#the fact that ben was born after the war ended

[mozart-in-a-gokart]

My Thoughts On How TUA Season 4 Should Have Ended

Read it like a script outline maybe? Idk I never took screenwriting?

Way more detail below the cut:

Im so sorry if this whole thing comes across as very fan fictiony towards the end. I did my best.

::Here are some refreshers for some of the concepts I touch on at the beginning and where my logic comes from::

Note: I may have spelled Luther as Luthor throughout this and I realized this only after I was just about to post this so… bear with me.. thank you.

So we learned these things previously:

Season 1

Viktor was the trigger for the big world ending apocalypse

Season 2

Viktor was the trigger for the 3rd world war that ended the whole world

Season 3

Viktor has the ability to transfer marigold .We learned that from the whole storyline with Harlan in season 3.

Viktor had the ability to stop Allison from resetting the universe but chose-not to at the very end of the season.

Edited Addition: The Kugalblitz itself was the result of a grandfather paradox involving the umbrellas in the sparrow timeline. (I.E. You go back in time, you kill your grandfather, therefore you have no way of existing later.). Their parents were dead so the universe couldn’t handle these extra variables that shouldn’t and theoretically couldn’t have existed, so it collapsed in on itself.

Season 4

When the universe is reset all of the October 1st kids seem to exist because Lila also exists in the reset universe (we don’t see the sparrows unfortunately so this is a toss up but for the purposes of this I assume they exist we just never saw them.)

Edited to clarify a point: Lila’s parents are still alive in this timeline, meaning she was born to two parents with no marigold. This further backs up the idea that the same must be true for the rest of the Hargreeves siblings because if it wasn’t, one of two things would have had to have occurred. One: The marigold would have had to have been released. However, If it had the umbrellas would all have been born with their abilities, which they did not have at the end of season 3 in the new universe. Two: Another Kugelblitz would have occurred because they wouldn’t have parents and therefore would have had no explanation for existing in the new universe, causing yet another cascade failure.

Abigail has this insane amount of guilt that comes from creating both the Marigold and Durango.

The show seems to establish that in Abigail and his marriage, Reginald is the one who considers the children expendable and always has. Abigail seemed to care about them quite a bit (at least until the last episode)

Abigail manages at the last second to convince Reginald to die with her and let the cleanse happen because it’s THEIR FAULT all this is happening, not the umbrellas

When Lila and Allison’s family get on the train they do in fact transfer over and are inserted into the “correct” and “one true” timeline. They are essentially rewritten by the universe to allow them to exist there.

With all these things in mind this is what I think should have happened

Abigail should still have managed to convince Reginald that this was all their fault but it should have happened earlier in the episode.

Abigail should have put an emphasis on the fact that it isn’t the umbrellas fault at all and that they have a right to exist. That it’s the least they can do is try and help them figure a way out of this after everything they have been put through both in Abigail’s name, and by Reginald himself.

Reginald finally grows as a person, accepts this, and they both go with Viktor on the crusade to save Ben.

While on the journey Abigail learns about Viktors ability to transfer Marigold from one person to another and she LATCHES onto this.

Abigail and Reginald have a discussion about a plan that involves transferring the Marigold to both of them of Viktor can’t manage to convince Ben.

(Maybe there’s a scene similar to season 2 where Viktor talks with sparrow Ben in his mind. Sparrow Ben ends up making the point that they have to let him go. HES NOT THEIR BEN. He NEVER has been. They have to let him go. Let him do this selfish thing. He misses HIS family. His SPARROWS. Let him die.)

This is a good end IMO for sparrow Ben because he isn’t out Ben. We’ve all been talking about Ben being Ben for so long we forget this Ben is literally A DIFFERENT PERSON. He sees the umbrellas as his family’s murderers. It’s tragic but, I can’t see this Ben ever truly growing to love the umbrellas the way he seemed to with the sparrows

With that Obviously the plan to stop the cleanse by convincing Ben falls apart. Plan A never works.

They all would congregate back at the dilapidated Hargreeves mansion.

They all still talk about options and Five still says that the only way to end this once and for all is by destroying all of the marigold (Instead of being all defeated about it I think he should be angry and wired when he’s talking about it. I hate this drowned kitten looking guy. Where’s my embodiment of the it’s always sunny Pepe Silva Meme)

While they all argue about trying to use the subway to save themselves and Five doesn’t think it will work Reginald steps forward and tells them all to be silent.

They all force of habit stop and stare at him.

He says that he and his wife may have a way to save them all.

Klaus, Luther, Diego, and Five are all against letting him talk

Lila, Allison and Viktor are willing to let him talk what harm could he do now at the end.

He asks Five about the subway and if he’s right that you leave it at the exact moment in time you entered. Five agrees as far as he knows that’s correct.

Reginald and Abigail ask Five to blink all of them there, right now so they have a bit more time to explain.

Five says no not until they tell everyone what’s going on. He’s had enough running around and beating around the bush. Reginald explains things now.

Reginald does.

He explains that their bodies in this particular universe were not made originally of marigold. They were just born here. So theoretically, if they no longer had Marigold in their system. The Umbrellas themselves won’t need to be erased. They could attempt to escape with their family.

Luther points out that they don’t know how to extract the marigold.

Viktor reminds them that he can transfer it but he doesn’t know how good he is at it. Plus he needs to transfer it somewhere. He can’t just release it.

Reg : “That is correct. You would need to transfer the marigold to another vessel. It won’t work if it’s not in something living.”

Diego: “What’re you saying?”

Five: “He’s saying one of us has to stay behind Diego.”

Allison: “So what? You’re asking one of us to volunteer? To choose to be erased?”

Everyone starts up angrily shouting at Reginald who is interrupted by Abigail.

Abigail: “None of you would stay behind.”

Five: “Elaborate?”

Abigail: “Five you blink everyone to the subway. While we’re there Viktor transfers all of the marigold from all of you to Reginald and myself. All of you board the train. We will stay behind.”

Everyone is silent and staring

Klaus: “you’re cool with this Dad?”

Reginald: “I am not your father young man. I am Not your Reginald Hargreeves. I am however, a Reginald who knows how to respect hard work, which you all seem to have been doing for a great many years trying to stop exactly this thing from occurring. I understand that my wife and I helped set this in motion and I am nothing if not accountable.”

Luther: “wow… “

Abigail: “Let us do this?”

Lila is immediate in her agreement

Five doesn’t like the idea of this but it’s all they’ve got.

They all start teleporting as the Bennifer Cleanse beast starts shattering the windows to the house

We watch time seem to slowdown because the creature understands that the marigold isn’t “in this dimension anymore” it doesn’t know where to look.

We watch a subway staircase form in the center of the room and see tendrils of the Flesh Creature winding around it but never down in it because it doesn’t have a way into the subway. (You have to blink there)

We have a moment where the Umbrellas link hands in a circle and glow (like we do every season. It’s tradition)

We go around the circle through each of the umbrellas faces and watch the marigold pulled from them slowly. And transferred into Reginald and Abigail who are standing in the center we see it leave them and they all collapse

Viktor still has a little bit left in him and says he doesn’t have the strength to transfer it

Everyone looks defeated at that

Diego and Lila while they’re looking at one another

Allison and Klaus are hugging one another

Luther and Five collapse on the bench

Viktor says it’s alright. That he’s gonna stay. He’s gonna choose to stay and be part of the solution this time. He owes it to them for ending the world three separate times (He’s gonna choose to save everything and not cause it)

They all hug him at the door to the train and say “goodbye”

Five is keeping the train door open by standing in front of them

Klaus hugs Viktor and thanks them for being the only normal one of the bunch and keeping them down to earth

Klaus: and hey! Don’t sell yourself short! That third time wasn’t really YOUR fault. Allison was the one who—

Allison shoves Klaus out of the way and into the train.

Allison and Viktor hug the longest out of everyone.

Allison: “I’m gonna miss you so much.”

Luthor picks Viktor up and spins them around : “I’m sorry for not being a better brother. You deserved more.”

Viktor: “ make it up to me by finding Sloane in the next world and naming your first born Viktor.”

Luther is laughing and nodding boarding the train

Diego shakes Viktor’s hand and apologizes for blaming them for so much in previous years. “I was really closed off and I should have been better. I love you brother.”

Viktor: I love you too Diego”

Diego’s holding back tears as he boards.

Five is the last to say good bye

The two are just staring at one another quietly

Five: “You know… I never thanked you…”

Viktor: “For what?”

Five: Not giving up on me the first time

Viktor is confused

Five: “When I disappeared years and years ago. When I came back pogo told me about the Sandwiches and the lights and everything. I know it’s too late, but I’d be remiss if I never said it. So, thank you. For not giving up on me.”

Viktor smiles at him.

Viktor: “I guess I should say the same.”

Five cocks his head

Viktor: “You never gave up on us. Every single time the world was ending. You never gave up on saving us. You drove yourself insane trying to save us all and we never thanked you.”

Five scoffs

Five: “Guess we’re both thankless assholes…”

Viktor: “Nah”

Viktor shakes their head and pulls five in for a hug

Viktor: “Thank you for everything Max.”

Five slowly hugs them back

Five: “Don’t call me that”

Viktor pulls back

Viktor: I’m sacrificing myself for your asses. I can call you whatever I want.”

Five steps back

Five: “Goodbye Viktor”

They give all wave at Viktor as the doors start to close

Suddenly an umbrella Lodges itself in the doorframe and everyone including the audience is shocked

Abigail has stopped the doors from closing

Viktor whips around to see Reginald right behind him

Reginald: “Must I do everything around here.”

Reginald, now with marigold and Lila’s abilities of Mirroring, mirrors Viktors ability and removes the last of the marigold from him before pushing Viktor through the doors and onto the train.

Abigail lets go and the train doors close leaving all of the Umbrellas and extended family shaken

Abigail waves at them as the train starts pulling away and we see Reginald tip his cap to them

Reginald: Farewell Children of the Umbrella Academy.

Abigail: You were Extraordinary.

The train pulls away and we see Reginald and Abigail take each other by the arm and walk towards the exit of the subway

The camera is frozen in place and we watch them ascend the stairs. We hear the scream of the The Cleanse Creature echo the the subway stars start shaking

Tiles crack and light starts flashing from the stairway the ceiling begins to cave in and we transition to the umbrellas on the train

Viktors been helped up and they’re all dazed and confused just waiting for “it” to “happen” whatever “it” is

We get a similar scene to the original scene where they’re letting the cleanse consume them

During this scene is when Five explains that they will all likely forget one another. Because their parents are in all different parts of the country. They will have never met. It’s a hard reset.

This makes all of them sad (OBVIOUSLY) so we get the same cleanse conversation as more of a we don’t know if we will ever see each other again and if we don’t I just wanna say this to you all kind of conversation

We still end it with Klaus saying “You know, I just wanna say I love you guys… but you are all assholes.”

Everyone laughs and as they’re laughing music swells

We get a cut of the subway flashing colors because the reset is happening

We get flashes of color washing over each of them with the various scenes of them from previous seasons and those timelines disappearing

We flash through them in order of number

Luthor

Diego

Allison

Klaus

Five

Lila (as six instead of Ben roll with me I promise I have a reason)

And Viktor

The final flash is a long shot of all of them smiling in the train car and the camera zooms down it and into the same wormhole at the end that leads to the “real” timeline

We cut to black

There’s beats of silence (yes multiple)

The audience is thinking “Are we ending it here? Is it gonna be ambiguous? Are we about to see credits?

No.

Slowly a stereo fades into view we’re staring at it

Someone walks in front of it wearing a very familiar jean coat

We hear the stereo button click and The song “I Think We’re Alone Now” starts playing

We watch Viktor pull a woman who looks very much like sissy into their arms and they start to dance laughing loudly. There’s a pure white violin in the corner that looks like it’s been used so often and so long but so lovingly. We zoom out the window out the window and see this is on a farm somewhere we focus on the windmill wheel turning

It transitions to the wheel of a beat up old car arriving at the park. We watch Lila and Diego’s kids stumble out of the car holding skate boards and bubble wands. They’re older than they were. Lila shakes her fist at them from the passenger window. She’s shouting at them. You can hear her shouting be careful! And then shouting more in Punjabi

We don’t see who’s in the drivers seat but we zoom in on Lila’s fist and it transitions to another fist. This one gripping a paper and shaking it as it moves across a classroom towards the front.

We follow the page as it’s placed on a desk then pan up to a figure in a suit writing complex equations clearly having something to do with physics or rocket ships in chalk across a board

On the desk is a nameplate that comes into view only when the figure turns around to address the room and we see very clearly it’s an adult Five. The nameplate reads Maximillian Murphy PHD.

He’s addressing the class and telling them to get their assignments in by Monday if they want input before the final assessment. Mrs. Murphy will take them from you if you have them now. He gestures to the woman who set the paper down on his desk in the transition who comes around the desk and sits on it. She’s wearing a polka dot blouse. He’s finally found a real Delores.

The two smile at one another and we pan up to the ceiling and zoom in on a vent grating which transitions to the front grill of a bus

We see muddy shoes scramble up the steps and cut to the inside of the bus. We see the figure only from the back as they scramble down the middle of the bus clutching a rucksack wearing very old fashioned Amish clothes. We only see them from the front when finally fall into a seat next to a guy reading a book wearing dog tags who looks like he’s just getting back from deployment somewhere

We watch Klaus turn and greet Dave in the modern day and hear them have the same conversation we heard on the bus in Vietnam on this bus in the middle of nowhere USA

We transition from Klaus laughing here to a time a bit in the future. Klaus laughing wearing clothes more like him and pulling Dave down a street past a shop window full of movie memorabilia we hear him saying something about wanting a good view of the take off. Trust him just come this way’

We zoom in on a script that transitions to one that lands on a coffee table. We watch Ray pick it up and Allison settle herself on a chair near by. We watch and hear them talk about this new pilot for this new show And how “it’s a good one I can feel it” “okay. Let’s do this then.” In the background we can see acting awards on a shelf. Alison isn’t just a commercial actress. She has been in things and is good at it. Claire comes barreling down the stairs and jumps between them on the couch. “Wheres the remote! It’s starting!”

We see Allison and Ray lean in forgetting the scripts

We pan across the room and it all melts away into a car radio

We see a hand turn it up and we hear it talking about the first launch nasa’s funded on a while. Space stuff.

