#not sure how it was in ww2 exactly

[lefarte]

hi there... if you have time would you be willing to write hcs for levi with a reader who was a medic in the bremen army, but helped to heal soldiers from both sides? i just think theres a fun dynamic to be had there ehe. can be platonic or romantic! i love ur writing btw thank you for being there for the 7 funger fans on this website

I ended up writing this as a fic because I had several requests for a Levi fluff fic and I thought this prompt was cute in particular >:]

GN reader

TW for emetophobia

“Come on, open up,” You quietly urged. “You need to eat.”

Levi made a half-hearted noise of shame, his nose twitching at the sight of the spoon pointed towards his face.

Levi was not exactly a difficult patient. In fact, he was quite easy to handle. Even though Union soldiers would usually scowl and reject you, he never showed you any hostility. He was softspoken and intelligent, unlike many infantry troops. His only real problem was his social aversion.

He often stepped away when you went to take his pulse. He didn’t like being touched. He wouldn’t accept any praise by you, instead, he would quietly take it as condescension. No matter how you tried to reach out, he only withdrew harder. Skittish, and quietly untrusting, much like a rabbit.

You’d never forget the face of despondency he had lying on that cold kitchen floor, having ransacked an entire fridge worth of food and vomited it all out, collapsing in a cold sweaty heap and gasping and gurgling. The sound of rattling in his sternum. It was too familiar to you.

From then on, he could move and eat, but not much. You had refashioned the club into a little makeshift hospital. Securing the bunk beds with little blankets and everything. Fetching in pails of rainwater. Even though you tried to advertise it, no one else had stopped by.

So Levi was your only patient, which didn’t thrill him.

“Open,” you urged again.

“…Ah.”

You fed him the porridge, which you had mixed with medicinal herbs. It tasted awful. He didn’t react.

“I… I can feed myself.” He muttered awkwardly.

That night you brought him back, you did a little checkup on him. He suffered many of the same ailments as the others raised in the trenches. Malnutrition, shell shock, tremors. He seemed to quietly accept much of your poking and prodding, but went dead quiet when you asked him to undress.

He’d been a little bashful around you since.

“Want a drink?”

He shook his head. “I’m… not thirsty…”

“Fine, then how about I comb your hair?”

“…..You don’t want to touch my hair…. I… I have lice.”

“Every infantryman has lice.”

You paused.

“Want me to wash your face?”

“…you must be…. very… bored. Stuck here with me.” He said hoarsely. “Waiting for… someone else to come…”

“No! I’m not bored… I’m…” You swallowed. “Worrying.”

“Yeah. Me too.” He went quiet.

You kneeled over the pail of water and splashed your face. The water was cool. You carefully put a rag in (a piece of your own apron you had cut out with a knife) and looked over at Levi. He gave an uncertain nod.

You pulled the rag out of the water, dripping through your fingers, and held it up to his face. He flinched back at first, but carefully eased into it.

“The water feels nice, doesn’t it?”

“H…hm.”

You softly wiped the dried blood from the corners of his cracked lips. Moving the rag up his cheeks and to wipe his tired eyes. Levi leaned closer into your hand.

“…A little.” He admitted.

You moved the rag up to wash his forehead.

“Why are you a nurse?”

You paused, slowly retracting the dirtied rag. “Well, same reason everyone else does. I want to help people.”

“Soldiers?” He asked quietly. “…you want to help soldiers?”

“I want to help anyone who needs help. And right now, they need my help on the front.”

He cast his gaze downward and shook his head a little.

You lifted his pale arm. He made no effort to pull back. His skin was lined with scars, bruised yellow and purple from needles, his fingers pallid, cold and blue. Even his fingernails were bitten and dirty.

You dunked the rag again and put it to his hand.

“I… I think there are people who need this more…” He stammered.

“Are you kidding? There are mountains of bodies. There are soldiers sleeping on the ground because there’s not enough room in the medical tents.”

“I know.” He paused thoughtfully. “…Do you really think soldiers deserve to… be treated like this though?”

“Treated like what?” You frowned.

He made a small gesture to the speakeasy. The warm yellow flickering lights, the soft music playing on loop from the old fuzzy sound system. Full bottles of wine on the bar. Pillows. Blankets. The scent of wax and wood.

“I know no one else will come, why set this up for me?” He lowered his hand weakly. “I don’t even know what to… do here…”

You dropped the rag, standing up and wiping your wet hands on your apron. He looked up at you with a tense expression. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean… it….”

You take his hand, leaning over him on the bed, and put an arm over him in an embrace. “It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean it like that.”

Slowly, his other hand inched forward, before carefully putting his hand over your hair. As if you were made of glass. He ran his fingers through your locks in soft, longing fascination. Then, he sighed and put his hand over his eyes.

“I’m… not sure what to do.” He said quietly. “I don’t know how to deal with this kind of thing…”

“Just wait,” you hummed. “It will be okay.”

[moreaugriffins]

Every day i just want to write a post that just says "The Brigadier is so damn autistic."

but I then worry about what other people might say if I do that

but fuck it

The Brigadier is so fucking autistic, and nobody can change my mind

[autistic-shaiapouf]

Local library looking absolutely abysmal in terms of their philosophy section

[libraford]

It's frustrating to me when you meet someone who tries to act like they know more on a subject than you do and its... your area of study.

Was fiddling around with my camera at a team sports job and this lady watches with interest. I had to put my external flash on, which isnt usual for me, so I was fussing with it.

"Is that one of those newer cameras?"

"Ehh... it's not exactly new. It was made in 2009."

"My camera is much older than that."

"Oh? What kind of camera do you have?"

"A Kodak 35. It's from the 1940s."

Which is very cool, actually. I have some photos my grandpa took while in WW2 that were taken on a Kodak 35.

My light misfires while she is looking at it, and she's pissed. I apologize profusely- I wasnt expecting it to fire as I was installing it in the hot shoe.

"This is why I only work with cameras from the 1940s. They dont have flash."

I... what?

I have a dish styled flash from the 1930s that, if it werent for the dry rotted wiring, still fits my modern camera and would probably still work- though it might need an external trigger. If your kodak 35 doesnt have a flash, its because you dont have a flash for it- this kind of technology hasnt changed much.

Your kodak isnt technically superior to my canon. You've just never had to use it in bad light. In my job, knowing how to evaluate light to make sure everyone's face is properly lit in unpredictable situations is the dividing line between a beginner and an expert.

So like I'm trying not to hold it against her because she's not a photographer by trade so her knowledge of the subject is limited. But it sure as fuck was annoying for someone to get hipstery about the thing I'm being paid to do.

[takosan]

Bondrewd has been living rent free in my head since I watched Dawn of the Deep Soul.

I know I am super late to this fandom but he is suuuuch an interesting character. I think the best way to understand Bon’s relationship with Prushka and even Nanachi is that love, manipulation, pain, and sacrifice are all intertwined for him. Bon is definitely a monster of the abyss in his own right and nothing about his actions is ethical or right. I couldn’t sympathize with him but I am so intrigued by how he is written.

As a scientist, his experiments remind me of J. Marion Sims, who experimented on enslaved Black women without anesthesia and was widely considered the “father” of modern gynecology. Also reminded of Nazi advancements in rocket technology during WW2 that eventually allowed America to send humans to the moon. Sometimes the triumphant ends of science are memorialized and the unethical means to get there are forgotten. I’m not saying this justifies Bon’s actions but that MIA is pointing out this reality of scientific advancements. The other white whistles and black whistles and possibly more people are aware of his experiments in Ido Front so it’s not like he’s doing this secretly.

I think Bon’s character makes a lot more sense too when you see him as more than a scientist. I see him almost as a kind of priest, with science used as a way to understand and get closer to the (mysteries of the) abyss (the higher being). There’s a spiritual slant to his character: his scientific base is located in Ido Front which is an old ritual site, his white whistle is clasped hands (praying, beseeching), he coined the term “blessing” (when he could have used any other scientific term for that process/effect). When he sees the children off on their last dive at the end of the film, all the umbra hands are repeating the clasped hands gesture. They are all standing witness to the children departing on a journey from which return is not possible. Bon himself raises his arms, with palms up, in a gesture of benediction. This gesture, unless I am wrong, can both be for giving a benediction and receiving a benediction but I see it here as Bon praying for and over the children as an intermediary for/of the abyss.

The furry Bon infact explicitly gave Nanachi his own blessing for their onward journey with his dying words (“May your journey overflow with curses and blessings”). The word “benediction” itself means “speak well” and that is exactly what furry Bon does with his last words. There’s a lot of spiritual touches to his character. (See also the closing song of the film at the bottom of the post which I am convinced is about Bon.) Also human sacrifices are a facet of some spiritual practices and that is exactly what Bon has been doing… He also sacrificed HIMSELF to make his white whistle. Even his body is not above his overall goals. There’s an odd selflessness to that action when every other white whistle was presumably made based on sacrificing someone else.

I am also struck that he didn’t practice his usual slice, cut, chop on Nanachi AFTER they got the blessing. Or if there was some of that (because it is Bon and surely he ran tests on Nanachi), it was nothing that would leave Nanachi mutilated or scarred or physically altered, or well, dead. Because that’s how most children end up in his care. I think he sees Nanachi with some degree of reverence (as the “blessed” with a special vision for the “curse”, which Bon himself has been looking in on) and perhaps their body cannot be desecrated? That he asks Nanachi to return to work with him again, again, and again is interesting even if it is illusion of choice because Bon doesn’t ask much of anything of the other children before doing as he wants.

(An aside - The fact that he was probably tracking Nanachi and Mitty the whole time was absolutely frightening and shows how much control he has. Most likely he had no immediate need for Nanachi’s return, and in fact he probably learned more about the curse due to Nanachi walking around. The experiment went on, just without Nanachi’s knowledge. And I could see him being proud of Nanachi for experimenting on Mitty and delvers as they tried to bring about Mitty’s passing. The classic Bon gesture, head pats for Nanachi and Prushka, perfectly encapsulates how his love for them occurs alongside his fundamental disregard for their bodily autonomy and consent. It is absolutely a gesture of power because it says “I can touch you as I want” (not in a sexual way to be clear) and Nanachi is visibly afraid of him.)

Bon and Prushka

Bon and Prushka’s relationship is absolutely fascinating given how Bon sees love and sacrifice. Prushka’s love for him is partially manufactured out of the circumstances of her life (she has close contact with pretty much a limited group of people who would be at Ido Fromt) and also manipulated by Bon. The repeated line “I am your papa” reinforces their relationship, gives Prushka a sense of stability, AND manipulates her love and I don’t know how one line can be so loving and chilling at once. Notice how Bon never says “you are my daughter.” Everything is defined around Bon - I am your father, I won’t be going anywhere, etc.

It’s a self serving love but he does care for her. In the flashback scene of younger Prushka, we see Bon encouraging her desire to explore (even bringing her Meinya), giving her considerable freedom to move around Ido Front, and we see Guera who seems to care for her quite a bit. Also notice the rope/chains which ward off the steps which Riko ends up climbing. In the flashback scene of Prushka’s childhood, there was no cordon and she ends up climbing them and nearly losing her humanity a second time. So that cordon must have appeared after she climbed - it made me imagine Bon and Umbra Hands, who are clearly not equipped to be good parents, realizing that they fucked up by not imparting this child with something that was basic knowledge to them (DO NOT CLIMB). So the cordon appears - to prevent Prushka from doing that again in a gesture of extra precaution. Now you could argue that Bon encourages Prushka to grow as a human being only because it suits his ends - the abyss will only grant the blessing when the sacrifice is a human one and it needs to ‘read’ Prushka as a human being. Remember she has already had two ascension accidents that lead her to lose her sense of self. There’s a real question mark about whether the abyss will see her as human enough to count for Bon’s end goal.

