#relatively civilized

[alchemania]

Snow White Dove, Blood Stained Wings.

(Or, the Traveler has a harrowing encounter which leaves her reeling.)

There is a shivering blob of white amongst the snow of Dragonspine, and as Lumine draws closer, jet black hair accented by hot pink stands out in sharp contrast.

Oh. That's a body.

“Hello?” the blonde called, kneeling down and ignoring how the cold bit into her legs. “Can you hear me?” No answer, so she shook the smaller person a little roughly, causing a pair of snow white wings to pop up and flitter rapidly as they jolted awake. Lumine screamed and leaned back, trying to avoid getting walloped in the face, and watched as the other person hissed and grabbed their right wing- now that the Traveler looked closer, it was moving oddly …was it broken? “Here, let me help you up. There's a church down in the city,” and strong hands lift the other person out of the snow - now that she can see the face, it seems to be another young lady, and her cheeks and nose are rosy from the chill.

“..thank you,” the girl manages, leaning all her weight on the Traveler. “You are too kind..”

It doesn't take too long to get to the church, taking the teleporters. The petite young lady is tucked into a bed and told to rest, and after ensuring she'll be alright, Lumine makes way to go.

“..it seems the rumors were true, you really will help just about anyone.. I wonder if one day, that will be your downfall..”

Lumine stopped in her tracks, looking to the inhabitant in the bed in her peripheral vision. She looked so small, the blankets covering her up about to her chin, but the room suddenly felt very, veryyyyy cold.

“..what do you mean by that,” she hears herself say, by some miracle.

“Oh…don't pay me any attention,” the raven haired girl placated, waving a hand weakly. “Simply thinking aloud..”.

“..who are you,” Lumine demanded, turning fully around to face the bed as her expression hardened.

“Does that matter..? Would you have left me alone on that mountain to die if you didn't like the answer?”

Silence.

“.. I don't mean you any harm, Traveler, or the people of Mondstadt, if that's what you're worried about," was the quiet reply after a long moment. "I swear it. But I'm aware you do not like the people I work with very much, and so I deemed it best to keep my mouth shut until you offered me assistance.”

“The folks you work with,” Lumine repeated almost dumbly, looking more and more rattled by the moment.

“You got one of my coworkers killed back in Inazuma. Does that ring any bells???”

Lumine can't breathe.

“You're a Harbinger?”

Rapidly, she goes down the list in her mind. Signora was dead, and she'd already met Arlecchino, so this had to be either Sandrone or Columbina.

“Which one?” she barely manages.

“The Damsel,” the girl replies easily, eyes finally opening - they're a beautiful magenta, almost mesmerizing. “Nice to meet you, Traveler. You don't have to be afraid. Like I said, I have no desire to harm you, or anyone here. It's a little disheartening to think you may have simply abandoned me if you knew who I was beforehand….. but at least that's not what happened, no? I don't know why you're so flustered, Master Childe speaks so highly of you -”

“He's NOT my friend!”

There go the wings again, slightly.

“.. we're not all horrible people, you know. Not all of us had a choice in this.”

Lumine thinks of the twins, and Freminet.

Columbina looks sad now, genuinely so.

“...Why can't you understand that?”

“Well, sorry for being a little on edge, considering some of your coworkers have tried to KILL me -”

“But I'm not them. I already said I have no interest in harming you. Do you think that I'm lying?”

Silence, painful.

“Perhaps if you stopped looking at us through your black and white lens, you'll see that we, and you, are much closer to grey than you'd like to admit -”

The door slams, the sound resounding. Lumine is gone.

Columbina closes her eyes, sighing.

“...well. You can't fault a girl for trying.”

She steeples her hands over her chest then, expression thoughtful. “The heart that forever bleeds will one day cease to beat. . I wonder if she will realize that before it's too late. I surely hope so.”

And the Harbinger slept.

[redbean-nom]

definitely not the best idea narratively but. imagine how funny it would be if in the upcoming mandalorian movie, bo katan & the armorer retake Mandalore and then promptly decide to take back the rest of their systems. congratulations, the empire has been driven out, time to get back to firebombing the neighbors. din gets dragged back out of his peaceful farmhouse because he is the one mandalorian capable of resolving things peacefully

[fuckyou-saidtheraven]

*rattles the bars of my cage*

hey mechs tumblr?

what the FUCK do you mean the angel drank bottles of dionysian wine?

[fictionadventurer]

People will often say, 'If you could be with Lincoln for dinner, what would you want to ask him? What would be the unanswered question?' And I know I should be asking him, 'OK, suppose you had not been killed, how would you have dealt with the South? How would you have dealt with Reconstruction and all the controversies that arose?' But I know that if I really had him for dinner one night, I would simply ask him, 'Tell me a story, Mr. Lincoln.' Because then I would see him coming alive. He laughed so hard when he told one of his funny stories, his eyes would twinkle. And then I'd know that the Lincoln I knew -- who was somehow able in the worst days of the war to dispel the anxiety of his Cabinet members by his humor and his life-affirming sense of storytelling -- then I’d know I would have seen him alive.

-Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential Episode 16

This was where I had to stop the Lincoln episode at the end of my commute, and as I pulled into the parking lot I said to myself, "Wow, that's lovely." A little schmaltzy, perhaps, but I think it gets to the core of why people study history. Sure, there's the intellectual impulse to analyze and understand events with the benefit of hindsight, but deep down, the heart of historical study is a desire to connect with people. To bridge the gulf of time and space and get to know people despite the fact that they lived in a completely different century.

History's not just dry lists of dates and names and theories. It's people. It's personalities. It's quirks and memories and stories. It's knowing that a historical figure isn't just a face on a monument, or a source of information, but a guy who can tell really funny stories. And I wanted to share this quote because it really understands the humanity of history in a way I rarely see expressed.

[littlegildedswallow]

radfems, here's some all rounded perspective about prostitution, poverty, child trafficking (and how the rich are involved in all of it), organ harvesting and forced labor in India.

MASSIVE trigger warning, obviously. This woman is an activist who has rescued thousands of women from prostitution/fast fashion factories etc. and we've never heard of her.

in the end, it all comes down to male depravity and poverty. this was a horrifying and eye opening watch. there's english subtitles, even though they're not great.

@ihatemenandtherearereasons

[statisticalcats2]

That special brand of American Leftist: "We're gonna continuously impede anything the Left tries to do and deliberately keep the Left as fractured and powerless as it can be because that's gonna force people to finally make the revolution real!"

Kevin Roberts: "We're in the process of the second American Revolution."

Congrats, guys, you did it!

[neurob-ug]

Grabbing the edges of my chair until my knuckles turn white, because WHY is it so hard to find ONE, only ONE German YouTuber that doesn't have the most piss poor, rancid ass take on the genocide of Palestinians?

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

this alone will ensure america's power and prosperity for centuries to come.

[catvampire]

just finnish things: growing up around somali refugees and their children in the 00's and then coming to english-speaking internet and being extremely confused when anyone only ever drew muslim women as just. kind of tan.

[excelsiorfics]

Next In Line

Date: June 26, 2008 Author: htbthomas Rating: Gen Word Count/Status: 1,619, complete Dynamic: Peter Parker & Anna Watson Characters: Peter Parker, Anna Watson Tags: Civil War Era, Secret Identity Reveal

Summary: When Peter Parker unmasked in front of national television, he sort of forgot to warn everyone…

[tiabwwtws-art]

Quinnposting

[natequarter]

not that i'm thinking about the reformation and its impact on england and international relations but i'm very much thinking about humphrey and what it means to be english as a man whose childhood largely consisted of one family raising hell over what the english religion was and what it means for him to be an elizabethan courtier as a presumably reformist man married to a french catholic, and what all of that means to him and his identity after four centuries of distance from All That (not to mention that this religious and geopolitical division is literally what got him killed). i'm also very much thinking about mary and what it means for her to be a christian when it was precisely all the fearmongering of james i and his book on daemonologie and shakespeare's macbeth which created the environment in which she was killed, and on top of that what it means for annie to be a good puritan when the men around her used that to silence and stifle her, and how all of these different characters interact with these broader ideas of a unified church, of some ideal of christendom in the face of england's emerging colonialism revealing a world outside of europe, and splintering factions of protestantism, and the idea of a rightful monarch chosen by god when people are busy fighting over who's even right about god, and specifically the idea of a rightful english monarch, and what even is english anymore when the throne keeps switching between english and spanish and scottish and not-even-royal hands (a country divided, but what's new?), all with international relations challenged by the back-and-forth do-we-want-the-pope-or-the-king-or-hey-why-not-cromwell.

[prismportrait]

the Unova games are the best games to ever come out with the subject around the United States of America, and no one will ever change my mind on that

[thedreadvampy]

not very related but every time I think about LGBTQ progress I think about the equal marriage act (the most high profile legal change since I've been politically aware)

and then I think about sitting with my housemate (later girlfriend. later ex) on her bed in 2012 watching and livetweeting the equal marriage debates in parliament.

and then I think about the person who tweeted, in response to a point being made about the diversity of opinions on the matter in the Christian faith and specifically the firm pro-equality stances taken by the Quakers and the Unitarian Church; "Unitarians aren't real Christians and Quakerism is witchcraft"

"Quakerism is witchcraft" has lived rent-free in my mind for over a decade. my two favourite callbacks to make with friends about my religion are "Quakers ritually bathe in oats" and "Quakerism is witchcraft."

[flickeringflame216]

💬

[terrorbirb]

@my coworkers: why are there accessibility ramps on the sidewalks but no cross walks at our workplace? We own this building. You own making crosswalks for the county. What gives?