#so. many fucking tags need to go here

[rjalker]

Which Side Are You On?

Copying and pasting the entire thing since it's only on the Wayback Machine now, so that it will at least show up in google searches.

___

Leslie Feinberg Feinberg, a transgender activist, received an honorary doctorate from Starr King School in May 2007. Feinberg delivered this speech at the school’s Graduates Dinner.

The diploma I received in high school taught me a lot. I was a butch lesbian high school student who worked second shift doing industrial work, less and less interested in mandatory attendance and classroom rote. One of my English teachers persuaded me to attend my high school graduation ceremony. I sat in the back, in denim and sunglasses, cap pulled low over my eyes. They announced my name, handed me a diploma, an English award and a $10 gift certificate to a local bookstore.

I got an education from that diploma itself. I had seen how many African American classmates who had worked hard to stay in school had been expelled for speaking up, or for minor infractions of arbitrarily punished rules. The majority of the white students was middle class and expected to go on to the university. Although I was blue-collar, headed for the factories, as a white student I was given the gift of a diploma.

I tossed the diploma out, kept the understanding and the gift certificate to the bookstore, and set out to find my education in the roiling world around me.

I came of age and consciousness at the height of the Civil Rights movement, the rising Black Power and American Indian Movement, the Young Lords and the Chicano Farm Workers organizing factories in fields, women’s and gay liberation--and the demand to bring the troops home, now, from yet another Pentagon war, at that time against the Vietnamese people.

The struggle is a great educator. All of the products of my labor have been as a working-class scholar of struggle. And your bestowing of an honorary doctorate, a letter of humanities, for me for my intellectual labor and activist work--has great meaning for me. This is a diploma I will treasure.

I think what brought us together here tonight is that we each sincerely want to change the world for the better. We may or may not agree on how.

But we can meet by bridging conscience and consciousness.

As a secular Jewish revolutionary communist, I know that many of you have heard, out of context, Marx’s phrase that religion is the “opium of the people.”

Marx was actually writing with great compassion for the suffering of the class that was, and still is, exploited, downtrodden and disenfranchised. He wrote, “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering.”

Religion, he wrote, “is the sigh of the oppressed,” it is, “the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions.” It was in that context that Marx said religion is an opiate for pain and suffering.

Many of us in this room share this in common--we feel that suffering, hear the sighs and moans around us, struggle to change the soulless conditions.

How can we unite to change those conditions?

Working in factories in which I was in a union, or trying to be, gave me two important tools. The first was a critical compass: Which side are you on? The other was a honed principle: An injury to one is an injury to all.

My analytical work as a transgender lesbian was sharpened and deepened by the tool of historical materialism, which allowed me to understand how I got to this place in the world by allowing me to see the vista of the hills and valleys of human social development .

The most startling find I discovered was that greed and bigotry are not hard-wired human characteristics. The truth that for the vast majority of human history our earliest ancestors lived cooperatively and communally is downright subversive. It means that human nature is not fixed and immutable, but really quite changeable in changing material conditions. Because of the role of gender variant, transsexual and intersexual people in the belief systems of many cooperative societies, I could see that science and belief had not yet split in early communalism. They were all one effort to understand and to explain the world around us.

It was only at the point where human society first cleaved into have and have-nots--into slave-owners and slaves, feudal landowners and serfs, capitalist patriarchs and workers--that religion and science split, as well.

To our early ancestors, who would have starved without cooperation, the decree, “Thou shalt not steal” would have been inexplicable. But with changing economic organization and exploitation, the Lord’s Prayer changed too. Only under feudal privatizing--the enclosure of common land--could trespass be a crime that required absolution. Only under a money-based capitalism system could debt require mercy.

Virtually every emperor or king or imperial president has flown a religious flag over their class battles to expand their empires. Those who resist, often do so under the banner of the same religion, or an oppressed religion.

Denmark Vesey, the great leader of rebellion of enslaved peoples, was a African Methodist, while Leonidas Polk, an Episcopal bishop, was a Confederate general in the Civil War. The struggle to abolish slavery split the denominations on this continent, based on who suffered from slavery and who profited from slavery.

It was not moral suasion that ended slavery, but a civil war, in which each had to answer, as the union song demands: Which side are you on?

Today, we are being asked to line up behind Halliburton and Big Oil, Wall Street and its banks, to go kill or be killed in a war for empire in the Middle East. This so-called “war on terror” carries the banner of Christian fundamentalism in a war against Muslims who are resisting enslavement, who are defending their land, their labor, their lives.

As a Jewish revolutionary, I say here that I am shoulder-to-shoulder with Muslims who are fighting for their sovereignty and self-determination all over the world.

I live in Jersey City, which I believe at this point has the largest per capita immigrant population in the U.S. Muslim, Arab and South Asian neighbors, co-workers and friends are being discriminated against, disappeared, detained, deported and tortured.

For those who ask, how could Japanese Americans have been rounded up and interned in this and other states in the U.S. during WWII, this is how it begins.

They are not the only political prisoners in the U.S. Tomorrow, people from around the country and around the world will be in Philadelphia to pack the court and the streets outside in support of death-row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal--Black revolutionary journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless.”

Tomorrow I will wear this sticker that says “New trial now! Free Mumia!” to help bring this demand for justice everywhere tomorrow. I have more stickers for those who would like to demonstrate their solidarity.

