#native people still live UNDER OCCUPATION. you DO understand this right | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

casp1an-sea · 3 months ago

Text

Lieutenant Colonel Tagdh Dowd

(Pronounced Ty-G It’s an Irish name I’m so sorry)

Birth Year: 5BBY

Age: 39 (In TFA, Hux is 34 and scary >:( )

Species: Arkanisian

This is a made up species. They are natives to the planet Arkanis. They outwardly appear mostly human aside from small gills, very vibrant eyes, males having sharp teeth, and visible body markings under specific lightings. They can withstand colder temperatures than humans and can hold their breath for longer, but are highly susceptible to heat. Their bodies have adapted to live in cold, wet, climates, and be able to swim in strong waters. They also have a few differences to their internal anatom.

(it is my head canon that Hux’s mother is an Arkanisian making him half alien though he appears human and may not even be aware himself)

Gender: non-conforming, but refers to himself as male, He/They

Sexuality: Aro spec, Pansexual pref for men

Height: 6’2” sorry Hux

Occupation: Lieutenant Colonel aboard the Finalizer, First Order Navy

(sense no Lieutenant Colonels are shown in the movies his uniform is the Lieutenant uniform style but the Colonel’s colors)

not sure where to put this, but he has an Irish accent

(more info under the art)

—————————————————————————

Personality: Tagdh is a very serious no nonsense person when At Work. The only thing not regulation about this man is his haircut. He really just wants to do his job. He’s blunt quick to the point is always focusing on doing his job to the fullest of his ability. He comes across as very emotionless or deadpan as he doesn’t feel that it’s needed in his job. he has a great mind for politics and strategy and is very logical but he keeps all of these beliefs to himself because he doesn’t really feel the need to share opinions with people. On shore leave he allows himself to relax. He still is fairly reserved but does allow some sarcasm and snarkyness that you would not see him using on the bridge. If you work with him, he does not consider you a friend while he’s working he considers you a coworker. He constantly must have a very strict divide between his work and pleasure and his work always takes priority. If you happen to hang out with him outside of work, then a friendship could possibly develop as long as it’s not during work hours, but he is very adverse to forming actual friendships as he doesn’t view that as his top priority. he’s not necessarily for the order completely, but he was raised in the Arkanis imperial Academy, and was radicalized by his negative experiences with the new Republic so views the first order as a better fit. However, he really does not like it when personal feelings get into the workplace and is very sick and tired of Kylo and Hux’s banter he really just doesn’t understand it. He also does not feel that the force is a viable qualification for someone getting a job or place of power and holds resentment towards force users for being able to obtain positions without doing any work for it, and believes that the majority of them are terrible leaders because they do not understand what it is like without power and can use the force as a crutch, which makes them weak and ignorant.

Appearance: Tagdh has long light brown hair with blonde streaks. He typically has his hair, partially slipped back and tied into a bun. But he will take it down when he’s in his quarters as wearing his hair up all day can give him headaches. He has a scar on the left side of his chin. His body type is kind of stocky with visible muscles, though he doesn’t appear particularly buff. He has various hidden tattoos and piercings around his body, including a tattoo of the first order logo on his neck. He has a beauty mark under the right corner of his lip and freckles. he also has golden eyes that glow in certain lighting along with stripes that cover his whole body that also are only visible in certain lightings. he has gills on the sides of his neck that allow him to temporarily breathe under water if need be, and as a male of his species, he has sharp teeth. But you wouldn’t really notice that he is not human at first glance so typically he pretends to be human. You’ll typically see him in his first order uniform, which, as I mentioned before is the style of the lieutenants uniform, but the teal color of the colonels uniform. When not in uniform, he’s typically in the regulation tank top and boxers. He hardly ever wears civilian clothing, but he refuses to wear his uniform on shore leave, he must have a strict divide between work and pleasure. His preferred style of civilian clothing is very casual, layered browns and greens. Something he would have worn as an Arkanis civilian if he hadn’t went to the Academy. He has a mean case of resting bitch face.

Weapons: SE-44C blaster Pistol

—————————————————————————

Backstory: Tagdh’s father Fionn was born in a local Arkanis village. He and his older brother Jal ran away from home as young teenagers because they heard of the imperial Academy on their planet and wanted a chance to train so they could one day leave and see outer galaxy. Jal graduated and entered the imperial Navy, where he eventually became a commander before he met his demise after being rapidly promoted and sent to the front lines. a plan orchestrated by Vader so that the Empire could take custody of their adopted force sensitive child Ven. After joining the Academy Fionn did not remain close with his brother and became very disillusioned by the imperialism. he eventually was sent into the imperial Navy, but he was discharged a year later due to injury and returned to Arkanis. Since he was determined to do something for the Empire, he became a trainer at the academy where he trained young imperial cadets.

During his time back on Arkanis he married another local Arkanisian woman named Aoibhinn. they essentially got married to get married. There was no love involved, but it was completely mutual. When Tadgh was born, he was immediately placed into the imperial Academy system. he never really knew his mother as his father didn’t really want her around the military stuff And one of the imperials living on Arkanis, Brendol Hux, had grown reputation for forcing himself onto local girls, after he got his kitchen servent pregnant, so most of the local woman did not go near the Academy. Because of this, and because his father explained that it was a loveless marriage Tadgh did not see any need to grow any form of attachment or familial bond to either of his parents. he saw his father only as his trainer. And his father‘s training was ruthless.

Tagdh did grow up with Hux as a child. But he knew the boy to be violent and unstable so tended to avoid him. But on a few occasions, he had caught Hux having a mental breakdown or alone in the med wing so would just sit with him. Occasionally put his hand on his back when he cried. As adults neither of them speak of these instances.

Tagdh was 10 years old when the New Republic sieged Arkanis. Both him and his father were captured. He believes his mother was amongst the local casualties, but does not know for sure. His father was sentenced to life in prison after he refused to denounce the empire, and was charged for the cruel ways in which he trained his cadets and his actions during his one year in active duty. Tagdh was brought to a new Republic reintegration institution (like from Mando S3) where he regularly felt belittled and mistreated and he resented the therapist that he was forced to go to. he watched firsthand how a fledgling new republic was struggling to take care of the disenfranchised worlds in the galaxy, including his home world, and being In the institution only radicalized him further.

when he was 14 he was extracted from the institution by imperial sympathizers and brought to the unknown regions, where he continued his military training under the fledgling first order reuniting with Hux, and getting more firsthand interaction with Brendol and his training tactics which only made him dislike the man more. He always found him stupid and annoying, and likewise felt the same about his buddies like Pryde and Brooks. Even at a young age, he was always analyzing things from a logical and political standpoint. He viewed Brendol’s generation to be too old and keep too much problematic rhetoric from the past Empire.

eventually, he rose up in the ranks and became Lieutenant Colonel. Ignoring his childhood and viewing him strictly as his commanding officer, he saw Hux as a good and strong leader, and believed him to be the best fit for leading the order out of the options that they had. Because of this he was very loyal to him because to Tadgh Hux becoming supreme leader was the most logical favorable outcome and was always his end goal. He never liked snoke but he didn’t care that much as long as Hux was calling the shots.

Tadgh and Kylo actually have hung out outside of work and have a tentative friend-ish ship. However Tadgh’s view of Kylo’s military persona is entirely different. And he makes that very clear that his opinions of Kylo outside of work do not affect his opinions of him while working. When it comes to the first order, he is not loyal to Kylo at all. He thinks he is a complete disaster and a terrible leader. He will sometimes bring this up in snarky comments on those rare occasions when they’re hanging out outside of work. He also doesn’t really see Kylo as a threat and believes Hux has more power over Kylo than he seems to think.

He is close with Mitaka as they work a lot side-by-side, so they do hang out outside of work. But Tagdh really does not like using the word friend this also applies to Kylo. He has an immense respect for Captain Phasma, and fears her in a good way, so stays out of her way. And of course he loves Millicent. He’ll sometimes leave treats or water for her by his quarters door if Hux lets her wander.

—————————————————————————

@sluttycaseyjones

@dragonflies-draw-flame

@silly-little-goober-core

@irrationalgame

@armiestice

@edith-is-a-cat

@elenauaurs

@fizzydreamz

@kira-mortham

#star wars #star wars oc #first order #armitage hux #general hux #brendol hux #kylo ren #captain phasma #dopheld mitaka #enric pryde #snoke #millicent the cat #alien oc #cas’s ocs

31 notes · View notes

spideyhexx · 1 year ago

Note

I've been pondering this all day

Snow hates the thought and feeling of vulnerability especially when it comes to love, friendship, and even his family despite the sacrifices made for his wellbeing and advancement. Excuse the run on sentences

This leaves him the inability to have a normal relationship especially romance and family. Not to mention his entitlement, sense of pride, classism, and overall Capitol mindset as a whole. This is why he "loves" as well as hate DC!reader she doesn't have the those same vulnerabilities that stun her perception and growth. She can see Snow for who and what is Snow and most likely who he'll becom. Not to mention Capitol assumptions that most has about Snow. One would expect it was easier for Snow to manipulate her. Seeing that she's district and at a social disadvantage. She's more than likely will always been seen as district. Just like in my like post/ask just because you got money doesn't mean you'll be readily accepted in the Capitol. Most of this classmates probably lived on the lima bean diet while the Civil War was going on. Yet they still look down upon the districts as if their lives weren't almost the same up till that point. In fact most if not all see this act as terrorism, anarchy, and a direct insult to the Capitol. Like they take offense to the uprising like someone mistreated them rather than the other way around. This speaks volumes to their entitlement as well as nativity. Like of course they don't see the districts as people with rights. I bet that seeing reader and Sejanus prancing around the Capitol just like them irks some nerves. Especially with the older generation because Tigris and Snow were kids during the Dark Days. All this and more plays into the development of Snow's mind and psyche. Don't get me started on Grandma'am and her influence. There's no doubt in my mind that she fed into Snow becoming who he is.

Especially with his early years during the first rebellion. I believe she think Coriolanus could do not wrong and that DC! reader should be more than happy that he's interested in her. Like the only one who doesn't think like this is Tigris

Sorry this turned into less about Coriolanus.

Ps. There is more. I just had to get this out before I forget it. Lucy Gray is up next. All this plays into everything.

Just to add on to last thing. The Capitol is not the Capitol because of money. The money comes to them because of their power in mistreating, degrading the districts. Another thing is I believe the Capitol mindset as a whole has blinded most of the occupants especially Snow. If he realizes that as a person you need more than money and status to make a relationship work then he may or may not do the work to actually improve himself not to just get reader. Like this guy is so cut off from any sense of emotional intelligence.

Am gonna assume this was you <3

Vulnerability is the worst thing for Coriolanus. If it seeps through and someone sees it, he'd probably have a meltdown. I agree with all you said!!! I think his "love" for you is also somewhat of an admiration in the sense that he wishes he observed life the way he sees you do so. And the mere fact that you're able to get under his skin and come to realize his true intentions or his innermost understandings of the world at play, it's frightening to him.

It gives you this unspoken power over him. And yes, your other classmates and even their parents would be looking down upon you as you make your stance in the Capitol, but something that Coriolanus would be attracted to is your determination and defiance against this. You kept trying despite this and he has that same tenacity, so it makes sense he'd commend you for it (while still thinking less of you). It's like he considers himself different from his classmates and their elite parents because he at least acknowledges the fact you have skill and intelligence, but he's not really different at all as he still thinks less of you.

Oh yes. Sejanus and you would be rather carefree. I think he's more likely to be conscious of stares and gossip about the two of you, but your own determination overrides it and you two try to just enjoy your relationship no matter what anyone says or thinks.

Grandma'am of course had a part in Coriolanus' views. She'd be coddling him about his expressed sadness that you won't let him into your life and she would go on about how you should be lucky he's even looking in your direction.

Everything you said about the Capitol is very true. I don't have much to add to that, but it does deeply influence Coriolanus and I think he has a twisted sense of emotional intelligence which just contributes to him being contradictory to himself all the time.

let's chat here :)

#coryoasks #coriolanus snow #coriolanus x reader #tom blyth fanfiction #tom blyth #coriolanus snow x reader #coriolanus snow fanfiction #coriolanus snow smut #coriolanus x you #coryo snow #coriolanus snow imagine #coriolanus snow x you #coriolanus x y/n #coriolanus smut

66 notes · View notes

scrollsfromarebornrealm · 8 months ago

Text

on our fates alight--not a monster

It had been a fortnight, and Maxima had yet to see Riven DeGlass again. Or any of the other Eorzean Dominants, for that matter. Much of his time had been spent being debriefed by the Alliance and acclimating to his new surroundings. And if he was honest, the Garlean found himself grateful that he hadn’t seen—or encountered any of the Dominants. The last time (second-to-last if he counted Riven) he’d laid eyes on any of them was at Tsukuyomi’s summoning. Otherwise, he had nothing but tales. Some of them he could verify, others he couldn’t.

But Maxima also had a raging curiosity. One of the Populares’ reforms had been aimed towards the Ilsbardian Eikons. History had proven in the past that for much of the landlocked realm, the Eikons had been utilized not for warlike purposes, but in defense of their respective territories against powerful monsters and the like. And there was clear evidence several of them had been forced into becoming warmongers by their respective nations. The Populares had wanted the Emperor to declare amnesty to any bearer of an Ilsbardian Eikonic bloodline, and to negotiate with them in good faith on how to handle the inadvertent danger an Eikon did bring. It was a subject Maxima had devoted much thought to, especially as more details came into Garlemald about the Eorzean Dominants. That they avoided all-out Priming unless they had to, that they would give their foes warning about engaging in combat. The Eorzean Alliance had created techniques that protected their people when they had to share a battlefield with a fully Primed Eikon. And somehow against all odds, Riven and her allies had been and still were fighting against the only Eikon-hunter Varis could field against them��Erick sas Gage.

“You can move around the castle, but I would advise you to keep clear of the Queen’s Wing.” Rahubhan had told him after a session. “It’s where the Scion Dominants are staying. I doubt any of them are like to hold a grudge, but in the case of two of them, I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

“What do you mean?”

“Were you privy to any information on a place known as Site Sixteen?” Maxima frowned at the question.

“It…sounds familiar.” He replied. “I know Asahi had a report given to him on it once. In fact, it was…right before we left for Doma.” Maxima watched as Rahuban exhaled.

“It was an undercover Garlean research facility in Sharlayan. Responsible for the deaths of many Dominants and their Eikons in the name of ‘research’ for the Empire, including the city-state’s native Eikon, Thaliak.” He began.

“Their god?!” Maxima exclaimed, eyes widening in shock.

“Yes. And until recently both Riven and Sebastian were prisoners there. It’s…left them with a significant amount of trauma.”

“I understand.” Maxima murmured.

