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mbti-notes · 3 years

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hi i’m an istj. i fear the problem im going to describe is resolved by being more Te proactive and taking on more leader responsibilities and failing. just typing that out makes me feel burned out and miserable. anyway i get involved with groups that align with my values to get things done but it always feels like i somehow join things that aren’t as efficient as i’d want them to be or stagnate. at the same time that i have strong opinions about what to do i resent having to take on more responsibility to enact it. i want to be part of an established, moral, process/group but it seems like everything is in flux all the time. just making sure: is this Te-Ne dysfunction ?

Your question is about type development. An important aspect of type development is understanding the weaknesses and flaws of your type, in terms of the ways that your type tends to misuse functions. You seem to believe that your problem boils down to a simple lack of desire to lead in group situations (weak Te?), but it probably goes far deeper than that.

Si-Ne problems often manifest as a general aversion to change, specifically, unwillingness to change how one looks at a situation, which would then significantly alter one's approach to it. Imbalance between Si and Ne becomes a very unhealthy stubbornness when one is also prone to Si-Fi loop that thinks in terms of pure absolutes. In essence, you believe what you believe and you want what you want, and nothing and nobody can break through that mental wall. Perhaps not even you.

Auxiliary development is meant to help with Si extremes and Si-Fi loop stubbornness by making you care more about empirical facts (Te) than your frustration (Fi). It isn't always easy to develop the auxiliary function when you come to believe that it interferes with what makes Si feel most comfortable (e.g. "just typing that out makes me feel burned out and miserable"). If using the auxiliary function feels so "tiring", it doesn't mean that you should avoid using it. Quite the contrary. It's an indication that you haven't yet learned to use it properly, which means further development is necessary.

Te wants efficiency, that much is true. However, what separates immature Te from mature Te is how exactly one conceptualizes "efficiency". When Te is immature, one has a very rudimentary understanding of how to be efficient. For example, one is likely to believe that efficiency is achieved through assertiveness or even brute force, i.e., "making" things happen despite all the obstacles in the way. Is it any wonder that using Te feels tiring, then? You're essentially forcing yourself to swim against the current. Si doms are painfully aware that their energy is finite, so they quickly run out of steam.

However, Te isn't really about mustering up energy. This is not what makes TJs smart, strong, and formidable. Mature Te conceptualizes efficiency as reducing the amount of energy required whenever possible, which is why they have a lot of energy to take on very heavy workloads - some people call it "working smart". This is done through facing the empirical facts of a situation head on and learning to work closely with them, which makes it far easier to make them work in your favor.

Your problem requires a two pronged attack:

Are you able to change how you look at situations in order to improve your approach (to address Si-Ne imbalance)?

Are you able to face the empirical facts of the situation and work with them rather than against them (to develop better use of Te)?

Wanting to be part of a process/group that aligns with your values in order to enact some good in the world is an admirable thing to strive for. Presumably, the other people involved in the group have the same sense of mission, otherwise, they wouldn't have joined. However, what you fail to take into account is that people aren't generally single-minded.

Human beings are complex because they are motivated by a multitude of factors, whether they realize it or not. They are full of psychological conflicts, contradictory desires, irrational impulses, old baggage, and unconscious bad habits. And when you bring people together, all that stuff comes out and creates complicated entanglements. A "group" only becomes a "team" when it is able to overcome those psychological obstacles together, and it can be a very long process of learning how to maximize strengths and mitigate weaknesses in every individual member. That's why a lot of groups simply fall apart. While your intention to join the group seems simple and straightforward (because Si-Te is admirable in its ability to keep things simple and straightforward), other people's intentions might not be so simple. If you fail to take into account the irrational aspects of human nature, you will cause yourself needless suffering.

Your frustration with people is likely a manifestation of your unrealistic expectations of them. Perhaps you aren't able to understand people who don't resemble you, let alone work with them. And you will certainly be doomed to fail if the only way Te knows to deal with individual differences is to force everyone to become more like you. That's an impossible task, not because it requires the energy of a thousand suns as you assume, but because you're choosing to fight against reality. Mature Te would advise that you should first face down the empirical facts of how people operate if you hope to discover the most effective way to influence them. Your repeated experience of feeling disenchanted with groups tells you that you're missing an important piece of knowledge about groups and how they operate.

I'll give you a very simple example from my own life. I used to gather with a group of 30-50 people once a week to conduct planned discussions. The discussions never really started on time despite everyone being in their seats because people weren't focused enough at the start of the session. There was often whispering and sidetalking and such that would go on for about half an hour before the room felt settled and focused.

One method of addressing the problem arose organically. Whoever was the main speaker simply started shushing people and it became a thing. Sometimes, it would even escalate to calling people out, like a teacher scolding a student in a classroom. This definitely made the social atmosphere less inviting and more tense. Sure, people would shut up after being called out, but they became less focused due to seething with resentment. Power struggles aren't great for group morale, especially if it's supposed to be a group of equals coming together for a common cause.

It all sounds quite childish, but these kinds of judgments are useless. You can call people childish, inefficient, incompetent, etc etc, but it doesn't solve the problem. And, worse, being judgmental blocks you from understanding people better and working with them. Perhaps an ISTJ would see this as a "mess", an "inefficiency" that wastes time, and evidence of bad character when people break the rules.

However, if you change the way you look at the situation, you might not be so quick to make such judgments. Actually, it's kind of weird for a bunch of people who know each other well to enter a room and immediately sit down quietly. Humans have a natural tendency to socialize as a way to strengthen interpersonal bonds. Isn't group cohesiveness a good thing, since it encourages better cooperation? If you are able to see the benefits of their chatty behavior and how it contributes to group cohesiveness, then instead of fighting against it, you would think of ways to harness it.

The real problem wasn't inefficiency; inefficiency was merely the symptom. The more primary problem was that a lot of people joined the group not just to "get things done", but also to make friends. The structure of the event denied them from fulfilling that important need and then they were more likely to act out. This problem was discovered when people had a chance to talk about what was frustrating them, which meant that the group had to make space to conduct some uncomfortable conversations.

To address the problem, the group eventually decided that the first 15 minutes would be devoted to socializing and allowing people to catch up, with the explicit promise to get down to business when the time was up. Some people brought drinks, others brought snacks. Some even showed up early to have more time to socialize. It enlivened people and enriched their relationships. Being "officially" allowed to get the chattiness out of their system, they were better able to sit down and focus on the planned agenda. The meeting felt like fun rather than a chore. And if you're interested in a cause, don't you want to recruit more people to support it? Making things more fun is one good way to attract support. You can look at it as wasting 15 minutes OR you can look at it as a 15 minute investment.

Solutions to human problems require:

cognitive empathy: figuring out what's really going on inside people's heads (in Te terms it means working only with the empirical facts of the situation, rather than indulging negative Fi judgments)

strategy: taking the time to work with people and figuring out the best way to help them get over obstacles (in Te terms it means investing energy early and wisely to maximize your returns later, rather than putting effort into the wrong places or only stepping in to tackle mere symptoms of the problem)

creativity: harnessing natural human tendencies to produce something useful or worthwhile (in Te terms in means taking what's already there and transforming it into a NET positive, rather than getting too fixated on every little negative detail and losing sight of the bigger picture)

Te can be a great function for dealing with human problems as long as you overcome the immature aspects of it, such as impatience, bluntness, or inflexibility. Every person is unique, so every group is different. Let go of the idea that there is only one way to approach a problem/conflict and you will start to be more creative in your approach. By accepting the fact that things are always in flux and using empirical evidence to understand and predict how change works, TJs become much more effective and efficient at everything they do. When it comes to people, meeting someone different from you is an opportunity to learn how to deal with that kind of person. The more knowledge you have of human psychology under your belt, the better you get at dealing with people's weird or negative tendencies. If a strategy works, use it again. If it doesn't work, adjust it to fit their psychology better.

In your situation, you see the problem as people being inefficient, so your inclination is to step forward and do something to "make" them more efficient. Humans aren't built with the prime directive to be efficient. They're not machines. Their psychology is messy, so trying to force them to behave like a machine is to force them to go against their psychology. In other words, you're choosing the least efficient approach. The more efficient approach, though it requires more intelligent thinking on your part (you want to become more intelligent, right?), is to properly understand the more primary problem of what's really causing them to be so inefficient in the first place. That is the way to discover the right strategy. If you are able to target those obstacles at the very root, efficiency improves more naturally.

Oftentimes, working smart doesn't require you to step up and be THE leader for everyone. As an introvert, it's probably more comfortable for you to work behind the scenes to talk to people, get a better idea of what they need and/or what problems they're experiencing, and incrementally remove the obstacles that are preventing them from focusing on what they should be focused on. You can't fix everything all at once, so just do what you can to fix what you are able to fix at any given point in time. It's a process and some progress is better than no progress.

#istj #auxiliary te #fi loop #inferior ne #te #efficiency #problem solving #working smart #creativity #change #perspective #social skills #ask

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swanlake1998 · 3 years

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Article: Tokenism vs. Representation: How Can We Tell Them Apart?

Date: January 19, 2021

By: Theresa Ruth Howard

Last year's Black Lives Matter protests jolted the ballet world into action. All of a sudden, things that once "took time" instantaneously became easy fixes, like it was an episode of Oprah's favorite things for Black people: "You get an opportunity, and you get an opportunity!" Much of this sudden, reactionary change has elicited high levels of skepticism, prompting the query: Is this true representation or is it merely tokenism?

There is empirical data that white people seldom keep word when it comes to BIPOC individuals. Social justice (especially when it comes to Black people) has almost always been a trend, a tool wielded to benefit white people more in the end, and there usually is an end marked by a lull and a slow, silent rolling back of the majority of what has been accomplished.

In the early stages of addressing systemic racism, until companies have a proven track record, it will always be a "damned when you do, damned if you don't" situation. Trust must be earned. Nothing done will be enough because it feels like trying to make an ocean out of a desert with an eye dropper.

That is not to say that there isn't meaningful progress being made. We are in the midst of a global shift. Power is being redistributed, rules and criteria are being altered. The standards of what was once acceptable, or enough, no longer suffice. People are no longer just "grateful" to have a seat at the table—not only do they expect to eat, they want to help plan the menu. The truth is, we lack a suitable metric to measure this progress because we have never been here before.

What is “representation”? What exactly is “tokenism”?   

The Oxford Dictionary defines "tokenism" as "the practice or policy of making merely a token effort or granting only minimal concessions, especially to minority or suppressed groups."

The complexity of the question "What qualifies as tokenism and what as representation?" rivals that of Blackness itself. There is often a conflation perhaps because representation is part and parcel of tokenism, making it difficult to discern one from the other, or at what point it shifts. What it looks like for the bystander may not be how it is experienced by the person in the situation.

It is important to note that the act of being the "only" or one of a few does not in and of itself amount to tokenism. Too often that assumption is made by the public and it is unfair, reductive and wounding to those holding those spaces. What determines tokenism depends more on why and how someone occupies the space.

This is where the process of diversification gets slippery, manufacturing conflicts of confidence for Black dancers who, like sacrificial lambs, may question the reasons they were hired, cast or promoted. Were they given an opportunity for their talent, or because they are Black, and in what measure? These are often the speculative whispers from colleagues, classmates, parents and patrons. It is a psychological head trip to which one will rarely get a satisfactory answer.

The way diversification is approached says everything. When the motivations are authentic, there will be respect, sensitivity and mindfulness; an effort to cultivate cultural competence will be made. This requires a great deal of humility. In order to be able to interact effectively with people of different cultures, racial and ethnic backgrounds, you have to admit that you have blind spots, and are ignorant of things and, more importantly, are desirous to learn. This requires engaging them as human beings, not just tools as a means to an end.

Faculty additions

The recent hiring of full-time Black faculty members at Boston Ballet School (Andrea Long-Naidu), Pacific Northwest Ballet School (Ikolo Griffin), San Francisco Ballet School (Jason Ambrose) and School of American Ballet (Aesha Ash) all came to fruition during the COVID-19 crisis and the BLM reckonings. All four schools were part of the Equity Project's 21-ballet-organization learning cohort—the three-year partnership between Dance Theatre of Harlem, Dance/USA and the International Association of Blacks in Dance that aimed to increase the presence of Blacks in ballet, onstage and off. (Full disclosure, I was a member of the design and facilitation team.) There were a number of school directors in the room, including BBS director Margaret Tracey, PNB's Peter Boal (artistic director of both school and company), SFBS's former administrator Andrea Yannone and director Patrick Armand, and SAB's chairman of faculty Kay Mazzo.

One of the constant discussions was the importance of having representation on school faculties; it was drilled into their psyches. There were multiple conversations, and eventually the ball started rolling downhill. Unfortunately, the news of these faculty additions was only made public after last summer's social media protests by Black ballet dancers, making them appear reactionary.

The announcements began with a cacophony of press about Ash's appointment at SAB, which was met with underground backlash. Much like the overwhelming coverage about New York City Ballet's first Black Marie in 2019, which other companies had been quietly and consistently doing for years (without fanfare), the jump over contrition and bolt towards heroism for many soured representation into tokenism. In contrast, when Balanchine took Arthur Mitchell into NYCB as its first Black principal dancer, Mitchell asked that there not be a press release heralding the advancement. Instead, he wanted simply to appear onstage as a matter of fact.

When you wave a flag too hard late in the game, and are overly pleased with the little you have done over decades, you get no pat on the back. Though pleased for Sister Ash, inherent distrust has the Black community sitting with its arms folded, watching and waiting to be served the pudding that holds the proof of change.

This is the flip side of the representation coin. Organizations can dust their hands off and feel good about the progress they have made, while the actual burden and responsibility of "representing" gets laid squarely on these new Black hires. Ironically, these Black instructors return to the space of racial isolation they inhabited as dancers, with one major difference: Now they are expected to be an agent of change.

With the media blitz around her being SAB's first full-time Black faculty member, Ash is very clear when I ask her what her role is. "I am a teacher," she says. "I am not there to transform the entire structure. I was hired to be a teacher and I am hyper-focused on being the best darn teacher that I can be."

Her refrain sounds exactly like most Black ballet dancers who just want to dance, but whose very presence is a statement of silent resistance to a centuries-old system of whiteness. With this lack of representation, coupled with the increased visibility via social media—whether intended or not—they are instantaneously branded as "role models," and saddled with the pressure of expectations from the public at large, the Black community specifically, as well as their organization.

For these new faculty members, if and when their institutions make a faux pas, you can be certain the first question will be "Where were they?" When presented with this reality, Ash resolutely replies, "Let's make it very clear that I'm not the executive director or the artistic director of the School of American Ballet. But if I see things that don't look right to me, I'm absolutely going to feel very comfortable going in there and saying 'This does not look right.' " She sees her role as a long-time member of the Alumni Advisory Committee on Diversity and Inclusion as the space to do that.

Conversely, when asked what Ash's role is, Mazzo replies—along with giving glowing compliments about Ash's teaching abilities—"We feel that we hired an activist who wants to make more change," referring to her creation of her Swan Dreams Project. "We'll look to her for her perspective, her opinions or insights or feedback. It'll carry an enormous amount of weight as we continue to evolve and learn. I think she might not even realize what that means."

It could well be within this sliver of obfuscation that genuine representation can curdle into tokenism—the space where boundaries are unclear and assumptions are made. There has to be an agreement and clear boundaries with veto power enabling a person to control the way their Blackness, gender, sexual orientation or identity (in body and voice) are utilized both internally and externally for it not to wander into the realm of tokenism.

A person's desire to participate (and to what degree) should not be assumed because they represent a particular demographic. Having your thoughts, feelings, experience and emotional labor taken into consideration is something that is often not afforded to marginalized people. Being granted the power of choice with regards to participation, though not the norm, would be equitable. In this way the truest measure of whether something is tokenizing lies with the person in the experience: If they have agency and are empowered, it matters little how things appear.

In extending the invitation to Andrea Long-Naidu to join the Boston Ballet School, director Margaret Tracey was clear: "I need someone like this to hold me accountable. Knowing Andrea's commitment to supporting the Black student in the white ballet world made me think this is the kind of person I need on my team." The discussions between the two solidified what feels like a developing partnership.

Long-Naidu is looking for a space that will allow her to stretch into her desire to be a part of the change, and influence the field's push towards diversification. "I want to be at a high-level ballet institution where I am working with dancers, where I can make a difference," she says. Over the past five years she has been stepping into her power, both as an educator and as an advocate. "I am finding my voice in this work. I want to be a part of helping predominantly white institutions be more welcoming for Black bodies."

It helps that the two share history as former NYCB dancers, allowing for the uncomfortable dialogue necessary both for the learning curve and the strengthening of the new allyship. They align in their growth journeys: Tracey is prepared to receive radical feedback and Long-Naidu is ready to share. "Andrea is my first hire where I have shifted my focus from whether this outside person is a good fit for us to making sure that our environment is not stuck in a place that may not allow someone like her to fit in," says Tracey.

Casting and marketing

We all want to see Black and brown dancers rise through the ranks. What we don't want is Black dancers being cast when they are not ready, or prepared for a role just for a company to showcase it has them. This is the epitome of tokenism and sets dancers up to fail, a luxury, by virtue of their Blackness, they do not have. Blackness is held to a different standard so unlike their white peers, whose failings are their own, the "representation" Black dancers carry comes with the heavy burden of the entire race.

