#that that is a thing that is happening in other colonial states then it's best that you know. well-rounded knowledge and all that.

[harpuiaa]

death to america and to the west bloc if im being honest

[musicrunsthroughmysoul]

I just had to read this in the notes of a political (calling to vote - for Biden) post, so you all (especially WHITE AMERICANS) get to read it, too: "Genocide at home or genocide abroad, take your pick"

Excuse me?

Yes, hi. Hold the fucking phone. Excuse me?

Have you all ever read a whiter/more privileged sentence in your life?

'Genocide at home' - do you know what has been happening to Indigenous and Black Americans for literally hundreds of years? Have you ever heard of forced sterilization? Do you know that it has happened to countless Black and Indigenous Americans (and Black and Indigenous people in Canada), specifically? Are you aware of the historic act by the state of removing Indigenous children from their families and communities and placing them with non-Indigenous families (arguably an offshoot/continuation of the government policy of "Kill the Indian, save the man"), or the fact that the U.S. foster care system overwhelmingly separates Black children from their parents? The sources I provided/linked to here were found via literally the most basic of Google searches, by the way.

The point is that 'genocide at home' has already been happening for hundreds of years, and we can, and should, protest that at every turn - even through voting, or choosing not to vote (because a vote, no matter how "harm reduction" it's supposed to be, is and always will be an endorsement of the state. And the state, of course, upholds and maintains these conditions at home as much as they do imperialistically, too). The point of the protest vote - only as a starting point and NEVER as a single/final action - is to acknowledge that we will not accept genocide anywhere, and we do not endorse the state's violent enforcement of oppression or its goals.

[arabian-batboy]

If a war between Iran and Israel really will emerge it will not just be Iranians who will suffer, but every country in the region will be somewhat involved, which includes some nations that are already declared as one of the poorest, most war-torn and starved nations in the world. All of whom all be completely unprotected while Israel wreak havoc on their citizens (excluding those who live in puppet-states aligned with the US) with full-support and funding from the US and other Western superpowers to ensure that no matter happens, their influence and interests in the Middle East will not be lost and they'e willing to sacrifice the lives of as many non-Israeli civilians as they want to in order to achieve their goal.

This is one of the reasons they implanted this cancerous tumor called Israel in our region, to act as military base that cause instability and state-sponsored terrorism in the area so that it would be easier for them to exploit these failed-states that surround it and the best part is? All they have to do to maintain this military base is give them a couple billions and some weapons yearly so that those blood-lust Zionist settlers can do all the dirty work for them, that's NOTHING compared to the costs and casualties of other wars that had the US be directly involved in like Vietnam or Iraq or Afghanistan (off the record; but that's exactly why they're using Saudi Arabia to indirectly destroy Yemen, they learned their lesson, its always better to use a proxy.)

If a war breaks out? The US will not be in any real danger, because they're half-way across the world and all the fighting will be in West Asia and North Africa, far away from them. No American building is in danger of being destroyed, no American city is under the threat of being bombed, the average American citizen will not be in any danger and can just continue living their life like normal, hence why they're always the first ones to start making those WW3 memes, because they're not the ones in danger of dying.

This is precisely why the US's imperialism in the Middle East hasn't slowed down in decades, because they do not suffer any negative consequences from it. All the destruction and casualties they cause is inflicted solely on the native people and the native people only, for the US, they only have things to gain from these wars, whether it was stolen resources or more instability that will further their control and influence in the area.

The US, like every single oppressive empire in history, will not suddenly grow a conscious over-night and immediately halt all their wrongdoings simply because they don't want the innocent people in other countries to suffer anymore. The only way to stop their imperialism is to have them believe that its not worth it anymore, to have the cons of being involved in our region out-weight the pros.

Because at the moment if the only cons here are "innocent Muslims will die"? Then those motherfucking colonizers will NOT stop, they will only stop once it reaches a point where its also the colonizers who are dying alongside the native population and the first step for that to happen is to dismantle this giant settler-colony built square in the middle of our region and forcing these Western Superpowers to choose between continuously spending trillions of dollars to maintain their interests directly or to fucking leave us alone already and save those trillions for something else.

[galeorderbride]

The Forest For The Trees - Fic Request (Gale x F!Tav)

A Gale smut piece requested by one of my OG readers @meglet1. Thank you so much for the request and for being you in general!! I seriously hope you like what I’ve written for you <3

18+ MDNI (This is SMUT/tags below)

Summary:

After Tav is nearly killed in a fight at Rivington Beach, Gale lets his fear get the best of him and a new couple spat ensues. Leading to a peaceful resolution :)

Tags: PiV sex, semi-public sex, inappropriate use of mage hand, oral sex (m and f receiving, including some choking), words of praise/encouragement, creampie, fingering (vaginal & anal), multiple orgasms, self-indulgent, some references to Tav having body issues.

Word count: 4.7K

Mind the tags, everyone. Fic below the cut:

“I decided to choose you and live, then you go off and almost get yourself killed!”

Gale wasn’t the type to air out his issues in front of everyone, but this time, he couldn’t shake the nervous energy off. Panic and anxiety of balancing on an uneven precipice, powerless. Just days ago, he chose to stay with Tav instead of doing as Mystra commanded him, deep in that haunting colony, where the Elder Brain resided and, because he decided to live, remained a threat to the entire Sword Coast.

Less than an hour ago, he and Tav returned from the beaches of Rivington with their companions. Running into a gaggle of rival gangs ready to slaughter each other. The guild, run by the infamous Nine Fingers Keene, and the new recruits of this Stone Lord everyone was talking about. Gale cared little for whose alliance went where. Not when Tav had decided to intervene right in the middle of things, doing her best to settle scores and ending up having to fight both of them.

In the crossfire, Tav was hit with an electrified weapon, a hammer imbued with thunderous damage effects that nearly killed her with the impact against her spine. Knocked down, she spent the remainder of the fight unconscious, no one having time to revive her until they’d finished the fight. Across a landscape of crime syndicate corpses, Gale watched with intensity as Shadowheart struggled to revive her. The image of her near dissolved heartbeat still aching within him, harsher than the orb. Gasping for breath at the last second when he thought he lost her forever.

She’d regained balance quickly, the powerful healing of Selune now imbued within Shadowheart’s fingers, even if she hadn’t quite gotten to admit it yet. Tav was walking normally, a little fatigued but nothing more than that. Which gave Gale the opportunity to stop being worried for her welfare and be upset instead.

“Do you know how close you came to death? How much I worried Shadowheart wouldn’t revive you? All for a bunch of criminals who would’ve cared for the dirt under their boots more than you!” Gale exclaimed as he paced around the hay shed at their camp outside Rivington. Tav followed, arms across her chest as she tried to contain a frustrated sigh.

“I wasn’t trying to get all of them against us. How many times has convincing people to cool their heads worked on this journey? Times we never expected! I didn’t think this would be an exception,” she replied, her voice soft but assertive in her own defense.

“That’s what happens when you expect things to work in your favour! We can never assume anything is an absolute certainty, and I’ve been saying this from the beginning. I know it’s in your nature to stick your neck out for people, but do recall that I gave up on what might be the heaviest task of my life so I could be with you!” Gale continued, letting his panic get the better of him.

Tav’s eyes widened, now no longer trying to placate. “Don’t you use that against me! My encouragement to have you stay with me is not a blank check to use against me when I do something you dislike. I asked you to stay because I love you! And I had no intention of starting a fight today, nor did I plan to end up in the state I did!”

This was around when the rest of the camp began to hear them arguing. Frigid looks turned their way by Shadowheart, Karlach and Wyll. Eyerolls and mischievous scoffing from Astarion. Jaheira simply shook her head and mumbled ‘young love’ under her breath. Gale pretended not to hear it.

She looked at him with such offense, eyes dotted with the threat of tears from his fury. Any motivation to be cross with her slowly waning each time his eyes met hers.

“I love you too! Which is why I’m so off put by what happened to you. I don’t want to see you putting yourself in danger and disregarding forethought! I don’t think you understand just how much I can’t—”

Gale didn’t finish the sentence, brought on by a fear that he’d overwhelm her in saying such an intense thing. They’d confessed their love in a spur of the moment, when the culmination of all they’d been through was knocking at the front door. Emotions were high, and while he meant every word he said, he didn’t want to cross a line and compromise the start of a wonderful thing with Tav. Deep down, he’d loved her from the moment he saw her, and each day he got closer to admitting that out loud. Precisely why he reacted with such fear to what happened at the beach.

Tav crossed her arms, an expression of seriousness he’d never seen before. Well, not directed at him.

“Can’t what? Don’t let this be the time you don’t use your words, Gale. Because I am this close to storming off,” she said, pinching her index finger and thumb together in an impatient motion.

“I can’t…live without…you,” he said, his voice starting loud and then slowly quieting as he completed the sentence.

The two of them stopped short, silence washing over them as his words sank into both their minds. Memories of their first night together flooding back, when he showed her everything he could offer. A beautiful experience in the Outer Planes, where their souls entwined within currents of raw weave. Expressing their new love in countless ways, too many for one evening, but they did all they could. Loving, tender, but despite it all, not real. Not bodies together, the physical exertion of passionate, violently yearning intimacy. Just what Gale became tempted with after he spoke those long awaited words, as the anger melted from his system and replaced itself with carnality.

There wasn’t time for Tav to respond. Astarion cut in with his usual mocking tone. “Would you two get a damned room? Your voices are grating and I’m trying to enjoy a nice glass of wine I stole from Last Light.”

“I knew that bottle was familiar!” Jaheira cried out, no longer paying attention to Gale and Tav.

Tav sighed, bothered by the chiding of their companions. She felt on the spot, watched in all the wrong ways. Gale gently grabbed her arm.

“Come over this way,” he demanded, short and impatient. Quite possibly the briefest she’d ever heard him speak.

He pulled her away from the camp, a short but fair distance from their companions. Clusters of bushes and broken trees began to fill the space as he brought her forward. The sun was setting above them, hues of paradisiacal magenta and orange above them, beaming through the shaking leaves. Tav didn’t have much time to gaze upon the natural beauty, for Gale led her as if running to safety.

“Gale, where are you taking me?! You’re pulling too much, I’m going to lose my balance,” Tav questioned.

A few seconds went by, Tav’s curiosity getting the better of her as she’d never seen him so flustered. Trees surrounded them, but not enough to block the bustling city lights of Rivington on one side and the fire of their camp on the other. Voices of Karlach and Lae’zel talking could still be heard from the distance they stood. Tav had never been to this side before, but Gale had a way of making her feel safe no matter where.

“Come here, love,” he said, his arms moving to hook around her waist as he pushed her gently against a large tree.

She had little time to take a breath before his lips were on hers, soft but with an ardent passion once resting in bubbling irritation, now sprouting into lust. Their bodies pressed together, hips against hips as Tav began to melt into his wandering touch. Her knees nearly buckled when his index finger grazed the ridge of her jaw, tongue caressing her own. Temptation to run her fingers through his wondrous hair was too great, that strange sensation of a near death if she didn’t, silken texture on her skin enough to forget about everything they argued about.

But his words hung loose in her mind, and she pulled out of the kiss for a moment. Their faces still centimetres apart as she whispered, “I can’t live without you either. I’m sorry I wasn’t careful.”

Gale rubbed his nose against hers, that playful, breathy grin plastered on his face. “Let’s just look out for each other, alright? It’s so easy to get ahead of oneself, and I love you too much to watch idle by and pray you know the risk. You are a powerhouse of might, my love, but neither of us is invincible.”

“I know, I know,” she said in a hushed tone, so whisper thin the crickets chirped louder. Night fell fast, unburdened by clouds and blanched with a sea of stars. Everything was perfect, a moment in time that both of them longed for since their first time together. Opportunities never coming soon enough as their arduous adventures took precedence over everything. Now was the time, when the sky’s darkness masked them from the rest of the world’s troubles.

Gale answered with peppering kisses down Tav’s neck, shivering at the supple softness against such a sensitive area. For the first time since before Mystra, he wanted something purely physical—mortal. Covered in the finite flesh of his new love, giving pieces of themselves as a simple reminder that they remained alive. He’d forgotten the lure of that desire, powerful and impossible to satiate without going the full way, being as close to Tav as humanly possible.

Cracked bark scratched the itches of Tav’s back, pressed ever harder with each kiss from neck to collarbone. Desire budding at the touch points of her body; at the tip of her breasts, the heat of her ears, the tingling between her legs. Those parts growing more swollen with want when she felt the brush of his palms around her waist, fingertips dipping under the hem of her shirt to tickle her lower stomach. They were like teenagers sneaking around behind a schoolyard, eyes darting back and forth to make sure no one saw them enjoy each other. A thrill long forgotten on both sides.

“Gale, won’t someone hear us? We’re still close to camp,” Tav said between laboured, lustful breaths.

“With all we’ve been through, I highly doubt they care. But to ease your anxieties,” Gale replied, waving his hand to create a violet purple dome around them, “A silencing spell.”

“Perfect,” she said.

With a quick maneuver, Gale unclipped the belt of her wrapped shirt, slowly folding the fabric over her shoulders. He took his time, relishing in the pull of cloth from skin, little reveals each second until she bore herself bare to him. A maroon brasier remained, almost black under the moonlight and slipping low. Enough to catch a glimpse of her nipples, begging to spring free from constriction. Meanwhile, Gale spread her longer shirt across the ground, using clothes as a makeshift bed—if not to remedy the future ache of his knees. He unwrapped his robes as well, left only in a white, linen shirt and trousers.

