is a black snap bracelet with little pirate skulls.

Was practically raised by his older brothers.

Lives alone, but is secretly an amazing writer.

Has a Tumblr blog he writes spooky stuff on.

Top of his class, but can be a dummy if he's put on the spot.

France:

No one is sure how he's been allowed to take nothing but art classes. No English, or science, just art.

Is also a transfer student, he's probably the second richest thanks to daddy.

Is the school stud, despite not sleeping with a single soul, and is actually extremely nervous about dating, and is just more comfortable with playful flirting.

He wants to be a fashion designer, or Model. Mostly a Designer.

Loose shirts and tight pants.

Has a weird obsession with belt sashes.

Plays violin like a god, and is a senior.

China:

Another senior in college.

Had the unfortunate event of being in the same cooking class as England before Arthur decided to switch degrees.

Still hangs out with him and Japan.

One of the few who is taking advanced classes, and is literally everyone's tutor.

Going for a Degree in Cooking. Wants to be a head chef.

His parents are over seas, but he promised to get them to America as soon as he can.

He wears a lot of colorful shirts that is always tucked into his pants.

Most of which look like bowling shirts, but he likes to add little Chinese patches to them. Has a signature jean jacket that is overwhelmed with patches.

Has a panda beenie baby keychain, so everyone knows exactly who it belongs to when he losses his keys.

Very quick to panic, and hates to admit he's wrong.

Russia:

Third and final transfer student, along with Japan, and France.

Poor confused child is trying so hard.

He's kind of shy, and is fully aware his social akwardness creeps everyone out.

Almost cried the day America and Prussia adopted him into the cool kid circle.

His broken english is probably the biggest turn off for the people at school. It's why no one really talks to him, mostly because they can't figure out what he's saying most of the time.

Biggest sweetheart though, and is painfully smart, but do to the english thing he's stuck in the average classes, but China comes swooping in and his english gets almost fluent by his third year.

He doesn't own a single thing tech, minus a flip phone, but somehow knows all the hot keys on the computer to every program, and it's only because he's lazy about it and it's the funniest thing.

Space nerd #2 but knows more about the planets and can name every single moon, and knows the history of space discoveries by heart.

Secretly a hopeless romantic, and doesn't realize he reads England's blog.

Is pretty much a closet goth, but likes bright colors too much to be seen in all black.

Knows way to much about torture devices and learned very quickly that gets you out casted in a school setting.

Isn't upset that he doesn't have many friends, but somehow attracts all the little kids from the grade school.

He likes his northface sweater, and loose pants. But his shirts are pretty colorful, and he likes collecting shoelaces.

He spends a lot of time in the woodwork shop, creating amazing figures and such.

Canada:

I can feel the dissapointed stares of Matt not being a photographer. Welp, guess he also gets a degree in art then.

Second year, Because he skipped one year in college.

Clothing style is long sleeves and vests.

He likes feeling fancy, and owns an endless amount of beanies.

One of the few people who talks to Russia.

His locker has a snot ton of polar bear stickers that everyone stuck to it, and he loves it.

Is baby but can kick butt in the wrestling club after school.

Has a tiny white Pomeranian that he rescued from it's mother who wouldn't take care of it, probably because the puppy was the runt of the litter.

Has a Harley Davidson and it's been painted black with the aurora on it, making everyone think it was his non-existent girlfriend's or something. Now it's a running joke.

Axis:

Germany:

He's not a jock, but he's friends with them.

Military Dad.

Is usually found hanging out in the gymnasium on breaks. It's quiet and no one is going to bother him. Usually.

Senior, and so ready to get the heck out of college.

Ladies love him, but he really hates the attention, like please help him.

Style wise he's pretty basic, but really loves his camo print.

Has owned countless doggos, and only attracted so many girls the day he walked to school with a fluffy poodle that France Hijacked for the day.

Doesn't ever go to dances after the first one and everyone tried to get him drunk, to no avail.

Had out drank some of the dumber students to shut them up.

Can be mean if you persistently pester him for dumb stuff, especially if he's already said no.

He's into construction and is working on a degree in Construction Management.

Japan:

Exchange student number 3

Degree in technology is what he desires.

Style = Geek, but like a stylish geek.

Him and Canada are in photography class together.

Japan is also part of the cool kids, but only when they're about to do some dumb stunt, and need a camera man.

Doesn't mind, loves watching them make fools of themselves.

Has a rebellious streak, and tends to be a complete sass.

As soon as something seems to go bad, he gone. He's heading towards the door. Been in detention once, and that was it.

Why does everyone go to him for advice when china is literally down the hall?

Rich kid #3 and his parents are traditional and are having a crisis over their son's rebellious attitude.

Italy:

Is a first year, and is oddly enough, going for a degree in history.

Really likes antiques and old artsy stuff.

Has a few shared classes with France, and they pretty much own those classes.

Rivals America's charisma, but isn't as popular due to:

Being seen around France, and not doing dumb and entertaining crap like america.

Gets picked on a lot Because he doesn't understand you can't be nice to the Jock's girlfriend without everyone thinking your flirting, even though you just needed directions on your first day of school.

Germany is now his bodyguard and he was kind of like "???" But they get closer the longer they hangout.

Fancy shirt man, like hand me downs from his Italian father. So they're really nice, and a lot of eye melting patterns.

Gets attached to people easily, and is sensitive when he gets taken advantage of during assignments, but toughs through it because he has too.

Has two cats literally named Mona, and Lisa.

Has cried at least once at school because he's a soft guy, but he gets a thicker shell the older he gets and learns to just laugh off other people's stupidity.

Romano:

Protective older brother gooooo

Second year in school, and his first year made him want to eat brinks.

Doesn't know what degree he wants, but settled for a degree in cooking.

Shares his brother's shirts practically and it confuses everyone Because, didn't Feliciano wear that shirt last week?

Immediately thinks people don't know washing machines exist Because of this, so his sass factor is high up there.

Doesn't really have friends, and also does not care. He's a bit of a lone wolf and needed something to do.

The amount of not caring attitude contrasts his high grades and his teachers are painfully confused by it.

Will jokingly tell people to fight him at McDonald's, and almost fought someone but literally laughed, and suggested they got something to eat instead.

He's somehow, in a bizarre and unwanted sense, everyone's brother which is just...

No one understands him, but they like him, and he doesn't know why and it kind of bugs him.

He's usually in the front of the school daydreaming about, god only knows what...

Is the epitomy of the "she doesn't even go here" joke from mean girls, except he does go to that school.

Why did he need a degree? Oh yeah, Because work places don't care what kind of paper, you just need a paper.

Prussia:

Rival friendship with america, and Russia has had to step in to break up petty fights.

He's not sure why he's part of the popular kids since he's so fricken chaotic and obnoxious. Or so he thinks.

Genuinely a sweet guy in his last year, desperately wanting a degree in mathematics. Like, no one understands why mathematics until he starts pulling card tricks from his pocket that deals with it, and blows everyone's mind.

He is also head of the newspaper club.

Has the style of a teenage band member and will not apologize for it.

Has hijacked the schools speaker system to blast evanescence, which gave a huge boost to his friendship with Russia, since the big fellow shares Prussia's taste in music.

Can eat a whole ghost pepper without batting an eyelash, and this is only Headcannon and a worthy note because he became sick the day after and the whole school had "in loving memory of Gilbert's stomach" posters all over the place.

Teacher's are very much done with his harmless antics. They're noticably stupid pranks, but only to the point it's annoying.

Like he managed to make all the teacher's computer backgrounds as Brad Pitt wearing a sombrero. There's no joke, and no punchline. It's just a poorly Photoshopped sombrero?

Races his brother to school every morning, and afternoon. Cops have stopped them at least twice due to other bystanders getting freaked out.

Him and Romano don't mix well, but try to leave each other alone.

#hetalia american #hetalia england #hetalia france #hetalia china #hetalia russia #hetalia canada #hetalia germany #hetalia italy #hetalia japan #hetalia romano #hetalia prussia #hetalia #hws #hetalia world stars #aph #human au

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tiphprince · 4 years ago

Note

I have many thoughts and feelings about snape leaving Hogwarts. (I would write it but one I am well lazy and I have this weird internal conflict but yes anyways) I will be signing of as 🤺 (this is so long I am so sorry)

So for scene + background purposes : both the mud blood incident and the werewolf prank happens at the 5th year and I guess eileen leaves him. And snape is in this absolute bedroom depression because rn he can't stand himself, there is no scope and like he knows what possibilities lies in both sides but rn he's craving for fimilarity and the only person who he hates that he's connected to is his father right. They both have this anger that eileen leaves them in spinners end and one of them is free. So he does something he hasn't done ever since he met Lilly : he takes a chance and applies to ilvermony he knows he won't get in he's so sure (until he gets proven wrong). And when he gets that letter that says ACCEPTANCE he somehow empathizes with the women who first introduces magic and the same women who ran away from this horrid place and figures that eileen is a clever witch and she's probably okay of not she'd be back or they would find out that she's dead.

He knows that he's meant to be alone (he does the paper work for a transfer alone, he packs alone and he celebrates alone on his departure by allowing himself to feel something when he buys himself a small plum cake) and he feels incredibly small when he enters the ministry where he meets the headmistress but he's hopeful.

And ilvermony is big and it's grand and it's so much more accepting. On his first day he meets a brown eyed girl who's made him feel absolute concern and exasperation in 14 minutes of meeting her (why do you think that England is a sad place he asks her and she simply looks at him dumbly saying your two weather's are rain and heatstroke, and he can't help but agree with her) but he can't help but feel light. There is no Potter, no black no werewolf and maybe his life is worth something. And he's less alone (he doesn't ever say it out loud because he's scared after all he is someone who's great at ruining friendships) because he makes friends some who understand the guilt and the shame and the anger he is carrying while others (and some really good adults) just know that it's not fair that you should treat your own life like this and now he's able to speak about his regrets his guilt to those closest to him 'what you did was wrong but I also think it's wrong that you have been told that holding on to the guilt is the only way you can forgive yourself, I think you have hurt yourself enough' she says to him and there is an absolute pin drop silence until severus takes all the courage to say i think I need help.

Flash forward it's 2 years later in Hogwarts and a ripple effect occurs.

Regulus black feels at first a great deal of anger towards snape because he managed to escape this. Narcissa and lucius understand but they will never admit it. But snape left their snape this tiny greasy kid from coke worth felt his life was worth more or if not he believed in enough spite to take some direct action. That spite is what drove them to stay effectively neutral and hint on supporting dumbledore despite a war that there in the horizon. James and Lilly are together, the loss of friendship leads to a kinship which lead to a romance while Sirius and Remus are okay but they aren't. And Peter well he's shifty ( some days if not most days they all find it liberating to pretend that snape doesn't exist)

And now they all in this campaign to promote unity are in advanced muggle studies class, regulus black is the only slytherin and its painfully obvious on what's to come. And charity Burbage who is this cheery hufflepuff decides to do her video essay on schools but she has this pen pal who is in ilvermony and who's willing to help to show off her school and the people she loves (do you fucking see where I am going with this?????)

And BAM it's this heartfelt Supercut of her favorite places and the people she loves and meets there are snippets of their endearing conversations. And everything is okay until severus snape the boy who left at 15 is smiling at the one recording the video and is sitting casually at a sofa 'hey sev what do you gotta say about Americans' your tea sucks, and to think you would learn from the Boston tea party incident. And the rest of the video shows more people but it's severus who makes the video so much better and so much worse. Because she records his laughter, his joy but it's them who have this weird gut feeling and Lilly cant help but hold James hand tightly and James can't stop staring at the same boy he hurt.

And Lilly comes into this horrible but truthful realization that she's feeling what her ex best friend feels (the disbelief when she can't understand why can't she see him like this, the same way snape felt when he couldn't understand what Lilly saw in James) because there is so much betrayal she feels when he watches him smile at other people and can't understand why couldn't the snape that they are seeing in this video be the one who went at Hogwarts with them??? and James has to see this version of snape he hasn't seen before and thinks maybe they could be friends. And Lilly at that moment doesn't want to answer the question : he's happier because he's away from this place, the same place you love. Would you ask him to leave earlier knowing he could be happy like this?

The video is over and its regulus black who looks so pensive and has this look of hope that maybe goods thing can happen says in a too quite class because everyone knows : I haven't seen him smile like that at all. The bell rings and they just go on and walk a little bit more heavier because all they can think of Severus snape, the boy who escaped and the one who isn't coming back .

🤺🤺🤺🤺

Okay so... this was a completely unsolicited surprise in my inbox the other day, but damn if I didn’t love every single part of it!

I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ABOUT OUR BOY SAYING FUCK IT AND LEAVING HOGWARTS

For the the other characters it doesn’t change that much, Lily still ends up with James, the Marauders are sad that their favorite target is gone but they get over it quickly, the other Slytherins don’t give a fuck about the poor and dirty halfblood, and the teachers... well, they’re as useless as usual.

But our baby! It’s awful for him at first, the fact that he suddenly finds himself so far away, and so alone, from everything he’d ever known, even the bad. Because at least he knew what to expect at Hogwarts and at home, it was all about the evil you know, and adventure is definitely not his thing.

I’ve always been in love with the “was gone for several years, and came back a changed man” (must be the Naruto fan in me), it’s a bit like anon’s video here, a way to show everyone what they missed, the huge mistake they made in hurting this kid who just wanted to be left alone

I want to see the Marauders praising this dude from America before learning that it’s Snape because he doesn’t look anything like what he used to (meaning he actually looks like a functioning human being).

I want to see Lily, high and mighty with her perfect husband and her son on the way, frown when she recognizes her former best friend laughing and smiling with another girl, looking happier than he’d ever been with her.

I want to see Slughorn in shock when the best potions master of his generation is revealed to be the weird ass teen he’d dismissed on the first day because he didn’t have a powerful family name.

Basically, I want every character who ever underestimated Snape, who ever hurt him, to, if not regret their actions, then at least realize that there was something more to him even back then, that if only he’d been given a chance he could have become that amazing person right here in the UK and not halfway around the world.

Also, I want Snape to not forgive them. Maybe he has to work with them for one reason or another, and he acts just civil enough to not outright provoke and insult them, but he’ll never forgive and he’ll never forget.