Artistic directors might not view it this way when casting, but being culturally competent would mean taking this into consideration. When fast-tracking a Black dancer, true equity would mean providing the extra support (technical and emotional) they might need to have them succeed. Hence, it's not about what is normally done; it is about what is necessary in this instance.

Tokenism in casting can stigmatize the dancer amongst their peers and the artistic staff, setting off the cascade of whispering echoes of "They only got it because they are Black." Even though white people have been getting opportunities because they are white for eons, it creates yet another level of isolation, stress and vulnerability in a Black dancer, potentially crippling both their confidence and their career.

Ballet organizations that have been actively working to educate and examine themselves, and are successfully expanding recruitment, increasing diversity in training pipelines, company rosters, faculties and administration, are grappling with how to best communicate progress without tooting their own horns too loudly. This is the space between a rock and a hard place; if they quietly go about their work, no one will know, and if they promote too heavily it could be perceived as pandering.

This culture shift demands transparency. Gone are the days of blind acceptance; the people demand receipts. Ballet has seldom had to explain itself, aloft at the pinnacle of the dance hierarchy, supported by centuries of tradition, the very act of "showing" deemed beneath it. Those days are on the wane.

The majority of ballet companies use the traditional rankings system. Star power is real, ballet lovers are loyalist, and marketing campaigns often follow suit by using images of principal artists or those performing lead roles. Hence, when most of your diversity (specifically Black dancers) resides in the corps de ballet, purposefully diverting from the marketing norms to telegraph the presence of nonwhite artists is by definition tokenism.

That is, of course, if marketing followed that hierarchy to begin with. When Tamara Rojo took the helm of English National Ballet in 2012, the company underwent a rebrand, highlighting ENB as a company that tells stories. Together with Heather Clark Charrington (director of marketing and communications since 2014), she transformed the promotional black-and-white backstage images into evocative art pieces capturing a moment, feeling or mood of a work. Together, Rojo and Charrington identify the dancer who can best capture it, regardless of rank or role. Many times there isn't correlation between the dancer on the poster and the principals on the stage.

Ironically, this nonhierarchical norm had gone unnoticed until 2018, when the breathtakingly stunning poster of Swan Lake featuring Precious Adams was released, and comments about casting and tokenism were raised. This is a prime example of when righteous indignation based on assumptions and lack of knowledge results in possible collateral damage to the very person you are advocating for. If companies are expected to do better by their artists, then the public needs to check itself, as well.

We need new procedures and practices to check our work. If your whole marketing department is white, perhaps consider enlisting the eyes of nonwhite members of the organization or cultivating external critical friends to look through a different lens to vet images and copy. The trick is you have to trust and listen to their feedback.

COVID commissions

The call to give Black choreographers opportunities was right up there with the call for ballet teachers, and the excuse was the same: "We can't find them." It seems that the glow from the world being on fire illuminated the field such that suddenly Black choreographers could be seen raining from the sky like extraterrestrial squids in Watchmen.

Black folk have been in the game long enough to know that the majority of recent commissions are purely reactionary. "Of course when I received multiple commissions, it crossed my mind that it was in alignment with the Black Lives Matter movement…and being a Black woman I tick two boxes," says Francesca Harper, who has eight commissions on deck. "I have been creating films since the beginning of my career—two of the companies came to me specifically because I can create something for film."

However, the nagging question of Blackness versus talent conjures uncertainty. "You wonder, Are they really looking at me?" asks Harper. "Are they looking at my work? That, for me, is always a painful moment."

Darrell Grand Moultrie is another of the numerous Black choreographers the ballet world is now inviting to take center stage, albeit virtually. While he has choreographed repeatedly on Atlanta Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Cincinnati Ballet, BalletMet, Ailey II, Milwaukee Ballet, Tulsa Ballet, Richmond Ballet, Smuin Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, when American Ballet Theatre's Kevin McKenzie called to extend an invitation, according to Moultire, McKenzie apologetically said, "Unfortunately, I have not been exposed to your work."

Before Moultrie accepted the commission to choreograph in a bubble for ABT's virtual gala in November, he made three things clear: "First of all, I wanted this to be on the Met stage," Moultrie says. The second was a commitment to make that happen post-COVID. The third was he wanted to up McKenzie's "exposure" to Black choreographers in the game. McKenzie agreed.

"I think my commission with ABT is Kevin opening up to see who is out here," Moultrie says. However, that work should have already happened: Over the term of the Equity Project (which ABT was a part of), names of Black choreographers were often bandied about, including veterans Donald Byrd, Robert Garland, the overlooked Christopher Huggins, and Jennifer Archibald, who deserves a bump up, and Amy Hall Garner, who is on the come up.

The "it takes time" and "we can't find" mantras are to some degree the by-product of a lackadaisical attitude. One can believe that these recent gestures are earnest attempts to right a wrong. But the ease with which it could have been done before (and was not) is insulting, and makes it look and feel like tokenism.

It always feels like when Black people's houses are on fire, white folk can't seem to find a cup of water to fill it, yet when their houses are ablaze, here we come with buckets and hoses, always in service. At this critical time when the world is operating in crisis mode and on the learning curve of working remotely and presenting digitally, it feels like Blackness is used as a convenient tool to get out of the diversity doghouse. The fact that these opportunities are being given with anemic budgets cannot be overlooked and one has to wonder if these commissions offer parity.

Black people are too familiar with this type of post-woke euphoria, white guilt and shame married to a need to save face, creating just enough access and opportunity to smother the flames. Then, slowly, things begin to settle pretty much where they were before.

That being said, this time feels different (though we say that every time) because the landscape and the rules have changed. Increased exposure, transparency, the power of influencers' individual platforms and call-out culture all make it possible for anyone to write or contribute to the narrative. This collaborative quilt of divergent perspectives, which in time will become history, will now include more voices and experiences, forming a mosaic revealing a more comprehensive picture.

The work that ballet is attempting is a process, not a project. As to whether or not this is sustainable representation or mere tokenism, Moultrie sums it up this way: "We know what is happening right now is just a reaction. A good reaction, but only time will tell."

#article #ballet #theresa ruth howard #racism #anti black racism #aesha ash #andrea long-naidu #francesca harper #darrell grand moultrie #dance magazine

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rohad93 · 4 years

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Green Thumbs

It started with a few tiny, golden, colored flowers that Blue had given her on a return trip from one of her former colonies that had needed her intervention in dismantling some of the more complicated systems.

It had long petals that tapered into near razor-sharp points and nearly matched the hue of the glimmering gem in her chest.

She’d accepted the gift with thanks and a look that no doubt spelled out her confusion to her partner. At least she assumed by the way Blue laughed quietly at her under her breath with that fond look that seemed to be reserved only for her, different from the look she would gaze at Steven or Spinel with.

“They reminded me of you.” was the simple explanation for the plant. If nothing else, that made her hold the tiny organic fauna all the tighter.

Later she had placed the flowers in her personal rooms and would look at them often, but within a few rotations, they had started to sag down, their brilliantly colored leaves beginning to wrinkle and coil at the edges.

She reached out and ran her fingers gently over the petals that had begun to pucker and shrivel and frowned.

Her knowledge of regular organic life was limited, except for ways to destroy it. In terms of fauna, she knew even less, but she did know someone who was more than knowledgeable on the subject.

The diamond line didn’t ring long before the youngest diamond appeared on screen, surprised by her call no doubt.

She held the plant up for him to inspect and explained the situation.

“A gift from Blue, huh?” He smiled knowingly and Yellow only huffed but didn’t argue.

Steven was happy to explain how to keep the plant alive, even sending her several digital copies about how to care for all manner of plants. He wasn’t confident it would survive though since his area of expertise was earth plant life and this had come from a faraway star system he had never even heard of, but hopefully, the same principles would apply.

She watered it and it did perk back up after a few cycles, color, and plumpness returning to its soft petals and stems.

Yellow smiled to herself as she ran a gentle hand over the reinvigorated petals and then couldn’t help but notice how empty the large shelf looked with the single plant sitting on it.

Which was really how it started.

That one plant eventually became two and three and before she knew it Yellow’s rooms had become a veritable garden of plants and flowers that ranged from every size shape and color imaginable, even having stepped shelving build into the room to hold the plethora of fauna that now took up so much of the once cavernous space.

Since most of the plants had come from far off places in the galaxy Steven’s advice on caring for them could only take her so far, instead, she dove into her extensive library of notes about every planet that she took a plant from, careful to only take plants that lived on worlds that had similar atmospheric conditions to Homeworld after the first plant that all but exploded after only a few cycles on the planet’s surface.

Apparently, unlike the gems that were created out of these plants’ mineral resources, the organic life was a bit more… sensitive. Something she kept in mind, carefully monitoring each new addition to her growing greenhouse for a while after its introduction, though she found the word to be lacking as there was a plethora of colors now splattered through the room, though if she were honest with herself, there was more than a handful of blue and pink toned plants and flowers dotting the room.

She didn’t need to look too deeply into what that meant. She was nothing if not self-aware.

Even with Steven and Spinel to help fill the void, there were times when her gem ached fiercely at the sight of anything with those bright magenta hues, but as sharp as that pain sometimes was, it was more often than not a dull warmness. A fleeting thought, and sometimes not so fleeting, at how pleased Pink would be with everything as it was now.

Yellow snorted to herself as she gazed down at a plump, blush-colored flower with an uncountable amount of tiny layered petals making it up, even as that pain tried to ignite itself in her core.

The once smallest diamond would have been absolutely beside herself to see the three of them now, perhaps herself especially.

Tearing her gaze away from the plants in question, her eyes immediately found what she might say was her personal favorite.

A flower from a faraway world on the edges of the once empire

It’s six nearly symmetrical petals were a pale almost violet color at the center, darkening toward the tips into rich cobalt, where they the curled ever so gently under.

They were small, considering all the plants around her that dwarfed them in size and grandeur, but it fit in the palm of her hand and the deep, complex colors and simple beauty reminded her so much of Blue that she’d planted a number of them to make up for their lack of size and presence.

While she could visit her counterpart anytime she wished Yellow still had many things to make up for and an immeasurable amount of damage to fix as far as shattered gems and her experiments were concerned, such as the cluster, luckily she had an eternity to correct it, in fact she often lost track of the time and Spinel was forced to come and fetch her when she had worked past an appointment time.

She could spend long amounts of time at her desk, carefully piecing together even the smallest nearly microscopic shards until she had a whole gem. Sometimes though, she just didn’t have all the pieces. Those were not good days. Those were days she would have to walk away, with the air crackling with the unspoken threat of an electrical storm.

Today was just such a day.

She had gone through every bubble in her possession and couldn’t find the last pieces she needed to fix the gem she was currently working on. These bubbles had been early, smaller prototypes of the cluster, so none the gems here were part of the cluster, meaning that the pieces she needed were simply gone, lost.

A frustrated noise worked its way out of her throat as she carefully placed the incomplete gemstone, with its jagged, splintered edges back in her bubble and looked at it for a long moment before setting it specifically to the other side of the room, where several other similar gems sat, incomplete, for always.

A grim reminder that while she could work nonstop till Homeworld ceased to exist, that she would never be able to completely erase all the mistakes she had made, nor fix all the pain she had caused.

The longer she stared at her failures the more energy began to burn and sizzle across her skin in little sparks but then in jumping arcs or brilliant yellow light.

Her jaw set and electricity buzzed around her closed fists. She turned, ready to unleash the pent up energy when the sight of all the vibrant plants helped her reign it in, as one wrong placed firing of her powers could send the whole room up in a blaze and she had worked much too hard carefully cultivating all the fauna to let her temper send it all up in flames within mere moments.

She lowered her raised hand and sighed, letting her powers fizzle out as quickly as they had reared their head.

She could still feel the pent up energy crackling beneath just beneath the surface and set about watering and pruning the plants, losing herself in the calming monotony of the tasks, much like when she put gems back together. The frustrated energy bleeding out with every snip of her tiny shears and pruning of a wilted leaf or flower as she knelt on the floor, the remains becoming ash nearly instantly in her hands.

She became so engrossed in the task that she never heard the doors slide open with a quiet hiss, nor the quiet rustling of fabric.

"I very much like what you've done with your rooms."

Yellow jerked, looking over her shoulder to find Blue, standing behind her, admiring all the plants that littered every available space that wasn’t needed for walking or working.

“Blue! I didn’t hear you come in…” She stood, brushing any specs of soil, imaginary, or otherwise from her form.

“So I noticed.” She smiled a hint of laughter in her voice. “It’s beautiful, Yellow. Whatever made you decide to take this up?”

“Thank you.” She set the shears down and clasped her hands behind her back. “It wasn’t something I planned…It just happened, I suppose.” Her eyes looked over the dozens of plants, easily finding the source of the indoor garden. Blue followed her gaze and saw what she was looking at.

The golden flowered plant that she had given her nearly a month previously, a bright spot, nestled between two of Yellow’s favorite blue, flowering plants.

“Oh!” Blue walked quickly over to the plant and ran her fingers over the bright, healthy leaves. “You still have this?” She looked surprised and Yellow looked affronted.

“Of course,” she huffed. “I never dispose of a gift.”

Blue leveled a long look at her and she scoffed.

“I never dispose of a gift from you,” she clarified, and Blue smiled.

“I know you don’t, but to be honest, I didn’t expect it to live this long,”

She was doing her best not to laugh in the face of the scandalized look Yellow was now making.

“I’m glad I was wrong though, and I very much like all the additions. It adds some much-needed cheer in here.”

Yellow only grunted, turning to look at the flowers instead of Blue, who walked up beside the quiet gem, adamantly refusing to look at her and laid a gentle hand on her arm, stopping at her side.

“I didn’t mean anything by it, darling, only that caring and nurturing organic life is just so… different from what you did before it’s surprising is all. It is very beautiful,” she insisted.

Yellow hummed in acknowledgment, diamond-shaped pupils finally sliding over to meet Blue’s, who smiled at her when she did, tightening her hold on the golden gems arm.

“Considering how adept she was at breathing life into all manner of things, I think Pink would be very proud of what you’ve done as well.” She hummed, laying her head on Yellow’s shoulder as she looked at all the brightly colored plants, eyes drawn to the brilliant fuchsia ones just behind the ones she had given Yellow.

A hand reached up to lay itself gently over the one she had curled around Yellow’s arm and she looked up to find golden eyes fixed on her.

“I think she would be proud of all of us.” The tone left no room for argument and Blue only smiled, laying her head back on Yellow’s shoulder.

“Yes, I think you’re right.”

#bellow summer bash #bellow diamond #yellow diamond #blue diamond #fic

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afriendlyirin · 5 years

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Steven Universe Rewrite

So I’ve now finished my rewrite of the final arc (go read it and tell me all your thoughts), and while I’m satisfied with it in many respects, I still feel like it doesn’t properly resolve or engage with everything I’d like to, nor is it fully in keeping with the parts of Steven Universe I liked, despite that being my goal. There’s simply too much to get into and too little space to for it. To fully “fix” the narrative in my mind, I’d probably have to diverge much farther back.

I’m not interested in actually writing such a story, but I think it would be a good exercise to sketch an outline of what such a thing might look like.

I think the biggest problem is that Steven Universe has too many antagonists. The three initial Homeworld gems work well on their own – we spend a lot of time between each one, giving us time to process what’s happened before they return or a new antagonist gains focus. But with the diamonds, we don’t really get that breathing room. We barely know anything of Yellow before Blue shows up, we’re only just starting to really process them before White appears, and then the show ends. And throughout all of this, we have even more unresolved antagonists dangling – Jasper, the rubies, Topaz and Aquamarine, Homeworld’s system itself. To do justice to all of these characters at the previous pace of the show would probably have taken twice as many seasons.

My second problem, which is more personal preference, is that I don’t like how the plot ended up going epic, with Steven having to take on uberpowerful opponents with an entire empire of resources. I’d say this is also thematically confused – the show starts off making it seem like everyone is safe on Earth and the war is in the distant past, but it’s then revealed the war is very much still on and the plot becomes about Steven continuing the rebellion Rose left half-finished. My favorite parts of the show were seasons 1-3, which were much the antithesis of that – the conflicts were much more subdued, against lone actors or just interpersonal problems.

So, let us combine these things to give us a different starting state.

There was only one diamond, and she was destroyed during Rose’s rebellion. Either she blew herself up with a corruption bomb, or the shattering of a diamond is what makes a corruption blast. Down-scale the empire’s resources such that they were putting most of their manpower into fighting the rebellion, meaning that their population is utterly crippled by the fallout of the blast in addition to their loss of leadership. The gem empire still exists but as a shadow of its former self; it no longer has the manpower to invade new planets. (We can also tone down the oppression; no killing people just for being born. Whether or not that is still the case for Era 1, it’s just not possible to keep doing that with your population so crippled. Homeworld can still be oppressively conformist, but not to the point of EUGENICS EVERYWHERE.)

Right off the bat, this dodges a lot of awkward questions that are present in canon. Why did Rose stop fighting just because she saved one of many colonies, and why did she make Steven when Homeworld was still a threat that could endanger him – why, in sum, does she act like the war is over? Well, because it is, and she won.

This shifts the tone and focus of the story away from an epic rebellion plot and into one of postwar reconstruction. After the dust has settled, what happens? How do you pick up the pieces and move forward? Steven will only ever encounter pale shadows of Homeworld’s former power. Things like the Cluster become akin to forgotten landmines, echoes of a violent past that can still hurt people long after the conflict is over. He can still fight Homeworld gems, but they are lone agents acting on personal grudges; Jasper is not acting under orders, she just really wants to take a swing at Rose Quartz. (This setup even works a lot better with the threat level we actually see from canon, which is that Homeworld keeps sending weak scouts and small groups instead of bringing their full military might to bear against the Crystal Gems.)