We follow the figure who turned up the radio as they lean out of the car and gesture wildly as Lila and the kids to come over here quickly!

You see all of them start sprinting to the car to listen.

We watch through the front windshield of the van Lila climb in and kiss Diego. The kids all pile in and stare at the radio in Awe.

We get a shot of Diego turning up the radio dile which transitions to a gloved hand adjusting diles on what is clearly the console of a rocket ship. We pan up and it’s LUTHOR. Space boy ready for take off

We hear the the count down of a take off start over the last portion of “I think we’re alone now” by Tiffany

The screen gets smaller until Luthor is in a neat box in the middle of the screen as we count down characters are added to the screen in their own boxes all tuning in to watch this launch

Ten - Sloan with a little girl on her lap pointing at the tv from the couch in a house that is so clearly hers and Luthors. She’s mouthing wave bye to daddy! It’s your daddy! Bye space boy!

Nine - Dot, Herb, the handler, and someone with a gold fish print Hawaiian shirt (AJ for sure), dressed to the nines are sitting in a backyard with a radio on listening and laughing

Eight - hazel and Agnes turn up the volume of a Tv at a doughnut shop they both clearly own. Hazel is behind the counter and Agnes’s waiting tables. The few tables seated have people we recognize there. Cha cha. Eudora and Detective Beaman.

Seven - Viktor and Sissy watching the tv over their living room couch

Six - Grace stopping with a baby carriage at a store front filled with tvs. Her baby on her hip pointing at the tv mouthing the the word rocket to the baby who giggles

Five - Five, His Wife and a bunch of other professors or huddled around an old tv in a lab in a physics building. one of the scientists is holding an open notebook with sketches of the comic characters in it. It’s Gabriel Bá. You can see him mouthing “come on come on!”

Four - Klaus and Dave sitting on a blanket on a hill near the nasa bad along with a ton of other people on blankets pointing and holding binoculars. Gerard way and his wife are among them.

Three - Allison, Ray, and Claire all leaning in to watch eagerly

Two - Diego Lila and all their kids leaning in to hear

One - every box but the ones with the Umbrellas go black.

It’s a close up of all of their eyes. They all read as excited. Looking up towards the future. “the beating of our hearts is the only sound”

All those squares go black on some tambourine beats

Houston we have liftoff.

Credits roll.

END CREDITS SCENE.

A close up of Ben’s eyes. We zoom out. We’re back on that train in Korea. We see him frown a second as he realizes something. He puts the book down a second. He looks out the window. Looks at his phone. There are text messages that read “dude where are you? We’re watching the launch without you!. How’d you miss this?!”

You see him realize.

In Korean “Motherfu—“

We cut to black again and cut him off.

The End

Is it cheesy? Maybe? But you know I think we deserve a little cheesy.

[tommyxgrace-always]

Tommy & Ada parallels

Political inclination

Tommy was known to be communist/socialist before the war, dreaming about changing the world. After Grace, he eventually decides to pursue politics.

Ada also shared communist ideologies and is active to an extent with Freddie. When Tommy became MP, she naturally became his political advisor. In the finale, Tommy reiterates the fact that she was born for politics in her family.

Fine things in life

Tommy liked to possess lavish and fine things. His suits for example, In s1, we see how he gets his suits done from the same place as Kimber. In s4, we hear how he gets his suits done by a tailor in London. Similarly he admired Tatiana’s luxurious car in s3 just like the look of awe he gave May’s mansion. Arrow house was decorated with the finest things - paintings, interiors, furniture and his bedroom with Grace too.

Ada’s house in s2 said it all. The interior, the furniture everything was expensive and grand. This aspect of her personality is reiterated in s5, by showing the luxurious redecoration and also her art pieces, vases etc (when finn was too scared to ruin it with his blood)

Love & Marraige

Both married the love of their life inspite of opposition from family. Ada married Freddie even though Tommy and her brothers were against a communist. Tommy married Grace even when Polly was against her.

Both their children were born out of wedlock. When Ada got pregnant there was ambiguity about Freddie’s intentions for her. Just when Ada lost hope and decides to be practical and abort, they have a dramatic reunion at the train station. Their love for each other is validated and they look forward to have their child. Similarly Grace got pregnant with Tommy’s child, there is ambiguity about her intentions and it seems they will go their separate ways again. Just when Tommy seems to have accepted that she will sail away and decides to be practical and be with May, they have a dramatic reunion at the Derby. Their love and longing for each other is re-validated and they look forward to have a life together.

Both lose the love of their life. Tommy takes it way worse because of his already existing war trauma. Ada is normal and emotionally stable so she carries on without getting sucked into addictions, depression and hallucinations whereas we all know how Tommy suffered after Grace.

Both end up being widowers and single parents

Companionship

They never looked for love again. Companions yes but not another love.

We see Ada interested in the Russian spy in s3 and later we see her with Ben Younger. There may be other men whom she saw which we don’t see onscreen. Tommy, we all know went from women to women. Prostitutes, aristocrats, communist, secretary, dead wife’s ghost, ex girlfriend’s ghost, you name it!!!

Ben Younger was Ada’s constant and the longest one we see with her. They seem to share a stable relationship like two “mutually consenting normal people” who respect each other, can share. Lizzie is a constant go-to for Tommy but they share an unequal dynamic where she has been hopelessly in love with him from beginning while he saw her as no strings attached buddy and had other priorities and is done with love after Grace. Thats why that relationship is chaotic and toxic but also convenient and practical for both.

Interestingly they also have a child out of wedlock with their companions. The difference is Tommy had to marry Lizzie as a man who took responsibility of his child. Whereas Ada mentions she wasn’t planning to marry Ben, it’s seen as a bold move.

Ada and Ben’s relationship confirms what Grace fan always knew unlike a certain section of the fandom . Just because a partner is decent and good and you like them does not automatically mean you fell in love. Ada explains in a s5 scene after she hears of Ben’s demise “I didn’t love him. But I liked him. He was decent and good….I wasn’t going to marry him. God he didn’t deserve us”. This is exactly how Tommy and Lizzie were designed too. Due to Tommy’s trauma and unequal feelings for Lizzie, their relationship is more toxic in nature than Ada and Ben’s. But at the core it was companionship. Two people having a convenient partnership that serves both. Tommy also found Lizzie to be decent and good compared to him. She took care of his children and was loyal to him and his family. She didn’t deserve him. He didn’t love her either but liked her. He felt sorry for her as she had to bear the ultimate pain of losing a child.

There is so much more I wanted to cover about their bond. But this post will be too long. So will do a separate post.

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

it doesn't take a scholar to know how this one goеs (Trobed)

Let’s get one thing perfectly straight: this is a love story. Always has been, always will be. No matter how you tilt the script, no matter what genre the show drifts into, the core of the story remains the same: this is a story about love. All seven types, Abed supposes, if you want to go Greek with it, but love nonetheless. Self-love, familial love, playful love, universal love, intimate friendship love, committed love. Sure, erotic love is a bit missing in the equation, but when he has Troy and Annie and the study group, he can't begrudge himself missing passionate, romantic love that much. He's the side character, after all, the brown queer autistic man. His romantic drama could never drive a season.

And then the zombies attack. The reference here is Leia and Han. The reference here is correct.

And then Pierce tries to steal their handshake but fails. The metaphor here is Indecent Proposal. The metaphor here is correct.

And then he and Troy move in together. The new chapter is a new location. The new chapter is correct.

And then the blanket-pillow war nearly shatters their relationship to pieces. The frame here is a war tearing apart two countries that have never been separated. The frame here is correct.

And then Pierce dies, and Troy has to leave, and clone-Abed can’t handle the feelings building up in his chest, threatening to burst just as viciously as they did with regular Abed-

The trope here is the end of the world.

The trope here is correct.

***

Wait a minute. Back up. Rewind the tapes. That can’t be how the story ends. That can’t be how the metaphor disintegrates, in a ship sailing off with a Styx song playing and Abed's heart breaking.

Abed shouldn’t have to lose a part of his soul because the story demands it. He shouldn’t have to play the part of the sidekick, the quirky token side character, the man who falls into relationships with a woman because his more-than-friends buddy sails off into the sunset.

He and Troy are the emotional center of the show. The throughline. The heart of the group.

Or, at least, Troy is, and through Troy, Abed is. The director becomes a main player. The voyeur falls in love.

The fanboy gets his happy ending.

***

The story unravels one by one. A viewing of Star Wars sparks a memory. Indecent Proposal becomes more than metaphor when Troy winds an arm around Abed’s shoulders and their lips connect in the hallway after Ben is born. Troy and Abed move in together and they use the Dreamatorium for makeout sessions more often than not.

A blanket-pillow war breaks open a relationship that is more than platonic in nature and feelings of love-turned-not-quite-hatred (because Troy is furious, because Abed is pissed, but neither of them know how to hate each other because how do you hate the other half of your heart?) are spilled over through text and email.

The first “I love you” in a relationship is shouted in a broken-hearted, “I loved you, Abed, and you broke my fucking heart” during an all-out-pillow fight in Greendale's cafeteria.

The story grinds to a halt as Abed stares, wide-eyed, at his other half. At the enemy. At the hero. At-

Jeff offers to grab friendship hats, but Abed is still staring. He is still trying to understand.

“Do you mean what you said?” he asks, voice uncertain, the story unspooling in a way he never thought it could go. Love? Him? Someone loving him?

And Troy nods, voice as sure as if he’s citing a Kickpuncher fact. “Of course I do,” he says, all righteous fury, all broken-hearted love. “How could you have broken my heart if I didn’t love you?”

Characters aren’t supposed to stutter unless the narrative calls for it, but Abed is stumbling here, grasping for the dialogue. “But you said, in that text-”

Troy’s face is still gripped by fury, but his eyes soften. "I was pissed because you said all those things about me. You weren't supposed to think those things. You weren't supposed to think about me like that-"

"But those are the things I love about you," Abed says, straightforward as always as he lightly whacks Troy with the pillow.

Troy's eyes go wide. "You what?"

Abed nods. "Those things are weaknesses in war, but they're the things that made me fall for you. They're the things that make us work together as friends, as a couple, as a screen duo. Your overemotionality helps me understand you better. How much you care makes me care about you."

"I love you," Troy says, hitting Abed with a pillow for the final time.

Abed's eyes crinkle. "I know," he says, and he hit Troy with a pillow to seal the deal. Both pillows fall to the ground and the two of them step forward to complete their handshake.

Jeff smiles. Annie is crying. Shirley and Britta are cheering. Pierce's face is covered in pillows, but he doesn't quite matter to this equation, so his reaction can remain a mystery.

Abed's supporting cast supports him.

There's a feeling blooming in Abed's chest, a warmth flooding his veins with its lovely embrace as he leans in, grabs Troy's pj shirt, and pulls him into a half-hug, half-kiss. Troy's arms go to Abed's waist and Abed can feel Troy's tears on his cheeks as Troy smiles into Abed's kiss, his relief a balm to Abed's soul.

This is Abed's happy ending, his perfect rom-com ending scene. The perfect boy in his arms, their miscommunication resolved, everyone cheering.

Looks like he was able to check off two genres off his list today.

***

Fast forward. Scroll to drama with the Air Conditioning Repair School, to Troy only separating from Abed to save the Dean and to give his boyfriend the opportunity to meet a real-life cult. It breaks both of their hearts, but it's thankfully over within a month, with Troy accidentally becoming the One True Repairman and acquiring his own cult in the process.

Scroll to graduation. To L.A. and beyond. Troy and Abed move to L.A. together, Troy's incredibly stable A.C. commissions providing a steady income for the two of them as Abed works his way through the industry.

Abed's first feature film is a sci-fi romance about two boys searching for a ghost that stole their best friend's magical pen, falling in love in the process. His second film is a historical dramedy centered around a 1940s woman who disguises herself as a pilot to search for the man who killed her fiance, only to find out that the man who killed her fiance is actually another woman that she ends up falling in love with when she finds out that the woman completes her better than anyone ever has.

The movie wins three oscars: Best Leading actress for Bethany Goldstein, Best Costuming for Lucia Gonzalez, and Best Screenplay for one Abed Nadir.

Abed gets up onstage and finds his boyfriend cheering beyond the spotlights. Troy is smiling as proudly as Abed once did when Troy came back from the Repair School, the school's new messiah.

This is Abed's best moment. Not the award. Not the crowd. Not the celebrities. But Troy's eyes as he gives Abed the only standing ovation he'll ever need.

And it's cliche, it's so cliche, but Abed can't resist it. He's always been a fan of drama, of history-making moments, of creating new takes on old chiches.

So Abed looks Troy in the eye, thanks the production company, and says, "And to my boyfriend, Troy Barnes, who has been beside me every step of the way, who has built a new Dreamtorium in every apartment we've moved into, who has been the heart at every one of my stories- there is nothing I could do to surprise you, except maybe this." Abed balances the Oscar on one of his suit-clad hips. A confused hush falls over the crowd as Abed pulls a small box out of his free pocket and flips it open.

Abed leans toward the mic as Troy stands in his seat, jaw dropping, the shine in his eyes visible from this far away as some genius swings a spotlight to fall on Troy's beautiful face. "Troy Barnes, will you marry me?"

Troy takes off at a run down the aisle as a cheer goes up in the crowd. Near the front, Abed's leading actress has two fingers at her lips, whistling at the top of her lungs. Behind a tv screen, somewhere back in Colorado, in Georgia, in D.C., Troy and Abed's friends are cheering as well, he knows.

But Abed can't focus on any of those people. For once in his life, Abed can't think about an audience.

All he can focus on is the man jogging up the stairs to the stage, the man who offers out his hand, not for a ring, but for a handshake. Abed sets down the Oscar and takes up his offer, a smile on his lips as Troy says those magical words: "Of course, dude, I'll marry you. This would be a pretty stupid story if I didn't."

The flash of Troy's smile is better than any Oscar ever could be.

***

So here goes the love story: a boy falls in love with another boy. They go on adventures where one kiss another, where they fight zombies and racists and lava monsters and paintball wars and each other. They break up and make up. They enter every new chapter together, tied to each others' hearts.

The show ends on a happy note and Abed and Troy shift off into post-canon, fanfic territory, whatever the fans decide, whatever they decide.

