#just in order to deal with the surrounding population of people

[reconnecting]

rambling dont mind me

[theresattrpgforthat]

Ello'. I'm looking for a game that can simulate city living v. well, with the focus on the city itself while still leaving room for like, adventure stories and such. Thank you, and I hope you have a good evening- thanks for all you do.

Theme: City Living.

Hello, I don't have much to add onto this one so let's just get to it!

A City of Shining Stars, by ehronlime.

This is a game about a City. It’s also a game about superheroes and villains and extraordinary people dealing with dangers no normal human could face on their own. At its heart though, it’s about a City. And the thing to remember about a City, is that more than its geography or its history, what really makes a City is its people.

If you want a game that builds a city for a superhero setting, then you might want to check out A City of Shining Stars. This game is a gm-less, card-based came that primarily resolves around a deck of cards to provide questions that your group will have to answer every turn, including questions about residents, locations, and social and cultural landscapes. I think that if you like games like The Quiet Year, this game is definitely in your wheelhouse.

Polis, by Black Armada Games.

Here is a settlement. It is unique and filled with potential. And from this settlement you are going to grow a city.

This is a game about the rise and evolution of a city. You will start with a simple map of a settlement, with its surrounding terrain and a some starting details. Over time you spark its growth, and watch it grow and change over time into a full-fledged city. You will populate it with vibrant cultures, build beautiful buildings and neighbourhoods. You will shape your city with festivals and monuments, wars and revolutions, bounties and catastrophes. With each change, the city will evolve and respond until you have something truly unique.

Polis has a number of elements that you’ll be filling out and keeping track of as you play. This includes the Cast (social groups of NPCs), the Timeline (the list of events that play out), the Almanac (a series of conditions that may affect the city), and the Map (the geography of the city, likely drawn as you play).

I don’t own this game so I’m not sure what the gameplay looks like, but Black Armada Games has a number of games that really hit it out of the park, so I expect Polis to be just as hard-hitting and satisfying to play.

City Planning Department, by Kaelan DM.

By opening this binder, scroll or digital thought-form you have taken the first crucial step to planning your next city. Working for the City Planning Department is at once a deeply rewarding and gruesomely punishing task. But with the help of this simple guide, in no time you'll know all the ins and outs to making a place whose inhabitants can thrive.

Now, a city is only a city because of the order imposed on it by whoever is in charge. You, the city council, are those people. Were you elected? Appointed? Summoned? Who cares? You're here now and you're ready to do some local government!

A game about city management and its problems, City Planning Department evolves around a map that each player takes turns adding to - or at least, attempting to add to. On your turn, you will have a chance to propose a new addition to the city. However, other players can dispute your addition, which, if there is enough agreement, can waste your entire turn. On the other hand, if the dispute is not seconded, then the person who brought up the dispute loses their right to dispute in any future turns. Each player also has a role on the council; either chaotic, neutral or orderly. These roles can inform your character goals, and change the trajectory of the city as a result. I think this game can really replicate the difficulty and frustration of attempting to get something done in a bureaucratic setting.

City Planning Department is also setting agnostic, so if you want to run a cyberpunk city or a faerie council, you can do both of these things!

They Call This The City, by HB.

There is no one way to see a city. In fact, the multidimensional and complex nature of cities has made the idea of the City an eternally fascinating subject of art, science and engineering alike. A city definitionally contains literal and metaphorical multitudes, a hyperobject that, as it happens, also makes for a hell of a game if approached playfully.

This is the aim of They Call This The City, a GMless, character-free game for one or more players about fooling around with graphs.

This is the first time I’ve seen a game that uses graphs and charts as a central game mechanic for play, and I think it could be very educational in teaching people both how to read data and how to chart it. As you play, you will create graphs to represent different aspects of the city, such as how many of a certain feature there are, who has access to certain resources, what average occupations look like, etc. There’s also optional info-graphics that you can use to illustrate inequalities in the city, and the ways the civic infrastructure disenfranchise some of your residents. Finally, there’s a stage at which the players will have to declare one of the graphs to be incorrect, and then describe how it doesn’t accurately portray information.

Overall I think this game is very unique and can work as both a city-building tool as well as an educational experience to talk about how we portray information.

Together in the Ancient City, by Takuma Okada

A tabletop roleplaying game about exploring the many districts of a vast and ancient city. Uses a standard 52 card deck and a six-sided die. For 2 players.

This game is a duet enhancement of the game Alone in the Ancient City.

Together in the Ancient City is a great way to play a city-building game as only two players. Each player will take up a specific role every time you visit a new district, but you can switch between the roles when you move on. You use a d6 and a pack of playing cards to generate new districts, but I think you still get to determine details about each district you visit.

Overall, I think this game feels a bit like you are a pair of tourists exploring a city together, so if you want something lighthearted and exploratory, you might like Together in the Ancient City.

the city begins to exist, by kay w.

the city begins to exist is a two person city building conversation. In this game, two players build a city together by asking and answering questions, switching roles from the person asking questions to the person answering them as you go. Each person will, in each of these roles, help build and expand the idea of a city based around a single theme.

This game can take a variable amount of time, as it ends when the players feel ready to end it. It could take as little as an hour. It could take several hours, or be extended across several play sessions. It is suited for in person or digital play, as players either pass a notebook back and forth or work together in a collaborative document like Google Docs.

Using a tarot deck and a d4, the city begins to exist allows two players to switch between two roles through every turn, with themes and questions prompted using different tarot cards. The game also comes with a Google Docs template, so I have a feeling that as long as you have a way to share a tarot deck, you should also be able to play this game online!

Foretold: The Mayor of Elphame, by Groundhoggoth.

Every big city has districts with their own character, where the immigrant population settled and made a place like home. Whether it’s Chinatown, Little Italy, the French Quarter or somewhere else, it’s a little piece of here that feels like there.

Elphame is something like that, a place where fairytale beings and their descendants have settled, making a home for themselves in the world of mortals. Their magic is weak or atrophied, but they still carry themselves with pride and wear their differences like medals. Times are changing though, as the city grows and prospers on all sides, providing new and unfamiliar opportunities to the younger generation. The community looks for guidance in these troubled times; will you be the one to take the wheel and steer Elphame safely into the future?

This game zoomed in on one neighbourhood of a city, a neighbourhood full of fantastical characters. The Mayor of Elphame revolves around prompts drawn randomly and answered, with each answer meant to represent a story about something that happened in the neighbourhood. Players can choose to leave threads hanging or answer only part of the question if they want to give other players a thread to pick up later in the game.

If you want you might even be able to play this game multiple times, building a different neighbourhood each time!

Also For Your Consideration...

A City Upon A Hill, by Hunter J Allen.

I’m sorry did you say street magic, by Caro Ascercion.

A Traveller in the City, by Palleon Press.

Aurora, by World Champ Game Co.

Station: A Game of City Building, by Tin Star Games.

Explorers of the Forever City, by Sam Robson.

My Town-Builders Recommendation Post.

My Map-Making Recommendation Post

[soapybutt17]

Lost In Ikea

Summary: John was a patient man, but he had his limits. That includes having to navigate his way around a maze you called IKEA and the impossibility of having to put the bloody bed together—his patience was even shorter after being interupted twice and a broken bed as an aftermath. Character: John Price x F!Wife!Reader. OC Daughter (Katherine Price) Word Count: 1,066 Chapter Warnings: General Chaos. John gets cockblocked twice. Unedited. Lol. Author's Note: for @glitterypirateduck;s O'Captain! Challenge Scenarios:

4. Lost In IKEA 55. Someone gets walked in on (doesn't have to be sexual) 89. Shopping for a new bed.

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The frown has marred John’s face the moment he had placed the car on park and he was greeted by the annoying blue and yellow signage. It still confused him to no end why you insist on buying a bed in IKEA when he could make one himself.

“Are you excited to go to IKEA?” The gentle baby talk lingered besides him as he turned towards you whose attention was solely on your six month old daughter on the car seat.

It was another special occasion for the three of you aside from buying a new bed for them, you had also decided that it was time to invest on some more furniture and decoration for the baby’s bed.

John grumbled under his breath as he reluctantly got out of the car, following his wife as you handed him the sling carrier to carry your daughter. Without another word, he placed his daughter onto the carried on his chest and was greeted with the lovely grumble of his pride and joy.

“You’re the only thing keeping me sane now, Love.” He whispered gently kissing on top of her head before following his wife through the towering blue and yellow entrance.

The sprawling maze of Scandinavian furniture loomed before him like a daunting labyrinth, and he could help but feel a surge of irritation bubbling within him. Why can his wife just allow him to make the bloody bed or more specifically fix the one they had broken last night instead?

“Can’t we just order online like normal people?” John muttered to himself, his voice barely audible over the chatter of shoppers around. He honestly hated being surrounded by people and having to act hyper vigilant because of it.

You turned to him in amusement, but a sympathetic glance lingered, you know all too well his disdain for crowded stores and aimless browsing. But you also know him enough to know he hated online shopping just as much.

“Come on, John. We’re just here for the bed and some decorations for Katherine’s bed.” You tried your best to reassure him.

But as you three continued to venture deeper into the seemingly endless aisles, John’s frustration only intensified. Every turned seemed to lead to yet another showroom, each meticulously staged to showcase the latest in minimalist design. He couldn’t help but scoff at the idea of spending hours wandering through fake living rooms and bedrooms.

"This is ridiculous," John grumbled, scanning the maze of shelves for any sign of escape. "How can anyone enjoy this?"

You chuckled rubbing his bearded cheek before kissing him on the cheeks, knowing there was only one way to placate him and his stormy mood.

“How about this,” You began pulling him towards one of the less populated showrooms. “How about once we’re finished with shopping for the bed and decorations, we can bring Katherine to your parents’ house for a few days so we could handle fixing the bed and redesigning Katherine’s room?” You wiggled your brows knowingly.

John was slowly cracking at the proposition.

“Three days. One day for creating that bloody bed and two days of whatever I want.” He proposed.

“How about a week and we fly your parents and Katherine to Disneyland?” You offered.

“Deal.” John shook your hands sealing the deal and your fate for the weak.

Even with the deal in place, John could not hide his annoyance. Meandering through the store, his annoyance grew with each passing moment especially when you three had found yourself walking in circles for a couple of times. The endless stream of shoppers, the blaring announcements over the intercom, and the overwhelming array of choices left him feeling claustrophobic and irritable.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity and the growing irritable baby on his chest, they had reached the checkout line with their items at hand. John let out a sigh of relief, eager to finally escape the chaos of the store.

“We are never setting foot in an IKEA again.” John muttered to you as soon as you three had exited.

“I hope you keep your word and keep the bed sturdy.” You pointed out knowingly.

John rolled his eyes, not wanting to remember the reason behind the broken bed in the first place.

~

Last Night

“Get out!”

John was close to a coronary at this point. It was the third time tonight that someone had interrupted him with his wife and he was ready to shoot anyone else that would try barging into his bedroom without bloody knocking.

“I told you to lock the bedroom door.” You giggled finding the whole thing amusing. Even with you barely clothed at this point just as much as him, you were barely affected by the fact that Gaz had seen the two of you almost having sex.

John had wished he had never brought the three to his home, he had wished no one knew about their relationship, and he had wished that his wife was not so hospitable as you were right now even after the incident that had now become a common occurrence when everyone was off base.

If only he could turn back time.

“If I had known that those Muppets didn’t know how to knock I would have.” He muttered, the mood now dampened with annoyance of being interrupted.

“Just lock the door and fuck me already.” You giggled, nudging him with your foot and he somehow sprang back to life at that.

Wasting no time, he got up and locked the door before jumping right back into devouring you. You were a giggling mess as he began to strip you of what remained of your clothes.

Even before John could begin, the sound of Soap’s laughter and the crying that came soon after from their daughter had finally sealed the deal that the moment was ruined permanently for the night.

“Bloody fucking hell.” John couldn’t help himself from cursing as you burst into fits of laughter as you stood up and slid on your night robe and opened the door to tend to your crying daughter and attempt to scold Soap from keeping it down.

Slumping his full body into the bed in frustration, the last thing John would have ever expected to happen was for the bed to give out under him further sealing his fate for the night.

“God fucking damn it.”

[dailyadventureprompts]

Setting: The Kingdom of Xophena, Realm of the Pure

Though it is famed the world over for the piety of its people and the bravery of its knights, this kingdom holds a dark secret at its heart. If you were to see the scattering of fortress cities surrounded by horror haunted wilderness it would be all too easy to believe the legends: brave warriors sallying forth to do battle against the corruption that besieges them from all sides, slaying great foes and making great sacrifices in the name of defending the innocent. If you looked closer though you would see Xophena for all its faults, the fear by which its elite drive and dominate its populace, a tradition of martial glory that justifies any action or abuse of the warrior caste, a population forced to endure toil and abject subjugation or be exiled outside the walls.

Adventure Hooks:

While travelling through the realm of the pure as part of an ongoing quest, the party run into a retinue of outrider knights on their way to destroy a rampaging aberration hiding out in a gold mine. Some of the knights scoff at the party for being common sellswords, while others recognize them as fellow doogooders-at-arms. There's glory to be had if the party join them in their mission, and more importantly, potential reward and bragging rights.... if they can keep up, the mounted cavaliers aren't going to slow down on the party's behalf.

Xophen emissaries have made an appearance in the party's homeland, courting alliances, making trade deals, and generally putting their finger on the scales of power. Distrustful of too many good offers, the party's patron is planning on a visit to Xophena in the near future and would like them to come along as extra sets of eyes and ears. Renegade heroes have a habit of seeing through the haze of political bullshit.

Xophena would make a fascinating backdrop for a campaign, as Arthurian myth crashes into lovecraftian weirdness. The best place to start would be with the party as castoffs and exiles, eking out a living in one of the few hidden hamlets built by those outcast from the social order. How do they survive? When circumstances demand that they enter one of the fortress cities do they trick their way in, or beg favour from the sanctimonious powers that be? Can they last long enough to discover the secret that has bent the world into its current cruel shape?