#lots and lots of feelings #Anonymous #snape #severus snape #ask #pro snape #snapedom #harry potter

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mirkwoodshewolf · 4 years ago

Text

I just wanted to make you smile again; 10th Doctor x child reader

*Author’s note*

Okay to the anon who requested this fic THANK YOU FOR BEING SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO PATIENT WITH ME!!!! To those anons and users who have sent me requests literally since last year I thank you all for your patience, I AM GETTING THEM DONE SLOWLY BUT SURELY. I’m already in process of doing another DW fic w/13th doctor (one of the first requests I got when I opened them last year) so I hope you all enjoy this fic.

This takes place after the episode Journey’s end so to those that haven’t seen the episode yet SPOILERS AHEAD!!! Angst and fluff is what this fic is. Enjoy my lovelies and until next time ;)

Taglist:

@plethora-of-things

@waddles03

@psychosupernatural

@ixchel-9275

@jd-johndeacon-or-jackdaniels

@platawnic

_________________________________________________________

Things have been—tough. The Daleks, one of my daddy’s biggest enemies nearly had us and almost succeeded in destroying all of life and matter as we know it. But thanks to some fast thinking and with the help of a clone of my dad, we managed to stop Davros as well as the rest of the Daleks.

But honestly that was the easy part. The hardest was saying goodbye to all of our friends. Rose and her mum went back to the parallel world with the meta-human clone of my daddy, Captain Jack took Martha and Mickey off on another adventure, Sarah Jane (an old friend of my dad’s long before I was born) went back home, and Donna—oh poor, poor Donna.

Daddy said that in order to help stop the Daleks, Donna, who had touched the severed hand of my dad when he first became this new version of himself, gained so much knowledge of the Timelords and of our home that it could overwhelm her brain and eventually kill her. So my dad had to absorb all memory of Timelord knowledge, including all the times she spent with us.

After taking her back home, daddy told her father that it was too dangerous for her to remember anything. If there was a glimpse of her recovering her memories, she would die. So my dad and I left her and her family and he never went back.

Since that day, almost seven months later, he still carries that guilt. And what’s worse is that he hasn’t been the same. He doesn’t smile as much as he used to before. I think out of everything that I love about my daddy, it’s his smile that always made me feel happy and safe.

I stepped out of my room to see him where he usually was, standing at the controls with that dazed but intense look on his face. I looked down at paper butterfly and cautiously walked towards my dad. It’s always a touch and go of how he’ll react whenever he’s in that deep haze. One time he actually shouted at me and I was scared to even go near him for an entire week till he apologized to me with some Turkish delights.

“Daddy.” I said softly. “Umm…uhh daddy?” he snapped out of his daze and looked down at me.

“Oh (Y/n). Sorry I was just—I was just trying to find….nothing. What is it that you wanted to tell me?”

“Well I—finished my paper butterfly and I-wanted to give it to you.” I held it out to him and he looked down at me. He knelt down and took the butterfly from my hands and I saw his eyes grow soft.

“It’s beautiful love. Thank you.” he gently ruffled my hair and placed my butterfly right along the controls. It didn’t work.

I had hoped that my paper butterfly would get him to smile. He always smiled whenever I made him little trinkets of my own design, or beautiful art projects that I’ve seen on Earth. I thought that by doing an art project, he’d smile again but it didn’t work.

I was currently in my room reading some books written back in the 20th century. I’ve always found that time period to be rather splendid. It was a simpler time (if you don’t count the 2 World wars, the Great depression, and every war after that. You know why must humans always start wars?)

Anyways, the start of the 20th century is always my favorite place. It’s quiet, tranquil, and peaceful. A nice place, especially out in the countryside. People can have picnics, host carnivals, and yeah the grown men partake in Foxhunt but I think it’s a barbaric sport and yet they call it tradition.

Maybe if—maybe if we stayed there for a while, daddy could get better and smile once again. I think the more time we stay in the TARDIS and just keep going through space and time, the more unhappy daddy’s gonna get, like I said he always gets lost in his head and the more bad things that happen around him, the more he keeps it bottled up inside and the more sadder he gets.

The only question now was this—how was I gonna get there? I don’t know how to drive the TARDIS cause daddy always told me to keep my grabby little paws off of it. Oh wait that’s it! I raced over to my drawer and pulled out the middle one and dug through it till I found what I was looking for.

A special teleportation watch gifted to me by Uncle Jack when my dad was in his previous form (just shortly after we first met him). I placed the watch on my wrist and I set the time and date that I wanted to go to. Once the coordinates were typed in, I pressed the center of the watch and I disappeared from my room and went to go set up my surprise for daddy.

*10th Doctor’s POV*

I was fiddling around with the controls when I turned and looked up at my daughter’s butterfly. For months now she’s been making these little trinkets and art projects for me, and I really haven’t been fair to her. A lot has happened to us, especially with what happened to Donna, and I hate to admit this to myself but I’ve been neglecting my little butterfly.

Maybe she would like it if I took her to see her favorite constellation, or maybe Barcelona (she always did like Barcelona). Oh! No wait! The Music of the Spheres! Yes brilliant! She and I could use some music in our life, the sound of the universe singing to us.

“Hey (Y/n)! Can you come out here for a second?” I called out to her. No response. Okay I know it usually takes her a bit of time to come down from her room but usually she’d be right here by now. “(Y/n)? (Y/n) I said can you come here please?” bah she must be listening to that loud music again, that lass I tell you what.

I left the console room and headed on over to her room and saw that her door was shut which was surprising cause she usually keeps her door open. I knocked on it and said.

“Poppet, are you okay? You’re not—upset or anything are you?” I still didn’t hear anything from her. “Look I—I know we’ve been through a lot the past several months, and I have no excuse for not speaking to you. I’m sorry. So—can you please open the door so we can talk?” still nothing.

Alright I know she has a right to be upset but she can’t give me the silent treatment forever. I opened up the door and snapped.

“Alright little madam you listen here I—” it was then I saw that she wasn’t in her room. “(Y/n)?” I looked around her room to see if she was hiding in her closet again (she always takes every advantage to jump out and scare me) but when I saw that she wasn’t there, that’s when I began to get worried.

As I left her room and began to look all around the TARDIS from the backroom pool, to the library I still couldn’t find her.

“C’mon poppet don’t do this to me.” I searched high and low, near and far and every crack in between but she still wasn’t around. “No, no, no, no, no love don’t do this to me! (Y/n)!”

I raced back towards the console and went over to the computer monitor and I quickly typed in her lifeform energy. Since she was the only Timelord in existence (well next to me), I knew that she could be pinpoint at any time in any era she might be in. I only hope that I can get to her before—no! NO DON’T THINK LIKE THAT!! You WON’T lose her like you lost Donna!

“C’mon you blasted thing LOAD!!!” I screamed at the computer before finally I got a hit. London, England 1908. Of course, she always said the start of the 20th century was her favorite time period. I punched in the coordinates and flipped the switch and soon the TARDIS started back up and I was sailing back in time over 100 years into the past.

Once I arrived, I peeked out of the TARDIS and found myself adjacent to a large park. It was pretty peaceful, families were out and about doing their normal human interactions. I shut the doors to the TARDIS and I quickly raced over to the park and searched for (Y/n).

This was where her last known readings were at. At this exact spot so where could that little troublemaker be at? I walked up to a couple and said.

“Hi sorry to bother you but I was wondering if you have found a little girl around 5 years old with (h/l) (h/c) hair and (e/c) eyes? She’s my daughter and she’s wondered off again.”

“No sorry. We haven’t seen any little girls fitting that description.” Said the man as he and his wife continued on their walk. I then found another couple who seemed a more upper-class couple due to the diamond necklace around the woman’s neck.

“Excuse me could you both please help me I’m looking for my daughter have either of you……”

“We don’t have time to look for lost children, that’s what the servants are for.” Said the man.

“And who loses their child anyway? Such irresponsibility.” The woman snide. I looked at them offendedly and said.

“At least I don’t dump my child on anyone else! I’m surprised that people like you could even have children.” They looked at me appalled before huffing and walking away from me.

I grunted and adjusted my jacket trying to compose myself when a small Cockney accent said.

“You said you were looking for (Y/n)?” I turned around and there was a young ginger haired boy with freckles speckled all over his face. His bright blue eyes staring up at me and he wore a paper boy’s uniform.

“Yeah that’s my daughter’s name. Do you know where she is?”

“Course I do Gov. Just got done talking with her before I started my work sir. She’s right by the lake.”

“The Lake! Oh thank you lad. Thank you so much.”

“No problem, good luck governor.” I raced off towards the lake and when I got there, I soon saw my daughter sitting right by the lake surrounded by flowers and in her lap it looked like she was in the process of making a flower crown.

The important thing was that she was safe, but that little missy is sooo going to get it now.

I trudged my way towards her and exclaimed.

“(Y/n)!” she stopped her work and turned around. Her big (e/c) eyes staring up at me and a smile spread across her face. She stood up and ran towards me and hugged around my legs.

“Daddy you came!”

“Yes I did.” I knelt down and began to check to see if she was hurt or worst case scenario been replaced by a Graske. “Are you hurt?”

“No I’m perfectly fine.”

“Answer me this then. Who was the first companion that we had together?”

“Rose Tyler.” Okay this was my baby girl. I immediately hugged her and whispered to her as I rest my head on top of hers.

“I thought I had lost you.” I then separated from her before scolding her vert sternly, “Do you have any idea how worried I was!? You leave your room with no note! How on earth did you leave the TARDIS without my knowledge?!”

“Uncle Jack’s time jump watch.” She said nervously as she held out her wrist. I looked down and right there was the time teleport watch that Jack had given her shortly after we met him for the first time in my previous state.

“That figures. Remind me to never let him give you anymore teleportation gifts without my permission.” I muttered to myself. “Bottom line is that you left the TARDIS without my permission and had me scared to death! What if something happened to you hmm? Did it ever cross your mind about how that would make me feel!?”

Yes I know my voice was steadily getting angrier and angrier but she should’ve realized that my one rule for her is to never, ever, ever leave the TARDIS without my permission or knowledge and she broke that rule.

“I—I’m sorry daddy. I just……thought that if I brought you here, you would be happy.” My anger quickly vanished and confusion now took its place.

“What?” I asked her.

“Ever since—” she deeply sighed. “After what happened with Donna you never smile anymore. No matter what I’ve done, I could never get you to smile. Your real smile, the smile that always made me feel loved and protected. I thought that maybe we could—stay here for a while till you were happy again.” She looked down with regret.

I rubbed my hand over my face and through my hair before looking back down at her. I cupped my hands over her face and I said to her.

“What would I ever do without you my little butterfly?” she smiled softly.

“So we can stay?” she asked.

“For now.” I answered her. She squealed happily and immediately hugged me around my neck repeatedly telling me thank you. I smiled and embraced my baby girl back and kissed the top of her head as I rocked her back and forth.

This little madam truly does have me wrapped around her little finger, and she seems to know it as well. But she was right. Staying in one area made you stop and admire what’s around you, and not stay trapped inside your head letting your demons torment you.

We stayed in 1908 for about five months just enjoying each other’s company. Going to the park every day, having picnics and tea parties out in the garden of our rented little cottage, and stargazing every night teaching her more about the galaxy and the stars.

For the first time ever, I felt—peaceful, no regrets, no painful reminders of what I had to do to Donna, it was just me and my daughter.

#doctor who #doctor who fandom #doctor who fanfic #doctor who x reader #doctor who imagine #doctor who imagines #doctor who fanfiction #10th doctor #10th doctor fanfic #10th doctor fanfiction #10th doctor imagine #10th doctor imagines #10th doctor x reader #10th doctor x child reader #david tennant

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itswildwinters · 4 years ago

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Hello lovelies and welcome to my October 2020 fic recs. These are the fics that I read these last few months. The main pairing is Louis Tomlinson/Harry Styles.

This is also an appreciation post to all writers out there. Thank you for contributing so much to the fandom, for making all these incredible pieces of work for us all to read!

I’m wishing you all a happy Halloween in advance!

If you check out any of those incredible fics below, don’t forget to leave kudos and comments to show your appreciation!

Enjoy!

From What I’ve Tasted of Desire by @evilovesyou

When Louis moves to the small Scottish town of Fortrose to spend some time with his father, he thinks he's come to terms with the fact that the next two years of his life will be rainy and dull. That changes when he meets the ever-elusive Harry Styles in his Biology class and he makes it his goal to find out the big secret surrounding him and his family. Louis unexpectedly finds himself in the eye of a storm of secrecy, age-old myths, friendship and romance.

Twilight AU / Vampires / Werewolves / Slow Burn / Highschool & College AU

eyes off you by @soldouthaz

“Just promise me you’ll do whatever it takes to keep us all safe while we’re in there,” Liam says.

Through the crack in the door, Louis can just barely make out the broad curve of Harry’s back, the slope of his curls as they tumble down all sleep-soft and lazy, and the sharp twist of his arm - all leading down to where he’s got his pointer and middle finger crossed over each other behind his back.

“I promise,” he tells Liam firmly, “I promise.”

or; a charlie’s angels inspired fic where louis is the brains, harry is the charm, liam is the muscle, and niall drives the getaway car - and zayn is there, too. sometimes.

Action / Pining / Assassins (kill bad people)

Walls by Travis_Crux

Following his line of sight, he frowned and shook his head, "What's wrong?"

"Wasn't your timer on your ring finger?" Liam asked, at that the Alpha immediately swapped the tumbler and looked down at his finger which sported a string of tiny blue flowers on the underside of his ring finger.

The two of them looked at one another.

"You could've touched nearly fifty people by the time you grew delirious," Liam advocated, always the voice of reason. "Comrades, nurses, doctors."

Sighing, he turned away and continued drinking the water. Literally, the only fucking thing remaining in the middle of a fucking war.

Harry has his soulmate timer stuck at zero from the beginning of time but suddenly the fates show mercy and a lovely forget-me-not takes the place of his timer. In between finding his soulmate in a war camp and solving the puzzle of the charismatic doctor who is treating him, all he can hope for is to live.

ABO / World War I / Soulmates / Angst / Hurt-Comfort

works like a charm by @falsegoodnight

Ever since Louis joined the team in fifth year, a few facts have become set in stone.