The struggle to free Mumia is a defining case of our era, like the struggle to free the Scottsboro Brothers and the Rosenbergs. It is part and parcel of the fight against racism and national oppression, against the prison industrial complex and the death penalty, used as a weapon by today’s rulers just as the emperors lined the road to Rome with crucified slaves to warn others against trying to rise up to break their shackles.

Leonard Peltier, the Cuban Five being held in U.S. jails, immigrant workers in detention after police state raids on factories, the prisons filled with those whose crimes are those of survival. The cities are being starved to pay for endless war.

Overt war against the peoples of Iraq, Palestinian, Afghanistan, Lebanon. Threats of impending war against Iran and saber rattling at North Korea. Covert dirty wars against Cuba, Venezuela and Sudan.

The promoting of fascist ideology and vigilantes against undocumented immigrants trying to survive imperialist globalization. Bigotry and violence, hunger and homelessness.

The pope orders liberation theologists to offer the poor only spiritual sustenance, not struggle with them for an economic system that can provide food for all.

To some, the idea of struggle sounds anathema to peace. But struggle is the road to peace that those who are beleaguered by oppression must take. There is a great centeredness and joy and freedom to be found in doing what is historically necessary, in taking up the tasks that history hands us.

Cuban Revolutionary Che Guevara said so well, “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, a revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”

It is the love felt by people who are willing to risk their lives for changes that generations yet unborn will cherish. It is the love we feel for all who are resisting tyranny, because we know which side we are on.

In the succinct eloquence of former enslaved laborer, abolitionist, writer and orator Frederick Douglass: “If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet avoid confrontation, are people who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its waters.”

I know that many of us will find each other as we take to the streets for demands for economic and social justice and against the war. But I, and millions more in this country and around the world, will not stop fighting until every battle is won. We are modern-day abolitionists, who are organizing to end this system of capitalist economic enslavement and build a society in which each individual can contribute what they can and in return, receive all that they need and desire.

So I leave you with this question: Which side are you on?

[ganondoodle]

got this reblog on one of my posts were i talked about being anxious about the future of the zelda series after totk and-

i even went back and unblocked them just to check my own post and check twice what they meant exactly- but i still dont know how they got to these conclusions

i never said i 'want a good uwu ganondorf' (bc that would mean hes aligned with hyrule bc thats how goodness works!!!!11!1!!!), i also dont think of any of the zeldas as 'whores' (seriously, where did that come from?? neither me nor the addition of someone agreeing with me said anything like that??? did they think bc the addition called tloz misogynistic means we think zelda is a whore????? huh???)

its also funny how they say they want zelda to stay a simple fairytale rather than have 'people like me' bc .. one point i talked about in the og post was how the evil arab thing VS good white people media likes to do so much is so normalized here that its simply seen as a simple harmless fairytale trope instead of a big underlying issue in general media and the writers might not even realize it (which is worse) bc the most 'generic' appeal is to people who dont think of it as a problem in the first place, because it is so normalized

(huh, i wonder about what kind of person that part was about .. hmmmm)

(ALSO funny they mention princess hilda as nuanced villain ... like ... wow they are so nuanced about purple haired people!!- like guess why we want a nuanced/less badly/less flat written ganondorf and what he, in particular, has not in common with other villains! its not his hair color! .... or was that point supposed to mean .. look we have one female character that is a villain, its not misogynistic! idk honestly)

(and the classic, "you just call it this/dont like it bc its not what you wanted !!!!!!!2!"1!112!!")

also funny how its 'never gonna be progressive enough' like asking for the franchise to maybe put a little more thought and nuance into their white divine right vs evil desert man simulator instead of making it worse is already asking too much

(i dont know what the last point has to do with anything??)

(also yes totk is racist, like most if not all of the franchise and a alot of other media as well, shocker- you can still like it though, i and plenty of other people are still fans of it, we just wish they did a little more with their stuff and maybe not make the racism problem WORSE)

(also yes the hyrule monarchy is also evil :))) )

(and also not so secretly so either :)) )

[sluckythewizard]

'I wont cry for you, I wont crucify the things you do. I wont cry for you, see, when you're gone, I'll still be BLOODY MARY'

[luck-of-the-drawings]

OH ARTHUR BENNETT.. such a gorgeous and intriguing character. terribly burdened by a GRUESOME set of crimes, his light suffocated by a HEAVY century of GUILT. so tragic, so dark and broody, and yet PAINFULLY awkward in any social setting ever

[moeblob]

Rice. From my plot that's literally just a game of chess. (he's a rook)

[etoilesombre]

Hey, do you guys want to hear a story? Let me tell you about the romance between Lancelot and Guinevere, as recounted in Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur.

So, I thought I knew the basics. I grew up reading modern versions of Arthurian legend that focused on other aspects, but had a general knowledge of the Arthur-Guinever-Lancelot love triangle. It didn't show up too much, but I assumed it was subtext in some other versions. What I picked up was that it was sort of pure, almost an ot3, and not the cause of a lot of problems. 

My friends. In this version it is NOT SUBTEXT, it DEFINITELY CAUSED PROBLEMS, and it is WILD. It is a true will-they-won't-they drama fest soap opera romance, and I need to share. So please, come on this journey with me.

[I’m looking at you, Black Sails fandom people. I need you to know that Flint canonically would have read this. He would almost certainly have also grown up hearing these stories. I’m not saying he’s Lancelot coded, but I am saying it's interesting that he would have been aware that was something it was possible to be.]