He could hardly concentrate, the beauty of Tav under the moonlight too transfixing to not stare upon. Fitted perfectly in her under clothes, the rise and fall of her chest teasing him without trying. Watching like she didn’t notice, but she did, and began to strip for his pleasure. Removing the straps of the bra first, slow against her shoulders, the perk of her breasts peeking out before the clasp snapped free. Gale stood before her, watching with a subtle grin.

“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, Tav. Do you know how much? How I ache to the point of fever when graced with your presence?” He asked, voice dark with lust, a gruffness she didn’t hear when in the Outer Planes.

“Even as I am? No magic or beautiful strands of starry weave around me? Surely this can’t be as exciting as that time,” she said, not intending to be self conscious, but failing to keep that in check. Not a goddess, not a higher being in the form of a body, but just herself. Scars, blemishes, bad angles and all. Mortal in all the wrong ways.

“As you are is more than anything the weave could offer. Having you naked under the moon like this is a memory embedded in my mind for eternities to come,” he said, stepping over to her to help unbutton her pants. He ensured his fingers touched every part, no matter where, and his breath against her neck warmed and cooled.

“Oh, my, you give me no chance with words like that,” she said.

Between bountiful, romantic kisses, the rest of their clothes were discarded into the flattened pile. Too impatient to go somewhere with room to conjure a full bed, absorbed in the embrace of each other as they fell into the fabric. Tav straddled his waist, lowering down so she could still glide her tongue against his. Never wishing to part her lips from his for the rest of the night. Craving the push of his hands embedded in her skin, down her spine and over the hill of her ass, ending with a firm squeeze.

Not a single part of her didn’t feel something. Her nipples gliding against his chest hair, hardening them in seconds with the playful tingle at the tips. His hands finding purchase, amused enough to spank the right cheek with a hard enough force to have her yelp giggle and yelp out loud. And that irresistible grind of his growing erection pushing against her core, hastier than himself, simply begging to push into that tight, unoccupied hole. Just the beginning, and yet she already preferred being together like this, fully in tandem with each other, nothing but their beating hearts and heated bodies.

Eventually, both of them needed to take a breath, locked in a heated make out for a time they lost count of. Tav lifted her body up, back arched in pleasure as Gale followed teeth-first. Biting, sucking, licking her nipples, each side deserving of his equal attention. Delicate moans grew into hot, heavy woes of passion, caring little for noise control with the purple dome of silence above them. Saliva trailed down her breasts, her wizard so lost in the ecstasy of tasting those pink, round buds. Hugging her in his arms, moving his cock against her to feel the head getting wetter with her slick.

Tav whispered in his ear, fingers tangled in his hair, “Perhaps I should get into danger more often, if this is the consequence.”

Gale chuckled, muffled by the slide of his tongue around her earlobe, “No need. Should you want my services, all you have to do is ask. Nicely. With a very eager ‘please’. Now, I am on the precipice of sliding into you this instant. But I’d have you come first.”

Hands firm on her ass, he pushed her forward, legs buckling over as he laid down. Angling himself so her core hovered over his face as he continued, “On my mouth, darling.”

Unable to contain her giggles, she adjusted her legs to straddle the sides of his face. Too gradual for Gale as he grabbed her hips and pulled her down. Tav gasped from the heavenly sensation, his lips and tongue all over her pussy in seconds, nodding his jaw up and down to stimulate her slit with his stubble. His tongue moved with expert precision, letting Tav take control of the pace as he moaned into her cunt, slurping and sucking at her as if drowning himself in her essence. There wasn’t enough lip biting and stifled moans in the world to keep her from building up to a snapping orgasm, inch by inch as she swivelled her hips around his face. His nose jutted against her pubic bone, mouth focused entirely on her swollen clit, pushing her down to ensure she wouldn’t move away. Even as her inner thigh muscles shook with pleasured tremors.

Tav stuttered out, “Holy fu…ck…Gale, I’m s-so close. Keep going, keep going! Now, yes, now!”

At that point, she was using any superlative her blurred mind could conjure. An orgasm flowered within her, strong, hot and never felt in a very long time. She clawed his hair under her legs, twitching hips riding out a wet climax, dripping into his beard. A taste he’d never get enough of, buttery and sweet on his tongue. He’d be happy to suffocate under her in a bid to have her finish again.

Coming down wasn’t an option, continuing to flick his tongue against her clit even as her muscles relaxed. Sensitivity stung at her pussy, sharp hits of pleasure shining through with each feral moan he made. A sound so enticing, she melted for him, allowing his hands still on her ass to push her further forward, rear completely up. Behind her, he snapped his fingers, figments of magic beckoning around her in a light blue glow. Tav could barely pay attention, lost in the feeling of his tongue lapping at her cunt. Until two fingers pushed into her entrance, filling her quick but smooth in an electrified vibration. A mage hand, finger fucking her from behind. Taking her to a place of impossible pleasure, no choice but to let go.

As Gale sucked at her clit, muffled words came from below her, “Does that feel nice, my love? Can you cum all over my face again? That’s it, let the hand fuck you, good girl.”

“Gods above, Gale, I’m so sensitive! But fuck it feels so good!” She exclaimed, whimpering with each buck of her hips against his mouth, the hand following every angle so not a centimetre pulled out. Pumping into her tight walls, angling in just the right direction to have her shaking for a second climax.

“Let me help you even more,” Gale said, motioning his wrist to command the mage hand to push its thumb at the entrance of her asshole. Prodding in and out, gently easing in enough to thrust in the same rhythm as the fingers, slick sounds of sex invading her ears. She gasped at the hot tightness, cunt thoroughly stimulated in every way. It was perfect, hitting every spot just how she liked, and some she didn’t know existed. Gale was simply eager to please, laughing slyly as he felt her orgasm again.

Tav quaked at her second finish, overwhelmed with searing ecstasy. She cried out, “I can’t take it anymore, please! Too—too sensitive.”

The mage hand vanished with her command, easing the pressure of overstimulation palpating in her veins. Gale couldn’t resist one, soft kiss on her clit before letting her move off of him. Without her body to focus on, the ache of his rock hard cock snapped into awareness. Precum dotting the head, so stiff he feared it might break at the gentlest touch. Proven wrong when Tav brought her lips down to the tip, licking off the salty cum. Giving him a taste of his own medicine as he shivered in sensitive rapture. Both of them had a tendency to get carried away, as what was meant to be a simple tease with her tongue led to her taking his cock into her mouth. Using her hand to pump at the bottom of the shaft, too big to go all the way down.

Choking and sucking sounds filled the air as Gale writhed under the mercy of her mouth. Running her hand up and down his bare thigh, hypnotized by the lusty song of his satisfied whimpers. He wanted to tell her this wasn’t necessary, he enjoyed seeing her enjoyment. But as her throat coated his cock, he was rendered speechless. More so when she bobbed her head up and down, moaning through her nose as he gently joined her by fucking her mouth. Small, quick thrusts in fear of hurting her, but enough to make his calf muscles strain.

Spit and precum doused his cock as she lifted him out of her mouth, a raunchy ‘pop’ sound coming from her lips. Gale’s shaken, pleasured sighs covered the forest, stimulated by the cold air kissing the wet surface of his raised erection. Tav fawned over how it glistened, her core pulsing and tightening with the silent beg to be filled. Surely, she’d pass out if he wasn’t inside her immediately.

Gale exhaled deeply, shaking his head with unfathomable joy. “You will be the death of me. That felt…so good. I don’t even know how to describe it.”

She smiled, failing to contain the blush on her face. How she loved to know he was already satisfied. “We’re not done yet, my love.”

Her leg hooked back over his waist, straddling him again. This time, angling the opening of her cunt right against the desperate head of his thick cock. He looked so beautiful below her, gleaming with sweat and rosy with anticipation. Fingertips tickling up and down the sides of her thighs. Gods, when he laughed, that lusty chuckle of boiling desire had her foolish in his arms. She chased that sound, easing down on his cock until he bottomed out inside her. The stretch and slick of her walls fluttering around him forcing a high pitched whimper from her. Clit shuddering at the sensation of little hairs against it, nearly orgasming right there. Never had she wanted someone so much, craved another’s touch in a way she didn’t know was possible until meeting him. Everything about him was magnificent.

“Moan for me, love. I want to hear your every sound as I fuck you,” Tav demanded, locking her palms on his chest as she began to ride him. Fast, fervently, hips bucking back and forth so good he obeyed instantly. Husky, sultry, moans and even guttural growls with each grind of her pussy against him.

One hand stayed on her thigh and the other kneaded at her breast, his thumb flicking and pinching her nipple while her languid movements continued. By now, he could see when she was close, biting down on her lip to concentrate as she ignored her aching muscles. More warmth and wetness dripped along his cock. He nodded to her, let her use him as a toy for her own pleasure, moving pieces of hair from her face at the same time.

“Let me see you cum again, please. That’s it, ride my cock like that. So wet for me, I can’t believe it. Keep going, yes, very good. You’re doing so well,” he said, words of encouragement coming with his thumb moving to her clit. Rubbing the spot he learned she liked, just a little assistance in getting her over that impossible edge.

Tav’s body cramped up as she squeezed onto his cock, crying out Gale’s name as her third climax ripped through her lower half, felt even at the tingling peak of her breasts. He could’ve done anything in that moment, came anywhere he liked, and she’d be fine with it. Her orgasm all the stronger as she pictured being covered in him from face to pussy. A debauched mess on top of clothes, fully vulnerable to him.

Seeing her above him brought his own release closer. Unable to wait as he pulled her torso down to kiss her hard, pushing his tongue into her mouth with reckless abandon. Tav yelped playfully as they kissed, paralyzed by the ecstasy of being fucked into. Sore, sensitive and hedonistic, she relished in the hard thrusting and the heated touch of their perspired bodies together. Wishing this would never end but craving his release inside her at the same time.

She left the kiss to whisper in his ear, biting his earlobe, licking at him, “Finish inside me. Please, I want it so bad.”

“Oh, gods, Tav I’m going to—right…ah!” He groaned out the unfinished sentence, his impatient cock spilling inside of her tight hole. He pulsed within her, feeling his spine arch as he experienced likely the greatest orgasm he’d ever had. Reaching his entire body, lasting longer, an addicting taste of eternal paradise. Tav’s soft whimpers the final touch to the most wonderful feeling.

She moved off of him, laying flat with her legs open. Gale still felt trickles of desire in his stomach, not enough to get hard again so quickly, but enough to lean over her thoroughly fucked cunt. His breath warmed her skin as he caressed his tongue along her clit, letting his index finger rub her cum-filled entrance as he did. All she could do was wheeze, too tired for a full moan but adoring the feeling of his mouth on her again. He was gentle this time, careful not to bring out the growing soreness. No, he just softly licked, kissed and sucked at her clit, stomach sinking with carnal intrigue as he watched his cum dripping out of her. He wanted to mark his territory, give her one more orgasm to be certain she knew she was his. Even just a little one.

Tav concentrated with the full power of her exhausted mind, feeling herself ready to climax once more. She couldn’t believe how skilled he was, moaning his name out again as he pinched her lips together, pushing her clit further into his mouth. That, mixed with the amazing sensation of his cum inside of her, was enough to inch her into that little release. Her fingers clutching his hair, pulling slightly as she came for a fourth time. A tiny bit more of his seed poured out of her as she relaxed.

“Perfect,” he said, leaving her core and moving to lay beside her, “You are amazing. I can’t believe you’re real sometimes.”

Tav smiled, cuddling into the crux of his shoulder, “I should be the one to say that. No one’s ever been so attentive to me. And by the gods, I have never finished that many times.”

“Oh, my love, I am excited to inform you that wasn’t even all I can do. If I had you in a bed, with a private bathroom, different corners of the room to take you in; you’d have at least six, I’d make sure of it,” he replied.

“In that case, we must find an inn as soon as possible,” she replied, kissing his cheek as he scooped her body closer to him.

They cuddled for a few minutes more, letting the cool, night air dry their sweat-drenched bodies before returning to camp. Hand-in-hand, eyes doled with the fire of new romance and the comedown from lovemaking. What began as the rising moon, evening pink with sunset, had transformed into deep night, pleasantly dark and glinting with fresh, sparkling stars. Neither of them wished for a conclusion, but sleep beckoned and they had no idea what might happen tomorrow. Tav only knew that she’d refrain from taking too many risks, as now she’d become a fool for someone else entirely.

Gale and Tav agreed to share a tent tonight, and from now on. First, she went to the smouldering fire to grab a piece of sunmelon and her water canteen. The rest of the camp now silent as everyone retired for the evening, except for their most nocturnal companion: Astarion. Who had returned from the other side of the woods, pallid complexion brighter than usual, a sign that he just fed on an animal.

“Good hunt?” She asked, finishing off the last bite of her sunmelon piece and throwing the peel in the fire.

“Never as good as the real thing, darling, but enough to tide me over. Perhaps I should’ve saved some for you, tired little adventurer,” he replied, brow raised in that cheeky expression. Always present when he was about to take the piss out of someone.

“Fruit and water will suit me fine. Goodnight, Astarion,” she replied, turning to head for Gale’s tent.

Astarion spoke as she walked away, “By the way, remind your wizard to maintain his silencing concentration. If I’m going to hear your debauchery, I’d rather hear it from the beginning and not halfway through. Goodnight, Tav!”

Tav cleared her throat, swallowing down her growing embarrassment as she walked to Gale’s tent. Knowing fully well what kind of teasing she’d endure the next morning. For now, she would simply sleep in Gale’s arms and deal with the rest as they came.

[comicaurora]

Sorry to drop a hella irl-political question on your mostly webcomic blog, but have you/any of the OSP gang heard of/been participating in the week-long strike for palestine that's been (presumably) all over tumblr/the internet?

