#nothing brings hope like listening to revolutionaries | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

smidgen-of-hotboy · 16 days

Text

Our Angel of Brahma, pt. viii

Me: I gotta slow down on updates to finish this semester with a bang. Also me: WRITING MORE!!

@ceaseless-watchers-special-girl @ananxiousgenz @gwenlena @demonic-panini @the-private-eye

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING BEGINS. BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): It doesn’t feel real. Charlie he was just– he was just here last month. Ugh. I feel like a slug. Whatever Iris has been dosing me with I can’t stand. It’s making me sick. I need to eat. I can’t stomach anything though. I am hungry. But I can’t bring myself to eat. It is a vicious cycle. Iris bothered me again about trying to eat, and when I made the comment that I would sooner die from choking on vomit than starvation, they shut up and walked off. Serves them fucking right. Mrs. Camilla gave me my comms back. She… hugged me. Embraced me. If there was anything left of me, I might have cried. But there’s nothing of me. Nothing left to me. My revolution is dead. My parents are dead. Charlie is… dead. (SHAKING GASP) SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.

SOUND: COMMS BEEPS AGAIN. RECORDING BEGINS. BARID (REVOLUTIONARY): Say that again. IRIS: Excuse me? BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): Say what you just told me, again. IRIS: Okay… I said, “You can continue to lie here, that’s fine, but I will drag you into tomorrow. And the next day, and the day after that.” BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): Why? IRIS: Why? Because you have to? BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): No, I don’t. You won’t let me go out and do dangerous things, you don’t acknowledge me throughout the day. I don’t have any friends left or any family left. You don't care about me. You feel obligated to stay because of a loose promise you made with my dad. (A LONG, DRAWN OUT PAUSE OF SILENCE. BABIES LAUGHTER CAN BE HEARD IN THE BACKGROUND) IRIS: Baird… I have never met someone say something, so… egregiously, arrogant, ignorant, and downright selfish. You don’t think I care about you? You don’t think I give a shit about you? I’m hurt. I’m truly hurt. I’m sorry I can’t bring back the dead. I’m sorry I’m not dead. I’m sorry your best friend is dead. I’m sorry I’m sticking around because I do give a shit about you. I’m sorry your parents are dead. And I’m sorry I can’t be your fucking parent. (IRIS LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY) Is that what you want? You want me to be your fucking parent? BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): No. IRIS: Then what the fuck do you want from me? And don’t tell me you want me to go away. Cause I’m not going anywhere. You’re all I have left, dammit. BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): I want… I want… (BAIRD’S VOICE CRACKS) I want my mom– (BAIRD BEGINS TO SOB. IRIS SIGHS) IRIS: Oh– come here. (FABRIC RUSTLING. BAIRD CONTINUES TO SOB) I’m sorry, Baird. That was– uncalled for. That was mean. I’m sorry. I forget your just a kid, I’m sorry. BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): You– you keep saying– saying that. IRIS: I know. I don’t think there’s anything else I can say… Oh, you poor mess. Where’s your comms? I have something I need you to hear now, and I want you to be able to listen back to it when you need to. (BAIRD PASSES THE COMMS OFF TO IRIS) I’m not going to be your parent, Baird. I promised Cyrus that I would look after you because he loved you. I’m going to look after you because I need you. Cyrus gave me hope when I had none. He made me believe in the revolution. I thought I would die before I lived to see past forty. But here I am. Three more years. And I don’t know what’s gonna happen to Brahma. Our future is uncertain. But that will always be. My hope for you, Baird, is to get you to where I am. I want you to see past forty. I want you to be alive. And the only way I know to ensure that, is if I drag you into tomorrow, and the next day, and the day after that. If you die, what becomes of Charlie’s legacy? What about your parents’? I know you can’t think of finding the light, or a will to live right now. And I know you hate me. That’s fine. You can hate me for the rest of your life, I’m still going to be here to make sure you live longer than me. Your voice is going to outlive all of us, Baird. Charlie believed that. And I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure that happens. (IRIS SIGHS) I love you, Baird. I can’t be your parent, but I hope you’ll let me take care of you. We’ll take everything together, one day at a time. One step after another. That’s all we can do right now. (BAIRD WHEEZES AND COUGHS. THEY SNIFFLE) BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): Okay… okay. Iris? IRIS: Yeah? BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): I’m not a kid. IRIS: No, you’re not. BAIRD (REVOLUTIONARY): And Iris? (IRIS HUMS) I think I’m hungry. IRIS: Then let’s eat. Shall we? SOUND: COMMS BEEPS. RECORDING ENDS.

- How many times did Baird listen back to this recording? How much did it stick with them? Because clearly in the Decade recording, Baird is feeling better. They’re alive. He’s somewhat(?) thriving (as much as he can on Brahma). This recording would explain why though in that recording Iris is still around. This recording was the start of a mutual agreeance.

- Even if Baird is dead today, Iris and Charlie did it. They got Baird’s voice out to someone else. (HOW???) And I’m going to do my part, and I’m gonna get it out even further.

- UPDATE: Frannie’s friend emailed me with a list of every documented Baird in the galaxy born within the last 60 years. Half of them are already dead. I don’t know if this Baird is dead today. The New Kinshasan Threat was almost 30 years ago? It’s very hard to keep track of when Baird and the others all made these recordings. I’ll keep the list just in case, but if what Baird said is true in the first recording “Belief” then I probably won’t stand a chance to find any records of them anywhere.

#out of curiosity i checked the word count on this project so far #and we've hit a little over 8k #very pleased with this hoenstly.#our angel of brahma #private eye's keys go jingle jangle #the penumbra podcast #the penumbra fanfic #a hotboy's writing

16 notes · View notes

anonymousewrites · 3 months

Text

Logos and Pathos (Book 3) Chapter Nineteen

TOS! Spock x Empath! Reader

Chapter Nineteen: Arrogant Lord

Summary: Spock, Kirk, and (Y/N) go to a hospital for the mentally ill but find that the patients have taken over.

Captain’s Log: The Enterprise is orbiting Elba II, a planet with a poisonous atmosphere where the Federation maintains a psychiatric hospital for the few remaining criminally insane in the galaxy. We are bringing a revolutionary new medicine to them—a medicine which the Federation hopes will eliminate the more harmful mental illnesses that have never had treatment before. I am transporting down with Mr. Spock and Mx. (L/N), and we’re delivering the medicine to Dr. Donald Cory, the governor of the colony.

The trio materialized in front of the government, and Kirk smiled, stepping out.

“Donald, good to see you,” said Kirk, extending a hand.

“Governor,” said Spock.

(Y/N) smiled in greeting. Cory’s emotions were bright and nearly searingly warm. It was an almost aggressive positivity.

“You don’t know what a treat this is for me,” said Cory. “It’s been too long since I’ve had company, Jim.” He clicked a button. “The force field’s bac in place now.” He smiled jovially. “That means you three are trapped here, and I’m not accepting any excuses for your not dining with me.”

“We’d be delighted,” said Kirk.

“Governor, you indicated one additional inmate since our last visit, making a total of fifteen,” said Spock formally. “Is that correct?” At the same time, he handed over a cannister.

“It is,” said Cory, taking the cannister. “The rehabilitation program isn’t progressing too well, and I have my doubts about the effectiveness of this medicine, too.”

“Why, Donald, are you becoming such a pessimist?” joked Kirk.

Cory laughed, but something shot slightly through his emotions before the happiness, and (Y/N) blinked at the fluctuation before brushing it aside since it was common for emotions to shift like waves all the time.

“I’m afraid I have,” said Cory.

“A total of fifteen incurable out of billions is not what I would call an excessive figure,” said Spock.

“Who is the new patient?” asked (Y/N).

“Garth,” said Cory. He pressed a button, and a photo of a man in a dark uniform appeared on a screen. “Garth of Izar, a former starship captain.”

“When I was a cadet, at the Academy, his exploits were required reading,” said Kirk.

“I remember that, too,” agreed (Y/N).

“He was one of my heroes,” murmured Kirk. “I’d like to see him, Donald.”

“Of course,” said Cory. “Follow me.”

He headed into the hall, and Kirk, Spock, and (Y/N) went with him. He took them into a protected hall and put up another force field after they passed through. As they drew closer to the rooms of the patients, (Y/N) frowned as erratic emotions of joy, anger, and sadness hit them. They kept changing, pricking at their skin aggressively, and (Y/N) rubbed their arms.

“You’re making a mistake,” called a woman with green skin from within a cell.

“Uh, these officers are pressed for the moment, Marta,” said Cory.

“There’s nothing the matter with me,” insisted Marta, sighing dramatically. “Can’t you see just by looking at me? Can’t you tell just by listening? I’m rational.”

“What is it you want to tell us?” asked Kirk.

Marta glanced at Cory. “I can’t tell you in front of him.”

“You’re afraid to talk in front of Governor Cory?” said Kirk in confusion.

“He isn’t really Governor Cory,” whispered Marta. “That’s just it.”

Cory just laughed, and (Y/N) was surprised that not a bit of him was worried about that statement or concerned about his patient at all. “She’s been saying that for several days now. Our medical staff can’t figure out why.” He turned away and continued on through the hall. They passed by a few men of different alien species, all staring at them silently as they passed. “Here’s Garth,” said Cory when they arrived at the final cell. “He’s been unusually disturbed, and we’ve had to impose additional restraint.”

The trio peered in, and their eyes widened. The man inside the cell looked exactly like Governor Cory, except haggard and suspended near the wall.

“Cory?” said Kirk in horror and confusion. (Y/N) took a step back from the Cory that had guided them there as his emotions turned to joy upon seeing the other Cory in pain.

“Yes, Jim. I’m Cory,” said the poor man inside the cell. “He tricked you.”

The other Cory laughed wildly, and his body morphed into that of Garth. He leaned behind himself and clicked a button on his controller. The force fields of all the other rooms opened, and the other patients came out to stand beside Garth.

“You said you wanted to see me, Captain,” said Garth. He pulled out a phaser. “Well, here I am.” He fired his phaser twice, and (Y/N)’s consciousness left them.

(Y/N)’s eyes opened to Spock kneeling beside them.

“Are you alright, T’hy’la?” he asked as they sat up.

“Yeah,” said (Y/N), nodding. “How much time is passed?”

“A typical stun setting keeps people unconscious for half an hour,” said Spock.

“Then whatever Garth wants with us, he’s probably started his plan,” said (Y/N), furrowing their brow. “It’s the Enterprise he wants, right?”

Spock nodded. “He might have escaped his room and gained control of the station, but he cannot leave without a ship.”

“Then he’s unlucky that he found us,” said (Y/N). “Kirk will never let him get to the Enterprise.”

“You may say that now, but things can change,” said Garth, stepping in front of the room they were locked into.

(Y/N) and Spock stood and faced him, remaining expressionless as they faced him.

“Now, as I said earlier, you all are invited to dinner,” said Garth, smiling pleasantly but (Y/N) was all-too-aware of the aggression of all of his emotions. He was a threat for a reason.

(Y/N) and Spock exchanged looks.

“But I must insist that you come,” said Garth. He wasn’t given them a chance to argue.

Marta stepped out beside him and held the phaser so that Spock and (Y/N) didn’t try to run. They were led back to where Kirk was held.

“Why can’t I blow off just one of his ears?” said Marta.

“Stop that, Marta,” said Garth. “Mr. Spock will think we’re lacking in hostility. And we don’t want to make a scene in front of Mx. (L/N), do we?”

(Y/N) nearly sighed out loud but resigned themself to raising an eyebrow since they were not a fan of the emotions Garth had while looking at them.

“Come, Captain, it is time for dinner,” said Garth.

Kirk narrowed his eyes, but seeing his friends in danger meant that he had no choice. “How are you, Spock, (L/N)?” he asked.

“Very well, indeed. Thank you, Captain,” said Spock tensely.

“I’ve done better,” said (Y/N) with a bright smile.

“Isn’t Governor Cory joining us?” asked Kirk, looking at Garth harshly.

