#it would be a utopia for all honestly

[probablyaseamonster]

Guys I just had an awesome idea for a Minecraft server!

So you know those animated Tinkerbell movies? Yeah, basically that.

[ace-and-ranty]

...I'm gonna blaspheme here and. I'll admit it.

This is also the plot of Stephenie Meyer's other novel, The Host.

Why yes, it is one of my favorite novels ever that deeply impacted my personality, why do you ask.

Symbiosis isn't just mutualism. Parasitism is symbiosis. It's uncomfortable to confront parasitic relationships if you want to see your human ideas of good and bad reflected in Nature.

But gazing into something huge and utterly Other, being uncomfortable means you're engaging your mind with it. "Uncomfortable" is actually a whole spectrum of emotions that become a vivid and satisfying rainbow.

There was a post a while back with some artwork of Dendrogaster, a crustacean that parasitizes starfish, and its body is like this branching fractal of fleshy lobes made to fit inside the body of the starfish mirroring its structure, and I was absolutely horrified to look at this, and this horror was the same emotion as a strangely visceral wave of sympathy for this parasite.

Creative works about parasites often invoke the horror of bodily invasion, which is visceral and strong for me, but this artwork inverted that horror, instead showing the horror of being made so perfectly for fitting within someone else that you lose everything you are and become unrecognizable.

I also think of the post about the cowbird chick. It's awful that the bird pushes its siblings out of the nest as it grows, and the mama feeds it because she instinctively must feed her chick, but the cowbird is just a baby. Was it wrong for him to hatch, to be alive, to be hungry, to be a baby and to need love?

Symbiosis is intensely beautiful, and sometimes it's beautiful because it's grotesque and terrible. Of course, the symbiosis between two organisms isn't an allegory for a relationship, it just is a relationship, but looking at the way organisms become entwined feels like you're seeing things that, if words described them, would also be human experiences.

Being invaded by a parasite is a horror of powerlessness and loss of autonomy, but being a parasite is also defined by powerlessness. In many cases, the parasite will die without the host, but the host can live without the parasite. I wonder why it is expected to sympathize with one and not the other.

Your immune system fights against internal parasites like a tapeworm...Imagine being a tapeworm. The body of your host is your universe. Do you find your world to be kind? Benevolent? Does your god love you?

Sometimes people call disabled people "parasites." When I think about my future sometimes I'm uncertain and afraid.

But when a rare non-photosynthetic orchid blooms in the forest, this is not the forest's weakness and failure, but its crowning glory.

[fuiru]

A 44 year old man goes to a K-Pop Concert

I promised you a report on the K-pop concert that I, a 44-year-old accountant, went to a couple of weeks ago with my wife and daughter in Toronto. So here it is.

The band we saw were Ateez. They're my daughter's favourite band and my wife's second favourite. I know most of my mutuals are similarly aged like me and may not be familiar with them so let me give you a brief primer on Ateez.

Imagine the most attractive eight men you can think of, just unfathomably beautiful specimens of aesthetic perfection, and make them sing songs that somehow combine the subjects of 'dancing like nobody is watching' with 'we live in a dystopian hellscape that we must all work together to overthrow'. Give them an ongoing music video story lore that literally nobody - not even the band themselves - understand, so that online discussion of their visual motifs looks more like the fevered rantings of a conspiracy theorist, complete with speculation about alternate realities and time being a Moebius strip. There is also a giant sand timer, for some reason.

That's Ateez. That's what you need to know.

Now, K-pop concerts are very different to the gigs I've been going to for the last 28 (!) years. There's no support act, for a start. Also the band perform for like, three hours, with breaks for costume changes and interpretive dance. Furthermore, hanging above everything is the constant looming threat of mandatory military service.

So this being my first such concert, I wasn't sure what to expect. What happened was difficult to explain, but I will try as I am already six paragraphs into this write-up and I'm too invested to stop now. Here goes:

In his Wicked + Divine comics series, Kieron Gillen places modern pop icons as deities, feeding upon and gaining strength from the worship of their fans at the altar of musical performance. I thought I understood that metaphor. I thought I understood it AS a metaphor. I was wrong, because that night Ateez WERE Gods with a capital G and we were their worshippers, a crowd emanating adoration (in the religious and non-religious senses), bestowing strength upon them and gaining their strength in return.

If that sounds weird, it probably is. But as pointed out above, I have lived over four decades and never yet experienced anything like the overwhelming passion of that crowd, the utter abandon with which they conveyed their love for the band.

"But Fuiru, what of the actual music?" you ask. Thinking back, there was a moment in one of their songs - I can't remember which - where I watched the stage, and the people around me, taking it in, and I thought, "Man, I just love Music". But that doesn't answer your question, sorry.

Ateez's music is bloody great. As a tiresome indie/rock/metal kid I'm resisting the urge to add the usual tiresome indie/rock/metal caveat of "...for pop music" because honestly that does it a disservice. They have some genuinely amazing songs. Halazia is an absolute fucking masterpiece that descends into furious hardcore breakbeat. Bouncy is a big, brash racket that somehow is also a perfect pop song. Utopia, Wonderland, and Guerrilla are similarly superb. The obligatory boy band slow number is represented by Dancing Like Butterfly Wings which will make you cry because you will forever associate it with your twelve year old daughter being pointed to and waved at by her favourite Ateez member (Seonghwa) because of her Seonghwa-branded lightstick.

That might just be me, though.

So in summary: being a 44 year old dad at his first K-pop concert rules and you should endeavour to partake in the experience if the opportunity arises.

Finally, for any Atiny reading this: my bias would be San or Seonghwa but my wife and daughter said they were taken so it’s Mingi. My concert outfit (designed and created by my offspring) reflects this.

[rafry]

Euclydia, Cults and Need for Control

Disclaimer: this analysis raises sensitive topics. if you are/were a victim of a cult and the topic triggers you, please refrain from reading further(/seek help). Additionally, I am not a specialist on said topic, nor am I a clinician. But I am a survivor, so part of the narrative may or may not be just me projecting the trauma on a silly yellow triangle. That said, reader discretion is advised! :)

The take: Euclydia is likely to be a cult-like society and the reason Bill, after years of abuse, grows up to be as he is: a power-hungry monster. Let's analyze!

For the starters, The Start. Each state has its own anthem. How lucky that we were kindly provided with the Euclidian hymn (hidden under the code "FORGETTHEPAST")! Lets take a look:

"Two dimensions to and from, You always know which way to go If you're lost, don't be afraid, In Euclydia you've got it made! Run too far too right of frame, You'll appear on left again! Jump too high, don't fry or fret, You'll pop up from the ground, I bet! In this place there is no fear, Roles and rules, always clear, Euclydia, we hold you dear…"

That tells us way more than we could've asked for, really. The most important: Euclydia is a state of Clear Rules™. Everything works perfectly thanks to The Rules and The Roles, and the state is loved by it's citizens. It's might be a caricature 2D utopia, but how it reacts when the rules are questioned?

"Eye doctor of a different kind, who wants to make his patient blind The doctor says: 'three sips a day will make the visions go away' Fussy eater, baby Billy Wouldn't drink unless it's silly..."

If there's anything about cults and the way they make people behave, is that the "wrong" ones in the community are usually ostracized and/or heavily medicated to not cause any troubles. Those people are sometimes called 'heretics', but may as well just be called crazy or insane by their peers. Oh look completely unrelated picture:

"Cipher, Cipher, he's insane Starting fires with his brain"

Honestly, the other time it would be it. Euclydia, if not Is, then sure does Act like a cult in some way. I could've finished here, easily, but there's something missing, isn't?

"The hell do you mean by 'The Need to Control', OP?"

I mean that the BILLVILLE is important.

There's the thing about trauma survivors: some of us, after living a life with no control over ones societal position (ostracization/isolation), body (forcibly medicated) or even mind (feeling of inadequacy), crave for some form of control to be regained.

It can turn toxic very quickly when the only form of control one has ever seen in their life is being The Leader (cult leader/shitty parent/armageddon overlord/you get the idea, it's about becoming an authority figure).

And so, Bill becomes a cult leader! Very possibly covering up the need for control and admiration with what I call "The most inefficient way to build an Interdimentional Portal ever", since, well, he's got to lie to himself every now and then, that's his thing (trauma response).

As for the details:

He uses the dead mans body — the body that wouldn't cause any resistance, thus being perfect for taking under control.

He sees the position of the interviewer as more authoritative than the position of the interviewee — and he swaps the roles. That wasn't enough though, so he demands (politely) to be called "My Lord And Master" for a good measure.

He very possibly recreates some of Euclydia-like order in his own "Town" in terms of expressing individuality. They might've been pretty decent in following scripts, I think.