Background: Only a few centuries ago Xophena was just like any other kingdom, periods of prosperity and stability that dissolved into infighting as the local warrior elite squabbled for position. That of course all changed when monsters known as the Delnbrood began to wriggle out of the earth like worms after rain, causing untold devastation and forcing a societal retreat to the increasingly fortified settlements dotted about the mountainous foothills. The fear and chaos of these years restructured Xophen society into a rigid hierarchy based around tradition, faith, and survival, which has only grown more ossified as time has gone on.

Both Xophen scripture and legend will tell you that the horrors that beset them began with a treasonous sorcerer Delndrek who sought to take the throne for himself through dishonorable means and darkest sorcery. He was opposed by Tanria brightspear, a saint of the everlight who foiled his every sly attempt to seize power, until at last she cornered him and forced his surrender. Ever the coward, Delndrek sacrificed his humanity rather than relinquish his ambition, becoming an indescribable abomination, that it took the bright speared saint five days to vanquish, dying in the process. It's said that the aberrations that beset Xophena today are born from where his tainted blood struck the earth.

Like many of the tales told about the realm of the pure, this story is a lie, gilded with just enough truth to make it stick in the people's memory. Delndrek wasn't just a sorcerer, but the sorcerer of the royal family, tasked with magicing away all the problems that backwoods dynasty couldn't solve through bloodshed or political marriage. The kingdom's goldmines had always been its lifeblood, and most of the fighting in those days about who could profit from what claim. Trouble was the royal family's mines were drying up, so they threw their pet mage at the problem said that if he didn't find a solution they'd torture him till they did. Dying mines and mounting stress forced Delndrek to look deeper and deeper for an answer, and eventually led him to communion with the outergod Jysh'parun who holds dominion over the secrets of mountains. A pact was struck, the mountains ate people and spat up gold, until eventually the saint found out and decided to put a stop to things.

Cut to today, and the dependants of that very same royal family are still trying to wriggle out of the pact they instigated, spending their people's lives to fill their coffers and fight back the creatures the outer god sends to assert dominion over the realm he was promised.

Setting Details:

The church of the everlight was always strong in Xophena, dating back half a millennia to when an adherent of hers was lost on a stormy sea for months and was only able to find land when the mist parted and he saw the dawn first alighting on one of the region's seaside peaks. The mountainous temple city of First Alight still serves as the heart of the region's faith.

That faith has become just as gaudy and hollow as the rest of the kingdom: Somewhere along the line it was decided that gold was the best way to demonstrate praise to Sarenrae, both in decorating her icons and paying to erect ever grander structures in her honour. While the common people pray for the hope and strength to lead them through lean times, their tithes go to fund an increasingly bloated clergy who spend their days finding reasons that the peoples' sinful nature forestalls their goddess's promised salvation.

You don't compose ballads calling your homeland "Realm of the Pure" unless you've got some hangups around cleanliness. Delndrek's corruption has touched more than the land, as aberrant sorceries and otherworldly mutations have begun to spring up among the populace. Those with influence do their best to hide these marks, those without are scapegoated, exiled, or made an example of.

For all their privilege and brainwashing, many of the realm's knights really do believe in the cause, having largely abandoned the ways of petty armed gentry and settling instead into martial orders. While they all compete to slay the most beasts and earn the most gallant reputation, it is a deepset longing among the knights to be able to find St. Tanria's lost spear, which in the right hands is said to be able to rid the land of its blight once and for all.

Arcane magic is viewed with suspicion in Xophena, as any rogue mage could be just another Delndrek waiting to happen. Exceptions are of course made for those spoken for by the nobility.

Art 1

Art 2

[psychotrenny]

Now I've received a few comments about the mass migration of Mizrahi Jews to Israel during the mid 20th century, specifically about Israel's lack of culpability towards it. And there's a few things I've said in response to this that I'd like to reiterate

For one, a number of commenters have attributed the time period of these migrations to the "30s and 40s" which I don't understand. Even Zionists usually consider the "Mizrahi Exodus" to date from the 50s onwards; a big part of how the process is portrayed by pro-Zionist sources is the framing as Israel as this land of opportunity and safety for Jews fleeing the violence and intolerance of the Arab world, something that couldn't exactly happen until Israel was actually established as a state in 1948.

Secondly as I've already stated multiple times the displacement, marginalisation and violent attack on Palestinians by Zionist European Settlers was already underway in Mandatory Palestine by the 1920s, as embodied by the existence of groups like Haganah and Irgun. So like even if we for whatever reason backdate the supposed mass exile of the Mizrahi to the "30s and 40s" it's still very easy to see the correlation between violence perpetrated by European settlers in the name of "Jewishness" and the development of conflict between previously peacefully co-existing communities of Jews and Gentiles in North Africa and West Asia.

And finally, the idea that the mass migration of Mizrahi Jews to Palestine was the result of intolerance from Muslim neighbors is essentially a Zionist distortion of a much more complicated situation. Soon after the establishment of Israel, the new government actively encouraged Jews from the surrounding region to migrate and worked with many of the surrounding governments (usually the European colonial governments that still controlled extensive tracts of the region) to facilitate this. Some Jews (such as those of Yemen or Morocco) were even essentially deported against their will by the wishes of the Israeli government. While there was an increase in inter-communal conflict between Jewish and Gentile populations in the region, this was both due to the general aftermath of Israeli's brutal establishment and in response to specific actions such as the Mossad terrorist attacks in Egypt in 1954 with some actions even being specifically undertaken in order to cause conflict (or even just the appearance of conflict) and induce migration such as Mossad's activities in Iraq through the 1950s. And while there was certainly a significant level of violence and maltreatment (both legal and extra-legal) directed towards Jewish people in various West Asian and North African countries in response to Israeli's invasion, the sheer degree that direct violence and persecution played in such migrations has also been greatly exaggerated by Zionists in order to justify their continued aggression against the people of Palestine and their Allies. The idea that you can draw any real equivalence between the population movements of the Mizrahi Aliyah and that of the Palestinian Nakba is a ghoulish distortion of history that only serves to justify Zionist atrocities both past and present. One was a more or less voluntary* migration that was only partially induced by fears (both hypothetical and actually realised) of conflict while the other was an incidence of direct and unambiguous ethnic cleansing. The factors that led to the Mizrahi migration has plenty of "pull" in addition to "push" and a great deal of said "push" was deliberately engineered by the Israeli government rather than being purely the result of some natural Islamic cruelty or antagonism

*while not an entirely fair thing to say, and its accuracy will vary a lot on a case by case basis, the Mizrahi migrants on the whole had a lot more freedom than the Palestinians in both the decision to leave and their choice of destination (as several of those linked articles mentioned, some Mizrahi migrated to Europe or the Americas rather than Israel)

[sodalitea]

I - Miracles of the White Nights [Il Dottore x Reader/OC]

For Valentine’s Day I’m sharing the first chapter of my longer fanfiction about Il Dottore and my Genshin OC Marie Snezhevna (this story can be perceived as reader insert type of thing; the characters' names play a big role in the plot and I decided to pick them by myself). In this chapter I have not provided the most detailed background of the current circumstances between Zandik and Marie, but I plan to do so in the future. I don’t really know if I’ll update it in any regular schedule, but for sure I’m going to continue this story. Meanwhile, enjoy!

TW: Minimally suggestive! Mentions of Marie's guesses about Dottore's true intentions.  Summary: Small gestures make a big difference. Due to the long lasting effects of a serious argument with Il Dottore, Marie Shnezhevna gets degraded on the lower position in Haeresys despite being one of his most reliable workers in the lab. Three months later a ceasefire is established. Zandik finds surprising but efficient way to trick her into getting promoted again. Don't repost my artworks/writings please! I'll appreciate likes, comments and reblogs. I am the author of both text and signature illustarion. ♡ English is my second language, there may occur some grammar issues!

AO3 link

I - Miracles of the White Nights

“The days in Snezhnaya seem identical. Wherever you go, you will find your hair and eyelashes frozen. It's so cold that you have to keep moving your body constantly in order to survive, even in the properly chosen clothing. Everywhere you look, you'll be surrounded by the snowy desert. If you stray too far from human settlements, your eyes will be obscured by one of the sudden snowstorms. Bunch of snowflakes will cut into your face like tiny, marvelously crafted blades. Somewhere on the horizon you may spot the outlines of deep, impenetrable, coniferous forests. You will find it difficult to stand straight due to the violent blows of the whistling wind trying to bury you alive in the frosty grave. It's worth mentioning that the typical Snezhnayan days are rather short in comparison to local nights that can last even for months. This land is harsh, but it still possesses unique, raw beauty. Those cold nights offer truly charming views in the form of multi-colored aurorae you couldn't experience anywhere else in equally rich form. The artistry of almighty Cryo Archon is undeniable, only the canvas she uses to paint her abstract compositions are painfully fake. Of course, these aren't the only charms of the Ice Nation. This country is huge and full of contrasts. What may seem surprising is this special time of the year when the sun takes control over the sky completely, so it doesn't set at all. The local population describes this phenomenon as the "Miracle of the White Nights''. Over the course of four hundred years, one could experience many of them, but they could not compare to the fragrant, inflaming nights in the Nation of Wisdom.”

Zandik, as he wasn't holed up in the deepest dungeons of Haeresys, stopped next to one of the windows in the southern part of his mansion and locked his gaze on the distance. The scarlet irises wandered somewhere along the glittering horizon, seemingly without any specific goal as the Harbinger enjoyed pervasive silence. Since he got rid of the segments, it had been happening more and more often. Sometimes he was just trying to shake off a strange feeling of lightness inside his skull. He was fed up with everything. Exhausted with the amount of delayed work. Instead of dealing with serious matters, he wasted too much time on trivial affairs such as correcting the mistakes of people less competent than himself. For centuries he wasn't relying on his employees that much and now he was just even more disappointed with them. After all, they were only humans with ordinary lifespans, without the satisfying amount of experience that would possibly match the level of Teyvat's most powerful mind. Zandik felt frustrated by the lack of quick alternatives to slow down the pace of his own work. He was alone with all of the projects he started when his other selves were still present. By the time he still handled most of the things on his own in different forms, but for now he couldn't even rely on himself truly. This would be a disgrace to him if he addressed this issue to Pierro or their Archon, since for hundreds of years he had been an exceptional professional, the master of planning and reacting quickly to every breakthrough revelation. He was always a few steps before everyone. At this stage, it was not possible for him to return to such a tedious work alone. It would be much less problematic if only deadlines never existed. Escape in thought was his way to break away from the unfavorable situation at least for a short moment. His thoughts traveled to the place where it never snowed. To the forests that sheltered a much richer variety of living organisms. The days were longer there, and the hot nights often made it impossible to fall asleep. The scents in Sumerian air could effortlessly mess with the restless minds of angry young men living for some greater purposes… For the Second Harbigner of Shneznaya, looking towards Sumeru was an involuntary, bitter flirtation with his own past. Currently he was in a place so incongruous to his homeland, but it was the only nation that guaranteed him complete freedom and support in turning his wildest daydreams into reality. It was the only place in Teyvat that allowed him to prove himself the way he was. He had everything he wanted to continue his journey and test the ideas that many would not even dare to think about… And yet, somewhere in his suppressed consciousness, he understood perfectly well that even here he was just a stranger meant to simply play his part. This time, as the man continued staring out the window, he heard the echo of someone's slow footsteps on the marble floor behind him. He recognized the sequence of these steps extraordinarily well… Those were inimitable. If only their owner walked barefoot, she would reach him in perfect silence. The corners of the Doctor's mouth turned up involuntarily.

“Marie Snezhevna,” he said without even turning towards the woman. Instead, he laced his fingers together behind his back. “Is this an emergency? At this hour I would rather expect to witness your presence in the laboratory or in your chamber.”

His voice echoed crystal clear between the walls of the corridor occupied by him and his underling. As usual, the scientist chose his words in a stiff, somewhat archaic way. Although it added seriousness and supposed politeness to his overall image, he himself seemed distant. Despite Zandik's cold demeanor, his interlocutor did not feel rejected. She was used to talking to him. Marie's interactions with Il Dottore resembled rituals based on some unwritten rules which the main participants managed to learn over the last few years. If there was an ordinary side witness there, the said unrefined observer could experience the eagerness to say that both Marie and Dottore enjoyed engaging in these subtle games.

“I will leave immediately if I interrupted something important,” the woman replied calmly, keeping her demeanor professional. Zandik remained silent for a moment, giving her no answer. This made the woman sigh heavily before she turned her back towards him to fulfill her promise. The quiet rustle of her clothes alerted the Harbinger, who slowly turned towards her and squinted his eyes hidden under the raven mask.

“Stop.”

It was an order. Naturally, the woman immediately stopped and turned her face towards him, allowing him to continue his speech. After all, she had to respect his will. He cleared his throat, seemingly offended by the whole situation.

“You wouldn't come here without a reason. Besides, I don't think it's respectful to be in a hurry when you're talking to your boss.” Indeed, he had known her for a long time and he knew what he could expect from her. He had to play it cool, precisely because — since he had fully understood his own position over the last few months – he didn't want to miss the opportunity to finally talk to Marie alone.

Since he delivered the two gnosis to Tsaritsa, he cut off almost all forms of communication with his former main assistant except her reports on the progress of her research under his command. Although the heretical scientist usually didn't care about time, now it felt like the whole eternity had passed. A really strange thing. Deep down in his heart he was a simple coward, or maybe his unwavering patience was reasonable and had finally paid off as the woman herself announced her readiness for a face-to-face confrontation? Marie shrugged her arms and shifted her body weight to one of her hips before shaking her head, sighing again with a faint smile on her lips. It was an extremely familiar gesture, as if everything before had never had the opportunity to set them apart.

“Of course, naturally…” she looked up at him, and then her facial features softened noticeably. “I just want to thank you for everything you did for me. I really didn't expect this. Certainly not after I caused additional problems in a very crucial situation. I made it all about myself. I think you deserve an apology for what I said, when I stated that you're…”

“Your apology is unnecessary.”

