#I will slaughter millions for these two

[ellecdc]

Come Back, Be Here (part 6)

p1 // p2 // p3 // p4 // p5 // p6 // p7 // p8

Sirius Black x fem!reader - First Wizarding War Order of the Phoenix - 5.1k

CW: mentions of past abuse/torture, amnesia, mention of Bellatrix's cursed knife (same injury Hermione received in canon), racism/bigotry, swearing x a million cuz it's Remus' POV, angst, hurt/comfort, use of Y/N

Synopsis: After sacrificing yourself to save your friend and Order partner James months before, you're found on the brink of death. How will Sirius react when he finally gets his love back, only to have you snatched out from under him again?

“Where the FUCK is she?”

The headmaster calmly placed his teacup back on its saucer as the two men came barging into his office.

“Ah, Mr. Black. Mr. Lupin. Please, take a seat.” 

So, Sirius did; he took the seat, and he threw it at the wall.

“I am not fucking around old man. Where. Is. She? Where is Y/N?” He barked.

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

Sirius stopped in his pacing.

“You don’t know!?” Remus repeated incredulously.

Dumbledore nodded.

Sirius picked up a spinning orb from the headmaster’s desk and sent it careening to the window. The windows – the damned things – were charmed not to break, but the orb did. As pieces of crystal shattered and scattered onto the floor, many sleeping portraits of previous headmasters began waking. A few stayed behind to watch the spectacle, whilst many left to find other portraits to haunt for the time being. 

“That’s not good enough.” Sirius fumed.

With a casual flick of his wand, Dumbledore righted the chair Sirius had thrown. “Why don’t you have a seat, son?”

“I am not your fucking son!” He shouted back, kicking the seat over again.

“Mr. Lupin, why don’t you encourage your friend here to calm down?” The portrait of a previous headmistress asked condescendingly. 

“Get fucked, ma’am.” Was his muttered response.

With a huff, the headmistress decided to leave as well. 

“I am so sick of being played like some pawn in this gods-awful game of yours! We are children! You fucking groomed us as students and enlisted us right out of the gates, fattening us up like cattle for slaughter!”

“Now, Mr. Black-”

“I’M NOT DONE.” Sirius roared. 

Dumbledore shifted his eyes to Remus, who kept his gaze firmly on him.

“You – you’re supposed to be this powerful wizard with years of experience. You defeated that Grindel-fuck back in the sodding dark-ages or whenever, yet somehow, this is out of your wheelhouse!?”

“Mr. Black, everyone learned from the Global Wizarding World with Grindelwald; Tom Riddle how to cheat death, and myself to enlist the help of others.” Dumbledore said.

“But you didn’t get help! You got soldiers, and we’re the ones fighting this fucking war for you! You get to sit here in this bloody castle with powerful ancient wards protecting you, drinking your tea, wanking to the portraits of the other headmasters in your spare time, while the rest of us get their fucking heads blown off!

“We’re the ones being captured. We’re the ones being tortured. We’re the ones being killed. We’re the ones with blood on our hands fighting for our fucking lives, everyday! Bouncing from safe-house to safe-house whilst never being safe. And you know! You’ve known there was a spy, you’ve had contacts on the other side, but you give us nothing. You just send us off on these fucking missions, blind, and we all have to hope that that’s enough. That we’ll live to see another day. That we’ll make it home to our loved ones.”

Sirius paused to catch his breath. “You will not get away with using her like this, not anymore, not by me.”

Dumbledore’s crystal blue eyes bore into Sirius’ stormy grey ones. After a few moments, he offered him a subtle nod. 

“Where is she?” He repeated, quieter this time.

“Sirius, the truth is that I do not know.”

Sirius groaned. “How can you not know!? Fine, fine. Who is your contact? Apparently, someone who was in league with the Black’s for the stupid fucking house-elf to betray me like this. So, who is it? Narcissa? Finally tired of the bleach fumes from that husband of hers? It can’t be Bellatrix.” 

Dumbledore pursed his lips as he considered Sirius.

“It’s not Bellatrix, is it?” He asked in quiet disbelief. 

“No, son, it is not Bellatrix.”

“’Kay well, tell me who it is, then. Reg’s dead so you’re leaving me with dear old Cissy here.” 