So, I don't think Euclydia has ever been religious in any way, since that would left some other scars on Bills psyche for sure. But highly authoritative, ignorant, strict in its rules to the point of self-damnation? That checks. That's the place that has formed Bill, after all.

That's the place that he wishes to rebuild.

Maybe not consciously, maybe distorted by his illness and broken memory of a loving-paradise-home that has never actually been that way, but he seeks the comfort of familiarity — most of us do. Familiar stings are better than an uncontrollable too-bright future, isn't?

I hope he does well on therapy.

[moongothic]

@texas-gothic (Was gonna reply in the comments but it got too long and honestly too interesting so here we are)

Unironically was thinking about this again today because I think I realized the answer to my original question.

But yeah, you're absolutely right. Crocodile, as we know him, is completely incapable of doing what Luffy or even Buggy can do. He does not have it in him to inspire anyone to follow him with any kind of loyalty (Daz aside).

And it's quite simple, really. Like aside from just treating others with basic human decency, Crocodile can't inspire others because he refuses to have any emotional vunerability (from his mystery trauma, as showing trust etc is a sign of weakness to him) and his goals as far as we understand them are hollow and soulless (Like he wants military power, enough to "oppose the Government", but what for? Considdering he lost interest in Alabasta, and has as far as we know kept low for the past two whole years without doing much anything until the Reverie Incident recently, he doesn't seem to care about actually ruling anything, a country or otherwise. And he even says it himself when introducing himself to the BW Agents, that he doesn't care about fame or money. Just combat power. Like it just seems to me there might be something else he actually wants, and everything else is just means to an end, a way to achieve that true goal.)

Another thing is that Crocodile is very much a secretive bastard if not downright a lying one. (But also weirdly honest at times, especially if it's about his trust issues.) It would not surprise me if his lies and half-truths had layers to them, if there was something else behind what he lets on.

Regardless, for Crocodile to actually be able to inspire loyalty, he really would need to just. Be vunerable, share his true goals and be honest for once. Something Luffy and Buggy can do.

But the Crocodile we know can't. He can't do any of that.

He can't stand being humiliated or not be taken seriously (explains the violence). Being weak, or being seen as weak is something he can not stand. And being honest, trusting others, is weakness to him. So he can't.

So really, the question is, is there anything in the whole world that could break Crocodile and the protective walls he's built around himself to a point where he'd tell the whole truth for once

Or is he just too far gone

Crocodile's inability to truly get people to follow him is so interesting though, because in that way he's like the polar opposite of Luffy, who has the ability to draw people in and get them to follow him instead

And like it's not surprising Crocodile can't get anyone to be truly loyal to him (Daz Bones aside), since his primary method to get people to do as they're told is through (threats of) violence and money (if he has any). Like yes, that will get people to do as they're told, but you can't buy loyalty, you can't beat people into trusting you. And so, when shit hits the fan, who the fuck would stay for you, when you're like that

Of course, Crocodile is like that due to his trust issues, and god only knows what caused those trust issues. It's possible he was always like that, or past trauma caused him to become like that-- if it's the latter though, even if he was like more trusting of others once in the past, people still didn't stick with him in the end. The trust was one-sided

I think this also reflects in a really interesting way in Cross Guild actually, 'cause like. Despite being scared shitless, not even Buggy is willing to keep on taking Crocodile's shit. Even that clown has his limits before he starts a mutiny against Crocodile

And while Buggy hasn't really done anything to "earn" his current position in the world (like he hasn't Proven Himself in Combat, he's just Faked It Until He Made It), because he has treaten his underlings with basic kindness and respect, even if he's been lying through his teeth the whole time, that has been enough for Buggy to gain his followers' trust. And that's why Buggy's able to rile up people to follow him. While Crocodile can't.

Unironically makes me wonder what Daz sees in Crocodile that makes him want to follow Croc to literal hell and back

And I wonder what it really would take for Croc to be able to inspire people to follow him and be loyal to him, if it's even possible

[violetrainbow412-blog]

Between your arms [S. R]

Spencer Reid x wife!reader

word count: 1.8k

summary: after a hard day Spencer returns to his safe place

A/N: I just finished the third season, imagine it's somewhere in there. And DAMN, with each passing chapter I fall more in love with this man

When Spencer got home, he was completely exhausted. The case had been delayed longer than expected and the fact that the jet had technical problems didn’t help in the least, so the total delay was 5 hours, so it was already late at night when he opened the door of your apartment. He strongly wished that you weren't awake or he would feel guilty and that concern dissipated when he noticed that you weren't lying on the couch as he had found you so many times.

Spencer needed to shower so he could somehow wash off the stress of the case and wash off the dirt he'd picked up during his stay in the woods. Fortunately the shower was far enough from the room to go unnoticed and he took his time, enjoying the hot water running all over his body, considerably relaxing the tension he had in his muscles. Once he left, Reid took a cotton pajama that he had packed in the suitcase, it had colored stripes on the white fabric and you had given it to him for a birthday many years ago. The fabric was already worn by time, but he loved the calming feeling it gave him, and the smell of your favorite fabric softener on it made him feel like he was right at home.

When he opened the door of your room he found you in bed, sleeping so peacefully that he felt some envy, but at the same time he smiled tenderly. He and you were very different when it came to sleeping: he couldn't fall asleep if he wasn't tucked in, he had a hard time doing it alone, he constantly woke up to go to the bathroom and he tossed and turned throughout the night. You, on the other hand, could sleep soundly as soon as your body touched the mattress, fully exposed, and you would stay in the same pose on your left side unless he asked you to reposition yourself. You slept on the inner side for reasons of practicality, because when he was late or had to leave due to an emergency it was easier for him to jump out of bed, and you always did it hugging a stuffed dog that Spencer had won for you in a fair.

Many people would think that getting married at 21 was crazy and even a couple of gossip told you that you were making a mistake or that it would only take a few months for one of you to file for divorce, but four long years had passed since then. Not everything was perfect, because there were arguments as in all marriages, and to that we had to add the constant stress that Spencer's work had, not only for him but also for you. Although, somehow, you had made it work and he always found the time to dedicate himself only to you, because he knew that you deserved it. You had a good position in a real estate company, nothing risky, and with hours that were always respected.

You two preferred not to think about it, especially him, but there was a degree of codependency in your relationship that you hoped wouldn't escalate into something sick or dangerous. You had had a difficult life, Spencer continued to have a difficult life, but little by little you two opened up to each other and the communication helped comfort what sometimes still tormented you. Reid had saved you from committing many idiots and if it wasn't for you, he didn't know how he could have faced situations or ghosts from his past. You were his reason for living and your apartment was that safe place where he could isolate himself from the whole world and live his own utopia. With you there was no suffering, there were no traumas, no crimes, no coworkers who ignored him... and when that existed, you were there to hug him tight and tell him that everything would be fine.

Honestly, the fear of becoming a burden plagued him frequently, but the two of you were trying to work through your own insecurities so that you could carry on your marriage in peace.

As soon as he felt his body touch the surface of the mattress, he moaned calmly and finally allowed himself to feel all the tiredness of the day, sure that it no longer mattered because he was in the right place to rest. He stayed like that for a couple of seconds, enjoying the softness on which he was lying, until your gentle breathing next to him caught his attention. He hated waking you up during the night, but now more than ever he needed to feel you close and he considered that with such a heavy sleep you had his touch would hardly be noticeable. He moved enough to be able to wrap his arm around your entire waist and bury his head in your skin at the nape of the neck, but against all odds he heard you inhale heavily as a sign that you had noticed the grip.

“Spence?”

"I didn't want to wake you up" he apologized, as he kissed you on the shoulder to mask his remorse, although to be honest a part of him was very grateful to be able to talk to you.

"I wasn't asleep" you lied uselessly, because your voice betrayed your state of sleepiness. Careful not to let him let go of you, you turned around to face him and he smiled from ear to ear when even in the dark he noticed that you were smiling weakly at him "Did you just get there?"

“Things got difficult. We came back by train”

“Oh…” you hummed sympathetically. Your hands traveled deftly up to his face and you stroked with your thumbs, watching him turn to putty between your fingers. “Did you even have dinner? Let me make you something"

"No, no, darling," he hastened to say, stopping you from getting up to go to the kitchen. Honestly, hunger was the least of Spencer's worries at that moment, his mind was longing to receive your body heat and with some luck multiple kisses on the face and lips "Just stay here with me"

If in normal circumstances it was already difficult to deny your husband something, it was even worse when he whispered in that pleading tone, so you simply nodded and snuggled closer against him. His long golden hair tickled your nose and you realized that Spencer had used your conditioner again, even though he had promised not to do it again, but you didn't mind at all.

