#there are ways to have a civil war element

[wonder-worker]

Queen Margaret (of Anjou) had written to the Common Council in November when the news of the Duke of York's coup was proclaimed. The letter from the queen was published in modernised English by M.A.E. Wood in 1846, and she dated it to February 1461 because of its opening sentence: ‘And whereas the late Duke of N [York]...." However the rest of the letter, and that of the prince, is in the present tense and clearly indicates that the Duke of York is still alive. The reference to the ‘late duke’ is not to his demise but to the attainder of 1459 when he was stripped of his titles as well as of his lands. If the queen’s letter dates to November 1460, and not February 1461, it make perfect sense. Margaret declared the Duke of York had ‘upon an untrue pretense, feigned a title to my lord’s crown’ and in so doing had broken his oath of fealty. She thanked the Londoners for their loyalty in rejecting his claim. She knew of the rumours, that we and my lords sayd sone and owrs shuld newly drawe toward yow with an vnsome [uncounted] powere of strangars, disposed to robbe and to dispoyle yow of yowr goods and havours, we will that ye knowe for certeyne that . . . . [y]e, nor none of yow, shalbe robbed, dispoyled nor wronged by any parson that at that tyme we or owr sayd sone shalbe accompanied with She entrusted the king's person to the care of the citizens ‘so that thrwghe malice of his sayde enemye he be no more trowbled vexed ne jeoparded.’ In other words the queen was well informed in November 1460 of the propaganda in London concerning the threat posed by a Lancastrian military challenge to the illegal Yorkist proceedings. Margaret assured the Common Council that no harm would come to the citizenry or to their property. Because the letter was initially misdated, it has been assumed that the queen wrote it after she realised the harm her marauding troops were doing to her cause, and to lull London into a false sense of security. This is not the case, and it is a typical example of historians accepting without question Margaret’s character as depicted in Yorkist propaganda. Margaret’s letter was a true statement of her intentions but it made no impact at the time and has made none since. How many people heard of it? The Yorkist council under the Earl of Warwick, in collusion with the Common Council of the city, was in an ideal position to suppress any wide dissemination of the letter, or of its content.

... When Margaret joined the Lancastrian lords it is unlikely that she had Scottish troops with her. It is possible that Jasper Tudor, Earl of Pembroke, sent men from Wales but there was no compelling reason why he should, he needed all the forces at his disposal to face Edward Earl of March, now Duke of York following his father’s death at Wakefield, who, in fact, defeated Pembroke at Mortimer’s Cross on 2 February just as the Lancastrian army was marching south. The oft repeated statement that the Lancastrian army was composed of a motley array of Scots, Welsh, other foreigners (French by implication, for it had not been forgotten that René of Anjou, Queen Margaret’s father, had served with the French forces in Nomandy when the English were expelled from the duchy, nor that King Charles VII was her uncle) as well as northern men is based on a single chronicle, the Brief Notes written mainly in Latin in the monastery of Ely, and ending in 1470. It is a compilation of gossip and rumour, some of it wildly inaccurate, but including information not found in any other contemporary source, which accounts for the credence accorded to it. The Dukes of Somerset and Exeter and the Earl of Devon brought men from the south and west. The Earl of Northumberland was not solely reliant on his northern estates; as Lord Poynings he had extensive holdings in the south. The northerners were tenants and retainers of Northumberland, Clifford, Dacre, the Westmorland Nevilles, and Fitzhugh, and accustomed to the discipline of border defence. The continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle, probably our best witness, is emphatic that the second battle of St Albans was won by the ‘howseholde men and feyd men.” Camp followers and auxiliaries of undesirables there undoubtedly were, as there are on the fringes of any army, but the motley rabble the queen is supposed to have loosed on peaceful England owes more to the imagination of Yorkist propagandists than to the actual composition of the Lancastrian army.

... Two differing accounts of the Lancastrian march on London are generally accepted. One is that a large army, moving down the Great North Road, was made up of such disparate and unruly elements that the queen and her commanders were powerless to control it.” Alternatively, Queen Margaret did not wish to curb her army, but encouraged it to ravage all lands south of the Trent, either from sheet spite or because it was the only way she could pay her troops.” Many epithets have been applied to the queen, few of them complimentary, but no one has as yet called her stupid. It would have been an act of crass stupidity wilfully to encourage her forces to loot the very land she was trying to restore to an acceptance of Lancastrian rule, with her son as heir to the throne. On reaching St Albans, so the story goes, the Lancastrian army suddenly became a disciplined force which, by a series of complicated manoeuvres, including a night march and a flank attack, won the second battle of St Albans, even though the Yorkists were commanded by the redoubtable Earl of Warwick. The explanation offered is that the rabble element, loaded down with plunder, had descended before the battle and only the household men remained. Then the rabble reappeared, and London was threatened. To avert a sack of the city the queen decided to withdraw the army, either on her own initiative or urged by the peace-loving King Henry; as it departed it pillaged the Abbey of St Albans, with the king and queen in residence, and retired north, plundering as it went. Nevertheless, it was sufficiently intact a month later to meet and nearly defeat the Yorkist forces at Towton, the bloodiest and hardest fought battle of the civil war thus far. The ‘facts’ as stated make little sense, because they are seen through the distorting glass of Yorkist propaganda.

The ravages allegedly committed by the Lancastrian army are extensively documented in the chronicles, written after the event and under a Yorkist king. They are strong on rhetoric but short on detail. The two accounts most often quoted are by the Croyland Chronicle and Abbott Whethamstede. There is no doubting the note of genuine hysterical fear in both. The inhabitants of the abbey of Crowland were thoroughly frightened by what they believed would happen as the Lancastrians swept south. ‘What do you suppose must have been our fears . . . [w]hen every day rumours of this sad nature were reaching our ears.’ Especially alarming was the threat to church property. The northern men ‘irreverently rushed, in their unbridled and frantic rage into churches . . . [a]nd most nefariously plundered them.’ If anyone resisted ‘they cruelly slaughtered them in the very churches or churchyards.’ People sought shelter for themselves and their goods in the abbey,“ but there is not a single report of refugees seeking succour in the wake of the passage of the army after their homes had been burned and their possessions stolen. The Lancastrians were looting, according to the Crowland Chronicle, on a front thirty miles wide ‘like so many locusts.“ Why, then, did they come within six miles but bypass Crowland? The account as a whole makes it obvious that it was written considerably later than the events it so graphically describes.

The claim that Stamford was subject to a sack from which it did not recover is based on the Tudor antiquary John Leland. His attribution of the damage is speculation; by the time he wrote stories of Lancastrian ravages were well established, but outside living memory. His statement was embellished by the romantic historian Francis Peck in the early eighteenth century. Peck gives a spirited account of Wakefield and the Lancastrian march, influenced by Tudor as well as Yorkist historiography. … As late as 12 February when Warwick moved his troops to St Albans it is claimed that he did not know the whereabouts of the Lancastrians, an odd lack of military intelligence about an army that was supposed to be leaving havoc in its wake. The Lancastrians apparently swerved to the west after passing Royston which has puzzled military historians because they accept that it came down the Great North Road, but on the evidence we have it is impossible to affirm this. If it came from York via Grantham, Leicester, Market Harborough, Northampton and Stony Stratford to Dunstable, where the first engagement took place, there was no necessity to make an inexplicable swerve westwards because its line of march brought it to Dunstable and then to St Albans. The Lancastrians defeated Warwick’s army on 17 February 1461 and Warwick fled the field. In an echo of Wakefield there is a suggestion of treachery. An English Chronicle tells the story of one Thomas Lovelace, a captain of Kent in the Yorkist ranks, who also appears in Waurin. Lovelace, it is claimed, was captured at Wakefield and promised Queen Margaret that he would join Warwick and then betray and desert him, in return for his freedom.

Lt. Colonel Bume, in a rare spirit of chivalry, credits Margaret with the tactical plan that won the victory, although only because it was so unorthodox that it must have been devised by a woman. But there is no evidence that Margaret had any military flair, let alone experience. A more likely candidate is the veteran captain Andrew Trolloppe who served with Warwick when the latter was Captain of Calais, but he refused to fight under the Yorkist banner against his king at Ludford in 1459 when Warwick brought over a contingent of Calais men to defy King Henry in the field. It was Trolloppe’s ‘desertion’ at Ludford, it is claimed, that forced the Yorkists to flee. The most objective and detailed account of the battle of St Albans is by the unknown continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle. The chronicle ends in 1469 and by that time it was safe to criticise Warwick, who was then out of favour. The continuator was a London citizen who may have fought in the Yorkist ranks. He had an interest in military matters and recorded the gathering of the Lancastrian army at Hull, before Wakefield, and the detail that the troops wore the Prince of Wales’ colours and ostrich feathers on their livery together with the insignia of their lords. He had heard the rumours of a large ill-disciplined army, but because he saw only the household men he concluded that the northerners ran away before the battle. Abbot Whethamstede wrote a longer though far less circumstantial account, in which he carefully made no mention of the Earl of Warwick. … Margaret of Anjou had won the battle but she proceeded to lose the war. London lay open to her and she made a fatal political blunder in retreating from St Albans instead of taking possession of the capital.' Although mistaken, her reasons for doing so were cogent. The focus of contemporary accounts is the threat to London from the Lancastrian army. This is repeated in all the standard histories, and even those who credit Margaret with deliberately turning away from London do so for the wrong reasons.

... The uncertainties and delays, as well as the hostility of some citizens, served to reinforce Margaret’s belief that entry to London could be dangerous. It was not what London had to fear from her but what she had to fear from London that made her hesitate. Had she made a show of riding in state into the city with her husband and son in a colourful procession she might have accomplished a Lancastrian restoration, but Margaret had never courted popularity with the Londoners, as Warwick had, and she had kept the court away from the capital for several years in the late 1450s, a move that was naturally resented. Warwick’s propaganda had tarnished her image, associating her irrevocably with the dreaded northern men. There was also the danger that if Warwick and Edward of March reached London with a substantial force she could be trapped inside a hostile city, and she cannot have doubted that once she and Prince Edward were taken prisoner the Lancastrian dynasty would come to an end. Understandably, at the critical moment, Margaret lost her nerve. ... Queen Margaret did not march south in 1461 in order to take possession of London, but to recover the person of the king. She underestimated the importance of the capital to her cause." Although she had attempted to establish the court away from London, the Yorkist lords did not oppose her for taking the government out of the capital, but for excluding them from participation in it. Nevertheless London became the natural and lucrative base for the Yorkists, of which they took full advantage. The author of the Annales was in no doubt that it was Margaret’s failure to enter London that ensured the doom of the Lancastrian dynasty. A view shared, of course, by the continuator of Gregory’s Chronicle, a devoted Londoner:

He that had Londyn for sake Wolde no more to hem take The king, queen and prince had been in residence at the Abbey of St Albans since the Lancastrian victory. Abbot Whethamstede, at his most obscure, conveys a strong impression that St Albans was devastated because the Lancastrian leaders, including Queen Margaret, encouraged plundering south of the Trent in lieu of wages. There must have been some pillaging by an army which had been kept in a state of uncertainty for a week, but whether it was as widespread or as devastating as the good abbot, and later chroniclers, assert is by no means certain. Whethamstede is so admirably obtuse that his rhetoric confuses both the chronology and the facts. So convoluted and uncircumstantial is his account that the eighteenth century historian of the abbey, the Reverend Peter Newcome, was trapped into saying: ‘These followers of the Earl of March were looked on as monsters in barbarity.’ He is echoed by Antonia Gransden who has ‘the conflict between the southemers of Henry’s army and the nonherners of Edward’s. The abbey was not pillaged, but Whethamstede blackened Queen Margaret’s reputation by a vague accusation that she appropriated one of the abbey’s valuable possessions before leaving for the north. This is quite likely, not in a spirit of plunder or avarice, but as a contribution to the Lancastrian war effort, just as she had extorted, or so he later claimed, a loan from the prior of Durham earlier in the year. The majority of the chroniclers content themselves with the laconic statement that the queen and her army withdrew to the north, they are more concerned to record in rapturous detail the reception of Edward IV by ‘his’ people. An English Chronicle, hostile to the last, reports that the Lancastrian army plundered its way north as remorselessly as it had on its journey south. One can only assume that it took a different route. The Lancastrian march ended where it began, in the city of York. Edward of March had himself proclaimed King Edward IV in the capital the queen had abandoned, and advanced north to win the battle of Towton on 29 March. The bid to unseat the government of the Yorkist lords had failed, and that failure brought a new dynasty into being. The Duke of York was dead, but his son was King of England whilst King Henry, Queen Margaret and Prince Edward sought shelter at the Scottish court. The Lancastrian march on London had vindicated its stated purpose, to recover the person of the king so that the crown would not continue to be a pawn in the hands of rebels and traitors, but ultimately it had failed because the Lancastrian leaders, including Queen Margaret, simply did not envisage that Edward of March would have the courage or the capacity to declare himself king. Edward IV had all the attributes that King Henry (and Queen Margaret) lacked: he was young, ruthless, charming, and the best general of his day; and in the end he out-thought as well as out-manoeuvred them.