The Harbinger made a gentle gesture with his hand to silence her. He didn't want Marie to take old skeletons out of the closet. He also did not want to elaborate more about the choice of his that had a negative impact on his daily functioning. He wasn't even bothered by the earlier behavior of his former assistant anymore. Even though he still couldn't fully accept what she truly meant back then, he understood her perspective on an intellectual level. During that mission, he was caught off guard by Kusanali and he just did what was necessary to succeed. However, he could have done it all more skillfully to minimize the unpleasant side effects of the special operation. However, he did not take this into account at the time, so he was delaying an adequate response to Marie's complaints. No honest apology passed his lips in ages and he wasn't very likely to utter that magical word anytime soon.

“Follow me. It will be much more beneficial,” he gestured and clasped his hands behind his back again. Then, he started moving further into the southern nave of the mansion. He walked leisurely, visibly waiting for Marie to go after him. True to his expectations, she caught up with him very quickly. When Marie glanced at his face from closer distance, she spotted his poor state immediately. He looked extremely tired and couldn't hide it even under the mask. His skin was paler than usual and it had a sickly greenish undertone. Exhaustion would explain his growing isolation in a convincing way. His own pride was his downfall. As they walked through the corridors in silence, listening to the wind blowing outside, Marie noticed that they were approaching the sector of private chambers. His intentions could be... everything and anything.

Dottore's supposed intentions caused Marie's consternation, but in order to avoid hasty guesses, she decided to keep all comments to herself. The time on his side teached her that the worst things were usually caused by the incorrect assumptions about his agenda. Yet, when Zandik started unlocking the door to his dorm, the woman cleared her throat quietly and took a step back.

“I'll wait outside.”  

Slightly awkward smile appeared on her face. She received a reply in the form of a nod. It seemed that he didn't care about the goal that could stereotypically motivate any man to take a woman to his apartment. Overally, Zandik loved privacy, so Marie was going to respect that as well, leaving aside the obvious moral issues. The Doctor disappeared inside his apartment for around five minutes. When he came back, he handed her a small box wrapped in a papyrus. He had a gentle yet wry smile on his lips that only fools could trust. He warned the woman before she started asking him any questions.

“In Sumeru I managed to obtain some new chemical samples which I expect you to analyze, describe, and maybe even extract something completely new from them. I just require you to be extremely careful when handling them. I didn’t choose any intermediary, considering the high value of those resources… I'm strongly against unpacking them outside of the laboratory environment.”

“I see. I will do my best to keep them safe,” Marie took over the package with extreme caution. She seemed to turn pale when she heard a silent clink of glass under the packaging. She looked fearfully at the Harbringer, who rubbed the tip of his nose with his knuckles, covering the lower part of his face at the same time. It took a lot of effort for him not to burst into manic laughter. Fortunately, Dottore was an excellent actor.

“This is another urgent project that has been delayed unexpectedly, so get on with it immediately… If you can make it this evening, I might even consider promoting you again.”

The man sounded as categorical as promising. Yes, exactly, it was a great idea for Marie to return to her previous position. Of course, if only that's what she wanted. Zandik just intended to convince her to do so, being fully determined to achieve the desired effect. Among all of his employees, he memorized cooperation with Marie as the most pleasant. Moreover, he could keep an eye on her constantly to avoid particularly embarrassing accidents involving her... This woman's reliability required appropriate supervision to shine fully.

“Promoting me, you say… For how long?” Although the woman turned it into a joke, she slowly moved towards the opposite side of the corridor, remaining very careful around the package received from her boss. Since Marie was cut from the same cloth as Zandik, she also didn't want to admit that she simply missed the infamous heretic's company. “Apart from formalities, I just wonder what it is. Naturally, I will prepare the report as soon as possible!”

The Harbinger watched as the woman took up her task. It was amusing to witness her curiosity and willingness to gain knowledge. In this particular case, he had a feeling that it would herald a real breakthrough in their united research.

“I'm counting on your expertise, Professor,” he added in Fontanian as she left, before the storm of woman's black curls disappeared from his sight. He expected very quick results from this long-awaited experiment.

══════⊹⊱≼≽⊰⊹══════

When Marie entered her study room in the lab, she put the package on the table and rubbed her hands together with excitement. Sumeru was the region with the best samples of poisons. What could be inside the parcel? Small colorful frogs for the production of poison darts, medicines and antidotes, rhizomes, roots, leaves, mushrooms, insects… The tropical jungle hid countless treasures and the fact that Il Dottore himself managed the trouble of obtaining raw materials was exceptionally valuable. Marie didn't know anyone who was more familiar with the local flora and fauna. She herself might not have even paid attention to some things during her on field delegations, but now she had the opportunity to learn something new directly from the mastermind himself. On top of that, he offered her another promotion. Wonderful. Low importance tasks weren't as fulfilling as experiencing the true science. After conversation with Zandik she felt extraordinary happiness that she had not expected to return these days. The way he referred to her as Professor scratched the right part of her brain a bit too pleasantly. She was more willing to try to forgive him for scaring her to death when he destroyed his segments out of nowhere. At the same time, was this really necessary to wait so long before handing her the new project?

The woman tied her hair back and put on protective clothing, quietly humming the first random melody that popped into her head. Then, she walked over the table and began unrolling the package. As soon as she saw its contents, she felt the wave of heat on her cheeks. This wasn't what she expected… She slipped the protective mask off her face in bewilderment, and then, with wide eyes, she began to look at the containers. The bottles indeed contained chemicals, but at first glance none of the substances had something to do with the poisonous flora of Sumeru. Those weren't even standard vials from Zandik's laboratory, but some colorful glass flasks decorated according to the Sumerian manner of design and sealed with appropriate labels. Marie sank heavily onto her stool and began carefully turning the bottles over in her fingers. Maybe… Dottore made a mistake or someone miraculously robbed him, replaced the original cargo and even managed to escape with his life? Sounds a bit too silly, but it was all just women's cosmetics. Nothing really valuable to the scientist.

Rose water, kohl, aker fassi and several niche perfume oils. What's more, at the bottom of the package there was an original Sumerian halva decorated with dried fruits.

Marie tried to maintain her denial, but instead of relief, she felt a pang in her heart. At this point her face felt as if she was on fire. If Zandik planned to give it to her right after he returned and her sulks prevented him from doing so… She felt so bad about herself. Willingly or not, she blinked her eyes a few times, as for a moment her vision became blurry. He had no reason to be so generous. Maybe it was a suggestion that he noticed her getting old slowly, or maybe she should just look for some specific, new purposes for simple household chemicals? Maybe the halva was poisoned or packed with elixirs he hadn't tested before? After all, Dottore always devoured it himself and he was reluctant to share it with anyone. Or maybe Marie was just overthinking at the moment and what Dottore really expected from her was terrifyingly simple. Was it that he wanted her to try those substances on herself, like she always used to do in her job? Zandik wished to see the effects of her work in the evening, which meant there was no time for typical scientific inspection… Marie had just enough time to do her makeup. It was exciting, moving and scary in its own way. It wasn't usual to get any prosaic, non-scientific gift from Zandik.

However, if this was the only requirement to restore the old order in the laboratory, Marie was willing to do it for both of them and touch the precious part of Sumeru that he brought to Snezhnaya for her. Soon the woman's green eyes got embraced by a beautiful dark frame. Her cheeks and lips got touched with the color of a pomegranate with a golden glow. She placed the sweet scent of honey, sandalwood and rose behind her ear. She cut the halva into pieces. For now she was almost ready to face him again. It was one of those white nights, when endless days asserted their domination over the lenghty times of darkness again.

[theculturedmarxist]

thoughts on the democrat party

Personally I think the Dems are doing "their best" with Biden. From what I can see the shape that American society has taken due to corporate monopolization has influenced the party in such a way that it has divested itself from the necessary talent to either govern or develop a new intellectual framework to deal with emerging circumstances. Biden is the best they've got because party power has been monopolized by all the geriatric party bosses, who have spent decades weeding out any potential party rivals and self selecting for mediocrity and the kind of intellectual narrowness necessary to carry the nebulous Dem party line.

The Dems have been outfoxed at every turn in spite of their comparative popularity to the Reps because as awful as it is, the Reps at least have a vision of the future and how to get their, which the Dems absolutely lack, and you can't beat something with nothing. So the Dems default to the "norms" set by the Republicans whenever the Ds manage to get power, which only serves the Republican agenda as eventually they'll just get in power again and pick up where they left off.

Biden is actually the best they can do, because they have no one of any vision to energize the base, and even if they did they don't have the clout to either direct the party or attract investment from donors. The fact that an octogenarian with dementia is at the head of the party and nothing can be done about it points to how serious the problems in the party have become.

>At what point do the Dems just collapse from the institutional rot you're describing?

I'm not sure, really. I haven't really thought about it.

I suppose we might be seeing the first indications of such a collapse now. I think the marks of a healthy institution are for it to a) be able to identify, incorporate, and cultivate new talent, b) to have an internal well of theoretical and practical knowledge to draw from, and c) to utilize the previous two in novel ways in order to work towards some kind of future ideal and/or to deal with novel circumstances, both benign and malignant.

It's much more complicated than just Trump as a person, but him and the circumstances surrounding him are a novel, malignant circumstance as far as the Democratic Party is concerned, and one that it had failed to deal with after 8 years of wrangling with it. Bernie Sanders is another facet of this malignant novelty, and the party's manner of dealing with him is ironically why they're incapable of dealing with Trump. As far as the party runners are concerned, Sanders and other members of the 'progressives" in the party are a tumor to be combated. Even their mild reforms run counter to party orthodoxy and are not to be tolerated, and anywhere they might seriously challenge that orthodoxy, like we saw when they prevailed in Nevada, they have to be crushed. They're allowed to showboat and make their little tirades, but when it comes to any sort of actual challenge to party policy there are various means of chastening them, like we saw recently with AIPAC crushing the "squad" and making AOC cry.

So this rigidity has made adaptation and innovation basically impossible. There's just the status quo, and if you want to get anywhere in the party you have to serve that status quo with a practically religious devotion. The party is now overflowing with empty suits like Kamala and Buttigieg, the sort of mediocrities that have no real values, no real intellect, and whose only talent is being able to say with some level of conviction whatever currently serves the party's interests. Unfortunately for them, the party's interests are diametrically opposed to the general population's interests, so while they might be able to get up in front of a tv and deliver a speech someone wrote for them which will make PMC types on twitter and the MSNBC hosts they follow swoon, there's nothing there to attract average people and convince them to vote for them. They've heard it all before and because there's very little material difference to them in being fucked by a Republican or Democrat president, they don't really care.

So the crisis now is that they have nothing to beat Trump with, and no way to fix this situation. Even if they had the talent to fall back on, Biden himself represents a significant amount of clout within the party itself, and the party's convention rules mean that all the delegates they gave him are his to do with as he pleases, and for whatever reason refuses to give them up, probably because he's a) a bastard and b) his progressing dementia is bringing out all his worst qualities, and making the magnanimous play for the benefit of others is not something that Biden would ever, ever do.

Right now we're witnessing all the powers and interests behind the party trying to come to grips with these circumstances. The young, attractive party members that would be worth funding like AOC are unacceptable because the donors won't accept their politics, so giving them actual power within and over the party is out of the question. The old party hacks like Clinton or Pelosi wouldn't accept this either because it would threaten their own power and security. Anyone that would be acceptable to the party bosses lacks the ability to attract enough sections of the party donors and voters to be viable. They lack the charisma to appeal to the people, and Obama's ability to line them up behind themselves with "it's me or the pitchforks" type of rhetoric.

However this election shakes out, it won't change the fact that the Democratic party is in the grip of a small number of extremely powerful party bosses that can't be dislodged for various reasons, and that as long as they're alive they're going to do whatever it takes to maintain their positions. As long as they do, no one of any real talent is going to make it anywhere in the party, and as long as that's true it's only going to continue to stagnate. And even if Obama, Pelosi, Biden, Clinton, and the rest of the bosses died tomorrow, that still wouldn't bring much effect because the ideology of the bourgeoisie behind the party is rigidly devoted to the status quo out of political and economic necessity. With all that said, their party remains viable only as long as the status quo remains viable, and that is quickly becoming not the case. They've been able to indulge in this stagnancy only because they've been able to minimize or externalize all the worst effects of it, but between climate change, the ascendancy of BRICS, the war in Ukraine they're losing, the war in Palestine they're losing, the cold war over Taiwan they're losing, the ongoing COVID pandemic, the incipient Avian Flu pandemic, and many, many other very severe problems developing in and around the country, that indulgence becomes increasingly untenable.

So to sum up, we might be witnessing the early stages of an ongoing and possibly irreversible collapse at this very moment.

[mdhwrites]

Is Belos the only Owl House villain with a fandom that's giving him more depth than the show?

Edit: I just noticed that you said TOH villain specifically. *smacks self* But also Kikimora exists... Or literally any fanfic about the S1 villains probably. TOH has a lot of dry puddle villains when it comes to depth. As someone who literally ever did King Sombra fiction for the My Little Pony, no. No it is not. In fact, I actually highly doubt that it's really that uncommon. A lot of pure evil villains will be warped and shifted as they hit a fandom so that they are more useful for shipping or can be more complex in their villainy than what was shown in the show. After all, when you start from rock bottom, it's hard to really not go up.

I think the big thing about Belos that makes him bizarre is that where as a lot of other fandoms will just agree that the villain was shallow, the fandom is split on him. There are those like me who believes he's incredibly bland and doesn't care about his backstory elements because, you know, backstory is not a personality. A boring character with an interesting backstory is still a boring character.

There is a side of the fandom though who are REALLY upset about Belos' treatment in the finale because of all those crumbs of backstory that they see as what could have been. Hell, because people linked me a recent review of TOH, I saw people in the comments effectively being split on the reviewers main complaint about the show being that Belos is just bluntly, boringly evil. Some thought he was right on the money, others talked about the shortening and some argued that he was actually complex, you just had to dig for it. (No I won't link the review because of issues surrounding the person who made it. It's also pretty bare bones anyways and what you'd expect from a 12 minute, positive review of TOH.)