Dumbledore leaned onto his forearms on his desk as he peered at Sirius over his half-moon spectacles. 

“A house-elf will always be the most loyal to the head of the house it serves.” 

Sirius scoffed. “Yeah, well my house-elf just up and fucked-off with the love of my life so I’d say his loyalty doesn’t exactly align with...me...” He trailed off as something seemed to dawn on him. 

“Unless I’m not the head of the house.” 

Remus’ neck snapped as he whipped his head to regard his friend. 

“The deed and the vault at Gringotts were all moved to you, Sirius, you’re the head of the house.” 

Sirius never pulled his gaze away from the headmaster. “Goblins can be tricked, and deeds can be forged.” He whispered. “But house-elf magic...” 

Dumbledore leaned back into his chair. 

“But Regulus is dead. He was pronounced dead – your mother offed herself because he was pronounced dead.” Remus argued. 

“He was assumed dead.” Dumbledore corrected.

“Holy fucking shit.” Sirius breathed. 

“Regulus has been in contact with me since this past spring. It appears that Miss. L/N was the turning point for him in this war.”

Sirius stared in bafflement. “What do you...” 

“You may, one day, need to discuss with your brother. However, what he explained to me,” Dumbledore started. “Is that he had discovered Riddle’s secret of the horcruxes after becoming increasingly disenchanted by his rhetoric. He was intent on defeating Riddle himself, but came to me when he found Y/N.” 

The colour drained from Remus’ face. “You knew? All this time.”

Dumbledore turned his gaze to the lycanthrope. 

“You knew!?” He repeated.

“You must understand, I could not remove her from Riddle’s ranks without rousing suspicion from the other Death Eaters who knew she was there. We were also becoming increasingly aware of a spy within our ranks and could not jeopardize the intel by alerting the Death Eaters of our own spy.” 

“I can’t fucking believe this.” Sirius cried out. “You let her suffer there so you could keep the upper hand!”

“It was for the greater good.”

“Fuck that!” Sirius barked. “Fuck that and fuck you!”

“You do not understand how differently this could have all played out without her, Sirius.” 

Remus scoffed. “Oh the ‘could’s’, professor, really? We can sit here until our dying breath discussing all of the fucking could’s that could have taken place from the beginning of fucking time itself and it would mean nothing.” 

“I don’t care what could have happened.” Sirius interjected. “You should have protected her. Protected all of us.” 

Dumbledore looked between his two former students as he seemed to come to some kind of decision. 

“The five horcruxes that Y/N brought us have been destroyed. I do not want to give Riddle time to realize that they are gone. I have discussed with our allies what will need to happen next.” Dumbledore stated.

“And what will need to happen next, professor?” Sirius sneered. 

“It appears that Mr. Pettigrew told Riddle he would be the secret keeper by their next meeting.” Dumbledore said as Sirius swallowed bile rising in his throat. “I believe it would be best to lure Riddle out when he does not feel the need for an army.” 

Remus leaned forward in his chair. “How do we do that?”

Dumbledore pursed his lips. “It would be best if Riddle remained unaware of our knowledge of Peter.”

“I think he’s going to figure it out when he misses their next club meeting.” Sirius scoffed. 

“Unless he goes.” Remus murmured. 

“Over my dead body do we release that rat bastard.” Sirius growled. 

“I agree, Mr. Black, I do not believe we should entrust Peter. However, there may be another way.”

Sirius looked at Dumbledore blankly. “Tell me, headmaster, do you plan on breaking out some unforgiveables? Because short of imperio, I’m not sure-”

“Polyjuice.” Remus blurted.

Sirius whipped his head to his friend in shock, whilst a twinkle of pride appeared in Dumbledore’s eye. 

“We could keep up the ruse.” Remus explained. 

“I’ll go.” Sirius claimed.

Remus groaned. “Pads, do you really think you’re the best person for this job?”

Sirius looked at Remus with a look of ill-hidden betrayal. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Sirius, this is the most sensitive mission possibly anyone will ever have to take. You are passionate but you have a tendency to go in guns blazing and this is not the setting.” 

“I’ll be fine.” Sirius argued.

“You are going to hear and see things that will infuriate and you will not be able to react. You will have to put your morals aside.” 