But that’s the interesting thing about Bon - his manipulation is real but so his love. When Bon explains how Nanachi acquired the blessing, this is the translation in the film: the abyss does not just grant “curses”. There’s an effect I was unable to see because the strains were too great. As a matter of convenience, I call this the “blessing.” It is due to your deep spiritual connection to Mitty …your love and adoration, as it were - that your body received only the “blessing of the abyss.” I am going just by the movie translation (so manga readers chime in if this is different), but this clearly shows that the blessing requires 1) deep connection between both parties, and 2) the one who is to be blessed must love the one who is sacrificed. The fact that Bon got the blessing is the very proof of his love for Prushka. When Bon says to Prushka, before turning her into a cartridge, “as long as I have your love, I am immortal,” you see again that combination of love and manipulation. It’s a moving statement except it happens in a moment when the parent is doing something unforgivable to their child. Bon is not talking about the blessing (the movie translation has him using the present tense “I am” rather than the future tense “I shall be”) and I don’t think the blessing made nanachi immortal anyway. He assures Prushka again and again even when there is no scientific/rational need for it. During the surgery, he tells her “we shall be together forevermore.” Was there a NEED to say this? The reason this whole story is devastating is exactly because he loves her. We want monsters to think and act like monsters but what if they have human feelings? The same monster that gently holds Prushka’s hand during the surgery, the most human gesture one can make towards another in pain, is also the one that asked for that hand to be removed. This is what makes him so scary.

And that’s the continuing tragedy of the Made in Abyss story world. Bon sacrifices the one he loves (whom he raised as a sacrifice) all for the briefest of time - no sooner is he blessed than Riko and Reg tear his body apart. Was the sacrifice of his child worth it? Would he consider it worth it if he knew it was going to be for that brief period? Furry Bon says “preparations for the next two thousand years are complete” - but is that still true after the loss of the blessed body? Or has all that work being lost? Considering the overall dark bent of this story, it would not surprise me if it was all for nothing. When furry Bon and Nanachi exchange last words, it almost felt like Bon gives over charge to the children and concedes his own ambitions to theirs. He is so gentle, encouraging, and kind in that last exchange that it is hard to believe the devastation the children have surely wrought upon him and it is in Prushka’s consciousness that we get a hint of it (“Papa’s pain… his feelings… are flowing into me”). To carry on the priest/spiritual analogy, Bon has sought the blessing of the abyss for so long (and blessing in religious terms means you are closer in some way to a divine power and/or been validated by it) and that blessing was granted AND taken away in a moment’s span. The abyss is a temperamental god, if it is one. Is it worse that he was blessed in this vile way? And is it worse still that he lost the blessed body? I think Nanachi comes closest to understanding Bon’s loss, and is both horrified and empathizes. Remember Nanachi’s line trailing off: “I’ve long dreamed off the day we kill each other in battle, and yet…” They have lost their desire for retribution. The person who can best understand what Nanachi felt after Mitty was cursed is now the very person who caused it all to happen in the first place. When Bon places his hand on Nanachi’s shoulder and they look eye to eye, I think there’s a shared sense of understanding. The cracked mask at the end of the film and the brilliant, human, green eye staring out are definitely saying something about how the seemingly impenetrable mask has been cracked open.

A few minutes later at the end of the film, the closing song picks this up: Each time that I lose something precious/ I know that there may never be an end to / The price that we pay for our dreams / It can never be repaid / To carry on is to carry a burden.

Prushka as white whistle

I find Prushka turning into a white whistle interesting given Bon’s character. Did he anticipate/intend for this? Would he have known that Riko was coming without a white whistle? Possibly. I am speculating but I think the difference between the blessing and white whistle might be important here. Both require human sacrifice, validated by the abyss. The white whistle can be made by sacrificing one’s life for oneself (the way Bon makes his own) but I think that is an oddity and both transformations require two people to work as intended. This is all conjecture on my part but I think that they are grounded in different impulses. Mitty takes on the curse so that Nanachi can survive (and the abyss hence gives Nanachi a new form that will enable that objective). But the white whistle stems from one’s desire to explore, and to carry on exploring even at the moment that the body is at its mortal limits. In fact there is an intense desire to live, so that you can explore, and exploring is what gives meaning to your life. That intertwined desire to live and explore create the white whistle (“life reverberating” stone) and also called “your worth”. The worth of the dying person measured by the abyss AND the worth of the person to whom the white whistle entrusts itself as the inheritor of their will. Prushka’s last conscious thought is “after all, we are gonna go on adventures together.”

In both the blessing and white whistle, the abyss gives the sacrificed person what they desire most, at considerable cost to their humanity, but the blessing is based on ascension and the white whistle on descent. The blessing, because it enables special vision of how the curse operates, could theoretically enable the blessed to carefully ascend in places where the curse is weak (such as away from the central shaft) and because the blessed body is better adapted now. I think this is based on the desire of the sacrificed person for their loved one to survive the abyss (and how better to do that then to ascend away from the more dangerous layers or to visualize the curse better). But the white whistle enables one to descend (literally the Ido Front elevator) and explore deeper into the abyss by activating special relics. Two people are ideally needed in the white whistle equation: one sacrifice and one to inherit their will (in the form of the white whistle) enabling both to go on. It is funny, in a morbid way, that Bon’s process is again so self centered. He sacrifices himself for the white whistle, which can then be used by himself (because of the zoaholic) and then raises his own sacrifice for his blessing.

I think Mitty could never have turned into a white whistle in the elevator - for one, the most important thing in her mind is that she can ensure Nanachi is safe. Bon tells her clearly “if you die partway through, your partner will also be hit with the curse.” At the moment, there is no thought about her own longing to explore, to live, etc etc. Even the primal human instinct for self-preservation is overridden because Nanachi takes priority over everything. The abyss asks for a lot, for absolute love infact, for the blessing to be granted. But in Prushka’s case, two desires (to be with her father, and to carry on adventuring) are present. It is hard to say whether Bon planned for this, but it certainly feels like he set up the conditions: telling Prushka to make friends with the ones who are coming, creating an artificial bond with Riko before her arrival so they can resonate with each other (“she is also the daughter of a white whistle”), and most crucially NOT USING the elevator when he decided Prushka was ready. It has been bothering me that he turned her into a cartridge first rather than take her into the elevator when both have the same result and the elevator would have been quicker. Some part of me wants to think that the elevator would have caused Prushka more pain (the Mitty scenes are horrific) while he can control how much pain she is in during the surgery. Also perhaps even he could not bear to watch his child turn into narehate and to live trapped in that form. As a cartridge, her lifespan is very very finite and at one point he tells Nanachi and Riko that he will “release” Prushka - so keeping her alive in a mutilated form never seems to have been his intention. Of course this could be me reading redemptive values into this deeply messed up character.

AND YET Prushka would not have become a white whistle if indeed he had taken her on the elevator. The narehate created in that process seem to lack any coherent thought process and are no longer human. I dont think the narehate in Bon’s garden could become white whistles. As a cartridge, Prushka retains her most essential consciousness, senses, and human desires (this is required for how cartridges operate). She is still a human being even in that form thus the abyss reads her wishes at the very end of her life and she is transformed into a white whistle. In the darkest fashion, Bon satisfied his goals and Prushka’s wishes at the same time, enabled her to take a form that cannot be touched by the horrors of the abyss and put her alongside a companion who resonates her will. Happy ending, Made in Abyss style ☠️☠️☠️

The million dollar question to end this: if the situation were reversed for whatever reason, could Bon have taken on the curse and imparted the blessing to his daughter? (The answer is a resounding no for me. I don’t think his love for anything or anyone transcends what he feels for the abyss. Bon could only ever make a transformation into a white whistle which is all about exploring further and deeper. In every scenario possible, Bon would sacrifice her and then carry the burden of her loss himself (see lyrics below).

And finally, here are the lyrics for Forever Lost, which plays at the end of the film. This is absolutely Bon’s song to me (as much as it could speak to other dwellers) because of the references to praying (something Riko, Reg, or Nanachi never do, in fact Riko takes a dump in the altar in the elevator where Bon has been lighting incense):

Each time that I lose something precious

I know that there may never be an end to

The price that we pay for our dreams

It can never be repaid
To carry on is to carry a burden

Even if it’s to lose to fear
I won’t turn back

In the white light, we're praying for the lost

For our grief, for our pain

To the white light, we're praying for the lost

So we try to find solace, empty hands together

In the white light, we're going down this road

For our hope, for our fate

To the white light, we're going down this road

My journey has to go on with you

In the white light, we're praying for the lost

To the white light, we're praying for the lost

I'll take all of your wishes and your dreams

In your place, in memory

Give me all of your wishes and your dreams

I'll take all that you left and realize it for you

In the white light, we're going down this road

For our hope, for our fate

To the white light, we're going down this road

My journey has to go on with you

We will remember the days

Our past will live on forever,

As we strive towards our future

The sadness never disappears


It just becomes a part of us, deep inside

[imustbenuts]

nuts reads trigun in jp 14 - trimax' vol 1 theme is big on family

i mean, thats obvious, but it didn't ping on my radar as much until im sitting here chewing on what im reading.

ive written in part 7 with the first hint of filial piety, 12 with a lost in translation bit about vash calling sheryl and lina his family, and 13 where wolfwood comes across as a guy who is taking someone's child(daughter) away to elope for marriage. the tl;dr of all of this is that trimax' vol 1 seems to be a set up for exploring themes and what "family" can be defined as.

i uh, suspect japanese idea of 内外 uchi-soto is at play here. (ie in-group and out-group but family) it seems to be lowkey tied to that and the themes of 'otherism'. the kanjis for them means, in 内, and out 外.

the uchi 内 is the 'us', and it is most commonly used in the context of home and family.

the soto 外 is the others, the ones who aren't part of the family.

there's absolutely more ways uchi-soto can be used than just family. village, organization, etc.

so while i dont have a concrete answer of how fucked family dynamics exactly are in japan, i can say its at least pretty fucked in a lot of asian countries affected by ww2. this is further compounded by a lot of classism, traditionalism, trauma, shit mental healthcare, absurd rapid economic growth, the whole turd rainbow, that its not uncommon for many born in say 1900s to 1980s to be... pretty messed up.

i mean, the long term results of gunboat diplomacy, opium wars and colonialism will do all of that, yeah.

i think its why knives here vaguely gives me that abusive old asian turd vibe:

domestic abuse is... not exactly uncommon, honestly. again, dont live in japan so i wont pretend to know for sure, but similar culture and the same capitalism trajectory makes me think its got similar trends. also a lot of these DVs can rooted in toxic masculinity, power trips, ego, and anxiety surrounding productiveness/money.

yeehaw:

(quick note: another reading of 内 uchi can be nai. is that why studio orange named him nai....??? 🤔 and gave him a onesies pajamas and made him a hikkikomori?)

so thats knives. he kicks and slaps his little brother around and even cuts off his arm to the point that a lot of vash's behavior can come across as an abuse victim survivor. he shares the uchi with vash and their sister plants, while everyone else alive on NML is the soto. the outsiders.

and then vash seems to define his own 'uchi' as... the entirety of humanity, or at least an uchi with no 'soto'. no outsiders than maybe himself. its debatable if you want to read this as a result of his abuse, if vash inherently leans towards this, or a mix of the two. like how things are depicted in stampede.

i think the characters that highlight these themes nicely are Sensei/Doc and Brad. im skipping and not rehashing stuff from my prev post, but yeah its. all there.

.... Of course I would We're family (身内). And it's all the same to him. Vash The Stampede's concept of "family (身内)" is absurdly wide.

i mean, check out brad's bubble in here where the Family is expressed as 身内 miuchi. more in the tone of "one of ours". nightow could have just used a bunch of other words like ���族 kazoku, 親身 shinmi, 親戚 shinseki that leans closer to blood family, but nah. nightow just picks 身内, with the 内 to highlight the in group out group family culture dynamic going on.

this is then followed up with this panel

man.

i wanna whack knives with a steel chair.

[my-rewrite-academia]

Just found out that Horikoshi named a character after a slur against Chinese and Korean people during WW2... (Shiga M*****)

Hello!

-

I'm not sure what you're asking by this? I'm aware of this, of course, but I'm also aware that Horikoshi changed the name. For anyone unaware, Dr. Garaki Kyudai was originally called Maruta Shiga. I'm not going to censor this, as it would only serve to make people unaware, and I'm against censorship in general.

Now, as much as I don't like Horikoshi's writing, (can't speak of him as a person - never met him), and as clearly unaware as he is of how racism works, considering the Mutant Discrimination arc, I don't believe he meant any offense to this.