This is demonstrative of the issue with Belos though, isn't it? Compelling concepts that are all in service for someone who can be boiled down to "Narcissistic, genocidal, racist moron." Someone betrayed by family who abandoned him and his loneliness and pain lashed out upon the world? A ruler who believes that the oppression of his own people is for their own sake due to religious fervor? A human who believes the other world to be a hell that he must crusade against? Each of these is actually not a bad concept on its own but they're not all compatible together. Maybe any two can do it but these are only three of the like half a dozen concepts you could read into Belos through his backstory and actions, minimum, and pretty much all demand that he actually have more than two braincells together because he is really rock stupid. Remember: He never planned for how to murder the children of the Isles, only the adults. In fact, he made sure to ADD protections on the children rather than making it more dangerous for them which could have led to an actual decline in population.

I will always prefer how Belos presented himself in S1's finale, a portrayal that does NOT work with his actual goals. His statement of "I do not seek conquest, only unity," is just bullshit. Murdering an entire race isn't unity after all. Also why bother lying to the human here? Why not try to get her on your side? Be honest with her? Or trap her so as to make sure not to allow her to backstab you like your brother? I know people say time loop stuff but he is still trying to convince her to work with him and is disappointed when she refuses, while also MURDERING LILITH which is a bit of a big deal if he actually remembers them after so long, so I don't buy it.

That portrayal has always been my favorite though because it makes Luz and Belos have similar goals but differing ideologies for reaching those goals. Belos believes that unity can be found through order and control, even if it restricts expression, while Luz promotes radical expressionism and the idea that it is our differences that make us stronger. It's great theming and makes it so that anytime Luz doesn't make a friend because they're simply too different, she has to question if he's potentially correct.

But then the show does the weird decision that each characters individuality, besides one or traits, is slowly eroded away over the course of the show. Everyone is just a nice person. You get a jock added eventually with Willow but that's about it. You don't have anyone overly serious, minus when Hunter is putting up a front and defaulting to trained behavior, you have no goths, punks, pure balls of sunshine who are annoying, etc. like that. Not amongst those that the show doesn't frame as mostly a joke, like how Lilith's hyperfixations are treated.

It's an awkward element of the main cast that makes Belos as the grand villain really awkward. You can't have a villain who is still seeking unity like that without him potentially being able to point out how those around Luz have lost their personal desires and goals, their interests, besides Willow (and kind of Gus with his human interest that is still... awkward to put it mildly), and so genuinely how different are their methods when she isn't as inclusive as she claims to be?

Even Kikimora, perhaps the most alternative person when compared to Luz's comfort zone, is only brought into Luz's range when she presents herself as capable of being a strawman for Luz and Luz gets an in to say "Look! She's a person! At least in my eyes." Before, you know, she ditches Luz to continue to be ambitious and care about her own goals, evil as they may be.

I've gotten kind of off topic but I guess my main point is to also discuss how you get a villain like Belos to some extent. I can absolutely like a pure evil villain btw. I don't think Ozai is a detriment to Avatar as his pure evil nature matches the fact that the war he is committing is just as much a force of nature, destroying the land, as it is some asshole's desire to conquer, capstoned not with his fight against Aang but his literal attempt to annihilate a CONTINENT. At that point, your goal isn't conquest, it's total destruction. A literal scorched Earth.

But Belos? Every attempt to pretend Belos was nuanced or the like just brought him lower and lower.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

A Twitter you can follow too

And a Kofi if you like what I do and want to help out with the fact that disability doesn’t pay much.

[ashwin-the-artless]

Cities

Here's a post that strongly intersects with @your-tutor-abacus' blog, but I think I'll write about generics and let it reference this post when it goes to write about specifics.

The cities on the Sunspot (`etekeyerrinwuf) are build very differently than most cities on Earth (or, at least U.S. cities) and there are good reasons for this.

We all tend to take for granted what we've grown up with, so when we write about living and doing things in the cities where we've grown up, we'll tend to reference metropolitan civil structures without explaining them. Unless the story has a moment that specifically deals with why those structures exist, then we might get introspective an analyze them.

But, when you gone from one culture to an alien one, it absolutely prompts analysis and you can find yourself obsessed with it for a while, so I'm claiming this subject.

What are Sunspot cities like?

Unlike Earth cities, which have mostly grown up naturally around various human settlements that gathered around important resources, Sunspot cities were designed from the the ground up deliberately.

Some Earth cities were created in similar ways, especially the colonial ones. A country will pick a spot where it wants a city and hire a bunch of professionals (or politicians) to socially engineer the city to meet some sort of national ideal and to practice social engineering in the process.

There are still some real fundamental differences between that and what happened when the Sunspot was built.

Unlike any place on Earth, or the Earth itself, the Sunspot is a constructed world, built literally from the ground up (or inward) to be a safe place for its inhabitants to exist with sufficient resources for everyone.

It's a spaceship, not a planet, even though it's big enough to have multiple cities in it, and a whole ecosystem of plants and animals. And it had to be designed to be indefinitely sustainable.

Part of that was, in contrast to its predecessor ship, was making sure that every living thing on the ship (including every person) had equal access to resources in order to minimize conflict.

So, wherever you might live on the Sunspot, ports in the floor and/or ceiling deliver everything you could possibly need to thrive there.

You, as a living being with a biological vessel, get an allotment of ship resources, and it's probably more than you'll ever use, because the population is kept low enough to do that (which is a dire concern on a generational starship, but a false one on Earth, really).

This means that neighborhoods, communities, and cities are not built around your typical sets of resources. In fact, Belowdecks, they aren't built around any resources.

Abovedecks, in the Garden, the primary resource considered is psychological. Each city is built in an area of the Garden where the environment may best fit the psychological needs of a predicted portion of the population.

So, there are cities in the plains, the mountains, the forests, the shorelines, near rivers, and under the water to create a wide range of possible living conditions and psychological amenities.

But, besides that, the organization of neighborhoods and specialized buildings is totally different than Earthlings may be used to.

Because, the one resource that the ship systems cannot control, just by virtue of the two Living Rights, are people. Community.

But community can be encouraged and accommodated.

So, all quarters and structures Belowdecks are modular and reconfigurable. Designed so that wall can be constructed or removed as needed. Hallways are left permanently in their original locations to make navigation easy and accessible to all, but between the hallways people can do just about anything.

But, by default, the Founding Crew set this up with sets of personal quarters arranged to surround communal gathering spaces. And those communal gathering spaces have been used for libraries, audiences, galleries, warehouses, kitchens/cafeterias, and Artistry collectives of all types. And the resulting structure overall resembles the arrangement of cells in living tissue, with the community spaces serving as the cytoplasm and organelles contained by the cell walls of the living quarters. Each cell developing into a specialized purpose according to its inhabitants whims and agreements.

And then, the Abovedecks cities where designed in a similar way, except that the potential cells were originally simply foundations for buildings, and they were placed spaced out enough so that their development would have minimal impact on the environment around them.

It's been over a hundred and thirty millennia since then, and the cities and communities have evolved a lot. But the basic structure and pressures (or lack of pressures) from resources remain. And certain collectives or types of Artistry have gathered or dispersed in each city over time and given them their respective characters.

Some cities, like Gopra Pyle, have a huge central collective that unifies all the smaller collectives around it, and have developed sort of a singular municipal Art project that everyone's proud of that has spanned generations of contribution.

Others, like Frra, are more diverse, sometimes homogeneous and sometimes divided, with four major collectives to countless collectives more evenly distributed throughout their perimeter.

So, like, in most cities on the Sunspot, you're not going to find anything like a commercial district or industrial site or set of warehouses. You might find an audience with surrounding libraries that's frequently utilized by the local government, and that might look like a governmental district in an Earth city. But the civic pride that is displayed by that area by its architecture and activities is going to be unusual to Earth sensibilities, and likely a lot more fluid and less focused.

With the Network, the resource tubes, and tram system, almost everything aboard the Sunspot is decentralized. And it shows.

If anything in a city serves as a landmark or gets your attention, it's usually a communal work of art commemorating a past even, serving as a meeting place that you too can use, or just sitting there trying to be beautiful.

[thewillofdeez]

Worth the Risk: A Smoker/OC Romance - Chapter 2: Changing Currents

Summary: Kuzan forces Smoker into a much-needed, but not wanted, vacation. While there, Smoker runs into a pirate who's been eluding his capture for years. They decide to put their differences aside, just for a little, and as it turns out, two people don't have to be enemies just because they're a pirate and a Marine. They might even fall in love.

Chapter 2 word count: 5668

**There is smut at the end of this chapter! It's the only one with smut. Minors DNI.**

The place Kuzan had recommended as a prime spot for Smoker’s vacation was called Pufferfish Island, a medium-sized island about three days’ journey from Marineford. Twenty years before, Pufferfish Island had been a bustling, tropical vacation spot known for its incredible food, white sand beaches, and vibrant culture and nightlife. It had been popular with pirates, Marines, and civilians alike. But changing currents on the ever-capricious Grand Line had caused it to become more difficult to reach over time, and so it was now something of a relic visited only by skilled sailors aware of its existence. The island and its main port, Minami Town, were still populated mostly by the island’s native residents, and only the occasional visitor. Kuzan ensured Smoker that there was enough there to keep him entertained, but it wasn’t what it once was back in the day, and as a guy who didn’t like being overwhelmed with people, it would be perfect.

As Smoker’s boat approached the marina, he took in the surrounding buildings; they had once been painted vibrant shades of reds, blues, yellows, and greens with beautiful murals lining the streets, but the colors were now faded and the paint chipped. Smoker guided the craft into the marina and spoke with the attendant, paying him to keep an eye on the boat while he was out. He’d planned to return to the boat to sleep each night - Kuzan could force him to take a vacation, but he couldn’t force him to spring for a hotel when he had a perfectly adequate cot on board.

With that, Smoker made his way into the town in search of…something. Maybe food, he’d heard it was supposed to be amazing here, and it was getting close to dinner time. Or a drink, that might be nice too. The rum produced on the island was supposedly something of a hidden gem of the Grand Line.

Smoker wandered through the streets as the sun descended across the horizon, streetlights flickering on as he passed. The town was much what Kuzan had told him it would be. The island was decently resourceful, so while the lack of visitors had hampered the economy significantly over the decades compared to its heyday, it didn’t severely damage the population’s ability to survive on their own. It was clearly less well-kept than it had once been, but it was also lively, and the people seemed well-fed and healthy enough. Stores and market stalls lined the streets, and people spoke animatedly with their friends and neighbors as they moved about their daily lives, paying the tall, white-haired Marine little mind.

The smell of cooking meat caught Smoker’s attention, and he ducked into a bar with a faded sign out front in search of the source of the smell. The inside of the bar was bustling with people. Plates piled high with meat and local vegetables he didn’t recognize were on every table, and drinks of various colors garnished with tropical fruits were in every hand. It was almost too crowded and too loud for him, but he noticed a single empty seat at the bar, and decided he’d deal with the noise while he got some food in him.

Smoker took the seat and ordered a drink from the bartender (“Whatever you recommend as long as it’s strong. And keep ‘em coming.”). The bartender passed him a food menu, then made him something dark orange in color and topped with a slice of fruit impaled on a toothpick. Taking a sip, the drink was sweet but not overly so, and he could tell he’d been given a double shot of rum.

“Fancy seeing you here, Captain Smoker,” a female voice said, causing his head to turn in search of the familiar voice. Sitting to his right, her elbow on the bar and her head resting on her open palm was Ruby. She smiled at the familiar man, her amusement apparent at his shock. Smoker straightened himself out quickly. He hadn’t even noticed her there.

“Ruby,” he said in acknowledgement, facing forward and returning to his drink. He said nothing more. Ruby narrowed her eyes in confusion.

“That’s it? You’re just gonna sit there and drink, you’re not gonna try to arrest me?”

���Nope,” he said, sipping the fruity concoction and doing his best to ignore the pirate next to him. The pirate he’d been after for three years. The one with a bounty of almost 600 million. The notorious and very well-connected Ruby ‘The Ally’ Read.

Ruby couldn’t let it go. She couldn't say she knew the guy well, but this wasn’t like him. “Smoker. Smokey. Come on. This is what we do! We run into each other, we fight a little, I narrowly escape, you shake your fist at me and say something like ‘I’ll get you next time, Ruby!’” She punctuated the statement with what Smoker felt was a horrible impersonation of him, fist-shaking and all.

“I have never once done that, I’m not a comic book villain,” he responded with a scoff.

“You get the idea,” she said with a smile. “So what’s the deal? Am I getting off scot-free today? And if so, why?”

Smoker sighed. “If I tell you, will you leave me alone?”

Ruby considered this. “Maybe.”

Smoker rolled his eyes. “Good enough. If you must know…I’m on vacation.”

“Huh,” Ruby replied, “I didn’t think Marines got vacation time.”

“Oh we do,” he said, “I just don’t like taking it.”

“So what brought you out here then? Nervous breakdown?”

“No, but you’d think it by the way Aokiji practically pushed me out the door,” Smoker replied with a scoff. “Apparently working all the time is ‘unhealthy’ or some shit. I’m outright banned from arresting pirates while I’m here, too, so consider yourself lucky.” Smoker didn’t bother to hide his annoyance at the situation. She was right there, practically begging him for a fight.

Ruby giggled. “Ahh, I get it. A forced vacation. Well, you’ve picked a good spot. This place isn’t as hopping as it used to be, but it’s nice. Good food, good beaches, good people…you’ll enjoy your stay.”

“And what about you?” Smoker asked. “What brings you here?”

“Well I’m only telling you this because I like you,” Ruby said with a grin. “I actually live here when I’m not out at sea. The island isn’t often under threat, but it’s also sort of unofficially under my protection. I handle things when trouble occasionally rears its ugly head, and I use money from my various legal and not-so-legal business dealings to help the community. I take care of the people here, and they take care of me. It’s sort of my whole thing.”

With perfect timing, the bartender came by and plopped a basket overflowing with chips and a variety of dips in front of her. “For my favorite customer,” he said with a smile.

“Aww, thanks, Carlos!” she said, popping a chip in her mouth. She pushed the basket closer to Smoker in invitation. He raised an eyebrow at her.

