Yknow, I know we like making fun of Kaiba for being so obsessed with Atem that he builds a portal to the afterlife "just to challenge the pharaoh to a card game", but I find it so fascinating at the same time because in many ways, Kaiba's grief feels a bit like a reflection of the fans' grief about Atem's departure.
Granted none of us can do the insane bullshit that Kaiba can lol, but many fans do think that having Atem depart isn't real closure, no? For many, Atem dying in this way isn't him 'moving on', it's him just, dying. He was a boy who never got to be a man, a boy who never got to live, and according to the narrative the only way he gets to live is to... die? The hell does that mean, bish he should've stayed! He should've gotten to experience life's ups and downs, play card games, eat falafel, just live life. This is absolutely unfair, it doesn't fit with the story's theme of choice vs. fate, and so and so forth.
And so going to Kaiba, I think a bit of his grief represents that. His lack of closure in his relationship with Atem, the one person who managed to understand him, whose strength he respected, hoped to surpass... is just fucken dead? The hell does that mean, bish he should've stayed! I needed to beat him! I needed him to be here! I need my fucken friend rival back!
And because of that, he goes through everything possible to bring him back. He takes the Puzzle, he disregards Yuugi's worth as just "a vessel", and even after, he still builds that damn elevator just to see Atem again. It's that wish of "he needs to come back" that fans have, only to its absolute extreme, and I find that parallels to it very interesting.
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(Click for better quality.) Based on an au that popped in my brain the other day that STILL refuses to leave me. I made a brief, bare basics post about this yesterday (featured under the break).
To expand on it a bit though, I feel like WW Link’s appearance would reflect how he looked during his adventures. That is to say, regardless of the fact he looks like a kid, I like to think he lived a long happy life. Still, I feel like his adventures had the biggest impact on the rest of his life, and I felt his appearance as a ghost/spirit would reflect that. I’m still trying to decide if I want to have him wearing his Outset outfit or the iconic green tunic. Maybe he can switch between the two as he pleases? Idk. 🤷♀️
I feel like ST Link grows up calling WW Link “Wind” or even various variations of “Sailor”. I know the “Wind” nickname has been used in a lot of Link crossover stuff, and I love it and it obviously fits him well. Plus, Niko definitely tells ST Link all about “the Hero of Winds”. ST Link’s a smart kid. He eventually connects the dots. I want WW Link to have a nickname for ST Link too. A term of endearment kinda thing more than anything else, y’know? I’m still deciding on what the nickname(s) would be though.
Transcript under the cut.
Niko: Just sit tight little Link. Ol’ Niko’ll take good care of ya.
I better go see about ordering supplies… How do I get food for him? maybe Alfonzo could bring some from Castle Town and then I could see about…
WW Link: Niko!! you can’t leave the baby unsupervised on a table!
Well, looks like it’s just you and me, huh, kid? This is fine! I’m an adult… even if I don’t look it anymore for some reason… a-and an older brother! I can keep an eye on ya! (Reminds me of being with Grandma and Aryll…)
Oh, you’re awake! Hello. it’s great to meet ya, Link! (It’s a bit weird to call someone else my name.)
Wait a second… WAIT YOU CAN SEE ME?!
*ST Link starts crying at the sudden shout*
WW Link: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell. Please don’t cry. I was just surprised is all.
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This is not a perfect analogy but I am making it anyway to try to convey what being online has been like for me lately.
Seeing people say "Oh, Jews are fine, I just hate zionists!" is like seeing "Oh, women are fine, I just hate feminists!"
Zionism and feminism are both very broad socio-political movements that have changed focus over time, that ostensibly have some very basic core tenets but you really need to ask the specific person you're talking to how they personally define it to be sure.
Both have been subject to legitimate criticism, and hostile reactionary bullshit. Had waves, sub-movements, splinters, people with damn near opposite views sharing the term and people with seemingly identical views rejecting it.
You can give working, broad definitions like these:
Feminism is the belief that all people should be treated equally regardless of gender, with a focus on women's rights due to systemic oppression.
Zionism is the belief that all peoples have the right to self determination and safety, with a focus on Jewish people finding it in Israel.
You can also give different definitions! Many people give different definitions! Many people also hold these beliefs but use different names for them for various reasons.
