#which for those who think this is better it's equally painful to someone who cares if they can never be there for you

[spoonyglitteraunt]

I don't think it's that we necessarily crave chaos and pain after toxic homes, relationship and friendships. I think many (obviously everyone is different) in fact crave peace and gentleness and care and just safety. We crave it so much and so desperately that it physically hurts and we'd often do anything, be anything, to get it. The problem is we forgot what it looks like. What it feels like to not constantly live on a battlefield, under siege. Or maybe we never even knew at all. Maybe battles is all we've ever know and seen around us. Nothing to teach us there were other ways.

So we forget or never learned and it becomes SO hard to recognise it when it's given to us. Worse still we've learned to distrust it, to fear it in a way. Because for however long it was our reality, all we got was a mimicry of the real thing. Like one of those images in horror film mirrors, initially seeming perfectly normal until your blink and realise something is ever so slightly off and getting more off as time goes.

Peace and quiet was never just peace and quiet. It was the tension of a held breath before the next argument, the look before a hit, the licking of wounds before they find where you hid. Kindness was never just kindness. It was leverage to later use against us, it was an act to the outside world, it was at best a temporary lull at worst a way to confuse and manipulate. Love and care was never given without a cost. To be worked and begged for. Respect was not given just for being a person, but to be proven worthy off. Constantly.

We did not know the real things and the mimicry was all sharp edges and traps laid out to exploit our worst weaknesses.

This does not leave us when we do. The trauma lingers long after. Especially without help. And because that's the only lens we were left with any true care and quiet becomes an uncanny valley effect. You expect a hand moving in your direction to hit so you flinch in an attempt to self protect. Your instincts quicker to react than the ability to register the hand is not striking. Even after, you half expect it to be a fake out and to strike when you let your guard down. It feels wrong. It feels uncanny. It feels like a trap.

You expect love to hurt and when it doesn't you feel anxious. You expect calm to proceed the storm and so you brace. You are constantly watching, waiting. Even if you don't realise it. Even if you don't mean to. You do. Because that was what you had to do to stay safe. To deal, to live. And the waiting is always the worst.

The anxiety and dread of the storm is often more heavy to carry than the destruction. So you just want it to be over with. You just want them to scream or to hit or to hurt or to abandon you. Because the constant waiting for it to hit is exhausting. The storm is not safe, but it is familiar. You know how to weather the storm you see coming. It's the storms taking you by surprise that can kill you.

So you prod and poke, like one would a sore tooth. You provoke and you exacerbate. You see shadows and signs where there are none. Or you hide and deflect and store frustrations untill they blow up. Just to stop feeling that anxiety, that rising dread with no explosive release. Even the fights don't quite do it, because they are not the storm you know, just some vague rumblings in the distance in comparison. So you never get the release, only ever more anxiety. And any moment longer before it comes raining down on you is a moment for the storm to get more deadly. To get more likely to not just hurt but decimate you completely. So you NEED it to burst before it grows beyond.

Add in that no one ever taught you boundaries or healthy communication and conflict resolution skills and you have a recipe for disaster.

You build the destruction of your own happiness.

It takes a lot of healing or at least the self awareness to suppress the worst of your instincts to stop doing this. And it takes even longer to not just tolerate the quiet and the love and the happiness, but to lose the lense that makes you see it in an uncanny distorted tilt. To learn to trust it for what it is and accept that relationships, homes, are not battlefields or natural disasters waiting to happen. They are calm fields and gentle waters. Most of the time there are no big highs and big lows. No explosions or held breaths. Just days where it rains and days where it doesn't. And if the sky rumbles in the distance that too will pass. You will not be buried under the rubble of a broken home again.

It's funny how us people who grew up in toxic households are now in longterm relationships with the highest anxiety ever. Creating fights out of thin air, constantly looking for problems, making every little thing into a huge deal, feeling bored when things are normal, like it's not even real love. We crave chaos and toxicity and crazy strong emotions and everythelse is just so alarming. A healthy relationship is not the crazy strong passion all the time, it's being calm. That takes a long time for us to get used to.

[revenge-of-the-shit]

No hi I'm back again because after sitting on it for a while it was like Arcane suddenly saw all those issues it presented and abruptly decided that it was time to turn a blind eye to it instead in favour of a greek-tragedy-cosmic-horror-doomed-soulmates storyline. Whether this is due to studio interference or due to the actual politics of the writers, I don't know, but at the end of the day Arcane disappointingly fails to break free of the neoliberal messaging that deeply pervades any media that even tries to be progressive. It presents all these very real systemic issues, then either forgets about it or slaps on a last-minute band-aid solution that only serves to brush it under the rug.

I will grant that a part of it is just the fact that they simply didn't have enough time. A lot of this could've been expanded on had we just had one more arc, or even just three four-episode acts instead. The quick pacing honestly did Arcane a disservice this time. They had huge ideas, many of which were great, but they simply did not have enough time.

Some things that I wish we saw more of:

Ekko's community building and the fruits of his effort (and to add on to this: let him see his tree again!!! wtf!!)

Jinx and Sevika (and Ekko!!!) really, truly leading a united Zaunite revolution for longer than like half an episode that forces literally anyone in Piltover to consider the consequences of their actions

On that same point: meaningful change that takes down systemic barriers - better public infrastructure for Zaun, better funding for health issues, examining injustices committed by enforcers - this was only barely addressed by Ekko ("you're destroying our vents and polluting our waters") and then like never talked about again

Putting Sevika on the council as the singular token Zaunite is so painful like I can tell you as someone who's been the only queer non-white voice in the room that it's not as progressive and cool as it might seem to be. It's painful and torturous and just reeks of tokenism. A good first step would be to have a council with an equal amount of members between Piltover and Zaun but that's not enough to just have that!!

Jayce and Caitlyn actually having like, even a moment, just to think about what they've done to hurt, to oppress others, in their pursuit of "justice". Making weapons you never said you would and gassing a city of civilians should be thought about more, actually

Like there could've been so much more to Jayce and Caitlyn to make their characters even more well written. At their core they truly want to do good, they care, they earnestly want to help, but they are also raised in privilege and I want to see them wrestle with the biases they've been soaked in more.

I already talked about Maddie and the enforcers in a different post but just... more nuance about enforcers and how even the nicest enforcer you know will happily gas civilians and stand by and watch unnecessary violence. Like. Loris was one of the "good enforcers" but he helped to gas civilians too. Did we forget that

Vi!!! Just. More of Vi. She got the short end of the stick this season. The writer's punching bag. I wish we got more time to actually explore her trauma and to just... give her a break. But also more time on her thinking on her own decision to go bluebelly.

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

akio and the coffin

it’s fascinating how akio both literally IS the coffin of ohtori academy and, simultaneously, is trapped by it. ohtori academy is in many ways a manifestation of the ugly side of adolescence, of clinging on to something in your past and refusing to move forward in your life. every character has something they continue to hold on to despite the fact that they ought to let it go for the sake of growing and maturing. for example, saionji has his inferiority complex regarding touga, his refusal to let go of the simplicity of their childhood together when he felt that they stood on the same ground, and that touga saw him as an equal. everything he does in the series is an attempt to make himself feel as though he is finally on equal grounds with touga. if he would only stop tying his self-image to the perception that touga is somehow above him, that touga looks down on him, then he would be able to let go of that sense of inferiority and move on. but he can’t. juri refuses to let go of the pain she feels regarding her past with shiori, and continues to see shiori as someone who is “innocent”, albeit cruelly - someone who is unknowing of the pain she causes juri through her actions when in fact, shiori in seducing the boy she thought juri loved was deliberately acting to hurt her. if juri would only realize and accept the true intentions behind shiori’s behavior, then she could get one step closer to understanding shiori, to being understood by her, and moving past the pain of shiori’s betrayal. but she can’t. 

most of the characters, except utena and anthy of course, remain in ohtori by the end of the show. while they’ve all made progress in “maturing” thanks to the events they experienced throughout the series - both saionji and touga’s as well as juri and shiori’s relationships have gotten visibly better, as shown in the final medley of scenes - they still have more growing to do, hence why they remain in ohtori academy until their time comes. one day, the show suggests, they might also revolutionize their own worlds - their own selves - and finally leave the coffin of ohtori behind as well. 

so where does that leave akio? i think he can be said to literally be the coffin of ohtori in that he is explicitly shown to try to manipulate others into remaining stagnant, to clinging on to whatever toxic things they are struggling to process and come to terms with, though this is of course only shown via the characters he most directly interacts with. naturally it comes across most clearly with anthy, although i think utena and to a less direct extent, touga, are the other two people who are the most straightforwardly influenced by him. when it comes to anthy, she clings to her love for the person her brother used to be, the older brother who, at least as she perceived, was kind and caring and wanted to protect people. to protect that older brother, she willingly took on the hatred of the world, and continues to endure the pain of it to this day for what is implied to be centuries. but akio has shown time and time again, through the repeating dueling cycles, that if he was ever kindhearted and genuinely caring, those parts of him are gone now. i do believe he cares about anthy to an extent even now, but whatever affection he has for her is paltry in comparison to his desire to reclaim his power as prince dios. it’s for that purpose that he set up the entire dueling system, for which he freely allows duelists to treat anthy like a prize and an object. and additionally, because anthy is so integral to the power he has now in ohtori, he uses emotional, psychological, physical, and sexual abuse to keep her tied to him. he’s willing to not just let her wellbeing come last, but puts it at the bottom of the list of priorities, and actively tears it down himself for his own benefit. anthy knows all this - but because she still holds onto that love that she had for who he used to be, she stays with him and does his bidding. and that’s what akio wants. he is the coffin, wishing to keep people in their states of despair, conflict, and pain, therefore ensuring that they are compliant and vulnerable to his manipulation. 

at the same time, akio is trapped by the coffin like everyone else. he, like all the other characters, has something that he ought to move on from for his own sake as well as the sake of the people around him: his goal to reclaim his powers as prince dios. akio has failed in this goal every single dueling cycle that happened before the show’s events, and as displayed in the final episode, he definitively fails the one that takes place during the show as well. he can attempt the cycle over and over and over again, redo and tweak and modify the dueling system however many times and in whatever ways he wants - it’s all useless. there is no sword that can break open the rose gate. there is no way to reclaim his powers. they’re gone, that part of his life is over, and if he accepted that fact, it would allow him to move on and heal from what he experienced. but he can’t. at the very end of the series, right before anthy leaves ohtori for good, he’s typing away just as diligently as he ever did and, completely oblivious, tells anthy that he’s rewriting the rules of the rose crest, that he’ll be counting on her again. and i didn’t pick up on this until rewatching the episode, but it really just hits you then how utterly stupid he looks, working so hard and speaking so confidently about the upcoming dueling cycles as if any of them are ever going to matter in the slightest. i love anthy’s response to him too; i love the subtle but at the same time so blatant scorn in her words: “you really don’t know what’s happened, do you?” because once again, throughout all this, akio has learned nothing. he hasn’t realized it’s useless, what he’s trying to do; he hasn’t realized all the effort and pain and anguish he’ll cause in people for yet another dueling cycle will never make any difference. he is unable to come to terms with the reality that he will never have his powers as prince dios back. he refuses to move on. 

akio is the coffin of ohtori, wanting to keep others in stagnation and regret. he’s also trapped by the coffin, incapable of maturing past his own stagnation and regret. and it really, really says something that all of the other major characters of the show, who have been in ohtori for far shorter a time than he has, have been able to make visible strides in their growth. anthy, who is the only one comparable to akio in terms of duration at ohtori, revolutionizes her world and leaves. meanwhile akio, as deluded and self-unaware as he is, hasn’t made a single step of progress in all this time. the only thing he does is call in bewildered desperation after anthy as she finally leaves him behind, still totally clueless as to what has happened. 

tldr; i once saw an author say one of her characters represents inertia, in fact he is inertia. i think that’s a spot-on explanation of akio, at least in terms of what he symbolizes in the story. i want to beat him in the dick with a cactus

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

In 1972, in the Democratic primary, we had our first Black woman presidential candidate, “unbought and unbossed” Shirley Chisolm, who knew that she was only running a symbolic campaign, a protest campaign, that America was not going to elect a non-white person or a non-male person, let alone someone with the temerity to be both at the same time—of course she didn’t get the nomination. When she ran, Barack Obama was going on eleven. Kamala Harris turned eight later that year. I doubt anyone was telling them they could grow up to be president.

I was so moved by how Kamala Devi Harris was received when she became our presidential candidate in July of 2024, 52 years after Shirley Chisolm, how much more enthusiasm and respect and how much less racism and sexism than I anticipated from Democrats and progressives. It made me feel like I lived in a better country, a country that had somehow invisibly, incrementally, moved forward, in those ways too slow and subtle to measure until a milestone like this is reached. Somehow something as subtle as values, consciousness, norms had changed through the work so many people were doing in so many ways, the feminists and antiracists, the slow process of decentralizing power just a bit from the long grim era when only white men ran and won and governed.

Things are changing. Last week, President Biden went to the Gila Reservation in Arizona to apologize for the Indian boarding schools and other genocidal acts toward Native Americans. He said in a tweet:

Today, I’m in Arizona to issue a long overdue presidential apology for this era—and speak to how my Administration has worked to invest in Indian Country and our relationships with Tribal Nations, advance Tribal sovereignty and self-determination, respect Native cultures, and protect Indigenous sacred sites. We must remember our full history, even when it’s painful. That’s what great nations do. And we are a great nation.

A few decades ago, Native people were largely ignored by the non-native mainstream, and what the US government had done was justified when it was not just ignored. We live in the impossible world, the world that no one quite imagined, in which things happen—marriage equality, the possibilities brought by solar energy, a Black woman presidential candidate—that were inconceivable not long ago.