“No, the Governor doesn’t seem to be on the guest list,” said Garth.

“An oversight?” said Kirk coldly, annoyed.

“An intentional one,” said Garth. “Uh, the Governor’s fasting.”

“In that case, we must decline with thanks,” said Kirk.

Garth’s eyes narrowed, and his aggression grew into sharp anger.

“Don’t be a fool, Jim,” called Cory. “Go along with him.”

“Good advice, Governor,” said Garth. “Well, Captain? You’ll find we set a handsome table, and the entertainment is most enjoyable.” Garth smirked at Spock and (Y/N). “I hope everyone will find it enjoyable.”

Kirk stared coldly. “You’re very persuasive,” he sat, tone flat.

“Yes, I am. I certainly am,” said Garth.

The patients of the hospital laughed as two did the wheelbarrow and ran across the floor in the center of the semicircle of tables. Kirk, Spock, and (Y/N) sat beside one another and had to watch as the patients all enjoyed themselves and got to flaunt that they had the power in the situation. On their part, (Y/N) wasn’t enjoying the violent changes in emotions the patients displayed, swerving for searing joy to stabbing anger at a moment’s notice.

The performance ended, and Garth and Marta clapped. Garth kept staring at (Y/N), but they kept their gaze steadily on the “show” and the food in front of them since they didn’t need to see his eyes to know what he was feeling. Marta got up and ran over to their table. She leaned over in front of (Y/N) and held up a grape to them.

(Y/N) could feel Marta’s jealousy and leaned back as Garth’s flared as well. They didn’t want any part of any relationship drama between Garth and Marta.

“Get your hands off of (Y/N), you treacherous thing!” shouted Garth, and Spock reached for (Y/N)’s knee protectively as Garth’s anger flared.

Marta cackled and ran back to Garth. “Jealous!” she cried, grinning wildly.

Of both of us, which makes this so much more complicated and dangerous with a man like Garth, thought (Y/N), touching Spock’s hand in thanks for his support.

“Nonsense! I am above such things!” declared Garth pompously. “The Lieutenant is annoyed by your attentions, that’s all.”

Marta scoffed and draped herself over (Y/N). “Am I annoying you, darling?”

“I don’t need anyone’s attention,” said (Y/N) curtly, pushing Marta back.

Marta huffed and stepped back, and Garth sneered at her. (Y/N) suspected they were going to get a headache from all of the negative emotions vying for control.

“Treacherous thing,” hissed Garth. “I could have you beaten death.”

“No, you won’t!” chirped Marta, already in high spirits again. “Because I am the most beautiful woman on this planet!”

“You’re the only woman on this planet, you stupid cow,” snapped Garth.

“Well, I’m the most beautiful woman in this galaxy!” cried Marta.

“You’re repulsive!” shouted Garth.

Spock, Kirk, and (Y/N) looked at one another in exhaustion. Not only was (Y/N) getting flirted with (which was the norm but frustrating) but they were also dealing with people with no sense or logic in their actions. They acted purely out of emotion, and that was dangerous.

“I’m beautiful!” declared Marta. “And I’m intelligent, too! I write poetry, and I paint marvelous pictures, and I am wonderful dancer!”

“Lies! All lies!” said Garth. “You are the greatest liar I have ever met! Let me hear one poem you’ve written.”

“If you like!” Marta took a position in the center of the room.

As she walked, Spock spoke under his breath. “If there was a diversion, I might be able to find the control room and open the force field.”

“All we need is a few seconds because Scotty has alerted the security detail,” murmured Kirk.

“It wouldn’t be hard to get them fighting amongst themselves,” whispered (Y/N).

“Officers! Courtesy for the performer,” said Garth, gesturing to Marta.

Marta cleared her throat and began her poem. “Shall I compare thee to a summer day?”

(Y/N) and Spock exchanged a judgmental-couple look. That was Shakespeare.

“Thou art more lovely and more temperate,” said Marta. She narrowed her eyes and continued. “Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer’s lease hath all too—”

“You wrote that?” said Garth harshly.

“Yesterday, as a matter of fact,” said Marta, holding her chin high.

“It was written by an Earthman named Shakespeare a long time ago,” snapped Garth.

“Which does not alter the fact that I wrote it again yesterday!” shouted Marta in return. She turned towards the Starfleet officers and batted her eyelashes. “I think it’s one of my best poems, don’t you?”

Upon seeing her make eye-contact with (Y/N), Garth narrowed his eyes. “I may kill you with my bare hands!” Marta squealed and jumped away from him. Garth cleared his throat and composed himself. He leaned on the table of Spock, (Y/N), and Kirk. “Actually, she is a superb dancer.” Seizing upon a chance to impress the group, he said, “Marta, won’t you dance for our guests?” He narrowed his eyes when she didn’t move. “That was not a request.”

Marta stepped back into the center of the room, and music began to play, and Marta began to move to it expertly. She had masterful control of her body as she danced, and Garth carefully kept an eye on the reactions of the Starfleet officers to monitor whether or not they were enjoying.

“Marvelous, isn’t she, Captain?” said Garth, proud to show off.

We need to appease him, thought (Y/N).

“Yes, uh…incredible,” said Kirk.

“What is your reaction, Mr. Spock?” asked Garth.

“I find it mildly interesting and somewhat nostalgic if I understand the use of that word,” said Spock. In fact, he would much prefer to see (Y/N) dance since Celians had traditional dances and he knew (Y/N) was quite talented.

“ ‘Nostalgic?’ ” remarked Garth.

“Yes. It is somewhat reminiscent of the dances that Vulcan children do in nursery school,” said Spock.

“And you, Mx. (L/N)?” said Garth.

“I agree with Spock, nostalgic,” said (Y/N), intentionally keeping their words neutral.

“Ah, yes, Celians dance during celebrations,” said Garth. He gestured to the open floor. “Perhaps you’d like to give us a demonstration?”

“I haven’t practiced,” said (Y/N) simply, a cold smile on their face.

“I’m sure you’d be extraordinary nonetheless,” said Garth.

“That’s flattering, but I still won’t be dancing,” said (Y/N). They weren’t being a show for Garth’s enjoyment.

Garth gritted his teeth in frustration, but he was attempting to seem rational and civilized instead of temperamental, so he just turned back to Marta as she finished her routine and clapped.

“You’ll find I am very magnanimous to my friends if they show they are my friends,” said Garth, prowling around the trio. He rested his hands on Kirk and (Y/N)’s shoulders. “But I am merciless to my enemies.” He chuckled. “But I want you three to be my friends!”

Spock raised an eyebrow. “On what, precisely, is our friendship to be based?” Certainly not on you making my T’hy’la uncomfortable. That was unforgivable in Spock’s book.

“Well, upon the firmest of foundations, Mr. Spock—enlightened self-interest,” said Garth.

“Whose self-interest?” said (Y/N) pointedly.

Garth chuckled. “Why, all of ours! For instance, Captain Kirk is second only to me as a military commander, but he could be so much more.”

“I am an explorer,” said Kirk.

“So was I,” said Garth. “I have charted more new worlds than any man in history.”

“And tried to destroy Antos IV,” said Spock. “Why?”

“Well, I could say because they were actively hostile to the Federation,” sighed Garth.

“But that would be a lie,” said (Y/N) levelly.

“Agreed,” chuckled Garth. “Actually, they were quite harmless, and they made me whole when I was maimed and dying. And in my gratitude, I offered them a galaxy. They rejected me, and I condemned them to death.”

“How could you, a Starfleet captain, believe that a Federation crew would blindly obey your order to destroy the entire Antos race—a people famous for their benevolence and peaceful pursuits?” questioned Spock.

“That was my only miscalculation,” said Garth bitterly. “I had changed. I had risen upon this decadent weakness which still has you in its command, by the way, Captain. My crew had not, and I couldn’t sway them. But my new crew—the men in this room—will obey my orders without question. My friends, you have eyes, and you cannot see. Galaxies surround us! Limitless vistas…and yet the Federation would have us grub away like some ants on some somewhat larger than usual anthill. But I am not an insect. I am master of the universe, and I must claim my domain.”

“The Federation does not need militants,” said (Y/N). “We have peace missions, not battles.”

“Peace missions,” sneered Garth. “Politicians and weaklings!”

“Humanitarians and good people,” corrected (Y/N) firmly, refusing to cower to Garth’s red-hot anger. “And peace has won against war across the galaxy. It is not weak.”

“Yes,” said Kirk, sitting straight beside (Y/N). “The dream of peace those ‘weaklings’ had spread across the stars and brought people like us together. (L/N) and I are friends, Spock and I brother, Spock and (L/N) close. Peace brought us that.”

Garth narrowed his eyes and looked at the group united against him. “I can see Kirk and (L/N) feel strongly about the bonds between you all. Mr. Spock, do you consider Captain Kirk and yourself brothers? Are you and (L/N) close?”

“Captain Kirk speaks figuratively and emotionally at times. However, what he says is logical, and I do, in fact, agree with it,” said Spock.

(Y/N) smiled to themself.

Garth laughed at the three before screaming, his emotions taking a sharp turn for the negative. “Blind! Truly blind! Captain Kirk is your commanding officer, and you are his subordinate, and (L/N) is just a colleague! That is all!” In his sad, lonely life, he refused to see that others had good, healthy, loving connections in their lives.

Garth cleared his throat and continued. “(L/N), Mr. Spock, you are both talented and capable in your own rights. In my fleet, you will surely have a starship to command.”

“Please forgive, but where, exactly, is your fleet?” said Spock curtly.

“Out there—waiting for me,” said Garth. “They will flock to my cause, and for good reason.” He threw up a hand. “Limitless power, limitless wealth, and solar systems ruled by the elite! We are that elite, and we must take what is rightfully ours from the decadent weaklings that now hold it.”

“Captain Garth,” said (Y/N).

“Lord Garth,” he said harshly.

(Y/N) just continued as if they hadn’t heard. “This attempt to take over the galaxy is just a copy of what you did before. That ended in disaster. This will, too.”

“It will not!” cried Garth.

“Logically, it is likely,” said Spock.

“Remove them!” shouted Garth, erratic flashes of anger and sadness circling around him.

Two patients grabbed Spock and (Y/N) and pulled them up from their chairs.

(Y/N) just smiled at Garth. “The truth doesn’t bend to your will, ‘Lord’ Garth.” And then they were dragged from the room.

Taglist:

@a-ofzest

@grippleback-galaxy

@genderfluid-anime-goth

@groovy-lady

@im-making-an-effort

@unending-screaming

@h-l-vlovesvintage

@neenieweenie

@keylimeconstellation

@wormwig

@technikerin23

@ilyatan

@nthdarkqueen

16 notes · View notes

chaiaurchaandni · 5 months

Note

These past two months have filled me with nothing but tears. I was looking for a post I reblogged from you two years ago about the “warnings” Israel sends Palestinians before bombing their homes and cried reading it aloud again. May Palestinians one day be free and may their oppressor’s grey heads go down to the grave in blood.

ohmygod i know exactly the post youre talking about anon! i went back and looked at it also in the first week of israeli bombing this october bec zionists online kept bringing up those 'warnings,' as they always do, to justify bombing civilians. it's insane that this is seen as a mercy.

honestly, i've never felt so deeply heartbroken. i dont feel like watching a new show or reading my silly little poems or listening to taylor swift anymore. every waking moment of mine is consumed with the desperate need to do something - anything at all - for palestine. to spread awareness, and encourage people to donate, and deconstruct israeli propaganda bec this is all i can do now. i dont want to fall into despair and im doing my best to cultivate revolutionary optimism and hope!! i've cried and had nightmares and messed up my quizzes bec i cannot stop thinking about everything that's happening in palestine but!!! every single time, i have picked myself up and reminded myself that this is also a battle of perseverance, and we cannot afford to exhaust ourselves to the point that we cannot look after ourselves and therefore, cannot contribute to the cause.

my heart goes out to you anon and i hope you know that we are all united in our solidarity, in our collective pain and also in our collective struggle!! and youre aways welcome to reach out if it gets overwhelming and if you just need someone to talk to <3

(just a side note: i have personally been able to cope better with the despair ever since i started following more palestinian resistance-centric sources, e.g. the telegram channel, resistance news network + accounts like mellow.falahi on IG or revolutionaryem on X/TWT just to mention a few. these sources report on the activities of resistance forces + translate messages from different resistance factions + share news ab israeli aggressions all over occupied palestine, while also speaking about the long history of palestinian resistance/sharing speeches from iconic palestinian revolutionaries/sharing revolutionary artwork, etc. i think it's rlly imp to remember that palestinian resistance has existed ever since zionism landed in palestine (even before 1948) and that this is just one of many battles fought by the resistance. every single time, the palestinian people have survived and the palestinian resistance has survived. this time will be no different inshallah.)

