#their propaganda is falling keep it up comrades

[keepscrollinghun]

@alahamdan

[itsaboringname]

A couple of weeks ago I had a vision of a movie. It's norwegian, about the death of Swedish king Charles XII as he tried to conquer Norway as a consolation prize after fumbling his empire. The Swedes are cruel, imperious, and disloyal. Several of them are masc afab (which is historical!!!!!!! They's the most famous example but there's a bunch more). Villages burn and the Darth Vader march etc.

Enter the protagonist. Queer prdigy marksman Jo, who wants nothing to do with the war. They wants to stay home in their valley with their gay sweetheart who they are out to, not die for the Danish king. The first part of the movie is about the ship. Then the war comes and Jo is drafted and doesn't manage to dodge it. Just as the swedish army approaches Jo tries to desert but they're caught.

As the siege sets in, Jo languishes in the cell and thinks about the villages they saw burning up the valley from the fortress. Thinks about the Swedish king who has tormented his own people and most of eastern and northern Europe for so many years. Thinks about their sweetheart back home, not knowing if they're allright or not. And they ask the captain to be given back their rifle. The captain agrees.

For a while there's a stalemate. Jo and the others keep their spirits up with defiance and rude songs. But things get worse.

The Swedish army is strong and there's no reinforcements coming any time soon. The reserves get eaten by rats. There's a flu. Everything is awful. This goes on for some time. Maybe there's some scenes of Swedes being cruel imperialists.

Jo is on watch, peering out across the field at the distant figures by the Swedish trench. It's not uncommon to see the king inspecting the frontline. They do say that he loves nothing other than the cannonball. But this day, the wind is from a certain angle and Jo thinks back to their childhood. Their old grandmother who taught them how to shoot. Taught them tricks to use the wind to reach longer and shoot around obstacles (total mumbo jumbo pay it no mind, this is about the anti-swedish propaganda and shutting up the nay-sayers who say the shot couldn't have come from the fortress).

They line up their shot. For the first time in 10 years they say a prayer. And bang.

Over at the Swedish line, a group of soldiers are debating murdering the king. "He's going to starve us and strand us here over winter, we have to do something!" One mutters to another as the man wanders by above their muddy trench. "Shut up, you'll get yourself killed!" Says the second. "We'll talk about this later" says the third meaningfully (she's the very imposing butch woman who none of the officers dares to question the gender of).

Then there is an audible "plopp!" sound and they all look over. With a look of surprise, the king of Sweden falls down dead.

Then there's roses and liberated villagers coming back out of the forests and patriotic Norwegian folks song as the Swedish bastards slink off to die in the blizzard on the mountain. Jo refuses to claim the deed, wanting only to go back home to their valley and live in peace with their dearest. But their comrades in arms know.

Then maybe there's a gay little epilogue just to round things off, if there's time.

I would be so happy if that movie existed! I could watch it and really *seethe* at my damnable country while it also being very gay, best of two worlds 😌

[serenfire]

attention, anyone who cares about the witcher s3's character's motivations with regards to the books but who hasn't then read time of contempt, here is a post for you!

here's some interesting differences between the book and show characters, especially in ep 5 (spoilers for the witcher s3 so far and the books):

since yennefer does not have her s2 beef w aretuza subplot, none of the mages are her direct enemies, and she is a member of the lower circle of leadership within the brotherhood, called the council, with philippa and 3 others who are not in the show. she is also not the one who calls the conclave; she finds out about it while bringing ciri to aretuza, and attends with geralt so that they can draw out the mage who is backing rience. in the book, they're trying to convinced everyone that ciri died at cintra, and haven't been together since then to keep up the illusion, so going to aretuza together will draw out the mage who knows ciri exists and is trying to kill her

vilgefortz is, firstly, the hero of sodden in the books. he's the war hero against nilfgaard, and one of the leaders of the brotherhood. he's also (spoilers for probably the second half of s3) working for nilfgaard now, and not in the way that s1 portrays where he kills his comrade on the battlefield after the battle's over, but in an "even the hero of sodden who singlehandedly saved the north from nilfgaard wants power enough to ally with his enemy" way.

he is the leader of the chapter, which is the highest circle of leadership of the brotherhood. tissaia and francesca findabair are also members, as well as artaud terranova (guy who falls over the champagne glass table in ep 5). in ep 5 he recounts his backstory to geralt, some of it word-for-word, except for an important part: as part of his backstory, he fell in love with an unnamed mage before becoming a sorcerer, and after breaking up with her, decided he should pursue magic. he and tissaia are not together! i cannot stress this enough, in the books the mages are powered by their individual searches for power, and love does not tie them together! it's what sets yen apart: she's one of the only ones willing to sacrifice for another.

FRANCESCA FINDABAIR. member of the chapter/high ranked aretuza member, in the book shows up to the conclave party early, stirring up the northern vs nilfgaardian sentiments by being there. wild that she hasn't appeared there in the show yet. her motives in the show are WHACK. in the books she did not have a baby and did not say she wants to genocide the humans (although that is propaganda against her): she leads the scoia'tael to fight for nonhuman freedom and allies herself with nilfgaard to continue to fight the north, and she will receive a free land for the elves (dol blathanna) in return for the scoia'tael being branded as war criminals and outlawed. in the books she is the catch-22 of stuck between a rock and a hard place: allying with imperialism will save her people but gut her guerilla soldiers who fought for it.

philippa eilhart is so far the best-written character this season (to me) because she is one of the only characters who everyone knows is seeking for power (in the book she's referred to as the one who's really on the redanian throne, backed by dijkstra) and she, directly, says that she's looking to keep power in the north. in the books, most if not every mage's motivations are for power, whether in a king's court or by allying with nilfgaard, and the imperial machinations are what the politics in the books are about, so having a character not be preoccupied with interpersonal reasons and instead directly embody this is refreshing!

however! in the books philippa's position is anti-nilfgaardian invasion, not anti-brotherhood. she's pitted against vilgefortz, who's allied with nilfgaard, instead of against him because he's a leader of the brotherhood. the brotherhood as an institution isn't interrogated as a state (unlike the northern kingdoms and nilfgaard), and her specific grievances against other court mages have to do with the fact that almost every kingdom is goading nilfgaard to attack so they can attack back and vie for power. she's also got redania on a lockdown by killing vizimir right before the conclave party and i don't know how this will play out in the show considering radovid exists as well

also in the books radovid is vizimir's son who ascends to the throne after philippa and dijkstra kill vizimir, and (in the games) he makes it his life mission to kill philippa. he does not physically show up in time of contempt and adding him into the show as vizimir's brother 1) crunches the timeline down to a period of time that makes a bit more sense than the books and 2) allows the show to make up the funniest fucking subplot with jaskier. oh my god none of that happened in the books but wouldn't it have been hilarious. jaskier hooking up with the sweet and sensitive younger prince who's a fan of his music and then smash cut to twelve hours later and he's the fucking king of redania. the comedy potential is unmatched

[episodeoftv]

Round 1 of 8, Group 1 of 8

propaganda and summaries are under the cut (May include spoilers)

Dexter's Laboratory: 1.09 Dollhouse Drama/The Justice Friends: Krunk's Date/The Big Cheese

"The Big Cheese" was submitted

Dexter grows suspicious about why Dee Dee did not enter his lab. He shrinks himself and sneaks into Dee Dee's room to find her playing with a dollhouse. Dexter becomes an unwilling character in Dee Dee's soap opera, thinking it's real, due to the shrink ray's side effects causing him to mix fantasy and reality. / Krunk falls in love with She-Thing, one of Comrade Red's cronies that appears to be a female variant of himself. / Dexter forgets to study for a French test he has the next day as he works in his lab. To mitigate this, he uses the Subconscious Discographic Hypnotator, an invention that allows him to learn French as he sleeps. The record, however, repeats the phrase "omelette du fromage", making it the only thing Dexter can say.

Omelette du fromage. Need i say more? THE omelette du fromage episode. I remember exactly nothing about dexter besides this one omelette du fromage subplot. It is ICONIC. For me. Personally. Any many others since i keep seeing the meme around i guess. Dexter forgot to study french for a test and sets up a brain audio thing to hear french lessons all night through sleep so he'll learn it unconsciously, but it gets stuck and only plays the sentence "omelette du fromage" all night. Cue to the next day, the only sencence he can speak is, you guessed it, omelette du fromage, which somehow becomes the answer to any and all questions, making him popular with girls, his peers, and teachers. What can i say, omelette du fromage.

Ghosts (2019): 2.04 The Thomas Thorne Affair

cw there is a gun duel

A discovery in the house leads Thomas to go down memory lane, but as Alison comes to realise, memory and reality don't always go hand-in-hand when ghostly witnesses are eager to tell their own versions of events.

[holly-fixation]

Three... Guards? Ch 9

Summary: Tifa finds Cloud at the train station in Sector Seven. It’s the first time she’s seen him in seven years. But he’s not alone. Three silver haired boys protected him. Three silver haired boys that triggered memories of her hometown. Of steel through her chest. Of SOLDIER First Class. Of Him.

This is their chance to do things right. To protect everyone.

Please Enjoy!

Inspired by the prompt by @im-totally-not-an-alien

Chapter 9: New and Familiar

Sector Five's pillar stood just as tall as Sector Seven's, but the view of the untouched under-city churned Strife's core as helicopters flew to each support of the upper-city. 

He wasn't supposed to be here. This wasn't supposed to happen. 

Strife prayed his theory was correct. He hoped against everything he knew of the Shinra Electric Power Company that putting himself in place of the destruction they craved could save thousands of lives. He hoped his presence on this pillar did not immediately send orders to detach another. He hoped they would do the right thing for once in their greedy lives.

As he sprinted up the stairs, he couldn't help but glance at the only garden under Midgar, the waterfall and flowers still perfectly pristine. The only location in ten miles with any connection to The Planet. 

He only hoped whatever his comrades, his enemies, and… well, himself were doing in Shinra HQ was going well. As for him, he reached the control platform just as the Shinra helicopter landed.

Now Strife stood face to face with Tseng, the leader of the Turks. He almost sighed in relief. If there was any chance he could keep every plate from falling, it was through negotiation with this particular Turk.

“You’re the one that intercepted Reno and Rude.” Tsung held his arms behind his back, scanning his enemy. “I must say, that is no easy feat. But your string of luck ends here.”

Strife clenched his jaw before slowly raising both of his hands, deliberately forcing stability into his voice. “I surrender. But only if you leave every plate standing.”

“Excuse me?” Though keeping his face steady, this was clearly a surprise.

“You can use me to fulfill Shinra’s agenda without causing this needless destruction. Whatever advantage they’re looking for, whatever propaganda they’re attempting now, do it using me. But leave every pillar alone.”

“That’s a bold ask,” The suit nearly mocked. “We will not fail this time.”

Strife lowered his head. “Tseng, if anyone succeeds in this mission, I will permanently end your duty as head of the Turks without hesitation. It’s your choice. I understand Turks get things done. I’m giving you the option to do so without killing anyone.”

There was silence for a moment, thoughts and scenarios running through both of their minds. What could go right? What could go wrong? What could happen if pillars were left standing? Would the public still react? Would the president allow any change?

“One moment.”

Strife nodded.

The Turk turned his back and whipped out his phone. “We have a proposition offered. One that possibly knocks out a few birds at once without any deaths. Are you interested, Mr. President?”

* * * 

The executive meeting on the upper floors had just begun. The president, the head of weapons development, the head of security, the director of the space division, and even the head of the science department all sat in a single location. Secluded. Out of the way. Uniformed. 

But it was only a matter of time before security caught the party trying to force their way into the lab, as well as the meeting coming to its end all together. 

They needed to make a choice: enter the lab with Aerith as bait, break down the door with guns blazing and attracting every remaining shred of security to hunt them down, or risk following Hojo after the meeting through the entrance door and by doing so immediately giving the man with the most control over the lab the knowledge and possible weaponry to attack them and defend himself.

It wasn’t much of a choice. For some.

Cloud could not allow this, and the entire party argued in the hallways near the escalators. “Aerith, absolutely not-”

“Chadley said ‘potential specimens can enter the lab’. I can get the door open and we can go from there. I might even know the way!”

“You really think you can handle that, flower girl?” Barret interrupted. “If anything goes wrong, you’ll be in the same situation as the kid.”

“Barret’s right,” Tifa agreed as she held Aerith’s arm softly. “It’s incredibly dangerous.”

“We can’t just wait outside until someone leaves, that’s too suspicious.” Her green eyes flared with determination. “Hojo won't risk harming me, not seriously at least. We can use that against him.”

“Pray tell… what do you think will happen when that door opens…?” Yazoo questioned legitimately. 

“Two security bots try to capture me, Hojo immediately learns we're there, and we fight through the halls to find Kadaj. It's just one extra step, guys.” She gave them a true smirk. “We've got this.”

“We both know what Hojo is capable of. No we do not got this.”

Aerith insisted with small pouts, Cloud countered with anything he could remember from his time with Hojo, Barret admittedly refused, and Tifa kept expressing her worry. As they discussed, the two Remnants silently made their way next to each other, speaking lowly to avoid any outside detection. 

“Are you thinking what I'm thinking?” Loz whispered first. 

Yazoo nodded. “The president did say we belong in the labs…”

“So we can go through the door and find Brother!” The eldest finished with a victorious little jump, but his volume gained the eyes of the adults. They both looked down until Aerith explained another advantage to her side, to which all others began countering and parrying without delay. 

“Keep your voice down…”

Loz scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry…”

There was a pause as Yazoo thought. “It couldn't hurt to try, would it…?”

“I'll go first,” The larger one proclaimed confidently before striding to the door. 

“By all means…” The middle child gestured ahead before following behind. 

As the party debated, Loz took out one of the lower floor key cards and rapidly scanned to enter. Of course, this was met with buzzes of defiance at a constant pitch. After about fifteen scans, a red light activated above the door. A camera. The entire party glared at them now, Cloud roughly two seconds away from tackling the boy. The eldest brother ignored the attention and waved before tugging his hair and pointing to his eyes.

The door opened.

The middle sibling held his arm over the entrance to avoid automatic closing. 

No one spoke, the infuriated and worried pause impossible to avoid.

“You’re going to get yourselves killed,” Cloud scolded.

“Are you coming or not…?”

The door clicked in activation. No sensor obeyed the object in the way. Every one of them dashed through, barely making it as the lock snapped back into place.

“They know we’re here now,” Barret warned before anyone had the chance to move.

“So prepare for a fight…”

Loz grinned before popping his knuckles. Everyone followed suit with less enthusiasm, drawing blades, guns, and fists to the ready. They made their way up the stairs, Barret silently praying this was the last flight he’d see today. Through the poorly lit hallways, sealed doors which opened at their approach, and passed many miniature mako tanks, they spotted two scientists, lab coats and all.

However, neither professional attacked, only holding their hands in the air and pointing to the elevator with the folding metal gate.

“Tifa, stay back with the boys,” Cloud commanded, concerned by the immediate compliance of personnel. “Aerith, Barret, come ahead with me.”

“But, Big Brother-”

“No buts,” He snapped at the whining. “If you boys get hurt, it’s on me. If you two get captured because you refuse to listen, you will never hear the end of it from any of us. Am I clear?”

They took a step behind Tifa, looking down as they nodded. Tifa gave a soft nod in confirmation before watching the two scientists present. Cloud, Barret, and Aerith moved ahead, watching the various mako tanks with the occasional movement within.

“Keep your eyes on them.” Tanks filled with monsters were nothing new to Cloud, but he needed to be sure the rest of the group knew to prepare. Each clunk of the grates beneath their feets echoed off the walls of the lab, their march forward never stopping.

Despite Cloud’s concern, no monsters crawled out of containment. The group reached the gate and realized it was an elevator, pressing the button to open the door. Barret motioned the boys and Tifa over, and though the boys ran ahead, the woman couldn’t help but glance at the dog-like creature with a flame on its tail trapped within one of the clear containers, free of mako with no other freedoms in the world as it slept, its tail flicking in mindless patterns.

“Tifa, come on.”

Right. Strife’s warning. She needed to go ahead, to be the first person in every room to protect Cloud. And to an extent…to protect everyone. 

The darkness of the lab never ceased, not in the elevator and not on the second level. Tifa scanned ahead for the monster she was warned about, but the blond dashed past her. 

“Cloud!”

He didn't stop at the sound of Aerith's voice. He found their target. 

He found Kadaj. 

“Brother!” The boys shot ahead too. No enemies blocked their path. No monsters were released into the hallways or chambers. Still Barret chose to keep watch as the others ran to the child’s container.

Only his eyes met them. He was on his side, unable to lift his head, an unknown liquid pooled in front of him with dried trails on his skin and bandages. There was relief, ever so slightly on his face from seeing them, but his pain continued to consume his entire body.

“Barret-”

“I got you, boy. Stand back,” The older man didn’t even need to hear the plan to know what Cloud was thinking. Everyone backed up as Barret readied his gun arm and fired at the electronic lock. It sparked with disconnected electricity before the curved glass slid open to free the specimen from danger. Well, free in theory.

“I got him!” Aerith yelled as she kneeled at his side, a powerful healing spell growing between her prayer held hands. The two brothers stood back, staring in horror at their youngest’s frail state.

Kadaj gritted his teeth and opened his mouth.

“Don’t even try.” Cloud placed a hand on an uninjured section of his arm, denying a single word exit. “Let Aerith heal you first.”

He blinked slowly in affirmation before his inhuman eyes moved to the woman.

“Bless them with your love and grace,” Aerith whispered before raising a hand to the sky. Rings of green magic pulsed out of her with healing pedals filling the air, gusts of wind swirling around her body to the ceiling. Everyone felt a wave of relief as even the minorest of injuries suddenly mended.

But Kadaj shrieked the moment the spell hit him, his hoarse voice piercing through the rippled air. He tried to push away, to protect himself even as Cloud lifted and held him caringly like a child, trying to soothe the agony. Once the magic finally finished its course, his head of silver hair slumped against Cloud's sweater with raspy breaths, anguished exhaustion forcing him into silence with closed eyes in another desperate attempt at rest. Not a single wound on his little body healed.

“Why didn't it work…?” Cloud's voice was low and precarious. 

“I don't understand… He was fine when I healed him in Sector Five…”

“What did Hojo do to him?!” Barret's voice boomed. 

“We'll figure that out later…” Yazoo spoke up, using his cunning to keep a level head. “We need to get him out of here before Hojo returns…”

Cloud nodded, adjusting Kadaj as he stood, the boy hissing between breaths until all movement stopped.