In Japanese, Maruta (丸太) or Marutanbou (丸太ん坊) are used interchangeably and means 'log.' And 'Deku', who was named after the word 木偶の坊 (Dekunobou), means 'wooden doll'. Both Marutanbou and Dekunobou also mean 'nothing', 'bare', 'useless', and other such synonyms. Both are also quirkless.

The correlation is clear.

Toshinori Yagi's name, 'Yagi' in particular, also means tree. Quirkless characters are often associated with wood.

The hospital Shiga (志賀) Maruta (丸太) owns and runs is called 蛇腔総合病院 (Jyakuu-Sougou-Byouin). Now, bare in mind, his name Shiga (志賀) and the first character of the hospital Jya (蛇, which also reads as 'hebi', meaning 'snake').

There is an old legend called 'Kurohime Densetsu' in the Nagano prefecture, where the story takes place in the area of Shiga-Kougen (志賀高原) and the villain of the story is a giant snake (大蛇).

It's clear that he was creating a parellel between Garaki, (or Shiga), with the Kurohime Densetsu, but it was a mistake on his behalf to not do further research into the name 'Maruta'.

For those unaware, in WW2, Japan had a project called 'Unit 731' where they experimented on people they called 'Maruta (丸太)', most of them being Chinese and Korean, which then became a derogratory slur against them.

Contrary to popular belief, this alone did not get MHA banned in China - it was due to how pro-Japan the story felt. Not exactly pro-cop, but pro-Japan, in the same way the anime/light novel 'Gate' was, and China didn't agree with this.

Now, I'm not excusing Horikoshi for this. He didn't seem to have any ill intents, but a bit more research would have avoided this entire scenario, and that is a mistake on his behalf. It's the same as J.K. Rowling calling her only Korean character 'Cho Chang' without realising they're both surnames in Korea. She could have searched up popular first names and last names in Korea, but decided to be lazy and basically went 'Ching Chong' in what she thought was a coy plau.

I still don't understand what this ask was meant to say, as that issue was fixed five years ago when Horikoshi renamed him to Garaki Kyudai, but I thought I would explain nonetheless, as the language barrier makes it easy for misunderstandings to occur.

-

Thanks for the ask!

[saturniandevil]

2025 Forecast

AKA my notes on The Astrology Podcast's 2025 Forecast, hosted by Chris Brennan and Austin Coppock. Saddle up, it's a long one!

Overview

This year's forecast is divided into an overview of big planetary shifts and a chronological breakdown, but it doesn't go quarter-by-quarter like in previous years.

Outer Planet Shifts

It's quite rare that such slow-moving planets as Neptune, Uranus and Pluto* all enter new signs in the same year (*Pluto has already ingressed to Aquarius after transiting Capricorn for the past 16 years, but this is the first full year he'll spend in Aquarius). Uranus has been in Taurus since 2018, and Neptune first ingressed to Pisces in 2011. Thus we are seeing major shifts happening all at the same time. These represent major cultural and social changes. In personal charts, this concludes activity in other parts of our charts and begins focus in a new area.

Pluto in Aquarius (November 2024 (final ingress) - January 2044)

Chris has been connecting this to cryptocurrency (Bitcoin started under Pluto in Capricorn) and AI stories, such as Google & other companies rolling out livechats. He predicts that robots, especially humanoid ones, will he ubiquitous in everyday life by the end of Pluto in Aquarius, though Austin is skeptical as to how evenly distributed technological advancements will be. Jobs and labor will surely be affected by the increasing digitization of different industries. Everyone's trying to hitch a ride on the AI train, but it'll take a major scandal before we see regulations put in place or see just how it'll integrate into society. We'll have to train our eyes to recognize the artificially generated, and we'll also have to deal with inefficient bureaucracy that technology alone can't quite fix. In mundane developments, even though the US was founded under Pluto in Capricorn, most of the government structure were put into place under Pluto in Aquarius. Last time Pluto was in Aquarius was the French Revolution (opposite Leo, the fixed signs of sovereigns and heads of state). The current Pluto in Leo generation (baby boomers) were raised definitively in the area of the celebrity, an issue that will likely come into question in the years ahead.

Uranus in Gemini (July 2025 - May 2033)

Uranus trines Pluto during this transit, so these two planets' themes are closely tied over the next decade. Previous Uranus in Gemini periods include the revolutionary war/founding of the USA, its Civil War, and WW2. Term limits were pushed and set under this transit with Washington & FDR; 84 years previous to the founding of the US John Locke wrote his ideas on government. Continuing on the theme of liberal democracy, the King James Bible was published under Uranus in Gemini in the 1600s--an attempt to democratize religion and encourage readers to have their own individual relationship with the text. Uranus was discovered during a Gemini transit in 1781, and was almost named "George" after the King of Britain. In general Uranus in Gemini brings particularly forward-thinking ideas while in Mercury-ruled signs. We should expect to see continued developments in AI controversies and LLMs (large language models), and the role of language overall. We can also expect shakeups in transportation, with technologies like self-driving cars and drones expanding in transportation, war, and everyday life. The burgeoning dominance of electric vehicles space travel are also likely previews into the Uranus in Gemini era, and we can look out for major developments in the realm of social media as well.

Neptune in Aries (March 2025 - March 2039)

Neptune's 165-year cycle means it changes sign about once every 14 years. The last Aries transit was in 1861-1875, and the ingress coincides exactly with US Civil War: Fort Sumter fell the day it ingressed. Neptune gives us dream-logic for its time, trends that are often only clear in retrospect. Austin describes the Neptune in Pisces era as valorizing qualities like acceptance & inclusivity, where the heroic figure of the time is a compassionate mystic/saintly. He predicts Neptune in Aries will valorize "the heroic." Where once suddenly everyone was an astrologer or witch, now, suddenly we're all soldiers/warriors. (This played out literally as mass conscription in the US Civil War & in England in previous Aries Neptune periods.) This period also saw developments in photography, namely war photography in newspapers bringing the goriness of war into every home. Civil War photos were originally shot in 3D and meant to be experienced through viewers, and the first color photo was taken 05/17/1861 when Neptune was at 1Aries, bringing levels of heightened realism and simulation into the conversation. Neptune in Aries faces us with forks in the road--no half measures.

Neptune in Aries can indicate wars remembered for their ideology, as was the case with the Taiping Revolt/Rebllion's bloody conclusion during Neptune in Aries (begun in Pisces). One of the deadliest wars in history (cost at least 20-30 million lives), it was instigated because of an extremist Christian religion. In medical astrology Mars-Neptune contacts can indicate autoimmune diseases where the body attacks itself, and the mundane analogy here is internal conflicts. In antiquity, the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE occurred during Neptune in Aries, Pluto in Aquarius, and the eclipse points moving from Aries/Libra to Virgo/Pisces (all configurations we'll see in 2025). This is considered a catalyzing event for the subsequent Jewish diaspora over the following centuries, as well as the shift from centralized worship to Rabbinic Judaism. In science & engineering, the steam engine, dynamite, first underground railway, Suez canal, mechanical submarine, and the concept of light as EM radiation via Maxwell equations all came about during Neptune in Aries periods.

Saturn in Aries Saturn is entering Aries from May to September this year and will be copresent with/conjoining Neptune over the next three years. Saturn is in fall in Aries, highlighting tensions between patience and impulsivity. We can also expect prominent figures to fall from grace, such as during our last Saturn in Aries in the late 1990s with the scandal around Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinksy. In personal charts, Saturn in Aries people will often chalk up their difficulties to "not trying hard enough," when really it may just be a matter of timing and patience. Famous Aries Saturn people include skater Tony Hawk, daredevil Evel Knievel, directors Francis Ford Coppola and Lily Wachawski, witch-hunting politician McCarthy, writer Margaret Atwood, actresses Zendaya and Lucy Lawless, and activist Malala Yousafzai.

Saturn Conjunct Neptune Saturn and Neptune will get within 1 degree of each other this year, though we don't get an exact conjunction til 2026. We've been seeing the buildup of this since Saturn entered Pisces in March 2023. What's real and bounded, and what's illusory and pervasive? This tension between illusions & structures likely means we'll see increased distrust in authority, such as the public doubting what's reported in news stories or fake news sparking major conflicts, and Chris predicts increasing polarization between aggressive skeptics and religious fundamentalists. Austin uses the analogy of the Mad Max: Furiosa movie--everyone is trying to conscript you to come fight with them for water. Austin notes that Saturn-Neptune contacts punctuate major events in recent Russian history, including the founding of St. Petersburg and the dissolution of the USSR. He also brings up the historical example of ronin, rogue samuari who had some public support as vigilantes, and compares it to Luigi Mangione's alleged assassination of the United Healthcare CEO, saying the public reaction to this event is a prediction of things to come.

Chronological Breakdown

Mars Retrograde: December 2024 and January 2025

We enter the year with Mars retrograde in Leo (opposite Pluto) and moving to Cancer on January 6th, and only getting to Leo on April 17th. This makes an extended transit through those two signs. Observationally, Mars is actually brightest and closest to Earth during its retrogrades, rising as the Sun sets, making him hyper-visible and much more reactive & chaotic than Venus & Mercury retrogrades. And indeed Mars's station on December 6th saw a bunch of major events: an attempted coup in South Korea, the Assad regime falling in Syria, a healthcare CEO assassinated in the US, a contested election in Romania, and the French government collapsing through a no-confidence vote.

Back to 2025, though: Mars entering Cancer on the 6th hearkens back to his last visit to the sign, September 4th-November 3rd of 2024. Events, both mundane and personal, will come back to us during this time. In politics we saw a lot of nativism and racism in US politics while Trump was campaigning, and unfortunately this is likely to resurface. Concerns over homelands & origin showed up in celebrity news with controversy over the New Orleans Superbowl booking Los Angeles-based rapper Kendrick Lamar over NoLa native Lil Wayne.

Mars is in fall in Cancer, and with Saturn in Aries later we get both malefics in fall this year. The trap of Cancer Mars is "nothing's safe enough," while that of Aries Saturn is "nothing is under enough control," and we must be on our toes to avoid falling into either. Mars in Cancer is reactive and impulsive, in contrast to the Saturnian discipline & foresight that Capricorn grants it in exaltation. In personal charts Mars rx in Cancer/Leo can show up as obstacles or frustration, or as an extended expenditure of energy in that area. Retrogrades can also bring things or people back into your life, and how you handle the situation sets you up for the next time you meet.

January 2025

We enter the month with retrograde Mars opposing Pluto on the 3rd and regressing to Cancer on the 6th. On January 15th we get the exact opposition of Mars to the Sun, days after the Full Moon, so that's another time to watch out for in events. The US presidential inaguration is on Jaunary 20th under a Sun-Pluto conjunction.

Electional chart for January:

The chart is for January 10th, at roughly 9:30AM local time to get early Pisces rising. The ruler of the Ascendant, Jupiter, is in the 4th house (♊) in a day chart and makes an auspicious conjunction to the Moon, who herself is separating from a square to Venus (♓). Venus is also exalted in the first house & on the Ascendant. This is also about as far away as we can get from the Mars-Pluto opposition while also avoiding the Sun-Mars opposition later this month. This is good for 4th house matters: not only home and family, but also matters where you're important but not visible, like a director.

Overall, January and February are dominated by the Mars retrograde, a "not so calm" before the storm of springtime.

March & April Venus goes retrograde on March 1st, regressing into Pisces before stationing direct on April 12th. Meanwhile, on March 29th we get an Aries solar eclipse, the final installation in a series going back to October 2023. The next day, March 30th, Neptune waltzes into Aries for the first time in a century. Meanwhile Mercury retrogrades from March 15th until April 7th, backtracking into Pisces while doing so. And if that wasn't enough, Saturn moves into Aries on May 24th. March & April are like a series of cascade reactions, and we'll spend the rest of the year (or few years in the case of Saturn) reacting to, cleaning up the aftermath of, and wrestling with understanding what happened. We'll definitely see major geopolitical events, maybe with bizarre connections, all the while thinking things are going in one direction when they're really going another.