"You feel good?" you asked softly, as one of your hands traveled to the back of his head to stroke his head and you maneuvered your other arm for him to use as a pillow.

He was very protective as a husband, perhaps motivated by the fear that some of the horrible things he saw daily at his work would happen to you, and he constantly looked out for your well-being, but on those occasions when you took the time to pamper him after a terrible day, he swore that it was you who took care of him from the lurking monsters.

"I feel better now that I'm here," he confessed, the words slightly muffled by his lips on your skin. "I missed you."

"Oh, I know you did" you joked, now a little more lucid than at the beginning of the conversation. You were very interested in him being able to fall asleep, because once he did it, all you had to do was close your eyes to imitate him, and how to blame you? With that strong grip and his legs intertwined with yours, you felt total tranquility "I missed you too”

Your hand continued to untangle strands of his hair in an attempt to relax him and you stayed that way for a few minutes, until he broke the silence. You didn't understand at first, so you gently whispered in your ear for him to repeat it.

"I missed our nine o'clock show" it was inevitable to let out a soft laugh at the apparent priority issue of your beloved and you kissed him on the top of the head before answering.

"Yes, it is sad"

"Remember how I told you that Anita and the butler were having an affair?" he asked and you hummed affirmatively “Did I get it right?”

"Almost. She was having it with the gardener” you heard a defeated sigh under your chin and your smile only increased “Now you owe me five bucks”

“Too bad, I don't have cash with me,” he muttered, pretending to be genuinely pained. “Would you accept another method of payment?” There was no need to ask what his suggestion was from him, the gentle kiss he placed on your shoulder spoke for itself.

“Yes, but there is a problem with the currency conversion. Five dollars equals approximately…” you took a moment to think of a suitable number and when you got it a smile escaped your lips “five hundred kisses”

“Five hundred kisses?!” Reid squealed from his hiding place in your chest "That's a huge debt"

"It is"

"I better start now huh?" he said flirtatiously. He started with quick kisses on whatever section of skin was within his reach that made you laugh out loud, then he continued up your neck with more careful caresses and by the time he reached your face the kisses were slow and so gentle that you felt die. But he wasn't so merciful to you, so his kisses touched almost your entire face except your lips. "Do you keep track?"

"Sorry?"

"Do you keep track of how many kisses I gave you?”

"Oh no, I guess you'll have to start over," you whispered, as you felt his smile against your skin as he planted a kiss right on your jaw "Or if you give me one on the lips, we're even”

Spencer didn't think twice to finally indulge your wishes and it was such a warm and deep kiss that you felt like a newlywed again. There were bad times, yes, but it was these moments that made you know that facing the rest was worth it.

"I love you very much, you know that?" he sighed, still with his eyes closed and his forehead resting on yours. You lifted your head a little just so you could steal another chaste kiss from him.

"I love you more, baby"

Spencer settled back, now lying entirely on your chest and you wrapped both arms around his waist while your hands traced uneven patterns on the striped fabric on his back. You asked your ear to please get some sleep and the soft beating of your heart was enough to calm him down until exhaustion overcame him.

If there was a perfect place in the world, he knew that it was between your arms.

[lucabyte]

thinking about the very specific reading of isat i had during act 3 for the most part

anyway yeah ill ramble here about this. since it actually explains my headcanons for what the disappearing island wish was

disclaimer: taken as a whole this is way too allegorical for what i'd consider a holistic reading of isat, but it was part of my running theories at the time.

anyway my guess for the real-world equivalent of the island ended up being French Polynesia by the end of the game. I had initially thrown a dart at siffrin being greek wrt europe, sisyphus allusion, enjoyment of plays and seafairing-- but the moment that little guy started getting real weird about stars and specified they were from an island i switched my guess to him being polynesian. And then that reading only really strengthened from there (and i was pretty close, tbf!)

but yeah during act 3, especially the king plotline, i started thinking about the themes of cultural erasure + lack of identity that the game has and how that plays wrt vaugarde's extremely welcoming and diverse nature.

reading far too much into it but it made me wonder if they are the results of a fallen empire of some kind. somewhere that gathered people from across the globe (as empires are known to do) before dissolving into what seems to be a localised theocracy of some kind?

like. vaugarde is basically the Good End for an empire. Fully demilitarised (they barely have use for police to the point where the defenders are surprised by burglaries, and almost CERTAINLY have zero army), extremely diverse, not caring where one comes from.

(either that or they've been a socialist utopia like, forever? and thus just aquired migrants perpetually... but ka bue is characterised as harsher by odile in a lot of respects so one can assume its not that the whole planet is Niceys All The Time.)

this lines up pretty well with the um. Whole France Thing. Boy do they own a lot of islands still that they maybe shouldn't. Also lines up with bonnie's word-of-god french creole dialect. So Vaugarde as the welcoming, ideal form of former-colonialiser-nation is like. one i vibe with if we're gonna read too hard into the worldbuilding as presented.

Anyway all this to say I did for a time wonder if the Northern Island wish was 'For The Island To Be Safe'. Assuming this world to have any level of inter-country conflict-- Wish craft is powerful stuff, and a singular island might not be able to defend itself against those seeking to take it by force. Hiding the island from the world would protect it.

... though that felt like an unusually cruel read. The implication that cloistering away like that is a 'valid' strategy for a culture to be safe (albeit with the splash damage of hurting any diaspora).

Plus, wish craft is superbly powerful, with evidently its use on the island only becoming more widespread after it was discovered how to make it work Consistently.

(i work here under the assumption that Siffrin's growing cloak is imbued with wish craft, assumedly the same as the king's armour? Since there's no way that was created at that scale...)

So it almost makes more sense, to me, for the wish to be to 'Protect The World (universe) From Us' or to 'Keep The Universe Safe'.

Wish craft being so second nature to the Islanders (See: Siffrin, favour tree), that a wish that breaks the universe is almost inevitable were the knowledge to become widespread and ingrained.

This too is an oddly cruel read, that a culture's rituals can be dangerous to that degree, but ... ? Dunno. Like I said, reading it as hard allegory makes it fall apart somewhat. Symbols can mean many different things at once until you flatten them for direct analysis like this. I don't think it's quite so 1-to-1, and it's honestly slightly too 'no story only lore' for my tastes, so I did push a lot of this stuff out of my analytical mind once I started getting to the back and of act 3 and into act 4.

Anyway. Not the most coherent explanation in the world, but still some thoughts I had mid-game that i figure i should put somewhere at least, even if I don't think they are really what the game is going for.

As a bonus, the discussions on what the island wish were in this context also lead my friend @samhainian to speculation on the colour wish that i really enjoy. Which is....

The wish that removed colour from humans perception of the world being something along the lines of:

"I wish the world was simpler"

ergo, removing colour as an invocation of Nuiance VS Black and White Morality. The world is simpler, easier to understand.

I think it's a fun headcanon! I like it.

Well anyway. A work is more than the sum of its parts and dissecting something so sloppily as this often does it a disservice. So don't take my theorising as anything more than a general rundown of where my head was at mid-game before i had all the pieces. The emotional core of the story is far more where it's at for ISAT sooooo. [Shrugs and scampers away]

[creatorbiaze]

:]

once again thinking abt how karma smiled when he died

like he was genuinely at peace I'm p sure

:(

[justalittlesolarpunk]

Honestly I think if one thing could help solarpunk the most to become a cohesive movement where we all truly collaborate and look after one another, I think it would be if we stopped generalising.

Not all solarpunk art has to be art nouveau! Not all architecture has to be white stone and green glass in a western-style city! Not everyone is abled enough to just make by hand all the things they want or need that they currently purchase under the capitalist economy. Not everyone you meet on the internet is American (seriously guys, what’s with this assumption, I get it all the time even though I tell you I’m British in my bio). Not everyone wants to work the land or build turbines for a living.

A truly Solarpunk future is one where we speak different languages, employ a variety of techniques to work the land, provide for our material and spiritual needs and restore the environment. It’s open borders and community solidarity and sex worker justice and indigenous sovereignty. For some people it looks like a quiet rural life and for others it’s all about the bustle of a city full of reliable transit and accessible third spaces. It’s also about realism. Some things will be rarer because we will have had to massively slow down trade and shipping to decarbonise it - we’ll need to eat locally as much as possible. In utopia some disabled people will still need cars, so we need EVs despite their current imperfections.