“Loz, the elevator…”

“On it.” The eldest rushed through the room so fast a blue trail lagged before catching up with him as he pressed the button. But nothing happened, not even a glow in confirmation. “Uh, guys? It’s not responding? What do we do?!” They couldn’t climb down the shaft with Kadaj in his current condition. It was absolutely out of the question. 

“Don’t panic, Loz. There’s another way out of here. There has to be,” Tifa came right up behind him and held his shoulders softly. “We just need to look, okay?”

He nodded, accepting her words before he panicked.

Though looking wasn’t exactly difficult. The observation room protected by glass above captured everyone’s attention. 

“What’s that sound?” Loz asked out of nowhere.

“What sound? I don’t hear anything,” Tifa explained.

“Something must have escaped on the lower level… It sounds like claws…-?!” 

Rhythmic clanking grew closer and closer, even the non-enhanced members of the group able to hear its echo as whatever creature climbed rapidly. Barret and Yazoo aimed their firearms at the gap between the floor and the wall. Tifa, Aerith, and Loz guarded Cloud and Kadaj.

Suddenly a red and orange beast launched off the walls of the lab and landed in front of them, seemingly scanning them all before dashing through the glass of the observation chamber.

The boys looked at each other and shrugged as did Aerith before the group followed it through the side door. 

It galloped through the control room and down the hallway to another elevator. But this machine was different, a massive cylindrical structure rather than hidden in a nook. The beast halted before it crashed into the closed door, the smallest huff leaving it in defeat. Then it turned to the party with a low growl, slowly approaching them.

Again they stood on their guard, the brothers protecting Cloud as always, but Aerith held a hand to her side to ease them. “Stop.”

The creature leaned away from her touch as she stepped forward. 

“This child's a friend.” She delicately reached to place her hand on its head, and it eventually accepted her touch, the slighted sparkles of healing magic twinkling from her hand before she backed away. 

“What… is it?” Tifa questioned once it calmed down. 

“A fascinating question.”

Most of them stepped back, but the boys and Aerith stayed still. 

“Did it just talk?!”

It sat down, its tail flicking the small flame casually. “You asked what 'it' is. I am that which you see before you. Nothing more.” Its gaze turned stern to each one of them. “I'd appreciate it if we simply left it at that. Agreed?”

“Is that… a thirteen…?” Yazoo observed, reading the tattoo on the creature’s front leg: XIII.

“‘Red Thirteen.’ The designation given to me by Hojo.”

Tifa perked up ever so slightly. “Then...you must have another name. What is it?”

Red glanced down and away in reservation, like a child refusing to tell the truth.

“We should focus on getting out of here,” Cloud called them back on track before glancing at the creature. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Anything is better than this lab,” He affirmed.

“Then watch our backs.” Cloud stepped forward before he suddenly winced, clenching Kadaj close as weakness and headaches suddenly claimed him. The boy reacted to the same invisible force at the exact same time, grabbing the blond with all the strength in his damaged body. 

Aerith recognized the signs as Tifa yelled their names, quickly approaching and trying to take Kadaj out of Cloud's arms. But neither one of them acknowledged or noticed her, their vision trapped between flashes and echos. The boy was trapped in the SOLDIER’s hold.

“What's happening?!” Barret questioned as Cloud walked forward, two mako blue eyes flicking between the floor and the cylindrical elevator. 

“Brother!”

“Cloud!”

The resonating heartbeat and biting pain in their minds imprisoned them from their allies. 

Mother. I have come for you.

Both Cloud and Kadaj forced their eyes forward. They knew that voice well. All too well.

Mother. Together we can reclaim our world.

“Je…no…” Cloud didn’t notice the sounds leaving his lips. He kept stumbling. Kept reaching despite the boy’s similar groans of pain. 

Mother. They’re here again.

“Oh… Ah…” Stepping closer and closer to the source as the voice only grew louder and louder, each impact of his feet were silent within the cacophony of their minds. 

Only when they reached the elevator did the voice and chaos silence, but the heartbeat remained. Cloud carefully released one hand while keeping Kadaj balanced as he reached out to touch the elevator door.

Then it happened.

First the massive heart, veins and arteries connected with seals in a fruitless effort to resurrect the creature. Air bubbles emptying from the tank where the female-like body stood, a machined helmet attached to dozens of wires suspending the body upright. Their vision settled on exactly their heights, the legs and markings of the body claiming their sight completely.

Both spoke one word in sync before collapsing to the ground.

“Mo…ther…”

A chorus of ‘Cloud’ and ‘Brother’ went unheard as the party ran after the two. Thankfully, even in Cloud’s weakened and mindless state, he protected the boy, Kadaj’s unconscious body landing protectively into Cloud’s instead of crashing into the ground.

“What the hell just happened?!”

“We have to get them out of here,” Aerith avoided Barret’s question. 

“I can carry the blond,” Red stated as he approached around the bodies, sitting above their heads and refusing to move forward without permission.

Tifa tried to wake Cloud with soft shakes of his body, but nothing happened. 

“I'll get the kid.” Barret kneeled down next to them.

Finding that more people crowding around them was invasive rather than helpful, the two boys tested the new elevator. And once again, nothing happened. No indication. No click. No movement.

“We’re trapped…”

“It may seem that way, yes.” The sudden voice over the speakers claimed their full attention, everyone ready to fight. 

Hojo.

The meeting was over. They ran out of time.

“Ah, every one of my prized specimens appears at my door as I’m stuck explaining drivel to a bunch of neanderthals. Well at least you’re all here now.”

“Yeah! And we ain’t going down without a fight!” Barret cocked his weapon. 

“Relax. With the state of the Sephiroth Remnant and your blond friend, I don’t believe combat is your best option right now.”

Sephiroth Remnant?

All eyes landed on the two boys. They stared back, eyes wide, imaginary silver tails fluffed beyond comprehension.

“If you would kindly leave through the elevator you came, you will be escorted by a sufficient force to your cell to rest. I’m sure you’ll be familiar with it, won’t you, Aerith?”

She glared hard at the speakers before armored robots suddenly surrounded them, weapons lowered but prepared for resistance. Could they fight with Kadaj and Cloud out of commission? Absolutely. Would they risk harming the two by trying, trapped with no escape inside this lab? Absolutely not.

The group surrendered, and the robotic security force allowed them to lift their fainted comrades and carry the two through the halls of the lab. Only once did they pass Professor Hojo, who only muttered excitedly at all the new experiments possible with all these new specimens in his custody, a victorious grin never leaving his face. 

But first, he needed to check on his initial experiment. The captured remnant’s reaction completely surprised him, lining up with none of the hypotheses he developed before injection. The scientist made his way up the elevator and surveyed the damage within the chamber. Minimal. Only a broken window and lock. Nothing that would take too long to fix. However, the opened chamber held far more interest to him as he adjusted his black glasses for a clear view.

The puddle of the purple ooze was singed, its surface cooked to a blue in perfect ripples, as if water frozen in time during a storm.

Fascinating. Absolutely fascinating. 

.

.

.

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To be continued...

Three Guards Chapter List

Thanks for reading!

Author’s note: Well, I meant to jump back to Strife’s perspective at the end but Hojo had other plans! Strife’s new Shinra adventure will have to wait, and a certain someone is waiting in the dark. That’s all I’ll give you for now.

I will warn you though: This fic only has a few chapters left before it must go on hiatus. Since this is Remake’s continuity, and Rebirth is so close, it might be the best option to wait. We’ll see. And of course I’ll keep you posted.

[cuchufletapl]

Some additional thoughts about this chapter:

Although the direct opponent to the SSS approach to the situation is the Berlint local police commander, I think having a character such as Henderson (who's already been established to be a sympathetic and liked character) in the scene and doing what he does puts into an even more striking highlight how amoral the SSS is for prioritising their nationalist ideals over the lives of children.

However.

Of course, the — let's say — foil to Henderson in this chapter is Billy Squire, the Red Circus leader, and I'm eager to see how that pans out. Because as much as I like Henderson, he is part of an incredibly elitist institution that plays a not insignificant part in keeping the oppressive, inequitable status quo of Ostania. As revealed by Squire in this chapter, the Red Circus started as an advocate group for student rights, justice, and equality. After facing police brutality and turning into an extremist terrorist group, they're now targetting students from the most priviledged school in the country, the Eton College of Ostania. Henderson failing to appeal to Squire's paternal sentiment after he notices the man probably has a child of his own, and then falling silent at his rebuttal and revelation that his daughter was killed by the police, is interesting. (Is Henderson aware of his role in the escalation of violence by being part of the establishment that either allows or enforces that violence?)

I read meta a while ago by @shinybluebirdwizard where they analysed the way that “good” vs “bad” characters are portrayed in Spy x Family, and two main traits popped up a lot in the depiction of “bad” chracters: 1) not caring about children, their futures and education; 2) failing to recognise propaganda, forgetting history and not questioning the state. (That second thing isn’t mentioned in the post I linked but I know they’ve talked about it before; they touch on it in this Yuri analysis, at least.)

The Red Circus is literally threatening to murder children (including the main child), yes, we're obviously not meant to root for them. But the fact that the group had a noble start (one that aligns with the manga's politics and morals so far shown) and that Billy calls out the state and state-legitimised violence specifically — if it's true that it was the police who started the violence, which I imagine it is considering what we know of Ostania, this paints Red Circus in a more gray light.

Their demands are also for the government to free their comrades (several of whom have already been either tortured to death or executed, although they don't know that) and grant secure passage out of the country, and nothing else. So that's another thing that, in my opinion, doesn't exactly depict them as black-and-white villains.

(Although making the antagonist with noble goals/ideals be fine with mass murder is a very common trope used to legitimise the "good guys" fighting to keep the unjust status quo going. I fear this could be another instance of that. But on the other hand, Spy x Family has a deceptively complicated political landscape, and at its core, the good guys are trying to prevent war while the bad guys trying to start it are nationalist right-wingers, so like. Yeah. Let's see how Red Circus is handled and then we can talk more at length.)

What I am sure of is that Endo has things to say about the establishment and classism. That much is apparent with this arc in particular.

I really want to see how this plotline concludes, and I wonder if there is going to be another conversation between Squire and Henderson elaborating on these issues.

Every day I am rewarded for having Mr Henderson as one of my favourite SxF characters.

He's such a good man who genuinely, sincerely cares so much for his students.

Not only does he go personally to the place where the bus has been detained as soon as possible, but he doesn't hesitate to put his own life on the line to bring food and water to the children and try to put them at ease — and then he decides to take an unwell colleague's place and stay in the bus.

(Look at how the students react when they see him! They're scared and tired and I'm sure seeing any adult they know would prompt a similar reaction, but still — that girl says that they missed him. He's a teacher they know to be fair and to help them when they need it (see Short Mission #4 or Chapter 64 for instance), so it makes sense that they'd feel particularly comforted by his presence. He's not just an adult they know, he's an adult they trust, and Henderson knows this.)

This man has the moral backbone of a steel beam and a true dedication for education and I appreciate him so much.

[whatisonthemoon]

WVO Drinks lts Own Poison-Calls Jim Jones a "Victim Gone Wrong" (1979)

The following was written in a Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP) newspaper, “Revolution,” before their ideology degraded into the “New Synthesis” and spiraled into a personality cult surrounding Bob Avakian. This excerpt is from a larger article criticizing the Workers' Viewpoint Organization, which later became the Communist Workers' Party, a “communist” party that upheld post-Mao China as socialism. 

WVO's line on China is a most blatant example of this rightism too. They will not come out publicly and denounce the revisionist leadership and uphold the four comrades, the "Gang of Four." Publicly, they uphold China as "still a socialist country." And that's it.

But even more sinister is the fact that to particular lucky individuals classified by them as "advanced and active," they will say that Hua and Teng are revisionists, they do think there was a coup d'etat, the Four were correct, even that Chou En-lai was the revisionists' back-up man.

Why is this? Because, at this time, the "advanced" are the only ones who can grasp this "demoralizing" situation without falling into cynicism and losing faith in the possibility of socialism working. Public exposure of revisionism, they say, will only fuel the bourgeoisie's propaganda, attacking the viability of socialism.

The logic of this quickly falls between your fingers like so much sand (more like quicksand). Because bourgeois propaganda is using the situation in China to tell us that socialism will never work, it must turn back to "pragmatism, down-to-earth capitalism," then our duty as communists is to cut through that with the knife of scientific analysis.

Which is exactly what the RCP has done, spreading the truth of the class struggle under socialism, how setbacks happen, how to arm ourselves against them, how to fight even harder for genuine Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and against revisionism, the "easy road," pragmatism, etc.

WVO would have the masses in the U.S. think that China is socialist (ignorance is bliss?). According to WVO, the masses won't be able to figure it out unless WVO tells them, so they're going to keep it under their hats for the right moment. This shocking depth of disdain for the masses brings us back to the People's Temple and WVO's characterization of Jim Jones.

Actually, Jones' disdain and manipulation of the People's Temple members and WVO's disdain for the working class and oppressed nationalities are very similar. The RCP's analysis of WVO in 1977 summed up, "The Religious Disorder of the Worker's Viewpoint Organization." And that's exactly what it is.

About Jones, WVO says, "Jones' brand of mysticism was misleading but not nearly as sinister as the Moonies or other crazy religions. These sects preach and openly support racism and fascism. For all its reformist practices, the People's Temple at least fights racists and fascists and attracts the support of the black and poor people. Many join because they see the group doing progressive things."

About the WVO, you could say the same thing: "For all its reformist practices, at least they're communists and they're fighting capitalism, and they attract the support of oppressed nationalities and students." BUT THAT'S EXACTLY WHY THESE "CULTS," RELIGIOUS AND REVISIONIST ALIKE, ARE SO SICKENING AND SINISTER. They do attract, for a time, honest people who want to fight the system-then they lead them down a dead-end street.

WVO's following is not going to commit suicide, but the organization is swallowing its own dogmatic poison, more and more quickly in their flip to the right. The honest forces within, and there are many, if they really desire to struggle all their lives for living socialism and the final aim of communism, if they really strive to be ruthlessly scientific to fight the bourgeoisie, will gradually be won to the genuine party of the U.S. working class the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA.

[imhaitusncarnate]

I have very mixed feelings on that aot ending

Ok so the politics of Attack on Titan have been discussed by a lot of people, some of whom have a very surface- level understanding of the story. I would like to start by giving my disclaimer that Attack on Tiatan ABSOLUTELY isn’t fascist, its anti racism, anti bigotry and anti discrimination themes are extremely apparent in it’s examination of the Eldians inside Marley, and fascist views held by characters such as Gabi are explicitly condemned in the text and made clear to be misguided and false. 

I would now like to draw everyone’s attention to the openings of seasons 1 and 2. 

Images like these combined with lyrics like these:

You pigs who sneer at our will to step over corpses and march onwards Enjoy the peace of livestock false prosperity "freedom" of the dying wolves that hunger

We dedicate and sacrifice our hearts

And also the use of german lyrics:

Sie sind das Essen und Wir sind die Jaeger! (they are the food and we are the hunters)

O, mein Freund! Jetzt hier ist ein Sieg. Dies ist der erste Glorie. O, mein Freund! Feiern wir diesen Sieg, für den nächsten Kampf!

(O, my friend! Now, here is a victory. This is the first glory. O, my friend! Let us celebrate this victory for the next battle!)

This is the stuff that lead me to believe that this is a deliberate use of fascist imagery. If the show just wanted to go for a militaristic vibe for the aesthetic of it, references this explicit to fascist propaganda and the use of German lyrics was not necessary. Also, lines like this:

And plenty of evidence that things were not what they seemed it the world of aot and that the overly simplistic view of good vs evil (humans vs the titans) was incorrect led me to believe that Attack on Titan was a deliberate deconstruction. That it was putting the audience into the mindset of the fascists to pull the rug from under their feet later. And I was right. Sort of.

As the story progresses, the world becomes a more and more complex political landscape and we are led to believe that this black and white mentality is wrong. We are also informed that the people who can transform into titans, the Eldians, are an opressed minority, explicitly paralleled to the Jews during nazi Germany, from their living in internment camps, to them being called devils, to their armbands, to a large number of them (our heroes) being confined in an island with walls circling them, which is revealed by Isayama to be Madagascar. The island that the nazis originally meant to confine the Jewish population in before arriving at the conclusion that that would be too costly, and that genocide was preferable. 

This is the first of the story’s mixed metaphors. While the show’s heart is in the right place, being sympathetic to the Eldians and showing their plight under marleyan opression and persecution, there is one problem. The reason for the opression of the Eldians is because the world is afraid of their power, as they are a race with the ability to transform into titans. There is, therefore, a tangible, justification for their internment. The Jews were not in any conceivable way a danger to anyone, they were simply scapegoated for the complex socioeconomic problems of Germany in the time period. Also, if we take a look at those openings again, we observe that the Eldians (our main characters) who wish to free themselves from their shackles are framed as fascists. So... what is that saying?

 The idea, as I see it, is that the story is condemning fanaticism in general, as a biproduct of a militaristic black and white worldview. The monstrous titans that our (framed as fascist) heroes fight against are revealed to be human, just like them.

The same is the case for the Eldian “devils” that the Marleyans fight against. Gabi, the character who is most fanatically against Eldians (despite being an Eldian herself) is comfronted with the humanity of the people she hates once she gets to know them.

Again, Isayama’s heart is on the right place here, trying to condemn bigotry, however the explicit referencing of history is the imagery is kind of misplaced, for the reasons I previously mentioned. Now let’s have a look at Eren Yeager.

Eren starts the story as a kind of messed up kid. He kills the human traffickers who kidnapped Mikasa while screaming:

I mean, in this case he is certainly justified, but his rage and anger are definitely not normal for a child his age.

This is Eren. He can’t stand injustice when he sees it. And injustice is what happens to him when the titans attack. His already fiery attitude and mindset is what leads him to this declaration of revenge:

That side of Eren is visible throughout the story and it’s foreshadowing for what he will later become

Eren, however, is a natural product of his environment. Ravaged by socioconomic inequality, with the rich living in the centre of the walls and the poor living in the outskirts, constantly under the threat of the titans and unable to obtain any kind of freedom, Eren’s philosophy of the need to be strong to overcome one’s enemies makes sense. The mantra “the strong prey on the weak”, that he ends up teaching Mikasa (another allusion to fascist ideology) is a biproduct of the world he lives in. He does not know of the political intricasies outside the walls. All he knows is he must kill the titans.

Eren’s titan is described as the “manifestation of humanity’s rage. It is huge and monstrous, and could be seen as a metaphor for vengeful hatred in general. Keep that in mind, it’s relevant for the ending.

