#like. this particular site is only significant because it’s still standing…

[starbuck]

it’s truly a shame that it’s expected for state and national park employees to talk about their Local White Man as if he was the second coming of christ because, as someone who works at a park that wasn’t preserved for its historical value, but has a lot of historical stuff on site nonetheless, what i ACTUALLY want to say is This Place Is Not A Place Of Honor… No Highly Esteemed Deed Is Commemorated Here… but there WERE a lot of random freak rich people living here throughout the years that are a lot of fun to learn about just for the heck of it!

[olderthannetfic]

/728286197798076416/ - this is me. Before tumblr the sites I hung out in are socmed sites that have a friend system and not a follow one. I got a bunch of friends through those sites forums and seeing how some people interact with their mutuals here reminded me of those times so I thought that's how they become "friends" on this site when there's no friend system (and by that I meant like an online acquaintance you'd interact with a lot and not actual friend-friend unless you two actually got close).

It's also just been at least a year since they followed back. I have interacted with their posts with mostly likes and some reblogs (sometimes with added commentary since I like their posts) but aside from a like or two when they followed back, they haven't done anything else. A random follower who hasn't liked or reblogged anything from me even from the start doesn't bother me but I've seen people here make a big deal of being "mutuals" with someone and some of them have made posts about how their mutuals are important to them/their friends which fits how they talk to their other mutuals on posts but doesn't apply to me. It's what confuses and bothers me about why they decide to follow back cause it doesn't make sense based from these stuff.

I read the replies on my original ask and I guess I really just shouldn't think much about this. It's just so strange to me so it bothers me.

--

...

Nonnie, I was there for the whole Livejournal era, starting in 2002 before most of fandom was even on it.

I can say with certainty that calling the following function "friends" led to plenty of wank but no actual increase in how much it meant that you were a friendly acquaintance.

Some people have always used sites this way. Some just follow you because they meant to keep track of your account and go check it later. Did they actually go check it later? Questionable.

Most likely, these people talking about "mutuals" in that manner don't derive the friendship from being mutuals. They follow back people they're already friends with for other reasons. They may also be thinking only of the mutuals who talk to them a lot in ways they find amusing or notable.

One thing we cannot control is whether other people like our writing.

I get more than the usual share of replies. Some commenters stand out to me because I like how they phrase things. It's usually the people who sound like they read a wide variety of genres and as though they have a similar vibe to mine. I'll usually notice the Spanish speakers (if they mention it) because that's of interest to me, but I'll still probably only click with the ones who are pretty good at English in a way that sounds nice to my ear. Honestly, that's hard to quantify because it's different form how native someone's grammar is. I have a bunch of regular rebloggers coming from a variety of languages who are a pleasure to read despite copious grammatical errors because they're funny or sound colloquial despite that or because their content is so interesting. Some people sound stiff or convoluted despite having zero technical errors. (And that's true regardless of native language.)

If I find you painful to read for EFL reasons or bad writing skill reasons or humor that reads as tryhard instead of funny to me or excessive hostility or some other thing, we won't click.

Neither I nor the other person has any significant control over those reactions.

Now, I haven't observed your mutuals and have no idea what kinds of things you guys post, but I have observed a common pattern, both on tumblr and back in the day on LJ, where someone interacts a little but not enough and their comments are okay but nothing special. If the people they're interacting with are busy or already have a zillion friends, sometimes, they just get missed.

I also think performative posts about ~my mutuals~ tend to be hollow bragging about being popular. When they aren't, there's an implicit sense that they're talking about a particular subset of mutuals.

There's not really that much of a contradiction here. You were just taking those posts at face value, and you shouldn't.

[blueiscoool]

The Roman 19th Legion Identified at Teutoburg Battle Site that shook Rome in AD9

Researchers in Germany have identified the metallurgic signature of the Roman 19th Legion in artifacts recovered from the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in Kalkriese, Germany, using a new chemical analysis method.

The Roman defeat by Germanic tribes at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in AD9 was such a disaster that it sent shockwaves throughout the empire. Three legions, totaling up to 20,000 men, were lost.

Now scientists used chemical analysis methods to track down the destroyed legions in Kalkriese and were able to identify the 19th Legion in Kalkriese.

The characteristic composition of trace elements in an artifact can be identified by mass spectrometer analysis of non-ferrous metals like bronze and brass.  Because each Roman legion had its own blacksmiths who worked constantly on the campaign to repair and replace weapons and equipment, even legions that fought together had a distinct chemical signature in their metals.

When dating and identifying complex battlefield remains like those at Kalkriese, the fact that this method can be used to conclusively link an object to a specific legion is a major archaeological breakthrough.

The discovery of coins and slingshot ammunition in a field in northeastern Germany in 1987 by Tony Clunn, a British army officer and amateur archaeologist, fueled speculation that the battle site had been discovered. However, for decades it was only a plausible theory.

Since then, Kalkriese has unearthed more than 7,000 artifacts, ranging from complete horse bridle fittings to everyday items to the oldest set of Roman plate armor ever discovered in Germany. Undoubtedly, a significant Roman battle from the first century took place there, but it took decades for the Teutoburg battlefield to be identified, and there is still some scholarly disagreement on the matter. For instance, it might have been a battle that happened during Germanicus’ campaign six years later. The archaeological finds cannot be dated within a six-year range by any scientific dating method available to us.

Let’s introduce the metallurgic signature. 550 samples were taken for the project from non-ferrous metal artifacts found at Kalkriese.

The metals used for repairs in the camp forges contain trace elements in such small amounts that the Roman forges did not notice them, and they were not intentionally manipulated. These elements entered the metals through the original ores, various additives used during processing, and tool adhesions. On-site processing has caused the legions to develop a distinct pattern in the composition of trace elements over time.

��In this way, we can allocate a legion-specific metallurgical fingerprint to the legions, for which we know the camp locations at which they were stationed,” German Mining Museum Bochum researcher Annika Diekmann continues. Based on this, all Roman non-ferrous metals from Kalkriese were sampled and compared with non-ferrous metals from numerous Roman locations where it is known from written records which legions were stationed here.

After the analysis is complete, it is evident that the 19th Legion in particular, which perished with Varus and was stationed in Dangstetten in southern Germany years earlier, stands out from the other legions, which were only deployed later in Germany in the Roman vengeance campaigns. This is based on the composition of the trace elements.

“When comparing the finds from Kalkriese with the finds from the other sites, we find that the finds from Dangstetten and Kalkriese show significant similarities. The finds that come from legion sites whose legions did not perish in the Varus Battle, on the other hand, differ significantly from the finds from Kalkriese and thus show significant differences to the finds from Kalkriese.

[rhijp]

May 28 - Asakusa

Today was our first full day in Japan. In the morning we took the metro to Asakusa and visited Sensoji, the oldest Buddhist temple in Tokyo. This particular temple —completed in 645 C.E— has been devoted to the goddess Kannon, known for her mercy.

After entering the gates to the temple square, we were greeted by an incredibly vibrant market filled with souvenir and food stands of all varieties. We spent time exploring the many streets of this area which, as you can see in the picture below, were filled with many other visitors who also wanted to see what the temple square had to offer.

As we neared the temple, we came across sites such as charm booths, a fortune telling stand, and even a place of burning incense said to heal the ailments of those who touch the smoke. Many of our group had their fortunes given to them after offering 100¥ and walked through the healing incense in hopes of improving their odds of success in this class.

In the temple, we saw a beautifully sculpted alter where many Buddhists were paying their respects.

After eating lunch at the food stands, we took the metro to the Fukugawa Edo museum. At the museum our group was able to see Tokyo as it once was while it was still known by its previous name Edo.

Here at the museum, we were able to learn about many kinds of shops and buildings that would have been found in the city during 18th century.

(Left: inside a storage house, Right: portable soba shop)

After visiting the museum we each split for the day and enjoyed our own activities around Tokyo.

Academic Reflection

In the first two readings we had today we primarily focused on Mahayana Buddhism and how it is typically expressed in Japan. One subject that was discussed in these readings is that, since the primary role of the Buddhist priests in Japan now lies in the performance of funeral rites and functions, many Japanese people have detached themselves from this way of life and only see it as a means by which the dead are taken care of. Because of this declining lack of vigor in the religion, many of the Buddhist denominations have taken to trying to make themselves a larger part of Japanese life.

Two of the ways which the denominations have been trying to insert themselves into peoples’ lives have been to increase commercialization and to create pop culture elements such as anime/manga adaptations of their most important stories. During our visit today, the commercialism, in particular, stood out to me as we walked through the streets. To me, the temple square felt primarily like a tourist attraction and lacked any significant presence of religion aside from the artifacts themselves. Even the amulets and other technically religious items such as the fortune telling sticks felt more like souvenirs and fun games. While I admit, this sort of commercialism does seem to greatly deepen Buddhism’s connection to Japanese culture (the participation of the thousands of people present can attest to that), it seems as though a piece of the movement itself is lost in the fun.

The third reading, focused on the rise and leadership of the Tokugawa shogunate. From the great founder of the shogunate Ieyasu to its later leaders of varying power and influence, these ruling warlords’ regimes oversaw Japan during the Edo period which was depicted at the museum we visited today. Although, the reading did not much affect my view on the museum, learning about edicts did help explain what one could see while viewing the exhibit. One such edict was that each regional daimyo was required to spend much of their resources coming to and residing in Edo. Having such an law in place makes it clear how the city was able to flourish as it did as thousands of wealthy samurai frequently made the journey to Japan’s future capital, spending their money and causing the city’s economy to rapidly grow.

More tomorrow!

[world-cinema-research]

Week 5 Alien movie by Ronnie Bitzer

The movie I watched this week was Alien which was created in 1979 directed by Ridely Scott. The significance the movie had on me was the elements of horror the amount of realism it had and the evolution of the Alien through the different franchises of new Alien movies being made.The significance the movie may have on others is introducing them into a world filled with scifi horror and elements of realism. Interesting facts about the movie was it met with mixed reviews, then it was considered a box office success winning the Academy Award for Best Visual Affects, and three Saturn awards for Best Science Fiction Film,Best Direction for Scott and Best Supporting Actress for Cartwright. The movie is similar to Predator and how both the Alien and Predator's main intentions were to kill. The movie was different from Star Wars since they are in space but they aren't going to different planets nor are there light sabers.The movie was inspired by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre since it has all the pinpoints of a slasher classic, not knowing who the killer is and each of the crew mates are dying except for one. I believe what the textbook says about the movie was true and does depict scifi with pieces of horror. Critics say about how they like how gory and mesmerizing the movie is and how Ridley Scott hybridized the horror and scifi genres and made them into a new sub genre. One critic I agree with is she talked about how Alien redefined the Sci-Fi genre for generations of moviegoers and became the pinnacle of all other movies had to live up to or surpass it and how its similar to Star Wars but add a splash of horror and its similar to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and you have a movie like no other Sci-Fi film.

What was happening during the release of Alien was

1. ESPN(Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) television network is launched on cable television at 7pm eastern time on September 7th 1979.The network was created by Bill and Scott Rasmussen along with Ed Eagen as a channel dedicated to true sports fans.Within a year the network became a 24/7 television service and within a few more years it gained rights to broadcast games for the NBA. ESPN was soon purchased by ABC in 1984 and it blossomed into the powerhouse network it has become today, a popular source for sports news and exclusive sports events.

2. Voyager 1 photo reveals Jupiter's rings:

Voyager 1 spacecraft was launched in September of 1977 with the mission of gathering information on Jupiter and exploring the outer edges of the solar system. On March 5th of 1979 Voyager 1 made its closest approach to Jupiter and made observations of its moons,rings,radiation and magnetic fields of the solar system's largest planet. Voyager 1 is still exploring space and in 2012 of August the spacecraft entered interstellar space and will continue exploring indefinetly.

https://www.thepeoplehistory.com/1979.htmlLinks to an external site.

The debate that circles around Alien is whether or not Alien is better than Aliens or if Aliens is better than Alien but two of the movies were different Alien genre was horror Scifi while the Aliens movie got rid of the horror and was scifi action.Although the debate was over and Alien won despite the fact that the only similarity between the two movies was dealing with the alien monster and the heroine.

The look and feel of the film is eerie and suspenseful and the style of the film is realism making everything seem realistic. General type of the story is a group of astronauts coming back to Earth realizing someone else is on board with them.The significance of the story is by bringing the impossibilities in life and making them seem possible to procure. Two particular shots that stand out to me in the film is facehugger scene.

This scene is important because it teaches us that the facehugger is using the host so it can be able to reproduce and create the alien.Another scene that stood out to me is the chestburster scene

this scene is important because it shows the gestation of the alien and how the alien is born and how it turns from little to big in a matter of minutes. The difference between Alien and other movies is the use of realism, blended genres of scifi and horror and use of special effects.

Alien is specific to its culture with the use of little technology, for the facehugger scene they use props instead of using CGI and the actors not knowing what was all going to happen relates to the suspense of the film.The movie relates to Hofstedes model by the use of the uncertainty avoidance model by the crew finding a way to avoid getting killed off by the alien. Trompeenars model by neutral vs effective and how each character has different ways of expressing emotion when faced with the alien.What is shown in the Alien film is the ship planets the crew and the birth of the alien. How it is shown through the use of special effects realism and the use of props.Shown through the use of global by the use of the film in a different languages and the use of a diverse crowd of actors.If the movie were coming to my premise the only thing I would change to the movie is using my family and friends as actors and leaving the movie as it is.The story fits into national styles is the use of realism and special effects making everything around the movie seeming to happen in real life and its not imaginary.

The movie is considered unconventional since the main character is a female. Alien was considered a big hit it made a profit of 184.7 million dollars.Alien was clear and easy to understand,there were no scenes that made me confused or felt off.The pieces do fit together all neatly talking about the journey, the alien and what the real mission is for the astronauts.Alien does have a smiliar story to Predator since it has the same plot as Alien the only difference is the location since Alien takes place in space, Predator takes place on Earth.

[kyidyl]

Yeah, see, IMO it's like the baby crying thing. Babies crying for help is only advantageous if it gets them better care without attracting predators, and predators are loathe to attack large groups of great apes. And TBH, especially outside of bioanth, the impact of large social groups on human evolution is waaaaaay understudied. Like socialization is so important to humans as a species that a baby whose physical needs are met but not their social one will grow up with significant cognitive delays. But so few other fields address the impact of that socialization on the physical human evolution.