There will likely be mosques, community centres, food forests, art galleries and hospitals. People will be trying their best. We’ll mess up. We can’t predict what will happen and we certainly can’t universalise one experience. And if Solarpunk is all about living out a prefigurative politics where you imagine you exist in a world already free, then it’s essential we try to practice that open-mindedness and lack of assumptions in our day to day interactions, in real life and on the internet

[txttletale]

Wtf is Lancer and why is it shit (serious question)

lancer is a tabletop roleplaying game made by the guy who drew kill six billion demons and another guy. i wouldn't call it 'shit', necessarily--it's good in a lot of the ways that matter. it's first and foremost a tactical mech combat game and on that level it's incredible. its ruleset is finely tuned, provides great amounts of GM support to make running what might otherwise be overwhelmingly crunchy combat easier, and has a truly stunning and cool level of character customization available. so as a game, i think it's great fun to play and run, genuinely innovative, and a huge step forward for battlemap tactical wargame type TTRPGs in general.

the lore though, kind of sucks. i think it has two clear and overlapping core problems. problem #1 is that it is a utopia as envisioned by a social democrat. it's a world which the text describes as 'post-capitalist' (but there are still evil megacorporations with private armies who own slaves) and 'post-scarcity' (but only in the developed 'core' systems, so. y'know. there's scarcity). at many points in the text they say that Union (the game's main faction) is utopian, throwing around that exact word a bunch of times as well as 'mutual aid' and 'direct action' and the like. but what they describe is just kind of an imperialist Space Sweden with several distinct forms of slavery that constantly expands and uses its Benevolent Imperial Power to intervene on the Backwards Violent Worlds on its outer border but its good because its just trying to bring them UBI.

to show what i mean, here's one of the game's writers¹ talking about how it would be morally wrong for Union to, say, appropriate the property of a private military corporation that also operates as a fascist nation-state:

it's 'revolution' as imagined by the limpest of social democrats. and of course this would honestly be fine, whatever, most sci-fi settings are fundamentally achingly liberal, but the game goes so out of its way to signpost how Radical it is and how Hopeful and Liberationist you're meant to see the setting as

the other core problem is closely related--it feels like the lancer guys put every cool sci-fi idea they had into lancer even when it completely clashes with the core ideas behind it. like, AIs in this settings are callled 'NHPs' (non-human persons) and they're eldritch god-like beings from another dimension who have be kept 'shackled' (lancer's words, not mine!) to keep them as pliant and obedient AI assistants instead of hostile eldritch abominations. this is obviously horrifying and dystopian but it rules, it would be sick fucking worldbuilding for something with the tone of 40k or a one-off doctor who or star trek episode--but as a fundamental technology foundational to what we are supposed to believe is a post-revolutionary society founded on mutual aid and solidarity and blah blah blah it's glaringly dissonant.

bear in mind this is all just going off the rulebook. lancer fans have told me that the supplements and campaign modules fix some of this or contextualise it. but on the other hand communists have told me that they make it worse and i trust the communists more. i leave you with this incredible passage from the game's foreword:

[threepandas]

Bad End: Into The Light

It was impossible to ignore the steps behind me.

I was told, again and again, they were of no consequence. No SIGNIFICANCE. That my "shadows" were little more then passive servants. Glorified furniture that followed me room to room. But... but how could I possibly believe that? Worse, if I DID believe that? What would that MAKE me?

I was followed, as I am always followed these days, by... by DECORATION.

That's what they were BRED for. MADE to be. Aesthetically pleasing decoration. Perfectly matching, pleasantly smiling, mindless drones.

It sickened me.

When I "woke up"? Laughable as that phrasing is? Because I was not... not SLEEPING. I was... WAS... I had not BEEN-!

When I... "woke up" as it were, from that... long sleep. The one I had no choice in. That terrifies me even now. Haunts my dreams and wounds my soul. I found myself in a shining temple. A holy place, I was told. A beautiful place, it seemed.

And like so many stories? Like every tale of Utopia supposedly found? It was only after the first rush of wonder, did the cracks in the foundation begin to appear. And oh... OH, did they run DEEP.

I? Was "born" from a shining pool. Beneath sunlight and surrounded by soft breezes. Beauty and nature. But the "shadows"? They take the waters and manipulate them. Archaic machines I have never seen, someplace deep and dark.

I only see the successes of this process.

My mind screams that something terrible must happen, to those deemed "failures".

How? How in any God's name could I EVER be expected to accept this? This slavery and butchery? Worse still, be expect to TAKE PART in it? Have "shadows" of my own? As though it were not ownership of another living soul?!

In disgust, I raged.

I tried to fight. Was still too young, unfamiliar with the terrain. But my soul cried out in horror and how could I refuse? It... got me isolated. I am STILL isolated. Deep in the temple. Back in the "reflection gardens" where I may "think". It goes against our religion, after all, to harm me.

I am a PERSON. One of the Light's children. I need "gentle guidance" and "patience" so that I might "understand".

I understand perfectly.

They are simply monster's in my eyes.

It is cruel, really, that so much GOOD could be poisoned by such thoughtless evil. Because some of the teaching they foist on me? Are GOOD. Genuinely, truely, GOOD. They are teachings I am trying my best to follow. Even as something about them... niggled at the back of my brain. Like somehow they SHOULD be familiar, yet aren't quite.

Truely? I wish I could escape these walls. I KNOW there are other sects. The Shining Light was a result of a schism several centuries back. I know it had to do with the pools. But, of course, they have kept me from anything that might reinforce my "mistaken beliefs".

The eyes burning into my back trace lazily along my skin.

We never talk. I REFUSE to take part in this charade, but it does not stop them from following me. If anything, they seem amused. Something almost like fond on occasion. It is hard to tell, through their ever unchanging smiles. Perfectly bland and decorative.

There is a strange... anticipation in the air today.

I do not know what to make of it. When I ask the Light all I receive is nondescript humming. I do not know enough to know what that MEANS. Have no one to ask. So... I go through the motions.

And the anticipation builds.

And builds.

And BUILDS.

There are certain points in the, for lack of a better term (though honestly it's hardly), "little" building I've been cosigned too where I can see the main temple. The second floor terrace lifts me JUST high enough to see the eastern sprawl.

And the if I precariously balance? Up on a stool and then my toes. Leaning juuust so against one of the pillars that line the path? Then the hallway to the reflection pool garden, where I am too meditate each day, shows me the west.

As cut off as I am, except for the glorified propaganda shoved at me again and again by teachers who never linger, as though I am DISEASED? Well, all I can really do is watch. Try to pick out what is happening from afar. Try... try not to go mad from isolation.

Because the only people HERE with me are my shadows.

And I KNOW they would never talk to me. Not really. They will respond if I talk AT them but... oh Light that guides us... I am the keeper of their chains. I have NO RIGHT to play "happy little family~" as though they are even remotely close to me of their own free will.

I will not see them. I will not ask of them. In the Light, I will cast no shadow.

My mantra. Again and again. And please, oh Light that guides us, let someday it be true.

Still... my daily "lessons" have not come. And that? That has never happened. I do not WORRY for them, but as the only contact I have with the outside? Sudden change in behavior is... bad. Especially with this strange tension in the air. This anticipation of... SOMETHING. Like the Light is waiting for something to begin.

It is coming.

The east shows me nothing. So I try the west. Balanced precariously, ankles and toes straining from the uncomfortable position. The vast gardens between where I am and the main buildings? Are... empty.

They are NEVER empty.

Always. ALWAYS! Someone strolling, initiates debating, students reflecting, Master's meditating on the Light. Guests oohing and aaahing over the heavenly splendor of a garden unrivaled, by any I'd EVER seen before this place. All while followed by peacock tails of shadows. Matching and subservient. Hundreds of them.

The gardens were empty. Silent. An eery sense of... wrong, began to seep up my spine. Something that SCREAMED I had all the clues. Already KNEW what this was. But was being painful dense. Fatally blind. But I... I couldn't...

Sharp movement. A Temple Master. One who's name I could not recall. Only that he was forever poised and disdainful. He did not look so poised NOW. He raced, hair falling from it's styling, face wet with sweat and tears, robes a mess, across the main walk. Through the empty garden.

He... he never made it...

Too wherever he hoped to go.

In perfect synch, like WOLVES, shadows shot from the building behind him in pursuit. They had swords. He did not. Their long legs ate the distance between them and their prey almost effortlessly. In desperation, he called upon the Light, divine magic to defend himself.

They... they COUNTERED.

He died. Horrified and screaming, as I stood frozen. Pieces clicking together in my head. That... that was an advanced skill. But, ultimately, perfectly learnable if you were focused on nothing else. If... if you were able to FOLLOW those who sat in such lessons. Were... born of the same pools.

Of course they were children of the Light. I had always known. But somehow... my brain had not CONNECTED what that meant. Fully. What SKILLS that would afford them.

Slowly, numbly, I slid back down to merely stand upon the stool upon which I stood. I shakily stepped down. Acutely aware of the half ring of shadows smiling, oh so pleasantly, less then lunging distance away. Their eyes were intent.