This manufactured and false black and white worldview shapes him as a character, and it’s what eventually, after the arrival at the much desired ocean, leads him to this:

“Will we finally be free?”

In the continuation of the story, Eren falls toward the dark side more and more, to the point of committing atrocities and war crimes that are explicitly framed as being similar to what he suffered as a child (see his actions in Liberio). He even acknowledges that, telling Reiner, the person who committed said war crimes against him, that he essentially has no hard feelings and understands that the two of them are similar, doing what “needs to be done”. The character of Gabi, who, after what happens in Liberio, becomes obsessed with revenge against the Eldian “devils” is meant to be a foil for Eren, and his obsession with killing the titans after what happened to him. 

Extremely interesting is the way in which certain ideas and images are flipped in the later seasons. Namely, in season 4, we see a character who idolizes Mikasa and supports Eren’s plans in a scene where she spouts the same mantra of “the strong prey on the weak” and says that Mikasa saving her is what showed her that only with strength she can defeat her enemies. Mikasa tells her to shut up, and she proceeds to do the salute, that has been so glamorized by the show’s openings thus far. Now, it is done by a person from a military faction with a fanatic worldview. The direction doesn’t glamorize it at all. It is a nuanced, almost masterful deconstruction. 

Levi, who has always looked for reasons for why his comrades had t die, justifying their heroism and convincing himself that their deaths were not pointless, ends up here:

At this point, I was in love with Attack on Titan. From here, it only figures that Eren ends up attempting a genocide of the people outside the walls. He has essentally become what he hated the most, and he’s a natural result of the world that created him. Despite his noble intentions, he has turned into a monster. Mikasa, the prerson who loved him the most, completes her character arc by killing him, thus rejecting her blind devotion to him and being free, while at the same time continuing to love the person he once was. It’s a sad and tragic ending, painting Eren as a tragic character and making a pretty strong political point, despite having a few mixed metaphors.

And then, chapter 139 came out...

And Eren apparently pulled a Lelouch. This is a “I purposfully turned myself into a monster to save the world and make my friends into heroes for killing me” kind of thing. It is important to state that the manga makes it clear that Eren would have trampled the world even if they didn’t stop him, because of his urge to be free. However, that urge, that fighting spirit, end up being a good thing. The death of our heroes in battle apparently wasn’t pointless after all. They say goodbye with a salute

The Yeagerists, who were previously framed as fanatics, end up in charge of the government

It is important to state that the real event, the catalyst of the ending, is that killing Eren, who has turned himself literally into the manifestation of humanity’s rage (which has now, through the intricacies of the story, taken the political meaning of hatred and intergenerational trauma), eliminates the power of the titans. The titans are no more. This, in of itself, is good, and in keeping with the spirit of the political commentary thus far. However, the war, is still not over, and Eren’s mantra ends up being correct

So the only way for the war to end is one of the races to be wiped out? 

Also, despite Eren’s genocide being wrong, it is, in the end, justified, as a necessary evil by the story. An Ozymandias kind of moment in which the ends justify the means, but Eren himself has to die, because his crime was too great for him not to suffer punishment. Essentially, this chapter undoes all of the insightful commentary the story had made so far, by proving the ideology of its main character right. Story- wise this isn’t a bad ending, but if we take into account the political references the series has made, and its desire to explicitly tie itself with such imagery makes the ending leave a really bad taste in my mouth. What it essentally says, is that, yes, bigotry and racism are bad, yes, blind hatred is bad, but the general idea of might makes right and the impossibility of reconciliation are true. Armin, who has, throughuout the story, been Eren’s opposite, in terms of looking for peaceful solutions to conflict is rendered meaningless in the end, because him alongside with the other characters were all playing into Eren’s plans. The hearts of our main characters as recruits were in the right place, their fighting spirit admirable, and the overall worldview we are presented with in the beginning of the story remains more or less unchallenged. 

So where does that leave this imagery?

The conclusion is that one must think very carefully before including allegory in their work. I am not accusing Isayama for fascism, and I appreciate the efforts at deconstructing it throughout the story. However, in the end he did an oops I accidentally justified the mentality I was trying to condemn. I still like Attack on Titan, I believe it has artistic value and is overall a pretty good anime, I even agree with its politics to an extent. However, it is very important to critically examine the things we like, and see where they may have gone south. And this ending is that for me.

[anakinisvaderisanakin]

The Mask of Death - Fairy Tales and Waking Nightmares (aka Vader obliterates a Rebel unit in typical, spooky fashion)

He wasn’t real.

He couldn’t be.

When Viola Perry had joined the Rebellion, he had been entirely prepared for all that entailed. He despised the Empire and its government, despised its regime and its knack for exploiting the weaker star systems and depleting them of their natural resources for the benefit of the elite. Even as a chancellor, Emperor Palpatine had tended to favour only the worlds and civilizations he considered useful and worth a damn. As Emperor, he had doubled down on that mindset - and while the planets of the outer rim were falling into a lawless haven for criminals, while the Moffs extracted every ounce of goods, riches and pleasure from the worlds they had handpicked and settled down on; Perry saw her people waste away. True, she had been raised coruscanti, on a mid tier level by a single father who laboured day and night as a mechanic. His life had not been aided by the Empire’s rise to power, instead, he had been pushed out of service by official Imperial service systems requiring customers to pay a higher amount of credits for a lesser amount of expertise. Like so many other things, there was a penalty to disobeying and neglecting the restrictions and guidelines.

As soon as Perry was able, she fled. She joined the Rebel Alliance, seeking justice for her father who had died impoverished and imprisoned for conducting and encouraging illegal behaviour - apparently, doing a greater job as a mechanic than the Imperial forces was a crime and a felony - and she had been with the organisation for four years now. Four years of fighting the good fight, winning small victories and taking back the autonomy of the galaxy little by little as hope spread like a wildfire amongst those already saddled with doubt and distrust. Chancellor Palpatine had failed to live up to his hype, why would Emperor Palpatine be any different? Perry had seen firsthand just how far the Empire was willing to go, in order to eradicate the resistance fighters and downplay their growing masses as a trivial and unimportant wayward attempt at terrorism. Only the rebels themselves knew that they were slowly but surely becoming a legitimate threat.

Perry had, as had most rebels she had fought alongside, been wary of any information spread by the Empire from the start. Propaganda and deliberate misinformation were only a couple of the tools used to lure the populous of the vast galaxy into some sense of security. As such, she had laughed the very first time she’d heard the tall tale of Darth Vader. Apparently, a mole within the Imperial ranks had shared the myth as a warning. By most of the Alliance, it had been taken as fiction sold by the Imperial sovereigns to saw fear within their resistance. Vader, as the story went, was a seldom seen assassin of the Empire. The tale painted him as clad entirely in black, seven foot tall and wielding mysterious and invicible powers. He could kill with simply a look, or a wave of the hand. At first, the story had begun as such - vague, raising more questions than it answered about this fantastical and implausible boogeyman. Perry had concluded Vader could be little more than a false narrative, invented to instill doubt within the hearts of any nervously inclined resistance fighter.

But, as time went on, more and more stories with a similar twist kept turning up. Every now and then, a delirious dying fellow rebel with haunted eyes and baited breath would ramble about a monster clad in black. Eventually, the concerns grew to a point where even figureheads of the Alliance such as Mon Mothma and the Organas would openly discuss the matter. Rumours said viceroy Bail Organa in particular was inclined to believe the stories, and while Perry viewed him as level headed and logical - that was one leap of imagination she wasn’t willing to trust him on.

It was only when Perry’s closest friend and confidant, Oliwia Blix, was slain on her own home turf - an ambush assault led by what was later revealed to be the 501st Imperial squadron, surprising the freedom fighters she was responsible for - that Perry began to question her conviction. Oliwia had not survived the attack, and her body was never recovered but those who did persevere knew she was deceased - they had seen her there in the midst of the chaos, barking out orders and desperately attempting to call for help through the sliced comlink connections. Out of the handful of survivors, Perry trusted only Juno Eclipse. Eclipse was a young, blonde woman who had once been closely affiliated with the Imperial military but who had become disillusioned one way or another. She never spoke much of her Imperial days. Her insights were always helpful, and she had aided many a favourable outcome in battle. She possessed inside knowledge and codes that were invaluable - and she was firmly decided that the ambush had been a ploy to get her; she was the target and she was responsible for the death of her affiliates.

Eclipse was reasonable, and Perry admired her judgment. That’s why, when Eclipse spoke of Vader; Perry put aside her skepticism to actually listen. According to Eclipse, Vader was the man the Empire sent out when all else failed. He was undefeated, possibly invincible; shrewd and secretive. If he came for you, he would not stop coming until he had carried out his mission. In her case, Eclipse had expected she’d be put on trial for treason when she first broke away from the Empire, but once Vader had been sent on her trail - she explained - she had realized she was no longer worth the hassle. When Vader came to collect, you were as good as dead already. Perry had asked whether Eclipse had seen this infamous monster, and Eclipse had simply chuckled in sullen surrender as if she had already accepted her own fate.

‘He’s not a monster,’ she had said. ‘He’s a man. Or, I think he was a man, once. I’m not sure what he is now.’

Eclipse had said little in addition to that, only that she was certain that he had been present on the planet Cordaan’a where the incident had occurred. Perry got the firm impression that the ex Imperial officer had seen someone or something she perceived to be this Vader, and while she didn’t want to press the already anxiety ridden woman; she chalked most of it up to stress, fear and trauma. Even Eclipse - intelligent, brave and immovable - could be deceived by the rush of adrenaline that came with battle, as her senses were jumbled. That, along with the fact that her life was in jeopardy and that she knew the Empire wanted to see her punished for her desertion, could make anyone hallucinate a phantom such as the propagandistic tale of an Imperial hitman.

That was, until two weeks later. At noon, the base camp of Brakko had prepared for a subtle, incognito transfer. Perry’s unit had been targeted for elimination by Imperial forces, and while there were no signs suggesting the Empire knew where exactly their base was hidden - it was unsafe to stay in one place for too long. As the early afternoon rolled around, every necessary scrap of ammunition, weaponry, rations, credits, and other various equipment had been rounded up and packed away. Only a few chunkier, stolen cannons and proton bombs remained unaccounted for. That was the moment during which the Empire decided to make their presence known. A well aimed rifle shot, and the second largest of the docked freight vessels was blown up in the span of milliseconds.

As its explosive cargo content shattered the clunky ship, the shockwave sent most resistance fighters flying. Shrapnel became deadly projectiles, and as Perry struggled to regain her bearings - the force of the blast had sent her several feet back into the rough, and jagged gravel of the walkway leading towards the underground bunkers - she noted familiar faces; bloodied and beaten. Some unrecognizable, some wheezing as steady streams of red liquid poured out of their nostrils. Perry herself found her hearing was dulled, as if she were underwater - the distant, faraway yells and shrieks of her terrified comrades preparing retaliation blocked out by a loud shrill ringing. She struggled to her knees, instinctively reaching for her trusty blaster where it sat holstered at her hip.

As soon as she looked up, Perry could see the swarm of stormtroopers welling forth from every direction. They were undistinguishable in their white polished armour, black visors covering their eyes. Her legs moved out of self preservation, her chest burning with extortion as she fired aimlessly at her assaulters. A few fell by the wayside, and Perry dove behind the wreckage of one of the smaller shuttles that had been affected by the explosion. Three more rebels cowered there, taking turns firing fervently to keep the troopers at bay - only for the two additional blasters wielded by who Perry recognized to be Admiral Parlak and Sergeant Ilija to be literally ripped out of their grip with no visible cause.

“Come out with your hands on your heads,” said one of the troopers, his cadence entirely void of empathy.

“You’ll gun us down if we do,” Perry snapped in defense, and realized only afterwards that she had spoken at all.

Her hearing was beginning to return, as Perry and her small group peered cautiously over the edge of the ripped off shuttle wing that provided their makeshift shield. Even as her head became fully visible, no additional shots were fired. A platoon of what Perry estimated to be forty stormtroopers stood in a half circle, making three rows with their blasters aimed meticulously at the unguarded hideout. Around them, a few smaller squads mirrored their stance. A good four feet in ahead of the mass, stood a single trooper - his more lavish suit of armour indicating that he was a higher ranking soldier, possibly a commander - with his hand raised to signify cease fire. Perry assumed he had been the one addressing them.

It was only then that she realized how eerily quiet it had become. Her eyes darted around, both relieved and unsettled when she spotted a few grimy, scuffed and fretful faces poking out from behind various chunks of debris much like her and her group. Apart from feeble moans and sobs of pain, and crackling of the fires that had spread from the explosion to the trees and vegetation concealing the base camp - everything was deathly silent.

Silent, until a deep, booming voice broke the impasse.

“Not if you cooperate.”

In one fell swoop, the mid section of the platoon parted like a tidal wave. They made room with no fuzz, moving as one single unit and stood at courtly attention. From the smoke, the ashes and the flames behind them; the shadows of even more soldiers merely silhouetted revealed as a backdrop, came a predator. Even before it could be viewed in all its horrendous detail; its large frame drew all attention. Tall, broad shouldered, chest wide - and with it followed a hissing, mechanical breathing cycle reminiscent of a respirator. At any other time its pathetic sounds may have inspired pity or sympathy, but in this instance; its intervals were decidedly ominous, as this thing traversed the ground littered with fresh corpses in a careless stride.

Towering over and dwarfing the stormtroopers; the looming dark spectre emerged fully from the dust and cinders swirling through the air. Clad in all black; head to toe. Black armour, black cape, black robes, black gloves, black boots, black helmet; black mask covering the monster’s entire face from view. Still, the lenses through which the grim presence viewed the world were tinted ever so slightly crimson. In its hand, the thing clutched the hilt of a saber - its plasma blade red and humming as energy surged through it.

“Please, no,” Perry caught a hitched gasp, frightened disbelief colouring the unmistakable tone of Eclipse - and Perry spotted her pale face off to the side; crouched behind a severed landing hatchet.

“I have come for Captain Eclipse. I have been informed that she hides among your ranks. It is unfortunate for your organisation that she would lead me to you - I, however, view it as a welcome surprise.”

The voice was so deep, it seemed to reverberate through Perry’s very bones - and despite the heat of the flames' licking, flickering nature as they consumed the palm trees with a gleeful greed - the world seemed as cold as ice. Curling in on herself, Perry wrapped her arms around herself in an attempt to stave off the worst chill; her breaths coming out as puffs of condensed mist. Still, she could do nothing but stare at the empty, hollow eyes of that face plate. The monster turned its head slowly in the direction of Eclipse’s hiding place, tilting it in a disturbingly comedic manner. If she could have seen its mouth; Perry was convinced the monster would have smiled at the collective hopelessness at its disposal.

‘Darth Vader is real,’ so many fellow rebels had insisted - and Perry had disregarded every single one as superstitious and foolhardy.

'Darth Vader is a fairy tale,’ she had stubbornly countered.

Perry didn’t even have the time to flinch as the monster’s large right hand cut through the empty air. The motion was swift, smooth and effortless - and the bulky piece of scrap metal Eclipse had been huddled behind was sent flying as if it were completely weightless. The hefty durasteel went from sitting completely still to hurdling a distance of about thirty yards at an unfathomable speed; smashing right into a tree trunk which it sheared clean off simply by momentum. The monster did not move, even as the tree collapsed and brought another down with it; but Eclipse yelped and covered her mouth. Perry had never, never seen her be anything but resolute - and slightly shaken once, while relaying her tale of this predator whom Perry had refused to believe might materialize. Now, her features spoke only of regret and dread. Her shoulders were trembling, her blue eyes glassy with tears.

“Did you believe the Emperor would not aim to see you destroyed? Did you believe he would forget you?” the monster mocked, and with obvious sarcasm he added, “You must think so highly of the Emperor’s sense of compassion. I am truly sad to say that I must dissuade such unfortunate delusions.”

“Do what you please with me, but spare the rest,” Eclipse blurted out, desperation in her voice as she stumbled to her feet; taking one unsteady step towards the monster and dissmissing his jeering entirely.

‘He’s not a monster, he’s a man. Or, I think he was a man, once,’ Eclipse had said back then; and while her eyes were now still brimming with yet unshed tears, her expression was one of bargaining.

She was attempting to appeal to this thing’s - this man’s humanity. Instead, he simply cocked his head a bit farther to the side as if perplexed by her emotional outburst, regarding her silently with a deliberate intent to unnerve and rattle her. Perry realized only then that she, too, was trembling not only from the cold. It was as if this man’s entire being radiated a dark, black, vicious hatred. A vile, twisted sense of entitlement and disgust alike. It permeated his surroundings, spreading like a contagious disease; infecting everything it touched, tainting and tarnishing anything it could corrupt. His unwavering gaze and dead eyeholes seemed to demand a cruel mixture of respect and fear; and Eclipse clasped her hands in what resembled a feeble prayer.

“Lord Vader. I beg of you. Let them go. It’s me you want.”

A tear slipped down her gaunt face; her complexion ashen and her bottom lip quivering. Her blonde hair fell over her forehead in unruly chunks, a damp patch of dark blood staining the upper sleeve of her jacket. Vader simply raised his hand once more; beckoning Eclipse with his fore and index fingers in an almost gentle manner. Eclipse had no chance to move of her own volition, nor to deny the request before her feet were lifted off the ground and she was yanked unceremoniously forwards. Her motion stopped only when she was mere inches from Vader; her face level with his mask as she levitated freely in the empty air. Vader’s outstretched hand was steady, holding its posture - and Perry realized with horror that the powers all the rumours spoke of were factual, as well.

“While it is a touching sentiment - your saviour complex serves you no favours with me, Captain.”

There was no compassion in Vader’s tone, the cadence mechanical and stilted - and yet, the words came out an overt, obvious commination. Shifting the hand Perry had assumed was efficently preoccupied with suspending Eclipse in the air, Vader gestured at his troopers and they immediately switched into action. Eclipse still hovered several feet above ground; and Perry reared back as Vader’s empty lenses came to rest on her hiding spot. As before, there was no prelude - the torn wing of the shuttle was simply shoved aside in one fluid swipe. The same thing occured simultaneously to any other covers; Perry's fellow rebels attempting to defend themselves in vain. One moment, Perry was fumbling for her blaster with numb fingers; the next, a stormtrooper had her arms trapped behind her back. Some of her comrades attempted to resist the capture, and were subsequently executed on spot with a single blast to the back of their heads. As they were rounded up, only twenty-two of the at least seventy rebels that had stayed behind loading up supplies remained. They were forced down on their knees; hands on their heads. Perry glared at Vader who seemed to eye them all with a disinterested boredom, but her hammering heart betrayed her collected facade.