Venus & Mercury Retrograde; Eclipses

Venus's station points are felt most intensely, but like with the Mars retrograde we also experience this as an extended transit of Venus through the signs of Aries and Pisces from January to June. Her retrograde also comes just 5 days after Mars concludes his own. Chris predicts that, unlike the Leo Venus rx a couple summers ago, there may be more fighting around women's issues rather than straightforward celebration. In Aries we already expecting a more combative expression of Venusian issues, and the increased activity in Aries only intensifies this prediction. Venus in Aries is not quiet--she's bold, active, and direct. In personal charts we'll see returns of events from 8, 16, or 32 years ago (last time she was retrograde in Aries), reviewing and revising relationships in the present. What and who do we want? Do we still want that? Under Venus rx we look for an unambiguous "yes." We can also see delays or postponements, scandals, and provocative art & culture. We'll be going back and forth between an exalted, compassionate Venus and a forthright, exiled Venus, choosing between the two on any given day and trying to reconcile them.

With Venus retrograde we can also think of the myth of Inanna (a story based off the Venus rx cycle), who descends through gates of the underworld and returns home to find her consort has taken the throne before she takes it back. We'll likely see stories about women in powerful positions reclaiming something after going through a struggle as Venus stations direct in her sign of exaltation. Specifically, she stations direct on April 13th conjunct Saturn (ironically another signature of Trump's upcoming inauguration), with Mercury retrograde also in Aries & Pisces at the same time. Both these planets are passing over Neptune in late Pisces as well: sometimes we have a lovely, dreamy vision that turns out to be terribly disappointing. Venus and Mercury will both cross Neptune three times, in both Aries and Pisces.

Mercury stations at 0Aries on March 29th, the same day as the solar eclipse, and switches signs with Neptune (leaving Pisces) the next day. The culminating eclipse is marred by miscommunications and illusions. As the last installment of a series begun in October 2023, this eclipse will definitely see developments in Israel's wars on other countries in the region. More generally, in mundane astrology North Node solar eclipses in Aries have coincided with the assassinations of heads of states & movements, as well as the eclipsing/stepping down of leaders...yet another signature of changing/threatened leadership in 2025.

In the middle of March we also get our first Virgo eclipse of this series, corresponding to the September eclipse in Pisces. We'll revisit the areas again in September with a Pisces and Virgo eclipse. The barrier between Aries/Pisces and Virgo/Libra sees a lot of activity in the first half of 2025. We'll definitely remember this year for the crazy Aries activity, though Austin predicts it'll come back to haunt us in 2026.

May-June-July Saturn enters Aries on May 24th, creeping up on Neptune and getting within a degree of him by July (~13th-14th), and then stationing retrograde. An outer planet's first station in a new sign signals what to expect, and Saturn and Neptune both do so in July (on the 13th and 4th respectively). From May 24th to September 1st we have Neptune and Saturn very close to each other and retrograding. Uranus enters Gemini on the 7th.

Jupiter in Cancer He enters in June of 2025, staying there until June of 2026. In this sign of his exaltation, he'll be counterbalancing some of the crazier transits of this year. He's also doing cleanup after Mar's messy transits earlier this year in the Cancer parts of our charts. Jupiter is a little folksy in Cancer--he's not just lavishing the wealthy, but is generous to everyday people as well. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) was enacted during Jupiter in Cancer in 2013-14 (a Jupiter under attack!), bringing important healthcare considerations to this placement (A/N: Cancer as a sign of nurturing and protection). In July of 1990 during Jupiter & Venus in Cancer, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was passed. Chris is wary of being too optimistic, but hopes that something good in healthcare is coming forward. This transit is a Jupiter return (every ~12 years) for the US Sibly chart, and also the repetition of a longer 83-year cycle where he hits the same degree on the same day--the third one since the US's founding, making this an especially potent Jupiter return. You'll notice that's only one year off from Uranus cycles, so we'll definitely see further reevaluations of the US's founding this year.

Generally, exalted planets represent someone at the highest level of their field, and Jupiter in Cancer is a sort of "get rich slow" planet. Success is cultivated, grown, and encouraged. In June & July Jupiter will square Saturn, though, a configuration that corresponds to financial and economic crashes. Jupiter in Gemini saw tech company crashes, but in a new sign we'll likely see new industries affected.

July & August: Outer Planet Teamup

Uranus enters Gemini on July 7th, the last of the slow outer planets to ingress to his new sign. From then til October 21st, we have the rare and powerful influence of several outer planets teamed up: Uranus sextiling Saturn & Neptune and trining Pluto (meaning Saturn & Neptune also sextile Pluto). This is a sort of pilot episode previewing what'll happen when they return in 2026. These planets shift from feminine water/earth signs to masculine air/fire signs, and each outer planet (except Pluto) will retrograde into his preceding sign in October & November, giving us a break from the teamup of big players for a bit. Mars in Libra will aspect all of these outer planets in August, making the configuration especially active then.

September - Eclipse Season Last September we saw our first Pisces eclipse of this series, and we'll have had another development with the first Virgo eclipse in March. Now we're firmly in Virgo-Pisces eclipses for the next 2 years. The September 7th and 21st eclipses will have us think about the big picture vs. granular details--how can we hold them in unison? The major endings & beginnings brought by eclipses are further punctuated by Saturn regressing back into Pisces on September 1st. Maybe a last set of upgrades need to be put in place in our Pisces area, though now our Virgo house is tied in as well.

October, November, December Neptune returns to Pisces October 22nd, Uranus to Taurus on November 7th, and Saturn stations direct for his last pass through Pisces on November 27th. A new chapter of our lives has begun, but we need to do a final check-in before things reach completion. The outer planet demolition team will be back on April 25th, 2026, where it'll stay until 2032-33. Neptune will station in Pisces on December 10th, another important Pisces turning point. Jupiter stationing in Cancer on November 11th is the cherry on top for the year ending where it began (but not to stay!). We end 2025 coming full circle on our sort of last look backwards before plunging for good into new--though not entirely unknown--territory.

[belladrawschstuff]

Reunion

November 9th 1989 was the year the Berlin wall fell and Germany was reunited so basically tomorrow but y'all need something.

Now in my AU east and west have always been separate people and lets just say the 2 have lived very different lives under the 2 separate countries. On one hand you have west Germany who was under America, he was still trained and definitely had to do seal training after it was introduced in 1962 but he was still treated like a human and got enough breaks, America definitely was an older brother in Germanys eyes. He was cared for, fed, and was made sure he was safe. He got to hang out with the states and helped them and made sure America got actual rest and could do his responsibilities. On the other hand you had east, now Soviet hated Nazi with a burning passion ( in my AU Soviet actually hates gay people which is why Russia got punished more than the others so yeah no sovnazi in my AU.) So east didn't really get a chance for anything but also couldn't exactly train because of one factor. As y'all know.each country has their own special power if they don't have an animal or an element they get their own power. And East's is to teleport but he didn't know that he had that or how to use it but Soviet didn't know that and the only way to teleport is if you have your hands free so Soviet tied his hands together. He was still forced to clean the whole house while Soviet had his responsibilities of beating up his other kids. Now east was used to alcohol near the end of WW2 because of his dad but it was never the extent to how Soviet got despite having a strong system for it he was always drunk and never really was able to rationalize what was happening. I'm I just really wanted to create this peice but I can also info dump on yall. Also sorry if the style looks weird, I'm so used to my other simple one for my Sky page that I just haven't done art like this and I think I forgot how to shade and all that.

[wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee28374728]

Until Dawn character hcs

Sam:

Her music taste is crazy. Like the same playlist could have Beethoven, Iron Maiden, The BeeGees and Taylor Swift

Does aerobics in her pajamas

Doesn't know how to order at Starbucks (she just wanted a medium)

Had a dog walking business in high school

Knows how to surf

Will absolutely destroy you in most strategy based board games

Favorite holiday is Halloween

Chris:

Dog person AND cat dad

Far sighted

Huge history nerd, had a ww2 phase in high school that never completely went away

Guy at a camping trip who tells the ghost story that leads up to a joke

Knows exactly what to do when a woman is on her period

Nervous fidgets; bouncing leg, tapping on desk/table, etc

Knew where everything was in his school backpack at all times

Ashley:

Say it with me people: Only. Fucking. Child.

Will get mad at you for saying pumpkin spice latte is basic

Was a horse girl in middle school

Owns more scented candles than a bath and body works

Has gotten her fortune told at a carnival and taken it pretty seriously

Had braces

Smokes weed

Mike:

Track and field

Can't find the clit

Paid other people to do his homework

Wanted to be a firefighter when he was 6

Shockingly scared of bugs, used to make Emily kill them for him, but Jess won't do it

Can swim but doesn't like it

Was really close with Sam when they were younger, Sam is the one who introduced him to the group.

Jessica:

Used to be much happier and more chill before puberty, after which she felt pressure to live up to her looks

Her and Emily used to be super close and she misses it

Was a Frozen kid and still watches it a lot

Most definitely bi curious at least(Emily to blame)

Reads her horoscope but doesn't actually take it seriously

Emily:

Wayyyy to much Disney Channel in her early childhood, now loves drama

The middle of many siblings, acts the way she does for more attention

Was vegetarian at some point

Secretly misses being close with Jess, but makes sure no one knows

Needs rain sounds to sleep

Really wants Matt to stand up to her, this is why she's so hard on him

Matt:

Easily confused when women aren't completely direct

Probably smoked weed at least once, but quit doing it when he started doing sports

Nervous around babies(so small what if he panicked and dropped them)

Had an earring in one ear at one point, but his parents had him take it out and now the piercing is healed over

Can't tell the difference between nail polish shades

Josh:

Would fight god in the Denny's parking lot for someone if they gave him a hug

His bedroom/college dorm is covered in so many movie and band posters you can't see the wall anymore

Talks to cats like they're people

Confused rich(wait his is the only family with six cars??)

Jokes about sex and women, but if he saw a girl being taken advantage of he's gonna slap a frat bro

Owns a VHS tape player

Friggin s l e e p s in checkered shirts

Hannah:

Plant mom

Inspirational quotes on the wall

Best party is a book and a blanket

Nature documentaries

Josh's partner in crime

Loved dolls as a little kid, not Barbies, like baby dolls and porcelain dolls

Fairy lights in her bedroom

Loves music, Josh started buying her cassette tapes and now she collects them

Beth

Can you say LESBIAN?

Is never seen without her hat

Tried to stop Josh and Hannah from causing trouble, it never worked

Uggs and leggings

Smokes weed with Ashley

Her side of her and Hannah's bedroom is so much neater and cleaner

Total metalhead but no one knows bcs "she doesn't look it"

Dr. Hill:

Accidentally opened YouTube once while trying to find the news app

Can't work if the music has lyrics, it's too distracting

Might have a husband

Has such doctor handwriting that he can't hardly read it himself

Coffee addict

911 on speed dial(he's worried about all his patients)

The real Dr Hill is really nice, only the hallucination version is all threatening

Flamethrower guy:

Fucking loves soup

Hasn't bought clothes in years, and got them all secondhand

Has been off the mountain exactly twice

"When did kids get this dumb?"

