(thank you for answering oc questions!!) have you mentioned before why finch took an oath of vengeance?
(of course, i really appreciate getting them!)
mostly it stemmed from having to bear witness to a lot of injustice in his formative years and not having the means to do anything about it. once he got the means (training and tempus's blessing and growing up to be a brick wall) he took it upon himself to even the playing field, to be a deterrent against ~evil~ either by his actions or by his presence alone. to pull good people up and knock bad people down. as hard as possible. preferably so they wouldn't get back up again.
he doesn't enjoy exacting revenge, but he does find a kind of peace in the aftermath. that brief moment of cleaning the blood off his sword when the world feels slightly better because someone awful is gone from it.
rare are the people he swears personal oaths against but that's probably for the best. for everyone.
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"What happens now?"
Nemo has spent unimaginable amount of time staring at his father's skull, its eyes unlit. Was he watching still? Did he see Nemo brought back to life by the forces the man himself did not understand? Or did he no longer care?
And just who exactly was Withers?
"Milord?"
It took a tentative touch to his shoulder for the man to finally turn around. And there they were, the damned, bloodied fools of his father's unholy assassins. The best of the best, the worst of the worst.
Staring at him like sheep brought to the slaughter.
"Yes?" It took all of his composure to simply shake the hand off and not break it; but composure was something he had a long good time of practicing.
And without the urge it was almost...easy. Almost like violence was something he didn't have to perform anymore.
"What will happen now?" Asked the girl, and Bhaal beneath, how didn't he notice how young they all are? None of the assassins looked older than forty and it said something about this whole business. Probably something very unsavory.
Nemo took a deep, steadying breath.
"Now," his voice echoed from the walls, multiplying it in a rather menacing manner. "You will renounce my father. You will lay down your weapons and your faith and will do no more of his bidding. Either you walk out of this godless or-" and at that he sent a glare more suited to be accompanied by a knife than by simple words. Seven hells, words were hard. "You will not walk out of it."
"Are..." another assasin raised a voice. "Are you asking us to forsake Bhaal?"
"Yes."
"And the alternative is..?"
"Joining his ranks on the other plane, of course," Nemo smiled his best, 'charming' smile. "But you all should be ready for that, everyone who kills should be ready to meet their own death. Or are you the cowardly kind?"
"So you will just kill us?" Oh, they argue now. Stupid lot. "As simple as that?"
"As simple as that," he gestured back at where whatever the fuck was left of his sister dearest lay. "Just like her. Though, I suspect, you'd throw less of a fuss over it. Or will you?"
"But we did everything Bhaal asked of us!" Another of his bunch of stupid idiots complained. "Everything you asked of us! And you will just...discard us?"
Of course he will. Did they not realize what kind of place it was, what kind of a "family"? Murder was what they did, all of them.
Him - more than the others.
"If, notice the emphasis, you do not reject Bhaal. But tear him out of your hearts - and you can walk out of this alive."
"And what about our contracts?"
That actually made him pause.
"Your...what now?"
The girl, the brave foolish girl who dared to touch him, spoke.
"Our murder contracts, you know, the ones we earn our wages from?"
They earned their wages? No, scratch that, they had wages?
He was sure he would not be able to forget that.
"Remind me for a moment, what's the deal with these," he winced. "Contracts?"
"Well...People ask us to kill someone," the girl shrugged. "We kill the target and get paid for that. Don't you remember? You set up the whole deal, said murders won't pay for our food unless we do something about it. And we did something about it," she grinned, obviously proud of "the whole deal."
"It was such a smart thing to do too, Lady Orin would never! All she wanted us to do is to perform the murders...fancily."
"By playing her corpse-dollies, I see."
Someone snickered. The girl frowned.
"Something like that. We had to run the operation in secret, but what else we were supposed to do?" She gestured around wildly. "The temple might provide us shelter, but the food? And what of our families? Some of us have children, you know, parents. Who will support them?"
Alright, now this was becoming weird.
"You're saying you've killed people...to feed your families?"
"I have a pet," someone from the crowd shouted. "It's an alligator and let me tell you, providing for this thing is costly."
"You have a pet alligator?"
"Yes," the man stepped closer. "His name is Minty, you've met him! Said he's a mighty beast and what I'd better feed him the corpses of my victims, that'd save the costs."
Despite his best judgment Nemo could feel a smirk crawl up his lips and firmly settle there.
A pet alligator Misty. Ridiculous.
There was a bunch of freaks and weirdos standing in front of him.
But again, wasn't he the same as them? A blade made of flesh, a man knowing how to take life and little else.
Maybe something could be salvaged here yet.
Maybe.
"Alright," the sigh he let out didn't feel forced, yet there was some anticipation too. Murder was familiar. Murder what brought money was...prospective. "Show me these contracts."
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Hey so I doubt anybody cares about this given that my blog has like, 50 followers and half of them are inactive or old friends, but if anybody's been wondering why I have so few posts on here about Israel compared to other political issues it's because I'm not putting anything on here that isn't credibly sourced. I noticed quite a few posts containing misconceptions and some straight up hoaxes early on and I've just really not noticed anybody start to think more critically since then, so I'm just not posting anything unless I can take the time to verify it.
I think a large part of this is just that I'm on the English side of the internet and most people are not able to read Hebrew and Arabic so there's just going to be more misinformation than American current events. But ngl, there's been some stuff that I really can't understand why anybody would not immediately flag as a hoax unless motivated by anti-Arab racism or antisemitism of the conspiratorial variety.
Also I just have complicated feelings because I grew up very involved with Judaism and my first Rabbi was a hardcore Israeli Zionist, and I also spent a lot of time at Chabad which was also quite Zionist. So while from a logical & moral standpoint I am, as far as I can tell, quite anti-Zionist, there's just some personal feelings in the mix that are hard to let go of. So I'd rather not invite conversation unless it's with people I trust to be understanding because I grew up with an extremely biased view on this and there might be some ideas I still hold without realizing they're motivated by my upbringing and not the reality of the situation.
Again, I can say with 100% certainty that Israel's actions since October 7th have been reprehensible and that it is their actions in the years before that led things to this point, and that I wish Israel had at the very least not had such heavy British colonial influence in its' founding, if it was ever possible to found a morally good Jewish state in the first place.
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