It's the kind of ending their kind of love deserves.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/34948705

[readingsquotes]

Outside of Netanyahu, it would be difficult to name somebody who has been materially worse for the Palestinians than President Biden. He has provided unconditional support for Israel’s massacre in Gaza, vetoing multiple ceasefire resolutions and bypassing Congress to ship billions in weapons that he knows are being used to kill civilians and preserve Netanyahu’s white-knuckled grip on power. Through his rhetoric alone—rejecting the Palestinian death toll, sharing fabricated 10/7 atrocity propaganda, offering a figurative middle finger to campus protesters, drawing the Rafah red line in disappearing ink—Biden has built the permission structure for Israel’s indiscriminate killing of Palestinians. He has deferred to Israel to investigate its own crimes (including those against Americans) and denied its brazen violations of international humanitarian law, passing the rules-based world order through a shredder in the process. He has refused to use his immense leverage to rein in the ramped-up annexation of the West Bank, most recently rejecting a proposal to sanction the two ultranationalist ministers (and settlers), Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, who are leading the effort; the president believes “the U.S. should not sanction elected officials in democratic countries,” which begs the question: does he think the West Bank is part of Israel, or that it’s democratically run? One could point to figures like the early Zionists, Lord Balfour, or Ben-Gurion as worse than Biden, but even the Nakba “only” killed 15,000 Palestinians versus somewhere between two and a half and twelve times that number since 10/7 (and no other war has come close). With his assertion of having done “more for the Palestinian community than anyone,” President Biden reached the next level of Trumpian behavior: stating the opposite of the truth as fact with absolute confidence and hyperbole. ..

In fairness to the president, the rot extends far beyond the Oval Office. As Jeremy Scahill pointed out, “Joe Biden [showed] the world, in the most graphic and violent way possible, the clear bipartisan US policy toward not just Israel, but the Palestinian people.” Frankly, a willingness to stand up to Israel in a meaningful and lasting way—such as halting weapons shipments and demanding an immediate end to the illegal occupation and blockade—might disqualify a candidate from electoral viability. So, despite Kamala Harris’ marginally better rhetoric on Israel/Palestine, I’m not holding my breath that she’d bring a sea change in policy.

But it's undeniable that the president could have saved tens of thousands of lives by taking a different course of action after 10/7.3 If Biden’s career had once been defined by a deep well of compassion born from the tragic deaths of his wife and two children, then his utter disregard for Palestinian lives has revealed that well to be poisoned. Long after he’s departed the White House and then passed from this world, his legacy will still be smoldering in the charred remains of Gaza.

[nonexistent-triangle]

OK A TUMBLR MILESTONE SOMEONE SENT ME HATE FOR THE FIRST TIME

now this may not be the classical anon hate you've come to expect from a tumblr inbox, no this is something far more novel.

ten out of ten hate attempt i love their choice of phrases. the "why are you mentally challenged" definitely sounded real strong in their brain, all like "oh this is gonna trigger them" (and yes i guarantee you hed think of it in those terms). the writer, deep in their vision of Really sticking it to me for whatever perceived offense i've supposedly committed failed to realize that saying "why are you mentally challenged" makes them sound like an a self described anti sjw blog from the depths of 2012, but the thing in messages shifts that timeframe a bit. "you need an education and some logic" girl are you aware you sound like you just emerged from a time capsule designed to preserve what right wing teenage boys from 2018 looked like. bro is sounding like he watches "ben shapiro destroys liberals with facts and logic compilation 32" for nostalgia. i love the minion gif too, its the perfect thing that cap off this up this clown car crash of trying to send me hate. can you imagine him, out there on a brisk 30 minutes after midnight, in bed on a smartphone, having just finished up setting up his new tumblr account, having just written the ask and the message being like. "hm. you know what will make this even more devastating. if i share a post of a minions laughing gif posted online by an a self proclaimed 1970 born war veteran alpha male." (not joking i clicked on it to find where he got the post from and it was . that fucking thing. lol.) in the end this is hilarious, and welcome, in the sense that i got a good laugh out of it. i might print it off and frame it as the first time someones had a good go at sending me hate on tumblr.

[geek-and-destroy]

'Progressive' hindu nationalists - why are they Like That?

Tomorrow is the 26th of January, the 74th Republic Day in India - the day the Indian constitution was formalized and adopted. I thought i'd mourn my fast-fading nationalism on this occasion by kinda airing out some bullshit and starting a political longpost, which is always a good idea right? right???

Since about the end of last year, I've seen some blogs on here that define themselves around hindutva - hindu nationalism, the idea that India is a hindu nation and must abandon its secular status. Any leftie/liberal with any awareness of the news will know their rhetoric is bullshit. Anyone who isn't really aware of Indian religious dynamics would know to spot their Islamophobia from a mile away, because seriously, the discourse is Ben Shapiro levels of bad.

The most egregious of these include hindulivesmatter, rhysaka, yato-dharmasto-jaya, vindhyavasini and others. Basically a small hindu nationalist clique. They're actually not that big a deal even on this hellsite, but they keep annoyingly popping up to start firebrand arguments under posts. But they're not uncommon in the real world. In fact, i think the majority of the Indian urban youth is Like That - anti-homophobia, anti-misogyny, theoretically anti-islamophobia, the same general left-leaning values associated with Gen Z; but with a weird blind spot when it comes to the fascist decline of their own country.

These users are not too different from TERFs, with their couching of hate in progressive, tumblr-social-justice language. There's been a lot of discourse around why TERFs are the way they are, why their otherwise feminist and progressive values eventually shatter in favour of their hate. I want to do something similar for hindutva tumblr, because i see in it a newer kind of hindu nationalist aggression, yet one that i am very familiar with, as an urban upper-middle-class Indian born into a Marathi Hindu family.

The main question i want to answer is this: why does someone espousing dire Islamophobic rhetoric also sincerely believe in progressive ideas? Why do they not see the contradictions? To do that, we need a little primer in post-independence Indian history.

So, it's often said that Indian democracy was not handed to us; this is not only in the sense that we had to fight for our freedom against the Brits, but also in the sense that there were long deliberations on the exact type of republic we wanted to be. The constitution was drafted, finalized and adopted a full three years after the Brits left. This framing of a philosophical struggle stayed on, throughout the tumult of the following decades.

This is how the modern Indian is taught about our history: Several riots, the Emergency in the 70s, the wars with Pakistan and China, the formation of Bangladesh, the victory at the cricket world cup, the Cold War international policy of non-alignment, the Green Revolution, all of these are presented through a frame of struggle, with the Kargil War and the 1991 liberalization being the point of stabilization. The median citizen of 1971 was politically aware and politically involved. That of 2001 was most likely not. At least, that's the narrative of capitalism in the country. This narrative of a 50-year prolonged post-independence struggle is why Indian nationalism is so potent, even outside of the newer Hindu fascist rhetoric. We've got a very intense sense of national pride. I'm guilty of it myself.

In 1991, the economy was opened up to multinational corporations and eventually led to the formation of an Indian petit bourgeois. The period from 1991 to roughly 2011 is seen as a period of idyllic peace much like the Clinton administration in the US. Culturally, this was the time of the Bollywood masala movie - light, apolitical and all about a big Hindu joint family that preaches benevolent unity of all religions. But the thing that was never mentioned in these movies was caste - an elephant in the room that i haven't addressed yet. Just like the 'default' US Culture is white suburban christian, the default culture here is upper caste middle-class hindu. The aforementioned rise of the middle class was largely along caste lines. Households in the US have microcultures along ethnic lines, and they can be similarly mapped in India through caste and religion.

The Indian equivalent of the megachurch pastor is the ruling BJP's paramilitary parent organization, the RSS, as well as others like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Karni Sena, etc - organizations that normal people largely didn't agree with but whose values and morals were ingrained in their subconscious. The apolitical Hindu in like 2004 did not believe, like the RSS does, that India should be a Hindu nation; but he (i use 'he' here because male tends to be default in this case, and that's a whole different conversation) did believe in the greatness of traditions, the Indian armed forces and in ancient Hindu scientific supremacy (which at the time was limited to Aryabhatta's zero and the actual progress in the sciences from ancients like Charaka and Sushruta to more modern ones like Ramanujan and CV Raman - it hadn't gone into cuckoo fantasy land yet, where we showhow had stem cell research and aeroplanes in ancient India and the Ramayana is apparently actual history now). To this person, Savarkar was an icon of the freedom struggle along with others like Gandhi, Bose, Ambedkar, etc, but he didn't know or care about his religio-fascist ideology. Fascist elements existed then and had their pockets of support - the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra, Modi's CM-hood in Gujarat, and the first BJP national administration came up during this time. To the normal citizen, they were simply extremists with 'some good points'.

2008 was the year of the 26/11 attacks in Mumbai. Islamophobia didn't fully enter Indian discourse just yet, largely because of the assertion of the city's multicultural identity, but the seeds were certainly sown. In fact, blatant Islamophobia wouldn't be mainstream till 2016 or so - the BJP's 2014 election was won on middle-class concerns. The petit bourgeois finally made its voice heard politically in the 2011 anti-corruption protests spearheaded by Anna Hazare and Arvind Kejriwal, the latter of whom is the founder of the newest major political party in the country. It's typical of protests of this kind, agitating against a vague idea of corruption with not many tangible demands. It is true that by 2011, the Congress government was notoriously bloated, corrupt and ineffectual at a systemic level. The BJP gained a single-party majority on an anti-corruption and pro-welfare platform, with religion not really a factor.

The middle class celebrated this as an ultimate affirmation of their hegemony, and the RSS-derived values kicked into high gear. The celebrations have now become a gloat-fest, kinda like vindicated Marvel fans when their Disney product makes a bajillion dollars. The best example of this is the Ram Mandir inauguration earlier this week. Modi cultivated an image of a messiah figure who could do no wrong. Anyone who opposed their goals is now an anti-national and a traitor. General attitudes as a whole have grown a lot more bloodthirsty and carceral. Propaganda, degradation of public discourse, weakening of the media and public institutions, the whole gamut.

The people running the above-mentioned blogs are quite representative of this demographic. They probably fully believe what they spout. They fully believe that Hindus and Hinduism are under threat in India, that love jihad ("forced conversion") is a real thing, that Islamists are taking over their nation, and even that Hindus have been 'sleeping' and are just now being 'woken up'. At the same time, they believe in socially progressive values. The supposedly pro-LGBT+ and pro-feminist stances taken by the RSS are very much targeted at urban Hindus, not at the West as PR.

The propaganda directed at them (which includes movies, social media and tragically, many news outlets) often appeals to the traditional acceptance of queer individuals in mythological texts to get straight, cis, sheltered urban Hindus of all ages to reconcile bigotries and get on board the hate train. It is often in a comparative frame, juxtaposed with the bigotry in Islamic or Christian texts and historical persecution in the West (btw, the term acceptance is very loose here, they often equate mention of a thing with acceptance of that thing even if it's derogatory. Ancient hindu culture only 'accepted' trans women, and that was a marginalized acceptance at best).

The RSS often preaches that Hinduism is the religion of tolerance, and advocates for a twisted version of the tolerance paradox. It's reached a level where propaganda doesn't have to be deliberate - the citizens will do it for them. These blogs are true believers despite the contradictions, but their online activity is probably a deliberate form of praxis, with the co-opting of social justice vocab and appealing to white/western/Indian expat guilt etc. So yes, very much like TERFs, except that TERFs are an actual minority whereas Hindutva ideology is increasingly the default 'apolitical' belief. The reactionary internalization has been successful.

Tl;dr: people like hindulivesmatter are sincere in their bigotry towards Muslims as well as their progressive beliefs, because Indian culture as a whole oriented itself towards appealing to the urban upper caste middle class.

[cryptidkeepp]

(ben robson) [THE SEA DEVIL]. Please welcome [JETT HARRISON (HE/HIM)] to Huntsville, WV. They are a [35]-year-old [VISITOR] who lives in [COMMUNE]. You may see them around working as a [MANAGER at O’CONNOR’S OUTDOORS]. Poor unfortunate soul. We’ll see if they survive.

GENERAL.

full name: jett spencer harrison

nicknames: tbd

title: the sea devil

hunter / gatherer: hunter

birthplace: kitty hawk, north carolina

gender / pronouns:  cis man, he/him

age / birthday: 35, april 3rd

orientations: heterosexual, heteroromantic

occupation: manager at o'connor's outdoors

location: commune, visitor

status: single

family: nancy harrison ( mother ), wyatt harrison ( father ), tbd harrison ( sister ), malakai harrison ( son )

strengths: bold, adventurous, protective, playful, funny

weaknesses: immature, mischievous, non-committal, impulsive, reckless

character inspo: tim riggins (friday night lights), john b (outer banks), michael kelso (that 70's show), bart simpson (the simpsons), han solo (star wars), kevin ball (shameless), flynn rider (tangled), mac (it's always sunny in philadelphia), jayne cobb (firefly), steve harrington (stranger things)

BIOGRAPHY.

born and raised in kitty hawk, north carolina. jett is the oldest of two, he always loved his younger sister but they were known to fight like rabid raccoons. his father and mother owned a seafood market that they diligently ran together and both kids would help with after school.

he was a hyperactive child that later grew to be a rebel without a cause ( literally without a cause, he had a good life ). a class clown and an adrenaline junkie, with a habit of trouble making. his parents tried many ways to tire him out and keep him occupied so it would deter him from doing stupid stuff, getting into fights, or later in life getting arrested or killed.

there were many trials and errors but eventually jett found his solace in surfing and skateboarding, along with other outdoor activities. he became a professional surfer when he was sixteen and started going around the world for competitions and such. he eventually got his g. e. d. so he didn't have to worry about school anymore. when he wasn't surfing he was doing things with extreme sports and x-games, skateboarding, biking, dirt bike racing, etc. anything for the thrill.

his career started to slow down in his late twenties and he didn't mind because it gave him freedom to travel on his own accord and chase the monster waves, meet new people, etc. it was how he ended up driving his van ( affectionately named petunia ) right into huntsville in 2021.

it's been an adjustment for sure but he's found ways to stay entertained. he still skateboards, works at o'connor's outdoors, and tries to keep himself occupied. most nights he can be found sleeping in petunia outside the commune or in someone else's bed. last year he ended up in a casual relationship that resulted a son several months later. ever since he was born he's been trying to figure out how to grow up, at least a little bit, and be more responsible to not only make her trust jett to be alone with his son but also to be a good dad in general. only time will tell if he gets it right.