OMG that sounds really interesting. I <3 Neanderthals. They're my second favorite hominin (I have a soft spot for hobbits just bc they're so different.). God...you should totally talk about that research bc I know that, in particular, @systlin and friends would be *incredibly* interested in Neanderthal clothes and culture.

Using fire for environmental protection is another good reason to have it, but it also makes sense that like once they discovered it was useful for one thing there's no reason not to think they wouldn't use it for other things, too, even if they were discovered accidentally. I do think probably fire for warmth came first because it's a lot easier to figure out by just like...standing next to it and realizing its warm, whereas cooking requires some doing. As you pointed out, stone tools take skill and ingenuity, so I don't think "put the food in the fire and it tastes better" is beyond the abilities of any species that was making stone tools. And the oldest evidence of that is about, IIRC, 3.2mya from the Dikika site where they found some bones with butchery marks on them. Now, for awhile I was *convinced* that the intermediary step was cannibalism, not scavenging, and I'm still not entirely sure it wasn't, but every avenue I've gone down to try and prove it hasn't borne fruit. But it just makes so much more sense that early hominins would be like "ok well, we're hungry and this person died" than trying to fight off a group of predators and steal their kill. Chimps do practice cannibalism, so it's not entirely unreasonable. But unless we find like butchery marks on an A. afarensis skeleton or something, then there's not gonna be definitive proof. That's what my masters thesis was on tho, I looked at some of the prion illness-related genetic mutations to see if I could find a connection to cannibalism in early hominins.

"I wonder what the natural wildfire rates are like on a savannah." My guess is *high* considering that some parts of Africa get more lightning per year than the rest of the world, but I'm not sure if those parts line up with ancient savannah, or if they got the same amount of lightning. But if there's a bunch of savannah plants that need fire as part of their lifecycle, chances are good that fire was common. I bet someone who does environmental reconstruction would know.

"It would be an interesting experiment to conduct, how quickly could a group of people kill, butcher and consume enough meat for it to advantageous. How quickly does cooked meat last in savannah like conditions also, compared to uncooked meat."

My guess is that it could be butchered pretty quickly after some practice. But also, and this literally just occurred to me, what if rather than hominins being scavengers it was the reverse? What if you're out with a group of 10 of your buddies and you can't carry home the whole thing so you purposely leave the kill out there? Chances are good that the other animals are gonna learn this, and learn it quickly, and take their turn? Like we already see this behavior on the Savannah now. And there are those sites in places where a bunch of animals were killed and only partially butchered...we think of that as waste but like...we're also used to thinking of ourselves as consumers of resources. What if our role wasn't to consume, but to be part of the food web because of what we left behind? That kind of cooperation is endemic to our species....what if domestication (of dogs and cats especially.) is the inevitable pathway for our mutualistic relationship with animals, rather than us having taken them from the environment?

WRT how fast things go bad...cooked lasts a lot longer than raw, but predator kills rather than butchered meat go bad so quickly because large predators go right for the guts, and gut contents make meat inedible for humans (and presumably hominins) really quickly. So like we think of the muscle as the good part, but they don't. That's why butchering is like a specific order of operations thing. So they could kill an animal and bring it home and it would be fine, but if a lion starts gnawing on the large intestine, it's not fine, and they do tend to do that first. I don't know the specifics off the top of my head, but I know the order would be scavenged meat w/ open guts --> scavenged meat w/o open guts --> hunted/butchered meat --> cooked meat, in terms of what would go bad the fastest.

"And sure, evidence is evidence, but finding charcoal from Mesolithic sites is challenging," yeah, agreed, that's what i was kinda getting at there. Like logically I think that fire had to come much sooner tan 700kya, but finding evidence of human controlled fire is challenging. It's not impossible though, because we wouldn't actually have to find the charcoal, just cooked bones. And fire *does* alter bone, even when things are just cooked. So we'd need burned bone w/ butchery marks. Which is still quite the ask, but it's not impossible. I'd be curious to know if the signs of burning remain in fossils or not though.

"Neanderthals at their most extreme in winter and doing a lot of hunting may have needed a similar amount!" Dude I agree with you about the calories (it's also nuts how few humans can survive off of...so extreme at either end.), and you're 100% right about how many they'd burn just to stay warm let alone warm and active. Oh! Also! I found this article literally today, and I thought you'd enjoy it! Culinary reconstruction of Neanderthal diets from Shanidar.

I just read your input on the whole menstrual cycle thing, and I thought it was interesting. I agree with you on the Grandmother theory front, although I don't necessarily agree with you totally on the cooking front. I mean, obviously yes, cooking has been really important for our species' evolution, but I don't necessarily think it's tied to the development of periods. The first evidence of fire is c. 700kya, which as we share a period with chimps and other primates, it's evolution is probably long before the split between Pan. and the earliest hominins. Now, I personally think that that date for fire is way too late- I study early Homo mainly and I'm relatively sure H. erectus had fire, but periods probably would have been a thing before cooking. Cooking has allowed our species to fine tune and push the limits of birth and what is possible developmentally, but not directly related to periods

I could be wrong, and this definitely isn't meant to be an attack or a critique, I'd just like to discuss it as a fellow human evolution enthusiast and academic, if you have the time/energy

It's all good, I love discussing anthropology and evolution and whatnot. ^_^ I don't mind ppl disagreeing if they're nice about it, and you are so it's fine!

I think whether or not cooking is tied to menstruation depends on why other animals resorb their uterine lining rather than shedding it. if it's "we need to keep these nutrients" I think it definitely could be related to the consumption of extra calories via cooking or even meat eating (although -- and this was one of those moments where I knew my google search history is probably putting me on some kind of list, lol -- due to grooming habits it's likely not a total loss for the other menstruating species.), because that gives us the caloric budget to remove the evolutionary pressure to develop the ability to resorb the lining.

However, if it's for "leaving random blood around is a bad idea bc predators" reasons, then I think it would have more to do with the large social groups that humans, chimps, and bonobos live in. Bonobos and humans have no natural predators, and chimps have very few (and even fewer as adults.). With bonobos it's specifically because of their social structure, as it is with humans (well, y'know, and other things.).

I completely agree with you wrt fire and cooking, I think the 700kya date is way too late, but y'know...evidence is evidence. I think it had to happen earlier though, probably near or shortly after we started consuming meat because we needed it to make the meat safe. We don't have any adaptations for scavenging, which was one of the things that drove my desire to write about the transition to meat eating in my thesis. I think the "hominins started eating meat as scavengers" thing is completely bs. One of the things I found in the course of writing it was that a kill left out on the savannah becomes inedible for humans after around 30 minutes (bc internal fluids ruin the meat *quick*.), and I don't think A. afarensis was so different from us that this wouldn't have been true for them too (the earliest evidence of stone tools in the context of broken bones and whatnot and butchery comes from about 3.2mya, when they were around.), and I think it would take a predator longer than 30 mins to consume their kill. So unless large groups of A. afarensis was driving away predators (which is obviously possible), they weren't really scavenging. And they'd have to be really quick about it to get to the meat before it spoiled and would make them sick to eat. Plus, you know, scavengers are highly specialized animals. We have none of those characteristics, nor even the traces of them. There's also no real evidence that we transitioned from scavenging to hunting, it's just an assumption that scavenging is a step along the road to hunting rather than an end in and of itself for species that habitually do it. So logically I think cooking would have had to come *much* earlier than 700kya or we just wouldn't have had the calories to grow our brains. Now whether they started fires is another thing, but there's no reason they couldn't learn to tend fire and use it and whatnot when they came across it. There's no reason to believe that hominins didn't hang around brushfires to collect plant foods as they passed. Hell, we know an early hunting method was setting fires so that new shoots would attract prey. So yeah, hard agree about the fire.

[nevermindirah]

Non-Jewish friends, y’all might be wondering right now: Israel is doing clearly unacceptable shit to Palestinians. So, why are some Jews ardent Zionists, and why do some Jews seem to feel personally attacked by criticism of Israel?

A lot of (non-Palestinian) non-Jews have asked me where I stand on Israel/Palestine over the years, apropos of nothing, just because I’m Jewish. For the longest time I felt so stuck because I just didn’t know much about Israel/Palestine and what little I did know turned out to be largely misinformation and I felt so much pressure to say The Correct Thing That All Jews Should Say About This Issue. Obviously the violence Israel is committing against Palestinians is horrific and the interpersonal weirdness individual Jews might experience as people discuss Israel’s horrific violence doesn’t compare. I’m making this post as a small supplement to the important conversations going on about what Israel is doing to Palestinians in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank, as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel and Palestinian refugees and their descendants living outside land Israel controls. I’m making this post because non-Jews might be feeling confused by conflicting messages about Zionism as either settler colonialism or Jewish self-determination. It sucks feeling like you have to choose only one oppressed group or another. It’s possible to support Palestinian liberation and Jewish liberation at the same time! Here’s some context that might help.

Palestinian friends will probably want to ignore this post, y’all shouldn’t have to deal with your oppressors’ feelings, and especially not right now.

Zionism is the ideology behind the devastating violence Israel is committing against Palestinians right now and has been committing against Palestinians since 1947-48. It’s heartbreaking and messy to talk about this reality, because Zionism originated as a strategy to protect Jews from antisemitism.

Any oppressed group can turn into oppressors under enough pressure, because humans are flawed. Jews fleeing antisemitism turning into Israelis ethnically cleansing Palestinians happened because Zionism is profoundly influenced by its time and place of origin: 19th century Europe.

Europe invented antisemitism, and basically every European country has done at least one very very bad structural antisemitism, like expelling all the country's Jews (the monarch and/or the church then stole all the wealth the expelled people had to leave behind), looking the other way when peasants murdered a bunch of Jews as an outlet for their frustration with the actual (non-Jewish) ruling class, banning Jews from owning property or holding certain jobs or being members of guilds etc, and of course the big horrific state-sponsored mass-murder operations the Inquisition and the Holocaust. From the 1790s through the 19th century different European governments emancipated their Jews, ie removed legal barriers to full citizenship and economic participation. But this didn't end antisemitism. Just like the legal improvements of the 19th and 20th centuries didn't end antiblackness in the United States.

Also happening in this time: nationalism swept Europe. From the French Revolution through the end of World War I, Europe’s predominant form of government transformed from multiethnic empires to nation-states, countries led by and for a particular ethnic group.

So this Austro-Hungarian dude Theodor Herzl came up with this idea for Jewish nationalism. Every other European ethnic group is getting their own country, so why not Jews? Maybe this is the solution to antisemitism! Maybe we’ll finally be safe if we just all move en masse out of Europe to a place that will take all of us and never expel us!

But also also happening in Europe and around the world in this time: European imperialism and white supremacist settler colonialism. Chattel slavery saw its height and then its end (legally, at least) during this era, but white supremacy entrenched itself across the planet in post-slavery economic practices and cultural imperialism as well as national and international laws.

I believe countries have a moral obligation to take in as many refugees as they can squeeze in. International law protecting refugees has evolved a lot over the past century, but we’re still devastatingly far from every refugee getting a safe place to call home, and the main reason for that is white supremacy. The Biden administration didn’t undo the Trump administration’s horrifically low cap on refugees until like last week and it’s because Democratic party leaders treat centrist white people as more valuable voters than the huge and growing numbers of people of color, immigrants, LGBT people, unmarried women, and working class people who want to vote for elected leaders who get that nobody’s free until we’re all free. Ahem. Back to the topic at hand, the US and many other countries turned away untold numbers of refugees fleeing the fucking Holocaust, so odds are slim they’d be more welcoming in less desperate times. Moving from places where Jews are an unwanted minority to places where Jews are still a minority and either still unwanted or little understood and unlikely to win revolutionary levels of support from a largely non-Jewish public seems like a bad plan.

In the mid to late 19th century, lots of Jews took the kernel of Zionism and ran with it in different directions. Maybe this ideology could mean Jewish cultural flourishing alongside stronger political/economic integration into the societies where we’re already living! Maybe it could mean a particular kind of socialism that advocates for the liberation of Jews both as Jews and as workers! Maybe it could mean a revitalization of Jewish religious practice both in Jerusalem where we have important heritage sites and everywhere we live across the world!

Eventually Herzl’s vision of Zionism won out over the others: Jewish nationalism in the sense of a Jewish nation-state, a country that has a Jewish demographic majority and/or that legally privileges Jews over non-Jews.

Problem is, if you want to do that, you have to find a piece of land on which to do it, and Earth was already a pretty crowded place a hundred years ago. Many locations were considered, and the one that ended up winning that debate was Palestine. Where a shit ton of people, mostly non-Jews, were already living. They were forming their own nationalist movement at the time: in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire they began to organize for local self-determination in Palestine.

The Herzl types who developed Zionism as an ideology and built institutions to advocate for and create a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine were a small subset of European Jews, mostly men, mostly with significant economic privilege within what Jews were able to achieve in their particular societies at the time. They were just as Orientalist as the non-Jews around them, just as antiblack, just as racist generally for all that Jews were (and sometimes still are) considered non-white in much of Europe. They had a cool idea (put a lot of effort into something that could protect Jews from antisemitism) floating in a bathtub full of shit, and they did practically nothing to protect the cool idea from absorbing that shit. Results of this include thinking about the millions of people already living in Palestine as if they were either like the rocks and the trees that will go with the flow and accept a new ruling class, or indistinct Arabs who would just leave for other Arab countries because what could be the difference — in the staggeringly small amount of time they considered the existing residents of Palestine at all.

This racist hand-waving extended to Zionist leaders’ attitudes about Jews outside Europe as well. White Jews in settler colonies like the US were largely anti-Zionist at the time (not wanting their own countries to accuse them of dual loyalty was a common reason) but European Zionist leaders took what help they could get from Jews in the US, South Africa, Australia, etc. Jews across the Middle East and North Africa, however, barely heard from Zionist leaders about any of this until Zionist militias had removed enough Palestinians from the land and it was time to repopulate it with whichever Jewish bodies were convenient. You might have heard "all the Arab countries expelled their Jews in 1948" but lots of first-person accounts tell a different story of Israel coercing Jews who’d lived securely for a long time in places like Morocco to immigrate to Israel and then confiscating their passports and forcing them to live on less-fertile land with fewer resources while serving as a buffer between Palestinians and European Jewish immigrants. Ella Shohat is the best-known writer on Israeli racism against non-European Jews and I strongly recommend Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Perspective of Its Jewish Victims as a starting point to learn more about this.