“I suggest you watch, Captain. Let this be a warning to abide by. I have orders to bring you off world. While the Emperor wishes no audience with you, Governor Tarkin is most excited to have a word preceding your eminent, public execution,” Vader informed as if there were no other witnesses, no further participants to the event than him and Eclipse alone. “You will watch this.”

The final words were sinister, their implication crystal clear and the demand irrefutable. Eclipse’s slumped head was forcefully yanked in the direction of her kneeling coworkers, the men and women she had bravely fought alongside, who had become her confidants and friends. Perry expected to be anticlimactically shot, icy dread churning at the pit of her belly. Still she was transfixed by Eclipse’s horrified; apologetic eyes as they stared back at her- wide and unblinking, as if she could not close them had she wanted to. Holding the stare, a pressure closed around Perry’s slender throat; like an unseen hand encompassing her fragile neck and squeezing her windpipe until she could no longer inhale. She panicked, pawing at her throat as her lungs burned and the edges of her vision began to fade away. Next to her, the choking noises of her fellow rebels rose; all of them clawing desperately at the invisible hand strangling them unanimously. The last thing Perry saw; pure terror coursing through her veins as her pulse slowed to die away and a loud, cracking pop signified the snap of her neck caving under pressure, was Eclipse’s guilt ridden eyes, and the tears now falling from them.

Perry slumped to the ground, and Vader’s large boots stalked past her crumpled body to sear themselves into her minds eye as one final bitter irony.

He was real.

He was real.

Then, she was no more.

---------

Posted a teaser before, but I like this installment so much I felt I needed to post the entire thing so here you go. Link to the full fic below:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/24049894/chapters/79969921

[science-fiction-is-real]

Listen.  Leftists.  LISTEN.

If we want to build a strong working class movement, we’re gunna have to fucking organize with republicans.  I’m sorry.  But there’s no getting around it.   We’re gonna have to suck it up and organize with fucking republicans.

The idea of associating with someone who voted for trump makes many people on the left extremely uncomfortable.  This is especially understandable if you are a person of color, not an American citizen, or LBGT+.  And if you want to leave the work of organizing with republicans to your white cis-het comrades, go ahead, that's perfectly valid.  I don’t want to invalidate the pain of people who have experienced bigotry. 

But unless we are willing and able to organize with the ENTIRE working class, we cannot expect to gain any ground whatsoever in the fight for working class emancipation.  This is just a cold hard fact.

How are you going to organize the Walmart where you work in Cornfuck Ohio if you don’t want to associate with your Trumpster co-workers?

How are you going to organize your community to petition for and vote for progressive ballot measures if you don’t talk to your republican neighbors?

How are you going to fight for working class empowerment when entire segments of the working class are not invited to the discussion table?  Are you fighting for the working class, or just a segment of it?  Because any working class movement that is unable to build strong coalitions across the entire population is doomed to failure, as history has shown.

Working class people who vote republicans don’t necessarily do so out of hatred for anyone outside themselves.  They often do it because they correctly observe how liberal politicians consistently ignore the needs of working class people and consistently fail to deliver on promises to make life easier for the average person.

Obviously the republican politicians are no better. But If republican working class voters are brainwashed, democratic ones most certainly are too.  If you still “miss Obama,” think Kamala Harris is a badass “Girl Boss,”  or thing everything would have been just fine if Hillary had one in 2016, you need to grow the fuck up, get some class consciousness, and read a damn book.  Those guys are all objectively terrible people who have done nothing but hurt and disenfranchise working class people their whole careers.

But when you see how support for republican and democrat candidates almost always get near 50-50 vote in presidential races, well those are the same numbers we would get if the majority of people in the country were picking who to vote for at random.  It reflects the fact neither party makes a serious effort to address the needs of their voter base.

And we can see how states that swung for trump also passed some extremely progressive legislation this election.  Such as Florida raising the Min wage to 15$ an hour.  There is a deep hunger for progressive politics even in red states.

Are trump voters racist?  Well, yeah, a lot of them are.  But we most people in america are at least a little racist since we’ve grown up in a racist culture, being bombarded non-stop with racist propaganda.  To say “well, they should know better by now,” or “why don’t they bother to educate themselves,” falls back on a capitalistic individual-responsibility narrative that is no more accurate in helping to understand what’s going on than telling poor people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

We don’t have time to moralize our neighbors.  We need to build strategies based on material reality, with the goal in mind in putting money and power in the hands of the working class.

We also have to remember that the “culture war,”  the idea that american people are either stupid backward redneck racists or crusty out-of-touch liberal elites, is one that is very deliberately manufactured by the ruling class to keep working class people divided.  And we know that it’s working because the moment I suggest to you to organize with republicans, your stomach kind of twisted into a not.  

Of course, that leaves the question, how do we bring right wing-voters into our movement without compromising our values for respecting diversity, and respecting the rights of individuals to live as they please?

I would suggest the best way to do this is to speak as if leftist tolerance is a common sense idea taken for granted.  We fight for gay rights, abortion rights, and minority rights just as we fight for reduced rent and higher wages.  We concentrate on positive demands for building a better world instead of morally condemning those who are not yet 100% on board with our ideas, due to having grown up in a culture that doesn’t jive with those ideas.

The other thing we have to remember is that very few things combat bigotry besides the class struggle itself.  When we build mass movements that appeal to the material concrete needs of working class people of all backgrounds, when we encourage working class people to fight on their own behalf, what’s going to happen is people who don’t normally see themselves as allies will find themselves fighting on the same side. This is not a hippy dippy nice idea, this is something that has been demonstrated repeatedly in the history of working class movements.  Go read about the black panthers and the Rainbow coalition.  

This doesn’t mean we need to tolerate when people in our movement are racist or sexist or homophobic toward others in our movement.  But it does mean we need to approach this problem with an educate-first, condemn-second attitude. 

Obviously there is a lot of nuance to this topic, and a lot of caveats, potential counter-arguments, and lines of evidence, that I have to leave out so this post isn’t too long. 

But the thing is...  Organizing with working class people who are at a low or backwards level of political consciousness is just part of being a leftist.  

[sepublic]

Order of Mata Nui

           A paramilitary organization shrouded in secrecy, the Order of Mata Nui was created as a way of fighting back against the Powers That Be in a manner that is discreet and untraceable. The brutality of their enemies and the harsh realities that Xians have to face have conditioned the Order to be similarly ruthless; Many saw the downfall of the Volunteer Militia as being contributed to the heroes’ ‘softness’ and blatant publicity. In contrast, the Order of Mata Nui operates entirely from the shadows, taking great pains to keep their existence a total secret. Even to the Barraki, their potential presence was considered, but never outright confirmed; And in their fight to liberate Xia, the Order has committed many acts of espionage, extortion, blackmailing, assassination, torture, etc.

           The Order of Mata Nui was founded by their ancient leader Helryx, as far back as the War of Six Kingdoms; Back then, Helryx was but a small, young, and fragile human girl who could do little to fight back against the bloodshed that her home regularly witnessed. Determined to make a difference at any cost, Helryx vowed to not let the deaths of others be in vain; She too would kill, but she promised to let her murders accomplish something in the end.

           Since then, the secretive Order of Mata Nui has operated from the shadows, recruiting members from any corner of Xia. They have tracked the progress of Xia’s industrial revolution, working to undermine the Powers That Be as much as possible, to varying success; It is unknown how terrible the situation on Xia would be had they never existed.

           The Order of Mata Nui worked to assassinate dictators and tyrants, and influence public opinion against such groups. In the Artidax District, many of them are employed as hackers, working to undermine the propaganda of Turaga Dume and leak the secrets of the Xian aristocracy to the public; The truth must be known. When the Nynrah Incident occurred, many Order agents worked quietly to facilitate evacuations and contain threat, while just as many also found potential servants and recruits amongst the mutated Vorox.

           Unlike conventional ‘heroes’, the Order is willing to perform unethical acts, in the name of the greater good. Helryx has seen what noble intentions and actions have done; But for now, it is best to keep noble intentions, while trading in heroic actions for more underhanded and even downright despicable means. In the past, the Order have experimented on others without consent, killed, robbed banks to fund their own activities, etc. Many of Xia’s Lekara were experimented upon them without consent to become ideal, underwater assassins. In order to maintain important secrets, the Order has even killed many innocents in the past; All in the name of the greater good.

           Because secrecy and anonymity is their key to survival, all Order members have access to masks, cloaks, and other means of disguise. They are trained in the arts of stealth, interrogation, code-breaking, etc., and communicate with one another almost entirely in encrypted messages, usually delivered manually; Wireless communications can be intercepted and are thus a liability, with the individual known as Nidhiki having accessed a few Order of Mata Nui messages himself.

           And while quick to strike and utterly ruthless, the Order of Mata Nui also recognizes that its numbers and strength is small and few compared to that of the Powers That Be; If they feel the risk is too high, members will not go on a mission to avoid being compromised and found out. Agents that are a liability and at risk of revealing the truth –whether they want to or not- will sometimes be killed by their comrades to keep them silent. Mysteriously-funded projects are supported through proxies, many of whom know little of what they are doing, and are just as quickly assassinated to keep quiet. Many mysterious deaths have been attributed to organizations such as the Dark Hunters; But in reality, it is the Order of Mata Nui. If at risk of being caught, agents have access to suicide pills, and some even have Viruses that will completely devour their body and leave nothing behind; Although these vials are helpful in assassination, at least one is always kept on an agent’s person in case it needs to be turned on themselves.

           Weakness cannot be allowed within the Order, and it is often beaten out of one another in hellish training grounds, the majority located in their hidden base of Daxia. Skills are regularly tested and honed between missions. Code-breakers work day and night to decode encrypted transmissions that pass through Artidax, hoping to decipher the secrets of the Powers That Be and anticipate their move. Official agents have access to personal ‘tokens’ that bear the insignia of the Order, to prove membership; If in danger of being caught, such tokens are to be completely destroyed.

           Due to the secrecy of the organization, many members do not know the identities of one another, and most refer to one another entirely through codenames, their faces entirely hidden. It is not out of the question for two Order members to argue about which mission they should take, before later on passing one another in public life without recognizing each other. These painstaking measures are all for the sake of ensuring that if one agent is compromised, the entire organization will not follow; Only Helryx knows everything about the Order of Mata Nui… allegedly.

           Information and data is stored almost entirely in coded print, to prevent hacking. The locations of data are mixed amongst various high-ranking members, who have miniature-explosives surgically injected into their skulls, designed to detonate at will in case they are in danger of being interrogated.

           The Order of Mata Nui has agents in just about every sector of society, and even a few nobles and their servants serve as faithful members. The Order also operates through countless servants, many of who know nothing about the true order of their commands; Some are just paid and told to keep quiet as they work on their jobs in secrecy. The Order of Mata Nui has even hired Dark Hunters in the past to do their own dirty work, with the mercenaries unknowingly contributing to projects designed to hinder The Shadowed One.

           All agents within the Order of Mata Nui have their minds telepathically shielded to prevent; These mental shields keep them immune to mind-reading, brainwashing, and attacks on the mind. As a result, they are entirely immune to Night Wraiths, and their ability to infiltrate the dreams of others. The exact nature of how Order members accomplish this a closely-guarded secret. Ideally, the mental shielding of Order agents keeps them from having their minds read, against their will; But in case all else fails, the aforementioned suicide pills and explosives are worth considering. Some risks just can’t be taken, especially since the Order doesn’t know everything about the enemy- And to them, knowledge is the true power.

           Members of the Order don’t just exist on Xia, either; Prior to the merging of worlds, there were a select few on Okoto as well. It was through these agents that Helryx knew of the happenings of that mythical island, and for a while, Okoto’s existence remained another closely-guarded secret amongst the upper echelons of the Order of Mata Nui. When they knew of Okoto and how they discovered it is also another mystery.

           Decades after the Great Cataclysm, Helryx sent trusted agents Axonn and Brutaka to Okoto, to find the Mask of Control; She hoped to use it against the Powers That Be. Arriving on the mythical land, Axonn and Brutaka succeeded in locating the Mask of Control, but to their dismay a portion of Makuta’s soul was infesting it. When Makuta’s role in the deaths of several Okotans to create the Mask of Life had been revealed, a mad scrambled by the Mask Hoarder to don his forbidden mask resulted in the Mask of Control being knocked from his face, siphoning a portion of his soul in the process.

           Axonn and Brutaka realized that whoever would don the Mask of Control would be subject to the influence of Makuta, who would then be able to locate his lost mask and use it through the proxy of his soul fragment and whatever puppet he had seized. With no way of purging Makuta’s influence without the Mask Hoarder noticing the Mask of Control’s presence, Helryx gave the order to contain the Mask of Control within the Labryinth of Infinity; It was a liability and could not be allowed to fall into the wrong hands.

           For centuries, Axonn and Brutaka guarded the Labyrinth of Infinity, with only the two of them knowing how to access the specific path leading to the Mask of Control’s chamber. As per Helryx’s orders, they remained a secret to all on the island, choosing not to intervene lest they attract the Brotherhood of Makuta’s attention.

At some point, an Order Agent was compromised, captured by the rogue Morbuzakh and interrogated; When they ingested a suicide pill, Morbuzakh countered this with a rapidly-synthesized antidote. Despite the Order agent’s training and mental shielding, Morbuzakh eventually succeeded in pulling vital information out of them, before killing his unfortunate prisoner- Helryx never learned the fate of this agent and was deeply troubled over what information may have been compromised during this disappearance.

           Eventually, miners in the Voymari District unearthed a massive, hill-sized block of bohrok, one that was later melted down in the Great Furnace to reveal the lost Mask of Light. Realizing this was a dangerous weapon that could not fall into the wrong hands, Helryx had Order agents infiltrate the facility that the Mask of Light was kept in. The Order of Mata Nui succeeded in retrieving the Mask of Light, defeating UP-VK 8596 (later known as Seeker). The Mask of Light was contained within a specialized module to let it be safely handled; Physical contact with the Mask could burn and blind a person, if not outright incinerating them.

           With the help of Order agent Botar, the Mask of Light was transported from the island of Xia, taken to Okoto. Axonn and Brutaka took custody of the Mask of Light, and were ordered to prioritize protecting it over the Mask of Control; Helryx compared the Mask of Light to a Xian Heart that was set to go off at any moment.

           Like the Mask of Control, the Mask of Light was contained within the Labyrinth of Infinity, with additional security measures added to ensure that nobody could find it; Maze-like symbols and cubes would be needed to act as keys, which would unlock the 777 Stairs leading down to a series of chambers. In such chambers, various guardians placed by the Order of Mata Nui would act as obstacles to the Mask of Light. To top it all off, the path to the Mask of Light was even MORE complex and difficult to navigate, than the one leading to the Mask of Control.

           (When Brutaka went rogue and betrayed the Order, he made sure not to tell Makuta of the Mask of Light; He could allow the Makuta to take the Mask of Control, but letting the Brotherhood have access to Nuva would be a step too far for him.)

           During the Okotan Expedition to Xia, the Order of Mata Nui kept track of the Toa, Protectors, and their allies. While Kopaka fumbled his way through Artidax, a few agents anonymously contacted the Toa of Ice, using him to help fight back against Dume’s tyranny and authority. To the surprise of many, Kopaka didn’t die in any of his tasks. Later, Kopaka’s ‘anonymous allies’ helped him and a few others pull off a heist in the Archives, retrieving the Fragment of Earth in the process.

           Since Xia’s relocation to Okoto, many Xians have begun to rise up against their former masters. Seeing the paradise of Okoto and its society, which is able to function without the strict class-hierarchies of Xia, has been the final straw for many; They know now that the order set by the Powers That Be is a lie and a sham, and one too many incidents have piled on, ranging from the disappearance of Kratakal, to the Powers That Be prioritizing the securing of wealth over protecting citizens from the quakes when Xia flew.

           Now, an open Xian rebellion, the likes of which history has never seen, has begun to arise. And with the Okotan Alliance right next door, Helryx has seen a once-in-several-lifetimes opportunity; A chance to finally turn the tides against the Powers That Be. And with the Okotans needing help against the Barraki, and the participation of the Brotherhood of Makuta and the rise of Kraltarak…

           The time has come. The Order of Mata Nui has emerged from the shadows, revealing its existence as a paramilitary organization of spies and assassins. They have aligned themselves with the Xian rebellion, its leaders showing some suspicion; But beggars can’t be choosers. In turn, the Barraki are incensed and seek to utterly eradicate the Order, angered that so many Xians would dare defy them for so long, and eager to kill now that the closest thing to a face –their masks- have been seen.

           The Okotan Alliance is skeptical- There are some who want no part in assisting any Xians. But many, including the Toa, Protectors, and Ekimu, recognize that they need all the help they can against the Barraki… Besides, the Order of Mata Nui helped Kopaka after all. Even if the Order has blood on its hands, it’s better than nothing; And if both groups weren’t to collaborate, they wouldn’t be as effective, which would lead to a longer conflict and thus more atrocities committed for ‘necessity’.

          While the Order’s new allies are skeptical about their unethical acts and will even contend them, one cannot deny the greater threat at large. Thus, their allies in the Okotan Alliance and Xian Rebellion will turn a blind eye, for the most part, as they work together; The help of inside-agents within these organizations has made the Order of Mata Nui’s alliance with them easier. And as the Order of Mata Nui’s more heinous crimes are revealed, Dume has taken towards highlighting such atrocities to the Xian populace as ‘proof’ of the chaotic lawlessness of the rebellion.

          Alas, the average Xian is used to the same, and worse, from the Powers That Be; At this point, most aren’t even fazed. And the difference between the Order of Mata Nui and the upper-class is that one genuinely wants to make a change for the better, and will actually work and die for it…

          Makuta himself is also wary of the Order of Mata Nui; He is curious to how Helryx has lived for so long, and now knows how they have hindered him in subtle ways in the past. The knowledge of their past secrecy has made him somewhat paranoid of infiltrators amongst his ranks, and as he combs his Brotherhood for traitors and spies, he also seeks to unlock the truth behind the Order’s mental shielding.

          Intriguingly, many of the Order of Mata Nui’s higher-ranked agents have unusual abilities… Ones that cannot quite be explained by science. Many agents have subjected themselves to various experiments to become more powerful, but these unique members seem to have inexplicable powers, some related to the realm of Space. How the Order of Mata Nui’s agents can unlock such abilities are unknown, and Makuta hopes to potentially infiltrate the organization himself one day. For now, his Night Wraiths prove useless at accessing the minds of members that he’s managed to capture.