I think of all the land-back happening around the West, of the four dams coming down on the Klamath River under the stewardship of the several Native nations there, of the salmon already swimming more than a hundred miles up that river to Oregon after more than a century of being shut out, of this presidential apology that acknowledges 532 years of colonialism. Biden’s tweet strategically rebukes Trump and MAGA and all the fragile white nationalists by insisting that this country is already great, and that greatness means remembering and taking responsibility for the wrongs of the past, including this genocidal racism.

That this country is polarized is often deplored, but the backlash against the progress on human rights, equality, inclusion, environmental protection, and acknowledging the US’s often-brutal history, is no reason to give up or cave in on that progress, though it’s a reason to reach out to try to convey that we all benefit from it.

What’s also been moving to me since this election really picked up momentum a few months ago is to see how much people care about something beyond narrow and immediate self-interest, to see that we care about public life, about the fate of the nation, about the rule of law, about the survival of the most vulnerable. To see that we are idealists, we are dreamers, we are citizens in that sense not of nationality but of membership in the greater community. Something striking this time around is to see men speak up for reproductive rights to a degree and in a way they mostly have not before.

We love so much more than the narrow version of who we are acknowledges: we love justice, love truth, love freedom, love equality, love the confidence that comes with secure human rights.

So many powerful forces conspire to try to convince us that we are basically selfish animals, that all we want is the the goods of private life, some safety, some sex and personal love and family, some nifty possessions. That’s the story of human nature we get told the most. But in fact most human beings are altruists and idealists, which is to say we want a lot more, we care about a lot more, we need a lot more to feel right with the world. We want justice and peace, want to live in a society that supports these things, want a relationship with nature, and we want that nature to be protected and thriving.

We want a world that reflects our values, we feel injured by things that may not affect us directly, whether it’s a wildfire or a loss of rights. Of course they’re not all the same values, and yeah some people believe they need to persecute immigrants or trans youth to have their happy world, some people still think nature is so vast and immutable we can keep trashing it without consequences. But mainly what I’m trying to say is that most people care about a lot beyond the usual definition of self-interest. We’re bigger than that.

You can see that by how much people care about the outcome of this election, whether they’re sitting home refreshing polls as if the polls tell us what will happen or doing the work that decides what will happen. Someone said to me a week or so ago that people over 70 shouldn’t be allowed to vote because they had no self-interest in the future. I rebuked him, because across the political spectrum most of us vote our broad values, not our narrow self-interest, unless our values are that we’re just our self-interest (and that’s a core belief of the right).

Most of us are idealists. There’s been a lot of exclamation in recent years about right-wing working-class voters who vote against their self-interest, often portrayed as baffling, as a sign of ignorance or confusion. What’s really going on that they’re more committed to their values than their practical self-interest. So are we (though you could also argue that the recognition that we are inextricably connected to each other and to nature means that self-interest and the well-being of the whole are not separate).

I used the word care, but let me clarify: what we care about is what we love. And we love so much more than the narrow version of who we are acknowledges: we love justice, love truth, love freedom, love equality, love the confidence that comes with secure human rights; we love places, love rivers and valleys and forests, love seasons and the pattern and order they imply, love wildlife from hummingbirds to great blue herons, butterflies to bears. This always was a love story.

Part of what gives our lives meaning is the confidence or at least hope that these good things will persevere beyond us.

What I learned from studying how most human beings respond to disasters (for my book A Paradise Built in Hell) is that they’re brave, generous, creative, acting in solidarity with those around them, and that those experiences of immediacy, of community, of care, of connection and meaningful work, are often so profound that people speak up with joy even amidst the devastation and loss. Because we want meaning and meaningful work so much, we want connection so much, we want hope, we want to believe in ourselves and the people around us and humanity in general.

I’m hearing so many stories like that from the survivors of the climate-intensified hurricanes that trashed western North Carolina, coastal Florida, and other parts of the Southeastern USA. From the victims of a climate-intensified catastrophe that has wrecked whole towns and torn out roads, flattened forests, washed away homes and put parts of Asheville underwater. I don’t want any more disasters like that, and I’m a climate activist to try to keep nature from getting more violent and destructive, which it will if we keep being violent and destructive toward the climate. But I do want us to know who we are, and how hungry we are for meaning, purpose, and connection, and sometimes disaster lets us see that.

When it comes to the climate we want faith in the future, we want the symphony of life to continue with the harmonies, the beauties, the integration of the parts into one harmonious whole to continue. Part of what gives our lives meaning is the confidence or at least hope that these good things will persevere beyond us, that there will be bison grazing the prairies in the year 2124, that there will be whales migrating in the oceans, that wildflowers will bloom in spring and pollinators will come for the nectar and leave with the pollen, that the people we love who are one or six or seventeen or their grandchildren will have a chance to enjoy some of the things we have, that there will be joy and beauty and possibility in the year 2074 and after.

Polls offer the false promise of knowing what is going to happen, but what is going to happen in this election is what campaigners, activists, and the electorate make happen. It is not yet decided. We are deciding it with what we do, as voters, as organizers, as voices for truth, justice, inclusion, the reality of the climate crisis and the importance of acting on it. In June, I got to meet one of my heroes, Congressman Jamie Raskin when he gave a keynote for the Third Act chapters in DC, Virginia and Maryland. (Third Act is a climate group founded by Bill McKibben for US people over 60; I’m on its board.) He gave me his memoir of prosecuting the impeachment of Trump after January 6, right after his beloved son Tommy had died by suicide, and there’s a dazzling passage in it that reminds us of the power of participation.

He writes that, during his first campaign, there was an article in a local newspaper quoting a pundit who described my chances of victory as “impossible”; and nine months later, when we got 67 percent of the vote, there was another article, in the Washington Post, quoting a pundit who said my victory was “inevitable.” So we went from impossible to inevitable in nine months because the pundits are never wrong, but as I told Tommy, we showed that nothing in politics is impossible, and nothing in politics is inevitable. It is all just possible, through the democratic arts of education, organizing, and mobilizing for change.

We’re here to make the victory of democracy and the defeat of authoritarianism not just possible but actual. We’re here to make history. We’re here to get out the vote. For the climate, for the children, for the continuance of this experiment in democracy, imperfect as it has been.

_____________________________

This is a version of a talk given to Third Act Nevada as part of a rally for people getting out the vote in that swing state. 

Rebecca Solnit

Writer, historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit is the author of twenty-five books on feminism, environmental and urban history, popular power, social change and insurrection, wandering and walking, hope and catastrophe. She co-edited the 2023 anthology Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility. Her other books include Orwell’s Roses; Recollections of My Nonexistence; Hope in the Dark; Men Explain Things to Me; A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster; and A Field Guide to Getting Lost. A product of the California public education system from kindergarten to graduate school, she writes regularly for the Guardian, serves on the board of the climate group Oil Change International, and in 2022 launched the climate project Not Too Late (nottoolateclimate.com).

[deathmetalunicorn1]

There are some people who like see a parent with a bunch of daughters and make weird comments like “sons are so much easier to raise” or “Better get your shotgun when she brings home a boy”. Basically sexist stereotypes which is really sad.

Can you do the Ror characters, especially some of the men reacting if someone made a stereotype comment about !childreader like that? Tysm

It is sad that people still think like this. Boys and girls are equally hard to raise as they each come with their own challenges! You got the attitudes, you got the hormones which make any gender go bananas in one way or another, growing pains and not being able to express their emotions the way they want to because nothing feel right, and plus they have to be a human on top of it which is stressful no matter the gender or age!! I’m gonna use some scary dads here >:3

-The moment (Leonidas, Thor, Odin, Buddha, Poseidon, Hades, Raiden, or Jack- pick your fav) heard those words uttered about you, his precious little daughter, who was currently weaving a flower crown for him, so you both would match, he knew instantly that he was probably gonna murder someone today.

-(Dad) grabbed the lowlife who uttered such filth, “You think I need to pull a weapon on another child just for being with my daughter? What makes you think she won’t be able to take care of herself? Are you insinuating that I would fail at raising my daughter to not make good judgement calls or being able to handle herself against someone who doesn’t respect her in the way she should be?”

-The heckler was panicking, trying to beg and plead that it was just a joke, that he meant it in a joking way because your daughter was so cute.

-Big mistake.

-(Dad) turned to you, his scary façade quickly fading, “Y/N, stay there and continue playing. I’ll be right back!” you nodded, smiling so sweetly up at him, “Okay papa!” he melted, feeling so warm and happy seeing you smiling at him.

-As soon as he turned back to the heckler, he was scary again, an aura of pain and death surrounding him as he hauled him up, “You said my daughter was cute, right? Why are you looking at a child in such a way? Guess I need to pull those out of your empty head!!”

-You sang happily as you held up your finished flower crown, ignoring the loud screaming in the background as the man your papa was talking to was begging for his life, trying to get away.

-When (Dad) arrived back, shaking his wet hands off as he had to wash the blood and dirt off, you ran to him, “Papa!” he smiled, picking you up and he grinned as you placed the flower crown on his head, “There- now we match!”

-He spun you around, making you squeal happily in delight as you both enjoyed the quiet moment together.

[sashi-ya]

𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚 𝐝𝐢𝐟𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐩𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 Äs Nödt x F! Nurse! Reader

ಇ. I had this fic saved for myself, but I honestly didn't think my heart would be that broken when his inevitable end would get animated. Don't get me wrong, I loved Rukia and Byaku's win, but... you gotta understand that for a nurse, As Nodt represents those who you couldn't save. A patient whose hand needed a squeeze, but still it was too painful for him... poor thing. ಇ. tw: medical terminology. be careful if you are sensitive to illness and death topics. it is full of little metaphors, try to understand where I was going with what I wrote. you can ask me too! ಇ. wc: 1k

Before he was even a Sternritter, As was a simple man. A suffering, yet simple man. And you knew him very well.

He was sick, bedridden. It was too painful for him to even breathe. His existence was cold, sterile, and for him so unworthy.

However, there was a Sun. A Sun that would shine a light every time it walked through the doors of his ever-pristine white room… you.

His voice has never been loud, but really, really low. It wasn’t sweet, it was very raspy, as if he was trembling in fear. His short, straight hair framed his façade, the mask giving him oxygen carved red marks on his cheeks and black eyes fixed in a boring ceiling.

Oh, but you. His only reason to smile. But did he show it to you? No. Did he tell you? Neither.

But you knew…

“Hello Äs! how are you doing today?” you ask, with a metallic tray on your hands. Who knows how many pills are in there, but all of them are equally necessary for him to stay alive.

“H- hello… g- good” he said, every time. He doesn’t feel good, he never does. But does he want for you to worry about him? No.

You come closer to his bed, leaving the tray over his tiny bedside table. Taking a swift look at his monitor, you see -as always- his heart rate slightly going up. Ah… he is at least interested in feeling something besides pain and fear about his inevitable end.

“So, Sir Nödt… I’m aware today is your physical therapy day. Nurse (male name) won’t be able to attend the hospital today, would you allow me to do it for him?” you ask. Everything should be professional. You probably were waiting a “no” but instead he took a little time to answer.

“Hmh…” he nods, as much as he could possibly move his neck without grimacing in pain.

You smile, kindly. Your look softens. You didn’t want to feel sorry, pity for him. You really thought those feelings weren’t proper. But you couldn’t help it. Your heart ached too, and you wanted to help him as much as you could… “Good! Let’s make those muscles move with utmost care! Let me put on some tunes too”

You weren’t sure about him wanting for real to do it. He never did, as your colleagues said. “He is in pain, but he is equally scared to feel pain and that freezes him even more. He won’t ever get better…”

Again, your heart ached. What do they know about getting better? Why judging him? He needed help, not critics. And… who knows, maybe, he just needed someone to believe in him to feel better.

You make sure your hands aren’t cold. You wear a mask to come close to him, you don’t want to create more problems for him, a simple germ could cost him his thread hanging life.

You take your phone and press play. A soft melody starts playing. You don’t really know when it was, but you were sure he said he likes the sound of pianos playing to relax.

 Äs widens his eyes. Extremely black orbs fix on you, he is amazed by the song filling the room, he is probably glad to hear something besides the sound of the oxygen flow on his face.

“Give your hand, please” you whisper, trying not to cover the song. You let him choose which one of his pale hands will move first.

He breathes in a considerable amount of air into his lungs, and then, with trembling motion his right bony hand reaches yours. It feels soft. Lightweight.

And so needy.

You begin to inspect his joints. Of course it’s painful for him, not only because of being sick but also because of avoiding to move them for so long. “One finger at a time” you murmur, as you can feel him desiring to grab your hand.

He goes slow. Äs wants more, but he is in pain. He is afraid.

“Don’t be scared. I’m holding your hand right now. You can try to hold mine” you encourage him. You, perhaps, wanted more and even the same way he does for him to grab your hand… Are you falling in love with a patient? A.. dying patient?

He sees you. You see him. He closes his eyes. And maybe a little smile wanted to adorn his lips. His fine, chapped, lips.

“Follow me, Äs”

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ. ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ. ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ.

When he opens his eyes he isn’t lying down in a mattress. He is standing, in two feet. He is still pale, his hands show that. A cold breeze kisses his cheeks, he notices his hair is way longer now as it flows with the wind around.

He can hear kids laughing, and the greenery around feels refreshing. A park… it’s been so long since he stood in the middle of one.

Suddenly, something lands on his cold nose. It’s as soft as the wind, but it’s pink. A cherry blossom petal just flew up to where he is. And like that rosy flower, a million rain down from dark wooden trees.

“Spring? Is this Hanami?” he asks and notices he can speak louder. And when he does, it’s not painful… it’s… normal.

He slowly turns around. And again, moving doesn’t hurt. Breathing doesn’t hurt. Her arms around his waist coming from behind, either.

“Äs! Love! Turn around, I wanna take a picture of you with the Cherry Blossoms in the back!” you chime. Your camera, an old analogue one, captures the beauty of a pinkish rain that doesn’t wet but only kisses your skin with a soft, soft scent.