Which brings us to today. We still haven’t eradicated antisemitism, several European governments that did a lot of structural antisemitism they still haven’t made meaningful reparations for get to feel good about themselves for “giving the Jews a state” as if carving up the former Ottoman Empire was up to them and not the people who lived there, and millions of people across the world who previously either lived peacefully enough alongside Jews or hadn’t really thought about us much at all now have very valid reasons to be pissed at this country that claims it represents all of us.

Zionism was supposed to protect Jews from antisemitism. And Israel has saved Jewish lives! But if we hadn’t sunk the past 70+ years into an ethnostate we could’ve been putting that energy into other political and economic activity to create adequate international support for refugees while we work on ending root causes of refugee crises, like antisemitism, racism, climate change, and capitalism. Meanwhile Zionism has killed, maimed, incarcerated, stolen from, traumatized, and erased the history of millions of Palestinians just because they happened to be living on land that some dudes who had a lot more in common with Thomas Jefferson and Donald Trump than with you or me decided needed to be cleansed for a Jewish ethnostate.

White nationalists in the US love Israel because they want American Jews to go away. Fascist leaders across Europe love Israel for the same reason, so much so that Israel’s prime minister is buddy-buddy with Trump and the equivalent shitstains of several European far-right parties. And I don’t know what it’s like in other white supremacist countries that are close allies of Israel, but the overwhelming majority of Zionist lobbying that pushes the US to give so much aid to Israel comes from Evangelical Christians, because they believe all the Jews have to be in the Holy Land for Jesus to come back. No thanks.

This whole thing fucking sucks. Jews and Palestinians, like all human beings, deserve to be free. Many Jews are understandably afraid of what might happen next if Israel decided to give up on ethnonationalism, allow Palestinian refugees to return, make reparations, and establish a pluralistic democracy that represents and protects all its residents — will some Palestinians murder Jews in revenge? That’s genuinely fucking scary. And it’s genuinely fucking scary to be a Palestinian in Israel/Palestine, and has been for over 70 years. We’ve gotta do something different. I say that as a white person sitting on land stolen from Piscataway people who has thought in detail about what portion of my income would be reasonable for my government to tax in order to fund reparations for the descendants of enslaved people.

Ok. One final piece of context before I wrap this up.

Most Jewish institutions in the US are explicitly Zionist, teach children that Zionism is THE way to ensure Jewish safety, and increasingly tell non-Zionist Jews that we're unwelcome or even that we’re not “real” Jews. This comes in a context where it’s only been 76 years since the latest and most gruesome of several attempts to wipe our entire people off the face of the planet. If you grew up in that environment, you, too, might be jumpy about even hearing the words Zionism or Israel, let alone considering the devastation this ideology and country have caused Palestinians.

Jews have a right to exist. Jews have a millennia-old connection to this scrap of land in the Levant, and we have a right to access religiously and culturally important geographic landmarks. What we don't have a right to is murdering or expelling other people in order to make an ethnostate, on that land or any other. Zionism is settler colonialism, but it’s settler colonialism by and for people who have a valid need for protection from structural antisemitism, which means that it’s going to take a lot of messy empathy to undo. The members of my extended family who voted for Trump (non-Jews in my case, though Jared Kushner isn’t the only Jewish Trumpite) are afraid that ending white supremacy will demote them from a privileged class to equal footing with everyone else — that’s the kind of fear individuals work on in therapy, not the kind that’s reasonable for a whole society to prevent from happening. I and millions of Jews do deserve for whole societies to work hard to end antisemitism.

I would never and will never ask a Palestinian to gently request their liberation. But if you’re not Palestinian, and you’ve got a little extra empathy to spare this week, I ask you to remember what I’ve shared here when interacting with Jews about Israel/Palestine.

If you’re a fellow Jew reading this and you feel like Israel is the only way to guarantee our safety, all I ask of you is to sit with the idea that what Israel is doing to Palestinians is too high a cost for safety that’s still not guaranteed, and start to imagine real-world ways we can protect our people from antisemitism without an ethnostate.

I made this post for people who know me (or know of me I guess?) in Old Guard and Cap fandom, despite my better judgment, because talking about Jewish Booker and Jewish Bucky and Jewish Natasha makes me so happy and I think some of the people I love on these characters with might appreciate this perspective. I didn’t provide any links in this post on purpose (to decrease its usefulness, so fewer people will reblog it) because the risk of anon hate when talking about Zionism outside my immediate fandom circles is so high. You’re welcome to reblog this post if you find it helpful! Unless you’re not within a few concentric circles of me, in which case, maybe don’t? If seeing this post makes you want to send me anon hate, no need: many people who share your perspective have already done so on Twitter.

Reliable sources on all this info are a few googles away, and I apologize for the things I know I oversimplified as well as any things I might have misremembered. I’m an American who’s never lived in Israel/Palestine who is posting this on my fandom blog.

TL;DR: This is a short ‘n pithy post about the same idea.

TL;DR, fandom edition: The shortest distillation of this anti-Zionist Jew’s feelings on the matter can be found in segment 4 of Five Times Booker Got Wasted on Purim and One Time He Didn’t.

[spencersawkward]

switchblade faith // spencer reid - chapter 4

summary: one month after joining the BAU, Clea is still settling in. between solving murders and getting acclimated to DC, the only comfortable thing in her life is her friendship with Dr. Spencer Reid.

word count: 3.5k

masterlist

there's a place between the bank of a river and the actual water where the soil is soft. it's more like silt, leftover grains of earth not yet swept away. they're extremely delicate, made up of minerals and rock.

I love the earth. I love feeling it under my feet and the way it gives into my fingertips when they push through the surface. I love when I can sense the twisted roots of every plant. they reach for moisture, thin tendrils. there's something very pure about all of it.

which is why seeing the faceless corpse of a woman splayed out on the banks causes my stomach to wrench.

I guess it isn't the only reason, but it certainly doesn't help.

"the edges of these cuts are smooth, not torn," Rossi straightens up from his spot by her body. I don't know how he can get so close. when he waits for me to say something, my lips purse.

"so he must have used a sharp instrument to remove her face." I cross my arms over my chest. the water in her lungs makes me wonder how much pain she was in, how much it hurts to drown. unimaginable.

the slightly blue undertones to her skin imprint themselves in my mind, and my only thought is that I'm glad her eyes aren't open; I get nauseous when they are. instead of dwelling on the gaunt nature of her body, I speak to one of the crime scene experts about the time of death. his voice is barely audible over the rush of water against stones.

we spend about half an hour exploring the site, although something about this place in particular puts me off. I keep edging towards the sides of the river.

"we should meet Aaron back at the station. ready to go, kiddo?" Rossi catches my attention, beginning to make the short hike up the incline. he walks carefully to avoid sullying what I'm sure are expensive shoes, his face contorted with mild disgust. the nickname makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.

"sure." I turn to scramble behind him, my gaze catching on the scene. jewel-toned leaves heavy with rain, tipping to spill weighted drops in a slow, drowsy fall. and it's now filled with police officers and crime scene experts hauling this poor woman's body to somewhere not so public.

what a world.

we get in the car and Rossi turns the key in the ignition, the engine roaring to life. I sit with my hands folded neatly in my lap; I'm rigid, though grateful, when working with Rossi. it's something I still need to get used to.

"you okay, there?" he asks as we turn out into the street. my eyes turn away from the locust swarm of cop cars that are parked by the crime scene and I take a deep breath.

"yes, why?"

"you're not usually this quiet."

"really?" I deflect. I've never been particularly chatty at times like this. my mind usually gets sucked into what I'm seeing, memorizing every detail against my will for replay later that night.

"I'm a profiler, too, Clea. and a much more seasoned one than you," he glances my way with raised eyebrows. his features are softer than the photos I've seen before this. even the lecture I attended painted him in a different light. I forget how old he is. but his eyes return to the road while he sighs. "I know when something is wrong."

"nothing in particular," I shift in my seat a little. although I'm sure he gives great advice, I'm not ready to share with anyone the dreams that I've been having. "just still getting settled in, I think."

he must notice that I'm lying; I've never been quite good at it, even in front of non-profilers. but Rossi senses the discomfort that I'm trying to hide and nods.

"well, if it helps, I'm going to be having a wine tasting at my mansion once we get back to Quantico. the whole team is invited."

my words get knotted up in my throat as I think on this. "wine tasting?"

"yes. I've got plenty to spare." there's a slight archness to his tone. I smile.

"to be honest, I really don't think I've got the skill set for that," my limbs relax a little. "my experience is pretty limited."

"and you think the others know a lot?" he waves his hand dismissively. we both laugh.

"okay, then." I nod. "thanks, Rossi."

"Prego!" the sudden Italian interjection makes me roll my eyes playfully.

...

our case doesn't take nearly as much time as I expected. with the unsub's narcissism and general lack of intelligence, we catch him rather quickly and are home before the end of the week. there's a collective gratitude for this fact on the plane ride home which takes the form of lively card games and plenty of friendly trash-talking. we also enthusiastically discuss getting together in the evening.

the wine-tasting event that has been so praised by the team turns out to really be just an excuse for everyone to get drunk while draining Rossi's liquor supply. I've had about three different types of alcohol and, beyond the color, I have no idea what kind.

Penelope is pouring more chardonnay in her glass when she offers some to me. I nod, watch the lovely liquid fill up.

"I'd like to make a toast." Rossi announces, much to the feigned chagrin of Prentiss and Hotch. they roll their eyes while the Italian raises a scotch glass into the air. we're in the kitchen, standing around the counter while bantering about our personal lives and past cases.

"keep it short, Dave. I have to head out, soon." Hotch reminds. Rossi gives him a look, but then turns his eyes to me with a paternal affection.

"to Clea," he says, the rest of the team breaking into smiles. "and her hopefully very long career on the team-- if she can stand us."

there's a chuckle that rolls through the group, but then we all clink glasses. even Reid, who has been downing sparkling cider at an alarming rate, taps his flute against mine. I smile at him, at everyone who is now flooding me with questions. I get a happy, bubbly feeling while I drink. Penelope drops her head on my shoulder and mumbles something that I can't quite understand. JJ talks to Spencer about something, his eyes drifting between the contents of his cup and the clock on the wall. he's distracted by something.

"you okay there?" Emily leans against the counter next to me. she's following my line of sight until it lands on JJ and the boy genius. I nod.

"yeah. just thinking."

"about?"

"how it would feel to be this rich." I send her a smirk. she snorts.

"I would love to know."

"how often do you guys have these things?" I peer around at the guests. everyone seems to be accustomed to the behemoth household that Rossi keeps, except for me. and all of it is so clean, too.

"here? only a few times a year. Rossi doesn't like having people over." she says the last part with a laugh, nursing her drink. I cross my arms.

"fair enough."

"I think people are gonna be heading home, soon, though." she checks her watch. I remember how almost everyone here is bound somehow to someone else, a family or significant other or someone who misses them. I'm not tired at all.

"what about you?"

"I have date night plans with Sergio." she grins.

"I didn't know you have a boyfriend." I raise my eyebrows at this knowledge. Emily seems like the type of person to play the field; her settling down with one person is surprising by itself.

"Sergio is my cat," she tells me. "much more cleanly."

"even better." I laugh. we discuss the merits of owning a pet over dating people until JJ decides that she needs to get back to her family. Hotch is heading out, too, and the steady departure stream of guests begins to form. it's not very late and I'd much rather do something else than go home and watch TV, so I survey the room.

"hey, Reid." I find myself standing beside him while he puts on his coat. it's got elbow patches and there's a scarf that he wraps around his neck to accompany it. he peeks at me curiously.

"yes?"

"would you wanna get a coffee or something?" I grab my jacket off the hanger. before he can say no and shy away from my offer, I explain. "I'm just not in the mood to get home right now."

"uh," his eyes dart down to his shoes, then back up at me. "sure. yeah, that would be... fun."

"awesome." I beam. ever since we hung out in that museum in Boston, I've been thinking about how to get to Spencer. maybe it's just because he's been the slowest to warm up to me, but I'm getting more and more curious about him. that moment when he did something playful-- there has to be more of that. and we obviously have some things in common. it might be nice to have a friend like that, someone with whom I can go to art exhibits.

we all thank Rossi for a lovely evening and I'm about to ask if Spencer wants to Uber somewhere when he starts walking purposefully toward a gorgeous yellow car. it's old-- like, 1950's refurbished, old-- and well cared for.

"whoa." I say as he opens the passenger side door for me in a surprisingly courteous move. I slide inside and breathe in the delicious scent of leather and something crisp and sharp. I wait until he gets in on the other side to ask my questions. "is this yours?"

"yes, actually. I got it about a year ago and I don't drive it very often." he runs slender fingers over the wheel, touching it with a quiet admiration. I turn to him in the dark, the glow from his own headlights casting pale shadows over his face as he starts the thing up. it rumbles to life in a charming, old-timey way.

the sounds of the engine defuse the silence between us as we drive into the city. Spencer almost forgets I'm there, the muscles in his wrists and arms relaxing as he handles the steering wheel. I, on the other hand, am painfully aware of his presence.

every time we make a turn, every time his lips part, I start to think he's going to say something. but he never does, and there appears to be no inclination whatsoever. I wonder if I should ask him some random question to get him rambling, but the nervous energy he usually radiates has softened to something more muted.

it's entertaining when he speaks. I think it's also a guard against vulnerability; at least, that's why I speak so much when I'm anxious. I take his silence as a compliment.

finally, he manages to maneuver his way into a parking spot. I glance around the street, not recognizing the place.

"what is this?" I ask curiously. his hand wraps around the stick shift and parks, turns off the vehicle.

"I come here on the weekends." he glances briefly at me before climbing out of the car. I get out and watch him come around to my side. he's only wearing a cardigan over his button-up, which looks surprisingly cozy.

"so, what kind do you usually get?" I ask. we start to walk down the sidewalk, passing streetlamps and small individual trees that are just beginning to go barren with autumn. the restaurants around here are still full of people.

"coffee? black, usually."

"with five or six sugars." I recall, and he turns to me. there's a dimple in his cheek that tells me he's amused by my memory.

"what about you?"

"I like an iced caramel macchiato, or just a latte." I muse. he pulls open the door to a cute corner place with a steaming mug on the logo. it must be exclusive to the neighborhood.

inside, bookshelves are crammed with used titles and people getting a late-night caffeine fix. most of them are glued to laptop screens or flipping through books. it smells warm and delicious.