QUICK CONNECTIONS.

people who knew him before

friends, drinking/party buddies

mother of his son

little sister

hookups/fwb

co-workers

people he does stupid stuff with

best friend

HEADCANONS.

has a volkswagen van named petunia that has a bed and some amenities in that he is used to living in but still is part of the commune and contributes to that community

has commitment issues mainly due to the fact that he's used to getting dumped for his lifestyle and has grown to just stop trying long before he got to huntsville

more to come

[nicklloydnow]

“Today there is a state that, with a bit of challenging hyperbole, offers some interesting analogies to ancient Sparta. This state is Israel. Let's see what these analogies are, trying to present them in a parallel chronological order.

Just as post-Mycenaean Sparta was created by a massive Dorian migration, the new Israel came into being as a result of some fifty years of Jewish relocation there. Both displacements of peoples were the effect of two immense geopolitical upheavals: the Hellenic Middle Ages and World War II. Both the Dorians and the Jews had to fight, the former to conquer the new settlements, the latter to take back their ancestral homeland.

Once the situation was stabilized, the Spartiates created their own system divided into castes, while the Israelis guaranteed equal rights to the Muslim population, preventing at the same time the return of the Arabs who had fled in 1948: this because such a mass return would mean, sic et simpliciter, the end of Israel through its demographic destruction.

Surrounded by enemies and with a fragile internal balance, Sparta transformed the ruling caste into a collective warrior elite. Similarly, Israel was born and developed as a nation in arms, capable of mass mobilization in a very short time. In both peoples the brotherhood of arms has helped to cement equality and internal democracy (internal to the supreme caste the Spartan one, more collective the Israeli one).

Last but not least, both the ancient and the modern nation have found themselves having to be one of the spearheads in the eternal conflict between Western Civilization and the autocratic Eastern masses. The fact that these masses before identified themselves with an absolute God-King and today with a religion that claims world domination and rejects the very concepts of freedom and democracy changes little: geopolitics is the daughter of both geography and anthropology, therefore the enemies of the West remain essentially the same, just as the content of a bottle does not change even if the label is changed.

In this brief historical-geopolitical journey of ours, we have analyzed some curious similarities between two state realities that apparently could not seem more different: ancient Sparta and contemporary Israel. Many will find this parallel academic, if not opportunistic. However, it remains undeniable that, in its own way, today's Jewish state has similarities with the homeland that was once Leonidas'.

All the more reason for any Westerner to defend it to the hilt.” - Fabio Bozzo, ‘Israel: a new Sparta?’

“Brooks Adams prefaced his classic study of civilization and decay with the observation that conscious thought plays an exceedingly small part in molding the fate of men. “At the moment of action the human being almost invariably obeys an instinct, like an animal; only after action has ceased does he reflect.” For Israel the moment of action is now, the instinct is self‐preservation, and the time for reflection is yet to come.

When Israelis speak of the future, they generally mean what will happen tomorrow, next week next month. This is true of statesmen and publicists, as it is of the general public. There is no lack of forecasts, but little that rises to the level vision. Political leaders deal in ad hoc solutions to today's (and often, yesterday's) issues. The future will have to wait its turn.

(…)

Ben Gurion was, as events have shown, a premature Cassandra. True to the prophetic tradition, he was giving answers to questions which had not yet been asked. His June, 1967, warnings became relevant only in October, 1973, with the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath. Today, the nearly total diplomatic isolation of Israel, the resurrection of Arab claims to national rights in the entire area of mandatory Palestine, and the readiness of many in the West to bargain away interests of vital importance to Israel have raised, for the first time since the darkest days of Israel's war of independence, the very question of the future of Israel as an independent state.

Certain basic facts of national life obviously need to be reassessed. The increase in strength the Arab world, combining economic muscle with national‐religious fanaticism, and backed by the logistic capacity of the Soviet arsenal, has already affected the global balance of power, let alone the regional one. Perhaps its most significant immediate influence on Israel's military posture in terms of the morale of its foe: Israel today faces an enemy that enjoys a degree of self‐confidence that it never knew before, combined with the motivation that comes with a belief in its cause and in the inevitability of its victory. Loss of life irrelevant, as is loss of equipment, as long as the Soviet Union is prepared to make good the needs in matériel created by renewed hostilities. The major change in Israeli thinking has been with regard to the estimate of the enemy's potential.

There has been no change with regard to the estimate of the enemy's intentions: It is assumed that those intentions remain, as they have since Israel's creation, the destruction of the Jewish State. For this the address of Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian terrorist leader, before the U.N. General Assembly, provides ample confirmation.

A realistic awareness of the growth of the power of the Arab world has not shaken confidence Israel's military superiority. Another war, in whose inevitability there seems to be general agreement, will bring another Israeli victory, costlier perhaps than its predecessors, but no less (and no more) conclusive. On this subject there is no end of reassurance from those who should be in a position to know, both in Israel and abroad. The unanswered question is, what happens then?

Some see this as the pattern of the future for as long in time as it is worth speculating. There will be an endless series of wars, the lag between them determined by the time required for the Arabs to re‐equip and prepare for the coming round. A small minority accepts the possibility of defeat, to which there are two answers.

One is summed up in the word Masada, a suicidal last stand that would satisfy national honor and redeem the memory of the millions of European Jews who were led to slaughter in the Nazi Holocaust. The other answer assumes that in an extremity the means would be available that would be adequate to the circumstances. On the basis of information in the public domain, the possibility of an atomic Armageddon would seem to he a real one, thus forcing the Arabs to reassess the cost that they would be prepared to pay for the privilege of destroying Israel. There is some indication that such a reassessment may have indeed been undertaken in certain of Sadat's (…)

As answers to the possibility of defeat, Masada and Armageddon are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they have a great deal in common. Desperation, however, is a luxury Israel cannot afford, nor can it serve as a guide to the determination of national policy. Nevertheless, there is some small corner of the mind in which such visions of the Apocalypse are lodged, blocked out from consciousness by their very unthinkability.

Jewish tradition tells us that problems can have a natural or a miraculous solution. To the never‐ending Arab‐Israeli wars, Masada and Armageddon are natural solutions. The miraculous solution is peace. Israel's acceptance by its neighbors remains the cardinal national objective, but its realization would appear to require time of Messianic dimensions. Still, it is sometimes an imperative of realism to seek the impossible.

War and another inconclusive victory are the immediate prospects. Masada, Armaeddon, peace— these define the limits of historical time. Israel lives in that broad range of possible futures that stretch from the here and now to the end of days. And all press into the present at one and the same time.

(…)

It is to be expected that in any garrison‐state society the army will have a dominating political role. In Israel, however, this is apt to be less than might he anticipated. First of all, Israel has been in a virtual state of siege since its independence, and the change as a result of the Yom Kippur War and its aftermath is one of degree rather than of kind. Second, in a state in which the army impinges to such a great extent over such an extended period of time on every facet of society, the society is affected, but so is the army. The Israel defense forces have never constituted a professional elite, divorced from a distinct caste, removed from other decision‐making and opinion‐farming elites. Israel is a nation in arms more than any other in modern history. The Jeffersonian ideal of every citizen a soldier and every soldier a citizen, realized in Israel to a much greater extent than it ever was in Jeffersonian America, makes of military participation in politics something very different than it has been in, say, France or Germany—or even contemporary America.

Nor is there reason to anticipate a breakdown of parliamentary democracy in a Spartan Israel. A continued period of tension is likely to cement further the basic national consensus. Its Achilles' heel has always been the necessity to make decisions on matters on which consensus does not exist and in which any decision is unacceptable to substantial segments of the population (such as territorial concessions, for example). Under siege conditions, decisions need not he made, as options are closed. The result is, on the one hand, immobility and, on the other, a high degree of stability in government, both of which have been characteristic of Israel in the past and will continue in the foreseeable future. A Government of national unity seems a distinct possibility, representing both a response to the demand for a heightened solidarity and the absence of significant issues demanding decision in matters over which the political parties differ fundamentally.

The importance of solidarity and the passage of time itself may help to close the social gap separating Israelis of European and non‐Europe origin, the most significant cleavage in contemporary Israeli society. Generally, it may he safe to assume that equality and fraternity will do better in a Spartan society than liberty. In Israel, however, basic freedoms do not appear to be in any significant danger, beyond those limitations imposed, as Holmes observed, “as long as men fight.” The pluralistic nature of Israeli society inhibits the denial of the right of political dissent, at least for those within the national body which in Israel is virtually coterminous with the society itself. However, tolerance for fringe groups beyond the pale is likely to diminish.

Israeli policy in the occupied areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip may be severely tested by future developments. This has been, in many respects, the most liberal military occupation in contemporary history. It has been based on keeping the peace by making it to the advantage of the local Arab population. Economic prosperity and the lack of reasonable expectation of political change have been far more important in the preservation of order and the prevention of hostile activities against the occupation forces than has the direct application of military force.

The creation of Israeli settlements in the occupied areas has been part of the general conception underlying official policy. The settlements, located along the Jordan and south of Gaza, protect basic strategic interests, without seriously intruding into Arab populated areas. (The one major exception, Kiryat Arha, near Hebron, was not the result of official initiative but rather a concession to the political pressures of coalition politics.) By blocking off possible invasion routes, the settlements make the annexation of areas densely populated by Arabs unnecessary. Wildcat settlement attempts by Jewish nationalist groups within Arab‐populated areas have been dealt with sternly and decisively.

Thus, both occupation and settlement policy have been designed to preserve security interests while keeping open options for a compromise solution. Possible economic difficulties and a fluid political situation could seriously threaten to encourage an increase in opposition to the occupation on the part of the local population, while Rabat and its aftermath appear to have barred, at least for the immediate future, the way to a political settlement. Major assumptions of present policy in the occupied areas may, therefore, cease to be valid. A breakdown of public order in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip would severely tax limited Israeli manpower reserves and might require a drastic change of policy. In this event, Arab propaganda claims with regard to alleged Israeli repression in the occupied areas and the displacement of the indigenous population could prove to he self‐fulfilling prophecies.

(…)

Yet fundamental change in Israel's prospects depends on a basic change within the West. There are other areas of the world besides the Middle East in which the Western powers have not acted in unity. However, there is no other area in which they have so frequently worked at cross‐purposes or to no visible purpose at all. In no other area has the policy of Western governments so frequently subordinated national ideals to putative national interests and in the end resulted in the loss or abandonment both of principles and of interests.

Winston Churchill once said that democracy was not harlot that could be picked up on a street corner by a young man with a tommy gun. He was wrong. It happens all the time, with the most prim and proper, the most matronly democracies, including his own. Instead, a tommy gun is not indispensable; hard cash and the control of oil resources will do just as well. Witness the spectacle of French diplomatic emissaries hustling the Middle Eastern turf, turning their tricks with sheik and terrorist. The sale of arms, encouraged by balance of payments difficulties, has become an aim, rather than an instrument, of national policy: and all fat cats are gray in the night.

Today, the fate of much of the industrialized world, with its masses of workers and consumers, has come to depend on decisions made by minuscule coterie of absolute potentates, their feet firmly rooted in the Middle Ages and their hands at the throat of the industrial civilization of the West. Never before in history has the fate of so many been at the mercy of so few. Oddly, there are still those who persist in seeing this as a victory of anticolonialism and anti‐imperialism, those most durable verbal relics of the long‐lost world of liberal innocence. Surely there must come a point at which the act in unity if its own survival is to be safeguarded. When that day comes, Israel's future will take a new direction.

(…)

Earlier, in the fall of 1962, Henry Kissinger visited this communal village and its regional school. In those days the threat came from the Syrian artillery on the Golan Heights, which dominated the area. Kissinger, then security adviser to Nelson Rockefeller and on a special mission fo. Kennedy, was especially intrigued by the attention devoted to gardening and to the atmosphere of tranquillity. juxtaposed against the network of shelters under the shadow of the commanding Syrian positions, visible even to the naked eye. What he founded in the Jordan Valley tended to disprove the contention of Rockefeller's adversaries that extensive civil‐defense measures would disrupt normal life and create panic.

Today, the children of the Jordan Valley communes play and study in close proximity to armed guards. The massacre at Ma'alot proved that children enjoy a privileged position as a priority target for Palestinian liberation fighters. The danger has become less anonymous and less indiscriminate. Life, however, remains normal in every critical sense, and there is no panic.

November 28 was the anniversary of the 1947 U.N. decision in favor of the creation of a Jewish State. The sixth‐grade pupils in the Jordan Valley elementary school wrote compositions on “What Israel Will Be Like When I Am Grown Up.” One theme is dominant: peace. Many express it by predicting that they will visit the Pyramids in Egypt and travel by train to Damascus. Moran Palmoni, a 12‐year‐old fourth‐generation sabra, concluded his composition in verse:

“I hope that peace will come

I believe that it will come

That we will not have to sit in the shelter

That tranquillity will fall also on us

Every child and every flower will he happy when it comes

Only may it come, only may it come!””

“Buried deep inside a Times report last weekend about Hadar Goldin, the Israeli soldier who was reported captured by Hamas, in the southern Gaza Strip, and then declared dead, was the following paragraph:

The circumstances surrounding his death remained cloudy. A military spokeswoman declined to say whether Lieutenant Goldin had been killed along with two comrades by a suicide bomb one of the militants exploded, or later by Israel’s assault on the area to hunt for him; she also refused to answer whether his remains had been recovered.

Just what those circumstances were began to filter out early this week, and they attest to deep contradictions in the Israeli military—and in Israeli culture at large.

A temporary ceasefire went into effect last Friday morning at eight. At nine-fifteen, soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces headed toward a house, in the city of Rafah, that served as an entry point to a tunnel reportedly leading into Israel. As the I.D.F. troops advanced, a Hamas militant emerged from the tunnel and opened fire. Two soldiers were killed. A third, Goldin, was captured—whether dead or alive is unclear—and taken into the tunnel. What is clear is that after Goldin was reported missing, the I.D.F. enacted a highly controversial measure known as the Hannibal Directive, firing at the area where Goldin was last seen in order to stop Hamas from taking him captive. As a result, according to Palestinian sources, seventy Palestinians were killed. By Sunday, Goldin, too, had been declared dead.