It cannot be argued that no damage was done by the Lancastrian army. It was mid-winter, when supplies of any kind would have been short, so pillaging, petty theft, and unpaid foraging were inevitable. It kept the field for over a month and, and, as it stayed longest at Dunstable and in the environs of St Albans, both towns suffered from its presence. But the army did not indulge in systematic devastation of the countryside, either on its own account or at the behest of the queen. Nor did it contain contingents of England’s enemies, the Scots and the French, as claimed by Yorkist propaganda. Other armies were on the march that winter: a large Yorkist force moved from London to Towton and back again. There are no records of damage done by it, but equally, it cannot be claimed that there was none.

-B.M Cron, "Margaret of Anjou and the Lancastrian March on London, 1461"

[ramshacklefey]

I've seen increasing buzz around here about Howl's Moving Castle (book). I think you all deserve to know that all of Diana Wynne Jones's books are filled with characters and plots that are absolutely as delightful and unhinged as that one.

Some Actual Plots include:

Dogsbody - The star Sirius is accused of murder and sentenced to exile on Earth in the body of a dog until he finds a magical item called a Zoi. He's adopted by a young Irish girl living with her abusive and neglectful English relatives. He has to balance his desire to find the Zoi with needing to be a Good Dog for the girl who takes care of him. Also the Wild Hunt is there. Hexwood - A girl finds a magical wood behind her house where she meets a wizard who thinks he's a convict of the intergalactic government, a boy created by the man to destroy said government, and a robot found in a junk heap. The magic wood is actually an alternate reality being generated by an AI who has a grudge to settle with the head of said government. The book is about abuse, PTSD, and trauma. The Dark Lord of Derkholm - Magical world is being destroyed by a company using it as an isekai amusement park for people from another dimension. Bio-wizard is appointed Dark Lord for the year, and he and his family (four of whom are bioengineered griffins) have to find a way to survive the season while everything is going wrong. Deep Secret - Interdimensional detective/diplomat/wizard needs to find a replacement for his deceased mentor. He does so at a fantasy convention, while trying to keep an interdimensional empire from collapsing into civil war after the emperor is assassinated along with all of his heirs.

She's an absolute master at weaving fantasy elements into the mundane world and writing from the PoV of kids. Her books are funny, clever, and full of delightful characters. I'm begging you all to check them out.

[keferon]

Titan LL!

Heavens, I love Titan LL.

...You know, since nobody's doing anything, I think I'll try something. Dibs!

.*.*.*.

Lost Light is named after a day of mourning.

He doesn't feel like it.

Perhaps it was a wish made upon the smallest of the youngest batch of Titans, brought online shortly before fires of revolution blazed across Cybertron and it's domains. For the mourning to be the least in the coming times. Perhaps they succeeded, but joke's on them. Lost Light may have been online through the times of grief, but grief does not touch his spark. It's another element of his surrounding, like floating rocks, clouds of solid something, solar winds, the works.

Well, for a given definition of "online", because, he, his batch and some older Titans were moored in random spots in the system, just away from Cybertron itself.

The new batch was mostly stationed in the shadows of Cybertron, in vain hopes of civil war going away quickly. But sometimes, when the fighting peaked and threatened to reach the moons, they were herded away and over to the system's edge, near the border of termination shock. There were a lot of visible stars here. And Primus, there was nothing more Lost Light liked more than those beautiful, beautiful stars.

The first Titans were sparked to carry their Cybertronian brethren beyond the embrace of their homeworld to the stars and defend them on the way. Not all Titans functioned as deep-space transport nowadays, but that was the original idea behind their frametype. Wayfarers.

And just when Lost Light started to go mad between moorings and itched to stretch his warp drive, because Primus and Unicron conspired to punish him specifically for his hubris, the Quintessons struck.

And Titans of Cybertron, eternal guardians they are, stood as the first line. While the little ones below scrambled around and got their priorities and slag-all in order, they stood. And together they withstood successfully. Neither Cybertron nor any planet in it's system fell to the Quintessons. It was not a clean victory, and Quints broke the lines to land incursions, but the Titans weathered enough that the little ones on the grounds were not overwhelmed. They endured the first of storms.

In the end of the beginning, the home system was safe, the civil war was over, and the Titans under the newly united Cybertronian High Command were partially reassigned to the outer fronts.

Now, Lost Light is a tiny Titan. An unusually tiny Titan by Titan standarts. He heard it was because there was a mix-up of vessels for reforging into Titanframes, and his was made from a late shipment two classes below specification.

His largest configuration houses in theory a thousand crewmembers. He prefers his smallest, which should hold above a dozen, but he does not have even a dozen of a crew anyway. He is still a Titan, and can comfortably rip into one, two, three Quint ships, but he cannot withstand a dozen, and Primus below, Quint ships in outer space come in waves and swarm like the squids they are. Instead, in this war he does he does best of what he does - he runs. He is small, his warp drives and bridge generators are the best among his batchmates, and he is fast. So he runs.

There's no Quint blockade that can stop him. Perhaps his cargo hold is not the largest, but if he is given a delivery, he will deliver it as soon as possible, come Pit or high tides. There's no escort craft that can keep up with him (and let's be honest, they are already understaffed enough that they simply can't find proper escort for his size), so he runs alone. If the Prime himself needs an express delivery, Lost Light is the Titan for the job.

He sees a lot of stars on his runs. He is pretty sure some of them are at least unclaimed, and some may be uncharted at all, so he marks them all on his maps. For later! Once the war ends, the beautiful, beautiful stars are his! He amasses a lot of maps, colors and marks them in the brightest hues his software comes with.

And some little ones even ask after the maps. Not like he hides them or something.

So, when the Prime calls, he comes.

Prime waits for him in the hanger personally. Together with the usual retinue, very much less usual very large pile of maps, boards and documents, a Perceptor hidden behind the pile of stuff (Xanthium talks about her favorite gunner a lot, when they have time to catch up), some twitchy engineer and his frequent passenger of express ferry Head Tactician Prowl.

Who has something very tiny enthusiastically crawling on him. Something so tiny, he has to recalibrate his inner and outer sensors for recordicon contact. His optics were hit in bot mode by rocks larger! Which were sometimes crawling with assorted space crustaceans! Come to think of it, thos crustaceans moved similarly...

And, because he is better at acceleration than braking, first thing Lost Light does is voice this observation.

"Prowl, sir, you've got crabs"

...

That was a start of a wonderful working relationship. Once they calm the tiny organic down from laughing, that is. It's name is Jazz, and it needs a ride home. Home which is besieged by Quintessons, and likely is near a fortified outpost, if not a starbase.

Strictly speaking, usually Titans are kept apart from organics, because they are usually very small, and tend to rot and fossilize. But since Lost Light is also very small, he got a direct invitation to an organic planet and immediately engaged his internal environmental system to produce enough oxygen. This is a chance of a lifetime!

Which brings him to his current... Problem?

The thing is, Jazz apparently has comrades. They pilot simulacrum frames specialized in Quint killing, which is very much respectable. And Lost Light's alt-mode's hangar bay may be a little tight in this configuration, but still compatible with them.

The issue is, one of those simulacrums which Lost Light got to shelter, a pleasantly painted one (flame patterns are always in vogue! No matter what anybody says!), appears to have broken down. Which made the organic inside very upset. At least he thinks it's upset, he is not very good at reading organics. Those "humans" do have fields, but they are very dull in comparison to Cybertronian ones.

The little organic with great taste is shouting what appears to be obscenities at unresponsive frame and alternates this with begging. Lost Light is floundering in his processor. The organic performs some indecipherable actions towards a fuel line of some sort with a tiny wrench. He's been at it for hours. None of the others from Jazz's makeshift warband returned yet.

This means Lost Light is responsible as the hosting Titan. Lost Light is usually alone. He does not quite know how to host other Cybertronians for prolonged periods of time, let alone organics. He hopes he maintains a nice oxygenated atmosphere.

He cannot watch this anymore. He has to gather all his confidence in his circuits and do something. Like talk to an organic without Prowl or the twitchy engineer (Swear? Swole? Swire? Swalter?) present. And, well, he'll figure how to decelerate later!

"Little one, do you require any assistance? I do have an internal welder somewhere..."

The organic startles, almost falling from it's precarious perch at the simulacrum's locked elbow joint, catches itself in time, and glances around. Then it glances up. And around again.

"I haven't hit my head that hard, yes? Is there someone here?"

"Well, yes? I mean no offence, but you're inside me"

Silence answers him, quickly broken by laughter. He remembers Jazz laughing. It is a similar laugh. He thinks he likes this laugh more.

"Well, I did not expect the ship to be speaking too. I really should not be surprised after this whole month"

At least the organic isn't despairing anymore? Lost Light thinks he can see a smile on it's face if he strains the camera.

"Technically, I'm a Titan. I'm a ship in the same way Deadlock is a,,, what you call small ground vehicle... Car? If I want to, I can be a building."

"Wait, but if you're the ship... How big do you guys come?!"

"Very. Now, little one, do you want my welder or not?"

Another wave of laughter follows.

"I do have a name!"

"You did not introduce myself"

"Cheeky. And yet, you did not introduce yourself either, big ship"

"My designation is Lost Light, and I'm the best Titan Courier this side of the galaxy"

The organic seems to finally locate his internal camera and so it points at it with it tiny wrench. Lost Light thinks it likes it's smile too.

"Well, nice to meet'cha, Lost Light. Name's Hot Rod. Now, about that welder..."

Lost Light rummages in his inventory for his favorite welder, mountable on a cargo manipulator. It is surprisingly elusive.

"I have it, I have it.... somewhere. It's been a long time since I patched up myself."

"...You patch yourself up often?"

"Nowadays not much, I'm a very good runner, and... Aha! There it is!"

Hot Rod look very, very happy to see the welder-wielding cargo manipulator. He is so much smaller than the tiniest little ones he carried. He reminds Lost Light of something that escapes his processor.

"Thanks, big ship. I hate ruptured lines. God knows when Ratch and that Swerve guy will be back"

"I'm not that big, you know. And I'm glad to be of assistance"

Despite pointed critique from the organic called Ratchet later on, Lost Light considers his skills with a welder in his internal cargo manipulator arms to be above average.

Hot Rod thinks so too, and ire of a medic shared is misery halved in Lost Light's books.

And then it hits him.

He reminds Lost Light of those beautiful, beautiful distant stars.

Lost Light prepares a very tiny datapad for a very big map.

.*.*.*.

...And here it is. I got possessed. Guest-starring my basic knowledge of astrophysics and bad jokes.

OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH I LOVE THIS TAKE ON THEM SO MUCH

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Jane Fonda (Barbarella, Sunday in New York, Barefoot in the Park)—Feminist icon, LGBTQ+ rights activist since the 70s, Civil Rights and Native American rights advocate, environmentalist… she really is THE woman ever

Eartha Kitt (Anna Lucasta, St. Louis Blues)—My friend and I have a saying: NOBODY is Eartha Kitt. A thousand have tried, and they've all come up empty and will continue to do so. Everyone knows her for something: from "Santa Baby" to Yzma in Emperor's New Groove to Catwoman to making Lady Bird Johnson cry for the Vietnam War. She was a master of comedy and sex, an extremely vocal activist, and she aged like fine wine... I honestly don't know what I can say about her that hasn't already been said, so I'll stick to linking all my propaganda. Like what else do you want from me. She was iconic at everything she ever did. Literally name another. How can anyone even think of her and not want to absolutely drown?

This is round 6 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Jane Fonda:

"I assume she's already been submitted but I gotta make sure. I think there's an element to movies like Barbarella or her segment of Spirit of the Dead of those having been directed by her husband, who famously made movies about her being hot, and the incredible costume design also helped, but good lord. Look at her"

"She was so pretty, dear lord! She was and still us stunning. She’s great at comedy and drama."

"Shes so hot im so gay for me i will let her hit me with hers car"

"Gorgeous and also still getting arrested at climate protests, which is sexy behavior"

"Watching her in Barefoot in the Park seriously made me, a straight woman, question things"

"PLEASE I LOVE HER SO MUCH"

"Her vibes in these movies are so interesting because she, the daughter of an Old Hollywood star, went on to make both poignant dramatic movies and the some of the silliest things you've ever seen but even in the silly space adventures and sexploitations there's always this undeniable gravitas to her. It's like she's able not to take herself very seriously but at the same time never stops having this grace and elegance and makes it all work together. And she's always been very politically active which is also sexy. Her famous mugshot is from 1970 so right at the cutoff mark but come on"

Eartha Kitt:

"A hot vintage woman who was not just known for her voice, beauty, poise, and presence, but also her unapologetic ways of speaking about how she was mistreated in the show business as a girl who grew up on cotton fields in South Carolina in the 1930s through the 1940s coming to Broadway first and then Hollywood."