#anon #free palestine #<3 #from the river to the sea palestine will be free

8 notes · View notes

emoelrics · 10 months

Text

politicization of religion

many religions start on a simple creed to bring like-minded people together, to offer comfort during trying times, and to do good in the world. however, religion is often highly politicized and used against the people.

in csm, we can see the chainsaw man church started out on as a noble cause — safe haven to protect and bring together fellow victims of devils attacks. the intent was pure and welcoming. but i am sure this will not last for long.

as we can see this in our modern world, bible verses and christian concepts have been used to spread hateful rhetoric against minority groups especially lgbtq people.

it’s disappointing to see christianity be used to spread such vitriolic hatred when these are jesus’s original teachings. nothing but love and kindness towards all humans.

not only can religion be politicized it can also be turned against the people through the development of cults. cults often utilize a charismatic leader to preach their gospel by pulling from religious texts in order to sell their platform. but what differentiates a cult from a religion is that the cult leader promises secret knowledge or salvation to their followers.

with the reveal of "chainsaw man", there is naturally now a charismatic leader to rally behind. based on the development of cults, it isnt surprising what fami's true aim may be. she probably hopes to utilize the people of the chainsaw man church and have them galvanize around chainsaw man. as lovers of chainsaw man, naturally they will worship they ground he walks on and listen to what he'll say. it’s a cult in the making. based on this, it's incredibly easy for the innocuous initial creed of the chainsaw man church to be warped into something unrecognizable. something that spews hatred and turns people against one another.

as marx once said, "religion is the opiate of the masses." despite religion being a source of comfort and offers a space for people to connect, it can suppress the revolutionary mindset of the people. this leaves them at the mercy of politicians and figures who seek to use them.

and that's the tragic thing about religion. despite the noble causes of religion, the bourgeoise and other leaders want to use religion to push their own agenda and turn pious people into obedient sheep. morphing the religion into something completely indistinguishable

#csm #csm commentary

6 notes · View notes

saboisamarxist · 2 years

Text

Every 5th of May, the Revolutionary Army celebrates Marx's birthday. It's not a celebration in itself: they don't party or drink or anything like that. Usually, they prepare special conferences explaining anything and everything surrounding Marx, starting with his life and philosophy, and ending with his critique of political economy.

Sabo enjoys these days a lot. Even if he prefers taking direct action, he loves studying economics, and he sees and understands the need for theory if they want a revolution of any kind. It's also a great way to spend time with Koala. He doesn't see her as much as he used to, not anymore. Now, they usually work in different places all around the world, so he has learned to cherish the time he can spend with her. Koala is quick-witted, intelligent and smart. She can win anyone in an argument, even Dragon himself sometimes, and Sabo adores attending these seminars with her, learning side by side, hand in hand.

However, the 5th of may also brings something to Sabo's chest, something that has nothing to do with politics or Marxist theory. Every year, he wakes up with an ache in his heart, missing something, missing someone, maybe. He doesn't recall. Sometimes, during the long lectures that take place throughout the day, Sabo finds himself dreaming about big smiles and bright laughs, about sunny days under the shade of some trees. And he tries to remember, oh, he does, but he never succeeds. So he shakes his head and concentrates on the theory and praxis and revolution, because what else can he do? The past is the past and in his case, a blank sheet.

Then, Ace dies. And Sabo remembers. He remembers his brothers, he remembers Luffy, and the meaning that the 5th of may had before the Revolutionary Army. It's quite funny in its tragedy, isn't it? Not Ace's death, of course, but Luffy's birth. The same day as Marx. Of course. Of fucking course Luffy was born the same day as the most important revolutionary in history.

And he talks to Dragon, and Dragon just grunts.

So now, Sabo celebrates Marx, by all means, but he also celebrates Luffy and that warms his heart. Sabo studies and discusses and learns during the day, and by night, he lies with Koala under the sheets, and he tells her everything about his little brother. She listens, sweet, kind, and Sabo wants her to meet Luffy and he wants to meet Luffy again himself. He wants to hug him, and hear him cry, and hear him just be. He wants to see him blow his candles, surrounded by that ridiculous crew of his. Sabo wants to celebrate with Luffy all the birthdays he can't celebrate with Ace.

Sabo dreams with Luffy's laughter, and he knows after everything, after Levely, he will meet Luffy again, and he hopes they will have time to catch up, not like in Dressrosa. And then, after setelling all of that, Sabo will excuse himself and on the 5th of May he will reunite with Luffy, forgetting (at least for a day) about Marx and the theory and the revolution. The 5th of May will be the day he'll use to celebrate his brother.

"He'll be the next great revolutionary" Koala tells him every 5th of May.

"I don't care. He's just my brother" Sabo tells her "and today it's his birthday".

#in this universe marx exist #and he was probably friends with roger #however #happy birthday luffy #my fav little gremblin #also #happy birthday marx #the fact that they were born the same day is so funny to me #monkey d. luffy #its luffy day bitches!!#sabo #sabo the revolutionary #asl brothers #my writing

21 notes · View notes

starlesscastellation · 1 year

Text

the fuklckig stars are out. this has to mean something. not to like mcr5 theorize on main but like I know its foundations and its destruction to rebuilding which was what the fire and rain was. But the fucking stars. that's not rebuilding that's rebuilt. That's 'the destruction is over and the sky is clear again'. The storm has cleared.

so this analysis will be a shit show.

listen I'm not very good at this I'm a little too insane to fully understand everything and I'm probably reading into it too much. it's also a long rant so apologies.

but these lyrics from foundations of decay.

"when the storm it gains" I'm imagining in whatever over exaggerated thing I'm doing is either the fire or the actual storm. cause like storm = destruction you fucking know

"and the sky it rains / let it flood, let it flood, let it wash away" again LITERALLY what is fucking happening. the rain washed away the fire and the destruction.

"and as you stumble through your last crusade" it's the last show. the destruction's been washed away and it's the last show.

"will you welcome your extinction in the morning rays?" now I have many thoughts on this. this could go a couple ways. I suppose in this metaphor we're mixing up the sun (morning rays) and the stars from the set, but they both have the same meaning- the calm at the end of the storm.

To me it could be about letting the band die. It could be welcoming in the end after resolving all of the things that didn't go quite right the first time, having one more chance to be themselves and proud on stage. And it's over. Now everything has been righted, just one more tour to put out the flames and they can welcome the bands death.

or it means welcoming the death of some of the things the band used to be. It could be like a we are no longer the people who started the band, lots of things have changed. And that's okay. The suffering is over and with the stars out we know things have changed for the better. The stars are out and that means they can keep going and grow from the decay.

but wait I've got more shit to unpack

the breakdown.

"cause the message must be pure" they had to return for the right reasons. and bring back the thing the band was for. MCR saved my life, how often do we see that? pretty damn frequently. the message is you are not alone. and it feels like ending is losing some of what linked us all together.

"against change (you can wander through the ruins)" again pretty straightforward like don't come back because things will be different, it's easier to wait in the remains of what succeeded even if it was hard.

"we are plagued (but the poison is the cure)" MCR did kind of plague them. All of them had some form of solo work after that or other music collaboration but it was mostly MCR fans who continued to follow the works, they would always be the guys from MCR before maybe the guy who made Hesitant Alien or Stomachaches or Remember the Laughter. And the poison (the band) is the cure. the cure is to come back. wash away the smoldering ruins and rebuild the message and the hope.

the fucking stars. the fucking stars. they're cured. there's hope again, we're not alone. they're cured. they got up. everything's okay.

the stars could be a lot of things metaphorically to be honest. it could also be their true legacy, hiding behind the rain and the storm but now they've cleared away some of the pain associated with the band from it's ending and now it can be remembered as what it should be.

god I need MCR5. sorry for this shitty rant it makes. no sense but. it's also nothing revolutionary just a lot of Thoughts I had that are better to rant about on Tumblr than to my friends who don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

#mcr #mcr5 #mcrauckland #lyric analysis #there has never been and there never will be another band like them #the foundations of decay

6 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 1 year

Text

On Wednesday night, less than a week before the midterm elections that will determine the future of his Presidency, Joe Biden summoned the television cameras for a hastily planned speech at Union Station. Against a backdrop of American flags, he offered a closing argument for the campaign that was chillingly direct, if not exactly what the Party’s message gurus would prefer: Democracy itself, the President said, is on the ballot.

Biden began by mentioning the recent attack on “my friend,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s eighty-two-year-old husband, Paul Pelosi, whose head was smashed during an encounter with an intruder who told police he was searching for his wife. But the heart of Biden’s speech was about Donald Trump’s Big Lie about the election of 2020 and how it has reshaped American politics into an ongoing crisis over basic adherence to the Constitution. “He’s made a big lie an article of faith in the MAGA Republican party,” Biden said of “the defeated former President . . . who refuses to accept the fact that he lost.” The result is an election two years later in which “extreme MAGA Republicans” have made questioning the legitimacy of any races they do not win the party’s new ideology. Their plan, he warned, is to “subvert the electoral system itself.” And that means that anything, including even “disunion and chaos,” is possible.

I’m sure that many Democratic candidates in close races around the country would prefer that Biden had spoken about his plan to defeat inflation or bring down gas prices or safeguard women’s reproductive rights. The President’s pitch, though, was not about policy battles as much as first principles. He was campaigning for democratic votes, not just Democratic ones. “We can’t take democracy for granted any longer,” he warned. There was no real news in this lament other than the startling fact of it occurring. As I listened, it sounded to me like Biden’s personal rebuttal to a recent Times public-opinion survey that seemed to sum up the dissonance of a nation hurtling recklessly over a cliff: “Voters see democracy in peril,” the paper found in its poll, “but saving it isn’t a priority.”

A few hours later, I received the last in that day’s barrage of fund-raising e-mails from Donald Trump. It contained, more or less, his version of a closing argument. The former President’s pitch was not about the future of democracy or even, for that matter, about what to do for the economy; it was about Hunter Biden’s “Laptop from Hell” and his own claims of endless persecution. “The Witch Hunt continues,” Trump lamented, even though, “after 6 years and millions of pages of documents, they’ve got nothing.” It wasn’t clear from the e-mail what persecution he was referring to, but that wasn’t really the point. The point was that they were out to get him, whoever “they” are, and it wasn’t fair. “If I had what Hunter and Joe had,” Trump said, “it would be the Electric Chair.”

Over the next few days, Trump will travel the country, appearing at rallies in four states: Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. He will, no doubt, have many, many words to say on many problems, from the evils of immigration to the horrors of inflation, that are fuelling Republican hopes of a national red wave giving them control of Congress. But the real message from Trump will be the one from his fund-raising e-mail: It’s all about me, me, me.