          The Order of Mata Nui knows the risks it is taking. Each agent chose their life of secrecy, with some completing disappearing from society and being reborn under a new face, mask, and name. All agents have accepted their burden; Only the most trustworthy are allowed into the organization. Motives vary, but generally speaking, all members have been hurt and scarred by Xia in some way, shape, or form; Or they’ve seen others been hurt and cannot stand by such injustice. So although many of their past actions are indeed terrible, one has to note that the Order performs them beneath dire, desperate circumstances; And should the war end in victory for Okoto and the rebellion, perhaps finally the Order of Mata Nui can lay down its arms. Some agents are not averse to accepting the consequences of their actions and punishment, if it means that Xia can finally be liberated…

          The Order of Mata Nui has many members, in addition to the elusive Helryx;

          Axonn is a powerful, burly knight wielding a gigantic battle-axe, who can compel others to tell the truth. Once a conquerer, he helped Helryx establish the Order of Mata Nui. He helped to guard the Masks of Control and Light, and while faithful he has been criticized for being too much of a bleeding heart, compromising his own secrecy to help others; He once risked being noticed by Fenrakk when he rescued a young Takua from the Skull Spiders in the past. As the Xian-Okotan War rises, Axonn has been temporarily transferred from his duty of protecting the Mask of Light, to helping in the fight against the Barraki and Brotherhood.

          Brutaka is a rogue member, a former friend and close comrade of Axonn. Disillusioned by the centuries of brutality with no end in sight, he has seen the Order of Mata Nui commit atrocities that have barely made a difference. Seeking to do things under HIS command now, Brutaka has joined the battlefield as his own contendable player; He has assisted the Brotherhood of Makuta, and is allied with them once more alongside the Barraki. Using his knowledge on the Mask of Light, he is also helping a group of rogue Dark Hunters, led by Zaktan, into finding the hiding place of Nuva. Brutaka’s true goals are unknown.

          Botar is a towering giant of a creature, feared by even Axonn and Brutaka. He has a massive, fanged maw and a horrifying visage. One of the Order’s most powerful agents, Botar has incredibly powerful abilities of teleportation, able to warp across entire miles with objects and passengers in tow. While faithful to the Order of Mata Nui and usually serious, he can occasionally have his own dark sense of humor.

          Hydraxon is a senior-ranking Order agent. Once a prison warden, he realized the corruption of Xia and has since reformed, discarding his old name and identity in favor of the mask and codename he now bears. Hydraxon is responsible for training many of the Order’s new recruits, and is armed with a variety of blades, daggers, and boomerangs, a few of which can explode on impact. A master of the martial arts, he is a mentor to many and frequently assisted by his pet Energy Hound, Spinax; A creature capable of taking in the ‘scent’ of a target’s soul and tracking it across the distance between both islands of Xia and Okoto, back when they were separated.

          Trinuma is an Order agent with an uncanny ability to talk others into doing exactly as she desires. It is unknown if this is some sort of hidden power, or merely the result of genuine charisma; Either way, she is a skilled negotiator who has helped in securing useful deals for the Order of Mata Nui. She has recruited a few members into organization herself, and convinced a few of the Order’s prisoners and enemies into performing missions for them.

          Tobduk is a towering Vorox. Once a meek, dainty housewife, she was one of the first victims to be transformed by the Nynrah Incident, after being captured by rogue Visorak spiders and mutated into the being she is today. Horrifically traumatized by the incident, she was recovered by the Order of Mata Nui and inducted into the organization. Feeling a disconnect between her past life and current identity, the new agent renamed herself Tobduk and rapidly rose through the ranks as a feared, ruthless assassin. Tobduk is responsible for many of the Order’s most heinous acts and has innocent blood on her hands. She bears a personal vendetta against the Visorak and the Nynrah Ghosts. As a result of her mutations, Tobduk is an agile, powerful titan who can enter a berserker state. She wields poisoned daggers and machetes, as well as a staff shaped like a Doom Viper’s head, which can shoot forth white-hot beams of energy.

          Johmak is an obsidian, crystalline being, able to shatter into countless tiny crystals. These crystals can form into a floating cloud, or be used to tear apart and penetrate enemies. Johmak’s ability and unusual nature allow her to recover from just about any form of physical damage, and she is practically immune to it as a result. As a cloud of crystals, Johmak can enter tight spaces and is a skilled saboteur. Armed with a shield formed from her own essence, Johmak is a strong-willed agent who believes in ideals of freedom and resistance.

          Krakua is a grey-armored warrior with a powerful control over Sound, able to manipulate it to silence others, amplify noises, mimic voices, etc. Krakua has used their Sound abilities to a devastating effect, able to access frequencies that shatter almost any material, and cause internal rupturing of organs to enemies. For these abilities, Krakua is an ideal assassin, infiltrator, spy, torturer, and warrior. They are armed with a ‘tuning fork’ blade consisting of two long, silver prongs with which to better attune and amplify Krakua’s power over Sound.

          Jerbraz is a charming agent and spy for the Order of Mata Nui. A botched experiment resulted in him being rendered permanently invisible. He wields a Twilight Blade that can turn practically invisible alongside him, or blind opponents. He is a skilled assassin and infiltrator, and has been frequently teamed up alongside Krakua to watch enemies completely undetected, sometimes right next to them. Most intriguingly of all, the failed experiment has caused Jerbraz to have a presence in both the Light and Dark Worlds; If one were to warp between either realm, they would find Jerbraz still there, existing across the veil between worlds. For this reason, he is an ideal enemy against Night Wraiths, and is able to see into the Para-Realm; Allowing the Order to keep track of the Kraahl as well.

          Mazeka is a skilled decoder, encrypter, and hacker amongst the Order of Mata Nui. Once a skilled programmer, a massacre for the secrets of the company worked for led them down a long chain of events that resulted in their status as an Order agent. Now, they regularly work to intercept transmissions in Artidax, decode messages, encrypt Order communications, etc. They made anonymous contact with Kopaka during his arrival on Xia, helping guide the Toa of Ice in resisting Dume; Mazeka has long been stationed in the fight against the dictator’s propaganda and control of information.

           Scowe is a winged member of the Order, skilled in quiet transport across the skies. She has functioned often as a manual messenger, transporting physical letters containing encrypted data within to other agents in the dead of night. An incredibly stealthy flier, Scowe has managed to evade the sights of guards and cameras through her unusual ability to automatically ‘see’ through the eyes of everyone in her proximity. The owners of these eyes are completely unaware as Scowe is able to map out blind spots, navigating a completely unnoticed flight path through them.

           Deralte is a hulking, four-armed warrior armed with horns and a multi-bladed axe. He has the unique ability to ‘ignore distance’; When he swings his axe, the effects of that axe cutting into something will travel through the empty air between him and whatever is closest, immediately cleaving that object. Thus, he can swing his weapon, and in real-time, whatever is in front of him -within the distance of about a mile- will be sliced as if Deralte was right there. This applies to any of his actions; A hi-five will be immediately felt across a field as he reaches to meet it, for example. Because of Deralte’s unique ability to ignore the distance between him and a target, he is an ideal if unconventional ‘sniper’. Although his power only applies to his body and the axe he wields, Deralte has still managed to kill many unwitting targets, who die believing they were attacked by an invisible assailant that had somehow gotten close. The only way to avoid his attacks is either to get out of the way, or place something –or someone- in front of oneself.

           Boggon is a Vorox with well over a dozen, serpentine heads, with which he can survey the area all around him; Or attack with his fangs, while wielding a weapon in his hands. Operating within the Nynrah District, Boggon acts as a spy for the Order of Mata Nui, reporting the goings-on amongst the various Vorox clans, while researching into the potential existence of whereabouts of the mythical Keetongu.

[darkworldlightwork]

So Much Information, So Little Clarity (The Truth Is Out There)

Anyone with an uncalcified pineal gland can see

A malaria vaccine is poison, not progress

Any so-called western medicine sent to “3rd world” countries is a form of population control, not protection from disease

These tinctures are designed to weaken, not protect systems

Those “tests” are actually monitoring your DNA and genetics for future manipulation by the government

Your fake humanitarians are actually true racists who see no problem holding back and or stifling the whole of humanity regardless of skin tone or culture.

People who will pollute the air and seas with no regard for life

People who will fill up and spray down your food with pesticides and unnatural additives

You believe in crop dusters but not chem trails? Ok.

These people will drill for oil when renewable clean energy is abundant

All the while using propaganda and fear tactics to keep individuals and groups fixated on religion, politics and hues

These People want the population

Homogenous and weak of mind and body

This makes people easy to manipulate, buy and sell (think Wall-E)

Fast food and delivery making everyone overweight and hazy headed

lack of nature and movement leading to lethargy and apathy

Cries of “we’re all in this together!” After decades of the media sensationalizing

Racism, sexism, classism and violence

Humans are sometimes so sheepish its astonishing

They will jump on any trend including “pandemic fashion”

If you need a mask

Stay home

Those red X’s and thin blue lines your trained to stand on

Reminiscent of pre-school, eh?

It’s a common fact that the spray of germs from a cough or sneeze can travel up to

13 feet

peripherally

So what’s with the 6-6-6 feet apart?

“They” are attempting to sedate you

Retrain you to follow any orders given

This works best on children and adults who are afraid

Illness, unlike war is something everyone can relate to

You see after 9/11 and the subsequent 24 hr news cycle bloodbath

We were subjected to since

we have been desensitized to violence

The threat of nuclear war was a JOKE to the youth

And rightfully so

Now here we are

Faced with the false threat of pandemic to put those kids in their place!

The “shallow state” can’t stand to be mocked or ignored

It took a major production to feign nuclear war, only to have the whole thing MEMED?!?

Your chi-comrades in the government

The same or similar bad actors that brought the you the 2016

reprogramming bring you

Covid 19, 2020

Republicans have an uncanny record of “major catastrophies” during election season

This is not coincidence

You can stop them by freeing your mind

If you’re too jacked in

Unplug

Don’t follow the news, follow your heart

By this time you should know how to carry yourself in public

And take care of yourself at home

You know how to keep a polite distance from someone while shopping

and how to properly cough and sneeze

DO NOT FALL IN LINE

submission is an infection of the mind and spirit and will lead to the death of your consciousness and free thought if you don’t fight back

You must fight back

I have a dream that Donald John Drumpf has been the last president of the United States

Elizabeth, the last queen of England

And so on and so forth

Until they all fall down

Ashes to ashes

Dust to dust

#wedkntneednoeducation #wedontneednothoughtcontrol #allinall #yourejustanother #prick #screamingaboutawall #£ #thoughtcrime #1984

#ministryoffear

[nobeliumoxygenoxygen]

Dabi || Still here, princess?

SUMMARY: After moving from the dungeons to Dabi’s chambers, life is definitely easier not having to attempt escape every second day. But your situation is temporary at best and when missions get longer and farther away, Dabi has no choice but to leave you behind and, more importantly, alone in the castle full of demons. (sequel to Dabi || Lost, princess?)

GENRE: fantasy au (demon!dabi), she/her pronouns

WORDS: approx. 5500

--

Dabi knows that he can't keep you in his chambers forever.

Well, he could, but he also knows just how insufferably annoying you’ll become if you stay cooped up any longer, and he knows what that kind of suffocation does to a person--oh, does he know. 

But at the end of the day, what other choice does he have? He can't let you out if he's not with you, and even being with you poses a certain kind of danger. It shows that he's growing an attachment to you, something that demons aren't supposed to have. It reminds the other members of your existence, which they have, hopefully, forgotten about at this point. 

With the exception of Toga.

Who is, really, the only thorn in his plans.

He's not stupid. He notices her glances at him, and wouldn't for the life of him ever have believed the flimsy excuse that she'd just been "exploring" when he'd found her in front of his doors. Dabi is not stupid.

But that also means that he knows not to refuse a mission from the boss himself, even if it means being placed farther and farther from you, and for longer and longer periods of time. Their plans are coming together, in the months since their once scraggly rag-tag group of demons had formed, and with that means bigger scale missions. 

Missions that leave you alone in his chambers for far too long.

He does have options, of course he does. But they are not ideal in least bit. Take you with him and put you in perhaps more danger than staying at the castle? Increase the power of the protection spells around his chambers and risk not having enough to face whatever Knights were waiting to get their stupidly heroic hands on him? 

No, and there was no way Dabi was going to try your idea.

"It was just a suggestion, you know!"

"The worst one in the world, princess."

With a throw of your hands, you turn away from the amused demon, groaning. "Gee, I'm so sorry that I tried to help."

"You should be, darling, after all I thought your chats with Toga taught you everything you needed to know about us demons."

"It did, but then my chats with you taught me that maybe what I needed to know was wrong." Dabi's mouth twitches downwards, briefly. What does that mean? He was, and still is, dangerous, despite his attitude towards you, and you still know that, right? "I mean, aren't you guys all allies or something? Why can't one of them, you know, protect me whilst you're gone? You can phrase it as saying they're helping you, an ally, a fellow member of this oh-so-great League. A comrade--"

"That's enough. Your spewing Knight propaganda. It’s embarrassing. Come now, I thought we knew better." 

You roll your eyes. "Having friends is not Knight propaganda, is a basic human need." You stop, realising what you had just said and open your mouth to backtrack but Dabi, unfortunately, beats you to it.

"But I'm not human, am I, princess?"

You groan once more, louder this time, and more exasperated, and Dabi does not know why it makes his world a little brighter, why the way you smile and groan and laugh makes his heart beat the way it does. "You know what I mean."

"I don't think I do." 

Before you can swear at him, a bell rings. The bell rings--the one to alert the League members that a meeting was to commence. Dabi found the idea hilarious; it was so very human, and on top of that, so very aristocratic, like something royalty would do. Like something royalty did do, because he knew they did.

You sit up on the bed, waiting patiently for Dabi to 'poof' away, as you'd once called his teleporting in a slip-of-the-tongue, but he only gives an amused smirk back at you, fueling your irritation enough that you respond to him with a vulgar gesture and fall back onto the bed. Only after a moment does Dabi 'poof' out and into the meeting room, where most of the others are already inside.

Barely a second passes and he can already gauge the atmosphere; tense, like something, or someone, is ready to burst.

That someone being Shigaraki.

But it is Kurogiri who speaks first. "The Knights of the Society are on the move. It appears that they are confident they can catch us, and if the intel we have gathered is correct, they've gained more help from other regions. Specifically speaking, All Might himself."

Compress gives a wave of his hand. "It couldn't be anything we can't handle, now, can it?"

"We don't know that. We can never truly know that, I must remind you. It is best to overestimate them." Compress sighs but nods. "Because of that, we must get a move on as well. Dabi, you are to play a vital role in this."

He lets no flicker of surprise show, besides the fact that he leans forward, off of the wall he was leaning on. 

"You are to gain the trust and alliance of a Knight for some files that we need."

There is surprise in the room now, but no one makes a move to protest immediately. Spinner is the one who speaks first. "A Knight? Isn't that--well, huge? Which Knight are we aiming for?" 

"Any of them," Shigaraki interrupts. He turns away from the desk he'd been standing at and walks towards the long table in the middle, dropping a piece of paper onto it. "This is a list of names--Giran says these are the most likely Knights to turn traitor." He looks up and meets Dabi's eyes, a slow, small smile growing on his face. "Your pick. But do whatever it takes to make sure you succeed."

"Hang on, how do we know it's not a trap?" Magne asks.

"We don't," Shigaraki says simply and if it weren't for the fact that he was his boss, Dabi would have liked to melt Shigaraki's face for the sheer casualness of the way he was clearly endangering his life. "But Dabi's strong enough to fend for himself, right?"  And for being a pain in the ass in general.

But Dabi is forced to smirk, forced to open his mouth and say, "Of course," and forced to accept the mission.

Even though he does not know just what the hell he will do with you.

The meeting ends soon after, Shigaraki declaring that Dabi has a day to get out onto the field, Toga all but ecstatic about the whole situation as Twice has to bear the brunt of her excited chattering, and Dabi berating himself for not noticing something was up earlier when he leaves, followed by Compress and Magne. He should have realised something was wrong when they did not warp out.

"Is there something on your mind, Dabi?" Compress asks, a bit too pointedly for his liking.

He grunts, halfheartedly shrugging. "No. The mission should go smoothly. I already know who to go for."

Compress nods, but continues. "I didn't mean anything about the mission, though."

"I think you know what we're referring to," Magne interrupts. "Or who, I should say."

Dabi doesn't let anything show, but he just barely manages to stop his jaw from clenching. So they do know. Because of Toga? Or had they realised where the princess-where you had disappeared off to?

The masked demon sighs, his gloved hand touching his forehead. "We'll just get to the point then. A little birdie told us about a certain human in your chambers, Dabi. A certain princess."

"You say you'll get to the point, Compress, but you don’t." Magne scoffs, even more exasperatedly than him. "Dabi, if you need us to help her while you're gone, just say the word. We are allies."

He doesn't stop walking, but he does slow, giving Magne a glance. They are allies, that much is true, but not without a cost. That much is more true.

"But let's be honest, you don't much have much of a choice. How else will you provide for her when you're gone? Shigaraki said it himself--you'll be gone for a while, Dabi." 

"Just let us help," Magne repeats. "We swear we won't hurt her."

That gets him thinking. If they swear...

Demons are all about oaths and deals, contracts and agreements. The wording though... the wording must be precise, exact, otherwise loopholes happen and deals go the way it can, but not the way you expected.

"You won't hurt her. Physically, mentally, or emotionally." They start nodding already. "You'll provide her with food that she wants to eat, and fresh water that is safe to drink." He stops, remembering a final detail. "And you will not let Toga near her."

Compress and Magne repeat what he'd said, adding an "I swear" at the end, the latter smiling, the former--well, wearing the mask as usual.

Dabi swears internally.

This was the only way.

But it was not one he liked.

-

"Okayyy..." You drag out the word. "So you'll be gone for a while--"

"A long while, princess, a long while."

"And in the meantime Compress and Magne will... 'help' me. Or, give me food and water and that's it?"

"Yes."

You nod slowly, letting it sink in. It was rather short notice; your demon friend, companion--something--leaving for a mission that would take months, leaving you to the mercy and help of other demons.

Damn, you shouldn't have suggested asking them for help. Because now look where it led you. At the time, you hadn't realised just how afraid you'd be. You knew nothing about them. Your time with Dabi meant you only trusted him, and even that to an extent for it had only been a month and a half and though a lot had happened in that time, you couldn't possibly know someone well and truly in just that short span of time. Sure, you were comfortable enough to express exasperation, and frustration at him--though, it is impossible not too--, but you had never seen him truly angry (save for that encounter in your dungeon weeks and weeks ago, an encounter you still hadn’t deciphered, no... still hadn’t accepted the meaning of) or sad or even happy, now that you thought about it. Though you weren't quite sure if Dabi was capable of smiling like the average person. His variety of expressions seemed to constitute of smirks and more smirks.