"Have you watched her sing?? Have you seen her face?? Have you heard her talk?? How could you not fall instantly in love. She makes me incoherent with how hot she is."

"She can ACT she can SING she can speak FOUR LANGUAGES she is a GODDESS!!! Although she is (rightfully) remembered for her singing, TV appearances (Catwoman my beloved), and later film roles, her early appearances in film are no less impressive or noteworthy!! She’s an amazing actress with so much charisma in every role. She was also blacklisted from Hollywood for 10 years for criticizing the Johnson administration/Vietnam War, so. Iconic. Also Orson Welles apparently called her “the most exciting woman in the world.”

"She had such a stunning, remarkable appearance, like she could tear you to shreds with just a glance- but the most undeniable part of her hotness was her voice, and it makes sense that it's what most people nowadays know her for. Nothing encapsulates the sheer magnetism of her singing better than this clip of her and Nat King Cole in St. Louis Blues, she pops in at 2:49. Also I know it's post-1970 but her song that was cut from Emperor's New Groove is likely to make you feel Feelings."

"Even with as racist as Hollywood was in the 1950s and 60s, Eartha Kitt STILL managed to have a thriving career. She also once had a threesome with Paul Newman and James Dean, and called out LBJ over the Vietnam War so hard that it made First Lady Johnson cry. Eartha Kitt was talented, sexy, and a total badass activist."

[thursdays-adult]

You know I never shipped Zutara back in the day. But I've been thinking lately about how it would have looked for the disgraced prince that's been banished for three years; who briefly returned only to become a traitor again; helped the avatar topple the current regime; and then ended the 100 year war to also start courting a girl from the water tribe. I mean yeah Zuko is likely cleaning house of all the Ozai loyalists and many people were likely exhausted by the war and glad to see it end. But still that's a populace who's been fed propaganda for over 100 years on the righteousness of the war and the superiority of the fire nation and who now has a fire lord speaking against all of it. A fire lord who seems more comfortable with earth nation and water tribe dignitaries than his own people, including his choice of a bride . In a way Mai seems like the more politically sound choice. A way to reassure the fire nation that they're still a priority and that not too much will change. Fire Lady Katara could possibly only stoke the flames of civil war. But then as Iroh said water is the element of change with a deep sense of community that holds them together through anything, and I think it'd actually be really interesting to see Katara step into all of that political upheaval and change because she might actually be the perfect person to lead them through it. And now I'm really fascinated by that concept.

[aeliem]

1st horseman - Conquest

(click for better quality)

timelapse and rambles under the cut

i finally fucking did it hell yeah!!!

ok so i had the idea to have each bad sans (killer, dust, horror & nightmare) as each of the horsemen of the apocalypse. i started it about a months ago, planning to release it on halloween (turns out that didnt really work out as you can see)

but now its finally done! the 4 drawings are all finished, im gonna post them over the course of this month so i have time to focus on comics (i have one comic in mind especially where all the scenes are done, i just need to make a clean script and makes the actual pages) (and maybe writing? i've been reading stuff on ao3 and im getting inspired)

also some stuff in the drawing (easter eggs? idk)

the purple color on the bow end & feathers is the KR/karma color (or at least close enough) Dust's eye is red & cyan (obviously), but i always headcanon him as having more patience than perseverance (except purple on red looks like shit so i draw it cyan anyway), but i did add a small sliver of purple between the 2 colors the text in the background is the message you get at the end of a fight when leveling up, and this one specifically (200 XP 0 gold) is for papyrus

anyways

Why Conquest for Dust?

part of it was by elimination, but between the 4 choices i feel Conquest matches best thematically. famine is out of the question, death feels too important to be him, and civil war is too chaotic/not really as calculated as i imagine him to be.

conquest's elements are: the color white, a bow, and the themes of conquest, but also "noble" war (between countries, by opposition to civil war) or religious war. white isn't especially about dust, but the bow i feel works because he would fight at a distance (and generally try to distance himself from what he's doing)

Dust's story is all about fighting an enemy who's on the other side of the barrier (the human), so linking it to war makes sense, and he thinks going on a killing spree is the only way he can save everyone/make things right, so the "noble" side of it matches pretty well. (also conquest can be/has been interpreted as the christ/antichrist, and i headcanon Dust has a huge savior complex so this absolutely matches)

enough ramblings, here's the timelapse!

[legalkimchi]

Please learn more than just a Phrase.

I don't expect people to be subject matter experts on issues of global politics.

But false equivalency is rampant in online discourse regarding three major conflicts in the world today. I am using the word conflict in this post, however, when applicable, i will use other words to describe specifics. (Nuance folks... it's a thing)

So i start off with an assumption that most people don't understand the basics of most international events. As an american, i only know some of the stuff that is happening within my own nation. This is not an insult to you, dear reader. Rather, it is a position we all must realize we are in. You do not understand most world issues.

You just don't.

you aren't there. it isn't your life. you don't have the academic background.

I saw a post recently calling for "freedom for Palestine, Sudan, and Congo."

And it bothered me. Not because i am opposed to peace, (how is asking for ceasefire a bad thing?) but rather because i believe simplifying the conflicts with this wording showcases the ignorance of the differences.

Not all conflicts are the same.

In palestine, we have a convoluted mess where two groups claim a territory as home. getting into the in-depth story of this conflict takes time. Foundational elements of it take place thousands of years ago, but the conflict itself is only about 75 years old. So it is a long and short story. Currently, the sovereign state of Israel is engaging in a genocide in Gaza. Asking for freedom for palestinians makes sense. they live in an apartheid state and would like a state of their own. they wish to be free of occupation. you can argue with the details, be pro-israel, or whatever, but that is the basic ask of palestinians. (if you want to get into anti-semetic regional sentiment or the desire of certain groups to eradicate the israeli jewish population or Israel as a nation that's a different topic, not the point of what i'm talking about.)

In the Congo and Sudan, it is a different story.

Let's start with the Congo. First of all, Which Congo?

Let's please understand that there is the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Republic of the Congo is a former french colony. Then there is Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some of us might remember this country as Zaire.

the DRC is the congo we are talking about in the news. This was a former belgian colony and the atrocities committed by the belgians there rival any genocide in human history. i've seen estimates between 5 million and 20 million deaths. some estimates state the population of native congolese were cut in HALF. since the turbulent start of the country after their independence in 1960, the country knew relative peace until the 1990s. Then a mixture of a weak central government and the Rwandan Civil war (which had it's own genocide you may have heard about) spilled over into what was then Zaire. Zaire dissolved, and the DRC took it's place, But the wars have been raging off an on since then. earlier this year, more civil war violence erupted AGAIN. This displaced millions, AGAIN. while the DRC is a bit of an autocratic and repressive regime, the rebel groups are groups with ties with the Rwandan government and the other group with ties to Isis. It's awful all the way down.

Sudan has had an ongoing civil war for over 20 years. I remember this because i helped lead some anti-genocide protests regarding Darfur when i was in college 20 years ago. I've been following this conflict for nearly my entire adult life. you may have heard about this with regards to the Save Darfur coalition regarding the genocide in Darfur. Well, that genocide has continued (albeit with less intensity) for 20 years. the civil war lasted until 2021, but restarted in a different form in late 2023. the conflict is now between two different sides of the military government fighting each other.

It is an awful conflict full of awful leaders. Sudan's government suffered a revolution in 2019 from a dictator, only to have that government overthrown in a coup by the current dictator. The Sudanese military is supported by folks like Russia and North Korea. you might see that among the other countries that support sudan, bunch of communist countries, and you might think "hey, maybe al-Burhan is a leftist".

no... no he is not.

He is a military despot. He has no ties to any real ideology. He just runs sudan as a military dictator.

So who is opposing him?

The Rapid Support Forces. and you may be thinking "ok, so they are the good guys? trying to overthrow the dictator?"

No... They are the ones that instigated the Genocide in Darfur.

This is a situation is "no matter who wins, the people of Sudan lose."

So when folks claim these are all the same. Or wonder why folks talk about one and not the other.

there are reasons. These are very different conflicts. Please learn about them. It matters more than spouting some 4 word slogan calling for "freedom."

Find out what the people of these areas actually need. Learn more about what is happening. My description above is incomplete. I may even get some things wrong. I am trying to keep informed, but I am not an expert, nor do i live there. Raise voices from the region and find out if there are ways to help.

[suzannahnatters]

Many people have asked me why I say THE RINGS OF POWER is far more faithful to the spirit of Tolkien’s work than the Peter Jackson films. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

(Warning: if you deeply love the Jackson movies, feel free not to read this. I’ve been meditating on this for 20+ years. You are not going to argue me out of any of it.)

FIRST – Jackson is, how shall we put it, not sufficiently familiar with Tolkien or his influences. He repeatedly and stubbornly made mistakes both large and small. Tolkien was a master of medieval military tactics. Jackson... is not. Every military decision taken by the characters in Jackson’s TWO TOWERS is pure stupidity. In Jackson’s RETURN OF THE KING, Aragorn casually beheads the Mouth of Sauron, which is a war crime, since the Mouth is Sauron’s ambassador. Jackson’s Eowyn tries to flirt with Aragorn by cooking him stew, even though she is a noblewoman from the warrior class who was raised to act as a civil and military leader in a medieval-coded society where cooking is not intrinsically linked to femininity. Jackson’s Theoden, grieving over the death of his son, utters the words “No parent should have to grieve the death of their child,” which is the kind of sentiment only imaginable in a society where infant mortality and death in battle is a good deal rarer than among the Anglo-Saxon Cossacks during the War of the Rings. Jackson’s Dwarf women are reduced to a punchline; Tolkien’s were miners, craftspeople and adventurers in their own right.

I won’t go on. BUT I COULD.

SECOND – One problem that by itself ought to have disqualified Jackson from adapting Tolkien, is that he is incapable of depicting or even understanding goodness the way Tolkien does. This deeply pervades all Jackson’s films. Jackson’s idea of goodness is ethereal, anaemic, and ineffective before gross and creepy evil. His Elves are not the vivid, passionate, hearty warriors Tolkien wrote: they pluck mistily at harps and feed on spinach. (TROP has Galadriel scaling frozen cliffs and Elrond splitting boulders. That’s FAR more like it).

Tolkien insisted on the concept of Faerie as being foundational to his work. This is a difficult concept to explain. It meant the beauty and glory of Valinor, yes. But it also meant an element of otherworldly, yet immanent, beauty and glory in Middle Earth itself. This is a good summary:

“Faerie may be roughly translated as Magic, but not the vulgar magic of the magician; it is rather magic "of a particular mood and power," and it does not have its end in itself but in its operations. Among these operations are "the satisfaction of certain primordial human desires" such as the desire "to survey the depths of space and time" and the desire "to hold communion with other living things."” (Source: https://www.ewtn.com/.../tolkien-and-the-fairy-story-4094)

When Lewis said of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, “here are beauties that pierce like swords”, that’s that he meant. Peter Jackson had no sense of Faerie. When, at the end of his trilogy, he has his characters get on a ship to go to the Undying Lands, he makes it a metaphor for death. Death! Tollkien’s Valinor isn’t the afterlife; it’s the earthly paradise of his world. Jackson cannot imagine an earthly or material locus of goodness.

This affects many of his narrative decisions. In the book Faramir resists the temptation of the Ring handily. Jackson’s Faramir succumbs to the power of the Ring and has to be scared straight. Jackson justified this by saying that Faramir needed to fall to the Ring’s temptation so that it remained an effective narrative threat. Basically, having failed to grasp the importance of Tolkien’s vision of powerful and present goodness and beauty in the first place, Jackson believed he needed to further degrade it for the sake of the story.

Obviously, THE RINGS OF POWER isn’t perfect, and still has plenty of time to betray its early promise. However, so far its showrunners appear to have a far better grasp of Faerie, beauty, and goodness than Jackson ever did. Its vision of Valinor is ineffably beautiful while still home to flawed living people. Its Elves are noble, ceremonious, dignified, warm, and grave. It is also actively pursuing Tolkien’s original themes. Elanor has a discussion of Providence that contains intentional echoes of “The Shadow of the Past” in LOTR, but there are also meditations on art and mortality that show an attempt to engage with themes Tolkien himself said were foundational to his entire work (Letter #131). These themes may yet be mishandled: but THE RINGS OF POWER has clearly at least READ the assignment. (Jackson’s films, by comparison, did dumb stuff like having Theoden, who in the books is simply dealing with depression, be literally possessed by Saruman and in need of exorcism “because exorcism is a Catholic thing and Tolkien was a Catholic, lol!”)

Jackson didn’t completely obscure the beauty and goodness of Tolkien, and I’m aware that THE RINGS OF POWER could not have happened without his pioneering and often sacrificial work in adapting the story to screen. I don’t want to discount the things that are good about his intentions, his work, and his love for the source material. But watching THE RINGS OF POWER was the moment when 20 years of frustration boiled over as I realised that, contrary to what I’d always told myself, it WAS possible to do Tolkien more justice than this. So far, I’m very pleased, and I’ll be waiting for future seasons with bated breath.