This frees up a lot of space to just get into the characters talking about their feelings, which was always the real core of Steven Universe. In canon, Amethyst is the only Crystal Gem who really gets a full arc with a proper resolution (the battle with Jasper at the conclusion of season 3); Garnet’s gets flattened to just be about her relationship so it can be rushed through in Heart of the Crystal Gems, and Pearl’s arc gets completely substituted for something else that officially has no problem for her to resolve at all. The time spent on the diamonds and battle logistics could instead be spent on developing those arcs. With the antagonist compression, we could develop the Homeworld gems further as well, perhaps making them proper foils to Crystal Gems – something I get the impression canon was trying to go for but never seemed to really commit to.

Speaking of which, this would make the Homeworld gems much more tragic and sympathetic. Lapis’ despair over how different the new Homeworld is would no longer be about the simple passage of time, but because it is genuinely a shambling corpse of what it once was. And because Era 2 is so different than Era 1, Peridot, an Era 2 gem, would lack much of the shared culture and knowledge other gems have, justifying her naivete and social awkwardness. Finally, the rebellion destroying the entire army makes Jasper even more isolated – she is one of the very few survivors of the war, further justifying her fury at Rose and her inability to open up to her peers – she has none.

This would also make everything about Bismuth so, so much more reasonable. Instead of reacting to the fact that Rose lost the war that is very much still on, she’s advocating for igniting a brand new one before the ashes have even cooled on the first. (For extra horror, she might not even be dissuaded by the news Rose killed the diamond after all – they may have understood Homeworld’s soldiers were only following orders and assumed they would defect if they removed the command structure… but now you’re telling her they assassinated the head honcho and they’re still loyal to Homeworld? Clearly the only solution is to KILL ‘EM ALL.) It is far more understandable for Steven to keep her bubbled in that situation, and for the Crystal Gems to agree to it.

Ultimately, I think this plotline could remain very similar for seasons 1-3; perhaps move up the “Rose shattered Diamond” reveal to around season 2, and follow it with the Cluster plot to show why that really was necessary while emphasizing that yeah, war is horrible we really shouldn’t be starting another one, Bismuth!

The major difference would be swapping out Yellow Diamond for a lower administrative gem. I thought Yellow Diamond alone worked as a fine antagonist, really, so not much needs to change – just transplant her personality into another gem. This character could function as a foil to Garnet, someone thrust into overwhelming responsibility because there’s no one else qualified left alive. We could even double down on this and make her a permafusion; that maps really well onto modern conservatism, where people who would actually be hurt by the old hegemonies still romanticize them anyway. Season 4’s arc could revolve around her; having dealt with Lapis, Peridot, and Jasper, Steven must go to Homeworld and address the problem at its source. (The events of “Raising the Barn” could happen here, giving Lapis an extra season to work through her issues.) This could actually be resolved very similarly to the White Diamond resolution in canon, but it would fit with the earlier themes much better – this gem really would have reasons to feel insecure about her failure to live up to a perfect ideal. And for bonus points, that makes her a foil to Steven, too.

It would also make it a lot more believable that these gems would need Steven to teach them what is, if we’re being honest, pretty basic philosophy. If they are technically free of the old system but still stubbornly cling to its trappings, it makes sense that they’d need an outsider to tell them to think for themselves and that this would genuinely be a radical new perspective for them. Hauntings, again – just as in real life, the system still influences peoples’ thinking long after it was officially dismantled.

We could replace the Zoo arc with something that hits the same beats. The rubies return (or someone new gets sent) and capture Greg for some reason. Instead of seeing the Zoo we get to see Homeworld society directly during the trip. The events of That Will Be All still occur, as Not Yellow Diamond, cracking under the strain, unfuses and argues with herself behind closed doors.

Instead of the gems only being caught as a joke (and having that also be resolved as a joke), it’s a choice Steven makes. We invoke the hero’s last temptation: He has everything he’s ever wanted, his family in one piece and Homeworld beaten so thoroughly they’ll never threaten them again… but to take that offer means looking away, and abandoning everyone who is still suffering on Homeworld. He looks upon the gates of Heaven, but willingly chooses to walk back into Hell.

(Connie should probably be present to witness this so we can set up the falling-out arc, which is important for deconstructing Steven’s martyr complex.)

This leads to an analogous arc to Wanted and Diamond Days where Steven navigates Homeworld until he finally reaches Not Yellow Diamond. For added tension, the gems are separated somehow and Steven spends a significant time on his own befriending Homeworld gems. Garnet converges with him for the finale so we can make it about her (maybe extend her themes to the previous arc, focus on her stress and failures as leader during the heist).

Not Yellow Diamond is a noncombatant, but hides behind elite guards and defenses that Garnet and Steven can’t handle on their own, necessitating a fusion. The theme here could be that Garnet is paralyzed by her responsibilities, unable to both mount an offense while also keep Steven protected; Steven cuts through this by taking on his own responsibility, showing Garnet that she doesn’t have to do everything herself.

Not Yellow Diamond’s redemption happens similarly to White Diamond’s, but because she’s a noncombatant it is actually reasonable for Steven to spend so long on a nonviolent solution. Possibly Garnet even tries to shatter her (this could be what makes them unfuse), but Steven stops her. Not Yellow Diamond more explicitly agrees to change things and protect Earth.

So by this point, Steven will have dealt with all extant threats… but there are still issues left unresolved. The corrupted gems still aren’t healed, Bismuth’s still bubbled, Lapis is still missing, and Pearl hasn’t had a personal arc to resolve her issues. This would then turn season 5 into something of a denouement season, tying up all the remaining loose ends. This season’s theme could be one of self-actualization, revolving around Lapis and Pearl working through their difficult mental health problems and Steven, though seeing his own issues reflected in them, overcoming his own imposter syndrome in the process.

Season 5 starts after a timeskip. Steven is trying to heal the corrupted gems but is making no progress. Make this into a metaplot, with snippets in other episodes throughout the season showing he’s continuing to try and making more progress as his personal arc progresses.

Bismuth is already unbubbled to leapfrog over that awkward conversation, but still suffers from PTSD. She gets an episode (or two) about her issues, primarily grief. She bemoans the loss of her friends, and Steven tries to assure her that he’ll heal the corrupted gems any day now. She shows him the shards and says bitterly, “Can you heal these?” Spirals into a breakdown naming and remembering all the shattered gems. Steven tries to lay down some generic platitudes like he always does, but this time it doesn’t work; Bismuth calls him out on his ignorance and innocence, that he’s never lost anyone so he has no idea how she feels. This forces him to rethink things and actually listen to Bismuth, foreshadowing that that will be the theme of this season. (For bonus points, could also have her echo Pearl’s “She’s gone, but I’m still here,” re: the shattered gems.)

This could probably happen simultaneously with the falling-out arc (though that interacts awkwardly with the timeskip since Connie would probably be upset immediately after), could draw a connection by having Steven realize or Connie point out his god complex, he wants to help people for his sake not for theirs.

After that heavy opening we can have funtimes with human friends; Sadie Killer arc happens here plus any outstanding human subplots resolve. Should probably also have an episode about Pearl that touches on her issues since that’ll be the topic of the final stretch.

Then Lapis comes back. Have a conversation about PTSD and how she needed to do it on her own time etc., Steven can show his growth by accepting this and not pushing.

If the Lion chest is important, Lapis found the key while soul-searching (it was hidden somewhere on Earth the CGs didn’t look).

Next plot episode is Steven getting frustrated over his inability to heal the corrupted gems (can have a comedy bit where he tries increasingly absurd and convoluted methods), wonders what he’s doing wrong. Something happens that leads to him talking to Pearl about Rose. Possibly he thinks whatever’s in the chest is the cure, but that seems pretty stupid even for him. Events lead to Pearl revealing that she shattered Diamond and Steven has a fresh meltdown, accuses all the other gems of secretly being shatterers and not telling him (Garnet could react really awkwardly, implying she actually has killed people), decides that’s the problem and runs off.

(If there is a similar memory scene with Pearl, it’s via hologram; Diamond literally does not get a voice.)

Either Pearl tracks him down, or someone else brings him back only for him to discover that Pearl has run off because she agrees that she is horrible and shouldn’t be around Steven. Either way leads to a deep conversation about their issues. The climax here would result in Steven fusing with Pearl as he has with the others, but perhaps this time the context is peaceful rather than it being a tactic used in desperation, affirming the idea that fusions are a way of life and not just a tool.

As a result of his growth from this, Steven finally figures out the method to heal the corrupted gems, whatever that may be. We have a great happy ending montage where it looks like everything’s resolved – Steven has forged peace with Homeworld, and all the corrupted gems are healed, including Jasper…

…who immediately attacks him. We get one final episode, or perhaps even a full arc, revolving around a final fight with Jasper. Because Steven never actually resolved her issues before she got bubbled! She is still mad, still violent, and still hurting. This is the most narratively satisfying climax, because Jasper is all the story’s themes embodied: the sins of the past come back to haunt us, the scars left by war, and the pain of grief and acceptance. She always made the most sense as a “final villain” to me. Steven’s usual approach of steamrollering people with generic feel-good platitudes would not work here; he must actually use what he’s learned and engage with Jasper on her own terms.

(If this were an actual show THIS is where I would pull the surprise season extension, lead everyone to think the Pearl reconciliation is the grand finale and then surprise them with Jasper.)

The Jasper episode, or the finale if it’s a whole arc, would be titled “Under the Stars So Bright” as a reference to Trigun and also the imagery of being under the star of Diamond.

I feel the only way to make this work would be to intercut the Jasper ep with flashbacks to her time under Diamond, much like Trigun’s final episode. Only issue is that the sudden change in POV would be really weird; Trigun worked because the hero was there for those events and we only see his perspective, but Steven has no window into Jasper’s past.

Jasper poofs all the CGs and digs a hole to the core with the intent of popping the Cluster. Steven proceeds to get the crap beaten out of him protecting and bubbling the CGs like Vash vs. Midvalley in Trigun. Make this incredibly gruesome, even with the bubble shields she cracks his gem and draws blood.

Steven tries to reason with her like he did before, and like before it just makes her push back harder. Eventually she tries to pull a suicide by cop and bait Steven into shattering her. He gruesomely rams his fingers through her face to grab her gem and draws his fist back to kill her, and then we get a flashback montage of all his family memories – but in an inversion of Vash vs. Legato, this results in him not killing her. (For bonus creepy, he could also be stopped by Jasper flashing a grin or letting slip that she wants to die.)

Maybe as a compromise, he does poof her – this would be the only time in the series he intentionally does so.

(In the fantasy world where I have an animation studio at my beck and call, this would be filled with visual references to Trigun, both the Legato and Knives confrontations.)

Ending is Jasper going to prison to face trial for trying to blow up Earth. Lapis gets to say her piece, then Steven gives a more mature redemption speech than usual, about how he can’t make her change and she has to want to become a better person but he still believes in her anyway. This can perhaps be the nuanced message that the movie… appeared to be trying to go for with Spinel, that people can have understandable reasons for lashing out and doing bad things, but that doesn’t mean you’re obligated to exhaust yourself for them; you don’t have to be a martyr.

In the final montage, Jasper reunites with other jaspers who were corrupted in the war (maybe mirrored with a montage of Bismuth hugging formerly-corrupted Crystal Gems). Final message is what the canon ending claims to be: Steven has gained a more mature and complex outlook on “good” and “evil” but he still chooses to be optimistic and believe in the goodness of people. GOOD END.

That’s my take. Ultimately, it seems Steven Universe bit off more than it could chew, or perhaps had too many cooks. The most important takeaway from this, in my view, is to keep things to a manageable level in your story. Don’t introduce elements you know you won’t have time to adequately address; a few points done well will often land better than a lot of stuff done slapdashedly.

#steven universe #su #fanfiction #su meta #steven universe meta #my posts

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aurora-nova-fic · 5 years

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Archimedes Snippets, Part 2

A couple more ideas for Garak as a Starfleet spouse, following All Our Tomorrows. Because the muse doesn’t want to work on a complete story so much as little scenes here and there in various follow-up works.

As before, these are unpolished (you can tell, because the tenses switch from one snippet to the next). I’m not really doing anything with these, just getting the ideas down so I can stop writing them in my head.

The Bashir & Garak show moves. The crew of the Archimedes is intrigued.

The Archimedes is twenty hours into its two-year mission when Bashir and Garak first argue in public.

This doesn’t escape anyone’s notice. Starfleet gossips. Not everyone, of course; the exact amount of gossip per person varies considerably. Any ship or station with a large percentage of Vulcans can be expected to show a corresponding drop in this behavior (sociologists have done studies, inherent difficulties in studying the subject notwithstanding). On the whole, though, it’s a popular pastime, especially when things are a bit dull at the moment or when a new crew comes together.

The USS Archimedes is fresh from Utopia Planetia with a new crew still getting to know each other, and it doesn’t surprise anyone when the first focal point of gossip is Dr. Julian Bashir.

For one thing, their CMO comes to the Archimedes from Deep Space Nine, where he was indisputably a hero of the Dominion War. His discovery of the cure for the changeling disease helped end the war, though for some reason that’s the only medical topic about which he doesn’t like to speak. He was there from the beginning of the quadrant’s conflict with the Founders, survived a Dominion internment camp, and developed an antigen to prevent the spread of a Dominion-bioengineered disease.

He’s also the first Augment allowed to serve openly in Starfleet, which is still controversial in some circles. The idea is that he’s not Khan, but some people are afraid he’s the tip of a dangerous iceberg. Nobody on the Archimedes knows Bashir’s personal feelings on the subject of genetic engineering, because the only people brave enough to ask, this early in the voyage, are also wise enough to know it’s not their business.

What really secures Bashir’s place as the grapevine’s favorite subject is his marriage. He arrives on the Archimedes newly married, which would’ve been unremarkable if his husband hadn’t been a Cardassian. A Cardassian who worked with the Federation during the war but may have been an Obsidian Order agent before that. Nobody on the ship is entirely sure, nor do they know exactly what said order actually did, but they assume it was something like the Tal Shiar and don’t like the idea one bit.

So it’s natural that everyone’s watching them. And what the crew sees confuses them at first.

Not a full Earth day after leaving Deep Space Nine, Bashir takes a late lunch and meets his husband in the mess hall. A handful of alpha shift crewmembers are around, and some of the beta shift getting an early breakfast, so there a good dozen witnesses to see both of them getting worked up. They speak quietly, but have intent facial expressions and both gesture with abandon.

“Didn’t they just get married?” asks Taiya, a beta shift engineer.

“I heard they practically came aboard from their honeymoon,” replies MacPherson, who then has to explain the concept to Taiya and thus learns Andorians have no equivalent.

“Short honeymoon phase,” adds Kowalczyk.

To the trio’s delight, Bashir and Garak have gotten so into their argument they raise their voices. “… absolute caricature of a villain is insulting to the reader.”

Bashir’s eyebrows fly up. “Really? That’s your next complaint?”

“Oh, please. Don’t tell me anyone goes around proclaiming, ‘Woe me, I’m so hideous to look at, I must therefore kill my brother and nephews.’ As motivations go, it lacks any semblance of credence.”

Taiya’s antennae twitch in confusion.

“You’re deliberately ignoring his motivation,” insists Bashir. The audience doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about. “Gloucester claims to have been ‘cheated of feature by dissembling nature,’ so wronged that even dogs bark when he walks by.”

“From my understanding, Terran dogs bark all the time. It’s hardly good reason to kill your own brother.”

“He feels everyone hates him because of his physical appearance. ‘And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover, to entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain.’ If he’d been shown kindness and love, he wouldn’t have been so angry. His life could’ve been entirely different!”

“You cannot possibly intend to read this as advocating the healing power of love.”

“No, because we don’t see anyone show Gloucester love, but think of the possibility. His life could’ve been entirely different if…”

“…he lived in a time when his deformities could be easily treated?”

“…people weren’t so shallow.”

“That is a theory not remotely supported by the rest of the text.”

“Shakespeare,” says MacPherson. “I think that’s Richard III.” When the others give him a questioning look, he shrugs. “My mother does community theater, so I spent a lot of time at rehearsals as a kid. You pick these things up.”

Bashir’s combadge beeps. “We’ll have to continue this discussion later,” he says. He and Garak briefly press their palms together, and then the doctor heads out of the mess hall.

Garak looks towards the observing trio, smiles knowingly, and picks up a padd.

This becomes a pattern. Bashir and his husband (no one even knows if the man has a first name) don’t act like newlyweds in love. They argue. Constantly. In fact they argue more than Vord can believe, and she’s a Tellarite. A Tellarite who joined Starfleet to escape the constant verbal sparring of Tellar, if it matters, but even on her homeworld, marriage is supposed to be a refuge from conflict.

They meet for lunch when Bashir’s schedule permits. The crew begins to consider this a source of entertainment, even when they don’t have any knowledge of the books under discussion. It’s usually literature at lunch. Human and Cardassian, mostly, but they sometimes add in works from other societies with no rhyme or reason anyone else can figure. Taiya says they’re both wrong about a seminal Andorian novel, according to a Written Arts teacher she had at age sixteen.

They’re obviously fast readers, given that they discuss a new book every other day, every third at the outside. Either that, or, as Kowalczyk says, they have a lot less sex than your average newlyweds.