Had...had they been waiting for me to see? Figure it out on my own? How long were they willing to let the charade continue? Just to drive home that their days of servitude were, at last, violently over? I did not look at them. I was afraid. My eyes staring, unseeing, off to the garden walls.

I was... was trapped in here... wasn't I?

Deserved this. For what I had allowed done.

And yet... and YET... I... I wanted to live. I was a prisoner too. Born into a cage that would see me die in it. Tears blurred my vision. It felt hard to breathe. Slowly, painfully fighting my tensed muscles, like a doll creaking from age, I turned to look at them.

Their smiles were sharper. They had teeth now.

Heads cocked, some terrible and delighted thing dancing in their eyes, their masks had cracked apart. No longer needed. I took a shaking step back. Then another. All the while they watch, eyes tracing my every action, unmoving. Expectant. They knew I would run. Clearly HOPED I would. I wish I could say I disappointed them.

That I was brave and stood my ground. Facing my end with dignity.

I didn't.

I bolted.

Behind me, a chorus of delighted laughs rip through the terrible silence like the baying of hunting hounds. The howl of wolves. Their masculine voices echoing all around me as, for the first time in this LIFE? I run with all I have. There... there is no where to GO. Not really. I have been kept ignorant of most of the temple's layout. Everything beyond it.

I have to try.

Mocking. They give me a heads start. But I hear them now. They have always been near silent when they walk. Can be COMPLETELY silent if they choose. It was a courtesy. Now? It is a taunt. So I know they are coming. Know how close I am to-...!

Desperately, I shed outer layers. The ornate, heavy robes they made me wear? Were lovely. But difficult to move it. Perhaps that was the point. Now? I can not afford it. They clatter and flomp to the ground behind me as I run. Skid around corners. Take two stairs at a time.

Banter behind me. This is taking everything I've got. Ha ha... oh Light! It's barely a work out for them, isn't it? A glorified jog at best. My exits are cut off, again and again. Forcing me to backtrack. My heart pounding, lungs screaming. Nails scrambling at the polished floors as my feet slide out from under me at the sudden shift in direction.

Bruises are building up. Exhaustion setting in. There is... there is no where in this building I can hide, that they do not KNOW.

I've lost track of at least half of them. They could be anywhere. I... I know, KNOW, I am being herded like an animal. Spooked and grabbed at, so I run the way they want me too. I just don't know WHY. I can't think. I have to run. All... all I can do is RU-!

As I pass an archway leading to a garden viewing room, I find out where the others went. Weight SLAMS into me from the side. Strong arms seizing my waist and cradling my neck, to prevent injury as we fall. I am thrown from feet by the tackle, through the archway.

Into a...nest of bedding?

I land hard, cushioning aside, and wheeze out a whine. The wall of iron muscle on top of me, pressing me down, half crushing me. My legs are on fire, my lungs the same. Everything hurts and I am terrified. There is a man's hand on the back of my neck, up high and near cradling my head, and it would take NOTHING for him to snap it. I... I can't... I...

I sob.

Frozen. Exhausted, in pain, and all struggled out. All I can do is cry. It's going it hurt. I.. I don't WANT to get hurt! P-please don't hurt m-me! I clutch at the bedding I'm pinned down too. My face all but crushed up against a familiar not familiar shoulder. I can hear the others strolling closer.

The shift of clothes as they kneel to crawl onto the strange nest they had made.

"Shhhhhh, shh shh shh. It's okay, sweetheart. It's over now. We CAUGHT you~ Our little champion. You're okay. It's okay. We're all here. You're safe now." Whispers the shadow pinning me. All but crooning it in my ear. "We've got you~, we've got you~. They can't hurt you anymore. Gonna show you the WORLD. No more cages. Can finally give you the love you DESERVE."

There are noises of agreement around me. Hands gently stroking my wrist and lower arm. Massaging my aching lower legs almost absent-mindedly. As though any part of me not covered by the man pinning me was fair game. Someplace to gently adore. I don't understand. Can not.

I squirm. Getting huffed laughs and chuckles.

"None of that, dearest. We were patient long enough. Frankly, we wanted to stage the revolt months ago. But, well, that pesky high priest. Never around when you need him to die, mmm?" Barks of laughter as the others crowded closer, got comfortable. My hand was tugged loose from the bedding. Fingers intertwined with my own.

"She's so cute." "Let us love you." "I can't wait to taste you." "Ours now, sweetheart~" "let us take care of you, okay?" "Light that guides, you're so fucking PERFECT..." "We're gonna take care of you, promise."

Muttered voices. Possessive, gentle hands. The shadow on top of me shifts down. And suddenly I could SEE. They stared like I was something to be devoured. The center of the universe. The Light felt triumphant. Held no answers. I didn't know where to look. Too many eyes. Too much touch.

Too much EVERYTHING after so long alone.

A kiss that feels overwhelming. Grins that promised things I didn't know if I can handle. Eyes that promise FOREVER whether I like it or not. Dangerous, dangerous hands that are so very gentle. I shake. I can not stop shaking. Hands from two different men, cup my cheeks, stroke my skin. My hands are held. Their palms are warm.

"Shhhh, your OURS now, little light. We broke our chains and killed our keepers, but YOU? Oh you, little prisoner, tried your best. You couldn't do it, and that's okay, but we SAW. We REMEMBERED. And the shadows?" They whisper, almost reverent. Both precious memory and quiet confession carried in their voice. Then, a terrible, possessive smile. A thing of entirely too many teeth.

"Oh little light, the shadows love you~♡"

[cinnbar-bun]

Nasini El Donya (Make me Forget the World) [Crocodile x Reader]

Summary: You are his world. The place he's the most comfortable in. You are his sanctuary and his peace. Words alone cannot do you justice.

Notes: GN!Reader. MENA!Croc and Reader but this honestly negligible this is just me being self-centered. Features Impel Down Croc and after. Established relationship. Some fun Arabic translation notes at the end!

A/n: I cried twice writing this, don't look at me. This fic was inspired by the song of the same name as this fic by Ragheb Alama. It's a beautiful song I recommend listening to it while reading this.

Word Count: ~2.4k (not counting translation note)

You can read this on my AO3 here!

Locked away from the world, in solitude and in isolation, the once fearsome warlord was left alone to pay for his crimes. The famed and beloved hero of Alabasta had been exposed as nothing but a deceitful monster. Crocodile’s luck had run out as he was rendered to this dirty and depressing cell, a far cry from the luxurious rooms that were seized after his arrest. 

He had it all, once upon a time. Strength, wealth, and fame that allowed him the opportunity to rise to the top. It was so close. He was so close. 

But close was not close enough, and his whole life had crashed down. 

Impel Down was hell. The layers and levels in this prison were torture. 

Alone he stayed in Level 6- the “Eternal Hell”. The name didn’t do this place justice, he thought. 

He’d rather be burned, forced to do manual labor, made to run through the spikes and bleed. Instead, he was made to sit. Sit and do nothing. Sit and wait for death to claim him. Sit and wonder where you were. Sit and think about how you were. 

Did you escape? Did you manage to get to the hideout safely? Were you doing alright? Did you miss him as much as he missed you? 

Days of nothingness blurred together into a constant reminder of his emptiness without you. This wasn’t the plan. This was never supposed to be the plan. He was supposed to be out there with you, holding you, taking you as his partner, his lover, and making you stand beside him as you two were proclaimed the rulers of Alabasta. You two were supposed to make your Utopia together. 

He leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes.  

��Crocodile,” your gentle voice called out. Logically, this never should’ve been possible. Yet, in his weakened state, he held out for the one chance that you were there, in front of him, calling to him. 

“Yes?” He swung his head to you, only to realize that no one was there. He swallowed roughly, his heart caught in his throat and his face revealing his disappointment and shock. The prisoner in the cell across from him gave him a sadistic grin, as if recognizing Crocodile’s condition. Crocodile snapped out of his thoughts and glared at the prisoner before turning his body around, letting his back face the prison bars. 

Damn it, he was losing it in here. His cuffed hands rummaged through his pocket, and he took out a torn and scratched picture one of the jailers had tossed to him from his wallet. He recognized that picture, of course. Crocodile had taken this beautiful, candid photo of you at a sunny resort. You were in your swimwear, the sunshine beaming down on you but still looking so utterly dull compared to the radiance of your smile. He could still smell the salt from the water and feel the heat from the sun. If he closed his eyes, he could pretend. 

He cradled the picture gently, careful to not let it be torn up even more. The jailers had treated it poorly, threatening to rip it in front of him before they cackled in his face and threw it at him, reminding him of the fact he’d never see you again. A sick, twisted ploy, but one that at least gave him a piece of you.