One: Louis is the best chaser in Hogwarts.

Two: Harry is the best beater in Hogwarts.

Three: They do not get along.

So it’s really unfair of Liam to think that forcing them to spend time together as Louis recovers from his injury will make them the best of friends. The last thing Louis would do is get along with that git.

Harry Potter Setting / Porn With Plot / Enemies to Lovers

(quiet like a fight) fingers laced together by @letthemkissyou

It’s a thin hope, frail and as thin as the silver strands of a spider web, desperate in the way Louis keeps clinging onto it even when he’s already expecting and preparing for the worst. Maybe one day, he’ll have a home, a place where he can feel safe and sound, tucked away safely from the world that has the tendency to treat him horribly and then even worse, that maybe there will be someone in his life who cares for him, even if in the smallest of ways, and does not just use him for whatever they tend to need at the moment.

Or, the one where Harry is gifted a hybrid and it's a whole new world for the both of them.

Hybrid Louis / Past Abuse / Fluff / Angst

We’ll Cast Some Light (You’ll Be Alright) by fondleeds

There’s tense silence, the whole room completely hushed. The other teams on surrounding tables look between each other. Then, Louis pushes himself away from the table noisily, chair scraping. His face is angered and crumpled, red at the ears. The door slams behind him as he rushes out. The surrounding teams look at Harry simultaneously.

“God, Simon is going to kill us if we don’t die on this mission first,” Niall moans into his hands.

There’s a standard procedure for this. Scan, track, kill. But with a solar eclipse and a Greater Demon with unfinished business looming, the path to keeping England safe from harm becomes complicated and shadowed by mystery and secrets. For Harry and his team, times have never been harder, especially when a few old friends turned foes show up. Harry is left with just over forty days to overcome the hurdle of tension between them and reconcile their past, and figure out just what Louis is hiding from him before it’s too late.

Demons / Enemies to Lovers / Violence / Angst / Fluff / Demon Hunters / Smut

Three Days in February by @mercurial-madhouse

“We have to get out of here, outside,” Harry whispered, turning his hand in Louis’s grip to hold on and pull them both to their feet. “And how do we fucking do that?” Louis hissed, carefully rising and pulling Harry to his feet before Harry could do it. His gaze darted to the front then back of the arena. “None of the doors are where they’re supposed to be.” “What?” Harry looked around again too, couldn’t see any doors, only knew that they must be there, somewhere. “How do you know?” Confusion slid over Louis's features. “Because we’ve been here before, Haz. It’s the O2.” The show. It must be the first night of their tour. They were too late; they were out of time.

Louis is cursed after a night out with the lads and the five have just three days to figure out what happened and how to break it before Harry and Louis both lose their sanity and maybe something more. Louis can hear everything Harry thinks and Harry isn’t sure he can keep his feelings for Louis a secret from his own mind.

Ridiculous amounts of banter and angst, a lot of Harry and Louis alone together, a healthy dose of OT5 friendship, and one very magical weekend.

Friends to Lovers / Fluff / Angst / Action / Adventure / Magical Realism / Hurt-Comfort / Slow Burn

Soaked In The Blood Of Angels by @crazyupsetter

The boy looks drugged, caught between a man who’s almost twice his size and a girl who looks like she wouldn’t even break a sweat snapping him in half despite her small stature, eyes closed and mouth open as he pants, arching up between them almost as if he’s trying to escape.

Normally, Harry would ignore it and continue on his search for someone to drink from, someone who wouldn’t mind his sharp teeth and rough hands. He’s seen plenty of boys like this one, ones who picked the wrong playmates, and if he stopped to rescue every single one of them he would have died from thirst a long time ago.

This one, though. There’s something about this one, the sheen of his bright blue eyes as he blinks slowly, looks around as though he doesn’t know where he is, the weakness of his hands as he tries to push the girl off of him and make his escape.

Explicit Sexual Content / Vampires / Incubus / Dubious Consent / Blood / Violence

The Compulsion to Find Love by Toomanytears

The most prestigious English third-level institution, Candling University, accepts omega students for the first time and Louis Tomlinson applies with bright eyes and brighter ambitions. There he encounters personal obstacles, traditional mindsets and a beautiful boy who inverts every prejudice Louis has ever known.

ABO / Omega Louis / Alpha Harry / Worldbuilding / Slow Burn / Fluff / Angst

Just a bit of work by missyoutoosweetscheeks

It was quite painfully pathetic, really. Twenty five, stable job, stable flat, stable mind (well, quite), a painfully non-existent love life with an even more painfully intact virginity.

Marcel didn't think his life was going to get better with his painfully aparent sociopathic tendencies to block anyone who showed interest in him.

Until, of course, he became Louis Tomlinson's next prey.

In which Marcel is a virgin, and becomes his office's amorous co-worker's next big conquest.

Top Harry / Bottom Louis / Office Sex / Dubious Consent / Porn Without Plot

Fuck U Betta by @jacaranda-bloom

There’s something about having Louis like this, exposed and desperate, that makes a primal urge bubble up from deep inside Harry’s chest. Desire mixed with something else, something unquantifiable. It’s the thing that makes them want this, need this. Nothing else will satisfy them or quench their thirst.

OR the one where Harry likes the thrill of the chase, Louis likes to be chased, and everyone gets what they need… in the end.

Porn Without Plot / Light BDSM / Top Harry / Bottom Louis

push you out, pull you back in by @behisoneandonly

Harry grips his head in his hands helplessly, yanking the base of his dark curls and squeezing his eyes shut.

“Fucking hell,” he whispers, knuckles turning white from how hard he’s gripping the strands of his hair.

“Hey, hey,” says the petite stranger in front of him, quickly standing up. “Stop, you’re hurting yourself.”

–

Or Harry hates feeling vulnerable. Louis is set on breaking through his tough facade.

College/University AU / medical student Harry / Fashion student Louis / Strangers to Lovers / Pining / fluff / slight angst / Hut-Comfort / Anger Management

might we be stardust stories by ryanreynolds

"It was easier being at war."

In which werewolves and vampires have been fighting each other for a century, and Harry and Louis' marriage is what's gonna bring peace to the realm. Hopefully.

Werewolves / Vampires / Arranged Marriage / Slow Burn / Falling in Love / Pining / Fantasy

Like Candy In My Veins by littlelouishiccups

“Um…” Harry said slowly after a moment. “Okay. That’s… this is… Let me get this straight.” He lifted up a hand and swallowed. “You told your family that you have a boyfriend… and my name was the first one you thought of?” “Harry Potter was on TV, alright? It wasn’t that much of a stretch.” Louis pinched the bridge of his nose. He couldn’t believe he was explaining himself to Harry fucking Styles. He couldn’t believe he was stooping this low. “Forget it. I’m sorry I even thought about bringing you into this.”

Harry snorted. “What? Did you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend or something?”

(Basically the A/B/O, enemies to lovers, fake relationship, Christmas AU that nobody asked for.)

ABO / Fake-Pretend Relationship

until this blood runs cold by @soldouthaz

In a town as small as Louis’, everybody knows everybody and gossip spreads faster than the wildfires that rage on just outside their backdoors in the sweltering heat of summer. When something happens here everyone knows about it within seconds. Neighbors call neighbors and notes are left on doorsteps, old telephone lines ringing until there isn’t a single person who is left in the unknown.

So it’s definitely hot gossip when a vampire moves in across the street from him, the very same one who’s just become Louis’ boss.

Vampire Harry / Frottage / Blood Drinking

call you mine by @falsegoodnight

“I have a request.”

That’s what Louis Tomlinson says to Harry when he opens the front door a bit too aggressively. The latter feels justified after a round of annoyingly incessant knocking that was much too loud in the drowsy sludge of early Saturday morning.

“Zayn’s asleep,” is Harry’s tired, hoarse reply, irritation prickling at his skin. Less than a minute ago he was in bed, feeling perfectly content sprawled out on the mattress with the chilled air from the fan cool against his bare skin. And now he’s leaning up against the wooden door frame in nothing but his briefs because Zayn’s best mate decided that showing up unannounced at seven in the fucking morning was a brilliant idea.

“I’m not here for him,” says Louis curtly.

Or, Louis’ curious about how it feels to be bitten. Harry’s going to need more than just one bite.

Plot What Porn / Vampire Harry / Bottom Louis

your biggest fan by @soldouthaz

Just like everyone else, Louis has a few habits that he can’t seem to break. Guilty pleasures, rather. His nails are perpetually short because he can’t quit biting them, the bottom of his shoes scuffed from tapping his foot constantly. Sometimes his leg gets a cramp from bouncing it so often underneath his desk. That isn't too bad, he reckons, just some average teenage coping mechanisms.

And also, occasionally, minor instances of theft.

Top Harry / Bottom Louis / Porn What Plot / Nerd Louis / Jock Harry

give me love by @falsegoodnight & @soldouthaz

Despite being an omega, Louis’ always had a blatant dislike of alphas.

Or, Louis doesn't feel like a good omega, Harry doesn't remember how to be an alpha, and they figure it out together.

ABO / Alpha Harry / Omega Louis / Bottom Louis / Past Relationship Trauma / Slow Burn / Angst / Fluff

The Stars Look Very Different Today by @kingsofeverything

For Harry Styles, child genius turned glorified spaceship mechanic, rescuing lost or broken down ships is a fairly common occurrence.

There’s nothing common about his latest mission, the ship, or that ship’s captain.

The last thing he expects to find in a distant galaxy is the one thing he’s been missing on Earth.

Space / Time-Travel / Science Fiction & Fantasy / Enemies to Lovers

The cat is out of the bag by 28sunflowers

Harry somehow gets himself stuck as a black cat on Halloween and needs help from Louis to change back into his human form.

The problem is: Louis doesn’t even know witches exist, much less that Harry is one. And there’s also the fact he thinks Harry is ghosting him after they had sex for the first time.

So the situations isn’t ideal. But it’s okay. Harry will figure something out.

Light angst / Witch Harry / Potions Accident / Fluff and Humour

#fic recs #october 2020 #larry stylinson

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cherriesink · 4 years ago

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Yamagami Tokuichi - Murmurs

Murmurs are snippets of character reflection earned by increasing Explore Points during Exploration. They usually include 6-7 monologues about other characters and 3-4 monologues about things important to the specific character.

These lines are taken straight from the English translation of the game, so fair warning of bad grammar.

About Yatsufusa “Yatsufusa... is like a son to me. I can’t help myself whenever I see his hopeless eyes.

...But I don’t blame him. Because it takes time to accept the fact you’e suddenly become a vampire that can only drink blood. Even I haven’t fully accepted it myself. Why are we alive... and how long do we have to endure this... What’s the point of all this anyway? Nobody can keep up if those thoughts cross their mind.

But he is a C-Class- unlike an unranked vampire like me. He’s surrounded by good people too. He can live a good life if he wishes to.

Wait, “life”? ...Are we livin’ a “life” when we never die? We don’t have a clue how long vampires last... Argh, there’s no way I can teach him somethin’ because even I don’t know what vampires are exactly. I’m so unreliable...”

About Kurusu “I became a vampire the same time as Kurusu. I was a major and he was a private first-class. I was a bigwig when I was a human who didn’t even know Kurusu existed...! Then, I was bitten by a vampire and became unranked in the vampire ladder. And Kurusu, who was just a private first-class is now an A-Class vampire- the strongest in Japan...

In the military, you can climb up the ladder by working your butt off. But an unranked vampire stays unranked no matter what...

Why?! Why did this happen to me?! I was just an honest guy... Where did I miss my step and let a private-first class surpass me...?

Life can change in the blink of an eye. It would’ve been me and not Kurusu ranking in A-Class if I would’ve walked a little more to the right. You really can’t guess what life brings you.”

About Maeda “Maeda is worse than a vampire when it comes to being disdainful! You know how people call each other evil? Well, he’s the master of evil! He’s always been like that. Cause he doesn’t have any friends. He always looks down on others. That’s just how he is.

It’s the worst when you go against him in kendo... He doesn’t care about samurai spirit and kicks. He was boastin’ that he’s a master of Taisha, but he’s outta his mind if he thinks his moves are so elegant, belongin’ to a classical martial arts school! Call it “Maeda” school if you must. He provokes you and threatens you, playin’ with your mental state. He attacks once the opponent loses it. It still gives me the chills when I remember his fightin’ strategy.

He’s now leading Code Zero, but nothin’ has changed about him. I feel bad for the vampires that he taunts and then kills. Poor them... they underestimate him ‘cause he appears human. But that’s a bad idea ‘cause he’s not.”

About Takeuchi “Why does Takeuchi wanna his inventions on me every single time?! Invent all he wants. But why does he always have to use them on me?

He’s not scary ‘cause he’s a vampire. He’s simply a monster. He’s intelligent, and my hats are off to his inventions. But he lacks heart. I don’t think there are any vampires out there like him. I doubt that anything has changed from when he was a human.

I hate the skunk ball the most out of his inventions. Only vampires understand how bad it smells. The smell even gets to the eyes. What’s even worse is that our clothes absorb the smell and won’t come off for a week. Yes! It’s effective in battle ‘cause we all have the deodorize mask and it stops the enemy for a second. In a way, it’s the best weapon. But I can’t stand the lingering smell after we take off the mask! Make a soap that gets rid of the smell if you’re gonna invent somethin’ like the skunk ball, Takeuchi!”

About Suwa “Suwa mocked me from the first time we met. He might look like an innocent kid, but... I can never win against him in arguements either. I secretly call him “Mini Maeda.” He said he was already alive before the Edo period. But I can’t believe that he managed to survive that long with his personality. I mean he said hunting vampires is his hobby... What kind of hobby is that? I guess he holds some knd of a grudge against vampires because he grins when he kills them. Talk about horror stories, right?

Yet, he likes watchin’ plays, so I don’t get that guy at all. If he still has humanness left inside him where he enjoys watchin’ plays, then why can’t he share that with me? Total mystery I tell you.

Oh... and another thing I hate about Suwa is how he likes to quote kabuki. It stops our meeting ‘cause it doesn’t make sense at all, so we gotta ask what he means.

So, to sum it all up.. evil ones will always be evil, no matter how long they live for.”