Opinions differ over how this protocol, which remained a military secret until 2003, came to be known as Hannibal. There are indications that it was named for the Carthaginian general, who chose to poison himself rather than fall captive to the Romans, but I.D.F. officials insist that a computer generated the name at random. Whatever its provenance, the moniker seems chillingly apt. Developed by three senior I.D.F. commanders, in 1986, following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, the directive established the steps the military must take in the event of a soldier’s abduction. Its stated goal is to prevent Israeli troops from falling into enemy hands, “even at the cost of hurting or wounding our soldiers.” While normal I.D.F. procedures forbid soldiers from firing in the general direction of their fellow-troops, including attacking a getaway vehicle, such procedures, according to the Hannibal Directive, are to be waived in the case of an abduction: “Everything must be done to stop the vehicle and prevent it from escaping.”

Although the order specifies that only selective light-arms fire should be used in such cases, the message behind it is resounding. When a soldier has been abducted, not only are all targets legitimate—including, as we saw over the weekend, ambulances—but it’s permissible, and even implicitly advisable, for soldiers to fire on their own. For more than a decade, military censors blocked journalists from reporting on the protocol, apparently because they feared it would demoralize the Israeli public. In 2003, an Israeli doctor who had heard of the directive while serving as a reservist, in Lebanon, began advocating for its annulment, leading to its declassification. That year, a Haaretz investigation of the directive concluded that “from the point of view of the army, a dead soldier is better than a captive soldier who himself suffers and forces the state to release thousands of captives in order to obtain his release.”

(…)

To be clear, there is no evidence that Goldin was killed by friendly fire. But military officials did confirm that commanders on the ground had activated the Hannibal Directive and ordered “massive fire”—not for the first time since Operation Protective Edge began, on July 8th. (One week into the ground offensive, in the central Gaza Strip, forces reportedly** **enacted the protocol when another soldier, Guy Levy, was believed missing.) Since the directive’s inception, the I.D.F. is known to have used it only a handful of times, including in the case of Gilad Shalit. The order came too late for Shalit and did not prevent his abduction—or his eventual release, in 2011, in exchange for a thousand and twenty-seven Palestinian prisoners. That year, as part of the military’s inquiry into the circumstances leading to Shalit’s capture, the I.D.F.’s Chief of Staff, Benny Gantz, modified the directive. It now allows field commanders to act without awaiting confirmation from their superiors; at the same time, the directive’s language was tempered to make clear that it does not call for the willful killing of captured soldiers. In changing the wording of the protocol, Gantz introduced an ethical principle known as the “double-effect doctrine,” which states that a bad result (the killing of a captive soldier) is morally permissible only as a side effect of promoting a good action (stopping his captors).

Whether soldiers have heeded this change in language, and how they now choose to interpret the directive, is difficult to assess. If past experience is any indication, the military hierarchy’s interpretation remains unequivocal. During Israel’s last operation in Gaza, in 2011, one Golani commander was caught on tape telling his unit: “No soldier in the 51st Battalion will be kidnapped, at any price or under any condition. Even if it means that he has to detonate his own grenade along with those who try to capture him. Even if it means that his unit will now have to fire at the getaway car.”

On Sunday, a decade after its initial investigation of the Hannibal Directive, Haaretz revisited the subject with a piece by Anshel Pfeffer that tried to explain why, despite the procedure’s morally questionable nature, there hasn’t been significant opposition to it. Pfeffer wrote:

Perhaps the most deeply engrained reason that Israelis innately understand the needs for the Hannibal Directive is the military ethos of never leaving wounded men on the battlefield, which became the spirit following the War of Independence, when hideously mutilated bodies of Israeli soldiers were recovered. So Hannibal has stayed a fact of military life and the directive activated more than once during this current campaign.

Ronen Bergman, author of the book “By Any Means Necessary,” which examines Israel’s history of dealing with captive soldiers, further explained this rationale in a recent radio interview: “There is a disproportionate sensitivity among Israelis [on the issue of captive soldiers] that is hard to describe to foreigners.” Bergman traced this sensitivity back to Maimonides, the medieval Torah scholar, who wrote: “There is no greater Mitzvah than redeeming captives.”

This line of argument, while historically true, is worth pausing over—if only to unpack the moral paradox within it. In essence, what this “military ethos” means is that Israel sanctifies the lives of its soldiers so much, and would be willing to pay such an exorbitant price for their release, that it will do everything in its power to prevent such a scenario—including putting those same soldiers’ lives at risk (not to mention wreaking havoc on the surrounding population). This is the dubious situation that Israel finds itself in: signalling to the military that a dead soldier is preferable to a captive one, while at the same time signalling to the Israeli public that no cost will be spared to secure a captured soldier’s release. (It’s worth recalling that, three years after Shalit was traded for more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners, the captive U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl was traded for five Taliban prisoners. This isn’t to suggest that Israel cares more about its troops than the United States does, but rather that no crime is greater, in the eyes of Israelis, than the kidnapping of “our boys.”)

(…)

Sharon added that the mixed consequences of the directive are typical of the behavior that now characterizes the Israeli public at large. “On the one hand, we are willing to risk soldiers’ lives recklessly and without need, but on the other hand we have zero tolerance for the price that this might entail.”

[silverloreley]

Do you have any headcanons about Wendy Darling (and her daughter Jane) in the Descendants universe?

Full disclosure, I don't like Peter Pan. The story and the character. Don't ask me why, I just don't. Same with Pinocchio. Funnily enough, one of my favourite Italian singers, Edoardo Bennato, made an album for each so my ideas of the characters tend to be influenced by his view. I don't know if it's good or bad. Also, I don't remember the second movie at all, except the fact Jane was a relatable character although annoying at first.

Anyway, Wendy Darling.

The Darling siblings put aside their adventure in Neverland after going back home. It was like a weird dream to them, it didn't quite feel real. It taught them a lot and they remember it all happening, but they left it behind, as children often do with formative experiences.

Peter stopped wanting to see her when she became taller than him, he took it as a sign she was a grown-up and was outraged Wendy chose that. She was sad for a while but decided it was okay. Peter would never grow, but she was ready to.

The second movie didn't happen, the war that took Wendy's husband away for a long time did neither. The Darling siblings were marginally involved in the Great Auradon Conflict after the Villains were revived, but that was before Jane was born. Hook saw that Peter didn't care about the Darlings anymore so he let them go after kidnapping them once. After, Wendy still volunteered to help during the conflict, but from the sidelines. This earned her a place among the Heroes, although she isn't considered one of the major ones, and attended Auradon Prep with the princesses.

So! Wendy grew up, became a novelist, and got married to a man who accepted her unusual way of being a lady, because Wendy never quite became like other young ladies of Little London, even if she was greatly respected thanks to her reputation.

Jane (and Danny) grew up with a genuine fear of pirates but that was about it. Her mother's stories were like those of everyone else in Auradon, comforted by the fact all Villains were on the Isle of the Lost. She ended up on Neverland, at some point, but only because Peter heard of her existence and was curious, hence "invited" Jane and Danny - it was more a kidnapping - to Neverland, where she met the fairies and Lost Boys.

When that happened, Wendy rushed to Neverland to take back her kids, she scolded Peter very hard and tried to make him understand how his actions were wrong. Now that she was older and with children of her own, it was easier to find the right words to make him understand stuff he never learned of. She figured out his abandonment issues and promised to go visit him from time to time. Jane, who started to like him too, in a way, did the same.

Jane went to school with the first wave of Hero Kids (Li'l, Derek, Arabella...), not the current one. It means, by the time the VKs arrive, she's not at Auradon Prep anymore.

Jane and Wendy butted heads about Ben's decree at first because of their opposite ideas on nature vs nurture. Wendy thought all kids only need someone to teach them, Jane saw that no matter how hard they all tried to reign in Peter, he never got better. In fact, Jane may be the only one who recognizes the mean streak inside Peter and thinks he's not the hero everyone thinks he is. She's his friend in a more genuine, less idealistic way than any of Peter's other friends ever was. If Peter will ever choose to grow up, it will be because (or for) of Jane.

That said, Jane isn't against the VKs, in general, or them coming to Auradon. She only thinks if some of them are genuinely mean-spirited, they'll stay so even in a better place, but she also thinks they deserve a chance to show who they are before they are judged.

Jane will get along with Harriet quite fine, as Harriet is the proof she needed that not all people are doomed by their character. If she had met Harry first, she may have never changed her mind, though.

Also, she thinks CJ is as mental as Peter and is glad the two of them don't like each other because Auradon would be doomed if they paired up.

[fictionfromafar]

The Venus of Salò by Ben Pastor

The Venus of Salò

By Ben Pastor

Bitter Lemon Press

Publication Date: 23 May 2024 

The Venus of Salò is the latest and the eighth novel in the Colonel Martin Bora series, the most recent of which was The Night of Shooting Stars in 2020. The Martin Bora series written by Ben Pastor is comprised of a total of 11 books, which were released in Italy between the years 1999 and 2015. Ben Pastor is actually the pen name of a famous Italian author named Maria Volpi Verbena. Born in Rome, she now has dual citizenship and lives and works as a teacher in the United States. 

This was the first novel I had read featuring Martin Bora and while there are references to his previous exploits, particularly on the Russian front, the characters in this story aside from Bora appear specific to the novel. They comprise of a combination of real historical figures and fictional characters. 

The story sees Martin Bora arrive in the fascist Republic of Salò on Lake Garda in October 1944, six months before the end of the war in Europe. This was a very turbulent time in the history of Northern Italy as the once captured Mussolini has been rescued by the Germans from his mountain prison and restored him to power in the north of the country. While the German occupiers ruled through violence and the aid of the local Fascists, official and unofficial armed bands would roam arresting suspected partisans, members of the Resistance and terrorising the local population. During this time, Salo‘s grand villas by Lake Garda are used by Mussolini, the Gestapo and the SS. When a valuable painting, the Venus of Salò goes missing from such a residence, Bora is tasked with the investigation into the theft of the work of art, and it's recovery. A pattern of mystery develops when several attractive women are found dead, apparently but perhaps not by their own hands. 

The investigation sees Bora mingle with a range of Italians whose allegiences can vary quite substantially as well as German occupiers from whom he has his own secrets to preserve.  Along the way finds himself mistrusted by nearlt everyone, yet also falls in love while at risk of capture from Slavic partisans. 

Ben Pastor's astute reading of historical settings emerges strongly through this story providing a multifaceted crime novel which gives the reader a real flavour for the chaos and paranoia of this period while on a human level, they route for Bora to emerge from the situation unscathed. 

The blurb:

October 1944, in the so-called Republic of Salò, the last fascist stronghold in Italy. After months of ferocious fighting on the Gothic Line, Colonel Martin Bora of the Wehrmacht must investigate the theft of a precious painting of Venus by Titian, stolen with uncanny ease from a local residence. While Bora’s inquiry proceeds among many difficulties, the discovery of three dead bodies throws an even more sinister light on the scene. The victims are female, very beautiful, apparently dead by their own hand but in fact elegantly murdered. 

The author

Ben Pastor, born in Italy, worked as a university professor in Vermont before returning to her country.   She is one of the most talented writers in the field of historical fiction. In 2008 she won the prestigious Premio Zaragoza for best historical fiction. She writes in English.

Many thanks to Bitter Lemon Press for an advance copy of this book and to Anne Cater at Random Things Tours for inclusion in the blog tour. Please check out the other reviews of this book as shown below.

[reesemayeanaise-artg211]

Illo 1: Dadaism

Appealing Topics:

Futurism (reject tradition, incorporate dynamicism, technology/youth)

Dadaism (realism vs. industrialism, reject reasoning for capitalism, radical left ideology)

Art Deco (aesthetic objects, symmetry/streamlined, machine-made)

Final Choice: Dadaism. Its satirical yet surreal take on art is fascinating to me.

Keywords: Anticapitalism, Rebel, Collage, Surreal Realism, Satire

Movement Characteristics: Dadaism as an art movement was born in 1916 as a reaction to the nationalistic ideologies that many believed led to World War I. Dadaism, itself, was very closely tied to the radical left of the time. It was inspired by other movements such as Cubism, Futurism, and Expressionism and it’s because of this variety in inspiration and purpose that Dadaism was such a diverse art movement. It quite often mocked materialism and the biases people have towards aesthetically pleasing art, giving its purpose even more meaningful considering most Dada art is not pleasing to the eye in the slightest. This was a way of essentially upending bourgeois sensibilities. Another interesting fact is that Dadaism was a movement opposed to itself! People would often shout “Dada is anti-Dada,” being the ugly, satirical, and subversive movement it was. In the end, it was nonsense. The movement ended in 1924 and was followed by Surrealism.

An Artist/Designer That Appeals to Me: Although he was the main artist people think of in regard to this movement, Marcel Duchamp’s work appeals to me the most out of everything I’ve seen thus far. The amount of satire and mockery in his art is really quite clever (although sometimes crude) and I love his methods of questioning social constructs such as the definition of art.

World Events Influential to the Movement: Dadaism was founded in the middle of the first World War with the intent to both help stop the war and channel their resentment towards it. After the war ended, most of the relevant artists returned from Switzerland to their home countries which acted to further spread the movement internationally. There was also a riot in April of 1919 which stemmed from a Dada event which ended up being the most significant riot during this movement as there were conservative speeches which enraged the crowd about valuing abstract art.

My Concept: Since Dadaism was born out of a revolt for the politics leading up to World War I, I wanted my concept to represent that theme of rebellion and satire. With this in mind, I decided to make a piece mocking conservative talk-show host, Ben Shapiro. I wanted to show how child-like he can be and portray him as a weasel, much like how he acts during debates. This, all combined, should fit the Dada aesthetic (or lack thereof) with a political distaste laced with satire.

Design Decisions: In early iterations it was clear I wanted to portray his child-like nature with a propellor cap and lollipop microphone. Later on I also stuck his head on a weasel’s body to show the weasel side too. It started as an illustration more akin to a political cartoon which quickly strayed from the Dada style. It’s because of this that I instead opted to use a scrapbook/collage style instead. The word “LIAR” was incorporated as word play off of Daily Wire, the media company Shapiro works for. The cherry on top of the cake was the inclusion of a cutout crazy eye, ripped paper textures, and black type with interpretative meaning.