“I promise, it’s not poisoned,” she said with a laugh. “It’s delicious, try the green stuff.”

Hesitantly, Smoker grabbed a chip and dipped it in the green sauce, then brought it to his mouth. It was, indeed, delicious.

Ruby smiled. “Told you. So what’s your plan while you’re here? I could show you around. There’s this–”

“Why are you talking to me like we’re friends?” Smoker cut her off. “I may be functionally neutered for two weeks, but don’t forget, you’re still my enemy, and I will still bring you down one day.”

“You might,” Ruby said, taking a sip from her own fruity rum concoction, unbothered by the turn in the conversation. “I don’t think you will though.”

“Oh really?” Smoker said. “You sound awfully confident about that.”

“I mean, you might,” she replied. “You certainly could. But that's the thing, isn’t it? We’ve been doing this for what, three years or so? We run into each other every so often, we fight, I get away, you act pissed about it.” Smoker looked at his drink, knowing where this was going, regretting pushing the subject, and more importantly knowing that she was right. “But let’s be real, Smoker - you’re bigger than me, you’re stronger than me, you have a powerful Devil Fruit and I have none. Which isn’t to say I’m not a good fighter, we both know I am, but if you really wanted to bring me in, you would have done it by now.” Smoker lifted his eyes from his drink to meet hers. “I think you enjoy our interactions as much as I do. I think you like fighting me. And if you arrest me, that ends.”

Smoker said nothing for a moment, looking her up and down. She looked annoyingly satisfied with herself.

“You’re…not wrong,” he finally acknowledged. “A lot of the pirates I bring in are lower level guys, ones who think they’re more powerful than they actually are because they have a wanted poster and some treasure under their belts, but the truth is their overconfidence makes them sloppy. They’re not great fighters, and some end up being fucking cowards when the reality of the situation hits them. But you’re a challenge, and I like a challenge. You don’t do things the way other pirates do. You’ve never once come at me with anything less than your all. You’re small but you’re skilled. You’ve got a lot of fight in you, and sometimes a good fight with a well-matched opponent is all I really want.”

Ruby smiled. “Aww, I like you too, Smoker.”

Smoker huffed out a laugh and downed the last of his drink. The bartender placed another in front of him shortly after. “It’s not gonna last forever, Ruby. I don’t mind the slap on the wrist I get from the higher ups when you get away from me, but one day it’ll have to end, so don’t get too comfortable. I’m still a Marine before anything else.”

“And I’m still a pirate,” she replied. “Always will be. But - and hear me out before you say anything - what if, while you’re in town and I’m in town, we just…weren’t?”

Smoker’s brow furrowed. “I’m not following.”

“You’re on vacation and under orders to not arrest any pirates. I’m just hanging out at home until I feel like heading back out to sea, not doing anything particularly pirate-y. And we’ve established that we have a mutual respect and, dare I say, like for each other. I’m saying we don’t have to be a pirate and a Marine right now. We could just be….two, relatively normal people. Who enjoy sharing chips and talking over drinks. What do you say?”

Smoker smiled and sipped his drink as he considered her proposition. It certainly went against his better judgment, and maybe it was the rum in his system on a mostly empty stomach, but it didn’t sound like a bad idea. “All right, I’m in. I could use the distraction.” Smoker raised his glass towards her. “To being relatively normal people for a change.”

Ruby laughed and clinked her glass to his. “To being relatively normal.”

As the night passed, Smoker and Ruby shared more drinks and ate dinner together, talking and laughing the whole time. Smoker was kind of amazed at how easy she was to talk to. He was careful not to reveal too much about his life as a Marine, but she didn’t seem to be too concerned about talking to him about her dealings as a pirate, especially when it came to the work she did to help the local community. He wondered if he should be worried about her level of confidence. He meant what he’d said earlier - he would bring her in one day. Just not today. Not any time soon.

The topic turned to Smoker’s vacation plans, and he brought out the checklist Kuzan had given him, sliding it along the bar towards her. “Think you can help me out with any of these?”

Ruby picked up the paper and read through the list, letting out a chuckle.

“Any one in particular?” she said with a raised eyebrow.

Smoker immediately remembered a certain item on the list and blushed. “I didn’t mean–”

Ruby laughed. “I know, I’m kidding! But yeah, I can help. There’s a library in town we can hit tomorrow if you want. I also know a few good fishing spots. Can you cook?”

“I absolutely cannot,” he replied. “Can you?”

Ruby shrugged. “It’s a hobby as much as a necessity. I’ll help you figure it out. And there’s a bunch of old roads around the island that would be great for a ride. You’ll knock this list out in no time. And hey, you haven’t even been here a full day and you’ve already done two things on it!”

“Two?” Smoker said.

Ruby reached over the bar to grab a pencil and made an X next to two items on Smoker’s list:

Talk to a pretty lady.

And

If you see a pirate, don’t arrest them.

Smoker chuckled. “That sure is two, huh?” He met her eyes. She certainly was a pretty lady. But also a pirate, he had to remind himself.

“Last call!” Carlos’s voice rang out.

“Holy shit, it’s almost 2AM,” Ruby said. “I hadn’t even noticed how much time had passed. I’m sorry, you’re probably pretty beat from the journey here. I should let you go for the night.”

Smoker waved her concern away. “Not at all. I’m feeling pretty good, actually. I’m down to keep going if you are.”

Ruby smiled. “Hey Carlos,” she said to the bartender. “Could you hand me that half bottle of rum over there? And add it to my tab and close us out, please.” Carlos smiled and handed her the bottle of the local brand the two had been drinking all night, then gave them their checks. They were the last ones out of the bar, poor Carlos had to practically kick them out.

Now outside in the still, mostly empty streets, Smoker pulled out a cigar. “So,” he asked, “Where to?”

“Follow me,” Ruby said and led him along a winding street and down some old wooden stairs shaded by wide-leafed tropical trees to a boardwalk. Beyond that was the beach. All but a few lights were off and the stores and bars were shuttered for the night. The moon and stars shone brightly, reflecting on the surface of the ocean, and rippled by the gentle waves. Ruby led them to a bench overlooking the beach and sat down, taking a swig of the rum and passing it back to Smoker. And the conversation continued like it hadn’t even stopped.

“So what made you want to join the Navy?” Ruby asked at some point later in the evening.

Smoker shrugged. “It wasn’t really a matter of ‘want.’ The men in my family have been Marines for generations. Some of the women, too. My dad was, my older brother was…I knew since I was a kid that I’d be enlisting as soon as I turned sixteen. Which isn’t to say I don’t love what I do,” he added quickly, “I’m proud to be a Marine, and I’m satisfied with my career. But I also don’t pretend I had much of a choice in the matter.”

Ruby nodded. “Family pressure. I get it. Are your dad and brother still in?”

“Nah,” Smoker replied. “Dad died about a decade ago, and don’t say you’re sorry because he was a dick.” Ruby chuckled in response. “He never liked me and I never liked him. My brother got injured a few years into his career and was discharged. He was a Master Chief Petty Officer, same rank my mentee Tashigi is now. He’s always sort of resented me for surpassing him. But he’s got two kids who think I’m the coolest uncle in the world, so I’ll take that as a win. So what about you?” he asked, turning the conversation tables. “What made you want to become a pirate?”

Ruby smiled. “I just sort of fell into it, to be honest. Like a lot of pirates, I didn’t have a great home life. My parents were horribly controlling people. They made it clear from when I was a kid that my life wasn’t my own, and I only existed to be the person they wanted me to be, which was a wife and mother and absolutely nothing else. I have three younger siblings that I put more effort into raising than our parents did. I ran when I was fourteen because I knew if I didn’t I’d be stuck there forever. Found a crew that was willing to take me in, and have been a pirate ever since.”

“You don’t have a crew nowadays,” Smoker said. “You haven’t as long as we’ve been fighting, anyway. What happened to the ones who took you in?”

“Eh,” she replied, “They were shitty pirates. The kind of guys you were talking about earlier - all bravado but very little skill. Most of them didn’t treat me much better than my family, but at least I was free so I dealt with it. They’re no longer an active crew, some are dead and some are in jail, as far as I know. But they taught me the basics and provided the bare minimum, and that was all I needed to get started. After a few years with them I decided I didn’t want to commit to one crew, so I traveled around, made myself useful where I could, picked up all kinds of allies along the way, and that’s how I got where I am now.”

“You’re an interesting pirate,” Smoker said with a smile. “Not many people do it that way. Most pirates worth their salt are all about loyalty to one captain ‘til the end.”

Ruby shrugged. “Commitment issues, I guess. But I know it’s unusual. I only know a few other pirates who are successful without a crew. And on top of that, I deal in favors and allies more than fighting and power.”

“Most people would be dead if they tried to play the field like that,” said Smoker. “And I know you’ve got some powerful people at your back.”

“I do. I’m very close with two of the Four Emperors and their crews, on reasonable terms with the other two.”

“Any aspirations to be one yourself?”

“Nah. I sort of like working in the background and making the pieces move where I want them to,” she said with a smirk. “I don’t want my own crew, I don’t want the responsibility. As long as I’m able to do what I want, a title doesn’t matter to me.”

“And what do you want to do?” Smoker looked at her. She had an answer she was tempted to give, but she held back.

“I want to help people.”

Smoker laughed. “I’ve heard a lot of reasons why people turn to piracy, but this is the first time I’ve ever heard ‘helping people.’” 

“You think pirates don’t help people?” she said, somewhat offended. “I get that most people are afraid of us, and a lot of times they’re not wrong to be. But some of us do a lot more than just steal and kill. I’m living proof of that.”

“I’m sorry,” Smoker said. “You’re right. You do help this community, and the people here obviously love you for it. Any other philanthropic pirates I should know about?”

“Well you know about the Emperors and how they protect islands. Big Mom and Kaido ask for offerings in return from their islands, but Shanks and Whitebeard do it with no expectation of anything except occasionally resources and a safe place to port. Oh, there’s also Mihawk.”

“Dracule Mihawk?” Smoker said, an eyebrow raised in disbelief. “A philanthropist? The guy’s a dick.”

Ruby let out a bark of laughter. “Honestly, he’s not that bad once he learns he can trust you. I wouldn’t say we’re close friends, but we get along well enough. He’s got dozens of properties around the world that he anonymously rents out to low income families for practically nothing. They’re not slums either, they’re pretty nice. He operates them at a loss because he grew up dirt poor and knows what it’s like to not have stable housing. He has the power and the funds to help, so he does. Not much different than what I do here.”

Smoker was sort of shocked. He’d never really considered before that pirates could use their wealth and power for good, especially not someone with a reputation like Mihawk’s. “Huh,” he said.

Ruby chuckled. “Right? I wouldn’t have expected it either. Of course, I do expect you not to report any of this back to headquarters. Mihawk would be fine, but his tenants potentially wouldn’t.”

“Of course. I’m not a Marine right now, right?” Smoker responded with a smile. “Just a normal person.”

As the sky began to brighten ever so slightly with the break of a new day, they grew quiet, watching the waves crash on the shore before them. The bottle of rum was long empty, and all that was left was the two of them and the light breeze off the ocean.

“We talked all night,” Smoker said. He could have kept going, he could have kept talking to her. There was so much more he felt an almost insatiable urge to know. He didn’t want to focus on how strange that made him feel.

Ruby smiled at him. “I had fun.” A beat of silence. “Where are you staying while you’re here?” she asked.

“On my boat, at the marina east of town,” he replied quietly.

“My place is on the way,” she said, rising to her feet. “Just a few blocks inland from there. Walk with me?” Without a word, he stood up and stretched broadly. He followed her back onto the boardwalk and through town, not a word passing between them, but the silence was comfortable. Smoker was both exhausted and strangely energized. He felt like he couldn’t get enough of his unlikely companion. He almost dreaded parting from her, but looked forward to seeing her the next day. Or, later that same day, as the case might have been. His brain was a little foggy. He was tired, with a fading buzz from the rum, and perhaps something else as well.

Ruby guided him through the winding streets, the sun becoming brighter as they walked. She stopped in front of a pink stucco building with terracotta tiles along the roof and a steep stairway lined with flowers leading to the front door. “This is me,” she said.

Smoker looked up at the building, then back to her. “I’ll see you later today?” he said.

Ruby nodded. “I’d like that.”

Smoker turned and began walking towards the marina, he only made it a few steps when she called out to him. “Smoker?” Her voice, usually so strong and confident, was almost timid. “Would you….do you want to stay? With me?” He turned back to her and met her eyes. He knew she wasn’t offering him a spot on the couch. He wanted to say yes so, so badly; every cell in his body was crying out for him to respond in the positive.

Smoker smiled softly, sticking his hands in his pockets to prevent them from reaching out to her. “Want to and should are two very different things,” he said.

Ruby nodded, letting out a soft laugh. “I figured. But I had to ask. Goodnight."

"Goodnight," he replied. He watched her as she ascended the stairs. Opening the door, she looked back at him one last time and smiled, then closed the door behind her. "Fuck," she exhaled, leaning against the door.

Ruby closed her eyes and focused on her Observation Haki. She saw Smoker's shoulders slump.

"Fuck," he said. She couldn't help but giggle. In her mind she saw him start to walk away. He then stopped, walked back towards her front stairs, then turned and walked away again. She watched in her mind with both amusement and desperation as he paced back and forth. Please, please stay, she thought. She could tell he wanted this as badly as she did, but everything he knew, everything he was, was telling him not to. Eventually, she opened the door, and the sound caught his attention.

Smoker looked up at her, her frame silhouetted from within the house.

Fuck it, he thought. Smoker held her gaze as he ascended the stairs until he was in her doorway, standing in front of her. He placed a hand on her face, then leaned down and kissed her. It was heavy, passionate, and was soon followed by a tongue asking for entrance to her mouth, which she readily allowed. Smoker wrapped his arms around her waist and he pulled them both inside, the door closing behind them.

In the privacy of her house, Smoker allowed his hands to explore her body, running them up along her waist, her breasts, her neck, and back down again, and landing on her hips. He pulled her close to him and she could feel how badly he wanted her.