“Rem, honestly, I grew up with the pureblood bullshit, I can handle it.” Sirius insisted.

“It nearly killed you, Pads. I was there when you showed up at the Potter’s.”

“Remus, I’m going.”

“Perhaps it should be me.” Remus stated as if Sirius hadn’t said anything at all.

“Are you insane?”

“Obviously the answer to that is yes but listen: no one would be able to use legillimency on me due to lunar magic, I stand a better chance at keeping a level head, and I’m perhaps just a touch less emotionally invested in this than you are.” Remus argued.

“Besides,” he continued, “I’ve spent my entire life pretending that I’m not a monster. I’m sure I can pretend to be one for a little bit.”

“You’re not a monster.” Sirius sighed.

Remus gave him a sad smile. “See? I’ve fooled you all.”

Dumbledore hummed. “I think Mr. Lupin may be right, Sirius. Perhaps you should trust him with this.”

“Of course I trust him, but-” Sirius started, turning to look at Remus. “I can’t lose you too.” He admitted quietly.

Though the sentiment caused a twinge of pain in Remus’ chest, he couldn’t waste an opportunity to razz his mate. “Awe, Pads. Don’t tell me you’re gonna miss me.” He cheeked as he pinched Sirius’ arm. 

“Oh, sod off you wanker.” Sirius muttered and crossed his arms. 

“I suppose it’s settled.” Dumbledore claimed. “Please await my correspondence with further instructions.”

October 29th

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.” James could be heard muttering as he paced the family room of 12 Grimmauld Place. 

“Why isn’t Dumbledore doing this himself?” Lily muttered darkly. 

“I’m not leaving Y/N in his hands, not again.” Sirius murmured into his hand as he stared at the fire. “It should be me going. Remus, I should go.” 

With a sigh, Remus stood from the wingback chair. “No, Pads. It’s too late to change the plan now. It’s going to be fine.”

Sirius shook his head and looked at the ceiling. 

“She’s fucking strong, Sirius. And she’s got more people on her side this time. We’re gonna finish this.” Remus pressed.  

The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed and everyone took a steadying breath. 

“Be careful, Rem.” Lily tearfully murmured as she gave him a hug. 

“I hate this.” James repeated just as quietly as he too hugged the lycanthrope. 

Remus smiled at them both before he moved to Sirius, who had shifted his gaze back to the fire. 

“We’re close, Pads.” He whispered.

Sirius nodded, keeping his gaze on the fire. “Thank you, Moony. For going after her.”

“She’s pack.” Remus said simply causing Sirius to let out a shuddering breath.

“Be careful.”

Remus nodded in agreement and took a swig from his pocket flask. He grunted slightly as he felt his body shifting and changing, but it was nothing close to the pain he experienced every full moon. 

Sirius, Lily, and James all looked in various levels of disgust as Remus – now in the form of Peter Pettigrew – stood to his full height. “How do I look?”

The three friends looked at each other awkwardly before turning back to Remus...Peter?

“Fuck, this is weird.” James muttered.

“Yeah, honestly mate, I think you should go.” Sirius agreed.

Remus rolled his eyes. “You know I’m not actually him, right?”

Lily grimaced. “Yeah, yeah Judas. Get going.” 

Sirius and James looked at her inquisitively, but Remus snorted a laugh offering everyone a wave as he stepped into the street. He walked a short distance to a hidden alleyway where he could apparate to the location of the Death Eater meeting. Remus sent one silent prayer to any god who’d listen. 

Please let this go smoothly. 

 Lestrange Manor loomed dauntingly in front of Remus as he tried to muster the courage to walk up the brick path leading to the door. Purebloods and their gaudy houses he mused silently.

“Petty-Pettigrew!” A voice sing-songed behind him, causing him to turn. 

Barty Crouch Jr skipped towards him merrily as if he were an alt-punk Dorothy on his way to Oz. He paused in front of Remus and tapped his cheek twice, slightly too hard to be considered just condescending and bordering on aggressive. “How’s our favourite little rat?”

Remus grimaced but tried to play it off as a smile. “Er, I’m-”

“Oh, Salazar. No, I don’t actually care.” Barty chuckled, looking back at his entourage like can you believe this guy? His friendly façade fell as he turned back to Remus. “Better have something for the Dark Lord today, otherwise we’ll find other uses for our little lab rat.” He finished with a slimy wink as he continued up the path to the manor. 