A couple notes, before we dive in. I am very much just summarizing what happened in the book. The thing is, the book is a million pages long and also in Middle English, and this is just one of many plots, which I think is why it's not more widely known. I will show some excerpts so you can get a feel for the text, but you don’t need to read them to understand the story. I'm referring to a version that is as close to the manuscript as I can find, though with spelling regularized. For real fun, see what the original looked like. Malory purports to be translating part of the French Vulgate cycle, which likely is where the character of Lancelot originates, but in fact he is doing much more than translating, and compiles other stories as well. Point being, when he says “so the French book sayeth” etc, that is the “book” to which he is referring. Because of my lack of knowledge about the language and cultural context, this lecture series from Mythgard Academy was absolutely invaluable to my understanding. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Inevitably, some of the opinions of the prof are reflected here. I do not have it in me to compare the scholarship of various medievalists right now, I just want to tell you about this DRAMA. 

Let’s start with a prophecy. When Arthur decides he wishes to marry Guinevere, Merlin advises him to take someone else, because if he takes her, she will betray him with Lancelot and it will destroy his kingdom. All of this is foretold, not only to us, but to Arthur himself. Of course he takes her anyway, and all is doomed from the start.

As we begin the main arc of this story (several books after the prophecy), Lancelot is widely acknowledged to be the best and most renowned knight of Arthur’s court. He is plainly and hopelessly in love with Guinevere, and she loves him in return. Arthur doesn’t have a problem with this - who wouldn’t love Guinevere? This sort of love is socially acceptable, so long as they do not sleep together, which would be treason. Arthur in fact seems to support their love, because it means that Lancelot will be Guinevere’s champion should she need one. This is a role Arthur himself legally cannot fill because he is the king, and so would have to be the judge. Lancelot is indeed a good champion for her, and fights for her when she is wrongly accused of murder. 

Lancelot is deeply chivalrous, in a way that seems sincere. This is a great place for a first excerpt, a conversation with a Random Damsel Lancelot has been helping:

‘Now, damosel,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘will ye any more service of me?’ ‘Nay, sir,’ she said, ‘at this time, but almighty Jesu preserve you wheresoever ye ride or go, for the most courteous knight thou art and meekest unto all ladies and gentlewomen that now liveth. But one thing, sir knight, me thinks ye lack, ye that are a knight wifeless, that ye will not love some maiden or gentlewoman. For I could never hear say that ever ye loved any of no manner of degree, and that is great pity. But it is noised that ye love Queen Guenivere, and that she hath ordained by enchantment that ye shall never love no other but her, nor no other damosel nor lady shall rejoice you; wherefore there be many in this land of high estate and low that make great sorrow.’ ‘Fair damosel,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘I may not warn* people to speak of me what it pleaseth them; but for to be a wedded man, I think it not; for then I must couch with her, and leave arms and tournaments, battles and adventures. And as for to say to take my pleasance with paramours, that will I refuse, in principal for dread of God. For knights that be adventurous should not be adulterers nor lecherous, for then they be not happy nor fortunate unto the wars; for either they shall be overcome with a simpler knight than they be themselves, or else they shall slay by unhap and their cursedness better men than they be themselves. And so who that useth paramours shall be unhappy, and all thing unhappy that is about them.’ 

So after doing his Knightly Deeds for this damsel, Lancelot asks if she needs anything else. She says no, but you are lacking one thing, which is the love of a woman. It is rumored that is because Guinevere has through sorcery made you love only her, and that causes all of the women great sorrow. In reply Lancelot makes this speech about how he cannot have a wife or paramour and be a good knight, but everyone thinks it is at least in part because his love is reserved for Guinevere.

Now, throughout the book his chastity DOES notably cause all of the women great sorrow. Everyone wants to sleep with Lancelot. Literally he is kidnapped by the four most beautiful queens other than Guinevere, and they say he has to choose one of them as a lover (not even a wife, a lover) or else die. He says he would rather die, though in the end he escapes. This is just an example, truly it is a recurring problem for him. He is, at one point, tricked into sleeping with a woman with whom he conceives his son Galahad (as was prophesied, it's a long story and the romance is only part of it. It is worth mentioning that something similar happens to Arthur, which is how Mordred is sired.) When Guinevere learns that Lancelot has been with someone else, she is angry and banishes him from the court. They still love each other and eventually reconcile. 

So, Lancelot goes on the quest for the holy grail. But he fails, specifically because while he is outwardly dedicated to God, in his private heart he is still dedicated to Guinevere. And so he makes a vow to renounce his love for her, acknowledging that it is beyond measure (beyond what is right, even if they have not technically done anything wrong.) However when he returns to Camelot, he cannot keep this vow, as we see. 

Then, as the book saith, Sir Lancelot began to resort unto Queen Guenivere again, and forgot the promise and the perfection that he made in the quest. For, as the book saith, had not Sir Lancelot been in his privy thoughts and in his mind so set inwardly to the Queen as he was in seeming outward to God, there had no knight passed him in the quest of the Sangrail, but ever his thoughts were privily on the Queen. And so they loved together more hotter than they did beforehand, and had many such privy draughts together that many in the court spoke of it, and in especial Sir Agravain, Sir Gawain’s brother, for he was ever open-mouthed. So it befell that Sir Lancelot had many resorts of ladies and damosels that daily resorted unto him to be their champion: in all such matters of right Sir Lancelot applied him daily to do for the pleasure of Our Lord Jesu Christ. And ever as much as he might he withdrew him from the company of Queen Guenivere for to eschew the slander and noise, wherefore the Queen waxed wroth with Sir Lancelot.