There are self-described zionists who are jingoistic, racist, etc, and who attribute those attitudes to their zionism. Just as there are feminists who are misandrist, bio-essentialist, transphobic, homophobic, and so on, who attribute those attitudes to their feminism.
There are also incredibly selfless, compassionate activists working for positive change in the world who consider themselves zionists and feminists.
It has been very jarring to see people, who I respect, uncritically reblogging posts or headlines that use "zionists" as a stand in for "bad people", just as jarring as it would be to see them sharing things that use "feminists" that way. Especially when those posts contain easily debunked conspiracy theories that I know you'd have seen right through if the OP said "Jews" but because they said "zionists" you swallowed it whole.
I am not asking anyone to stop sharing important information, petitions, news articles, resources, and so on. I am asking you to slow down and stop spreading inflammatory language that paints a broad socio-political movement for Jewish self-determination as inherently bad. The same way I would ask you not to spread inflammatory language that paints gender equality & women's liberation as inherently bad.
If the information is important, please look for other, more neutrally worded posts. Or verify the links yourself and make a fresh post! There is no situation online in which the only way to share information must be to spread such language.
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Day 15
We are set to arrive on Fendaar in two cycles. As we are currently stuck on the SIIR Noxos, I have concluded that the passages of time that I am free of duties would be best spent continuing to observe the human. The human, on the other hand, seemed to have different plans in that matter, as it took me an unusually long amount of time to locate her.
As I eventually found her, she seemed to be working on one of the control panels in the main control room, so I may excuse her absence with duties she had to attend to. As she saw me, although, she seemed rather…excited (this is obviously mere speculation, as the study of the Terran so far has provided far too little evidence to prove such theories)?
As she rolled out from under the control board and sighted me, her face once again split into a wide opening revealing her horrifying amount of teeth.
"Hey! Dude!", she said, raising to her full height and stepping towards me, still baring her teeth, although I did not recoil, as I did not want to seem impolite. She raised her arms, each pointing into a different direction, away from their connection to the human's body.
"Human Quinn. How are you?"
"Me? I‘m fine, the whole 'wandering around in space' thing just made me throw up, I honestly don‘t know why they insisted on keeping me there for two whole days."
The ends of her fingers, studded with claw-like (rather short and rounded instead of sharp, perhaps they were not meant to function as claws at all, or perhaps the beings on Terra were far different from what I knew, and therefore a shape like this was far more useful to hunt) protuberances, scraped over the back of the connection between her head and her upper body. If I interpreted her facial expression correctly, she seemed to be thinking.
"Maybe I got a light concussion too, I’m not entirely sure. But it's improbable, because I’m fine now."
I decided to focus on one piece of information at a time. "Well, this "throwing up" can certainly not be a healthy nor normal process, otherwise, it would not seem so violently painful and involuntary, would it?"
"Well it‘s not…unnatural, it‘s just something that can happen. And about health, it‘s not unhealthy, it usually helps us to get rid of stuff that is bad for our bodies!", she eludicated, moving one of her arms in a rather random manner.
"The scientists have concluded that this fluid is highly acidic. If this 'stuff' is so harmful to you, wouldn‘t it just dissolve in this fluid before being able to cause any further harm?"
Quinn seemed to think about that.
"Well, just because it gets dissolved, doesn‘t mean it‘s gone, you know? It's still in our bodies, and we have to get rid of it somehow. And if it needs to be fast, we throw up. Honestly, I‘d definitely explain this further to you, but Biology‘s never really been my strongest subject, ya know what I mean?"
I did not, in fact, know what she meant, but I decided against questioning her further.
After a pause the Terran spoke up again: "So, this planet we're landing on..." "Fendaar.", I clarified. "Right. So, this planet that we‘re going to, it‘s a desert, right?" "That is correct." "So, is it a sand, an ice or, I guess you could also count rock desert? 'Cuz on my planet, we‘ve got all of those types."
"Fendaar‘s ecosystem is mostly made up out of sandlike landscapes with rather scarce vegetation and biodiversity. Most of the planets in system 36-54 have rather extreme temperature ranges, and Fendaar is no exception.", I eludicated.