Well, Remus thought, welcome to Hell, I suppose. 

He followed Barty The Deranged and company up the walkway, fighting the urge to hum: We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz as he went.

If Remus thought the outside of Lestrange Manor was counteracting the anti-depressants coursing through his system, the inside of it made him want to grab the closest silver fork and end it all. He walked along what had to be a fourty-foot table trying to find the best seat before he realized that this was the wrong approach – every seat was terrible.

“Don’t be absurd, Pettigrew.” Mulciber sneered at Remus. “A lowly like you stands at the back.”

Remus fought the urge to roll his eyes and nodded, moving to stand near the wall by the door. At least I’ll be close if I need a quick exit. He also fought the biting urge to lunge at the sight of Fenrir Greyback. You’re here for a reason, Lupin.

Rodolphus, Rabastan, and Bellatrix Lestrange entered the...Remus didn’t know what the hell purebloods wont to call rooms like this...a grand room? A dining room? A reception hall? Whatever it was called, it fucking sucked, and it sucked worse when those three walked in. The brothers mostly regarded themselves with proper decorum, but Bellatrix and her certain flare seemed to suck the air out of the room causing everyone to stand a little more at attention. 

Bellatrix Lestrange walked like she was the Queen of Hearts attending her own coronation. She smiled wickedly at those seated around the table, pausing briefly to share terse words with Lucius Malfoy, before then double-cheek-kissing his wife and her sister, Narcissa. 

There seemed to be some sort of disagreement about who should sit in one of the two seats at the head of the table next to the Dark Lord’s seat (throne for all intents and purposes), but a silent conversation that passed between Bellatrix and her brother-in-law resulted in the latter finding another chair.  

Voldemort walked into the room and those who had been sitting stood suddenly, falling deathly silent as Voldemort moved to stand at the head of the table. The sickening smell of dark magic accosted Remus who felt his eyes water; he swallowed hard against his gag reflex as a giant python type snake slithered its way into the room.

If there was ever any speculation that Nagini was the sixth horcrux before, Remus now felt confident that he could confirm it.

“My Lord.” Rodolphus said reverently as he bowed his head. Remus watched as the rest of the room did the same, and quickly followed suit – he wanted to throw up. 

Remus’ plan of attack here was to be as non-descript as possible. He was here for one reason – tell Voldemort he was the secret keeper and plan a course of ‘attack’ on the Potter home in Godric’s Hollow – otherwise, he was to be invisible. He could not be invisible if he was angry, and if he listened too closely, he’d get angry, so...

He almost missed it when Voldemort addressed him.

“Now, I trust that you were successful in your task?” Voldemort’s voice echoed through the room, sounding more like an actor in a Greek tragedy than a tyrannical fascist leader addressing his followers.

A throat cleared before something hit Remus on the shin. He looked up and realised everyone’s eyes were on him. 

“Oh erm, uh yes. My apologies...my Lord...” He tried to regain his footing. “Uhm, I was successful. I am officially the Potter’s secret keeper.”

Bellatrix barely waited until the end of the sentence to stand and begin cackling maniacally. “We’re going to kill the child! We’re going to kill the child!” She sang as she jumped and clapped her hands. 

Voldemort hardly spared Bellatrix a sideways gaze as he lifted one hand – she fell silent and returned to her seat, continuing to smile and wiggle as if it were difficult to keep her obvious joy at bay. 

“Though I appreciate your enthusiasm,” he began, “I’d like to eliminate this specific threat myself.” 

By the end of the sentence, he was offering Remus a chilling smile. Remus worked to keep his breathing even as he tried to reciprocate it. 

“Where is this hide away located?” Voldemort asked.

“Erm, Godric’s Hollow, m’Lord.”

“You will take me to them. You shall meet me in the town square at eight in the evening the day after tomorrow. We shall eliminate this threat to me once and for all.” 

“Any threat to you is a threat to all of us, my Lord.” Alecto Carrow said severely which was met with a muttering of agreement from around the table.

“You will all be rewarded greatly for your dedication and loyalty to me.” Voldemort declared, and Bellatrix began a round of applause. 