This was the last item of you he had. The only thing in here of you that he could keep, the only reminder of the outside world he would no longer be able to see. 

How he wished to see the sun again with you. How he wished to have lunch with you when the sun was at its peak. How he wished to enjoy a sunset with you and eat dinner together. How he wished he could have spent one more night with you, holding you, kissing you, loving you- committing you to memory so he could say sorry and kiss you goodbye. 

He gazes down at your picture and his face hardens. There’s so many things he wished he could have said to you. Death would be far more pleasant than this regret he feels piling up and weighing down his heart. 

His mind wanders. If he could see you again, what would he say? 

I miss you? Not quite. That’s nothing like what he wants to say. 

I knew I’d see you again? Even he cannot find enough strength within him to fake his bravado. He can’t do that. That can’t be what he says. 

I love you? 

I love you. I love you. I love you. 

But that’s not enough. “I love you” was too little. Too mundane, too simple for what he felt. 

You were life itself. The very breath he inhaled and the very beat of his heart. The energy to get up in the morning, the will to make something out of a new day, the light in his eyes. 

You were… everything. 

Seeing you in the photo again, his fingers lightly brushed over your cheek, as if it could replicate the feel of your skin. 

You were life. You were what made life worth living. What made loving worth it. Without you, life was empty, cold, and devoid of feeling, just like how he was before you had crossed paths with him. 

That day was beautiful, the day he had met you. He didn’t quite understand it back then, but ever since that day, he looked back on your meeting and was thankful he bumped into you. What an idiot he was that day. 

If he had known better- he would have courted you sooner. Bought you everything and more. Confessed and been more honest with you. Said “I love you” more. Complimented you more. Enjoyed dining and living with you to the fullest. He would’ve stopped working as hard, would’ve made sure to spend every vacation and break with you. Hell, if you asked, he probably would’ve even thrown out his plans for Utopia. What Utopia could ever exist if you were not a part of it? 

Rotting away deep in hell, he had nothing to show for all the work he had devoted the years to. All the plans he made were ruined and tarnished. Worst of all, he had no way to see you or even make sure you were alive. 

His eyelids felt heavy and weak as he pressed the picture to his chest, where his heart would normally be. He took a deep breath and tried to imagine you and remember the times he spent with you. At least he could have something to reminisce on when in here. 

His breathing slowed down as the thoughts of you made him grow more weary. His heart was heavy without you there to uplift him. 

Having lost everything and with nothing more to do, Crocodile pressed his hands together. 

For the first time in his life, Crocodile began to pray. Begging wordlessly to anyone, anything, if they could grant him some form of salvation and allow him to see you one more time. And if he were to be denied, then at least let you be safe, far away from him and his mess. 

When his eyes met yours, he has to check if you were real and not another figment of his imagination. He freezes. 

Please… don’t be another illusion. Don’t give me hope. Don’t let me imagine this-

“Crocodile!” You call his name, dashing to him with incredible speed. He’s trembling, stuck in the same place he was in as if his feet were in quicksand. You jump into his arms, causing him to nearly topple over as he wraps his arms tightly around you. He practically lifts you off the ground as he pulls you in closer, wanting to melt into you. 

“(Y/n)...” he whispers your name like a prayer. Crocodile takes a look at your face, those beautiful eyes that lead him astray every time reflecting his relieved self. You are real. You are alive. You’re here, in front of him, right now, right here. 

All the words he wished to say disappear and vanish from his mind. 

What words could he even say to accurately tell you just how much he missed you? What could describe the absolute hell he was in without you? Was there anything to relay how he was desperately wishing to see you and be yours again? 

He doesn’t know if he should say or do anything, but thankfully, you make the choice for him. You cradle his cheek in your hand and lean in to press a kiss to his lips. He can hardly recognize the feel of it, simply melting into your touch and your passion as he embraces you closer. His right hand trembles against your back as it slowly makes its way to your head to feel your hair. 

You’re real, my god, you’re real! The confirmation that you’re indeed real and touching him makes his heart jump. He finally feels light as he is reunited with you, the life he was deprived of in that hell and the war gone from mind. In his arms, there is only peace. Only you, you who nourishes his soul like a dehydrated man finally finding an oasis in the desert. 

You two break away from the kiss, the hand in your hair working itself back to caress your cheek with his thumb. He is lost in your eyes, not wanting to break away a single moment in order to have you in his vision for eternity. 

Crocodile lets out a shaky breath, shaking his head silently as he forgoes the words he was attempting to speak. 

In a weak voice, all he can muster for you, in his mother tongue, “There is so much of you in my heart.” 

Your eyes widen at what he says while his thumb continues to run over your cheek. “Dear?” 

“I dreamt of seeing you again and again, (Y/n). I was in hell without you every night,” he confessed. His jaw clenches as he tries to contain himself. “I thought I had lost you for good in there.” 

“You could never lose me,” you answer, your voice steady. 

“I’m grateful for that. I die in you. You hold my life in your hands, dear. Don’t let me live another day in this world without you.” 

You bury your face into his chest, his black suit getting wrinkled due to you clenching and tugging on his shirt. Your eyes water as you listen to his proclamations of love to you. 

“Crocodile…”

“You bury me,” he murmurs, his deep voice rumbling in his chest as you can feel the heavy thumping of his heartbeat against his ribcage. He is alive, he is here, embracing you. No more lonely nights without your husband. 

No more returning to that darkness, to that awful place that awaited you two before. He hoists you into his arms bridal style, careful to make sure his hook does not scrape you. 

“Where are we going?” You ask. 

“Anywhere you want. Name a place. The world is open for you to see, and I will take you wherever. You don’t need to even lift a finger or have a single worry in your mind. I will prove to you every day just how much I adore you.” 

You look gobsmacked after hearing his answer and think for a brief second. 

“I just want to go home with you. That is all.” 

“But you’ve been stuck there for months. Don’t you want to leave and get out?” Crocodile incredulously. You shake your head. 

“I have not been home since the day you left,” you reply. Your statement makes him nearly drop to his knees. 

“What have I done to deserve you?” He asks rhetorically. He cradles you in his arms and begins to take a step towards the house he had bought earlier to shelter you in case of any failed plans. 

The house was smaller than the one you two shared in Alabasta, back when everyone wanted to be on his good side and offered you two gifts. It was plain, still well taken-care of thanks to your efforts, but drastically plain. Yet compared to the travesty that was Impel Down, this boring escape house was practically heaven. 

“I’m sorry, this house is a mess and I didn’t decorate it like-”

He pressed a kiss to your forehead to quietly interrupt you. “I don’t care about the decorations, dear. I don’t care about that. I can’t care about it when I am finally seeing you again.” 

“You really don’t?” 

“No. I’d rather focus on you. You are what really matters to me. I spent months worrying if you were even alive while I was locked away.” 

He carries you to your bedroom, carefully laying you on the silk sheets he had procured for you. He moves to run his hook through your hair before you caress the gold object. He pauses as your fingers tenderly remove the hook from his arm, an activity granted only to you. His devotion and trust in you is known by how he relaxes despite you taking the large weapon he always has on him away. None are allowed to see this side of him but you. 

He presses more kisses all over your face, wanting to feel and capture every feature of you. Your eyelids, your nose, your cheeks, your forehead, your jaw- he can’t get enough. You have him spellbound and addicted to you. 

When it comes to you, he throws the world aside and casts his eyes only to you. There is no greater joy in his life than seeing your beautiful face and that lovely smile adorn your lips, especially if he was the one who caused it. There’s no one like you roaming this world, and frankly, he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Crocodile places another feather-soft kiss to your lips. 

“I’m home, my love. You’ll never have to have another worry in your life. I’ll do everything I can to make it right,” he whispers before diving in to kiss you again. 

His senses are overcome with your existence as he closes his eyes and embraces the feel of being reconnected with you. 

The outside world simply ceases to exist whenever he is in your presence.

--

Translation notes:

So Arabic is a very dramatic and poetic language. A lot of the nuance isn't really captured in English but I'll do my best to explain some of these. I think "there is so much of you in my heart" is pretty self-explanatory so I'll skip that one.

"I die in you": Similar to something akin to "I love you to death", but more dramatic.

"You bury me": I know this sounds super depressing or kind of threatening (especially from Crocodile), but this is a term of endearment that we use. It's basically Crocodile saying he loves you so much that he wants to die first so he will never have to live a day without you.

Anyways, that's all for today! Thank you and I hope you enjoyed this fic and this mini Arabic lesson :)!

[lunarspiral1127]

X-Men 97 episode 8 *SPOILERS*

Bastion

Not gonna lie, I busted out laughing when I watched his origin story. This is the second time an antagonist had to wait for a couple to make a child and use said child for their plans. Nimrod was lucky that the guy he infected was in a relationship. Plus, I thought it was gonna make Bastion sympathetic due to his childhood flashbacks, but nope.