[thedaybeforelastwrites]

An impossible point in the universe | reylo

Summary: Rated MA. Rey gives into her connection with Kylo Ren — a oneshot that takes place in the time between TLJ and TROS. (But also— bond shenanigans lead to confronting unresolved sexual tension but does nothing to help with unresolved emotional tension — a bit of angst-my fav) Word Count: 3102 Author's note: Back after many years with my first story in a the star wars fandom even though TROS came out over 3 years ago. *shrugs* I don't understand me either.   ____________________________________

Rey lays in bed, staring at the ceiling, exhausted beyond measure, wondering why it keeps happening because she can't seem to figure it out and she doesn't know how much longer she can shut Kylo Ren out.

Snoke had said that he was the one linking them through the force. He had said that it was all a part of his scheme, his machinations, his plans—one that ultimately led to his end—but his nonetheless. So why was it that she was still sensing Ben—no, Kylo Ren, she reminds herself for the thousandth time because Ben was who she wanted him to be but Kylo Ren was who he'd chosen—at the corner of her mind? Why was there this constant ache, growing stronger day by day, from resisting giving into their bond?

It's a knock in her head that had started out demure like the tap of a knuckle and had gradually persisted until it felt like someone was banging and kicking on a locked door inside her skull. And the strangest part is that she can tell that Kylo himself has been fighting it too.

She wonders if he is as exhausted as she is.

She wonders how long it will be until one of them gives in.

It hadn't hit her the first time it happened after Snoke's incredibly satisfying demise. When Kylo was looking up at her, not nearly as angry as she'd thought he'd look after she'd refused him. In fact, the confusion and hurt hit her the hardest, and maybe she had even sensed a hint of hopefulness left over right before she'd closed the hatch and taken off with the resistance.

He had betrayed everything that they'd been building, asking what he had of her. Rey thinks about that moment so often, his pleading tone— because please had never sounded like an incantation before and she doubts ever will again— and how his hand was outstretched as if only Rey's grasp held his absolution. As if, though he could never forgive himself—'I am a monster, he'd said'—if she could, if she could just grab on to him then everything would be right.

She thinks about how for a moment she'd actually considered it—not joining him to rule while they watched the universe burn in their wake as he'd have allowed but just... joining him, just him and how intense the urge had been, how horrible and terrifying, and how she'd longed—ached—for someone who wanted all of her, needed her.

She wasn't important to Ben because he needed her for what she could do—he could do it too, just as well, or even better, their meetings had made it hard to tell—Ben needed Rey not in spite of, but even more so, for the worst parts of her, for all the brokenness, the self-doubt, and the invisible marks her loneliness had etched into her soul, marks that matched his. It was why he did not seem to care or even remember that scar she had left on him, because really, what's one more?

And it was always so incredibly hard for Rey to feel wanted with that clawing, nagging, reminder in the back of her head that she was born into this world lacking that one essential feeling—love— from the people who should have felt it for her most.

Everything goes quiet, light and darkness—and the entirety of the force— begins to fill her up and she braces herself for what she knows is about to happen because she just can't push back against it anymore.

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But some things are harder to brace for than others.

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Rey turns her head to the side and millions of lightyears away and also right in front of her, Kylo Ren is, like she is, lying in bed. Only, their bond makes it feel as if he is right beside her, just inches away and it is the closest that they've been since they'd touched, the fire-light flickering between them, but everything is so different now. Everything has been destroyed. And it would seem, that while they had both been fighting it, the bond between them had only grown stronger.

She can feel his sharp inhale as if stolen from her lungs.

And it is aggravating because it would have been hard enough to ignore him from across a room. Like this, she can count the moles and freckles on his cheeks— if she wants.

"Did it hurt you too?" he asks, and there is a hint of an emotion in his tone that she doesn't wish to place.

Same as he had the first time the force linked them like this, he has spoken first. Rey looks away, trying not to linger on how his brown eyes still look as oddly open to her as she remembers, as though once he had let her in, he could no longer reverse what he'd done.

"That's the only reason I'm allowing this right now," she responds, trying to muster up the same amount of anger she'd felt six months ago but it had all ebbed away, leaving only disappointment (and a feeling of true loneliness) in its wake.

In fact, she has to actively try to ignore the relief that's filling her at seeing him again.

"Where are you?"

The question nearly makes her laugh. Her eyebrows furrow, "Why would I ever tell you that?"

Rey could never put her faith in him again. He was the enemy now. And yet, there's a weird realization that comes along with that thought because he had always been the enemy hadn't he—but just… not always to her. Along the way she had forgotten.

The expression on his face is unreadable and he doesn't answer her. Instead, he looks away, at whatever ceiling it is that he rests under.

They are silent for a long time, laying in bed together, and it is both the most comfortable and most uneasy Rey has been in months.

"Do you want to know what I can't stop thinking about?" he suddenly says, his deep voice so close to a whisper that she barely hears it. He doesn't wait for her to say yes. "I keep thinking, if Snoke created this link, then it should be gone. But since it isn't," and he turns his head to look at her again, his eyes roaming her face as if making sure of the truth of their bond, that she is near, "This must be something else."

His words start her heart racing because hadn't she just been thinking the same, right before giving in to this? There must be a reason why they keep getting pulled towards each other, why it literally hurts to avoid this thing they have.

There has been a link, a magnetism between them from the moment she'd first laid eyes on his fully masked form, on Kylo Ren, deep in the forest. She can remember the fear then like a dream, a fear that had changed and morphed into something else as in every moment since she had gotten closer to Ben, the core of him.

Getting to know Ben, had been like staring into a mirror. She had known it in her soul that Kylo Ren had just as much of a chance of coming back to himself, a Ben so much like her, as she had of becoming like him and from that point on there had been no fear, just understanding, and hope, and the lure of being right on the precipice of something great, the desire to give in to that deep, unmistakable bond. And they had both reached for it.

Even as she thinks it, Ben's eyes slip from her eyes to her lips and back up again, and her stomach flips. Has he come to the same conclusion as she has? The same conclusion she doesn't let herself think. They are the same, two sides of the same coin, two parts of a whole. Fated to be.

Her throat goes dry and quickly she breaks the look between them, being the one to stare away this time. She breathes heavily through her nose as she tries to calm her nerves. She can feel his gaze still on her and her face has gone hot, her entire body has gone hot and as if the thought of her own body spurs his into action, he turns on his side—her bed and blankets shifting against her too hot skin with his weight— to face her fully.

Even now there is that desire to let him in, to be truly seen by someone, to be…

"I didn't give in because of the pain," he says, and with his admission his voice has dropped an octave, "I'm accustomed to pain. I gave in because I've passed the point of wanting you."

Her traitorous heart skips a beat.

Rey closes her eyes as the intimacy of laying in bed together fully hits her. She can't speak and if Rey is being honest, she doesn't trust herself to respond to what he's said. If she's being honest, she should have gotten out of the bed as soon as they'd connected but she hadn't done that had she? Either way, he hasn't finished talking so it turns out she does not have to respond.

"Ever since we touched, it is the only thing I've been able to think about, to dream about. I've imagined what might have happened if Luke hadn't discovered us. I've imagined, lacing our fingers together, bringing you close. I've imagined…" and he stops, a heavy breath leaving him, "It's been driving me insane."

It's like they're living the same life because it's been haunting her too, invading her thoughts. That small touch had changed something and it could never go back to the way it was before. She had never been closer to someone than she had in that moment, never felt so seen, never felt so right.

Rey's breathing hard and though it's against her best judgment she turns back to look at him. His eyes have always been where his emotions show the clearest, but this time—and the knot in her stomach tightens—the longing is not only there, it's plainly written all over his face.

She can almost hear it again—the begging, the please— and she'd been strong enough to not give into him once… shouldn't that count for something?

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Shouldn't it?

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It is almost as if she's merely watching herself do it, completely out of control, as she turns towards him and reaches out. He reacts immediately. It must be the invitation that he's been waiting for because suddenly he has met her halfway.

And while first, their reaching hands do in fact lace together, grabbing on tightly, it is not much longer before those laced hands are pressed into the pillow beside Rey's head as Kylo Ren hovers over her.

They pause, staring at each other and unbidden Rey can't help but to ponder about the mechanics of their bond. To her, he is in her room—Fin, and Poe, and everyone else just down the corridor but to him, she must be laying in his bed surrounded by The First Order that he leads now.

It is ridiculous. It should matter, it really should, but as she stares up at him nothing could matter any more than this impossible point in the Universe that they have created.

They start moving again, and now their hands glide across each other, roam, and feel, and caress with a desperation that could only come from avoiding this for the last half year.

And god, his arms, and his chest and his stomach are all just as hard to the touch as Rey had dreamed of, taut from his likely obsessive training and his terrible misdeeds.

She only gives those truths a second before pushing them forcefully aside because it is his mouth, when finally they have touched enough, that is the surprise as his soft lips meet hers and his talented tongue force all thoughts beyond his body, and her body, and how right this feels, from her mind.

Rey can't say that it is a surprise but he is unapologetic about his need. Everything he does, he does fully. As he kisses her, he pushes his fingers into her hair, pulls her closer. When he grabs her waist, his hands are rough and greedy. When she presses herself against him, he rolls his hips hard against her in return, and it is enough to make her gasp.

He wants her so badly, and that feeling of being someone's World is all Rey has ever wanted. And she knows, because they are the same, just given different choices at different times, that he needs to be seen just as much as she does. That he needs to be understood and loved.

And she does love him—just not unconditionally because Rey cannot love Kylo Ren. She can't love him through all of the things that he's done—she can't even let herself think about them for too long, but she can love Ben and hope that he will finally win the war going on inside the body they share.

She tries with all of her to get her own message through, angling her mouth against his, deepening their kiss, 'Please' she thinks and hopes he can taste it, 'please turn Ben.'

When they finally break apart, they are both dazed and lightheaded. She places his hands beneath her shirt and responds by undressing her quickly— as if he is sure that at any moment she might disappear— while she takes her time with him, though he is only covered from the waist down anyway. He looks like he enjoys it nearly as much as she does.

And then she places a palm against his chest, pushing him away from her.

The fear that takes over his expression, breaks her heart but she keeps pushing until she has changed their positions and pushed him down on the bed. And when she climbs on top of him—he is so much bigger than her—she kisses him deeply until the fear fully ebbs away.

She is not going anywhere, not now, not yet.

His gasp against her mouth is the most alluring thing she's ever heard, as she sinks on to him. And when finally she has all of him, is full to the brim, he grabs her hips halting her, as if memorizing the feeling.

"I love you Rey," he says and she is not sure if it is Kylo Ren or Ben or both speaking.

"I know," she says, with a small smile because it's all that she can give them. It is only Ben that she is willing to give her heart to but she can give into this.

Experimentally, Rey rolls her hips and the strangled groan that Kylo Ren releases nearly undoes her.

He is a wreck and they have just barely begun. It makes her feel powerful in a way that even the force has never made her feel and so she does it again, and again, savoring the look of him—hair fanned away from his face, eyes half-lidded and watching, mouth agape—and the feel of him—thick and hard where she needs him most, rough hands gripping her thighs.

And for a while, he seems content to let her be in complete control, let her ride him into oblivion but when Rey starts to get close, it's like he can sense it and in turn she can sense the urgency in him.

His hips begin to rise to meet her own, his thumb finds its rightful place between her legs, and the beat of his heart, already erratic beneath her palms, quickens in pace.

He says her name like a plea and surges up to drag his mouth over her mouth, her neck, her chest, moaning into her skin. She can feel him everywhere, even the places he's not physically touching. It's hard to explain. It must be the bond, but the feeling is overwhelming. And the arm that's not attached to the thumb rubbing quick, frantic circles against her, latches around her waist urging her to move faster.

Suddenly, it strikes her just how badly he wants to be the reason, wants to be the one capable of making her lose herself, pushing her over the edge. How badly he needs it and it is that thought that gets her there, the pressure inside bursting to release.

The noise she makes as she clenches and throbs around him is loud and it isn't until she feels her back pressed into the bed—he has changed their position— and his hand gently covering her mouth, muffling the sound, that she remembers all the others nearby—Fin, and Poe, and Rose, and the entire resistance —that might have heard her, not that she can bring herself to care as this spot in the universe they've created shrinks down into a point of pure pleasure.

And he keeps going, somehow managing to angle his hips just right, his large body pressing down on her own, drawing out her orgasm until she is tensing again and rolling into another one. She shakes beneath him, a warm, tingling glow spreading through her just as he groans out his own release, hips jerking out of rhythm until finally he stops.

The two of them stay like that, catching their breath between fevered kisses, wrapped up in each other. And he stays inside her even as he softens, even as the sweat on their skin starts to go cold.

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And they are satisfied, fully, in one sense of the word, but in another, perhaps more important sense, they are not satisfied at all.

It is a quieting realization and in the silence all the ways that this was not everything that they needed become harder and harder to ignore… until finally, he disentangles from her, rolling to lay on his back—still close enough to touch but not so close that they aren't both aware that their time is near its end.

Rey stares up at the ceiling, holding back tears. "I love you Ben," she whispers, heart clenching, because it's true and because the silence has become deafening.

She doesn't turn to him but feels his heavy gaze as he looks at her, his eyes roaming over the profile of her face, taking her in as if committing whatever it is that he sees to memory.

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"I know," Kylo Ren finally answers.

So Rey turns away from the force and their connection, and is alone.

[wheeler-things]

God, I have so many Mike-centric au thoughts for fics I don't know if I will ever have the strength to write, HELP.

(Fair warning that they get progressively more angsty because I don’t know how to be chill and the last one talks about, like, identity loss/theft and kidnapping in a messed up horror fae/changeling context)

Like...

Mike as Spiderman au.

-El's powers are a little different in this universe, so she was born with the ability to open portals into and out of a hellscape/pocket outside of reality known as the Upside Down, but when she opens a portal out, she can open it to anywhere she has a clear picture of in her mind. She was raised in the lab, though, and experimented on so she has other abilities like her canon telekinesis.

-When she's, like, 15, she sees a photo or postcard from New York and escapes the lab to go there-- unknowingly carrying a different test subject, a spider with unique abilities and even more unique venom, along with her.

-It drops off her somewhere in NY, and ends up biting Mike while he's out with the Party at some point.