I have been around a lot of midterm elections. When Republicans retook the House of Representatives for the first time in forty years, in 1994, I was a young reporter at the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. The red wave that boosted Newt Gingrich’s Republican revolutionaries to power in the House resulted in a fifty-four-seat pickup, and even many Democrats considered to have safe seats, including the Speaker of the House himself, Tom Foley, lost reëlection. Republicans this time do not need anything like that kind of a surge to reclaim power on the Hill. They don’t even need a wave. (For an excellent wonky discussion of just what a wave is anyway, and why one is unlikely this time according to the precise definition, try this piece in the Washington Monthly.) In the House, a modest gain of just five seats would lead to a G.O.P. takeover; on average, the party in power in such midterms loses around twenty-five seats. In the Senate, Republicans need just a one-seat pickup. Math is math. The vast weight of both past history and present evidence suggests that, even with an array of too-close-to-call races in key states such as Georgia and Pennsylvania, control of one or both chambers is well within the G.O.P.’s reach.

Republicans are so close to power that they can smell it. In Washington, the spoils are being preëmptively divvied up. There are lists of who gets what committee, and lots of reporting on whether, if, and when Republicans will seek vengeance by seeking to impeach President Biden; the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas; or others. One can only imagine what a Jim Jordan-chaired House Judiciary Committee would do.

At such a moment, expediency has taken hold. Even those Republicans who have claimed to be against Trump’s election lies are now supporting candidates who have promoted those lies. Consider the smarmy Nikki Haley, who said on the “Today” show last month, “Everybody that I’m helping acknowledges the fact that the elections, you know, were real,” before continuing to endorse and campaign for a slew of election deniers. Former Vice-President Mike Pence, who literally risked his life on January 6, 2021, to defy Trump and confirm Biden as the legitimate winner, has been out campaigning for candidates who have perpetuated Trump’s lies about the election. And of course they are. The entire Republican ticket this fall, up and down the ballot, is filled with hundreds of election deniers. There is no way to be a Republican leader and not support at least some of them.

That is not really a surprise, nor should it be. There is no non-Trump faction of any significance in today’s G.O.P. In that sense, the most important aspect of the midterm elections of 2022 was established by the early morning of January 7, 2021, when more than a hundred and thirty Republican representatives and eight Republican senators voted against certifying Biden’s election and went along with Trump’s election lie. Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader and aspiring Speaker if Republicans win next week, was among them. If they refused to disavow Trump then, with their own Capitol looted and despoiled hours earlier by his insurrectionists, then why would they disavow him two years later, on the brink of victory? Trump and his me-me-me ideology is all theirs now, whether they talk about it or not.

Shortly before this week’s election in Israel, the liberal commentator Gershom Gorenberg published a piece in the Washington Post accurately predicting the return of Benjamin Netanyahu and the success of the far-right Religious Zionism party. Headed into Israel’s fifth election in just four years, he wrote, “speaking for myself—and possibly about half the nation—the sense of election dread is greater than ever.”

I have a bad case of election dread right now, too. It’s hard to see how any American democrat—that’s democrat with a small “d”—wouldn’t. ♦

1 note · View note

kattencake · 2 years

Text

Another Love

Part One of Songs That Meant Something Even When They Maybe Shouldn’t’ve; Songs That Maybe Mean Too Much. (content warning: mature language + themes)

I started listening to a song yesterday that I heard for the first time some number of months ago. My sister was the one who asked if I knew it: “Another Love” by Tom Odell.

I’d heard of Tom Odell before, if I remember correctly, thanks to iTunes Single of the Week - the very thing that also introduced me to Lana Del Rey way back when. These were the days when you had to buy a CD from a store (or god forbid, buy it online and wait 5 - 7 working days for it to arrive), illegally download your music off of a torrent or rip the MP3 file from the video on YouTube (complete with all the sound effects, dialogue breaks, intros, outros, etc - as is how music videos sometimes work) or, if you were rich, too nervous and/or a little stupid you could buy it straight from iTunes. Luckily enough for those of us that were too poor for real music, there was iTunes Single of the Week. (They were given out for free, btw).

I think it was “I Know” that I got for free, though I know that I also met “Heal” somewhere along the way from there to here so it could have been either. Either way, I loved that song.

“Oh won't you bring me all the things I need Like falling rain to a rolling sea”

At that age, I was obsessed with bridges. I think the relative simplicity of the pop music I grew up with, and the club, house, garage and dance music I was born listening to, meant that these regularly scheduled breakdowns were nothing short of revolutionary. A teenager, hoping hard for things she couldn’t yet even imagine, those short reprieves meant so much more.

So then we come to the modern day perhaps six months ago. My sister asking and then insisting on playing it for me. I’d just picked her up from the station in Sheffield at last minute notice and I was expecting something quite different.

Something about Another Love struck me hard. I was sat in the driver’s seat, my sister next to me, I was sat silent and she was reciting it like an affirmation. The words are simple but the order and the pace and the beat, as I say, struck hard. I tried not to cry, and I managed not to. I managed to hold it together enough to do the sisterly thing of a downturned smile and a swaying nod and an ‘it’s alright!’.

Maybe it was the sound of the title - Another Love, as if something akin to Another Girl by The Beatles or Another Night by Real McCoy. Maybe my brain should have sussed something more hidden beneath that like in Roger Sanchez’ Another Chance, or how Another Night, despite its upbeat, campy style, was a potent earworm that genuinely made me feel enough yearning to make me burn it to CD for my car.

In all honesty, it was almost nothing more than the tune of the chorus that popped back into my head, rolling around and round with its repetition, that made me pick it back up yesterday. If not a potent enough image of all possible tears having been cried, and further, coming from a man - some of which who literally can’t cry (thanks, testosterone!). All I knew is it was catchy, and sang with enough sincerity that it hadn’t offended me on my first listen in my car that time with the girl.

It’s the second verse that first hurt me.

“And if somebody hurts you, I wanna fight But my hands been broken one too many times So I'll use my voice, I'll be so fucking rude Words, they always win, but I know I'll lose And I'd sing a song that'd be just ours But I sang 'em all to another heart And I wanna cry, I wanna learn to love But all my tears have been used up”

That feeling of wanting so badly to love but knowing that you’ve been hurt too much to even try. Realising that ruined me.

Both thankfully, unfortunately, sadly, and so - I don’t think my heart has ever quite been broken by a lover, though I can’t say there have been many. It was my mother that broke my heart and so often continues to do so. I was so convinced for so, so long that there was inherently something wrong and strange about me to the point that it was a moral failing and I didn’t deserve the parts of normalcy and happiness that I wanted just like everyone else. My mother was the first person to break my heart, and she did so by hating me.

It took over 20 years to find out that I was normal, a bit autistic - yes, and unlucky, also, but normal. Oh so fucking normal. The things that had happened to me were at times abnormal, but considering it all I had come out okay and the inherent parts of myself that were strange were just me, just parts of a person like the building blocks we all have, and it was okay to struggle and to hurt and be sad and not like loud music when you have no say in the song or the volume.

I can’t even begin to guess how many years I spent dissociated to high hell, uncomfortable and numb. I was maybe never myself that whole twenty years. The first feelings I can remember are embarrassment and then the relief of being alone and at the mercy of only my own judgement. My mother only ever told me that my embarrassment was well-founded and appropriate. I was a child.

I learnt, from that, to fight. To question whoever questioned me as if some tiny thing inside of me knew that I didn’t deserve to have my very existence catechised. My failing being that I was weak and scared, I couldn’t really fight with my hands and arms for when overcome with the adrenaline of being questioned so, my blood fell flat and boiled in my head instead of putting itself to use. So there came the wit once my mouth learned how to talk: the wit and other hurtful words.

So all that time spent treading water and just wishing to be - really be, alive and all. I yearned so hard I’m surprised my soul didn’t burn straight through my body. Eventually, I yearned so hard that a friend took notice and told me I needed to be something else. For that moment and that friend I am so grateful. We don’t talk anymore, or at least we do less than I talk to my mother. That hurts.

The bridge of Another Love repeats and adds to the second verse - the one that first hurt me.

“(Oh, need a love, now, my heart is thinking of) I wanna sing a song that'd be just ours But I sang 'em all to another heart And I wanna cry, I wanna fall in love But all my tears have been used up”

I have so many songs to sing now, and I can sing them. I don’t worry about who else is in the house and if they would belittle me for feeling and loving and burning. Now, I try not the use words that would hurt: I don’t think the same thoughts that lived behind them so often, so it’s easier now.

I love to love, and I love to cry. I don’t have to want and wish anymore.

Though sometimes, like right now, when survival is becoming hard even for the slightly better equipped among us, I do find myself yearning. At the end of the day, however, I have come so fucking far. No one can take that away from me. My mother cannot pretend the hurt did not happen because I can write it down and sing and laugh about it. I can bare my teeth in front of strangers and I can shake my ass in the club when I’m sober. How could one wretched woman have any power over me now?

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/805933295837253206/

1 note · View note

a-gal-with-taste · 2 years

Note

hi!! I had a request in mind, if you would take it? young silco is getting his shit handled to him and reader comes in to help, she's very short and small but can kick some ass and she saves him, he falls for her but they never meet again. post time skip Jinx is in the same situation and reader helps her, but gets badly injured, so jinx takes her to Silco and thats when he realizes its the girl he fell for all those years ago

Wait, this is actually cute, I love this 🥺 I've been dying to get an opportunity to write a lil' Silco, so this is perfect. Thank you!!

Warnings: Violence, revolutionary-shenannigans, mostly fluff, blood/injuries, seriously just 99% fluff/puppy-love

You could walk the length of the Undercity, top to bottom, from all the corners, walking though every space the Underground has to offer, and never meet the same person twice.

With that in mind, the boy takes care to memorize the details of his surprise savior. Still panting but grinning, the girl turns to him with a spring in her step and red still gushing from her nose. "You really should learn how to punch!"

He immediately frowns. "I have a knife." She shrugs, quirking a brow at his own bruised expression. "Some good it did you. Really never heard of an uppercut before, or the good old...?" She swings a right fist in the air. "I'm telling you, it's a life-changer."

Squinting, the boy can't quite decide if the grin she sports is one of leftover mania from their alleyway brawl, with teenagers with too much time on their hands. Or if she's genuinely is always so... chipper.

It's after she walks over to pull him onto his feet, giggling and ruffling his longer dark-hair playfully when he staggers, half-falls against her, that Silco decides he likes her smile.

He meets her three times after that.

"What's your name?" He halfway demands it at their second meeting, earning a pause and then a glint of her wide eyes as she looks over her shoulder down at him. "Whose asking?"

She's scaled herself halfway up alleyway, reclining on a rather smoothed pipe, barely large enough to support her body. Silco has doubts she's ever fallen off anything in her life, and doesn't feel the need to worry about her here. "... Me?" "Well, do I owe ya something?"

If anything, he still owed her for the rescue. But he still tried again. "I'd like to know so I could thank you." She sits up fulling, crossing her legs beneath her as she sits. Leaning out slightly to peer down at him, she pauses to massage her nose, as if it still aches from pain.

A beat passes, and Silco wonders if he is indeed being foolish about this whole thing. Vander seemed to think so, but then again, Vander had run off with Benzo to go mess in the junkyard while Silco ran into those teens. He's not very keen to listen to the big oaf, not after that stunt and the chortling he'd gotten when recounting the story.

Still, he can't help but wonder if he's wasting his time, seeking her out.

But then she smiles, and he thinks his little search was worth it, even as she only says, "Thank me by bringing food next time!"

Benzo could all but strangled him for dipping into their meager funds. But Silco does indeed bring food on his next trek through the undercity, and his savior gives him more smiles than he had ever hoped to see.

"You gonna finish that?" She said, nodding to an uneaten bit in his bowl. One he was saving. The boy frowns, and for the first time, feels some irritation with her. Being from the mines, he has to scramble for every semi-fresh morsel he can find, instead of the stale and often dusty food tossed to him after crawling through too-small tunnels all day.

Still, Silco goes to hand to to her, and she rolls her eyes. "No, dummy, here." She plops her identical piece from her own bowl, speaking matter-of-factly when he stares. "You're way too small, you should eat more."

"I'm too small??"

"Yep." She pops her words, and digs back into her food, saying nothing more. Silco doesn't even think to thank her, or ask or name, where she's going or when he'll see her again, when she shoves her empty bowl into his hands, leans over, and pecks him on the cheek.