Smoker's kisses moved south, engulfing her neck. When his teeth hit that perfect junction between her neck and shoulders, she let out a moan. Smoker pulled away and smiled at her, his hands unable to remove themselves from her skin. Ruby used the opportunity to guide him into the bedroom, sitting herself on the edge of the bed. Smoker took a moment to remove his shirt, then placed a knee on the bed leaning over Ruby for a kiss and pushing her onto her back. She pushed herself up towards the top of the bed and he followed, his mouth hardly leaving hers for a second. When her head rested comfortably on the soft pillows, he leaned his whole body into her, the hardness in his pants hitting her just right.

Ruby removed her top as Smoker stripped the skirt from her hips, leaving her in a bra and panties. He kissed down her body, burying his face in her beasts and allowing his tongue to follow her curves up to the edge of the lacy fabric, which he pulled aside, taking one nipple in his mouth and biting gently. Ruby reached behind her to remove the fabric from his way completely. As his tongue paid attention to one breast, one large hand reached up to squeeze the other, then ran back down her waist to the edge of her panties, teasing their removal. He worked her body so well already, and his tongue was so skilled, she couldn’t wait to see what else he could do.

Smoker raised himself from her chest and brought her back into a passionate kiss, pulling his body up over hers. She looped her legs around his waist, holding him close and arching up into him, desperate for friction where she needed it most. She allowed her fingers to run over the firm, defined muscles of his chest, tracing the scar on his right shoulder then running her fingers down his abdomen to the hem of his pants. Smoker rose to his knees and let his head roll back as she ran her hand over the bulge in his pants and began unbuckling his belt. He rose from the bed and kicked his shoes and pants off, resuming his position over her. Ruby tugged at the hem of his boxer briefs, but one of his hands grabbed her by the wrist and pulled it away.

“Nuh-uh,” he said quietly, a devilish grin on his face. “You first.” How could she say no to that?

Smoker looped his fingers around the hem of her panties and pulled them down, allowing her to kick them off at her ankles. She laid before him completely naked, and he took a moment to take in every inch of her body. Smoker had been with a few women, but he’d never felt something like this. He’d never felt both the physical passion he was accustomed to, as well as a connection to a partner on another level like he felt with Ruby. It was strange and a little scary. But now wasn’t the time to think about that.

Ruby spread her legs as Smoker ran one hand down her body, her breath hitching as he came ever closer to where she wanted him most. His hand settled on her lower belly, and his thumb ghosted softly over her clitoris. He then brought his fingers down to her core, savoring how wet she was for him.

“Smoker,” she called for him breathily. There was nothing else to say, he knew what she needed. Her head fell back against the pillow as one thick finger entered her, curling up to hit her at just the right spot. Smoker leaned back down over her, running his tongue along the column of her neck and latching on as he interested another finger into her core, and his thumb came back to rest on her clit. Now fully at his mercy, Smoker picked up the pace, curving his fingers as they moved in and out of her, listening for every moan, every hitch of her breath, that told him he was in the right spot. He kissed her neck, her jaw, her lips, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Ruby could feel her end approaching, her body tensing. “Smoker, I’m close, please keep going.” Smoker kissed her deeply, then pulled away as she crested the edge and went over, calling his name. Her head thrown back, her body tensing and relaxing from the movement in her core, his name on her lips - he couldn’t help but think it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. I’ve got it bad, he found himself thinking as her eyes opened and she smiled at him, lifting her head to meet him in a soft kiss. Really bad.

Smoker removed his fingers from her core, and kissed her deeply. She pushed him back until he rested on his knees, and he felt her hands sneaking back down his abdomen again, reaching for his cock. She was desperate to touch him, to feel his heaviness in her hands and in her body. As her hands explored, she kissed his chest, his neck, his jaw. Smoker savored the feeling as she palmed him over the soft fabric, then pulled down the offending barrier, taking him completely in her hand and stroking him up and down. His head rolled back and he let out a soft “Fuck, Ruby…” He could hear her giggle softly. He liked her laugh a lot.

“Condom?” he asked. She rolled over and pulled a box from the bedside table as he removed the last of his clothing. Smoker grabbed one and unwrapped it, pulling it on, then positioning himself over her. “Ready?”

Ruby nodded, her smile wide. “Absolutely.”

Ruby moaned as Smoker entered her, feeling her walls stretch in the most amazing way she’d ever felt. Their eyes met as he bottomed out, his hips meeting hers. Smoker rested his forehead on hers as he began to thrust into her with a slow and steady pace, savoring the feeling of her body wrapped around him, under him, everywhere. They kissed languidly as he rocked his body into her, every moan he could pull from her sending shivers down his spine.

Smoker’s pace began to quicken, his brain begging him to go slow but his body needing more, faster, harder. He rested his head on the curve of her shoulder, leaving marks along her neck as he felt her fingernails dig into his back. A hand moved down to her clit as he fucked into her, wanting so desperately to bring her over the edge again. In time he could feel her body tensing, her moans growing louder, her nails digging deeper. She was so close, and he wanted to go over the edge with her.

“Hang on, Ruby, just a little longer. I’m so fucking close,” he begged, his voice lower than usual.

“Smoker, please…” she begged. Smoker’s pace quickened, his body connecting with hers roughly with every thrust. He felt her body tense again and, knowing she was just about there, he allowed himself to let go. “Smoker!” she cried out for him, holding him tightly as her second orgasm wracked her body. Smoker let out a grunt and followed seconds later, allowing her contracting walls to see him through his own end.

Panting, sweaty, exhausted, he brought a hand to her face and kissed her hard, just like he had at her front door. She smiled up at him, her eyes slightly glazed from pleasure and exhaustion. He couldn’t stop himself from smiling back.

Smoker rolled off of her and removed the condom, disposing of it. After taking a few minutes to clean themselves up, Ruby crawled back into bed, bringing the covers over her body.

“Stay?” she asked.

Smoked huffed out a laugh. “I’m not going anywhere.” The morning sun was shining brightly through the windows now, and he pulled the curtains closed so they could sleep undisturbed.

“I mean while you’re in town,” she clarified. “Stay here. With me. I promise my bed is much more comfortable than whatever you have on your boat.”

Smoker crawled into bed next to her, wrapping an arm around her and allowing her to rest her head on his chest. He kissed the top of her head softly and ran his fingers through her hair. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said again. “I’ll get my stuff from the boat when we wake up.”

She looked up at him and smiled. With one more soft kiss, they both closed their eyes and drifted off to sleep, locked in each other’s embrace.

Previous - Chapter 1: Confessions, Part 1

Next - Chapter 3: Decisions

[sarahshoots1st]

In defense of my angel lady

Because I have religious trauma and love strong female characters, so angels are my nectar and ambrosia

A lot of people - including Riot - like to vilify Kayle, portraying her as an example of taking justice too far, someone who executes the law with mercy or consideration for they greyness of morality. While I think that is a valid story to tell with a Justice-themed character, I think they're forgetting one important fact:

90% of the characters in the LoL universe are turds.

We've got fascist homophobes, expansionist imperialists, late-stage capitalists, drug-lords who are doing their best to imitate the aforementioned capitalists, god-emperors with enough hubris to doom a hundred Greek heroes, religious extremists enacting a "holy" war, a tentacle-monster who wants to beat the shit out everyone, a tentacle-monster who wants to assimilate everyone, a tentacle-monster that wants to disintegrate everyone, demons that revel in negative emotions, an incel who wants to control everyone via negative emotions, a lich-revenant who wants to send everyone to the shadow realm, a dozen different prime examples of toxic masculinity, a man who literally wants to watch the world burn, and a nihilistic sentient sword that wants to annihilate literally everything so it can finally know peace.

Given how many beings there are running around who very much so need to be smitten with a flaming sword in order to keep the innocent inhabitants of Runeterra safe, I would much rather see Kayle be portrayed as a cosmic defender of the planet rather than a merciless executioner. I sincerely hope Riot recognizes the appeal that some people see in a Captain Marvel-style character who can be called in to deal with threats that are too large for the main cast to deal with. The new card art in LoR where she's fighting Aatrox alongside Ryze gives me hope that they're at least considering this direction - which I personally think is much more interesting than "she's just hanging around silently judging everyone." The lore they gave her after the rework was very much along the lines of the Demacia-treatment of "we're going to make this stereotypically good-aligned-looking character/faction objectively evil so that are characters/factions will be 'nuanced'", which while interesting, was implemented all the subtlety of a Malphite Ult. That level of moral complexity requires nuance to properly execute, and one-page articles released whenever a new champion is added to the game isn't going to cut it.

The problem I feel with her current lore is that they seem to be implying that she views everyday inhabitants of Runeterra on the same degree of evil as the demon-bird-man who uses the Sith lightning and the Eye of Sauron to expand his empire. There is a lore justification for this - her father was slain by people who let their devotion to both her and her sister carry them too far. This opens up potentially-interesting story opportunities for what happens when justice is not blind and impartial - but again, that type of story requires nuance and detail. It requires being able to constantly see inside a character's mental and emotional state, to watch as their perspectives change over time in response to the pain and tragedy they experience. And with the way Riot is currently handling their lore, we don't get that kind of narrative. It's like trying to have a political debate in a TikTok comments section - you get none of the nuance and all of the extreme, straw-man positions.

So until Riot puts the time and effort into writing a book or some other form of media that could properly display a descent from "noble protector" to "bane of humanity" Avacyn-style, I hope they continue to bring her in specifically to deal with the champions who are creating problems, and don't sick her on the general population - which is what the lore and voice-lines surrounding her imply is completely possible. That kind of character is just a jerk, and not in an interesting way. Let her fight the people who truly deserve Justice.

Some of us just want to see the majestic winged-lady with the magical swords slay some evil, dammit.

[shcpcrsistcd]

@galacticglaze

natasha rarely left the compound these days, preferring to keep close to base in case one of the other remaining avengers, scattered across the planet and the universe needed to get a hold of her for a report. the ones on earth could reach her via phone, but for others like carol or the remaining guardians, the easiest way to get into contact with earth was at the compound itself. still... sometimes the former spy needed to leave, needed a change of scenery... or a harrowing reminder of her and her friends' failures. the larger cities had suffered the most with the blip, new york, san francisco and dc... new york had never exactly been paradise, but the before and after pictures said everything anyone needed to know. even a year later, many buildings were in need of repair and streets were lined with destruction and garbage. after the battle of new york, nearly ten years ago, the rebuilding of the city had been fairly quick, but fast forward those ten years... and half of the people who'd worked in construction, repairs and sanitation snapped away and general morale down amongst the population that remained, cleanup was... a much slower process. slow... but not at a stand still. everytime she went into the city, there was a little more progress that she could see, but the faces remained the same. that was to be expected. everyone had lost someone in the blip.

she kept the cap on her head that covered the crimson roots that had started coming in pulled low. while she and rogers weren't exactly wanted criminals and could come and go as they pleased without trouble, natasha didn't want to be recognised. the looks she got when she was... she didn't want to deal with them. the ones of betrayal for not having stopped the snap... or the ones that still saw her as some kind of hero. she was no hero and she never was. she never really... wanted to be. she just wanted to atone for the mistakes of her childhood, to wipe her ledger clean. her routine when leaving was the same every time... training... either at a gun range, a ballet studio or fogwell's gym, a hole in the wall in hell's kitchen where she would hit a bag for a few hours. today, it had been the last one and now... she was heading for a diner down the street from it, the most recent newspapers and her tablet in hand so she could torture herself keep herself informed as to the goings on while she forced herself to pick at a somewhat proper meal. she let herself inside and found a booth, setting her boxing gloves into the seat before sliding in herself setting her things on the table in front of her. she mustered up a small, thin lipped smile at the server as she came over to pour a fresh cup of coffee and asked for her order. "just the coffee for now. thank you." she said, her voice low. she took a sip from the off white mug, her eyes scanning the room and pure instinct. the diner was full and yet... the voices she did hear were hushed. everywhere and everyone was quieter these days and this place was no exception despite it once being the completely opposite. she refocused her attentions on one of the newspapers, thumbing through it, occasionally glancing up to observe for any change in activity inside or outside or to sip from her coffee. again, out of pure instinct, always keeping herself aware of her surroundings.

the sound of the bell when the door opened tore her attentions away from her paper again as she observed the new customer who's walked in. blind... as indicated by the stick and sunglasses. a quick glance around told her that all tables were still currently occupied. she took in a breath before sitting back in her side of the booth. "hey... all the tables are taken, but... feel free to join me if you'd like. can't promise i'll be much of a conversationalist though."

[richmondsims]

Just when everything seemed settled at the Bluewater store, Andrew had suddenly announced that he was resigning, and they were now searching for a full time employees for both shops. Of course, all this had to happen a few months before Georgia also left for college.

Fortunately they had found someone to work in the Richmond store soon after Georgia left. Kyle's nephew Jamie had graduated from college and wanted to become a writer. He'd heard a lot about the shop from Kyle, and decided he wanted to work there for a while. 

Kyle was only too happy to offer him a job, but Jamie had been unable to find an affordable house in Richmond for his young family.

With the twins off to college Kyle and Willow had plenty of space in their house. Some people might enjoy the calm after years of children and teenagers, but they just found it too quiet. Jamie, Meadow and their son Harrison moved in a few weeks later.

They had wanted a busier, noisier house, and they had got it. Harrison was an active, curious child who never quite seemed to grasp that the whole world wasn't a toy he could play with.

He'd even gotten into trouble in the church at a friend's wedding recently.

On top of that, Meadow was expecting their second baby.

There was a very good chance that Kyle and Willow would be among the first to know that when the baby was coming, and this seemed to bother Jamie's father, Kyle's brother James, a great deal. They were all under strict orders to let James and his wife Marla know the very minute anything happened, and Kyle took this seriously.

"I think he already thinks I'm trying to steal his grandkids," he told Jamie. "As if I don't have enough of my own!"

"How many grandkids do you have?" Jamie asked.

Kyle did a quick mental count, "Fifteen."