"do you know what you want?" he asks, drawing me from my observations. I realize that I've been looking everywhere but at the actual menu. it's drawn in curvy chalk.

"yes." I step forward and the barista behind the register smiles at me. I order my favorite drink and am about to ask my co-worker what he wants, but Spencer cuts me off by ordering and then paying for me. I raise my eyebrows as he hands over the crumpled dollar bills, pleasantly surprised.

when we go to wait for our drinks, he shoves his hands in his pockets and doesn't say anything.

"that's not fair." I frown.

"what's not fair?" his voice is distracted.

"I invited you-- I should have paid for both of us."

"it's okay." he gives me a tight-lipped smile. I find myself taking a step close and poking his arm.

"you're so polite."

"thank you." he doesn't know what to do with this information and it partly amuses me.

"so, I know you're from Nevada, but that's pretty much all of my Spencer Reid knowledge." I oh-so-gracefully segue into the topic. our coffees show up on the counter and we grab them before finding an empty table towards the back of the shop. it's in both of our first instincts to seek out the corner spots.

"well, I--" he starts, but then I remember something else.

"and I'm fully aware of your IQ and plethora of degrees, so don't give me that trivia information." I tease. he's looking down at the lid of his coffee. his eyelids are the color of something slightly bruised, and he lets out a nervous laugh.

"what else is there to know?"

"everything." I grin, my elbows resting on the tabletop. it's a small surface, so much so that even leaning forward a little bit gives off an air of intimacy that makes me hesitant. "we're spending a lot of time together, so you might as well tell me about you."

"I'm really not very interesting." it's an easy way to dodge questions and I don't want to push him too hard or scare him away. I just want to be friends, and that can be kind of hard when I don't know the first thing about him.

"I'll start then, if you'd like." I propose with a smirk. he nods and swallows, the Adam's apple in his throat bobbing.

"well, I was born in Atlanta, but I grew up in Montana. my family still lives there, though. I'm a big fan of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, I'm a scorpio sun, and I hate mushrooms." I fight a smile as I list random facts about myself in an attempt to get him to relax. I'm not hoping for him to divulge his biggest life traumas; there's no pressure.

it works. his high cheekbones poke out a little as he hides a smile behind his drink. my eyebrow quirks at his reaction.

"okay, now you have to go!" I prod. he puts his coffee down, though he fidgets with the sleeve on the cup.

"I guess I'm technically a Scorpio, too." he concedes.

"what? no." I almost laugh at the prospect. at first take, he doesn't really align.

"yes."

"what's your moon sign?" I narrow my eyes.

"I'm not sure, actually." this seems to frustrate him almost as much as it surprises me.

"you'll need to find that out if you want to understand your chart better." I shrug, leaning back in my seat. he fixes his gaze on my face as he tries to read the seriousness of my words. I'm only partly joking.

"what's your problem with mushrooms?" he asks instead, prompting my eyes to widen.

"don't get me started!" this time, I lean my elbows on the table. "I just don't like the thought of eating a fungus. and the texture--"

"what about milk, though?" he asks suddenly. I pause, mouth still open as I think on this.

"what about it?"

"is it weird to you that people drink cow milk in the same way that it's weird to eat fungi?"

"I suppose not." my brows draw together.

"lots of things humans do are 'weird'." he puts the word in air-quotes and it brings a smile to my lips.

"you're opinionated, aren't you?" I tilt my head a bit. this side of Spencer is new to me.

"mushrooms are rich in various nutrients and have been consistently used across time and cultures for medicinal purposes-- not to mention the burgeoning therapy treatments now in development with micro-dosing psilocybin." he replies. I giggle.

"big on shrooms?"

"what? no, I--" he gets a little flustered, shifting his sitting position and getting a rosy tint to his cheeks.

"I'm just joking, Reid." I set my palm flat against the table, something of a truce between us. he runs a hand through his hair. I move on. "I think the psilocybin research is actually really fascinating."

"isn't it?" Spencer's features appear somewhat ghostly under the café lights. he's got a sort of unusual face, although that isn't a bad thing at all. it's interesting.

he begins to talk about depression treatments that are being developed from shrooms, gesticulating wildly. his watch glints on his sleeve as he speaks. I notice the pretty arch of his eyebrows and the way he speaks through a grin. his voice has got a soothing quality to it, each word an individually selected puzzle piece. it's clear, low, and a bit filled with a childlike passion.

I rest my chin on my palm as he rambles, occasionally drinking my coffee and adding in my own thoughts. I think that Spencer could go for days if I let him, that he could talk enough to fill the pages of those books on the wall.

I'm not sure how long we sit in the café-- it could be an hour or three. we jump from medicine to philosophy to his obsession with Medieval literature. this, being something I know almost nothing about, intrigues me.

"my mom was actually a professor of it, so she read a lot of those books to me as a kid." he tells me, not even stumbling over the word was. either she died when he was young or she isn't dead at all-- there is no loss in the weight of this fact. I don't ask about it, but I pocket the piece away for later.

"explains the chivalry." I joke. he frowns.

"sorry?"

"your manners."

"oh," he blushes slightly. "she's always romanticized it, I think."

the change in tense tells me she must not have passed. I run my fingertip over the rim of my drink.

"does she live back in Vegas?" I hope it isn't too invasive.

"yeah, she does," his eyes flit between the tabletop and my face. "she, um, lives in a sanitarium."

his willingness to confide this almost takes me visibly aback. he seemed so hesitant to share personal details earlier this evening; something in my chest warms.

"oh," my voice is thick in my throat. I don't know what to say. "I'm sorry."

"it's fine." it's not, but I get not wanting to dive into it.

my intentions really weren't to prod at something that obviously is close to his heart, so I sit a bit straighter in my seat and look around the shop. we're the last people here, the only other sounds from the two baristas and the whir of machinery.

"are you-- do you wanna head out?" I ask. part of me feels no desire to leave. we probably should. it's getting late and I never know how much sleep I'm going to get. the hours for this job aren't steady by any definition of the word.

"sure."

when my head turns back from peering around the café, he's staring at me. I smile, stand up and push my chair in. he follows, both of us throwing our empty cups away before heading out.

it's much colder. a slight shudder runs through my body as we step into the night. involuntary, but Spencer falters a moment on the pavement.

"uh," he clumsily shrugs off his cardigan. "sorry." hands the thing to me.

my cheeks flush in surprise. his awkwardness is contagious, apparently.

nevertheless, I wrap the thing around my shoulders and feel a little better. it's warm. we keep walking in silence back to the car, my head now filling with thoughts that I can't quite sift through.

he's a very nice boy. I start to feel grateful that my craving for caffeine has given me the opportunity to get to know him better. when I glance at him for a second, his head ducking beneath a low-hanging branch of one of the sidewalk trees, he catches me and offers a ghost of a smile.

baby spencer is such a sub I literally can't--

[yaz-the-spaz]

But I want to know your theory. :(

ok ok i guess i’ll spill…i was kinda hesitant to share just cause i’m still not all that solid in my belief in it myself but basically it seems like maybe ziam has made it a tradition to have some kind of couples trip most years (if not every year) in february ever since 2014…

(btw for future reference this ask is a continuation of this ask re ziam both being publicly in vegas earlier this year)

ugh sorry guys! hit enter by accident and posted this wayyyy before i was anywhere near finished lol…this will be updated within the hour (if it doesn’t take me too long to get my thoughts out)

narrator: she did not finish it within the hour.

…

ok so part of the reason i’ve been hesitant to share this is because a good portion of it is VERY speculative and just based on a lot of guesswork and assumptions, but also there’s the fact that it feels like this is something major that more people in the fandom (or at least someone, other than little ass me lol) would have noticed before now and it kind of freaks me out that maybe no one else has?? (unless ofc i just haven’t happened to see any other posts there are about it idk)… 

also fyi a lot of what i propose throughout this is heavily based on info from this post just to make sure i remember to site my sources before we get into it lol

alright now onto the actual theory…

SO. all this started with me scrolling through old posts from late 2013/early 2014 and being reminded of the fuckery that was zayn’s bday that year (with the douche canoe crew and everyone pretending like liam was barely there as seemingly some sort of weird over-the-top cover-up)…the same party that seemed kinda like liam’s possible “introduction” to the malik family as more than just zayn’s friend/as his possible significant other. which was also only a month after that suspicious engagement-looking ring first showed up on zayn’s ring finger in december 2013 from bts midnight memories mv footage (and which stayed around as a necklace throughout january 2014 and early febuary 2014 right before the first appearance/debut of the mandala tat in mid feb). 

bts midnight memories mv with the ring in view - dec 2013:

(suspicious?) malik family outing/celebration with the ring in view - dec (or possibly late nov?) 2013:

[putting the rest under the cut cause as per usual with me this got insanely long]

liam and aunt zileh at zayn’s bday party - jan 2014:

liam and one of the little cousins at zayn’s bday party - jan 2014:

then sometime in between late jan and early feb 2014 liam went on a trip to barbados with his whole family (and supposedly also sophia lol more on that later*) while zayn was SUPPOSEDLY still home and steadily “posting” pics of himself at home with various members of his family (with the ring on a necklace clearly visible in the pics lol), anddd as some have also pointed out his hair was suspiciously unchanged in these pics despite his claim of getting a haircut BEFORE most of the pics were posted lol

zayn in family pics with the ring on a necklace - late jan/early feb 2014 (sorry i’m not the one who cropped his fam out lol):

but yet we’re supposed to believe zayn - who had just gotten awarded the asian ambassadorship for the VERY FIRST time - mysteriously (and willingly) MISSED the ceremony on feb. 5th with absolutely no explanation. which…we all know how big a deal that was to him from the way he talked about it and how honored he was when he went in 2015…which begs the question if he was really just home not doing much of anything at the time in 2014 why in the world would he just pass/bail on that HUGE HONOR with no explanation??? mayhaps because he was actually already an ocean away with liam and fam in barbados celebrating his engagement (and getting his own “introduction” to the payne family) and literally COULD NOT ATTEND?

anyway so then, we have him getting the mandala tat around feb 18th 2014 - or at least this is the day he debuted it on his old ig, so the date may be a few days off from when he actually got it - but this still would’ve been shortly after they got back from the barbados trip when he debuted this particular tat (aka another solidification of the engagement??) 

THEN we get the very first ig ziam likes from the famous and beloved aunt zileh (!!!) in this same month (still feb for reference, but she continues steadily and heavily liking stuff all the way through april when she seems to cool down again). fast forward to the 2014 brits at the end of february where we have the infamous moment with 1) ziam giddy as fucking ever, 2) zayn whispering into and practically mawling liam’s neck in public, 3) liam talking about how it was great to “fill each other in” on what they were up to during their break while zayn’s just steady standing there smiling like a loon and then 4) liam still later being like ‘you don’t wanna know’ when asked what he got up to (and zayn still grinning like a fool)

ziam being gross at brits 2014:

so to sum up so far: 1) one of them possibly proposed around nov/dec 2013 (or that’s my best guess anyway based on the evidence lol), 2) then zayn shows up with a suspiciously-engagement-looking ring in dec 2013, 3) then all the weirdness with liam’s attendance at zayn’s bday party a month later (possibly also liam’s formal intro to the malik family), 4) then liam takes his barbados trip with his fam (and supposedly sophia lol*) just a couple weeks later while “zayn” stays home and posts family pics (but is very likely secretly on the trip with liam lol which is also possibly zayn’s formal intro the payne family and a belated celebration of their engagement), 5) and then we get the beginning of aunt zileh’s likes, 6) the debut of zayn’s mandala tat, 7) and the 2014 brits wildness…all in the space of like 3 months. and most of it happening in FEBRUARY. what a wild fucking journey right?

*side note/fun fact: liam and his fam were posting stuff regularly throughout the duration of the barbados vacay but there were literally zero pics of sophia posted from this trip until like dec 2014 or sometime around then when like ONE random pic suddenly surfaced/was posted and lots of ppl had already speculated that sophia was never there in the first place so once this one pic came up that idea got upgraded to people theorizing that they maybe had some of the fam go back a second time later in the year just to stage take photos to retroactively prove/authenticate the narrative that sophia was there lol

but anyway so back to the actual matter at hand - most of that shit happened in february right? specifically the barbados trip (aka the possible engagement celebration trip)…and when i was talking about all this to a friend we realized ZIAMI WAS ALSO IN FEBRUARY. AND SO WAS THIS YEAR’S VEGAS SHIT. AND THEN. AND THEN. My friend did some research and there was apparently this little known/barely talked about article (or at least barely talked about that i’m aware of) about liam taking a TRIP TO THE MALDIVES IN FEBRUARY 2016… which coincidentally (or not lol considering these shady ass hoes) is also around the same time he got his 4 tattoo (I believe this was the first article, or at least one of the first articles, that mentioned the tat’s debut) 

BUT WAIT. 

THE INSANE SHIT DOES NOT END THERE FOLKS.

GUESS WHICH MONTH THE CARTIER BRACELET FIRST DEBUTED?