He and Guinevere start spending a lot of time alone together, and so there are rumors circulating about them in court. In order to put a stop to the rumors, Lancelot starts paying other women attention and doing more good knightly deeds for them. Guinevere is terribly jealous, but he tells her it's for their own good, and also tells her about the vow he made, and his concern that their love is beyond what is appropriate. She is devastated, and weeping banishes him from the court (again). 

Lancelot then rides in a tournament, disguised. (Why? Because this is simply a thing knights do.) To make it an effective disguise he takes the token of a woman, the sleeve of the fair maid of Astolat to wear on his helm. When she discovers that he was only using it for the disguise, and he does not indeed love her, she is so heartbroken that she says if he will not marry her or be her lover, she will die. He refuses, on the grounds that love must not be constrained and should arise from the heart, and offers her a thousand pounds a year instead if she marries anyone else. Properly insulted by this, she does indeed die. She has her body sent in a boat to Camelot, with a letter in her hand, saying that she died of her love for him, that he would not return. 

Seeing this, Guinevere reconciles with Lancelot, presumably reassured by the fact that he would let this very beautiful much younger woman die of her love rather than being with her. She insists that from now on he will not fight in disguise, and will openly bear her token. 

Then Queen Guenivere sent for Sir Lancelot, and said thus: ‘I warn you that ye ride no more in no jousts nor tournaments but that your kinsmen may know you; and at these jousts that shall be ye shall have of me a sleeve of gold. And I pray you for my sake to force* yourself there, that men may speak you worship. But I charge you as ye will have my love, that ye warn your kinsmen that ye will bear that day the sleeve of gold upon your helmet.’ ‘Madam,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘it shall be done.’ And either made great joy of other.

It is important to keep in mind that, to this point, there is no textual evidence that they were sleeping together, and a great deal of evidence that it was important to Lancelot that they not cross that line. There is much less evidence that this is important to Guinevere.

So then one fateful day in May, Guinevere goes picnicing with an entourage of knights. They are captured by someone else who is in love with Guinevere, and taken back to his castle, but she manages to send a message to Lancelot. At the castle, she insists that her knights sleep in her bedchamber on the grounds that they were wounded in the battle when she was captured and need tending, but truly she wants them there to keep her captor from raping her. 

Lancelot arrives to rescue her, and the person who kidnapped her agrees to give her back in the morning. She tells Lancelot to visit her room in the night. He climbs up to her window, which is barred. They have a heartfelt reunion and she says she wishes he could come in to her. He acquiesces and breaks the bars to get into her room, cutting his hand to the bone to do so. Despite the profusely bleeding wound and the ten other men sleeping in the room, they at last do sleep together, in this passionate blood covered consummation. He sneaks back out and replaces the bars.

In the morning, the man who kidnapped Guinevere comes in and sees blood all over the bed. He accuses her of being unfaithful to the king, saying she lay with one of the knights who had been sleeping in her room. She denies it, but it is very clear that she did sleep with someone who was bleeding. 

Lancelot says he will fight to defend her from this accusation, which is right and proper because he is her champion. In this story people take trial by combat and oaths before God very seriously, especially Lancelot. He really does try. So he swears an oath that he will prove with his life that Guinevere did not sleep with one of the wounded knights who lay in her room. This of course is TRUE, but only on a technicality. Lancelot, having slept with her himself the night before, is also the one who defends her honor after. I love this story so much. 

Instead of fighting him, the kidnapper takes Lancelot captive. In captivity he encounters ANOTHER damsel who insists that sleep with her in order for her to help him. He refuses, still faithful in his heart to Guinevere. Eventually she settles for him holding and kissing her, which is not across the line of appropriateness apparently, giving us some idea of where that line is drawn. Anyway, Lancelot gets out, fights for Guinevere and wins. There are indications that he feels like he barely dodged a devine bullet. 

Guinevere and Lancelot return to Camelot. Finally the rumors about them are true, the deed has been done, but of course nothing appears particularly different as there were already rumors about them. Two knights, Mordred and Agravaine, who have been intriguing against Arthur already, go and tell Arthur that Guinevere is being untrue to him. Here is his response: 

‘If it be so,’ said the King, ‘wit you well, he is none other; but I would be loath to begin such a thing but I might have proofs of it. For Sir Lancelot is a hardy knight, and all ye know that he is the best knight among us all; and but if he be taken with the deed he will fight with him that bringeth up the noise, and I know no knight that is able to match him. Therefore, and it be sooth as ye say, I would that he were taken with the deed.’ For as the French book saith, the King was full loath that such a noise should be upon Sir Lancelot and his queen. For the King had a deeming of it; but he would not hear thereof, for Sir Lancelot had done so much for him and for the Queen so many times that, wit you well, the King loved him passingly well.

Arthur says he will not hear of this without proof, because if Lancelot is accused and allowed to fight he would beat anyone. And, it is said that Arthur had some idea of the affair, but would not credit it because Lancelot had done so much for him and Guinevere, and he loved Lancelot greatly. 

So, one night when the king is away hunting, the two accusers contrive to catch them in the act, with a group of twelve armed knights. They do find Lancelot in Guinevere’s chamber, but the text is notably, pointedly vague about whether they are actually in bed. In any case, Lancelot asks for a trial. The knights say no, they have caught him and so may kill him. He is Lancelot, so he kills all of them instead, save one (Mordred) whom he leaves wounded. Lancelot flees, intending to return to rescue Guinevere and take her to his own castle to protect her from Arthur’s wrath. He maintains her innocence, and still intends that they will all reconcile.

