#was it genocide that got them to the human world or was it her kindness and promise at the expense of her past

[pawphin]

long ramble in tags tldr: kindness rules

[love-of-the-red-star]

That time I got reincarnated as an Aeon

(Series)

Chapter eight: In which the Express celebrates the Day of the Dead with you

Dan Heng’s room was nothing short of simple and surprisingly comfortable.

You’ve been digging around the archives again after your short trip to your favorite desert planet, ready to contribute to the logs that made up Dan Heng’s archive.

He’d allowed you to touch the monitors and type in what you wanted, surprising even Himeko as he was usually rather cautious to let other people(usually March, bless her heart) roam around and touch his things unless they only wanted to read up on things.

You thanked him for that, of course. It was rather sweet of him to allow you to do this.

And so you typed away— made little personal notes on what the culture was like, and people that you also knew as yourself and not Delia. While Dan Heng’s records of Sigonia IV already existed, you were compelled to make your own as well, as a thank you to the people that had been so far hospitable to you.

You haven’t seen little Kakavasha in your visit, so you too wondered how he is now. He’s probably an adult— not so little anymore, growing into the familiar visage of “Aventurine” that you knew in your past life, but you hope it’s not the same horribly tortured man you know.

There was still discrimination, even a bit more than a decade since the freedom of this clan— they still warred with the Katicans here and there, but the disputes were more manageable, less genocidal as the Avgin were more protected by humanitarian groups.

But there wasn’t really any real interest for the cultures of people that had been long discriminated even with your intervention, and if no one was going to do the job of helping them at least preserve a certain view of it, you’d do the job yourself.

Sigonia IV would not be the only place that would stay in the archives for the other future Nameless to find, maybe one day you’d ask for Boothill’s planet, because while it no longer existed, you believed it wasn’t fair for it to die along with him.

You’ve made notes of it, here and there from what little you could get from some books that made mention of it and Boothill’s ramblings. While you could always consult Fuli for the rest of the things, it felt disrespectful towards your friend. You may be an Aeon now, but you knew honor— prying without your friend’s permission felt invasive, you weren’t a human anymore, but you know that kind of stunt wouldn’t be something he would appreciate.

Suddenly, you wondered about the planets you’ve accidentally destroyed, about the lives you had taken without meaning to, and the ones you drove mad beyond your control. Your typing still continued, undeterred by your silent grief as information flowed into the data bank without even a slight inaccuracy despite the difference in how you felt.

You should grieve for the ones who were lost, you thought to yourself. Glancing at the date present in your monitor, you found it was the best time too.

The Day of the Dead.

You’re not even sure if people even celebrated that holiday in this world. Maybe Halloween, but you doubt Dia de los Muertos, as the Latinos would call it, or Araw ng mga patay, as the Filipinos would say, is something widely celebrated in an expanded universe such as this.

Maybe you’d find a world that does celebrate it someday, but for now, maybe you’re going to be alone in giving acknowledgment and silent grief to the ones that had been lost.

You weren’t very close to a religion in your previous life as a human, but now that you thought of the holidays that gave people solace and something to celebrate, you began to feel a little strange that there was no god you could pray to as you were now technically one yourself.

Worshippers weren’t so bad now when you think of it as people laying their problems to a willing ear they can’t see or hear to give them the peace of mind they desired.

You finished up the logs, determined to plant the Avgin’s language inside of it next on the next time you’d touch the monitor. But for now, you had a goal in mind.

——————————————

Some researchers knew you as a grieving Aeon, with your cries reaching the far ends of the cosmos for reasons they sometimes don’t understand.

They observed you once again, mindful to keep their distance from hundreds of light years away as the telescope that found your distant visage caught on the fact that you were crying yet again. But this time, you’re quiet. There was no horrible song of lament that fried wires and caused damage, this one was silent, this one was red.

The liquid that flowed from what seemed to be your eyes was crimson, your lips pressed together as your expression looked forlorn. The telescope saw your hands move, then suddenly, nothing.

You did not want it to see you.

——————————

Setting up an altar was relatively easy, decorated with flowers you’d grabbed from a world away in the expanse of a mountain and a lot of candles you’ve carefully lit.

Lives lost in the fight of freedom, and the lives you took without meaning to. There were too many to count, and you doubt Pompom would like to have the train set on fire.

There were no pictures, no relics, there was simply you, the flowers, the altar, the candles.

Welt had passed by your room and seemingly recognized the decor, quietly joining your side as you started to kneel in front of the altar and mumbled something along the lines of a familiar prayer that he vaguely recognized.

Sometimes Welt forgot you were a human in your previous life. You’ve told him before, when you disclosed things about yourself to him and Himeko.

There was no god that you knew to pray to here, and to make it stranger, you were one yourself. Maybe you were trying to emulate it— old habits maybe, old bits and pieces of your human personality, and reliving specific memories. Or maybe you’re just trying to commemorate those you’ve lost in the way you knew a distant life away.

Welt joined you in your prayer. There is no god to direct his thoughts to, but there’s a strange sense of peace there regardless.

Welt stood up after a few moments while you stayed, lingering before eventually leaving the room.

“Why does it smell like candles burning?” March asked as she encountered him in the hallway.

“It’s for a celebration.” He said. “A day to remember and honor the dead.”

She looked a little confused. “Day to honor the dead?”

“Yes, you can join [Name] in their room if you’d like. It’s not a bad thing, although I can understand why you’d be confused— it’s not widely celebrated after all.” Welt smiled as March slowly nodded.

————————

You weren’t in the room for much longer, opting to head to the kitchen so you could make something to eat. You were there for at least two hours, and everyone seemed to leave you alone to your devices as you made some dishes you remembered from a past life.

Some comfort food, and fluffy bread.

You brought it to the dinner table with a smile as Pompom trailed after you to arrange the bowls and plates for everyone.

Once you were done, you made do of calling everyone in to eat. They don’t really ask why there’s a different feast of savory and sweet food on the table that was clearly not Pompom’s cooking.

Welt looked at you in a certain way that you know that he knew things, and you sent him an appreciative nod as you gestured for everyone to sit down and eat.

“These are some.. recipes that I know from my homeworld.” You began. “These typically aren’t stuff you would get when you’re celebrating the holiday in a very traditional way, but sadly my knowledge of cooking is… kinda limited.” You scratched your temple awkwardly.

“You don’t have to apologize for it.” Himeko said. “It’s the intent that counts.” She smiled, then placed some bread on her plate and stew in her bowl.

“You’re right.” You gave her a small smile of your own.

You failed to spot Dan Heng at the corner of your eye, looking at the bowl of stew in contemplation as Welt’s words sprang up memories of old friends lost in a life he didn’t want to remember.

Maybe he’d allow himself to grieve losses just this once, even if that person who’s lost those people in a distant life away wasn’t him anymore. Maybe for those that Blade had taken from him too in this life.

“Are you okay?” March nudged him gently, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Yeah, I’m alright.” He said, blinking and snapping out of his thoughts before sinking his spoon into the stew.

Dan Heng found comfort in its flavor.

—————————————

March had taken photos of your room with the altar after dinner, plastering it into her wall with the label “Day of the Dead” in earth colored frames that contrasted the aesthetics of her room. She didn’t mind as much, surprising even herself as she was rather picky about her own decorations.

However, this was something that you shared with them, and that mattered to her. She couldn’t remember her past, and so to have a small piece of someone she knew that saved her was a nice feeling because she didn’t really quite know you. She doubt she ever would actually know you in the way the older crew members do, but that’s okay, that meant she could know you through the new memories she’d create.

She thought of you for a moment and what you’d lost, and she also wondered about the past self she can’t remember. Did she have people that she lost too? Were there people that lost her? Were there people that missed her?

She remembered her conversation with you, a strangely solemn topic for a girl so bubbly like her.

“What do you usually do?” She asked, clearly referring to the little holiday.

“People usually prayed, then offered food and flowers to their dead and all that.” You replied. “I thought it’d be a little nice to honor the people lost along the way. It’s a thing in my old world to not forget the dead.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” She found herself saying. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

“You don’t have to worry, it’s not offensive at all.” You smiled and patted the spot next to you. “It’s a pretty big celebration in my world, and in some countries it’d be a lot livelier than this.” You said as she went to sit next to you.

“They’d wear costumes and make up and bring out live music and everything. The food’s a lot better too I think— there’s too many for me to remember, so the ones I made weren’t the traditional ones people ate during that day.” You explained as she listened attentively.

“That’s okay, it was delicious anyways.” She giggled, shifting slightly to adjust herself before settling in comfortably in a few moments of silence.

“Do you…. Miss your old world? Ah— you don’t have to answer that.” March sputtered, realizing her mistake.

“It’s okay. And yeah… maybe just a bit. I’m not sure how to feel about it to be honest.” You said, glancing at the windows of your room.

She couldn’t see what kind of expression you were making, and so she found herself hugging you. There was something inherently sad about you despite your antics, like you’ve lost too many things.

You returned that embrace.