"Alright, cool.", she spoke, rolling back under the underside of the control panel she had been working on previously. She seemed to be sitting, or rather lying, on a piece of metal with four small wheels attached to it, allowing her to move it around.
"Your planet.", I initiated.
"Yeah?", she responded, while continuing her work on the wiring.
"Am I assuming correctly that your planet has a far bigger biodiversity?"
"Oh, yeah.", there was a small spring in her voice, as if she had let out air in the middle of speaking. "Big biodiversity. We‘ve got deserts and rainforests, coral reefs and permafrost - although perhaps not for that long anymore - mountain ranges and all that stuff."
"Interesting.", I supplied, for lack of a better response. If Terra had such differences in temperature and landscapes, it was a logical conclusion that the humans had evolved to survive under such circumstances.
"Yeah."
It was unusually quiet for some time. That was, until Quinn rolled out from the underside of the control panels.
"Alright, I‘m done." She took a deep breath before opening her mouth once again. Then, all of a sudden, the muscles of her face started contracting as if she was plagued by an invisible pain. Her eyes squeezed shut and she let out horrifying noise, holding an arm angled in front of her nose and mouth. The noise itself was not particularly loud or long, but I recoiled either way, as a measure of safety. I could not be certain if this gesture was meant to harm me, after all.
Quinn‘s arm sank down again as her other hand rubbed at her nose. She huffed, a sound far less threatening than the one she had produced a moment ago. One of the hair patches above her visual organs raised itself, prompting the question to arise if human hair was controlled by muscles or if it had a mind of its own, although this was a question that could be further investigated later. One of the corners of her mouth raised, revealing the seemingly sharpest teeth in her mouth.
"I guess dust is an inter-galactic thing, huh?"
I did not respond. Her face muscles contracted, causing the skin above her visual organs to crease.
"Hey, you okay? You‘re looking a little spooked over there."
"Human, I do not wish to cause you discomfort, but, if I may ask, what was the purpose of the noise you just uttered?"
She did not respond for a moment, blinking with both of her eyes as she stared at me. It was quite unsettling, considering her previous explanation, that most humans preferred not being stared at.
"I…sneezed?" The creases in the skin above her eyes deepened.
My front pliers uttered another rattling sound. "What is this 'sneezing'? What purpose does it serve?" I admit, I was quite curious. Terrans seemed much more complex than I had previously assumed.
She paused, seemingly to think of an answer. "Well, it‘s like…if something is bothering us at or in out nose, like dust, for example, it‘s kind of the natural response to that. To keep things out of our bodies that don‘t belong there."
"Human bodies seem to require a lot of defense mechanisms.", I commented.
She raised and lowered the connection of her arms to her upper body, baring her teeth once again while raising herself to her full height, using one of her arms as support.
"Y’know, it’s surprisingly hard to explain something you’re so used to to someone who’s never heard of it. I guess I still have to work on the whole 'awareness that I‘m around aliens' thing. S‘ kind of surreal."
She patted off her clothing, as if to remove non-existent filth once again. I had noticed the past few cycles that most of her clothing seemed to consist of several, usually differently-coloured, pieces of fabric.
Her clothes usually covered her body from the connection between her arms and torso to the connection between her legs and, presumably, her feet. Her feet were usually also covered, although I could not determine the purpose it was supposed to serve in the environment we are currently in, although the theory that the conditions on Earth are vastly different compared to the ones on the SIIR Noxos is gaining more probability, based on the Terran's narrations.
The human seemed to evaluate a question she wanted to ask (this is, of course, a mere speculation based on previous observations: her face muscles were contracted to form a crease over her visual organs, which could so far most likely be interpreted as confusion, thoughtfulness or discomfort; her head was both slightly raised and tilted to one side at the same time, a gesture that was most likely supposed to convey an ongoing thought process).
Although, before she could utter a noise, V-7 informed us of a request from the Vitrichl to gather for a matter of importance.
The purpose of his summoning was to divide the crew into several smaller groups that were to be assigned with different tasks to fulfill once we sucessfully landed on Fendaar.
I was grouped with the Terran, which was unsurprising, as well as Tkzt, a member of the species that is widely known across the galaxies as Ctzas (it is to note that the Ctzas have not evolved any form of written language and communicate exclusively through clicking and chittering sounds. The written forms of, for example, names of this species, are written by other species to produce approximately the same sound as the Ctzas make when recited verbally).