About Defrott “Defrott is a mysterious guy. Apparently, he became a vampire during the Hundred Years’ War... But you don’t see underaged vampires that often. Because they’ll burn themselves before figuring things out. And I heard western vampires kill underaged ones. So- it’s tougher for them to survive.

It’s even tough for an ordinary vampire to survive. Yet, he appears to be a child and made it through the Hundred Years’ War. So... he must be really smart. I’m sure he’s mighty since he’s an S-Class... But I bet he has to be pretty wise if he was goin’ against another S-Class ‘cause he’s pretty petite.

Although... he’ll vanish me before I can even realize it since I’m unranked.

Defrott... is a French name. But the Hundred Years’ War took place where things were complicated between England and France, so he must be pretty complicated too. I wonder where he was born.”

About Tenman-ya “I feel relaxed at Tenman-ya. So, maybe I’m suited to work as their manager instead of Code Zero. I bet they rarely have dangerous jobs, so I’m seriously thinkin’ if I should work for them and leave the military...

Only, they deal with vampires far more than Code Zero does. It’s a problem ‘cause the eyes of vampires ranking above me freaks me out... it’s really terrifying.

And I heard that even the ones you should avoid go there too. If I leave the army, I won’t be able to use any of Takeuchi’s weapons. So, when I consider that... I mean, I’m just an old fart that’s slightly stronger than a normal person. Just thinkin’ about being surrounded by vampires gives me the chills...! In the end, Zero is the safest place because Kurusu is there.

I heard Shinnosuke’s grandfather passed away when he was just a child... He must’ve sacrificed a lot of things.”

About Family “I wonder what Tomiko is doing right now... She originally came to our house as a servant. I was 14. It was love at first sight. My father found out my feelings for her, and fired Tomiko. I left my house to be with her and I went to her house.

But I was rejected by her parents... Because we weren’t socially equal... Who know how many times I begged for their approval. I didn’t care if my family disowned me.

I went to her house everyday... But I realized that I never asked how she felt about me after persuading both of our parents... I remember my body shaking when I asked her to marry me.

I promised her that I’ll love her for the rest of her life... but... I’m sorry, love... I’m sorry I became a vampire... I can’t be by your side anymore.

But I will keep my promise. I’ll always watch over you. Until... your very last moments.”

About the Past “I wasn’t good at kendo, judo, or jukendo... So I worked my butt off. I studied military strategies so that I can become a general one day. Takenaka Hanbei and Kuroda Kanbei were my idols because they won battles solely with their brains...

But the secret order given to me by the Empire was espionage of Britain’s special unit. I had no clue where to look into at first. But soon after, I found that I was gettin’ myself into an atrocious matter...

Nobody would’ve guessed that it was a vampire research. Vampires lost their homes- as modernization took place during the Industrial Revolution. And the British Empire asked for cooperation in exchange for providing them a place to live. Now that I think of it, that was the template of Code Zero...

And I ended up gettin’ bitten, becoming a vampire myself... Nothing went according to plan for me.”

About the Change “Nothin’ interests me since becoming a vampire. Code Zero does pay us... but I told them to send all the money to Tomiko.

I can live as long as I drink blood, so it’s not like I have any hobby. I don’t go watch plays like Suwa. And it’s not like we can go out to eat or grab somethin’ to drink. It’s pointless to dress up. I mean, where do we have that we can go to lookin’ fancy, right?

So, that’s probably why vampires need a hobby or else we’ll die of boredom. I only cared of Tomiko’s happiness and nothin’ else. So, I don’t have a clue how to kill time...

Oh yeah, an ambassador taught me chess back when I was in Britain. Maybe I can be the strongest chess player if I keep playin’ it for 100 years. Kurusu... is my only choice I guess. I doubt he’s any good though.”

#mars red #yamagami tokuichi #it's really sad how much he misses his wife :(

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purple-phantoms · 4 years ago

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Hi lovely!

Can you please do a Nick imagine where the reader is a really shy piano player with anxiety? Like maybe she has to perform in front of the class and after she’s done she runs out crying?

Thanks bb!

The Pianist

Nick x Female!Reader

Thank you so much for requesting this! I totally love this idea and I think it’s so cute. I’ve experienced that kind of anxiety before when singing in front of people I’ve just met and it just sucks. I tried including a bit of that in this, so I hope it worked out well! Again, I’m writing this on the mobile version of tumblr so this will not be properly edited for a little bit. Enjoy!

Masterlist

Being in the music program was hard. You’d think that all you have to do is to just create music. That part is just fine for her. But then you have to perform it in front of your class or sometimes in front of an audience. Performing in front of one or two people that I know isn’t bad, but when when it’s a big group of people, it just gets bad.

She was an outcast in school and didn’t mind. She had a few friends here and there, but nothing to big. Never anything to draw attention to herself. She never had the courage to talk to people like Julie Molina or Carrie Wilson. They were always the ones to volunteer to go first on days where they had to present their work to the class. Julie was always nice to her. She sometimes tried to bring y/n out of her shell. She’d invite her to eat lunch with her and her best friend, Flynn, sometimes but she always declined the offer. Carrie was like Chris Hargensen (from the movie Carrie)... except she wasn’t that aggressive. Carrie loved making fun of her in class by saying things like, “are you going to talk today, y/n?” she just wished you were more sociable like Julie. In theory, it would be so amazing to be a part of Dirty Candy. Even if you hated Carrie, there was no denying that their music slaps. But she would never be able to perform with all those people staring at her, so instead she just opted for teaching herself their choreography in the safe space of her bedroom. That way she wouldn’t have to experience the stares of her peers.

Today was Wednesday, a.k.a., the day her parents were always a little bit late for picking her up. she preferred staying away from the crowds of students who were also waiting on their parents. Dirty Candy always practiced right after school on Wednesday’s in the dance studio. Their practices were closed to everyone but Nick, the guy Carrie said was off-limits to anyone but her. They weren’t dating, but everyone expected them to be like if Sharpay and Troy dated. Nick was the cool guy who everybody liked. He was the star of the lacrosse team and an amazing guitarist. Carrie, on the other hand, was the girl most people feared. You’d never see her wearing an outfit in a dark color or without her backup dancers. Anyway, back to business. The door to the dance studio was always locked, but there was a tiny glass frame in it where you could easily use your phone to record their routine. They were dancing to their new song, Wow. It was her favorite so far. Well, she says that about all their songs.

They finished and paused for a couple seconds to catch their breath. She ended the video and started walking away, only to bump into another person, making her drop her phone. She leaned down right away to avoid any sort of eye contact or conversation with that person, but they just had to speak, “sorry, y/n.” It was Nick.

She looked up at him in shock. “You-you know my name?” Barely anybody acknowledged her existence in the school.

“Of course I know you,” he chuckled. “You’re the girl in class with the killer vocal chords.” His smile was contagious. Wow, she now understood what Carrie saw in him.

“Um, thanks, Nick,” she muttered. Then her phone went off, her mom was finally in the parking lot. “I gotta go-“

“Hey, what song are you doing tomorrow?” Nick asked. Did he not hear her say that she had to go?

“Uh probably just something by Adele,” you smiled. “Sorry, my mom’s here to pick me up.” This was probably the fastest she’s ever speed-walked away from someone before. Talking to people is weird. If it had been any other guy, she wouldn’t have had to get into a conversation. Nick is great and sweet and cute and all of this is besides the point. Nick is a nice guy but she just wanted to pick up her phone and leave.

When watching someone play the piano and sing at the same time, it looks so effortless. Nobody takes into account what they’re really doing. Nobody considers how long they must have trained to learn all the right chords and memorize the ones that go with their song. Nobody considers how long it must have taken them to perfect their song, whether it be alone or with the help of anothe person. Nobody considers what goes on inside the person’s head. Nobody considers what they think of themselves as they play. Nobody notices that maybe that person wants to be invisible.

The next day was the day of class performances. Per usual, the teacher allowed volunteers to go first. Julie sang first, then Carrie, then Flynn and so on and so forth. It got to the point where everybody who wanted to perform had already performed, so her teacher started getting frustrated. “Guys, it’s just two minutes of spotlight.” Silence. “Y/n, how about yo give it a go?”

Her head shot up so quickly at that and just froze. The teacher knew about her situation and has let her perform just for her during lunch. It just made things easier. “Ms. Jacobs, can I just perform during lunch,” she asked timidly. Everybody was staring at her, expecting her to go so that the teacher wouldn’t call on someone else.

But Ms. Jacobs shook her head. “Sorry, y/n. You’ve got to get over that stagefright somehow.” But did it have to be now!? There was no way she could argue with her without causing a scene. Come on, y/n, don’t cry.

Within what felt like a lifetime, she stood up from the chair and lifted her feet, one by one, to walk over to the shiny black piano. It was brand-new, just bought buy the school that summer. It was sleek and clean, practically begging to be used to make music. The walk to the piano’s bench felt exhausting and slow. It was silent, you could easily hear a needle hit the ground as her classmates waited on her to play. But oh god, what note does she even start with? What’s the first line of the song?

“Ms. L/n,” her teacher called. “Any day now.” Y/n looked up-nope, big mistake. Why is everyone watching her so intently? Ba. Did she just press a note? She looked at Ms. Jacobs, who gave an encouraging smile in return. Okay, y/n. Just pretend nobody’s watching you. Pretend you’re just singing in your room.

Her fingers started playing as if it was the only thing they knew to do. They couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop thinking.. Just get it done, y/n.

When will I see you again?

You left with no goodbye, not a single word was said.

No final kiss to seal anything.

I had no idea of the state we were in.

I know I have a fickle heart and a bitterness

And a wandering eye and heaviness in my head,

But don’t you remember?

Don’t you remember the reason you left me before?

Baby, please remember me once more.

Y/n closed her eyes and sighed as she finished. That wasn’t that bad.. Then the applause came and her perfect setting of playing the piano at home where nobody could hear her was gone and was filled with people. People who knew her were staring at her and applauding her. Performing in front of a random audience is one thing, because you have no idea who’s in the audience. You’ll never know (until afterwards at least) if your best friend happened to be in the crowd, or if one of the Kardashians were there. Plus, you’ll never have to worry about someone saying things about you when you’re right next to them because they don’t know you and you don’t know them. When you’re performing in front of your class, there are no rules. Anybody can think anything they want about your performance and nitpick it in their heads or out loud and that’s just how they’ll look at you. She was brought out of her thoughts by Ms. Jacobs talking to the class again, “see folks, this is what I’m talking about!” She looked like she had just met the queen of England. There’s no way she’s smiling like that after her performance. Was she really that good? This is too much.

Y/n managed to slip away from the classroom unnoticed as Ms. Jacobs kept talking. She couldn’t breathe. Oh god, why couldn’t Ms. Jacobs just let me perform at lunch? That was so bad. Does google offer tips to give yourself amnesia? Because she just wanted to forget about all of that mess- “Y/n?” Oh no, it’s Nick again. “What are you doing out here,” he asked.

“I just needed to catch my breath,” she muttered. Why is a cute guy paying attention to me like this?

“Wait, why are you crying, you were amazing,” he said. What? She wasn’t even crying. Oh, there we go... Why am I crying!?!

“I don’t know,” I sobbed. “I hate it when people are watching me.” She didn’t understand why the majority of her classmates could perform efortlessly and not even consider that they did badly later on. Why couldn’t she feel that way?

Nick put a soft hand on her shoulder. “But if nobody watched you, nobody would know how great you are,” he proclaimed. Woah, headrush. He thinks I’m great now? She nodded and smiled. Maybe he was right. “What if we work together next time,” He offered.

“But we don’t even know if the next project will be a group one,” she chuckled. People never wanted to work with her. They always thought that she’d never do the work because she couldn’t even bother to speak, or she’d just take over the entire project.

“Let me at least get your number,” he replied. He seemed genuine, there was going to be no foulplay in this, so she agreed to that and to him walking her home from school. And on the next project, they got to work together and y/n got through it wih his help. They did it together.

Taglist:

Add yourself to my taglist!

@flashoe @carnationcreation

#nick x reader #nick nolastname #nick jatp x reader #julie and the phantoms #julie molina #carrie wilson #jatp fanfic #purple-phantoms

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animegenork · 4 years ago

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Fruits Baskets Final Season Episodes 2 & 3

What? No, I didn’t watch these on the Fridays of the weeks they came out. No, I wasn’t dying from school---

Anyway, back to the grind.

Episode 2

I swear the gif search function HATES me and what I’m trying to do---

Anyway.

I would like to make this very clear. Shigure is a little bit evil. A little bit. But it’s mostly from being twisted by the zodiac curse and his strange form of love. So if you wanted to punch him this episode, that’s good. He needs to be punched. A lot. Like a lot. God, he’s so evil. Moving on.

So the episode begins with young Akito asking Shigure if he loves her. This is, as we’ve seen, something that Akito fixates on, mostly due to her father accidentally warping her with the idea of being eternally loved by the zodiac members. He responds with a very earnest love confession that sort of explains why they spend so much time together, but it also confuses things a bit, at least at first. What with the zodiac spirit, it’s unclear how much of Shigure’s love is real and how much isn’t up to him. That may factor in to whatever the hell is up with him now.

Cut to Tohru working on graduation ceremony flowers and nearly asking Shigure about breaking the curse. Of course, she can’t, because it’s hard to bring up, and she’s only seen 2 sides of Shigure at most. Naturally, he already knows what she’s thinking about, because he’s Shigure. He’s just that good.

Tohru continues to struggle even at school, when she realizes that there’s so much she knows that she probably can’t talk about with Momiji or Haru or anyone else. And since the curse is this ever-present thing to them, she’s not even sure if they’ll believe her or how they’ll react. Rin is the exception to this, of course, since she was already looking for information on it.

There are some shenanigans with the Prince Yuki Fan Club, and Tohru and Kyo are left alone (probably on purpose) by Hanajima, Uotani, and company. But I’ll get back to that in a sec.