Secretly stays in the lodge sometimes when no one is there bcs it's shelter and it's kinda fancy

Actually feels crazy guilty for not saving the twins

Was very happy to see Mike making friends with his wolves

[nevermindirah]

I have a hard to answer question how does one handle in a fanfic tog not going after shitler with Jewish!booker on the team without them coming off like assholes in regards to the human cost as well as the personal cost to booker, cause I'm drawing a blank

hi anon!

this is a super duper big large heavy question, and it's also one that might, depending on the context of your fic, have a very simple answer: the immortals are, other than their immortality, human, and therefore they can each only be in a single place at once.

they don't have superhuman strength or speed, they don't have magic, they don't have access to time-travel technology. I'm not an expert in ww2 military strategy but I'm sure allied governments looked into assassinating Hitler, and nobody managed to do it until the shitstain killed himself. the immortals are highly skilled and well-connected but not at the level of for example the agency that would go on to become the CIA, so who's to say they'd be successful in this assassination if they tried.

there's also the matter of when and for what reason the immortals might decide that killing this particular shitstain should go at the top of their to-do list. it's so easy for us to say in hindsight that a catastrophic volume of suffering could've been averted with this one person's death 10-15 years earlier than what happened in our timeline, but even with the strategic benefit of that hindsight, none of us can predict exactly what would've happened after a successful assassination in 1939, 1932, or even earlier. killing one leader doesn't ensure the movement he leads will stop with his death; someone even worse could have stepped in under the banner of a martyr.

things had gotten bad for Jews in a lot of places many times before things started getting real bad again in Germany. again, I'm not an expert, so I don't know when anyone outside of Nazi senior leadership knew anything about plans for the Holocaust — but would any of the immortals have learned about it sooner than international news media did? would they have known about it early enough that it was possible for a group of four immortals to stop? would they have believed such horrific plans if they'd seen them on paper? there's historical evidence that US officials didn't believe early reports could possibly be true.

there are photos on Copley's wall showing the immortals in Europe at several points during ww2 and there's that one panel from one of the comics of some of the boys being involved in liberating one of the camps. but we don't know details beyond that, and we don't know what the immortals were up to in the 1930s. they may have been very, very busy doing what they could to protect people from Japan's horrific war crimes of the same era, which started several years earlier than the Third Reich.

none of that is to say it would be easy for the immortals to know that the Holocaust was happening and not stop it. I'm sure it was devastating for all of them, who'd already seen so much needless painful death in their long lives, to see the ruthless mechanized efficiency of Nazi mass murder. it would be especially devastating for Booker, even without the Jewish Booker headcanon, bc his children died hating him bc he could not save them no matter how much they begged and no matter how hard he tried.

so my hope for the fic you're working on is that you'll show at least a little bit how their inability to stop these horrors weighs on the immortals. show the personal cost to Booker. do the others get why such horrors happening to his people, who are specifically being targeted because they are Jews, hurts him so badly? or does Andy make dark jokes about how God really must not exist or what did Booker do to piss him off.

does Andy make dark jokes like that bc she sees Quynh's face in every woman they rescue from the Japanese army's rape campaigns? it would have been just as impossible for the immortals alone to save every one of them as it would've been to stop the Holocaust. might their personal connections to victims thousands of miles apart in a war causing overwhelming suffering across most of the planet wear on the immortals' relationships with each other? they can only do but so much. how the hell do they choose which people to try to save?

now that I've thought about it, writing a fic where they do kill Hitler might actually be easier. you can just handwave the deeply frustrating logistical realities and make it so that conveniently killing the nightmare in charge happens to cause the whole house of nightmares to fall apart. (you can also handwave that in your new timeline non-Jews across Europe welcomed their Jewish neighbors home with open arms, when very often the opposite happened irl.)

this topic is so rich for all kinds of exploration in fic. you could end up with a long and plotty meditation on how painful it is for the immortals to have to choose between so many people who need their help. you might have only been asking for the sake of some references to this era of the past in a fic set during or after the movie where the historical timeline is set in stone, in which case I hope what I've shared here leads you to writing those passages with appropriate seriousness and care, even if it's ultimately a small part of a story mainly focused on other things.

this was hard to answer, but not intellectually, this kind of analysis is how my brain works. it just hurts my heart to think about how much my people have lost, how much pain so many people have suffered, and how much suffering is happening right now that there's so little I can do to stop. if I were immortal right now how the hell would I choose between Palestinians and Massalit people and Uyghurs and Rohingya and the multitude of Latin Americans suffering at the US border, all the Black Americans suffering systematically in US prisons, all the other people whose catastrophic suffering I don't even know about?

but I'm glad you asked bc this is such an under-considered element of TOG that's very worth the spotlight. I hope my thoughts here help you, and maybe others will see this and think about it as well.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

The Riddle of Tom Riddle: Part 4/7

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, part 5, part 6, Part 7)

Home Sweet Hogwarts

Continuing with Tom's life at Hogwarts. He learns magic, makes Horcruxes, and is still as lonely as in the orphanage but probably isn't yet as evil as Dumbledore likes to make him out to be.

This is the post where I finally explain why Tom would ask Slughorn how to make a Horcrux after he already made 2 of them.

This turned out a little longer than I was expecting, but... 🤷‍♀️

Slytherin's Legacy and the Chamber of Secrets

We know Tom opened the Chamber of Secrets and we know Myrtle Warren died. But I want to ask why he opened the chamber? I mean, if he really wanted to kill muggleborns, I'd expect someone competent and intelligent like him to kill more than one.

“To ask you how you died,” said Harry. Myrtle’s whole aspect changed at once. She looked as though she had never been asked such a flattering question. “Ooooh, it was dreadful,” she said with relish. “It happened right in here. I died in this very stall. I remember it so well. I’d hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses. The door was locked, and I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in. They said something funny. A different language, I think it must have been. Anyway, what really got me was that it was a boy speaking. So I unlocked the door, to tell him to go and use his own toilet, and then —” Myrtle swelled importantly, her face shining. “I died.” “How?” said Harry. “No idea,” said Myrtle in hushed tones. “I just remember seeing a pair of great, big, yellow eyes. My whole body sort of seized up, and then I was floating away. . . .”

(Chamber of Secrets, pages 276-277)

Myrtle graciously describes her death for us. And all in all, this doesn't sound planned. Far from it. She was crying in a locked stall and went out becouse she heard a boy and wanted to tell him to leave. She saw the eyes of the basilisk the moment she left the stall.

I'd hardly call this well planned or intended. And the fact Tom doesn't kill anyone else supports this even more.

“Sit down,” said Dippet. “I’ve just been reading the letter you sent me.” “Oh,” said Riddle. He sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly. “My dear boy,” said Dippet kindly, “I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?” “No,” said Riddle at once. “I’d much rather stay at Hogwarts than go back to that — to that —” “You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?” said Dippet curiously. “Yes, sir,” said Riddle, reddening slightly. “You are Muggle-born?” “Half-blood, sir,” said Riddle. “Muggle father, witch mother.” “And are both your parents — ?” “My mother died just after I was born, sir. They told me at the orphanage she lived just long enough to name me — Tom after my father, Marvolo after my grandfather.” Dippet clucked his tongue sympathetically. “The thing is, Tom,” he sighed, “special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances. . . .” “You mean all these attacks, sir?” said Riddle, and Harry’s heart leapt, and he moved closer, scared of missing anything. “Precisely,” said the headmaster. “My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be of me to allow you to remain at the castle when term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy . . . the death of that poor little girl. . . . You will be safer by far at your orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic is even now talking about closing the school. We are no nearer locating the — er — source of all this unpleasantness. . . .”

(Chamber of Secrets, page 227)

This isn't exactly regarding Slytherin's legacy, but I found it important nonetheless for Tom's character. Tom really hates the orphanage. And for good reason, not just what I mentioned in the previous post, but WW2 started by this point.

For context, Tom opened the chamber in his fifth year, which was in 1942. 1942 was at the height of World War II. In the past two summers (1940 and 1941) Tom was in London during the Blitz. He was there in the rubble and the bomb shelters and he is quite rightfully pissed that Dippet calls that being "safe".

It's not exactly related but Dippet even asked if he was muggleborn, to tell if the monster of the chamber would go after him. Which I find curious. It is relevant for something I mention later in this post, but it generally means most of everyone assumed him to be muggleborn during his school years and treated him as such.

The point is, Tom is unsafe in the orphanage, we're now it not only ridicule and loneliness that awaited him, but starvation, death, and air raids. This helplessness against death he faced in the two years leading up to his first Horcrux was probably the final push for him to try and search for a way to be immortal.

Becouse all his magic does no good against the bombs.

“It was my word against Hagrid’s, Harry. Well, you can imagine how it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student . . . on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week, trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls . . . but I admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought someone must realize that Hagrid couldn’t possibly be the Heir of Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance . . . as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power! “Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dippet to keep Hagrid and train him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed. . . . Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did. . . .”

(Chamber of Secrets, page 288)

Here I mostly want to note 2 main things.

The first, Tom mentions how the teachers saw him. Remember the act of politeness I mentioned in my previous post, this is it. Tom became so comfortable in his mask thanks to Dumbledore's lack of empathy. Brilliant, perfect, and polite.

The second is that he mentioned he searched for the Chamber for five years. As this is his fifth year, it means he searched for it during all his Hogwarts years. It means that eleven-year-old, young Tom Riddle discovered his parseltongue is related to Salazar Slytherin and he became obsessed with finding more of its legacy.

And, it's easy to see why. He knew nothing about his family besides his own name, he, like any orphan, was curious. And when he realizes how important his family, and by extension he, is he becomes obsessed with learning more.

He searched for the Chamber of Secrets not just to gain power or to kill muggleborns, he just wanted to know about his family. To feel part of a legacy. He also wanted power, he likes being powerful and being able to defend himself from those who scorn him. But even when he had the power — he didn't use it to kill anyone. Only by accident. And once the accident happened, he made use of it.

We'll keep seeing this crop up in Tom's life. He wants to be special and important. He wants to be treated like he's better, becouse that's what he always told himself. Him being special validates all the hate he got growing up and his beliefs that jealousy motivated it.

The other thing we're seeing crop up here and later is Tom's sentimentality. Dumbledore may say Tom lacks the capacity for love, but I think Dumbledore is bullshit. Tom is an incredibly sentimental person (he even calls himself out on it in GOF). There's a reason he chose the Founders Artifacts as his Horcruxrs, there's a reason he hid them all in Britain even when they could have been safer abroad — he's incredibly sentimental.

He loves Hogwarts. He loved that first place that ever felt like a home to him so much that he placed pieces of his soul in artifacts related to it, even if simpler items like a coin would've been safer and easier to hide.

Now, to further proof, it's never been about muggleborns for Tom:

“Haven’t I already told you,” said Riddle quietly, “that killing Mudbloods doesn’t matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target has been — you.” Harry stared at him

(Chamber of Secrets, page 289)

The final note from this section is about the diary Horcrux less than about Tom. But this is important because we see Tom follow that same behavior pattern later in during the second Wizarding War.

Harry tells Tom he failed to kill any muggleborns and Tom agrees with him. During the second book, the diary didn't care about muggleborns, the same as the real Voldemort, he only cared about killing Harry.

Throughout the series Voldemort is obsessed with killing Harry Potter. Less becouse of who he is and more what he represents.

Becouse young Tom searched for validation and found it in academics at Hogwarts. The teachers loved brilliant prefect Tom Riddle, so he put all his effort into that. Into being the perfect model student.

This perfectionism is seen in his obsession with Harry, too. Diary Tom is interested in Harry because he failed to kill him. Harry is his one failure on his perfect record — and that is why he must die. To rectify his failing.

I'll expand on this more in the future, but the fact this obsession with correcting his failiur named Harry Potter is true for both Voldemort and Diary Tom just strengthens this point.

Horcruxes and Immortality

Moving ahead in Tom's life, I want to talk about Horcruxes again. Honestly, I'll probably keep coming back to this becouse it's a big part of Tom's character. Specifically, I want to talk about Slughorn's conversation with Tom about them.

Half a dozen boys were sitting around Slughorn, all on harder or lower seats than his, and all in their mid-teens. Harry recognized Voldemort at once. His was the most handsome face and he looked the most relaxed of all the boys. His right hand lay negligently upon the arm of his chair; with a jolt, Harry saw that he was wearing Marvolo’s goldand-black ring; he had already killed his father. “Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?” he asked. “Tom, Tom, if I knew I couldn’t tell you,” said Slughorn, wagging a reproving, sugar-covered finger at Riddle, though ruining the effect slightly by winking. “I must say, I’d like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are.” Riddle smiled; the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks.

(Half-Blood Prince, page 369)

You know what's weird about this conversation? That a lot of fans speak of it as if that's when Tom learned how to make Horcruxes when in fact, Harry notices the Gaunt family ring and comes to the currect conclusion — Tom already killed his father.

It means this talk with Slughorn happened after Tom already made 2 Horcruxes. It means he knows how to make one and knows it's possible to make more than one. So why ask?

Why potentially implement himself in dangerous illegal magic? Why hint he might be a murderer? Why risk it all for something he already knows?