Tkzt, as a member of the unit controlling supply chains and keeping a list of the stock of the SIIR Noxos, would make a helpful addition in our task of seeking out the nearest settlement in order to stock up on supplies.
After all matters of importance were settled, the crew dissipated, continuing their respective tasks. The Terran was ordered to stay and to assist the Vitrichl in another matter, which is the reason I did not cross paths with the human again for the rest of this cycle.
Despite this, I am positive that accompanying the human on an foreign planet will give me a further insight into the species' mannerisms and interaction manners with foreign species, which will prove to be helpful further on in studying the human.
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I can't get this out of my head. It's just something that ive had rattling around. If this doesn't make much sense I'm sorry lol but.
Do you ever think about if the Spartan ii's ever met one of those siblings without realizing it?
Like. John meeting a young female marine. She's quick witted and wicked smart. There is almost nothing she will back down from. At least not until she gets a "win." She will never leave one of her teammates behind. She's also known among her friends for her dry sense of humor.
One day she runs into John whiles he's out of armor. She never realizes that he's the Master Chief as they stare at one another. Blue eyes look into blue. The roots of her hair are blonde. Contrasted against a dark brown. They share the same smattering of freckles. Dusted along their face and down to their arms. Petering out along the backs of their hands.
And when she smiles there's a gap in her front teeth. (One tooth is chipped from a hard won game of King of the Hill.) She jokes that they match.
Apparently her brother had to. Her parents told her about him. How he had passed a few years before she was born. Her mother told her about her and her brothers shared a constellation of freckles.
Maybe Kelly runs into a pair of twin engineers. One is a girl. The other a boy. The girl has her hair cropped short. It's faded green. The boy has long hair. Held back in a tight braid. It's blue.
They strike up a conversation with Kelly one day. Mostly out of boredom. At one point talking about how they had been on their schools track team. Twin Terrors they had been called. They were the fastest in the entirety of their schools career.
They are the only two out of the group of engineers and scientists that could match her humor.
Kelly never sees them again after that. But she thinks about them often enough. About how they all shared the same accented voice.
About the day they all raced.
She won. Of course. But something about it made her feel like she was missing something. She matched it to the same feeling to her younger years with the rest of the ii's on Reach. On some of the few days they had true fun.
Linda was sent to therapy. Well. Not really sent. It was... Suggested. That she go.
Linda did. This time. For the first time. The last time.
She met an older man. Her elder by about three or four years. With the same red hair, that has streaks of white at the temples, and piercing green eyes.
Those eyes that looked at her like she does down the snipers scope. Those eyes that seemed to know her own.
She could see them widen. Hear the hitch on his breath as they flicker to a photograph and then back to her.
He...
Maybe she had seen him in passing once. Despite him never having been on this ship before.
He has been the one to pull the trigger.
"I don't think I'm the right match for you." His voice rumbled in a familiar way.
When she left. Linda tried to stop thinking about the worn, frames photo on his desk. The one with a boy. About eight or nine. With a shock of bright red hair. He held an archery trophy in one hand. In his other. The hand of a little girl. Close to five. With that same shock of red hair and green eyes that seemed to see you even through the cameras lense.
Fred meets a medic after a nasty injury. The Odst's and Marines in his company joke that he has as getting the best medic around.
He was a young man. Kind and deeply empathetic.
Those same Marines also joked about how the two of them could be siblings in a different life. With how they shared the same sloped nose and sharp jaw. The same, soft manner of speaking.
"Seriously Lieutenant. Just give the Doc the same hair cut. Could fool me that's for sure."
The medic said that he did have a brother. One that he has never met. That he had passed away a few months before he had been born .
But he and his parents visited his grave every year on his brother's birthday. And that this was the first year that he wouldn't be able to.
"He's be turning thirty three today." The medic had just finished Fred's stitches.
"Oh." Fred spoke it before it could be stopped.
"Oh what?" The medic had asked.
"I turned thirty three today." It was one of the few things he remembered. Something he rarely thought about. Because something around it had made his heart hurt.
"Here then. Happy birthday." The medic handed Fred a chocolate granola bar.
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