The following day, Maxima found himself with an unexpected berth of free time. He wasn’t needed for debriefing and his companions were occupied with other affairs. He couldn’t go out into the city—even with a disguise the locals would probably easily identify him. The only option left was to explore the palace—which the Garlean took full advantage of. Despite the imperial occupation, the royal residence had been left mostly untouched in terms of style, art, and furniture. The Resistance guards were familiar with his presence by this point, and some even shared stories of their lives under the previous two kings of Ala Mhigo. A visit to the kitchens procured him a rather delicious late lunch, and it was there Maxima learned that the Royal Menagerie had finally been restored, with plans being finalized to open it to the public.

"Too hot to go up there now, you'll broil!" One of the Resistance cooks said cheerfully. "Wait until the evening. There's a good breeze that blows in from the mountains, and the night-blooming flowers will be opening their petals." And with that advice, Maxima waited until the sun dipped below the horizon. Then he ventured out and upwards, not stopping until he reached the last queen of Ala Mhigo's gardens. The area was a riot of color, plants and tree branches swaying gently in the mountain breeze. There was no sign of the titanic struggle against Zenos, though the Garlean fancied that if he closed his eyes, he could imagine the battle. Magic being cast, weapons clashing, the sound of footsteps, bells tinkling...

Bells?

Wait.

Maxima opened his eyes. He'd wandered fairly deep into the Menagerie. Here he was surrounded by more trees, with reflecting-ponds scattered about. And on a platform in the middle of one of the pools some feet away...was Riven DeGlass. As Maxima watched, the brunette started to dance, her steps graceful and sure. The sound of the bells were coming from her outfit, the Garlean realized. Their melody was pleasant, soothing to the mind and ear.

She must be practicing. He'd heard that Valefor's Dominant was a master of the Thavarian dance-style, something that he'd not had an opporunity to witness--and would not now, despite his sudden urge to hide and keep watching. Clearly Riven had sought privacy, and Maxima felt he had enough strikes against him as it was...

Then suddenly, he felt a cold edge press against his throat. Maxima went stock-still, eyes widening. While his fighting skills had been nothing to write home about, he could recognize that he was in very grave danger. A Bozjan-style gunblade was flush against his skin, if it moved he was as good as dead...

"What's this, then? A Garlean where he isn't supposed to be?" The voice was velvet, darkness infusing every word. Maxima continued to stay still, his eyes flicking to the blade's wielder. Dark purple armor, brown hair and blue eyes that held a malicious light in them.

Odin! It had been Sebastian Astralyas that Rahuban had gone into detail when he had first warned Maxima. The Sharalayan scholar and his Eikon had suffered a decade of torture and abuse in Site Sixteen. Maxima remembered all too well the fear that would creep into the soldiers' voices when they spoke of the Dominant of Darkness. Odin's footsteps were piled high with corpses, and from the smirk on Sebastian's face Maxima feared he would become the newest one.

"Didn't somebody warn you? Monsters roam this castle." Sebastian continued, his voice breaking into Maxima's thoughts. "You might want to steer clear. You could catch our cooties."

"I was made to understand men and women had free run of the palace. Not monsters." Maxima's tongue was faster than his brain--did the man just say cooties? Was that an actual thing in Eorzea? The last time he'd heard that he was a boy on the playground--

"Are you sure about that?" Sebastian's voice was soft. "There's a monster standing next to you right now."

"I don't see a monster. I see a man." Maxima countered. "A man beside me, and a woman--whose privacy I wanted to respect-in front of me. A man and a woman who were either blessed or unlucky to bear great power, and have been doing their best to deal with the consequences. Although..." The Garlean swallowed, continuing.

"If this is for Doma, I do not blame you for wanting vengeance. But allow me to say this. Asahi was false and treacherous. It is a good thing that he is dead."

"He was your superior officer. Did you not agree with what he had in mind?"

"His private thoughts were not known to me." A lie, but Maxima judged that it was better to not air Asahi's personal opinions of the Scion Dominants. Especially when the gunblade was still pressed to his throat. "I learned too late that he had bargained with the Mitsirugi clan to kidnap you all--and as for the summoning, I did not know what were in those chests. Had I known..." Maxima trailed off, his eyes lowering to the ground.

"...Known?" Sebastian prompted.

"...Had I known, I would...I would have tried to help." It would have been treasonous, and he would have probably have needed to throw himself on the mercy of the Domans, but Maxima had taken the time to deeply reflect on what had happened.

"I would have tried to help." He repeated. "You can believe me or not, but I would have tried. And I can tell you this as well--there are many in the Empire who don't see you as monsters. Who understand you're mortal, you're men and women just like us. That it's not fair that you're punished for the sins of others, or for the random chance that someday, somewhere you might commit sins of your own. We believe...I believe, that Dominants and Eikons and regular people can all live in peace." Maxima lifted his gaze and looked straight ahead. Riven was still dancing, unaware of the standoff.

"You're not monsters. None of you are." There was silence for several moments, and then Maxima started as the blade lifted from his neck. Putting a hand to his throat, he sighed in relief. Beside him, Sebastian sheathed the gunblade. He turned on a heel and began to walk away. The menacing aura that he'd been projecting vanished, and Maxima frowned.

Why does it feel like I passed some sort of test...?

"You're wrong about one thing." Sebastian had come to a stop. Maxima lowered his hand, turning to look at the gunbreaker's back.

"What am I wrong about?"

"No need to kill you for Doma. That's already been settled." With that, Sebastian continued to walk away. Maxima stared at the Dominant's retreating back, then snorted softly.

----- on our fates alight masterpost here

#ffxiv #ffxiv-ffxvi au (the other one)#on our fates alight

8 notes · View notes

transgenderuwo · 1 year ago

Text

Image transcriptions (long post warning):

Images one and two are of an anon ask to chasingtheskyline.

Anonymous asked: Simply believing that killing civilians, children, on any side of a conflict is bad is "Zionism"? You almost make Zionism sound like a good thing.

chasingtheskyline responded: I'm a Mennonite. I do not believe in unprovoked violence or war. I literally said, in my response to that post, "Posting images of terror and torture is wrong." Terror and torture, in general, is of course, wrong. I thought that was implied. I do not believe in war except in self-defense. However, if war is going to be engaged in for self-defense of one's way of life, it is a phenomenon of human nature that violence such as sexual assault will occur, usually against confined victims and prisoners of war. War corrupts. People, especially an oppressed minority, do not take it on lightly. But for every time the blood of a Palestinian child is spilled during a "Ceasefire", the person responsible has to, in some way, pay for that child's life. I don't know how, I don't care how. I do not prefer it be with their life. I hope they are blessed to see the error of their ways. I ultimately hope for justice and the end to the apartheid state. 🖤 Tags: omens gets anons, war, palestine, rape, violence.

Images three and four are of another anon ask to chasingtheskyline.

Anonymous asked: If you genuinely believed that the people getting upset at you for supporting the assault, abduction, murder, and corpse desecration of civilians were full of shit, you wouldn't be responding by wishing death on them. Do you really believe that that is a good thing to do? You should be ashamed of yourself.

chasingtheskyline responded: Again, where are you getting this from my posts? If you don't understand how the Israelis are keeping Palestinians in ghettos behind walls under armed guard, killing and raping them, suppressing their culture and calls to prayer, bombing their settlements even during "ceasefires", occupying and destroying their land, we cannot have this conversation. None of you seem to want to be respectful, anyway. To reclaim my way of life if it were under threat, I personally would do anything. My friends and my mother's students, some as young as 17, are going back to Palestine to be married. I want them to go back to a prosperous city, or a prosperous farm, not behind walls under armed guard. I want peace. Hamas is as much a terrorist organization as Native peoples trying to resist US occupation. Indigenous ways of life are still suppressed here and they are confined to very small areas of land where they can practice their cultures, and it does not have to be that way. I want Palestinians to have full human rights. I want them to not live in fear. I don't want them to have to live behind walls. I want their culture respected. I want peace. Israel declared war. Israel is occupying Palestinian land. These are the consequences. Go cry about it habibi 🖤 Tags: omens gets anons, war, palestine, rape.

Images five and six are to a third anon ask to chasingtheskyline.

Anonymous asked: oooo someones mad people are upset they defended an organization recognized across the world, including by palestine, as a terrorist org because they....and get this.... rape and kill civilians! including the ones you believe theyre supposed to protect. actually mainly those ones. its almost like theyre a terrorist organization.

chasingtheskyline responded: Are those civilians occupiers? Do they steal land that once belonged to Arab people? Did they leave when asked? Violence is a cleansing force. Hamas is as much a terrorist organization as the Native nations who rebelled against the United States for disregarding treaties. They raped and scalped women and children. I'm sorry to tell you what the consequences of disobeying treaties and enacting colonial violence are, habibi. This is war, that Israelis declared :) Inshallah, Palestine will be liberated. Inshallah occupied land will be reclaimed. Inshallah there will be no more walls in Gaza and Jerusalem separating Arabs from Israeli Jews. Inshallah Arab Muslims and Christians will have their human rights respected in whatever solution is devised. I want peace. My friends want peace. My friends and my mom's students are going back home, some of them to be married. I don't want them to have to live inside walls. Blessings to the martyrs. 🖤 Tags: omens gets anons, anon hate, colonialism tw, sa mention, colonialism, war, rape, war crimes.

Image seven is a standalone post by chasingtheskyline.

Hamas are as much terrorists as the Indigenous people of any nation fighting for their land are I don't need to go over what occurred during westward expansion, do I?

Image eight is another standalone post by chasingtheskyline.

Inshallah, there will be peace. May the apartheid state fall with minimal spillings of blood. May the Palestinian people not be destroyed. May the Israeli people recognize the error of their ways in destroying Palestinian way of life and culture. May God bless the Israelis to give them the wisdom to stop this violence before both peoples are destroyed and there is no hope of living in peace as one or two nations.

Image nine is of a third standalone post by chasingtheskyline.

To all the anons right now: Inshallah God will bless you with death soon and it will be quick. If I had my way, you would be taken to your bed with illness for the rest of your life, and die of infected pressure sores.

Image ten is a screenshot of the likes on the post described immediately prior. There are two likes: one from diagnosedbiologicalfailure and one from crippled-peeper.

Image eleven is a screenshot of the likes on the post described in images one and two. There is one like, and it is from teaboot.

End transcriptions.

Hey warning for everyone but especially Jews:

Hamas has threatened that they're gonna start posting graphic videos of their torture/murder of their Jewish hostages in the next few hours on social media. These will be very graphic and very distressing, so please be very careful on sites like Instagram and TikTok when scrolling through recommended videos. Please do not share these videos and photos, it is part of the terroristic strategy. Also, because unfortunately there is no shortage of antisemites on Tumblr, please be careful when sent a video or photo on anon or from a user you don't recognize. These are intended to induce horror, don't help Hamas spread their message.

#if you have no stake in this and are JUST learning about this stuff from tumblr... STOP?#long post

5K notes · View notes

essayofthoughts · 3 years ago

Note

📕

Put “📓” or some other version of a book emoji into my inbox and I’ll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven’t written but daydream about.

From what I see of CR fandom there's ... well frankly, not a lot of thoughts about Cassandra de Rolo, which is a shame because she's fascinating, but there seem to be a few specific trends for her. Some people want to give her a chance to be awesome and adventure on her own, which fine, I kind of get but also I think after the five years she had she'd want to unwind and relax and be safe more than a lot of things. Even when dealing with anger and all (with Percy's help, given some of the Wrap Up comments) I don't think that's necessarily the route she'd go. The other trends I see for her are often specifically romantic - and there's two trends I see there. People who ship her with Kynan, due to some of the Wrap Up comments from Matt, and people who ship her with Kaylie for... I don't know what reason. Some combo of Lesbians and, from what I could tell "it'd piss off Percy and that'd be funny" which I don't necessarily believe and certainly do not find encouraging ship motivation.

Sufficeth to say, I do not find either of these particularly compelling.

I've written a small fic about Cass before (here) and one day I'd like to write something that builds on it. Specifically, I want to explore how she might interact with Desmond.

No, not the mapmaker, that's Tyriok.

No, not the person they saved outside of Westruun from the orcs.

No. No. No.

The carriageboy Percy maimed.

Yeah. Him.

See, there's a few things I think that have the potential to make that interesting. Firstly, we're told Desmond is around 18 - which is to say, older than Kynan, around the same age as Cass, and likely around the same age Percy was when the Briarwoods attacked.

(Percy's last words to Desmond before knocking him out, "I want you spend the rest of your life making up for what you allowed to happen", suddenly take on a whole load of other meaning when you consider that, imo.)

He's a Whitestone native, he's not an inherently bad person. Percy attempts to apologise once they return, but gets repeatedly spoken over because he pauses, presumably trying to find the right words to apologise ("I'm sorry I maimed you, I was not entirely myself and may have been under the influence of a demon but that's no excuse and I do not know that I can ever make amends to you for the wrong I have done you" is not an apology that's likely to fall easily from anyone's lips, let us be honest here). He does ultimately try to ensure Desmond gets a position of work - which he may otherwise struggle to find, given his maimed hand, and again, which it is only fair Percy attempt to rectify given his responsibility.

But ah, this is all Desmond and Percy, let me move on to Desmond and Cassandra.

They're of an age. They also both lived through the Briarwoods occupation in pretty close proximity to the Briarwoods - Cassandra as their prisoner and Desmond first as the carriageboy of one of their new nobles and then as their carriageboy. They've seen both the Briarwoods capability for kindness, for protective anger, and for their cruelty and brutality - including towards them. They murdered Cassandra's family; when she helped Percy escape they were shot at and she was shot down under their orders. They abandoned Desmond when Vox Machina attacked; on realising he was their prisoner they sent two invisible stalkers to kill him.

They also were twistedly parental to Cassandra and saved Desmond from Tylieri's treatment. These two undoubtedly have complicated, messy and often unclear thoughts and emotions regarding the Briarwoods. Desmond was offered a job as a courier between Whitestone and Emon but after Musician's Nostalgia he's never heard from again. He may have been killed during the Conclave's attack, if he was still in Emon - or he may have been sent off already. The wiki assumes he lives; we don't know for certain. But I like the idea he lives and I like this specific idea, so I run with the assumption he survived and either made his way to Whitestone or was part of the refugees VM evacuated to Whitestone.

And I like the idea that he ends up in service to Cass, basically as her manservant and personal assistant. Percy wants to see Desmond employed. Cassandra is being left in charge of Whitestone and all the things Percy, in his particular messy way, is not good at dealing with, which is to say the aftermath of so much of what he does.

So Cassandra, partially perhaps as a pointed comment, keeping Desmond as her personal servant - so Percy cannot forget what he has done and what he has left her to deal with.

I do not think Desmond would ever think particularly kindly of Percy. I do not blame him. No matter how much I love Percy as a character and think him well constructed and find him fascinating to explore - I would not blame Desmond in the least for being bitter and angry regarding the man who maimed him, never apologised, ensured he was given employment and just left the handling of that to his deeply traumatised younger sister.