Well, let's look at that conversation:

“Sir, I wondered what you know about . . . about Horcruxes?” Slughorn stared at him, his thick fingers absentmindedly caressing the stem of his wine glass. “Project for Defense Against the Dark Arts, is it?” But Harry could tell that Slughorn knew perfectly well that this was not schoolwork. “Not exactly, sir,” said Riddle. “I came across the term while reading and I didn’t fully understand it.” “No . . . well . . . you’d be hard-pushed to find a book at Hogwarts that’ll give you details on Horcruxes, Tom, that’s very Dark stuff, very Dark indeed,” said Slughorn. “But you obviously know all about them, sir? I mean, a wizard like you — sorry, I mean, if you can’t tell me, obviously — I just knew if anyone could tell me, you could — so I just thought I’d ask —” It was very well done, thought Harry, the hesitancy, the casual tone, the careful flattery, none of it overdone. He, Harry, had had too much experience of trying to wheedle information out of reluctant people not to recognize a master at work. He could tell that Riddle wanted the information very, very much; perhaps had been working toward this moment for weeks. “Well,” said Slughorn, not looking at Riddle, but fiddling with the ribbon on top of his box of crystalized pineapple, “well, it can’t hurt to give you an overview, of course. Just so that you understand the term. A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul.” “I don’t quite understand how that works, though, sir,” said Riddle. His voice was carefully controlled, but Harry could sense his excitement.

...

“. . . few would want it, Tom, very few. Death would be preferable.” But Riddle’s hunger was now apparent; his expression was greedy, he could no longer hide his longing. “How do you split your soul?” “Well,” said Slughorn uncomfortably, “you must understand that the soul is supposed to remain intact and whole. Splitting it is an act of violation, it is against nature.” “But how do you do it?” “By an act of evil — the supreme act of evil. By committing murder. Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: He would encase the torn portion —” “Encase? But how — ?” “There is a spell, do not ask me, I don’t know!” said Slughorn, shaking his head like an old elephant bothered by mosquitoes. “Do I look as though I have tried it — do I look like a killer?” “No, sir, of course not,” said Riddle quickly. “I’m sorry . . . I didn’t mean to offend . . .”

...

“Yes, sir,” said Riddle. “What I don’t understand, though — just out of curiosity — I mean, would one Horcrux be much use? Can you only split your soul once? Wouldn’t it be better, make you stronger, to have your soul in more pieces, I mean, for instance, isn’t seven the most powerfully magical number, wouldn’t seven — ?” “Merlin’s beard, Tom!” yelped Slughorn. “Seven! Isn’t it bad enough to think of killing one person? And in any case . . . bad enough to divide the soul . . . but to rip it into seven pieces . . .” Slughorn looked deeply troubled now: He was gazing at Riddle as though he had never seen him plainly before, and Harry could tell that he was regretting entering into the conversation at all. “Of course,” he muttered, “this is all hypothetical, what we’re discussing, isn’t it? All academic . . .” “Yes, sir, of course,” said Riddle quickly.

(Half-Blood Prince, pages 496-499)

So, let's recap this conversation:

Tom asks about Horcruxes and gets excited when Slughorn seems to know about them, the moment Slughorn starts speaking of how vile and evil Horcruxes are though, Tom changes his demeanor, more apologetic, hesitant, and polite. The mask is back. Tom continued and prodded a bit further, but not with the same hunger and excitement as before.

So, what does that tell us? Why is Tom having this conversation? What does he stand to gain? Not new information obviously...

In my former post, I mentioned Tom is looking for connections as he never really had any.

He's excited at the possibility of talking about magic he is interested in with someone, specifically — a teacher. Tom, who was scorned all his life in the Orphanage gets to Hogwarts and the teachers love him because he's polite and brilliant. And he loves all that positive attention. He boasts about it to Harry in the Chamber in an earlier quote I mentioned.

This is him seeking that attention and validation again, from Slughin, a person who praised his magical academic accomplishments often before. Tom is trying to open up and connect with Slughorn over another magical accomplishment.

But Slughorn shuts him down, and so he retreats from the conversation. Making it seem like he doesn't know how Horcruxes are made so as to not raise suspicions after he saw Slughorn didn't really know much about Horcruxes.

This scene isn't a future Dark Lord trying to learn how to become immortal — this is a sixteen-year-old boy, who was only ever recognized for academic magical accomplishment trying to gain praise for figuring out the impossible — how to become immortal. That's what he built up to, he mentioned the number so he could tell Slughorn how he figured out you could make more, how he went farther in magic than anyone else.

On the same note...

Tom doesn't really mention friends often, and I want to talk about that a bit about why he is so desperate for connection.

Think about it, he came poor, an orphan, and seemingly a muggleborn into Slytherin, the house of blood purism, during the height of Grindelwald's blood purity war against muggles. I can imagine the first few years until he proved he was the heir of Slytherin and incredibly magically powerful were not pleasant to him, and that's an understatement.

So afterward, when he does interact positively with his housemates, yes, he calls them friends, but it isn't friendship.

It was a name I was already using at Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course

(Chamber of Secrets, page 290)

“Listen to me, reliving family history . . .” he said quietly, “why, I am growing quite sentimental. . . . But look, Harry! My true family returns. . . .”

(Goblet of Fire, page 646)

“My friends,” he said, after a moment’s pause, “will carry on without me, I am sure.” “I am glad to hear that you consider them friends,” said Dumbledore. “I was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants.”

(Half-Blood Prince, page 444)

He refers to his followers as friends and family repeatedly, even after graduating from Hogwarts. Now, I don't think Tom actually considers them real friends or family, but he never really had either, not in any deep sense.

I'll delve more in a later post about how he does feel affection and does have some bounds he cares more for (like Bellatrix, whom he does care for), but none of them is an example of a healthy meaningful relationship. So no wonder a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle is so desperate for connection that he almost implicates himself in murder — because he never had any real meaningful connection.

[libertineangel]

A history & overview of communist groups in Britain

I've done so much reading into all the different splinter groups here, trying and failing to find one worth joining, that I might as well make all this accrued knowledge useful in case anyone wants to know what the situation is like (spoiler alert, it's a shitshow). I'll put it under a cut 'cause it'll probably get fairly long, and I'll tackle the Marxist-Leninist and Trotskyist sides separately 'cause they split in about 1932 and have barely had any crossover since.

I will not be unduly neutral or polite in my assessments, because Mao would call that liberalism and also it's no fun, so get ready to roll your eyes a lot and understand exactly what made Monty Python do the People's Front of Judea bit.

The (ostensibly) Marxist-Leninist side

In 1920, several smaller Marxist groups merged to form the Communist Party of Great Britain, the official British section of the Third International, and immediately set to work arguing with itself about the viability of parliamentarism, eventually adopting Lenin's position on the temporary utility of reformist unions & parties, which led them to spend several years trying - and even succeeding in a couple of seats - a strategy of entryism into the Labour Party, which is a phrase we will all get tired of by the end of this post; when Labour then lost the general election in 1924 it blamed the Communists and banned all their members, which sounds awfully familiar.

The CPGB did gain a fair bit of support & swelled its membership during the general strike of 1926 though, albeit in a handful of specific areas and industries, and then lost most of them again during the Comintern's Third Period because the workers didn't want to abandon their existing trade unions in favour of revolutionary ones. Did a couple of decent things in the 30s, fought at Cable Street and raised a small battalion for the International Brigades; they went back & forth on their stance on WW2 in line with the Comintern, supported strikes, actually reached their peak membership (~60,000, still tiny compared to their European comrades) during the war because they were the loudest anti-racist, anti-colonial voice around who did do a fair bit to raise public awareness of Britain's horrific treatment of India.

In 1951 they issued a new programme, The British Road to Socialism, which is pathetic reformist bollocks that insists peaceful transition to socialism is possible and sensible, and five years later the Soviet suppression of the '56 uprisings caused a massive split that saw a good 30% or so leave the party, causing them to return to the good old tactic of trying to push Labour and the unions leftward.

Nothing material really came of that and the Party declined further with the Sino-Soviet split, after which a minority of pro-China members left to form the Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), which has since turned Hoxhaist (also surprisingly anti-immigration, and I'm fairly sure they're transphobic). Throughout the 70s they got increasingly Eurocommunist until even more revolutionaries got sick of them, and in 1977 another split saw the formation of the New Communist Party of Britain, which claims to still be anti-revisionist while also having spent the last 24 years insisting everyone vote for Labour (also from what I've heard they don't even email potential recruits back, so I doubt they'll survive beyond their current old membership, not that they'll be much loss because I don't believe they've ever actually done anything). Tensions between the Eurocommunist leadership and the Party membership continued to rise through the 80s until a final split in '88 produced the Communist Party of Britain, which is still extant today and still uses that silly electoral reformist programme from the 50s, and as an indicator of how that's going they earned 10,915 votes in the London Assembly elections this year, the third fewest of any candidate, less than half even of the fucking Christian People's Alliance (also their youth wing the YCL has marched alongside TERFs up in Scotland, they're the party that one author endorsed over Labour).

The CPGB finally folded in '91 and its leaders founded a series of steadily softer left think tanks, while other self-declared Leninists went on to form the Communist Party of Britain (Provisional Central Committee), which is so small and insignificant I can't even figure out when they actually started; nowadays they are, to quote someone off Reddit, "a small and almost entirely male group of Kautsky enthusiasts and leftist trainspotters with a knack for the fine art of unintentional self-parody, who regularly publish articles defending Marxism against the feminist menace."

Entirely separate from all that shit, in 1972 a group of students inspired by Hardial Baines formed the Hoxhaist Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), and honestly I don't really know much about them because nobody online seems to have any idea if they do anything and looking at their website burned my fucking eyes. There's also the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist) (yeah a different one), formed in 2004 when a bunch of people got expelled from infamous union leader Arthur Scargill's party; they are so rabidly transphobic it makes the CPB look welcoming.

Finally, there's the Revolutionary Communist Group, which surprisingly formed out of the Trotskyist International Socialists (which became the SWP, we'll get to that soon); they're not a formal Party because they don't think the revolutionary situation here is developed enough for one, but they are fairly active in protests and pickets. Unfortunately, back in 2017 they dragged their heels investigating a member's sexual assault and then let the perpetrator back in after a two-month suspension and apology letter.

The Trotskyist side, if you can stomach it after all that bollocks

Modern British Trotskyism descends entirely from the Revolutionary Communist Party of 1944, formed by the merger of two smaller groups at the request of the Fourth International. They split after three years over the viability of entryism into the Labour Party, with the majority correctly seeing it as bollocks. Unfortunately, the majority RCP did fuck all afterward and grew disillusioned enough with the leadership to throw their lot in with the minority breakaway known as The Club, who kicked them all out again and proceeded to never do anything of note whatsoever (they eventually changed their name to the Workers' Revolutionary Party and imploded in about nine different - equally irrelevant - directions in the 80s when founder Gerry Healy was expelled for having serially abused women in the party for decades).

Followers of notable RCP member Tony Cliff (formerly the 4I's leader in Palestine) joined him in his new Socialist Review Group, devoted to Trotskyism but breaking from orthodoxy in favour of Cliff's theory of state capitalism that's silly even by Trotskyist standards that I don't think even the party itself really adheres to anymore. They changed their name to International Socialists in 1962, tried to appeal for left unity and got roundly ignored by everyone except a small Trotskyist group called Workers' Fight, which joined the IS, swelled their own ranks, tried to challenge the leadership and got thrown out again; they still cling onto existence as the Alliance for Workers' Liberty, whose existence I had completely forgotten until I saw a poster of theirs down my road and remembered I was in fact at the London Young Labour conference which banned them for refusing to properly investigate the repeated abuse of a teenage boy in their youth faction. The IS still tried to grow, but expelled what would become the aforementioned RCG in '72, expelled the faction that's now Workers Power in '74 (whom I have never heard of, which at least means I don't know of any awful shit they've done), tore themselves in half in '75 when Tony Cliff decided older workers were reformist and recruitment should focus on the youth, and in 1977 they renamed themselves the Socialist Workers Party. The SWP did do a few decent things, like form the Anti-Nazi League and organise Rock Against Racism, but to be honest those had a much bigger impact on the British punk scene than actual politics. Using charities and campaign groups to jump on bandwagons for shameless self-promotion is mostly what they're known for these days, along with making placards for any protest anywhere no matter how irrelevant they are to the party's platform; their membership and image among the left took a tremendous blow in 2014 after the Comrade Delta scandal, in which they were found to have covered up the National Secretary's repeated sexual abuse for years.