[split-spectrum]

Heat Sick

Pairing: Obi Wan/FemReader

Length: 3.5K (One-off)

Warnings/Tags: explicit sexual content - minors DNI. noncon elements including nonconsensual voyeurism, master/padawan kink, age gap (no ages expressly mentioned and no description of reader), power imbalance, masturbation, angst, guilt kink

Description: While on a mission with your master to uncover an assassination plot, you forget to turn off your security cam. Obi Wan sees more than he's ready to confront, and feels more than he's ready to withstand.

☆☆☆

"We will discuss this later."

"Master, can we not trade one more day of the war for this? Just one day?"

Obi Wan lets his eyes widen as he turns to face you in disbelief. "Young one, the decision is not ours to make. The sooner you learn that and make peace with it, the better."

"Perhaps I could stay behind. Just me. I could ask the council-"

He nods to the ambassador and stands, lowering his tone to you as the rest of the room leaves. "You will pack your things, and we will be on our way tomorrow."

As you follow him down the hall to your respective rooms, Obi Wan makes a concerted effort to keep his shoulders low and his pace steady. Letting his irritation show would do no good for either of you.

No - he thinks - not quite irritation. It stings more than that.

You've been ready for the trials for some time, and the only thing keeping you from completing them is your overloaded schedule of assignments. You aren't yet a knight, though you both know that you likely would be, if not for the war.

But until then, where he goes, you go. And to defy that - to defy him by contacting the council for reassignment... he'd never expected you to go so far.

"Forgive me, Master," you mumble behind him, clearly not sorry. "I- I just want to help these people, and it doesn't seem like anyone besides me can see the extent of their issues."

Obi Wan suppresses any semblance of feelings, turning to face you when he reaches his door. "Perhaps that is true. Let us... let us agree that it is. What then? Are you prepared to stay here indefinitely?"

You fall silent, gazing up at him with those blasted, soulful eyes of yours. Those eyes can simply bowl him over whenever you please. It just isn't fair.

He sighs. "The council sent us here to uncover the assassination plot against the Toydarian king, and we have done our duty. We could spend a lifetime on any planet if we concerned ourselves with internal politics."

"This isn't just internal politics," you insist. "Another attempt on the king's life is almost inevitable, because we haven't rooted out the underlying problems."

Your face is so solemn, he has to force himself to take a beat before answering too flippantly. "Let us hope it happens in the distant future."

"Master, I'm being serious."

"As am I, Padawan." He hits the last word with a little more emphasis than needed. "As I have told you time and time again, we must learn to choose our battles. We have won the day. Now we must move on to where we are needed most."

Your brows pinch tight. "And I suppose we just hope the Toydarians can last until the end of the war without falling into a civil war of their own."

"Indeed, let us both hope so."

You'd clearly expected another answer; had wanted a longer argument. Your mouth falls open in indigance, but nothing comes out.

You turn and stalk away, and Obi Wan heaves another sigh as he enters his temporary quarters. There is nothing he can do to make you see reason when you're like this. The only thing he can give you is time.

Which is why a few hours later, your knock at the door is expected, but still welcome.

"Master?"

Obi Wan ends his meditation and answers the door, finding you standing rigidly behind it, clearly making an effort to keep eye contact.

"Come in," he ushers you, stepping to the side.

You look at the floor, then back to him as you enter. Your voice is soft and low. "I... wanted to apologize for my behavior... earlier."

Obi Wan lifts his eyebrows, but holds back his words, for now. He's already forgiven you, perhaps too quickly. Perhaps you know that.

"I just feel so... frustrated lately, with all these short, temporary assignments. It doesn't feel like we're making a difference at all."

He nods, gesturing for you to join him in sitting on the end of his bed. "I understand your need to help others. But we must not allow our fleeting feelings to blind us to the greater picture. We are a part of an order. You must never forget that."

Your stare is fixed on your lap, and you nod. "I know. I know."

"Letting go in order to focus on the greater good is not always an easy thing. But you will learn." He allows a small smile. "I have faith."

Your eyes sparkle when you finally look back up at him, and Obi Wan swallows, forcing himself to keep his smile in place before he looks away. It stirs something within him when you hold him in your gaze like that, as if he'd hung the stars themselves. Reminds him why it is best that you complete your trials and leave his side.

"I'm... sorry I mentioned a reassignment. I wasn't thinking clearly. My place is with you, Master. I don't want to be anywhere else."

Your earnestness sends a little wave of warmth through him, and Obi Wan quickly tamps it down, reaching for your clasped hands on your lap. He pats your hand gently. "I... appreciate that very much. But your place will not be here much longer."

You give him a wry little smile. "That's true. I suppose I should use my opportunities to disobey you sparingly, or you may not speak to me anymore after I'm knighted."

He returns your smile. "You won't be rid of me so easily. Not when I'm expected to use the new graphic software for mission reports."

He enjoys the way your lightened gaze slides over to him, lips splitting into a full grin. He knew that would get a rise out of you - you hate it when he asks you to help him with his datapad.

"On second thought, maybe I should transfer to a new quadrant as soon as possible."

Obi Wan laughs again, patting your leg this time. His big hand rests on your thigh a little longer than it should, and he draws it back, clearing his throat.

"I..." Your softened voice fills the silence. "I suppose I'll also need to get used to calling you Obi Wan."

Hearing his name in your mouth sends another little ripple of warmth just where it shouldn't be - right between his ribs. He steadies his thoughts.

"Let's agree to hold off until the trials, shall we?"

He hopes you hear it as a brush-off; a simple reassertion of your relationship, and that you don't hear the way his voice is pulled tight.

You grant him mercy, standing to face him again. "As you wish, Master," you answer. "Thank you for accepting my apology."

Obi Wan shakes his head. "There is nothing to forgive. Caring for those around you is no weakness. Now, get some rest."

You bow your head respectfully as he sends you on your way, and Obi Wan closes the door behind you. He rests his palm flat against the cool durasteel of the closed door, standing still for a moment.

The way his words no longer come easily in your presence, he knows he should be pushing you toward the trials as quickly as he can.

But that's another issue, for another day. Right now, he should be taking his own advice and getting some rest.

He crosses the room, removing his outer robe and hanging it in a nearby closet. Finding the light control panel and clicking off the remaining lights, he turns to look back at his bed and frowns. There's still light emanating from a small screen at his bedside. Then he watches as the image of you moves across the screen.

Oh. Right. The security cams.

Each of your rooms had been equipped with them when you'd moved into the palace a week ago. It's a closed circuit, meaning that you can only view one another. There had been some other channels available, including the king's chamber and other important locations. Those have been shut off since the investigation concluded. The cams in each of your rooms were only meant to be used when you were gone, to secure your living quarters when you weren't using them. Evidently, you'd forgotten to turn yours off - probably because you'd come back to your quarters in such a huff earlier.

Obi Wan walks over to the screen, ready to shut it off, but finds himself standing there, lingering. Hand at the ready, but never quite pressing the button.

You shrug out of your heavy outer robe and hang it over the back of a chair, your movements graceful and slow. Bracelets slide from your wrist down your forearm, and although there's no sound with the image, he can practically hear the way they jangle together. Those blasted pieces of jewelry - he's told you a thousand times not to wear them, but you keep them tucked under the sleeve of your robe anyway. Probably stuffed into the fabric so they don't make a sound.

His hand comes back to his side, watching as you admire them while taking each one off. They aren't practical. They could catch on something during a fight. But they'd been given to you by a friend, and you'd stubbornly held onto them. And if he's being honest, they are beautiful.

Beautiful.

The word hangs in his mind.

He clears his throat, refocusing on the idea that he should work to accept that there are some things he was able to train out of you, and some things that remain a part of who you are. Now that you're moving on, no longer his padawan, he needs to force himself to view you differently.

He watches as you put away your bracelets, packing them with the rest of your clothing. After another moment, he lifts a hand to the button again. Any longer and he'll be infringing on your privacy. He just... wanted to take a moment to reminisce.

He continues to reminisce while you're bending down to roll out your night clothes, and he can see down the front of your-

Click.

His breathing is unsteady.

The blank, darkened screen stares back at him. Every one of his nerve endings feels like they've been dipped in molten lava.

He's never done anything so improper.

You are his padawan. 

His padawan. He leans into the word, branding it into his mind, with all that it encompasses. All the expectations and the prohibitions. All the sleepless nights and grueling days he's spent committing himself to you; to do right by you.

He's let this thing, this fascination, fester within him for far too long. Lingering looks, over time, have become a habit. And just now, the habit has been unspooled in front of him, spilling out like thread from a cut cloth. He'd never realized it had become this much a part of him. Not until just now, when his gaze didn't have to turn away. When it could run rampant with no consequences.

It fills him with a sort of dread. As if his feet are on a path he knows he can't turn from. No, indeed - he's already on it. Just by not moving from this spot in front of the screen, he's already taken the first steps.

He feels like every muscle in his body is taught, ready to snap. This moment could be so easy to resist, if he knew it would happen again. If this weren't the one time he would ever, ever have the chance to see you - really see you, without hiding his desire. Without the chance of you knowing. Without the need to control himself.

Click.

You've taken off your tunic, spreading it flat to roll it up. All you're wearing are your leggings and a thin undershirt that wraps tightly around your stomach and hangs loosely at the top. When you bend to roll the tunic up, his eyes are unable to tear away from the screen. The dark crevice where your shirt falls open draws him in, dangerously close to revealing more. His eyes are fixated on it. Pleading for it to spare him and stay in place. Pleading for it to slip.

He drinks in the features of your face. Your relaxed expression. The curve of your jaw. The length of your neck.

How many times has he imagined it - brushing a knuckle along the nape of your neck, just to feel your warmth. The thrill that would run through him as you might look up at him with wide, confused eyes. A shudder runs through him, filling him with unwelcome heat.

He's been on enough desert planets to experience heat sickness. The way it courses through the body in nauseating waves. Making him jittery, uneasy. Shaking with the feeling of wanting to burst, yet knowing there's nothing he can do to fight it. He could not beg the suns for mercy. The only thing he could do was let the sickness crawl through his veins, poisoning him slowly until he lost all sense. And hope he could come back to himself when it was all over.

You finish folding and turn around to unclasp the front of your leggings.

Obi Wan sits, the soft edge of his bed catching him.

He can feel his heartbeat in his throat as you seem to take an eternity to slowly slide the pants over the curve of your ass, exposing skin he's never seen before. Even in the smallest of your training clothes, he's never seen the full, soft cheeks of your ass on display like this. He sucks in a breath, eyes dancing over every inch.

You step out of the leggings, bending at the knees to pick them up, and he watches the arch of your back, the sway of your hips. When you put away your leggings, he considers it a blessing that you're behind a table, yet still feels the pull of frustration - waiting, waiting, waiting for you to step back into view.

When at last you do, your hands slip down to your sides and you turn to face the cam again, showing him the smooth skin of your stomach as your shirt lifts up.

"Stars, help me," Obi Wan whispers, unblinking.

But you're walking back and forth as you undress, and at the moment his breath hitches, you turn away again, and he sees nothing but your back. You stride across the room, completely at ease, and just as you enter the doorframe of the refresher next to your room, your fingers lazily slip under the waistband of some sort of obscenely delicate fabric, peeling your underwear down your body.

Obi Wan has to stifle a soft moan, imagining his own larger, rougher hands in place of yours, dragging the lacey thing down your legs to the floor.

You step out of them, and at a distance that's quite blurry, he can just see the soft bounce of your breasts from the side. His mouth is slackened, watching you walk away from the cam and into the next room.

His chest is tight. He shifts uncomfortably in the bed to reposition. He can feel the thrum of his own flushed face, can feel his pulse between his legs.

When you come out of the other room, you're clothed - just barely. You've put on a silky little slip. It's practically see-through. It might be worse than seeing you with no clothes at all. The slip itself is almost painfully innocent. No lace or adornments. A simple, soft garment worn for your comfort in bed. Nothing more.

The idea sends another shameful jolt through him, at watching you like this. Then he catches sight of the small pod in your hand. When you draw up one of your legs onto the bed and take off the lid of the pod to swipe your fingers through it, he realizes that it's a salve or lotion of some sort. A new level of agony overtakes him as you slide the lotion over your leg, rubbing in soft circles over your skin. Each time you lean forward to rub another circle, your slip rides up to show a teasing glimpse of your ass.

Obi Wan follows your every movement, feeling his gaze go glassy, heavy, and lost. The ache throbbing between his legs seems to thrum in time with your entrancing, repetitive movements. You start on the other leg, and when you bend forward this time, he groans into his fist, seeing even more.