Guinevere is to be burned at the stake (normal in this situation). Lancelot rescues her from the burning at the last moment, killing a number of knights of the round table. Arthur seems to blame the accusers more than Guinevere and Lancelot (for good reason; keep in mind that the romance is a subplot, there is a great deal of political intrigue going on.) Now a war will begin, whether anyone wants it or not, because of the people Lancelot killed. Lancelot takes Guinevere to his own castle. Battle lines are drawn, and Lancelot and Arthur confront each other in the fighting:

And ever was King Arthur about Sir Lancelot to have slain him, and ever Sir Lancelot suffered him and would not strike again. So Sir Bors encountered with King Arthur; and Sir Bors smote him, and so he alit and drew his sword and said to Sir Lancelot, ‘Sir, shall I make an end of this war?’—for he meant to have slain him. ‘Not so hardy,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘upon pain of thy head, that thou touch him no more! For I will never see that most noble king that made me knight neither slain nor shamed.’ And therewith Sir Lancelot alit off his horse and took up the King and horsed him again, and said thus: ‘My lord the king, for God’s love, stint this strife, for ye get here no worship and I would do my utterance. But always I forbear you, and ye nor none of yours forbear not me. And therefore, my lord, I pray you remember what I have done in many places, and now am I evil rewarded.’ So when King Arthur was on horseback he looked on Sir Lancelot; then the tears burst out of his eyes, thinking of the great courtesy that was in Sir Lancelot more than in any other man. And therewith the King rode his way and might no longer behold him, saying to himself, ‘Alas, alas, that yet this war began!’

So Arthur tries to slay Lancelot, but Lancelot, the better fighter, refuses to slay him and indeed when Arthur is unhorsed Lancelot forbids that he be slain, and gives him his own horse. Arthur weeps for the honor that is in Lancelot, and laments that the war began. 

The pope intervenes and tries to negotiate an end. Lancelot confirms that he is willing to return Guinevere to Arthur, and says he has always been willing to do this and will still defend her honor, but that he does not feel he can do so because Arthur has listened to liars and been misled, and he had more reason to take her away than the accusation of adultery - he does not trust she can be safe in that court, with things as they are. 

Eventually they do make a deal, with some assurances, and he surrenders Guinevere to the king. He kisses her openly, says that he will leave, but should she be in danger or ever again accused of being untrue, he will fight for her as he always has. He departs the court forever, to much great sorrow, and returns to his own lands. 

The war continues - eventually Mordred seizes the throne, Arthur kills him in battle but is mortally wounded himself and passes to Avalon. Following the king’s death, although her love would no longer be adulterous, Guinevere retires to a convent rather than reuniting with Lancelot. He seeks her out, and this is her reaction: 

Sir Lancelot was brought before her; then the Queen said to all those ladies, ‘Through this same man and me hath all this war been wrought, and the death of the most noblest knights of the world; for through our love that we have loved together is my most noble lord slain. Therefore, Sir Lancelot, wit thou well I am set in such a plight to get my soul health; and yet I trust through God’s grace and through His Passion of His wounds wide, that after my death I may have a sight of the blessed face of Christ Jesu, and at Doomsday to sit on His right side;* for as sinful as ever I was, now are saints in heaven. And therefore, Sir Lancelot, I require thee and beseech thee heartily, for all the love that ever was betwixt us, that thou never see me no more in the visage. And I command thee, on God’s behalf, that thou forsake my company; and to thy kingdom look thou turn again, and keep well thy realm from war and wrack. For as well as I have loved thee heretofore, my heart will not serve now to see thee, for through thee and me is the flower of kings and knights destroyed. And therefore go thou to thy realm, and there take ye a wife and live with her with joy and bliss. And I pray thee heartily to pray for me to the everlasting Lord that I may amend my misliving.’ ‘Now, my sweet madam,’ said Sir Lancelot, ‘would ye that I should turn again unto my country, and there to wed a lady? Nay, madam, wit you well, that shall I never do, for I shall never be so false unto you of that I have promised. But the self* destiny that ye have taken you to, I will take me to, for the pleasure of Jesu; and ever for you I cast me specially to pray.

Rather than rejoicing in Lancelot’s presence, Guinevere laments that their love brought about the downfall of the Arthurian court, and the deaths of the knights of the round table and King Arthur. She calls upon Lancelot, by all the love that was ever between them to leave her presence, telling him to marry someone else if he wishes and see her no more. Lancelot replies that he wants no one else, and that he will respect her wishes, but will also renounce the world and join a religious order. He asks Guinevere for a final parting kiss, which she denies him. 

When Guinevere lies dying of illness, Lancelot sets out to go to her, having had a vision. She knows of his coming, and prays to die before she sees him, because she cannot bear it. She dies a half hour before he arrives, leaving instruction that he is to tend to her body, and then lay it to rest beside that of her lord King Arthur. Lancelot does this with great sorrow, and after ceases to eat or drink, and within weeks is dead himself. 

And there you have it, the love affair that doomed Camelot.

HUGE DISCLAIMER: Any and all mistakes or misinterpretations are my own. This is what I gathered, but I am not a medievalist. I am barely an interested layperson. I’m just a random fic writer who got obsessed with research for a story, and had to share this tragic mess. 

[hypermascbishounen]

There's a deep irony in Berserk being so admired by people who really really hate what Berserk is about on an emotional level, but especially when writers want to take influence from it. Because Berserk is very strong thematically, and someone who can't acknowledge subtext is going to whiff on emulating anything good.