Followers of other notable RCP member Ted Grant joined him (after their expulsion from The Club) in his Revolutionary Socialist League, which believed in entryism into the Labour Party, and in 1965 it split with the 4I (because the 4I thought they were shit) to become Militant. They actually managed to take control of Labour's youth wing and successfully pushed the Party to commit to nationalising the country's major monopolies, but when Labour - on a platform of spending cuts and reformist liberal appeasement - lost the election to Thatcher in '79 they blamed it on the Communists and in December '82 they got blacklisted (which sounds awfully familiar). Took a while for that to sink in though, and Militant-affiliated members actually managed to take over Liverpool City Council through the mid-80s - they planned a massive amount of public works building, cancelling redundancies and other such things that sounded good but they really couldn't pay for, and tried to play bankruptcy chicken against Margaret Thatcher, which went as badly as you'd imagine and embarrassed them on the national stage (even if the people of Liverpool still supported them). Their last act was to help instigate the Poll Tax Riots in 1990, but that was one good deed to many for a Trotskyist group and they finally split in '91 - a majority decided they should finally sever ties with Labour and strike out on their own, while the minority insisted that entryism into the Labour Party really could net real national success if we just keep trying come on guys let's stay on the sinking ship history has taught us nothing!!!

The majority formed the Socialist Party, who have done nothing of note ever, and in 2013 they failed to adequately respond to sexual harassment within their ranks. In 2018 their international, the Committee for a Workers' International, experienced a split which it looks to me was over the old established leadership not getting with the times when it comes to women and LGBT+ people, and the majority went off to form the International Socialist Alternative, with the Socialist Alternative being its British branch; just last April the Irish section disaffiliated with the ISA because of its poor handling of abuse allegations against a leading member.

The minority stayed in Labour under the name Socialist Appeal, under the leadership of Ted Grant & Alan Woods, never really doing anything, and in 2021 Keir Starmer's left purge finally banned them, which was totally unrelated to their decision to finally strike out on their own this year as the Revolutionary Communist Party (yeah a different one). They're a money-grabbing newspaper-obsessed cult who've harboured abusers in five different countries, and to be honest I don't even see why they still exist now that they're no longer devoted to entryism considering that was the entire reason they split from the rest of Militant in the first place, they might as well reunify with the CWI or the ISA but far be it from me to expect insular Trotskyist control freaks to make sensible, practical political moves or to ever get the fuck over a split.

[desire-mona]

forgive me for leftist-posting abt the gay movie, but the dead poets society is soooo leftist-adjacent in my mind. "mona wtf does that mean" im not entirely sure! something about rebelling against a school with such strict rules and reliance on tradition just to read poetry in the woods seems very.. path to leftism to me. i feel like i can explain better with the original dead poets so ill do that.

warning: this isnt even speculation at this point, its me making shit up about the og poets for the sake of projection + i think it would be interesting + og poets being taught ww2 propaganda is smthn im always thinking abt. if u dont agree, thats more than fine, u have literally no obligation to esp considering this barely makes sense. also this isnt meant to be informative at all so if i get shit wrong then lmk, im neither a historian nor an expert in leftism.

to specify off the bat, ive always hced keating as an avid and involved leftist, although probably not publicly. is there any merit to this? absolutely not, it's entirely just me projecting, so take this with a heaping spoonful of salt.

so, around the time the original dead poets society was formed, we were in the sorta beginning of WW2 (if we assume the dps was founded in 1941, definitely couldve been later. u should read @pencileraser1's post about keating.), and if ur familiar with US history, propaganda surrounding the war was RAMPANT, most commonly in the form of "we want u to join the military!!!!1!!!!" ive mentioned this in a previous post from however long ago that pro-military propaganda was so rampant that they often taught it in schools, no doubt especially so in private schools. now this could ultimately mean nothing in relation to the og poets, they so easily could have eaten it up and thought nothing of it, they did essentially just do homework in the woods. but in my joe biden's america ass brain thats not how it goes, just cuz. to me its sort of a pipeline of start to rebel by forming the dps > slowly realise after talking that the things theyre teaching u in terms of "rahhhh military!!!" is kinda fucked up > growing distrust of us military in general > something something US wasting money on weapons and war and shit > something something anti capitalism.

is this a stretch? absolutely, but it makes sense to me so thats what matters. also the leftist-ness?? exists on different spectrums in my mind, ranging from being against US military propaganda being taught in class to straight-up socialism (keating socialist...) so definitely dont take this as the dps being some sort of mini socialist party, in my mind its just a group of boys who happen to agree abt some aspects of society (hah). i also dont think this translated to any permanent ideals for a majority of the og boys, especially since anti-capitalism didn't exactly mix well with the cold war, the red scare, and all variants of etc after WW2 ended. except for keating, keating stays a socialist, CPUSA and eventual SDS keating (if he chose to stay in the US) are real to me.

now, would this translate to the reprisal of the dead poets (the movie ones)? i doooont think so? originally i was gonna say this only applies in my mind when the US is at war, but the US is kinda always at war, sooooooo. lets just say it applies when the US being at war is sort of a main concern to the general population (ex both world wars, vietnam, war on terror if welton was still around, etc). as to why this sorta hc only applies concerning militarism? i have absolutely no idea, probably something to do with my views on the military sorta long term leading me to my political opinions. but also! the effects that the red scare and mccarthyism definitely were still prevalent in 1959 despite soooooorta dying down around 1957. no doubt the US population's fear of anti-capitalism = ur a russian spy was still there. was that sorta thing taught in schools at that point? not sure, this is also a fictional school so it doesn't really matter and im going on a tangent. i suppose if the dps reprise continued for more than ~3 months then they could've gone down a similar path under the right circumstances? but i doubt it. although leftist neil is quite special to me. neil for SAG! neil for unionisation!

i like applying this logic to other periods, like the 60s for example (i knowwww keating was gone by then, lets just pretend, make it an au i guess) i can definitely see the poets (or some at least) delving into the hippie movement on the down-low, although its easy to call into question whether hippies were an actual group of activists or just a sort of cultural movement. again - i dont know much about the history of hippies so i dont have much to add, lets go with a general "anti vietnam war" ideology to keep things simple. sorta similar to the og poets in terms of war bad > socialism pipelines, and the SDS was formed roughly around this time? peak was in 1968-69, but thats kinda all i got. if anyone enjoys this idea and knows a lot abt that point in leftist history then definitely feel free to add anything on if u want.

in conclusion: mona hates war and the military and projects it onto the poets because they wanted to and also they had a conversation with tristan about propaganda in relation to dps. this is a bunch of random sorta points just strewn together so my apologies for how messy this is.

bonus: FANTASTIC point by @lookingglasswolf

[sweaterkittensahoy]

Dick Winters being the reason Band of Brothers has minimal swearing and sex is so funny not because "LOL Dick is prude" but because he was mad that the sex scene meant it wouldn't be appropriate to show in secondary school history classes.

Like, if that isn't Winters to a T: thinking about those around him and how he can best help them. How he can best explain the war he went through and how he wants to make sure as many people as possible can watch it.

But also, Dick, there is no history class in any high school in any part of the United States that is going to show kids a 10-hour miniseries. You adorable dreamer.

That being said, I do think BoB is 100% a great way to give junior high kids and older some more info on WW2 if they're into the subject matter.

The other thing about this is that Dick's feelings on making WW2 stories a little cleaner on swearing and/or sex so more people can watch it is absolutely something Spielberg and Hanks took to heart. I do not believe for a second any of the actual pilots portrayed in MotA went fifteen seconds without saying fuck.

Meanwhile, David Simon went, "Hey, I bent the will of a big three network beyond anything anyone knew was possible in the early and mid-ninties for Homicide, and than I made Oz, and Generation Kill is gonna be exactly as profane as those Marines actually are. Get fucked."

[echotrinityme]

It's Gonna Be Me (Dave x Kurt and Stickprice)

A/N: The ship Dave x Kurt needs more love! Also, I wanted to make Dave angst.

Dave was watching several attendants look at the displays, making sure nobody touched them or tried to steal them. 

He smiled at a family that was explaining the display to their children. The kids stared at the display in awe and amazement at the display. Dave giggled and went back to his job. 

At break time, Dave was sitting with Jacob Rose and Sam Turner. They were eating lunch and talking. 

"And that's how Ellie and I got in trouble with our parents for flooding the house," Jacob said proudly.

Sam and Dave laughed, "Oh my gosh. If it were my parents, I would not be here," Sam laughed.

"Luckily, I never done that when I was a kid," Dave said as he ate his sandwich. 

"Well, my sister and I were terrors when we were kids," Jacob took a drink of his water while the other two kept eating.

"And there was this one with Ellie," Jacob continued, Dave listened as Sam contributed to the conversation. 

Dave finished his sandwich as his phone buzzed. He checked his phone, and he blushed. Sam and Jacob noticed this. They leaned into him and gave him a sly smile.

"Is that your boyfriend?" Jacob teased.

Dave's face was burning, "No! He's just a friend that I used to work with..." he looked down at his phone, "A friend that I have a crush on,"

Sam and Jacob said "Ooooooh," in unison.

"Who is this friend?" Sam asked.

"His name is Rupert Price," Dave replied, "We used to be coworkers on the police force,"

"Oh I heard about him from my sister," Jacob said, "She told me that he is prickly and prone to anger issues,"

Sam and Dave cringed. He wasn't wrong though. For as long as Dave knew him, Rupert Price isn't exactly the most friendly person. He was prickly, cocky, grumpy, and sometimes a bragger. Rupert is an asshole with a hidden heart of gold. But... Rupert does have violent outbursts and it's hard to control his anger. Dave figured Rupert didn't grow up properly and didn't have a good childhood.

"I know he has anger issues," Dave defended, "He's working on it,"

"Hey, Dave calm down," Sam said as they put a hand on his shoulder, "We're not making fun of him. We want to make you're ok,"

"Yeah," Jacob added, "We're looking out for you,"

"I know," Dave said, smiling. He's glad that he has friends who care about him. 

"Tsk,"

Everyone turned their heads to find Kurt Dietrich leaning against the open door to the breakroom. He did not look happy. 

"What are you guys talking about?" Kurt asked as he stepped inside the breakroom, he went to the refrigerator to get his lunch.

"About Dave's crush," Jacob answered, smirking. Dave was blushing.

"Ugh," Kurt replied, annoyed.

Kurt didn't say anything as he sat at a table a few feet away from Dave and the others. He ate in silence while Dave and the others watched him. Dave frowned. On Dave's first day on the job, every security guard warned him about Kurt Dietrich. Kurt Dietrich is known to be a grumpy coworker who prefers to be alone. Of course, Dave was assigned to Kurt as his partner. 

Kurt hates his job and will grumble when someone, e.g., Dave talks too much. Kurt also has a reputation for being a prickly character, which reminds Dave of a certain onyx, bushy-haired soldier. Kurt was also a jerk—a bigger jerk than any other. Dave made a mental note when Rupert visited the museum to keep him and Kurt away from each other. 

"Hey, you know how he is," Sam said.

"Just ignore him," Jacob added.

"Okay," Dave said.

The rest of the day went like usual for Dave. Telling patrons where to go, stopping rowdy kids, making sure no one steals anything, and taking breaks. Once the museum was closed every security guard was at their post for the night shift. Dave and Kurt were at their usual post, the WW2 section.

Dave and Kurt were talking while guarding the WW2 section. Well... Dave was talking and Kurt was listening or contributing little to the conversation. Dave knew Kurt wasn't a bug talker and knew Kurt found him annoying. 

Kurt grumbled as Dave kept talking, "Does he ever stop talking?" he thought as he heard Dave talk about the other coworkers. 