Almost absently, he palms down his straining erection through his clothes. His eyes flutter shut at the feeling, and then snap open again to watch as you drop your leg, smoothing the lotion over your arms and neck, then sliding your hands around your breasts. You may as well be wearing nothing, the way he can see your fingers working beneath the fabric, squeezing the soft skin and teasing delicately over your own nipples.

His lower lip juts forward when his mouth falls open, and Obi Wan bares his teeth as if that will help him. As if the futile gesture of his struggle will somehow stop the way his hand is rubbing himself. As if it will keep him from tearing his off clothes as he watches you touch yourself.

Your hands slowly work their way down to your stomach, then down the lengths of each of your arms, and you finally put the lotion away. You dim the lights, but the picture is still fortunately - cursedly - clear enough that he can see every curve of your body as you climb into bed. You pull back the covers, and Obi Wan's palm presses hard into his lap and stills.

"Oh, darling, no..." he murmurs as you crawl forward, giving him a clear view of your perfect, glistening center. You're a little wet, and he feels himself losing a small piece of his sanity trying to imagine why you might be.

Once you're in bed, lying on your side, the light from the next room bathes your face in an ethereal glow so that he can see your every expression clearly, though your body is a little shrouded by the blankets piled at your feet.

He can, however, with the way you're angled, see right between your legs.

Hands trembling, he unceremoniously yanks down his pants to wrap a palm around himself, letting out a short gasp at the relief.

Your perfect pussy, bared just for him. He curses under his breath as he drinks in the sight of you, knowing he'll only last a few moments and squeezing himself, trying to draw out the moments as long as possible.

Obi Wan's heated gaze ratchets upward when he notices you yawn - soft, sweet and pure.

Entranced by the way your lower lip is hanging open, he imagines what it would feel like to shove two fingers into your warm, wet mouth. The image makes his cock twitch in his hand, and he imagines that going in next.

He admits it - he wishes he were there with you. Right now. Standing over your bed and looking into your big, luminous, trusting, tear-blurred eyes and shoving his cock into your lovely little mouth.

He wants to run a finger along the folds of your pussy until you soak his hand, and then he wants to ease your legs apart and tease circles around your swollen clit until you're babbling with pleasure. He wants you in every way. Stars save him - he wants to fuck you.

The thought makes him grunt low in his throat, and he tightens his grip. He's disgusted with himself, grinding into his own fist as if he could wring the very thought out of his body.

His padawan, bent over her bed, legs spread for him. His heavy palms on her waist, holding her perfect body, her skin too young and smooth for his calloused hands. Her pussy engulfing his dick, making him cry out her name with every thrust.

With every harsh tug of his pulsing, drooling cock, he's more damned. But he can't stop. Can't think of anything but you. His whole mind - his whole being - is concentrated on nothing but you, and how much he wants to paint your stomach, your face, your cunt with the cum that's about to shoot all over his hand.

He watches as you roll to your other side, tits nearly spilling out of your bedclothes, and imagines the way they would feel under his hands. The way you would bounce under your clothes as he ravaged you, coating his dick in your slippery, soft, innocent little cunt, taking absolutely everything he'd ever wanted.

And Obi Wan explodes, trying to block what he can, but failing miserably and covering his hand and the screen with ropes of hot, white mess. He chokes back a groan, forcing himself not to wake half the palace and grunts quietly into the arm of his tunic as he finishes soaking the bed and himself in his own seed.

He pants, watching the mess dripping over your warm, clean, clothed form on the screen. His mouth is hanging open, and he closes it to swallow.

Your eyes are shut, expression peaceful. You've fallen asleep.

He's shaking and sweating, staring at your beautiful face when the shame overcomes him.

The worst thing about heat sickness - once it takes you, even if you slake your thirst, even if you cool your brow, even if your pulse stops pounding for the moment - it will inevitably happen again. 

--

A/N: Shoutout to @slinkygail who kindly encouraged me to work on my WIPs! 💜

And thank you as always to everyone who reads. Hope you liked this one-off. :) It's been bouncing around my drafts for a while. A situation I don't believe for one second that Obi Wan would actually find himself in, but was absolutely necessary to indulge myself.

[theguywithaplan]

List of Games Turning Twenty (20) Years Old in 2025

Advance Wars: Dual Strike

Advent Rising (they started planning the trilogy before the first game was out lmao)

Age of Empires III

Animal Crossing: Wild World (the DS one)

Arc the Lad: End of Darkness

Area 51 (the FPS that was low-key kinda creepy)

Banjo Pilot (the Banjo-Kazooie racing game on GBA).

Battalion Wars (the spin-off of Advance Wars).

Battlefield 2

Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30

Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood (yep, they released two mainline games in one year).

Burnout Revenge (this cleared Burnout 3, and I will fight you on that).

Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth

Call of Duty 2

Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (go play the Castlevania Dominus collection. It has this game and a few others and it's GREAT).

Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Civilization IV

Cold Fear (answering the age old question: what if Resident Evil 4 was on a boat and not as good?)

Condemned: Criminal Origins (a launch title for the Xbox 360 and a pretty solid horror game).

Conker: Live & Reloaded (maybe a controversial opinion, but this is WAY better than the original).

Crash Tag Team Racing

Dead or Alive 4 (aka, the one with not Master Chief in it).

Destroy All Humans!

Devil Kings (all the sequels would be under it's non-translated title: Sengoku Basara).

Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening (let's rock, baybeeeeee)

Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat

Dragon Ball Z: Sagas (I saw a stream of this game a few months back, and oh my god, this looks so shitty/funny).

Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King

Dynasty Warriors 5 (who's excited for Origins???)

Far Cry Instincts (a console version of the PC exclusive original game)

Fatal Frame III: The Tormented

F.E.A.R. (if you haven't played this before, change that. it's fantastic)

Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance (the one with Ike the Bisexual in it).

Forza Motorsport (the very first one).

Gauntlet: Seven Sorrows

Geist (the rare M-rated Nintendo game).

The Getaway: Black Monday

God of War (the very first one).

Gran Turismo 4 (one of the few PS2 games that could be played in HD, along with... Jackass: The Game...)

Guild Wars

Guitar Hero (the very first one).

Haunting Ground (a very rare PS2 horror game from Capcom).

Hot Shots Golf: Open Tee

The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction

The Incredibles: Rise of the Underminer (since the second movie came out, this game is now considered non-canon).

Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit (the second game from known hack/fraud David Cage).

Jade Empire (the last game that BioWare made before they got acquired by EA).

Jak X: Combat Racing

Judge Dredd: Dredd vs. Death (there was a for real-ass Judge Dredd game on the GameCube).

Kameo: Elements of Power (another Xbox 360 launch title, this one made by a post-acquisition Rare. It's pretty fun).

Killer7 (from the greatest to ever do it, Suda51)

Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (you guys think it's based on the movie or what...?)

Kirby: Canvas Curse (a really fun DS game that only used the stylus)

Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament (i think klonoa would get along really well with sonic)

The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap (the one where Link gets really small)

Lego Star Wars: The Video Game

Lunar: Dragon Song (one of the worst RPGs I've ever played. Don't play it).

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (the one with the Baby Mario Bros.)

Mario Kart DS (the first one with online play).

Mario Party Advance

Mario Party 7 (my personal favorite)

Mario Superstar Baseball (we didn't get a Mario Baseball game on the Switch. Because they're saving it for the Switch 2).

Mario Tennis: Power Tour (so many Mario games...)

Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix

Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects

The Matrix Online (an official continuation from the movies)

The Matrix: Path of Neo

Medal of Honor: European Assault

MediEvil: Resurrection

Mega Man Battle Network 5 (the only one in the series to have a DS version)

Mega Man Zero 4

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction

Metal Gear Acid (a launch title for the PSP, and a card game set in the Metal Gear universe. It works better than you might think).

Meteos (a puzzle game made by Masahiro Sakurai, the Smash Bros. guy)

Metroid Prime Pinball

Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks

Myst V: End of Ages (the final Myst game)

Need for Speed: Most Wanted (did you know that this game outsold the entire Halo series?)

Neopets: The Darkest Faerie (is Neopets still a thing?)

Nicktoons Unite! (a crossover between Spongebob, Fairly Oddparents, Jimmy Neutron, and Danny Phantom).

The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge (an honest to god sequel to the movie that plays like Devil May Cry).

Ninja Gaiden Black

Nintendogs

Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath

Pac-Man World 3

Perfect Dark Zero (yet another Xbox 360 launch title, also made by Rare, and a sequel to one of the best FPS games ever made. It was fine).

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (it had been out in Japan for a few years, but us Yankees got this four years after it came out).

Pokemon Dash (a Pokemon racing game. It was not very good).

Pokemon Emerald Version (I sunk like 500 hours into this game).

Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness (a sequel to Pokemon Colosseum where you could capture other people's Pokemon).

Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones

Psychonauts

The Punisher

Quake 4

Ratchet: Deadlocked

Resident Evil 4

Serious Sam 2

Shadow of the Colossus (one of the best games ever made. Play it if you haven't yet).

Shadow the Hedgehog (pretty good to be a sonic fan right now).

Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga (parts 1 and 2).

Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves

Sonic Rush

SoulCalibur III (RIP, SoulCalibur. Tekken is just too powerful.)

Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (RIP, Splinter Cell. Ubisoft just sucks too much to make you anymore).

Spyro: Shadow Legacy

Star Fox Assault

Star Wars: Republic Commando

Star Wars: Battlefront II (this game's story mode is permanently etched into my brain).

Stubbs the Zombie in "Rebel Without a Pulse" (presenting it to you with no context. Look it up. It's hilarious).

Super Mario Strikers

Super Monkey Ball Deluxe

Tak: The Great Juju Challenge

Tekken 5

TimeSplitters: Future Perfect (RIP, TimeSplitters. Embracer Group killed you before you could come back).

Trace Memory (got remade in 2024 as Another Code)

Twisted Metal: Head-On (another PSP launch title)

Ultimate Spider-Man (you could play as Venom in this one)

WarioWare: Touched!

WarioWare: Twisted!

We Love Katamari

Wild Arms: Alter Code F (a remake of the first game)

Xenosaga Episode II

X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse

[kasagia]

I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can)

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova x fem!moon summoner!Alina's sister! reader Summary: After the events of the fold and the fight against Aleksander, you, Alina, Mal, Baghra, Zoya, Feydor, and the Six of certain Crows join forces against the Dark General, who is trying to take over Ravka. But instead of hating YOUR Aleksander with all your heart, you still believe that you can influence him and stop the civil war in Ravka. Inspired by: Taylor Swift - I Can Fix Hhim (No Really I Can) Taglist: @aoi-targaryen @il0vebeingdelulu @chelseyyouraverageluigi @watersquirtpewpewboomm @summersummoner-pat Aleksander Morozova's Masterlist ~•♤♤♤•~ Main Masterlist

They shake their heads sayin', "God, help her" When I tell 'em he's my man But your good Lord doesn't need to lift a finger I can fix him, no, really, I can And only I can... maybe I can't. Taylor Swift - I Can Fix Hhim (No Really I Can)

You can't help but shudder as you observe the fold from the hill you're standing on. Sometimes at night, you dream about how HE created it. As shadow flew from his mouth along with a desperate scream, creating a shadow fold with creatures destroying everything and anyone on their way instead of an army that was supposed to save his people.

The bond between you is still there. Even though Alina made sure that the amplifiers he placed in you were completely inactive and removed. Sometimes you envied her for not having these strange visions about Aleksander's past. Maybe then you could hate him blindly instead of gradually starting to see the point in his reasoning and actions.

“You should be sleeping.” You close your eyes and sigh as you hear the old witch's voice. Baghra's presence was like salt to the wounds that her son inflicted on you. She didn't help you move on from Aleksander at all. Even telling you only the worst, bloody, dark stories of his past didn't change how you felt. And God knows how hard you tried to hate him after all this time you were running away from him and his people. "Ignoring me won't make your situation better. Only I can help you with this bond between you and my son; you know it well. Besides, you have a long road ahead of you. Your summoning skills are poor; he would defeat you with a wave of his finger. You are a better summoner of the sun than of the shadows."

"I am the moon summoner. Not some strange hybrid." You huff offendedly, stroking your thumb over the back of your left hand—more specifically, the small scar left after Morozova's stag amplifier.

"Moon summoner? Who called you that?"

"Your son." You say scathingly, enjoying the silence that came after your words.

You congratulate yourself as the smirk disappears from her face. You fondly remember how he gave you that nickname during one of your late-night meetings in his war room.

You were both night owls; it made sense that you would want to spend your time with the general who personally trained you in the use of shadows rather than senselessly tossing and turning in your bed, waiting for a sleep that would never come, right? Besides, over time, you went to his chambers to toss and turn in HIS bed. And not because you couldn't sleep...

"You still can't see it? He only wanted your power. Nothing more. He cares more about Alina than you, since your powers are weaker than theirs. You can control two elements and be the first to summon shadows and not be from our family, but you will never compare to them. And Aleksander is a greedy man, like all of them. He won't be satisfied with a naive girl whose powers depend on the time of day."