[mysticalcats]

ok fellas this post is really different from my other stuff so i'm putting it under the cut for people who don't care and also because i'm slightly embarrassed

ok so. is it unusual for a girl to want to have a deep voice and a flat chest and a more square face and also feel slightly jealous of men and want to sound like them and look like them

and also is it unusual to want to be all that, but also simultaneously not be very bothered very much by how you look right now or by being referred to with she/her except for sometimes when you think about it too much. because i usually don't think about it except for sometimes where i suddenly just get really sad about being a girl or i'll always have this faint feeling that i am just unhappy about it

and also is it unusual to try to ignore it and go about your life being unbothered by it even though deep down it does kinda bother you but you can't really. like. say anything to anyone because your family won't react well and neither will your friends because they'll think it's weird and uncomfortable. i feel afraid to ever feel this way because i know the people in my life won't react well to it

so like. genuine question please lmk wtf is goin on because i'm unsure if it's normal and i've felt like this for a long time and it's confusing me and i don't even know what i'm going to do with the information once i know i'm just sort of lost LMAO

[kirisclangen]

Zelda

She/her, 65 moons, cis molly

[triglycercule]

it must get boring as hell doing continuous repetitive genos like dust does. he probably constantly questions how his human can keep on going and like not get bored (me too tho ngl because what type of person is out there that's trying to minmax every single undertale geno route interaction???) so i say he changes things up during his own process for a variety of reasons

sometimes when he's feeling REALLY apathetic he might just view everyone as stats and precoded scripts and lines and he just goes about the geno as if he was a player playing a video game (this is incredibly hypocritical because he's acting like the player but also this is dust sans we're talking about. pinnacle of hypocrisy. he'd deny any sort of human like actions because he's not the human and what he's doing is for the greater good). also its kinda fucked because it just means that there's been so many resets that he doesn't view his friends and family as simply people that he's taking the lives of but more as just npcs and numbers. but yk of course he moves on from that episode (and refuses to acknowledge the fact that he was acting very much so like the human. nope nope nope)

or maybe whenever he feels really really really shitty about himself he just lets the human kill him sometimes. he purposely interacts with other monsters before he kills them so he has to hear them beg for mercy. he just lets himself wallow in as much guilt and pain and misery as possible because its really really addicting to be sad and upset and feel bad. and dust is never like "hey i should stop doing this because its getting in the way of be killing the human" because he knows damn well it ISNT. he's still gonna be on that him vs. human grind no matter what even if he spends a few resets fucking around and being miserable and the humans always gonna reset anyways. ALWAYS

even if he's not at lvl 20 or something but still above the human in lv then maybe he'd kill them. but then that also means that there'd still be some monsters left because he nor the human maxed out their stats. so then that's just more suffering for dust (because i really think he'd like to make himself suffer because he feels so much guilt for what he did. his suffering is self inflicted and he knows that and still does it. good for him) because he has to walk around the underground knowing that there are some people hiding in corner or something watching him and scared that he's gonna kill them because thats what he did to everyone else. some nicer monsters might go up to him and try to talk to him but dust doesn't have the chill welcoming friendly vibe sans does anymore so it's just creepy and awkward. angrier monsters might try and yell or fight him and dust just sits there and takes it because theyr totally right. to them it might just look like he killed monsters just for shits and giggles one day and theres no way for him to explain the resets without people just forgetting it in the first place so theres not much he can do except accept the suffering. what in the mental masochism

[moe-broey]

Mani voice Collect My Pages

ELABORATE. ELABORATE FUCKING SHITPOST. That I simultaneously put WAY too much effort/thought into, while just. Giving up and half-assing it near the end LMFAOO

This was. An extremely funny characterization realization moment for me though, writing something else w Mani. The thought of, "Wait why the fuck does it have the same exact cadence of the Green M&M post???"

Anyways I absolutely cheated by editing this LMFAOO I'll put the typically edited version under cut! (For lighting/color correcting ect ect) Also a link to the post I'm reffing!

[clover-46]

the writers on here making the miguel fics need to remember his fangs inject paralytic venom hes not a real vampire it was just a joke in the movie 😭

oh but i still want him to bite me don’t get me wrong idgaf if they have venom 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

[ikishima]

My #1 advice for people moving out is to NOT buy nonstick cookware... not only is the lifespan of nonstick a MAXIMUM of 7 years (usually more like 2-5 years) but teflon, aka Polytetrafluoroethylene-- the plastic coating that makes the cookware nonstick, infuses microplastics into your food.

New cookware sets can cost hundreds of dollars so my advice is to look for 100% stainless steel cookware in thrift stores. Safer, cheaper, & instead of needing to replace every 2-7 years they can potentially last you the entire rest of your life AND they won't start shedding plastic into your food

[seventh-district]

Could've left me just the way you found me, but you came and put your wings around me. You went out of your way, to fix what you didn't break.

This song is so incredibly Sam & Darlin' coded and no one can tell me otherwise.

[lots of lyrical analysis below the cut] [there's also a short little fanfic blurb of them stargazing down there too (this post got really out of hand lmao)]

For those not fully caught up, note that the following commentary contains various spoilers for Sam and Darlin's stories.

Note: Unfortunately this song is gendered, using the word 'girl' several times. Which sucks a little bit for immersion purposes, not only for keeping Darlin' gender-neutral, but also because I see this song as a duet between them, and Darlin' obviously wouldn't be addressing Sam with the word 'girl' either. So! As with most songs on their playlist, we're just gonna mentally omit any gendered terms we come across.