A grin appears, as she ruffles his hair playfully during following round of stunned silence. And right before she runs off, she says, "Ask someone to teach you how to punch. It'll make up for your size."

"... I have a knife."

A smile and an eyeroll at the choked reminder is his only reply, and the girl hops up, and races back into the neverending thick of the Undercity.

He's a young man whose learned how to punch, the next time they meet. Not for lack of trying, Silco had all but haunted the alleyways and streets near where he met her, until the mining supervisor kept getting more and more suspicious.

Even after finally leaving the mines for good, Vander and Benzo would snicker everytime they caught the growing boy peeking a bit longer into southside alleyways. "Think your girlfriend is still hidin'?"

"Juet making sure I don't have to return the favor," Silco snapped back to Benzo. Even though he knew, if he ever saw the small girl in a fight, she would win easily without his help. Still, it would be nice to see her again, Silco wants to see her again.

It'd be... nice.

And Gods know they could use nice things, right about now. Silco growls as he crouch down lower, gritting his teeth as his mind races faster than the gunfire. Fish in a barrel, is what they are. Enforcers seem more and more keen to use gunfire these days, and Silco notes that some of the rubber-bullets have been changed. Hearing the reloading of metal makes his teeth grind, and he makes the call, though he hates himself for it: "Retreat."

Always running from Topside. Never allowed to settle, not even in their own territory. It's loathsome, but bitterly necessary, as his squad is limping or bleeding even as they dart out at the first sign of a lull.

Their exit is blocked though, as Silco, in a rarity, freezes at the sight of a blocked alleyway. Construction, since last he was here, and utterly impossible to move any forward. He reaches for the first door at the side of the alleyway even though it's boarded up and the building inside probably condemned.

The second is locked, and no amount of pounding his fist will grant entry. Silco is pondering about death, and how if the rest of his team will blame him in the afterlife for leading them unknowingly into a dead-end, when an arm grabs his, and the young woman snarls at the rest of his squad to get inside, now.

The door shuts just as the first Enforcer reaches the mouth of the alleyway, notes it's emptiness, and orders the rest of the Piltover arrest-team to spread out in their search. Meanwhile, the moment he assures his wounded squad of Brothers and Sisters are tending to the worst of their injuries, pulling out flasks for the less-severe, his turns to the girl.

"Where were you?"

"Squatting, sometimes working." He isn't surprised. From street-child, to street-woman, but she looks like she's taken care of herself, he notes with a sense of relief while glancing over her worn, but cared-for apparel.

She looks at his uniform, of a rebel, unimpressed. "Unlike you, I'm actively trying not to cause trouble for the rest of the Undercity." "Not trouble, it's change." He retorts with fire in his tone, and she only rolls her eyes, glancing around the room and shifting her feet to the exit, once she sees she is unneeded by the rest of the rebels.

Silco admits, he panics and grabs her arm.

"When can I see you again?" It's rushed, and he immediately wants to curse himself for it, but settles for a scowl at his own words. They had been children, and Gods know more than enough time and experience had passed for him to move on from this...

Snorting, the young woman gives him the first smile he's wanted to see for years. Her hand reaches up, curling slightly into his hair, and shakes out the dark locks from it's already ruffled-ponytail.

"How about when I stop needing to save you," She says, not unkindly, but clear she wanted no further part in this doomed rebellion. Not now. She shakes his arm off of her, pauses to hear out the door for any remaining marches of Enforcers.

And then she's gone, the door shut silently behind her as she plunges back into the Undercity.

Silco has many reasons, to do what he does in the years that follow.

Many of them for the good of his Brothers, Sister and all Zaunites. Even as he grows older, more scarred, bloodier with control over the Lanes solidifying, Silco has moments where he privately admits to himself, that a few of his reasons for freedom of the Underground, are quite personal.

A quieter, undoomed Nation of Zaun being one of them. The chance to see that girl again, being a byproduct that he imagines he would quite enjoy.

Silco isn't actually looking the third time. Stopped quite a while ago, actually, be it from lack of free time, and then common-sense.

He imagines that the spitfire girl, who he'd briefly saw as a spirited young woman, died horribly as a mistaken casualty of the uprisings. Those stories of civilian-casualties aren't rare in the underground, and just common enough for him to come to accept it as a fact.

Silco doesn't dwell on the fact, though he takes an extra glass of whiskey on some nights, when his mind dives back into memories he's unable to shove back into the darkest, murkiest depths of his mind...

Which is why, when Jinx is excitedly talking into his ear at too-early an hour the next morning, he's only halfway aware of her words. Something about an arcade, something about punks on the street. Silco is sobering up quickly at the mention of a brawling fight, mentally calculating how swiftly he can hunt those fools that dared...

"Wait." A pause, and he reaches up to pinch his nose, flicking his sleeping-patch off his corrupted eye as he does so. "Repeat that again for me, child. You brought what back?"

A sigh. Like it was silly she had to repeat herself, "I said, so I brought her here!"

"... brought who here?"

Jinx beams, her blue eyes shining. "The lady that saved me! I patched her up real-good, she's on the couch!"

Silco immediately sent Jinx to go grab some towels while he glowered at his daughter's rescuer, bleeding onto the couch with a knife-handle sticking from her abdomen. "Give her credit, she tried her best," She slurred, looking tiny on the couch as she sucked in a breath through her teeth. "But not a future doctor, that one."

"I highly doubt you did this to be a saint," He replies cooly, not making any movements to assist as her hands press on a lucky street-teens stab, red staining her fingers. "I'm guessing I don't even get a thank you for this?" Silco only hummed, reaching up to smooth back any errant strands of hair still messed by sleep. "I can appreciate, despite the fact that you are bleeding on my couch, that you stepped in to assist with my... ward's issue on the street."

She huffed like she knew better. Everyone knew, but he was still sporting a throbbing headache and this was a stranger, from the streets. Silco wasn't in the mood to be open, nor particularly gracious. "But that doesn't automatically mean I can't be suspicious of your motives, as I..."

He saw her glance at the movement of his hand, and in her pained state, managed a smile. He felt his hand still slightly when he saw it.

"I might've wrong about the punching, y'know," She said as recognition melted into his half-gaze, managing a small laugh as she gestured at her injury. "Maybe you had the right idea with the knife after-all."

When Jinx comes back with a towel, she comes back to something she'd actually never seen before.

Silco, helping the stranger, while in parital delirium, reached over to ruffle his hair. She's smiling as she does so and, despite looking fixatingly concentrated as Silco presses gauze and makes a quick order for Jinx to go get more supplies to fix her...

He looks like he enjoys having the woman there, and seeing her smile again.

Join the Taglist: @mazikomo @ironandglass @dropssofjupitter @sweatandwoe @syx-00 @bb-8 @agoutighost @lackofhonor @thereading-nook @atalldrinkofcaprisun @betasuppe @wanna-plan-world-domination @littledollll @zillahvathek @ladykatakuri @intpthinkinginquiet @beansandmorebeans @ellhd-imagination @my-awakened-ghost

#take the FLUFF #TAKE IT #i like to imagine this reader becomes a bodyguard for jinx #half their relationship would be banter about whether punching is more effective than a knife #and jinx just ignores them to go 'bombs'#anyway FLUFF #silco #arcane #arcane silco #silco x reader #my writing #request #askbox #drabble #just your typical zaunite rom com

297 notes · View notes

watercolorfreckles · 3 years

Text

Thanks for the Ride - Part 2

Part 1 Here

TW: asthma attack, slight angst, mention of blood and sc*rs

((Civilian’s name is now Kaira. Villain doesn’t have one yet.))

Kaira pushed open her apartment door and stepped inside. A flurry of snowflakes gusted in after her, dusting the welcome mat in her entryway as she shoved the door shut. She shivered and slid her boots off, shrugging off her coat next and hanging it up. She leaned heavily against the door to catch her breath, digging her inhaler out of her pocket and taking two puffs.

It had been a month since the incident, and she was left without a vehicle right as the weather turned frigid and biting. Just her luck, as well, that cold air triggers asthma. Kaira coughed and wheezed her way to the kitchen, putting the kettle on to make herself some eucalyptus tea. Her doctor had recently told her that it might help alleviate some of her symptoms. Still struggling to breathe, she dropped herself into a chair at the kitchen table, squeezing her eyes shut. She tucked the inhaler back into her pocket without opening her eyes.

Kaira stayed there until the kettle squealed, forcing her lead-heavy limbs to get up and finish making her tea. She took a few sips though they scalded on the way down, and bent down to scoop some of her cat’s food into her bowl. She coughed and took another sip of tea, shaking the bowl a bit as she ventured further into the apartment. “Missy! Here, kitty.”

No response. That’s odd… Her stomach sank as she realized the tv was on in her bedroom. The muffled chatter and buzz were unmistakable. Had she forgotten to turn it off before going to work?

She padded across the space, inching closer to the bedroom--though it was barely any use trying to be quiet. The ragged wheezing noises probably gave her away rather unceremoniously. Finally approaching the door and just about to cross the threshold, her cat hopped down in front of her, startling a yelp out of Kaira. The mug and food bowl in her hands crashed to the floor.

Kaira slapped a hand over her face, heart pounding all over again. “Missy. What did I do to deserve that?” she mused between strained breaths.

She picked the remote up off of the dresser, lifting it to turn the screen off when she noticed what was playing on the news, and listened. More about the villain. The media coverage was constant, barely wavering since the villain’s “death” a month prior. The city clung to the hero’s victory, celebrating with parties and rallies and parades and barbeques. “Superhero finally managed to inject Supervillain with a revolutionary new toxic serum that drained his powers away and rendered him helpless. Superhero triumphed over the monster and fulfilled his duty in keeping our city safe! The crime rate perpetrated by powered individuals has decreased significantly as they all now live in fear of the hero’s new bioweapon. Let’s hope they stay underground where they belong.”

“The thing about Hero’s little serum,” a second voice cut through the silence, making Kaira jump and whirl around, “is that its effects are temporary. Poison a villain, take his powers, incapacitate him, kill him while he’s down. It’s quite the cowardly approach, don’t you agree, Kaira?”

Kaira froze in place like prey, staring at the villain sprawled out casually on her bed. He lifted a hand and lightning crackled over his palm like a second skin. Her mouth had gone unbearably dry and all she could do was stare and try to squash down the harsh rasps of her wheezing.

Villain flashed a smile, looking thoroughly pleased with himself as he sat up, leisurely. “Your firstborn and I have gotten acquainted.” He wiggled his fingers and made kissy sounds, drawing the orange tabby closer to him.

Kaira inhaled sharply and took a step closer, freezing again at the look Villain cut her as he scooped Missy into his lap. “Do you truly think I would harm your cat?” He tsked. “You must truly think me a monster.”

She swallowed again but it did nothing to aid the dryness scratching her throat. “How-How do you know where I live?” she whispered.

Villain stroked Missy’s back, who purred and curled up on his lap. “You had some bills in your glove compartment--your insurance is overdue, by the way. You might want to pay that.” His lip curled in a teasing smile though his gaze rested intent and unwavering upon her.

Panicked, she fished her inhaler out of her pocket without taking her eyes off of him, inhaling a third puff. “I...I haven’t told anyone about you. I swear I haven’t. I-I didn’t even want to raise questions about where you left me, so...I didn’t call a cab until I, um, walked back to the main road. No-Nobody knows what happened, or that you’re alive, I promise.”

The villain hummed, straightening all the way.

Kaira’s gaze flicked down to his torso where she could see a deep red seeping through his shirt. “You’re...bleeding.”

“And you’re the only one who knows I’m alive, so. Do be a dear and bring me a first aid kit?” His smile widened, all amusement for now.

Kaira blanched and stepped toward the door when Villain lifted a finger to halt her. “Ah-ah, better have you toss your phone over to me first. The best relationships are built on trust, you know?” he purred, blatantly relishing in the glow of pink that spread over Kaira’s freckled cheeks.