————————-

Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, Part VI, Part VII, Part VIII, Part IX(HERE), Part X……

Interludes: one, two…

Special chapter: link

Yeeeeee hello y’all!!! Pushing this chapter out in celebration of All Souls Day! :DD

I hope all of you are well! Also I’ll be happy to answer any of your questions regarding the series, so drop any thoughts, don’t be shy <333

[tyrantisterror]

Your recent train of posts about you-know-who’s book series got me thinking. You once said “The Owl House works as a sort of rebuttal to Harry Potter in a lot of ways”, care to elaborate on that statement? Especially in regards to how The Owl House’s worldbuilding and themes clash with Harry Potter’s?

Oh man... I don't want my blog to be consumed by Harry Potter Hot Takes. I'd prefer to vent most of those feelings through my wizard books instead, it's more productive that way.

So, ok, short version: The Owl House is about a teenager from the mundane world discovering there's a magical world hidden away, goes there to learn magic, and in the process uncovers a plot by an abominable fascist to commit genocide. In very simplistic terms, that is more or less the same plot as Harry Potter.

But the devil's in the details, isn't it? Luz doesn't have any grand inheritance to claim, no prophecy to fulfill, nothing that makes her the most special specialest special person of all time. There's even a whole episode early on where a villain tries to lure her to her doom by claiming she's the chosen one, and the lesson is that NO ONE is "chosen" for greatness - greatness is something you make yourself, not something that's thrust upon you. She is not inherently gifted as a witch - in fact, she struggles harder because she doesn't have a a special bladder true witches are born with, and has to learn an ancient and forgotten method of spellcasting basically from scratch to cast spells at all. She is, emphatically and at times definitely deliberately, the opposite of what Harry Potter is.

So is her academic experience. There's a magic school in this setting, and (at first) it wants nothing to do with Luz because she's human, not a witch, and thus is believed to be incapable of casting spells. So Luz's primary mode of education on magic comes from a private mentor, Eda, who is also a wanted criminal and social outcast because of her disdain for the draconian rules of their society. Eda is an unconventional but magnificent mentor, one who is as willing to try new things and learn new methods as Luz herself, and who helps Luz discover ways to make possible what everyone else claims is impossible. Eventually Luz does convince the magic school to take her in, but in the process she changes how it runs, challenging a lot of its preconceived notions and forcing them to do better.

Which is vital, because the biggest problem facing the society of this magical world is narrow-minded reliance on outdated social categorization. Like HP, people are sorted into categories (covens here instead of houses), which they are then forced to stick to and never dabble in the others. It is explicitly compared to both the concept of tracking in real world education (i.e. forcing kids into a career path early and ONLY giving them education relevant to that one career) and the house system of HP:

And it's wrong. It's both presented as needlessly limiting, terrible for encouraging advancement and growth of both the students and society as a whole, and an immoral system that's only kept alive by the "Well, this is how we've always done it" inertia that keeps so many awful traditions in education alive. And I really do mean it's immoral, because it's the brain child and secretly crucial evil tool of a genocidal fascist.

I kind of cringe at writing those two words since I feel people have been WAY too quick to accuse cartoon villains from children's shows of fascism and genocide - like, Chairface Chippendale writing his name on the moon with a laser would probably kill a shitload of people in real life, but that doesn't mean he's an analogue to Hitler. But Belos, like fellow Disney villain Frollo, is clearly intended to be exactly that: a genocidal fascist. In a world full of magic-fueled absurdist black comedy beats, Emperor Belos stands out as a consistently serious threat, tonally dissonant with his surroundings in a way that makes him chillingly effective as a villain. And like real world powerful bigots, his power primarily comes from the fact that the systems of society favor his mindset over those of outsides like Luz and Eda - all the systems of oppression our heroes chafe against were either created by or worsened by him, with the express purpose of using them to kill everyone and everything in the magical world.

Luz could not be more thematically opposed to her enemy, and the story is incredibly consistent in showing how defeating Belos alone isn't enough, but that the systems that empowered him have to be disproven and dismantled. His enablers must be destroyed or humbled, the prejudices he encouraged must be torn down and fought at every turn, and innovation and progress must be embraced for the good of all. There's so much stuff you could analyze about the themes in that show regarding oppression and the othering of people who are different, and it's all so, SO much more consistent than the discussion of the same themes you'll find in Harry Potter.

[sir-adamus]

One thing I love about RWBY is how it manages to thread that needle of, "That's a person" & "They have a reason for being this fucked up" without forgetting or failing to convey, "Doesn't mean they aren't still being bastard!"

See Adam, Ironwood, Salem, Mercury, hell even Jac got some of that treatment, as much as his narrative role needed and more than someone like him would usually be given.

In that regard though, it does always leave me vexed and confounded that people act like the Brothers will be some big exception. As though their issue is just that they are a little confused and don't understand some things, but once its explained and or they go home, it'll all be chill.

Like, sorry but if the woman they tortured for potentially millions of years still gets the "She's still being a bastard" treatment I cannot envision why the Brothers genocide would avoid being framed or treated as such.

yeah it's kind of weird how people have a blindspot for the gods being petty, arrogant assholes in the backstory; like it's been a weirdly common trend to see people making posts claiming it's fine for the gods to be assholes because they're gods (and therefore shouldn't be held to any kind of moral standard whatsoever), or thinking that post-volume 9, now the goal of the show is RWBY reuniting the relics to summon the gods because "the world is united" and the gods will deal with Salem.

like, the terms of Salem's immortality are made very clear, and these jackasses aren't gonna rescind on their punishment of her (which i need to point out was immensely disproportionate even before the mass genocide. "you need to learn a lesson, so now you can't die until you do" is fucked up) just because everyone else is on the same side.

and on top of that, the gods returning only means hanging a Sword of Damocles over humanity's head, because if they don't stay united, then it's just gonna lead to another disproportionate tantrum and Remnant getting the full scorched earth treatment. not to mention the gods dealing with Salem would ultimately prove her right and be immensely unsatisfying narratively (it would literally be a deus ex machina)

RWBY borrows heavily from Final Fantasy and other JRPGs, and a major recurring element in those sorts of games is that defeating the present big bad in the narrative is never the end of the story, there's always a greater scope threat that's usually either your dad or god or both. coupled with how Light and Dark are heavily influenced by mythological gods and how those are often petty, short-sighted and abusive bastards who cause more problems than they solve, and we've recently been outright told that the Brothers have completely misunderstood what 'balance' is and how that's factored into their conflicts and decision making, and how that then filters down to their treatment of Salem, demanding she understand something they don't and expecting her to learn it through the punishment they inflicted on her only ended up causing more damage

Salem's defeat has to be factored into ending her curse, and the end of volume 9 makes heavy implication that it's RWBY, not the Brothers, who are going to achieve that. but even with Salem then out of the picture, the Brothers are still a threat, they still wiped out the population of an entire planet for childish reasons and routinely abandon their creations; someone else could go for the relics to try and summon them, so there's the potential damage they could do to Remnant again, and who knows what same horrors and punishments the Brothers are inflicting on the worlds they've gone on to make and abandon since?

[rei-ismyname]

X-MEN #7 From The Ashes

Possibly the biggest downside to the circular, repetitive nature of X-Men comics is that real life is awful enough. Jettisoning the hope of the Krakoan age for the misery porn of From The Ashes feels kinda callous and depressing in a world where there are multiple ongoing genocides and the USA just said yes to fascism again. Nevertheless, join me in some light escapism - a little Magneto goes a long way. Spoilers for X-Men #7.

I've also been spelling Jed Mackay's name wrong. Sorry

Running throughout this issue is Magneto's flashback to The Iron Night. The 'this is Logan behaviour' exchange from the previews has been all over my dash and it's great to get more of this dynamic. It's fantastic to see someone in universe say it out loud - Logan is a whiny little bitch, often a hypocrite, and can be blind to his immortality privilege. Scott knows that better than anyone - his wife's boyfriend throws a tanty like no other. They love him, but it's another reason why he's not the best Wolverine. I hope 'Logan behaviour' sticks around in the fandom.

This is Logan behaviour, Idie

I appreciate the informal nature of the Piper discussion. For one, you don't want to scare the kid or make her feel unwelcome. Idie said that she 'couldn't wait for you (Cyclops) and Magneto' re: Idie - having Psylocke be the one to spell it out for her is effective. The X-Men IS a team and the stakes are incredibly high. Besides, as Beast said in my first screenshot they have a Cerebro. This test could have been done from afar without the risk, and it's implied that it was.

I'm enjoying seeing Idie behaving compassionately, but it looks like she's got some serious anger and mistrust of authority (both justified) from Krakoa. It's great she's getting this kind of character focus and I hope it's followed up on. So many threads and beats have been setup that are likely to be disrupted by the Raid on Graymalkin event kicking off next week, but I'll reserve my judgement on that for when this first arc is concluded.

This is Logan behaviour, wild sentinel.

Gotta love Max and Scott's friendship being shown as they drink crappy beers and bask in Magneto rhetoric. I don't want to question the expert, but is this sentinel Wild or wild? It's clearly not an ORCHIS Iron Man model, but Wild Sentinel has a very specific meaning.

Okay, clearly Wild. It's not attacking either of them, though. Kind of Cyclops to spell out the Star Trek Borg adaptive schtick they've got going on. This is the action scene of the issue, the mandated violence.

'Why is that leopard eating our faces?'

I don't mean that entirely pejoratively either. I'm just as susceptible to the Magneto and Cyclops power fantasy as the next person, though it's a bit of a dirty trick to wait until issue 7 to show it.