He is absolutely stunned by your beauty as you walk back pointing the camera lens to him. Your hair also flows. You are his nurse, his sun. What are you doing there? Why is he alive?

“Smile you silly! You are scaring me! What’s gotten into you?” you scold him, his death stare creeps you out sometimes.

As the camera shots and captures his amazed look, you walk back towards his thin arms. “Wanna have some ice cream? Or do you prefer cotton candy? Oh wait, maybe you want Takoyaki?” you excitedly jump, feeling the hard edges of his hipbones against your belly when hugging him.

“I just want to hug you for a little longer…” he murmurs. It kinda scares you, because when he ever said something sweet?

“Hug me for as long as you want, sweetheart…” you whisper, nuzzled in the crook of his neck. He rests his chin on the crown of your head, it’s so soothing to feel his chest go up and down, breathing pure air…  

Don't wake up. Don't wake up. please, just for a few moments now... Your Majesty.

[rychlostthespacewizard]

I've been collecting some random quotes I found around the internet and use in my dnd games

Here are some I found in no specific order:

1. "Speak, mortal. You have reached Tharvek, Devourer of Innocents and Wielder of Eternal Flames. It appears I have missed your pitiful attempt at contact. Leave your name, teleportation runes, preferred genre of torment, shoe size, allegiance, deepest fears, vulnerabilities, complete medical history, and where you summoned the gall to disturb me. I may choose to acknowledge your existence, but not by such mundane means. Thank you, and remember: tread carefully, for death lurks at every shadowed crossing."

2. "Are you aiming for greatness or avoiding disapointment"

3. "Si operarii omnes producunt, omnia operariis pertinent."

4. "what do you think it means to be saved"

5. "What happened?" - "Nothing that wasn't my fault"

6. "Something is different"

7. "I don't think so, but i do think that the growing control of those that have the power over the means of production is a threat to the autonomy of the people. As value that is created by the working force is not rewarded to them. Instead only guarantees enough for them to survive and work more. It's like slavery but with extra steps. So anyhow, how's your day going?"

8. "You know, that reminds me that sometimes, violence is the necessary. Sometimes the only path to redemption for the sins of ignorance is to face the fundamental truth of blood and fire. As they meet the primordial within their heartbeat, the oppressors might have a chance to understand the pain they caused and atone for their sins. Also have you seen the new play at the theater?"

9.  "You think we're equals? I had to battle struggles you've never imagined. I became this while fearing the night, disguising myself as a man just to travel safely. Our similarities end when you learned to fight your enemies, while I had to fight comrades who left me with scars that will never heal. I survived because I was cursed to live as I am among those I swore to protect, only to be seen as their enemy."

10. "The universe is and we are"

11. "We do not have much connection, you and I. Still this encounter feels special, I hope you do not mind if I think of you as a friend"

12. "This is your home. If you want to fight to defend it, that's your choice. I'd be honoured to stand alongside you. The enemy attacks tomorrow. He's brutal and fights only to kill, which is why he will never defeat us. Look around. In this circle, we're all equals. You're not fighting because someone's ordering you to, you're fighting for so much more than that. You fight for your homes. You fight for your family. You fight for your friends. You fight for the right to grow crops in peace. And if you fall, you fall fighting for the noblest of causes: fighting for your very right to survive! And when you're old and grey, you'll look back on this day, and you'll know you earned the right to live every day in between! So you fight! For your family! For your friends! For Ealdor!"

13. "I can't blame you for wanting to know yourself better, it was one of the biggest pleasures of my life"

14. "The pain of your absence is sharp and haunting, and I would five anything to not know it; anything but never knowing you at all I can only hope that you are safe, wherever you are"

15. "This song is new to me, but I am honored to be part of it"

16. "It's tempting to linger in this moment, but unless they are collapsed by an observer, they will never be more than that, only possibilities"

17. "Are you still here? I am unsure how to survive in a universe without you, I am unsure how to be me without you"

18. "Is the hardest part of this tragedy not knowing who we may have lost? or will the hardest part come later, when we learn?"

19. "I see someone making through, you just need to be sure it is you"

20. "You are no saint; you're just indifferent. You aid all without caring who they've wronged or what evil they've wrought. You place the wicked among those who shelter you. Even the gods' love is not unconditional, and neither should ours be."

21. As the hag's gaze pierces through the darkness, her voice resonates with an otherworldly chill. "You feel it, don't you? The knot tightening around your throat, the sharp claws of dread digging into your chest, the icy tendrils slithering down your spine? That's the sensation of being forsaken, of standing alone in the void, unnoticed by the gods. Even your soul quivers, knowing that no divine intervention will come to your aid. You're trapped in a blind spot, unseen by the greater powers." Her words hang heavy in the air, suffocating the very essence of hope. "And yet, you cling to your righteous desires, your noble quest to save your friends. But can you be certain that your gods will forgive such a pact with a creature like me? Your actions may be seen as a grievous offense, a betrayal of everything they hold dear. Will they not turn their backs on you? And this dread that gnaws at your spirit, it will not dissipate once you leave this place. It will cling to you like a curse, haunting your every step until the day you finally rest in your grave, a constant reminder of the darkness that lurks within your soul."

22. "In this life, we traverse like a canoe upon deep waters. Our passage ripples the surface briefly, yet the depths remain undisturbed. With time, the surface quiets once more, leaving no trace of our journey."

23. "You are a coward wearing the facade of a revolutionary."

24. "What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"

25. "I will face god and walk backwards into hell."

26. "The man who sleeps on the floor cannot fall out of bed."

27. "The man who sleeps with a machete is a fool every night but one."

28. "For every person who dreams up a butter knife, there is a person who dreams up a poisoned dagger."

29. "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

30. "Does the archer fear his bow? Or does he kiss each arrow goodbye as it marries the wind?"

31. "These feelings can eat away at you, chip away the parts of you that you once held dear and defined you. You remember a time where you felt more complete, had stronger relationships and felt more loved."

32. "To be tall is not a virtue, to be short is not a sin."

33. "Power comes in a response to a need, not desire. You have to create that need."

34. "You can't kill me in a way that matters."

35. "Do what you must, I have already won."

36. "Stand in the ashes of a trillion dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. The silence is your answer."

37. "Darkness without light is an abyss. Light without darkness is blinding. You cannot have a coin with only one side."

38. "When they burned Ioun's Archive, the crowd revelled in horrible disbelief. They understood that there was something older than wisdom, and it was fire, and something truer than words, and it was ashes, and something more eternal than knowledge, and it was death."

39. "I can no longer be a liberator for people who refuse to see their chains."

40. "You could sooner divert a river from its corse than deny my nature."

41. "Violence for violence is the rule of beasts."

42. "The only universal langue is blood and flames, we all have spoken this language and felt the fear of words older than our desires."

43. "The fire of extravagance can never burn simplicity."

44. "A mind unprepared for freedom will shatter like glass when shown cosmos without restriction."

45. "I have been cursed by my hubris, and my work will never be finished."

46. "I would rather die standing than live kneeling."

47. "For even the most banal of deaths can be made tragic by a broken heart."

48. "To love someone is to turn around. To love someone is to look at them."

49. "There's no cheerful somebody waiting for you at that alter. There is no meaning your alphabet soup. There is a right to obey."

50. "The foulest insults you hurl with intent to wound will calmly settle at the earth beneath my feet, and the venom you spit will bring all the pain of a warm summer breeze. You are less than you can concieve, while I carry on, brmmming with joy distilled from detatchment."

51. "They killed the best of us, so they are stuck with the worst of us."

52. "There is no truer hatred than the way men love."

53. "Would you spit in the face of the god's designs by referring to a mountain as a hill?"

54. "If i lay one brick down at a time who are you to tell me I'm not building a house?"

55. "True love graced you with its presence and you turned its intimacy into a joke to be shared with the world."

56. "To enter is to be forgiven of the greatest sin, to leave is to repeat it. Would you dwell in this garden, or would you forsake it, for man deserveth not his paradise lost?"

57. "She was wild, crazy, ravenous and beautiful. But we simple mortal men who have lived know better than to chase things that are not meant to be caught nor tamed."

58. "I live outside of the gods' sight and by consequence outside of their love."

59. "This is war. War does not determine who is right, only who is left."

60. "I'm a man dying of thirst watching another man drown."

61. "You are naught but a nail dreaming itself a hammer."

62. "Each inch of our lands are littered with the ruins of empires that dared to dream of eternity and deemed themselves endless. "

63. "You walk upon bones of those who thought they could tame the wild, and yet dare to repeat their sins?"

[howtotrainabraincell]

Head cannons bc I can - Celebrating Altair's birthday (bc it's not something he does and also something he missed out on)

Altair doesn't strike me as a man who would enjoy a huge birthday celebration, more so he either sees it as just another day (NOT ON MY WATCH) OR he would prefer to celebrate with his love. Just the two of you while he bathes in your loving attention all day long, eating.it.UP.

Letting him rest for a little while longer after she wakes up before waking him up with kisses, which brings a grin to those scar bearing lips of his, before he wraps her up in a bicep burrito and holds her close. You plan on leaving that bed? Good luck. Because unless he has work to attend to - which you made sure he DID NOT bc his birthday is NOT a day to work - you two will spending much need alone time together...

Knitting for him most likely an under shirt, which he would LOVE, seeing it as a way to keep you close to him as he goes about his day. It's infinitesimally better because he wears it underneath his robes and chain mail directly on his skin, so it's like you're touching him all.day.long and that is NOT something you will find the assassin EVER complaining about lol

Also sewing him a few shirts bc they he needs as many clean ones as possible. Asking him for measurements is a little strange but he doesn't object because it involves le touchy touchy and he ends up distracting you with something else...(you remember the measurements though! But barely)

He loves it even more because thinking about the effort you put into it makes him realize how much you love and care for him. He loves you even more if it's possible.

Giving this man a few Damask roses because he's beautiful just like this flower. (Enjoy his reaction because he WILL blush even if he turns away that handsome face will be as red as the roses. To say nothing of activities later on in the evening...expect petals on the bed...)

Making delicious food for him because he deserves good food everyday but especially on his birthday. - baking bread that's fluffy on the inside and lightly crispy on the outside, making this man some Mshabak a traditional Syrian dessert and drizzling it in honey, getting him honey dipped dates if you ask him, he'll deny it, but he LOVES them, fruits such as grapes, Jaffa oranges, and many other fruits.

Making him Anise and Thyme tea because both are tasty and with that Thyme she's trying to keep him healthy on the inside too seeing as he's already VERY healthy on the outside...

GET THIS MAN SOME CHOCOLATE DIPPED ORANGES JUST - TRUST ME

A massage with jasmine oil and a bath with you if he wants it. While she works the kinks and stiffness out of his muscles, he lays back against her trying not to make any noises until she reaches a certain spot, and he lets out a low groan. The massage completely relaxes him, and puts him in the mood to do something else... And if she takes a bath with him? Altair, plus the one he loves exposing lots of skin? Equals very steamy encounter... (Who am I kidding he's still very drawn to her even with clothes on, this man is a corner smoocher! He pulls her away into corners and gives surprise kisses)

Getting this man ANOTHER knife lol but this one is special. With a specially carved hilt, that has something sweet in Arabic, expressing her love for him. He stares at it for a few moments before pulling her to him and thanking her softly in Arabic, overcome with emotion that someone would do something so nice for him.

Herbs for him to carry if he gets injured to stop bleeding and cut pain. Goldenseal Root Powder - to soak up blood and promote clotting. Yarrow - which constricts blood vessels and reduce bleeding, able to be applied directly as a poultice. Shepherd's Purse - with similar properties of yarrow and it's able to be directly applied to wounds.

Journals for him to write about anything he wants whether it be his travels, day to day life, or knowledge he's acquiring about the Apple. (If you ever get nosey when he's not around and read his journal filled with excerpts from his day-to-day life? get ready to cry because some of the SWEET things that this man writes about his love is breath takingly romantic. Altair as a poet/man who better expresses his love through written words just seems right to me)

Lots and lots of kisses on his sweet.assassin.face because he deserves all the kisses and him just standing or sitting there and taking it. (I thoroughly believe that the man is touch starved)

Repairing and deep cleaning his robes bc they NEED IT. This sweet man gets bloody. But when you're done? They look brand new and pristine, which surprises him, but he appreciates because he could never quite get that one blood splotch out. AND they smell good too?! She better stop being so good to him and working her womanly magic on him, or he's going to have to marry her.

Giving him a little something extra underneath the stars when the day has ended...and then him keeping you up all night until the early hours of the morning.

[nerdygaymormon]

Numbers 9:1-14 - Second Passover

The Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt and were commanded to celebrate their exodus every year as a way to remember what the Lord had done for them. In English this remembrance is called Passover. 

The Passover required the sacrifice of a lamb or wild goat at the temple, which would then be eaten that night along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. People who were not allowed to make a sacrifice at the temple were not allowed to eat the sacrificed lamb or goat.

A group of men were in distress because they couldn't participate in Passover for being unclean from touching a corpse. People die and their body needs to be taken care of, but touching a corpse makes someone ritually impure. They went to Moses & Aaron and asked what they're to do since they can't offer a sacrifice on the day required by the Lord.

Moses takes their plight to the Lord and God responds to their pain and need for inclusion by establishing a second chance to partake in Passover a month later for anyone who touched a corpse or couldn't make the lengthy journey to the temple at that time. This is known as Second Passover. 

Anyone who was able to celebrate Passover on the traditional day were to do so and not exploit this new rule, which shows that making something more accessible doesn't impact the majority, they can carry on and shouldn't feel threatened or devalued because others get to be included. 

In this story, people refused to accept their fate and fought for their inclusion. I don't think that these men were being oppositional. They were saying, “What we have right now is not enough. Why should we be left out?” They knew the Lord well enough to know they deserved more.

Another lesson is that God is a gracious God, not wanting anyone to be left out or excluded. Over and over we learn that God's way is radical inclusion.