There are many legitimate reasons to criticise Percy and Desmond, in this circumstance even more than canon, would have every cause to see those.

But I also think he'd have a lot of reasons to empathise with and understand Cassandra. I think their understanding of the complexity of their personal relationships with the Briarwoods would make them less judgemental of one another's difficult decisions during the occupation; their understanding of the pressures of the occupation and the grief Whitestone and the families within it bear for what happened - they lived in and amongst it as Percy did not.

I think they could connect on an interesting and deep way.

I also think neither is particularly prone to trusting, given everything. I think they'd take a damn long time to admit their trust for each other let alone anything else. If I wrote it, it would be a painfully slow burn.

But... I like to imagine it. I like to think up how they'd slowly be drawn closer just by working together and seeing each other every day and understanding one another's quirks. I like to think about the steady, quiet peace they build because neither has much care for sudden loud noises or explosive anger. For how their understanding of one another builds reassurance; for how that means they stand firm for each other in tentative friendship and empathetic loyalty. I like to think about the way they act towards each other, starting as the formal standard of ruling Lady and personal manservant and how that shifts as they use that to shield one another from things they know they dislike; Desmond given leave when Percy comes to speak to Cassandra, Desmond interrupting with some small important distraction when Cassandra gets caught in panic or anxiety or a memory. Quietly, persistently, helping each other, and it seeming only as work.

But it's too persistent for just work. It's too consistent for work.

But of course - they cannot just admit it. They have little reason to trust, for all they very clearly trust each other within their set dynamic.

This story, if I ever wrote it, would unfold slowly, small thing weighing upon small thing until the pressure is insurmountable and impossible to ignore.

It's not my usual style, that kind of steady slow pacing. But one day, I'd like to try it.

#samdaharu #percy de rolo #cassandra de rolo #desmond otham #critical role #ask games #ask #fic things #writing things

37 notes · View notes

toflyandfall · 4 years ago

Note

I just saw a photo of "What persona. Dick Grayson isn't a mask. Not like Bruce Wayne is" from Detective Comics #725 and I find it interesting that Dick and the rest of the bats, with the exception of Bruce, don't wear "masks" per se. They are who they are with or without the domino mask/helmet. The only time I can really think of Dick faking things is when he pretended to be an incompetent BPD cop. How was he able to avoid creating and living, half the time, through a "persona" like "Brucie"?

Oooh, this is a lovely, meaty question. There’s a lot more analysis of Bruce than I planned because let’s be real, it’s kinda weirder for a guy to run around with half a dozen personas than for someone else to run around as himself. I hope you still find it interesting, but if you want to skip straight to the more Dick-centric stuff, head under the readmore.

A simple but significant factor is that Dick thrives on the company of people in a way that Bruce does not. I suspect if you talk honestly to many introverts, you will find they too have an extroverted ‘mask’ they put on to the larger world, though probably not quite so extreme.

Another factor is that the civilian social circles Dick and Bruce travel in are vastly different. Though they each have a reason for being in those circles, that difference itself enables Dick to escape much of the scrutiny that Bruce’s public identity undergoes, because he doesn’t frequently associate with the much more media-hounded elite.

An interesting thing here is that the large difference in social circles between their civilian lives is actually caused by their own personal similarities: they are 100% committed work-a-holics. It’s just that they have differing civilian approaches to their goals.

I want to start with Bruce because as you point out, his use of persona is distinct among the bats and his reasons for using them in part explain why Dick and the other bats do not.

Bruce is a child of privilege, he has always lived a lifestyle of privilege, regardless of the tragedies that have occurred during it, and his default view of the world, through no fault of his own, is natively that of the extreme upper class. This drastically influences his perspective and approach to change, and changing the world is his perpetual goal, the reason he put on the suit in the first place.

Bruce works a top-down society approach toward systemic change, and he works it all the time. This is actually my favorite but woefully under-emphasized part of him: he is not just someone who punches people on the street ‘for justice’, he uses his company, his money, and his social position toward substantial systemic change. This post does a wonderful job covering the ways he does this through his corporations and personal wealth, as does this one. I cannot recommend either enough because I constantly want to push even the most casual Batman fans to understand: Bruce Wayne is not just a violent punchy puncher man. He is a traumatized person genuinely trying to use all his resources including himself to make the world safer.

Detective Comics #725

Bruce has many personas he maintains, and he uses all of them according to what suits his need--Batman for places the law can’t go, Bruce Wayne the CEO pushing for systemic changes, Matches Malone for street information, and Brucie the society high roller for society information and social influencing. He is rarely ever not in a persona and simply ‘Bruce’.

His top-down perspective of enacting change are what dictated the usage and necessity of these personas. He has the means and capacity to basically disappear from society if he so chose--he in fact does so to train during his younger years so successfully they don’t even know how long he was actually gone.

The Batman Files

So he doesn’t need the personas. Not Bruce Wayne, CEO, or Brucie, or any of them really, to protect his identity. That tells us that Brucie is a deliberate choice he made at some point. He could have been a recluse billionaire Batman indefinitely. Even though he fully has the status and means to not maintain a job or a persona or, let’s be frank, a life outside the mask at all, it’s his own work-a-holicness that led to the creation of his public personas. He’s an obsessive strategist, so if Brucie is a choice, that leads us to why?

Bruce does many philanthropic things with his money, but he isn’t the only rich person around, especially not in a city as old and corrupt as Gotham. But he’s one of the very few ones doing good with it.

The comic you mentioned has a very beautiful moment where Bruce touches on that, and in full context you can feel how consumed he is by this goal of creating the Gotham his parents would have wanted. Batman mentions he never sees himself in that place, and the morbid interpretation is that the city kills him before he reaches it, but the hopeful interpretation is that in that shining city, Bruce Wayne and Batman and Brucie and all his masks will no longer be needed.

Detective Comics #725

Back in the old days they’d call it noblesse oblige: the inferred responsibility of privileged people to act with generosity and nobility toward those less privileged. Thomas and Martha Wayne ingrained this feeling of responsibility into Bruce by example, and as all things related to them, he obsesses over it. It urges him to fulfill expectations within segments of society he finds onorous for the betterment of society as a whole in order to carry out their unfinished works.

Enter Brucie.

Brucie serves a two-fold purpose. Since Bruce has chosen to maintain personas among society, it becomes a false face to justify any oddities Batman might bring into the life of Bruce Wayne by setting himself up as a eccentric, popular social scion. But that persona itself also allows him to manipulate the upper crust of society.

I have some insider perspective on the kind of society events Brucie attends. They’re all about the who’s who of making connections, name-dropping and networking, and unspoken class-based elitism. Charity events among the upper class have these things at the forefront and the cause is the background. You don’t get your hands dirty, you don’t go out and make change yourself, you pay money to be socially seen and sometimes it happens to go towards a philanthropic cause. If you want to raise money from the rich and keep people with deep pockets coming in the door, you have to have social currency yourself. This is where, and why, Brucie comes in. I believe Brucie ws crafted to maintain Batman’s cover but still attempt to carry on his parents’ legacy to grease the wheels of the rich in the directions he chooses: one of generosity towards those less privileged.

Superman/Batman #51

The inevitable flaw of Bruce’s approach to his personas and their philanthropy is that in a city rife with corruption, money distributed from the top has many opportunities to disappear well before it reaches the bottom. As in many of ways they are complements to each other, Dick’s approach balances that out, because his approach to helping his fellow man starts out at the street level...literally.

Nightwing #153 (Nightwing: The Great Leap)

Dick, we know, does not come from privilege. His mother was from a middle class family before she joined the circus, and despite being world famous athletes, most circus workers are lower to middle class. The people he grew up with, was comfortable with, were all working folk who expected everyone to pull their weight right alongside each other. He enacts this everyone-together approach in almost all aspects and phases of his life.

Batman #615

Even once he had settled into being Robin and adapted to living at the manor, he didn’t feel belonging to a culture of privilege, materialism, or high society. He preferred shotgun in the limo to chat with the driver to riding fancy in the back. Once he was able to start making his own decisions about where and how he lived, despite having both Bruce’s money and then later inheriting a substantial amount of his own, he chose mostly lower-class communal places.

Batman Black and White #6

Dick also doesn’t see the value of throwing money at a problem when there is an option to fix it with his own hands. We see this frequently, from building his own car instead of buying a finished one or outsourcing the work, to deciding the best way to clean out the BPD was to start at the bottom and work his way up (literally), to quitting college because his classes never got prioritized over crimesolving. Most of his day jobs ended for similar reasons.

Nightwing #153 (Nightwing: The Great Leap)

Despite the showmanship training, he gravitates away from spotlight on the rich and wealthy, who are notoriously the kind of people who do not get their hands dirty or go out and take care of things themselves, and prefers to find or build communities around the kind of people who do.

Finally, Dick is an extrovert. He doesn’t need to act extroverted as Brucie does because he is extroverted. He likes people and likes being around people. Whether by conscious choice or not, he tends to put himself in situations where he is surrounded by people in nearly all aspects of his life. He chooses apartment buildings whose occupants frequently pass each other on the stairs; jobs that involve interacting with many co-workers, patrons, or students; and collects superhero teammates like Boy Scout badges. And all of these behaviors come very naturally to him.

He doesn’t need a mask or a role or a persona for those kind of interactions; his mask is pre-supplied as “neighbor” or “co-worker” or “teacher” by the situations he puts himself in. It helps make him an exemplary leader, because just by acting authentically to himself, he automatically builds up little communities around him any time he arrives somewhere.

Bruce, on the other hand, is an introvert. For him, interacting with people isn’t easy, automatic, or comfortable unless it has a purpose, but as a strategist, he knows the necessity of human interaction as a catalyst to achieving dynamic change. So he adapts personas to suit people’s expectations. Extroverts have more social currency; the life of the party can generate more resources than a brooding wallflower.

So, it boils down to just a few elements: Dick believes in living and interacting at the street level to accomplish the things that he wants to, and he is extroverted enough that the level of social interaction that entails is not a burden to him. He surrounds himself with the types of people he is more familiar or perhaps more comfortable with, which happens to keep him further out from the media’s eye than associating with the upper crust does. The lower profile is more incidental than intentional, but it lessens his need to have a cover story for every single bruise and lets him get away with even less of a ‘persona’.

Bruce, on the other hand, is introverted and follows a more classist view that systemic change needs to be effected from the top down. His personas are more of a self-assumed duty than a necessity, as a way of trying to carry out his parents’ legacy. Any of his children could have chosen to follow his path in business or the high society limelight, but the sense of obligation toward it is something personal to him that most of them don’t share.

#bruce wayne #batman #dick grayson #nightwing #character analysis #dc #comics #meta #o.c.#bruce wayne analysis #bruce + dick #asks #anonymous #cover stories

223 notes · View notes

vampiresuns · 4 years ago

Text

Aelius Anatole Radošević De Silva

Anatole has changed a bit as a character since i was around the first time, so he’s getting re introduced. His open to make friends.

art by @elizastarkart

Name: Aelius Anatole Radoševic De Silva. He has two surnames because his mother is latina. He is a mixed Latine-Slav, with family that is all latine, vesuvian, and slavic. People he’s friend’s with call him Anatole (russian/greek pronunciation, he doesn’t acknowledge the French one). Only people he has a strictly professional relationship with, and his uncle call him Aelius.

‘Aelius’ means sun, while ‘Anatole’ means sunrise. He’s fully aware of this, he chose his name himself.

His nicknames are:

��Nana’ is the most common nickname, and the one most people use.

His mother calls him Lilito, Nana, Nanito, Toly, Tolito, Tortolito.

His father calls him Lily or Lilu.

Toly, Tolytoly or Tolito are nicknames used by his maternal grandmother, his aunt, and his Vesuvian family.

He will not mind if you want to call him Toly, but you cannot call him Lily/Lilu if you’re not his father.

Asra came up with Nanatole, which he doesn’t like but lets Asra call him anyway. Asra also came up with Nana Banana and that is absolutely forbidden.

Family: on his father’s side both the Radošević, who are slavic (yugoslavic, specifically), and the Cassano, a prominent Vesuvian family who has had a hold of the Consulship for years.

On his mother side, the De Silva.

His father’s name is Vladislav, but everyone calls him Vlad, he’s an alchemist, a polymath, and works in what is most similar to biochemical engineering. He has one bother, named Valeriy, who you, however, might now as Valerius. Vlad’s biggest personality trait is being head over heels in love with his wife, and adoring his son more than he thought it was humanly possible to care about someone.

His mother’s name is Louisa De Silva (if you want to add her mother’s surname, it’s Lascal). The L-o-u spelling was a registry mistake she never changed. She moved half across the world while her native country suffer a military-civilian dictatorship to study Medicine. She swore never to go back as long as vestiges of said dictatorship remained in the country. She has two sisters: Paris, who lives in Vesuvia, and Alma, who remained with her parents out of her own choosing. Her medical experience include having been a volunteer war doctor. She didn’t change her surname when she got married.

The Radošević (pronounced Radozheveech) and the Cassano have been entangled families by friendship for generations upon generations, with some marriages between them. Notoriously: Vlad and Val’s father married a Cassano, Matilda, and his bother Mircea, Anatole’s great uncle, also married a Cassano: Florentino. Mircea’s brother and Matilda Cassano died when Vlad and Val were children still, so him and Florentino brought them up.

The Radošević are an overall eccentric family (think the european Addams family), whom are noted for: one, their self-sufficiency/self-preservation, which comes out in a very ‘eccentric people of the world unite’ manner. They appreciate people with character. Two, their leanings towards trades/professions, they do not conceive not doing anything (work hard to play hard). The Cassano, while sharing the quirk, they add the zest for life. It’s like they grabbed the Radošević and told them “you have forgotten how to live and we will remind you how.” Both of them are ridden with racially ambiguous bastard you cannot kill in any way that matters. They simply refuse to. Someone (either the courtiers or Lucio) compared them to roaches, they took it as a compliment.

This will tell you a lot about Anatole’s character.

On a last note, Anatole’s an only child. He has a good relationship with his parents, albeit marked by a sense of distance, solely because he was privately tutored from age 15 and on, which required him to travel a fair share. He was an argumentative teenager, but always cherished whenever he could see his parents. The older he gets, the closer they all become.

Favourite Food: Cake

Favourite drink: Coffee, in general.

Favourite Flower: Iris

Birthday: Nov 1st

Age: 29 (I calculate his age as if he had been born in 1991)

Zodiac:

Sun: Scorpio

Moon: Virgo

Rising: Libra

Mercury & Mars: Scorpio

Venus: Virgo

Patron arcana: Strength & Ace of Swords

Strength

Upright: inner strength, bravery, compassion, focus, Reversed: self doubt, weakness, insecurity

Ace of Swords

Upright: breakthrough, clarity, sharp mind, Reversed: confusion, brutality, chaos

MBTI Type: INTJ-A

Gender: Transmasculine, but Nonbinary. Uses He/Him pronouns only

Orientation: Identifies as NBLM.