FUCKING FEBRUARY 2016.

specifically on liam’s wrist in preparation for the 2016 brits (photo posted to his brits stylist’s ig on feb 23rd). and he didn’t take it off till like june.

so. quick timeline:

february 2016 - maldives trip and debut of liam’s 4 tattoo (around feb 21st); debut of cartier bracelet via liam (feb 23rd); (there was also that valentine’s day roses pic liam posted feb 14th of this year which was quite interesting considering he and c hadn’t even been officially announced as a “thing” yet…ofc we know it still got retroactively attributed to her anyway but whatever, we all know who it was really for lol 😏)

february 2017 - i don’t have anything on this year, partly cause i stopped paying as close attention due to heavy ramping up of stunts, although if anyone has more concrete info on this period that hints at anything please do hit me up and i will add it in, but anyway just based on a little light research there does appear to be a good period of inactivity from both of them during this time (as in both of them had quite a bit of time in february where they were pretty inactive on sm, not being papped, and essentially mia and would have potentially had time to go on a private trip) - UPDATE: HOLY SHIT I CANNOT BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT THIS BUT THIS IS THE YEAR LIAM SHOWED UP AT THE BRITS WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING 25 ON HIS JACKET AND FUCKED SIMON ALL THE WAY UP BY SWERVING ON HIS UGLY BITCH ASS SPEECH IN FRONT OF GOD AND ENTIRE WORLD (and i think also thanked zayn in his speech if i’m not mixing that up with another year??) - all on feb 23rd to be specific.

february 2018 - ZIAMI OBVIOUSLY (which specifically started feb 22nd, or at least that’s the day i’m counting it as ‘started’ cause it’s the day liam joined zayn in miami, can’t recall the exact day zayn arrived but pretty sure it was only a couple days before that)

february 2019 - zayn starts wearing this distinctive fishhook earring in all his ig pics, which on the surface seems like a pretty small thing, but quite possibly commemorates their famous august 2014 fishing trip (directly after which he also started wearing a fish hook pendant on a necklace back in 2014); this was also another period they were pretty quiet/mia as far as i can recall, although again if anybody has more concrete info from this time that could point to something please let me know, but anyway point being they again would have had a good chunk of time to possibly go on a private trip together

february 2020 - VEGAS BABY

ofc i’m sure you all will notice one year was left out - february 2015 they were on tour with no breaks coming anytime soon so they obviously weren’t able to go on a trip that year. BUT. february 14th 2015 (aka valentine’s day lol) is also the day liam was famously papped with some small shopping bags that looked suspiciously but precisely like the type that usually come from a jewelry store, and then later that same night they had a performance (for otra tour) where we have zayn pictured wearing a new gold bracelet (as in he hadn’t been seen wearing it ever before on tour or anywhere else) - btw the op of this linked post actually marks this day as the debut of the cartier bracelet but there’s a lot of counter speculation that it’s not and given that it doesn’t quite look like the cartier bracelet looked in later pics (it’s more round and more gold than the cartier bracelet which imo looks more angular and more kind of a two-tone/silvery-gold than this vday bracelet) i’m inclined to lean more towards it just being a regular but still very sweet vday-gifted bracelet. but anyway back to more important stuff. now considering this was literally just a little over a month before zayn left - and one of my theories for zayn leaving was that it was possible he felt it was the only way to save his relationship with liam…i mean if they were still giving each other vday presents they were clearly still VERY in love at this point. like that’s not the kind of thing you’d expect from a couple that was on the rocks and on the verge of breaking up and i know a lot of ppl (myself included for a brief minute) speculated that zayn leaving the band meant he maybe left liam too/or things weren’t working out b/t them or whatever, but given this context of the vday gifts just a few weeks before him leaving that doesn’t really line up…what does line up though is him being so in love and so sick of the bs that he might be driven to just be done with it all (as far as the stress of the band and mgmt bs is concerned at least). and ofc liam did say that zayn is the most emotionally impulsive/emotionally driven out of all them so when you think about it it really shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise…

anyway, in conclusion: 

it appears quite possible ziam has made it a couples tradition (ever since that first honeymoonish vacay in 2014) to go on some sort of trip/getaway together around the end of every february (or at least do something special together/for each other when they can’t) and in further conclusion I AM NOT OKAY AND WILL NEVER BE OVER THIS REALIZATION OKAY THANKS BYE 😭😭😭😭😭🌈🌈🌈 

[kyouxa]

Diabolik lovers Chaos Lineage: Kino (Story 08+CG)

In terms of the gameplay: The black choices lead up to a bad ending, the white choices lead up to a good ending. Please no reposting onto other sites, ask me before translating this into another language too!

Monologue

When I woke up, I once again felt the pain of the scars from yesterday’s blood sucking running through my body. Kino-kun continued to thrust his fangs into my body mercilessly, while I realized how I was unable to go against him.

As I tried standing up, I also recalled how this matter has left me extremely fatigued.

It was useless trying to encourage myself over my broken heart over only one night. And on top of that, I’m still unable to tell anyone about Kino-kun’s plan. Thinking about this caused myself to feel miserable and made my tears run down once again. 

While the inside of the Scarlet mansion continued to have a rather unfriendly atmosphere, suspiciousness still rises.

Shu-san shut himself in his room while Yuma-kun worked on his vegetable garden, both of them went out of each other’s way by attending their own business.

Reiji-san is the only one who’s silently drinking his black tea in the living room all by himself.

The tense air seems to somehow really mark everyone’s skins full with bites.

Place: Scarlet mansion — Living room

*Reiji pours tea*

Reiji: You two should have one as well.

Kino: Thank you, big brother Reiji.

Yui: (Kino-kun’s goal is to get rid of everyone in the Sakamaki family)

(If only I could somehow make Reiji-san aware of the situation…)

Ah… um, Reiji-san.

*something hits her*

Yui: (...Did something just hit my foot?)

(..... ! Those were Kino-kun’s feet…)

Kino: …..

Yui: (Is he trying to threaten me with this… ? In case I say something—)

(Nn… I guess I really can’t tell anyone after all…)

Reiji: You. What is the reason for you calling out my name and then suddenly sinking into silence?

Yui: Ah… um… I’m really sorry. I simply forgot what I wanted to say.

Reiji: What does this mean exactly?

Kino: It mustn’t have been of great importance if you forgot it this easily, right? More importantly, what about the teacake?

Reiji: Haa… I did prepare it. There is no need to rush for it.

*Reiji gets the teacake*

Yui: (I can’t discuss anything with anyone as long as Kino-kun’s monitoring me like this)

(If so, am I really just going to watch him continue? Watching everyone in the Sakamaki family… getting killed by him… ?)

Place: Scarlet mansion — Kino’s bedroom

Kino: Hey, did you seriously risk trying to talk to Reiji earlier? Were those unpleasant things I did still not enough?

Yui: Err… !

Kino: Fufu, there’s no need to worry since you’re still an important piece in my plan. I won’t kill you just yet.

Yui: (Even if he says he won’t kill me, this won’t make me feel relieved since he’s still able to do something to me… Nn)

Kino: Don’t get scared, we should still get along well. That’s only because you’re still a thing that belongs to me though. Keep in mind that the one who becomes the king of the demon world, will be me.

Yui: No way… I-I...

Did he actually objectify me and claimed that I belong to him just now? ...He’s certainly wrong about that. But that’s not what I should tell him now though…)

(I’m scared… and I hate it, but—)

...I-I’m going to be the one who stops you, Kino-kun.

Kino: ...Hah? What an impertinent woman… was it really not enough for me to torment you like that? Are you a masochist?

*Kino grabs Yui*

Yui: Eek… g-get away… ! Stop...

Kino: Why do you think you can stand up against me while your body is clearly shaking? Do you really want me to continue playing with you?

Yui: I-It’s different...

(My whole body is clearly going against it. I don’t want anyone to get hurt anymore… but,)

(Letting him end up killing Ayato-kun and the others — I’d hate that too!!)

Kino: ...You still do have that rebellious face on. I wonder if I have to thoroughly teach you that there’s no escape.

Yui: B-But still, I’m sure your plan isn’t going as you thought either…

Not everyone will simply break up with each other that easily… !

Kino: You saw that big quarrel yourself, and yet you’re still able to say this? Could that by any chance be because you’re concerned about them?

Ridiculous… don’t make me throw up.

Yui: ...Nn

Kino: That’s right. Let’s go and see what the situations of the other houses look like.

Yui: Stop… if you continue pulling my arm so hard… ouch...

Kino: If those in Reiji’s aren’t enough, I’ll show you the fragility of those outside of the Scarlet’s mansion… you’ll obediently follow me then, right?

Yui: Nn… F-Fine with me...

Place: Orange mansion — Outside

Yui: (We slipped through Reiji-san’s eyes and once again got to this place…)

(Moreover, isn’t this Ruki-kun’s Orange mansion? Why did we even come here… ?)

Kino: I thought that, since you’re such a kind soul, I should bring you along to have you witness it yourself.

Did you think I lied about Laito and Kanato apparently being on good terms back then?

Yui: Ah… speaking of which, you said that to Ruki-kun—

*flashback*

Ruki: What are your intentions, loitering around in enemy territory and dragging the prey with you?

Kino: Nothing in particular. I just thought I’d like to talk to you, so I ended up coming here.

I recently saw your little brother Kanato speaking with Violet’s Laito.

They didn’t seem to be acting like enemies at all, y’know. They honestly seemed to be getting along rather well.

This is just a simple warning. Whether you believe me or not is up to you at the end.

Ruki: …..

*end of flashback*

Kino: Around this time, don’t you think suspicion also spread among the brothers from Ruki’s mansion, just like Reiji and his siblings?

Yui: (He only brought me here to show this to me and make me feel even more despair than I already am…)

Kino: Fufu… all they have to do now is to kill each other like insects.

Yui: To call them such a thing as insects…

Kino: You keep getting flared up each and every time I say something. Should I remind you of your situation again?

Yui: ...Nn

Kino: Even though you have no powers yourself, you won’t learn no matter how much you disobey me.

With the exception of me you’re similar to junk. You have no value in society if you don’t have any powers.

That’s exactly why you’re not even powerful enough to bring everyone together.

The only one being able to do this is, Karlheinz’ illegitimate child, me.

That’s also why everyone should realize that they have to appreciate me.

Yui: (If I’d start to argue with him now, I don’t know what he might do to me… which leaves me with no choice but to stay silent and listen to Kino-kun)

Kino: Ah, look inside the mansion. Ruki and the others are gathered there, and they seem to be having a talk with each other now.

Place: Orange mansion — Living room

Kanato: What sort of business do you have with me if you had to summon me?

Ruki: Do you perhaps have any idea in mind why I would need to call for you in the first place?

Kanato: I truly have no idea. If it’s nothing urgent, I might as well return to my room now.

Ruki: Kanato. Is it really true that you’ve met up with Violet’s Laito?

Kanato: What?

Shin: We’d consider it best if you talk honestly about it. There’s obviously a reason for our eldest brother to ask you something like this.

Ayato: Can you really say that Kanato is making moves to turn into a traitor? We can’t be careless then.

Place: Orange mansion — Outside

Yui: (Kanato-kun is being questioned by Ruki-kun right now…)

Kino: Now, I wonder where it goes from there?

Yui: (As things are now, Kanato-kun is obviously being as suspected as Shu-san—)

(Is there really nothing I can do now? Please, somebody… help…)

Place: Orange mansion — Living room

Shin: Now, you just have to obediently tell us. Reveal everything to us.

Ruki: Kanato.

Kanato: ...Why?

Ayato: Hm?

Kanato: Why are you doing nothing but pressing questions onto me...

Shin: That’s because someone who’d try to cover up their suspicious behaviour would be bad, right?

Kanato: If that’s the case, then—

*ground shakes*

Kanato: Why aren’t you waiting for me to say something about this!?

Ayato: Uwah!

Kanato: Why!? How come? Why is it that you do no more than question my honor? Everyone here’s joining forces against me to make me look like the bad one.

Do you really hate me this much? I’m sure that’s it, otherwise you wouldn’t make up those crimes for me!

Ruki: Stop screaming. There simply were some rumours about you silently going out to meet up with one of our opponents.

There’s no smoke without fire. In order for us to confront the truth—

Kanato: Rumours? And you really started to doubt me because of some rumours? Or is it that there was some serious proof about this matter?

Did you really try to make me look like a scoundrel, despite not having any specification about anything?

Shin: That’s why we’re now here to listen—

Kanato: See!? There’s no evidence for anything. And here I was, almost about to cry over you doubting the significance of my respect, what a laughing stock.

This is beyond displeasing for me!

Shin: No, Kanato...

Kanato: Shut up, Shut up!

First of all, I’m free to meet whoever I wish to see. And yet, you go as far as trying to get control over someone and stealing their freedom!

Shin: Even so! It would obviously be a big problem if you went to meet up with one of our rivals! Why are you getting angry despite being wrong to begin with!?

Ayato: Hey, let’s think about it again. Would it really be a huge problem if he did meet up with that pervert in the end?

Shin: There’d obviously be a problem with that, right? If he ended up betraying us and our plan, he’d deserve death penalty!

Ayato: I mean, this is all about whether or not this guy betrays us by changing sides, or if he’ll be classificated as an ally.

Shin: ...Eh?

Ruki: You’ve got a point. This individual is surely pulling some sort of strings behind the scenes, this way he influences us so nobody would be able to notice his next moves.

Neither do I think he could imitate that behaviour. I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t even think about joining hands with someone else.

Shin: B-But, brother...

Ruki: If this rumor was about either me or you, it would’ve been improbable. But this is about Kanato.

In other words, I can assure you that there’s no need for any declaration.

From this moment onwards, I’ll make sure of the truth before rushing into conclusions.

Shin: Well, I guess as long as our eldest brother is convinced by that it’s fine...

Kanato: Nothing’s fine, it’s still displeasing! If any of you ends up doing similar things again, I’ll make sure to break everyone’s neck in here.

Place: Orange mansion — Outside

Yui: Kanato-kun...

(For some reason, Ruki-kun was convinced about this being different from what he was told to…)

(I’d never think that Kanato-kun’s habitual behavior and personality would somehow be effective in such a place)

(But, that’s good though ...! Everyone in the Orange mansion didn’t end up having an unfriendly atmosphere!)

Kino: Hmph, how boring. Seems as if I ended up aiming for the worst prey of them all. I thought I’d get to see an unimaginable farce.

Guess it would only be a waste of time to stay here any longer. The next one we’ll go to will be Violet’s mansion.

Yui: Eh? You’ll keep going… ?

Kino: We’ll only keep going because of Kanato being a huge failure at the end. Violet wouldn’t do that to me though.

Yui: (Violet, huh… that’s right. Kou-kun…!)

*flashback*

Kou: What the… you sound as if Azusa and Yuma really are on good terms with each other...

Kino: See? Azusa and Yuma did build up mutual trust together.

I wouldn’t completely ignore that there might be a deeper meaning behind my words.

Kou: He might have reasons to get along with the enemies side… but are you really trying to tell me that Azusa is trying to betray me and the others… ?

Place: Orange mansion — Outside

Yui: (Kou-kun, he also has been given false information from Kino-kun back then)

(Even though Azusa-kun and Yuma-kun probably didn’t even end up meeting nor getting along well with each other… !)

Kino: Violet has already cancelled their attack at us once. That’s definitely some sort of evidence about something going on inside there.

Is that because of Kou and Azusa? Isn’t it about time things start to get all interesting all over again?

Next, I’ll make sure to teach you a lesson though… there’s no such thing like it in Scarlet you said, right?

Place: Violet mansion — Living room

Kou: Hey, Azusa-kun. Could you hear me out about something for a bit, if it’s okay?