Some ten days into the mission, Bashir calls a Cardassian book derivative and Garak reaches new levels of primly outraged.

“Derivative! Just because your authors have no respect for tradition doesn’t mean the rest of the galaxy is so enamored with the new.” He’s clearly gearing up for a long diatribe. Some of the crew pause their own lunch to watch the spectacle when Bashir’s combage chirps, and he gets up with clear regret.

That’s when people start to realize the CMO and his husband love debating. This is a honeymoon phase, weirdly enough. The pair is spotted coming out of Holodeck 1 disagreeing on the program they’d just run.

“You’re not supposed to suspect Watson.”

“I don’t see why not,” replies Garak. “If he’s constructing the narrative, he could well be the murderer.”

It appears there’s nothing they won’t argue. This doesn’t stop them from looking like they want to jump each other, though they are actually very decorous in public. No one has ever seen them do more than press their hands together.

People wonder what happens when they’re actually fighting. It turns out, silence. One day, a month into the mission, they eat quietly. It’s unnerving. They must make up overnight, though, because the following day they’re at it again, hashing out opposing views on a Cardassian poet.

Kotra references come in handy

“Archimedes to Bashir,” said Lt. (j.g) Connelly, Operations Officer.

It was a long moment before the CMO responded, and if he didn’t have a good reason, Andrea was going to have a chat with him about setting alarms for check-ins.

“Bashir here.”

“You’re overdue for check-in, Doctor,” said Andrea.

“My apologies, Captain. The aid evaluation is very complex.”

That was what alarms were for, Andrea thought. “Anything to report?”

“It’s a delicate matter. I should have a better idea of what’s needed shortly.”

They’d responded to a request for help from a small Klingon colony in need of medical assistance. Andrea hadn’t even known there was a Klingon colony in the Gamma Quadrant, but the Empire wasn’t obligated to disclose every settlement to the Federation, and were within their agreed-upon rights here. The Archimedes therefore dispatched an away team to see what could be done about their medical problem. Everyone knew Klingon medicine was a joke.

“Keep me informed,” said Andrea.

“Yes, ma’am.” A pause, and then, “May I speak with Garak for my spousal check-in, please?”

Starfleet did not offer spousal check-ins. Andrea started to think Bashir hadn’t forgotten anything, and there was a problem on the surface. “Of course,” she said. “One moment.”

At her nod, Connelly opened a channel to Bashir and Garak’s quarters. “Garak,” said Andrea. “Dr. Bashir commed for his spousal check-in.”

“Excellent.” Garak didn’t sound surprised in the least. He was a very good actor, Andrea decided – or she hoped that was the case here. “Are you there, Julian?”

“Yes. You’d like the temperature down here.”

“But not the menu, I’m sure.”

“No,” agreed Bashir, sounding amused. “I decided my next kotra move on the ride. It’ll give you something to think about, since I might be down here a while.”

“What is it?”

“Left flank advance center right.”

“An interesting choice,” said Garak.

“You always tell me kotra favors the bold. I look forward to your response.”

“You’ve given me few choices, my dear.”

“I know. Bashir out.”

A very puzzled Connelly reported, “Comm line closed.”

“What was that, Garak?” asked Andrea.

“A request for immediate transport.”

“If you’re wrong, we could start a diplomatic incident with offended Klingons.”

“I’m not wrong, Captain. Dr. Bashir invented a procedure to speak to me, did he not? Furthermore, we are not currently playing kotra, but the move he indicated is a trap he fell into the night before last.”

“A trap,” repeated Andrea. “I see. Lieutenant, beam up the away team.”

“Initiating transport,” said Connelly. “I have them. Transporter room two.”

Andrea tapped her combadge. “Scholz to Bashir. What the hell is going on?”

“It was a trap, Captain. They took our combadges and had a mek’leth to Tersan’s throat, so I had to get creative to avoid suspicion.”

“Is everyone alright?”

“Nothing worse than bruises. Something on this planet is unbalancing the Klingons’ mental state. The worst cases exhibit paranoia, and they decided the away team is part of a Federation plot to keep the Empire out of the Gamma Quadrant.”

“I want to see the entire away team in my ready room.”

“On our way.”

“And Doctor? Good thinking.”

#ds9 #fanfic #garak/bashir #snippets

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douxreviews · 5 years

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Rome - Series Review

“You look like laundry.”

Costume dramas and toga parties aren’t for everyone. But even if Gladiator left you cold, Caligula left you cringing, and I, Claudius left you feeling overly-British, HBO’s now-defunct series Rome is still worth checking out during the summer television wasteland.

Rome is about two legionaries, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus. It’s about pre-middle-class urban life. It’s about colonialism. It’s about pre-Christian morality. It’s about sex, and violence, and loyalty, and fatherhood, and childhood. Oh, yeah: it’s about Julius and Augustus Caesar and the bloody chaos of the rise of the Roman Empire.

I know this is a genre site. I know that HBO’s Rome ended years ago. But what else are you going to do during the Summer TV Wasteland? (Especially if you don’t have cable?)

Season One covers Caesar’s return from Gaul (which is divided into three parts, as you will recall from Latin 101) after eight years subduing the hairy natives. Victorious, angry, and with an astonishing amount of popular support for someone who’s been away for so long, Caesar crosses the Rubicon with his vast army—a real no-no according to Republican laws, which didn’t allow generals to command troops within the Roman environs. Caesar, who is stolid, smart, and pleasantly sharp-witted, gets into a power-play with the hapless and pudgy Pompey, wins, and becomes a tyrant who is assassinated by Brutus, Cassius, and 42 other Roman senators. And if you feel spoiled, well… you should have paid better attention in Roman Civ.

Season Two is far more rushed: the producers found out that they were being cancelled mid-filming, and decided to compress what had been a five-year plan into about five episodes. So Season Two takes us from Caesar’s death to the rise of Augustus to Mark Antony’s defeat (and steamy relationship with Cleopatra) in Egypt. Against the backdrop, Lucius and Titus contend with the difficult adjustment to civilian life, and even, for a while, become something like Mafiosi in the city of Rome itself.

Lucius and Titus are, for me, the heart of the series. Lucius (Kevin McKidd, who is now on Grey’s Anatomy -- he's the grumpy one in the photo) is a “Catonian” -- he believes in the sacred Roman Republic. But he also believes in loyalty and keeping his promises. Over the course of the two seasons, this means that he, more often than not, winds up working against his own political philosophy out of loyalty to Caesar (first) and Mark Antony (later). Lucius’s home life is no simpler: after eight years away, he and his wife have some complex issues to work out. How they work them out I’ll leave for you to discover.

Titus (Ray Stevenson), who is in the brig for general disorderliness when we first meet him, is Lucius’s polar opposite. He doesn’t have a political philosophy. He doesn’t have a philosophy, at all. But he’s a spectacular fighter who is, it turns out, capable of his own kind of loyalty -- to Lucius, with whom he becomes fast friends, and to Augustus Caesar, whom he taught to fight (as a youngster) and for whom he does occasionally gruesome favors (when Caesar is actually Caesar and not just Octavius). Watching Titus grow, but stay essentially true to his essentially good nature, over the course of the series is definitely one of its high points. I liked him so much I even rented the most recent Punisher movie, in which Ray Stevenson plays the eponymous character. Sadly, I am not a Punisher fan.

History buffs will love this show -- at least, I think that’s a huge part of my affection for it. My own deep-seated hatred of Cicero for all of those damned dependent clauses and odd ablative uses made me laugh out loud when I saw him sniveling, groveling, and grasping at straws in the Caesar-Pompey death-match. But, schadenfraude aside, his death scene made me cry. Seeing Old Man Cato, scrawny and protesting in the Roman senate in a skimpy black toga, was equally amusing (Cato has a great part to play in Dante’s Purgatory, which has always endeared me to him).

Both Caesars are rather unreadable, especially Ocatvius/Octavian/Augustus, who is played by a child actor for the first half of the series, and an adult actor for the second half. He’s brilliant, cold, proto-Machiavellian, and completely unable to understand illogical, emotional behavior -- he demands loyalty but is incapable of it himself. The complexity of his character, over about 22 episodes, pretty much reveals why I think this show is just awesome. Mark Antony isn’t quite as well drawn, but I get the impression that he just wasn’t that complex of a guy. Either way, James Purfoy does a great job.

I feel like I should say something about the women -- Atia, Julius’s niece, prominent among them. And Cleopatra, of course. Their roles are complex but they’re usually stuck in the domestic sphere, attempting to control the men and circumstances around them through sex, parties, and social snubs. It’s fun to watch, but in retrospect it’s easier to forget.

Rome received a lot of press in its heyday: it wasn’t nearly as popular as Deadwood, Six Feet Under or The Sopranos, but it was far more expensive than all of those shows. The sets for the Forum and the Avantine were the largest sets ever constructed for a TV show, on an Italian backlot. The money was well-spent: until I did some research, I assumed that the producers had simply taken over a town in, say, Croatia, and Romanized it within an inch of its life. It just looks real. If they ever do make a movie, which is a rumor floating around, it should look great on a big screen.

For all the cost and bluster, Rome got some flack for not being “sweeping” or “epic” enough. But it’s not supposed to be Gladiator for the small screen. Rather, it’s about the personalities involved in a battle that seems epic in retrospect, but at the time was a vivid, lived experience for a select group of powerful men and women. Also, the life of the “common man” (whoever he is) was typically dark, cramped, and dirty. Rome wasn’t a planned city, and alleys were far more common that wide boulevards and open spaces.

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and it wasn’t built by just one man engaging in some mythological Pax Romana or something like that. It was people with money and power wanting more money and more power, but it was also people with strong philosophies (Lucius, Cicero, and Cato among them) just trying to do what is right according to old Roman virtues. It’s also, of course, about the death of the virtuous against the greediness of others. But when isn’t that the story of civilization?

Four out of four togas.

Josie Kafka is a full-time cat servant and part-time rogue demon hunter. (What's a rogue demon?)

#Rome #Titus Pullo #Lucius Vorenus.#Julius Caesar #Mark Antony #Atia of the Julii #Rome Reviews #Doux Reviews #TV Reviews #something from the archive

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twitchesandstitches · 5 years

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Pokemon in Crossthicc - The Other Teams

In general the most relevant ones here are probably Team Rocket (a big, spanning criminal empire secretly allied to the Ringers) and Team Skull, who are part of the Endowed Fleet. Because, really. It’s Team Skull. They’re too adorable and harmless to be bad! Let them wind up with the punk MILFs where they belong

Team Rocket: Associated with the Imperial Commonwealth of Humanity. Aristocrats hold all the power in the Commonwealth, and Giovanni Rocetto’s family is quite old indeed, predating the Commonwealth all the way back to the human homeworld itself, or so he claims. Blessed with powerful psionics, he found a way to forcibly dominate the minds of the feral Pokemon and bind them to himself, and taught others how to use this skill. He founded the Rockets as a military organization of monster hunters that took down Pokemon and broke them into obedience, and they remain a thorn in the side of the Fleet. The Rockets are very big and powerful now, constituting three hundred noble families in a complex web of marriages and rivalries, all vying for Giovanni’s favor, and have earned governorship over three dozen solar systems. As Giovanni cares nothing for the anti-nonhuman attitudes of the Commonwealth in favor of his own dreams of imperial glory, he is planning to secede entirely and, in time, conquer the Commonwealth itself.

These ambitions eventually caused him to notice certain trends within the Commonwealth’s political practices, indications of outside influence, and no sooner had he figured this out than representatives of the Ringers came to him, making him an offer: join the Ringers and ensure humanity’s survival and his own prosperity, or perish when the inevitable war came. He accepted and is now a member in major standing, and one of the more influential humans. Humanity’s weakness if something of a major problem for him, and he is constantly trying to make humans more competitive, so to speak.

The modern Team Rocket is a military juggernaut, using its enslaved monsters as living forces of nature to wipe all their enemies before them. They are justly feared and dreaded. BUT.

But, every bad batch has a few dumplings that are inexplicably good for all rottenness they came from.

This is where Jessie and James come in.

They were both originally from Team Skull, but it was a desperate life and, innocent of Rocket’s true nature, Jessie and James joined Team Rocket largely to get out of that life. Among other things, both of them are secretly descended from incredibly influential human houses of ancient days, and while this does them no good, it does give whoever control them a lot of clout among human societies that put stock in that kind of thing, which intrigued Giovanni. They found a clever cat Pokemon, curing him of his corruption with the power of their genuine friendship, and as the Meowth was freed, he learned to speak human language without even having to assume a humanoid form. Jessie, James and Meowth became inseparable, and joined the Cobalts after being dissatisfied with the Rocket’s general malignancy following a chance encounter and an unlikely incident involving a heist, an ancient human religious urn, two and a half dumplings and a very one-sided bet.

Jessie is hyper curvy, with extremely prehensile hair powers, and while she’s not especially powerful, she is a LOT bigger than you’d expect, and can often be at least twenty five feet tall at full power, with breasts swelling out over even her stomach. James and Meowth often ride in her cleavage. She’s known to adopt her Arbok’s tail for a naga-style body, the huge tongue of a Likitung, Dustox wings, Gourgeist shell, and a Wobbuffet's super bouncy, defensive body.

Teams Aqua and Magma: Two rival organizations that were originally the same one, and even following a split in ideology, had the same overall goal; repairing the destruction to the worlds of the multiverse. A noble goal, to be sure. However they split apart into two religious groups opposed to each other: one, Magma, revering the earth titan Groudon, thought it would be best to physically construct new worlds and terraform dead planets, and was led by the charismatic preacher Maxie. The other, Aqua, worshiped the sea goddess Kyogre and had the radical idea of adapting living beings to live in the realms of magic permanently by removing the barriers between those worlds entirely. They were led by a famous pirate and conservationist, Archie. Aqua took to piracy to fund their experiments, while Magma put on the appearance of a sainty religious organization and used the profits from its patrons to do the same.

The groups managed to call forth their deities, but discovered that the slumbering avatars of the Legendaries were not immune to the madness afflicting all Pokemon in the mortal realms, and Kyogre and Groudon ravaged many worlds in their corruption before the summoning of Rayquaza allowed Maxie and Archie to find their gods and personally bond with them, taming them somewhat and at least stabilizing their obsessive drives to terraform things without concern for the squishies.

Since then, Aqua has signed up with the Cobalts full time, finding a common aesthetic theme, a similar attitude, and freedom to do pretty much as they like. They care for many of the monsters and attack beasts of the Cobalts, and have pioneered many magical technologies; Aqua iconography has become a major part of the Stinger’s look, and their taste in water-themed powers has proven quite popular. Shelly has become the new Admiral from their ranks, and Archie has named her his successor.

Team Magma, surprisingly, has gravitated towards the Fleet. It’s unclear why, exactly, but it seems that their interest in terraforming struck a chord with Magma. Mountain Priestess Courtney/Kagari has succeeded Maxie as leader.

TEAM GALACTIC

A deeply mysterious organization and one that is still extant. In canon, they sought to remake the Pokemon universe. Here, they intended to alter the multiverse in their image by breaking down the barriers between all planes, believing this would allow them to impose their will upon the magical nature of the cosmos permanently. The culmination of countless eons of patient work, this vast conspiracy predates even the cataclysm. While their current leader, Cyrus, was foiled and brought to justice, the organization itself remains and are undoubtedly continuing their grand plan.

If Galactic’s efforts are allowed to continue, the results will be unspeakably catastrophic. The mortal universes are a soap bubble floating upon the multiverse, and would likely not survive the weight of all the other planes crashing down upon them, and then burst. This doesn't even include the dangers of sharing space with actual infernal hellscapes, or the alien beauty of heavens too intense for mortals to see. Mortalkind would likely cease to exist following the fulfillment of Galactic’s plans.

Of greater interest is how they arrived to this plan, more than the why or when they started it. This implies a great deal of knowledge about the makeup of the multiverse and fundamental understanding that presently eludes modern scholars. Those in the know greatly wish to find Galactic’s research and find out what they know; such precious knowledge is more invaluable than their extensive infrastructure.

Galactic heavily deals with many extranormal forces and summoning entities from across the planes. Accordingly, they can show up any when, any place, and have a very wide reach. Few of them are human, due to their sheer scope, and any alien species can have members of them. It is possible that the Crossthicc incarnations of its leadership are alien races infamous for being ancient: Cyrus might be an ancient Transformer, for example, with the others being Gems, Protheans, and so on.

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TEAM PLASMA

An extensive organization that deals heavily with the rights and concerns of magical entities of all sorts, from the smallest magical pets to the greatest summon beasts across the realms… or at least that is the image they wish to present. In reality, while the vast majority of their membership is a non-denominational religion that reveres magical entities as being emanations of a vast pantheon (among other details), their leadership are not believers but cold manipulators who are attempting to use the tenets of this belief system to their advantage: by taking direct control of as many magical entities as possible and using them to empower themselves in a process similar to what the MILF Fleet has learned to do with their own created magical powers.

As of Crossthicc’s ‘canon’, Plasma has yet to interact with any other faction in a significant way. Their leader, Ghetsis, an old and wily salarian with dreams of power, has a idealistic boy named N raised to believe himself as the liberator of the Pokemon form their current sad state, as a precursor to freeing all magical creatures from similar fates. N is a Transformer, but a rare human-sized one known as a Pretender, and can take on the form of any alien being within his size range in order to live life as they do, and this has afforded him a rare perspective that threatens to tear the Plasma organization apart between those loyal to him, and those loyal to the old guard.