This story shows the benefit of having a living prophet who could be asked for a solution. The revelation given in answer to the predicament blesses the whole community and blesses the future generations as it benefits anyone who finds that they couldn't participate in traditional Passover.

Rabbinic writings in the Mishnah strove to make the Second Passover as inclusive as possible. Any kind of ritual impurity, not just having contact with a corpse, is a valid reason to observe Second Passover. Those who have to make a lengthy journey to the temple and couldn't do so in time for Passover were allowed to participate in Second Passover, and the Mishnah argues for a broad interpretation, basically anywhere outside the Temple qualifies as a lengthy journey. It's a reminder to look again at the requirements and interpret them to be as inclusive as possible. 

Second Passover long ago lost its significance ever since the Jewish temple was destroyed because it means no sacrifices are offered or eaten, therefore no one is excluded from participating. However, in 2009 several Jewish groups began recognizing Second Passover as a holiday of second chances and inclusion, such as for those released from prison, recovering from addiction, or having mental health issues. In 2016, this expanded and many see Second Passover as a holiday for LGBTQ acceptance and inclusion. The LGBTQ community organizes events at schools, homes, and seminaries where a religious member of the LGBTQ community will speak and share their experiences so that the larger Jewish community can better understand their unique challenges and needs. 

Some have used the idea of Second Passover to argue for marriage equality. Just like with the traditional Passover, because of extenuating circumstances not everyone is able to get married in the traditional way, but the Second Passover suggests those who are unable to meet the requirements of the traditional Passover have a path to participate. They will still be held to the same standards, the same level of commitment and respect within their relationships. Being different doesn't mean a different standard, it means finding ways to be included equally.

[sith-shenanigans]

For the ask game where we send you an NPC, Talos Drellik? (I am totally not jumping up and down at the thought of following up on some tags/replies you left a while ago about Ahene and Talos, not at all)

aaaa it makes me so happy that you liked the tags and were not annoyed by the tags (let me put this under a readmore because it’s going to be extremely long)

Okay! So! Bearing in mind that this is a living work and Hoth is a long way away and I don’t know all of what will change—

There is a very not-entirely-normal dynamic here because it doesn’t progress in intensity so much as progress in what, precisely, the intensity is made up of.

Ahene’s first introduction to Talos is along the lines of “do you really want to talk to that guy? He’s strange,” and this endears him to her immediately. Ahene’s second introduction to Talos is walking into a Reclamation Service camp and not feeling like she’s home.

(She does, in fact, think of the camp outside the Rakatan ruin where she largely grew up as being “home.” She also often thinks of herself as not having a home. Or of the ruin itself being home, and the camp not.)

It is important to know, here, that Ahene’s relationship to her trauma is much more in the “continues to be attracted back to it and to things that remind her of it” category rather than the “avoid all reminders forever on pain of flashbacks” category. She actively enforces these reminders on herself whenever she feels she’s acting too much like she’s free—early on, it’s because she believes she isn’t, even if she and her master are the only ones who know that. Later on, it’s because a lot of her self-image is tied up in not being a “typical Sith,” and in her mind, her ability to treat herself harshly is proof she isn’t one (isn’t Like The Others). She hasn’t forgotten who—or what—she really is.

By and large, she feels safer in unsafe situations. She understands hierarchical relationships better than equal ones. She doesn’t know how to be a person, and she’s terrified she’ll forget how to not be. Obviously, this makes her kind of hate being a Sith, but it also makes her kind of prefer being a Sith—the social dynamics are very, very easy for her, even if she doesn’t feel she deserves the loyalty she gets for it.

Back on Tatooine, she worked with a Reclamation Service crew, and it was the most familiar thing she’s done since Korriban, except that this time she was a Sith to them. Which was simultaneously awful and “hey, the terrible thing that happened to you? You’re going to exist in proximity to it forever but it can’t hurt you anymore.” (Which, to someone who keeps trying to yank on her own trauma to prove it can’t hurt her…) Then everything went terribly wrong and Silthar got very badly injured, and they were depending on her, and she has never been able to avoid feeling responsible under those circumstances.

But there’s still this given hanging over it that the responsibility is unrequited. People will be grateful to her as a Sith that helps and protects them—more grateful than she thinks she deserves for doing what she perceives as bare-minimum decency towards anyone she has power over—but if she had been below them, they wouldn’t have treated her the way she treats those below her. She wouldn’t have been one of their people. She would have been one of their tools.

(The greatest exercise in loyalty, in her mind, is to give it without caring if it’s returned. She still loathes the Empire for not returning it towards its people, almost as much or even more than she hates it for what it did to her planet, because if it took care of them then she wouldn’t have to do it—but that’s because Imperials believe they’re doing something good. She doesn’t. She just takes care of them anyway, because it may not be the right thing to do, but it still makes the galaxy a little more just.)

By the time she gets to Hoth, though, she’s just having an awful time. The inquisitor story in the game only has things get really bad at the start of Act III, and before that you’re kind of fine? But Ahene is not fine. Ahene is also aware that she’s not fine. It might have started subtly, but at this point she’s just trying to sell herself on the idea that she can handle it until Thanaton is dealt with and then she can let the ghosts go and everything will be, if not fine, relatively fixed enough that she can spend about a week curled into a little ball in the corner of her ship until she can function normally again.

But, you know, for the most part, the ways she’s Not Fine aren’t externally visible yet. There was an incident on Quesh where she used the ghosts’ power and kind of halfway lost control and partly life-drained Cineratus, but because she didn’t stop at the station to get anybody inoculated, the only one who actually saw that was Khem. And she didn’t really… explain that. She hasn’t told anyone that she feels hollow all the time and barely gets physically hungry and hears the ghosts talking to her even when she isn’t alone. She can hide it. She can handle it. She doesn’t have enough of an advantage yet. This is enough this will be enough she can still put a stop to it.

So she arrives on Hoth, and she shows up at a Reclamation Service camp expecting for it to feel normal again—enough that it’s easy to slot into the proper role, that she doesn’t have to think about it. She knows the responsibility and the resentment, the fact that something about it always seems safer than anywhere else she’s been.

It doesn’t feel normal. It feels just a little bit like she hates everyone there.

(Or, more accurately, like somebody does. Ahene hates like hell freezes over—rarely, slowly, and with a sort of cold contempt that burns mostly in how impersonal it can be. But the spirits in the back of her mind know how to hate, and they’re much too happy to share.)

Talos looks at this Sith Lord, who appears to be unusually scruffy and looks like she’s developed dark side corruption without the glowing eyes, and—unlike Andronikos, unlike Silthar, unlike Sarnova, unlike Zaril—doesn’t come to the conclusion that someone needs to parent her. She’s moved a bit past giving off that energy. Instead he comes to the conclusion that she’s about to deliver the most fascinating problem he’s encountered this year, which is (because Talos is Talos) really what he finds ideal in a Sith.

Ahene looks at this strange, mostly fearless little archaeologist, and discovers that she is not immune to being treated like a totally reasonable and decent individual who is here for the love of history despite every indication otherwise. Many people make this discovery around Talos.

Their early interactions are still… fascinating. His aura of “everyone I talk to is fundamentally a decent fellow” can only do so much, especially since his version of “rationalizing” all the terrible things about the Empire is sweeping them all into a bucket of “things I can’t do anything about” to hyperfixate on archaeology. Ahene keeps him at arm’s length like she’s learned to do with most people. Ahene gets sucked into talking shop with him. They discover, to Talos’s delight and Ahene’s pleased-despite-herself annoyance, that they share a sense of humor. He treats his probe droids better than some people treated her, and exactly the same way that other people treated her. She gets attached to them too.

Somewhere in there—either before they find Horak-Mul or after, though I’m leaning towards before—he asks about her first dig.

She tells him it was the Verios ruin. The face he makes tells her everything she would have needed to know about Darth Kelshrin’s reputation with the Service, if she hadn’t already been aware.

Delicately, like someone trying to thread a conversational needle with as few actual words as possible, Talos suggests that you hear things about that dig, and they aren’t very good. People don’t like to talk about it, if they manage to get reassigned.

She says that she’s one of the reasons that people don’t like to talk about it, and watches him struggle to reconcile that with her entire demeanor for a moment, then clarifies that she was one of the children they had—probably still have—doing probe-work.

Because of course it does, this horrifies him. She shrugs and comments that she hadn’t realized Kelshrin was that much of an outlier; haven’t there ever been slaves on any of your digs? Talos starts to protest that yes, but none of them were children, and comes to the mid-sentence conclusion that actually, she doesn’t care.

His mouth clicks shut. They sit in silence for a little bit.

When he next speaks, he tells her that he’s sorry he wasn’t there.

She says that most people would have put an ‘and’ in the middle of that sentence. They would have found it absolving, that they weren’t there. And he makes a face, and says that yes, that’s true, but still—he wishes he’d been there. That perhaps he could have done something, if he had been. That at least he could have been—better than the others.

I’m sure you would have been, she says, touching his shoulder, in a voice that would be a threat if any of the bitterness were directed at him. It isn’t a threat. It’s just that half of her doesn’t believe him, and doesn’t blame him, and the other half wants to believe him—and hates so very much that someone like him existed this whole time, and never came for her.

They don’t talk very much about that part of her background, after that. She never makes a secret of what she was—it’s the first thing anyone knows about her anyway, the trash apprentice who brought back the Dark Temple expedition—but while she’ll talk about the ruin like it’s simultaneously a deathtrap and a lost home, she doesn’t tell him about the Service camp. It’s their armistice; it wouldn’t be fair.

She doesn’t blame him for what happened to her childhood. He doesn’t look at her like he’s afraid of her when she loses control of the ghosts’ power, when he walks in on her having snapping arguments with thin air, when the ghosts’ memories and personalities start leaking in and she reacts to something he said about the Great Hyperspace War like she was there.

It’s difficult not to care deeply about someone who sees you at your absolute, utter worst—half-dead, half-possessed, still suffering from a Horror Hunger despite knowing that there are few things she needs less than other people’s life energy—and treats it like it’s simply something that’s happening, and no more terrifying than any other serious illness.

He’s the one she goes to one night, when she needs to tell someone how terrified she is to die. He’s the only member of her crew she doesn’t feel some need to be strong for.

(He is, maybe, the person she tells that she thinks she could exorcise the ghosts. That she hasn’t tried, because she’s scared that it would work.)

It’s important that—by this point—he doesn’t feel like he has to be strong with her, either. He doesn’t have to pretend that he doesn’t notice how bad things are, or keep up a cheerful front through it, the way he nearly always does. It’s not that his cheerful front is insincere—it’s not that he’s lying—but that’s how he’s always dealt with his emotions, the same as Ahene deals with them by scrunching them up into a little ball and taking another step no matter what. They aren’t people who know how to seek comfort in other people, most of the time. Talos doesn’t have childhood trauma the way she has childhood trauma, but he did very much grow up in an abusive environment that he generally dismisses as “not so bad as all that” with a wave of his hand. So it’s… something, that they can be scared together of what’s going to come.

(This could so easily be read as romantic. It is not remotely. It’s also not remotely parental on Talos’s part. It’s just a very unlikely bordering-on-queerplatonic friendship.)

When Ahene walks out of the Dark Council chambers on Korriban with Thanaton’s body (Teneb Kel’s body) in her arms and a title she didn’t ask for or want, Talos makes sure the body ends up in a cryostasis tube until it can be properly entombed. When they head for Dromund Kaas right after, because the planet is being invaded, when she makes for the Dark Temple immediately when they arrive in the aftermath—Talos waits for her at the Dark Temple approach.

When she calls him and asks him to get another stasis chamber and never breathe a word of it to anyone, he does it, because they would trust each other with anything.

Up to and including the body of the Emperor’s Voice.

(The next couple months, she barely remembers, because she was under so much pressure and so much of the same kind of pressure that her dissociative memory issues cropped up again and turned it into a soup of events that 2V had to record and summarize for her. But Talos quite frequently knew what she was doing better than she did, at least when it came to the fact that she suddenly had to run the Reclamation Service. This has always been a team effort. Between her and all her crew, but still especially between the two of them.)

[npc opinions]

[teecupangel]

I had an idea, but am stuck on a Desmon/Deimos (Alexios) fic. I don't no which way to take it. Either way it starts a little after Kassandra first sees Deimos is alive, Desmond gets teleported back in time. Dropped right at Deimos' feet. He thinks Desmond is a "demigod" to and a gift from the gods. Spins it in his own head that Desmond could be the Aphrodite to his Ares. Every god has a consort after all.

Now here is where I'm torn. Would it be better to go with

A.) Desmond escapes him and as Demios is hunting him down at the same time Desmond runs into Kassandra. He tells her there is a maniac hunting him and Kassandra is just like "well that sucks I'm in the middle of something, but stick with me and I'll help you." unaware that it is her brother hunting him. They stick together, bond, and somewhere down the line Demios catches up to them.

B.) Stockholm syndrome Desmond who is just tired of everything and kinda just gives in. Cause Demios is certainly devoted, obsessively so, but is it such a surprise that Desmond just wants someone to love him.

C.) Not quite Stockholm syndrome Desmond where he sees what the cult has done to Demios and tries to help him through it because all he sees is a more dramatic version of the farm. Demios being a more suped up version of what they wanted him (desmond) to be.

Or D.) Dark Desmond who is equally as tired as B desmond but goes about it much more different. He has a rather powerful "demigod" in love with him who would raze cities in his name and lay any treasures he asks for at his feet. Demios could help him get more POEs and hell, maybe even kill an isu your two. How could he pass this up?

Those are some ideas but I'm not sure which is the more pleasing option.

Any help would be appreciated <3

Sorry nonny, this answer is a month late TTATT

Also, if by help you mean help you choose, I will be no help at all.