-Lucas finds out that Mike's Spiderman pretty quickly because he's Mike's next door neighbour in this one and at some point notices Spiderman sneaking into and out of Mike's window at weird hours. Meanwhile, El gets adopted by Hopper, becomes a superhero in her own right, and then gets adopted into the Byers family when Hopper and Joyce get together.

-Will finds out about El being a super hero through being her brother, so now both he and Mike are keeping secrets from one another and both very quickly realizes the other is hiding something, and both are worried about the other and also annoyed due to miscommunication.

-Max finds out about Mike because Lucas cannot lie effectively to her (he tried his best but she figured it out pretty fast) AND she's the first person El tells the truth to voluntarily. So there's a period of time when she's the only one who knows everything and she's desperately begging Mike and Will to Just Talk.

-Meanwhile, Mike and El are becoming besties-- but as their superhero alter-egos, without knowing the other person's civilian identity.

-All of this culminates in Will being kidnapped and Spiderman and Eleven (aka El as a hero whose hero name I haven't worked out yet) go to rescue him, both believing he was kidnapped because of them (El because of her past and the fact that he's her brother and Mike because of the fact that he's Spiderman and dared to have feelings for Will), but the twist is that Will was actually kidnapped for his own latent abilities.

-The truth is revealed, and Mike, Will, and El become a superhero team together.

-Also, Nancy is Mike's Uncle Ben equivalent because I'm mean.

Mike as Black Jack Geary in a stupid The Lost Fleet inspired au.

-This is self-indulgent about Mike as a master tactician/being a good leader. I'm not recommending that anyone read The Lost Fleet it's got major flaws and I consume it like junk food, but I do think Mike in Geary's general position would be fun.

-So, like... in the far, far future, long after humans have colonized a plethora of planets throughout the galaxy, some interplanetary federations are starting to clash.

-Enter: Mike Wheeler. When he's, like, 17, war breaks out between his federation and another. And he wouldn't go to fight in it, but... his best friend gets conscripted (NOT WILL-- Will comes up later as do the rest of the Party so this would probably be an OC unless I decided to be really mean... ooo or I could be mean and make it Barb, and she dies in the very first encounter with the enemy and Mike's stuck in the contract he signed just to be with his friend because he outlives her), and Mike signs up to follow them into combat because... Mike is nothing if not a caring friend.

-Unfortunately, Mike's, like, canonically actually a really skilled tactician, collected under pressure, and has the kind of personality that makes others want to follow/respect him. All of which means that he sees a lot of combat and, because it's wartime, also gets promoted really quickly.

-Like, two or three years later, when he's a lieutenant thanks to at least one battlefield promotion, he's on a ship doing some sort of supply run technically past enemy territory, but not expecting to run into any danger-- except there's some sort of ambush/trap, and everything starts going wrong. Most of the fleet jumps away, but Mike's ship is too badly damaged to make any jumps. And all the higher ups on the ship either died or abandoned to try and make it to one of the other ships before they disappeared.

-So it's just Mike with a couple other Lieutenants, some junior officers, and a bunch of enlisted soldiers. And Mike is who he is, so he takes control of the situation, and figures out that he can rig the ship's self destruct to basically use it as a massive explosive device... but because the systems are so damaged, someone has to manually tell it to destruct. And he's one of the people on the ship who's actually decent at making the calculations on exactly when to time attacks for, in the context of relativity and the vastness of space/slow speed of spaceborn combat.

-So he gets everyone else on the ship to evacuate (also hoping they'll get away from the blast), and self-sacrifices, essentially. But there's an inherent delay between hitting the manual self destruct and it actually happening, and all the escape vessels are gone, but there are a few cryo pods left, so he gets himself set up in one because... he's just defaulting to training at this point (and also... he knows he won't survive this, and it's just a call of how he's going to die)... he knows it'll eject him into space and protect him from the void, in theory until he can be picked up, but he also knows that there's a very good chance he won't make it far enough away and will be exploded along with everything else. And even if he's not... who's going to look for him, just some random Lieutenant, all the way out here?

-100 years go by and the war keeps on going, but Mike Wheeler becomes a household name. He's been posthumously promote to Captain. Everyone knows the story of how Captain Michael Wheeler sacrificed himself to strike the first major blow against the enemy (yeah, uh, Mike's plan? Worked better than he had expected it to).

-There are also legends that the government/military 100% participate in actively spreading, which suggest that Mike will come back to life (a la King Arthur legends) in order to help finally end the war.

-Mike's sibling (just a random OC in this universe because I have a better use for Nancy and Holly) had a daughter (Karen), who was all but forced to join the military because... well, she was a Wheeler, and the Wheeler name mattered, by then. And then she got married to a man who took her last name (because this is the future and also... why would anyone NOT want to be associated with Captain Michael Wheeler? Ted did it for the status that's what I'm saying). And then she had kids. And those kids are expected to live up to the Wheeler family name as well.

-By this point, Nancy's 24, and already the Captain of a ship (there are lots of deaths, and Nancy's... well, she's a Wheeler and that has a lot of pressure and downsides to it, but it also means that if she can just keep herself up to that higher standard, she also gets special treatment). Basically, she's in a similar position to s1 Nancy, except instead of being expected to find a good husband and settle down to have a family, she's expected to live up to the family name and do well in the military.

-The enemy faction asks for a talk for peace, and Admiral Hopper is asked to lead a fleet of ships to the appointed place WELL behind enemy lines so that peace negotiations can be had.

-In order to get to this location, Hopper goes past the historic site where Mike made his last stand... and as they do so, they pick up a very weak distress signal from what appears to be a cryo pod.

-They bring it aboard Lucas' ship (he's been very newly made a Captain of only 20-- Max is the Captain of a different, much smaller and thus much faster/more nimble ship and they're totally flirting in their off hours, Will's... man, the absolute desire to make him something in the Intelligence division on Lucas' ship 100% because of the canon Spy stuff, and Dustin is in Engineering probably on one of the big, slow ships that are basically mobile ship repair stations), because that's the ship Hopper's taken as his flagship.

-They open the pod and goddamned Captain Michael Wheeler's inside, back from the dead. The pod was failing but it still had enough power to keep him alive and unharmed. It only would have lasted another year or two before totally shutting down and killing him fully. This feels like fate.

-Mike is absolutely disoriented and deeply upset and confused about the fact that he not only somehow survived but now is a century in the future, everyone he knew and loved is dead, the war is still happening, and somehow he's been turned into some sort of demigod-war hero hybrid that everyone is staring at in total awe. Also, people keep calling him Michael and it's honestly super uncomfortable-- he keeps trying to tell everyone that it's fine and he just goes by Mike, but no, apparently everyone knows him as Michael and that's what they all call him. Honestly, he starts getting along with Lucas, Will, and Hopper because they're the main three people who are treating him vaguely normally.

-They get to the peace talks, and Hopper plus all of the other higher officers go in close for negotiations, while just a small part of the fleet is left further away. This includes Lucas' ship, and with it, Mike. Also Max's ship and Dustin's.

-But then peace talks turn out to be a trap, and Hopper is "killed" (actually taken hostage a la s3 but shhh), and all the other high officers are also disposed of, and the ships that got into targeting range are destroyed in a matter of moments by some new weapon (the new weapon turns out to have something to do with El and her powers ofc and, yes, eventually she will be picked up by the Party and the rest of their fleet, and, yes, she and Mike are going to bond and become friends due to some of the overlap in their stories in this au).

-So it's literally just 1/3 of the fleet including the slowest and least well protected ships. And nobody is ranked higher than Captain in this whole bunch. And they're all having a holo meeting and bickering about what to do and nobody's taking charge, and Lucas insisted that Mike should be there because he's also a Captain, even though Mike doesn't feel like a Captain because he definitely didn't earn that promotion. But it's Mike. And he's already thinking up a plan. So he steps up and takes charge and gives his suggestion-- and nobody likes it much, but some people are willing to follow him because of who he is and blind faith in his legend, and there are a few Captains (ie. Lucas, Max in this particular moment though she'll be more argumentative with Mike later on, some others) who actually think it through and agree with Mike on the tactical merits of his plan, and there are a large majority who dislike the plan and dislike Mike on principle/inherently distrust his ideas, and the only way Mike gets them to follow is by pulling rank because TECHNICALLY he's been a Captain for 100 years so, like... TECHNICALLY he should actually be in charge but, like... also he was in a cryo pod that whole time so it's a very tenuous grasp of leadership over this fleet.

-Mike gets them away from that specific part of the universe, but they're FAR behind enemy lines, and it's a long, LONG trek back to friendly space, and the whole time Mike is painfully aware that if he messes up his tactics/if he's ever less than five steps ahead of the enemy in his mind, people are going to die on his orders, and existing this far in the future is DISORIENTING when just earlier this week, from his POV, he was in his own time. And all the while, he has to deal with people internally questioning his plans and/or outright disobeying/refusing to respect his authority (which he doesn't actually like for its own sake, but SOMEONE needed to take charge, and if he could pass this all off to Lucas, he'd do it in a heartbeat, but he CAN'T because, unfortunately, the only person with some semblance of hope to maintain any control is the guy with a legend built for him by the military itself).

-Yes, I do imagine this all ending with the Party having to do something drastic in order to protect El from both sides, but I don't have that figured out lol

-Also, yes, it would inherently be dealing with how screwed up the whole situation is for everyone. I’m incapable of writing military plots without them turning into anti-military/war plots.

Mike as a Changeling Fae Prince au.

-Okay, look. This is totally fae horror and I'm sticking with that.

-Instead of the Upside Down, Hawkins is near a border between the human world and the fae world.

-The Queen of the Unseelie Court has a child, and, as the fae are wont to do, decides that she would like for him to be raised in the mortal world because that's seen as the Thing To Do. Plus, it will hide the child from the Seelie Court's sights until he's old enough to be able to stand his ground against them, should they set their sights on harming him (or... charming him, as the case may be).

-So she glamours him to look like a human child, and exchanges him for the recently born human baby, Michael Wheeler. The human child will be raised in the Court, and well cared for (though... they're fae and this is a human so... "well cared for" in the way that a beloved pet is well cared for). The fae baby is, thus, raised as Mike Wheeler, son of Ted and Karen Wheeler, brother of Nancy and Holly Wheeler. Basically... he's a changeling.

-As Mike (the changeling) grows up, he's clumsy. He's awkwardly tall and lanky for his age. He has strange dreams that he can't quite remember when he wakes up. Sometimes he knows things in ways which seem uncanny to others. Other times, he gets angry and he glares with this expression as cold and unyielding as death itself, and it's a terrifyingly ancient expression on such a young face. He's just... off putting to other people, and as a result, struggles to make friends.

-Until he meets Will!! Just like in canon, Mike asks to be Will's friend, and Will agrees. Everything after that proceeds much like in canon.

-However, the Seelie Court realizes where the Unseelie prince has been deposited sometime just before November 6, 1983. Their operatives start spying on him, and they realize that he has a particular fondness for one Will Byers, among all three of his closest friends.

-Will is kidnapped into the faerie world, and things proceed like in canon.

-Except that Will's fake body is actually filled with sawdust as a reference to the myths where changelings were sometimes just logs glamoured to look like a person and that's basically what his body is.

-During this time, El is also found. She still has powers, but in this scenario, her powers are a result of the fact that Brenner got a hold of a previous changeling from a lesser house of one of the Courts (Henry Creel), and realized that he wasn't human, so used him to create a series of experiments with superhuman abilities, including El.

-However, I highly suspect that if El hadn't stepped in at the quarry, Mike would not have died anyway because I'm very sure something as pedestrian as a fall off a tall cliff into still, dark waters cannot kill the prince of a fae court.

-Eventually, at the end of the week, Will is found-- NOT in faerie, but in the woods around Hawkins. He has no memory of ever being anywhere else, though his dreams are troubled, and everyone sort of just goes along with it.

-Over time, things keep happening, and eventually everyone finds out about the fae world (maybe around the time of s3? Maybe instead of the Russian plot, we get more of El's backstory at that time and get more info out of Brenner... idk), and this leads to the Party going into faerie to try and learn more.

-During which time, they come to the horrible realization that Will is not the Will they grew up with. He was originally an enterprising young fae (still a child, still just the same age as the human Will Byers and, thus, just about the right size to glamour into looking like him), who, possibly to get out of some worse punishment or to help his family or any number of reasons, agreed to have his entire identity overwritten with that of the young, stolen, Will Byers' identity.

-So Will is still... Will, in mentality. But his body is that of a member of the Seelie Court, and his eyes allow the royals of the Seelie Court to look through them and watch as the Unseelie Prince grows, so they can decide on how they want to handle him.

-This gets all the more confusing when the Party eventually encounters the original Will Byers-- in that he's physically Will. But his memories and identity are totally gone, totally input into the new Will. And it's this whole thing about, like, what makes a person who they are, and all that.

-And of course it causes conflict.

-I don't really have all of this one worked out by any means, but I find the general concept intriguing.

-Spooky, messed up fae stuff is always fun for me, personally. And changelings are endlessly fascinating in my head.

-All I really know is that this would be dark and might not have the happiest of endings.

-I need to think about this one more, but it's very new and isn't based on preexisting material, so it takes time, but the general concept makes my brain light up because I'm fascinated by it.

-Alternate option: it is the real Will who makes it back and the reason he was so malnourished was because he couldn’t eat anything without being stuck in faerie forever.

[morethanonepage]

super-happilydancing replied to your post: dear r*ylos:

I’m not a Reylo but I do think it’s extremely possible they were friends as kids. Or maybe frenemies.

nah

[creepy-spooghetti]

Can we get an S/O who’s got the exact same birthday as BEN? Considering I share the same bday as him🙏

haha, that's so cool <3

Ben Drowned w/ a s/o who shares the same birthday

Oh, there would be a party for sure.

He would find it absolutely awesome that you were born on the same day that he was and would wave it around like a flag.

He's also convinced that such a coincidence isn't a coincidence at all and is, in fact, further proof that the two of you were destined to be together.

Although he doesn't need to eat to survive, good luck stopping him from devouring everything within his path like a dinosaur. This calls for celebration, after all!

And knowing Ben, there will be many, many choices because - speaking simply - he loves food.