For some background info: Following the attack on Oct. 7th by the hamas militant group (a terrorist org. Or resistance group, depending who you ask), the state of israel (which is practically a mass colonial settlement on Palestinian land since '48) has taken the attack as an excuse to indiscriminately bomb the homes of thousands if not millions of homes while forcebly displacing almost all of the ~2.3 million people crammed in the gaza strip with no escape.

'Israel' has also tightened it's blockade on the strip of land such that a growing majority of people there are experiencing catastrophic starvation, disease from sewage-infested drinking water (as water aid is too scarce). Soon even deaths by preventable causes such as diabetes will occur since insulin pens for children have been blocked from entering by israel, who controls gaza's borders, water, power, food supplies, and shoreline. Civilians in Gaza are very frequently and indiscriminately killed often in places they were told were safe zones to evacuate to. It's agreed upon by both experts and laymen worldwide that what is happening (and has BEEN happening before Oct.7th) is nothing short of genocide.

In the occupied Palestinian west bank, where there is no hamas whatsoever to use as an excuse, Palestinians are still arrested without a fair trial for years, abused, prevented from using certain roads, shot, and often straight-up have their houses stolen by armed or military-backed israeli settlers (many of whom have no ancestral connection to the land at all) in a system often compared to or outright stated to be apartheid.

Very recently, a journalist in Gaza by the name of Bisan Owda called for a strike from January 21st to January 28th. The conditions of the strike can be paraphrased as:

Cease all unnecessary purchases or payments, avoid generating ad revenue when possible

Do not go to work or school if you can possibly avoid it

Pay for things only in cash if you must

Use social media exclusively to flood the internet with palestinian voices and resources about the ongoing genocide against the palestinian people

Attend protests if you can

Be visible.

It's the 26th now, but joining late would be far better than to not join at all and stay silent.

I figured I'd ask since since OSP has covered various topics about history and/or politics and we're kinda watching some awful history unfolding, the kind of history where neutrality doesn't really work and a side needs to be taken.

Opinions? (Sorry if I'm coming across as condescending! I just really want my favorite blogs to be aware and take a stance rather than being silent hhhghf)

Okay, here's my answer.

OSP has been supporting calls for a ceasefire for months, and we were fundraising in direct support of it via Doctors Without Borders all through November and December. Total, we raised over $30,000. If we include the UNICEF fundraiser we ran on the Spider-Man streams, the total is over $40,000.

During our charity livestreams, we have made our positions clear – we support a ceasefire, Israel is perpetuating settler-colonialist violence and has been for decades, Hamas is a terrorist organization that endangers Israelis and Palestinians alike, the innocent people of both Palestine and Israel deserve safety and peace. We concluded that the best thing we could do under the circumstances was empower those who are in a real position to actually help by providing funding for their work. We believe this is significantly more beneficial than adding Another Angry Internet Post to the pile of insular outrage on Internet Land. Fundraising for the organizations with boots on the ground feels like it does a lot more good than being loud online for the benefit of other online people.

This is not the first time I've heard reference to the strike, but it is the first time I've seen the parameters of the strike laid out, which to me indicates that it wasn't spread as widely or effectively as it could've been.

I understand and appreciate why you sent this ask, but your premise worries me. I know this may surprise and startle us denizens of the internet, but being extremely loud on the internet is not the only or the most effective form of activism, and people not being extremely loud on the internet with every account they have is not the same thing as silent complicity in war crimes, and people acting like those two things are the same thing has been unbelievably frustrating to watch.

If we act like everything is a binary moral choice between "scream your loudest, most angry opinions online every time you feel angry about them" and "not doing that is literally the same thing as participating in genocide", we are creating a very strong pressure to flood the internet with our angriest, most unformed thoughts, lest we be branded as complicit in war crimes. Social media sites live and die on engagement, hence why twitter has rapidly trended towards doomscrolling and encouraging inflammatory clickbait - angry shouty people are traffic and traffic is money. The cynical part of me is utterly unsurprised that social media encourages the idea that the only true form of activism is being loud on social media.

It sounds like you had the feeling that sending me this ask was weird and a boundary overstep, and you were correct. My platform is not world-changing or in any way politically powerful beyond our ability to create charity fundraisers for causes we believe in, and we are doing what we can to help in the tiny ways that we can from halfway across the world, from a position of absolutely zero political weight beyond emailing our representatives. You are just asking me to also shout about it online loudly enough that I measure up to an artificial loudness metric, because my existing shouting was not already loud or omnipresent enough.

You are not entitled to know every thought in my head or every action I take in my life. I am not online to perform outrage and live up to an arbitrary moral standard of Shouting Enough. I am especially not online on my fantasy webcomic blog to do those things. Please understand that what you see of me is what I choose to share, and I am under no obligation, moral or otherwise, to share more.

[dizzymoods]

During the Troubles, Civil Rights Leaders went to Ireland to learn about the plight of the Irish people and to support their fight against colonialism.

Standing on the success of their nonviolent principles which led to civil liberties here (to whatever degree the CRM was successful) and in their ignorance of the history of Ireland, they tried to get the IRA to adopt nonviolent, peaceful civil disobedience.

At the end of their tour of Belfast, where they learned the history and politics of Irish resistance, all of them come to the conclusion that here violence is necessary. The Irish have exhausted all other means including nonviolent ones. Even if some of the CRM leaders maintained nonviolence as paramount, they understood that certain exceptions must be made because — regardless of if they approve of violence or not — their job is to support colonized people and follow their lead.

There is a lesson here that we should apply to the Palestinian struggle.

I’ve seen people pearl clutch over seeing so many dead Palestinians as part of the colonial violence of the camera. This misses the point of why those images are being shared.

Last decade many Black americans, myself included, talked about the commodification of Black death. videos of state murder plastered on every news channel 24/7, going viral across social media platforms connected to the legacy of lynching postcards and gator bait. We demonstrated that those videos rarely got an indictment and only once a conviction. Many of the families of these victims of police murder made it clear they don’t want the image of their loved one to be of death. The reason why we share Michael Brown’s graduation photo instead of the photo of his corpse is because Lesley McSpadden demanded it. With all this in mind, we understand that in most cases the sharing of those images are antiblack.

The Palestinians do not have that history. The Nakba never happened, despite israelis calling this the second Nakba. genocide joe said 40 israeli babies were beheaded after it was found out that the story was some wingnut footsoldier’s lie, not even official israeli hasbara. It was like 2 weeks ago that genocide joe said the number of murdered Palestinians (at the time around 5,000 Palestinians were martyred — the number is now over 10,000) was a Hamas lie.

Linguistically there is no murdered Palestinian. All the headlines read “x amount of israelis killed and some palestinians died”. visually there is no dead Palestinian. official israeli hasbara is trying to flood social media with videos of patient-actors getting into place in Indonesian medical training programs to “debunk” the countless videos of martyred Palestinians.

The denial of the scale of israel’s genocide of the Palestinians is so bad that reporters in Gaza are holding dead children in front of press cameras because Palestinians do not die and are not murdered.

The profit motive of these images is actually in their absence. not their over saturation like with Black americans. The west needs israel as a destabilizing force in the middle east. The strategy of the western media then is to bury these images, to not give them a second of attention. So logically the Palestinian strategy is to proliferate these images to show just how horrifying israel’s crimes are.

Two things can be true at the same time; what works for you doesn’t necessarily work for me etc.

The other thing i’m seeing are liberal frameworks to understand genocide. Of particular ire is desirability politics. *jujubee voice* just say white supremacy.

Desirability is tertiary at best. israel is genociding Palestinians because they want control over Gaza and the West Bank (and Lebanon too). They are not genociding Palestinians because Palestinians are “undesirable.” They make Palestinians undesirable to justify taking their land. Talking about this psychoanalytic bullshit distracts from the primary reason for the displacement and mass murder of Palestinians: the taking of their land.

~*desirability*~ is just one way that israel tries to justify its crimes. Desirability is a circular logic that can only make sense once you manufacture its premise irl. It means nothing without the material conditions it claims are true. Its super easy to call someone an animal after you put them in a cage. It’s super easy to call a people dirty savages after you restrict their access to water. It’s super easy to call someone violent after you sequester them in small, barely livable spaces and stress them with bombings and check points.

It’s also — there’s a way in which opposition to something reifies the very thing that you oppose. Toni Morrison continues to beat everybody’s ass. What does it do when you see a baby with half a skull and say “this happened because she is undesirable”? Undesirable to whom? Not me.

Palestinians are not so passive as to oppose white supremacy and desirability. The Palestinian people are a proactive people. Palestine is the issue. Palestine has a people. Palestine has an ecology. Palestine has life. Palestine is life. Palestinians fight for life. life can neither exist nor blossom under white supremacy.

Any analysis that does not begin with this is a distraction. And distractions only benefit the colonizers.

[milkytheholy1]

Shadow Generations: Part 1

A/N: briefly based on Shadow Generations, this will eventually contain an x GN reader.

"Shadow, wherever you are, I'll always be with you."

There was certainly something strange happening today, at least that's what Shadow thought. Though now thinking back to it, there were definitely some red flags: being invited to Sonic's birthday party was the first one.

It wasn't unheard of that the two hedgehogs sometimes fought, and sure, on the occasion Shadow would help the blue faker out. But to be invited to his birthday party? That was another level of torture Shadow didn't know if he could handle.

The second red flag was receiving a message from G.U.N first thing in the morning, some old tech on the ARK had blipped back online and was sensing some bizarre anomalies. Shadow often dreamt of the ARK, tormenting himself on the ways he could have saved the Professor and Maria.

"You doing alright, Brood-o?" Rouge hummed, a small smirk dancing on her lips. She held some birthday decorations in her hands, Shadow couldn't believe she had actively volunteered to help out.

"Hmpf, I told you to stop calling me that." he hissed, Rouge couldn't help the devilish cackle that fell from her lips. Nodding her head to the G.U.N transponder, she got closer to Shadow so the others couldn't hear, "What's that all about? Do they need us already?"

"No, Towers wants me to head to the ARK."

"The ARK? Haven't they got better things to do than to send us up there?" Rouge didn't often get mad, she got frustrated but never mad. Shadow shrugged his shoulders, "Not we, just me. One of the Professor's computers came back online and started reporting a strange energy, G.U.N wants me to go check it out."

Rouge glared at the hedgehog, of course he wouldn't sit around and wait for the party to start, god forbid he'd actually help them to decorate. Placing one hand on her hip and balancing the decorations in the other, she pulled an expression Shadow had rarely seen from her before: Worry.

"Jus- Just be safe, okay? I know it's...difficult for you up there."

"I'll be fine, Rouge." For once Shadow didn't pretend to be the tough guy, he reassured his friend and she appreciated that. Shadow and Rouge's friendship was a weird one, one minute they'll be at each other's throats and then next they'll be thinking like one.

The time for goodbye quickly ended as Shadow jetted off, ready to start his mission.

--- Time Skip to the ARK ---

The ARK, a place where the world's best scientists were set with the task of curing mankind. A place of innovation and excitement, my first thoughts were here, my first memories. I can only wonder what great things the scientists would have accomplished in time, if not for what happened.

I remember the first time I opened my eyes, my first time seeing the world I was created into. Those blonde locks and big blue eyes were my first introduction to humans.

Maria...

Shadow raced around the familiar route of the ARK, speeding down hallways he would often walk along with her. Before checking the main console where the device lay, Shadow took a detour to the Professor's lab. On the way there he dashed past an all too friendly room. Drawings dawned on every wall, the bed was made neatly like it always was, there were hair brushes and headbands on the desk and a small teddy on her bed.

He couldn't help himself but stare into the darkened space, never stepping foot in there for fear he would never want to leave.

Remember the mission.

Arriving at the Professor's lab, Shadow noted all the torn documents haphazardly strewn across the room, he picked up the first thing he saw, a newspaper clipping torn at the edges:

Professor Gerald Robotnik, lead scientist on the Space Colony: ARK, has once again proved science is the future with new weapons to be sent to American Troops to win the tide of war.

While not much is known about the scientist or his work on the ARK, the United States Government seems impressed by the research and work Robotnik is carrying out.

When asked for the reasoning about the massive space station, Robotnik had this to say: "While science is always a big motivator, my biggest reasoning for the creation of the ARK is to find cures for those who need it, and space is the cleanest and safest place to do so."

It is no surprise that the safest place 'off of Earth' houses Gerald's granddaughter, Maria Robotnik. Not much is known about her condition, but it is safe to say she will be alright and in the best hands of the team of scientists in the Space Colony: ARK.

How foolish he was to think they were untouchable up here, no matter where they were they would have always been targeted. Placing the clipping back down, Shadow turned to the testing tube he once called home. Shuddering at the things he had to endure and suffer, he eventually left and headed to the main console.

The vast expanse of space was almost as scary as its immeasurable scale of beauty, large windows encapsulated the ARK's main sector, and lying in the middle of the room was a large pillar with a yellow shine shimmering in the broken lighting of the ARK.

"It can't be..." Shadow whispered, approaching the object. Pulling out his own chaos emerald he compared it to the one that lay before him, "Tails' fake emerald, we used this last time we came to the ARK. You were very clever, Fox. But it will never compare to the real thing."

Radio static disturbed his momentary peace, "Shadow, Shadow, can you hear me-"

"Rouge? I hear you, I've made it to the ARK, not much has changed since we last paid a visit."

"Did you find -Zstz- the console? What's the -zTsZ- anomaly?" Rouge's voice fizzled in and out. Shadow approached the machine, tapping away though he soon learned the computer was completely inoperational.