Side note: Frustratingly, this is one of those songs that didn't really even need to gender the subject in the first place. No part of the story or message is lost without it. But alas, many songs are like that, and so the playlist-makers of the world shall continue to suffer. [/lh]

Anyways, preamble's over. It's lyric time now yay!

Sam's Part

I was a ten-year train wreck

Technically for Sam I suppose it was 13 years, but ten is close enough (and 'ten' admittedly flows a lot better in the rhythm of the song than 'thirteen' would.) Anyways, we're not here to split hairs, (I have to remind myself), we're just here to point out similarities.

In Sam's Dec. '22 HBW, he says "For the last 13 years or so I haven't had to care too much about how I look. Seemed a little redundant after turnin', considerin' I didn't wanna be around much'a anybody anyway."

I think he's mentioned or alluded to that roughly 13 year period of time more than once, but that's the one I remember best so it's the example I'm using. There's still about 4 Sam audios I've yet to listen to as of making this post, so if I'm missing some Key Lore I'll edit this later. But for now, I don't think Sam has given many specifics on exactly how bad things got during that time. Luckily, 'train wreck' is a pretty broad and subjective term, so it easily covers any degree to which he may have fallen apart during those years.

It also feels like a very 'him' way of quickly brushing over the details of his past/his hurt, as he seems to tend to do with Darlin', (not all the time ofc but it's still something I've noticed) putting his own hurt on the backburner to prioritize and attend to theirs. Even outside of his dynamic with them, I think as a healer, it's something he learned to do. And now he does it with everyone. Put on a brave face, compartmentalize things and unpack them later, etc. I could go on and on but there'll be time for that in other posts I'm sure. For now, lets get back to the song at hand.

With a last-call longneck

Due to personal reasons, I've yet to decide if I want to HC him as having used alcohol as a coping mechanism during that time. I don't recall him having mentioned alcohol much, if at all, (maybe one mention of whiskey that I don't have time to find right now) so I don't think it's necessarily canon that he did, but it's certainly possible. My personal preferences aside, I'll admit it makes for some good additional angst. (And- self-indulgently- it makes some other songs on my playlist for them more fitting.) So, for the sake of this song, let's imagine that he did.

I was searchin', I'd been hurt real bad

This one feels pretty self-explanatory given what Alexis did, (and, if you wanna get even angstier with it, whatever his family did earlier on in his life) so there isn't much commentary to add on my end.

I HC that in spite of 'not wanting to be around anybody', he- like Darlin- still had a tiny part of himself buried deep down that was, in a way, 'searching' for someone to find solace in. (No this isn't me projecting onto them both haha what are you talking about-)

Movin' on, gettin' sidetracked One step forward and five back

This is generally applicable enough that I don't feel the need to give too much of a specific example. Anyone who's recovered or is recovering from trauma knows this non-linear, back-and-forth struggle well already, and I'm sure he was no stranger to it.

If I were to give some examples though, I could point to Darlin's (and subsequently, Sam's) encounter with Alexis at the summit, or the shit that Quinn dredged up about Fredrick and threw at Sam in the interrogation room. Those are both more recent examples and I imagine these lines of the song to be coming from a place of him prior to meeting Darlin', but still, they're some instances where I'm sure he felt like the past was pulling him back in. I'm sure that there's been many throughout those 13 years that we were never witness to.

Not your fault, I was scared to fall

This line reminds me of their 'Cuddles and Confessions' audio. I don't think he ever explicitly said he was 'scared' per se, so afaik there's no specific line I can quote, but in that and every audio prior, he was obviously hesitant to admit, perhaps even to himself, that he was gradually falling for them. Even after the initial confession, there's certain limits of his (e.g. biting) that he carries for far longer, and some that I (and others) HC that he'll carry forever. So this line feels to me like him reassuring Darlin' that his reluctance isn't the fault of them, but his past.

Darlin's Part

You were the star in the pitch black Shine the way on the way back

We don't have any canon instances of them comparing Sam to a star, but I can see it being something they'd say (perhaps less poetically, but the sentiment would be there) one night while laying up on their roof watching the stars with him. Maybe they're dead-tired, talking nonsense with lidded eyes at the end of a long day, fighting sleep in favor of more time spent with him.

"What- what're you pointin' at Darlin'?"

Their hazy focus is trained on the brightest star visible in their line of sight, arm stretched out to the sky above them. "That really bright one, to the... to the left."

Sam does his best to follow their less-than-specific directions of 'to the left', their pointed finger doing little to help given the difference in perspective. Luckily, after all these years, he knows this stretch of night sky like the back of his hand, so it isn't hard to locate the brightest one. Ghosting his fingers up along their arm, he takes their hand in his and brings it back down to earth. "Okay, yeah, I see it now. What about it though?"

"That's you." They say, matter-of-factly.

"That's me?" He questions, humor in his tone.

"Mhm." They nod with finality, blinking slow.

Sam considers the odd statement for a moment before gently correcting them. "I'm uh, I'm pretty sure that's Sirius, actually."

They scoff. "I am being serious."

Sam stifles a laugh into their hair. "No- no I mean- like... what's another name for it... Oh! It's also called the Dog Star."

"C'mon Sam, at least call it the Wolf Star if you're trying to turn this around on me..."

He shakes his head and readies himself to explain further, but they cut him off before he can start. "But no- no, this one isn't about me. That's you."

He decides to play along, finding something endearing in their overtired nonsense. "Okay... then would'ja be so kind as to explain to this confused old man just how, or why that star is me?"