This is NOT Logan behaviour, Magneto.

Sigh. I love your sense of drama Magneto. Play to the crowd, old man. I hope your monologue doesn't become ironic. Oh wait, we already know it has. This could have been a clever moment.

Uh oh, looks like his knees are weak and arms are heavy. Vomit on his sweater already...

So we see the moment Mags' powers start to shit the bed, right after a Wild Sentinel attack. I'd be suspecting Cassandra Nova's involvement just off these two data points tbh. Which idiot resurrected her anyway?

Oh, fuck off. Logan behaviour, Mackay.

R-LDS sounds like horse shit to me. Scott says 'we don't know that for sure' so how does this speculative condition have an acronym already? Mags is speaking as if it's a fact, but he doesn't even have the same body The Five resurrected. Maybe he has Umari-Key-Waiting Room-Brashear Portal Syndrome. Obviously he's scared but this feels like an idiot ball moment, and a cynical jab at Krakoa. The Five was something they got right, even with Sinister in the mix. The implications would be insane. 16 million Genoshans were resurrected, 250k Krakoans (give or take), a whole bunch of vulnerable human children via The Phoenix Foundation, Captain America, and 1000 fucking years of Sinisterized clones etc that had nothing of the sort.

No, there's way too many data points that apply to Magneto alone to make seriously considering The Five's resurrections as the source of patient zero's malady. It would be scientifically irresponsible to get to the point of naming it and then an acronym for that. Mags is good enough at science to know this, and Beast is too. I'm no scientist, but it manifested during a fight with a Wild Sentinel. I assume they have better resources than the Marvel wiki I'm using, but that robot/Cassandra Nova is my prime suspect - the lady they know for certain to be involved in ongoing genetic fuckery - activating X-Genes. Though not Piper Cobb...

Or yes Piper Cobb? Smash cut cliffhangers aside, this would be a great time to retcon Homo Sapiens Superior right the fuck out of existence. It's never made sense, and not just the 'Superior' part. Again, I'm not a scientist but I'm certain that's not how phylogeny works. They're mutated humans, but I don't live in 616 which canonically operates on impossible physics, so idk. My fingers are crossed but my expectations are nil.

That is Logan behaviour, masked kidnapper

Okay, we'd known from solicits that Beast would be getting beat down in captivity at Graymalkin. I had speculated he'd give himself up to get inside, but the ol' bag over the head works too. I dig his outfit.

X-Men #7 is worth reading IMO, and it's one of the better ones based off Magneto content alone. Last issue I wrote that the formula was becoming easier to spot, and I stand by that. A handful of character moments, some new information about one of the ongoing mysteries but it piles more questions on top of half answers and speculation. For example, we get to see Scott and Max fight a sentinel and be friends. There's new information there but a LOT more questions. The characters are at the point of absurd speculation which raises tension but doesn't make them look very competent. To kick off the event 'Raid on Graymalkin' they went with a final page bag over the head instead of any choice and comic book events notoriously derail everything so friends can argue and punch each other.

All that said, it's only *just* acceptable in my opinion - and that's the best I can say for the rest of the line too. We know that there's been ongoing issues with writers simply not knowing major Krakoan plot points, though they probably have the excuse that they were writing before FOTHOX/ROTPOX ended. Surely there's someone in charge of overseeing all this, like Hickman was as Head of X. *Looks at the credits* Tom Brevoort - Conductor of X... That's a fancy way to say 'line editor/hatchet man.' I'll stop there and save it for the From The Ashes piece I'm doing, but spoilers: I'm not impressed with how this guy keeps failing upwards.

What did you think? Thanks for reading.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

You might have seen me mentioning before the Palestinian Authority's "Pay for Slay" policy, where they pay Palestinian terrorists based on how deadly their attacks have been. Let me share something even worse: based on the Oslo peace accords from the 1990's, Israel collects the Palestinian tax money, and then passes it along to the PA. Which means, when Israel became aware of the "Pay for Slay" law (yes, turns out that it's a LAW, not just a program, that the Palestinian Authority pays terrorists... the same PA that now has the audacity to claim at the International court in Hague that Israel is committing a genocide, meaning the intentional destruction of, or a part of, a nation... I think a LAW that financially incentivizes terrorists to kill members of the Israeli nation fits), it also realized that Israeli authorities, paying with Israeli tax payer money for the work done by Israeli clerks tasked with doing this, has been collecting and passing along money that goes to pay Palestinian terrorists for having attacked, injured and murdered Israelis. In what world is that right? In what world is it moral to make a victim, through a "peace accord" participate in the payment to its victimizer? As part of the money collected by Israel and given to the PA, an annual 278 million dollars (!) are then passed by it to Palestinian terrorists for hurting and killing Israelis. The PA has already added Oct 7 terrorists, most of them Hamas members, to the list of those being paid thanks to the "Pay for Slay" law.

The annual payment was revealed thanks to a lawsuit by the parents of 26 years old Dalia Lemkus, who was stabbed to death in Nov 2014 by a Palestinian terrorist (he also injured 2 others. Dalia herself had survived a previous terrorist attack in 2006. On the day she was murdered, another Israeli was killed in a separate terrorist attack. I don't think most people realize just how intense Palestinian terrorism is). The lawsuit was filed against the PA, which has been paying him 3,300 dollars a month. This is Dalia, may her memory be a blessing:

I'm not gonna lie, I'm thinking about the fact that coincidentally, I've been at our Holocaust museum and education center since Nov 2014, with the purpose of helping to educate against antisemitism, racism, homophobia, every other type of generalized hatred that humans are capable of, and against genocide, which is the possible consequence of that type of hate. And a part of what's wrong with this world, is that even with me being a "veteran," I get paid less money a month than that Palestinian terrorist does for having murdered a Jewish woman based on that kind of generalized hatred. My income depends on how many tours, lectures or workshops I did that month, but in almost 10 years of working there, I have never had a month where I got a salary of 3,300 dollars, most months I don't make it to half of that, and I have had many months where my salary was zero (during Covid, and whenever the security situation is bad enough that no one comes to our museum). Don't get me wrong, I consciously made a choice to do this work, where my salary would be very low, because I wanted to do something meaningful, I'm not complaining, but I can't help thinking about the fact that a part of why antisemitism thrives, is because it IS socially and financially rewarded, clearly more so than fighting it. That was true before and during the Holocaust, and sadly has been true since as well.

I would love to understand how the evacuation of civilian Gazans out of the war zone is described as "ethnic cleansing" or worse, but not the evacuation of Ukrainian civilians out of those war zones, and not the evacuation of a Hamas-affiliated Al Jazeera "journalist" (who documented himself in southern Israel during Hamas' massacre), taken out of Gaza to Egypt, to be flown from there to Qatar, one of the two great financiers of Hamas (along with Iran). Qatar has not opened up its gates to wounded Gazan civilians. It's clear Ismail Abu Omar was given this special treatment precisely because he is a Hamas terrorist. What's scary about this possibility is that the IDF didn't know he was smuggled out of Gaza, begging the question, who else is Hamas smuggling out? Also, this is Hamas' middle finger to anyone claiming Gaza is closed off, and an open air prison or concentration camp...

Speaking of Qatar, it is currently hosting the swimming world championship. Israeli swimmer Anastasia Gorbenko won a silver medal, a huge Israeli achievement, but she got repeatedly booed by the crowd, including during the medals ceremony. Anastasia has a childhood classmate who is currently held hostage in Gaza. She dedicated her medal to him.

A TV report by an Israeli journalist (source in Hebrew) is about a Hamas document dated May 2023, which the IDF found, the summary of a Hamas leaders meeting. It details some of the considerations for the timing of "the big project," listing 4 Jewish holidays as possibilities for the massacre (including Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish year, and Simchat Torah, when the massacre actually took place), so it's clear Hamas was always going to use our holy days against us. Another thing mentioned is that Hamas must strike before Israel deploys Magen Or (literally: shield of light, but most publications in English refer to it as Iron Beam), the laser-based defense system meant to complement Iron Dome. The system has been making a lot of progress, enough that by Oct 2023 there have been reports on it becoming operational soon. The document mentions making Israel used to Hamas conducting large scale exercises close to the border, so that the commotion ahead of the massacre wouldn't look abnormal, and it also mentions making use of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second biggest Palestinian terrorist organization in Gaza. It wasn't included in the plans, but was being relied on. In recent years, all of Israel's operations in Gaza have been against PIJ, and Hamas chose not to join them, the document indicates that this was done in order to reinforce the idea in Israel that Hamas is more interested in the wellfare of Gazans, than in killing Israelis. At the same time, the document warns not to let PIJ fuck up Hamas' planned operation.

I did not write about the private initiative of family members to send medications through international mediators to Hamas, meant for the hostages, for the simple reason that I did not for a second believe Hamas would give the hostages these meds. I didn't wanna get my hopes up, when logically, I was sure such initiatives were futile. Now, thanks to the IDF's operation in the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, we have confirmation that these meds were found in its pharmacy, with the names of the hostages on the unopened boxes, meaning the kidnapped Israelis never got them. We can assume the meds were kept in the hospital pharmacy, either to serve Hamas terrorists, or to be sold, with the money going to Hamas.