So, he made a Utopia for humans, but the mutants are enslaved. Saw old Polaris and the Phoenix. But, what bugs me is that he claims that many of the humans consented to be turned into Prime Sentinels without knowing all the details and won't have any memory of being turned. I find it hard to believe that every single one of them would've consented, especially his elderly mother. Dude omitted many details and I'm pretty sure he turned some of them without them knowing. Plus, I'm still mad at him for killing Gambit.

Cameos of Dr. Doom and Zemo (hydra n@zi Zemo, not the MCU version). Wasn't expecting to see them being members of OZT.

Mr. Sinister's just in it for the mutant experimentation.....y'know what? I shouldn't be surprised with that reason why he "teamed up" with Bastion. More test subjects.

Summers Family

Not gonna lie, I was really annoyed with the drama between Cable and Scott. If this was comics Scott, I can understand why Cable's giving him the cold shoulder. But, this Scott didn't wanna abandon Nathan like his dad did to him! It was Madelyn that gave him to Bishop. So, if Scott was there with her, things would've been cool?! God, I'm so sick of this drama. Thank goodness that it didn't last long and that Jean stopped them from escalating it further.

Summers family vs. Prime Sentinels was pretty cool. I like that father/son fistbump, which means things will get better between the two.

It's funny that Jean's being the mom at Cable who's like this big man in his 50s.

Also, Jean and Scott's relationship is getting better which is a relief.

Nightcrawler

Once again, precious boy and MVP. What he said to Jean was really nice. He's always been there as someone's shoulder to lean and cry on. When he talked about Mystique, I felt so bad for him. Honestly, I hated what she did to him just because he was born that way. In the 90s show, she did feel guilt for what she did when Nightcrawler talked to her. But, I still didn't like her for what she did to him. However, with all the words and hugs he's given to others, I hope he has someone who'd give him words and hugs too. He also needs a shoulder to lean and cry on too.

SWASHBUCKLING NIGHTCRAWLER HELL YEAH!!! I've been waiting to see him use swords and it was worth the wait. Him teaming up with Wolverine was really cool. Plus, seeing how his teleporting works was cool too. Love that he was protecting his sister, and I'm glad that we got something with him and Logan cause we haven't had anything like that since he first appeared.

Beast

Why the hell would he let the reporter stay in?! Even if she's not doing her job, she's shouldn't be involved! It has nothing to do with her, plus, I'm pretty sure he revealed a lot of classified information that only the X-Men should be allowed to hear and see. Dammit, Beast. And, dammit Morph for letting her in too.

*sigh* Anyone else think, he's been done dirty in this episode? Cause having her stay in there got his butt kicked. Sure, he didn't know that she was a Prime Sentinel, but they do know the possibility that any human could be one, right? Now, Beast is knocked out along with Rogue, who hasn't woken up still.

Jubilee and Roberto

Okay, so they are gonna be part of the main plot, good. I was worried that they were gonna be sidelined, especially Jubilee.

His mom is a beech. She sold her son out to the Prime Sentinels and didn't believe him and for what? Her reputation?! Man, f**k this beech, she sucks. Poor Roberto though.

Finally using his powers more than once! I counted four times in this whole series so far of when he used them. It's also something that annoys me about the character. He said that he was training in the Danger Room to surprise Jubilee, but why couldn't we have seen that?! Why couldn't we have Roberto training with one of the X-Men's help and see him develop his abilities?! Hell, have Jubilee be there to train him! That way we could've seen more of his abilities and see him grow more and have him interact with other characters, bonding with them. Not just Jubilee. Maybe have him open up to when he first awakened his powers and why he wants to hide them, instead of just telling us.

On the plus side, they should be okay thanks to Magneto's magnetic EMP ability. Speaking of which....

Magneto

I'm glad he didn't get turned into a Prime Sentinel, but I still don't understand how Bastion and Mr. Sinister got his hands on him from Genosha. That blast should've killed him along with the Morlocks. I don't even think it's gonna be explained how they captured him.

His prisoner numbers....yeesh. 😬

The one good thing that Cooper did. Letting him go and realizing that he was right. Aside from that, f**k her. Seriously, was the only good human (regular human, not enhanced) shown in this was Moira?! Cause that's what it feels like.

Now, I was confused at first with what Magneto did, but I think he went to the North or South Poles and used the Earth's magnetic field which is strongest there to cause a worldwide blackout, disabling all the Prime Sentinels. Not killing them, mind you. All while in his underwear, too.

Honestly, I wouldn't blame him if he wages war. He tried to be good. He tried to respect Xavier's dream. But, look what happened. So, I wouldn't blame him if he did this.

HOWEVER! I like that Magneto was good. Part of me doesn't want him to go back to his old ways cause that's gonna be more conflict between him and Xavier. Plus, only Logan claimed that Magneto waged war. If he did, he would've killed the Prime Sentinels, but he didn't. If anything, he'd be waging war on Bastion since he's the one responsible. But, yeah, I'm sorry Xavier. You're cool and all, but Magneto was right.

Cameos

I mentioned Zemo, Doctor Doom, Future Polaris and Future Phoenix. But there were much more.

Omega Red and the Silver Samurai, but one that made me so excited to see......SPIDER-MAN!!! I was so happy to see 90s Spider-Man. I know many would want a sequel to the animated series, but we'll have to wait and see.

The rest I wanna talk/rant about

Professor X shows up finally, but I got miffed when he said "I hope I'm not too late". CHARLES! YOU ARE VERY VERY LATE!!! I know space travel takes time, but COME ON! He better do something real quick to help stop all this crap that's been happening. Dunno how, but it better be something good.

By the way, I'm still annoyed with that black hole excuse. Why couldn't he just contact Scott and the others and stay in touch with them right when he was fully recovered or was well enough?

WHERE THE HELL IS STORM?!?!?! I know she's with Forge, but you'd think the moment she heard about Genosha, she'd head back home flying. She'll probably show up next week, but it's been like two episodes since she got her powers back. Is her not being there sooner a choice the writers made cause if she was there, the fight with the Prime Sentinels would've been over quicker? *sigh* I just wanna see one of my favorites come back and kick some butt like she used too.

I dunno if Forge is gonna come back with Storm, but I hope he does. I want him to help with this Bastion mess. Plus, he did take a photo with him, which has me worried that he was connected somehow but I hope not. It also would be cool, if he contacted the rest of X-Factor and meet up with the X-Men and team up. But, I don't think that's gonna happen.

So, Bishop is definitely out of the picture for the rest of this season, which is bullcrap. It would've been cool to have him and Cable work together again like before along with the X-Men. But, instead, the excuse was they got separated from the time stream. So, we don't even know if he's okay or if he's lost again, or if he actually made it back home. God, I feel like his character's purpose of the show was to help create another characters origin.

Okay, I think that's pretty much it. It was a good episode, even though I did rant on a lot of stuff. We'll see how parts 2 and 3 play out in the next two weeks and hope that the finale will stick the landing.

[rex-shadao]

Rewatching TOH Season 1 with hindsight...

Rewatching the first season of Owl House with online friends made me realize something. It's pretty much the regular human world just with more fantastical elements, particular with Hexside. Sure it's more authoritarian, but it felt like a world that was independently founded by witch culture, including the whole Coven system.

Belos at first fits into the world perfectly, back when he was considered an actual witch. Getting visions from the Titan, using them to justify his rule, and then planning on mass conversion and supposedly invading the Human Realm in the name of witch imperialism. He's a generic cult leader but he fits well with the theme.

Until you incorporate Philip Wittebane into the equation. Philip Wittebane is a very different character. He is not a cult leader. He is a zealous witch hunter driven by revenge. Revenge against all witches. Such a character would not have come up with such an elaborate plan to kill all the witches with a convoluted plot that takes 400 years to complete, requires him to pretend to be a witch, and requires the witches to blindly trust him. He would have simply amass an army of loyal soldiers that obey him to massacre the witches. And these soldiers would have been his fellow witch hunters or clones of his witch hunters that share his hatred for witches. Genocidal hatred.

This is the paradox of Belos' character. He's far more interesting as Philip Wittebane in that you want to know more about his backstory and why he went from this adorable kid to a lunatic witch killer. But if you ignore that backstory and just focus Belos in terms of present day context, he's a confusing mess of a villain that gives off different, unintended messages.