Instead, I’ll give you more ideas for each ideas you have XD

A) This could easily turn into a found family between Desmond and Kassandra, with the crew of the Adrestia as well. In this one, you can focus on Desmond joining Kassandra on her travels because he has nowhere else to go and Kassandra doesn’t mind picking up ‘strays’ as long as they work at the ship. Plus, Desmond was good at sailing, more than anyone else in the crew. He also has the strangest ideas for upgrades that works really really help so, truly, Kassandra wouldn’t mind saying that Desmond was a godsend. Of course, Deimos would see them close and become jealous. It doesn’t matter if Kassandra and Desmond don’t have any romantic feelings to one another, the fact that his Aphrodite chose his older sister instead of him just covers his wounds with salt and he’d become more obsessed with having Desmond. This could be the one where Deimos has a heel turn and a redemption arc or… a story of how obsession can burn everything around it.

B) This can be the smuttiest of the four with a heavy serving of a not healthy dom-sub relationship. Their relationship would be toxic for both of them and this is one where Desmond doesn’t really care about anything while Deimos tries to win his affection by doing what he does best… murder and chaos. This can turn darker than D honestly.

C) Okay so this is like B but Desmond keeps his sanity and tries to help Deimos to his redemption arc. This would work better as a slow burn with Desmond simply trying to help him, not realizing that he’s falling in love with him until it’s too late, he’s in too deep and fuck it he’ll follow Deimos to the depths of Tartarus just so he could drag him back up.

D) You can make this a Dark!Desmond setup where the pain of dying and being thrown into the past had changed Desmond in more ways than one. In this one, they could both be two people starving for love and affection that found one another. But instead of helping each other be better, they just make each other worse. A lot of “the world versus us” mentality with Desmond being the whisper in Deimos’ ears that would lead to him taking out the cult himself just to please Desmond. Desmond, on the other hand, does love Deimos, he truly does, but he also has a warped sense of justice by this point and would probably create his own Assassin Brotherhood. This one could have Deimos worshiping Desmond as a god turned mortal, more of the Persephone to his Hades than the Aphrodite to his Ares.

[frozenjokes]

cubfan135 has normal reactions to long term stressors

ao3 link

LOOP N5

Cub was no stranger to his actions and the consequences they often wrought; he had made more than one grave error in his lifetime, many on Earth and even more up here, especially if the consequence of dying was enough of a prerequisite to be ‘grave,’ which Cub figured was reasonable. Cub would not call himself careless, most of the time he knew the consequences of an action before committing it. He was not reckless, nor was he stupid, he just enjoyed acting more than he didn’t enjoy being shot in the face. A simple scale of reward versus consequence, where the reward was ambiguous though somewhat satisfying, and the consequence.. rarely mattered. Pain was not an obstacle for Cub. Neither was social rejection, loss, the typical shit that kept most people from being idiots in the first place. Cub wasn’t immune from loneliness, no, not by any means, but he didn’t like very much to watch what he said, and the people who stuck around despite his rough edges.. well, those were the people who stuck around. Most of the time he had more important things to do than Not Be Lonely anyway. (Maybe if he took better care of himself in the first place, he wouldn’t be so reliant on brief stints of satisfaction with ludicrously bigger consequences, but that was an issue for another time.)

And that was not different here. He had Cleo, he had no choice but have Cleo, and really, he liked Cleo, he did not resent her for sharing his same fate, but he was still Cub, still speaking without caring, not caring to care, even when his own health, physical and mental, was directly reliant on keeping a positive relationship with his ship companion. And it was positive. Cub considered it to be positive, and he was pretty sure Cleo felt similarly, but he knew he got lucky. In relationships past the very surface level acquaintanceship, it was a toss up whether or not Cub could get along with someone without them hating his guts. He wouldn’t want to be here with someone that hated his guts. But he was equally sure he wasn’t motivated enough to go out of his way to preserve a relationship either. The cons just didn’t outweigh the.. he didn’t even want to call them ‘pros.’ He didn’t know why he was like this. Maybe he was just lazy.

But this was how it had always been. Cub would do or say something stupid, someone else would react negatively and that was that. He’d do something stupid and he’d hurt himself; the path was linear, the consequences were predictable, and rarely he found himself caught off guard. That was good. He liked it that way.

So he was starting to hate Scar.

Scar used to be normal!! Scar used to act normal, he’d get angry, react violently, the normal reaction, the predictable, more fun reaction, the kind Cub could deal with, work around, enjoy, even.

Now Scar was just sad. Cub didn’t even have to say anything to him and Scar would get sad, just look at him with these big wet eyes and get all sad about it, Cub hated that. But worse, so much worse than that, Scar still liked him. Scar still liked him, wanted to be around him, wanted to talk to him- Cub said he was cold ONE TIME and for the past dozen or so loops Scar had clung to him like a permanent spoon, ranting and raving about humans and their lack of fur, no ability to regulate their temperature, poor things!

Cub felt suspended in a constant state of About To Snap, and not helping was the joy Cleo seemed to take from his position- he wasn’t used to being Here. Here in the vulnerable, angry state, not on the outside, collected and teasing and calm. Cub was not a man who reacted to adversity in emotionally charged, violent ways, but something about Scar was pushing him over the edge, and everything about Cleo made him want to strangle the life out of them, struggling and wheezing beneath him. Is that how she felt about him?

He didn’t think he was going to survive this, which was a problem, because he couldn’t die, and suddenly the roles between he and Cleo had flipped and she was smirking smugly at him while Scar assaulted Cub’s hair in an attempt to groom, and Cub couldn’t take this out on Scar, Scar needed to get better so he’d leave the both of them the fuck alone, but Cub was so angry, he was so angry, he was going to snap- explode- he couldn’t go on like this, but he had no choice.

It was an uneventful loop. He and Cleo were eating, another act Cub hated doing now because of one stupid thing he’d said, and now they were stuck like this, Scar staring them down while they tried to ignore him, but they couldn’t, because that dumbass was starving himself for no reason! They had enough food! They had enough for three, rations would be a little tighter, but they had enough, Cub had done the math, he’d done it, but Scar was such a- fuck, he fucking hated Scar!

He set down his meal, hardly touched. He got up, he waited for Scar to say something, but he didn’t need to, he’d hardly turned around before Scar spoke, a hint of a growl behind his voice.

“What are you doing.”

“I’m done.”

“You’re not done. Finish it, Cub. Eat.”

“No.” Cub started to walk away, and Scar growled, real this time.

“You’re going to eat.”

Cub whirled on him, but Scar didn’t flinch, perched up high as he liked to be, sitting there, staring down at them like he owned them.

“What are you going to do about it, huh Scar? What are you going to fucking do! Gonna shove a damn fork down my throat? Hold me down and force me to chew? You’re not my fucking mother, so you can eat your damn fill or sit there stupid while I throw it in your face, is that what you want?”

Scar was quiet, calm, eerily so, and there was something aged behind his eyes that said this was not his first rodeo. Cub faltered under that look, so unlike Scar that Cub couldn’t help himself.

“It will be here when you’re ready to come back for it.” Scar stared him down, unyielding.

“Fine.” Fine. Scar could be as stubborn as he liked, it didn’t matter. He was the one starving himself. Who gave a damn if it killed him. Not Cub. Cub didn’t care at all. He turned around, stalking back to bed. Just as he reached it, Cleo spoke, like a match dropped into a vat of gasoline.

“Someone’s touchy.”

Cub was on them in a surge, bright and violent and silent, it was just so clear in that moment, so simple. Cleo needed to die. The rations in her lap flew everywhere, Cleo’s scream garbled by Cub’s hands on her throat, he squeezed, but it wasn’t enough, he wasn’t strong enough, but that was fine, he’d love nothing more than to get his hands dirty. The glare of fluorescent lights caught on the flung silverware, and the fork was raised over Cub’s head before the dazed Cleo could so much as react. He brought it down, imagination running so wild with the ribbons of blood that would fly from her throat in gratuitous dance, he’d hardly recognized he’d been stopped. Two hands over his wrist, he saw them for only a moment before he was yanked back, tumbling across the cool tile floor. He must have hit his head, it was throbbing, he couldn’t get enough air, but still he screamed, thrashed, but-

Scar had him. Scar was stronger than him. Scar would not let go. Worst of all, Scar would not hurt him. Cub could have thrown up.

Scar was silent, firm. Cub could do nothing else. He relaxed. He felt Scar release a long breath, strangled, but relieved. Scar did not let go, but he loosened his grip enough for Cub to break free, whirl around, and grab Scar by the neck, not to choke him, but to hold the loose skin in his grip, shake him.

“What’s wrong with you!? What is wrong with you!! Why don’t you hate me? When did you stop hating me and why!? What’s your fucking problem!? Stop treating me like a goddamn fucking toddler, I’ll kill you! I’m gonna kill you, Scar, I’m gonna kill you, I’m gonna make you hate me, trust me, Scar, I will earn it I swear to god I will kill you.”

Slowly, Scar reached to lay two hands over Cub’s wrists, short thumbs hooking under Cub’s palms and pushing against his fingers, not forcing him away, but pushing. Cub did not budge. Even with Scar looking up at him, wide-eyed and horror struck, Cub felt no satisfaction.

“I’m not.. I don’t know where this is coming from..”

“You used to hate me! Where did it go? Why won’t you just leave me alone!” Scar stared for a long time, ear flat and whiskers twitching, it was so dumb, he used to be angry, why did he stop being angry!?

“I don’t think I can afford to hate you. I don’t want to, either, even when it’s hard. Sometimes you surprise me and sometimes I respect you. Most of the time I don’t really care about you. I want you to be someone else, so you are. It’s easier if you’re hurting. Afraid. Young.”

“Well, stop.”

“I don’t know if I can. I can’t do anything for myself, I can’t live or die or go home. Sometimes you guys feel like the kids back home and I- It’s stupid maybe, but I feel like I can do something for you.”

Cub really attempted to throttle Scar this time. He didn’t want Scar dead, he just needed Scar to hurt, he needed- he needed this! He needed this and Scar wouldn’t let him go, forced Cub off his neck, just held him there while he screamed and thrashed.

Scar just held him. Held him like a fucking child, that’s what Scar thought of him, well fine. Scar was stronger than him, undoubtedly, but Scar would never outlast him. Scar got tired, Cub knew Scar tired faster than humans did, and when he tired, when he let Cub go, hell would be raised.

…

Scar didn’t know what was happening. What had caused this, what was wrong with Cub, why he was so upset- Something was wrong with him, something was wrong with his skin, underneath his skin, why was he straining himself so badly? Did he hate Scar that much?

Cleo hadn’t said a word. Not a word. That almost frightened Scar more. Was she on Cub’s side? Did she hate him too? Scar didn’t know what he’d done. He’d thought they were getting along.

He didn’t know how much time passed. A while. A very long while, it could have been days. Cleo only got up when Cub started to falter, slow down. He had screamed his throat raw, thrashed until Scar’s claws, unsheathed against his own will, torn his clothes, then his skin. Cub whined when Cleo held his head, carding careful fingers through his hair.

“No more, Cub. No more.”

“No.”

Scar didn’t think he’d ever seen Cub cry. Maybe that didn’t mean anything. Scar hadn’t known him for very long. But it felt significant, it felt bad, when after all this time, Cub only cried with Cleo’s hand on his cheek, fingers in his hair.

“Let go, Scar.”

Scar was frightened by Cleo’s words, no matter how calm they were, how certain. “I’m afraid.”

“You should be afraid. I’m going to hurt you. I’ll hurt you bad, you’ll never- you’ll never come back, I’ll never kill you, you’ll never come back.”

“Let him go. I’ll take him.”

“Don’t you fucking touch me.” Cub was hardly moving anymore. Scar was still afraid. Cleo withdrew their hands from Cub’s face, which drooped slightly, then laid them over Scar’s paws, still locked around Cub’s wrists.

“It’s okay.” Cleo took Cub’s hands. Scar let go, wrists and legs. Cub might have tried to lunge, but it was hard to tell with Cleo pulling him to his feet, whole body trembling. Scar was certain he was going to bite her, mouth hanging open like a zombie. Turned out he just needed the extra air. He seemed to try to walk with Cleo, but in the end, was mostly dragged to bed. Scar could only watch. There was something under Cub’s skin. Something was moving under Cub’s skin.

Cleo clicked off the lights.

“C’mon,” Cleo reached for Scar’s hand, which he jerked away.

“You just want to leave him here?” Scar couldn’t help but look between them, rapid and alarmed. “No, no, we can’t leave. He’s gonna-” Cleo reached for his hand more firmly, grabbing him and pulling him along stumbling, “Cleo!?”

“He’s not going anywhere. Give him some damn space.”

Scar only stopped fighting after being yanked into the control room hall, not wanting to kill them both regardless of his distress. Cleo did not slow down, and her confidence somewhat calmed him; Cub had said before she knew him better than anyone else, right? Maybe this had happened before. Cleo had seen this already, and she knew what to do.

Scar was quiet as he followed Cleo to the monitors where they sat in their typical chair, and Scar, unsteady in his own thinking, sat in the other, at least until the discomfort of his tail against the back made him move to the floor, relieved to have four of his six limbs grounded, tail twitching freely.

“Whew. No idea what the fuck that was.”

Scar whipped to face them, alarm bristling his neck and tail fur, “What!? Why did we leave him then? We have to go back! Something- Something is very wrong-”

“Yeah, I got that Scar, but crowding his space isn’t going to fix him, and neither is killing him. He’s worn himself out for now, so let him sleep. I’d say give him as much time alone as we can manage, he needs it.”

“Leave him alone? Cleo, that's not-”

“Scar.”

“What? Seriously, I-”

“Shut up. Please. Just. Be quiet.” Cleo leaned back, closing their eyes. Scar withdrew, stung. He watched her breathe, slow, in and out, in and out, and it became clear to him after a few minutes that she was not going to speak again any time soon, nor did she want to be prompted. Scar frowned. He’d never found a trap so close to the seats at the front of the control room, but he checked the area around him regardless, pawing gently at the floor before settling down, limbs tucked beneath himself.