"I understand." You answered calmly. Out of the corner of your eye, you see the woman staring at you in shock, believing for a moment that you had actually moved on. But you can't stop a small, mocking smile from appearing. "Instead of standing here and looking at me stupidly, you'd better check on the others. I hope Zoya hasn't killed poor Mal yet."

"Silly girl. May the saints watch over you." She comments, shaking her head.

"Your good saints don't need to lift a little finger! I can fix him." You hear her mutter something to herself as she walks away, leaving you alone and not even responding to your taunt.

You sigh, playing with the sleeve of your coat as you stare at the fold. You could have fixed him. Really. He didn't need much. He was a good man, and maybe others didn't see in him what you did, but you deeply believed that the real Aleksander Morozova still lived under the mask of the Darkling.

All you had to do was get him out. And only you were able to do it.

You close your eyes, letting the moonlight fall on your face as you focus to summon your own light. You sigh in defeat, playing with the tiny ball in your hands, which quickly dissolves the moment you let the shadows slip through your fingers—as usual, too weak to summon a light bigger than your fist in the dark of night.

You pull the hood of your cloak over your head and go back to the camp, thinking about the nights when you could summon anything you wanted in Aleksander's arms. How dependent you had become on him... Alina had told you more than once that you should have known better than to listen and believe the enticing promises of monsters whispered in the darkness of night.

But was it really your fault that you still wished you could sink into the warmth of his embrace and sheets where you didn't have to worry about whether you'd live to see tomorrow? With Aleksander by your side, at least you never had to question your usefulness.

You were both his stars and his darkness. And while Baghra's whispers sometimes made you doubt it, in your dreams you remembered how much your Shadow Summoner valued your presence. And that despite how the world saw him, he wasn't really the villain in this story. He was just a fallen angel, a saint you had to put his halo back on and give the stars back to. Or at least that's what you wanted to believe.

After all, only you could fix him.

"And who is she?" Prince Nikolai's piercing gaze meets yours as you, Alina, Mal, and Baghra meet his band of rebels on the ship.

Alina told you that if you were to defeat Aleksander, who was growing stronger every day after the King of Ravka declared Grisha, who did not join the First Army public enemies, you needed to obtain an amplifier of some sea creature.

You didn't listen to her very much, though. You were busy talking to Aleksander at night... mostly trying to connect with him or watch him from the shadows. You only briefly listened to the plans they were making. After all, they didn't need you as long as Alina and Baghra were in good shape. You were only a spare summoner in case one of them did not have enough power. Another reason why you preferred to spend more of your time and energy trying to contact your Sasha.

Maybe at least he would consider you useful.

"Wait... I know you from somewhere... Aren't you the Darkling's girl? The one he gave flowers to at the Winter Festival?" A man with a ridiculous hat and guns at his side asks you. You roll your eyes at him, sighing.

"Yup. That was me." You admit it—a wave of whispers spreading across the deck of the ship. You feel the judging glances of the other crows at you.

"Poor girl. Fortunately, you've got it over with now. If you're lucky, next time you'll see him, he'll be dead." Nikolai comforts you, patting your shoulder. You move away from him, narrowing your eyes at him as you brush invisible dust from your arm—right where he touched you.

For them, his death would be a salvation. For you, it's the worst thing that could happen to you. Even worse than losing your own power.

"Oh, believe me, my prince. I can handle me a dangerous man like him." You reply, ignoring the angry look Alina gives you.

Nikolai chuckles awkwardly, responding with something joking to your remark. The group gathers in the captain's office over a table with reports, papers, maps, and Morozova's notes. They are discussing the plan, but you can't focus too much on it. You stare at the map, wondering where Aleksander could be right now, as memories of the Winter Fete come flooding back to you.

"I don't recall this thing as a part of the schedule. I thought it was only you and Alina who entertained people while I was looking lovely while standing next to the Fedyor and Genya for the whole night." You say it in an accusatory tone as you enter his chambers. You hear his small, deep chuckle as he closes the door behind you and turns on the lights in the room.

"And here I thought that flowers would help me get into your good graces, and you would forget that I dared to save you from the king's wandering eyes and keep you for myself in our shadows." He replies teasingly, slowly walking around the war table to join you.

"The flowers are pretty... but I'd like you to remember that I don't just control shadows. I am the moon summoner. A combination of both light and dark. You called me that yourself. So don't underestimate me just because I can't yet do what you and Alina can do." He frowns at your words and shakes his head. He brushes away some stray strands of hair that had fallen out of your elaborately styled hairstyle made by Genya and stares at you intently.

If you could, you would stare into his dark, chocolate eyes forever. And you weren't even ashamed of it.

"I don't underestimate you. I'm protecting you. Alina had already caught their attention—the king and his pampered prince. I don't want you to be next. Besides... am I so selfish that I want you to shine just for me?" His (not so innocent) question and the sweet smile he gives you make your heart melt for him. You pull him towards you by the collar of his kefta and kiss him sweetly, lazily caressing his plush lips with yours.

Aleksander Kirigan was addictive. His kisses were sweeter than the sweetest dessert you had ever eaten in the Little Palace's kitchen late at night with him, and his scent was intoxicating in the most dangerous way. You would never forgive yourself if you lost him; you couldn't imagine how your life would have looked if he hadn't shown up, literally swept you off your feet, and didn't take you into his strong arms.

You didn't know what he saw in you that convinced him to make you his, but you decided not to question it as long as he was your man and only yours. Even if he was a bit possessive at times.

"A little... but I think I can handle it." You whisper as you break apart after getting out of breath. His thumb caresses your cheek tenderly as he looks at you, smiling. You feel the light flow out of you under his touch. "How does it work? That you make me unleash my powers no matter the time of day?"

"You just need… a little boost. Once we find Morozova's stag, I'll make sure that you will get an amplifier from its bones. You'll be able to control shadows and light regardless of the position of the sun or moon." He assures you, tracing a few pegs with his thumb on your waist, massaging you as he slowly pushes you towards the war table.

"How romantic... men give their ladies jewellery, chocolates, and other sweet things, and I will get a bone amplifier from my man."

"Your man?" He asks teasingly, raising an eyebrow at you. His hands rest gently on your hips, playing with the fabric of your black kefta as he leans over you. His nose brushes against yours, and his dark eyes never leave yours as he plays with your belt, slowly undoing it.

"Aren't you one?" You answer his question with your own as he undoes the buttons on your kefta. He slides it gently onto the war table behind you, leaving you in your black silk dress. You shiver as his fingertips touch the bare skin of your arm and collarbone.

"I think I am..." He whispers, placing kisses on your neck. You purr as he coaxes both moans and light from you. You feel the heat on your skin grow with every second his mouth explores your skin, your power wanting to burst out of you to light up his war room.

"Aleks.. hmph..." You gasp as his lips connect with yours in a frenzied kiss.

You give him everything he demands. Your mouth, your tongue, your moans, your light, and your darkness, to play with as he sees fit. Nothing matters to you except his touch and his mouth and the way he uses them to caress you in the most lustful and pleasurable way, dedicated only to two people with a true, strong, untamed, and unpredictable connection.

You feel like he's everywhere. He is in your body, soul, heart, and mind. Your every little thought, breath, heartbeat, and moan of pleasure belongs to him. And he enjoys them immensely, almost as much as you enjoy his service. Aleksander serves your pleasure as he does to his Grisha—completely losing himself in you, giving you everything he possibly can. He is fucking you in the most demanding and breathtaking way, making you feel like nothing else exists for you but him.

As always, he's your crutch as you dig your fingers into him for a foothold, your muscles completely failing you as he guides you over the edge of bliss. Light floods the room, dispelling the shadows you and Aleksander had summoned earlier. He could just as easily take your powers away at that moment, and all you'd do is thank him and beg him for more.

You tug on his hair, pulling him into a kiss as you feel his movements become less regular and more desperate as he too approaches the peak of his pleasure. You find that the beautiful music that drifts through the window of the Grand Palace cannot compare to the sound your Darkling makes as he lets go of his control and restraint completely and allows himself to lose himself in you.

His shadows consume the room, making you see nothing, but at the same time you feel so much… and you can't say you don't like it.

You’re glad you can bite into his skin to muffle your moans a little. At least it’ll allow you to look Ivan in the eyes when you leave this room with Aleksander after Ivan calls him on urgent business.

Although your heartbeat remains unchanged as Aleksander’s hand grips yours tightly when he leads you through the corridors of the Little Palace. And from the uncomfortable grunt of the heartrender, you suspect that Aleksander’s heart is beating at least as fast in his chest as in yours. And it’s not all because of the adrenaline rush of learning of your sister’s sudden disappearance.

"I can feel your breathing on my neck, Aleksander." You whisper into the darkness, standing on the bow of the ship and staring at the foamy sea in front of you.

You shiver as familiar arms wrap around your waist. His warmer, bearded cheek rests against yours as you peacefully stare at the nightscape in front of you. Aleksander's fingertips stroked your sea serpent scale bracelet—your second amplifier that you, Alina, and her great team managed to get a few hours ago.

"You are becoming more and more powerful, milaya. Too powerful for my taste." He murmurs against your ear, and teasingly licks your lobe with his tongue. You tremble in his arms, biting your lip as you try to find some shred of control.

"Now that we don't talk, I don't care much. You should rather go and torment my sister, good Saints know that's your favorite thing to do lately." You huff and untangle yourself from his arms (which he reluctantly allows you to do). You walk to the starboard side and ignore him completely, playing with the shadows that came with his 'projection'.

"Jealous?" He asks teasingly. He acts too smug for your liking as he stands next to you and brushes your arm with his.

You don't know how exactly your connection allows him to appear next to you at any time he wants, but you don't like it, not when you can't do something similar and torment him whenever you want.

"About you? Never. We both know you're mine. But that doesn't mean I'm not irritated by you trying to seduce my sister into your plans." You reply, focussing your gaze on him. You allow yourself to take a closer look at the scars on his face—a new thing about his appearance besides the kefta in yours and his colours that Alina had mentioned to you.

The fold had clearly hurt you in more ways than one. And looking at Aleksander you can't help but feel sorry for him, because you imagine how much those wounds must have hurt him. You wonder if it hurt him more than when you both broke your hearts back on the ship in the fold.

Even more so, you cannot understand why he insists on keeping the fold and widening it.

"To be honest, I was hoping you'd react to my little... tamptetion of your sister and come to me to knock some sense into me. Then I could tie you to my bed and keep you with me. Maybe I should collar you like I did to Alina, since you ran away from me and betrayed not only me but also our people, our Grisha. Tell me, did my dear mother also convince you that she gave birth to a monster? Are you afraid of me, malyshka? Are you disgusted by the things I taught you and did to you in the darkness?"

"Not at all. You've been such an angel in those nights… pleasing me so well with your silver-tongue. What a shame you decided that you'd rather play with Ravka than with my pussy." You reply, running your hand over his jaw teasingly.

His beard is longer than usual, rougher, and standing so close to him you can see the outline of the black bags under his eyes. The civil war took its toll on him. But he was still too damn handsome to resist.

"Look how I depraved you, my sweet, little, innocent Saint. Just a few months ago, you blushed at my mere words—not to mention my touch—and completely forgot to respond with anything of your own. What a diligent student you became, milaya. Have you found a new teacher yet?"

"Why did you ask? Haven't you found some new students?" You ask mockingly, pushing his wandering hand away from your waist.

"Why should I waste my time teaching someone the tricks I've already shown you? It is much easier and more advantageous, for me, to find you and drag you with me back to the Little Palace than even start to look around for someone else. After all, I didn't spend that sleepless night, teaching you how to please me, just to let the other man enjoy the fruits of my hard work."

"Who said no one else than you haven't enjoyed it already?"

He responded to your teasing question with a low growl. He grabs your hips tightly, making sure that you won't run away from him and press his hips to your ass. Goosebumps appear on your skin, and your heartbeat speeds up when you feel his manhood against your body.

"You wouldn't dare. You know I would kill anyone who would even think about touching you. You are mine, my little moon. All mine."

"Right now, you are too far away to order me or claim your right to me, Aleksander. What a pity… especially when there are so many men who could be called mine instead of you." You said and pushed him away from you. "Have fun at your war." You growl at him and move to go under the ship's deck.

But you don't make it far away from him. After just a few steps, Aleksander grabs your arm and pulls you to his chest. Shadows swirl around you, making you unable to see anything. All you can feel is their coldness, the warmth emanating from Aleksander's chest, and his scent, which is like a drug to you after a long withdrawal—more addictive than anything in the world.

"Why the rush? Don't you want to spend a few more minutes with me? The Saints know I would. Very much so." He murmurs to your ear, making you shiver as his hands are holding you tightly, his fingertips dig into your arm, probably leaving you bruised the next day.

"Before or after you will destory half of the Ravka?"