"How strange? Rouge, the ARK's computer isn't fully active, I can't access information on this anomaly."

"Do you think it's just a bug?"

Suddenly the left-hand side of the ARK started dissolving into nothingness, Shadow's eyes widened, his grip on the computer loosening. Pulling the radio closer to his mouth he spoke his final words to Rouge, "I found it." Before Rouge could continue, Shadow was ripped away from the console, powerless to do anything to stop himself from falling.

[shwaesar]

Some Caesar x Reader HCs

SFW (for now :3c)

You would meet between the events of Dawn and War, but in a timeline where Cornelia was unable to be saved after giving birth to Cornelius. The humans still tried, they tried so hard, but she eventually succumbed and this left Caesar in a perpetual state of grief that he could never fully heal from. He had to stay strong for his sons, for his people. Mourning properly was a luxury he just never awarded himself.

Koba used her death to manipulate the masses into distrust of those that had tried to help her. Caesar knew this was wrong, but a part of him was irrationally blaming them too, so he didn't step in to stop Koba until it was too late. All of this lead to him still being shot, found by the same humans, nursed back to health, and found again by Blue Eyes. (With his mother being killed and later believing Caesar dead too, he was even more easily convinced of the need for war. But his father thankfully managed to bring him back down to earth once they reunited.)

Because of the traumatic events that proceeded you, he's distant at first. It's nothing personal, just how he became with almost everyone after what happened. Especially humans.

But he's not a monster. When you're found in the woods, on the verge of starvation and vulnerable to the elements, he only hesitates a moment before declaring sanctuary for you within his colony. He has his best healers work tirelessly to bring you back to full health while not tending to others, goes on his own hunts to feed you without dipping into the apes rationed meat and foragables, wanting there to be no reason for anyone to object to your stay.

Not that anyone would, mind you. He's their leader, their king, and his word is law. But tensions are still running high, and it's just not a risk worth taking before he can be sure you won't bring trouble to his tribe.

Your first conversation tells you as much. You only meet properly once you're sitting up and eating on your own, the only ones interacting with you before that being his healers.

"You are... getting better?"

Doesn't bother trying to sign, since he's learned to assume humans no longer have the unspoken language.

"Good. You will.... stay. Here. Only here. No leaving this spot, and... only eat what is given to you. Understand?"

It's also the only conversation you have with him, at least for the first few weeks.

Initially, his only motivation is avoiding more death. If he can help it, he never wants to bear witness to death again, his heart just couldn't take it, not yet.

But then you had to go and make yourself at home. Slowly, you start to acclimate. He watches as Maurice takes initiative with you, offering a guiding hand into the rest of their world. You couldn't realistically stay in a healing nest for the rest of your life, after all.

You're taught basic sign, how to weave baskets, how to skin meat and then do the tanning process for furs.. You're better at some things than others, same as most apes, but you take pride in being able to contribute to the community that's housing you, and he definitely takes note of that fact.

Seeing you interact with his sons is what ultimately warms him up to you though. You notice Blue Eyes take an interest in Lake and proceed to tease him about it before offering advice. Obviously courtship and romance work differently with apes than with humans, but you would've caught the gist of how their 'dating' works. You tell Blue Eyes to give her a gift, a small one at first, and if she reacts well to it, to give another that's more meaningful at a later date. He does, and it works, and Blue Eyes is very grateful for your help but HATES that you were right (affectionately).

But then Caesar finds you with Cornelius one day, holding him, telling him human stories to keep him entertained while his father and brother were supposedly busy. It means more than you could possibly know, to be providing an almost maternal presence to his youngest, who was admittedly in need of one. After that, you're officially a part of his colony as far as he's concerned, and god help anyone who tries to suggest otherwise.

Attraction though, that's something not even he was prepared for. It makes sense to a certain extent - Caesar was raised by humans, had only interacted with his own kind when he'd already reached adulthood, so human standards of beauty were something imposed on him from an early age. He knew what it meant to be an attractive human or an unattractive human, and you were definitely the former in his eyes. But to be feeling that attraction himself, this unnatural taboo among apes and humans alike..

It freaks him out a little bit, in all honesty.

You would've just started talking to him more, brief but meaningful conversations here and there, when he starts actively avoiding you. You go days at a time without even spotting him from a distance, and you get this awful feeling that he's upset with you, that you've done something to unintentionally antagonise him. You haven't. He's just feeling a lot of complicated feelings and needs space to sort through them all.

Desire. Embarrassment. Lust. Shame. Guilt.

But once again, Maurice is there to make sure everything works out. He knows what Caesar is feeling, catching him in habits of courtship. Leaving more food than usual at your bedside (you continue to live in the healing nest, even when fully recovered), grooming himself more attentively, his fur bristling when another male gets a little too close for comfort. Maurice doesn't get it, to him you're a close friend but you're still a human. You're weak, hairless, slow, your body shaped in ways that he finds fascinating but odd, and all of those are things apes specifically don't want in a mate. But he cares more for Caesars happiness than understanding it, and decides to provide some much needed mediation.

He talks to Caesar first, calling him out on his obvious infatuation, knowing better than to think the chimp would ever admit it without it being forced out of him. They spend a good while discussing you, and Caesar goes on to list the things he's come to adore about you. Your kindness. Your strength of heart. Your smile, your laugh, your eyes - and slowly, Maurice sort of starts to see what he's talking about. Even if unusual, there's no denying that, hypothetically, you would make a good mate for their leader. The tricky part would be how you respond to the proposal.

Because you are, at the end of the day, human. Even if you feel the same way, there will be a multitude of differences and challenges to overcome if you wanted to make it work. He warns Caesar of that.

But for you, Caesar would climb the tallest mountains. He would scour deserts to bring you water never before drank. He would happily lay down his life so you could wear his pelt, if it meant protecting you from the cold. And, if need be, he'd never bring it up again if you decided against it. Against him.

And that's even more of a big deal than you might think. Because love like that is a human affair.

Before the flu, apes were promiscuous by nature. With their heightened intelligence came the establishment of monogamy, a single mate you want to provide for, to bear children with, to share a nest and resources with. Fondness and affection was their standard for love, in the emotional sense. Biologically, it was a result of territorial instinct. This person is mine, and no one else can have them. Only I will make them happy. Only I am worthy.

Caesar feels all that for you, but the type of intense, all encompassing love he describes is an extremely human thing to feel. He recognises that, and it's one of the reasons he's so scared by it. But Maurice is supportive as ever, and ends up being the best wingman an ape could ask for.

The orangutang ends up instigating subtle conversations with you the next day, under the guise of curiosity. He asks about human relationships. About your customs and standards. About what humans like in a partner. And he takes all the information you give him, to report back to Caesar.

A lot of preparation is made, all in an effort to make you as happy and comfortable as possible. A private fire is set up by the river, away from prying eyes. Maurice grooms Caesars back for a good while, plucking out any dirt or twigs that might have gotten stuck in his fur. Caesar even goes scavenging in the remains of the human city, returning with an assortment of things he believes will help him.

He shampoos himself for the first time since he was a boy. He ends up fluffy and smelling like lavender, a few patches here and there not fully rinsed off and sticking together in clumps. He considers shaving his beard, but ultimately decides against it in favour of using a broken comb on it instead. He even finds an old tie, but he doesn't know how to tie it, so it ends up as a lopsided knot at his throat.

He's desperate to not be repulsive to you. He would be to most humans after all, at least in this regard. In his mind, if he's willing to adjust enough, to be human enough, only then would you even consider him as a potential mate.

But then it happens.

He has Maurice bring you to the river late one night, where he's waiting to greet you with a small bouquet of wildflowers.

You've never seen him so... awkward. So sheepish, so unsure of himself. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what he's trying to do, but you let him play it out as he sees fit.

It takes more willpower than you'd like to admit not to laugh, but you manage to bite it back.

The two of you sit by the fire for hours, as he goes on a small tangent about how appreciative he is of you, how grateful he is to have met you. You reply in modest thanks, returning the sentiment. But of coarse, you eventually have to ask-

Why all this?

Why change himself so much to have this conversation?

"Because.... you are human. And have changed yourself, to live with apes."

He takes your hand, so small and delicate compared to his own, and lets his thumb trace your knuckles.

"Wanted you to know... I could change too."

The realisation of his mindset horrifies you at first. You take both his hands in turn and tell him you don't want him to change. That you respect and accept him for who and what he is, that the changes you've made are different because you're the one becoming a part of their life.

He gets a little defensive. Suddenly, he's very self conscious of the fact that he might look silly to you, like this. His nostrils flare and he looks away, letting you finish before huffing.

"Respect.... accept... but could you.... love me? For what I am??"

He asks it in a more accusatory manner than he intended, but the tone makes you snap back at him.

"I do love you for what you are!"

The silence that follows is almost deafening. You stare at each other in incredulous surprise, and he watches as your cheeks flush, your mind finally catching up with your mouth. You open it again, as if to say something else, but nothing comes out.

He searches your face, trying to get a sense of how you wanted him to respond. Internally, the words make his heart flutter, but he doesn't dare express anything before your own emotions are readable.

But your expression just mirrors his. You're blinking dumbly at one another, unsure of how to proceed.

Then.... you laugh. The faintest snicker escapes you, soon building into proper laughter. You just can't help it, the situation is so tense and he's gaping at you like a fish, with a crudely attempted tie around his neck and fur making him look almost like a pampered poodle. You're about to apologise, not wanting him to think you're laughing at him.

But he's laughing too, the ridiculousness of it all not lost on him, even if he'd been trying to do what he thought you'd sincerely want. And your giggling is so infectious to him, even if it's a sound that only a human can really make. He adores it, because it's you.

And there's no denying the wave of relief that washes over him. Unabashedly, he reaches out to cradle the back of your head, and pulls your temple to his own as your mutual chuckling slowly fades. Again, you're left staring at each other. But this time it's in a much more comfortable, intimate way.

"Can... try this again? Tomorrow?"

You agree, under the condition that he let you help get all the product out of his fur.

He's more than happy with that arrangement.

[pink-onyx-au]

Community Translation Campaign

All who help will be credited in the final results.

So many people have offered to help that I just had to come up with an idea to make it easier on everyone, even to offer ways to work together. So, here is the plan!

The English for the episode is posted here, in order, for you to read. State which language you’re using, and donate as many words as you like to the project! When a language has a complete translation and is double-checked, I can take care of the editing. Thank you to everyone! 🧡💕❤️

Words to clarify intention or clarity in the statement that were not said within the dialog of the comic will be presented (like this) to better help translations. Any questions, just post and I will get back to you as best as I can!

Episode 1 - Antipathy (English Script)

If it matters in your language, Steven is masculine-form grammar. Jasper is feminine-form grammar. The Diamonds (not Steven) are feminine-form grammar.

Steven: No. I’m sorry. Where is- Jasper, I (‘m sorry) I can’t find (her) It has to be here. It is here somewhere. I have been holding (myself) back!

I have to do something about this.

Steven: Jasper. Please. I want to talk

Jasper. What is it, my diamond?

Steven: Please! I just want to talk. As equals. Please…

Jasper: In order to do that, you’ll have to get on the dirt (or ground). Now that you’re down here with the dust, what do you want to talk about?

Steven: I can’t sleep. So much has happened since- my meltdown. Everyone is hovering over me every hour of the day, but, I need to apologize for how I acted that day. You were just trying to help me, and I did the worst possible thing (to you).

Jasper: I told you before, don’t apologize!

Steven: Why?

Jasper: I wanted to see the full extent of your power, and I got my answer. You let yourself go. That’s what I wanted.

Steven; But jasper, I- (shattered you)

Jasper: Shattered me? Why does that bother you?

Steven: Why doesn’t it bother you

Jasper: Soldiers are shattered (killed) all the time, Steven. It’s why we are made. To win, and replace. That’s why the one thing I don’t understand - is why you brought me back (revived me) after you got what you wanted.

Steven: "What I wanted!?" I- I didn’t want to shatter you! It was a mistake!

Jasper: The moment a gem is permitted to act to their fullest is when they show what they really want. It is absolute. From pebble to diamond

You may say you didn’t want to shatter me, but based on the look in your eyes, something did.

Steven: I-I don’t know what that was! I mean, I do now but I-

Jasper: You don’t understand it, so you came here. Just like last time. Why do you keep coming back here to find answers? That the only thing I’m good for to you? Told me yourself you want to high to do with me otherwise.

Steven: No! No. It’s not that. You’re… just the furthest thing from what I know about my world. And you act like that’s normal for you. So when nothing in my world makes sense, it just makes sense to come here.

Jasper: Well, at least we agree on one thing.

Steven: What do you mean?

Jasper: My world doesn’t make any sense to me anymore, either. Nothing my diamond has done makes sense to me anymore. Start a colony just to preserve it? Start a war just to lose it? Die to become(be reborn) as you? I was made to win a gem-war for a diamond with power so destructive that the other diamonds hesitated to give her a colony in the first place. A diamond with so much strength that a word from her could shatter. The closest you ever came to making sense to me is the day you finally cut loose. Then, like everything else, your colony, your court, your status, your form, you tossed me aside and moved onto the next thing. Told me to ‘find something better to do with my life’ when my whole life has been fighting for you, my diamond.

Steven: Jasper I-I’m, I’m sorry

Jasper: Stars ("god";swear form), shut up with that! You did what you wanted every second you’ve been out of the dirt!even this human form! Even being here right now! Until you get that, this conversation is going to be a waste of both of our time!

Steven: I-I just.. I’ve done such a horrible thing, and I can’t sleep because it keeps replaying, and each time I see it, it scares me to death because I hate how good it feels.