"Y/N?"

You jolt out of your thoughts, eyes wide and incredulous as you stare up at Dabi.

"You'll be fed, and kept hydrated, so the only real issue is--"

"You called me by my name."

"Gonna be boredo--what?"

You grin, ignoring the nausea settling in your stomach. "You called me by my name, Dabi! Are you feeling alright? Is this mission giving you nerves or something?"

The unimpressed gaze you are met with is something you are all too familiar with, but to be fair, this was going to be how you coped with the fact that Dabi would be gone for months.

And you'd be virtually alone for months.

Months.

He sighs softly, before smirking. "Yes, you caught me," He begins in a monotone voice. "I'm so nervous I think I will die." You laugh, rolling your eyes.

"The great demon Dabi? Nervous? Now what a revelation!" You say dramatically. He barely laughs, but the sound that escapes him is clearly amused. "But I know you shall return, for you are my tormentor, and I can never escape this suffering!"

"Suffering? I’m hurt. I thought you were enjoying our time together, dear Y/N."

You barely manage to conceal the way your heart stutters at the way he says your name, and instead infuse more flair to counteract that damn fluttering. "Ah, but a demon can never know my delicate human heart, can the--"

The bell rings. But this time, the both of you know it is not for a mission. The comical atmosphere dissipates, and in it's place is something of the tension of heading into the unknown.

You feel Dabi's power spurring to life, breathing throughout the room, one last layer of protective spells, making you shudder. He smirks, noticing. "I guess it's time."

"I guess so," You say. You bite your lip, wondering if you should say it. To hell with it, you finally decide. "Be safe, Dabi."

Amusement sparkles in his eyes--when would you next see that beautiful turquoise hue? "I should be saying that to you, princess."

You only roll your eyes back at him and then, with a quick flare of heat, flames engulf his body before he poofs away, leaving you in his chambers, where it is suddenly dark and quiet and...

Lonely.

-

The first few days, even weeks, are fine. Magne and Compress never actually show up, but jugs of water and plates of food are on the table when you wake, and it's enough to last the whole day. You had given up being cautious, knowing that it wouldn’t matter if it was actually poisoned because without it, you’d die of starvation.

The boredom is the most dangerous part of it all, once you get past the paranoia, and when you get comfortable enough that you're not being watched, you start doing things you wouldn't normally do with Dabi around--for you've never trusted him after an embarrassing encounter of terrible vocals--, like dancing and singing and rolling around on the floor and tearing down the bed's canopy to create a smaller canopy, more closed in to make the chambers feel less empty and anything and everything to fight off the boredom, the nothingness.

But even all those miscellaneous activities grow tiresome after a while. There are books in Dabi's room--attained after you had expressed a desire to him about reading--but though you are not the fastest reader, having nothing else to do meant that you spent most of your time reading and soon, all the books were read, and reread. And reread. And though you would have killed for more, you sure weren’t going to ask Magne or Compress for some, nor did you know how to anyway.

You keep track of the days, but when you see that only a month has gone by, you deflate in frustration, kicking the air and screaming into your pillow--something you were prone to doing lately.

"You are so slow, hurry up and come back," You mumble, rubbing your eyes as sleep once again evades you. 

But then your mind wanders to dangerous territory; scenarios and thoughts of your wishes being fulfilled but in the worst ways possible--he comes back dead, he comes back in pieces, he comes back changed--

You bolt upright in the bed, eyes shut as you shake your head vigorously enough that it aches. 

No. No.

He was going to come back. Alive. Unhurt. The same Dabi as before. You two would return to playful banter, he would tell you what he had gotten up to outside, and you would tell him what you had done (admittedly, nothing much, but with enough thought you’re sure you can exaggerate enough), and then all would be fine because he’s back and he’s Dabi--frustratingly cocky Dabi.

You sigh, hand on your chest as the beating slows down. 

But when you open your eyes to the dark chambers--chambers that suddenly don’t feel as comfortable and homely as before--you’re only reminded of your solitude.

He’s not here.

No one is.

No one but you and the creeping shadows slithering up the bed.

Only you don’t know that, and as you lie back down in the bed, resigned to another painful night, they make their way towards you. Slowly, lazily, stealthily.

You are already sleeping when they converge. 

-

Demons don’t need to sleep, but to pass the time it’s sure as hell useful.

The mission itself is not so tiresome as when he is not doing anything. And now, with all the pieces into place, he just had to wait a few more days until that pathetic Knight came back with what he needed.

Dabi could maintain an illusion a fair while, but nothing to the extent of keeping it up all night as well as protection charms for whichever inn he’d choose to stay in and that’s not to mention keeping up the charms on his chambers back at the castle. To put simply, he’d rather go a few nights deep in the cave he’d found than risk it.

It’s too bad; the forest it’s in is unnervingly quiet. Not for the fact that it scares him--he’s a demon, what could possibly scare him--but for the thoughts that invade his mind like parasites. 

Thoughts of you.

He clenches his jaw as whispers flash through his head. 

But Dabi can’t delude himself. Not with that stupid hope or fairy tale morals he’d been raised to believe. He can’t repeat “you are safe” over and over because he knows that to do that would only lead to disappointment in the event that… you are not. 

That something had happened to you.

That you were gone.

That he had left you to suffer.

That--

Flames ignite in the cave he’s in, licking at his body enough to sting--it always stings, a price he’d had to pay among others--but he ignores it, getting up and walking out.

The forest is quiet.

His mind is loud.

To shut one up, he’d have to make the other speak.

No, roar.

Well, it isn’t too bad.

This kingdom hit too close to home anyway, and if Dabi wasn’t so good at keeping his past a secret he’d think Shigaraki put him here on purpose. If the flames make it to the pearly white castle with the red rooftops, it wasn’t any sort of loss. 

(Not the princess or the princes inside, not the queen lost in her own head, and most of all, not the red haired fire king himself.)

The flames aren’t just stinging anymore. They hurt. His skin prickles, more than prickles, the staples straining to keep him, literally, together. 

But Dabi pushes on, blocking it out, all of it.

Even the voice that sounds too much like you screaming in his head.

-

There is so much fire.

It is everywhere. 

Blue blue blue in your vision, blinding you, taking you under, forcing you to feel a heat that does not touch you.

There is no escape. You can’t breathe. Your throat is dry but your skin is wet with sweat. Oh if only it is water instead. Water to cool, to soothe, to heal.

Not you, but Dabi.

You had tried. You had tried so desperately to stop him as the flames kept moving, kept hurting him. Him, and not you. 

At first, you had thought this was a dream. Strangely vivid, the surroundings unrecognizable yet the breath of the cool night sky in the quiet forest familiar. 

But then you had seen Dabi as he emerged from the cave, standing in such surprise that you had tripped, face burning because you had been so, so sure you would hear a laugh, followed by a taunt or a tease. You had been just waiting to retort one back, something along the lines of “downgrade much?” because your mind was whirring. 

You were there. Wherever there was, but most importantly, you were with Dabi. And after weeks and weeks of loneliness, solitude, isolation, nothing made you happier.

But instead you were met with silence and suddenly--

Fire.

Everywhere. 

Only it did not hurt you. And not in the way you were familiar with, not in the way you hadn’t been hurt those weeks and weeks ago in that damp, cold dungeon, not in the way you knew. 

It wasn’t there.

You weren’t there.

It was only a dream.

Or so you thought.

But now you don’t think that. This is not so much a dream, but the work of something and now you understand just what those cold tendrils had been that had gripped your body, jolting you awake not into your bed but here. Not cold at all, but something else.

It is not a dream, but you are not with Dabi, either. Instead, you watch as the flames devour all in his path. Your heart races, unsure of what is happening.

Demon. Dabi is a demon.

You knew that. You know that. 

Only now it is so much more closer, the true implications of it dawning on you as the flames drew ever nearer to the distant castle you see past the trees. Red and blue flags fluttering manically, the eternal glow of the powerful king’s fire alight. 

It is nothing compared to Dabi’s blue.  

And though you know you cannot be hurt now, your body instinctively seeks escape--shelter from this inferno.

But there is blue everywhere--

Everywhere except for Dabi himself. The only relief in the blue hell. Your only relief from the flames, and from the solitude that had hurt you for so long. 

So you walk towards him, pushing past the way the flames feel as though they beat you back, the human instinct to run and scream and curl up, the terror of his flames that fights with something else inside, something that pulls you to Dabi in ways you can’t admit, won’t admit. At least, not yet. 

He doesn’t move, merely lets his power do all the work for him, but when you approach, you see he is moving. He is shaking. With something, you do not know what. Rage, most likely (But the shaking is not that of uncontrollable rage, and you know that because you know that shaking yourself--felt it, experienced it as you had once stood helpless and alone in a faraway throne room as a voice that did not belong to you determined your fate).

You reach out to him, whispering his name before remembering that you aren’t really there, only his eyes crack open and in them--in them you see it.

Pain.

Desperate, hidden behind the thick veil of pure rage as he glares at the castle, but it is a veil nonetheless and when you know how to slide it aside, you can see through.

And you start to wonder just what it is, or was, that makes him look at those symbols with those emotions. And you realise…

You barely know him at all. Nothing of his past, nothing besides the nonchalantly arrogant demon Dabi you knew. Nothing. And it suddenly hurts, because you had told him so much of your life, but you had never noticed just how much he had not. So caught up in your own situation that you remember--

Dabi had been human once, too.

Demons were not born of nothing. Demons were the creations of humanity, after all. When one was hungry enough to seek forbidden sources… or when one was desperate enough to seek an escape.

He stumbles and you reach to catch only to flow right through up; your arms separating as though water, through his steaming body, the staples breaking and cracking, the skin red hot.

He’s folding under his own power and you freeze. Realisation falling upon you.

He’s going to die. It’s too much for him--even a demon like him. These sort of flames are not made of this world, are not meant to exist in this plane of existence. 

“Stop,” You whisper. “Stop. Dabi. Stop. Stop it.” Every word increases in panic, in worry and volume but nothing you say or cry or scream gets to him. You are powerless in this realm of--of whatever or wherever this is.

“Powerless for you are human.”

The voice startles you but though you twist and turn, wondering where it comes from, you already know. 

“Pathetic. Fragile. Useless.”

It comes from yourself. A voice, a tendril of something deeper and darker, speaking. 

“You believe you can do anything, but you cannot. A human can do nothing for one like that.”

Frustration builds up, those feelings of helplessness you had felt all these past weeks--all your life--, building up up up--

You snap at the voice. “Then help him yourself.” Against all better, rational judgement, for this is the voice of a force you both know of and do not. The voice of that darkness that belonged to the ones who sought it.

It laughs, lowly, menacingly. “Why should I? That is a creation of something else. I shall not touch it, least of all help it.”

You speak before you understand the words coming out. “Then how can I?”

“You can’t.” The answer you knew before you heard it. But it is not the answer you want. “Not as you are now.”

You aren’t sure if that is the answer you want, either. 

(But deep inside, you know what it means, you know you know you know how this will end, if it will at all.)

“What is your answer?”

Your stomach twists. You tremble at the thoughts flying past--thoughts that are so forbidden, so unforgivable and yet they are there and that counts for something.

You know the answer. You know your answer. To save him, and yourself.

But if there is one thing Dabi taught you, it is that the words of demons could be disasters hidden behind paradise, half-lies behind half-truths, a facade to show you what you expected when what you really received was harsh realities. Oaths. They are all about oaths.

Demons couldn’t lie, but they could manipulate.

But, away from your home kingdom like you are now, you are still a princess. An heir, as abandoned as you are; raised to see past the deceptively sweet flattery of courtiers, the tricks behind contracts, the lies of anyone and everyone around you. 

Raised to rule with steel determination and your own fire. 

“What is the question?”

And you stop shaking.

-

The mission is over. Finally.

Dabi resists the relief that threatens to rise through his mask of boredom. For two reasons; one, his face still hurts where the staples had torn through, and two, he can’t be too excited to come back. 

Especially when Spinner and Twice wait outside, something in their eyes that makes him slow, looking down at them. “What’s this? A welcoming party?”

Twice chops a hand down. “Sure is! No, it’s a warning party!” The bells had already been ringing in his mind, but this time they blast out. Something is wrong.

Spinner sighs, giving him a scathing look, the lizard always seeming to think he was better, more focused or moral or whatever, than all of them when he was still, in the end, a demon too. “You’re supposed to give us the info.” They wait as Dabi examines them. After checking it is truly Twice and Spinner, he shrugs. He couldn't care less however the files get to Shigaraki. The boss will know who it came from, after putting him through that pain of a hell mission. 

What he really cares about is you. He’s not stupid. He knows something has happened, for them to be this tense, for the others to be waiting at all. 

He teleports away--poofing, as you’d call it, he recalls with a tight smile--but he is yanked backwards in the journey to his chambers, something pulling him away from it and leaving him outside, a few feet away from the doors.

His eyes harden.

He can’t go in.

Why. 

The thought is more statement than question. 

He feels their presence once everything quietens down--the panic, the helplessness of not knowing and not doing.

Compress and Magne stop by his side, but he knows their shields are up and knows they know he knows. They expected him, but the look in their eyes…

“What did you do?”

And Dabi isn’t sure what is louder. The static in his mind or the hiss of his ignited flames.

"What the hell did you do to her?"

(That line, said by a boy much younger than he is now, a boy who belonged to another life... who had failed to protect ones he loved most, just like how he was failing once more.)

Compress raises his arms in mock-surrender, as if that gesture would cause Dabi to direct his anger somewhere else. "We kept our side of the deal. We did nothing."

"She was a human living in the dens of demons." A voice speaks up from behind. Shigaraki. Dabi whirls around, blue flames rising but he knows better than to attack outright. "It was only natural that she would either die in the darkness..."

Flames roar and Dabi does not want to acknowledge the depth of how his heart leaps into his throat at the thought. 

But the grin on Shigaraki's face gives Dabi pause. There's something else. A calculating look in the boss' eyes. He did something else. 

And it must have furthered their plans in some way. He spins back around, expectant--of what, he does not know.

He hears the grin widen. "Or joined."

The shadows leaping around his chambers die out, just as quickly as it emerged, and there is an eerie silence as the four of them watch, waiting with bated breath (though Shigaraki looks almost bored and for that alone, for the way he cares nothing for your life, Dabi would have burnt him alive).

The doors do not open, but water leaks out from underneath. Magne mutters "interesting," underneath her breath as the water continues to pour out, and then gush out as the doors open but as soon as it does, it evaporates--though not by the work of Dabi's flames.

Shigaraki seems positively joyful, as joyful as he could be considering himself, as a figure emerges from inside.

Dripping wet.

No, not wet, for it is not the clothes or even the body itself that is drenched in water.

No, the body itself is water.

You are water.

Your body glitters, just like the sea, and with your every step waves crash into each other in the joints, calming where you still, but there is an ever-constant movement. Just like the sea.

And then you collapse. Collapse like a wave and your body is no longer a body and Dabi's heart stops because what does that mean--what does it mean? Only the water piles up together, slowly solidifying back into a body of flesh and blood, the translucency transforming into the colour of your skin, your features slowly coming back. Magne is the first to move, for she steps forward to drop her orange tunic over you, giving Dabi a disapproving look.

"Lend her your coat, why don't you?" She huffs, gesturing impatiently for him to come closer. 

He moves but Shigaraki says something that causes him to stop. "Aren't you glad?" He glances at him. "Now your human princess can truly join you." And then the slow, malicious grin is back. "Well, not human princess anymore. You'll have to explain, first. Her transformation was a culmination of a... variety of stressful factors."

Dabi is not so sure what that means, but the words do not go unregistered. He'll get to 'explaining' later; right now, you're clearly in need of help.

He wraps his coat around you, buttoning it without pushing your arms through before picking you up and glancing into his chambers to make sure that it isn't trashed--he does not know whether he would have been surprised if it was, because he was still surprised that it wasn't, besides the carpets being wet and squelching with every step.

He doesn't respond to the other two's words, not outwardly, as he places you down on the bed.

"For what it's worth, we did this to help you, and if you need it, we are sorry, Dabi," Magne says solemnly.

"But," Compress adds, reluctant and yet not, "You must admit that everything is now, much, much more easier. For the both of you. Even if it will take time to accept."

Dabi still doesn't respond, and the other two leave the room, Shigaraki giving them a satisfied nod before all three warp away, to other parts of the castle.

With a wave of his hand, he shuts the doors and reactivates the protective spells before truly taking a look at you.

You do not look changed. But, you are still sleeping, and perhaps the telltale sign of the demon mark is somewhere in your eyes, or maybe somewhere hidden behind his coat. Wherever it is, he cannot see it yet.

Dabi is not sure he wants to.

Because deep inside, he knows this is perhaps the most favourable outcome there was. Amidst you dying, or having to return to the humans--which was, admittedly, impossible for Shigaraki would have never let you leave--, this was probably the only outcome where you would have lived a satisfying life, after everything that had happened. A life you could spend with him, able to protect yourself. 

(And after all, how could a demon fall in love with a human? It was much more plausible for demons to fall in love with each other.)

He sighs, suddenly feeling almost exasperated, looking up to stretch his neck and shut his eyes briefly. He opens them, and when he looks back down at you, he speaks. "Honestly, princess, I leave for a few months and you go and do this." He chuckles. "Guess you really didn't need my protection after all."

You stir, slightly, and Dabi catches a glimpse of your skin swirling like waves again, almost unnerving for it still has the colour of your skin and for all intents and purposes, the look and texture of a human body. 

He smirks as your eyes open, blinking sleepily before settling on him (inside, hoping, hoping, that maybe you hadn't changed too much from his fierce princess to something else entirely).

"Care to explain just what the hell happened while I was gone?" 

You stare at him, shocked, opening your mouth to whisper croakily, “You’re alright.”

It’s not a question, but the look in your eyes makes him realise that whatever you had thought of him going out there hadn’t just been irrational panic, but something… something that you had feared.

That voice. The night he’d burned in that forest. That voice...

It had been you.

But he doesn’t let the shock show, doesn’t do anything but raise an eyebrow. “You know, Y/N, it’s rude to spy, even for a demon.”

And Dabi understands just why your answering groan and roll of your eyes clears all of his doubts and makes the world a little brighter.

You are still here.

And he hopes you always will be.