Azusa: Hm… what’s it?

Kou: It’s- It’s just a story I heard though!

I heard that you betrayed us by meeting up with Yuma, but you didn’t do that, right?

Azusa: Eh… ?

Place: Violet mansion — Outside

Yui: Kou-kun… Azusa-kun...

Kino: Fufu… perfect timing. I was already starting to get worried since I didn’t continue to pursue them until today.

Now, will he ask him for an explanation? Don’t end up not amusing me to the fullest.

Yui: Nn… Kino-kun, is it really fun for you to look at them like this… ?

Kino: Of course. It’s pretty interesting, and it’s nice to be able to push you into despair like this too.

Yui: (That’s right… his answer was already obvious before he even opened his mouth)

(Even though the Mukami brothers really are close…)

(I don’t want them to keep on doubting each other and continue everyone to develop cracks in their relationships)

Place: Violet mansion — Living room

Kou: Hey, Azusa-kun, answer. About Yuma-kun… did you really go to meet up with the enemy?

Azusa: …..

I really didn’t go anywhere without telling you about it.

Kou: Really? And you’re not lying to me?

Azusa: Hm… it’s the truth.

I’d never try to betray you, Kou… I said it once already… but my brothers are way too important to me.

Kou: Brothers...

Azusa: We’ve all been continuously holding hands and surviving all this time together already...

Isn’t that right? Kou...

Kou: I see, you’re right. We’re brothers… that’s right. We’ve been going through so much together by now...

...Sorry. I really did say something strange.

Azusa: Hmm…

Place: Violet mansion — Outside

Yui: (Kou-kun really ended up believing in Azusa-kun…)

Kino: Hah… ? What was that? Right now, why was he so convinced by that? Why didn’t he want any sort of evidence from him?

Kou: Anyway, I want to hurry up and get Eve as soon as possible already.

Azusa: Our raid… it has been delayed, right?

Kou: Gotta tell you that it was said that this Kino guy actually has some unexpected powers, and he also seems to be good with tactics.

Azusa: Hm... but I’m sure that we’ll see Eve again soon.

Kino: Kch… they’re already starting to talk all cheerfully again...

How ridiculous. For real, why did this happen again!?

*Kino walks away*

Yui: Ah, wait!

Place: Outside — Forest

Kino: I just don’t understand this guy at all. Does he usually really believe anyone so easily? Or is that only because Kou is an idiot too?

Yui: ...Honestly, I was a little surprised because of that too. I thought he’d aim for Azusa-kun like a wolf would.

But I think it ended differently because they really do trust each other a lot.

Kino: Trust… ?

Yui: The Mukami’s are really close with each other after all.

I think that’s also because all four of them have overcome various things up until now.

Even if their memories have been rewritten, and they don’t remember anything whatsoever, the bond they have with each other still remains.

Kino: Are you really still keeping up with saying that? Do you really think there is such a thing as a bond between vampires?

Yui: Yes, I do believe that.

Kino: ...Nn.

Yui: I do believe that any existence can develop a bond with somebody, even if they’re something like a vampire.

Kino: Heh… then could it be that we might be able to develop a bond between us as well?

Choices

1) Answer him immediately (black)

2) Be troubled to answer (white)♡♡♡

— Answer him immediately

Yui: That’s right. We might be able to develop something like that if we stay together.

Kino: And what makes you think that?

Yui: I have no idea...

Kino: Then how are you able to say that all nicely even though you can’t explain your theory!?

I hate it when you open your mouth and then speak without thinking about it first!

Yui: Kino-kun...

(I wonder if I should’ve told Kino-kun about this in different words...)

— Be troubled to answer♡

Yui: That is…

Kino: Tell me. Or do you think we can’t have a bond?

Yui: That’s not it. I just can’t say that for sure right now.

If we do take the time to understand each other, I’m sure we might develop one.

Kino: That means that it’s no more than just tightening the relationship, right?

end Choices

Kino: Well, whatever... I might be able to understand what you said in a bit.

Yui: Eh? Really… ?

Kino: Therefore, you’ll forgive me if I do something like this now, right? Since this will be our bond!

*Kino grabs Yui*

Yui: Kyaaa!?

Kino: You should look closely at the place you’re bitten in. Look, I’ll slowly… sink my fangs into your skin...

Kino: Ngh! Nn… !

Yui: Ouch… it hurts...

(Because he’s biting down more carefully than usual… the pain doesn’t go away like usual… Nn)

Kino: So you won’t resist, hm? You’re doing this in order to prove the bond between us is a real thing… right?

Yui: ….. !

(Kino-kun’s really trying to do it. If I’d say that I dislike it now, my words might end up never reaching him...!)

(That’s why, I’ll have to endure this much...)

Kino: Heh…so you’re trying to admirably endure it? That’s no fun.

Then… what about this? Nn…

Yui: ...Ah

(He gently kissed my wound… this is so sly of him)

Kino: Fufu… your face turned all bright just now.

And your blood... because of the pleasure, it’s getting even more delicious. It’s just as a seasoned wine.

And you call this a bond between people? That’s an awfully disappointing way of putting it.

Yui: (I have to tell him that this isn’t the case… but, I can’t get anything out of my mouth…)

Kino: Now, this is merely where the fun starts. What would you think if I’d gently push my fangs down into your skin once again?

Yui: Eh… ? No, stop...!

Kino: Now then, I’ll have to give in again. Nn… Nn… !

Yui: Nn, ahh... !!

(My whole body, it’s becoming all dim… I cannot let this continue… I  have to do something)

Kino: Ah, so you did end up resisting? Guess I won then.

Yui: Ah… Ngh...

Kino: Don’t you dare say anything about having bonds anymore, from now you’re only allowed to stay silent and think about how you’re being used next.

This time I just ended up aiming for a bad prey. Next time I’ll make sure to have them crush each other.

The gap between Shu and Reiji is still pretty deep, which makes it easier to have them kill each other without fail.

And when that happens — I’ll let you taste that despair to its fullest.

[capricornus-rex]

Someone Left to Save (4)

Cal Kestis x Reader

Requested by Anon

Summary: The Mantis crew arrives to the capital of Ulfin, in the planet of Pevera, under siege. They meet the local rebel cell spearheaded by the former Republic admiral, Jax Beneb, who seeks to destroy the Empire’s occupation that was aggressively imposed upon while exploiting the planet of its natural resources. A plan is devised to destroy the Imperial’s main base of operations—as well as their influence—in the planet; however, it was a do-or-die mission that you and Cal had gotten yourselves caught in.

A/N: I was actually a bit afraid that this chapter won’t exactly have the oomph that I was going for ;;w;; Let me know what you think of this chapter and sorry for the delay! My compulsive self had the need to make it perfect and emotional the way I imagined it to be.

Also in AO3

Chapters: 1 – 2 | Previous: Part 3 | Next: Part 5 | Masterlist

4 of ?

The inferno had died down, sated of the metal and flesh that it had devoured upon its blistering wake.

In the rubble, you lay there half-dead, perhaps half-awake. Though in this case, did it even matter which half is which?

Your eyelids slowly opened, particles of dirt that seated along the lining of your eyes made it hard for you to open them. You can’t make of your current location, though the last thing you remember is the heat boiling under your feet while the fire catches up to the elevator while you recovered your strength, the speed of the turbolift cell in a nerve-racking race against the cascading flame, and throwing yourself out of the elevator the very split second the door opened.

“Am I dead…?” your voice was dead quiet that it’s almost as if your subconscious was the one speaking. You asked yourself, still as a stone in where you lie. “Is there something broken?”

The former’s answer was no. Air still entered your lungs.

A few more blinks and the dust had cleared off of your lashes; your field of vision is filled with the monotonous shade of brown, gray, and black mingling together, with specs of glowing red embers floating about the clouds of smoke wafting over you. No heavy debris fell on you, but bodily movement is limited, the only thing you can move is your head. The dust and smoke constantly pricked your eyes that you couldn’t keep them open for long.

You hear footsteps, heavy and slow, you search the person only to find a silhouette closing in on you. When it got close enough, he bent down but you still couldn’t recognize whoever this was.

“C-Cal…?”

The shadow didn’t speak, except a baritone growl rumbled out of him. He stands back up and vanished from your line of sight. The next thing you know, you feel two arms hooking under your shoulders, dragging you out of the debris, bumping into a slab of concrete or metal here and there. He didn’t notice that the bracelet you wore, now scorched to the point that the thread has split and fell to the ground as he towed you.

A few inches of being dragged across the floor later, the hulking figure adjusted himself and lifted you up to his shoulder, carrying you like a sack. It didn’t last long though, the stranger had settled you in a hovering gurney, you felt it sink as it accepted your weight and then rise again to its default level; while you’re still clinging onto the last string of consciousness, a pair of voices—distinguishably female and male, the latter being the one who pulled you out of the rubble. You didn’t know that these were the other Inquisitors who were sent to the scene.

As they conversed, their words faintly trailed in your head to the walls of your skull. You could only hear and listen, but you’re too weak to bob your head slightly to the side to look at them. Their words echoed as you stare into the charred ceiling of the stronghold.

“…Sure she’s alive? The… will have to… about…” the female voice echoed.

“Found her… utility lobby… Can’t find him…” the male replied.

“Alive too… from the fire…”

Their butchered conversation—at least in your own perspective—eventually blocked off as you slowly lose consciousness. The gurney hovers and then pushes forward, following the trail of the female and male Inquisitors—namely the Seventh Sister, a skinny Mirialan—and the Fifth Brother who’s a tall humanoid with gray skin.

They escort you, along with the Second Brother who barely escaped the fire but still managed to maintain a pulse, out of the site and into the transport waiting for them in the far southern side of the stronghold.

The Mirialan examined your comatose-like state. Past through the soot and grime smeared across your cheeks, the streak of dried blood from your forehead to your temples, the reddening of your face due to the extreme heat—she thought it’s actually a miracle that you even survived.

“You sure look though,” the Mirialan female commented.

“Let’s see if the Master is just as impressed as we are,” the Fifth Brother added.

-----

Cal, Larki, and Morzen arrived to the site. Unbeknownst to the boys, the Inquisitors have beat them to it in their endeavor. The fires have lessened in size, not as bad as the initial blast. Some areas of the stronghold were accessible and can be safely traversed. Cal hopped off of his speeder, followed by Larki and Morzen, and the boys hindered the reckless, eager ginger by calling out his name—stopping him in his tracks to give him his own set of protective gear: a breathing mask with a filter tube and a complementary pair of goggles.

“Ready?” Larki confirms the other two as they all donned the gear.

They enter the stronghold through a gaping hole created by the explosion. Prior to going any further, Cal divided the areas per person—taking into consideration your last known location, according to his radar, the path that you took in and apparently out. But since the building has been partially obliterated, the three boys had to think of another way in certain areas.

“Larki, see if you can find your way to the reactor chamber. Morzen, check if there are any other paths created by the blast for survivors to pass through,” Cal instructed. “I’ll head to the annex, or whatever’s left of it.”

The trio split, Cal had masterfully distributed the areas per man; Larki was a tad bit leaner and smaller—give that he’s the youngest among them—so it gives him an advantage to slip through gaps and crawlspaces, on the other hand, Morzen was heavily-built young man. Whether or not it was by coincidence or by pure observation, Cal had tact in dividing the party.

Cal trekked through the remains of the annex, the floor and a good portion of the walls remained intact—although charred and torn open by the impact of the bomb—and the heat from the nearby fires was enough to make him sweat. Fortunately for him, the mask protected his lungs from the dangerously-thick smoke.

“Mind your head, BD-1,” Cal warned.

Cal squeezed his way through the gap between a wall and a fallen metal ceiling beam leaning against it. He ducked and crawled, then landed on fours for a safe landing. He was feeling goof, albeit a little out of place to be so, because he’s hopeful that you’re still alive; rather, he convinced himself that you were, for he could still feel a trace of your presence even though it was gradually getting fainter by the minute.

“Bee-woo…” BD-1 suddenly hopped down from Cal’s shoulder and skittered towards the debris, flashing his light and peeking over small to see if you were in the other side.

There was nothing much Cal could find, so he decided to further investigate in another spot. He navigated the ruins, he followed his instincts to go to the reactor chamber where Larki ought to be; as he ran along the way, his comm rang.

“Cal, do you copy? It’s Larki,”

“I copy, Larki. Did you find anything?”

Cal detected the hesitation in Larki’s voice. He demanded Larki to respond.

“I’m gonna send you my coordinates, meet me there,”

“Where are you right now?”

“I don’t know. Some kind of utility lobby. Just come through, I’ve already radioed Morzen. He’s on his way too,”

Cal had a bad feeling about this. BD-1 received Larki’s coordinates after popping out his little satellite dish, promptly, he flashed the holomap in front of Cal. The young Jedi’s eyes trailed from his current location to a portion of the map colored in yellow, there was a significant, vertical gap between him and his destination—he would have to find a way down.

“Not too far away,” he mumbled under his breath.

Without a moment’s hesitation he sprinted through the corridor, navigating through the ruins to find the quickest way down. At the end of the corridor, the edge of it had been bombed off and torn apart, but Cal looked around to see if he can use anything to his advantage. Hanging on another set of beams over his head is a cable coiled around it, he pulled it out using the Force and rappelled down.

He checked the map again and saw that the distance had shrunk. He struggled to remain optimistic, he could still feel your trace, but it’s becoming nothing more than a wafting swirl of smoke. Cal and Morzen arrived nearly at the same time, but the latter came from the eastern side and circled his way to Larki’s meeting point.

“Look at this place,” Larki gasped in full disbelief of the sheer damage that their bombs have wrought. He gestured at his surroundings with open arms.

The three of them investigated the entire area. Morzen climbed a mountain of rock and metal only to find the chunky remains of the structure. Had there been more bombs planted here, then this structure wouldn’t last for a search party to even go through—that’s what the young man thought. Larki, on the other hand, surveyed the fallen columns that once were the great energy reactors; he dared to step closer to the banister and peek over it, he saw the ground level of the chamber—he couldn’t see anything that would resemble life.

“Looks like we’re not finding anything down there,” Larki commented.

“I sense something, though I can’t explain it,” Cal said to no one in particular.

“You think [Y/N] could still be here?”