LIs: Julian, Muriel, @ilyamatic‘s Andrico, @thelazaretmakesmesad‘s Vishal.

“The sun-like strategist with a solution for everything, and a whole lot of hope in the future.”

More details under the cut!

Physical appearance:

art by @lesbianarcana

5′4. As you can see in the sprite down below, while he’s slim but with muscle, out of doing a moderate to high level of physical activity. The man has a nice waist and inherited his mother’s hips, which he’s very proud of. He likes his legs and his butt the most about himself

Dark brown eyes, long eyelashes. His hair is naturally black, but he dyes it blond.

Has a mole over his right eyebrow, on the left side of the bridge of his nose, and on his left jaw. He has freckles.

An horizontal scar on his nose, which he got by getting hit with a wooden scaffold square in the face. His nose wasn’t broken out of sheer dumb luck. He has a smaller cut on his cheekbone, which was done by a fencing sabre which lacked the proper tip protection/button. It was done onto him by someone else.

The nose scar is how he met Julian before the plague, as he was the doctor which cured his face.

He has several tattoos:

Right arm: A rapier on his inner forearm. Over his elbow he has a black work band, and over it the words ‘THE SUN IS MY UNDOING’ in all caps, circling his arm.

Left arm: a snake wrapped around his forearm, near to the wrist. The Odyssey quote ‘let’s have a toast to the incompetence of our enemies’ under the inner crook of his elbow, and a floral half sleeve.

Chest and Torso: AMOR OMNIA VINCIT over where his heart is supposed to be. He has laurel leaves on the base of his waist.

Legs: ‘o serpent heart hid with a flowering face‘ in his upper, inner thigh, like really up his left inner thigh. A floral anklet on his right ankle.

Languages Spoken: Too many. He speaks nine languages.

Magic Specialities: His magic is connected to both light and languages (it is a play on words with ‘logos’) so he is both adept in photokinesis — he is able to create and manipulate sources of light — and language related magic — which includes incantation and language manipulation. He learns languages as a faster rate than most people, and while he cannot speak or literally understand a language unless he learns it, his magic allows him to intuitively grasp the meaning of words that are being spoken to him.

This capacity also makes him very good at recognising hidden intentions in people. This is not an ability that he broadcasts having, and when he later succeeds Valerius as the Consul, it is something which aids his diplomatic work but he keeps private.

His words tend to carry more weight sometimes because of his magic, something which he can’t always control — it depends on many factors — so he tries to choose his words carefully and with consideration.

His familiar is a Raccoon, named Antu.

Occupation: While he did study magic and is in touch with his magic, he studied politics, diplomacy and international relations. By trade, and out of will to help people, he is a political analyst and, later in life, a Statesman.

Personality/Trivia:

Willpower or Stubbornness? Depends how you look at it. Passionate, generally devoted, hopeful, independent and sometimes defiant. He is a people-oriented introvert. Competitive, but not aggressively so.

Smarter than he gives himself credit for. Overall charming, even debonair.

Curious by nature, hates having his decisions taken for him.

He is proper, sometimes even distinguished, but he is feral. A firm believer in being kind and compassionate with people, until you cross him one too many times, then nothing will make him taint his vindictive wrath.

Is he humble? For the most part. His humbleness comes from knowing his own limits and knowing he’s not infallible. He does have, however, a good deal of pride in himself and trust in what he can do, and he doesn’t like being underestimated.

He’s not particularly loud, though when the chatterbox is on, then it is on, specially if he’s nervous. He is often never still.

He’s known he has ADHD since he was seventeen.

Likes dancing.

He fences, almost every Radošević fences/sword fights, and he will let you know at the slightest chance. Which can be either him simply being hyper-fixated in fencing, him flirting, or him letting you know that if the occasion rises, he’s armed.

Friend shaped, lover shaped if you’re daring enough.

He wrinkles his nose when he doesn’t like something.

Speaking of which: he doesn’t like abuse of power, the Court, injustice, supremacists of any kind, unkind, hurtful and selfish people in general; he doesn’t like red meat (he says it tastes like metal or dirt), narrow minded people, incompetence, specially when displayed by people in positions of power, and purposeful apathy.

A mastermind archetype, but he draws his power from connection. He does not conceive a life not lived with others.

A bit of a bastard, he enjoys a good laugh.

He plays the piano and the harp, he sings, he cannot draw, he’s a lightweight when it comes to alcohol (which doesn’t really stop him), he likes the opera because he likes watching other people’s drama without being dragged into it, and his favourite season is winter. Also likes playing chess, reading, coffee, flowers, a well tailored outfit, learning, languages, the sea, mysteries, winter, a well laid argument, collecting quills, music, winning, knowing he loves and is loved in return.

When he was 7 he bribed his dad for more dessert, and he ate so much he vomited. His sweet tooth hasn’t gone anywhere, it is alive and well.

Perceptive little bastard, will knife cat you for the sake of it. He has a way more present sense of humour than what he comes across.

Would call himself a ‘trans masculine Mary Poppins’.

He is closest to his parents, his uncle, my other ocs Leonore, Medea and Sabine, his cousins Amparo Cassano and Milenko Radošević, Natiqa, Asra, Portia and Nadia.

If he liked women, he would be paired with Nadia. The possibility both terrifies and fascinates me.

@ilyamatic, @viviae, @gaybirdwrites, @arcanaprentiss @apprenticeofcups

#the arcana oc #the arcana mc #aelius anatole

93 notes · View notes

gemsofgreece · 4 years ago

Link

Ancient Greek, the language of the future

by Eugenia Manolidou, conductor.

“I read with interest Mr Dimos’s article that was published in the “Opinions” column on October 17th 2020. Please allow me some comments regarding it.”

[GEMSOFGREECE NOTE: I have read both articles and many things stated by Mr Dimos had me disagreeing or straight out displeased. Eugenia Manolidou responded with an article of her own, apparently motivated by similar feelings. I think her article is an enjoyable read and I agree on many levels while on others I can’t have an opinion due to lack of sufficient knowledge. I thought some of you would be interested in it, so I am translating the article in English. The article is informative for both Greek speakers and people interested in the Greek language and culture as well as the pronunciation of Ancient Greek. In the link, you can find the sources she used at the end of the text. I must now add that I did not necessarily expect to enjoy an article written by Mrs Manolidou (she’s well known in Greece and married to a politician) but that’s a personal impression that perhaps shouldn’t influence you. Going on with the article under the cut.]

I’ll begin with its title, “Can a dead language live again?”, which clearly refers to our language, Ancient Greek. I call it “ours” because even though we don’t comprehend it very well when reading ancient texts, we however use it in our everyday speech, even without realizing it.

For example, we might not know that the word αὐδή (avdí) means voice but we say very often “έμεινα άναυδος” (émina ánavdos = I was left speechless / voiceless). We might not know the phrase «ξύλου ἅπτεσθαι» (= knock on wood) but we always search for wood to knock when trying to avoid a bad omen.

Of course, I should not even start with the vocabulary in sciences, arts and literature because the list is endless. The Greek language is a living language that has survived not because we say so but because it remains in the international vocabulary by enriching most European languages.

Every year, students of the Classical Studies abroad rush to acquire books, teaching methods for Ancient Greek from Oxford, Cambridge and the rest acclaimed publishing companies. I will refer to the publications POLIS Institute Press of the Jerusalem Institute of Languages and Humanities with the title «Λαλεῖν τῇ κοινῇ διαλέκτῷ τῇ ζῶσῃ» (=Speaking the common living dialect). Meaning, the Common Greek, the living.

It is known that almost all schools in Europe kindle interest and enthusiasm in kids to learn the Classical Languages - and not “dead” so as to condemn them in advance - Latin and Greek. And yes in most countries they are taught with the Erasmian pronunciation because it helps them understand the dictation. Just for that. Not because they think it’s the correct pronunciation. Not anymore.

The Erasmian being an accurate description of how the ancients talked is an outdated thesis which many of the intellectuals and professors in Europe have now understood and explained. I will try to add some arguments in favor of this statement in short.

For those who don’t know, Desiderius Erasmus Roterdamus (1466 – 1536) was a Dutch monk who invented a method that would help those who learned Ancient Greek to write it down correctly. So, where someone would say “Χαίρε” (hére) and write it as «χέρε» (because that’s how it sounds), Erasmus explained that they should think of it as “háire” in order to write it correctly. But he never urged people to pronounce it like that.

Besides, in his book Colloquia Familiaria in the chapter “Echo”, he explains how to pronounce the diphthongs -onis, ονοις / -kopi, κόποι / -lici, λύκοι / -logi λόγοι/ and so on. Erasmus never said this is how Ancient Greeks talked, he just urged his students to memorize the correct dictation by ear. No European language is spoken exactly as it’s written.

We all think of such tricks to write words correctly. For instance, we think “extra-ordinary” but no fluent speaker of English pronounces it like that. Unfortunately, during the Renaissance in Europe, when the arts and literature were greatly inspired by the Greek mythology, history and philosophy, Greece under the centuries-long Turkish occupation couldn’t be a match for the rest of Europe. So when the French, German and Italian aristocrats spoke Ancient Greek to each other, we spoke a mix of Greek, Turkish and Italian, a blended language that we would hardly comprehend nowadays. And thankfully, our language survived thanks to the Church and the Scripts, which are written in Ancient Greek.

Therefore we did not know the way Ancient Greek was spoken in Europe. Here in Greece, we didn’t know. There were Greeks who didn’t live in Greece during the Ottoman rule though who knew. One of them was the priest Konstantinos Economou of Economon (1780-1857) who in his work «Περὶ τῆς Γνησίας Προφορᾶς τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς Γλώσσης» (=Regarding the Authentic Pronunciation of the Greek Language), Saint Petersburg 1829, explains why there’s no way the Ancient Greeks separated the diphthongs.

First of all, they were called “diphthongs” which means “two sounds in one”. If they don’t mean that, then why call them this way? Just like Andrea Marcolongo says in her book «La lingua geniale» , which translates to “the genius language” and not “the wonderful language”, with the subtitle «9 ragioni per amare il Greco», meaning, “9 reasons to love Greek” (Ancient Greek clearly, that’s what they always mean by “Greek” in Europe), there is no language more rich, precise and well-studied than Greek. Otherwise we wouldn’t have diphthongs, let alone a need for a diacritic mark( mark used to indicate a vowel forms its own syllable). We say «αρχαιολογία» and in English it’s archaeology, «παλαιοντολογία» and it’s «paleontology». But we say «αρχαϊκό» (note the diacritic) and in English it’s «archaic».

Let’s examine some more words: We say «ατμόσφαιρα» which in Latin is atmosfera. We say αίνιγμα, in latin it’s enigma. We say ενέργεια, in latin “energia” / αιθήρ, in Latin etere / Aίγυπτος, Egitto / μυστήριο, mistero / φαινόμενο, phenomenon / εγκυκλοπαίδεια, enciclopedia. The list is long and if we get ourselves into the scientific vocabulary (ginecologo, ematologo, pediatro), we will never end with this. In short, Latin, a “sister” language to Greek, saved through itself the pronunciation of Ancient Greek.

One more argument: the Greek words can be stressed exclusively in three syllables: the ultimate, the penultimate or the antepenultimate. If we separate the diphthongs, the punctuation gets out of hand. So instead of “hérete”, we would say “háirete” which is obviously wrong. With the separation of the diphthongs, the Dactylic Hexameter (the rhythmic scheme of Ancient Greek epic poetry) would collapse. Perhaps you’ve heard the attempts of the Europeans to recite the Iliad or the Odyssey.

Homer’s poetic epic has a completely different sound due to the loss of the Hexameter. Besides, just like Erasmus said and Economou quotes in his book: «Conducendus aliquis, natione Graecus, licet alioquin parvum eruditus, propter nativum illum ac patrium sonum, ut castigate graeca sonari dicantur.» Meaning, “Call someone, Greek in nation, even with little or no education, for that native sound, so that you learn the exact and natural pronunciation of Greek.”

What’s truly pitiful in this situation is not how foreigners learn to speak Ancient Greek. The true shame is that such a beautiful, rich and living language, our language, is more appreciated, loved and respected abroad than in Greece. I admire the people who try so hard to learn a language for which they don’t even know the alphabet. And yet they try, they learn it, they speak it, they teach it and that’s why the big publishing companies still publish teaching methods for Ancient Greek.

In the foreign universities, most professors teaching Ancient Greek are foreign. Foreign professors tutoring foreign students. It’s them who come to Greece for vacation and crowd our monuments and museums, which are right on our feet and yet we consider a visit there as a nuisance. If we truly want to love our language, our history and culture, we should be taught Ancient Greek from a young age, as a living language, like they do abroad.

With simple, comprehensible texts, from the mythology, from Aesop, from simple sayings and delphic orders, our language is full of them. So instead of occupying ourselves with whether Homer’s sheep cried “vee” or “beh” and instead of trying to decode why the Greek rooster says kokoriko while the English rooster says Cock-a-doodle-doo - he does neither - let’s try to make our children understand the importance, the meaning and the symbolism of the Naval Battle of Salamís instead of a plain «ὦ παῖδες Ἑλλήνων, ἴτε» (= O children of the Greeks, arise), dry and withered.

#αρχαία ελληνικά #greece #europe #greek #ancient greek #erasmus #languages #greek language #langblr #greek culture

13 notes · View notes

movedyoakkemae · 4 years ago

Text

DICK’S NATAL CHART INFORMATION.

Birthplace: Bern, Switzerland. // Date of Birth: March 21st, 1971. // Time: 6:43PM (Sunset). Sun: Aries. // Moon: Capricorn. // Ascendant: Libra. Key: True. Depends. Not True. Not overly wrong, not overly right.

The Sun

The Sun represents vitality, a sense of individuality, and outward-shining creative energy.

The Sun is in Aries.

Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and Aries natives are the first to start--and the first to finish--whatever they set out to do. Aries is an active, energetic sign. People with Sun in Aries are direct, straightforward, and uncomplicated. They expect the same from others, and are baffled when they don't always get it. The body comes first with Aries. Sun in Aries people are natural athletes. At the very least, their natural inclination is to use their bodies to get things done. They're not given to long, drawn-out emotional moments; nor are they big on planning ahead. Instead, they live their lives simply. What is happening right now is most important to Aries. Impatience is a definite vice, and innovation is a huge strength. Aries loves to start anything new, and they have trouble sitting still. They are pioneers in whatever they do, and there is a very basic quality of bravery in these people that is unmistakable! Aries generally knows what they want, and they know the quickest route to getting it. They take shortcuts if they must, but generally everything is aboveboard. Underhanded just isn't their style. Some Aries people are bold, but even the quieter ones are brave and even plucky in their own way. Independence is their birthright. Nothing gets them going more than a fresh slate, the promise of a new day, and a brand new start. Aries enjoys a challenge, and Aries Suns are happiest when their lives are moving forward and active. There's a childlike quality to all Aries Sun people, and it's often quite charming. He has a strong personality and an entrepreneurial spirit. He is ambitious and self-willed, stubborn, obstinate and tenacious. Possible issues: nervousness, impulsiveness, wastefulness, provoking nature, restlessness, and changeability.