This is Matan ben Ari, the last Israeli injured on Oct 7 (out of thousands) to be discharged from the hospital on Dec 1, almost two full months after Hamas' massacre. People spontaneously gathered around to applaud him as he was making his way out:

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[impossibleprincess35]

Since you're an American, what are your thoughts on the comparisons of the Duchess and the Death Watch to the election? I read one of your stories and you compare them to alt-right politics in the U.S. Thx!

Heyoooooo, thanks for the ask! I'm going to go TL;DR, so please forgive me and feel free to wish you'd never asked. :)

So, I've never been a Trump voter. Never. It's been a major point of contention with close family and friends, and in the 8 years since his first campaign, it has been eye opening watching people blatantly fall for fascism in the guise of security and strength.

And so, during the pandemic, dealing with so much misinformation and seeing so many people subject others to danger to make a point about their "freedom," when I rewatched "The Clone Wars," the Mandalore storylines hit so much harder.

A lot of times, when people are hating on the Satine character and blaming her for Mandalore's fall, what I see is a lack of acknowledgement that Death Watch was so hell-bent on getting their way that they had to stage incidents to make her look weak and unfit as a ruler. They weren't starving. They weren't exiled from their system. They got a moon. They had political representation with a governor. They had resources. But instead of using everything at their disposal to do better and to evolve as a people, they used it to stage bombings, attacks, and incidents that only hurt their own people and undermined their own system.

But what Death Watch did so well was they spun a narrative that is so false that even FANS believe it.

Like, we're supposed to see that they're domestic terrorists.

But people are out here like, "Fuck Satine, she's the worst."

Oh, okay.

As an American, I've seen two viable, suitable female candidates who have lost to Donald Trump, a piece of shit grifter, a convicted felon, an impeached dirtbag of a human being, and BOTH of these women have lost.

The bar is so high for them, and it's so low for Trump.

And I see that with Satine Kryze and Pre Vizsla.

The damning theories about Satine committing genocide on her people and white-washing them of their history and culture are assumptions made from information given to us on the show by Almec, who turns out to be as corrupt as Pre Vizsla and Tal Merrik, and inferred from the animation choices made due to budget constraints; but those things are held over Satine's head and her reputation as though they are gospel. As though she herself confirmed them.

Meanwhile, Pre Vizsla is out here running an entire terrorist group that intends to destabilize Mandalore's peaceful government just to reassert themselves as strong warriors. He has shown us who he is. He shows us every time we see him on screen after his reveal as the leader of Death Watch. He commits himself to it. He has gaggles of lackeys behind him putting him up on a pedestal, enabling him.

But Satine's always the villain, and always to blame; nevermind the fact that she has proven herself to be a resilient leader who put her people above all else, including her own desires, and she fights to keep them out of the fray between the Republic and the Separatists. More than anything else, their stability and their independence is her top priority.

And I guess, for me, I see strength in Satine's diplomacy, strength in her kindness, strength in her restraint; so when I see people who only acknowledge strength in name calling, in divisiveness, in threats of violence, like Pre Vizsla and Death Watch, I'm instantly reminded of the crowd of American politics who believe that we must bully our way around the world.

The bar for women, especially women of color, is set so high that it's unattainable; but the bar for men is so low it's in hell.

And as an American who voted for Vice President Kamala Harris, and who was genuinely thrilled to imagine a Harris/Walz administration, I've found myself annoyed by the remarks about her that I've read. The claims that she's not tough. That she couldn't hold her own with a room of world leaders. Because I don't see that. And I'm heartbroken to see that the popular vote wanted brute force and displays of bully behavior instead of a steady, calm hand to bring us together as a nation.

Worst of all, I fear the very possible outcome that, much like Mandalore, Americans are sacrificing their liberties for what they believe is security (ie. the xenophobic hate and the border talking points, lower grocery prices, etc.), but like Ben Franklin said, they'll lose both and deserve neither.

And in Mandalore's case, the people were scammed into believing that Satine failed them, when really, the attack on Sundari was an inside job - and when the flames of fear were stoked, the people turned on Satine, on peace, for the safety they believed Death Watch was going to bring them.

And then their asses got glassed by the Empire.

I look at what's going on around me, and I'm disappointed because I'm a dumb optimistic bitch who believed Americans were better than this. And there's a lot of blame to go around, but the vibe is off and things do not feel right. My gut tells me that the game was rigged - that Madam VP Harris was meant to fail from the word go, because the right aligned themselves to win at all costs, even at the costs of their own nation.

But Jyn Erso said it best: Rebellions are built on hope.

So, hopefully we don't get glassed..?

Jesus, how do I even end this post?

I'm sorry. I know you're wishing you'd never asked. <3

[1800naveen]

If the IC were real, they'd either be on the US/Israel's side or they're the "Both sides are wrong" kind of people.

Rhys legit believes both sides were wrong when it came to fae enslaving humans and humans resisting. He and his other cult members painted Jurian as the villain for killing off a slaver owner, as bad as amarantha, to free his people. Who's to say he wouldn't be the same in reality?

They could also be on the right side but the "I can't give my coffee up" & "I need a new phone" kind (Mor and Amren especially give me that vibe). They would help Palestine & Congo as much as they help Illyria & Court of Nightmares.

Maybe it's sh*tty of me to involve real life genocides, but your post mentioning that acotar stans would support the IC committing genocide made me realize that the IC would legit support one.

I'm playing with fire here but what's true is true.

YOU SPOKE NOTHING BUT FACTS, MY FRIEND!! WE ALWAYS PLAY WITH FIRE AROUND HERE!!

How they treat the Illyrians and/or how they treated the humans all those years ago is similar to how Israelis treat the Palestinians. What makes things worse is that the symbol of the night court is the mountains with the three stars and what's underneath the mountains are the Hewn City citizens which is just awful.

The night court/Velaris is built on the oppression of HC citizens just like how Israel is built on the true land of the Palestinians. They cornered them or rather, forced them into this small section of the court/state.

Saying that a group of people are in the wrong for fighting against their oppressors is such a disgusting thing to say. It's like those bigots that say black people (either in history or in this time) are wrong for defending their homes/rights as a person. I've seen people get mad at Haitians for the revolution. The Haitian revolution where enslaved black people who successfully fought and overthrew the French. And some people got mad at that??

It's not shitty of you at all, I be doing stuff like that when it comes to sjm.

Anyways, the inner circle would support one. Cassian murdered an entire village and Rhysand let Amarantha slaughter half of Hewn City citizens and Illyrians. Amren killed hundreds and possibly thousands when she was back in her world and Rhysand gave Mor permission to kill everyone in Hewn City if she liked...

So in this situation, it would be:

Velaris - US/Israel

Illyrians/Humans - Palestine

Hewn City - Congo

[absolutely-normal-about-x]

assuming reploids can run games within their own brain, what kinds of games do you think X would enjoy most?

OOHHH AWAWAAA FINALLY SOMEBODY GIVING ME THE QUESTION THAT IM WAITING FOR!!!

Okay so I seen folks giving X their own takes of what kind of games he’ll enjoy I agree but some I don’t-

X dislikes games that have mindless violence and bloodshed. He’s a pacifist will not hesitate to fight back, also if the story is good and displays a message that he can relate to and proper morals and lessons, Puzzle games, even retro games too. Just silly games that help him to distract a little from war, but some hit harder than others.

Umm just a heads up this a long one filled with rambles and some headcanons

Here are the games I believe X would enjoy!

Tetris- Listen I just know this game would love a puzzle game! Genuinely speaking this man would get the highest scores imaginable in those Tetris royale he’s the reigning champion. I like the idea that Tetris is one of the first games that the researchers made him play when they were studying him. He finds them great for relieve stress.

Undertale - Listen the moment Axl told him that there’s an RPG where you can play as a pacifist and get the true ending. HE LOCKED IN. Like he loves that silly game to bits especially taken off guard with its themes. As he completed the whole true pacifist route (He was a Sobbing mess during the true pacifist ending). A lot people would say that sans would be his favorite character but the truth is not. The reason why he knows Sans’s thing is because Axl told him about the genocide route (he forbade anyone from playing that route on his save file, cause if they do he’s gonna be really upset.) the truth his favorites are the Dreemurs! He can relate to them on a personal level especially Toriel and Asgore. He understands their intentions, their grief, what they gone through, they are both in the right and the wrong at the same time.

They are complex characters, he doesn’t agree on Asgore killing the children but at the same time he knows that the barrier requires 7 human souls to open it. But also the moment that he broke the mercy button made him cover his mouth as he stared in shock. Toriel was doing her best to protect the children but keeping them trapped in the ruins and demonizing Asgore doesn’t help with the situation. Asriel and Chara, on how he cried in their stories as he feels nothing but guilt and pity over flowey’s existence. And yes he cried when his theme played. All characters of Undertale are complex he loves them and enjoys the nuance behind them.

Also Undyne reminds him so a lot of his wife-

Pokemon! Specifically the pokemon ranger games! Listen the idea of playing as a conservationist/ranger of helping and aiding people and pokemon alike. And then befriending said pokemon to help you solve puzzles, it’s great for him. Plus it’s nice to see conservationists getting representation in the gaming world.