Yuki tries to help out other classes with things, but they won’t let him because... well, uh, they think he’s too busy... and he... isn’t... I’m sorry, that’s just so funny to me. So anyway, he runs into Machi, who is being all adorable and stubborn because she wanted to say hello and chased him all over the school to do so. It’s cute, because Yuki’s not used to that much effort being put in to something for his sake. I love Machi like that UwU

Back to Tohru and Kyo, they’ve been waiting for HOURS. Tohru decides to tentatively try out her Kureno talking point, but as soon as she brings up the curse maybe being broken, Kyo tells her that hypotheticals like that are pointless (this is implied paraphrase). He does this mostly because he’s in that pit of despair of “I’m never getting out of this” but also because he doesn’t want to give himself a false hope that might never come true. Tohru, however, becomes sad, because of course she wants to save him from having to be locked away like the previous Cat. So there’s a bit of moment where she’s about to cry.

And then Kyo *sniffle* gives her a flower to make her feel better. *sobs*

Technically speaking, this scene should’ve been in the last season or SOMETHING, I honestly thought they WEREN’T going to put my FAVORITE scene in the anime, and then they did. What’s cute about this scene is how torn up Kyo is from hurting Tohru’s feelings, and how almost desperate he is to make her feel better. It’s a sweet moment, if slightly awkwardly animated, but it’s a rare Tohru and Kyo moment where they don’t even say anything and you can SEE everything they want to say. Of course, they’re interrupted, because they always are (HAVE YOU NOTICED THAT LIKE NEVER HAPPENS WHENEVER YUKI AND TOHRU HAVE A MOMENT?), but hey, I got my fluff, I am fed.

There’s brief mention of Rin and how Tohru hasn’t seen her lately, and I hate it because I know where she is.

Anyway, now on to Shigure being Shigure.

He’s torturing his poor editor again, and he walks away from what appears to have been a heated conversation with... HIS PARENTS. THEY EXIST. I dunno what it is with rarely seeing zodiac parents (besides the obvious cases of Kyo and Momiji), but there you have it. We see then that there’s a big Sohma dinner outing with Akito there, so clearly Shigure planned that. His skills of perception and foresight are serious scary, and I really wonder how the hell he developed them.

There’s a flashback to before Tohru and Kureno’s revealing conversation, and we see that Shigure hates Kureno for being so close to Akito. Of course, Kureno makes it clear that Akito doesn’t love him, that she’s always wanted.... well, he doesn’t say, but I think all of us are familiar enough with how this anime works that we know who he means. But Kureno basically wants Shigure to stop being so cold to Akito, and this is because of how much he wants to keep her happy more than any personal feelings about Shigure.

This is where it gets a bit dicey. I’ve actually got a strange fondness for this scene, if only because it sort of but also not really gets to the heart of why Shigure is the way he is.

Shigure appears in Akito’s room, and she’s basically jealous that he was out with another woman. Then she brings up his sexual relationship with his editor (nonexistent), which is rather petty, but then, when was this duo not about pettiness? The implication Akito makes is that he sleeps with every woman he meets (explains a lot). She then mentions that Shigure slept with Ren, Akito’s mother (I’m not going to touch on how screwed up that is), which is why he’s living in a house away from the main estate. Shigure acts all cool and says that was a long time ago, he’s been punished, but Akito points out that he almost wanted to leave. Which... he did, but not for any lack of love on his part. And he says that. He recalls the conversation we see at the beginning, in which he tells her he cares about her more than anyone else. Understandably, she’s frustrated, and she asks why he always tests her.

It’s because she slept with Kureno. Petty, I know.

The phone conversation comes back. Everything you need to understand about Shigure is in one sentence: “I love her so much that sometimes I want to spoil her rotten, and sometimes I want to crush her into a pulp.” This is nearly verbatim of the manga translation I read a long time ago, and it’s always stuck with me. The thing is, Akito was always told she’s special and she can do with the zodiac as she pleases (which she says directly in this episode). It seems a part of Shigure didn’t like that that extended to those that weren’t him (Kureno), and his love for her warped and twisted into this kinda toxic relationship. (Kinda, she says, as if it’s not very.) This makes him want to be kind to her, but at the same time, he wants to be mean to her and show her how much pain she’s put him through, too. It’s pettiness at its extreme, but it’s somehow more believable than other forms of petty jealousy I’ve seen.

Oh yeah, and then they have sex.

Once again, there’s brief mention of Rin, perhaps she’s in the hospital, we don’t really know. But the main part of this all is Shigure remembering that before Akito was born/in his life, he had always been sort of waiting for her, which is mostly the zodiac spirit talking but is also interesting nonetheless. How much of Shigure’s love is influenced by the zodiac curse? How much of it is him? I don’t know if we ever find that out, because frankly, the curse did a lot of things to everyone involved, including him.

I still love Shigure, don’t get me wrong, but this is SUCH an interesting episode.

Episode 3

Precisely the gif I wanted. Hehehe.

IT’S A MACHI EPISODE! AND I LOVE HER, SO THAT’S ALRIGHT!

Still pissed about Kyo’s screentime being so awful lately. ads;fkjsad;fklsda

Some student council shenangians occur as always, and it’s revealed that Nao has a crush on someone, which is why he declared Yuki to be his rival on day one. Also, Kimi is a golddigger.

Some girls come in and gossip about Machi making a mess again with one of her outbursts, and they mention a rumor about her trying to kill her brother, which is why she lives alone. Kakeru looks quite displeased to hear this, and Machi walks in on the conversation and runs away, with Yuki wanting to go after her.

Kakeru tells Yuki later that the rumor is “mostly true”--that is, that’s the story he’s been told as well. Of course, he’s wary to believe it, because while they’re not terribly close, he knows her a little better than the parents do. He then tells a story of seeing Machi making footprints in the snow, almost obsessively, and he’s not quite sure why she did it (but Kakeru has a Shigure streak, so I wonder if maybe he does know?).

So Kakeru decides to pull a sort of jerk move and visit Machi while with Yuki, and she tries to turn them away to no avail. Of course, Yuki isn’t put off by the mess, since he and Shigure used to live that way, so he’s all cheerful about it while Machi is dying in the corner. I will not talk much about the bra incident, but that was honestly the most hilarious few seconds.

Finally left alone, Machi asks why Yuki is there, assuming it’s about the rumor her classmates mentioned. She says she’s done trying to correct everybody, since no one ever seems to believe her anyway. (That is all too relatable, especially in high school.)

But Yuki doesn’t even mind. He asks something else instead: does she hate perfection? And she says yes. TEN POINTS TO GRYFFINDOR.

Wait. My bad.

Anyway, Machi has a flashback to what I believe I’ve mentioned before, which is Machi’s mom forcing her to be perfect so that she could beat Kakeru in the succession war (England?) with her family. When that was called off, her mother would say right in front of her face (jerk) that Machi was boring. Machi asked her why she would say that when she was just trying to do what she was told. Her mother has the gall to be offended by the implication that it’s her fault (IT IS, YOU IDIOT--) and then turns around and says maybe she raised Machi wrong.

Here’s a hint: that’s not what you say to your CHILD.

Poor Machi didn’t know what to do with herself. What is she supposed to do if she’s just a “mistake” her mother made?

Yuki, in his cute way of knowing precisely what she means, tells her she’s worked hard to get where she is, and that he’s glad she’s here. She’s not used to compliments like that, and it’s a very sweet moment. That’s when she admits that she was just trying to take care of her brother, but her parents wrongly and automatically assumed she was jealous and trying to kill him (which says a lot about how god awful they are). And she’s finally able to let it out and cry with Yuki, who offers to go leave footprints in the snow with her.

My heart might’ve burst during that, not gonna lie--

I think my favorite part of the episode is the next day, during a student council meeting. A new, perfect box of chalk is placed in front of Machi, and you can see in her eyes that the perfection is about to make her snap. Yuki, knowing this, calmly reaches over and breaks a piece of chalk, ruining the “perfection” of it. It’s very sweet of him and a very cute moment for both.

Then we cut to Tohru handing Kyo a flower, which is whiplash to the previous episode I’m glad we got.

The next sequence was a bit confusing at first, as I thought we’d sort of covered this already in season one, but we get to see Motoko. She’s called Yuki out in order to tell him that he made her high school days happier, and that she truly loved him. Motoko also hopes that Yuki himself will find happiness, which I think is a nod at her recognizing Tohru’s influence on him. It’s kind of cute, because even Yuki seems to appreciate her words, and we get to cut to a nice graduation song that actually kind of made me cry.

Motoko is still in a classroom when someone finds her. It’s Nao, and it appears that she was the girl he was in love with, which I LOVE. I HOPE HE OR SHE OR THEY ARE HAPPY TOGETHER OR EVEN APART, JUST THAT HE EVENTUALLY GOT TO TELL HER OR SOMETHING AND AHHHHHH. He tells her that goodbye is not the end, and it always leads to “nice to meet you,” which is sweet for both of them, considering her graduation and his being left behind.

Then we get to meet Hiro’s baby sister, Hinata, a true cutie pie. I think I cried here, too, for different reasons.

Finally, we see Kagura having picked up Rin’s diploma (YAY SHE GRADUATED YAYYYY), and wondering where she is despite her mother’s warnings not to investigate. Hatori and Shigure are a bit suspicious, too, and we see Akito with a pair of scissors.... OwO

[I know what happened and I hate it.]

I’m glad I could finally do these, it’s been a couple of weeks of hell, to be honest. Hopefully, Fruits Basket will be back at it again and I’ll have something more to wax poetic about, haha. Thanks for reading!

#fruits basket #furuba #fruits basket final season #kyo and yuki loving hours #also tohru and machi loving hours #all day every day #i like how i highlighted these two couples with the gifs

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rumandtimes · 3 years ago

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Does Cultural Appropriation Apply to Natalie Portman?

Sean Ezersky

Assoc. Fantasy Contributor

Does appropriation apply to the worst parts of European cultures?

Today, I want to discuss cultural appropriation. Yes, the issue of the times. But what exactly is cultural appropriation? Well, nobody knows. Starting at the first word, it claims to be some kind of appropriation. And it has something to do with culture.

Firstly, it should be said that this article has nothing to actually do with cultural appropriation. That is because cultural appropriation is essentially defined by racism. The term first appears, so it goes, as a description of how racist citizens of England marginalised and exploited the peoples of the Caribbean, and attacked sections of the working class schtick, for fun. Sounds evil enough.

The term cultural appropriation cannot be used as a mild term or played around with much, because it is by definition a form of misconduct. The term cultural appropriation is defined by the words “inappropriate,” “racist,” and “commercialist.” There is no redeeming quality to cultural appropriation because cultural appropriation is used to describe exclusively irredeemable activity, markedly opposite to cultural exchange or respect.

Consider the worst perpetrator in the United Kingdom and the United States: hip-hop / rap music, curly hair, or a summer tan. Racists always attack these music genres and human characteristics un-European, placing them into the same box on the fringes of their minds, but at the same time view themselves as ‘cultured’ for dipping into the same music, view themselves as ‘interesting’ for factory curling their hair, or view themselves as ‘unique’ for getting a spray-on tan. There is a murderous and delirious sense of bad irony, that racists altogether marginalise, demonise, and lust after perfectly normal traits and human practices, which the racist calls exotic, for fear of being labelled as freaks themselves. That is cultural appropriation.

Another bad actor is the billion-dollar yoga industry in Western nations as well, which attempts at every corner to steal Indian culture then mutilate the original concept, taking the yoga gurus off the cover and planting in some body-bleaching whores, or some wavy Italian guy, to appeal to the racist American, à la youth female target audience. All the while, Hinduism, inextricable from yoga’s origins while not necessarily the same as yoga in any way, is viewed as a false and inexpiable religion by most people in the West. Yoga was not learned from the Hindu, it was looted, and replaced with a shallow, cruel, commercial, and disgraceful attempt to Europeanise and trivialise the hobby while selling it the crude sex markets. That is a form of cultural genocide and religion-sacking. That is cultural appropriation.

But this article is not about cultural appropriation, in a way. The distinction was only added to please those offended by the comparison. This article is about movies, as part of a series of Star Wars critiques, and it’s about Natalie Portman.

Long have I harboured a question about Natalie Portman’s career, as it is so vapid yet so prolific, so vain yet so ubiquitous. This is just the opportunity. Natalie Portman got her start in acting as a 16-year-old leading actress on Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. She returned three years later as a 19-year-old lead on Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, where her character dies. After moving on from the Star Wars prequels, she used that resume to enrol at Harvard University to study psychology.

She has actually commented on this, as all Harvard associates eventually do, saying she and her peers felt she was only enrolled because she was in Star Wars, and this insecurity led her to push harder than her friends in her classes and challenge herself by picking ‘harder-than-necessary’ classes. Still, psychology is the most common undergraduate degree major among women, so hardly original. Whether or not Natalie invites the assessment or feels it is correct, this is undoubtedly true; She, as most people, never would have been looked at by Harvard if she did not have some kind of bank of riches or wealth of limelight that could be mined by the admissions board. Natalie might want to be viewed as a genius of “Hebrew literature” who stood out among the crowd, but that is just impossible parlour speak. Not that she deserves to go to Harvard any less than anyone else, no one deserves to go to Harvard, as Harvard in the 20th Century existed for the sole purpose of excluding people who were not rich, famous, or connected: not academics, so Natalie’s lie to herself merely parrots Harvard’s lie to the world.

But I want to go back just a second. Yes, Natalie Portman said she studied Hebrew at Harvard, even if not intensely enough to double-major in it. That is because her name is not actually Natalie Portman. Her name is Neta-Li Herschlag, and she is Jewish. So, studying Hebrew isn’t impressive knowing she speaks fluent Hebrew at home. That is not to undermine literature, as English-speakers still study English literature, but it’s hardly extraordinary. Hershlag, as I will now be exclusively referring to her, is using her association to Harvard, Judaism, and other, lesser, things to seem smart, yet all of those were gifted to her by either birth or Star Wars.

Now comes the question of cultural appropriation. Neta-Li started her acting footprint as an understudy for the part of Elle Woods in Broadway plays. Yes, that Elle Woods, aside Britney Spears no less. It hardly seems like the right role for a good Jewish girl. But lo, there are some who might point out that Hershlag is an Ashkenazi, and therefore not actually Jewish, that is, not a Semitic person. This is a touchy subject for the Jewish community, particularly since the establishment of Israel: Who actually is Jewish, by means of ethnicity or heritage, and not just language and religion? Is there a meaningful distinction between the Semitic Jewish culture that remained in the Levant, the Sephardic Jewish culture that emigrated to Africa and Iberia, the Mizrahi Jewish culture in Iran and Arabia, the Yiddish Jewish culture that stuck around in Germany, and the Ashkenazi Jewish culture that settled Eastern Europe? Really, who knows, and that is a deeper question; a question, perhaps, for a student of Hebrew literature, wherever we should find one.