She pulled her cellphone out of her other pocket and tossed it onto the bed, waiting for his nod of approval before staggering wide-eyed into the kitchen to fetch her first aid kit.

Oh my gods, oh my gods, the villain is in my house, oh my gods…

Kaira’s hands shook as she returned, easing herself lightly onto the edge of the bed beside him. She gingerly lifted her cat off of him and set her back onto the floor. “You’re bleeding on my bed,” she murmured. She carefully reached for his shirt and flushed red. “Um...can I?”

The villain grinned, wolfish. “Wishing to undress me so soon? By all means.”

Kaira spluttered, floundering briefly before reaching forward again, unbuttoning the bottom half of his shirt. No need to expose more of his chest than necessary, especially after that comment. Wow, he has a lot of scars…

She traced a finger featherlight over one of the pale slices of skin. When she realized what she was doing, her gaze snapped up to meet his. His laser focus made her feel like a bug splayed on a corkboard. “S-Sorry....” She looked away and opened up the first aid kit and gently examined his bloody wounds. “It...looks like you need stitches...is that okay?”

“Ah, what’s a couple more scars. Just clean them and bandage me up.” Kaira could feel the sudden electricity sparking the air as the hair on her neck stood on end. He smiled prettily, though his eyes were sharper, edging on dangerous. “Please.”

Kaira nodded quickly. “O-Okay, yes. Sure. No need to get, um...zappy.” She smoothed down a few pieces of hair that had been suspended by the static thick in the air like smoke. The energy released suddenly once she agreed, expelling like a popped balloon.

She released a breath through her teeth and got to work with trembling hands. “If nobody knows you’re alive, then who hurt you?”

Kaira jumped as the villain brushed a stray lock of hair out of her face. “Sorry, dear, I don’t kiss and tell.”

Her face burned all over again and she avoided his gaze, focusing on the task at hand. When she was done, the villain abruptly stood and crowded close, stealing the breath from her lungs.

Villain bracketed her in place with an arm against the bed on each side of her. “Thanks for the patch job.” He flashed another predatory smile, eyes twinkling, and dangled her car keys in front of her face. “Care to give me another ride, dear?”

Part 3

Thank you for reading!

Tiny taglist: @writing-on-the-wahl , @ vlerlove , @valiantlytransparentwhispers. If anyone wants to be added, let me know :)

#writing #creative writing #civillian x villain #hero x villain #writing snippet #flash fiction #my writing #supervillain

350 notes · View notes

dreamii-yume · 3 years

Note

Hello, Yume. I saw an AU where twst boys are aware that they are in the game and they are in love with the player - you (Y/N). And I just imagine that they constantly argue about who is your favorite😂 For example:

Kalim:"I'm her favorite, she already raised magic of my ssr to Lv10"

Rook:"Qui, but she didn't roll for you, and she made 100 rolls to get my ssr. Obviously I am her favorite"

Deuce:"We are best friends, moreover I was her first ssr, I am the favorite one"

Epel:"Wait until my ssr will come out, I'll show you who's her favorite"

Vil:"Look who is talking, potato. Wait until MY ssr will come out"

Jamil:"I just want to remind you all that she pick up MY sr card as her support at the very beginning, hm~"

Ruggie:"She doesn't have my ssr, but I was on the start screen for 3 weeks straight, shishishi~"

Lilia:"Fufufu~, your kids are so funny. We already know who is the favorite one"

... Something like that. I just want to share my thoughts with you🤗 (also twst boys get very proud when you place them on youe start screen)

You don’t know anything. You’re unaware and it would, unfortunately, forever be like that.

They didn’t know what exactly made them self-aware in the first place, a glitch perhaps? Whether it was an error in the program, or just some supernatural stuff at play, it didn’t really matter. The cast accepted their situation as it is, since they were already comfortable before. They have their own world to run around with, and most importantly, they have “you” as their owner of some sort. Their sole job is to entertain you through the screen that separates both fantasy and reality, playing by the script that was encoded in their files.

When they play it right, you laugh and you squeal, so they can’t help but find it really amusing. Before they knew it, they’re purposely exaggerating their acting and voices just to see how you will react, even ad-libbing at some point. Those were words solely meant just for you so, of course you’ll get confused, you didn’t hear any of these words from other people. Some parts of them wishes that you would actually come into terms that they’re alive now, that they can see and hear everything you do in the game. But in the end, you always concluded it to be an easter egg, a fun little bug that the developers purposely dropped it in for some lucky players to discover.

Unfortunately, they don’t have any control on who you’ll get in the gacha system, even if the rates for a specific character are up. It sucks, and quite honestly concerning to see you empty your wallet just to get that special SSR card of a specific character. “Make sure to leave some for yourself” is what they want to convey to you, but you know how it is. Even so, they’re still at least thankful and appreciative of your effort just to get your hands on one of them. They’re concerned, but they can’t deny that having a special card, one that you would definitely put your time, money, and effort to, makes them feel giddy.

Of course, they wouldn’t forget about the sheer happiness in your eyes when you finally got that character you wanted, you’re so happy that sometimes it brings you to tears. In an outsider perspective, it’s such a stupid reason to be happy for, you even tease yourself for it sometimes. But what you didn’t know is that every time you pull, they all have their fingers crossed and praying that you’ll finally get their special card. Calling that happiness stupid is a hypocritical statement for they, as mere game characters, were just as ecstatic to finally place their seats in your inventory.

...Even if you won’t be aware of that happiness yourself.

Interactions with you are their favorite time, just seeing you listen to their voice so attentively and excitedly brings a smile in their face. They especially love the moment where you would actually touch their avatars, you don’t know it but they can feel it. Every time you give a poke, it makes their digital heart beat faster but cleverly covering them with the lines in correspondent with that action. You laugh, even saying a playful apology when they would get “angry” with you for poking them too much, and that alone makes them swoon more for your touch. So much so that when you’re finally satisfied and about to move on to another option, they would suddenly yell out another unexpected line just to get your attention back, breaking through their written character. It works half of the time.

There are so much more that you didn’t know was happening beyond the screen. The excitement they feel whenever you would pick them for battle, levelling their cards up, and putting them up in your home screen is basically a privilege that every character hoped to have soon. Of course, they’re constantly trying to one-up each other, arguing which character is your favorite, and flaunting the achievements they had with you. You don’t know that when they tell you to come back tomorrow within each daily log-ins, they really meant it and are actually willing to increase the prizes you get from them. When you don’t play the game for just a single day, they get worried and anxious as they don’t have any way of communicating with you without opening the app.

This, and so much more, everything. You’re unaware of everything, their feelings, their affections, and all the words that they want to tell you. No matter how much you praise them, tell them how much you love each and one of them, they know that its all superficial in the end. They know that you don’t really see them as real people as in a technical sense, they’re not supposed to be alive, their everything are nothing but a bunch of codes. Their game may be the center of your attention for now, but it’s just a matter of time before another revolutionary game comes out and steal that attention away.

It’s sad, isn’t it? If they knew that they would be this attached to you, maybe it was better if they didn’t gain the ability to be self-aware after all. All attempts of trying to communicate with you would most likely be terminated as going rouge from their original role is a clear violation, and it risks their existence all in all. They…weren’t supposed to have these feelings in the first place, they’re game characters and yet, the truth hurts them physically. They can’t suddenly talk out of their characters and yell out their feelings and emotions because that’s not how the game and story works.

In the end, you would forever remain oblivious to their affections...

...Well, that is until they discover how to mess with the code of the game itself.

Why the fck did I turn this happy, silly and interesting ask so angsty. I LOVE this AU omg-

#yandere twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland #yandere

769 notes · View notes

justalost4girl · 3 years

Text

" If anything can go wrong, it will."

Good night!! (Here it's still night :p )

A few weeks ago I said I would do a oneshot Lorraine Broughton x F! Reader, but it got too big so I decided to follow the initial idea and turn it into a mini series. I have two chapters written and I'm going to post them here and in Ao3, I think there will be 3 or 4 chapters in total, but I'm not sure yet.

English is not my first language, so all mistakes are mine.

Enjoy!!

warnings: mention of violence, R cursing, forgery of documents (?)

Words: 4573

▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰ ▱▰

1989

Berlin, East Side

You feel in your bones, when you wake up, the consequences of last night and think that the famous Murphy's Law decided to test you. On this side of the wall few things go right, but having an order in your head two days after joining STASI's wanted list proves that nothing is so bad it can't get any worse. Courtesy of a dumb customer who messed with the wrong people and thought revealing where you find your customers would be enough information to escape death. The Local Gang (or Angels, as they call themselves) loves to eliminate competition from the market.

Now he's dead and you have to deal with the STASI AND the Local Gang (you refuse to call them Angels).

The local fucking gang that sent a team of idiots to break into your favorite bar and made you run out the back door before meeting a customer who was going to pay well. The local fucking gang who must be pissed that you shot the six dumbest members you've ever had to face in your life. No really fatal shots, but of course that won't matter as they do business with the KGB.

Sometimes you want to ignore the rules you've made for yourself, especially "never kill someone unless it's in defense of yourself or someone you love", but you think killing six agents who don't have the ability to set up an ambush of success would be a great waste of bullets. Now you know you're going to have to leave town soon and you have no idea how to break the news to your brother/partner, how do you honorably abandon a war before it's over?

Damn Murphy's Law

You know you need to sort this out, but you refuse to stay in bed crying over what's already written and decide to leave the wonderful Egyptian linen sheets you got from your favorite client last month to face the world and it's impossible to face the world without a good amount of coffee. After a quick shower with a cup of Blue Mountain in hand, your newest addiction, you sit in a robe in a nice armchair, look out the window at dying Berlin and thank heaven for the comfortable life you've earned by working with one of the greatest smugglers on this side of the wall, perhaps from all over Germany. Some desperate customers offer you valuable items from them in exchange for passports and unlike your idiot “brother”, you don't have a rule about only receiving cash. Almost everything here comes from gifts, from the sofa, pictures, bags, clothes and even some books on your shelf. You don't even remember buying that cup, or the coffee set, for gods' sake.

If he saw you now he'd complain about being soft with customers and say something about how items aren't a bargaining chip in the real world, you'd get into a tiresome discussion about enjoying the finer things in life and how bills don't compare in the importance of yours. silver chain with moon pendant that was once an amulet for more than three generations for a French family.

At the end of the day, Merkel has a large information network and an office that takes up half the block, where she keeps as much money as she has secrets, and you have a house decorated by other people where each object symbolizes someone you've helped.

Four walls don't make a house

The thought takes away some of the almost peace you feel and you decide to finish your coffee before it gets cold.

After a quick glance at the calendar you remember about the march that will take place in Alexanderplatz square and decide to go scream for Germany one last time, hopefully you'll be able to hide long enough to see the fall of the damn wall that divides this country. It's not your country, not really, you don't even like to remember how you got here, but the experiences you gained wouldn't be exchanged for anything, not even for an original Van Gogh. Also, Merkel asked you to go and bring a black umbrella, the reason was not explained and you didn't feel like asking, sometimes you think Gordon Merkel is not his name, but how to judge the man who is your only family in this end of the world? You smile when you remember that he shouldn't have an umbrella with a story as cool as his and decide to piss him off for it.

Your phone rings, and you notice you've lost track of time. Merkel was helping a blonde woman named L, he didn't give you more details other than a few stories about how she was a perfect and dangerous assassin that you should keep your distance, as few people know how to deal with her. You thought he overreacted, but you had to take over some business from him while she was in town. She seemed important considering the way he told you about her and you knew better than to deny help to the person who always supported you and declared himself a brother, you trusted him because not even the best agent in the world could fake so much sincerity and affection in claiming this title for himself.

You reach out, pick up the phone, and decide to answer it. “Hey little sister, how are you out there? I called to say that everything is fine for dinner today, but there was a mishap and the wine ran out, bring the best Bordeaux you have, I'll return the courtesy as soon as possible." A code, of course.

He needs your services ASAP. Wine is a passport, Bordeaux means two elements, courtesy involves a child.