"I haven't decided yet." He growls and leans towards you. Before you can react, he's tangling his hand in your hair and pulling you in, claiming your mouth in a passionate kiss.

You gasp, enjoying the sudden, unexpected feeling of his soft lips on yours. You instinctively tangle your hand in his night-black hair and pull him closer to you, biting his lower lip. You moan at the taste of his blood on your tongue, his fingers digging into your waist. He lifts you, forcing your legs to wrap around his waist as he pins you against the wooden wall of the ship.

He takes your air, every logical thought, and every heartbeat, stealing everything that's left of you to remind you that every last bit of you was tainted by him and will forever belong to him. No matter what he did, Alexander had claimed every last bit of you, all of you, and left nothing for anyone else, as if he would ever allow another person's lips to touch the places that were his.

His lips move to your neck, nibbling there and leaving a trail of hickies. His beard tickles your skin as you feel the familiar tingle of sunlight trying to break through you as his skin meets yours.

You freeze, realising that Aleksander is standing before you in his own flesh. This isn't a vision, a nightmare, or anything else. It's him. The REAL HIM.

You take a deep breath, but before you can say or scream, Aleksander's large, calloused hand covers your lips, which are chapped from the sea air.

"I told you I'd come back for you, milaya. No matter how far or fast you run, I'll always find you and bring you back to your rightful place. At my side." He whispers in your ear, sending a cold shiver down your spine and your heart racing, adrenaline pumping as you try to summon your shadows.

Any hopes you have of escaping are dashed by the sight of Ivan's red kefta behind Aleksander. Heartrender quickly slows your heart rate, sending you into a sleep state. The last thing you see as you collapse into the Darkling's arms is a bright light that must be coming from your sister. And part of you is glad you're unconscious. It means you don't have to look her in the eyes as you realise your mistake.

Strangely enough, you don't wake up on a ship at sea. Or handcuffed in some filthy cell. You wake up in a comfortable, warm bed in an unfamiliar chamber.

You sigh, stretching your aching muscles. You roll over, pulling the black silk sheets off of you, rubbing your hand over your eyes as the sunlight hits them.

You are surprised to find no one around you. Not a single living soul. You suspect that Aleksander has placed a heartrender by your door to watch over you. You decide to get out of bed and investigate your surroundings.

Your legs tremble as you slowly get out of bed. You steer yourself towards the window, using the wall as a support. You gasp as you see the buildings through the window, the houses of Os Alta, and most of all the familiar structure that was the Little Palace.

You shiver as the door suddenly opens with a bang. You turn around, watching Ivan carefully as he enters the room.

"You're finally awake. The Tsar wants to see you." He informs you and walks over to the closet. He pulls out a black kefta and hands it to you. You stare at the material for a moment, trying to make sense of what's happening around you.

"I won't wear this." You say stubbornly, refusing to wear his colors. You're too angry at him for kidnapping you to grant him any more small victories in your... little war.

"I doubt it will make him angry. Probably quite the opposite." Ivan comments, significantly lowering his gaze to the nightgown you have been dressed in.

You roll your eyes at him and yank the black cloth out of his hands. You expect to see an all-black kefta, similar to the one Alexander gave you at the Winter Fete, but you are… surprised to see embroidered silver detailing on the sleeves. You raise an eyebrow at Ivan, but he seems to ignore you, patiently waiting to be escorted to the throne room to face the new Tsar.

You reluctantly follow the heartrender, aware that your power is limited by the metal bracelet on your wrist—an accessory you remember vividly from when the Darkling entered the fold with you, Alina, and the Ravkan dignitaries.

You shiver uncontrollably as you remember what happened in the fold.

It was your first time crossing the fold, and Aleksander knew it, as well as the fact that you were afraid to cross the creation that killed your parents. Your only consolation was that now, if need be, you could summon at least a small ball of light to scare away the volcra. And that Alina would be there with you. But your Shadow Summoner had never even mentioned to you that your sister would join you on the ship against her will. A small omission of fact that had been happening to him more and more often lately.

"I can hear your thoughts." As if on cue, he stands right behind you. His hand—the one with the amplifier—reaches for yours and intertwined your fingers, squeezing your hand tightly in his grip.

"It's a pity that you only hear them and don't think about them even for a moment." You reply snidely, swallowing hard as you stare at your sister’s collar. When her gaze meets yours, you drop your gaze to her shoes.

"It had to be done. You know it."

"Do I? You haven't been telling me anything lately. You just keep saying that I'm too weak to fulfil your plans and that you need Alina." You reply angrily, turning to look into his dark as fold eyes. You shiver as you watch him clench his jaw and narrow his gaze at you, trying to ignore the curious glances of the invited nobility as he is trying to respond calmly to your allegations.

"I never said you were too weak. I said you needed an amplifier to unlock your true potential."

"And what difference does it make?" You snap at him madly, wishing you had more control over your emotions than he does. You guess it'll take you ages to master the ability of keeping up your mask of indifference like he does.

"That I know what you're truly capable of. Don't you think I'd rather stand by your side as we pursue our plan? Do you think that I wanted to do this to your sister? That I'm the monster my mother painted for her and you? Everything I do, I do for the sake of Grisha. For us. For you. I… I just need a little trust from you. That's all I'm asking, milaya."

"And you need to know how hard it is to trust you when my sister is chained to the floor of the ship, with a collar around her neck so you can control her powers." You whisper, voice breaking, holding back the tears as you face both your immense love for the man before you and your hatred for what he did to your sister.

"She never wanted it."

"But now she wants. Just like I never thought you could be more than the Black General to me, and here we are." At your words, he softens a little. He sighs and looks around. You can see that he is struggling with his thoughts, that he is considering your words, but you know as well as he does that your relationship is too weak for him to change his entire plan with one word from you.

You shiver, not from the cold that your black coat, strikingly similar to the one he wears, protects you from, but from a premonition of what's about to happen. Something you definitely won't like. But you allow yourself to delude yourself a little longer that everything will be okay. You reach for his hand and place a quick kiss on it, pressing your lips not to the bony amplifier but to his skin, which makes his gaze focus fully on yours again. As if you really were going to be his light in the darkness.

"Please... just don't prove me wrong. Don't make me regret trusting you so blindly." He doesn't respond to your pleas—something that should make you at least a little suspicious. But he doesn't. Instead, he tangles his hand in your hair, pulling you closer. He presses a kiss to your forehead, appreciating the feeling of your body against him for a moment longer before he lets you go completely to take care of Alina.

Now you know it was a farewell, that he knew you would not accept how he used your sister's power to intimidate those on the ship, engulfing Novo-Kirbirks in the darkness of the Fold.

Then everything happened so fast. And you're really grateful to Alina for dragging you to another ship, even though you were cursing her name and howling in the darkness of the Folds louder than the volcras. Because you know you would have jumped after Aleksander regardless, trying to protect him at all costs from the monsters he himself had created.

“We’re here.” Ivan announces, pulling you out of your thoughts. You literally only had a few seconds to prepare yourself to confront Aleksander before you were shoved into the throne room, the doors slamming shut behind you.

Before your eyes land on the Tsar, you allow yourself to scan the room for a moment. The throne room underwent a major renovation. It resembled one of the rooms of the Little Palace more than the former throne room of the Lantsovs.

As you might expect, the dominant colours are black and gold. Surprisingly, instead of sitting on his new black marble throne engraved with a solar eclipse, Aleksander is standing at a round table with a map of Ravka. His gaze meets yours, sending an electric shiver through you.

But what surprises you the most is that there are two thrones present in the throne room. Not one. And the second one has an engraving of a crescent moon.

"I heard you called yourself tsar, but somehow the rumor about you taking over the capital never reached me."

"You might have slept through it, Sankta Y/N." He responds to your mockery with his own. You wrinkle your nose at the sound of your most hated nickname.

"And how long exactly was I in that forced nap?" You ask, walking towards him with your arms folded. You lift your chin at him as he frowns at your defensive posture.

He puts down the reports he was reading before you arrived and takes a step towards you. You resist the instinct that tells you to back away from him, just as the one that demands from you to come closer to him and snuggle into him.

You marvel at how he managed to evoke in you both blazing fear and rage, as well as lust and love. The desire to be close to him seemed unable to weaken at all. No matter what he did, a part of you would always be his. And it was something you strangely didn't want to fight.

"A few weeks."

"Hmm… how nice. And how many times have you used my powers in your little plan to take over the title of Tsar, the Grand Palace, and well, probably all of Ravka in those few weeks?" You ask snidely, glancing briefly at Ravka's map and the papers on the table.

"You sound like you're suggesting that this was something I wanted to do, or at least something a little enjoyable for me. And I thought that you, of all people, knew me at least a little better."

"Do I?" You raise a questioning eyebrow at him, staring straight into those dark irises, trying to ignore the black scars on his face that you haven't had a chance to get used to yet. You can't help but wonder how he's put up with his... new face.

"You're asking me?"

"And who should I? Of the two of us, I'm not the master of half-truths here." You question him, undeterred by the shadows around him growing thicker with each of your mocking words.

"It wasn't a half-truth… I just kept some things in the dark to protect you."

"And look where your defending me has gotten us. What exactly were you trying to defend me from? From your mother, Fjerdan, Drüskelle, or perhaps from yourself, Aleksander?"

"I… it wasn't supposed to be like this."

You sigh, taking a step towards him. You place one hand on his kefta, just above his heart, and with the other, you cup his bearded cheek, forcing him to look at you.

"So tell me. Let me in on your plans. Don't treat me like a pawn in your game, but as your equal. Unless you do consider me as someone beneath you."

"You ARE my equal." He quickly confirms and takes your hand (the one resting on his chest) in a tight grip, intertwining your fingers as he stares at you pleadingly, feeling how close he is to having you on his side.

And all Aleksander ever wanted was to not be alone in his fight for Grisha. And he would have that. He would have you even if you ran away from him, screamed at him, called him a monster, and cursed him to the saints, if it meant he would never have to struggle against the world alone again.

"So start treating me like one." You reply and look pointedly at the bracelets on your wrists.

You see the internal battle that is going on inside him. You see him struggling to let you in and to be as vulnerable with you as you have allowed yourself to be with him. You know his past, you know perfectly well what he's struggled with, what he's been through over the hundreds of years, but if he wanted you on his side, he had to at least show you in some way that he was able to trust you the way you trusted him.

"I… you can't expect me to… after all this…"

"You once asked me to trust you. I did. Why can't I expect the same from you?" You ask, looking at him expectantly. "Do you think I am capable of hurting you more than you've already hurt me, moi Tsar?"

"That was never my intention." He frowns, refuting your accusations. He steps back, creating some distance between you, giving in to his defensive reflexes. But you don't back down. You'll make a good boy out of him and make him come to you and fall into your trap. He just needed a little push...

"I know. Which doesn't change the fact that I pay a price for loving you, and you, Aleksander? It would be so much easier for me to hate you. But I can't. I don't want to. So please, for OUR sake, don't give me a reason to."

You look up at him pleadingly with your most beautiful doe eyes and stop your lips from forming a smile when you see the effect it has on him as he slowly begins to melt his attitude.

You take a step towards him and grab him by the collar of his kefta. He stiffens for a moment but calms down when you pull him to rest your forehead against his. He sighs shakily and tangles a hand in your hair, stroking your temple with his thumb.

"Aren't you tired? Of fighting all the time, giving them everything and never getting anything in return? How many lives have you spent sacrificing yourself to Grisha, and how many have truly belonged to you?" You whisper and press a kiss to the corner of his mouth. His beard tickles yours and you smile slightly at the familiar, comforting feeling. You open your eyes and stare into his dark irises, mumbling against his lips. "We could have had this, Aleksander. We could have made Ravka stronger together, united Grisha and Otkazat'sya, built an empire the likes of which no one had ever seen before. We still can. I can convince Alina and the rest that you can be trusted, that our goals are aligned, only two paths lead to them, which we can connect, everything can still be changed. You no longer have to fight alone."

"You think I haven't tried their way? Grisha will never be treated as their equals. Not if we don't use force, if we don't instill fear in them."

"Aleksander... they are already afraid enough. Please. Let's find the last amplifier and end this. Don't you think it's taking too long? We can repel the Fjerdan, stop the Drüskelle attacks, intimidate the Shu Han, and bring peace and security, but only by combining our forces."

"It's too late for that."

"Who said that?" You ask, stroking the black scar on his cheek with your fingertip. He trembles under your touch, burying his face in your hand.

"They won't see me as anything more than a monster."

"Now yes. But I can show them the real you. My man."

"Your man?" He raises an eyebrow at you, placing a hand on your shoulder and caressing your collarbone tenderly. You shiver as you feel the power flow through you, answering the amplifier’s call.

"Aren't you?" You whisper, looking at him from under your lashes and lightly biting your lower lip.

A moment later, he gives in and leans forward, capturing your lips in a kiss. You sigh, tangling your hands in his hair and pressing your body against his. He pulls you back with him and sinks into the throne, with you on his lap.