Sun in VI: The Sun is in the sixth house The work that you do, and the services that you offer, are very important to your sense of identity. In order to feel good about yourself, you need to be busy with daily activities and to produce work you can be proud of. Focus on finding a suitable and rewarding avenue for expressing this part of you, being extra careful to choose an occupation in which you can express yourself. You are sensitive to criticism about the work you do, and you work best when you can create your own schedule. Positive feedback for the services you render is important to you, but be careful not to over-identify with the appreciation you receive from others, as your work and your health suffers when you feel under-appreciated. Motivation to do a good job should come from within. -38 Square between the Sun and Mars You possess an unmistakable competitiveness and a "me-first" attitude. The fighter persona is most apparent in youth, when the child is described as a "bundle of energy", or it is remarked that he or she "can't sit still". The abundant energy generated by this aspect is hard to direct in childhood. Later in life, ideally, those with these aspects have learned to channel some of their excess energy into productive avenues--perhaps through career, sports, or any area where competitiveness is considered an asset. Nevertheless, you can meet up with more than your share of conflict, and you can sometimes rub people the wrong way. You are very motivated to get things done, to take action rather than simply talk about something, and to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Those who know you quite well might describe you as hot-headed and temperamental at times. You are easily frustrated, and you're given to impulsive actions. If the aspect is found in cardinal signs, it gives impulsiveness and a short temper. If the aspect is found in fixed signs, the natives can be very hard-headed and willful. If it's in mutable signs, it gives a restless and frustrated impatience. Essentially, you have faced conflict and are not particularly afraid of it. You have faced having your need to assert yourself blocked. Your parents may have done as much as they could to "tame" what they felt to be excess energy or aggression. In other words, you know all about conflict and blockages, so that when you are faced with a challenge or a roadblock, you don't run away from it or hide under the covers feeling sorry for yourself. You meet challenges head-on. 73 Trine between the Sun and Jupiter Endowed with generosity and friendliness, in some ways you appear to be lucky in life. You attract good things with a positive frame of mind and a charitable disposition. Rarely entirely "down and out", you are usually well-received, helpful, and well-informed. You may enjoy travel and have a special affection for foreign places and people. You're generally not very competitive, and for the most part not combative either. As a result, you are usually well-liked. You are usually good-hearted, possessing strong morals and much faith in life and in people. You prefer to find the good in situations and in people. You don't have a lot of patience with those who break the rules, as you generally believe in order, equality, and the law. You usually make good on your promises, and the sincerity you exude can be trusted. Looking on the bright side is your forte--people can turn to you for a pleasing dose of faith and optimism. You are quick to chuckle and can't resist any appeal to your sense of humor. Some people with this aspect are downright jolly. Others are less conspicuous, but their faith in life and willingness to find humor in life are nevertheless obvious. 106 Trine between the Sun and Neptune There is an unmistakably dreamy, inspired, and sensitive side to you. A marked appreciation for music and the arts is present. The connection of Neptune with the Sun, which represents the ego and the will, certainly softens some of the hard edges that might be found elsewhere in the chart, adding a sensitive and spiritual dimension to your personality. You are naturally compassionate. It is so completely natural for you to accept that there is more to the world than what is before your eyes, that you tend to presume everyone must be spiritually-inclined. Of course, you come to realize that this is not the case at some early point in your life. Your attraction to spirituality and metaphysical subjects is usually marked. These aspects favor writers, artists, and musicians. You are sensitive to those who are suffering, although you are not usually taken advantage of. You are humanitarian and may have a special connection with animals. If other aspects and positions in the chart support it, you are not one to dominate others or assert yourself to the point of brashness. You have a fertile imagination, are full of inspiration, and very emotional - all qualities that you may use on the professional level. -218 Opposition between the Sun and Pluto You may be prone to inner tension and negative, self-destructive behavior. When things are going well, you suffer from fears that something will come along to change that. Constantly worrying that the rug will be pulled from under your feet can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You possess tremendous power and strength--when you learn to accept and use that strength, instead of fear it, you can be one of the most effective, insightful, helpful, and healing person around! At times, you can be intensely dissatisfied with your personal accomplishments and expressions of self. You put a lot of pressure on yourself regarding your own endeavors. You can be quite dissatisfied with your creative self-expressions, and want to hide your expressions from others until you feel the output is "right". This is largely due to a perceived inability to express or reveal your true personality to others. You struggle with a deep need to control yourself and life itself. You are especially sensitive to criticism, and feel the need to "redo" yourself often. There is a marked fear of losing control, and this might stem from some traumatic event in childhood, or the childhood might have been crisis-ridden or emotionally-charged in general. As such, you can be intensely fearful of, or threatened by, change. This can express itself through attempts to control your life in such a way that you can manage your fears of being taken off guard. Of course, this generally backfires! You have an intense need for privacy at times. -21 Opposition between the Sun and Lilith There is a self-destructive side to you that should be managed by confronting your fears. You might worry about a friend betraying you, although others might find this person full of charm! -233 Opposition between the Sun and Ascendant He may face conflicts in life due to a projection of character that does not match what is on the inside. Misrepresentation of the self can be frequent. He must strive to understand how others perceive him and work on presenting a more accurate persona to the world, or he will rub people the wrong way or feel unrecognized and misunderstood. -103 Square between the Sun and Midheaven He struggles with finding a career that suits the personality. He may not face up to problems and his plans are often difficult or even impossible for him to realize.

The Moon

The Moon represents the emotional responses, unconscious pre-destination, and the self-image. The Moon represents the emotions, and the Moon sign shows how a person expresses themselves when at home, at ease, and comfortable. The Moon is in Capricorn.

Being useful and productive are basic needs for Lunar Capricorns. Because they generally keep their emotions under check, Moon in Capricorn people come across as competent people. However turbulent their emotions may be under the surface, Lunar Capricorns keep cool-headed--and they come across as steady and reliable people. This position of the Moon suggests a desire for clear boundaries and realistic goals. Not much for taking risks in life, Lunar Capricorns look for safety and security in most everything they do. Most of them respect authority and tradition, and many are planning well ahead of the rest of us. You likely won't have to remind them to protect their interests, plan for old age, or keep fall-back money in their bank accounts. These things come naturally to them. Calm, cool, and collected--these words sum up Moon in Capricorn natives well. Messy emotions and "leaky" souls are a bit frightening for most with this position of the Moon. Truth is, they can have plenty of mood swings and some dark emotions now and again. Lunar Capricorns are often quite hard on themselves, and would benefit from letting their guard down once in a while. They quickly garner reputations of being mountains of strength, and they easily hide their sensitivity behind a sarcastic manner. You may have read that Moon in Capricorn natives are a bit cold and calculating. The fact is, they are unlikely to be any less emotional than the other 11 sign positions of the Moon--they simply aren't comfortable "letting go" when it comes to emotions. They keep their emotions under control. Wherever Capricorn is found in the chart, there is a desire for structure and control. Capricorn is the sign of organization and efficient management; so, when the Moon is found in the sign, the world of emotions are well-managed and handled in an efficient and practical manner. At the heart of Lunar Capricorns is a powerful need to feel worthwhile in the real world. There's a basic need for respectability and a big attachment to the world of the senses. Lunar Capricorns put a lot of value in all things tangible and real. And, perhaps more than anything, they need to be respected by others in order to feel secure. Short description: Reserved and cautious. Attracted to politics. Selective, earthy, success comes by means of other people, who recognize his qualities. Potential issues: material worries, saving far more than enjoying, restrictions. Does not get carried away by love.

Moon in IV: The Moon is in the fourth house He likes family life, peace and quiet -- he likes to stay at home, surrounded by loved ones, in agreeable circumstances. Strongly influenced by the mother. You long for a sense of true belonging, but you may be quite restless in your search. You might change residence frequently, or simply feel the need to make many changes in your home. Moving frequently may be a healthy thing if it keeps you emotionally stimulated, but if you find that you do so on whims and later regret the changes, you might want to treat it as a symptom of emotional unrest--as a sign that you are in a constant search for the perfect mood and setting, when in fact a feeling of belonging should be worked on from the inside out, not the outside in! Some of you might remain rather immature on an emotional level, never wanting to truly grow up and take care of yourself. Attachments to your past, traditions, and family are strong. 72 Trine between the Moon and Saturn He controls his feelings. He has a strong sense of duty and self-esteem. Very prudent. He can concentrate on a long-term task, manual or intellectual, with success. He perseveres and is serious in most things he does, but is humorous, satirical, steadfast, and upright. 4 Trine between the Moon and Pluto He can waver between a rich and successful domestic life and social success, perhaps having difficulty succeeding at both. Very perceptive and given to psychoanalyzing people. A strategist. Powerful emotions and intense feelings. 52 Trine between the Moon and Lilith This aspect favors romantic and sexual relationships, giving charm, intrigue, and intelligence. Emotions are big, dark, and mysterious, but he embraces these things, instinctively understanding and accepting the many sides and complications of his feelings.

Ascendant.

House I is the area of self identity. The ascendant is a symbol of how one acts in life. It is the image of the personality as seen by others, and the attitude that one has towards life.

Ascendant is Libra.

Everybody seems to like Libra Ascendant natives. They just come across as nice, pleasant, and fair. Look a little closer at their lives, and these nice people may have had quite a few problems in their relationships. Some of them have had a string of relationships, and it can be hard to imagine why! These natives attract others to them effortlessly. Besides, they simply don't know what to do with themselves without a significant other. Libra rising generally appear to be smoothing everything over. They have charming smiles, a gentle approach with others, and an easygoing image. Even if they were not endowed with good looks, they are attractive. Most pay a lot of attention to their personal appearance -- the colors they wear, their hair, the way they walk. Libra rising people can be enormously persuasive, although they will almost always use a "soft sell" approach when they want to win others over, which is all of the time! A tendency to pass the buck and keep up that "nice guy/gal" image are their worst qualities. However, they can make excellent mediators and will generally be the first to accommodate you. Libra rising natives are usually attracted to competent, active partners. Their relationships are often characterized by bickering or competitiveness until they learn to drop their sweet image once in a while and to stop blaming their partners for everything that goes wrong.

Beautiful and charming. This Aries comes across as more conciliatory than they may actually be!

Mercury.

Mercury represents communication, Cartesian and logical spirit. Mercury is in Aries.

He makes quick decisions, may streamline learning, can be direct and straightforward in speech, possessing an innocent charm, and can easily motivate others with his enthusiasm. Usually loves a heated dispute. Lively mind that quickly understands a given situation. He is very resourceful and capable. May prefer to jump into a decision and may not have much patience with pretense. Mercury in VII: Mercury is in the seventh house May avoid at all costs being alone. He has lots of friends, enjoying discussions and similarly cultivating plenty of work friends. He loves to write. You have a great love of debate, if only to get closer to your own thoughts and opinions. Bouncing ideas off others helps you to make a decision, although coming to definite conclusions can be painfully difficult for you. You see the other side of the coin. You might often play devil's advocate. Communication with a partner is craved, and you also love an audience for your own thoughts and opinions, but preferably a one-person audience, as you come alive verbally when it's one-on-one. You can be quite skilled at keeping a partnership animated and alive with interesting tidbits, new ideas, and stimulating conversation. You can easily become bored in partnership if the lines of communication go down, even temporarily. You might also love to talk about and analyze relationships and marriage. -159 Opposition between Mercury - Uranus He likes debate and controversy, and, above all, to contradict. He may lack diplomacy and tends to dissipate his energy. He cannot stay in the same place for too long, especially mentally, preferring change even if it means a backward step in his career.

Venus.

Venus represents an interest in emotions and values, exchange, and sharing with others.

Venus is in Aquarius.

Venus in Aquarius people try to impress you with their open-minded, future-thinking spirit. They want you to see them as unique, rebellious, and a little provocative. They are attractive when they are acting a little aloof. They want you to acknowledge and appreciate that they don't follow the beaten track in matters of the heart. Venus in Aquarius people are attracted to unusual or unconventional relationships. They don't want to follow all the rules, although they may make quite a few of their own. They can appear quite standoffish at times, and are threatened by restrictions of any kind. Emotional types may be put off by their detached manner in love. Venus in Aquarius wants you to love them for their intellect, and to admire their visions. They value lovers who are also good friends, and they avoid emotional displays or confrontations like the plague. Venus in Aquarius will delight in shocking you with their unusual ways and their forward-looking thinking. Pleasing Venus in Aquarius involves letting them know just how interesting they are. Put up with their occasional need to act superior on an intellectual level -- they are very proud of their unique ideas and visions. Dream along with them, and don't fence them in. They need space and will happily return the favor, giving you lots of room to breathe and to be yourself. Venus in V: Venus is in the fifth house He wants to succeed more than almost anything in the love life. He meets pleasant people and has very good friends, usually without too much conflict. He especially likes amusements, parties. He may have many children or love affairs. Interest in love and/or sex for you likely started young. Playful, sensual, and amorous, you are in love with love! You thrive on romantic attention, and it is easy and natural for you to always have a crush or romantic interest. There is a romantic, playful side to you that is unmistakable. It keeps you young at heart! You are sensuous and enjoy indulging in the pleasurable senses to the fullest possible extent. You enjoy surrounding yourself with beautiful art and music, and these may play a role in your ideal date scenario. There is a touch of the dramatic in you when it comes to love and sex. You are generally quite loyal to your partner, and you are both charming and easily charmed. It's also easy to turn your head. You are a warm, fun and playful date. -82 Square between Venus - Saturn He is hard or reserved at times, and doesn't always know how to express his emotions. He may be frightened of showing his love, and this can lead to disappointments, break-ups, lack of satisfaction. He has doubts, can be suspicious, worries too much, possibly jealous but more likely insecure. He will learn how to be happy in love, to be at ease with himself and to control his jealousy or gain more assurance and sense of self-worth in the second half of his life, possibly thanks to a mature person, who helps him learn to trust. 180 Conjunction between Venus and the North Node This aspect indicates diplomacy and attractiveness. There is a certain luck in meeting others at the right times. There is skill in harmonizing and much desire to cooperate rather than compete.

Mars.

Mars represents the desire for action and physical energy. Mars is in Capricorn.