Their frown is audible in their voice as they latch onto the wrong part of his sentence. "You're not old, Sam. ...Do I need to tell Asher to kick the jokes down a notch?"

He smiles at their over-protectivity. "There'll be no need for that, now. Was just a joke, darlin', I promise."

They huff, but thankfully shift focus back to the prior topic. "It's... I dunno. It's just you, Sam. It's... bright. Light. Something warm, out there in the cold dark. Standing out amongst all the rest. Calling to me, stealing my attention. I... I didn't come out here looking for it, but there it is. ...There you were. In the dark. The only bright thing I'd seen in... fuck, in years. Years of chasing fleeting warmth, tripping over myself in the pitch black, falling into... places 'n people I shouldn't have. You were the light in that darkness. Even there, surrounded by the ghost of him. You outshone it. Your warmth didn't hurt. I didn't have to squint when I looked at you. You weren't the blinding sun. You were the brightest star I'd ever seen. You guided me back home."

In the back of their mind, they recall something they once heard, something about light, and time, and distance. Space. Something about... how you can see a star that's already burnt out, because it's light hasn't reached earth yet. The ghost of a star that's already died. Only still perceptible thanks to time, and distance.

They remember Sam's words, once whispered to them on this very roof.

"Whatever your choice is... I'm not gonna live forever. I made that decision a long time ago."

They think about dead stars.

They think about time.

"...-lin'? Darlin'?" Sam's calloused hand slides up their forearm, pulling them out of their thoughts. "There you are. Think I lost ya' for a minute there... you good?"

They look up at Sam, concern creasing his features, shadows cast across his face from the light of the dying stars above him.

They reach out, pulling him down into them. Burying their face into his collar, Sam's concern grows when he feels it saturate with tears. A human might struggle to hear their words, muffled against the thick fabric, but his hearing catches it just fine.

"Don't burn out too quick. Please. I still need you here. I don't- I don't wanna be left in the dark again. Please, please Sam. Don't leave me here. I'm not selfish enough to ask you for forever, but please. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."

.......Whoopsies! Really, genuinely didn't mean to improv an entire scene there, good god. Also didn't mean to swerve hard into angst at the end but uh. that's what came out! so I'm rolling with it lmao. Aaanyways let's move on, it's getting late and this is a song analysis post, not a fic.

Out of nowhere, answered all my prayers

'Out of nowhere' reminds me of Sam's words from the same HBW video I referenced earlier. "You came into my life like a damn wreckin' ball. There was no preparing for that, clothing or otherwise." While those were Sam's words, not Darlin's, I still feel like they feel similarly to how suddenly Sam came into their life as well. (Not in a bad way, mind you!)

[the significance of 'answered all my prayers' edges into my own personal more headcanon-y/personal/OC-ified Darlin' territory, so we can just gloss over this one for the sake of at least attempting to keep this more universally applicable]

Picked up the towel that I threw in Took in a heart that was ruined

Again, largely self-explanatory I feel. (*proceeds to explain anyways*) I imagine that Darlin' was at the point of throwing in the towel, hellbent on a solo-mission to find Quinn regardless of the danger it posed to them. I doubt they were looking toward the future anymore, (to reference Sam,) fully willing to throw themself at their problems until they really did break.

The specific use of 'ruined' hits hard here, because after everything they went through with Quinn, and especially after he recounted it all to Sam in that interrogation room, I imagine that they really, truly did feel ruined.

Showed me the past ain't a tattoo Loved me even when you didn't have to

These lines in particular make me sick with emotion every time I hear this song, because I feel like they hit the nail on the head for how Darlin' feels.

I'll be here citing various quotes all night that I feel showcase that sentiment, but we don't have time for that! So instead I'm just pointing to the entirety of 'Quinn's Aftermath' video, and leaving you with this single quote from it.

"Everything that he said reflects nothin' on you, and everything on him."

Equally Applicable Lines

And I don't know why Why you saw something in me, baby But you saw right through All the pain, and you came and saved me Yeah, I know you didn't leave me lonely Weren't the one that put the heartbreak on me Picked up the pieces It wasn't the mess that you made Could've left me just the way you found me But you came and put your wings around me You went out of your way To fix what you didn't break

Again, I think these lines are all pretty self-explanatory, and are just as accurate coming from either one of them. To me, at least, their entire dynamic is that they saved each other, in their own ways.

(But I will admit, the final verses about 'going out of your way to fix what you didn't break' are definitely conjuring up memories of Sam in the early days, literally going out of his way to visit and heal Darlin' after their fight with the two vamps. In general, his continued/repeated healing of them after they once again hurt themselves is the very literal definition of fixing what he didn't break.

But! While we may have more blatant examples of Sam being 'the fixer' so to speak, I think he'd argue that Darlin' has done plenty fixing of their own. Physical wounds aren't the only things that need healing, after all.)

-------

[shameless self-promo of my Sam & Darlin' playlist for those few of u interested enough to make it to the very end of this wall of text. if u liked this then u might like some of the other songs on there soooo maybe go check it out and maybe perhaps give it a follow so i can get a little serotonin boost or dopamine or whatever the chemical is that's released when Number Go Up. ...okay that's it i hope u enjoyed my fixation-induced ramblings! thank u and goodnight]

[thelovers-thedreamers-and-me]

the downside to being a sitcom neighbour sort of person is that when rough things happen and emotionally fuck u up a lil bit, it also sounds completely made up

[esteemed-excellency]

ok i'm almost done with the new firmament chapter, i have So Many thoughts 👀