"Sixteen," Willow corrected. "If you count Cory's daughter as Rose's stepdaughter."

"Sixteeen," said Kyle. "And... I guess that means one great-grandchild."

"Dad only has ten," said Jamie. "But you can tell him not to worry - we'll catch him up."

Baby Logan arrived on schedule, with the correct notifications made and the grandparents there to meet him soon after he was born. 

Kyle saw a lot more of his brother and sister-in-law, now that they had a baby grandson to visit. It was easier for them to come to Richmond than it was to take the children into the city.

Harrison was delighted to be a big brother

From Kyle - Part 2

Meadow has the Surrounded by Family LTW - she wants to raise five children, hence the plan to 'catch up' James with grandchildren numbers. I don't always allow this LTW to fulfill for population control reasons, but I also like playing big families and I'll allow one or two each generation. Jamie also has the Family Orientated want so he's not opposed to more babies, either.

[nicklloydnow]

“Today there is a state that, with a bit of challenging hyperbole, offers some interesting analogies to ancient Sparta. This state is Israel. Let's see what these analogies are, trying to present them in a parallel chronological order.

Just as post-Mycenaean Sparta was created by a massive Dorian migration, the new Israel came into being as a result of some fifty years of Jewish relocation there. Both displacements of peoples were the effect of two immense geopolitical upheavals: the Hellenic Middle Ages and World War II. Both the Dorians and the Jews had to fight, the former to conquer the new settlements, the latter to take back their ancestral homeland.

Once the situation was stabilized, the Spartiates created their own system divided into castes, while the Israelis guaranteed equal rights to the Muslim population, preventing at the same time the return of the Arabs who had fled in 1948: this because such a mass return would mean, sic et simpliciter, the end of Israel through its demographic destruction.

Surrounded by enemies and with a fragile internal balance, Sparta transformed the ruling caste into a collective warrior elite. Similarly, Israel was born and developed as a nation in arms, capable of mass mobilization in a very short time. In both peoples the brotherhood of arms has helped to cement equality and internal democracy (internal to the supreme caste the Spartan one, more collective the Israeli one).

Last but not least, both the ancient and the modern nation have found themselves having to be one of the spearheads in the eternal conflict between Western Civilization and the autocratic Eastern masses. The fact that these masses before identified themselves with an absolute God-King and today with a religion that claims world domination and rejects the very concepts of freedom and democracy changes little: geopolitics is the daughter of both geography and anthropology, therefore the enemies of the West remain essentially the same, just as the content of a bottle does not change even if the label is changed.

In this brief historical-geopolitical journey of ours, we have analyzed some curious similarities between two state realities that apparently could not seem more different: ancient Sparta and contemporary Israel. Many will find this parallel academic, if not opportunistic. However, it remains undeniable that, in its own way, today's Jewish state has similarities with the homeland that was once Leonidas'.

All the more reason for any Westerner to defend it to the hilt.” - Fabio Bozzo, ‘Israel: a new Sparta?’

“Brooks Adams prefaced his classic study of civilization and decay with the observation that conscious thought plays an exceedingly small part in molding the fate of men. “At the moment of action the human being almost invariably obeys an instinct, like an animal; only after action has ceased does he reflect.” For Israel the moment of action is now, the instinct is self‐preservation, and the time for reflection is yet to come.

When Israelis speak of the future, they generally mean what will happen tomorrow, next week next month. This is true of statesmen and publicists, as it is of the general public. There is no lack of forecasts, but little that rises to the level vision. Political leaders deal in ad hoc solutions to today's (and often, yesterday's) issues. The future will have to wait its turn.

(…)

Ben Gurion was, as events have shown, a premature Cassandra. True to the prophetic tradition, he was giving answers to questions which had not yet been asked. His June, 1967, warnings became relevant only in October, 1973, with the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath. Today, the nearly total diplomatic isolation of Israel, the resurrection of Arab claims to national rights in the entire area of mandatory Palestine, and the readiness of many in the West to bargain away interests of vital importance to Israel have raised, for the first time since the darkest days of Israel's war of independence, the very question of the future of Israel as an independent state.

Certain basic facts of national life obviously need to be reassessed. The increase in strength the Arab world, combining economic muscle with national‐religious fanaticism, and backed by the logistic capacity of the Soviet arsenal, has already affected the global balance of power, let alone the regional one. Perhaps its most significant immediate influence on Israel's military posture in terms of the morale of its foe: Israel today faces an enemy that enjoys a degree of self‐confidence that it never knew before, combined with the motivation that comes with a belief in its cause and in the inevitability of its victory. Loss of life irrelevant, as is loss of equipment, as long as the Soviet Union is prepared to make good the needs in matériel created by renewed hostilities. The major change in Israeli thinking has been with regard to the estimate of the enemy's potential.

There has been no change with regard to the estimate of the enemy's intentions: It is assumed that those intentions remain, as they have since Israel's creation, the destruction of the Jewish State. For this the address of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian terrorist leader, before the U.N. General Assembly, provides ample confirmation.

A realistic awareness of the growth of the power of the Arab world has not shaken confidence Israel's military superiority. Another war, in whose inevitability there seems to be general agreement, will bring another Israeli victory, costlier perhaps than its predecessors, but no less (and no more) conclusive. On this subject there is no end of reassurance from those who should be in a position to know, both in Israel and abroad. The unanswered question is, what happens then?

Some see this as the pattern of the future for as long in time as it is worth speculating. There will be an endless series of wars, the lag between them determined by the time required for the Arabs to re‐equip and prepare for the coming round. A small minority accepts the possibility of defeat, to which there are two answers.

One is summed up in the word Masada, a suicidal last stand that would satisfy national honor and redeem the memory of the millions of European Jews who were led to slaughter in the Nazi Holocaust. The other answer assumes that in an extremity the means would be available that would be adequate to the circumstances. On the basis of information in the public domain, the possibility of an atomic Armageddon would seem to he a real one, thus forcing the Arabs to reassess the cost that they would be prepared to pay for the privilege of destroying Israel. There is some indication that such a reassessment may have indeed been undertaken in certain of Sadat's (…)

As answers to the possibility of defeat, Masada and Armageddon are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they have a great deal in common. Desperation, however, is a luxury Israel cannot afford, nor can it serve as a guide to the determination of national policy. Nevertheless, there is some small corner of the mind in which such visions of the Apocalypse are lodged, blocked out from consciousness by their very unthinkability.

Jewish tradition tells us that problems can have a natural or a miraculous solution. To the never‐ending Arab‐Israeli wars, Masada and Armageddon are natural solutions. The miraculous solution is peace. Israel's acceptance by its neighbors remains the cardinal national objective, but its realization would appear to require time of Messianic dimensions. Still, it is sometimes an imperative of realism to seek the impossible.

War and another inconclusive victory are the immediate prospects. Masada, Armaeddon, peace— these define the limits of historical time. Israel lives in that broad range of possible futures that stretch from the here and now to the end of days. And all press into the present at one and the same time.

(…)

It is to be expected that in any garrison‐state society the army will have a dominating political role. In Israel, however, this is apt to be less than might he anticipated. First of all, Israel has been in a virtual state of siege since its independence, and the change as a result of the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath is one of degree rather than of kind. Second, in a state in which the army impinges to such a great extent over such an extended period of time on every facet of society, the society is affected, but so is the army. The Israel defense forces have never constituted a professional elite, divorced from a distinct caste, removed from other decision‐making and opinion‐farming elites. Israel is a nation in arms more than any other in modern history. The Jeffersonian ideal of every citizen a soldier and every soldier a citizen, realized in Israel to a much greater extent than it ever was in Jeffersonian America, makes of military participation in politics something very different than it has been in, say, France or Germany—or even contemporary America.

Nor is there reason to anticipate a breakdown of parliamentary democracy in a Spartan Israel. A continued period of tension is likely to cement further the basic national consensus. Its Achilles' heel has always been the necessity to make decisions on matters on which consensus does not exist and in which any decision is unacceptable to substantial segments of the population (such as territorial concessions, for example). Under siege conditions, decisions need not he made, as options are closed. The result is, on the one hand, immobility and, on the other, a high degree of stability in government, both of which have been characteristic of Israel in the past and will continue in the foreseeable future. A Government of national unity seems a distinct possibility, representing both a response to the demand for a heightened solidarity and the absence of significant issues demanding decision in matters over which the political parties differ fundamentally.

The importance of solidarity and the passage of time itself may help to close the social gap separating Israelis of European and non‐Europe origin, the most significant cleavage in contemporary Israeli society. Generally, it may he safe to assume that equality and fraternity will do better in a Spartan society than liberty. In Israel, however, basic freedoms do not appear to be in any significant danger, beyond those limitations imposed, as Holmes observed, “as long as men fight.” The pluralistic nature of Israeli society inhibits the denial of the right of political dissent, at least for those within the national body which in Israel is virtually coterminous with the society itself. However, tolerance for fringe groups beyond the pale is likely to diminish.

Israeli policy in the occupied areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip may be severely tested by future developments. This has been, in many respects, the most liberal military occupation in contemporary history. It has been based on keeping the peace by making it to the advantage of the local Arab population. Economic prosperity and the lack of reasonable expectation of political change have been far more important in the preservation of order and the prevention of hostile activities against the occupation forces than has the direct application of military force.

The creation of Israeli settlements in the occupied areas has been part of the general conception underlying official policy. The settlements, located along the Jordan and south of Gaza, protect basic strategic interests, without seriously intruding into Arab populated areas. (The one major exception, Kiryat Arha, near Hebron, was not the result of official initiative but rather a concession to the political pressures of coalition politics.) By blocking off possible invasion routes, the settlements make the annexation of areas densely populated by Arabs unnecessary. Wildcat settlement attempts by Jewish nationalist groups within Arab‐populated areas have been dealt with sternly and decisively.

Thus, both occupation and settlement policy have been designed to preserve security interests while keeping open options for a compromise solution. Possible economic difficulties and a fluid political situation could seriously threaten to encourage an increase in opposition to the occupation on the part of the local population, while Rabat and its aftermath appear to have barred, at least for the immediate future, the way to a political settlement. Major assumptions of present policy in the occupied areas may, therefore, cease to be valid. A breakdown of public order in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip would severely tax limited Israeli manpower reserves and might require a drastic change of policy. In this event, Arab propaganda claims with regard to alleged Israeli repression in the occupied areas and the displacement of the indigenous population could prove to he self‐fulfilling prophecies.

(…)

Yet fundamental change in Israel's prospects depends on a basic change within the West. There are other areas of the world besides the Middle East in which the Western powers have not acted in unity. However, there is no other area in which they have so frequently worked at cross‐purposes or to no visible purpose at all. In no other area has the policy of Western governments so frequently subordinated national ideals to putative national interests and in the end resulted in the loss or abandonment both of principles and of interests.

Winston Churchill once said that democracy was not harlot that could be picked up on a street corner by a young man with a tommy gun. He was wrong. It happens all the time, with the most prim and proper, the most matronly democracies, including his own. Instead, a tommy gun is not indispensable; hard cash and the control of oil resources will do just as well. Witness the spectacle of French diplomatic emissaries hustling the Middle Eastern turf, turning their tricks with sheik and terrorist. The sale of arms, encouraged by balance of payments difficulties, has become an aim, rather than an instrument, of national policy: and all fat cats are gray in the night.

Today, the fate of much of the industrialized world, with its masses of workers and consumers, has come to depend on decisions made by minuscule coterie of absolute potentates, their feet firmly rooted in the Middle Ages and their hands at the throat of the industrial civilization of the West. Never before in history has the fate of so many been at the mercy of so few. Oddly, there are still those who persist in seeing this as a victory of anticolonialism and anti‐imperialism, those most durable verbal relics of the long‐lost world of liberal innocence. Surely there must come a point at which the act in unity if its own survival is to be safeguarded. When that day comes, Israel's future will take a new direction.

(…)

Earlier, in the fall of 1962, Henry Kissinger visited this communal village and its regional school. In those days the threat came from the Syrian artillery on the Golan Heights, which dominated the area. Kissinger, then security adviser to Nelson Rockefeller and on a special mission fo. Kennedy, was especially intrigued by the attention devoted to gardening and to the atmosphere of tranquillity. juxtaposed against the network of shelters under the shadow of the commanding Syrian positions, visible even to the naked eye. What he founded in the Jordan Valley tended to disprove the contention of Rockefeller's adversaries that extensive civil‐defense measures would disrupt normal life and create panic.

Today, the children of the Jordan Valley communes play and study in close proximity to armed guards. The massacre at Ma'alot proved that children enjoy a privileged position as a priority target for Palestinian liberation fighters. The danger has become less anonymous and less indiscriminate. Life, however, remains normal in every critical sense, and there is no panic.

November 28 was the anniversary of the 1947 U.N. decision in favor of the creation of a Jewish State. The sixth‐grade pupils in the Jordan Valley elementary school wrote compositions on “What Israel Will Be Like When I Am Grown Up.” One theme is dominant: peace. Many express it by predicting that they will visit the Pyramids in Egypt and travel by train to Damascus. Moran Palmoni, a 12‐year‐old fourth‐generation sabra, concluded his composition in verse:

“I hope that peace will come

I believe that it will come

That we will not have to sit in the shelter

That tranquillity will fall also on us

Every child and every flower will he happy when it comes

Only may it come, only may it come!””

“Buried deep inside a Times report last weekend about Hadar Goldin, the Israeli soldier who was reported captured by Hamas, in the southern Gaza Strip, and then declared dead, was the following paragraph:

The circumstances surrounding his death remained cloudy. A military spokeswoman declined to say whether Lieutenant Goldin had been killed along with two comrades by a suicide bomb one of the militants exploded, or later by Israel’s assault on the area to hunt for him; she also refused to answer whether his remains had been recovered.

Just what those circumstances were began to filter out early this week, and they attest to deep contradictions in the Israeli military—and in Israeli culture at large.