Nonetheless, Hershlag is most certainly not British. That Israeli-American nuance is fine for the world of “Naboo” in Star Wars, which ideally would defy every concept of the term “ethnicity,” but works less congruously for Elle Woods. In Star Wars, Hershlag was a doppelganger of Keira Knightly, a dyad which has persisted the entirety of Netali’s 30-year-long career. Here too, we find questions.

Netali gave an interview, which I discuss almost on a daily basis among my social circle, where she firmly wanted to establish herself as a kind of British legacy. She said, of herself, “I iron out my Jew curls” and bleaches/dyes her hair, for no particular reason other than she wants to, and thinks it will make her fit in. Netali also went on to say that no one has naturally yellow hair — which is true, they don’t — implying that a non-Jewish, European actress would not face the same questions about her hair she did. Because the concept of hair straightening and hair bleaching are Nazi holdovers in British and American culture, and as someone who personally hates Nazis, this endlessly infuriates me. All the more so because Hershlag identifies as Jewish!

If Hershlag thinks modifying her hair to make it look ‘more European,’ or, more correctly (since almost all young Europeans have brown hair), to make it look more Hitlerite, more ‘Arianised,’ is acceptable, then she must either view herself as European first and Jewish second, or just care very little about the legacy of antisemitic racism. Why else would a person who calls herself Jewish want to alter her appearance so drastically, in order to look like a posterchild for one of the Hitler Youth?

Many Jewish-Americans feel pressures of Nazi antisemitism and colonial racism in the United States, and many Ashkenazim respond to that by changing their names, Nazifying their looks, and abandoning the Jewish religion. Netali retains a veneer of her Jewishness on the inside, within her own self-perception, while turning into the Arianised version of the Elle Woods archetype on the outside, for the world to see. Is she just playing a part? Is there a real difference in the personality and values of Netali Hershlag vs. Natalie Portman?

People don’t treat her as such. Keira Knightly, for instance, is an Englishwoman. Knightly claims she is ‘British,’ not English, but she is definitely English. Intriguingly, Knightly never went to school, reportedly a dyslexic, while Hershlag, in the Jewish stereotype, went straight to Harvard College. I wouldn’t say Hershlag seems like a nice person, she seems like an ordinary person. Remember that she is part of the Star Wars pantheon of small-time actors who were lifted by George Lucas to notoriety, like Mark Hamill (despite him being my favourite Star Wars actor, I can never remember his name), Harrison Ford, and of course, Sir Alec Guinness CBE.

Jokes aside, with all the classically-trained, upper-class, heavy-hitters from Britain — Peter Cushing OBE, Sir Christopher Lee CBE, and Sir Alec — not to mention the affable nobodies from Hamill to Ford, most Star Wars people are considered likable, especially by fans of nerdom.

That is not to say anyone was struggling, as every lead character in Star Wars was already documented as rich and famous by the time they were cast, but they were “nobodies” in the sense they were not household names until after the film became one of the first Hollywood summer “blockbusters” in history.

Most of all, it is undeniable that, other than Lucas, no one defined the Star Wars films as much as Carrie Fisher, if not for a want of contrast. Fisher was the only female character in all three of the movies, and both the predecessor and counterpart to Hershlag’s character in the Star Wars prequels. Does Hershlag meet the comparison?

The two are very different, both personally and on-screen. Fisher at the age of 19 had sex with numerous middle-aged members of the cast, often the only female and only teenager in a room of dozens of men, forbidden to wear a bra or choose her own hairstyle but allowed to partake in the rumoured plethora of drugs on the set. Hershlag, part of Star Wars from 16 to 19, was entirely unremarkable, both in life and profession, not a very impressive actor or much of a hoot. Again, the good Jewish girl. Some blame Netali’s poorly role on the weakness of the prequels compared to the originals, just as some blame Carrie’s bipolar diagnosis for her eccentricity. Both of these are half-truths, as personality and talent can never be substituted for anything other than what they are. Nonetheless, Fisher and Hershlag were both made rich and famous. While Hershlag is the lesser in terms of her performance, she probably got in the end a much better long-term deal.

A boring role meant Netali would not be immediately typecast, though she went on to play exclusively the girl-next-door leading female interest for a male protagonist, much the same as in Star Wars: Episode II. Coming into acting younger meant she could largely leave acting after childhood, then return to it later as an adult experience. Moreover, we never got to see teenage Netali chained to a bed in a gold bikini.

Our good, Jewish girl.

So, if Hershlag is playing roles given mostly to British, or Hitlerite, actresses, is she not taking away from the British actor? There are too many actors in the world. They are overexposed and over paid, seen too much and given too much, as they are in the same camp as clowns, entertainers, and comedians. But, people like to be entertained, and in the world of capitalism where only money is worship in lapse of dignity, anything people like sells, and anything that sells can make people rich, and riches are a substitute for class, if only a thin one. Just as the weak-minded can be fooled by the Force, so are they easily bought and sold. The British or American actor suffers for nothing, and there are too many of them as it is.

But, does Hershlag have a place in displacing them, or moulding in to become one of them? And would it be cultural appropriation? Undeniably, Netali is conforming to something objectionable when she plays simple roles as sex objects and Hitlerite women, embracing if not embodying the racism and problematic nature of Hollywood casting. But then again, it is with her very body that she represents this trend. One could defend Hershlag, saying she is made to do these things, that she is not so much appropriating Western culture for her ends, but more so that Western culture is stifling her true self, at least if she wants to continue to have a role in acting.

An interesting counter-point, but undermined by Hershlag’s particular brand of coy self-promotion, and eagerness in taking on such roles. And are the Jewish people entirely exploited by Hollywood? In many respects, so-called Europeans are exploited by powerful Jewish moguls in media more often than the other way around, even if they are Jewish Europeans themselves. Harvey Weinstein, a Jewish millionaire who sexually assaulted non-Jewish Western women in order to get them roles, his Jewishness hardly made a ripple.

The biggest names in Hollywood: Steven Spielberg, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jerry Seinfeld, Paul Rudd, Marta Kauffman, J.J. Abrams, Scarlett Johansson, Harrison Ford, John Stewart, Louis Szekely, Mila Kunis, Daniel Radcliffe, Rachel Weisz, Gal Gadot, Roseanne Barr, Judd Apatow, Marcus Loew, Lauren Bacall, Adam Sandler, Amy Schumer, Larry David, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cassidy Freeman, Stanley Kubrick, Jennifer Connelly, Richard Dreyfuss, Samuel Goldwyn, Julia Garner, Elijah Allan-Blitz, Kirk Douglas, Ellen Barkin, Ingrid Pitt, Darren Aronofsky, Eva Green, David Geffen, Lesley Ann Warren, Paul Newman, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Ben Stiller, Louis B. Mayer, Alison Brie, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Chuck Lorre.

As Conan O’Brien jokingly stated: “The Cash-ews run Hollywood.” Almost every major production in Hollywood has a massive Jewish section of development. The United States, for whatever reason, is a majority “Christian-identifying” country, but Judaism plays a much more massive role in the culture than Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism combined. Even most of the agnosticism in ‘progressive’ Hollywood values comes largely from material secularism, or Jewish incredulity of Christianity, not an ideological pull towards atheism. Is this cultural reproachment why Jewish people are pulled towards media and entertainment, theatre being a known haven for outcasts and oddballs? The Judeo-Protestant alliance of the Hollywood ilk would seem to disqualify the established Jewish community — rich, interconnected, secular Jewish communities of New York, Los Angeles, and DC — from being an oppressed mass.

An important editor’s note is that the actors listed are: Jewish people who adopt non-Jewish appearances or non-Jewish values to a borderline-racist degree (i.e. Eva Green: Jewish actress who plays roles bookmarked for non-Jewish Europeans), thoroughly Jewish people who refuse to identify as Jewish (i.e. Julia Louis-Dreyfus: Jewish billionaire heiress who plays Jewish characters on TV), or regular observers of Judaism who are really, really famous (i.e. J.J. Abrams: co-director of the controversial Star Wars reboot).

More often behind the scenes than on-screen, but usually leading the show when taking a starring role, the Jewish imprint is inseparable from American movies, media production, television, the comedy scene, finance, and screenwriting. Is Jewish not the ruling order of Hollywood? And then would Europeans be the group on the margins? But why, if Jewish people write, pay for, and put on the shows, are there so few Jewish actors, and of those who are, why do they not look Jewish, or a better question would be, why do they try to avoid looking Jewish, and actively attempt to look Western European? That gives the impression that Jewish people are still marginalised in media, even if they are overrepresented in media, and generally more affluent, interconnected, and educated than those non-Jewish counterparts. Why do Jewish people go out of their way to appeal to racist audiences, and in the process erase their own Jewishness.

Maybe it is because the Hollywood Jewry isn’t actually Jewish. Nothing about their jobs or their behaviours embodies the Jewish religion. Most people in Hollywood in general consider themselves as nonreligious, yet that too, might be an influence of a markedly Jewish trait. Non-Christians in the United States are much more likely to turn to atheism and agnosticism on the one hand or fanatical extremism, likely due to being outcast by the mainstream Protestant dialogue, with liberal Jewish people often going agnostic and conservative Catholics often going supercharged while Muslims live on somewhere off in the shadows of public perception.

Yet nonreligious Jewish people still identify as Jewish, separating the religion of Judaism from the ethnic mark. Faith has nothing to do with appearance, and appearance is the base of antisemitism. Enter non-Jewish-looking Jewish people, usually women with heat-flattened hair, like Netali Hershlag and Gal Greenstein Godot. That is not to say they don’t look Jewish, as in an equal measure they all do and at the same time no one does, since what a Jewish person “looks like” is a narrow heuristic based on problematic cultural expectation. That is not to say they are or aren’t Jewish. But are Jewish people like Natalie Portman being forced to conform to racist society, or are they jumping on the bandwagon of racist society and using it to their advantage? Is there actually a difference between the two?

There is a deeper question lying beneath the surface here: The questions of “Jewish complicity in racism?,” “Jewish participation in neo-Nazism?,” and “If ‘Jew’ is a ‘race’ and ‘White’ is a ‘race’ then why are there ‘White’ and ‘non-White’ Jews?,” which other people have asked before. This article is not to address those questions, but they are acknowledged.

Certainly, there are some Jewish people who attach themselves to racist tendencies and Hitlerite habits out of personal advantage in the racist countries in which they might live. In this narrative, the notional collaborator Jewish community would blame the Europeans for racism and cast themselves as convenient survivors. That is not a uniquely Jewish trait, it is a flawed human trait, bystanderism, which defies religious teachings. Why there is such a prevalence among rich, secular Jewish people, of racism mixed with liberalism, is a concern. It could be as simple that, at a certain point, the trait “rich” might start to cancel out the trait “religious.” Old guard antisemites would be unforgiving regarding hatred towards ‘ethnic Judaism,’ and contemporary racist sentiments would reject Jewish people from the points of heritage and beliefs, but it is not immediately clear if Western neo-Nazis would target non-religious Jewish people who, quote, “pass” as Euro-Christians.

If Ashkenazim, Sephardim, and Mizrahim join Western cultures, ideals, and appearances while abandoning the Jewish religion, are they functionally Jewish at all? In the absence of different brands of generational antisemitism, what is holding back an atheist Ashkenazi from becoming a Nazi themself? The Jewish community and Israel critics have been ablaze with debate about the Eurocentric, Ashkenazim-focused account of Judaism in the West, drawing attention to the issue of inter-Jewish racism and inequality among the diaspora of the Jewish faithful. This question is debated separately for Jewish communities because unity is their faith. Followers of Christianity have always cut one another down over heresies and infidelities, but discourse and diversity have defined the post-Rabbinic tradition. The notion of one Jewish diaspora being more powerful than another, based not even on secularism such as in Christianity, but based solely on racism and adjacency to Christian empires, causes non-Ashkenazi Jewish communities to question that proximity in values and appearance Western Ashkenazi populations have with the goyish counterparts. Even the terms Ashkenazi and Mizrahi have taken fundamentally racist connotations, particularly in the advent of Zionism, to separate the ‘European Jewish’ from the ‘Arabian Jewish,’ in a kind of wartime apartheid of academia; a conflict emblematic of larger paradoxes in modern Israel.

This is not the focus of this article. Obviously, Jewish people living in Western Europe and urban America are more “Western” than people who live somewhere else. And obviously, Western nations have a serious and prolonged issue with racism. However, welding those two facts together, then conflating them with Judaism in some sense, would be a mistake.

There are some racist people in Hollywood who identify as, or are identified as, Jewish. That is not the question. The question is: How does the concept of cultural appropriation contribute to that complex dynamic, of conformity and exploitation in Hollywood, even amongst the big names?

This all comes back to the perceptual balance of power. Just as the term cultural appropriation is defined as a group being in a oppressive position and exploiting something that that group itself has made derogatory.

Is Netali Hershlag appropriating Western culture? In a way, yes. As a rich, powerful Jewish actress, she could hardly be said to be put at a disadvantage to Keira Knightly (Harvard versus dropout, remember), or the millions of aspiring brown-haired actresses who are shunned from Hollywood castings. And yet, she decides to look more like them. Obviously, as an ordinary woman herself, she has been victim to the usual sexism and obsessive demands of producers and directors concerning appearances, but that is hardly so say she is a victim. At any moment, she could deign to take a different part or produce her own movies (I would balk to call them films), rather than be typecast as the sexy and innocent girl-next-door. She lives the life of the good Jewish, girl, but never takes on those types of roles, opting instead for Princess Amidala, ballerina Nina Sayers, valley girl Elle Woods, comic book Jane Foster, or Englishwoman Anne Boleyn. Hershlag could at any moment leave acting to climb the ladder a Harvard A.B. clears the way for. How could Harvard Law School, or subsequently the California Democratic caucus, say no? Who wouldn’t pay for a doctor’s visit with the woman from V For Vendetta?