With fiery Mars in the more orderly sign of Capricorn, natives with this position have a subdued and controlled style of approaching life. Most don't come across as particularly enthusiastic; rather, theirs is a low-key but determined energy. Mars in Capricorn natives like to be on top of things. They are generally goal-oriented and focused people who are not afraid of hard work. Most are achievers by nature, and many possess well-defined ambitions--well-defined to themselves more than anything. They're not particularly flashy people, but their drive to succeed and to make their lives secure is strong, even if it's not right out there for the world to see. Anger is expressed in a rather cool, level-headed way with this position of Mars. Self-control is strong when it comes to expressing anger, drive, energy, and sexuality. Capricorn is a sign that detests waste of any kind. It also fears disorderliness and "letting go". With Mars in Capricorn, there is generally a powerful need to stay in control. This is not to say that natives of this position are cold in any sense of the word. Their desires are strong, but they are often centered around the physical and material world--all that can be seen and held. With Mars in an Earth sign, sensuality is expressed in an earthy way. However, unlike Mars in Taurus, for example, (another earth sign), Mars in Capricorn is not self-indulgent by nature. These people are usually quite disciplined. Capricorn possesses the ability to plan for the future--something that many other signs have difficulty doing. Mars in Capricorn natives are working toward realistic and attainable goals. They are productive people who get off when they see tangible results from their efforts. Many natives with this position are a little hard on themselves, and sometimes others. They usually can be relied upon because they have an innate sense of responsibility to both themselves and to those they care about. Most of them are very hard-working, and one of their strategies for anger management is to throw themselves even more energetically into their work! Mars in IV: Mars is in the fourth house Quick decisions; he may have a lot of things on his plate and wants to succeed. He will succeed through a phenomenal work-rate. Stormy or simply active family life, where his leadership or aggressiveness shows itself. You can be fiercely protective of your close friends and family with Mars in your solar fourth house. Anger may be deeply felt and possibly deeply buried, too! As a result, it can be difficult for others to pinpoint your true motives, and you can be considered a real enigma. You can be passive-aggressive in your approach to the outside world when younger, which could lead to resentments if you are not careful--or confident--enough to take a more direct approach to pursuing your desires and expressing your anger. With time and experience, as well as substantial work towards achieving a healthy balance between emotional self-control and expression, you're likely to deal with frustrations in a more empowering way. -23 Square between Mars - Ascendant He is quarrelsome and critical at times when a softer approach would be more successful. In this way, he may self-sabotage. His success can sometimes come about through roundabout means. -88 Opposition between Mars - Midheaven He might suffer professional setbacks through actions that are too impulsive, imprudent, or lacking in forethought.

Jupiter.

Jupiter represents expansion and grace. Jupiter is in Sagittarius.

He attracts the most good fortune when he is open-handed and generous, tolerant, and practices what he preaches. Can be inspirational, usually finding success in travel, education, teaching, sports, publishing, and foreign cultures. Very philosophical, forward-looking, and enthusiastic. Strong morals. He strongly values freedom of movement and expression. Jupiter in III: Jupiter is in the third house He is has good judgement, a sense of values, an open and optimistic mind, a good education and high moral standards. He likes studying. He is successful in communications work. his professional work is a vocation and plays a great part in his life. 275 Conjunction between Jupiter - Neptune He is very generous and altruistic, helping people in difficulty. He knows how to listen or, at least, how to give that impression to make others feel heard. He is a dreamer with imagination to spare, fully enjoying the Arts.

Saturn.

Saturn represents contraction and effort. Saturn is in Taurus.

He doesn't like to see greed or waste in others. Must not shun materialism and possessiveness completely, and learn to build up a sense of being "deserving" of some pleasures in life. Saturn in VIII: Saturn is in the eighth house This position sometimes points to not being financially very well off, average salary. The spouse may not be rich. Possibility of a small inheritance, which helps a lot. Long life and natural death, if the aspects allow. 25 Trine between Saturn - Lilith He can be hard-working and practical.

Uranus.

Uranus represents individual liberty, egoistic liberty. Uranus in Libra.

Well-developed artistic leanings; his balance can be upset by too great an independence. Questions traditional approaches to relating and wants to do things differently. Uranus in I: Uranus is in the first house He is above all independent and original. Sometimes blunt and irritable. Never allows himself be influenced. He does not tolerate any sort of setback. He is ready for adventure, even if it's a bit risky. Uranus in the first house alters the way an individual projects personal energies onto others. You are likely to seek, nay demand, freedom in the way you present yourself to the world. Dressing simply but quirkily, you will have no problems in asserting yourself. You are not shy in letting everyone know where you stand on issues. In fact you take pride in presenting your unique perspective. "I am a simple soul with few wants and needs," is what you tell yourself. All you can feel is an altruistic desire to change the world! Friends and relatives probably find you a trifle erratic. They know you to be good-hearted and genuine about your feelings. Your passions rise fast and you lose interest at the same rate.

Neptune.

Neptune represents transcendental liberty, non-egoistic liberty. Neptune is in Sagittarius.

May especially enjoy long voyages, things foreign, being close to water. Altruistic, broad spiritual vision, humane, spiritual. Neptune in III: Neptune is in the third house He has a lot of imagination, high ideals. He is nostalgic. Dry, cold facts are hard for him to absorb, so traditional academics might not appeal. 4 Sextile between Neptune - Pluto He is perceptive and able to see layers to a situation. He is naturally drawn to learning what makes himself and others tick. 27 Sextile between Neptune - Ascendant He can have unusual relationships. He is easily influenced, very sensitive and emotional.

Pluto.

Pluto represents transformations, mutations, and elimination. Pluto is in Virgo.

Research and investigation come naturally. May worry about health. 15 Conjunction between Pluto - Lilith He may lead a double life. He may have a secret love affair while having a good relationship with his partner. Most with this aspect, however, are highly perceptive and can keep a secret. Alternative views of relationships are likely. 28 Conjunction between Pluto - Ascendant He has willpower and ambition, and almost always prefer to have his own way. -4 Square between Pluto - Midheaven He may have issues with his power. He may risk losing everything, having to start from scratch in order to duke it out with authority figures. He may end up in meaningless stalemates with bosses and authority figures, which can block him from achieving success or goals at times.

Lilith.

Black Moon Lilith represents our darker, deeper natures that may be repressed or buried. Lilith in Virgo.

He may have felt uncomfortable or wrong for paying special attention to the practical side of life, attention to details, organization, and routines. He may go to pains to prove he is NOT ordinary, worried, eager to please, or concerned about details enough to perfect a craft or project. Leaving many projects unfinished can be a sign of perfectionist expectations since this way, he does not have to deal with the prospect of not producing something perfect. The key to eliminating extreme behaviors is to work on self-acceptance.

North Node-South Node.

The South Node represents our overdeveloped character traits. We are talented here but if we overdo this area of life or hold onto these traits to feel secure, we may stagnate. The North Node points to the qualities that we need to work on and develop to achieve inner balance and fulfillment. True North Node in Aquarius.

His path is to learn to be more impartial and less possessive in relationships and with creative projects. As he learns to let go of the need for a passionate chase, satisfaction will come to him naturally as he sees that he nevertheless gets what he needs. Relationships may suffer if he takes things too personally and expects others to follow a script that he has unconsciously written for them. He learns to moderate his desire for drama and attention, and then develops true friendships. Qualities to develop: detachment, impartiality, humility. North Node in V: North Node in the Fifth House His path is to believe in himself enough to feel comfortable expressing his unique creativity, to be the center of attention, committing himself to a definite path rather than shooting in the dark. Although he feels less pressured and more comfortable in a group or informal setting, moving out of this comfort zone once in a while can enhance his social and romantic life tremendously. Qualities to develop: self-confidence, getting personal, willingness to stand out or call attention to himself.

The Houses.

House II - the second house - is the area of material security and values. It rules money and personal finances, sense of self-worth and basic values, personal possessions. Libra on House II. Income may come either as a result of an advantageous marriage or union, through artistic expression and diplomatic means, or by a very useful association. Partnerships can help further financial goals. Venus by sign and house can show other areas for making money. House III - the third house - is the area of social and intellectual learning. Scorpio on House III. Can make a good investigator because he is very curious, loves researching and does it with a lot of patience, enjoying solving mysteries, cracking a code. He knows how to take risks, while being wary of the dangers or consequences. House IV - the fourth house - is the area of home, family, roots, and deep emotions/sense of self-worth. Capricorn on House IV. After working all his life to obtain his objectives and finally having reached that goal, he wants to retire in peace and quiet and to enjoy a retirement full of contemplation, with few tasks, close to nature. As he was very careful with money all his life, he is happy to administer the properties he has acquired. House V - the fifth house - is the area of creative self-expression, romance, entertainment, children, and gambling. Aquarius on House V. He doesn't like routine and the banal. He is romantic, full of fantasy and imagination. He is also a friend one can count on. House VI - the sixth house - is the area of learning by material transaction. Pisces on House VI. Job in commerce. Weak point: the kidneys, feet. House VII - the seventh house - is the area of one-to-one relationships such as marriage and partnership, and of social and intellectual action. Aries on House VII. Love-at-first-sight; may partner without thinking. He doesn't want to change his habits, perhaps leading to many arguments that are quick to start but also quick to resolve. He may not have much patience for the "clinging vine" kind of partner, preferring much activity and someone who can take charge. An active partnership. House VIII - the eighth house - is the area of emotional security and of security of the soul. Aries on House VIII. The spouse will tend to spend more money than he earns. Be careful of any haste that could prove dangerous. House IX - the ninth house - is the area of learning that shapes the identity. Taurus on House IX. He may travel little, no great attraction for abroad. Unlikely to change principles, practically never changing the mind or beliefs. House X - the tenth house - is the area of material action. The Midheaven represents the work one will do in one's life, the place one will take in the world of society. It becomes more important as one grows older. Cancer on House X. He likes contact with the public, the crowd. Profession that involves meeting a lot of people. Professional success thanks to sense of duty and application to his work. House XI - the eleventh house - is the area of search for social and intellectual security. Leo on House XI. Friends are not always chosen by chance. Even if the feelings of friendship are sincere, friends often bring something - professional help for example. House XII - the twelfth house - is the area of education and of emotion. This is where we meet our karma, deal with endings, and sometimes where we bury things. Virgo on House XII. Work in a research lab.

#⤷ dick g.【 ❝ i’m the last living member of the flying graysons. ❞ 】headcanons.#i continue to be the most extra bitch ever #aslkdjfalskdfj I DID THIS WITH SPENCE TOO....#anyway this is like 80% matching wow

2 notes · View notes

fikazephyr · 3 years ago

Photo

information and statistics for feliciano martinez

including an in-depth personality analysis

BASIC INFORMATION

Full name: Feliciano Efraim Martinez Nicknames: Chano, Murcielago, Mercy Age: physically 36, officially unknown Date of Birth: Unofficially April 4th, 1983 (10pm), officially unknown Hometown: Ermita de los Correa, Zacatecas, MX Current location: Salem, MA Ethnicity: Mexican/Celestial Nationality: Mexican Gender: nonbinary male (he/him) Sexuality: Pansexual, Homoromantic Religion: None Political Affiliation: Unaffiliated Occupation: Retired reaper & notorious hitman, bouncer, hunter, private security Languages spoken: Latin, English, Spanish, Portuguese Accent: Mexican-American

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Manny Montana Hair Colour: Darkest Brown, kept short Eye Colour: Brown Weight: 170lbs Height: 6′1 Build: Lean Athletic Tattoos: Various, most notably a large bat on the front of his throat. Piercings: None

PERSONALITY

Label: The Merciless Positive Traits: +attentive, determined, dauntless, quick-witted, protective, intellectual Negative Traits: - sarcastic, cunning, insensitive, volatile, cocky, reclusive Goals/Desires: none?? he doesn’t care about human shit. Fears: none. lel Hobbies: what are hobbies? people watching, smoking, philosophizing, picking bar fights, torture sometimes, on a milder note: pranks

FAMILY

Father: none. Mother: lucifer. Sibling(s): none. Children: reyna, plenty others. open slots (UNLIMITED). the man is the nick cannon of demons really Pet(s): none, might consider it.

EXTRA

Zodiac Sign: Aries - “Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and Aries natives are the first to start--and the first to finish--whatever they set out to do. Aries is an active, energetic sign. People with Sun in Aries are direct, straightforward, and uncomplicated. They expect the same from others, and are baffled when they don't always get it. The body comes first with Aries. Sun in Aries people are natural athletes. At the very least, their natural inclination is to use their bodies to get things done. They're not given to long, drawn-out emotional moments; nor are they big on planning ahead. Instead, they live their lives simply. What is happening right now is most important to Aries. Impatience is a definite vice, and innovation is a huge strength.” MBTI: ESTP-A - The Entrepreneur. “Theory, abstract concepts and plodding discussions about global issues and their implications don’t keep Entrepreneurs interested for long. Entrepreneurs keep their conversation energetic, with a good dose of intelligence, but they like to talk about what is – or better yet, to just go out and do it. Entrepreneurs leap before they look, fixing their mistakes as they go, rather than sitting idle, preparing contingencies and escape clauses. Entrepreneurs are the likeliest personality type to make a lifestyle of risky behavior. They live in the moment and dive into the action – they are the eye of the storm. People with the Entrepreneur personality type enjoy drama, passion, and pleasure, not for emotional thrills, but because it’s so stimulating to their logical minds. They are forced to make critical decisions based on factual, immediate reality in a process of rapid-fire rational stimulus response.“ Alignment: True Neutral - “A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. She doesn't feel strongly one way or the other when it comes to good vs. evil or law vs. chaos. Most neutral characters exhibit a lack of conviction or bias rather than a commitment to neutrality. Such a character thinks of good as better than evil-after all, she would rather have good neighbors and rulers than evil ones. Still, she's not personally committed to upholding good in any abstract or universal way.“ Enneagram: Type 8 - The Challenger. “We have named personality type Eight The Challenger because, of all the types, Eights enjoy taking on challenges themselves as well as giving others opportunities that challenge them to exceed themselves in some way. Eights are charismatic and have the physical and psychological capacities to persuade others to follow them into all kinds of endeavors—from starting a company, to rebuilding a city, to running a household, to waging war, to making peace.Eights have enormous willpower and vitality, and they feel most alive when they are exercising these capacities in the world. They use their abundant energy to effect changes in their environment—to “leave their mark" on it—but also to keep the environment, and especially other people, from hurting them and those they care about. At an early age, Eights understand that this requires strength, will, persistence, and endurance—qualities that they develop in themselves and which they look for in others.“ Celtic Tree: Alder - “People born under the sign of the Alder love to travel and strike out on their own. They're quite brave and competitive. They're quite funny, but become angry easily. They make great parents and entrepreneurs.“ Temperament: Choleric - “Choleric people are very savvy, analytical, and logical. Extremely practical and straightforward, they aren’t necessarily good companions or particularly friendly.They dislike small talks and enjoy deep and meaningful conversations. They would rather be alone than in the company of shallow, superficial people.Ideally, they want to spend time with people who have similar professional interests.” Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw - “Ravenclaws possess the traits of cleverness, wisdom, wit, intellectual ability and creativity. Many well-known inventors and innovators have come from Ravenclaw. Students in Ravenclaw are noted for their individuality and acceptance of people and things that others would consider weird, as well as their outstanding intelligence. They can also be quirky and possess unusual intellectual interests. While others may be inclined to shun and ridicule such people, Ravenclaws generally accept and celebrate these eccentrics. Though they are often called stuck up, that is not the case.” Primary Vice: Wrath - “Wrath (Latin: ira) can be defined as uncontrolled feelings of anger, rage, and even hatred. Wrath often reveals itself in the wish to seek vengeance. In its purest form, wrath presents with injury, violence, and hate that may provoke feuds that can go on for centuries. Wrath may persist long after the person who did another a grievous wrong is dead. Feelings of wrath can manifest in different ways, including impatience, hateful misanthropy, revenge, and self-destructive behavior, such as drug abuse or suicide.“ Primary Virtue: Diligence “Diligence—carefulness and persistent effort or work—is one of the seven heavenly virtues. It is indicative of a work ethic, the belief that work is good in itself.” Element: Water - “Your priority in life: Freedom. You prefer to “flow” rather than be confined to tightly scheduled, highly structured days. Water people crave the ability to come and go as they please, and to do what feels right as the mood presents itself. Your secret to success: Creativity. You’re a creative thinker with an unusual approach to anything you do, and thus can bring new advances in your field. Water people are nonconformists who think outside the box and don’t care about others’ opinions of them.”