Their name appears to come from the fact that their military forces are traditionally chosen from beings with the power to manipulate plasma in some fashion. It is common to make use of Pokemon with power over electricity and fire as a sign of prestige for the same reason.

Should Plasma do the thing and split, there would likely start a divide between the true believers who follow N, and those who are not genuine followers of the faith. They would likely be a force for good, if perhaps prone to conflicts of interest with others, while the remainder would become soldiers of conquest and fulfill Ghestis’ orders in a more straightforward fashion.

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Team Flare

Outwardly a corporate world (originating from a world called Flare, which gave them their name), Team Flare is led by the man Lysandre who had claimed to rediscover ancient terraforming technology and, in conjunction with the Pokemon he was able to commune with, his organization reshaped worlds into incredibly beautiful ones that would be difficult to find in natural circumstance. Worlds of solid diamond glittered in the sky, planets where the continent formed beautiful artwork, and more.

However, Team Flare’s true goal was a beautiful universe… of themselves, alone. The descendants of many eons of genetic alteration geared towards beautification, the many species had been changed to function as a single one, interbreeding into one specifically designed to be beautiful and physically more capable than their baseline counterparts. Lysandre, afraid for the resources consumed by potential rivals, sought to use his Pokemon and technology to end his universe and leave only a canvas from which he could reshape it all. Empty worlds he could design to his artistic requirements, and to be repopulated by his perfected kindred, and cared little for the deaths of all other beings in their universe. Unexpectedly, the Cobalts caught wind of this plot and stopped it, as it was too evil for them to allow. Besides, they wanted real estate in that universe and they didn’t want to get killed doing that. The Cobalts defeated Lysandre, taking over his organization and adopting his Pokemon and his more moral subordinates, using the technology to make their worlds super fancy as that universe praised them as heroes.

The organization as a whole is still out there, and may still present a threat; Lysandre has the knowing of recreating his technology, and all he requires is a means to scale it up enough. Additionally, this version of him has recently become a vampire, and is turning the most beautiful and, in his view, morally gifted mortals into his new clan, a new Team Flare. (I’m not saying they’re Ventrue from Vampire: The Masquerade but if the blue blood fits, ya slurp it if you’re a vampire!)

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TEAM SKULL

Not even slightly really villainous, but driven to acts of crime in order to survive. Team Skull were, whatever their species, a massive family of outcasts who are the survivors of civilizations, now living aboard a massive planet-sized space station, that managed to just barely hold onto spaceworthy ability after the cataclysm… but only just. They then faced grave misfortune as new warlords, thugs who were ecstatic at the breakdown of society to do as they pleased, and fiends drawn into the material world by so much suffering came upon them at once. For thousands of years, these survivors suffered, often dying in droves and forced to fight tooth and nail and still being drained dead, living in massive ships clinging to life support.

They became a sprawling clan; since everyone they met kept trying to kill them, they decided that if all the multiverse would be their enemy, they would fight it with all they had, and protect each other and take care of one another, since no one else would. And for ages, that was enough. But in modern times, as warlords sought to conquer their home, a charismatic leader named Guzma rallied his people and called out to the Pokemon, eldritch entities though they were, pleading for help.

They answered. Wicke was saved by Skull, hurt and barely alive after struggling to stay alive following her departure from the Aether Foundation, and she became a very influential part of their group, officially called the Big Skull Mom, and she began a romantic relationship with Guzma (and mentoring him as well), finding it a chance to start over.

Team Skull was born not long after, fusing with a wild resurgence of Pokemon that were drawn by their love for one another, and their habitat-station became a ship, fused partly with a massive horde of Pokemon so that it was able to move. Mistrustful of everyone outside their family, they regarded anyone not in Skull as an enemy. But they weren’t malicious, just hurt and desperately trying to stay alive, held together by Guzma’s sheer charisma and restrained by Wicke’s moderation, effectively becoming a bunch of looters and scavengers.

This changed when they met the Endowed Fleet.

At the time, the Rockets were expanding into Skull territory, wiping out everything they’d built and harrying them as lowly space scum, and the Skulls responded with frenzied rage, their bonds to their Pokemon vastly outscoring the Rocket’s own skills. The Endowed Fleet became involved at this point, and both groups had many close calls and conflicts until a chance meeting with Guzma and several Fleet heroines, exploring their people’s origin, caused them to realize that they had much in common. As both groups had to work together to fend of the Rockets, they worked together, and Skull eventually thought of the Fleet not as a potential enemy, but as friends.

And once the Rockets were repelled, the Skulls didn’t want to see them go, and joined the Fleet entirely. Their spaceship station has since been remodeled into a living ship, the Pokemon comprising it already freed from corruption by the presence of the Skulls, and the Skulls are happy members of the Fleet, with many of them becoming Endowed and parents to many children. Guzma in particular is a good friend to Sierra and one of her many boyfriends and sidekicks, and Skull Grunts comprise a large number of the Fleet’s ground forces in average fights. The big sister of Skull, Plumeria, is a big name in the Fleet now, and she is Endowed as well, becoming a hyper MILF giantess with poison-themed powers: among other things, her hair transforms into toxic substances when she fully powers up, and she likes to use the traits of Muk (slimy absorbing body), Crobat (bat wings, health absorbing bites), Toxapex (hard shell) and Salazzle (big sharp teeth, reptile tail). Plumeria is essentially an administrator in the Fleet and an organizer, and thinks of everyone else that isn’t Endowed as being an adorably helpless goofball that needs her; she’s friendly but hides it beneath a teasing demeanor.

Skulls tendency for torn up grunge-y outfits, skull imagery, goofy attempts to look spooky, and scavenger attire are a big influence on the Fleet’s fashion! Imagine Borderlands fused with Team Skull, and you have the aesthetic of the Fleet down.

TEAM CIPHER/SNAGEM

There are many worlds of perilous wastelands in the multiverse, lands where corrupt warlords dominate with lost technology, powerful techno-artifacts, and sorcerous techniques kept among their dynasties. Cipher and its military division, Snagem, descended from one such dynasty and one of such influence that it dominated several solar systems of inhabitable planets (if only barely livable ones) that had been reduced to apocalyptic wastelands even all these eons after the cataclysm.

A man named Gonzap was the first of his dynasty to really take the techniques and magical abilities passed down by his ancestors into industrialized quality: through the use of technological armaments and specialized techniques, they had learned how to summon forth spirits and chain them to the will of a summoner without the usual two-way relationship that a true summoning entails. This wound up making the summoning quite weak, as a normal summoning grants strange to both as their relationship progresses, but it was also quite easy to maintain, allowing his ancestors to summon thousands of spiritual entities as cannon fodder. Gonzap and his advisors worked out a way to make this easy for their ordinary soldiers to use without being able to rework the technique, making use of special gauntlets; in time, they turned their attention to Pokemon, chaining those wild and lost powers to their own uses. Snagem developed as the ones to capture new Pokemon, and in time, the ones who fielded them. Cipher developed into a proto-aristocracy.

Cipher expanded very quickly, dominating a respectable amount of space; as much as possible, given the limits that pre-FTL travel imposes on the ability to organize any kind of extrasolar space travel. And, amazingly, they even managed to find a corrupted avatar of Lugia, which was single-handedly responsible for conquering several worlds… and annihilating many others before they managed to get even a small sliver of control over it.

Cipher was ultimately foiled, though, when Gonzap’s heir (a man named Wes) revolted against the dynasty and went on the run with a powerful psionic woman named Rui, and along with a young apprentice of Wes’ own, they went on the run and determiend how to properly bond with Pokemon and free them of corruption, which they used to great effect and won the corrupted Pokemon of Cipher and Snagem to their side, even the Lugia avatar. As Wes’ crew started a short and brutal war against Cipher, other rival empires moved in and attacked; Cipher still exists, but is a shadow of its former power.

Cipher was, in its day, absolutely brutal towards its captive Pokemon and spirits in a way unequaled by even the most ruthless members of Rocket; accordingly, those who work with Pokemon gravely dislike them, and Pokemon themselves generally have sworn oaths of vengeance against them for their crimes against Pokemonkind. Cipher, even so, is working to regain its former power and are likely to be antagonists or enemy mercenaries; their soldiers will hire themselves out to anyone, for loot and experience.

Wes and his crew are still around, independent heroes for hire in an adventure guild that mostly consists of the Pokemon the crew helped in the old days. Wes himself is likely a mentor figure to the likes of Ash and the other trainers, and a inspirational story to those who fear that relation to evil forces means you are doomed to evil yourself.

#/#//#///#////#/////#queued #crossthicc AU #crossthicc!pokemon #and that's the end of my pre-written pokemon related posts!

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bookishreviewsblog · 5 years

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V.E. Schwab: A Conjuring of Light (Shades of Magic #1) | Lara

Witness the fate of beloved heroes - and enemies. THE BALANCE OF POWER HAS FINALLY TIPPED... The precarious equilibrium among four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise. WHO WILL CRUMBLE? Kell - once assumed to be the last surviving Antari - begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. And in the wake of tragedy, can Arnes survive? WHO WILL RISE? Lila Bard, once a commonplace - but never common - thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible. WHO WILL TAKE CONTROL? And an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown while a fallen hero tries to save a world in decay.

"Scars are not shameful, not unless you let them be. If you do not wear them, they will wear you."

Jkjdjahkasjdka I don't know how to start or finish this review, because, first I feel at loss of words and I feel like I've already said everything there is about these series and, second I. hate. Goodbyes. I hate finishing books and parting with wonderful characters from the bottom of my soul.

This book was a finale I needed after reading the perfection that A Gathering of Shadows turned out to be. It was extremely action-packed, and when I say that, I mean like 600 pages of pure action, with barely any time to take a break. Characters had a lot going on, from constant matches with Osaron, to political concerns, new alliances building, and old breaking. This amazing world author created continues to develop and amaze me. New forms of magic, spells, and knowledge of the Antari are deepened and aimed into a battle for saving not one, but three worlds and magic as they know it.

I still can't get enough of this beautiful world and Schwab's writing. She absolutely obsessed me with these books, her amazing writing, characters and always dynamic story, so you can only imagine how thrilled I was when I read she is planning another series set in this world.

Again, these incredible characters I've come to love so much continue to develop and amaze me even more. I just can't get over how badass, strong and selfless Kell is, he's like ultimate protagonist with so many layers that just keep unfolding. While burning love for Lila Bard never faltered, I found myself enjoying perspectives and development of other characters. Rhy, relaxed and ambitious, having to carry a burden of a crown prince and Alucard Emery, whom I liked before, but he started to annoy me (probably because Kell didn't like him, duh Kell Maresh above all xd). His free spirit and interesting tragic backstory make him more than just a love interest, but a significant factor for the story itself. And there's another character I haven't mentioned in reviews for previous books because I didn't know what exactly would happen with him.

Holland Vorjsik, who was tortured and controlled by Athos Dane and has lost almost any reason to exist except to save his world. This book was focused on his development and storyline a bit more than other characters because the third Antari has an important role to play in this battle. After Dane twins' deaths, his only motive was to help his world and I could see his character was driven only by that. He is one of the more complex and engaging characters.

I haven't dreamed I would come to love these characters so much and I enjoyed every moment of their journey and fight together.

There is nothing to stop me from giving this book a shiny 5-star rate, except for one thing (two actually). I really hate when authors give glimpses of some mysteries or past experiences for some characters like it's going to be important whether for plot or their development, but then "forget" about it or dismiss it.

That's what bothered me about Kell and Lila's backstories. We got full insight in Holland's story, his Antari abilities, journey to the throne, but any information about Kell's family and/or Lila's past and her fake eye (who took out her black eye? Why did they do it?) were bypassed. I get that Kell decided he didn't want to know his real family when he found a new one, but why was that implied to be important?

*spoiler in the following paragraph*

And the second thing that was left unclear and unfinished was the fate of White London. I didn't understand what happened after Holland died, but there should have been some kind of epilogue about its further development and recovery.

There isn't much left to say, except I loved this trilogy. It was an amazing journey and I hate to say goodbye, so now I'm on a mission of finding books to cure my book hungover xd

"Anoshe was a word for strangers in the street, and lovers between meetings, for parents and children, friends and family. It softened the blow of leaving. Eased the strain of parting. A careful nod to the certainty of today, the mystery of tomorrow. When a friend left, with little chance of seeing home, they said anoshe. When a loved one was dying, they said anoshe. When corpses were burned, bodies given back to the earth and souls to the stream, those left grieving said anoshe.

Anoshe brought solace. And hope. And the strength to let go."

Anoshe, I don't have the strength to let go ;(

#books #book reviews #v.e. schwab #shades of magic #a conjuring of light

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todisturbtheuniverse · 5 years

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so i inexplicably dove into reading New Canon sometime at the end of last year. it was Leia that really kicked it off. i’d been reading various books as they appealed to me--The Force Awakens and Rogue One novelizations about when they came out, A New Dawn right after Rebels wrapped up, Dark Disciple because Thom was like, “you’re going to like this for x, y, and z reasons and be mad at it for a very big reason.” (and boy was he correct.) after reading Leia i decided, okay, fine, clearly we’re rebooting that time when i was 13 years old and scouring the Barnes and Noble for all the EU books i could find, let’s fucking do this proper.

and damn. it was worth it to get to Thrawn. more blathering, not at all cohesive, and containing spoilers and references to various New Canon books ahead...

my huge hesitance about doing New Canon proper was the, uh. glut of Empire-POV books that i saw on our shelf. (we’ve been buying them for a good six-eight months now to make sure they were all available to us whenever we wanted to dive in.) there was something unnerving about that. i got hit with Lords of the Sith and Tarkin pretty much at the outset of my little jaunt, which was rough at times.

i’m of two minds about these books. i mean, 1) i am definitely interested in anything that gives us more of a look about Vader’s headspace post-lava incident, however narrow. The Clone Wars sold me on Anakin Skywalker in a way no movie has ever managed to, both in making him more interesting and likeable to me and in making his fall seem so much more plausible (don’t get me started on how i would restructure the prequels). so getting a look behind that weird faceplate--finally--is bloody and Very Bad but also interesting. he remembers Ahsoka in Lords of the Sith. he remembers Rex. he thinks on these things, as if he can’t stop himself.

but 2) there’s only so much, ah. rooting. that you can do for the Empire. obviously. i think i’m safe in assuming that’s not the point of these books (and indeed Lords of the Sith gives us a nice look at the early Free Ryloth movement to root for and a truly absurd goal for them to accomplish, so there’s that), but i find myself wondering what the point of these books are. for all that Tarkin cut such an imposing figure (and still does, definitely) my cynicism can’t let me believe that he was more than a good plot tool rather than a particularly complex character--i doubt all this stuff about Tarkin’s backstory, which comes up in the novel, was ever in Lucas’s dizziest daydreams. but i sure got treated to a lot of Weird Tarkin Backstory in Tarkin. is it necessary? is it relevant? i’m having a hard time figuring out how.

but again, the bit of fun i had with this book? it was in Tarkin’s interactions with Vader. specifically his musing on the identity of the creepy fellow in the weird armor, who certainly shares some qualities with Anakin Skywalker. The Clone Wars revealed that Anakin had actually known Tarkin, before the fun trip to the lava seaside. it stands to reason that Tarkin, who at the very least was hailed as Scary As Shit and Good At His Job at the time of the original trilogy, would put some clues together.

so that’s...interesting. maybe its own purpose was to be interesting, idk. i’m probably overthinking what is clearly an enormous cash grab by Disney, or something.

all this to say: this was the kind of Empire-POV stuff i was having a hard time thinking i could get into. because they’re just Evil doing Evil. Vader might think about Ahsoka on rare occasion but he’s not going to stop force-choking people because of it. that redemption ship doesn’t come into harbor for a fair bit.

and then. we get Thrawn.

as i mentioned way up there, there was a time after i’d first discovered Star Wars that i perused high and low for the Extra Content. i think one of the first things i came across (bearing in mind that the EU was not supremely organized or continuous or anything) was the Thrawn trilogy. being that this was nearly fifteen years ago and i haven’t reread them since, all i really remember is that Mara Jade is The Best, Thrawn was a villain like no other villain my child self had come across, and i loved them. a reread is probably in order and will maybe disappoint me, or so i always thought, until Timothy Zahn threw Thrawn and Alliances at me and said, take that, i’ve still got it.

Thrawn sort of gets into some of the same traps as Tarkin, except that they felt way less like traps because i was interested in how Thrawn comes to be part of the Empire. that was always part of what made him interesting, to me; he’s somehow a Grand Admiral, has risen through all those ranks, even though he’s not human. so even though we take these little leaps of backstory through years of Thrawn’s early existence in Imperial space, and it feels like we take a lot of time to catch up to the actual plot--it’s neat as hell, because we’re seeing the Empire through the eyes of not one, but two people who are outsiders to it. and yet, simultaneously have to exist inside it.

it’s so easy to generalize the Empire as this grayish blob of evil. many of the random crew and deck officers in Rebels don’t even have distinguishing facial features; i’ve heard Liam O’Brien’s voice come out of an awful lot of them, with the brims of their caps pulled low over their eyes, their faces cast in an odd grayish light that seems to wash the life from them.

it is evil. it is definitely, definitely evil. but there are so many people in it--people like Eli Vanto, the second individual referenced above--who are just existing in it, trying to make the best of it, because they have no real options (or power) to do anything else. some of these people Get Out and join the rebellion, or just Get Out and vanish, but not many of them have the resources to do that, and that’s the look that, to me, gives this grayish obelisk of evil some kind of complexity worth looking at.

and then Alliances. the neat past-present switch that juxtaposes Anakin/Vader, Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Thrawn. i loved that shit. it showed more new stuff about Vader, probably reminded me of all the reasons i was fascinated by Thrawn as a kid even if i can’t really remember, and best of all, delighted me with various instances of Thrawn just. flat out. trolling. Vader. and not dying. imagine! all these not-at-all-subtle hints that Thrawn knows exactly who Vader is under that mask and the entire book Vader just keeps thinking, no. even this asshole. this tactical genius. cannot possibly know my true identity. it’s impossible. The Jedi is dead.