Jasper: Come (with me). If you’re going to start this, then we’re doing it out here. I don’t want me den destroyed. Listen carefully, Steven. Is this what you want?

Steven: No.

Jasper: Then focus on what you want.

Steven: I don’t want to hurt you

Jasper: Then calm down!

Steven: Sorry. How are you okay with what I did to you?

Jasper: Honestly, Steven, I don’t know why you aren’t (okay with it). I don’t throw a punch without intent to hit something. Let alone regret it after the fact. You’re just going to have to live with the idea that we will not understand one another.

Steven: I want to though! That- that is what I want.

Jasper: And how do you intend to get that? by coming here and begging for answers I don’t have?

Steven: Maybe there is a way, but, I-I have a way. That we can both get answers. If you want answers. Also.

Jasper: Go on.

Steven: Maybe if we feel what it’s like to be each other

Jasper: What are you implying?

Steven; Ah, I’m implying! That we could fuse, if you wanted to do that. Too. Maybe?

Jasper: That was the most pathetic request to fuse I’ve ever heard. I am not fusing with someone who whimpers like some under-cooked pebble. So, if that’s what you really want, show me you have the guts to take it!

Steven: Fine, jasper. Then, As your Diamond: Fuse with me

Jasper: Much better!

Jasper: Should have known you were full of dirt ("shit";swear)

Steven: I don’t know what happened. I’m usually good at (doing) this.

Jasper: You ran (away)!

Steven: No I, I think something poofed us.

Jasper: Well, it wasn’t me! So, whatever that was and to come from you!

Steven: It’s going to be ok. We do this together next time.

Steven: I have an idea but, I need some time to prepare. I’ll be back tomorrow right at dusk. It will give us the whole night.

Jasper: You’re kidding me. You issued a diamond-order and now you’re leaving me behind again? Seriously?

Steven: I know. I’m sorry. One last time, then I’ll make sure this works. I promise.

[samgirl98]

Wail of the Silent 10/?

Prev | Next

CW: Brief mention of suicide

Bruce cursed as he hit another pothole. That had been the fifteenth one in ten minutes. A newspaper covered his view, causing him to slow down as he tried to remove it with the windshield. When was the last time he even saw someone reading newspapers? It was almost as if the city was out to get him. He would even believe it if it weren’t for the fact that it would be illogical. After all, cities weren’t sentient.

He braked suddenly as a colony of bats danced in front of the car. Bruce gritted his teeth. He didn’t have time for this; he had to find his son! He reversed and entered an alley; his windshield was full of guano. The alley kept getting narrower and narrower until he had to reverse again and go back where he came from. The bats had, thankfully, disappeared.

Bruce radioed Dick, “Did you find him?”

“Nothing at this safe house.”

Bruce grunted a response and hung up.

He and Dick had decided to split up to look for Jason at his safehouses. Dick had investigated while Bruce had composed himself after the emotional attack. The only thing Dick had found was a glowing green laser gun.  

“Is it just me, or does it feel like something is trying to stop us from getting to Jason? I went through a shortcut cut off by a random wall,” Dick asked.

Bruce was about to answer when the heavens decided to open up, making it impossible to see where he was going. Bruce’s fist tightened on the wheel as he slowed down. He was getting closer to the last safe house.

“Oh c’mon,” Dick said, “Why now? I was close to meeting up with you at his last safe house. This cannot be a coincidence.”

Dick was right; all these random things didn’t feel like coincidences. The ghost, spirit, or whatever had kidnapped Jason could be behind this so that Bruce couldn’t get to his son. Whatever the case, Bruce was going to save Jason.

____

Jason woke up from the best nap he had ever had.

His head was on top of something solid and cool. He could feel a soft humming.

Jason opened his eyes and gave a soundless yawn. Danny was fast asleep, snoring softly. Jason smiled and stretched. His body was pleasantly sore. He stared at Danny for a few more seconds before getting up. He went to the bathroom to wipe himself down with a damp towel, too lazy to shower, put on a pair of boxers and got back into bed.

He rested his head on the crook of Danny’s arm and put his leg on top of Danny’s. He wanted cuddles, damn it. After the horrible night he had followed by the best of his life, Jason thought he deserved it.

Danny tightened his hold on Jason and put his other arm around Jason’s shoulder. Jason felt his breath get stuck. Danny was so pretty…and so much bigger than Jason. Who knew he would like to be manhandled?

“Everything good,” Danny asked. Jason nodded and got more comfortable in Danny’s arms. He started purring in contentment, surprised he was making that sound. He blushed a bit at Danny’s soft laugh.

Then Danny started purring, and it felt less awkward. The soft purrs lulled Jason back to sleep.

____

Dick entered after Bruce.

He hoped they found Jason in his last safe house. It took a while to find and look through them all. Dick felt he was going crazy the longer he didn’t see his younger brother.

When Bruce had called him freaking out, Dick felt a stone sink to the bottom of his stomach. It was so unlike Bruce to let his emotions get the best of him. When he had joined Bruce, the older man had told Dick what had happened. Dick looked through the grainy footage (which in itself was strange as Bruce used the latest state-of-the-art technology) and watched as Jason fought a black mass, Penelope Spectra, and then put a gun to his head. And that was before a glowing humanoid shape had kidnapped him.

Bruce had told Dick how Spectra had messed with his emotions until he had been a wreck full of misery.  

Dick had to find Jason and make sure he was alright. What if they were too late and Jason had put a bullet through his hea—no, he couldn’t think that way.

Dick ignored the uncomfortable feeling of his wet suit and entered the safe house. It was dark and quiet.

Both Dick and Bruce looked at each other and started searching. They only found an empty living room with clippings on the coffee table and two China cups. Dick was confused. Who else was here with Jason? His younger brother was a loner.

Bruce stared at the cups before reading one of the clippings. It was a printed report of one of the suicides from Arkham. It seemed Bruce wasn’t the only one interested in what was happening in the asylum.

Dick looked around the living room one more time before heading upstairs. The first door he opened was to a room that Dick guessed was Jason’s HQ. There were computers and wrappers all over the place. The next was the bathroom.

Dick only had one more door to look through. He opened the door to find his little brother, but he wasn’t alone.

Dun dun-dun. Drama is about to happen. Dick and Bruce are going to be so surprised.

Sorry for the short chapter. I have no idea when I'll update again, but I'll try not to make you guys wait for so long.

[hetaliahyperfix]

Hetalia Headcanons: Nation Physiology- Immortality

There's been a lot of interpretations of the nations' immortality over the years. Some people believe that nations will permanently die from a regular mortal wound like any human would while others believe nations cannot be harmed at all.

Canon seems to indicate that the latter is more of the case, with the Hetalia Horror Show stating that Finland was unable to drown when he fell into a freezing lake, but was instead suffocating endlessly, unable to die (which is pretty horrific, if you ask me).

I personally have my own headcanons as to how their immortality works. Some of it aligns with canon, and some of it deviates a little. I figure its fine since everyone kinda picks and chooses which parts of canon they like.

So, here are my headcanons (tw: violence, death, disease):

Nations cannot die the way humans do. At least, not permanently. Honestly, the idea is kind of absurd. It is impossible for them to have survived as long as they have if this was the case. China alone is over 4,000 years old and has fought in tens of thousands of battles, yet I am to believe he has not once sustained a mortal wound? What happens to the PRC if its nation persona dies from being hit by a car while being distracted by playing a mobile game on his phone? In my interpretation, nations cannot permanently die from fatal wounds, diseases, old age, and whatever other stuff that kills regular humans.

Nations can temporarily die. While they can't permanently die from mortal wounds, they can temporarily. For example, if they are shot in the head, it will kill them. However, they will heal and revive.

Nations have supernatural healing. This actually seems to be canon, based on the comic of Prussia lying about when he injured his hand, saying it was recent instead of the real answer which was a week ago, implying that healing tends to be faster for nations. In my headcanon, the nation's ability to heal depends on how strong their nation is economically, militarily, and through their overall cultural influence on the world. Currently, America and China heal the most rapidly, both being superpowers, being able to regenerate entire lost limbs in mere moments. On the other hand, Iceland has a very small GDP, no military, and very little cultural impact on the world, so he would take at least 20 seconds to heal a simple stab wound. Naturally, this healing fluctuates with the nation's power. When America was a colony, it would have taken him several minutes if he wanted to regenerate a limb. Better to just reattach the limb and heal it that way.

If the body cannot heal, a new one will be created. For example, let's say a nation fell into the ocean and is drowning. They keep dying and reviving in an endless cycle. Eventually, either through their own choice, or the supernatural natural nature of their existence, that body will permanently die and a new body will be reborn on their nation's soil. This process takes at least 24 hours and depends on how strong a nation is. America and China could probably revive 24 hours on the dot. Meanwhile, Monaco could take several days. Nations do all they can to avoid this type of death because it is, at best, highly inconvenient and it can, at worst, single handedly screw things over for them majorly. Imagine being a nation at war and having your body blown up by a bomb. By the time you revive and then travel back to the battlefield, it may already be over. This was especially awful when travel was not fast and it would take months to get somewhere.

Nations do not scar the way humans do. A nation's healing, no matter how weak they are, is perfect. It may take a while, but their bodies will go back to the way they were, meaning no scars. For a nation to receive scars, it would be based on injuries received during significant national events, especially if they are violent. For example, the French Revolution was very significant in French history so, when France was beheaded, he had a permanent, faint scar around his neck even after he healed. When the Romanovs were shot dead, ending Imperial Russia's rule, one of the bullets that bounced off the jewels they were wearing hit Russia and left a permanent bullet wound scar. Basically, a nation can end up with a permanent scar by receiving the wound during a significant, usually violent, event in their history.

Nations do not get sick the way humans do. Nations are immune to getting illnesses the way humans do. If they are around people with colds, they'll never catch a cold. They also never get terminal illnesses like cancer. There's only two things that can get a country sick: poor economy and epidemics. Honestly, this seems to be canon. Basically, if a nation's economy is doing poorly, like during the Great Depression, they will get cold/flu-like symptoms. The other way they get sick is through epidemics. Essentially, if enough people in their nation are sick, their own bodies will reflect this illness. However, since they didn't catch the illness naturally and got it though their nature as a nation, they can only stop being sick when the epidemic is over. When a nation is sick, they cannot be cured through ordinary means, they can only use medicine to alleviate the symptoms. During the Black Death, the European nations all had the bubonic plague to varying degrees for years. In fact, the bubonic plague made various resurgences over centuries. Many of them have scars from when the pustules burst and just about every one of them was extremely traumatized by it.

Nations can be effected by other types of "epidemics." For example, during the Red Scare when everyone in America was living in fear of their neighbors being communists, America became very paranoid. During the Opium Wars in China, his body began to crave opium like an addict before he even touched the stuff because nearly all his citizens were addicted, causing him to be addicted before even using. India went through at least three major famines killing over 10 million people each time from 1769-1793, so he was always underweight and hungry even if he ate during this time period.

Nations are resistant to poisons and chemicals. It takes far more poison to kill a nation than a human, although you can do it if you use a strong enough poison. I read a headcanon once that China would calmly drink a poisoned drink in front of the person who did it, just to freak them out. He 100% would do this, no debate.

Nations are vulnerable to radiation. One of the few things they are vulnerable to. While they can endure it better than humans, it is still not good. Radiation works by killing cells, via preventing them from dividing. This disrupts their ability to regenerate, so they heal slower with it.

Nations age based on economic and cultural development. This one is kinda canon. Regular humans age by the year. Nations seem to age based on the development of their country. For example, America's economy grew far faster than Canada's, and there is even a strip showing a nearly adult America next to a baby Canada despite both being born around the same time. On the opposite side of the spectrum, we see that North Italy did not age from infancy for over a 1,000 years. He was alive to have known Ancient Rome, which means he would have been born, at latest 476 AD. He did not begin to age until the Renaissance in the 1500s. As an aside, could you imagine being a baby/toddler for 1,000 years? That's honestly sounds horrific. And, based on England's shocked reaction to America's growth, it seems spending several hundred years as a baby is the norm.

So, with all of this being said, how do nations die? Well, that will be my next post. This one is already long enough so I am going to continue in another post. I hope you enjoyed my first major headcanon post! Let me know your own thoughts in the comments below.

Next Part

[girlactionfigure]

the British

SEPTEMBER 18, 2024

For many years, there has been a concerted effort to delegitimize the State of Israel as a British colonial project. These people decontextualize one single paragraph-long, non-binding statement -- the 1917 Balfour Declaration -- and ignore everything that happened before and since. 

The fact of the matter is that by the time the British actually occupied the territory that now encompasses the State of Israel and the Palestinian Territories, they actively worked with the Arabs against the establishment of a sovereign Jewish state. 

Anyone familiar with the complicated history of the conflict beyond the same tired propaganda talking points knows this. Our own grandparents know this, because it was they who suffered under British curfews, detention camps, unfair laws, and more.

THE BALFOUR DECLARATION: IN CONTEXT

In 1897, at the First Zionist Congress, the Zionist movement decided that “Zionism seeks to establish a home for the Jewish people in Eretz ­Israel [the Land of Israel] secured under public law.” In other words, the Zionist movement sought to accomplish its goals through legal means, rather than through violence. To do this, the Zionists tried lobbying a number of world powers, most significantly, the Ottomans, who then ruled over what is now Israel and the Palestinian Territories. They were unsuccessful. In fact, the Ottoman Empire tightened its anti-Jewish restrictions in the Land of Israel in response.