You move your hands to his chest and slowly undo the clasps of his kefta, peeling the black material off of it. Alexander pulls away from your mouth and presses kisses along your jaw and neck, nipping and biting at your skin, marking it with hickeys as you work to undo his shirt.

You hold your breath and stop your movements as the bracelets on your wrists are suddenly removed. Aleksander places tender kisses on them, causing both light and shadow to flow from your fingers. You sigh, pressing your lips to his forehead and burying your nose in his hair, inhaling his scent.

"I think I am." He mumbles against the skin of your neck, his beard giving you small tickles that make your lips curve into a little smile. You lazily run your fingers through his hair and pull away so you can look at him.

You trace the black scar on his cheek with your fingertips, caressing it gently. Aleksander holds his breath for a moment and places his hand on your thigh, squeezing it when you touch a particularly sensitive spot on his still-aching wounds. Your heart aches to see him like this. You swear to yourself that this is the last time you'll leave him with his shadows, that you'll let anyone tear you from his arms and leave him alone in the darkness.

As you sit on his lap in his throne room... your throne room, you wonder how the hell you're going to explain this to Alina and the others. You wonder how you're going to convince them that you haven't completely lost your minds to the man beneath you and how to convince them that you both have only the best interests of Ravka in mind and have no intention of harming anyone in the process of increasing the freedom, security, and importance of Grisha.

You decide that's a problem for another time. Right now, you were happy to bask in Aleksander's embrace, warmth, and scent.

"Moya tsaritsa..." He whispers in your ear as he works on taking off your kefta.

Yep, you could definitely fix him... or at least that's what you wanted to think as he showed you heaven in the ruins of what was once Ravka. After all, a fallen angel is also an angel.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Hi, I want to talk to you abou this image:

This illustration is titled "black slave women of different african nations". I find the combination of traditional African elements such as face-paint, necklaces and what appears to be ritual scarification and Western fashion worn by these women incredibly striking, but what made my jaw drop is the idea that these women are slaves.

While I am aware that maids and other lower-class women were sometimes able to access fancy clothing hand-me-downs from their employers, I had expected the nature of slavery in the Americas to make it impossible for enslaved black women to do the same.

So, this is a drawing. Whether it's drawn from life or not, I don't know, but the artist could easily have staged these women in fashionable (early 19th century) dresses or made the outfits up from their imagination. That being said, enslaved women absolutely did attempt to have "best" clothing and follow the fashions when they became aware of them.

Humans are human, no matter the circumstances. You can't crush that drive for beauty out of people, however you oppress them.

I know a bit more about fashion and later generations of Black women enslaved in the southeastern US, after scarification and such had been stripped out of their culture, but that certainly bears out this idea of treasuring beauty and trying to make space for fine clothing in their lives. Church services, weddings, and holidays like Christmas were often occasions for enslaved women to wear the best outfits they had, along with any jewelry or other finery they had managed to make or inherit. Some enslavers did give "favorite" people they held in bondage cloth, castoff clothes, cheap jewelry, lace, etc. At other times, the enslaved people cleverly made things themselves- one WPA Former Slave Interview in the 1930s, which I cannot find again for the life of me, featured an elderly man recalling that he once made hoop skirts from dried grapevine with an enterprising friend, selling them to the women in his community for a nickel (many enslaved people earned small amounts of money taking side jobs outside of their punishing work schedule).

Obviously such clothes could not be worn while working, but like I said, there WERE occasions of joy and celebration even in the harshness of slavery. The tradition of Black women wearing elaborate hats to church may in part originate from enslaved women (and their free but economically disempowered sisters) taking advantage of a rare chance for self-expression and elegance.

(Of course there were also less positive instances in which an enslaved woman might have fine clothing, namely sex trafficking, or habitual rape by an enslaver who then attempted to compensate her for this heinous crime with presents. New Orleans' infamous "fancy girl" market is enough to turn your stomach if you look it up.)

After the Civil War, some white commentators were incensed to see Black women in fashionable attire walking the streets where they'd once been enslaved. For these women, it acted as a visible and tangible way of asserting their freedom- as their ancestors despite wringing what happiness they could from life -had been unable to.

If anyone has more to add on this, please chime in! Enslaved women's fashion specifically is not my area of research, so I welcome input from people who study this more extensively. Cheyney McKnight is a wonderful source on enslaved people's lives in general, and a historical costumer herself.

[phoenixyfriend]

Do you think

Do you think there are sects of Mandalorians that put up pictures of Satine the way people put up pictures of the Virgin Mary

Like those illuminated icons

Part of me is suddenly very convinced that there are people who treat her like Catholics do saints

(I don't actually know what the Catholic angle is. I grew up Orthodox, and iconography was a big part of the divorce of 1054. Like I know that icons aren't a thing for Catholicism but also I've seen like. statues of saints? and there's paintings of Mary by Catholics? so I just threw spaghetti at the wall)

I was thinking about after the Empire rose, and maybe after the glassing.

I'm imagining the people who do it being the children of people who were young but around during the civil war.

Like Sabine and the generation after her.

Where they themselves were of traditional families, and heard stories of the conflicts, but hindsight just had them going "what if we hold up this woman as an icon of peace" and then maybe them, or maybe the generation after them, went "she was our leader, and she is dead and among the stars, and she was a symbol of peace, and let us pray to her."

@jebiknights:

I mean after she dies maybe? I could see her becoming a martyr to the cause but idk I've never gotten the impression she was actually revered But now I'm imagining people praying to Satine's ghost and being like "hey can you do me a solid and tell Tarre/the Manda to help me find my lost head piece" I feel like she'd be more held up as a martyr/revolutionary figure than religious though but maybe that's just me. The type that would get spray painted on alley walls as opposed to prayer cards

Given the ideology Mandalore has around death (ka'ra and whatnot), I feel like there's an overlap there. Like yes she's a martyr and a revolutionary figure, but since she was a leader, she's also sort of like. Ancestral worship But All Of Mandalore Is Her Children.

I'm imagining Satine like… generally she's a revolutionary figure and martyr, but some people took it further, and so she was getting colloquially sanctified by some, and others verging on Let's Make A Religion Out Of This.

This got long, more under the cut.

jebiknights:

I think it's just hard for me to picture her that way with all of the split between factions during her time ruling, and a lot of that was about traditional way of life and connections with religion. I could see her as a subjugated government figure that even those who didn't like her politics might see as a symbol of the sith/the empire trying to take over and then destroy them. I personally just don't see her crossing over into religiousity for a long long while after

I'm coming at this from the perspective of Former Socialist Yugoslavia.

A lot of my parents' generation were actually more religious than their own parents' generation (not my parents, but there were a lot of others who did) because of the overarching normalization of atheism by the government. Being religious was a form of rebellion. In this case, I'm imagining a clinging to the ancestor-worship parts of Mandalorian culture as being the part people embraced in response to the Empire trying to stamp them out overall.

jebiknights:

Oh I didn't mean that they're more or less religious I just didn't think she'd be incorporated into it bc of ya know the civil wars shrugs Or wasn't trying to say I couldn't see it because of less religious? I do think increased religiousity makes sense for the Mando's during and after the empire I guess I'm just struggling bc I'm drawing a line between Important Martyr in current political and religious struggle and "Saint like figure who almost immediately starts a new religion" lol. Cuz I just struggle to see her as the latter but that's just me no shade on her 💜 I think the initial comparison to the virgin Mary really threw me off 😂

Which is. Uh. NGL I was just thinking about the specific element of Having Pictures because Mother Mary was the only one I was sure that Catholics have in their houses. I've been told that it makes more sense to go the Orthodox route since we do iconoclasm a lot more.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut also like. Yeah a few sects may, if not immediately, go full Main Religious Figure about her. Just give it a few generations.

Farmers as isolated as Din's covert, but Not Armor.

tbf most of this was inspired by Maul's weird hate shrine for her in sw Rebels.

This is what vaguely got me thinking about "Some people tried to canonize Satine."

Anyway, I was thinking in this style:

[conceptofjoy]

yay the post i said id make about the blood aspect and why every vantas exudes blackness. is this a vantas only thing, or a blood bound thing? let me start by saying, you can make white or white coded characters blood bound, that's not what i'm trying to get across. it's just that blood as an aspect, when put through the lens of race specifically in america is just so fucking black.

redirecting you to the karkat specific, "why do i think he's black" thing :)

i get that the extended zodiac is kinda horoscopey, but like just a refresher on blood as a thematic element. you know how the majority of the exposition about the ancestors hinges around the signless and his civil rights movement? the fact that he tried to change alternia sets up the web of characters and reasons for them meeting in the first place.

you literally only need a rudimentary understanding of american history to know about the civil war and the civil rights movement. its not a secret that people who are oppressed form groups to protest their second class status. its also not a secret that major movement leaders get assassinated by people in power to keep that status quo, and their deaths never mark the end of their message. was hussie trying to do an mlk and malcom x parallel with the signless and summoner? LMFAO PROBABLY. that kinda just cements how inescapable race is when you're making an american centric comic.

i can end the post there lol, but here comes the question about where KANKRI fits into all of this... its tough explaining this really, if i call him one of those talented tenth believers to a black person they would just nod and be like ohh yeah... hm.

ok you know how there r some gay cis men who get away with some crazy misogyny but thinks it cancels out because they're gay? there is still something at the end of the day to be gained because they are men. it doesnt matter if they are seen as lesser than, as long as they can "pass" then they can get a spot at the leopards eating people faces party. FOR NOW. nothing that kankri says does he really mean fully. there's something to be gained by telling a woman why are you raising your voice?? when you mow them down with bullshit and they realistically get upset. he's a hardcore lib with conservative leanings.

actually speaking of, the commodification of unity. alternia's a capitalist and colonialist wheel, every instance of comradery comes in the form of quadrants, or how you serve the queen. karkat wants to be a threshecutioner and form bonds that way because he cannot think of anything different. kankri commodifies his own identity so he can be misogynistic and ablest. the signless breaks free from those preconceived boundaries, and tries to instill change to the system.

i dont rlly have a structure for all this or a note to end this on, here are some prev posts from a few days ago where i was thinking about the subject. 1 2 3

[metamorphesque]

Talaat Pasha's Official Orders Regarding the Armenian Massacres, March 1915-January 1916

March 25th, 1915

To Djemal Bey, Delegate at Adana:

The duty of everyone is to effect on the broadest lines possible the realization of the noble project of wiping out of existence the well-known elements [note: Armenians] who for centuries have been the barrier to the empire's progress in civilization.

We must, therefore, take upon ourselves the entire responsibility, pledging ourselves to this action no matter what happens, and always remembering how great is the sacrifice which the Government has made in entering the World War. We must work so that the means used may lead to the desired end.

In our dispatch dated February 18th, we announced that the Djemiet has decided to uproot and annihilate the different forces which for centuries have been a hindrance; for this purpose it is forced to resort to very bloody methods. Certainly the contemplation of these methods horrified us, but the Djemiet saw no other way of insuring the stability of its work.

Ali Riza [Note: the committee delegate at Aleppo] harshly criticised us and urged that we be merciful; such simplicity is nothing short of stupidity. We will find a place for all those who will not cooperate with us, a place that will wring their delicate heartstrings.

Again let me remind you of the question of property left. This is very important. Watch its distribution with vigilance; always examine the accounts and the use made of the proceeds.

THE DJEMIET

[source]

[queenvhagar]

Dare I say casual fans of HOTD and GOT who think HOTD is actually good and profound know nothing of the ASOIAF books including Fire and Blood and are not aware of the immense step down in quality that is early seasons GOT to the versions of ASOIAF HBO has been putting on our screens since about 2016.

The only way you can be consistently intellectualizing and praising the oversimplified and frankly misogynist and racist writing of HOTD season 2 is if you know nothing of how characters behave in this universe and how their stories are presented to us in the source material.

Had this show attempted a faithful or at least nuanced and complex retelling of this dynastic civil war, with cognizance of the sociopolitical realities of this world and how they would realistically played out, this might have had the potential to be a good adaptation.

As it stands, the show turned a story with gray characters and complex motivations, a commentary about monarchy and war, into an oversimplified and oversanitized good vs evil morality tale where the women are removed of any original agency to instead act as passive, observant mouthpieces for 2017 feminism who aren't allowed to be angry for themselves and the men are the violent warmongers who drive the plot.

Adding in some fanfiction tropes and presenting this all through millions and millions of dollars of production quality is then all that is needed for the casual viewer to applaud what is so heavily presented to them on a platter, what the writers think is the ultimate takeaway of the whole story: misogyny is bad and war is justified if it's against misogynists (but also no "good" woman would ever do anything to make a war happen on purpose) 🙄

Either they're ignorant of the source material and that ignorance allows for bliss in watching the show, or they just don't care that the story has been so severely downgraded for TV and are happy to enjoy a lower quality show as long as it uses elements of the property that they recognize and like (blonde people ride dragons).