The legend of Zelda series- he’s a bit picky for him to choose what game he enjoys most. He’s very well versed in the Zelda timeline, knowing all of the lore. If he had to pick a Zelda games that he enjoys the most Echoes of Wisdom and Skyward are there. Twilight Princess is probably how he got Zero into Zelda, after he watched X play it once time when he was crashing in his place. He also got Axl into it too through Botw and Totk but he unfortunately witnessed Axl committing every war crime imaginable in those games. He never in his life ever been so exasperated yet unsurprised by this. He would give him a A for creativity but man…why?

Professor Layton series is a puzzle series that he greatly enjoys, the stories are delightfully engaging, the characters are a treat and the puzzles were so much fun to do! X really enjoys Layton as a character of how well mannered and polite as a gentleman can be and lil Luke he appreciates him. He also loves the spin off featuring his adopted daughter!

Animal Crossing is a cute game for him to make his lil town, befriending cute animals and decorating his house. A cozy game for him to relax too! He spend hundreds of hours getting everything and making his dream house! When it comes to villagers, he lets them come and go as he pleases. He, Layer, Cinnamon and Massimo have island hang outs at Weekends, visiting the other’s island and helping eachother out it’s lovely.

Subnautica, the deep underwater exploration and studying the life that lives on. It’s eerie and at times stressful but it intrigues him deeply. It’s one of those games that he introduced to Marty and she is in love of it. She often with him on the couch together, watching him the play game as Marty happily gushes the sea life and needs out over it. He loves hearing her yap about it, when the gargantuan leviathan popped out of nowhere he screamed while Marty is even happier, that’s a big baby!

Phoenix Wright, another puzzle game! He found out about it, because he knew that Professor Layton had a crossover with it so he decides to give it a try. He enjoyed it! It was a critique of the Justice system (that he’s 100% behind it of critiquing governing power systems). But the characters were absurd and the story was a bit bonkers but at the end he enjoys them. Even more of watching his friends reach to the nonsense of how wild these cases they are. Very frustrated that Maya keeps getting framed and imprisoned for unnecessary reasons. It leaves him baffled that Phoenix keeps getting into these near death experiences and walking away from these without injury. Edgedworth investigations is a relief to him cause finally someone using common sense.

Cooking Mama, ITS SELF EXPLANATORY OKAY!?

Stardrew Valley- it’s another cozy game that he enjoys. Sometimes being a farmer in a quant village is nice and he enjoys the events that follow.

He rarely game first person shooter games but hearing Axl scream on the other side of the room after being sniped at a long distance is incredibly satisfying to hear.

Mario games are neat for him, like platformers are a hit or miss for him but his first Mario game was Oddessy, so the exploration is fun and intuitive for him. Other games are pretty fun too (Wonder and Paper Mario TYD are one of his favorites.

Fuga Melodies of Steel, yep it’s one of those games that he screams and cries. The story hits him so hard, especially the fact that these children had to man a massive Tank going through war as they try to save their loved ones. He loves these children to death seeing their personalities, desires and quirks, they endeared him. It hurts him so deeply, he’s impressed how it was mature to handle the realities of War what it does to people. Let me tell you once he finds out and witness what the soul cannon does he was on his knees, the guilt and horror of sacrificing a child’s life to save others gutted him harder than Sigma’s lasted blast- Zero walked in to him staring at the screen for hours while tears where streaming on his face of what he has done.

He restarted his save file and ensured no child will ever be used to fire that a cursed weapon.

He was extremely relieved that they changed how the soul cannon worked and it doesn’t sacrifice their lives him. He loved reading about the lore of this game and the fact that it was humanity were responsible of their own downfall doesn’t surprise him-

Despite the horrors of wars and tragedies the children marched on, holding on to hope for a better tomorrow. A sentiment that he’s grateful for.

[sokumotanaka]

What are your thoughts on fixing RWBY if I may ask? 👀

RWBY based asked || Always accepting

Oh boy...I got things to say I guess.

I don't mind Fixing rwby as a series, I think they do a great job at branching the lingering threads and adding to the series very well....

But I got past Beef with Celtic and Fatman.

I watched up until volume 4 of their series until they had Blake turn to Illia and say in terms of racism and prejudice "An eye for an eye will make the whole world go blind." That phrase is used by so many white people who refuse to acknowledge that racism usually comes from many white people that attack and kill POC. Illia is right in her anger in the series, the rich mostly white citizens of Atlas eat well, over slave mines, and her teenage human friends saw on TV that faunus died in the tunnels and laughed!

The lack or empathy, and kindness coming from these kids should mean that both their parents and kids should be accountable for racism

Raymond is presumably a writer, but he chose to write that Blake wags her finger at Iilia and says 'I know you're experiencing racial segregation and genocides but you should sit down and wait for equality like a good mino- hey wait...didn't someone else...write RWBY like this? ; 3

Later on during a QA for the series I asked why he chose to write it like that, and his response was to turn to fatman and ask him, who responded "Isn't that how the canon series wrote it?" WHAT!? If you watch his old videos he's sympathizing with the faunus, saying thar the humans are horrible and how he'd write it differently, only to in their FIXING series... to fix everything BUT THE FAUNUS SUBPLOT!!!!? Making them fully villains, making their crimes like dropping nukes in your future subplots, you're making them come off worse when you write shit like that in. Even Hbomberdude or whatever knew that!

Also saying "We're keeping it like the canon and not wanting to fix it." Why the hell not!? who makes a fixing series and decides to not fix the racism subplot. Then I remembered that they also hang out in a group of people with zero (Till vexviewer) POC fantastic!

I hope for the best for their series and I hope one day they think on that and fix that portion cause that's a shit take and a really bad rebuttal for facing slavery and racism to the point of murder.

Raymond: An eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind.

You should be embarrassed to write that. Shit now that you said that I guess all the faunus's struggles are just fixed eh? JEEZ-US.

[hurgablurg]

It's been a while since I've seen a post by someone so out of touch with reality.

This dipshit actually believes that border policing, having the "most lethal military in the world", and refusing to listen to people protesting an active genocide are leftist policies, and that everyone concerned about children being blown apart by israeli sniper rifles overseas and black americans being murdered by cops in their beds is just some kind of communist left-wing extremist.

I'm fucking flabbergasted.

Edit: Bold of folks to say "she's the only thing standing between america and fascism" as if the fascism and imperialism isn't already there and a key feature of the american experiment. And even bolder of them to imply that once Harris wins, they personally will do nothing else because as far as they can imagine, Harris President = Win.

For some people, there is apparently no room for improvement or growth or not being a fascist lunatic.

I haven't been saying "don't vote", I've been urging people to not settle. Whatever the US sets as status quo and precedent, the rest of NATO follows, and that includes the country I have to live in. It's how we got that Poilievre weirdo in Canada.

And need I remind you, white middle class women are not the only demographic in the united states. You may not be threatened by centrist policies, but many, many vulnerable people are. "Fuck you, got mine" is contrary to the human condition.

If you vote for her, cool. But if you do, bully her. Bully every democrat and protest and sabotage and yell and fight and kill cops until they drop the bipartisan "reach across the aisle" bullshit to freaks who are unwilling to reach back, and start acting like empathetic human beings.

Though, with how many democrats literally plugged their ears and made mocking yammering sounds when passing by anti-genocide protestors, a lot of them seem incapable of acting human in the first place.

And if you don't take a stand to change centrist democrat policies, what the fuck are you even here for?

[pluralsword]

astrobots really went lets have a cynical thoughtful determined robot catgirl sword mom protagonist and we are here for that:

anyone else on the edge of their seats w/ patient anticipation of what's going to go down in Astrobots #6? We are. the story so far lays out a complex world where mass produced bots r stratified by hardlined code thanks to humanity, hierarchy therein inherited from them too...

reading that in issues #1 and #2 alone for both atlas city & the persephone ship gave the impression that something was deeply wrong that would be the source of conflict (see: atlas being a jerk). also was nice 2 be able 2 see the overlaps between athenia & arcee, & references to transformers such as solus, scylla, and xaaron

#5 ends on such a massive cliffhanger. the conflict is laid out sure, but how is artimis going 2 be psychologically throughout the series? r her clashes with athenia going to have some level of homoeroticism, and can the latter help her? will atlas's bioessentialism end him?

his whole shtick of trying to make a genetically improved humanity without hate he learned from them & attempting to coerce a specific line of bots to do it may not seem like him being a misogynist at a first glance but when you account for humans making that line that way, well. a greek goddess-named line of bots who r sword wielding curvy bipeds w/ cat ears & hardlined coding to nurture with skills to raise humans no other line got (it is unclear at present if multiple genders exist per bot line or not, we genuinely hope for the former) sure does feel like humans had a particular idea about what kind of fierce parental figure they wanted to mass-produce that raise even more questions. one that leaves one realizing humans made the bots of all lines without thinking about programming modularity. frames too. they all have heels, no body type variety, gave us a feeling of the humans in charge not quite having humanity's or robotkind's interests in mind so much as perpetuating a specific kind of society especially since the one body type only thing is true of every other bot line because of adherence to an alienated concept of function (its still unclear whether the remaining humans in the sol system are capitalists or collectivists or what but we have a feeling which one it is). and atlas making the threats he does thus does come off as him having recreated a form of discrimination a few times removed from human context.

the other thing we like is that astrobots doesnt simply do humans vs robots. it is instead robots vs robots who are both custodians of different kinds of humanity, following up on conflict of genocidal reactionary humans vs robots and humans living in harmony responded to w/ dirty nukes, after exodus from earth.

we do genuinely think this very easily some of Furman's best writing. there's an earnest revisiting of older ideas with new ones in a new setting that carries a great deal of nuance and delicacy. Athenia and Apollo's insightul valiant outlooks are entwined, minor characters r fun

[neuro-stasis]

So, for some god damn reason I got the urge to play a DOS point-and-click adventure that's almost as old as I am.