He was tired. He was really tired. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but when he opened his eyes, Cleo was staring. They looked away when his ear took a slight downturn, but the second he closed his eyes, he could feel their gaze on him again. Scar was bitterly aware he would not be sleeping any longer. He yawned, lifting his head enough to nibble at his chest.

“Mic, Scar.” Cleo sounded tired. Scar wondered if she’d slept at all. He turned it off without a word, continuing on to bite between his paw pads. They were sore. His fingers hurt, his claws felt like they were being pulled out of the sockets.

“I went and checked up on Cub if you were curious. He was conked out good. I took his gun and grabbed us some food and water, all up on the desk if you want it. None of us really ate, so..”

“Alright,” Scar mumbled, sitting up with a stretch. His throat was dry.

“Meowmow.”

Scar huffed, a slight growl flipping off his tongue. He did not sound like that. Cleo did horrible impressions. He turned his mic back on as he got to his feet, tail dragging as he moved to get some water. His stomach churned seeing two rations, both sealed.

“..What happened to the rest?”

“What?”

“The food. What you and Cub were eating before.”

Cleo eyed him warily, blatantly unhappy as they and Cub tended to be when the topic of food came up. Scar found himself defensive under her scrutiny; this was a limited resource! Just because he was the only one who seemed to care, he was suddenly some sort of bad guy. See what happens when they run out, then they’d understand. Just like kids- they really were just like kittens sometimes, they just didn’t get it, and it wasn’t their fault, but Scar wasn’t evil for policing them.

“A lot of it is on the floor. At least what I was eating was after Cub attacked me. I didn’t want to linger so I didn’t clean up, but I threw most of it away. Didn’t think Cub would go back to his rations, so I threw that away too.”

“What? Why? I- I would have eaten it!”

“I believe you, which disturbs me by the way. You don’t have to eat old food off the floor, Scar, we have enough.”

Scar growled, tail lashing, “It’s a waste.”

“In the most literal way possible, it is not a waste. All of our food goes back to the way it was at the start of every loop, and we’ve got five years before we have to worry about wasting anything. It does not matter.” Cleo sighed, shaking her head as Scar continued to bristle. “What’s your problem, man? What’s going on back home?”

Scar hissed, the end crescendoing into a snarl, “None of your damn business.”

“You make it our business, Scar! You can be such a fucking asshole about this shit for no reason. Cub did the math! If you need the same calories as humans do, we’ll be completely fine for five and half months, and I know that doesn’t mean anything to you time wise, but the average escape room completion time is six months, and that’s with two people. If we were really worried we could all eat a little less and be fine, you just insist on starving yourself for no reason at all!”

“It’s fine until you run out. Clearly you don’t know what that’s like.”

“I guess I don’t. But I’ll tell you this much, there are much faster options of dying here than starving to death. If it comes to that, then so be it. We come back. Stop starving yourself in our name. I’m sorry you grew up in a bad way, but you don’t have to stay hungry. We have food, so eat it. No more of this neurotic shit, you’re driving the both of us up a wall.”

Scar bit his lip, tail still lashing, but his mind had wandered back to Cub, to holding him there, trying not to hurt him when Cub was more than desperate to hurt himself and Cleo and Scar.

“Is.. It’s the food? That’s why he was so upset?”

Cleo sighed, shaking their head in a stiff motion. “I don’t know. I think that’s part of it. It’s a lot of things, Scar. You’ve been.. You’ve been a little overbearing lately, and we’ve both been feeling it. By a little, I actually mean a lot. Like really overwhelming a lot. Cub in particular needs a lot of space, and we were both trying to let this run its course, we’re aware you’re going through it, but I think he just.. I don’t know. I consider myself pretty alright at reading him, but I didn’t realize how difficult of a time he was having with this. You.. You can be particularly oppressive with him. He really hates being licked, and honestly, I don’t like it either. We tell you so, but you don’t listen. Any time we tell you to stop you brush us off. Sometimes it’s a little thing, it doesn’t matter, but sometimes it’s really frustrating. Cub already feels trapped here, but when you constantly ignore his boundaries, he probably.. I don’t know. Again, I didn’t think it was this serious. I found it funny. We all tend to push each other’s buttons a bit, we do it on purpose.. He just got pushed too far.”

Scar found himself struggling to face Cleo, eyes glued to his half-empty cup of water. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I know. But you don’t listen.”

Scar shrunk in on himself, mirroring the internal feeling of his seizing lungs. “I’m stupid sometimes. I’m sorry.” Cleo did not respond right away, the silence more oppressive than anything they could have said to him.

“No, that would be too easy, wouldn’t it. You’re stupid, there’s nothing you can do about it because that’s just the hand you were dealt. Born stupid, nothing to be done! No, no Scar, you’re not stupid, and you’re not helplessly unfixable. You just don’t listen.” Cleo released a long breath, chuckling softly as she shook her head, “It’s easy to be stupid. If you’re stupid, there’s nothing to be done. Your problem is fixable, and that’s much harder. You just have to work on it, and I don’t think you want to. That’s your issue, and unfortunately, you just need to get over it.”

Scar didn’t know what to do with that. Mumbo said that a lot. That Scar didn’t listen. It was true, wasn’t it? Scar didn’t need to ask himself that question, he knew it was true. He just.. forgot. It was so easy to forget sometimes. So much harder to shut his mouth, to open his ears when he was so dead set on one particular goal. He had trouble considering other peoples’ feelings. He was so certain he already knew what they were thinking.

“What was wrong with his skin?” Scar hardly heard himself ask the question, but that was the one thing still left on his mind, still worrying him.

“Oh, that’s the sculk. Not a normal human thing, that’s something that’s particularly fucked about him. Without his baggy ass clothes it’s more visible just about everywhere, but sometimes when he’s upset or straining himself you see it around his neck.”

Cleo paused, gauging Scar’s expression and continuing when he said nothing, “The fact that he’s not super dead right now is likely the reason he’s here. Every professional opinion gave him at most a month to live with the rate of his infection, and those were generous estimates. Only so long because he had been kicking around in a state much worse than he is now for nearly two years. No one has any clue what’s wrong with him, so my guess is that they put him in a loop to buy time for more advancements so he can be studied when he’s back on Earth. Still, the longest loop we’ve had is four months, and he showed no signs of slowing down. I don’t think he’s going anywhere.”

“I.. Don’t know what that is. Sculk.”

Cleo perked up, a little relieved, like Scar’s lack of reaction made perfect sense now. “Oh, it’s an alien. A really motivated alien, it gets out of control fast if it’s mishandled, making it a massive invasive species issue across a ton of planets, including Earth. It’s a plant, kinda, but it eats anything, decomposes it at least, and from there spreads spores from the corpses. You can get sick from it in all kinds of ways; ingesting it, exposing it to an open wound, it can even be transmitted sexually. It’s like, monstrous, and evolves and adapts quickly, but at least it’s pretty treatable, and there are a couple vaccines that are pretty effective. It’s also easy to tell if someone’s infected, it’s usually pretty visible somewhat fast, and everything that comes out of you is.. sculky. Bits of black, sparkly stuff. Odd, but again, treatable. It’s only when you don’t treat it within the first couple weeks that stuff gets really bad. People with advanced sculk sickness don’t usually live more than two months, the stuff just eats you whole.”

“Oh, fuck. Glad we don’t have that at home.”

“That’s a very good thing. What’s so weird about Cub is that he was studying sculk, and had just about every kind of weed killer pumping through his veins when he was infected. Legally you have to, but no one believed him until they found his vaccination records. It’s invasive, right, there’s a whole host of people working to kill it en masse, and Cub was one of those people. Until he quit his job at least, and two years later was found to be the man behind infecting nearly all of the American Midwest with the shit. That’s a big chunk of land, Scar, and a long fucking time to be committing environmental genocide without getting caught. And he doesn’t know why.”

Cleo rolled her eyes, but there was no anger there, only exasperation. “He says he knows, but he gives a different answer each time you ask him. Sometimes he infected himself on purpose, sometimes he’s possessed, sometimes he doesn’t remember, sometimes the things he’s saying don’t make sense, literal word salad. Officials thought he was fucking with them at first, doing it all on purpose, but after a while he was declared clinically insane. Given how emaciated he was when they finally caught him and how long he’d been in such a bad state.. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t think he actually knows what happened. He’s a little more coherent when he talks about it now, but most of his time wandering around spreading sculk he doesn’t really remember. Still, he’s in such bad shape still that the sculk is all that’s keeping him alive. If it’s gone, he’ll die, so all that can be done is to keep the rest of it at bay. Wouldn’t be such a big deal for Cub to die if everyone didn’t want to know what the hell happened to him and how to stop that from ever happening again.”

Cleo shrugged. “Oddly enough, it doesn’t follow its typical course of infection up here. When Cub and I were still being held on Earth, he had to be constantly managed, but in space.. It’s weird. Cub says it knows it can’t go anywhere up here. It knows spreading is pointless. Cub thinks it’s sentient. He also says it talks to him, but will deny that in the same breath, so take with that what you will.”

“That’s. Frightening.”

“Yeah, not something you have to worry about up here though. If you ever get sick, you’ll be fine once the loop resets. I would highly recommend getting tested for sculk before you go back home though, you do not want to track that shit somewhere it’s not supposed to be.”

“Noted.” Scar was quiet for a moment, reflecting silently. He couldn’t say he was very surprised to learn Cub was clinically insane, at least according to the humans, but there was something else here, something that pulled at an instinct so deeply ingrained inside of him that it was starting to make some of his own behavior he couldn’t quite explain before now much clearer. “So he’s sick? He’s been sick all this time?

“Oh,” Cleo sounded surprised by the question. “Yeah. It’s alright though, he doesn’t mind very much.”

“Does it hurt?”

Cleo quieted. The silence lingered, answer enough, but she spoke regardless, “Yeah. At the start, no, it doesn’t hurt, but Cub.. Yeah. It hurts.” Softer, they continued, “And I don’t know if I believe him when he says he’s okay. But he’d like me to, and I won’t take that away from him. You’d be doing him a favor not to push on the subject.”

Scar nodded, solemn in his quiet. He was pretty sure he knew. He knew Cub was sick. An instinctual kind of knowing, the kind all catfolk had, the kind that drew them to each other, licked each other’s foreheads, wished them well. Grooming didn’t fix you, but in many ways there was a comfort to it. An affirmation, that no matter who you were, what you’d done, the pain would ease. Everyone did it. Everyone had that deep, instinctual drive to lay their muzzles to the sick, groom down their ruffled fur, or at the very least, touch briefly to their forehead, lick once or twice behind the ears, then disappear.

Scar was not as sickly as he was as a kitten, but he had his bad weeks, hazy, half asleep, fever ridden and shivering. Between fever dreams and mild hallucinations, he remembered his clan, all of them, one by one, stopping by. Cats he hardly talked with leaving quick condolences, others he was more familiar with staying longer, grooming thoroughly. The mercenaries, as much as he didn’t get along with many of them, were always around longest. More than once, he’d fallen into deep sleep from Grian’s diligent groom, working between his shoulders, under his arms, all places that were too tense or likely to matt. They never spoke to each other then. A temporary truce, and a favor Scar would return if the time ever came.

LOOP N5 B

It was a while before Scar returned to the safe room, and the act of doing so was a point of great anxiety; every single hair on his body set entirely on end as he followed Cleo through the hall. Cleo had said it was fine, it was okay, Cub knew he would be coming and he wanted Scar to come, Cleo had made sure, but Scar was so afraid and guilty and worried and everything else bad that he wasn’t sure how he could stand to face Cub.

Cleo called him cowardly when he voiced those concerns. Scar was many things, but a coward was not one of them. He marched forward.

The room was still dark when Scar entered for the first time in a full human day; he wondered if the lights had ever been turned on, or if Cub had just slept the whole time. Either way, Cub wasn’t asleep now. Scar’s anxiety reached its height as the sheets shifted and Cub looked up, hair mussed and eyes dark.

And then Cub started to laugh.

Laugh may have been a strong word; Cub’s voice was completely shot, it probably hurt like hell to make any noise at all, but he was certainly chuckling, chest bouncing and mouth open, like he couldn’t quite get enough air for how funny this- ‘whatever’ seemed to be. Scar was more than a little frightened, looking around with great urgency before turning to Cleo who, to his horror, was also trying to hold back and chuckle and not doing a very good job!

“What?” the accusation came out like a squawk, Scar looking back and forth in a frenzied panic, “What is it!?”

Cub made some kind of gesture with his hands, bringing them together before throwing them away from each other, mouthing a word Scar did not understand given the Human he didn’t speak.

“What does that mean. Cleo!” Scar whipped around to face her, “What does that mean!?”

They waved him off, shaking their head, “It’s nothing, Scar. You’re just a little.. a little poofy. That’s all. You’re all puffed up. Even under your clothes it’s- everything’s sticking up everywhere-“ she broke off, giggling.

Scar gaped. “-OF ALL THE RUDEST THINGS TO SAY TO ME!” He couldn’t believe it, literally struck speechless for a moment- they were laughing at him! He was distressed and they were laughing! It was a psychosomatic response to puff out, it wasn’t his fault, and actually, mercenaries were quite good at controlling the impulse under stressful situations, it made you look bad to get all worked up under in training- AND IT WAS VERY RUDE TO LAUGH!!! Apparently his exclamation did not sway Cleo nor Cub, both of them only seeming to wheeze in earnest, Cub in particular looking pained as he held a hand to his throat.

Scar flushed, struggling mentally to will his fur flat, but he was too wired, too unprepared, so he used force, smoothing his ruffled shoulders and chest with feverish grooming.