(that was another cool thing, btw. Zahn really took how Vader thinks and elevated the shit out of it. having him always refer to his past self as The Jedi was very effective.)

all these dueling loyalties come out to get real ugly on the surface: Thrawn, having sworn to serve the Empire, still manipulating the scene in whatever way he can to benefit his people. (how is Eli doing in the Chiss Ascendancy? I CAN’T FUCKING WAIT TO FIND OUT.) Vader, recalling The Jedi’s past trouble with those dueling loyalties--to his people (the Jedi, the Republic) and to his people (Padme). having now decided that “even rescue” is, as Thrawn once said, not worth sacrificing victory.

but Vader’s loyalties are still in far more flux than he would let himself believe. because he is sure, on the one hand, that Thrawn is walking the line of treason. Thrawn throws every tool he has at this to get his way, to do things and have the outcome he wants, up to and including calling in a debt that Anakin Skywalker owes him--expecting Vader to repay it. and Vader, who has murdered people for far less, lets himself be talked into it, lets his curiosity string him along, lets the probing comments about “the last time we were here” and “we discovered this about cortosis” and all this we, we, WE that refers to The Jedi pass without incident.

all this to say: he sure wishes The Jedi was really dead. that would make his existence so much easier. and i’m probably reading into it, and all, but i think Thrawn and his weirdly opaque analytical mind sees that and is poking at it a-purpose. to what purpose, who can say? Thrawn’s always about a dozen steps ahead of everybody else, by design. he has a long game.

this is just a stream of consciousness ramble at this point about how many Thoughts i have about Star Wars, and it’s very late on a Friday night and i’m tired, so i’ll stop blathering on. TL;DR--i was wary of reading books from Imperial POVs and while not particularly gracefully done in some cases, they surprised me. there are some gems in there.

#universe reads

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nomadicism · 6 years

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I struggled to put it into words too. But from way back when we first saw Lotor his design appealed to me since he’s a gender inverted lady of war. Long flowing hair in battle and the armor skirt and even thigh high boots. The initial pitch with Lotor seemed to have made gender be a huge part of his character since all the ladies would have been under his command before that got scrapped in order to not have Zarkon be sexist. I would even dare bet that in the DnD episode Lotor will be the maiden

Lotor as the maiden in a DnD episode would be hilarious.

I’ve generally read his character design as act of defiance on his part—a decidedly Altean-themed look combined with elements of Galran scientist uniforms—it’s his “fuck you dad I’ll grow my hair out if I want to,” while also doubling as subverting tropes applied to female characters. He definitely has shades of “dark action girl who really needed the heroine to be her friend” going on.

At the risk of a rambly-word-vomit: there are three things that have always broke a Voltron sequel/alt-continuity/reboot/etc for me: (1) art style; (2) the treatment of Allura; and (3) Lotor’s characterization. (I’ve included some in-line links to my other Lotor meta posts that I think are relevant).

When it was announced that DreamWorks was going to create a new Voltron series, I was incredibly pessimistic because all prior attempts were broken for me based on those three criteria. Excluding the Robotech/Voltron crossover and Vol 2 of the DDP comics, the characterization of Lotor just could never rise beyond the limitations of Voltron DotU (and those two continuities still had issues).

I love Sincline as a villain within the setting of Golion because he’s completely appropriate for the type of story that Golion was telling. I can’t blame the non-Japanese speaking DotU writers who were given raw Golion tapes (while expecting Daltanius tapes instead) and no script to work from for giving us “Problematic 80s Lotor”, and not being able to wipe out the misogyny towards Allura that was baked into the animation—however—successive series/continuities had no damn excuse for not trying to do better by both of those characters.

I have a complex about both Lotor and Allura and how—as much as I love 80s Voltron and can laugh at it now—that show really affected me as a child and gave me a high bar for any form of fiction that portrayed similar characters, for as you so eloquently put it—“suffering through” the kinds of scenes that continuously happen to female characters—have their start in 80s Voltron for me and I had to stop watching/reading a lot of fiction for a while, as I waited for writers to catch the fuck up with the times. So that’s the baggage that I sat down with when VLD first dropped.

The bar has been low for so long, that I was overjoyed that there was no Lotor at the start of VLD, and after the first few episodes I was so pleased with how so many content/context problems that have plagued the franchise were being inverted, fixed, played with, and solved, that I was excited but anxious to see what they would do with Lotor. It was clear that we weren’t going to get another iteration of Stalker-Space-Barbarian-Lotor, but I was anxious that his characterization wouldn’t break the show for me as it has in the past.

Needless to say, I’m thrilled with the way both Lotor and Allura are written and designed and I can even enjoy a Lotura ship which I certainly never did before. I’m ship agnostic, but always down for ships that subvert tropes or do something otherwise unexpected in a story.

But, like you said, “Lady of War Lotor”: I’m loving it.

That is such a great lens with which to view this iteration of his character. The scene in Oriande really gave me Magical Girl show vibes (Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth, Wedding Peach, Revolutionary Girl Utena, etc) but more on the Utena side of things for the gender inversion. I’m totally down for Allura playing the protector role (e.g. princess saves the prince), because in any other concept of Allura x Lotor, it would be assumed that he would be her Knight Protector, but in that scene, she’s the one doing the protecting, and he’s the “smart nerdy plot device” that is Allura’s vehicle for her story fulfillment and not the other way around like it usually is.

That was the conclusion that I came to in my answer to @blackmoonbabe ’s question about lotura, when thinking about how the writers handled their dynamic. I still think that we might see this revisited on the flip side, with Lotor doing something to protect Allura, but it’s better that she’s the one who gets that scene first. I don’t think that we’ve seen the last of magical girl show moments with those two.

And that slave comment from Sendak was really interesting because it reveals another layer of how Lotor has been viewed by other Galra, especially those with power. In a way, that’s always been a part of his characterization in prior continuities, in that Zarkon views him as a “tool of the empire” or “instrument of evil.” We’ve just never seen that objectification taken to this level before.

You really nailed that comparison to how that’s never a comment directed at a man by another man. Even with Lotor’s feminine qualities, it’s not a stretch to assume both Sendak and Lotor are coded as cis-gender and straight.

Additionally, Zarkon’s line in Blacksite, referring to Lotor as “my wayward son” really struck me as something that a strict, 1950s father in-denial would say about their not-quite-closeted gay son. I wonder if that was an intentional connection to make—especially with Zarkon’s “my darkest shame” comment in Blood Duel (which can also be read in multiple ways).

To me it feels like Lotor is a byronic archetype that has these gender trope inversions applied (which works very well for byronic archetypes), I’m not sure if he’s meant as a faux action girl, but I can see where that’s coming from.

All iterations of Lotor usually end up having predictable paths to failure based on his obsessions and over-confidence, and that’s mostly how I viewed the times where he’s come up short. His losses definitely makes for a better story because if he won all the time (and he does have wins) then there wouldn’t be any challenge. A character can be competent and still come up short, and in the past this was usually only seen with female characters and some male villains.

The writers still pull from prior continuities (not just DotU), and core concepts behind Lotor’s character remain, but VLD Lotor is a really fresh take on it, and those gender trope inversions you’ve identified are a key part of that.

#voltron #lotor #voltron meta #voltron: legendary defender #here there be meta #ask me anything #superheroladies

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saferincages · 6 years

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(you might say we are encouraged to love)

I received an ask requesting I make this response its own post in full (which of course I don’t mind doing!) so here it is:

An anon in the original post asked why, “Anakin/Vader is seen as interesting for women,” and that could be a bit of a loaded question, but I think there’s a definite rationale behind it. The way it was phrased made me think of a post I saw which addressed the fundamental split between Anakin and Vader as seen by certain audiences, why Anakin is treated by many derisively because there’s an element of the “heroine’s journey” that happens in relation to his arc and the struggles he goes through. It’s here and it’s really interesting in its entirety. “The constant barrage of degradation and trauma and unfairness of a system that benefits at your expense and refuses to validate you for it. And some of that he might have been able to reconcile by “growing up,” the same way a lot of us learn to come to terms with social fuckery, but Anakin doesn’t get the space to do that. He gets a giant bundle of unaddressed trauma and psychological issues and handed a kind of ambiguous destiny about needing to save the entire universe.” <- Imagine the burden of that, and they put it on a child and then give him zero structure to cope with it.

I’m also going to add this comment from that post because I think it’s worthwhile to note: if someone makes you angry and you show anger with your very own face you are weak, you have lost face, you have shown yourself vain and driven by a selfish, animal, irrational, feminine urge to defend yourself; but if you show anger without a face, if you show it unpersonally (the less it’s connected to direct accusation or a specific ill), especially in order to execute a role, then you suddenly appear to be the one in the position of strength, because you can no longer be directly accused of selfishness. The more you can cloak anger in the guise of necessity, the more you meet the societal expectation to be dispassionate, rational, always controlled - the more justification and legitimacy and power to you, even though this mode of anger is often more destructive than the first. This dynamic, assuming it exists as I’ve hypothesized it, is why I think Anakin codes as feminine to many, while Vader appeals to a certain masculine ideal.

Basically, the gist of it is that the emotional turmoil, the trauma, the way he’s exploited for his talents or what he can provide others, the way his agency is stripped repeatedly from him again and again tends to not be the way “male” hero journeys are told. It’s feminine coding (unfortunately) for those themes to be explored. For those emotions to be plumbed and portrayed with a substantive sense of sorrow and helplessness in the central male hero - it is not the “macho” standard. Why they thought they’d get a macho, unyielding masculine power trip from Anakin Skywalker remains a mystery to me, this is the same series where its original hero, Luke (who is his son! of course there were going to be essential parallels and contrasts between them), purposefully throws his weapon away and refuses to fight, and is characterized by his capacity for intrinsic compassion rather than any outer physical strength (even Han is much less of a “macho” guy than dudebros tend to make him out to be - not only because he’s unmistakably the person in distress who has to be rescued from capture in ROTJ, he has a lot of interesting facets that break down that ‘scoundrel’ stereotype, but I digress other than to say I love the OT, and the subtle distinctions in Luke, Leia, and Han that make them break the molds of expectation). SW fundamentally rejected toxic masculinity and the suppression of emotions from its inception, Luke’s loving triumph and role as redeemer only happens because he refuses to listen when he’s told to give up on his friends or on his belief that there’s good in his father, his softness is his ultimate strength. Anakin was never going to be some epitome of tough masculinity, and George Lucas knew exactly what he was doing crafting him in that way. The audiences who wanted Bad Seed Anakin from the beginning didn’t know how to reconcile this sensitive, kind-hearted, exceedingly bright kid, with their spawn of the Dark Side notions, and I think, unfortunately, far too many then either rejected him completely or refused to understand what the central points in his characterization are about.

The fact that this narratively would have made no sense (if Anakin had been “born bad,” then there would have been no miraculously surviving glimpse of light for Luke to save - I’ve said this before, but imagine how profoundly essential to his true self that goodness had to be for it to even exist any more at that point, after all he’d suffered, after all he’d done. the OT tells us more than once what a good man Anakin Skywalker was, it’s part of what makes the father reveal as powerful as it is - if we hadn’t heard the fragments of stories about Luke’s father, it wouldn’t be nearly as shocking, but we KNOW he was a hero, an admirable man, a good friend). I can’t fathom how tricky telling the prequels had to have been to that extent - the audience knows what will happen in the end, it’s a foregone conclusion, we know he will fall, we know Vader will be created, we know the Empire will rise (though that would have happened even if Anakin had remained in the light, which is a whole other discussion). So the question became, who is this person? What influenced him? What shaped his destiny? And that ended up being a far more complex and morally fraught and stirringly emotional story than just “badass Jedi becomes badass Sith lord.”

That talented, highly intelligent boy is taken in by the Jedi after he has already developed independent thought and very intricate emotional dimension - the argument that he’s “too old” to be trained is because he’s not malleable enough to be indoctrinated the way Jedi usually treat the children they take. They may blame this on his attachment to Shmi, but she’s not the problem (if anything, had they not been so unfeeling and rigid, and had they freed her and allowed her to at least stay in contact with her son while he was training because it was a special case - they’re the ones who stick that “Chosen One” mantle on him, you’re telling me they couldn’t make an exception? but no, because they put that weight on him and then never help him carry it and constantly undermine it and question and mistrust him - Anakin would have been stronger in his training, and he would never have fallen to the Dark Side at all. There are so many moments, over and over, where his fall could have been averted, and everyone fails him to the bitter end, when he fails himself).

And so he is traumatized, due to years of abuse and difficulties as a slave, due to having to leave his mother behind because the Jedi would not free her, due to being told to repress his emotions over and over again when he is, at his core, an intuitive and perceptively empathetic person (he wants to uphold that central tenet of his training - “compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi’s life”), yet he’s made to feel he is broken/wrong/constantly insufficient. He’s wounded by abandonment issues and lack of validation and the human connection/affection he craved, and he develops an (understandable) angry streak, he’s socially awkward due to the specific constraints/isolation of a Jedi’s life and due to the fact that they tried to stamp out what made him uniquely himself, which makes him continually conflicted with a never-ending pulse of anxiety (see absolutely ANY moment where he breaks down emotionally, and you’ll see him say something to the effect of “I’m a Jedi, I know I’m better than than this,” “I’m a Jedi, I’m not supposed to want [whatever very basic human thing he wants, because they make him feel like he can’t even ask for or accept scraps of decency]” - they fracture his sense of his own humanity, Padme tries to validate those feelings but that Code is a constant stumbling block in his mind). He is troubled by fear and the constant press of grief (I would argue he has PTSD at the very least), and all around he’s met by mistrust and sabotage.

Male heroes shouldn’t be treated as infallible in their own narratives (none of them are that, as no character of whatever gender/origin is, as none of us are), but at the very least we usually see them treated with respect by others. Anakin often gets no such luxury. He’s treated the way we frequently see women treated, and that treatment comes from the same rotten core - the idea that emotions are weak, that expressing them makes you lesser, that crying is a sign of deficiency, that fragility of any kind cannot be tolerated. Anakin is even the hopeless romantic in this situation - Padme, while gracious and warmhearted, is much more pragmatic and tries to reason her way out of her blossoming love for him until she’s of the belief that it doesn’t matter anyway because they’re about to die, and she wants him to know the truth before they do. (I’d also like to note that the closest people to him all speak their love aloud when they’re at the point of death - Shmi when he finds her bound and tortured with the Tuskens, Padme in the Arena, Obi-Wan watching him burn on Mustafar, and how unbearably sad is that? even though his mother had said it before, even though he got to hear it many times again from Padme - and it’s her last entreaty to him - we shouldn’t be pushed to the brink of death to express it). Anakin is the one gazing at her dreamily and tearing up about it and professing earnest, dramatic love in front of the fireplace (idc what anyone says about the dialogue, the way he expresses himself is entirely sincere, it’s the rawness of that sincerity that I think makes people uncomfortable bc it’s unexpected), she’s the one who talks about living in reality. She, too, has been taught to guard and temper her emotions from her time as a child queen and the years she’s spent navigating the murky political waters of the Senate, but she’s become adept at it, unlike Anakin. If anything, they’re the only person the other has with whom they can be truly genuine and unafraid of exposing the recesses of their hearts, they’re the only safe place the other has, it’s no wonder they give themselves over to that, and the fact that they do is beautiful, it’s not wrong (which I have more cohesive thoughts on here and it was the underlying thesis of my heart poured into the super long playlist for them too /linking all the things). They see the joy and spirit in the other that no one else ever sees, and they make a home there.