Meanwhile, as the Ottoman Empire weakened, a number of Indigenous religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East, as well as the Arabs, began vying for their own independence. This was especially true during World War I, after it was revealed that the British and the French had conspired to take over the spoils of the vast Ottoman Empire once the Ottomans were defeated. Other groups that made public -- though ultimately unsuccessful -- bids for sovereignty included the Assyrians and the Kurds. In other words, given the context of the period and the region, Zionism was not an anomaly, but rather, it fell in line with what other national groups were doing at the time.

In 1916, the British promised the Arabs a unified Arab state in Greater Syria, which included what is now Israel, the Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Jordan, and parts of Turkey. A year later, in 1917, the British signed the Balfour Declaration, supporting the establishment of a “Jewish national home,” which, in the eyes of the Arabs, contradicted the promise the British had made just the previous year.

“His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

WHAT WAS THE BALFOUR DECLARATION?

The Balfour Declaration was a statement issued in 1917 by the British government supporting the establishment of “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. 

There are two important things to keep in mind: (1) in 1917, Palestine was not yet under British rule; thus, the British had no actual power to assign it to anyone, and (2) by the time the British were given administrative powers over Palestine, they’d already changed their tune in favor of the Arab aspirations. It’s also important to note that the Balfour Declaration never specified the exact nature of this “national home for the Jewish people,”and, as such, the British felt that this promise did not actually contradict the earlier promise they had made to the Arabs in 1916 regarding a unified Arab state in Greater Syria. 

The causes for the Balfour Declaration are subject to speculation. Some historians believe the British wanted to reward Chaim Weizmann, one of the most active proponents for a Jewish state, for producing acetone, which was critical to the British war effort during World War I. Others believe the British were desperate for the Americans to enter World War I, and because they held the antisemitic view that Jews had a great deal of power over the American government, they thought that in rewarding the Jews, the Jews would reward them. Others claim Lord Balfour was a Christian Zionist -- not to be confused with a Christian who is a Zionist -- and he felt that the returning of the Jews to the Land of Israel would hasten the Second Coming of Jesus. Finally, others think the British “embraced” Zionism because they felt that it would justify their colonization of Palestine over the French colonization of Palestine, as the French were also vying for control of that strip of land.

BRITISH RESPONSE TO ARAB VIOLENCE

British rule over Palestine was characterized by appeasement to -- and oftentimes outright support for -- the Arabs, even when the Arabs carried out antisemitic massacres against the Jews. After the 1920 Nebi Musa pogrom in Jerusalem, for example, the Jews accused the British of complicity, as they had actively prevented the Jews in the Old City from getting help. In fact, it was this riot that led to the formation of the Haganah, the first Zionist paramilitary in Mandatory Palestine, as the Zionist movement realized that the British could not -- or were not willing to -- protect the Jewish population of Palestine.

In 1936, the Arab Higher Committee, the Arab leadership in Mandatory Palestine, called for a general strike and boycott of Jewish products. This quickly escalated into violence and terrorism, leading to the massacre of some 500 Jews and hundreds of British. Due to their inadequacy in protecting the Jewish population, once again, the British reluctantly agreed to arm the Haganah.

In 1937, the British issued the Peel Commission to investigate the causes of unrest in Palestine. The investigators decided that partitioning the land into one Jewish state and one Arab state was the best option -- putting partition on the table for the first time. The Jews agreed to the plan reluctantly -- the terms weren’t great, though Chaim Weizmann said the Zionist movement was prepared to accept a state “even if it’s the size of a tablecloth” -- but the Arabs rejected it vehemently. Wishing to appease the Arabs, the British immediately discarded the 1937 Peel Plan and instead rewarded the Arab perpetrators of the violence with the 1939 White Paper.

THE 1939 WHITE PAPER

Given the results of the 1937 Peel Commission, which found that it was the Arab leadership that had instigated the violence of the Arab Revolt (against Jewish immigration), the Jews in Palestine were absolutely dismayed when the British issued the 1939 White Paper.

The White Paper, in direct contradiction with the findings of the Peel Commission, called for the establishment of a singular Palestinian Arab state. The Jews felt that, in light of previous promises, hundreds of years of Arab subjugation of Jews, and Arab violence against the Jews in Palestine, a single, Arab-majority state would shatter any illusion of Jewish self-determination. 

Most damningly, the White Paper also almost entirely banned Jewish immigration, while Arab immigration continued to flow freely and without restriction into Palestine. The White Paper limited Jewish immigration to up to 75,000 people within a period of 5 years, and any further immigration would be subject to the approval of the Arabs. Keep in mind that this was on the brink of World War II, when millions of Jews were desperate to escape Europe.

Jews were also banned from purchasing any lands owned by Arabs, save for 5% of the Mandate territory. 

The Jewish Agency for Palestine issued a statement saying that the British were denying the Jews their rights in the “darkest hour of Jewish history.”

ALIYAH BET

Aliyah Bet is the code name for the wave of Jewish illegal immigration and illegal rescue missions to Mandatory Palestine between 1920-1948, and particularly after 1939, after the British passed the 1939 White Paper. Aliyah Bet happened in two phases: phase one (1934-1942/1944) and phase two (1945-1948).

The rescue missions were carried out by a network of Zionist organizations. Some 62 missions were carried out between 1937-1944, the majority of them unsuccessful and often ending with catastrophic results. 

Some 70,000 Jews, aboard 62 or 66 vessels (sources differ), attempted to reach Palestine via ship during World War II. Only ~15,000 made it safely, as most were unable to penetrate the British blockade. Five ships sunk, resulting in nearly 1,600 casualties.

After the war, the Haganah continued its illicit operations, now smuggling Holocaust survivors out of Europe. Overall, some 70,000 Jews arrived to Palestine in over 100 ships throughout the course of Aliyah Bet. This was a modest number considering the high number of Jews that attempted to travel to Palestine unsuccessfully. 

Aliyah Bet created a conundrum for the British. On the one hand, they were trying to appease the Arab Higher Committee, which decried Jewish immigration. On the other hand, the world saw the British as cruel, keeping Holocaust survivors trapped in detention camps and banning them from Palestine.

Had the British supported the Zionist movement, there would have been no need for Aliyah Bet, nor would 1600 Holocaust refugees have died at sea en route to Palestine.

DETENTION CAMPS IN CYPRUS

The 1939 British White Paper remained in effect until 1948, with the establishment of the State of Israel. After the end of the Holocaust, Aliyah Bet continued in full force. Most of the would-be immigrants -- Holocaust survivors -- were detained by the British and placed in prison and internment camps. The largest of the camps were located in Cyprus, which was a British colony at the time.

Between 1946 and 1949, some 53,510 Jews were held prisoner in these camps. The majority had arrived from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, though a small number of Moroccan Jews were imprisoned as well. 80% of the prisoners were between the ages of 13-35, and 6,000 of them were orphans. Some 2,000 Jewish children were born in the camps. After Israel’s independence, Israel evacuated the last 10,200 prisoners into Israel.

The conditions at the camps were atrocious and inhumane.Jews had to face obstacles such as poor sanitation, overcrowding, lack of privacy, and a shortage of drinkable water. The American Joint Distribution Committee, which provided medical aid, extra food rations, and more, stated that the British treated Jewish refugees in Cyprus worse than they treated Nazi prisoners of war in adjacent camps. 

Tents and barracks were overcrowded. There was a severe clothing and shoe shortage. The food was bad quality. Undoubtedly the biggest issue was lack of water, particularly during the summer, which resulted in poor sanitary conditions and the spread of disease. The British officers responsible for the refugees were unwilling and indifferent. The barbed wire and watchtowers reminded the Jewish refugees of their time in Nazi concentration camps, which was retraumatizing. Additionally, the camps had been built by Nazi POWs, which understandably upset the Jewish detainees.

Some 400 Jews died in the internment camps in Cyprus.

Jewish children in a British detainment camp in Cyprus after the Holocaust. Some 400 Jews died in these camps, due to lack of sanitation, malnutrition, subpar medical care, ill-treatment, and other poor conditions.

ATLIT

Atlit was a British concentration camp near Haifa used to hold Arabs and Jews under administrative detention (i.e. without a trial) during the period of the British Mandate. It was built in the 1930s and was primarily used to imprison Jewish refugees who arrived in Palestine. Some 10,000 Jewish refugees were held there. 

Men and women were separated upon arrival and sent to showers to be deloused with dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane. Since many of the prisoners were Nazi concentration camp survivors, the showers were especially frightening and traumatic. Barbed wire formed a barrier between the men and women in the camp and the perimeter was surrounded by watchtowers eerily reminiscent of the Nazi camps. Children were separated from their parents. 

A nurse at Atlit described the conditions in 1947: “"...when the Jewish Agency asked me to come here, I felt maybe at last I could do something for the survivors. Then I saw the things that you're seeing now. The results of the Nazi dehumanization. People with no belief in the future, apathetic, quarrelsome, no morals...”

JEWISH INSURGENCY AGAINST THE BRITISH

Had the British been “on the side of the Zionists,” then there would have been no need for the Zionists to launch an insurgency against the British.

Zionist non-violent and violent (including terrorism) resistance to the British began after the 1939 White Paper. It was temporarily put on hold with the outbreak of the Holocaust, when the head of the Jewish Agency and future first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion, announced, “We must assist the British in the war as if there were no White Paper and we must resist the White Paper as if there were no war.”

Towards the end of the Holocaust, however, the Irgun resumed its anti-British operations, when its leader and future prime minister Menachem Begin announced in February of 1944: “There can no longer be an armistice between the Jewish Nation and its youth and a British administration in the Land of Israel which has been delivering our brethren to Hitler…Our nation is at war with this regime and it is a fight to the finish.” 

The Haganah, which was under the jurisdiction of the officially recognized Jewish leadership in Palestine, remained mostly cooperative with the British, while putting pressure on them to open up Jewish refugee restrictions.

 Perhaps most infamous of all Irgun operations was the bombing of the King David Hotel in 1946, where the British held administrative quarters. Begin had warned the British of the bombing in advance, giving them ample time to evacuate their staff and hotel guests, but they didn’t listen. In the end, 91 people were killed in the bombing.

Following the bombing, the Irgun and Lehi continued attacking British police and military targets. In retaliation, the British imposed a number of restrictions on the Jewish population of Palestine,such as martial law, military curfews, random searches, and mass arrests. Tensions grew between the Haganah — which condemned the bombings — and the Irgun and Lehi.

BRITISH ANTISEMITISM

The unrest in Palestine reignited widespread British antisemitic sentiment, both within the Mandate and in Great Britain. 

For example, after the Irgun kidnapped and hung two British sergeants, British soldiers went on a rampage in Tel Aviv, indiscriminately attacking the Jewish community and killing five Jews. In Great Britain, the outraged population rioted against the Jewish community, a riot which devolved into a pogrom, with many carrying signs with messages such as “Hitler was right.”

Jews were consistently put under curfews and subjected to ill-treatment.

Winston Churchill himself wrote that the British soldiers in Palestine were strongly pro-Arab. The Jewish Agency issued frequent complaints that the soldiers made antisemitic remarks, such as “bloody Jew,” “pigs,” or even vowing to finish the job that Hitler had started. 

It was the British officers in Palestine that first engaged in Holocaust inversion; that is, the depiction of Jews as Nazis. In March of 1945 — about two months before the Nazis even surrendered — the High Commissioner of Palestine, Lord Gort, told the Colonial Secretary in London that “the establishment of any Jewish State in Palestine…will almost inevitably mean the rebirth of National Socialism [i.e. Nazism] in some guise.”

Sir John Bagot Glubb, who later became the British Commander of the Jordanian Arab Legion during the 1948 war, called Jews “unlikeable, aggressive, stiff-necked, vengeful, and imbued with the idea of [being] a superior race.”

1948

The British abstained from voting in the 1948 United Nations Partition Vote. Some British officials, most notably British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, openly opposed any partition or establishment of a Jewish state.

The British fought in both official and unofficial capacities alongside the Arabs in the 1948 war. In other words, they fought against the establishment of a Jewish state and in favor of an Arab state. Most importantly, British officer John Bagot Glubb commanded the Jordanian Arab Legion in 1948.

After the British withdrew from Mandatory Palestine on the eve of Israel’s independence, they handed their arms over to the Arabs, not the Jews. In fact, it was British intelligence that convinced the Arabs to invade in 1948.

At one point in 1949, the British even considered invading the State of Israel to protect their own interests in Egypt.

In conclusion:

Before the British even set foot in Palestine, they had made contradictory promises of sovereignty to Jews, Arabs, and other Middle Eastern minorities.

However, by the time that the British actually were in Palestine, they actively did everything they possibly could to appease the Arabs, thus working to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state.

Had a Jewish state not become a reality in spite of the British, the Balfour Declaration would have long been forgotten, just like the unfulfilled promises the British made to the Assyrians and Kurds.

The fact of the matter is that virtually every border in the Middle East was carved up by the British and French, yet only the Jewish state is delegitimized on that basis. In fact, some countries were invented by the British entirely. For example, the British aided in the creation of Saudi Arabia by funding and supporting the Al Saud family, which, with their help, came to dominate a large chunk of the Arabian Peninsula. The British quite literally invented Iraq when they created the Mandate of Iraq in 1921 in part of what had long been known as other regions, including Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Babylonia. And, of course, the British created Jordan when they handed an enormous piece of the Mandate of Palestine over to the Hashemites in 1922. The Hashemites are from Arabia, not Transjordan.

For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram

rootsmetals

EDIT - 1948 slide - partition vote was in 1947! Sorry typo 😅

the British put Jewish children (Holocaust survivors!!!!) in concentration camps to appease the Palestinian Arab leaders, but the BaLfOuR dEcLaRaTiOn, right? 🙄 Crazy how certain people think it’s totally fine to whitewash this horrid history when this whitewashing comes at the expense of Jews and Jewish trauma. Genuinely wondering if you’d treat another minority’s history like this.