In other news, I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream was on sale on Steam for less than the price of a burger, and I've been weirdly fascinated with this story for a while.

Tackling Ellen's scenario first, and I'm glad they made her sassy, because it'd be very bleak otherwise.

(Truer words have never been said, but I'm not sure all the therapy in the world would help him, girl)

Who knew this was a thing?

Honestly going into this I wasn't expecting to feel bad for AM, but I kind of do

Sure he's a jackass (not to mention a genocidal maniac), but? Its... his existence is as much of a horror as the five humans.

Not to be, like, an apologist lmao

Honestly, based on this little snippet so far, it almost feels like AM even gave them a chance to win, because he wants them to 'kill' him, lol

[throwingbread]

10 fic for International Fanworks Day. Here are some fics from my bookmarks that need more love, in no particular order.

Those Who Come Closest (30325 words) by dagas isa Chapters: 11/11 Fandom: Final Fantasy X Summary: How do ordinary people become Fayth? It takes a certain amount of desire, dedication and desperation. These are their stories. Propaganda: You want worldbuilding? This fic has got worldbuilding out the wazoo.

Apprentice of the Beast (1651 words) by JetBlackKobold Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Summary: On their journey to the Disk of Cauthess, five men stop to rest and, bound in each other's company, talk a little. Ardyn is a strange man with a fondness for old stories, poems, songs, and rhymes. With a little prompting, he shares a story about a Beast and a Soldier whose good intentions are corrupted by power. Propaganda: Backstory, in Ardyn’s own words.

The Endlings (664 words) by TheBrightestNight Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022), The Sandman (Comics) Summary: end∙ling /εndlŋg/ n 1 the last known individual of a species or subspecies. Once the endling dies, the species becomes extinct. Propaganda: Extinct animal feels.

at the last trumpet (9830 words) by liesmyth Fandom: The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir Summary: the line of the Tomb-keepers demands an heir, no matter the cost. Featuring a small-scale genocide, the breakdown of a marriage, an angry ghost of the MILF persuasion, and a normal amount of bones. Propaganda: Yes more worldbuilding. Glorious cursed necromantic worldbuilding.

freedom so liberating that we call it magic (2566 words) by EtchJetty, FlaringK Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Summary: People don’t talk about Sheik that much. It must have been hell for Zelda, to pretend to be a gender she wasn’t. Especially if she had done it before. (or: what if zelda was a girl?

Propaganda: TRANS GIRL ZELDA

setting sail, coming home (5989 words) by beaufort12 Chapters: 2/2 Fandom: Hades (Video Game 2018) Summary: In which Zagreus escapes the underworld, keeps running, and never looks back. Propaganda: Shameless fix-it fic.

The Moonstone (21266 words) by Vriah, gisho Fandom: The Sandman (TV 2022)

Summary: Morpheus finds a way to avoid killing a vortex - he gives Rose his own heart, forcing her to take his place as Dream. The new Dream has to deal with a life she never expected and try not to repeat her predessor's mistakes. In the waking world, the people she left behind grieve and wonder. And when Roses's little brother Jed is offered the chance to switch from superhero to questing knight, with some help from an old friend, he leaps at the opportunity. Propaganda: My boy Jed!

Lampshades on Fire (5739 words) by ostreatus, stellarators Fandom: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) Summary: Or, How Dr. Olivia Octavius Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Morally Unambiguous Nature of her Violent Actions. Summary A review of the scientist-to-supervillian pipeline, based on a longitudinal case study.

Propaganda: The villain origin story we were so cruelly deprived of in canon.

built a lot of castles (12055 words) by basketofnovas Fandom: The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Summary: In the eighties, Quynh is rescued by a marine archaeologist, and finds herself in an alien world with no easy way to contact Andromache - or even know she's alive. Propaganda: In which Quynh receives some much-needed comfort in the form of random human kindness.

Inferno Seized (14726 words) by MuseofWriting Fandom: Hades (Video Game 2018)Relationships: Asterius | The Minotaur/Theseus ( Hades Video Game) Summary: The monster went to Tartarus. The hero went to Elysium. Or, depending which storytellers you asked, and which songs you heard, maybe the Underworld got it backwards. Or maybe neither of them were monsters or heroes. Maybe they were just imperfect beings, tied together, messily, terribly, inescapably. This is the story of how they found each other. Propaganda: Look its the most eloquent Minotaur/Theseus fic I’ve ever seen.

[misrepresentedmorallygrey]

PROPAGANDA

Rose Quartz

It’s all “more morally grey women in media!” but when the mom from the space rocks singing and crying show turns out to not be the saint she was made out to be in the early seasons, suddenly she’s The Real Villain Of the Show and a Bitch and all the good she did in liberating the gems and saving the earth is completely erased. Yes! She was a diamond! She did some evil shit without understanding the consequences! She was once entitled and bratty and unempathetic. She got a lot of people hurt! But she also gave all our gems their freedom! She gave up her status and family and slowly tried to fix all the damage the diamonds had caused. She didn’t have Steven as a means to escape her past, she had Steven because she saw in humans everything she always wanted to be- something free and forever changing. You are allowed to not forgive her but claiming her to be inherently evil even after all she went through is flat out wrong. Imo you all just cant handle a bbw.

So many people absolutely DESPISE Rose Quartz. The show showed her character arc in reverse order, and when the show started, she was seen as this perfect being who was wise and kind and a rebel hero and utterly flawless. But then we find out that she wasn't perfect, and she was one of the tyrannical Diamonds the show has as the main antagonists. She used to be a spoiled brat who threw tantrums, hurt one of her servants, and left her friend/plaything Spinel to stand in a garden for thousands of years. She discovered the beauty of earth and rebelled to save it from being destroyed, even faking the death of her Pink Diamond identity so the rebellion could win. She works her entire life to change and become a better person from who she was. Ultimately she gives up her gem and life so Steven could live before the show begins, and the show has Steven gradually learning about her. She is often hated and seen as a villain and worse than the other Diamonds, who are genocidal tyrants until the very end of the show.

Steven Universe shows Pink Diamond’s arc in reverse. At the beginning of the show, all the characters see Rose as this great hero, this perfect unimpeachable goddess, and over the course of the show we learn that this is a lie — Rose was just as flawed as anyone else, in many was immature, lied to all of her closest friends, was at times very cruel to her loved ones, and spent most of her life unlearning the privilege and entitlement and cruelty which her youth taught her. The last things we learn about Pink Diamond (her abandonment of spinel, her treatment of volleyball) are perhaps the worst things she ever does. But these are also some of the *earliest* things she ever does — this is where she STARTS, and we see in the show that Pink spends a lot of time trying not to be the person who did those things, even if she never undoes them, so that by the end of her life she’s far from perfect but is also in many many important ways not that person. Her decision to become Rose Quartz is in part an attempt to remake herself, to *not be* the childish, callously cruel pink diamond she is meant to be. And rose quartz *is* kind, and works to be good, but she cannot truly stop being that person. In the end, I think we are meant to understand that Rose Quartz decided to become Steven because she wanted to grow and improve in a way she felt that she couldn’t — she KNOWS that she isn’t a good person and can never truly be a good person, so she destroys herself so that Steven can be the good person she can’t be. And her decision to bring steven into the world caused a lot of pain, and maybe it was selfish, but it’s also a fascinating expression of Rose’s self-awareness about her own flaws!!!! I love Rose/Pink for how flawed she is and how much she tries not to be flawed. Anyway a large portion of the SU fandom thinks Pink Diamond is an irredeemable monster. So that’s cool.

Chara Dreemur

There's a lot of bias against Chara for appearing at the end of the Genocide Route, but there's so much more to them than "I want to murder everyone". They're a kid!! They made mistakes and they felt bad for them, and now they're stuck following the player and watching their every move... The fandom misrepresents them very badly imo

Somehow people forgive Asriel for everything he's done as a soulless being after his death, but when it comes to Chara, it's like they're the devil incarnate.

Chara is a character commonly seen as guilty for the genocide run or harmless disregarding them only appearing at the end and posioning Asgore

Poor kid called themselves a demon ONE TIME and then got misrepresented so badly as immoral killer with no sympathy

People constantly blame them for the worst ending of the game, even though the entire point of the game is that the player has a the opportunity to choose senseless violence and that it is the player's fault for killing the characters. They are a troubled child, and while they do some bad things, like taking the player's violent example at the end, most of what the fandom pins on them is in the hands of the player.

[melishade]

Attack on Prime; Guren No Yumiya Commentary Part 2

Main Story

Part 1 commentary

Exciting News Everyone! The next chapter, retitled 'End of an era' is completed with 36,724 words (At least the rough draft is.) Now all I have to do is edit it and it will be ready to publish. But before I publish it, I want to get the Guren No Yumiya Commentary done first. So lets get into Part 2 of the Commentary!