"Hey, Kurt?" Dave said tentatively, "I will be right back,"

"Ja," Kurt said in his German accent. He breathed a mental sigh of relief, "Finally,"

Dave was gone for a few minutes which made Kurt happy. Dave came back after those few minutes, he was carrying a pink box. He opened the box to reveal there were donuts. He grabbed a donut and held it out.

"Do you want a donut, Kurt?" Dave asked politely.

Kurt crossed his arms and grumbled, "I don't like sweets," he answered, annoyed.

"Oh no! This awkward," Dave thought.

"I'm sorry," Dave apologized, "Back at my old workplace, my friends and I enjoyed eating donuts. You remind me of my best friend, Rupert Price,"

Kurt took note that Dave's face was red when he mentioned Rupert Price, "Rupert is like you except he loves sweets, especially donuts," Dave continued face still red. 

"Tsk, whatever," Kurt said, "Do you have feelings for Rupert?"

Dave nearly choked on the donut he was eating, he glanced at Kurt with wide. He swallowed and laughed sheepishly, "How do you know?"

"Your face was red when you mentioned his name, genius," 

"Oh...right,"

"Does he know about your feelings toward him?" Kurt questioned seriously.

Dave bowed his head but brought it back up, "No... I haven't told him yet,"

Kurt sighed, and he closed his eyes. "When are you going to tell him?"

"I'm not sure," Dave was wondering why Kurt cared so much about this.

"If you tell him you guys will get together right?" Kurt said, uncrossing his arms to stand in front of Dave.

Dave blinked as his face went bright red, "Uh...yeah," he replied.

"What if he doesn't return your feelings?"

"What?" Dave asked, his mind blank when hearing the question.

"I said what if he doesn't return your feelings?" Kurt asked, exasperated, "What if he only sees you as a friend? Not everything can be like those romance movies, Dave. You have to be realistic about this,"

Dave's eyes widened in anger, "Wha- What are you talking about?!" 

Dave went up to Kurt who seemed surprised to see Dave was angry, "T-That's not true! I know life isn't like a romance book but I'm being realistic about this!"

Kurt was about to say something but Dave wouldn't let him, "We have been close friends for a while so I know I won't get rejected. He cares about me as much I care about him!"

Kurt's eyes widened at Dave's ranting, "He's being realistic? I don't think so," he thought.

"The only reason you're saying that is because no one wants you!" Dave continued, "You're a jerk and a grumpy person is mad at everything for no dang reason! Do yourself a favor and mind your business!"

Dave left a stunned Kurt alone. Kurt's face was red and he clenched his fists in anger. 

"That brat... that fucking brat!" Kurt raged internally, "Who the hell does he think he is?! Shouting at me like! I was telling him to be realistic, he didn't need to get so angry at me. He's a dummkopf,"

Dave and Kurt didn't speak to each other for the rest of the night.

The next few days were tense for Dave and Kurt. Dave was still mad at Kurt and Kurt was mad at Dave. Sam, Jacob, and the other guards noticed their anger and made sure to keep them apart.

Dave was walking to meet Rupert and his friends at a cafe. He had the day off and he wanted to hang out with Rupert. Rupert invited him to hang out with his friends. Dave was wearing casual clothing. He found the cafe and went inside. He looked around to find Rupert. He spotted Rupert sitting near the window. Rupert saw him and waved at him. Blushing, Dave went over to him.

When he got to the table, he saw a pilot with red headphones, a red-haired girl, and a familiar thief. He sat down next to the open seat next to Rupert. 

"Hi, Dave," Rupert said, "Glad you came to make it,"

He pointed to the other three sitting at the table, "Let me introduce you to my friends here; The one with the red headphones is Charles Calvin and he's a pilot. The red-haired one is Ellie Rose and she used to be a former criminal. And you know Henry Stickmin,"

Dave saw Henry waving at him nervously, he couldn't blame Henry for being nervous. Henry Stickmin had an infamous reputation for being a thief. He tried to steal the Tunisian Diamond from the museum where he works. Dave was wondering what's he doing with Rupert Price. Rupert Price was a cop and so was he. They've both arrested Henry many times. Henry even indirectly escaped from jail because of Dave which Dave got fired from. That's how he came to work at the museum. 

"Hi, Dave!" Charles and Ellie said in unison.

"Hello," Dave said happily.

"So what's been going on with you, Dave?" Rupert asked.

"Uh same old same old with the security job," Dave replied, still blushing.

"That's good,"

"Hey, Dave. Do you have any stories of when Rupert worked in the police force?" Ellie asked, smirking making Rupert's face go pink.

"Uh I do," Dave answered.

"Oh, I have something to say to Dave," Henry signed.

"What is it?" 

"Dave, I'm so sorry for costing your job and stuff," Henry apologized.

Dave blinked, "Oh... it's okay. I forgive you. I got a new job so everything worked out," he replied.

Henry smiled.

Everyone got their drinks and food, and they happily chatted away while eating their food. While Rupert was talking, Dave was becoming enamored with him. He was falling harder and harder for Rupert. However, Dave was so busy paying attention to Rupert that he didn't notice Henry's annoyed look at him. What Dave doesn't know is that Rupert and Henry are in a relationship. Charles and Ellie know about their relationship, but Dave doesn't.

A few days later, Dave and Kurt had the night shift again.

They still weren't speaking to each other. Usually, Kurt would be overjoyed to have silence from  Dave but not this time. He missed Dave talking to him. They stood a few feet from each other in silence. Kurt kept staring at Dave while Dave blatantly ignored him. After a few minutes of staring at Dave, he inhaled and exhaled. He swallowed his pride. 

"Dave, I need to talk to you," Kurt said.

Dave stared at Kurt with a hard look, "About what?" he said coldly.

"I want to apologize,"

"..."

Dave went up to him and crossed his arms. 

"I'm sorry for making you mad," Kurt apologized, "I know that was mean and I was being a jerk,"

Dave's eyes widened, he was in shock. He never heard Kurt apologize for being a jerk.

Kurt waited for Dave's response, he looked everywhere but Dave.

Dave looked down, "I... I'm sorry too,"

Kurt glanced at Dave quickly, "What?" he said, did he misheard him?

"I'm sorry for calling you a jerk," Dave repeated, "I know I shouldn't have,"

Oh.

He did hear him correctly.

Dave apologizing to him?

Kurt's face went red and rubbed his head awkwardly, "It's okay, I deserved to be called that,"  

"Yeah, you did,"

Kurt and Dave started to laugh. They laughed for a few seconds, then went quiet. Kurt cleared his throat, "Sooo... did you tell him yet?"

Dave blinked in confusion, "Nope," he bowed his head down.

"Tsk. You better do or else somebody might make a move on him,"

"Yeah..."

Kurt was about to say something else when their boss called them to their office. They went to the office full of anxiety. They had a million thoughts on what the boss wanted them for, all of which were full of bad scenarios. However, their overthinking was messing with them. The boss wanted to tell them to take the rest of the night off. They left the museum and started walking. 

"That's nice of him to give us the rest of the night off," Dave commented.

"Ja," Kurt replied.

They kept walking till they to the busy part of the town. The town was bustling with its residents and stores were open to customers looking for clothes, food, or other necessities. Kurt and Dave kept walking till Dave spotted a store filled with sweets. He stopped to look at the display window in awe, Kurt noticed Dave was by his side. He searched for Dave when he spotted him at a store, looking at a display window.

He went up to him, he saw that Dave was looking at sweets. He shook his head and sighed. 

"Whatcha doing?" Kurt questioned, though he knew the answer.

"I'm thinking of getting a gift for Rupert and I can confess my feelings for him," Dave replied.

Dave headed inside while Kurt followed him. Dave was looking for what kind of sweets he should buy for Rupert as Kurt watched him. He stumbled upon chocolates, he smiled as he picked up the box. "Perfect," he said as he walked to the counter to pay for the chocolates. 

The cashier rang up his item and Dave and Kurt left the shop.

"Do you think he will like it?" Dave asked. They were at a park. 

"I don't know," Kurt replied, "Does he like chocolate?"

"If he loves sweets, especially donuts, then he will love chocolate,"

"Hmm,"

"It also doesn't matter if he does or doesn't," Dave explained, "When I tell him how I feel, it will be all worth it,"

Kurt looked around while Dave was on cloud nine, Kurt spotted several people in the park. Couples on a date, people biking, people jogging, etc. His gaze landed on one particular couple but the couple seemed familiar to Kurt. Kurt was trying to figure out where he had seen this couple before, and then he remembered the photos and the thief who tried to rob the museum. 

He saw Rupert Price and Henry Stickmin sitting on a bench. Looking at the sky. They were sitting close. Sitting way too close to be friends or acquaintances. Dave noticed Kurt wasn't paying attention to him.

"Kurt?" Dave said, Kurt glanced over at Dave, his eyes were wide in shock. Dave was confused and looked where Kurt was looking at.

"Mein Gott! No, Dave, you shouldn't loo-" Kurt tried to stop Dave but it was too late, Dave saw Rupert and Henry leaning in for a kiss and he saw them kissed.

Dave felt his heart shatter into a million pieces and his face went red in embarrassment. He stood in shock and numbness. Kurt quietly went up to him, he put his hands on his shoulders.

"Dave?" Kurt said tentatively, "Dave, are you-"

"Congratulations! You were r-right," Dave exclaimed, shoving the chocolates into Kurt's chest. Kurt grabbed the chocolates as Dave started crying, Kurt threw them on the floor to comfort him.

"Oi... let's go, Dave," Kurt said softly as he led them out of the park, leaving the chocolates on the ground.

The next couple of days were hard for Dave and Kurt. Dave was hurting and Kurt had to watch a heartbroken Dave be miserable. Dave kept working to try to forget about his pain, but Kurt had to make sure he was okay. Sam and Jacob noticed that their shy friend was acting depressed. They confronted Kurt about it but he told them it wasn't his fault this time and only told them his heart got broken. 

One night, Dave was leaning against a pole. He was still feeling depressed about Rupert. Kurt didn't like seeing Dave like this. He hated it. He missed his talks, he missed Dave's shyness, and he missed when he offered him sweets. Dave was a former shell of himself. Kurt needed to bring him back to his old self but how?

After their night shift was over, Dave was about to leave when a hand stopped him. He turned around to find Kurt stopped him. "C'mon, I want to take you somewhere real quick,"

Dave didn't want to go but with Kurt's insisting look, he reluctantly followed him. 

"Before we go to the place I'm taking you, let's stop at a gas station," Kurt said.

Dave nodded and they went to the gas station. Kurt went inside while Dave stayed outside. Dave waited a few minutes when Kurt came outside with drinks and snacks. He handed Dave a chocolate bar and a drink.

"Uh... thanks," Dave said as he held his snacks.

"You're welcome now let's go," Kurt led the way.

They kept walking till they got to the park, the same park where Dave had his heart broken. Dave wanted to leave but felt his hand being grabbed by Kurt, Kurt gently led him inside the park and sat down on the bench. Dave didn't want to be here. Kurt put his snacks down beside him and put a gentle hand on Dave's shoulders. 

"Look... I know it might seem like the end of the world but it's not," Kurt explained gently, "Everyone has their heart broken but they have moved on. It's okay to feel sad,"

Dave listened as he saw his vision start to go blurry, "It will hurt for a while... but eventually you will heal and move on," Kurt finished as he saw tears streaming down his face. Kurt got him into a tight embrace as Dave buried his face into Kurt's uniform and kept sobbing.

Kurt hugged him until he calmed down. Dave ceased his sobbing and lifted his head from Kurt's hug. He wiped his eyes as Kurt opened the chocolate bar and gave it to Dave. Dave took the bar and ate it.

"Feel better?" Kurt questioned as he smiled.

Dave blinked and his face went red like a cherry, he had never seen Kurt smile before. Dave nodded, hiding his face. 

Kurt cleared his throat and lifted Dave's chin, "And also... " Kurt's face was red as he leaned in close to Dave's lips, "There will be someone to help you take the pain away,"

Dave felt Kurt's lips and his heart skipped a beat. He closed his eyes and kissed back. 

If Dave needed help to heal and move on, Kurt was the one gonna do it. 

A/N: Hoped you enjoyed this!

Mein Gott: My god in German.

Dummkopf: Idiot in German.