--

A/N: this is really late for anon - thank u!! you inspired me with the reader turning into a demon idea so hopefully you enjoyed!! i did write the first part last year tho, so um idk if i managed to keep the voice of the first part ahaha but still, thanks for reading 

[mst3kproject]

602: Invasion USA

 This is not the 1985 movie with Chuck Norris.  I suppose I should watch that one someday as an Episode that Never Was, but for now we have this.  Its basic purpose is the same as that of Rocket Attack USA, to scare the audience into patriotic loyalty, and it shockingly manages to be even worse at it.

A bunch of people are sitting around in a bar talking about the universal draft when an unnamed country suddenly declares war on the United States, and… well, that’s it, really.  Stock footage of anti-aircraft guns fires on stock footage of planes. Stock footage of atom bombs is dropped on stock footage of cities.  Stock footage of warships crosses stock footage of oceans.  All while the so-called characters watch it happening on television and remark on how they can’t believe this is real… no wonder, since none of it is happening in the same dimension they’re in.

I refuse to call Invasion USA a movie.  It doesn’t qualify.  It’s more like four newsreels in a trench coat and a fake beard, trying to pretend they’re a narrative.  Take, for example, the part where Boulder Dam is destroyed.  We see stock footage of the planes.  We see stock footage of the dam.  We see stock footage of a mushroom cloud.  And then stock footage of a flood.  The closest this comes to interacting with the characters fleeing from it is that we see the flood footage back-projected behind their car, and then the camera rolls over and we cut to some of their possessions which have been tossed into a river.  It’s all so obviously a juxtaposition rather than a series of events.  You can’t help but roll your eyes.

The nearest this comes to being interesting or exciting is some of the stuff we see in the military stock footage.  The audience doesn’t exactly feel involved in this – it’s just film of random Things Happening so it doesn’t tell a story, except in retrospect when the TV news anchor tells us what’s supposed to be going on, but there are some spectacular plane crashes and so forth.  Of course, then you remember that none of this is special effects.  You’re watching real human beings die gruesome deaths.  That sucks the fun out of it pretty fast.

It’s not until the last twelve minutes that we get anything that might be called a special effect.  The bad guys nuke New York, and while what we see looks nothing like the aftermath of an atomic bombing, there is an actual miniature building that falls apart, dumping Styrofoam boulders on our heroes.  This is followed by a mediocre matte paining, but one that still does the job its meant to do.  It’s actually kind of a shock, since up until now the war has seemed to go on all around this room but never to enter it.

That’s one halfway-effective moment out of an entire seventy-three minutes of film, however, and the rest is all garbage. Not only is there the endless stock footage, there’s also the bad guys.  They’re never identified as Soviets, though they speak with Russian accents, because the film-makers didn’t want Invasion USA to be a self-fulfilling prophecy (thus making them more sensible than the people who made The Interview).  Much is made of the fact that they’re wearing American uniforms, but the one time they try to make a plot point out of it, a guard sees through the ruse immediately. The real reason is once again to avoid mentioning a country, and so they can use the stock footage of American soldiers to represent both sides.

The baddies espouse ideals of equality, freedom, and peace, but the only ones we actually meet are a couple of bullying, alcoholic rapists. This serves its purpose but the writers apparently see no contradiction between portraying ‘bad’ characters as drunks and having the ‘good’ characters sitting around drinking for half the run time.  I guess whether alcohol is good or bad depends on how nicely you’re dressed and what shape of glass you’re drinking it from. Not to mention that the psychic who can be seen as a bully and a rapist based on what he does to the other characters’ minds, but I’ll get back to that.

How long the whole war takes to happen I have no idea.  A few days must have passed, since a guy drives from San Francisco to somewhere in Arizona, and somebody makes a reference to ‘months’, but the way we keep cutting back to the same people in the same bar gives the impression that the invasion of America happens in about twenty minutes.  Maybe this is intentional, since the story, of course, ends with the revelation that it was alllll a dreeeeeeam.  Or maybe everybody was just too incompetent to show us time passing.

The ending attempts to work on multiple levels and is shit on all of them.  First, there’s the ending to the narrative we’ve been watching.  This isn’t really a story, since there’s no plot as such, merely things happening that the characters cannot possibly do anything about. They’re powerless in the face of these overwhelming events, and once the factory owner is shot after refusing to build tanks for the invaders, it doesn’t take the audience long to realize that this fate will be pretty universal.  Sure enough! The rancher is drowned when the flood from the broken dam sweeps him away, along with his wife and kids to make it extra-tragic.  The politician is killed in the attack on Washington.  The reporter is shot for picking a fight with a bad guy, and his girlfriend leaps out the window to her death.

Then of course they wake up back in the bar, and learn that it was all a dream, or rather a vision, instilled in their minds by a psychic who hypnotized them with swirling whiskey!  I’m inclined to be slightly more forgiving of this than I normally would be, since it was sort of set up and at this point there’s really nowhere else to go.  It’s still an obnoxious way to end a story and there’s a reason your high school English teacher told you not to do it.  Some dialogue establishes they all had the same vision, and then the psychic informs them that this is what the future will be if they don’t take steps to avoid it.

Uh, excuse me, what?  Nothing we’ve just seen suggests that any of these five people were in a particular position to save the world.  They can do small things – the woman goes to get a job at the blood bank, the factory owner decides to make tank parts instead of tractors, and so on (are tractors not important?  Call me a commie but I’d rather my tax money be spent on feeding people than on blowing them up).  But none of this will prevent the invasion we saw and could only make the slightest of differences in its outcome.  Are the five of them somehow crucial in a way the narrative didn’t bother to make clear?

Of course, that’s not actually the point here.  The real moral of the story is that we all need to do what we can to grease the wheels of the war machine, or we’re gonna end up calling each other Comrade.  So… what was the psychic’s goal, here?  Did he just decide to scare the pants off these people because he was annoyed by their opinions about the draft?  Or is he going from bar to bar, instilling this vision of the future in every person he meets one at a time?  And of course we have only his word for it that it is the future. The bartender does call him a con man, and for all we know he made the whole thing up.

What about the woman and the reporter, who saw themselves falling in love and then being tragically separated?  They didn’t consent to that.  The illusion of the relationship, with all its emotional, psychological, and sexual consequences, was forced upon them by an outside influence.  They decide to use this second chance to pursue it in a situation where it might not end in tragedy, but who’s to say it’ll work without that background?  They would have every right to object to this violation of their minds… as would the others, who saw their families die and their homes destroyed.

The final shot gives us a quote from George Washington: to prepare for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace.  I don’t know if Washington ever said that but if he did he stole it.  Si vis pacem, para bellum is a Latin adage, first attested in Vegetius, although versions also appear in Plato and Sima Qian.  It’s as old as humanity, and attributing it to Washington is just one more attempt to tug on the patriotic heartstrings.  Of course, if you consider the Romans, the Athenians, and the ancient Chinese… yep, this is something said by empire builders.

You know what movies like this have taught me?  That propaganda film-making is really hard.  If you want to deliver a message without annoying the audience then it has to emerge naturally from the story being told, rather than being imposed upon it like, say, the save-the-oceans message in Gamera vs Zigra. Then the story also has to make sense outside of that message, it has to feel like it would be worth telling even if the moral weren’t attached – Pacific Rim has a moral about working together, but it’s also just enjoyable to watch.  Invasion USA is not like that.  It exists only to shove its message down our throats and it isn’t even any good at it.  Fuck this stock footage montage pretending to be a movie.

[prettywordsyouleft]

Fly Away With Me // AIRFORCE7

Summary: After falling from the skies in an active war zone, Jinyoung hadn’t expected to be healed by your laughter and love.

Pairing: Park Jinyoung x reader (ft. GOT7 in AIRFORCE7)

Genre: pilot au / 1940s era / romance

Warnings: Due to the era it’s set in, this will contain minor war conflict in some of the stories. I will not be making the war-zone my main focus in this series however. 

A/N: Here’s the next instalment in this series. It’s going to be the only one in the series based in active war, but I promise it’s not that dark. Please note: I just edited this fiction before posting and if there are any errors, I will edit them out in the next couple of days :)

Word count: 5333

This series will continue every Thursday until completed at 10am NZST. 

Nothing had prepared Jinyoung for the war. He hadn’t been foolish to think he would be invincible; he had kept up with news and casualties overseas for some time before the fight reached him. And with all the missions he had done so far with his squadron, Jinyoung had believed it would be hard.

But not nearly as hard as this.

Days blended into night and there was barely any time in between the moon rising and the sun shining again to rest within. He didn’t even know what day it was, and vaguely could remember the month now. He spent more time within his plane than anywhere else, and the soundtrack of his day kept him awake at night, unsure if the guns firing were simply flashbacks from earlier in the skies, or an actual raid was happening above his place of rest.

Some of those who he flew out with didn’t come back home and his attitude was no longer motivated, now bleak. The only thing that was keeping him going was knowing the rest of his team not only felt the same, and was flying out beside him. Yet when that changed, Jinyoung stumbled for the first time during his service in the Air Force.

“Sir, you can’t separate our team up, we work best together,” he argued the orders handed to him and his Lieutenant, Jinyoung glancing at his best friend and at how tight Jaebum’s jaw was now. Jinyoung stepped forward towards the Corporal, seeking answers.

The official looked just as exhausted as the rest of them did, and dragged a hand down over his face at Jinyoung’s statement. He then looked at him, his eyes sad yet firm. “Son, I need you up in them skies protecting us down below. I don’t care what formation you fly in, who you fly with, so long as you take out those bastards that keep coming for us, and make it home as safe as you can. We can’t keep losing pilots as we have been. I need you spread out, fighting from all angles and keeping those who aren’t as good as you in the cockpit safe, you hear me?”

“Understood, sir,” Jaebum replied, saluting before heading out of the office. Jinyoung glanced between the two, saluting the Corporal as well, and then ran after Jaebum.

“You know very well that if we split up, we lose our power.”

“We’re losing as it is. The government talked up a big game. Our nation would win the war. And we will, but at what cost?” Jaebum shook his head, scoffing loudly at the mere thought. Jinyoung agreed, the hope propaganda had never been something he believed in, but in the very least, it kept the air force united and strong. He glanced around at the faces of those who remained, looking haggard compared to newcomers.

“She can’t train them fast enough either,” Jaebum continued, his gaze out in the field to where his wife and the AIRFORCE7’s Captain stood. Jinyoung knew Jaebum held more burdens on his shoulders now; the ring upon his finger was put there just before the war broke out here. A simple promise that their love wouldn’t part no matter where in the world they were. It made Jinyoung’s argument weaken. He had nothing but his youth to keep fighting for.

“So we’ll get up there and give Cap time then.”

Jaebum glanced at Jinyoung, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips. “Thought you were against splitting up?”

“Oh, I am,” Jinyoung retorted, sighing heavily as he saw a new cadet struggle to land his plane fast enough. “But if we’re what the skies need right now, who am I to argue with that?”

Jaebum smiled and clapped him on the back. “Know that flying away from you will be one of the hardest missions I take on, Park.”

“Just one request,” he started as they headed back to the office, Jaebum’s eyes crinkling up with amusement before Jinyoung could finish his sentence. Even though he knew they were on the same wave-length, Jinyoung grinned before continuing. “Just don’t leave me with BamBam. I don’t need to protect his ass when he has a meltdown too.”

When the teams were assigned, Jinyoung hadn’t gotten much luckier with not landing BamBam. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Jackson, when not up in their planes, he got along with his comrade well. Yet, much like the name of his metal stead, Jackson was too bold, and some would even use the term crazy. It made him resilient in the face of enemies, though he was pig-headed too.

“Back off for now, Wang, we need to get back to the base.”

“There’s only four of these suckers left. Orders were to take out the enemy. We haven’t finished that yet.”

Jinyoung cursed at the reply, knowing all too well that turning his back on the pilot had been too risky. He saw Jackson’s Crazy Horse speeding towards the west, where enemy planes were just picked up on.

“Turn back you idiot! The rest of our squad is going back and it’s not time to play the hero. We need refuelling and rest.”

“I see one! I’m going to take it down!” Jackson radioed back through and Jinyoung cursed again, propelling himself back into the action. He couldn’t let Jackson do this alone, and maybe his friend was right. If they took out four more enemies, then their team would be the one with the highest tally for the month. Somewhere along the way, how many planes you could take down became the game to keep the soldiers entertained. Jinyoung tried to remember there were people within the enemy cockpits, yet there were far too many faces and crimes of the war that he wasn’t ready to put weight upon.

“There’s one on your flank, I’ll take him out,” Jinyoung told Jackson before targeting the enemy, shooting until it fell away from his side. Jackson had already taken two of the four planes down himself, and Jinyoung scanned the area for the remaining fighter plane. He couldn’t see it anywhere. “Wang, what you seeing?”

“Nothing, I’m seeing nothing.”

“He was here a moment ago,” Jinyoung radioed back, feeling uneasy all of a sudden.

“Maybe we got him in the crossfire, let’s head back.”

Jinyoung was about to agree when he finally spotted the lone fighter, hitting the throttle to try and get to Jackson fast enough. The pilot fired at them both, Jackson using his nimble flying skills to his advantage to roll out of the way. And this left Jinyoung in the prime spot to become a target. He saw the pilot up close, his face just as weary, just as angry with this endless war. And that was the last thing Jinyoung saw within the clouds, the sudden blast spiralling all control out of his hands.

He had prided himself on being one of the best pilots, who never put himself in the wrong place. However, the only one Jinyoung could blame for this mistake was himself.

When his senses returned to him, he couldn’t hear gunfire. And he was certain he was no longer falling, instead, he was laying on something far more comfortable than the seat of the cockpit that he last remembered ejecting from. Was he laying on a soft bed of grass? Jinyoung took a tentative sniff, and wasn’t met with earthy smells.

“Why am I in a hospital?” he groaned, his throat feeling too dry to have said so many words all at once. Before his eyes opened, he heard the low chatter stop in the corner, feet rushing towards him. Finally, he blinked back the heaviness of his eyelids, groaning again when the lights above him made his blurry vision suffer further. He tried to sit up, or at least turn away from the blinding light, but his body was soon held down and someone thankfully blocked out the harsh brightness above. Jinyoung instantly relaxed against the bed again. “Water.”

“Of course,” your voice mentioned and soon you were guiding a straw into his slightly parted lips, the effort of swallowing a small sip hurting just as much as that first sentence had. It felt cool going down his throat, however, and Jinyoung bared the pain as he sipped more of the liquid down, quenching some of his thirst.

And then he finally got a proper look at you. He blinked again, your white outfit with the light illuminating above you made him smile lazily. “Did I die?”

“No, soldier, you’re very much so alive.”

“You look like an angel,” he told you and you smirked.

“And you’re still feeling the effects of those heavy drugs. I sure am no angel.”

“What happened?”

Your humour left you as you stood up, and he immediately clamped his eyes shut again until he had managed to turn his head. His gaze followed you as you reached to fluff his pillows. “What else? You were shot down, found by a farmer by the wreckage of your plane. You know you got very lucky. Had the part of the wing gone any higher, you might have been grounded for good.”

“Grounded?” Jinyoung looked around himself for answers, stopping when he saw his right leg propped up on pillows and the ankle held up in a leg sling. He let his head fall back onto his pillow, defeated.

“Now there’s no need to be that dramatic. You’ll need some weeks for the initial healing stage, and a bit of stabilising when you go to walk until it’s stronger, but you’ll walk again, soldier, don’t you worry.”

“How long until I can leave here?”

You frowned, throwing your hands up a little. “Didn’t you just hear me? You have some weeks.”

“You don’t understand,” Jinyoung complained, and then sat up with a start, a hiss leaving him as his body reacted to being jerked around like that. You scolded him immediately, but he craned his neck all around, looking for another familiar face. He then glanced back at you. “Wasn’t there another soldier?”

“Afraid not, there was just you. Now would you lay back down and rest? You’ve only just woken up and you can afford to take some time to let your body heal. You’ve done enough for our country as it is, I’m sure.”

The next day passed by doing just that, sleeping in and out. He would listen to the conversations you and the nurses held sometimes, and others he was just thankful to sleep undisturbed. He hadn’t rested like this in months, and although he needed to get word out that he was okay and find out if Jackson was as well, there was a small positive in sleeping without worry of the next air raid siren going off.

When he had his fill of slumber, Jinyoung propped himself up, smiling as you busied yourself with another patient. The ward he was in wasn’t very large, and as he looked around the equipment, he realised he must be in a countryside hospital.

“You look to have some questions today,” you mused as you came over to check the IV bag beside him and the line that was attached to his arm. “But I have one for you. Your dog tags were missing, soldier. Now I’ve done all the best I can without a name, but if you could do me a favour and remember it, that would make our interactions a lot better, don’t you think?”

“Jinyoung,” he uttered, and you smiled. “Park Jinyoung.”

“Well, Jinyoung, that was easy enough. Now, how would you like some proper food instead of the liquid diet?”

He nodded happily, and with a melodic laugh, you patted his arm and left the room. Five minutes later, you returned with a tray of food, shrugging lightly as you placed it down. “You slept through breakfast and lunch, so I hope you don’t mind my catering skills. A sandwich should be fine enough to swallow now. Tonight, you can enjoy dinner from the local cook.”

“Thank you.”

“The pleasure is all mine. So, those questions?”

“How do I get word out from here? Where am I?”

You smiled again. “In the middle of nowhere. Frankly speaking, the war hasn’t been all that busy around here, though it has made our phone lines unreliable. Mail is the best we’ve got, but the roads are damaged so it’s taking its time. Do you need me to write for you?”

“I need to message my team to let them know I’m alive. They’ve probably reported me MIA by now.” Jinyoung stopped to think of Jackson, the queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach making the sandwich he was eating stick to the back of this throat. He choked a little and you handed him a cup of water, which he silently thanked you for. “I need to know if my friend is okay.”

“Is it easy to have a friend in the war?” you asked, sitting down on the side of his bed. Jinyoung frowned as you sighed. “I hear more men fall out of the skies than stay up in them these days. Can you afford to have friends?”

“It’s what keeps us going on,” he admitted and you nodded softly. “I have lost a lot of friends though, so the ones I have left are more precious than before.”

“I’ll help you with that letter as soon as I’m done with my rounds then. Which won’t take too long, given this hospital is rather small,” you mentioned, cheering up the mood again and standing back to your feet. “We’ll make sure everyone knows you’re still alive, Jinyoung.”

Once the letter was sent, his mood lightened. He spent the next week talking with everyone he came into contact with, craving a sense of the outside world. He was sick of lying here day in and out, and the leg he had momentarily thanked for giving him a well-needed break, was now the bane of his existence.