#salem.intro #feliciano #musings.feliciano

1 note · View note

catalinaroleplay · 4 years ago

Photo

Gender & Pronouns: Demi man, he/him or they/them

Date of Birth: February 14th, 1989 (31)

Place of Birth: Catalina Island, California

Neighborhood: Avalon

Length of Residency: Native — Returned January 2020

Occupation: Former Child Actor

Face Claim: Oliver Jackson-Cohen

BIOGRAPHY

TRIGGERS: Drug Use, Alcoholism, Violence, Rehab, Divorce.

From the moment Nath could think, he’d known himself to be something in between a shadow and a cloud. A constant ebb and flow between two states, he is neither a fully-formed being nor a person of his own, for his birth had been to plug the hole of whatever had been left behind of Audrey Edelstein’s heart. A life shrouded by the black cloak of death, the woman had nowhere else to give her love but inwards, and out of her projections, Nathaniel is born.

A birth, marked by the death of others, he shoulders his mother’s pain.

And life is a show for young Nathaniel , who’d always felt more comfortable wearing another’s skin than his own. A cry for help from a young wisp of a soul, ephemeral as a cloud of smoke, and Audrey, ever-encouraging towards her young child, mistakes his precocious ability to chameleon himself into an array of emotions as a want for something bigger.

Nath likes it enough, of course. But what he likes even more is seeing his mother happy — it isn’t lost on them that she is alone, without a partner by her side. Hints of sadness, the lightest shades of doom coloring her face, all he wants is to see his mother smile.

Bigger roles come, and so does the media, rabid for the next sweet thing to grace their screens. A rocket ship to fame and riches galore — what more could a young child want? But still far too young, Nath does not understand that all good things must always come at a price.

Stardom is a deep hole, always starving, always wanting, and it eats Nath alive. Thrown into the pit with no lifeline, how is he expected to crawl his way out? Just fourteen and yet already reeking with desperation, Nath does not know who he is anymore — neither a man, nor a child; not a person, nor a boy. Applauded for a career he does not think he deserves, revered as a genius for feeling less and less like himself every day. If he cannot climb back up, there is nowhere to go but down. It isn’t long before everyone else catches on to the ever-building shit in his life threatening to overflow at any second.

They call him every name in the book: a wild child, misguided teen, a privileged little fuck. All of it is right in some way, but any intention to stop is always met with another wall of insults by people who never bothered to understand.

And yet, he supposes he deserves what happens next. The movie had been his last hope ( his mother’s last hope ) to solidify his place in this world. And it all ends with an ill-fated punch to his co-star’s face over an argument that he fails to even recall the next few days — a fight stemming from a drunken stupor, it is the last straw. Already sixteen and they send him away to an isolated treatment facility for three months. The last face he sees is of hers, tear-stricken and all-too regretful of his ( her ) choices. A week of the goddamn shakes and sweats, but a lifetime of hunger for something that he can no longer touch.

Nothing breaks as much as it crumbles over the course of two years. The calls stop coming, and he pulls away from his mother, arguments frequent more than ever and everything dries up like his resolve to climb back up to normalcy. How fickle of the world to think nothing of him, moving on like Nath had never existed in the first place. He doesn’t understand when his mother quietly suggests he find another path, doesn’t understand when he sees that his money is gone. Uncontrollable, spinning out into something, he feels his hand itch towards the bottle.

The book becomes his anchor. A way to hang onto whatever little narrative he still has control over — he goes for the one thing that young Nath had been determined to protect: his mother.

Ghostwritten by another, titled Rich Privileged F*ck, as an homage to his most notorious of nicknames, Nath finds the spotlight once more. Of course it’s the mother; it’s always the mother, leading their poor child down the wrong path.

What comes after, is a blur.

He is alone. Painfully, undeniably, wholly alone. A single pillar in a desert, he falls back to the devilish comforts of alcohol and everything else that could numb him from the pains of living. Always so sensitive, always so soft, but the world could not see it. After all, what faces the world is the picture of someone erratic and cold, without any regard for the charmed life he has been given — so what else is there to do? Walking into the dark is the easiest when everyone is guiding you from behind, so that is what he does.

Washed-up, with royalties running thin, he is given one last chance. Ten years and nine different agents; ten years and countless of interviews done under the influence — a single person. A new agent. It is all that he needs. A person to believe that he can pull himself from the pit he dug for himself so long ago. They say to never put your sobriety on anyone else, but he gets better for them anyways. After all, they had their own demons to conquer, and there is no better way to overpower them side-by-side, with another.

And yet — how can he save another when he can't even save himself?

He lapses. And he lapses. And again and again until six hundred and some days pass and he is back in the pit. A hand is extended once more, before it is gone — and ironically enough, it is enough to push him into sobriety.

At the end, Nath moves back to the island. Quiet and unassuming, he is assigned another agent — this time, they say, it’s his last. Nothing else to do but scrape up the remnants of his career, to sort through the rubble, to find out what they can salvage.

If there is anything he has control over, it is his ability to capture media attention. His baggage is heavier and more visible than most, and his agent draws up a contract. A year-and-a-half of his life for a chance at forgiveness for what he has done.

Eleanor Hirsch is in some ways, the exact opposite of him — though she’s had her fair share of media attention, her life is, for the most part, private. The vultures could speculate all they wanted, but they would never eat her alive like they’d done with him.

So what better way to drum up publicity than to have them date? Ellie would receive a hefty amount of attention, all the while without sacrificing her personal life — only carefully crafted media posts and strategically placed paparazzi. And for himself, a renewed image painted in sobriety, approved by an award-winning actress to boot.

Nath, as always, is indifferent. He will do it, because someone has told him to do it, and he will continue his career, because what other choice does he have? A chameleon, a trail of smoke, a puff of air — Nath knows everything in life is impermanent.

Sometimes, when he sits by the beach, he wonders if he will blow away and become one with the wind.

PERSONALITY

Positive: Independent | Observant | Protective

Negative: Aloof | Possessive | Gullible

Nathaniel Edelstein is portrayed by Say.

#oliver jackson cohen #drug use tw #alcoholism tw #violence tw #rehab tw #divorce tw #say

4 notes · View notes

chicagocityofclans · 4 years ago

Photo

Winifred (Winnie) Zhao → Michaela Conlin → Witch

→ Basic Information

Age: 510

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Pansexual

Powers: Dream Manipulation

Birthday: June 1st

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Religion: Taoism

Mark: Lee/Ee

Generation: 2nd generation

→ Her Personality

Winnie never tries to be anything other than who she is and she has a deep respect for people who do the same. She’s the kind of person that will give you advice you didn’t ask for but more often than not you’ll be glad she did. You could say she is a truly open book when it comes to herself but when it comes to other people's secrets she’s more like a bank vault. Her candour can surprise people sometimes, which secretly she kind of likes, as she will tell you most anything about herself if asked.

She doesn’t like stress or pressure, going out of her way to build a life for herself that will contain as little of either as she can manage. Any amount of stress brings out the insomnia she is prone to, and she won’t thank you if you’re the cause of it. She’s very much a people person though, enjoying chatting with people about their lives and their dreams for the future. With her power though she is very respectful of boundaries, not wishing to use it on people without their permission.

→ Her Personal Facts

Occupation: Overnight Caregiver (Taker of Nightmares) and Maker of a holistic sleep products line available at Wondering Worlds of Magic

Scars: None

Tattoos: Delicate tattoo of the moon phases on her left side rib cage

Two Likes: Stargazing and Fruit Tea

Two Dislikes: Television and Pineapple

Two Fears: Being trapped in a dream and Prolonged, Extreme Insomnia

Two Hobbies: Tarot and Painting

Three Positive Traits: Honest, Insightful and Liberal

Three Negative Traits: Changeable, Opinionated and Shameless

→ Her Connections

Parent Names:

Caihong Zhao (Mother): She was not a cruel woman but she was never a close to Winnie as she was with her other children. Winnie could never understand this until she learnt the truth about her father. Since then their relationship has improved but they’re still not close.

Luca Tovani (Father/deceased): She only met her father in what were to be the later years of his life as he’d had no idea she existed till she tracked him down. They had a few years together before he was tragically killed and Winnie enjoyed getting to know him.

Guozhi Zhao (Step-father/deceased): Through her early years she believed that he was her actual father. He was a kind man and funny man. He adored Winnie and she adored him in return.

Sibling Names:

Jianyu Zhao (Brother): Out of all her family, he is the one she is closest to now. Jianyu takes after his father in his kindness and humour, and even after the truth was ousted about Winnie’s real father he still treated her the same. To this day he is the most understanding of her.

Kang Zhao (Brother): Kang was always a bit of a bully and Winnie always detested him for that. He’s mellowed as he’s gotten older but he treats her as below him now he knows about her father.

Li Na Zhao (Sister): When they were little Winnie and Li Na were inseparable, Winnie often protecting her from Kang. However the two have barely spoken in the centuries since Winnie’s true parentage came to light. It still breaks Winnie’s heart that her sister reacted like she did.

Children Names:

None

Romantic Connections:

Kady Gaines (Ex-girlfriend): The combination of Kady and Winnie’s personalities lead to a very passionate relationship but in the end neither of them were ready or willing to settle down. Both ran from the idea of anything serious to the point they avoided each other when then broke up. That was a long time ago though and they have found enough time has passed for them to start to be friends again.

Farrokh Alvi (Old Friend): Farrokh and Winnie have been friends for a very long time. There’s always been the hint of something between them but neither has ever taken it further than the odd bit of flirting or a kiss under the mistletoe.

Platonic Connections:

Catherine Barr (Friendly): The two women met at a women's rights protest. Winnie had just been passing by and stopped to see what was going on. Cat was the person she asked. Since then they’ve shared the occasional cup of coffee when they’ve bumped into each other.

Ronan Cleirigh (Former Mentor): Winnie enjoyed her time mentoring with Ronan. He was a great mentor in her eyes, who helped her hugely with her powers. She only left so she could study under a mentor who would help her learn more about the craft of potions.

Minsky Edison (Former Mentor): With his specialty for mentoring mental powers Minsky was the perfect fit for Winnie’s final years of training. He helped her reach the master levels of her abilities. Whilst he was a strict teacher she swears she wouldn’t be the witch she was today without him.

Kenneth ‘Ken’ McStevens (New Acquaintance): Winnie found out pretty soon after meeting him that he is Benevorous but she doesn’t care. She thinks he’s got a fun soul and enjoys being round him.

Chiara Ricci (Friend): They met at a spiritual shop when Chiara was shopping for a Tarot deck. Winnie offered to pick and buy one for her as it’s always better when they’re gifted to you. They’ve been friends ever since.

Lyra Cleirigh (Friend): Winnie met Lyra whilst she was mentoring with Ronan. They bonded right away over their shared interest in art and their friendship grew from there.

Talia Cleirigh (Good Friend): Winnie was introduced to Talia by Ronan as they share the same ability. It was the first time Winnie had met anyone like her and it felt so good to be able have someone who fully understood what it was like.

Kaylor Genesis (Friend): Kaylor is another friend that Winnie made thanks to having Ronan as a mentor. They’d see each other often during those days and their friendship formed naturally and easily.

Harry Reeves (Client): Harry has recently started to come to Winnie for help with his insomnia.

Briar Larson(Friendly): Winnie has sold a few of her art pieces through Briar in the past. She enjoys talking to her about art and thinks they could become friends.

Jia Hu Cleirigh (Friend): At first Winnie and Jia bonded over their native language but a friendship quickly grew from it and has continued to flourish since.

Hostile Connections:

Roman Cleirigh (Distrusts): One of the ghosts attached to Roman, Justin, possessed her. It wasn’t a pleasant experience and Winnie is still upset that Roman didn’t warn her it could happen.

Pets:

Gabriel: a black void of a cat that loves cuddles and will sit on the empty chair at the dinner table when Winnie eats.

→ History Winifred was born with the name Genji in Zhujiajiao, a water town near Shanghai. It was the perfect home for a family of elemental witches, which is what she was expected to be given she was a second generation member of the Ee mark. Both her parents were, as was her older brother, and from a young age both her younger siblings started to display the tell tale signs of their elemental magic. This wasn’t the case for Winnie. Growing up she always presumed this was the cause of her mother's distance from her. She always paid a lot more attention and gave a lot more time to her other three children and the mentees she took on that she did her eldest daughter. It made Winnie feel she had failed somehow but her father always sought to show her she was wrong. Guozhi always adored her and made sure he made up for the lack of attention her mother gave her.

Whilst she didn’t display any signs of being able to control any elements it was clear there was something special about her. Her parents would often find her in the beds of her siblings in the mornings, even Kang who she never got along with. When asked what she was doing she would shrug and say they needed her. It was one of her mother's mentees who finally figured it out after they themselves woke up with Winnie curled up next to them. They suffered from terrible nightmares and that night was the first time in a long time they hadn’t woken from them. In fact they couldn’t remember having them at all. She was one of the first witches to show signs of a mental power in the family which confused everyone greatly and resulted in her mother becoming even more distant. After that it wasn’t long before they realised Winnie was a dream manipulator.