Anakin becomes an esteemed general not only because he’s awesome in battle and strong in the Force and a gifted pilot and a skilled leader (all of which are true), but because he shows those around him respect, and great care. So, yet again, there’s a subversion of what might have been expected. No one is expendable to him. He views the Clone troops as individual human beings. He mourns their losses (many of the Jedi, with their no attachments rhetoric, allow the Clones to be used without much hesitation or thought for their status as sentient beings born and bred and programmed to die in war, but Anakin was a slave. He comprehends their status more than anyone else could). Anakin is a celebrated hero to the public, and in private is being chewed up by fear and uncertainty. Anakin is devoted to and completely in love with his wife, but has to keep it a secret. Anakin still craves freedom that even being a Jedi has not afforded him, because of their rigor. Anakin still desperately has to scrape for even the bare minimum of approval from the authority figures around him - even his closest mentor and friend, Obi-Wan, while they are irrevocably bonded and care for each other in a myriad of important ways, often doesn’t understand him and dismisses his feelings, refuses to advocate for/stand up for him when he needs it, or tells him to calm down. I’m surprised they never tell him he’s being hysterical when he gets upset, but the connotation of being told to “calm down” when angry or sorrowful or frustrated is something most women can identify with all too well. His desperate desire to protect Padme as everything begins to curl and smoke and turn to ash around him has a very clear nurturing aspect to it underneath the layers of terror and frustration and building paranoia - all he really wants is to be able to protect and care for his family, all he hopes is to save them and have a life with them away from all the war and the political in-fighting and the stifling Order. He’d quit right that second but he needs help due to his nightmares, and no one is willing to give it to him. (Except, ostensibly, Palpatine, who has been grooming him and deftly manipulating him and warping his perceptions since he was a child, all under the guise of magnanimous, almost paternal, care. Palpatine is brilliant in his machinations, perfectly cunning in his evil. He knows exactly how to slip in and break people, and he plays Anakin to the furthest extreme. I’m not saying Anakin doesn’t have choices, he does, and he makes the worst possible ones, but Palpatine pulls the strings in a way that makes him feel that he has no agency - and in truth, he does have very little agency throughout every step of his arc, marrying Padme and loving her in spite of the rules is one of the only independent choices he ever makes that isn’t an order, a demand, a fulfilling of duty - and Palpatine poises himself as the answer to all the problems, if Anakin does as he’s told. He’s been hard-wired to take orders for too long. He is so damaged by this point, and so distrusting - Hayden said something once about how Anakin is still very naive in ROTS, even after what he’s been through in the war, he’s still so young and unknowing about many things, and then his naivete is shattered by complete and utter disillusionment, and that shock is terrible and incomprehensible for him, so he clings to the one source of power he’s given, and it’s catastrophic). He is haunted by grief and impeded by fear of loss, and it drags him into an abyss. We watch all of this happen with bated breath, we see everyone fail him, we see every moment where he could have been helped, we see every path he could take if only he had the ability to stand up for himself and had been given the tools to cope with his psychological and emotional baggage, we see that he very nearly turns back, up until the death knell at the end. We know it’s coming from the moment they land on Tatooine and meet him and decide to make him a Jedi. We know, and we still hope for it to turn out differently. We know, and it still breaks our hearts.

I don’t want to make blanket statements about typical male viewers vs. typical female viewers, that’s too dismissive of a stance to take, but on a seemingly wider scale, I don’t think many of the former (especially the ones who were either older fans or who were teenagers themselves at the time) were as interested in political nuance and a tale of abiding love and a young man burdened with more than should ever have been put on his shoulders. Since the question was basically “why does he appeal to women,” (and not just cishet women) I imagine that the answer to that varies greatly depending on any one perceptive outlook, but has a similar core in each case of us wishing we could help change the outcome, even though we know we can’t, and of wanting to understand his actions and his pain, wanting to see his positive choices and his goodness validated, wanting to see him learn healthy strategies, wanting to see his love flourish, wanting to see him freed from the shackles he drags with him, from childhood to Jedi to Vader. The crush of the standards of society and expectation on him may speak to many. He is never liberated (until his final moments of free breath). His choices are either taken or horrifically tainted. His voice is drowned out by those more powerful around him. His talents and intelligence go largely unrecognized. His good, expansive heart is treated like a hindrance. The depth of his empathy and love is underestimated - and that, in the end, is important, because that underestimation, ending with Palpatine, becomes the Dark Side’s ultimate downfall and undoing. Vader may literally pick up an electric Palpatine and throw him down a reactor shaft, but that physical action is the final answer to a much more complete emotional and spiritual journey. He throws him down and the chains go with the slave master, and for the first time, certainly since before he lost Padme, his heart is unfettered, his love is reciprocated, and he is offered a true voice, a moment of his true self, a sliver of forgiveness, before being embraced again by the transcendence of the light. It is his act of rebellion, it is his own personal revolution, his final blow in the war. The entirety of the arc hinges upon him in that moment, Luke has been valorous and immeasurably valuable, but he’s done all he can do - the final choice is Anakin’s (and it’s such an interesting case because where else have we ever been able to fear and appreciate a villain, and then totally transform and re-contextualize him?). He is in that moment, indeed, the Chosen One.

All these facets are fascinating to watch unfold if you’re willing to be open-minded and heartfelt and sympathetic to the journey, if you’re willing to dig into the complex depth of his pathos.

I remember seeing AOTC as a teenager, and my love was Padme, she was where I was invested, I identified with her, I loved her kindness and her bravery and her sense of honor and justice, I loved that her femininity did not in any way diminish her and was an asset, I loved that, while she takes charge and has the fortitude to rush headlong to the rescue, while she can fight and tote a gun and blast a droid army as well as anyone, her superpowers are her intellect and her giving heart and gentle spirit. I totally get why Anakin holds onto the thread of hope she gives to him for all of those years, and why he falls in love with her as he does, but since I felt a lot of the story through her eyes, I understood why she was drawn to and fell in love with him, too. He’s dynamic and a bit reckless, he’s courageous, but he’s vulnerable and needs support, he’s deeply troubled but also radiantly ebullient at times (the scene in the meadow where she’s so touched by the carefree joy he exhibits, how it delights her and takes her aback, because she’s almost forgotten what it is to feel that, she’s almost forgotten other people could, and here he is, warm and teasing and spirited), he is often guileless, especially with her, he’s fervent and loving in a way she’s never seen or experienced, and that love is given with abandon to her. Who…wouldn’t fall in love with that? It’s a gravitational pull. AOTC impacted me in certain other personal ways as well, I was trying to understand some nascent hollows of grief (Anakin losing his mother as he does was very affecting and heartwrenching for me, at the time I’d lost my grandfather to whom I was quite close, and I’m also really close to my own mom, so his woe had an echo to me), but that vision that I specifically had of their love, the way I interpreted it (which I may not have had words for at the time, but I certainly had the emotional response) was a dear and formative thing.

I talked about this here, but to rephrase/reiterate, by the time ROTS came out, my life had shifted completely on its axis. I was still young, but my much dreamier teenage self was being beaten down and consumed by illness, and I was angry. Anger is not a natural emotion for me (guilt and self-blame tend to be where I bury anger), and I really didn’t know what to do with it. Everything felt unfair and uncertain, like there was no ground at all to stand on. I hurt all the time, literally and figuratively, I was in constant pain. I was lonely and frightened and sleep deprived and often had nightmares (this is still kind of true lol, as is the physical pain part). Padme was still my heart and touchstone - as she remains so to this day in this story - but suddenly I understood Anakin in a much more profound way, one I’ve held onto because he’s important to me and I love him. I felt his rage, his anguish, his desire to do something, anything, to somehow change or influence the situation, to rectify his nightmares, to cling to whatever might make a difference, might save him from being drowned in the dark and from losing everything that made him who he was as a person. Seeing him try and knowing he would fail was devastating, but also…relatable, in an abstract way (obviously not the violent parts, but thematically, I felt some measure of what it was to scramble up a foundation that is disappearing beneath you, that your expectations and dreams of what your life would be can vanish in disintegrating increments). All I wanted was for someone to help rescue him, because all I wanted was for someone to help rescue me. All I wanted was the hope that things could turn around - and there is hope in ROTS, despite the unending terror and tragedy, it’s never entirely gone, because Star Wars exists as a universe with the blazing stars of hope and love ever ignited at its center - but still, it was a very personally rooted emotional exploration for me, and I only started to deal with my own floundering anger when I saw how it might consume the true and loving and softer parts of me if I didn’t hold it back. (A few years later, I went through this again in an even worse way, and the source of that rage and despair was someone I cared for, and once I got through the worst bleak ugliness of it, there were a couple of stories I returned to in an attempt to gain newfound solace and comprehension, and Anakin and Padme were in there. My compassionate, hopeful heart was being torn by that fury, and I clawed my way back up from the brink of it because I knew I could die, not even necessarily figuratively, it was…a bad time, if I didn’t find my way out. Anakin’s story is a tragedy and a fable and a kind of warning - we should not deny or suppress our emotions or our authenticity, but we also cannot let it destroy us - and then ultimately his lesson is restorative, too, that we never lose the essential part of our souls, that we must allow ourselves to feel. Balance indeed).

As consistent and transparent as my love for Padme has always been, my Anakin emotions are actually so close and personal that I intentionally avoided ever exposing them for actual years, it’s like…basically in the past month that I’ve ever been truly honest about it on Tumblr, because exposing that felt like too much, but I don’t really care about keeping it quiet any more, and that’s very cathartic.

I myself am an incredibly emotional person, and I don’t believe that Anakin’s emotions are negative qualities, which I meant to underscore. In fact, his open emotions are an exquisite part of him, and it’s the Jedi who are wrong for trying to stamp that out, when his emotional abilities are part of what define him in his inherent goodness and his intellect and strength. He has an undying heart. For he and Luke both to stand as male heroes who represent such depth of feeling is really special, and vital to the story. Anakin is the most acutely human character in many respects, in his foibles and his inner strengths, in his losses and his longings and his ultimate return to his true self - that’s why we feel for him, that’s why we ache and fear for him, that’s why we rejoice for him in the end.

Other people could speak to the Vader part of it much better than I can, Vader’s an amazing and very interesting villain (the fact that, as Vader, Anakin is much more adhered to the Jedi code and way of thinking than he ever was as an actual Jedi, for example - he has an order to him, he is much more dispassionate, he is very adamant about the power of the Force - is endlessly intriguing, because he’s such a contradiction). I use this term for a different character, but I’m going to apply it here - Anakin is a poem of opposites. He is a center that can serve as either sun or black hole. He is a manifestation of love and light and heroism, he is a figure of imposing power and cold rage. He’s the meadow and the volcano. The question then becomes, how expansive are we? When we’re filled with the contradicting aspects of ourselves, how do we make them whole without falling apart? When we do fail, can we ever do anything to fix it? And the answers again will vary by individual, but to my mind - we’re infinite, and thus infinitely capable of, at any point, embracing our light, even if we’ve forgotten to have faith in it, and while we may not be able to fix every mistake or right every wrong, we can make a better choice and alter the path. The smallest of our actions can ripple and extend and are more incandescent than we know. That’s what he does, against all expectation. In the end, he is an archetype not only of a hero (be that fallen or chosen or divine), but of a wayward traveler come home, a heart rekindled, a soul set free to emerge victorious in the transcendent light.

In the final resonance of that story for me personally, I love him for being a representation of that journey, that no matter how long it takes to get there, how arduous it is - that things we lose can be found again, that with the decided act of compassion, pure, redemptive love can be held onto, that the light persists and that, even when it flickers most dimly, refuses to be extinguished, and can at any point illuminate not only ourselves, but can shine brightly enough to match the stars in the universe.

I hope this is at all cogent, here’s a gif for your patience ♥

#anakin skywalker #darth vader #sw meta #star wars #okay to reblog #(of course! <3)#this is so long i'm so sorry for anyone who's now seen it twice but i didn't want to ignore the very sweet message i got #(which i am honored by thank you for even asking and caring and being patient enough to read this spiel omg)#i tweaked some of the wording for clarity (i changed it in the original too) but otherwise it's basically the same #bubble wrap around my heart #*#encouraged to love #anyway i love him #and i love luke so much and that's a vital component here #luke's faith and kindness and important heroism exists for a reason #luke sees the truth and the good and he doesn't let it go and his spirit does not waver and is brightly right in the end #don't you dare try to tell me anakin wasn't always fundamentally good in the truest and most luminous parts of his heart #to do so is to not only undermine anakin but to invalidate luke and padme and i won't stand for that #i could write one of these for luke but i think he's getting really good defense from sharper minds than mine in many cases #i could write one of these for padme but she's also been getting quality recognition lately #so as far as any defense goes this is the best my exhausted little brain can do and i hope it does justice to the story in some small way #i'm so ill and out of it that i have no idea if this makes sense even after copy/pasting it and fixing it up but itried.jpg #long post for ts

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braincoins · 6 years

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Title: Surviving Memory Fandom: Voltron: Legendary Defender Summary: Shiro has the opportunity to get his lost memories restored. But is he ready for that? Ships: very light background Shallura Warnings: blood mention Author’s Notes: This one's kind of personal for me. Channeling some of myself into Shiro here. But, really, isn't that what fanfic's all about?

As usual, props out to @materassassino for her beta assistance!

(2,903 words - also on AO3)

“I-I’m sorry, you can do… what?”

Ryner frowned just slightly. “Our translators should still be working. Do I need to run a scan? I can have it fixed in…”

“No, no,” Shiro rushed to reassure her. “Your translators are still working. I’m… mostly sure, anyway. No, I’m just… I don’t know what to think.”

“How would something like that even work?” Hunk asked.

Ryner brightened as she always did whenever she got to explain something. “Brain matrices aren’t really that different from any other organism or compound. Much more complex, of course, but foundationally very similar.”

She went on explaining to the Paladins, but Shiro wasn’t really listening. Her earlier words echoed in his head. “We believe we can restore your lost memories.”

It was Pidge’s voice that snapped him back out of it. “Oh, so it’s basically like defragmenting a drive!” She got a bit loud when she was this enthusiastic. The mere sight of Olkarion tended to raise her voice a few decibels on its own.

“Yes,” Ryner agreed. She turned back to Shiro. “So we won’t be able to see your memories, if that is what is troubling you. It does not function that way. It just brings your own mind into alignment. You are the only one who will have access to these memories, I promise.”

He nodded and cleared his throat. “Y-yes, I… I understand. Thank you, Ryner. It’s kind of you to offer. Olkari technology never ceases to amaze me.” She smiled at that, and he forced a smile in return. “I…”

He was going to say he needed to think about it. But the thought came to him that his locked-away memories might contain valuable intel about the Empire. He squared his shoulders.

“I’d be glad to get my memories back. Thank you. How soon can we do this?”

“We’re still bringing it back online,” she said. “It’s one of our older tech pieces, from before the Galra showed up. It was hidden, damaged; they probably didn’t even notice it. We’ve repaired it, but I want to make sure we get the power levels right before we use it. Tomorrow at the latest.”

“I’ll help!” Pidge offered. Hunk was right there with her. Lance and Keith were studying him carefully as the two techies of the team followed Ryner out.

“I’m going to get some rest before then,” Shiro said, heading for the door.

“Hey, Shiro,” Lance began.

“I’m fine, Lance.”

“You’re not,” Keith insisted, running up to keep pace with him.

“Look, if even Keith can tell, then we know something’s up,” Lance declared.

“I appreciate the concern, you two, but really. I just want to get some rest. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

Thankfully, they left him alone after that, but before he was totally out of earshot, he thought he heard Lance say something like, “Don’t worry, I know what to do.” That was worrisome. He decided to head back to his room on the Castle, where he could lock the door, just in case.

He lost track of time, laying on his back in his bunk, staring up at the ceiling. This shouldn’t be a big deal, he chided himself. But it was. And, if he was being honest, he knew why; he just didn’t want to admit it. Not even to himself.

He didn’t want to have to face what he’d done in that lost year. He didn’t want to know whether he had only ever defeated bloodthirsty fighters like Myzax or if there had been innocents as well – other prisoners who didn’t even know what they were in for. What had he done to survive?

He didn’t want to remember everything they’d done to him. Was there more than just his hand? Nothing else was as obvious, but that didn’t mean the new arm was the only change they’d made. Had he been tortured into giving up information about Earth?

He hated the shattered quality of what memories he did have, hated how he would stumble over them seemingly at random, and how they would cut him and make him bleed. He hated not knowing things about himself, but at least when he didn’t know for sure, he could pretend it was all okay. He could console himself with, “Well, I don’t know, so I’ll just assume the best.” That was how he got through the bad times.

Sometimes, Sendak’s voice still haunted him. Monster. He tried to shut those memories out, too, but it just insistently reminded him of ejecting a captive into space. He’d done that. With his own hand – not even the Galra replacement. If he could do that, what else was he capable of? What other sins lurked in the darkness of his own mind? He couldn’t begin to atone if he didn’t know what they were.

But… he was a Paladin of Voltron. He was helping people, saving people, freeing people. That was enough, right? Even without knowing how much blood was on his hands, Voltron would cleanse him. The peoples of the universe would grant him absolution for all of this. At worst, he would die, and then it wouldn’t matter any longer. Not that he wanted to be dead.

Deep down, he wanted to live in peace. He wanted that for everyone. Freedom, peace, justice. But there was a dark undercurrent of revenge in him. And if he wanted that – all of that – he needed to do this, to get the intel that might help them bring down the Galra Empire, free everyone, and destroy the evil that had stolen so much from him and warped his existence this way.

They’d meant him to be a weapon. And maybe he was. But he wasn’t under their control any longer. He would be their downfall.

But… he’d have to face the fears lurking inside him, the shadowy unknown that he hated so much. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as he was fearing. Maybe it would be better than he dared to hope. He couldn’t – wouldn’t – know until they defragmented his brain. One way or another he’d know. He’d know what had happened. What he had done. What they had done. He’d know it all.

The door chime startled him. Oh quiznak, it’s time. I have to do this. He got up and started walking towards the door. “Who is it?”

“It’s Allura. Lance suggested I speak with you.”

He stopped moving and stifled a groan. “I’m fine, Allura, really. Go back to what you were doing.”

“He said it was urgent.”

“It’s not, really. I’m fine.” He went back to his bunk, just to sit on the edge of it. Staring at the floor would be a nice change of pace from the ceiling.

“Can we at least discuss this without the door in the way?”

“I’m. Fine,” he insisted. “You have more important things to worry about than me.”

There was a pause and then the Castle’s soft voice said, “Override acknowledged,” and the door slid open.