This is not to say that Jewish people are appropriating or imposing themselves upon Westerners, but it is to say that there is a distinct group of Jewish people who draw from Western or Hitlerite practices while entirely avoiding ‘Juden-haus’ or ‘Euro-trash’ rhetoric that hampers people on both sides of the racist conflict. Portman is Netali’s grandmother’s name, so she does have some kind of loose claim to it, if her cousins are still go by that name and she is close with them, while Natalie is a form of the name Neta-Li, and plenty if not most actors use stage names. Many people do racist or questionable things because they are in fashion. But altogether, one must ask the question why the self ascribed curly-haired Netali Hershlag is appearing is French wig and makeup commercials. Is it raw, unidealistic money? Is it Maybelline? Or it is fake hair, fake lashes, and a fake identity?

Natalie Portman is hardly an inspiring figure for women, playing roles subservient to men, often murdered by her lovers or terribly afflicted herself. This is true in Star Wars, Black Swan, Thor, V For Vendetta, and when she played the wife of wife-killer Henry VIII. Where is the liberty in being bedded by an uxoricidal maniac, be it a tired British period piece, or the obsessive Anakin Skywalker? Body modification of any type is not the product or respect or exchange, and can only be looked down upon as unnecessary and insecure. Acting is lying, but that does not mean the actress must change their looks or change their self to read some lines to a camera.

#Natalie Portman #Hollywood #Judaism #Cultural Appropriation #Star Wars

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and-then-there-were-n0ne · 3 years ago

Text

George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism

Somewhere or other Byron makes use of the French word longeur, and remarks in passing that though in England we happen not to have the word, we have the thing in considerable profusion. In the same way, there is a habit of mind which is now so widespread that it affects our thinking on nearly every subject, but which has not yet been given a name. As the nearest existing equivalent I have chosen the word ‘nationalism’, but it will be seen in a moment that I am not using it in quite the ordinary sense, if only because the emotion I am speaking about does not always attach itself to what is called a nation – that is, a single race or a geographical area. It can attach itself to a church or a class, or it may work in a merely negative sense, against something or other and without the need for any positive object of loyalty.

By ‘nationalism’ I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’. But secondly – and this is much more important – I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests.

Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By ‘patriotism’ I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality. [...]

It does not necessarily mean loyalty to a government or a country, still less to one’s own country, and it is not even strictly necessary that the units in which it deals should actually exist. To name a few obvious examples, Jewry, Islam, Christendom, the Proletariat and the White Race are all of them objects of passionate nationalistic feeling: but their existence can be seriously questioned, and there is no definition of any one of them that would be universally accepted.

It is also worth emphasizing once again that nationalist feeling can be purely negative. There are, for example, Trotskyists who have become simply enemies of the U.S.S.R. without developing a corresponding loyalty to any other unit. When one grasps the implications of this, the nature of what I mean by nationalism becomes a good deal clearer. A nationalist is one who thinks solely, or mainly, in terms of competitive prestige. He may be a positive or a negative nationalist – that is, he may use his mental energy either in boosting or in denigrating – but at any rate his thoughts always turn on victories, defeats, triumphs and humiliations. He sees history, especially contemporary history, as the endless rise and decline of great power units, and every event that happens seems to him a demonstration that his own side is on the up-grade and some hated rival is on the down-grade. But finally, it is important not to confuse nationalism with mere worship of success. The nationalist does not go on the principle of simply ganging up with the strongest side. On the contrary, having picked his side, he persuades himself that it is the strongest, and is able to stick to his belief even when the facts are overwhelmingly against him. Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception. Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is also – since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself – unshakeably certain of being in the right.

Now that I have given this lengthy definition, I think it will be admitted that the habit of mind I am talking about is widespread among the English intelligentsia, and more widespread there than among the mass of the people. For those who feel deeply about contemporary politics, certain topics have become so infected by considerations of prestige that a genuinely rational approach to them is almost impossible. [...] And there are whole strings of kindred questions to which you can only get an honest answer from someone who is indifferent to the whole subject involved, and whose opinion on it is probably worthless in any case. Hence, partly, the remarkable failure in our time of political and military prediction. It is curious to reflect that out of all the ‘experts’ of all the schools, there was not a single one who was able to foresee so likely an event as the Russo-German Pact of 1939. And when news of the Pact broke, the most wildly divergent explanations were of it were given, and predictions were made which were falsified almost immediately, being based in nearly every case not on a study of probabilities but on a desire to make the U.S.S.R. seem good or bad, strong or weak.

Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties. And aesthetic judgements, especially literary judgements, are often corrupted in the same way as political ones. It would be difficult for an Indian nationalist to enjoy reading Kipling or for a Conservative to see merit in Mayakovsky, and there is always a temptation to claim that any book whose tendency one disagrees with must be a bad book from a literary point of view. People of strongly nationalistic outlook often perform this sleight of hand without being conscious of dishonesty. [...]

Obviously there are considerable resemblances between political Catholicism, as exemplified by Chesterton, and Communism. So there are between either of these and for instance Scottish nationalism, Zionism, Antisemitism or Trotskyism. It would be an oversimplification to say that all forms of nationalism are the same, even in their mental atmosphere, but there are certain rules that hold good in all cases. The following are the principal characteristics of nationalist thought:

Obsession. As nearly as possible, no nationalist ever thinks, talks, or writes about anything except the superiority of his own power unit. It is difficult if not impossible for any nationalist to conceal his allegiance. The smallest slur upon his own unit, or any implied praise of a rival organization, fills him with uneasiness which he can only relieve by making some sharp retort. If the chosen unit is an actual country, such as Ireland or India, he will generally claim superiority for it not only in military power and political virtue, but in art, literature, sport, structure of the language, the physical beauty of the inhabitants, and perhaps even in climate, scenery and cooking. He will show great sensitiveness about such things as the correct display of flags, relative size of headlines and the order in which different countries are named. Nomenclature plays a very important part in nationalist thought. Countries which have won their independence or gone through a nationalist revolution usually change their names, and any country or other unit round which strong feelings revolve is likely to have several names, each of them carrying a different implication. The two sides of the Spanish Civil War had between them nine or ten names expressing different degrees of love and hatred. Some of these names (e.g. ‘Patriots’ for Franco-supporters, or ‘Loyalists’ for Government-supporters) were frankly question-begging, and there was no single one of them which the two rival factions could have agreed to use. All nationalists consider it a duty to spread their own language to the detriment of rival languages. [...] Nationalist thought often gives the impression of being tinged by belief in sympathetic magic – a belief which probably comes out in the widespread custom of burning political enemies in effigy, or using pictures of them as targets in shooting galleries.

Instability. The intensity with which they are held does not prevent nationalist loyalties from being transferable. To begin with, as I have pointed out already, they can be and often are fastened upon some foreign country. One quite commonly finds that great national leaders, or the founders of nationalist movements, do not even belong to the country they have glorified. Sometimes they are outright foreigners, or more often they come from peripheral areas where nationality is doubtful. Examples are Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon, de Valera, Disraeli, Poincaré, Beaverbrook. The Pan-German movement was in part the creation of an Englishman, Houston Chamberlain. For the past fifty or a hundred years, transferred nationalism has been a common phenomenon among literary intellectuals. With Lafcadio Hearne the transference was to Japan, with Carlyle and many others of his time to Germany, and in our own age it is usually to Russia. But the peculiarly interesting fact is that re-transference is also possible. A country or other unit which has been worshipped for years may suddenly become detestable, and some other object of affection may take its place with almost no interval. In the first version of H. G. Wells’s Outline of History, and others of his writings about that time, one finds the United States praised almost as extravagantly as Russia is praised by Communists today: yet within a few years this uncritical admiration had turned into hostility. The bigoted Communist who changes in a space of weeks, or even of days, into an equally bigoted Trotskyist is a common spectacle. In continental Europe Fascist movements were largely recruited from among Communists, and the opposite process may well happen within the next few years. What remains constant in the nationalist is his own state of mind: the object of his feelings is changeable, and may be imaginary. But for an intellectual, transference has an important function which I have already mentioned shortly in connection with Chesterton. It makes it possible for him to be much more nationalistic – more vulgar, more silly, more malignant, more dishonest – than he could ever be on behalf of his native country, or any unit of which he had real knowledge. When one sees the slavish or boastful rubbish that is written about Stalin, the Red army, etc. by fairly intelligent and sensitive people, one realizes that this is only possible because some kind of dislocation has taken place. In societies such as ours, it is unusual for anyone describable as an intellectual to feel a very deep attachment to his own country. Public opinion – that is, the section of public opinion of which he as an intellectual is aware – will not allow him to do so. Most of the people surrounding him are sceptical and disaffected, and he may adopt the same attitude from imitativeness or sheer cowardice: in that case he will have abandoned the form of nationalism that lies nearest to hand without getting any closer to a genuinely internationalist outlook. He still feels the need for a Fatherland, and it is natural to look for one somewhere abroad. Having found it, he can wallow unrestrainedly in exactly those emotions from which he believes that he has emancipated himself. God, the King, the Empire, the Union Jack – all the overthrown idols can reappear under different names, and because they are not recognized for what they are they can be worshipped with a good conscience. Transferred nationalism, like the use of scapegoats, is a way of attaining salvation without altering one’s conduct.

Indifference to Reality. All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage – torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians – which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side. The Liberal News Chronicle published, as an example of shocking barbarity, photographs of Russians hanged by the Germans, and then a year or two later published with warm approval almost exactly similar photographs of Germans hanged by the Russians. It is the same with historical events. [...] If one looks back over the past quarter of a century, one finds that there was hardly a single year when atrocity stories were not being reported from some part of the world: and yet in not one single case were these atrocities – in Spain, Russia, China, Hungary, Mexico, Amritsar, Smyrna – believed in and disapproved of by the English intelligentsia as a whole. Whether such deeds were reprehensible, or even whether they happened, was always decided according to political predilection. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them. For quite six years the English admirers of Hitler contrived not to learn of the existence of Dachau and Buchenwald. And those who are loudest in denouncing the German concentration camps are often quite unaware, or only very dimly aware, that there are also concentration camps in Russia. Huge events like the Ukraine famine of 1933, involving the deaths of millions of people, have actually escaped the attention of the majority of English russophiles. Many English people have heard almost nothing about the extermination of German and Polish Jews during the present war. Their own antisemitism has caused this vast crime to bounce off their consciousness. In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one’s own mind. Every nationalist is haunted by the belief that the past can be altered. He spends part of his time in a fantasy world in which things happen as they should – in which, for example, the Spanish Armada was a success or the Russian Revolution was crushed in 1918 – and he will transfer fragments of this world to the history books whenever possible. Much of the propagandist writing of our time amounts to plain forgery. Material facts are suppressed, dates altered, quotations removed from their context and doctored so as to change their meaning. Events which, it is felt, ought not to have happened are left unmentioned and ultimately denied. In 1927 Chiang Kai-Shek boiled hundreds of Communists alive, and yet within ten years he had become one of the heroes of the Left. The re-alignment of world politics had brought him into the anti-Fascist camp, and so it was felt that the boiling of the Communists ‘didn’t count’, or perhaps had not happened. The primary aim of propaganda is, of course, to influence contemporary opinion, but those who rewrite history do probably believe with part of their minds that they are actually thrusting facts into the past. When one considers the elaborate forgeries that have been committed in order to show that Trotsky did not play a valuable part in the Russian civil war, it is difficult to feel that the people responsible are merely lying. More probably they feel that their own version was what happened in the sight of God, and that one is justified in rearranging the records accordingly. Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one part of the world from another, which makes it harder and harder to discover what is actually happening. There can often be a genuine doubt about the most enormous events. For example, it is impossible to calculate within millions, perhaps even tens of millions, the number of deaths caused by the present war. The calamities that are constantly being reported – battles, massacres, famines, revolutions – tend to inspire in the average person a feeling of unreality. One has no way of verifying the facts, one is not even fully certain that they have happened, and one is always presented with totally different interpretations from different sources. What were the rights and wrongs of the Warsaw rising of August 1944? Is it true about the German gas ovens in Poland? Who was really to blame for the Bengal famine? Probably the truth is discoverable, but the facts will be so dishonestly set forth in almost any newspaper that the ordinary reader can be forgiven either for swallowing lies or failing to form an opinion. The general uncertainty as to what is really happening makes it easier to cling to lunatic beliefs. Since nothing is ever quite proved or disproved, the most unmistakable fact can be impudently denied. Moreover, although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat, revenge, the nationalist is often somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do this by scoring off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether they support him. All nationalist controversy is at the debating-society level. It is always entirely inconclusive, since each contestant invariably believes himself to have won the victory. Some nationalists are not far from schizophrenia, living quite happily amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connexion with the physical world.

[...] If one harbours anywhere in one’s mind a nationalistic loyalty or hatred, certain facts, although in a sense known to be true, are inadmissible. Here are just a few examples. I list below five types of nationalist, and against each I append a fact which it is impossible for that type of nationalist to accept, even in his secret thoughts:

British Tory. Britain will come out of this war with reduced power and prestige.

Communist. If she had not been aided by Britain and America, Russia would have been defeated by Germany.

Irish Nationalist. Eire can only remain independent because of British protection.

Trotskyist. The Stalin régime is accepted by the Russian masses.

Pacifist. Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.

All of these facts are grossly obvious if one’s emotions do not happen to be involved: but to the kind of person named in each case they are also intolerable, and so they have to be denied, and false theories constructed upon their denial. I come back to the astonishing failure of military prediction in the present war. It is, I think, true to say that the intelligentsia have been more wrong about the progress of the war than the common people, and that they were more swayed by partisan feelings. The average intellectual of the Left believed, for instance, that the war was lost in 1940, that the Germans were bound to overrun Egypt in 1942, that the Japanese would never be driven out of the lands they had conquered, and that the Anglo-American bombing offensive was making no impression on Germany. He could believe these things because his hatred for the British ruling class forbade him to admit that British plans could succeed. There is no limit to the follies that can be swallowed if one is under the influence of feelings of this kind. I have heard it confidently stated, for instance, that the American troops had been brought to Europe not to fight the Germans but to crush an English revolution. One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool. [...] The point is that as soon as fear, hatred, jealousy and power worship are involved, the sense of reality becomes unhinged. And, as I have pointed out already, the sense of right and wrong becomes unhinged also. There is no crime, absolutely none, that cannot be condoned when ‘our’ side commits it. Even if one does not deny that the crime has happened, even if one knows that it is exactly the same crime as one has condemned in some other case, even if one admits in an intellectual sense that it is unjustified – still one cannot feel that it is wrong. Loyalty is involved, and so pity ceases to function.