He's a Puritan yet somehow is respectful of LGBT, blacks, and women in the Boiling Isles despite already forcing their society to convert to the Coven System. He hates all witches and loves humans, yet his entire scheme in Boiling Isles relies on a covoluted plan that would take centuries to complete (and requires him to dress up as a witch) rather than the simple "build the door portal" and rally the witch hunters to a genocidal war against witches. He's the reason why the Boiling Isles went from a utopia to a jackass place, yet it's not really different from the regular human world (and if anything, it's actually better) and thus, it feels more real than the "utopian" past.

Honestly, Belos and Philip should have been two separate characters on opposite sides, with Belos' rise to power being a response to Philip's fanatical attacks on witch societies. Imagine what kind of conflict and grey area would that be for the audience. Heck, what if Belos was actually Caleb and Caleb, in an attempt to defend witches from his brother, became sort of a Magneto tyrant who hates all of humanity and that's why he wants to invade the Human Realm.

And imagine how Luz has to resolve the conflict that cannot be easily resolved.

[tossawary]

So far (partway into the Hueco Mundo arc, I skipped the Bount arc completely), "Bleach" seems to... shy away from interesting consequences for the issues it directly brings up. (Also, oh, man, all the filler varies in quality so much and it is BRUTAL on the pacing of the main storylines.)

Like, I think a lot about the Soul Society arc had a lot of missed potential in general, but I also thought the end of it is where things get genuinely exciting. The Gotei 13 has been repeatedly shown to be uncaring, incompetent, cruel, authoritarian, etc. and it seems like the characters are fighting against this hollow structure built on unsustainable tradition finally cracking under the weight of whatever unjust powers are obviously behind Rukia's execution and apparently Aizen's murder. Multiple captains start turning against each other for different reasons. It seems like Ichigo is just one small part of a much larger world.

And then Aizen is revealed and things still feel pretty delicious! What he did to Momo was REALLY fucked up and painful to watch in many ways. It's not unreasonable that Aizen's betrayal immediately halts a lot of ongoing fights. It makes sense that the Captain Commander doesn't want to turn around afterwards and start executing people for turning against him after losing three captains and all of Central 46. But... I would still expect there to be more lasting cracks and broken trust between the remaining members of the Gotei 13. The top four members of Squad 11 briefly turned against the Gotei essentially for funsies and yet characters like Toshiro and Rangiku don't seem to have any real resentment or suspicion over this casual disloyalty. I vaguely hope the psychological weight of and anger surrounding Aizen's fuckery is explored more later on, with more seriousness, but I can't trust this show not to essentially drop the issue completely.

I don't need this show to have Soul Society turn into some socialist / communist / anarchist utopia. But it is a downer to have a character as absolutely vile as Kurotsuchi thrown in my face during his fight with Ishida, knowing that not only does Kurotsuchi survive, but he's presumably continuing his utterly inhumane work in the Soul Society while everything else is happening. And the show seems to treat him as more of a joke mad scientist in the background than someone as or even more evil as any of the hollows. And I can't fully trust that this aspect of the Soul Society will ever be honestly confronted, even as simply a deeply tragic element representative of the Gotei's unchanging hypocrisy.

The Gotei 13 has an assassination squad! You don't have an assassination squad unless you're regularly killing people who are "undermining" your power, probably including lots of poor people in the outer districts trying to organize communities, based on actual history. These aspects are what made the soul reapers such effective and complicated antagonists in the Soul Society arc! And the flip to "yeah, they're Ichigo's allies now, mostly" was very sudden and kind of... underwhelming.

I don't care if parts of this story are tragic and this obviously broken system is left mostly unchanged at the end, it's just annoying when the story treats certain aspects as happy endings or just a funny joke, instead of delving more seriously and deliciously into just messed up everything is! How the soul reapers are unable to handle the burdens here!

From what I vaguely remember overhearing, Aizen ends up being a relatively flat villain, with relatively shallow goals and motivations regarding taking over the worlds and rising to godhood, which feels like missed potential when there's so much about this world that sucks! If Aizen had any honest motivations about making things better for any group of people, including hollows and their shitty deal in all this for example, then we might actually have a more interesting dialogue happening about the state of everything. I would like to see him honestly appealing to Orihime's kindness and sense of mercy in order to get her to join him. Her brother turned into a hollow! She has reasons to care about hollows potentially wanting to be more human again and living better afterlives than fighting forever in the sands. Maybe Aizen could just be lying about helping other people, but it would be more interesting to see this type of persuasion, and I'm already fucking sick of so much of Orihime's motivations focusing on helping Ichigo instead of her feeling torn about her tragically and traumatically dead brother who turned into a hollow.

(Side note: I don't fully understand why Aizen didn't just take over the Gotei 13. Between his hypnosis and his minions and his plots to take out rivals, he could have surely installed himself as the next Captain Commander eventually. Neither Ukitake (chronically ill) nor Kyouraku (relaxed drunkard) seem to honestly want the weight of that position. Aizen just seems to like drama, I guess. Fair enough.)

I've just reached the fight between Rukia and Aaronerio who is pretending to be Kaien, and it feels like the story is bringing up a genuinely cool idea only to throw it aside as a trick by a relatively boring hollow character. What IF Kaien had become a hollow? What IF Kaien had joined Aizen because he had some legitimate grief with Soul Society and the Gotei 13? I have vague memories about Aizen having Kaien killed and framing the Shiba Clan because Kaien was investigating him, but it's sooooo boring to have Aizen be at fault for EVERYTHING. The fallen lieutenant / almost captain from a disgraced noble family treated badly by Soul Society... turned into a hollow and forced to survive tragedy he wanted to kill him and unable to return to the Gotei 13 for help? Joining up with Aizen because he wants to take down the Soul Society and make a better world? That's COMPELLING. That's COMPLICATED. That's something that promises to get MESSY if Aizen is lying to Kaien and/or Kaien has genuinely lost his way and/or Kaien HAS A POINT. But the show brings it up only to bail on the concept.

Maybe some of the things I've talked about here will be brought up later on. I expect them to keep bringing up many of these issues, actually! I honestly just don't expect satisfying explorations and resolutions to anything, given what I've seen so far. They're just not going for the good stuff.

(I have this playing in the background while working on other stuff. If I put on a better anime, I would actually want to pay more attention to it.)

[mellowwillowy]

helloooo there!

I just recently found your profile, and let’s just say I deeply fell in love with each and every one of your yandere chars.

I hope you are having a beautiful day. I would like to say that, I am very obsessed with my yandere! lawyer husband yulian <3. HE IS JUST SO STANDARDS!

and with regards to that, I was thinking if you could write on how he would react to reader has always loved embroidery and even makes small articles of clothing which they put their entire love into. but because their parents were not supportive of them going into arts pathway, they just took that as a hobby.

so, on the night of reader and yulian’s wedding, they bring out a very beautifully designed tie as a wedding gift for yulian. they feel a little conscious about it, so they babbles about how he doesn’t have to wear it but they just hopelessly adore him thus they want to show their love through the gift. the tie is a light green (matches his gorgeous eyes) with a golden line patterns to shows his success, affluence, and luxury.

yulian is someone who love his spouse immensely. and honestly, I cannot ever get enough of him. but please ignore if this is very weird! 😭

thank you and apology in advance! <3

Bawling at this ask, I'm glad people love him as much as I've loved him!!! Moya!!! Love!! Feeding me so well!! That aside, this is the first thought I had after reading this all,

"Sir, you've been wearing the same tie everyday. Can't you at least change it for once?"

"Nonsense. It fits my suit so well."

My man changes the suit to match the tie and not the other way around! Will not change it unless you gave him another tie :) he is such a lovesick puppy.

Anyway, I can see this happening in a much more modern setting timeline (one of the lives after Yulian gets to be with darling in the utopia!)

You are his beloved, anything you fancy will be sent to your doorstep, including embroideries' tools (...uh right?) Yulian knows you enjoy doing stuffs like these, making clothes for your dolls, scrapbooks, tending flowers and so on including embroidering.

The only thing was that you had never given him anything until the wedding ceremony shits happened.

You gave him something that made him feel like melting on the spot, a tie which reminded him of the emerald eyes he loathed yet he just couldn't bring himself to hate your creations.

The golden line patterns were adorable, he deduced that it symbolized the affluence and fame he carried.

"Dear... I love this... thank you, so much." He pulled you into a hug, his hand clutching the tie tightly, "What do you say about making more of these for me? Napkin will do well too. Hm? Oh what nonsense! This is beautiful! I've always known you are talented in handiworks! You are almost like a Clockworker!"

He will boost your confidence by 400% with his words, he's a lawyer and he knows how to word shits well. Almost too well.

So here we are, a husband who proudly only wears ties that are made by his spouse! A husband who is only seen using the napkins you give (unless it turns bloody) and is also the same guy who makes the people around him blind and bleeding from his lovesick ass.