Also spoilers ahead.

So we leave off with the human alliance traveling through the now crumbled walls to get to the initial Wall Rose hide out that they kept Eren in during season 1 of AOT because they have some spare supplies over there that they need to use. And I have a few character moments and interactions, like Sasha choosing to stay with Arcee with Pieck allowing her to stay on her back. Colt helping Lara as repayment for her kind treatment when Colt was recovering from the energon virus, Hanji and Erwin, and also the overall tense atmosphere between the alliance groups.

Now the campfire scene is pretty much identical to what was in the show, with a few exceptions. Yelena and Reiner are dead, Kenny, Erwin, Colt, and Lara are alive, and Arcee is in the picture. And as they discuss what to do in terms of getting to Optimus and Megatron a few things are brought up in the span of a few moments:

“Gabi.” Pieck had given her name.

“What?!” Colt exclaimed as he stood up, “You left a child with a titan?!”

“The Autobots have a no killing rule for humans,” Erwin explained, “Her being with an Autobot is the safest option right now considering the situation.”

Magath scoffed in response. “And that same ‘Autobot’ decided to attack Liberio and cause harm to innocent civilians. Now the Rumbling has been activated, and it’s because of you devils. Some hypocrites if I ever saw them.”

Jean was furious and shot up from his seat. “Hey! None of this wouldn’t have happened if you didn’t send people to attack us and got Eren’s mom eaten! That’s how this whole damn thing started in the first place!”

Magath rolled his eyes. “So one person lost their mother. What about the millions upon millions of lives destroyed by the reign of the Eldian Empire? You’re losses don’t compare to the countless lives lost under your rule!”

“We had nothing to do with that! We didn’t know jack shit about that until you guys came in and ruined our lives!” Jean reminded, “You were left alone with the promise of not getting attacked! We left you alone for a century!”

“A century means nothing in the face of 2,000 years,” Magath shot back, “And suddenly turning against your own comrades and creating a paradise for yourselves is extremely out of character.”

“You know nothing about us!” Jean yelled.

“Jean, enough,” Hanji spoke up, “There’s no point in arguing. We’ve already seen the world outside the walls and learned about Optimus’ war. We can’t go back to being ignorant island devils. Besides, Magath is just surprised to see that we’re not acting like the devils he painted us to be. We’re going against genocide? Against a world that despises us? Who in their right mind would do that?”

Magath grew quiet at that, scowling a little before taking a drink out of the bottle he had on him.

“We still have to find a way to stop Eren,” Sasha spoke once again, “We need a plan, right?”

So the audience knows about the Autobots 'No Killing Humans Rule'. However, the Marleyans know nothing about the Autobots, and the last they met, was them attacking Liberio. Sure, Wheeljack and Arcee's involvement did decrease the casualty count compared to if Armin became the Colossal Titan. However the Autobots still killed humans during that attack. So in Magath's eyes, they're hypocritical. The jabs between Jean and Magath are the same. I have nothing else to add regarding that. So they get back on topic and Lara finally speaks up and gives information:

“Then the question remains: how many titan shifters can Eren summon at his command? And what abilities they possess?” Erwin asked.

“At least 1,385 titan shifters he would have under his command,” Lara answered Erwin, causing everyone to turn to her.

“Tybur,” Magath warned.

“Willy and my family are in danger; I have no choice,” Lara proclaimed before turning back to the others, “I say that number because there are some titan shifters who haven’t lived to full term. And the Tybur’s knowledge of the Eldian Empire is quite beneficial.”

“Such as?” Erwin pressed.

“The Beast Titan is not limited to one animal,” Lara explained, “It’s based on the users strengths and preferences. Meaning the Beast Titan is the one that has the most variety when it comes to titan shifters. It would take on animal forms not native to Paradis. With claws, jaws, and powerful skill sets. I could go through the entire animal kingdom and it still might not be enough to elaborate on the possible forms we might see. Dogs, rams, even snakes. The Colossal Titans would be the most dangerous to summon due to the blast range, but they’re not the most versatile for combat. Jaw Titans are smaller and weaker, but speed and agility is their ally. The War Hammer Titans would be the most problematic, considering the multitude of weapons that can be summoned from the very ground they walk on. I can give you even more information to utilize in order to defeat Eren Jaeger, but I have a request of my own.”

And Lara is willingly giving this information because she wants to use the Jackhammer to get her family out of the crossfire. If she can do that, then there's nothing that would distract her from completing her mission and stopping Eren from completing the Rumbling. Also I thought these exchanges were pretty fun.

“Your brother declared war on us,” Mikasa declared coldly, “He could have said anything else, considering he had the public listening to him willingly. He could have called for peace between our nations, but he decided to declare war on us.”

“…Hate me and my brother all you want, but I have six nieces and nephews that had nothing to do with the conflict,” Lara confessed, “I want them safe. After, you can do what you want to me and my brother.”

“But you don’t even have the War Hammer Titan,” Connie remarked, “Eren took it-!”

“I will get my power back,” Lara cut him off with warning.

“Okay.” Connie raised his hands in surrender.

I figured Mikasa would be mad at Willy for declaring war. Colt tries to beg for his family to be taken out of Liberio but that's immediately shut down due to the time that would be wasted transporting people from the mainland to the island. They don't have the resources to actually save all these people, which pisses Colt off.

“That…that’s not fair!” Colt shouted, “Annie has her father, and Lara might get her family back! Why can’t we go back to Liberio to get them out?!”

“Colt, the mission-!”

“I don’t care about the mission! I didn’t even want to become a warrior! I only did it because my uncle put us in danger!” Colt shouted at Pieck, “My brother and I were sacrificed to slaughter just to be safe! And all of that is going to be for nothing?! And I don’t even know where my brother is!”

Magath didn’t say anything, but part of him was internally fuming. How many of the Warriors and Warrior Cadets were actually loyal to Marley? But...considering what Colt had gone through, what the Warrior Cadets had endured for so long…how could they not hate Marley for treating them like a commodity? For threatening their lives daily? Colt only became a warrior because of his uncle. Of course he would never be truly loyal to the cause. But despite that…he still wanted him and the others to live.

Let's be real, none of the Eldians would ever be loyal to Marley if they were given a second option to get out of dodge. We know this. Once exposed to the truth, they at the very least start having second thoughts about carrying out Marley's plans. During this, Sasha confesses what happened to Falco on the Jackhammer. (I didn't really have anything for Falco since he was supposed to inherit the Jaws Titan and Ymir is still alive. So I decided to write him into a coma for Gabi's character development.)

Annie states that they need to kill Eren, and instead of Mikasa getting prepared to attack Annie, Mikasa can't really provide a retort to Annie because Eren's gotten a lot crueler and has actively harmed his own friends. Annie is then asked by Pieck why she's even helping at all, and Annie doesn't want to admit it, but she cares about them.

So the conversation proceed further along, and instead of Reiner being confronted about Marco, Magath is confronted by Kenny about his own inability to just work with everyone around him considering the stakes.

“No, because you’re the only one here who still has that piss poor attitude about even helping them out,” Kenny declared, gesturing to the Survey Corps.

“I still don’t think it makes you heroes, trying to make up for your past deeds,” Magath stated.

“Oh, no, I’m a piece of shit.” Kenny gestured, “Bottom of the barrel scumbag. I’ve even killed kids, but I’m not justifying my actions as a way to make the world a better place.”

Kenny pointed to the 104th. “They ain’t innocent either. Pretty sure they’ve killed innocent people when they’ve attacked Liberio. They’ve even killed my own men, which by the way,”

Kenny raised his bowl to them. “Props to ya. Ya really stepped up. But their shit was reactionary. Self defense even. You? Nah. You’re going around taking over countries, killing innocent people with the power of the titans. It don’t make you better than the Eldian Empire.” (Kenny would definitely praise someone for their skills and kill count, even if they are an enemy.)

Magath shot up to his feet. “It was-!”

“Atonement, whatever.” Kenny put the word in air quotes, “But ya still killed people with the titans. Top of that, all your child soldiers are fucked in the head. I’ve never made kids do my dirty work, like that one over there who said she was my kid.”

Everyone snapped their heads to Annie while the titan shifter seized up mid bite. (Yeah, there's no way that Kenny wouldn't have recognized Annie. Honestly, I'd like to think that he figured it out when he was walking with them to the Wall Rose hideout.)

“Yeah, don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,” Kenny commented before turning back to Magath, “But she was willing to defect from you because she hated you. Monkey brain was also doing his own thing with the mass suicide shit so he defects. Three of your warriors are dead. And your cadet said that he’s not loyal to Marley. Meanwhile, Tybur here was a pampered princess who let this shit happen in the first place.”

Kenny got in his face. “The way I see it, the only fucked up monster here is you, a slave to his own fucked up heroics, willing to kill kids to keep his hands clean. Now no army, few allies, you’re really at the end of your rope.”

Now Magath immediately makes a jab at Megatron in his retort, which is super easy for anyone to do, especially since Megatron did betray Marley and gave information to Paradis. And Kenny agrees that Magath is terrible, even going so far as to drop parts of his backstory to prove his point. Because remember, during Megatron's first mental breakdown, he basically dump his life story on Kenny for a bottle of wine, and also, because no one would believe Kenny if he ever talked about it. Which is why some of Kenny's comments throw Hanji off guard.