“Mic! Your mic, Scar!” Cleo yelped through their giggling, but Scar wasn’t too concerned about the feedback right now, making sure to give the microphone a few petty licks for their listening pleasure. Like a schoolchild, Cleo squealed, and Scar continued on, vindicated until his shoulders were grabbed, strong arms wrapping around his neck and groping for the mic. Scar let loose a squeal of his own, spinning in circles with Cleo howling on his back. If the feedback from Scar’s grooming was bad, it couldn’t have been anything compared to this, the mic getting hit and brushed and rubbing against all sorts of clothes and skin.

And then the noise stopped. Scar blinked, Cleo falling off him in a similarly stunned silence, like the idea that their actions had consequences was completely novel.

“Hello?” Scar said. Two blank stares returned him before a slow, sly smile slid across Cleo’s face.

“Meeow.”

“Oh no. No. No no you are not allowed to do that. Stop at once.”

Cleo did not stop, seeming to have quite a lot of fun mocking him and his language. Scar hissed at her, then jumped when Cub hissed back, unraveling immediately into a weak coughing fit.

“Ow- fuck.”

Apparently, there was no funnier thing in the world to Cleo, who just about had tears at the corner of her eyes, meowing in that horrid Human accent and making a complete fool of herself. Scar made sure to tell her so, only to have her parrot back at him and- no, Scar would not tolerate any more of this behavior!

He pounced, bowling Cleo over completely (humans were so unsteady on their feet!) and batting her five times in quick succession, claws not entirely sheathed because she deserved it. Cleo yelled, shielding their face with their arms, but none could be protected from Scar’s great and righteous wrath, bap bap bap bap bap five times more!

“Scar!” Cleo shrieked, still laughing, which Scar was determined to change! You, zombie Cleo, sentenced to another beating ten times more! So long as you enjoy it your punishment will never end!

Scar felt a tug at his belt, looking up in brief confusion then utter terror when he saw Cub behind him, holding one of his guns. Slowly, Scar removed all four of his paws from Cleo’s (lightly scratched) face. Cub chuckled, shaking his head.

“For the record. Normal again.” And then he shot himself. Scar gaped, fur spiking all the way back up again.

“Why- Why- Why did he do that-? Why?” Scar’s words held more breath than substance, horror edging every note. Not that Cleo knew what Scar said, but they could probably guess. When Scar tore his gaze away, Cleo couldn’t have looked anything more than mild.

“You haven’t seen that before?” she sounded surprised, like this was just an average Tuesday for her, which, maybe it was. “Guess he could have been a little less dramatic about it. You’ll get used to it.”

SCAR DID NOT WANT TO GET USED TO THAT.

and so a few more loops pass in relative normalcy, as normal as living and dying and killing your friends when they piss you off goes. it is normal, though. whether or not that’s a good thing is up for debate, but ultimately irrelevant, unless the participants themselves decide to make it so.

Regardless, now.

LOOP 16

[bnhaobservation]

How do u feel about Endeavor being back on the battle field? I'm all cool for a good fight, but I thought it was a bit strange since his biggest flaw was prioritizing hero work over his family. I mean, I get why Shoto and everyone else is there, but he just sticks out to me. Granted he is the number one hero, but my point still stands. Seems counter productive given literally everything his arc is about.

Well…

As someone who has written a fanfic in which Enji takes a period of leave from work to stay with his son and support his physical and psychological healing you might picture my first reaction to ‘Enji goes back on the battlefield while Touya is taken away to receive medical care’ had me think “NO! I WANTED HIM TO STAY WITH HIS SON! I WANTED HIM TO PROVE TO HIS FAMILY THEY MATTER MORE THAN WORK!” but the problem is, of course, I’ve a western mentality which prioritize family over work while in a Japanese story at most you can judge them of equal value or prioritize work (in the past you would have to prioritize work now things are shifting so you can archive a balance).

Part of the HUGE problem we have with the Todoroki family is that it is a family with some strong Japanese views which clash a lot with western ones so that we often end up disappointed with what’s going on with it when it’s actually much better than what it looks to us.

Now this is also the moment in which I make a PREMISE. While I’ve a general understanding of Japanese beliefs due to reading and researching on it and know how those beliefs are represented in manga and anime (often in an excessive, over the top way to deliver a point and not in a perfect reproduction of how they are in real life), most of those beliefs are changing and, anyway, I’m not Japanese so don’t take me as 100% reliable. What follows is what I managed to learn and understand as well but I’m just a person and I don’t own The Truth so I might have made mistakes.

Also this is complicate and would require a much longer meta. For simplicity sake I’ll try to summarize things so I apologize in advantage if things come out unclear. Feel free to ask again if something really sounds too messy to be understandable.

So…

I’ve discussed about it in another post but in the ’70, ’80 a father like Enji would be considered a model father in Japan. This kind of view is shifting so BNHA actually criticizes what Enji does, but not as hard as the western audience would like because… it’s a recent shift so, while Enji has to prove he’s going to be a better father… for the Japanese audience he doesn’t have to put as much effort as the western audience feels he needs to put in it (never mentioning sometimes the manga forgets that what Enji did is bad and has other characters do the same without criticizing them at all…).

There’s another problem in addition to this.

Chap 302 and part of the chapters that followed disappointed many because while the family reflected on their behavior… they didn’t seem sorry enough for what they did to Touya, they talked about fighting him, stopping him but not about saving him, were focused on apologizing to Hawks, to society but they hardly felt like they were understanding his pain. They don’t try to reach for him emotionally, showing him empathy and understanding. Enji claiming he’ll look after Touya after he wins All for One is more an Enji claiming he’ll make sure he’ll take responsibility for his son, will make sure he won’t trouble society further than that he finally will give him the emotional attention Touya needed. Enji will understand he has never looked at Touya (as in paid attention to him, tried to understand him), that he has to apologize to his son only short before he’ll realize his son will try to nuke Japan and Rei will also do so when she’ll see them both about to explode.

That’s because for a Japanese audience the biggest sin Endeavor committed isn’t abusing his child to the point he did what he did… but to have a child who did what he did. As Shouto said Dabi is their family’s crime/sin, meaning the family isn’t supposed to see him as a person they’ve mistreated, but as a sin they’ve committed against society, a sin of which Shouto too, Shouto who, poor kid, had no hands in Touya’s mistreating, is blamed by society (I’ve discussed about this in another post), he is punished for it by having to fight Touya (chap 352). And also note how Horikoshi expresses the change in views.

While having Shouto (and Enji) fight and kill Touya as a punishment for what Touya did to society would have been perfectly fine in the past, Enji makes clear he can’t kill his son no matter what and class A expresses sympathy for Shouto, they find unfair the fact he has to fight his brother, even the journalist who wanted to demand the head of the Villains cut herself off when she realizes she’s asking Enji to kill his own son.

So it makes sense Horikoshi had to absolutely send Enji (and Shouto) back to fight All for One.

It’s not because Enji has to play Hero again, but because he and his family are considered directly responsible for Touya’s crimes against society and therefore they have to atone by giving their all to save society even when this is asking a lot from them.

While most of the western audience want Enji to atone toward his family (and some don’t even believe at this point there’s something he can do to be forgiven), the Japanese audience want him to atone also toward society for the damage Touya caused.

And note how Horikoshi went at it by having Natsuo, the one who was the most vocal critic of how Enji neglected his children and caused Touya’s ‘death’, be the one who tells his father to go fight, to leave them behind, that it’s better if he does because he would be of no use to them there, his family having suffered enough heat already so he can go fight. Enji goes to fight after having ‘permission’ from his family, represented by Natsuo only merely because we know differently from Rei and Fuyumi Natsuo resented him for his neglect so if Natsuo says it's okay if Enji goes we as readers are meant to assume it is since for Enji's family it's okay if he goes (the fact that we ultimately agree or disagree though remains up to us).

Anyway the message here is that Horikoshi is trying to archive balance, to have Enji give equal importance to his family and his work but, at the same time, have Natsuo also accepting that what Enji does as Endeavor is important.

Enji being willing to die to be with his son and Natsuo accepting his father can’t stay with them (even if they’re seriously hurt) but has to go back to fight because his work is important too because if All for One wins they’re all lost are two faces of how Horikoshi is trying to archive balance between ‘work is important’ and ‘family is important’.

In a western story, we probably wouldn’t content ourselves with this sort of balance. We had to see Enji neglect his family for too long in favor of his work, to have emotional ‘balance’ we would now need to have the story allowing Enji to neglect his work in favor of his family because the lesson here would need to be he should always have prioritized his family and never neglect it.

If he were to do something like leaving his family to go back to work, no matter how important that work is, we’ll expect him to be punished by, for example, losing his family which he has neglected one too many times.

Think at the movie “Devil’s advocate”, when Kevin Lomax neglects his wife for his works he ends up losing it. Choosing his work over her is represented as selfishness, caused by his sin of vanity, not as the right action because work is important.

In “Baby boom” J. C. Wiatt’s choice to leave her old work to spend more time taking care of her adoptive daughter is pointed as the right one. In doing so she’ll manage to start a better activity and even find love.

In “Kramer vs. Kramer” Ted Kramer’s attempts at taking care of his son which lead him to neglect and therefore lose his job and end up with one that pay him less is rewarded as ultimately he’ll be the one who’ll get custody over his child.

In “The family man” a man is lead in an alternative reality to learn that being with the woman he love and having a family with her is much better than having a work that allows him to gain millions.

We generally make movies in which work is less important than family, that neglecting work in favor of prioritizing family will lead to a reward and the opposite will lead to punishment.

In BNHA instead the goal is to have Enji view his family and his work as equally important… which is a BIG step forward considering in the past a Japanese father wasn’t expected to care for his children and nurture them (that was a mother’s job), that his duty was just to work and bring money at home and cultivate relations with his boss and coworkers by drinking with them in the evening and manga and anime tended to remark this depicting stories in which the children were learning to appreciate how it was right their fathers would neglect them in favor of their work, because their work was surely more important than be with them.

Even when criticizing the father’s actions the story would go out of its way to depict the father’s work as fundamental for the salvation of the universe and the son would ultimately forgive the father for the neglect. As I said it’s an over the top representation. Plenty of fathers in real life don’t have a work that requires them to fight for the survival of the universe and could genuinely spare some time for their kids but stories presented them as doing as such so as to pass the message fathers’ jobs are important and growing up means accepting this and loving them anyway and putting aside the fact you felt neglected.

Of course I’m not Japanese, I live in a country that recognizes a child’s need for attention from both parents as one of the child’s primary needs, that if this need isn’t satisfied the child can face psychological damage and the father is considered neglectful. The ‘but he’s saving the world’ doesn’t cancel or excuse the fact with his neglect he’s harming his child.

So back to the topic at hand… I understand why Horikoshi sent Enji (and Shouto) back to fight All for One, and I understand why Natsuo had to be the one who sent Enji to do so, basically giving Enji the pass to leave his family behind. I understand the way Horikoshi is trying to represent this represent a positive shift from a past view that was much, much worse… or, if you prefer much, much more different from ours.

Does it make me happy?

Honestly, despite understanding why Horikoshi chose to handle things in this way… I WANTED TO SEE ENJI BE WITH HIS FAMILY, FINALLY PRIORITIZING THEM. Actually I wanted all the Todoroki be together, which means Shouto too. I wanted them to have a moment a little longer than what they had for a reunion.

But maybe there will be time for this later.

Actually it’s possible even Touya will go back on the battlefield (as well as Himiko, Spinner and Compress) because, although All for One had told Tenko/Tomura he chose nothing, Tenko/Tomura actually chose the League. They were his friends, the ones he wanted to protect and be a Hero for. So it’s possible it will be up to them to call Tenko/Tomura back, to also BE THERE as ‘Heroes’ who’re there to save Tenko/Tomura.

If the League were also to be involved in defeating All for One (and therefore indirectly protecting society) it would probably easier for them to have a better ending. After all it’s a shonen trope that if a bad guy/adversary joins forces with the Hero against the main enemy then they’re kind of absolved from their crimes.

It is, of course, as unreal as it can get, but in manga it has always worked just fine (think at how in a big classic like “Dragon Ball” the enemies that change side are easily accepted and no retribution for their past crimes is demanded [okay, sometimes they die first and then get resurrected because “Dragon Ball” had always been big in its resurrecting policy]) so Horikoshi might decide to deploy it here as well. We’ll see.

In the end, as much as I’m more involved in the Todoroki family than in the rest, this isn’t the Todoroki family manga and the battle against All for One has to take precedence.

But hey, if Horikoshi or someone else were to decide to make a spin off about the TodoFam I would surely buy it!

Said all this I apologize if it felt confusing, I remind everyone this is just my opinion and since I'm not Horikoshi it has the same worth as everyone else's opinion and I thank you for your ask!

I love to talk about the Todofam so thank you for giving me the chance to do so!

[merakiui]

I feel like the Noble Bell Compound is very religious and cult like. It's gotta be rough to be a woman there, like handmaid's tale vibes

Terribly rough. T_T and you are so right. It's extremely cult-like. It's the situation in which the leader (Rollo) comes in to help when all hope seems lost and everyone thinks he's an absolute saint when he builds the compound up with sensibility and sturdier foundations and walls, as well as fostering such crooked ideals. A lot of people within the compound look up to him, treat him like he's some savior or a prophet, and Rollo always seems to know best. His two righthand men are so blindly faithful to him, and Rollo appears so kind and fair with everyone, including those within his close-knit circle. He's just so forgiving, so sweet. How could anyone distrust him? How could he lead anyone astray?

The entire compound feels like a utopia amidst so much dystopia, but the people who reside within don't see what lies beneath the compound in underground dungeons, where misbehaving nuisances are kept and silenced. Anyone who tries to question things, who tries to speak out against the little paradise Rollo has manufactured so dearly, so carefully, so graciously, conveniently vanishes to who-knows-where. No one questions anything because Rollo always has a perfect lie at the ready to keep the masses calm and collected.