“Like I said, Larki, it’s difficult to explain. It’s like… she’s here but she’s not… I know I felt her…”

As Cal continued to ponder and muse about your faint trail that he’s picked up ever since he got here, Morzen continued to search in the rubble; nothing caught his eye—save for a single bracelet lying around. The silvery finish had been dirtied by the grime, the cord had been charred in the middle for it to tear—leaving the torn ends of it as black as coal, contrast to its original beige.

Morzen couldn’t make of the bracelet, but he still considered it a clue.

“Look,” he uttered, catching the two’s attention. He nestled the bracelet gently on the flat of his palm as he approached the two standing by the banister that overlooks the pillars.

Cal almost didn’t want to see what was in Morzen’s hand, because a part of him already knew what it was—he just didn’t make peace with it yet—and when the boy’s hand angled to show the trinket resting on his palm, Cal’s eyes widened.

“Oh Cal… Isn’t that…?” Larki sighed, he felt his heart sink when the only clean spot of the silver pendant shone against the firelight.

He hovered his hand towards the bracelet, Morzen patiently waited for Cal to take it—what neither of these two boys understand is Cal’s Psychometry: if he touches that bracelet of yours, he will never be ready to accept what he will see, hear, and feel.

“Beee…” BD cooed sadly, worried of Cal’s anxiety.

Cal sucked it in, then snatched the bracelet off of Morzen’s hand—a tad bit harshly rather—and the wave of the Force Echo was overwhelming, coming from a tiny trinket such as this.

The blazing inferno roared in his eardrums, he could almost feel the searing heat burning through his sleeves. The sounds of your labored breathing as you struggled to haul yourself out of harm’s way—while being severely injured at that—matched with Cal’s breathing, his body has mimicked the exhaustion taking its toll on your body. His ankles buckled and then failed, he submits to the floor while trapping your bracelet in his fist—this reaction startled Larki and Morzen, they took a step closer but stopped by Cal himself as he continues to absorb the Force Echo—and the last thing he saw was the debris falling over you as the fire caught on. He saw the last few images in your eyes—he felt you lying flat on your back as the rubble shrouded your vision in pure darkness and the bracelet slipping off of your hand.

The singular twanging of the silver pendant against the metal floor was the stimulus that snapped Cal back to reality. The exact same trace of you that he’s been desperately holding on had suddenly disappeared. When he opened his eyes, he saw Larki and Morzen gawking at him, both confused and expecting an answer from the Jedi.

“Cal…?” Morzen softly murmured, sensing the overwhelming stress within his companion.

Cal’s next action further confused the two: he frantically searched the utility lobby, past Larki and Morzen’s shoulders, and took big breaths in a rapid pace that his breathing mask fogged in between sobs. The embers twinkled red against the tears appearing along the rim of his eyes.

“No, she… SHE WAS ALIVE!! I FELT IT!” Cal growled ferociously.

He stared back at the little bracelet resting on his tremoring hand, the tears that had been welling up in his eyes while being stuck in his Psychometry trance eventually wetted the bracelet and his open palm. They continuously fell like rain. He couldn’t believe it. He refused to.

The final thing this structure heard was the roaring “No” of the Jedi ultimately destroyed by his discovery—echoing across its burnt walls, the wind that caught it flew over the fires and disturbed its flares.

[digikate813]

8 Things I’m proud of from 2020 (In no particular order)

@orangeoctopi7​ tagged me to do this challenge, a while ago. I apologize Octopi, it got buried in my likes so I never got around to doing it. But I still wanted to share some things I made that I was proud of in the dumpster fire year that was 2020. 

1. Let’s Talk About The Duck Knight Returns Review

I covered a lot of Ducktales last year, starting to include one episode review a month in my schedule, but due to fortunate circumstances, my review of The Duck Knight Return really took off. Getting over 12,000 views and getting over 100 subscribers from the exposure. It’s also significant because I’ve wanted to cover this episode for a long time, and to have it be so well received is incredible.

An honorable mention in the same vain goes to my video speculating on a possible Darkwing Duck Reboot. Since I invited a lot of great people to help me out with it. It was amazing!

2. Hitting 1,000 subscribers on KateCast Reviews

This might be a stretch, but I did create this channel, and last year I hit a milestone I’ve wanted to achieve for so long. In the middle of a year that felt like such a failure, something like that was very gratifying after so long.

Also I changed my username from KC Reviews to KateCast. I personally like the new name way better.

3. Sherlock and the Curious Critic Retrospective

I’ve wanted to review Sherlock in some form for a long time, but was hesitant to for various reasons. But I finally said “screw it I want to celebrate this show”, and dedicated 2020, as the show celebrated it’s 10th anniversary, to reviewing the entire series throughout the year. It felt so good to revisit the show in such an in depth way, and it contains some of the reviews I’m the most proud of making. 

4. Being part of Antony C’s 2nd Procrastination Challenge

I’ve ben a fan of Antony’s for years, and I loved the idea of his Procrastination Challenge. Thankfully (sort of), I was struggling to finish the latest installment of Sherlock and the Curious Critic at the time, but I rose to the challenge for his challenge, finished it and submitted. It was so amazing to not only hear him comment on my review, but even have him retweet the submission! Which he didn’t do for all of them. To this day that is the most popular video in my Sherlock retrospective, by a long shot!

5. Adding the Thirteenth Doctor to my Clay Doctor Who Figures

This might be small and silly, but ever since i made these things in 2013 I’ve absolutely loved them, and adding the 13th Doctor was long overdue. This year I finally got off my ass and did it, and I have to say, I think she came out really well. Only downside is that I knocked her over later on and now she can’t stand up on her own. But it’s still cute!

6. Reviewing the series finale of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic

This was long overdue on my end, but it felt wonderful to finally talk about the ending of a show that has left such an unexpected impact on me. But what puts it here is how I didn’t do this alone. I got to invite some lovely bronies to send the show off with some kind words, and when I mentioned to the Equestria Daily team that I made this, they let me make a dedicated post to it on the site (which is what I’m linking to). So much about that video was just wonderful, and I cherish a lot about it.

7. Writing my first Sherlock fanfic: A Change in the Data

Naturally spending so much of the year absorbed into the world of BBC Sherlock again, and knowing how to navigate fanfiction sites much better, i wanted to take a crack out at it. Doing what fanfiction is made for, exploring an area of the canon I really wish the show had! And just to clarify, it is a Gen fic. I’m not much of a shipper. But it is post series soooo, spoilers.

I liked doing this one so much that I have a rough idea of a more elaborate fic I want to write in the Sherlock universe, so keep an eye out for that.

8. My special Let’s Talk About Review on Avengers Endgame

For those who don’t know, I have an ongoing series of reviews for the Marvel Cinematic Universe called To Infinity War and Beyond. This year, despite no new MCU movies being released because, a thing happened, I deviated from the formula for these videos to do a massive review on Avengers Endgame. Even made a new intro for the occasion. It was great to revisit the movie and give it such a n in depth look. If any MCU movie deserves it, it’s this one. Currently, if you count both parts, this is my longest review of a single topic ever. And trust me, I’m going to try and keep it that way. 

Phew. That was quite a lot to look back on. Guess that’s what happens when you spend most of the year stuck at home.

It might be too late to keep this going, but I’m still gonna tag @blackscarabfilmz​ @marvelandponder​ and @wiz-witch​ . Obviously you guys don’t have to if you don’t want to (especially since it May and all), but here’s your chance if you would like to!

[redbeardace]

Between Panic and Indifference

Okay, serious post time.

As you may know, I live near Seattle.  And if you’ve been paying attention to the news (in between the politics), you’ll know that we’re currently going through a bit of something.  I’ve been making jokes about it, but I sort of want to talk seriously about some of what it’s like here right now.

Quick recap:  About a month ago, it was announced that the first case of COVID-19/coronavirus had popped up in Everett, Washington.  Everett’s one of the larger suburbs of Seattle, home to a Boeing airplane factory, FunkoPop HQ, and Half-Price Books that I go to once in a while.  It was someone who’d been to Wuhan in China and got sick after returning to the US.  He went to the doctor, got quarantined, and that was it.  The system worked, the disease was contained, the guy got better.  And that was it.

Until last week.  Last week, they closed Bothell High School “out of an abundance of caution” in order to clean it, because a family member of someone who works at the school had gotten sick after returning from overseas travel.  Bothell is a smaller suburb than Everett.  It’s largely unremarkable, one of those places that takes up three exits on the freeway, but no one really understands why.  It’s also where I live, so hearing that the high school was closed was a bit unnerving, but also a bit ridiculous because it was all speculation.  It was a family member of a school worker, and that employee was staying home.  And it turned out that there was nothing to it, that family member did not have COVID-19.  But at least the high school got cleaned.

False alarm, back to your regularly scheduled--

Scoop Jackson High School in Mill Creek is closed on Friday, this time for a confirmed case.  Mill Creek is an even smaller suburb, sandwiched between Bothell and Everett, and it’s where my post office and a grocery store I go to is. A student had the “flu” earlier in the week, went to the doctor, the doctor said go home, get better.  So the student did that.  They got better and went back to school on Friday.  Unbeknownst to them, their doctor had performed a coronavirus test.  The student hadn’t been out of the country, hadn’t been around anyone who’d been out of the country, so they shouldn’t have had it, the doctor was just performing the test as part of some study.

It was positive.

They hadn’t been out of the country.  They hadn’t been around anyone who had been.  The only known case in the area had been contained.  There were a few cases in California that were mysterious, but at least those were linked to a possibly mismanaged quarantine situation.  But in Mill Creek, there wasn’t any of that.  Sure, it’s next to Everett where the first case was, but that was contained.  So what the hell?

Later that night, there was another case of “possible coronavirus” in Bellevue, the city where I work.

Then Saturday happened.  The first confirmed death, in Kirkland, Washington.  You know Kirkland as the Kirkland from “Kirkland Brand” at Costco.  I know Kirkland as the place I drive through on my commute that’s between Bothell and Bellevue.  Several more hospitalizations.  A news conference talks about the death and the hospitalizations and, almost as a side note, mentions 50+ people connected to a nursing home, also in Kirkland, as showing symptoms.  Fifty people.  I’m going to come back to that.  None of these people had been to China or Italy and I don’t think any of them knew anyone who had.  So what the hell?

Later that night, a scientist from a local research facility posts a short Twitter thread that potentially could have gone unnoticed.  It’s a Twitter thread for crying out loud, who knows what kind of crackpot this could be?  But it’s not a crackpot.  It actually is a local research scientist.  The thread kinda gets right to the point.  An analysis of a sample of the virus from the first patient genetically matches a sample of virus from the Mill Creek student, therefore it is highly likely that the virus has been circulating around the area, on the loose, for six weeks.

Oh.

That deadly disease that we’ve been watching cripple other parts of the world, killing thousands.  That’s here.  Now.  And it’s been here for weeks.

And by here, I mean HERE.  You may have noticed that all those cities I mentioned are places that I go regularly.  “Here” is literally right outside my door.  I am in the bright red bullseye of the hot zone, as this virus swirls around me.

After Saturday, it’s a bit of a blur what happened when, but the specifics really don’t matter.  More cases, more deaths, a Seattle skyscraper closes, Amazon closes, Microsoft closes, more schools close, including the entire Northshore School District (the district I live in), which closed today for the next two weeks.

--

So that’s the recap.  That brings us up to now.  But you could’ve gotten all that by watching the news.  I’m really writing this post to talk about what it’s like here at the moment.

I think the scariest thing about it all is that we don’t know how scared to be.  We’re used to thinking of disasters in terms of a concrete event.  Something happened, you can see the impact.  An earthquake, a school shooting, a hurricane, a terrorist attack, a volcanic eruption, a nuclear meltdown.  Most of the time, it ends, you can count the bodies, tally up the damage, and that’s that.  Even in a longer term event, you can see the lava coming and get out of the way or look at a map of the Chernobyl or Fukushima exclusion zones and avoid those places.

But this is an invisible disaster.  It’s literally in the air around us.  It’s on door handles and shopping carts and library books.  Your coworker or neighbor or roommate could be The Thing, and you have no way of knowing.  We’re playing a dangerous game of tag against an invisible opponent, and you have no idea you’re it until way too late.  

Even worse, we have absolutely no idea whatsoever how bad it actually is.  The latest official number I can find as of this writing is that there are 39 confirmed cases, and ten of those have died.  A significant number of those cases are associated with that nursing home I mentioned earlier.  So 39 isn’t bad at all, out of a couple million people in this region.  Even if you limit it to just the “bright red bullseye of the hotzone”, that’s several hundred thousand people.  So 39 out of that is nothing.  But you’ll remember that I mentioned that there were 50+ people connected to that nursing home that were sick, and only some of them are counted in that 39 number.  Then there’s a bunch of firefighters in the area who went to that nursing home, who are sick.  Family members who are sick.  And that student in Mill Creek and the first guy who died got it from somewhere...  And other random people just popping up here and there who had to get it from somewhere.  You add those all up, and it’s probably 100+ cases, but for some reason, they’re not yet confirmed (or even tested), so they don’t show up in the official counts yet.

They weren’t really testing people who hadn’t been overseas or been in contact with someone who had been, until this week.  It’s been here, on the loose, for six weeks.  There are probably thousands of cases that have gone undiagnosed.  For most people, it’s like the flu.  So how many cases of the “flu” were really COVID-19?  They’re retroactively discovering people who died prior to Saturday who had it.  Their deaths had been chalked up to some other respiratory disease.

So it’s here and it’s killing people.  But...  It’s been here for six weeks and we’re not all dead yet.  So what does that mean?  Is the disease not actually as bad as people feared?  Sure, it sucks if you get it and it’s really bad if you’re old or already sick, but so’s the flu, and we haven’t panicked about that since Seattle made it to the Stanley Cup.  If that’s the case then maybe this is as bad as it gets, which, frankly, isn’t that bad at all and we’re all overreacting.  Or are we just at the start of the spread and it’s about to go Beast Mode on us and lay us flat for two years?  We don’t know.

Everything’s shutting down except huge gatherings like ECCC and the Sounders games.  King County just bought a motel to use as a quarantine site.  Stay in your car on the ferry.  Awkwardly jab elbows instead of shaking hands.  But only ten people have died out of 4 million, and all of those ten had “underlying conditions”, and it hasn’t been bad enough for anyone to notice until now, so...

So what are we supposed to do about all this?  Raid every store for every last bottle of Purell and every last roll of toilet paper and hunker down in our homes like it’s the end of days?  Or do nothing in particular because enh no biggie?