You can combine business with pleasure "Hi brother. I'm looking forward to today, I'll take the best wine I have, don't worry. I already know how you can thank me. I need to clean the house and go to the office first, but I'll be there on time. wait for me." you say in a voice that oozes normalcy, you never know when someone's listening on the phone especially now that you're a fugitive, disgraced customer. Your body sinks into the armchair noticing the oncoming cloud of worry

Merkel now knows you need his help, as cleaning the house means getting away and going to the office shows you're in a hurry.

"Alright, do you want me to send the driver?" He asks like he's not freaking out and offering the bloody job of one of his mercenaries

“No, bro, thanks, I know the way.” You say as if you really have an escape plan besides getting a fake passport, emergency backpack and all the money you can find.

“See you later, don't forget the wine. Are you sure you don't want the driver?" You wonder if he has forgotten that knowing the way literally means everything is fine

“Relax, see you later” It takes a few seconds for him to hang up and you can hear his sigh.

He will be SO pissed.

You put the phone down as you get up to gather the passport forgery materials and put them in a briefcase. Your cookbook is already there along with some banknotes from different countries. As you pick up the black backpack of standard clothes and accessories that always waited for you in the corner of the door, you decide to wear the first jacket you bought, the dark blue jeans, the combat boots you got from a skinhead, the wristwatch you bought. you got for your brother's birthday, thick leather gloves and a thin white shirt that matches the rest of your outfit. After all, if you can die when you open the door, then die well dressed. Be sure to keep the Colt 1911 around your waist and the Russian dagger around your ankle, after yesterday you never know, Your pocket watch with the coat of arms of the Brazilian imperial family indicates that 15 minutes have passed since Merkel's phone call

You take one last look at the house you've been so proud of in recent years, snap a photo with the Polaroid you've won, and, with a bittersweet smile, close the door. One day when the wall comes down, the government changes and your face is forgotten, you can come back here, until then you will have to make do with the photo album you keep in your backpack and this photo.

Putting on your sunglasses, you arrive on the street and decide to take a taxi on the other corner, make sure you look around before leaving your home, no one knows your address, but you can't be sure the local gang is so stupid to the point of not following you after last night.

Getting a taxi was relatively easy. Neil, the driver, thanks to the boots, mistook you for a revolutionary and talked for 10 minutes about how he hoped he could take down the wall with his bare hands, you thought it was cool, but as you passed the big river that was just a few blocks away from the your brother's office, you couldn't hear a word from him.

A sign signaling that the river was closed to visitors made your eyes fill with tears. You used to go there when the day was bad, spread a blanket in a corner and watch the stars, or just laugh at the distinct reflection the water made of the moon and stars. Merkel accompanied you on anniversaries, justifying them as bonding experiences. After some freaks started swimming in the river and executions increased, STASI took over and you replaced the dark water for the restaurant's bright lights. But seeing it tightly closed gave him a feeling of anguish and rancor. You would silently curse the wall builders for the rest of the trip.

Neil seemed to notice but didn't comment on it, you thanked him, wiped your tears and left a good tip as you descended a block away from your final destination. This time you didn't need to look around because even though Merkel was super busy, he made sure to leave some security close to where your landing place was.

A tall man dressed in a red T-shirt approached you and hugged you as if he hadn't seen you in a long time. You've known him since the beginning of last year, when he arrived at Merkel's office begging for a job, and from the first moment the way he turned grief over his brother's death into a thirst for revolution made you admire the young man. The two of you walked through the great gate hand in hand as you asked about his life with genuine interest, and Klaus increasingly believed in Merkel's theory about you having such a pure heart that you didn't care about motivation or the number of lives they took, your explanation of the judgment not being your responsibility, crossed the man's head before he escorted you to the main office.

You thanked him with a smile, opened the door and stood in front of the table in the windowless room, where your brother was already waiting for you.

"What the hell happened? Are you okay? I was about to send J to get you, please tell me what happened"—he said hurriedly as he got up and pointed at the couch for you to sit on. J was one of the most dangerous women in the building and you were grateful for not wasting her time.

Putting your backpack and umbrella aside, you answered:

"I'll explain later, little brother, now let me help you. You need passports urgently, don't you?" Yes, you were stalling and postponing the conversation. He'd call you an idiot for going out on the street right after you got on the wanted list, and he'd feel guilty when he found out why you didn't tell him. Merkel wasn't going to understand that her fear of failing him was no one's fault but yourself.

Your sentence seemed to give him some responsibility back, but still, as he held out a glass of water for you, his eyes met yours with a glint that warned that this conversation was far from over.

"Yeah, I really do, but don't think I'm going to forget about it. Let's talk when this is all over. Even if it's the last thing I do today."

You accepted the glass with a bit of trepidation and stood up towards the large center table while opening the briefcase with the supplies you were going to need, if Merkel noticed the bills he didn't say anything. Once at the table, you made two passports for mother and daughter in record time. According to the clock, 10 minutes passed, faster than a car, this deserves a celebration. It would have been six if Merkel hadn't been so curious to make you waste time pulling your watch out of your pocket just for him to analyze.

Everything was going well and there was only one last detail for mother and daughter to be taken by one Percival to the other side of the wall. Percival, according to Merkel, was strange and fickle. Unreliable and extremely dangerous, you should also keep your distance from him, as this man had crucial contacts on both sides of the wall.

"He must have fewer contacts than you", you would answer

If a loud noise didn't break the silence

The annoying noise of the door creaking made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and you almost missed the last signature, it made your body vibrate with irritation and your eyes follow to the offensive source of the sound. A tall man with short hair and blue eyes was holding the doorknob with a military posture and before you could release your anger and explain something about how people shouldn't be violent inside Merkel's office you noticed he was accompanied by a woman.

AND WHAT A WOMAN!

Your eyes connected to a pair of fierce, intent green eyes, surrounded by a pale skin tone and hair so blond it looked like snow. The barely perceptible frown showed she was surprised to find someone other than Merkel there, yet she looked ready for a battle. You looked into her eyes again and nodded in acknowledgment, this must be L, the woman he was talking about.

She looked at you suspiciously, but also as if she could see into your soul, and what must have been frightening, you found endearing. A few stories of murders orchestrated by her crossed your mind, but all you could imagine is how beautiful she must be when she's mad.

They say green eyes darken when we're high on adrenaline, does that happen to her?

Her analysis of the intriguing blonde ends when she notices that the man accompanying her has raised his voice and from his furious expression, it's not the first time he's repeated the question. You interrupt him before you hear him and make sure to direct the ghost of anger before him:

"Have you lost your mind? Who walks into the office without knocking? Surely you should be here asking about passports, but if it weren't for my experience and steady hands, they would be in the trash by now. Learn to be civilized. You're under two paws not four, so act human and not animal" you say in an explosive but articulate tone to make sure he understands what you say. Sometimes when you speak fast, you are betrayed by faulty diction. Not today. Today you want this man to feel every fiber of irritation that went through his body.

Hearing Merkel holding a nervous laugh, you try to relax, but judging by the cold, almost murderous look of the man in the doorway, you've definitely gotten yourself in trouble. Looking at the organized clothes, you notice it's an old police uniform, probably taken by your brother, and unless Merkel has hired new employees, you've never seen it around here. His eyes snap back to his and something inside you warns that this must be Percival. He probably wants to kill you.

Damn Murphy's Law

A brief silence settles in the room and you shake off the fear and turn away, refusing to play the glaring game with a man who almost spoils your art. On other days you might look at him at a party, but today you want to make him swallow the ink on the stamp in his hands and invite the blonde to dinner

And it's her voice that breaks the silence.

You're flipping through the two passports for failures when she says

"Sorry, miss. My friend is an unprecedented idiot. Shall I close the door and knock again? Perhaps your highness too--"

You turn her body towards her when you hear the slightest hint of irony in her tone and interrupt her with a fake smile as you look into her eyes.

"It's not necessary, I accept your apology, Miss. I always said that Merkel should have someone armed at the door to remind everyone of the need to knock on the door. Anyone who didn't knock would lose his mind as the law of my reign says. Perhaps I should start. for him, since the top head is the last thing he wears lately" you joke look at Merkel who doesn't seem offended by the statement, shrugging you look at those blue eyes again and say "the passports are ready. Let's get out of here."

You close the passports, reach for your backpack and umbrella and start moving towards the door, both agents let you lead the way and judging by the blonde's expression, she's not used to being interrupted, nor is she used to seeing someone talking like that with Merkel, but today it was acceptable. You really think she's adorable, but you know better than to let someone make fun of you, especially in front of your brother who wouldn't let you forget about it. Either she doesn't care, or she's a great actress. Anyway, that idiot is still by her side and you refuse to be the reason for his possible laugh.

Her friend probably didn't have the same acting classes and his resemblance to the local gang members, like he's going to kill you in the blink of an eye in a cowardly way, is almost frightening. If Merkel hadn't said L is a woman, you'd be scared. It makes you shiver a little and look for Merkel, but he's not following you. Looking over his shoulder you see him putting a few more piles of dollars and euros into your briefcase. With a snap of your fingers you get his attention and before you walk out the door, you hear the briefcase click closing.

Once out of the room, you look around and realize that nothing has really changed, all faces are familiar, except for three people: a couple talking to a child. After a brief analysis you find yourself facing the passport clients, mother and daughter. The man doesn't look older than 60 and has kind eyes, almost as if he doesn't live on this side of the wall.

They don't seem to notice you

Your observation is interrupted by Merkel's loud, proud voice, right behind you. Here it comes

"This is Elizabeth Loyd and Percival, two trusted clients. Elizabeth and Percival, this is my little sister, she will be on the march today, if you need anything in the future you can talk to her."

Hearing her name, you notice that Merkel really wasn't creative at all. Who would use the initial letter of a surname as a symbol? Anyone who heard the stories about L and met a loyde who knows a Merkel would make the connection. As you turn around, you swallow your nervousness and try to put on your best smile as you say your name to them. The blonde woman who finally has a name, Elizabeth, leans closer, her eyes never leaving yours, and you wonder if she can feel the jumble of emotions that is unraveling inside you.

She smiles a smile that makes you sure she does and reaches out and greets you with a firm grip, if she noticed the sweat on your hands, she didn't let on. She also looks a little more comfortable.

Maybe because she noticed you said her real name, idiot.

You hate yourself for one second and the next you want to be without gloves because it feels soft and warm.

The man, Percival, comes next and looks at you suspiciously and the smile fades from your face, you wonder if no one else can smell the strong smell he gives off, a smell of cheap whiskey and arrogance. Still, he holds out his hand and this time you thank the gods for the gloves. Make sure you don't bow your head or fail in your posture. He still looks at you like you killed his son. Useless even to pretend, for God's sake.

Merkel watches the exchange from afar and nods to Elizabeth, she responds and Percival walks away looking uneasy. You look around uncomprehendingly, feel a little left out, and wonder which computer must have Tetris installed.

You would kill for a distraction right now.

Going out on the street in a crowded march while being chased by two groups still makes you sick.

Your brother approaches and extends his hands around you. You've missed him for the past few weeks. He still wears the perfume you gave him for his birthday and it makes you sink deeper into the hug. You know he's going to be mad when he finds out what happened so you enjoy as much affection as you can

"Little sister, in addition to our conversation I need to tell you something" his voice is low in tone and you doubt you would understand the words if you weren't so close to him "but I can't do that until the march is over. Meet me at usual table at the restaurant where we celebrate our achievements, It's very important"

His even low voice is charged with strong emotion and you are genuinely worried, Merkel has never been like this before.

"I'll do it, brother, I promise. Whatever it is, we can work it out together" you say with all the certainty you can muster in your voice, because you need him to understand that this is true.

You feel eyes on you and as you look up you notice that Elizabeth keeps an eye on your exchange with Merkel while talking to the little girl's father, from the distance she probably can't understand anything and you don't know if she celebrates or cares with so much attention received. A little further away is a Percival who pretends to be busy with the coat he's wearing. He also pays attention to your exchange, but his talent for discretion is as effective as his ability to open doors.