[bfpnola]

I am not Palestinian nor am I Jewish. Be that as it may, I hate settler colonialism, even more so as a brown, bi, genderqueer ‘Afab’ person. I just wanted to say. 1) your post on the topic is more empathetic and insightful than I’ve seen a lot of people be about this over my entire life and I’ve asked questions of both sides, I tend to stay out of the fray cause I don’t feel it my place to speak over Palestinians and Jews (who are critical of Israel). But, do you have any advice for being a better ally to Palestinians and combating anti-semitism and anti Jewish racism in the everyday?

hey sweetheart! thank you for your commitment to the movement and your earnestness. i am not Palestinian or Jewish either, so i did what is always considered best: i asked those who are! that's exactly why our Advocacy Committee within BFP exists :)

from one of our Palestinian youth volunteers:

if you have the money to do so, donate to the cause! the unfortunate truth is that to gain access to various resources, things cost money. more specifically, donate to humanitarian aid funds you've done the research for and are sure are doing work on the ground. even better if you can donate directly to those being affected! this includes Palestinians on the ground but also within the diaspora who need self care items, especially for all the work they've been doing educating others. for example, this is an organization this member volunteers with and trusts:

and these are two amazon lists of Palestinian youth within the diaspora:

share posts by Palestinians! the big thing is really just getting the word out, sharing their perspective. Zionist propaganda is hard to penetrate so the least we can do is uplift their voices by sharing!

from one of our Jewish youth volunteers:

understand that not all Jewish people are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jewish. saying the two are equivalent is not only antisemitic but ignores the blatant statistics, like the growing number of anti-Zionist Jewish young adults in the united states for example, or the fact that the biggest supporters of israel are actually evangelicals.

to that same point, know that israel has been purposefully trying to conflate the two in order to then label anyone who does critique the state as automatically antisemitic. it is a tool.

additionally, be careful with the rhetoric you choose to spread & subscribe to (i.e., watch how they describe israel. do they refer to the people as Jews or Zionists? it can tell you a lot about how educated they are and their vague stance on the matter)

my own additions as a longstanding ally and friend of those involved:

learn your history! there is a clear attempt to distort the history of Palestine. learn what Palestine was like before israel's occupation. learn about the way pioneering Zionists openly called Zionism "colonialism" and didn't even try to hide it. learn about how discussions of the Zionist project were discussed roughly 80 years before the Holocaust ever happened. this does not mean that some Jews did not, in fact, move to Palestine in response to such a horrific event, but in the words of a Jewish mutual of mine, israel's rhetoric literally weaponizes Jewish trauma by conflating these two dates in history.

BDS movement! stands for boycott, divestment, and sanctions!

when possible, actually speak to people of Palestinian descent. like seriously. posts are great, but actually speaking to people who are knowledgeable in real time can be so helpful for getting your questions addressed, so long as you are respectful, of course. a great place to do this, not even to advertise, is actually our Discord server linked in our bio @bfpnola

know that language matters, as inconsequential as it may seem. in the words of my Palestinian, Kashmiri, and Artsakhi friends and/or mutuals, when speaking of occupations, we capitalize the occupied people's country (ex. Palestine) while not doing so for the occupier's (ex. israel) to delegitimize them.

learn about Hamas and its history/purpose. here are my notes on two podcast episodes let by Palestinians:

thank you for your ask! im sure i may think of other things later but these are my answers for now.

-- reaux (she/they)

[stawpny]

I’m bored and ao3 is kinda dry (atleast for the wttt ny tag)

so here are some NY ships I NEED to see more of 🙏

—

MassYork: ok, I used to be almost totally opposed to this, seeing them having more of a brotherly relationship but with history n stuff it’s kinda not possible. But anyway, probably my main ship for now, bc OHMYGOD “nobody can kill you but me”? GET OUT, GET MARRIED, PLEASE.

like if it’s Mass/Cali/York or Mass/Jersey/York I will eat it up.

no questions, it is already in my mouth. I am eating the fuck outta this.

GeoYork: in my mind they have a cute dynamic. I feel they would be best friends as younger colonies and then have a very complicated relationship until they finally get together. Slowburn kinda, also kinda they have been in relationships dozens of times but something always happens. and isn’t Georgia called the “Empire State of the South”? or am I just hearing things

peach + apple? cobbler + pie? idek but I love them

TexYork: guys pls. southern gentleman and city boy? literally perfect for each other. they would make fun of each other endlessly. accents, vocabulary, actions, plus so much more because they’re very different.

TX taking York to his ranch to meet bro’s cows??? yes please. I’d like to meet Betsy too .

^TexaCaliYork: also a fire ship (see what I did there?) like the ship above, but with the hipster in it aswell. Texas and Cal constantly bicker like children and York sorts it out like a teacher would.

NY: you hurt his feelin’s, go apologize.

TX, scoffing: fine, but don’t expect me to get along with him after.

(spoiler alert!! York forces them into a cuddle pile afterwards to get over there lifelong beef)

IlliYork: they’re enemies, they’re lovers, the whole kit-and-caboodle. they’d switch hats sometimes and hold each others hand when they’re in their cities. they’re idiots and the Midwest and the Northeast hate them for it. It’s kinda gross but in a good way.

they’d be the couple who like hold hands in public but not make a single move other than that to show that they love the other. absolutely no kissing in public, they would just sit there in silence with a death grip on the other’s hand. they would totally insult each other to the face and then say, “Love you, tho.”

FloYork: fun fact: they are absolutely insane together. They influence each other and constantly say stupid shit. Florida would force York outta his comfort zone from time to time but the inner extrovert masked by New York’s fake introvert personality will do it almost willingly. he puts up a “fight” but he would deadass do it bc he thinks this shit is hilarious.

NY would be a little like Florida even if they weren’t dating. like NYC is absolutely batshit so that would mean York would have to be a little too.

NY/CA/TX/FL/LA: little crazy, ik, but I remember reading fics abt these five (including gov, but I’m still questioning if he would be in here or not) and absolutely devouring them. spectacular ship. it’s like a little bit of everything, except the Midwest and the other western states, but almost everything. I would love to see more of them.

they would def fight over each other. (who got to hold hands with who, who got to sleep/cuddle with who, etc.)

—

I’m not forcing you to give into my opinions, but if u like these, I like you 😼

some of these hc’s are not entirely mine, some were influenced, tho most are from the rotting part of my brain

I hope u use these ships in the future or I might spontaneously combust

(spoiler alert 2!! I will still explode [out of love] if u write about them)

ily guys

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

Since there's been some discussion of this on a prior post I made, let's address

Neurodivergent Skill-Regression: What is it & Why Does it Happen?

Content Warning! This post will make brief mention of various topics, including: childhood abuse (not explicit), depression, suicidal ideation, car accidents, the COVID-19 pandemic, and throwing up.

Okay, let's begin with a quick preface. I'm writing from the Global North, in a capitalist economy, and in a country founded on (ongoing!) systems of colonialism. Therefore, that's how I'll be situating this discussion (just because it's what I know best). Neurodivergence and Capitalist Exploitation Under capitalism, productivity and extraction in the name of profit become of the utmost importance. Extraction can take place in the form of extracting physical resources (think fracking on Turtle Island), extracting labour, etc. Ultimately, neurodivergence itself is not an ill-formed or "bad" mind. It is only conceptualized and coded as such because capitalism and various other interlocking systems of oppression are actively hostile to minds that, in some way, subvert capitalist and colonial ideals. (however, this is not to negate, invalidate, or trivialize the fact that adhd/asd/ocd/bpd/etc. are disabilities. by their very nature, they impede and disrupt functioning. what is considered "functional", however, is determined by this capitalist/colonialist state and the things it values. this is all simply to say that we would be able to more easily exist and thrive within a society that doesn't reward self-destruction in the name of accumulating capital for the upper class) Of course, living in a system that is not built for you is going to be exhausting—it takes a toll on you, both physically and mentally. This can be further compounded if you are marginalized in other ways; for instance, if you're a person of colour, working class, a woman, 2SLGBTQ+, an immigrant, or a combination of these.

Masking and Burnout Many neurodivergent folx are forced into positions in which they have to mask. For the sake of clarity, "masking", in this case, involves concealing one's neurodivergent traits. For me, that might look like suppressing compulsions, consciously regulating my facial expressions, working longer and harder to accomplish tasks because I can't focus, or scripting conversations before I have them. These manifestations are often invisible to outsiders, but they take a heavy toll on us, and can often result in neurodivergent burnout. This is where the skill-regression comes in. An Example... Let me give you a personal example of what neurodivergent skill-regression can look like! Prior to the pandemic, I was a highly productive person. I was designated "gifted" (whatever that means) and was top of my class in every single class. I was participating in (and running) multiple clubs, working a steady job, volunteering within the community, and learning new instruments and languages. I was a skilled pianist and painter, and also very athletic. From the outside looking in, I appeared successful: I had a massive scholarship lined up at the most prestigious university in the country. I was generally well-liked. I was creative and skilled in both the humanities and STEM (mostly humanities lol), etcetera etcetera. But I was in no way okay. I was incredibly depressed and suicidal. I had multiple undiagnosed anxiety disorders and neurodivergencies. I was experiencing relentless abuse at home. I was throwing up every few days out of pure fear and stress. I was constantly sick, crying (in secret, and then later too numb to cry), overwhelmed, exhausted, and apathetic. And yet I refused to stop pushing my body and mind to their limit because I had this ingrained belief surrounding my productivity—if I slowed down, would I be worth anything? At the time, to my mind, the answer was a staunch no (even though I didn't apply this thinking to anyone but myself lol). So I repressed everything. I pushed it all to the side and kept moving forward. To put it in perspective, I got hit by a truck at one point, but I was so scared of being late to a thing and disappointing my parents that I just apologized and kept going. This kind of behaviour went on for close to a decade. And then the pandemic hit. And I was forced to stop. I was made to (by virtue of my relative privilege) take a moment to sit down, look around, and actually feel things. And it hit me like a ton of bricks: All the weight of the anger and fear and everything that I had been repressing for the sake of survival came RUSHING in. Now? You want to know what I'm like now? I am very burnt out and incredibly unproductive. I have the attention span of a gnat. Where I used to be able push through exhaustion or else tamp it down with consistently high levels of adrenaline, I now almost ALWAYS feel tired, to the point where I have to lay down. I used to be able to toss together an essay in the span of a couple hours. And, yes, while I can still put an essay together quickly, it’s not going to necessarily be good. Likewise, where I used to be able to mask my neurodivergent traits, I'm now hyperaware of how exhausting it all is, which makes it more difficult to appear neurotypical in public.

The thing is, when you have something like adhd as well as an anxiety disorder, the anxiety can pretty effectively mask the adhd. But once I started medication and more intense therapy, I got a hold on my anxiety and alllll of my coping mechanisms fell away. I no longer had that constant, vibrating fear to force me to maintain attention, and push myself to the breaking point.

It’s like not aging for 80 years and then suddenly having decades collapse into you in the span of moments. So Where Does This Leave Us? Okay, that was a loooong tangent, sorry. Returning to the original point. As the infinitely cool and talented @revenantscholar mentioned in a previous post of mine, when you exist in an unsafe environment (or one which is generally not built with you in mind), it's difficult to hold onto the skills you once had. Your body goes into survival mode and prioritizes keeping you alive. Once you have returned to a space where you can unmask and be physically/emotionally/mentally SAFE, you have the capacity to relearn some of those skills. Not all of them, necessarily, and not all at once. But these things do return—and even if they don't (listen to me, this is important), that doesn't make you stupid/bad/worthless. You are living in a world that is not built for people like you and I, and it sucks, and it's painful and scary, and we will continue to fight for a better future. In the meantime, it's important to remember that you are worthy of care, compassion, empathy, and support regardless of what you can contribute/do. You are incredibly important and I'm so glad you're here. (Thank you for listening. I'm drawing on my human rights knowledge from my degree, and also my own personal experience. However, feel free to correct me or ask any questions you might have! I'm also happy to provide resources/citations if needed. Now go drink water and rest if you need to! Ily!)

[cozzzynook]

Thought of something wholesome.

Rodimus and the crew are visiting a cybertron colony for supplies and to get some free time off the ship. While out exploreing Rodimus hears the sound of whimpering coming from a den in the ground. He finds 2 young turbo fox puppies who see him and they began barking and following him.

Roddy tries to shoo them back into their den knowing their pack can't be far but the pups won't leave him alone. Later on he returns to the ship followed by the 2 pups and begs Minimus to help him out and try to find the pups pack so they can go home.

Meanwhile Roddy is playing babysitter while trying his best not to get attached, but its difficult with how cute the pups are.

Dnjcksofjdowf 😭

I love this so much.

Okay soooo i’m gonna turn this into something a little different and i’m sorry in advance if this isn’t what you were looking for.

-

Rodimus thinks these turbo foxes are only foxes and so he doesn’t want to touch or go near them for fear their pack will return and reject them. But he can’t just leave two fresh, no metallico, protoform exposed turbo foxes that look so cold and hungry. They’re shaking and so tiny and he can’t feel their creators em fields nor does he see any signs of life other than the two before him. He can’t feel the warmth a creator leaves behind for their sparkling and he can see the bones on their little ribs.

So he coms Minimus telling him to hurry its an emergency and when the mech gets there he’s completely shocked to find two turbo foxes that are abandoned.