It is a tradition of the Ee family that members are trained within the family for the first 300 years and despite Winnie’s unusual power the head of the family declared she would be no different. When she was of age she was sent to train with her uncle, which only meant going to the house on the opposite side of the small river their home sat on. Her uncle was fascinated by her, often treating her more like some curiosity than his student. He was not an unkind man though and Winnie grew to rather love how he made her feel like she was something remarkable. It was also his influence that gave her the freedom to speak her mind as she was always getting told off for doing at home.

Life passed rather quietly for the first few hundred years and whilst Winnie started to crave more she never would have imagined what was to come. Guozhi, the man who had raised her, died suddenly. The whole family was thrown into turmoil by what would follow it. Naturally Winnie was heart broken. The nights were the worst though. Her insomnia got worse and when she did finally fall asleep she couldn’t stop herself from slipping into her family's dreams. There were nights where she felt like she was drowning under the weight of those grief driven dreams of the people around her and she frequently woke up with her bedroom full of water. One morning when she broke down in tears after slipping into the daydream of her mother whilst making tea her mother finally snapped. She accused Winnie of having no right to her grief and finally letting slip that he wasn’t her father at all.

Her mother practically ignored her for a week after that. In that time her younger sister also stopped talking to her and her younger brother started speaking to her like she was the staff. It was only her older brother, so much like his father, that stuck by her side. Eventually Winnie was able to get her mother to tell her the full truth. Guozhi had been away in Shanghai for some months on family business when a stranger entered her life. His name was Luca and he was a merchant from Italy who was travelling the Silk Road. He was handsome and charming and swept a lonely Caihong off her feet. Before she realised what she was doing she’d spent the night with him. In the morning he continued on his travels and she got back to her daily life. She tried to bury the shame of what she’d done but when she found out she was pregnant she knew it was his. It was her belief it was the god's punishment for straying from her marriage.

Winnie was furious, having spent her life thinking she’d done something to disappoint her mother but all along it was the woman's own shame that had caused her to treat Winnie as she did. With the name of her biological father and the city he was from she left that spring, travelling along the Silk Road to Italy. It took her a year to track down Luca Tovani but when she did he welcomed her with open arms. She found he was from a family known for their mental powers and he offered to take on the responsibility of her mentoring. It was here that she started going by Winifred. Luca had no other children but confessed to her that if he had he’d always liked the name Winifred. Wanting to show that she wasn’t just a Ee, that she was his daughter too she decided to take on the name.

They only had a few short years together before he too was killed. Once again she was heartbroken but she was also so thankful that she’d gotten to spend any time with him at all. She stayed on in Italy, being mentored by one of her father's oldest friends and exploring the country he’d called home.

Eventually she travelled back to her own home to reconnect with her family. Her two youngest siblings still treated her with disdain but her older brother was overjoyed to see her. Even her mother showed more warmth towards her than she ever had before. But she felt in her heart that she couldn’t stay there permanently. So she travelled to America where she could continue her training.

→ The Present Winnie only finished her training ten years ago, at which time she decided she wanted to stay in Chicago. One day she’d like to become a mentor herself but right now she’s enjoying the freedom completing her own training has given her. She likes having more time to indulge in the things she enjoys and to develop her own business. She’s been slowly building a client list of people who she helps with sleep and nightmare issues. Alongside this Winnie is enjoying developing a line of teas, candles and bath products to aid sleep and good dreams. She’s been selling these concoctions and potions through Wondering Worlds of Magic.

#Winifred Zhao #Winnie Zhao #Taken

2 notes · View notes

myherorp · 4 years ago

Photo

THE QUIRK DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED !

incoming information on civilian, jaehyung.

get to know them !

faceclaim: Kim Younghoon

name: Song Jaehyung

gender & pronouns: Male, He/His

age: 23

occupation: Bartender at The Dancing Skeleton

the quirk !

quirk name: Mediumship

quirk description: The power to perceive and communicate with spirits and those in the afterlife

abilities:

Can see and speak with the spirits of the deceased. Usually spirits who passed on in the area he’s in or those with strong connections to either himself or the people he’s around at the time.

Can physically manifest a chosen spirit so that everyone can see of hear them for a short while and the spirit, in turn, can interact with the living world.

Is able to tell the difference between the living and the spirits of the dead by instinct, even though they look the same at a glance.

weaknesses:

Has no control at all. Can’t pick and choose who appears, he’s more of just a living beacon to whichever spirits happen to be in the area.

When physically manifesting a spirit he can only hold it up for about 30 seconds before it becomes too much effort and he runs the risk of passing out.

Never gets left alone. There isn’t an off switch for the quirk so he’s always getting bothered by the spirits of the dead after attracting them from just being in the area.

Runs the risk of getting possessed by particularly strong spirits against his will and there isn’t much he can do about it besides trying to outrun them.

Still has to be able to speak the same language as the spirit he wants to have a chat with. Spirits will simply speak in their native language and if that’s one he doesn’t understand then he’s right out of luck.

the history !

triggers: pregnancy complication, baby death, death

Song Jaehyung had a pretty pressured life from the moment he was born. He was actually born an identical twin, the younger of two boys. Though the boys were born weeks premature and, unfortunately, his older twin was born stillborn and it left his parents devastated.

His father was a pro hero, a man of action. While his wife was completely 100% quirkless and for the longest of times it seemed as though their remaining son was going to be just the same. While he was in and out of hospital a lot as a kid due to some of the complications with his birth, he eventually grew up to be stronger and quite happy as a child. Seemingly completely normal and in the 20% of the quirkless population (much to the disappointment of his father).

That was, until his mother walked in on Jaehyung when he was ten years old and he was seemingly having a one-sided conversation with himself. His mother, of course, asked him who he was talking to and his chilling response was he was talking to his long dead twin brother. Despite the fact he had never even been told that he had a twin brother to begin with.

His father actually took it all quite well, thrilled that his son had a quirk to begin with after years of thinking he didn’t. A late bloomer. His mother was less pleased about it, but she was still supportive even though Jaehyung could see in her eyes how uncomfortable she was with the idea of her precious boy having chats with spirits of the dead.

And the problems surrounding the quirk were soon to make themselves known. Most nights Jaehyung would wake up screaming, scared by voices he heard in his head, freaked out when he opened an eye to find some strange man standing in the corner of his bedroom, some woman standing over him just staring at him sleeping muttering about making amends with her daughter. Most kids had monsters under their beds and hiding in their closets, but he had the souls of the long gone bothering him day in and day out.

Needless to say the weird kid who kept staring at nothing in the corner and could see and hear dead people didn’t really have many friends growing up. And, over the years into his teens, Jaehyung just became pretty desensitised to the whole thing. He became quite good at ignoring the lingering spirits, simply pretending they weren’t there, that he couldn’t see or hear them. By the time he was fifteen he could almost pass as quirkless, if it weren’t for the occasional times his eyes lingered on nothing in the corner of the room or the clear frustration writing across his face as a spirit no one else could see kept talking in his ear.

The only spirit he ever paid any attention to was his brother who, even though he had never had a chance to live, was still quite determined to try and be a big brother.

Being a hero himself, his father always tried to push Jaehyung into learning to be one as well. But Jaehyung didn’t want to be a hero, he didn’t even think that the ability to speak to the dead was even that useful and wasn’t going to help anyone in a dangerous situation. He and his father had many a loud argument about it as Jaehyung got older and it became quite clear he had no interest in doing anything with his life. When he was eighteen he finally had enough of the arguments and the constant disapproval his father gave him and left home despite his sobbing mother begging him not to go.

He found it hard to stand on his own two feet after leaving home. Jaehyung drifted from job to job, from city to city, from couch to couch, never really staying in one place for very long. He didn’t stay in contact with his parents, only seeing his father’s name in the news from time to time after his latest heroic event.

And when he was twenty the news finally reached him that his father had been killed on the job. And he only found out because the spirit of his recently deceased father appeared one evening in his living room. A bit of a shock to come home to, Jaehyung will tell you that. And even in death the man found his own way to complain at his son. Berating his life choices, always popping up at inopportune times to give unwanted life advice or judge him for his actions. Telling him to do better things with his life and stop being such a layabout.

Now at twenty three, Jaehyung is hardly having it much easier with life. He managed to find a job in a bar and scraped enough money to rent out a very small apartment and is still being bothered day in and day out by the voices and complaints of the dead.

Such a great life he has.

the personality !

To put it frankly, Jaehyung is just so incredibly done with life in general. He’s become so desensitised to everything that he legitimately doesn’t care about the human race as a whole any more. In his mind, he has been dealt an incredibly awful hand at life and if that’s all the world can give him then why on earth should he care? He is incredibly deadpan about everything, rarely smiles and is rather sarcastic and blunt. But he is also very distant, refusing to get close to someone or care about someone, quietly scared that one day he’s going to wake up and find their spirit standing there and knowing there was nothing he could have done about it. But it is not a fear he has actually ever expressed out loud, much preferring just to keep all his secrets and issues locked up inside just as he does with everything about his life.

And when it comes to the dead he is hardly much better. He probably treats the spirits of the dead even worse than he treats the living. Jaehyung is just tired of everything, tired of being constantly bothered by dead people and tired of the world which is seemingly out to get him all the time.

#myheroaccepted #myherofollow

2 notes · View notes

thingsdoingstuff · 4 years ago

Text

Justice is Overrated

So, after taking a good look at the world and thinking that I somehow have everything solved as every other entitled millennial my age has, I have decided to start a blog. Though I am quite obviously the first and only person to do this to date, it’s probably worth mentioning that I’m not coming onto this website (universally known as the wine stain of pretentious liberal soy-boys that miraculously share the exact same opinion on everything even remotely political whining about how hard it it is to be privileged or not privileged) to be yet another preachy loyalist trying to convert people to my new branch of self-actualization.

So, please allow me to extend an olive branch in the form of my most flattering of disclaimers:

This is for me to share my opinions and start a gentlemen’s discussion. Whether you happen to be a gentleman, a lady, transgender, gay, bisexual, lesbian, African America, Native American, Asian, African, Persian, “The One Percent,” a cop, identify as a dog, named “Gordon,” or have sixteen toes makes no lick of difference to me unless it is valid to the conversation at hand (so do feel free to pitch in so long as it doesn’t get personal ‘lest I shall ignore thee). Your opinion is still valid and should always be valid in just about any community as most of the things we do as humans create a little discrepancy called “morality” in which we are entitled to believe anything is wrong so long as we can agree to disagree and by the end of the day we haven’t wrung each other’s necks. All that having been said barring mentioning the fact that I respected your opinion until you wrote it using the stiff end of your raging hate boner and still will so long as you put it back in your pants. Furthermore, as these are my opinions, I am automatically wrong and will be regarded as such by about three thousand people by the time I have finished typing any given sentence. Feel free to gloat as much as you like so long as you don’t step on anyone’s toes and that includes the white ones, since last I checked all races and creeds were granted immunity and there wasn’t an asterisk at the end.

All good and caught up? Excellent! So what’s getting people pissed off recently... Well, everything really, so the proverbial “Shit that hits the fan” most recently would be the people making posts about the five-year-old child that got murdered on his front lawn and using that as a political tool to tell everyone that Black Lives Matter is a false organization and that there are unjustified murders in every untidy hole of civilization. I’m not sure what’s scummier, implying that African Americans have no right to complain about being unjustly killed by a group of people with near immunity to any form of punishment or just posthumously dragging a five-year-old into a political issue of which he never wished to be a part, because he’s five.

If I were to take a truly neutral stance and see things from the perspective of both political parties (of which I am a fan of neither) I would also point out that the left responded by slamming the “Five-Year-Old” bandwagon by saying that the cops can get away with their murders, leaving a trail of weeping families in their wreckage to mourn without closure. Having seen both sides seemingly standing on either side of a pond with mouths wide open angrily snarling at each other like two sparring hippos, I am compelled to ask the most “Jesus-y” question:

“Why must there be justice?”

Don’t get me wrong, if somebody sneaks up behind me and tries to slit my throat, I’ll happily unhinge his or her (I’m not biased, any gender can be a serial killer these days) skull and remove whatever tendons are keeping that blade in check, but what if the little monster actually succeeds? Do I now have some obligation to their life and how it’s spent?

If true justice is to be preformed, that sucker gets put away for many years and my family just gets to say, “Oh, great, now that they’re behind bars, it’s as if we have our daughter/son/brother/sister back.” But is anybody truly happy after they’ve lost something close to them and the only recompense is that “Justice happened”? So if I’m ever murdered, I want just one damn thing. I want it to have done SOMETHING!

My High school math teacher who for the sake of hiding his identity, we’ll call: Mister Dank Engine (If you knew him, you’d think that’s hilarious) once told us a story.

“I once knew a guy that had killed somebody. Every time he heard sirens coming, he’d hide under his desk and he was always on his best behavior because he was always afraid the police would find out it was him.”

So, aside from the fact that “killed somebody” leaves ambiguity as to whether the guy meant to do so, can’t we assume that any other living killer is paying it off in their lifetime without violence? Not to say that they get way, but that they continued contributing to society instead of blowing my hard-earned tax dollars rotting in a cell. I’d prefer to believe that anybody can get a second chance at life and use it to do good by me like “Boo Radley” from To Kill a Mockingbird. I’d much rather know that any asshole with half the grit to saw my head off sorrowfully moved on and somehow turned my memory into an empire of free cookie baskets than that he or she got the lethal injection. How does killing someone else put the good they took out of the world back into it?

Now, that’s not to say that any firm shit with half a mind to do terrible things like killing children and innocent, unarmed black women will go on to do anything great with their lives besides witnessing their own demise, but with that in mind, does it truly matter who gets justice if the family gets nothing? If so, where has all the good in world gone once we’ve locked everyone else up and how do we get it back?

My general opinion on all political matters is that both the left and the right will not do jack about shit, because they’re truly way too busy thrashing each others ears to get any work done, meaning every debate is just two sides of the same penny, both have beauty and are delicately crafted, but at the end of the day, it’s a worthless corrosive penny with years of stains that have most certainly been in some filthy places and have outworn their usefulness years ago. So, in the very least, a legitimate debate can’t possibly do any harm to our society, because our beloved politicians aren’t changing anything no matter what we decide, so good for us. At the very worst though, we can cram our opinions down each others throats as if to face-fuck each other into joining our little cults until years later, we realize no one’s mind was ever changed because you hated them so much that they respected your outlook.

As a side-note, if I’m ever murdered by a cop, please don’t shut down an entire occupation. The last thing I want to be associated with is: “That one time, we stopped generalizing a race and started generalizing a practice.”

Yours truly, Jesus Fucking Christ.

PS. I sure hope you liked the disclaimer, because It’ll be in every blog post, because I don’t want any newbies not understanding or anyone reading right now to forget.

1 note · View note