The reason for the rise and spread of nationalism is far too big a question to be raised here. [...] It can be plausibly argued, for instance – it is even probably true – that patriotism is an inoculation against nationalism, that monarchy is a guard against dictatorship, and that organized religion is a guard against superstition. Or again, it can be argued that no unbiased outlook is possible, that all creeds and causes involve the same lies, follies, and barbarities; and this is often advanced as a reason for keeping out of politics altogether. I do not accept this argument, if only because in the modern world no one describable as an intellectual can keep out of politics in the sense of not caring about them. I think one must engage in politics – using the word in a wide sense – and that one must have preferences: that is, one must recognize that some causes are objectively better than others, even if they are advanced by equally bad means. As for the nationalistic loves and hatreds that I have spoken of, they are part of the make-up of most of us, whether we like it or not. Whether it is possible to get rid of them I do not know, but I do believe that it is possible to struggle against them, and that this is essentially a moral effort. It is a question first of all of discovering what one really is, what one’s own feelings really are, and then of making allowance for the inevitable bias. If you hate and fear Russia, if you are jealous of the wealth and power of America, if you despise Jews, if you have a sentiment of inferiority towards the British ruling class, you cannot get rid of those feelings simply by taking thought. But you can at least recognize that you have them, and prevent them from contaminating your mental processes. The emotional urges which are inescapable, and are perhaps even necessary to political action, should be able to exist side by side with an acceptance of reality. But this, I repeat, needs a moral effort, and contemporary English literature, so far as it is alive at all to the major issues of our time, shows how few of us are prepared to make it.

#George Orwell #nationalism

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cursed-ice-spirits · 4 years ago

Text

HPMA PROFILE: ASTRID REES

Profile Template by @hogwartsmystory (I’M SORRY FORGOT TO CREDIT YOU)

IDENTITY

Birth Name: Astrid Lord

Current Name: Astrid Rees

Gender: Female

Age: 17

Birth Date: October 10th, 1993

Species: Metamorphmagus

Blood Status: Half-blood

Sexuality: Lesbian

Alignment: True Neutral

Ethnicity: Vietnamese / Greek

Nationality: Greek

Residence: Ipswich, England

THE MAGE

Wand:

Hornbeam.

Dragon heartstring

14 inches

Pliable

Hornbeam selects for its life mate the talented witch or wizard with a single, pure passion, which some might call obsession - more kindly - vision, which will almost always be realized. Hornbeam wands adapt more quickly than almost any other to their owner’s style of magic, and will become so personalized, so quickly, that other people will find them extremely difficult to use even for the most simple of spells.

Hornbeam wands likewise absorb their owner’s code of honor, whatever that might be, and will refuse to perform acts - whether for good or ill - that do not tally with their master’s principles. A particularly fine-tuned and sentient wand.

Animagus: N/A

Misc Magical Abilities:

Caldwell Veer - Ability to HOST spirits. Spirits can possess her partially and fully and speak through her, even use her body regardless if she gives permission or not, and she is 100% aware of what’s happening when she’s possessed. This is more of a passive ability than anything without the spirit magic, and is more likely to work against her than work with her. While Perseus and Theseus can protect her from spirits with horrible intentions just fine, if she is without the control of her body for too long, she can be more vulnerable, and her Greek ancestors can often… get carried away while controlling her body.

Boggart Form: Herself staring out blankly with hollow eyes. She’s not doing anything. She’s not saying anything. She’s just standing there, like a husk.

Riddikulus Form: Laughter. Laughter spilling out from herself, eyes glinting, strong and proud. And in control of herself. Laughter, as she spun around and danced with glee

Amortentia: (What do they smell like?) Raspberries, roses and chamomile

Amortentia: (What do they smell?) Strawberries, honeycomb, lemon cheesecake, thyme and freshly cut grass

Patronus: Drakon

Patronus Memory: Unknown.

Mirror of Erised: A family that actually loves her

Specialized/Favourite Spells:

Non-verbal magic. Mute.

Curabitur verbum, a spell she created herself to summon words above her head to translate her sign language

Ebublio, learned as a just in case, and in an attempt to destroy a horcrux

Nebulus, learned to conceal her from sight if she ever needs to make a quick get-away

Relashio, learned because she hated being grabbed and will use it without hesitation

Sonorous, learned to project her classmates’ rude words and get them in trouble

APPEARANCE

Faceclaim: Veronica Ngo (base for artbreeder)

Voiceclaim: Phillipa Soo

Game Appearance: N/A

Height: 6’2

Weight: 170 pounds

Physique: Tall and lean, with muscles as someone who specializes with dual swords. She’s strong, and it shows. (varies as a metamorphmagus)

Eye Colour: Black, shining blue in the light (varies as a metamorphmagus)

Hair Colour: Black (varies as a metamorphmagus)

Skin Tone: Light tan (varies as a metamorphmagus)

Body Modifications: Ear piercings on both earlobes and three helix piercings. The helix piercings are gold bands that curl around her ear and the piercings on her ears are intricate crystals.

Scarring: A large V-shaped scar on her back, and a scar over her right eye

Inventory:

Wand

Wood Carving tools

Thick sticks of wood

A knife

Two gold rings that can turn into her swords

A rose pin with a hidden knife

A handkerchief that she never touches with her bare hands

A hand mirror

Fashion: Black and red. She dresses like a goth, with ripped leggings and black attire, chokers, spikes, boots, and fingerless gloves. She wears bits of red, but her most obvious red clothing is her flannel, which she wears around her waist during hot weather. She would go for more simple and practical black clothing if she is in a school or home setting, but will relax into a more intricate clothing if placed in a formal and fancy setting. It is noted that she will never wear colors other than red, as she thinks it doesn’t fit her.

ALLEGIANCES

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

Ilvermorny House: Horned Serpent

Affiliations/Organizations:

Slytherin House

Chosens by Aphrodite

Olympia School of Magic (school by @kathrynalicemc)

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Professions:

Undecided

HOGWARTS INFORMATION

Class Proficiencies:

Astronomy: E

Charms: E

DADA: O

Flying: O

Herbology: A

History of Magic: E

Potions: E

Transfiguration: O

Electives:

Magical Theory: O

Ancient Runes: O

Quidditch: Chaser

Extra Curricular:

Quidditch

Gladiator Dueling Club (formerly; in Olympia)

Arts Club

Dungeons and Dragons club

Favourite Professors: N/A. No opinion

Least Favourite Professors: N/A. No opinion

RELATIONSHIPS

Father: Jacob Vincent Lord

Pureblood

Slytherin

Black hair, black eyes, light tan skin

Natural Legilimens

Researcher in mind magic and legilimency. Isolated himself away because of what happened during school, and handed the family to Rebecca.

Conceived her one day when he was venturing in Greece and had a one-night stand with a greek woman, who abandoned her at an orphanage

He has no idea of her existence. It is only when she showed up out of nowhere that he knew. He does try to be there but Astrid is distrustful of everyone around her so it’s awkward

Mother: Unknown Greek Woman

Jacob does not remember much about the women he conceived Astrid with, but he did remember she was a beautiful woman with dark brown curly hair and tan skin

Her intentions of abandoning Astrid at the orphanage are largely unknown, regardless if it’s good or bad but nonetheless, she was left there.

There is not much known about her, but what is known is that she is from a bloodline of two Greek heroes in greek myths, Perseus and Theseus, son of Zeus and Poseidon respectively

It is unknown where this woman is right now, but Astrid does not want to meet her, so it’s unlikely she ever will.

Love Interest: N/A

Best Friends: N/A

Rival: N/A

Enemy: Velia Caldwell and her followers

Dormmates: N/A

Pets: None

Closest Canon Friends: TBD

Closest MC Friends: None so far but do let me know if you want to be. Fair warning, it will take a while for Astrid to warm up to you

BACKGROUND/HISTORY

Before you get to know Astrid, you must get to know her father. Jacob Lord, the man who got expelled while searching for the fabled Cursed Vaults. Despite years after the Cursed Vaults were long broken, the trauma was still there, of being stuck in the portrait and putting his sister in danger. So, for the next few years after his sister graduated, he chose to isolate himself

His sister handed the Head position to him until he returned, and one of the places he went to clear his head was Greece. While at a bar, he met a woman that will later become Astrid’s mother. Months later, Astrid was born

She was abandoned at an orphanage, and as a child, she was loud and proud, never afraid to speak her mind. She was isolated and a loner, and years of bullying built up layers and layers of trust issues, and rendered herself mute. She stayed at this orphanage until she was old enough to attend Olympia School of Magic. She did not trust anyone, but slowly, slowly, she made herself a home at Olympia.

Until one day, one of the followers of Velia Caldwell traveling in Greece for a mission spotted her. While they can’t take their anger out on Rebecca’s children, they can take their anger out on Jacob’s, and so while she slept, she was taken from her home and to Britain, the memory of her life erased.

Led to believe she was given up to them, she lived in bitterness as she was treated as a weapon. They trained up her powers, and used her to summon spirits to her mind, and as her powers grew, her two ancestors slowly slipped into her mind, until the time was right.

Perseus woke up first, wielding her swords, and used them to cut through and kill. Theseus woke up next, advising her on what to do next. She fled through the floo, carrying the handkerchief the followers insisted on protecting, and landed in Ipswich

Shortly after, she was found by a staff of Hogwarts, and taken to attend Hogwarts, where the events of her meeting her biological family took place

PERSONALITY

Manipulative: In order to survive the orphanage and Velia’s followers, she needed to be manipulative. This is a defining trait of hers, as she puts on layers and layers of masks to hide. She can turn from quiet and calm, to cruel and merciless in seconds. She’s a good liar, and she knows how to use people and get them to do what she wants. Add it to her ability as a metamorphmagus, she can twist people and use them easily. It’s not to say she’s a bad person per se, she’s just a traumatized girl who uses this to defend herself, not that it’s an excuse if she ever hurts someone

Distrustful and Paranoid: With how much she’s been through, it’s honestly no wonder she’s built up trust issues. She doesn’t trust anyone around her, and it’s only after a series of tests that allows her to trust you. She can distrust the right person and be proven of her suspicions… or she distrust the wrong person, and it can lead to consequences

Reclusive: Combined with her trauma and her trust issues, she would rather stay away from people then to interact with friends. She’s quiet and she doesn’t mind being alone. She’s not sullen though, she’s just quiet, and a loner.

Self-Loathing: If there’s anyone Astrid distrusts more than anything, it’s herself. She does not think she deserves to be loved and upon discovering that she’s a lesbian, she believed that she doesn’t deserve that kind of love.

Protective: Those who pushed and pushed to gain her trust proved themselves as trustworthy, and Astrid is protective over these selected few. She keeps them close to her heart, and she can and will fight fiercely for them. But she knows what’s her fight and what’s not.

Intelligent: Astrid is smart. She needed to be. She invented a spell that allows her to communicate with others and she has no hesitation in using the magic she can use and manipulating it to something out of the box. She takes in everything that went unnoticed by everyone else. It’s not like it’s hard. Everyone ignores the quiet person

MISC

As stated before, Astrid is a selective mute. She doesn’t like to talk and prefers not to. She communicates through sign language, which she later makes a spell to help translate it.

Astrid struggles at magic. When it comes to a real fight, she’s more likely to use her swords or base her magic around them. Her grades are what they are because she worked to get them where they need to be but in reality she’s only average.

When it comes to learning new spells, she will have to practice them over and over again in order to get a handle on how they work, and due to being mute, she’s a master at non-verbal magic, so if she masters a certain spell, she can cast it without a sound or warning.

She’s ingenious enough to create a spell, but she needed the magic to make it work, so therefore she’s jealous of anyone who can get it on the first try.

She learned her skills in sword fighting from the gladiator duels at her former school and although her memories of her former life were erased, her body still remembers how to use her swords and she won’t forget it if she continues to polish it up. It’s her proudest skill

Her ancestors can only speak through her, not to her, and because she is very aware of what happens around her when she’s possessed, they often take over her body to advise her. Due to being children of Zeus and Posiedon, they would often argue over what’s best for her, and the constant switching of control leads to horrible headaches.

She hated her will being taken from her. It’s her biggest fear. That one day, it’ll be taken from her too long that she will forever become a husk, as that’ll happen if she’s not in control for far too long.

Astrid is noted to look a lot like her father, a fact that she resents once she finds out, not because she hated her father but because she couldn’t bear looking like someone who she believed had left her all alone. Once she finds out that he didn’t, she grows into it as time passes by. Her looks are the main reason how her biological family came to know who she is.

She has a wood carving hobby. She likes playing with her carving knife when she’s bored and when she’s struck with inspiration she can be seen whittling away at some wood. That’s why she carries it around.

Interested in Ancient Greece for very obvious reasons

The moment Rebecca saw her, she knew she’s Jacob’s daughter and was furious that he let her grow up without a family, as he knew what an impact it had on her. When Astrid is settled, Rebecca set off ready to make a man regret being born, only to realize he didn’t know

When it comes to her manipulation and masks, think of Claude from Three Houses, except she’ll be wearing a different type of mask, but the intention of appearing as someone you aren’t stays . Generally, she’s quiet (obviously) and she can be helpful, but she’s aloof. Of course, that is but a mask. Get past one and you’ll know she’s bitter, and she’ll want you to stay away from her. Get past another, you’ll know she’s a lot softer than you think.

#magic awakened #harry potter magic awakened #hpma #hpma oc #profile #astrid rees #i know she has a different tag but whatever #anyway guess who decided to make another hpma oc and revived an olympia oc of mine? :D this bitch #this surprisingly didn't take too long but that's bc most of her backstory was already written up in my head #i'm wondering if you guys can see the little hints i threw in bc i laughed while creating her. only one knows and she's not here #anyway here's astrid!! my bby

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