Only the ones he deems 'cool' will be invited, even though it literally takes place in the living room, and if somebody that wasn't on his mental list happens to show up, they will be shooed away with a kind shock to the buttocks. More than likely, they will leave after that, because someone seldom wants to end up being unable to sit down.

Perhaps a bit unconventional but hey, they won't listen to him any other way. At least he has something to use against them.

And since he is a ghost, it's a little hard to retaliate.

Expect to have party games galore.

Pin the tail on the donkey, spin the bottle, seven minutes in heaven, beer pong. Anything you could think about or ever desire to play, it will be there.

Also sick jams will be playing loudly through the speakers that he definitely didn't steal from Amazon.

Ben doesn't know the first thing about dancing but he will try.

And proceed to look like an idiot.

But as long as the both of you are having fun, who cares?

He certainly doesn't. The majority of the Manor's residents already think poorly about him, anyway.

In short, it will be chaotic, but a good time will surely be had. Just help him plan it and everything will be fine (hopefully). After all, this is as much your party as it is his, and he wants you to feel included!

After you've tuckered yourselves out, and everyone has left, he will probably challenge you to a gaming war, insisting that he'd beat you without any effort. Then he will fall asleep on your shoulder.

Cute lil' bean boi.

[phoenixyfriend]

Uncle Ben and Little Luke

AKA we combine several types of time travel for maximum Soft Chaos, let’s go

EDIT NOW THAT I’VE WRITTEN THIS UP: jfc this ended up much angstier than initially intended uhhhhhhhhhh sorry

So a common enough thing I’ve seen in time travel fics is characters getting de-aged when tossed back physically, to neither the age they should be in that time, nor the age they were from the time they left, but whatever is most convenient. This is usually de-aging OT Obi-Wan into his TCW self, for reasons relating to, chiefly, removing the damage of Tatooine absolutely destroying his body alongside PTSD-driven alcoholism, but also because fic writers are horny, and Ewan McGregor playing a late-thirties negotiator is on average more appealing to people than Alec Guinness playing a vaguely feral desert hermit.

So, here’s how it plays out:

We take Luke and Ben from some point in the OT. There are a variety of options depending on how angsty we want it to be. My first instinct is ‘right after Owen and Beru die’ but I want to have that sweet angst where Luke knows that his dad is Vader and that Obi-Wan was trying to convince him to kill his own father without telling him that.

We’ll go with shortly after Bespin, and then they end up significantly before TPM. The Obi-Wan of the timeline proper is, eh, let’s say eighteen. Not really ready to be a knight, but old enough that we don’t have to worry about “if we go save Shmi, do we somehow wipe out Anakin?” which is absolutely a worry. Anakin is a toddler, and is in no place to be evil, on account of being literally two years old. He can’t even explode people with his brain yet.

Now, Ben finds himself mid-thirties, as is traditional. He’s not upset at this, because his joints hurt so much less than they used to! His knees aren’t exactly teenage-perfect, but by the Force are they better than they were in the years before he died! His hair has color! He doesn’t have arthritis! And, goodness, no physical withdrawal symptoms! The psychological aspect is still there, but nonetheless, he’s in much better shape than he last remembers being.

Luke looks like he’s about six. He was recently twenty-two. This is not an upgrade. Ben keeps having to carry him. He can’t see over the counter when they enter a bar for information. He can’t enter the bar in the first place. He’s very annoyed by all of this.

Ben is not annoyed. Ben is having a lot of emotions, actually, but annoyance isn’t one of them. He didn’t get to help raise Luke the way he might have if Anakin hadn’t lost his shit, okay, he sees a small Luke and he wants to hug him and cry.

Luke would like to be able to purchase a speeder part without the lady at the stall asking him if he needs his “dad’s” permission.

Once they figure out when and where they are, they need to decide where and how to leave. There are general shenanigans to gamble their way into enough money to hire a ship. They are in the ass end of nowhere, but definitely not Tatooine. There appears to be a jungle. There appears to be a significant variety of man-eating creatures. There appears to be a temple to the Force of questionable origin. None of this is actually helpful, except for the moment they find a “baby’s first lightsaber” in the temple.

Luke only has one hand and, being a six-year-old, his body is growing too fast for him to bother with getting a wired-in prosthesis the way he could as an adult. He can get a more basic prosthesis, but nothing that attaches to the neurons. He’ll outgrow it too fast.

He’s tiny and he’s not used to doing things with just one hand. He uses the Force to do what one hand can't, and every time someone tries to tell him he's misusing the Force he whaps them with the empty sleeve.

So, you know, they find out what year it is. Ben has a breakdown. Luke is upset that he left behind his friends. Ben admits to him that Leia was his twin. Luke stares in horror because dude, she kissed him, you couldn’t have mentioned this earlier???

Ben points out that Beru and Owen were keeping Luke away from him for nineteen years, and then they had about three days of awkward travel to find Leia in the first place, and then Ben died. He didn’t have a whole lot of time to figure out how to tell him.

(This sparks an argument that lasts several days. All onlookers assume that Ben’s son is throwing a tantrum. He doesn’t correct them, even though this is a very valid reason to be upset, because the truth is much harder to explain.)

Sooooo they travel. Mostly, Ben plays Sabacc, cleans house, and pays their way towards Coruscant. Luke still really wants to learn to be a Proper Jedi, even though Ben is pretty sure that Luke would have... a lot of difference of opinion with the Temple, but sure. Coruscant. They can at least stop by, and see Qui-Gon, and Mace, and Quinlan, and Bant, and everyone else that’s still alive and not tragically deceased in the horror following the start of the Clone Wars and then the birth of the Empire, and Ben can have a nice sob over all his dead friends being alive again.

Ben is only barely holding it together while Luke is in the room with him at any given point. But it’s fine! It’s fine. He’s fine. All of his loved ones have come back to life! It’s great! HE’S FINE.

He is not fine.

Luke is also grieving all the people who haven’t been born yet, but he’s... significantly more okay than Ben is.

The closer they get to the Core, the more often people just assume Ben is Luke’s father, and then look shocked and uncomfortable when Luke flatly calls him by his name, and they just... compromise. This is the point at which Luke starts calling him “Uncle Ben.”

Ben cries in his bunk later that night. Luke overhears it and wonders how the HELL Ben is more unstable now, when there’s a chance to fix things and no Vader or Empire trying to kill or capture both of them, and all his friends are alive.

(Luke will later learn a lot about PTSD and realize this is actually a fairly normal situation, to process significant events and emotions only after gaining safety or catharsis.)

(Twenty years on a ball of sand with an alcohol addiction and debilitating fear of the man you raised as your own brother is not, in fact, safe or cathartic.)

At any rate, they’ve settled into that pattern by the time they reach the Inner Rim. The Inner Rim is the part of the galaxy at which they’ve collected enough money (and mental stability) to travel a little better, and to take a few more risks.

Risks like “manipulate people with those baby blues.”

Ben tells Luke that he’s a menace, after he pouts so cutely that he gets a free scarf added on to a purchase that Ben makes. Luke responds that Ben has no room to talk, since he flirted a free breakfast out of that one inn owner.

Also, Luke is currently physically six. That is objectively a situation that sucks. He deserves to use it for all it’s worth if he’s stuck like this.

“You know, if you keep wearing all-black and looking longingly at the velvet cape and Space Chanel boots, the temple is going to worry that you’re a darksider.”

“Uncle Ben... you told me, yesterday, that I sparkle so brightly in the Force that it’s almost blinding.”

“Yes, but the gloves--”

They don’t agree on this, but Ben relents. He does actually understand good fashion, unfortunately, and he’s not unaware of how much Leia taught Luke about such things.

Luke’s about forty years ahead of the curve, of course, but Skywalkers are prone to such things. It’s usually in regards to technology, granted, but...

They get to Coruscant. Ben is very obviously a Jedi. He knows all the right words and walks like a Soresu master and feels warm and comforting in the Force. They let him in with minimal questions. They note down “my first padawan left the order to have a child, but died shortly after; I consider Luke here to be my nephew, and have raised him as such,” and move on.

Luke is vaguely annoyed because he already had an uncle (and aunt) that raised him, but he admits that a person can have more than one uncle. He can live with this. Ben was more family to Anakin than Owen was, in some ways, so it’s kind of true. Luke is even working on feeling more childish affection for Ben instead of the complicated mess of emotions that come from being lied to about some very large and important subjects, and then seeing the person saying those lies have regular emotional breakdowns due to something as small as Luke saying he likes the curve of the hull on that freighter.

(Apparently he sounds just like his father did as a child. This is almost heartwarming.)

The thing is! The thing. The thing is, they almost make it to the Halls of Healing to get looked over for weird viruses, or Outer Rim Parasites, or whatever the hells needs to be happening. They almost make it without Ben having a flashback to dead younglings or brainwashed troopers or the declaration of a Sith Empire. They almost make it without incident.

Then Ben sees Qui-Gon, and freezes, and does not move again.

Luke cannot get him to restart.

People are staring.

They haven’t even made it to Medical, Uncle Ben, come on.

Young, local Obi-Wan comes over and asks if there’s something he can do to help. Or maybe this “Ben” knows Qui-Gon? Master Jinn doesn’t recognize Ben, but maybe Luke knows more?

Luke does know more, but what Luke actually says is “he probably needs a mind healer.”

(Ben will not appreciate this.)

(Ben is unfortunately standing in the middle of the hallway and completely unresponsive, and is unable to argue with this assertion.)

(Ben is pretty much proving this assertion entirely correct, actually.)

Obi-Wan is helpful, if a little bitchy in the manner of most late-teens individuals, and offers to help get Uncle Ben down to the Halls of Healing. It involves Obi-Wan gently pushing on Ben’s shoulders, and Qui-Gon offering to carry Luke so he can be in Ben’s sights (because Ben is a Mystery, and Qui-Gon is quite fond of those, so he wants to stay involved). Ben kind of just... shuffles on down.

There are medical tests. They ask about how Luke lost his hand. He refuses to talk about it. They ask how Ben got all his scars. Luke says he doesn’t know. They ask if he knows why Ben looks like he’s been through a war. Luke says it’s because he probably was.

They check for foreign viruses. They find evidence of thus-far-unpatented vaccinations. They ask Luke if he knows what he’s vaccinated for.

“How would I know? I’m six.”

They agree that this is a good excuse.

(It is not. He’s lying. They do not know this.)

They do some more tests. They find a lot of questionable medical bullshit in Ben’s body. Most of this is from the clone wars, but they don’t know this. Someone realizes they haven’t gotten a ping back from the Shadow Network regarding “do we have permission to pull the medical file of a Jedi that isn’t in the normal database? We’re assuming you know who he is, since we don’t.”

The Shadow Network does not know who Ben is.

The healers, of course, go “huh, that’s weird, but maybe the name he gave his nephew was fake. We can’t exactly ask ‘Ben’ for more details right now. We already had to sedate him. Let’s check the DNA!”

The DNA pulls up as Obi-Wan Kenobi.

The padawan who brought this guy in two hours ago.

“Huh, that’s weird. Let’s call in Kenobi and ask if he knows what’s going on.”

Obi-Wan absolutely does not know what’s going on.

They ask Luke.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he says, lying through his teeth and not even pretending otherwise.

“You’re not a very good liar,” teenage Obi-Wan tells him.

“I’m not trying to be,” Luke says. “Can you get Master Yoda? I feel like we’re going to need him.”

They normally wouldn’t get Yoda on the request of a six-year-old, but they also normally don’t have a catatonic thirty-something Jedi who looks like he’s been through a war popping up in the medical database as the pimply teenage padawan that broke his pinky trying to do a Badass Ataru Flip last week.

Or... whatever Luke i... is... oh dear.

“Young one,” Qui-Gon asks, while people whisper-shout behind him, not realizing he’s cutting the Correlian Knot and just asking the kid himself. “Do you know why your midichlorian count is so high? It’s almost unheard of.”

“Uncle Ben said my dad was the Chosen One,” Luke says, because he is capable of being a little shit and is actually really eager to let Ben deal with some of the fallout. He feels for the man, really, but he’s also tired of being the one to field every single question.

Also, the expressions that pass on Qui-Gon’s face are hilarious.

(Luke may or may not be more affected by his six-year-old brain than he would like to admit.)

“Thank you,” Qui-Gon says, sounding more than a little strangled about it.

It takes another three hours for Ben to wake up.

He listens to the questions. He hears what they say his ‘nephew’ said. He looks at Luke.

“Is this revenge for not telling you about Leia?”

“It’s not revenge,” Luke does not lie. “I just don’t know how to explain it.”

“It’s pretty easy to explain.”

“It’s not my secret.”

“This is revenge for the Leia thing.”

“No,” Luke says. “Revenge for the Leia thing was when I ate a live frog in front of you.”

This is the point at which someone interrupts and points out that they appear to be stalling.

“Oh, he is,” Luke tells them. He gestures at Ben. “I can’t tell you more, because it’s more his story than mine.”

“I’m afraid, Master, that I am very likely to have an emotional breakdown if I allow myself to consider the reality of this situation for longer than the fraction of a second I already have,” Ben reports, full of false cheer. “Suffice to say, I am far from stable and have only held out this far for Luke’s sake.”

“Can you explain why you have my DNA?” Obi-Wan asks, as the person who’s most concerningly involved in this situation.

“You can,” Ben says, smiling like there is absolutely nothing wrong in the slightest, ever. “I’m you, from the future. I actually died and spent a few years dead before coming back. I’m not sure why I’m younger than I was when I died, but I appreciate being able to put on my shoes without my knees attempting to mutiny.”

“He needs a mind healer,” Luke reiterates, in case the strained grin hasn’t made it clear. “So do I, but not as much.”

“I have felt literally every person in this Temple save for Luke and Yoda die,” Ben reports, looking a shade more manic than a few seconds earlier. “It’s very overwhelming to feel you all being alive again. I may be approaching a mental breakdown, and I’ve been rather strictly advised against using alcohol to treat my traumas again.”

Luke kicks him in the thigh. It’s not a very hard kick, because he is very small, and he does actually like Ben. “I’m not letting you turn into an old drunk again.”

After several seconds of silence, a healer quietly suggests that everyone clear the room, and asks if someone could fetch Master Yoda as the youngling requested.

(THIS IS ALMOST THREE THOUSAND WORDS. I started it less than two hours ago. Why am I like this.)