He tells Rodimus as such which hurts his spark to no end but now it means he can carefully scoop the palm sized sparklings into his servos and hold them close to his chassis and use his outlier to warm them. They stop shivering and their whimpers and cries turn to coos and soft whining chirps as they nuzzle against Rodimus’s chassis making the mech blush as he quickly turns before his plating opens to reveal two pouches with nozzles that were beginning to tingle as his carrier coding activated to produce energon milk.

Minimus was a blushing mess as he realized what was happening and covered his optics ever the gentlemech even if he couldn’t see anything. The mech cleared his throat after a moment and peaked through his digits when he realized things were quiet for a flick too long.

“Captain?”

“They’re…fueling,” Rodimus was clearly embarrassed and his raised shoulder struts showed how tense he was.

“There is nothing to be ashamed of captain. Carriers are a vital necessity every bot needs, tank forged or spark chamber forged. Even hot spot sparklings thrive when having a carrier.”

“I..thanks Minimus..umm I’ll join you back at the ship when they’re done..for now please keep the others from coming over. I’d rather no one-no one else knows. From there we can find someone willing to take them in.”

Minimus gave a saddened expression but nodded though his captain could not see it.

“Very well captain.”

With that Minimus took his leave and Rodimus sighed dropping his shoulders with a glance at the two sparklings attached to his nozzles suckling greedily.

“I’ll need Ratchet to take a look at you two,” he mused aloud. He felt the two start to warm from within their own frames and he smiled. They were strong little ones, he can admit.

They’d make their new creators happy.

He felt them slowing in their fueling and began the trek back to the ship. By the time he got there he’d closed his chassis plating with great difficulty now that they’ve doubled in size for the two and he went straight to the medbay where he gave the sparklings to Ratchet.

…only for them to begin crying and yelling to the point they almost purged and he had to hold them while Ratchet began examining and taking care of them. They were given vaccines and anti-virals that Ratchet also gave to Rodimus who came in contact with them.

Ratchet declared them fresh sparks as he already knew and stated they showed signs of being able to transform. He was a bit surprised by that and wondered if thats why their creators abandoned them.

“So, what are ya naming em?”

“Me? No. No no no no no no. I’m just doing this so they don’t cry and get sick. Someone else is raising them.”

Ratchet gave him a disbelieving look and he huffed.

“I’m not meant to have sparklings, not my thing,” he shook his helm missing the sad look Ratchet gave him.

“Kid-”

“No.”

Rodimus stood and looked towards the sparkling berths, “I’ll see you and Drift later. I have paperwork to fill out and an adoption placement to announce.”

With that Rodimus set the sparklings down that were asleep and rushed out before they could wake.

Ratchet just sighed but kept quiet, silently messaging Drift and sending an optic vid of the two sparklings he just knew would end up being theirs.

Drift seemed to hold the same sentiment seeing as the moment his shift was over he came running into the medbay bouncing on his pedes at the sight of the two.

Ratchet hushed him whispering about how they most likely only want Rodimus who he’s sure they imprinted on. He’s proven right when the sparklings whine and push their fists out. Wiggling in their pods until they let that first cry out that makes the two stiffen before it builds and suddenly the twin sparklings are full on crying for a mech who wasn’t there.

Ratchet and Drift tries calming the sparklings down but all their efforts got them were two whimpering sparklings with adorably sad faces rubbing their helms into chassis that couldn’t give them what they needed.

Ratchet was just about to comm Rodimus when said mech rushed into the medbay looking straight at the twin sparklings and scurrying over.

“Shh, its okay,” Rodimus picked up the sparkling that was an odd shade of orange since they were more upset. He shifted them and took the other sparkling with an odd tone of white into his arms and the immediate quiet that followed made the two’s jaw hang.

Rodimus didn’t really pay them much attention until he was about to open his chassis.

“I’m..gonna go in the other room. I’ll bring them back once they’re full.”

“Oh no ya don’t kid. They’re coming to our room. They won’t have a lick of sleep without you nearby and I won’t have my medics at wits end because those two bitties are attached to you.”

Rodimus wanted to argue, he really did, but he couldn’t. Because he knew Ratchet was telling the truth and Drift’s sympathetic look told him he agreed.

Without a word he turned on his heel and made his way back to their hab. The two followed behind with a tense silence that Ratchet was pouting over while Drift looked worried.

“Roddy, you know it’s okay to want them, right?”

Ratchet locked the door behind them turning on the hab silencer so if this turned into a screaming match no one would be the wiser.

“Here we go,” he sighed quietly as he turned and put on a neutral face that didn’t look at all convincing. Rodimus looked to be preparing for a verbal brawl as all his feelings, insecurities and frustration came bubbling to the surface when it deflated at the sparklings whimpering.

With a frame sigh Rodimus shook his helm and turned heading to one of the spare rooms when Ratchet grabbed him by the shoulders making and pulled him into their berth room.

“Absolutely not kid. Stubborn pride needs to get put aside. Yer a carrier and ya gotta fuel em, so I know you know that means it has to be somewhere comfortable and familiar for their benefit and yours. The first can be excused since they were starved. But now ya need ta make sure its here in yer nest.”

Ratchet finished his scoldings missing the look on Rodimus’s face, but Drift, he didn’t.

“I’ll feed them you can go back out,” Rodimus told them as he looked away, optics shutting as he slightly swayed the sparklings to keep them from crying again.

He wasn’t blind to what was happening. He just didn’t want it to be true.

He knew it as well as Ratchet knew.

A bond had formed the moment he fed them. He felt their distress all the way in his office and had come running. Even now he feels their uncertainty and need for comfort and the hunger that accompanies fear. Their lack of proper care and fuel so early in life would greatly affect them and he knew Ratchet was right. The sparklings needed a carrier who was in a safe place and that meant mentally, physically and emotionally. A nest was the perfect source of comfort, Rodimus just didn’t want the sparklings imprinting on him because he was afraid to raise them. Afraid to hurt or misguide them. He didn’t want to frag them up like he’d be fragged up as a sparkling.

“Roddy..don’t push us away,” Drift stood closer while Ratchet glared before going up to Rodimus and placing his servos on Rodimus chassis.

He moved slow enough to give Rodimus time to say no and when he didn’t the medic removed the covering with a blush on his frowning face.

Rodimus never showed his pouches unless it was for medical purposes. Since he was a carrier his looked like breasts many organics had instead of cyber tissue with small ducts for energon. It’s something considered a malfunction to their species. Ratchet and Drift didn’t like that line of code and made sure to reassure Rodimus they loved all of him.

Rodimus didn’t really think they did and he still doubted they would find him attractive once seeing the parts of himself he kept hidden.

Now wasn’t the time to hide though.

Not when the sparklings needed fuel.

He held them up to his pouches and ignored the way Drift and Ratchet watched him fuel the two. He didn’t like anyone knowing he could do this or seeing him in such a vulnerable state but the two were adamant and pushed every time he tried to close himself off. They never allowed his insecure boundaries ground to grow further.

A servo cupping his helm made him shift to look Drifts direction but he was surprised to have his face plates turned the other way and lifted to see Ratchet looking at him the way he gazed at Drift.

“Don’t,” he forced out only to be ignored. That hot grip in his chassis being exposed as Ratchet came beside him and wrapped his arm around his waist. Being held was a weakness, a weakness he couldn’t help whining pathetically at.

“Kid..its nothin wrong with ya. Its nothin wrong wit keepin tha sparklings either. We meant it when we told ya we love ya. All of ya kid, tank carrier and all,” Ratchet spoke in a low gravel, the one that made his shoulders drop and his optics wet.

He closed them and nodded.

He was not about to cry in front of them again.

Drift had other ideas of course, reaching an arm across Roddy’s back to touch Ratchet and kiss his helm before settling and lulling him closer so all three were cuddled close, he kissed Roddy’s helm flare before placing a palm onto Roddy’s pouch that was truly just a breast that jiggled slightly at the touch.

He pushed two digits into Roddy’s upper chest and circled, helping the milk flow better and soothing the ache of his spark that he didn’t notice flicker.

“We want this with you, a conjunx ritus and family,” Roddy didn’t jerk away when Ratchet did a small manual soothing tactic on his spark that glowed just below his breasts and he didn’t flinch away when Drift shifted his helm so they could rest together.

Communicating emotions in an ebb and flow that made tears fall.

“Let us have this, let yourself have this,” was spoken without the need of verbal words.

He nodded his helm still nervous and unsure but he would trust them and do this.

He would trust them.

He would trust them.

The soft whimpers coming from the crib Drift built woke Rodimus from recharge and he yawned looking at the time. It was late into the night and he carefully shifted away from Drift and Ratchet.

He didn’t want to wake them especially when they had such a long shift earlier.

He quietly went to the crib and smiled at Ginger who was the exact shade of her name before glancing at Wicker who was the same shade as his name. He’d ended up getting darker as he got more energon and time passed just like his sister Ginger.

The two were wiggling in their cribs and he stifled a giggle, careful as he lifted both of them and left the berth room, closing the door silently as he made his way to the living den.

About a month after having them and all three bonded with them making the twins their sparklings, they were able to transformer into root mode. The very first time they did so it worried and scared them because they were feverish and fussy for days on end and medicine was not working.

Minimus was thankfully able to inform them that they were finally healthy enough to transform into a root mode and the process was a bit painful but it hopefully should not take longer than a week.

They were extremely thankful the twins changed two days later in the early morning before Drift and Ratchet left for their shifts.

The sight was scary at first seeing the twins twist and cry, not knowing that the process would involve energon blood for their first transformation. Rodimus had almost had a spark attack at the sight and Ratchet was thankfully able to stop it before it actually happened.

He remembers apologizing so much after calming down while fretting over the twins to the point Drift just burst out laughing making the twins shift adorably and look at him. That got Rodimus to stop fretting and apologizing and it made Ratchet laugh a little too especially when the twins kicked their little legs out and waved their little arms for the first time.

They immediately made so many vids and image captures they had to delete a lot of them and upload the important ones to an outside image capture.

He shifted, carefully swaddling the two tiny bitties in his arms to latch onto his already exposed pouches. Watching as they latched on with intakes so different than the first time he’d fed them. Pictures of Ginger and Wicker littered the walls of their living den watching as he smiled softly at the two who blinked with bleary optics that were still far too underdeveloped from age alone to really see anything aside from color.

Their bitties had a far better sense of smell than non mechanimal sparklings making it so much easier for the twins to know which of their creators was coming towards. It calmed them faster and made it easier for them to become familiar with their sires who loved doing things just holding them. Ratchet loved doing paperwork with the twins in his lap and Drift found meditating with the twins resting in a sling far more relaxing.

Of course Ginger and Wicker decided they should wiggle and coo the most with their carrier and make things a little harder for him to do aside from giving them all his attention. They would coo loudly until he stopped what he was doing and pull them from their swaddle and cradle them in his arms just as he was now.

He couldn’t help himself, he turned making sure he was alone and turned back, smiling at the two who stole his spark when he wanted to keep this part of himself locked.

“Shine comes the midnight star

dancin for the wind below

that stills to sees its beauty.”

He sang the old Nyonian lullaby softly, watching as Wicker gripped onto his pouch with a tiny servo as Ginger did the same. They often clung to him, he was sure it was because they knew he was a food source but when they cried for him even after fueling he felt uncontrolled appreciation and love crash through him.

That same emotion threatened to reach the surface as he sat there a few kliks longer, waiting until they finished so he could shift them to a better burping position. He’d long found a good way to do this and he was grateful since he didn’t want to put either of them down, at least not yet.

He was happy they made clearing their windpipes easy for him, they always gave Drift a hard time for some reason. Ratchet’s medical training prevented him from struggling and hearing him fondly grouch as they tried and failed to get him was always spark warming.

Just like the sight of him slowly rocking the twins in his arms who were trying to fight their sleep to look at their carrier just a bit longer, was the sight Drift and Ratchet loved being able to see.

“Not fair Roddy, you had them all day. We could’ve gotten them while you were sleeping,” Drift bent down to nuzzle his finial against Rodimus’s flare and Ratchet stood close to his family watching as the twins fell asleep with their servos curled around Rodimus pouches.

He was glad the kid finally felt comfortable around them and he was ecstatic about taking one of the twins from Rodimus as Drift took the other.

“Come on kid, lets head back to berth,” when they all shuffled back into the room Rodimus was apologizing for not keeping quiet enough.

“You guys worked all day it was only right I let you sleep in,” Ratchet flicked his forhelm for saying that without taking his opics off Ginger as he lowered her back into the crib.

Drift was slower to pit Wicker back since the bitty had a good grip on him and none of them wanted the bitties to wake up.

“You would’ve had to wake me up anyway to fuel them so plus I like being able to do things for you. Sleeping in is one of them,” Rodimus laughed quietly, slipping into berth and curling his own berth sheet around himself as Drift and Ratchet shared one.

They all curled into berth close to each other, Ratchet grouching at Rodimus that he worked all day too while taking care of their sparklings another job in itself so he should wake them next time.

It was a moot point Drift tells the medic as such seeing as they know their flame spark won’t.

Ratchet grumbles but he loves how thoughtful Roddy tries to be even at the cost of his own sleep, it makes Drift smile because when he looks up a little he can see Rodimus is already knocked out cold and Ratchet is just content to watch him before turning to kiss the swords mech.

“Don’t be all mushy until I have my morning oil,” Ratchets already beat the mech to it with a muffled laugh. Drift decides to indulge him, though he’ll be extra mushy in the morning to make up for lost time.

“Goodnight ratty,” he pressed their helms together. They would shift in their sleep but that was fine. They had this for now.

“Goodnight sweet spark.”

“Softie,” Drift smiled.

“Don’t push it,” Ratchet snapped softly with a tired yawn.