A temporary ceasefire went into effect last Friday morning at eight. At nine-fifteen, soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces headed toward a house, in the city of Rafah, that served as an entry point to a tunnel reportedly leading into Israel. As the I.D.F. troops advanced, a Hamas militant emerged from the tunnel and opened fire. Two soldiers were killed. A third, Goldin, was captured—whether dead or alive is unclear—and taken into the tunnel. What is clear is that after Goldin was reported missing, the I.D.F. enacted a highly controversial measure known as the Hannibal Directive, firing at the area where Goldin was last seen in order to stop Hamas from taking him captive. As a result, according to Palestinian sources, seventy Palestinians were killed. By Sunday, Goldin, too, had been declared dead.

Opinions differ over how this protocol, which remained a military secret until 2003, came to be known as Hannibal. There are indications that it was named for the Carthaginian general, who chose to poison himself rather than fall captive to the Romans, but I.D.F. officials insist that a computer generated the name at random. Whatever its provenance, the moniker seems chillingly apt. Developed by three senior I.D.F. commanders, in 1986, following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, the directive established the steps the military must take in the event of a soldier’s abduction. Its stated goal is to prevent Israeli troops from falling into enemy hands, “even at the cost of hurting or wounding our soldiers.” While normal I.D.F. procedures forbid soldiers from firing in the general direction of their fellow-troops, including attacking a getaway vehicle, such procedures, according to the Hannibal Directive, are to be waived in the case of an abduction: “Everything must be done to stop the vehicle and prevent it from escaping.”

Although the order specifies that only selective light-arms fire should be used in such cases, the message behind it is resounding. When a soldier has been abducted, not only are all targets legitimate—including, as we saw over the weekend, ambulances—but it’s permissible, and even implicitly advisable, for soldiers to fire on their own. For more than a decade, military censors blocked journalists from reporting on the protocol, apparently because they feared it would demoralize the Israeli public. In 2003, an Israeli doctor who had heard of the directive while serving as a reservist, in Lebanon, began advocating for its annulment, leading to its declassification. That year, a Haaretz investigation of the directive concluded that “from the point of view of the army, a dead soldier is better than a captive soldier who himself suffers and forces the state to release thousands of captives in order to obtain his release.”

(…)

To be clear, there is no evidence that Goldin was killed by friendly fire. But military officials did confirm that commanders on the ground had activated the Hannibal Directive and ordered “massive fire”—not for the first time since Operation Protective Edge began, on July 8th. (One week into the ground offensive, in the central Gaza Strip, forces reportedly** **enacted the protocol when another soldier, Guy Levy, was believed missing.) Since the directive’s inception, the I.D.F. is known to have used it only a handful of times, including in the case of Gilad Shalit. The order came too late for Shalit and did not prevent his abduction—or his eventual release, in 2011, in exchange for a thousand and twenty-seven Palestinian prisoners. That year, as part of the military’s inquiry into the circumstances leading to Shalit’s capture, the I.D.F.’s Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, modified the directive. It now allows field commanders to act without awaiting confirmation from their superiors; at the same time, the directive’s language was tempered to make clear that it does not call for the willful killing of captured soldiers. In changing the wording of the protocol, Gantz introduced an ethical principle known as the “double-effect doctrine,” which states that a bad result (the killing of a captive soldier) is morally permissible only as a side effect of promoting a good action (stopping his captors).

Whether soldiers have heeded this change in language, and how they now choose to interpret the directive, is difficult to assess. If past experience is any indication, the military hierarchy’s interpretation remains unequivocal. During Israel’s last operation in Gaza, in 2011, one Golani commander was caught on tape telling his unit: “No soldier in the 51st Battalion will be kidnapped, at any price or under any condition. Even if it means that he has to detonate his own grenade along with those who try to capture him. Even if it means that his unit will now have to fire at the getaway car.”

On Sunday, a decade after its initial investigation of the Hannibal Directive, Haaretz revisited the subject with a piece by Anshel Pfeffer that tried to explain why, despite the procedure’s morally questionable nature, there hasn’t been significant opposition to it. Pfeffer wrote:

Perhaps the most deeply engrained reason that Israelis innately understand the needs for the Hannibal Directive is the military ethos of never leaving wounded men on the battlefield, which became the spirit following the War of Independence, when hideously mutilated bodies of Israeli soldiers were recovered. So Hannibal has stayed a fact of military life and the directive activated more than once during this current campaign.

Ronen Bergman, author of the book “By Any Means Necessary,” which examines Israel’s history of dealing with captive soldiers, further explained this rationale in a recent radio interview: “There is a disproportionate sensitivity among Israelis [on the issue of captive soldiers] that is hard to describe to foreigners.” Bergman traced this sensitivity back to Maimonides, the medieval Torah scholar, who wrote: “There is no greater Mitzvah than redeeming captives.”

This line of argument, while historically true, is worth pausing over—if only to unpack the moral paradox within it. In essence, what this “military ethos” means is that Israel sanctifies the lives of its soldiers so much, and would be willing to pay such an exorbitant price for their release, that it will do everything in its power to prevent such a scenario—including putting those same soldiers’ lives at risk (not to mention wreaking havoc on the surrounding population). This is the dubious situation that Israel finds itself in: signalling to the military that a dead soldier is preferable to a captive one, while at the same time signalling to the Israeli public that no cost will be spared to secure a captured soldier’s release. (It’s worth recalling that, three years after Shalit was traded for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners, the captive U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was traded for five Taliban prisoners. This isn’t to suggest that Israel cares more about its troops than the United States does, but rather that no crime is greater, in the eyes of Israelis, than the kidnapping of “our boys.”)

(…)

Sharon added that the mixed consequences of the directive are typical of the behavior that now characterizes the Israeli public at large. “On the one hand, we are willing to risk soldiers’ lives recklessly and without need, but on the other hand we have zero tolerance for the price that this might entail.”

[husheduphistory]

Strange in Chains: Two Prisoners with Stories that go much Deeper that the Surface

The Pakistani town of Charsadda has witnessed first-hand how quickly war and time can transform a place. Originally called Dheri, the town is said to have been originally settled by Pashtun tribes from Afghanistan who were fleeing persecution. The location of Dheri attracted a great deal of attention and over time it became heavily populated by the Sikhs who established a monopoly of businesses there. In the 1830s aggressive hands brought a time of change to the town and its inhabitants. Some endured the shifts, some succumbed, and in one case there are some responsible entities that are still standing outside in their chains nearly two centuries later.

In 1835 the town of Dheri’s name was changed to Sikho Dheri and in the same year Maharaja Ranjit Singh laid the foundation to Fort Shankar Gah, which would also undergo a name change in 1876 and then become known as Shabqadar. The Maharajah built a formidable Sikh army, trained by European generals with experience in major battles like the Battle of Waterloo, and they helped keep an eye on some of the many factions that were looking to take power in the region surrounding Shabqadar. By 1840 the Maharaja had passed away but his son Maharaja Sher Singh was in power, and he was there when the fort was attacked by a large number of Mohmand warriors. It was a bloody battle that lasted until the morning sun rose, and in the end the Sikhs were victorious in pushing the opposing forces out of the fort. They may have come out the victors, but it came with a high human cost. Infuriated, Maharajah Sardar Sher Singh demanded to know who was responsible for the warriors getting into the fort and he demanded an investigation be carried out to determine who was behind the breech in security.

One of the Europeans that trained the Sikh army as part of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s court was General Ventura Jean Baptiste, and he just happened to be in the area. After being recruited to conduct the investigation as to how the warriors were able to gain access inside the fort General Baptiste poured over the incident gathering evidence and examining the facts. Finally, after two days, he had his culprit.

When General Baptiste announced his verdict it was shocking, but the accused had nothing to say. He formally declared that the doors, the twelve-foot tall wooden doors to the fort, the doors that failed to hold back the invasion, were the guilty party. A jury of two men agreed and the two doors were sentenced to be imprisoned by chains for one hundred years.

The fort doors under arrest at Shabqadar. Image via travelpangs.com.

It is unknown exactly why the blame was officially placed on the doors as opposed to any of the people involved in the altercation. Each door was chained to a tower, and although their sentence ended in 1940, they still remain there to this day. A plaque tells visitors of their alleged crime and sentence, reading:

“The weeping willows: In the winter of 1840, a Mohmand Lashkar (War party) succeeded in breaking down these gates. The then Sikh Maharaja Sher Singh (Ranjit Singh son) had them court martialed for treason. The French General Jean Ventura headed the proceedings which lasted two days, having found them guilty as charged, the gates were sentenced to 100 years’ imprisonment. They are languishing enchained ever since.”

Approximately two hours west of Shabqadar is another unfortunate prisoner. In 1898 a British Army officer named James Squid was stumbling through the town of Landi Kotal after having a few too many drinks and he saw a threatening figure, a Banyan tree. Convinced that the tree was moving, and even following him, he ordered the mess sergeant to place the tree under arrest. The sergeant obliged, placing the tree in multiple heavy chains extending from the branches to the ground.

The Banyan tree under arrest. Image via amusingplanet.com.

Visitors today can still visit the tree, which tells its story through a sign that plainly states:

“I am under arrest. One evening a British officer heavily drunk thought that I was moving from my original location and ordered mess sergeant to arrest me since then I am under arrest.”

Though originating as what some might see as a humorous story, the tree is seen by many as a solemn reminder of the chapters of Pakistan’s past that are deeply intertwined with the British. Pakistan gained their independence from England in 1947 but when the Banyan tree was arrested it was in the midst of British colonialism. Today the image of the tree in chains represents that oppressiveness and how the people of Pakistan were treated during that time and represents the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), laws drafted specifically in opposition to British Raj and their rule. As expressed by a local photojournalist, the tree “shows the oppression of British rule in the subcontinent and just imagine if a British officer could put a tree in chains then how were they treating the locals of that era?"

Today both Shabqadar and the Banyan tree are visited by thousands of people each year as tourist attractions but their stories go far deeper than just inanimate objects officially placed under arrest. The failed fort doors and the innocent tree tell stories of both individual incidents and whole timeframes that are written deeply into the complex and rich history of Pakistan and how it is still imprinted on the country today.

************************************

Sources:

The Weeping Willows of Shabqadar, Pakistan. Travelpangs.com. August 10 2020. https://www.travelpangs.com/post/the-weeping-willows-of-shabqadar

The Doors that won't Open by Syed Rizwan Mahboob. September 13 2015. https://www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/559381-doors-sentenced-100-years-shabqadar-fort

The Doors of Shabqadar Fort by Sadaf Shahzad. June 24 2021. https://www.youlinmagazine.com/article/the-doors-of-shabqadar-fort/MjAyOA

Colonial rustlings: Under the shade of the chained banyan tree. Published in The Express Tribune, January 6th, 2013. https://tribune.com.pk/story/489734/colonial-rustlings-under-the-shade-of-the-chained-banyan-tree/

This chained, century-old tree in Pakistan is a perfect metaphor for colonialism by Ishaan Tharoor. September 3 2016.https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/09/03/this-chained-century-old-tree-in-pakistan-is-a-perfect-metaphor-for-colonialism/

The Tree That Was Arrested by Kaushik Patowary. September 6 2016. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2016/09/the-tree-that-was-arrested.html

Tree in Pakistan remains ‘under arrest’ for 120 years by By Islamuddin Sajid. February 5 2018. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/tree-in-pakistan-remains-under-arrest-for-120-years/1132523

[psychotrenny]

mizrahi jews did not migrate because of the actions of ashkenazi jews, they were exiled from their homelands in the 30s and 40s (iraq, yemen, afghanistan, etc.)

For one, I don't know where you're getting the time period "30s and 40s" from? Even Zionists usually consider the "Mizrahi Exodus" to date from the 50s onwards; a big part of how the process is portrayed by pro-Zionist sources is the framing as Israel as this land of opportunity and safety for Jews fleeing the violence and intolerance of the Arab world, something that couldn't exactly happen until Israel was actually established as a state in 1948.

Secondly as I've already stated multiple times the displacement, marginalisation and violent attack on Palestinians by Zionist European Settlers was already underway in Mandatory Palestine by the 1920s, as embodied by the existence of groups like Haganah and Irgun. So like even if we for whatever reason backdate the supposed mass exile of the Mizrahi to the "30s and 40s" it's still very easy to see the correlation between violence perpetrated by European settlers in the name of "Jewishness" and the development of conflict between previously peacefully co-existing communities of Jews and Gentiles in North Africa and West Asia.

And finally, the idea that the mass migration of Mizrahi Jews to Palestine was the result of intolerance from Muslim neighbors is essentially a Zionist distortion of a much more complicated situation. Soon after the establishment of Israel, the new government actively encouraged Jews from the surrounding region to migrate and worked with many of the surrounding governments (usually the European colonial governments that still controlled extensive tracts of the region) to facilitate this. Some Jews (such as those of Yemen or Morocco) were even essentially deported against their will by the wishes of the Israeli government. While there was an increase in inter-communal conflict between Jewish and Gentile populations in the region, this was both due to the general aftermath of Israeli's brutal establishment and in response to specific actions such as the Mossad terrorist attacks in Egypt in 1954 with some actions even being specifically undertaken in order to cause conflict (or even just the appearance of conflict) and induce migration such as Mossad's activities in Iraq through the 1950s. The sheer degree that direct violence and persecution played in such migrations has also been greatly exaggerated by Zionists in order to justify their continued aggression against the people of Palestine and their Allies; the idea that you can draw any real equivalence between the population movements of the Mizrahi Aliyah and that of the Palestinian Nakba is a ghoulish distortion of history that only serves to justify Zionist atrocities both past and present. One was a more or less voluntary* migration that was only partially induced by fears (both hypothetical and actually realised) of conflict while the other was an incidence of direct and unambiguous ethnic cleansing. The factors that led to the Mizrahi migration has plenty of "pull" in addition to "push" and a great deal of said "push" was deliberately engineered by the Israeli government rather than being purely the result of some natural Islamic cruelty or antagonism

*while not an entirely fair thing to say, and its accuracy will vary a lot on a case by case basis, the Mizrahi migrants on the whole had a lot more freedom than the Palestinians in both the decision to leave and their choice of destination (as several of those linked articles mentioned, some Mizrahi migrated to Europe or the Americas rather than Israel)