He shot to his feet. “Wha-…”

Allura had her arms folded, standing there in the doorway. “Do you really think that you can bar me from any room in my own ship?”

He sighed. “Allura, I’m…”

“Fine, yes, you’ve said. But Lance and Keith told me about the meeting with Ryner earlier.” She walked in and the door shut behind her. “And there is very little in the universe more important than the health and well-being of the Black Paladin of Voltron.”

He studied her. “You’re not going to go away, are you?”

“Not until you talk to me.”

“Okay, fine. But I don’t know what there is to talk about.” He sat back down on his bunk.

She walked around to sit next to him. “You aren’t at all nervous about this?”

“Why should I be nervous? Olkari technology is amazing, and I trust Ryner not to put me in any danger.”

“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Are you looking forward to having your memories back?”

No. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’ve hated feeling like part of me is locked away. I’ve hated not knowing. This will fix all that.”

“Yes, but… then you’ll know.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?”

She huffed. “You’re being stubborn.”

“You’re not one to accuse other people of stubbornness.”

“The fact that I am well-acquainted with it means I recognize it easily in others,” she declared. She laid a hand on his shoulder. “Shiro…”

He pulled away from her. “I’m going to do it, so there’s no point in any of this.”

“But you aren’t entirely sanguine about it, or you wouldn’t be hiding in here.”

“I’m not hiding! I’m just resting!”

“Exactly!” She stood. “You work more than I do!”

He barked a laugh. “Not even close. You’re a workaholic, Princess, and that’s a fact.”

“Okay, almost as much as I do. That’s not the point. The point is, you don’t like to rest. You don’t like to sleep. You don’t spend time just laying around when you could be doing something! You. Are. HIDING.”

He practically jumped to his feet to glare at her. “You want to know why I don’t sleep? I don’t sleep because I can’t! Because these things I can’t even remember terrify me so much that I wake up! If I don’t know what they are, I can’t face them, and if I can’t face them, I can’t beat them!”

“So what are you doing now then?” she shot back at him. “Getting in one last terror-riddled nap?!”

That deflated him a little. “No, I…”

She settled down as well, though her tone was still strident. “You’ll have to face those fears to defeat them, you’re right. And if you do this, you’ll know what they are. And that’s what has you hiding.”

He scowled. “Don’t talk like you know what I’m thinking.”

“I do!” she shouted. She cleared her throat and took a moment to calm down. “I do know. It’s not exactly the same, but…” She lowered her gaze to the floor rather than look at him. “I don’t know what my father’s last moments were like. I don’t know what my planet’s last moments were like. And sometimes, that haunts me. Sometimes, when I try to sleep, I imagine what it might have been like for Altea. And I imagine it happening again and again: to Shay’s Balmera, to Olkarion, to Arus, to every planet we’ve helped and saved.” She raised her head again just enough to barely catch his eye. “I imagine it happening to Earth, and there’s nothing we can do to stop it. Those fears wake me shivering and sobbing, Shiro.

“Would it be better to be certain of Altea’s fate? Maybe. Maybe not. It would make my fears for all the other worlds that much sharper, bring them into greater focus. And nothing I can do, nothing I can find out or know, will ever bring Altea back to me.”

He jerked a little when he felt a touch on his left hand, but then eased when he realized it was Allura reaching out to him. She took his hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Your memories of what happened in captivity could be useful to us, I’ll admit. But there are other ways we can find those things out. If you aren’t ready to do this, then don’t. The Olkari machine isn’t going anywhere. You don’t have to do this now.”

He shook his head. “This is the quickest way, the most efficient.”

“Stop thinking like a paladin, just for one dobosh?” she asked gently.

He looked down at their joined hands, took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. “I…” He had to do it again before he could get the words out. “I ought to be happy about this. I really, really don’t like that I can’t remember what happened. I don’t like feeling shut away from a part of my own life. But at the same time, I know that there’s not likely to be much that’s happy in those memories.”

He looked up to face Allura again and swallowed hard. “I’m afraid.”

She nodded. “That’s understandable.”

“I have to be brave, for the mission, for the intel we could get, for the sake of the entire universe. That’s my job, that’s why I’m here. That is…” His right hand balled into a fist next to him. “That’s the only thing I have that keeps the nightmares away.

“I don’t know what I had to do to survive, Allura. I don’t think I want to know, because then I can pretend that I’m still the same man who left Earth intending to go no farther than the edge of the solar system. I can pretend I’m not a monst-…”

He was surprised when she laid a finger against his lips, and it shut him up instantly.

“You’re not a monster, Shiro. Are you the same man who left Earth? No. I’m not the same person I was before my father put me into that cryopod. We grow, we change. Sometimes what changes us is good, and sometimes it’s bad.”

Her finger fell away. “I wish that what had happened to you hadn’t. It would mean you wouldn’t be here with us now, and I don’t know what would have become of any of us if you and the others hadn’t arrived on Arus. But it hurts me to know that they hurt you so badly. And I am so, so sorry for it.

“Ultimately, this is your decision. I cannot make it for you. But if the only reason you’re going ahead with it is because you feel you must, for the mission? Then don’t. You’ll have the chance to do it later.”

“Will I?”

She smiled wanly. “If I have anything to say about it, yes, you will.” She reached for his right hand. The fist loosened enough for her to link hands with him. “You’re a good man, Shiro. The best man I’ve ever known, apart from my father. I am so, so glad to have you with me, and the universe is incredibly lucky to have you as the Black Paladin.”

“I just… I don’t know,” he sighed, feeling exhausted all of a sudden.

“What if it were Keith who had to make this decision? What would you tell him?”

“I’d…” He sighed and admitted, “I’d tell him to make his own choice and that he didn’t have to do this if he didn’t want to.”

She smiled, a little more genuinely this time. “See?”

“’Course, he’d probably go ahead and do it anyway.”

She chuckled softly. “Yes, well, that’s Keith. You’re not him. Make your own decision.” She squeezed both his hands once before letting go. “And if you ever need to talk, please come to me. Or to Keith or Lance or anyone. Please?”

He nodded. “I will.”

She seemed satisfied with that and started to leave.

“Allura.”

She turned back to him.

“Thank you for sharing that with me. About your dreams. You… That was… incredibly personal, and you didn’t have to do that.”

“It was my decision to do so,” she replied. “And you’re welcome.”

“And if you ever want to talk – about anything – I’d be glad to listen.”

“Thank you, Shiro. I might take you up on that sometime.” The door opened for her and she left.

He stood there for a moment longer, then realized he should talk to Ryner about his decision. He felt too tired to walk over there, but he could at least call.

“…so thank you, but not right now,” Shiro’s voice said over the comms. “I appreciate the offer though, and I might take you up on it later.”

Ryner nodded. “Very well, Shiro. Thank you for letting us know.”

Keith practically pounced as soon as the link closed. “See? I told you he didn’t want to do it.”

“Yes, your observation was very astute,” Ryner agreed, “but I hope you can appreciate my desire to hear it from Shiro himself, considering that it was his memories in question.”

“Yeah,” Pidge put in, “Imagine if Lance volunteered you for something you didn’t want to do!”

“Or turned down something you did,” Hunk added.

“That’s different,” Keith said.

“How so?” Pidge pursued.

“Because Lance is an idiot.”

“Oy! I’m standing RIGHT HERE, Mullet!” Lance was getting screechy.

“It’s just the truth.”

“Hey, my plan actually worked! So who’s the idiot now?”

“You’re a lucky idiot.”

Pidge snickered. “Or an idiot with eyes.”

Keith turned back to her. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” Hunk moaned. “You’re closer to Shiro than any of us, and you can’t tell that he likes Allura?”

“And that she likes him,” Lance replied. “I mean, if I had to lose Allura to someone else, of course it’d be Shiro.”

“He hasn’t said anything,” Keith said defensively.

They all groaned.

“Paladins, can this discussion be had somewhere other than here?” Ryner interjected.

“Right, sorry!” Hunk smiled. “Hey, let us know if there’s any other cool tech we can play, er… help with, yeah?”

“Of course. Thank you both for your assistance.” She watched them leave and shook her head. It was oddly reassuring to know that the Defenders of the Universe were just normal people with normal lives. Well… for certain values of “normal,” anyway.

#Voltron #light background Shallura #Socks writes Voltron fanfic #lost memories

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coldalbion · 6 years

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This is a tricky religious question, but I'll try to encapsulate it in an ask. I feel a strong connection to Odin, but I also want to make that spiritual connection more firm in the landscape I /already/ inhabit, if that makes sense? Unfortunately, as a white person in a land that was never my own, I feel it would be disrespectful. My "ancestors" are from across the sea and I cannot claim to know them, either. Whiteness has colonised and homogenized culture. So I'm unsure how to proceed.

Imma be upfront here: What you want and feel doesn’t automatically have primacy when dealing with other beings. We don’t own the land, the land owns us.To think otherwise is a manifestation of that same colonial, homogenising, reflex which has married itself to rapacious capitalism and set about obliterating nuance and intimacy and depth.So, listen, I’m assuming you’re White here, but - Hwaet!: The land has its own needs, its own desires. The beings that populate it have theirs, and you don’t get to decide what’s respectful, and what’s not. To do that, you have to go and find out. You have to put yourself out there and say: “Hello. Here I am. Are you up for maybe building a relationship? A relationship that’s between us, even with all the shit people with my shade of skin have pulled?”They may very well say no. And, in the spirit of being up front? That. May. Be. Easier. If they say no, then you’re done.But if they say yes? That’s when the hard bloody work begins. Because you have to cobble together something from the ground up. And you have to do that, situated within the horror of Whiteness, because Whiteness actually homogenised and destroyed many of the vast number of differing and rich variations that North West Europeans and their descendants had for interacting with the world. It was deliberately constructed by those in power to level internal resistance and then turn that animus on POC and indigenous peoples. It created an ‘US’ to pit against ‘THEM’.As White folks, we and our ancestors have perpetuated, and continue to implicitly take part in a set of systems which have perpetuated atrocities across the planet, and continue to do so.And it is the absolute right of those beings, human and non, to hate us on sight. It hurts, and is upsetting, and if we’re decent people, we want to make it right. But we don’t get to decide how and whether that’s possible.Having said all this - the crimes perpetuated by folks with our shade of skin do not automatically disqualify us from anything - unless we’re told otherwise. But neither do they qualify us in advance.

This is the lie (some) of our ancestors bought, the one bearing the rubric of Whiteness. Whiteness, the lie goes, is a thing to aspire to - because Whiteness is better, being White makes you better automagically.(And yes, I more-than-half-believe that Whiteness is an imperialist magic spell. Seriously.) Because there was a time when ‘white’ was merely a simple descriptor of skin colour. And then it was made into something else.; I’d equate it with the ancient and very real magic of Roman citizenship, except for the fact that the Roman Empire was, at least at beginning, a polytheist culture.I’ve said above that Whiteness doesn’t automatically disqualify us unless we’re told, but I want to emphasise that ignorance is not an excuse either. Seek out those qualified. Do your research.Whiteness may have once only been a skin descriptor - but now it’s so, so, much more complex. We do not get to complain building healthy and fruitful relationships is hard, that Whiteness makes things difficult, and so we can’t do anything.That’s the lie speaking, trying to persuade us to leave Whiteness-as-is, as a monolith that can never be pulled down and replaced with a memorial to all those whose lives and lands it oppressed - just as say, Germany pulled down the statues of the Reich, and erected holocaust memorials.Germany has not absolved itself - it is flawed, and imperfect as an example. Yet, it has acknowledged what was done and moved forward, but not on. Those memorials are meant to stand as moral checkpoints. Thing that exist as reminders, as-never-again.Leaving Whiteness-as-monolith is simply ignoring the shadow it casts. Instead, we should blow it up, reconfigure, deconstruct it - whilst at the same time never forgetting where it comes from.Whether we acknowledge them or not, we are our ancestors, emanating their genes, the products of their actions, here and now. Even if we seek to deliberately excise them, that very excision is relation to them. If we cut out a family member due to their behaviour, they influence us in terms of what-not-to-do.Negative space, emptiness, is still a phenomenon, and everything is connected.

So when I say deconstruct, I mean not simply demolish, not simply raze-as-if-it-never-was. I say use it as fuel, transmute it; look for the cracks in its homogeneity - the things buried beneath - the green vitality that survives despite paving, steal and glass. The way birds fly, flock, wheel, and dive - and most importantly the spaces between.Focus - narrow, and so, so deep. Beneath Whiteness, there is Blood - and though these things are so beloved by white supremacist arseholes? Look at Blood Again. Do not see it as one thing, but note how many cells rush by - notice how many substances, hormones, surge through your veins, how very many things it is.Blood is never pure.And beneath that? Glistening, shining Bone - not white at all, shaded and stained ivory, all honeycombed and filled with marrow. Each heartbeat a rhythmic pulse.For your ancestors are Many, and you see them everytime you look in the mirror, Perhaps you have your Father’s mouth, your Mother’s jaw, your Grandfather’s eyes?But where did they get them?You know them, but you don’t know you know them. Known knowns and unknown knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns.The spell of Whiteness says it is homegenous, because it homogenizes. But it’s a lie, and dig underneath it and you will find white-skinned variety - mixedness, shadowed memory - old ways, localised cultus based on village, town, terroir, field and forest. Mixed races and traditions.

Which of these is supreme? None. They are contextual. They are local. The landscape is not levelled, not concretized. Monoculture has its propaganda. Its siren-song that it it is the only option.But: Things are not gone - their roots remain, buried deep, ready to emerge in new forms.The knowledge of them may be held already, kept sacred by indigenous or closed groups, and if so, so be it. Or, it may lie waiting to be discovered again

And these new-old forms can only come forth if we risk ourselves. If we dedicate ourselves to reconnection, to respect and research, to wholeness and to wilfully acknowledging that we Know Nothing.

And the spell, the Imperial magic of Whiteness is failing, but it’s not dead. It’s cunning, shape-shifting into notions of silos and ideological purity. It says you are either Enough, or Not Enough.Enough is better, Enough is pure.And you are not pure, not clean. None of us are. So Whiteness uses that - creates both White guilt and White Pride - enhancing the sense of helplessness, which breeds sorrow and anger, and thus increasing US vs THEM.It creates toxicity which further perpetuates itself - and the individual can do little to change it, and virtually nothing to change the world. reaching towards purity is good, because purity is a beacon, a nice clear reference point by which we can make sense of the world.

And the Old Man is about as ambiguous and impure as they come. He emanates double and triple meaning - poetry as magic, as weapon, as entertainment, as blood and fury and iron. Knowledge as poison, as drug, as psycho-active substance.In some ways, I think he may find it darkly funny the way neo-nazi scumbags constantly use his name to justify purity and fitness. This one-eyed wanderer who self-harmed and submitted himself totally to the Kosmos because he wanted to Know itAnd not on his terms. On Its.He deliberately put aside all methods of control. He neither ate nor drank. He bled for it, probably even died for it. He sacrificed himself to himself because there was nobody else. Only by being completely Himself, in that environment, and letting whatever happened, happen, was he able to go down to the depths and receive and perceive the runes.Be prepared for the necessity of that. Of setting yourself apart, not as pure or better - but different. Empty your cup, as they say in Zen.Understand that he is the strife-bringer and its soother.If you want to find him in the landscape, first you have to meet him, it - on its terms. The lore says he gave humans breath.So breathe. Realise your Whiteness is not something you can help - you cannot stop being White, and you are enmeshed in the monoculture, but that the monoculture is not what it says it is. It is not the Only One.There are many different ways, and as master interpreter - the hermes in the hermeneutics, the Wanderer has travelled most, if not all of them.His answer to the Seeress’ question is YES. Forever and always YES. And knowing more is not just intellectual knowing, but meeting, knowing someone, carrying them, or a place with you.There’s a reason we call the World Tree what we do. It has roots no man knows, And this? This is the Old Man’s Horse - a tree is his method of travel, is the Great Tree which holds all worlds. The ancestral tree, just as humans were made from wood.The runes are risted with red, stained well with the power of blood and breath; the power of a magic alphabet filled with the rhythms of life and death.The poetry can crack a world. the root can break stone .A return to new-old ways can acknowledge and suborn your Whiteness, forcing it to undergo a detournement which will never grant some distant absolution, but just may allow the usage of that magical spiritual potency of that spell to benefit you, and others.In honouring Odin, you have the appearance of honouring the same god as some neo-Nazi scum. And yet, you are not, because of the relationship which is (may come to be) betwixt you. And it is that which contains life, death, health and wholeness. That is not theirs, but yours.In doing so, in living a connected life you illustrate, you render a way which was hidden, open. A way which may shift and change - for though the Whiteness was laid upon you at birth, its meaning may change in an unexpected way. You become a thing which is different, and Odin will be in your land, just as he came to be in mine.As to how that happens, only you can tell, but for me, it came to pass with a realization that he has always been there. He was just waiting for me to see his shape in the world - a piece of negative space, which once I discovered it, has become a roaring source of gnosis, a quiet whisper that raises the hair on the back of the neck.A thing to be lived with, and died with, and borne and lifted up and cast down.You are an enforced descendant of a vast criminal syndicate which killed millions, destroyed thousands of cultures, infected its own people with a thought-virus to keep them compliant, and keeps insisting it’s the only game in town.Its not. Be open. Live with who you are, as you are.But who you are is not who you have been told.Good luck.

#the old man #Anonymous

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