Being a woman in the compound is not fun. At all. :( you're treated warmly (at first) just so you'll be tricked into a false sense of security, so you'll be more likely to accept the conditions in which you will be kept (and used). But the longer you spend amidst so many other brides, the clearer it becomes that you are not in equal standing with the others in this compound and Rollo certainly doesn't seem to think you are anything more than livestock meant for reproduction. However terrible his views are, Rollo still ensures the women are given adequate protection and care. After all, he isn't a monster (so he claims). You'll live comfortably (not as comfortably as those who are more privileged, but it's better than nothing), and you're given healthy meals each morning, afternoon, and night. You live like anyone else would, but there are a few rules that permit only to you.

For one, every woman within the compound must remain a virgin. If you don't bleed or feel any pain/discomfort the first time your husband takes you, you're seen as impure, a liar, a filthy slut. And when you're labeled as such, you're treated as such. Rollo conducts pussy inspections to make sure everyone is healthy and oh-so-pure (how he gleans that from running his gloved fingers along your folds or even forcing two inside your tight warmth just to see you squirm, you have no idea. He always spends extra time examining you; the brides gossip over this, eagerly insisting with hushed whispers that the compound leader fancies you. You shudder to think someone like Rollo would ever have his eye on you.)

Additionally, every bride must always wear white. It's a soft color, the symbolism of purity. You're meant to be demure and obedient things, subservient to the men who will choose from the lot of you as if you're nothing more than candy in a jar, eaten as easily as you are discarded. Every morning, it is mandatory that the brides stand before the compound leader and, in unison, list their vows, all of which have been stamped into your memory like a bad tattoo. Every morning, you promise you are pure, insist that your only hopes and dreams are to provide for the compound, to be good mothers, to be good brides, to remain untouched by sin, to remember these vows and hold them close to your heart. Essentially, by participating in this daily routine, you strip away parts of yourself and replace them with the parts the compound wants you to have, and by verbalizing them so often you'll begin to believe them, especially when everyone around you shares the same opinions and feelings on the matter. It is the finest form of brainwashing. And to make matters worse, to cement these ideals that have been practically engraved into you, Rollo always applauds the lot of you, smiles with so much satisfaction, praises everyone for such pleasant mindsets.

Every month his voice seems less like the harshest, grating static and more like a heavenly choir because, for all you've endured and will continue to endure, he is still the only beacon of light in this dark, dismal world.

[council-of-beetroot]

I had a dream I published this without making it anonymous lmao

I like ameliet only if it's done well. In my own family, people like my great great grandmother came to America at the age of 16 alone so I have that connection to the eastern European immigrant experience that Tolys has.

Seeing my last post this is hypocritical but it's not like I care that much because I read anything and will still enjoy it.

Common things I see in ameliet that I dislike

Alfred being interested in Tolys' culture

Especially during this era, assimilation was expected of any immigrants at the time. I don't see Alfred learning Lithuanian or learning Lithuanian cooking or whatever because all that was seen as something you left at the docks the moment you stepped foot in America as an immigrant during those times

The 1920s itself

I know it's canon but I personally in my fics have the outsourcing somewhere between 1890-1915. This is because in 1921 the us restricted immigration based on race and ethnicity so that the only people that could really move to America were Canadians or Western Europe such as the UK or Sweden. But I won't complain since it is canon.

Alfred as Tolys' saviour

I think this is just one annoys me because America has very little to do with say things like Lithuanian independence and the like. Also the way I see it depicted often renders Lithuania completely powerless and unable to lift himself up.

Now onto the other thoughts

I want to see more in outsourcing fics someone calling Tolys polish or Russian as at the time you could be labelled on papers as Russian despite not being ethnically Russian because your country was a part of Russia. For example my Great Great Grandfather's records are listed in the Russians to America files.

if it's the 1920s even better because you can have someone calling Tolys a Pollack and he gets pissed off, but not because it was meant as an insult but because how dare they mistake him for ugh a pole. 1920s is like the worst points for Tolys and Lithuania.

More red scare stuff too please

Tolys confronting the difference between his own experiences living with Alfred and his countrymen who are living in America working backbreaking jobs in poverty with little support. Yeah my great great grandfather ignacy for example was a miner upon immigrating to America. The work was literally back breaking in his case and he fractured his dorsal vertibrae which is incredibly painful but he managed to live with it for nearly 18 years until he got septicemia and died at 52. American dream amiright? There were instances where immigrants who tried to unionize were met with violence. I just think it would be interesting to see tolys grapple with this as he knows what it is like to work in a hostile environment.

Cold war era for example, I think Tolys would also have to grapple with the fact that he has romanticized America like literally as such a great place and Alfred is so much better than Ivan. So then when say Alfred does equally dumb stuff Liet finds it hard to take in.

1992 Barcelona Olympics these two and basketball. Read my basketball fic okay

Tolys thinking that certain things are normal American things as he doesn't realize it's literally something only Alfred does

The Feliks and The Baltics thinking Liet is an Expert about america but his knowledge no longer useful as it's been how many years. Same with slang

Tolys sabotaging his own relationship with Alfred because he thinks Alfred will manipulate him or end up hurting him like past relationships.

Tolys realizing Alfred's naïvete like omfg this is so good. Also Alfred turning to Tolys as almost a mentor or source of advice because Alfred on a nation scale is quite young

Also Alfred not grasping the reality of his actions because he has never been in a place where he has lost that power or been at the mercy of others while powerless. But Tolys is like wait a minute

Tolys having known both Alfred and Ivan and seeing what makes them different and quite similar

The awkwardness of moving in with someone you don't know well

Here is my fic that has ameliet as the backdrop of the fic

[nothingxs]

FFXIV Write // On Cloud Nine

The feeling started with Vex, probably. Meeting her out there in Horizon, when she was still gathering her bearings. She wasn't really sure if she wanted to let anyone else in, yet here was this woman, boisterous and confident, shooting her way through her guard. And she found love again.

It happened again with Renny, when she realized she had found someone to whom empathy and kindness did not come naturally—yet chose those things, anyway, in her decision to become a healer, even with her difficulties handling aether. She was not expecting to fall in love again even once. It happening twice was a stunning occurrence.

And again, when she reconnected with Lia. They had been friends, on and off again, traveling close to each other from time to time but never truly managing to really talk things through. Then they recognized the pains of war in each other, and developed a sisterly bond.

Then she started making friends again. One of her staunchest, Spader, whom she met by chance at first as she was invited with others to a pool, and then continually kept meeting her again and again in curious, odd places. A woman with mysteries that could fill the entirety of that top hat she wore everywhere.

Zana, another one she met when she met Spader. Not perhaps her closest friend, but she remembered setting her up to have reliable-enough work, and they both worked regularly enough guarding and escorting the local caravans that they learned to trust each other. An Zana was always weak to the pineapple ponzecake Celica liked to buy.

The folks she met at the Echo's End, many of whom impacted her in many different ways. People like Iyrnfatyr. Like Naheal and Y'shara. Opponents she crossed swords with. S'kaya, whose name still left a bittersweet taste on her lips. Maia-Lea, who was the rightful champion of the Echo's End, though she had... borrowed Celica's body to do it, for lack of a better term. Still, attributed the victory to Celica and gave her the credit besides—however incorrectly.

The Unsung, folk whom she'd meet and aid from time to time, but did not get to know until the stakes had been raised much more highly over the years in the kind of jobs they found themselves doing. Funny, how she considered them closer to acquaintances than friends at first, and now she saw them almost as close as she saw her platoon during the wars.

There was Redgar, whom she identified with first, due to their penchant for similar outfits and hair similar to her own; as rough or rougher as she is, who shared hurt in different but familiar ways. Imogen, with her fiery personality and rough exterior; driven as hell, immeasurably loyal and carrying a heavy chip on her shoulder. Cain, whose countenance always kept Celica guessing, who seemed wise beyond his years in both how he spoke and carried himself—and who brewed phenomenal coffee and came up with curious nicknames.

There was Charlette, who would always fuss and care for others, who always seemed to be trying to analyze and learn from everything she came across; she felt like some might incorrectly think she's somewhat of a busybody, but she had never found her anything other than caring. There was Yoki, a woman who seemed maybe a little aloof at first, who had issues with her aether—and yet Celica often found herself stunned by her incisive insight on a matter and her determination to see things through; she often felt she shared much in common with her.

Luca, who always seemed a little flighty and a little quiet, but who she eventually found to be carrying a heavy, massive weight on her shoulders—a grief so deeply familiar to her own. And yet she saw in her equal parts both fire like her own, and the wind to see her soaring into the skies. She often wondered which she would turn out to be, in the end.

Then fortune turned around for Celica and she found herself the owner of both a building and the plot of land it sat on (thanks, of course, to Vex wishing to own property and needing someone to maintain it), she decided to build something of it. Over time, she and Vex had built what would be the foundations of the Dusk and Dawn, a place that sought to replicate the feeling of the Echo's End with much more bombast, presentation and panache.

When Celica and Lia could not work out what the issue was with the terminal in the Dusk and Dawn, they chanced upon meeting an incredibly beautiful engineer, R'das, who was both talented and also happened to specialize in precisely the thing she needed to get her plans for the Dusk and Dawn running. Yet another meeting that would once again change Celica's life, with R'das and Celica hitting it off almost immediately with love following not too far behind. Insane, that a thing that she thought wouldn't happen at all, happened not once, not twice, but three times...

With that connection, she met so many other curious folk—Arbozu, a woman who practically conquered the sea, who was bolstered by water and whom Celica often thought of as just being a being a primal of the wavekin; or she would, if she didn't spend so much time trying to slaughter them.

Sisylia, a woman of mysterious origin and whose emotions readily sent her into tears or small fits of joyous laughter; she felt like she deeply owed her after she helped R'das with a degenerative condition she had. Even with the condition tackled and a different, new and strange condition manifesting, she was ecstatic to see the improvement in R'das' health as a result.

Exi, one of the many folk she'd meet at the Bloodsands; a furious, fire-clad Viera who perhaps drank a little too much for Celica's liking, but who fought with the fury of the Sun itself and was as determined as anyone she ever met.

Cherche, the owner of Amory Investigations, who was briefly Celica's boss for a short time before they cut ties amicably, given that the two had somewhat incompatible approaches to their jobs.

When a chance meeting that she once had in Ul'dah eventually blossomed into further opportunity, she took it. She met Canta Banta, a well-connected Ul'dah socialite who helped ingratiate her just enough with higher Ul'dahn society that she no longer needed to use the name of her adopted family to navigate those spaces. Through her, she also met people like Nanono and Jojoita, her close friends.

Through her, she'd also meet Cota, one of her closer friends—despite the amount of grief she shovels on her; for a time, she was Canta's bodyguard, and eventually became Lia's girlfriend. She met Etugen, who she found out later, shared a teacher with, as they both learned red magic from the same man.

She met Ekaka Goldbreaker, who would eventually go on to become her Dark Knight teacher, having sensed great, untapped potential in her—years of packaged and unresolved grief that Celica had yet to truly address, given voice and used as a way to broaden her horizons and expand her heart.

When the Dusk and Dawn opened, many new people started to enter her life. Mealia, the curious and affable Elezen woman who would eventually start to work for the Dusk and Dawn as well. Folks like Kerali, a strong fist-fighter who frequented the Bloodsands and who was both green and blue; a fun contrast to her own red. Utayuu, who she'd known briefly from the Spearsong, but made the effort to speak with more as they both started to frequent each other's venues. Alice, a technology maven with a penchant for dangerous things.

There was Ashen, the mercenary who Celica always found difficult to talk to despite her insightful nature. Aeris, one of Spader's friends who became one of hers, who was a monk that was fond of sparring and enjoyed helping at the Dusk and Dawn where she could. Viryen and Thau, two hunters who would often test their mettle at the Dusk and Dawn proper, with Thau even taking the title of champion in the past.

There was Edrich, a curious and strange Viera person who once showed up to help heal combatants after the fight in the Dusk and Dawn, having responded to an ad and quickly making themselves indispensable. There was Umbrelle, the owner of a bar Celica liked to frequent from time to time when she wasn't feeling too busy—and who often offered to help at the Dusk and Dawn, herself.

There was Anam, another person she'd met from R'das. They were odd, quirky, whimsical, and something was definitely just off about them, in a good way. Perhaps she recognized it because they were so similar to her.

And when some of the Unsung started to come by, her connections with them strengthened, even as more people started to call the CETEA home. New members of the Castaways, who would basically be under Sven and Adra's (mostly Sven's) eyes, like Osric. She always found he reminded her of her old friend Dameron—particularly with his propensity for lifting things with no warning, just like that.

But there were new members too, or at least new to her. Senca, the incomprehensible woman who worshiped the Maker, who she recognized by the mechanical whirring of her devices and her stoic, extremely focused demeanor—and need for efficiency/

And then there was Gale Amante, the purple-haired whirlwind who took great care of her after a mishap onboard the CETEA and who hit it off with Celica to a frightening degree; particularly when they both admitted they saw parts of themselves in the other. She wonders if lightning really did strike a fourth time. Funny, then, that she was represented by levin.

—

It was strange to think. She always thought about the holes grief left inside of her. She never felt it get better, or get any more manageable, especially not at first. But in time, she realized... they aren't really going to go away. All she could do is hope to outgrow the hole, that it might seem manageable by comparison.

And Celica, well. She had gone out and forged not just a few, but a massive network of bonds. Friends. Lovers. Found family.

The hole was still there, inside of her. But what she'd built for herself, inadvertently or not, had helped the pain go away, and made her a happier person.

She thought about all of them, often. What did she do to deserve... this? All of this? She could never understand, but it sometimes felt like she was on cloud nine. Like she'd died and finally gone to paradise.

But she was always very adamant about how she refused to die. So this must be real.

Huh.

Might as well enjoy it, then. Enjoy the peace and the love, for as long as it lasts.

She hoped she'd have her whole lifetime to do it.