“Now, what do you think you’re doing?” you asked as you found him loosening off the sling holding his injured leg up. Jinyoung froze for only a moment before he continued what he was doing.

“I need to get up before my leg becomes too weak.”

“You already know the leg is weak and cannot handle bearing any weight, Jinyoung.”

He nodded and gestured to the wooden crutches across from him. “Lend me those.”

“Now why would I do that?” you questioned, folding your arms across your chest.

“Because I need to ensure circulation is still flowing the entirety of my leg. Moving it for short bursts during the day will ensure I have a faster recovery rate.”

Your annoyance lessened and you tilted your head. “Are you trained in medicine?”

“I might as well be. My father is a doctor, my mother a nurse. And I even was working towards becoming an army medic before the war broke out.”

You sighed heavily, though you played with a smile on your lips. “I knew you would be trouble for me.”

“Well, I’ll be far worse if you don’t assist in handing those crutches over. I’ll just get them myself, and there could be a serious risk of me falling on the ground trying.”

“A little humility goes a long way,” you retorted and Jinyoung flushed with colour, shaking his head firmly.

“Isn’t it enough with all the bedpans? I fear you’ve seen too much of me and there’s not enough there for you to like.”

It was your turn to blush and Jinyoung liked the colour you turned. He smirked; it was always you who seemed to hold the control over him. You cleared your throat and jarringly walked over to the crutches. “There may be plenty there to like, and yet I feel as if that might be trouble in itself. I’m taking these, and I’m going to ask the doctor before both of us do something stupid.”

Jinyoung grinned after your hasty retreat; your words healing him in ways he thought wouldn’t ever be possible during this time in his life. When you returned, you were more composed and still held the crutches. You watched him carefully. “Any sign of instability and we go back to bed, understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He managed five minutes on the first attempt. And the next day, it accomplished ten. He was thankful for his military training and working out on his upper body a lot before the war. He had never thought he would need upper body strength like this, and admittedly, he liked the way that you would sometimes look towards his arms as he hopped along the hallway. He was glad about that too.

By the time two weeks had passed, Jinyoung had almost forgotten how he had come to this small township or his worries about anything. He was lost in a world of recovery and laughter, your own giggles brightening his days further the longer he was in your company. He was certain you had healed him more than the drugs and rest had by now.

“And so, BamBam came running out of the room, stark naked and screaming at the top of his lungs,” Jinyoung managed to say in between fits of laughter, and the three nurses surrounding him were equally as helpless.

“This man sounds ridiculous.”

Sarah giggled. “I don’t know, I think I find him rather charming. Is that what all soldiers are like, Jinyoung?”

“Have you seen him parading around here naked yet?” you asked the girls, who all gasped and giggled some more. You then shot Jinyoung a hard look. “I saw your hands just now, keep it on or I’ll find you a sedative to calm you down.”

“It’s getting late, we should head home,” Amanda mentioned with a pout, standing up and smoothing down her skirt. “Y/N, will you be alright doing the night shift?”

You nodded. “Of course, thankfully I only have Jinyoung and two others here at the moment. I’ll be fine.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep her company,” Jinyoung assured and the girls giggled again.

“Don’t tell any more stories until we’re back!”

“My lips are sealed,” he promised with a chuckle and watched as you followed the girls out to lock the front door. When you returned, you did so with two mugs within your grasp.

“I thought you might like some tea. The other patients are already asleep.”

“If you want to sleep too, I can lay down and try as well,” he offered but you merely shook your head, curling back up into the chair you had dragged over.

“What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

You stared into the mug you held, your eyes richer in colour when you looked up. “Flying.”

“Well, it can be a little scary at first, because you go faster than you could ever do so on the ground. But it’s freeing too. You get to see the world up close and then from far away. I like that.”

“I always wanted to fly, at least once. To know what it’s like to escape the world you have around you. Growing up here, everyone knows everyone. There are no real opportunities for surprise, to feel excited.” You sighed, looking back at your drink. “I thought becoming a nurse, especially with the war, would get me transferred to a city, someplace that would need my assistance. The war wasn’t ever going to come this way so they said, and I didn’t really sign up to nurse the few patients this township would have. Yet, here I am. Born and bred here, working here, stuck here.”

“You want to fly away?” he asked and you nodded before shaking your head.

“Not now, if I fly away, I might end up like you.”

He chuckled, taking a sip of the drink and then stared back at you. “I’ll take you flying one day.”

“You need to walk before you fly, Jinyoung.”

“You told me I’d walk again too,” he reminded and you couldn’t help but widen your smile then. “I’ll help you escape here if you want to.”

“You know, ever since you came here, I’ve felt excited again.”

“I do that to you?” he murmured, edging closer to you. “Excite you?”

“Because you’re someone new, we don’t get that often.”

“Liar.”

You placed down your tea and took his from his grasp as well, before pushing him gently back into his bed. Jinyoung’s arms wound around your waist and pulled you along with him, you both staring at one another for an immeasurable moment. Your gaze then darted to the door, knowing the other two patients were sound asleep in the female ward.

“Y/N, are you going to do something about this excitement we’re both feeling?”

You turned back to him, easing yourself into a comfortable position within his grip. “You said those lips were sealed.”

“I won’t tell a soul if you don’t.”

Jinyoung had relaxed too much here. With every step he took, it was towards you, and your smiles only enticed him further to reach for your lips and hold you close. The romance he had anticipated after his service to the country ended had arrived early and he wanted to hold on to it for as long as he could. He had been here for a month, and although he only knew of this hospital and the grounds it was kept upon, he finally understood the way Jaebum stared at his Captain all those years.

As selfish as it was, he wanted to hide here forever, until the war was over and then run away with you to wherever you wanted to go. He craved setting up his new life with you.

Instead, he got a different answer. You hovered by his bed as he read the letter, bouncing around agitatedly. “Well, what does it say?”

“Let me read it first,” he urged, his eyes scanning the handwritten message from his Lieutenant. He let out a shaky breath as his emotions rose to his eyes. “Jackson is alright. I was the only one shot down.”

“That is great news!”

Jinyoung glanced up at you. “They want me back as soon as I’m fit enough to travel.”

“Oh.” Your smile erased just as easily as it had appeared. “So soon.”

“Come with me.”

“I don’t have much savings, and you’re living in an air base, where will I stay?”

“Those friends of mine you ask of, they have partners, they have people in their lives too. You could stay with them. Or we could get a house together. I have some money saved up, we could do that.”

“You want to do all that with me?” you wondered and Jinyoung nodded, pulling you into his arms.

“Fly away with me.”

“We can really fly together?” you asked again and Jinyoung kissed you, uncaring that anyone could walk through that door any moment now.

Instead, the doors began to rock on their hinges and your kiss broke apart as you were jostled around. Your eyes widened. “What was that?”

“Get down!” Jinyoung cried, diving off the bed and covering you as the all too familiar sounds of guns and planes flew above the hospital. The windows shattered and he could hear screaming from the other rooms. The birds that had been chirping through the window just previously were now silent; much like everything was after the moment passed. And then he heard the indefinite sounds of screaming all around.

With a hastened limp, he followed you around the hospital, everyone shaken and unable to focus on the situation. Even Doctor Hong was crying. Jinyoung looked around himself and cleared his throat. “Sarah, get all the patients away from the windows. Move everyone into the middle of the building. Amanda, ready the supplies, people will be coming here quickly for aid. Y/N, we need to set up camps for the injured, and rank them by severity. Everyone needs to focus on the task at hand.”

“I’m scared!” Amanda cried and you grabbed her in your arms, comforting her briefly before repeating Jinyoung’s instructions.

“Even in the middle of nowhere, the war has hit us.”

As predicted, the doors soon opened, and the noise was deafening. Some were only coming because they were scared and stressed from the attack, whilst their neighbours were bleeding or dying in the middle of the entrance. It was chaotic, with every abled person in the hospital trying to work through the aftermath. What had become normal for him to witness as a pilot, was frightening to the staff who were used to treating the common cold and old Daisy’s Alzheimer’s. Jinyoung constantly stopped to help refocus the nurses, Sarah crying as she poured a solution onto an open wound to help with the bleeding.

Jinyoung couldn’t just keep moving people around to their zones, he needed to help further and when a middle-aged woman dropped at his feet, Jinyoung lifted her up and placed her up on the first surface he could find, screaming out for appropriate tools and drugs. The woman glanced at his attire and started shaking her head. “I don’t want to die! Get me a doctor!”

“You’ll die if I don’t treat you right now!”

“You’re a patient.”

“As are you right now and you need to calm down,” he replied sternly, the woman fighting him off with what little energy she had left.

“A doctor!”

“He is a doctor, Beth, he’s a doctor who was hurt. He’s part of the army, just let him help you,” you told her rapidly, handing him the tools he called for and looking at Jinyoung determinedly. He nodded and set to work, treating the woman efficiently and stabilising her before moving onto the next person he could save.

“Do you think they’ll come back again?” Sarah asked into the small hours of the night, her voice feeble. The screaming had mostly stopped, yet the air was still brimming with terror. You moved to hold her within your arms, Amanda was already asleep from exhaustion in the chair beside Jinyoung.

“I don’t know,” he told her honestly, and tears slipped down her cheeks. “I don’t think we were a target initially, I believe those pilots had too many rounds left and not enough of us up there to spend them on.”

“You saved six people today,” Doctor Hong mentioned and Jinyoung nodded slowly. “When this war is over, you should continue with your training. You’ll make a fine doctor.”

“I just don’t know when it’s going to end.”

“And they’ll need you to continue with bringing a stop to all of this,” you whispered, your own emotions slipping down your cheeks. “Maybe it’s time for you to fly back to where you came from, soldier.”

It was different now. Jinyoung had lost some of his drive as he flew up in his new Mustang. It wasn’t his first plane change over the war, and he wondered if it would be his last. All the same, he couldn’t ease back into the role of being an elite pilot. Of course, he was thrilled to see the faces of his comrades, the hug Jackson gave him as he sobbed all over his shoulder had eased some of Jinyoung’ pain leaving you behind. But he missed you more than he missed flying. For the first time in his air force career, he would quite happily have his wings clipped if it meant he could be with you forever.

Jinyoung knew though, to keep you safe he had to do his job well.

The allies were growing in strength, and one after the other, the countries battling against them surrendered. The war was won by them after all, just like Jaebum had said.

“Where are you off too so quickly?” Yugyeom, a member on his team enquired as soon as the medal ceremony was over. Jinyoung grinned as he packed his bag, picking up the photo he had of you and placed it on top of his things.

“Lover boy is off to bring back his girl,” Jaebum mentioned and slung an arm over the youngest member of their team. “The war is over; it’s time for us to move on.”

“We’re still assigned to our team, what are you talking about?” Mark mentioned, gesturing to everyone in the room. “Airforce-Seven hasn’t disbanded yet.”

“Well, it’s about to become Airforce-Six for the meantime,” Jinyoung announced, ignoring the jeers from BamBam laying on his bunker.

“Airforce-Five actually,” another voice corrected and everyone glanced at Youngjae sitting beside BamBam. “I’m going home for a while.”

“So that’s it for us?” Jackson whined and Jinyoung shook his head.

“I’ll be back, once I have Y/N with me.”

“We won the war, but the need for us will still be there,” Jaebum agreed, moving to slap Jinyoung on the back again. “Go get your girl. We’ll be here waiting.”

The trip to get to you was longer than Jinyoung would’ve liked. The air force wouldn’t very well lend him a plane of his own to pick you up in, and the train seemed to stop far too often for his liking. Eventually, Jinyoung was ambling up the gravel driveway to the building he knew all too well. It was a sunny afternoon and despite his rush to see you again, he took his time, looking at all the parts of the property he had memories with you in. It was comforting to be back, but he had bigger plans than this township could handle with you.

Eventually, he opened the front door and waited in the lobby, wondering who would greet him first. He grinned when Amanda appeared, a squeal emitted from her mouth before she dashed off again. He could hear the ruckus she was causing without so much as saying truly what was happening. Jinyoung chuckled, dropping his bag to the ground at his feet and watched the ward door in anticipation.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to say, Amanda. Breathe!”

“If she stops, at least we’re in a hospital and can resuscitate her,” Jinyoung told you as soon as you stepped out, smiling widely and cocking his head to the side as he opened his arms. He had hoped you would run into them, but you surprised him, walking over slowly, but that smile he loved of yours was prominent on your face the whole way over.

You stopped before him. “Is it finally over?”

“I believe so.”

“You’re really here?” you wondered, taking another step towards him. Jinyoung closed the distance, wrapping his arms around you and pulling you to his body. He held you tightly as he felt your tears soak through his shirt. “I had only hoped you would come back for me.”

“I made a promise to help you fly away, remember? I couldn’t not fulfil it now, could I? I’m pretty sure you would have found a way to bring me back to life if I died before coming back for you.”

You thumped him on the chest in your embrace and Jinyoung chuckled heartily. “Don’t talk about it like that!”

“So you are glad to see me again.” You pulled your head away from him to glance at him, pouting slightly. “I got on the first train I could, you know.”

“I think you were more excited to see me again,” you teased and Jinyoung nodded.

“Are you ready to fly away with me now?”

“You don’t want to stay here again and let me change your bedpans for you?” Jinyoung rolled his eyes as you laughed and then he stopped, smiling at the sound. “What?”

“I’ve missed your laughter.”

“I’ve missed you.”

“So I did offer you more than enough, huh?”

You nodded sincerely. “I’m hoping you’ve got a whole lot more for me in store too.”

_________________

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[donewithcapitalistfrayers]

Tribute to Albert 'Nuh' Washington, from David Gilbert Getting To Know Nuh

"There's a funny thing about coming to prison: I've gotten to meet some of my favorite people in the world. From 1967-81, both above – and underground, solidarity with Black Panther (BPP) and Black Liberation Army (BLA) POW/PP's was a top priority (although I must admit our actual practice was far too intermittent and inadequate). I chanted many of the names on picket lines and read a lot of their political writings for inspiration and guidance. But I didn't get to know these comrades personally until I came to prison. As there are far too many still inside. Over these 18 1/2 years I've gotten to spend some time – do time – with New Afrikan POW/PP's Kuwasi Balagoon, Sekou Odinga, Jalil Muntaqim, Jah Heath, Mohaman Koti, and Nuh Washington.

Naturally each comrade is unique, with his particular strengths and weaknesses, foibles and delights. But there is one generalization I can make. The BPP/BLA POW/PP's I met turn Dostoyevski on his head. Fyodor Dostoyevski is the brilliant 19th century Russian novelist who penned the scathing critique of radicals as people who claim to care passionately about all of humanity but fail to love and nurture the actual individuals in their immediate lives. When I called Dostoyevski "brilliant," I meant his writing not necessarily his politics. But we should not dismiss his critique as simply a rank slander. The deficit he stresses is a real danger and something we need to be very aware of. We all must continue to grow into more fully relating with the individuals in our daily lives according to the love and ideals of our political vision.

Anyway, the generalization I can make about the BPP/BLA comrades I've met personally – in addition to the obvious good politics and strong principles – is that each on is a truly warm and insightful human being.

The circumstances under which I met Nuh Washington were especially intense. I was grieving personally and simultaneously in the midst of a heated and at times vicious political battle. Kuwasi Balagoon had been with me at Auburn prison for about a year when he died suddenly and surprisingly in December 1986, of what turned out to the AIDS. Kuwasi was a sparkling comrade and we had gotten to be very close during our 1981-83 trial, and then during that year at Auburn. I turned my deep grief into a commitment to taking on the AIDS crisis in prison. 2 other close friends of Kuwasi joined me in starting the first prisoners' peer education program on AIDS in the country. The administration didn't want to hear it; all they saw back then was the danger of prisoners organizing. A fierce struggle ensued, including their concerted effort to use the prevailing AIDS phobia to turn other prisoners against us.

So that was the scene when Nuh arrived in Auburn on May 1987. First of all Nuh, who of course was also mourning Kuwasi, provided me strong emotional support and comfort. Second, he played a great role in the struggle for AIDS education. I don't want to overdramatize it and say he saved the day. We were doing a good job in a very difficult situation. But Nuh, who in addition to being an Imam of the Muslim community was, of course, widely respected throughout the prisoner population – set a great standard of principled conduct. It wasn't so much support for me as a fellow PP as it was a commitment to doing the right thing about the AIDS crisis, which, although being downplayed by authorities, was by far and away the main cause of death among NY prisoners. Nuh provided key leadership in getting various prisoners not to fall for the divisions being promoted but instead to come together for this urgently needed work. He showed how seriously he took the issue by personally signing-up for the first training of peer educators.

In 12/87 I was shipped out of Auburn as part of a broader effort to break up this peer initiative. Despite the many hassles and limits that gutted (for that time) the scope of outreach and education we had envisioned, prisoners who remained there did manage to complete a training and Nuh was part of that very first cohort. As a broad community, prisoner peer educators have gone on to save 100s, by now probably 1,000s of lives, although we could have saved many times more without all the opposition and bureaucratic restrictions.

Can I reveal a discrediting secret to you? I hope I can count on all of you to keep it confidential: Nuh caught me in the act of selling out to the establishment. Well, you have to understand the circumstnaces. It was during those highly embattled early months of the AIDS progam. We had no literature at all, let alone anything that spoke to prisoners. Somehow I got my hands on the Surgeon General's Report on AIDS and the 1 sympathetic staff person at Auburn (she later left corrections) agreed to make copies. So I ws in her office, frantically trying to collate the piles of pages before court time. Nuh happened to walk in and, surprised to see me there, came over to see what I was doing. Without missing a beat he quipped: "I just knew we couldn't trust these white Leftists. Here's David Gilbert, highly-touted anti-imperialist PP, getting ready to pass out government propaganda – literature put out by the Reagan administration, no less, the most reactionary u.s. regime of the century!!" My retelling can't capture how funny this was in the frazzle of the moment and what a good job it did in breaking the tension. Then, with Nuh immediately pitching in, the 2 of us easily completed the collating before count.

Nuh has a terrific and unique sense of humor. He's a slyly ironic and often at first you don't realize he's joking until – like a ripple on the sea that surprisingly turns into a big wave - it breaks all over you. Another special quality I want to mention is his willingness to look analytically and critically at the past. In my personal opinion, POW/PP's in general have done a great job in holding firmly to our principles despite the tremendous pressures, but we haven't done very well – in some ways this is more difficult – in analyzing and articulating useful lessons from the errors we've made. Nuh has been very open to this, and those of you who read the revival of the BPP newspaper in the early '90s may have seen, he was written intelligently and usefully in this area."