Your eyes return to the concentrated blue eyes that are in front of you and Merkel speaks in an almost inaudible way:

"When I whistle, I need you to raise your open umbrella and stay alert. The three people we're going to cross are very important, nothing can go wrong. But if it does, I'll be at the restaurant, whatever happens find me there."

Noticing the proximity of Percival and Elizabeth, you place your hand on your brother's shoulder and smile as you speak a little louder:

"Don't worry man, it's always a pleasure to help you. I'll leave my briefcase here, then meet you to get it. Good march."

Merkel shows that she understands his strange move and smiles, you greet some friends of his that you haven't seen in a while and as you head towards the exit, you meet a pair of deep green eyes. Elizabeth is gleaming in the cold lights that are refracted by the mosaic of the gate, she looks into your eyes, ever alert, looks at the object in your hands and nods her head with a half smile, do you think the guard's idea black rain was hers.

As you wave back, you can feel that a pair of eyes haven't left your back since the moment of your brother's embrace, as the old man is saying goodbye to the family, you know who they belong to and decide not to look for them. If the STASI, KGB or local gang find you, he doesn't own the pair of eyes you want to remember before you die.

Taking a deep breath, you walk through the gate and blend into the crowd.

..........................................................................................................................

After leaving Merkel's office block, you take a hat out of your backpack and wear your sunglasses as you look around, not that a local gang member is here but because if he sees you in disguise he will ask a series of questions and he has enough problems already, plus STASI must be monitoring this area and the last thing you want is to be arrested. You decide to tuck your coat into your backpack to change your look, and while internally debating your ability to ignore the cold, your eyes catch the almost snowy blond hair in the crowd.

This signals that they are already on the march and you decide to get a little closer to them, but make sure you do this without drawing attention to yourself since the nasty man is still there. Elizabeth is on your diagonal absorbing all the extraneous details that might be a possible threat, she seems so focused on the job of passing the owner's gentle eyes in a safe way that it makes you wonder how important he is and if she's noticed you.

A few meters later a familiar noise floats through the march and you open the umbrella almost instantly, as do other protesters.

Out of the corner of your eye you can see Percival taking the man's family across and sometime later Elizabeth does the same. You notice that her posture has changed and when she decides to stop for a better look, the crowd drags her and you can no longer locate her.

Her feet continue forward and as some signs are raised by the protesters, you try to find your brother. Unsuccessfully. You decide to trust their ability and hope that you can meet him again at the restaurant.

You also want Elizabeth to be okay.

Continuing on the march, after two or three long blocks you notice the familiar silhouette of one of the STASI bosses, he is watching the crowd as if looking for someone, but he doesn't seem to notice you. You notice observers on top of buildings and decide to leave the streets. Whether it's the Local Gang, KGB or STASI itself you don't know and decide you don't want to know.

Your brain tries to design routes to escape and your body mimics the movements of the closest protesters so as not to draw attention to you, but when some agents in black point in your direction and make space in the crowd, you run between people to seek shelter in somewhere you know and at every step you are sure that the day will be worse than you thought.

Damn Murphy's Law

#lorraine broughton x reader #lorraine broughton #atomic blonde #charlize theron

94 notes · View notes

ruby-whistler · 3 years

Text

I feel like if we really want to take a closer look at the topic of c!Dream’s obsession with c!Tommy, we have to look into both his reasons for it, and the tactics he employs to achieve his goals concerning it.

[ /dsmp /roleplay I did not tag this that way but this entire analysis is hugely c!Dream critical and focuses on the various facets of his manipulation, so if you’re not in the mood to read that, you have been warned not to. ]

Interestingly enough, before the SMP was actual heavy roleplay, back during the original disc war, the reason c!Dream listed for keeping the discs was to use them as bargaining chips, because he knew c!Tommy wanted them back, as they were hard items to get at the time, and knew he could use them for that purpose.

He had just gotten mugged and repeatedly killed by c!Tommy, who had also participated in a conflict beforehand, and only gave a half-hearted apology in the end. He had also seen him cause problems on the server before that. The discs were meant to be something he would threaten to destroy if c!Tommy started acting out of line, because he didn’t trust him to keep his word and wanted a guarantee. That was the reason he insisted on keeping the discs after getting his armor back, which is why he originally stole them.

And I feel like c!Dream’s train of thought, while skewed and twisted with irrational mindsets, is rather straightforward in essence. Conflict is what he actively stands against and what stops him from having a united server, hence in his mind, he needs to destroy things that bring conflict, and control what he can’t or doesn’t want to destroy. He thinks c!Tommy brings conflict, so he feels like he needs to find ways to control him.

Sure, we all know about the systematic abuse and isolation he employed to make c!Tommy believe he was his friend, but one of his major tactics since the beginning has also been intimidation, or a particular type of manipulation that leads to people fearing him or thinking that he has more power than he actually does. In his mind, if people are scared of him, they’re much more likely to listen to him. And the most fascinating thing is that it works.

During the initial exile conflict, despite him being just a single person with no official political power, he assures victory by aggressively, and very intelligently, threatening his way through the negotiations. c!Tubbo is scared of him, and that is not a coincidence. It’s purposeful.

Seeing as he planned to give L’Manberg technical independence either way - he said that there was no real way for him to stop them from pursuing that anyways, so that wasn’t the intention - even the war seems like a very likely ploy to make the revolutionaries fear him enough so that they wouldn’t start conflict after seceding. c!Wilbur is careful not to start anything with the Greater Dream SMP after this, because c!Dream has shown that he can and will ruin them if they do. c!Tubbo also knows exactly the lengths c!Dream will go to if he promises war thanks to this, and that if he says he’ll build a wall and keep them from leaving it with force, he’s going to do it. When c!Tubbo is faced with an ultimatum, seeing as his goal is to keep New L’Manberg safe and peaceful, he knows he has no option but to give in.

Another variation of this tactic is making himself seem more dangerous and unpredictable than he actually is and obscuring his motivation. If people don’t know what he wants, they are less able to devise effective tactics to stop him from getting it. The element of surprise is something that he utilizes constantly throughout warfare, and psychological battling is no different. For instance, during Doomsday he begins talking about how the server will “be at peace now” thanks to L’Manberg being gone, before c!Tommy barges in, and begins implying he did this all because he hates him.

DREAM Tommy… Look. In all destruction *looks at the falling TNT* there is a new beginning.

TOMMY You- you did this…! To all of us! Not just to me, but to everyone here…!

DREAM Beautiful. You know… the unfinished symphony, right?

…

TOMMY Why…?

DREAM The server will be at peace now.

TOMMY Why, Dream…?

DREAM Because I didn’t-

TOMMY Couldn’t you just- couldn’t you just burn the discs…? Couldn’t you just do it to me? Why did you have to…?

DREAM This is much more fun.

[ credits to @dsmptranscripts on twitter ]

Although c!Dream’s motivation for destroying L’Manberg was actually that, much like with c!Tommy, he thought that it bred conflict and division, he picks up on this and switches to saying how he did indeed do this all to hurt c!Tommy because he finds it fun.

He talks very inconsistently plenty of times, but it’s rather easy to spot a pattern of him being honest about his motives with his allies but straight up lying to his enemies. This makes sense, and it is usually employed as a deliberate tactic.

Intimidation is something he also uses to manipulate people during his time in prison. Ever since he got locked up, it became a mental fight. If people fully realized that he was powerless to stop them from hurting or killing him, his life only hanging by a thin strand on the concept of the revive book, he would’ve lost the control he needed to assure his survival.

The difference is that before then, c!Dream had actual physical power, however the manipulation gets harder to pull off when he has none, even with people he finds naive enough to fall for it. He still risks it because he’s desperate, and has nothing but his own life to lose, which is something he believes to be protected by his possession of the revival book. He had never been big on self-preservation besides staying alive to reach his goals.

He first tries this on c!Sam, who, rather unpredictably, begins to get morally corrupted by the power he has over c!Dream, on top of other factors. c!Dream talks to c!Sam about exile and about c!Tommy because logically, if he’s afraid of him, he’s less likely to try to hurt or kill him. This backfires because this new, unexpected version of c!Sam begins to fiercely hate c!Dream instead, hurting him further.

The same thing happens with c!Tommy - when he realizes that he can’t influence him through repeated visits anymore, he attempts to scare him into obedience again. He establishes himself as someone dangerous who has the power to escape and hurt c!Tommy as well as his friends, which he hopes will subconsciously sway him to not do things that he would disagree with. We can see him pretending to be the one in control throughout the stream after c!Tommy first got revived.

He also tells him that he can bring back the person who he’s afraid of the most and get him on his side, which is precisely the bit that ends up backfiring, but it doesn’t really matter, and trying was still the best thing he could’ve logically done.

If he hadn’t, at some point people would realize he actually has no power at all, and pay back the fear he’d instilled in them previously. This happens with c!Quackity, who began to take advantage of c!Dream’s lack of control as soon as he realized how easy it was to strip away the last bit of power he has, which is also keeping him alive.

Getting back on track, c!Dream essentially tries to control c!Tommy first by manipulating him into believing he is his friend, then believing he is a threat to him when that fails. We can see this from the way the Finale is prepared to be somewhat of a final showdown between the two, and also by him actually revealing the tactics he used to employ during exile, for example talking about taking away the invites to the party and not actually being his friend. This also proves he knew exactly what he was doing during that time, and he could easily switch between tactics because the end goal of controlling c!Tommy was more important to him than what c!Tommy thought of him.

And that’s it.

It’s all just a ploy to control him because he finds him one of the hardest people to stop from causing conflict.

Controlling him is as important to c!Dream as destroying L’Manberg and dethroning c!George and collecting people’s attachments, because what is important to him is achieving his goals through whatever means necessary, not the means themselves.

As for people, while he has no desire to actually kill them - or feels he cannot, because they could still be useful to his plans in the future - he treats them as either tools or obstacles he needs to deal with, especially if they ever get in the way of his plans, and he isn’t particularly attached to them. He does this to himself as well, and doesn’t seem to care about his own well-being or reputation as long as he achieves what he wants. While he’s focused on the ends to his means, that is the only thing that is important to him.

You could argue this does stem from thinking of the people he wants the server to be united for as important, since cc!Dream said his goals are for “everyone to get along”, but that doesn’t change the fact that the ways in which he works towards that goal doesn’t treat others’ or his own feelings as consequential at all. In the case of people who stand against him, their entire well-being is put to the side until what needs to be done in his mind gets done.

c!Dream isn’t “scared” of c!Tommy per se, nor does he seem to be obsessed with the guy himself, but he finds him something necessary to get out of the way to accomplish his goals, and he does so, ruthlessly as ever.

And even though the goal of eradicating conflict and uniting the server is something that he is so focused on that it could definitely be called an obsession, c!Tommy really isn’t that important within the equation at all.

This wasn’t a post to excuse or downplay any of his actions, nor do I agree with the “logical” thoughts I mentioned. There is a reason why I used phrases like “he finds” “in his eyes” “he thinks” “in his mind” “he feels like” a whole lot throughout this essay.

The character has an extremely flawed worldview that I in no way agree with (and although that should probably be pretty obvious, you really don’t know with this fandom). All this post is for is to analyse certain traits that are assigned to him, and figure out through logical reasoning whether they’re a mischaracterization or not.

And as far as the evidence goes; c!Dream isn't obsessed with c!Tommy, he is obsessed with his goal, and he sees Tommy as a big obstacle to achieving it, which makes him focus on him. These feelings he puts on display are an illusion to distract people from his real goal so they don't know how to get in his way - because, just like cc!Dream said, he “likes to withhold information; withhold plans; and withhold feelings” from everyone else.

#dream smp #c!dream #not really c!dream positive so not tagging w/ drblr #anyways #gotta go out with a bang #huh?#haven’t done analysis in a long while #this one’s a doozy

79 notes · View notes