It’s like we’re standing on a beach and we’ve been told that maybe a tsunami is coming.  We’ve been standing here for a month and a half, and the water is up to our ankles and we’ve just noticed our feet are wet.  Is the tsunami still coming?  Is this the tsunami?  Or is this just the tide?

It’s weird living like this.  You find yourself doing things in different ways, noticing things you never noticed.  Every morning now, I’m checking my work email before driving in, just in case we’ve been told to work from home “out of an abundance of caution”, or worse, told that we need to self-quarantine because someone in the office tested positive.  Every night, I bring my laptop home in case this is the last day I’m in the office for a while.  Everyone’s telling a lot of morbid jokes.  Traffic is amazing.  There are even spots on the second level of the parking garage and there are NEVER spots on the second level when I get in.  Every cough is treated with suspicion, and your coworkers cough a lot.  Every door handle is treated with suspicion, and there are a lot of door handles. No one from the other offices is allowed to travel to our office and we’re not allowed to go elsewhere.  I’m getting targeted ads for hand sanitizer and Windex. I had a slight tickle in my throat that might just be allergies, but I started mentally doing contact tracing of everywhere I’d been and everyone I’d talked to over the past two weeks.  I’ve never even considered that I might have allergies before.  I have a day off tomorrow, so do I risk going to the store to make sure I have at least three weeks of supplies, instead of only the two weeks I currently have, just in case?  Or do I go to the store just to see the circus of empty shelves?  Or do I go to the store to buy an Xbox One X so if I do get quarantined, at least I can be quarantined with True 4K Gaming?

--

I was listening to the radio this morning, and they were interviewing musician Dave Matthews about the coronavirus.  He was talking about touring while this is going on, and how he might come home to Seattle between the legs of his tour, and he said something like “We’ve got to find a balance between panic and indifference”.  And I just felt like that’s the best possible way to describe where we are right now.

Seattle:  Somewhere between panic and indifference.

[theredhairedmonkey]

Viren and Callum—Defining Heroism

Callum is a foil for each of the three antagonists, and each season focuses on a different pairing.

During Season 2, Callum’s arc was a foil to Claudia’s. I break down some of the similarities between them here. Callum and Claudia both exhibit a curiosity to learn more about magic (particularly at the Moon Nexus), and both are fiercely protective of those closest to them. To the extent they will use Dark Magic to protect them.

But whereas Callum tries it once and decides to reject it for good, Claudia continues to succumb to this temptation, time and time again.

During Season 3, Callum’s development is contrasted with Aaravos. At this point, Callum is, like Aaravos, a magical prodigy; each had mastered at least one Primal Source they weren’t born connected to.

Additionally, both demonstrate great influence over the lives of those around them. But they are diametrically opposed in terms of their goals. Whereas Aaravos cares primarily about advancing his own interests, Callum wants to genuinely help people, and empower them to make their own choices (as opposed to manipulating them like Aaravos).

This foil can be summed up simply—Callum is motivated by the Narrative of Love. Aaravos is motivated by the Narrative of Fear.

Harrow: “I ask you and your brother to reject history as a narrative of strength and instead have faith that it can be a narrative of love.”

Aaravos: “You tried to win over the other humans with loyalty and friendship, but they ignored you. Those who fail tests of love are simple animals. They deserve to be motivated by fear.”

But the focus here is on Viren and Callum, and starting in Season 1 and throughout the first three seasons, Viren and Callum have very deep, narratively important parallels with one another.

Both are the mages who advise their respective Kings.

Callum: “When you grow up, sometimes you have to face things you’re not ready for.”

Viren: “He insisted I stand next to him in the painting, because he knew I would stand by him through anything.”

Both are curious and want to explore the depths of magic to the greatest extent possible.

Viren and Callum are also both insecure in their place in the world, relying (at least initially) on magic to help give them a sense of belonging

But their differences not only define their dynamic, they also define many elements and themes to the Saga, in particular as to what it means to be a hero.

To begin, Viren is great, though not necessarily good. That is to say, even though he may be capable of great deeds that save countless lives (such as in saving the people of Duren with the heart of a Titan), these deeds don’t actually make him a heroic person.

This is because every great deed he did stemmed not from altruism or compassion (no matter how well he convinced himself that it did), but from his tragic flaws: his arrogance, his vanity, and importantly, his hubris—his belief that he can subvert the natural order in his favor without consequence.

From what we can gather, Viren is a force to be reckoned with. His skills with magic have made him so powerful, he can cast a spell that would save two kingdoms from starvation.

They are also such that he’s considered by Amaya, a talented warrior herself, perhaps “the most dangerous human in the world.”

His martial prowess is quite exceptional as well, as he’s able to go toe to toe with two Dragonguards for a time. Even though they’re elite fighters and they’re flanking him, he’s able to hold his own for a while before having to resort to magic.

However, Viren is a tragic character. I don’t mean this in the sense that we should feel sorry for the power-hungry man who attempted to murder two boys and steal the throne. Rather, his “greatness” is undermined by his personal flaws, which he can’t quite shake and prevent him from being good.

Part of Viren sincerely wants to improve life for his people. When talking to Aaravos, to whom he has no motivation to lie, he states his aim is to help mankind flourish “without a knife to its throat”

He’s even willing to consider sacrificing himself, either for King Harrow or, in Lux Aurea, for his army.

Aaravos: “We’ll risk as few lives as possible. One.”

Viren: “Ah. Mine.”

But as per his hubris, he exhibits great pride in how his abilities can help mankind flourish or save his people. While he wants mankind to prosper, he wants this to be his achievement and wants people to know that he is the one who saved them.

In his story to Queen Aanya, he places a bit of undue emphasis on the fact that he was the one who up with a solution that saved Katolis and Duren. Whether or not this is what happened, it’s clear that he wants Aanya to know that he personally saved her kingdom.

A little less unclear is how necessary he ultimately was. Sarai goes back to save Viren because “without him to perform the spell, the heart is worthless, and this was all for nothing.”

I’m...skeptical as to whether this is what Sarai says, or if it’s Viren intentionally or unintentionally reading in what he wants her to say. Truth be told, Viren has no idea if this is what Sarai said because he wasn’t there when she said it. And why is the heart worthless? Viren wasn’t the only Dark Mage in the world, and probably not the only one between Duren and Katolis. There’s no reason why another mage couldn’t perform the spell.

But for Viren, the heart of the Titan might as well have been worthless because, in his mind, he’s the only capable of accomplishing these great feats.

Even when he was potentially willing to sacrifice his life for Harrow, he botched it with his  speech to Harrow.

Viren: “Right now I do not come to you as my King. I think of you as my brother.”

Truth is, none of this throat-clearing is necessary. But, Viren’s not quite so humble, even when he’s attempting to do the right thing. He still wants to be seen as someone special, even when laying his life down for another.

Turns out, this was entirely the wrong thing to say to Harrow, who is put off by Viren’s self-righteousness.

Harrow: “I see the problem now. It’s that you believe you are special. Better than everyone else, above the laws of this kingdom.”

When he’s forced to kneel and Harrow calls him a servant, this infuriates Viren and he sets aside any plans he had to sacrifice himself for his King.

Harrow: “You are a servant of Katolis. You are a servant.”

Because if Viren is going to sacrifice himself, he needs people to know what a great thing it is that he’s doing. He’s not a mere servant, he’s their savior.

It’s interesting that Viren’s pride is so hurt of being called a servant of Katolis, since that’s exactly how Harrow sees himself, according to Viren.

Viren: “King Harrow worked tirelessly. He told me he thought of himself as a servant of all the people of Katolis. A servant King.”

But Viren doesn’t see himself in this way. When his potential sacrifice is treated with the same level of significance as though he were anybody else, it offends him that he has to share that importance with others.

And thus, his pride leads to his downfall, casting aside his desire to protect his King, and replaces it with a desire to be the King himself.

Viren: “Today, we must mourn sevenfold. For tonight, there will be a coronation.”

Callum, on the other hand, begins his journey on the opposite side of the spectrum from Viren. Whereas Viren can accomplish great feats without being good, Callum is a good person, though not great.

At least, not yet.

According to the main site, “Callum has a big heart, and always tries to do the right thing.”

He can be super proud of himself and his accomplishments, but he usually has enough perspective to avoid letting this get in the way of what he knows is important. For instance, he connects to the Sky Primal, something thought of as impossible for humans, he immediately shifts his attention to Ezran, never once bragging or reminding people of his accomplishments.

Corvus: That’s incredible, Prince Callum.

Callum: Thanks…uh, who are you?

And, when it comes time to laying his life on the line for others, he never hesitates. Notably, around the same time as Viren was thinking about sacrificing his life for Harrow, Callum was preparing to sacrifice himself for his actual brother, but with none of the bravado or self-righteous congratulating of himself.

Just a solemn, quiet attempt to save his brother, even at the cost of his own life, and even without anyone finding out about his sacrifice.

For Rayla, he performs Dark Magic, knowing how much she could possibly hate him for it, but deciding that her life is worth more than how she sees him.

Callum may start out with a big heart, but when it comes to his skills, well…

But if Viren begins as both powerful and amoral, it makes perfect sense to have Callum’s arc to begin as his opposite--someone without any special abilities but with a strong moral compass.

Because of this, we get to see him go from good to great. And his story walks this fine line, where he develops these magical abilities to perform heroic feats walking hand in hand with the realization that he doesn’t need magic to be heroic.

Callum: “It’s up to us now. We have to return this egg. We have to keep it safe and carry it to Xadia.”

Callum has the same temptation as Viren—this need to be someone important, which is a big part of his arc in S1 and S2.

In S1, he initially places a high premium on his sense of self-worth, willing to put their mission in jeopardy just so he can obtain an object that might help him become a better mage.

He assigns great importance to objects (such as the Primal Stone and the Key of Aaravos) rather than focusing on people or lives. Much in line with the way a Dark Mage would attach significance to magical components that are needed for spells.

Callum: “The truth is, its not me. It’s this. All the magic, all the power, all the confidence. It's just because of this amazing thing. A Primal Stone.”

Ellis: “That Primal Stone needs you to do all that amazing stuff. Without you, it's just a neat, glowy ball.”

Callum: “I guess so. But without this, I'm nothing. Just a guy who can draw and make wry comments from time to time. And they're not even that wry.”

Much like how Viren assigns great value to the mirror or the Dragon Egg, even above his own children’s lives.

Viren: “The egg. If you have to choose [between Soren and the egg], choose the egg.”

But by the end of S1, he realizes just how much more important the lives of his friends and the Dragon Prince are over his own sense of pride or self-worth. Unlike Viren, who places a great degree of importance to his sacrifice (honestly, Harrow should be honored that Viren would consider throwing himself on the sword for a mere king), Callum simply makes the realization of what he needs to do…and then does it.

S2 follows the aftermath of his decision, and Callum has to deal with no longer having his mage abilities. Again, he latches his entire sense of self-worth to be able to do magic.

As @raayllum​ points out here, he also aligns his ability to do magic to agency. Without magic, he’s paralyzed by indecision and an inability to do the right thing. He believes himself imprisoned by his inadequacy.

Callum: “If we're really going to change things, we can't just watch while humans and Xadia keep hurting each other. But how do I take a stand? Believe me, I want to go down there with you, and be the heroes who stop all the fighting and save the day, but I can't do that. I can't do anything!”

And he follows this line of reasoning to its logical conclusion:

Dark Magic

Dark Magic gives him all the power he needs. If Callum wants to be special (like Viren), if he wants to have agency and freedom for himself, this is the path he can take.

Dark!Callum: “You can have unlimited power, and you can choose what to do with that power.

And in that moment, he’s tempted. Truly, he’s tempted, to commit to this path, set himself free from his past limitations and feelings of worthlessness.

He can become like Viren, and make himself great…but in a moment of clarity, he sees Dark Magic for what it truly is.

This isn’t freedom. It’s not the power he wants.

It’s just another prison.

And unlike Viren, who succumbs to this temptation, Callum sees through it.

What’s noteworthy is that Callum doesn’t press on the point that it’s possible for him to learn an Arcanum and do magic some other. He doesn’t insist he can make this choice easy on himself; he chooses that, Arcanum or no Arcanum, this is not the kind of magic he will choose to do.

Callum: “Destiny is a book you write yourself!”

Instead of attaching his sense of self-worth and agency to magic, he breaks free of this toxic cycle and seizes the ability to direct his own fate.

This is a lesson that he then passes on to others.

Rayla: “What does this mean? What should I do?

Callum:  “I don’t know. But it’s your choice. No one else’s.”

He finds his agency and self-worth independent of his ability to do magic, and realizes that his potential is actually in his complete control. Fittingly, it’s this realization that completes his journey to finally understand the Sky Arcanum.

In the end, Viren and Callum are quite similar, but the former lets his flaws get the better of him, his pride sinking him until he becomes malicious, grasping, and power-hungry. Eyes set on stealing the power to make him important.

The latter ascends past his prior limitations, refusing to yield to his own worst impulses.

Moreover, Callum holds on to his ideals in the face of adversity, even at his own expense, while Viren constantly tries to find “pragmatic” and expedient solutions to problems that always happen to end up with him on top of everyone else. Viren continues his dramatic decline, eagerly crossing one moral horizon after another, until by the end, he admits to Aaravos what he is really after is conquest; he’s willing to steal Zym’s life force just to become more powerful, sacrificing the entirety of his army to do it.

Callum, on the other hand, begins to truly understand what can make a good-natured person into a hero.

He expresses it in a speech about Rayla…

Callum: “It's because Rayla is a hero…Rayla saves people. She's brave. She does what's right, even if it puts her own life in danger, and even when the odds seem impossible. Even when it means her own people might misunderstand and turn against her. Rayla is selfless, strong and caring. That's what makes her a hero. That's what makes her Rayla.”

…and then proceeds to do each and every one of those things on the pinnacle. He bravely leaps after Rayla--even though it put his own life in danger--because it’s the right thing to do. Even though the odds of quickly mastering a complex spell on the way down seemed impossible.

Viren thinks his great feats are a substitute for a good character. Callum’s journey, on the other hand, is learning those character traits that make one heroic. He realizes, not only that Rayla is “selfless, strong, and caring,” but also why and more importantly, why he can be those things too.

And this dynamic between Viren and Callum culminates in the finale, where one falls…

…and the other rises.