“Your friend: The Flying Titan,” Magath hissed, “Seemed really happy tormenting children and bringing destruction wherever he goes.”

Kenny laughed. “Oh yeah, the miner turned gladiator turned psycho warlord that destroyed his own home.”

“Miner?!” Hanji snapped their head at that while everyone else stared in surprise.

“Megatron’s the worst of the worst, and he hates humanity!” Kenny cackled, “All of it! He doesn’t give a shit if you’re from Marley or Eldia! And the funniest shit is that he’s the first one to jump into the fight to save it! He jumped in before the titan that loves humanity! What the hell does that say about you?!”

I've had Kenny's words geared up for a while. It's great. So a fight is about to escalate, but Arcee starts speaking.

“…the same…,” Arcee croaked, “…All…the same…”

Everyone turned their heads to Arcee, surprised she even spoke at all.

“Arcee, please rest,” Sasha pleaded with her.

“…It’s all the same.” Arcee ignored Sasha, “Home, Earth, here, it’s just arguing…and fighting…war…death…the world is ending and…you’re still fighting with each other.”

Everyone was in shock when they saw a tear dripping down the side of Arcee’s faceplate. “We just wanted a better world, and equal world, but all we did was fight. And kill…I’m so tired…why did I leave home…for the same thing? Why….am I…still alive?”

Arcee placed her remaining arm over her optics to hide her tears. “I didn’t want this…I never…never…”

Sasha immediately went to comfort Arcee while Magath lowered his arms to his side. Kenny could feel a twang of guilt before snatching Connie’s bowl of stew and storming off.

Because in the beginning, Arcee thought that everything was clear cut and dry. Autobots were the good guys, the Decepticons were the bad guys. After the war, the Autobots and Decepticons are recovering and Arcee is confronted with the truth that the Decepticons were just as damaged as the Autobots. Arcee can't handle that truth, leaves, ends up on the AOT world where she's considered the bad guy, and then gets a human child hurt. Arcee's beliefs are broken down, realizing that everything is the same and kind of just repeats over and over and it breaks her.

So Levi and Kenny talk, and before then I hint at the fact that Magath got infected with dark energon because he was protecting Colt from Porco by giving him his gas mask.

And as Kenny and Levi have their own talk, Kenny confesses that he's his uncle, just like in the anime. The difference is that, Kenny telling Levi while he's still alive, is going to hurt Levi more when Kenny actually dies!

“But…,” Kenny began, “You…you make me proud. Your ma’ would be proud of you.”

Levi lifted his head and noticed Kenny wiping something away on the side of his face.

“I’m horrible; I get it,” Kenny declared, “I tried to kill you and I left you. It doesn’t mean shit in the end, but…you’re my pride and joy….and I’m sorry.”

Kenny stood up. “Fuck, I’m going to sleep.”

And now we cut to Optimus and Megatron on the shores of Marley after they got knocked off of Eren's titan!

Optimus found himself violently coughing up saltwater as he forced himself to roll over in order to purge his insides. The Prime tried to focus his vision, and was confused when he saw grass underneath him.

“Well, good to see you’re not dead,” a voice commented.

Optimus looked up to see Megatron sitting on the edge of the shoreline with a rather bored expression. Optimus’ vision cleared and realized that they were on a beach. But which beach? Did they go back to Paradis?

“We’re on the mainland,” Megatron explained, “I needed to put some distance between us and Eren in order to come up with a strategy.”

Originally they were going to be on the back of a Colossal Titan that Megatron had killed and was now eroding, but considering how hot those things are and they can't float, it's better to just put them on the mainland. But they talk about how they want to deal with Eren. Megatron is saying they should kill him while Optimus is saying to not do that because:

“I am not killing Eren,” Optimus growled.

“He might not be giving you a choice,” Megatron retorted.

“Megatron-,”

“This is the exact same thing I did,” Megatron cut off, clearly fed up with Optimus’ denial of the situation, “I was blinded by my rage and lust for power, and it caused me to destroy our home to get it. Eren has been blinded by his desire for freedom since day one, and he’s going to destroy the whole world just to have a taste of it.”

“Quiet,” Optimus hissed.

“He is a prisoner of his own delusions!” Megatron yelled.

“He is a victim,” Optimus declared as he put his servos on the sides of his helm.

“He is a murderer, just like me and you!” Megatron yelled.

“I cannot fight someone I care about!” Optimus shouted, “Not again!”

Optimus is still emotionally compromised, and with his experiences with Megatron, how can he not be. So Megatron tones it down and they have a more civil conversation regarding how to deal with Eren. Optimus points out the similarities between Eren and Megatron and then Optimus and Megatron finally and properly confess how they feel.

Optimus clenched his servos. “But I failed you, and him. I should have never accepted the title of Prime, and I should have never made false promises and reassurances when I had no idea if we would succeed.”

“You’re a fool if you think that,” Megatron declared without hesitation.

“Megatron, that was your life’s work,” Optimus insisted, “Your ambition.”

“And look at where it landed me the moment I didn’t get what I wanted?” Megatron reminded, “Lives destroyed. Our home destroyed. A never ending war. Tampering the blood of Unicron. That was all me. That had nothing to deal with you.”

“Some would disagree,” Optimus proclaimed, “Ratchet called me ‘soft’, and that I did not pound you into scrap when I had the chance. Arcee had even criticized my decisions in keeping you alive…They were right. I should have recognized that you were too far gone to be saved or reasoned with. But I could not. How in the Allspark could I bring myself to kill my own brother?”

“…then I guess I’m soft too,” Megatron confessed, “I could have killed you when you reverted back to Orion Pax. Naïve, confused, trusting, and defenseless. Instead, I took you back to the ship and tried to convince you of a lie, knowing full well you would have discovered the truth. I was arrogant, and a fool, in more ways than one.”

“…it was our foolishness that let our war continue on,” Optimus declared, “We should have just killed each other.”

“Agreed,” Megatron said, “And…it was my foolishness that waited until now to apologize, when we’re most likely going to die again.”

“You were never one to apologize,” Optimus commented.

“Because I was a coward,” Megatron declared dryly, “A pathetic coward who was dumping his own issues onto innocent human children because he couldn’t actually face you.”

“You should apologize to Armin and Mikasa for forcing them to keep your secrets,” Optimus advised, “You should apologize to the Survey Corps for the way you treated them. You didn’t have to be so cruel to them.” (Note that Optimus doesn't know that Megatron apologized. Armin and Mikasa never brought up the conversation to him.)

“If we make it out of this,” Megatron reminded, “But…I am sorry. For everything. For putting you through so much trauma and pain, for ripping out Bumbleebee’s voice box, for kidnapping the humans, for trying to destroy Earth, for destroying Cybertron.”

Megatron chuckled sadly at that. “What was I thinking? An apology isn’t going to fix the damage I caused.”

“…Then I am sorry too,” Optimus apologized.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Megatron hissed.

“I do,” Optimus insisted, “For being naïve, and not truly acknowledging the reality around me. My foolish hope was my own twisted delusion.”

“…Hope won you the war,” Megatron retorted, “Determination and persistence won you the war.”

“And will destroy this world,” Optimus said, “I gave Eren false hope. I believed that there could have been a compromise in a peaceful manner. But I should have listened to your advice. I should have acknowledged your experience on the continent, and recognize that the world might not have changed their ways through patience and peace talks.”

“Well in hindsight, it was the better option to pursue instead of this,” Megatron admitted.

“And it happened anyway,” Optimus lamented.

There's still a lot to unpack between Optimus and Megatron, but they're talking it out instead of being constipated idiots! Megatron decides that he'll do the killing blow against Eren to spare Optimus some pain if Optimus isn't able to convince him to stop. (Which by the way, doesn't happen) And finally Optimus says this!

Optimus gave a small smile before staring back out into the abyss. “Megatron, if this is where our story ends, then…I am glad that I get to fight by your side. Not as my enemy, but as my brother.”

Megatron felts his servos trembling before turning away from the Prime, not wanting him to see the raging emotions within him. He felt…relief…and happiness. It felt like one of the massive weights of guilt he’s been harboring for so long has been removed from his shoulders. Brother…he called him brother.

“By the Allspark, Optimus,” Megatron chuckled, his voice wavering and unsteady, “That’s such sentimental nonsense.”

Optimus finally calls Megatron brother again! Megatron finally gets what he's always wanted when he's not pursuing his own selfish desires! Optimus and Megatron finally reconcile at the end of the world!

But now to Gabi and Wheeljack! Wheeljack collapses from energon loss and manages to tell Gabi where Falco is because Arcee's been visiting him before he passes out. Gabi, in a panic, tries to call Optimus who is extremely busy right now, but in her panic, pushes the comm. link one too many times and gets nothing. And in her despair:

Gabi felt tears streaming down her face as she cried out in the desperation. No one was going to come! It was over! Even so, she screamed out.

“HELP US!” Gabi cried out.

The help us is not just implied to her and Wheeljack, its implied to everyone that she cares about and loves.

But for now, I'm leaving things here. The Autobot Introduction will be in the next commentary.