The meeting carried on and Remus ensured to take two more swigs of the Polyjuice potion to avoid turning back into himself prematurely. 

A black cat had materialized beside Remus at some point throughout the meeting and appeared to make itself at home beside his left foot. The feline seemed to watch as Remus would lift the flask to his mouth, and he became increasingly paranoid that this cat somehow knew he was an imposter. Was this cat a spy? Was this a spy cat who somehow knew Peter was caught for being a spy for the Death Eaters and that I, as a spy, came to this meeting as Peter as a spy for the Order pretending to be Peter who was acting as a spy for the Death Eaters.

Fuck, Remus was losing it.

Get a grip you stupid bastard. He scolded himself. 

The meeting appeared to conclude as Voldemort stood, and everyone followed suit. A few higher pointing Death Eaters seemed to congregate at the head of the table – Malfoy, the Lestranges, Mulciber, Snape, Nott, Goyle, and the Carrows encircled Voldemort. 

Remus began looking for the door when he felt the cat brush up against his leg. He looked down to the black cat who was peering back up at him – the eyes were light, nearly blue but not quite – and they looked disturbingly familiar. The cat seemed to be cocking an eyebrow at him, if cats could do such a thing, as Remus considered it.

“What?” Remus whispered.

“Make a habit o’ talkin’ to rodents, do ye Pettigrew?” The sickening sound of Greyback’s voice permeated Remus' hearing – as well as his other senses. Suddenly, Remus was four years old again, waking to the sound of screaming that turned out the be his own as a wolf locked its jaw upon his chest. He ignored the stinging in his eyes as he thought of his mothers screams and sobs, begging the healers to do something – anything – to help her boy, whilst everyone murmured it’d be kindest to just ‘put the boy out of his misery’. 

“I do, actually,” Remus said, lacing his words with venom. “I’ve found they often make better company than a mangey wolf.” 

Greyback seemed taken aback as he considered Remus. 

“Why you little-”

“Ah, there you are, Splash.” A posh accent commented from Remus’ other side. He turned to see the form of Narcissa Malfoy bending to pick up the black cat. 

“Good work, Pettigrew.” She commented as Splash weaseled its way back out of Narcissa’s arms and took a few paces to the door. “Don’t let us keep you.” 

Remus nodded at Narcissa, feeling off kilter at her cordial behaviour; he couldn’t imagine Peter ever making friends with the likes of her. He moved toward the door and as he walked, he realized that the cat had paused and was watching Remus before carrying on ahead. 

Remus felt like he could finally take a deep breath once he stepped beyond the gated entrance of the manor. His peace didn’t last long when he realized the cat had paused again and was once again watching him.

“Seriously, what the hell do you want?” He muttered quietly.

The cat looked as though it rolled its eyes at him as he walked a few more feet ahead, turning back to Remus.

“Are you expecting me to follow you? I’m not as dumb as I look.” He commented again, though realizing too late that he may actually be as dumb as he looks, seeing as he was currently talking to a cat. 

He heard a low growl emanate from the cat’s chest before it turned and walked away without turning back this time to confirm Remus was following it. 

“It seems as though curiosity may kill the wolf today.” Remus muttered to himself as he begrudgingly followed the cat against every one of his instincts which were screaming at him to just get the fuck out of there.  

The cat stopped in a densely wooded area and seemed to scan the are before turning back to Remus, who in turn stood and stared at the cat dumbly. 

“I don’t see a pentagram anywhere, is this not where you plan to sacrifice me to the devil?” He asked as he too scanned the woods for potential threats.

“Salazar, you Gryffindor’s are bloody exhausting.” A voice rang through the woods. Remus whipped his head back towards the sound, and where the cat once stood was none other than Regulus Black.

“Holy fucking shit. You’ve got to be kidding me.” 

Regulus rolled his eyes, “and so eloquent, as always.” He muttered.

“What the fuck are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead.” Remus seethed.

“Disappointed, are you?”

Remus gritted his teeth. “Where’s Y/N?”

Regulus’ eyes softened considerably, though his posture remained stiff as he considered Remus.

“Safe. That is all you need to know.” 

“Fuck that, Black. Where is she?” 

Regulus sucked in a breath, appearing to attempt to steady himself at having to deal with the likes of Remus. 

“The Dark Lord’s followers became aware that she was not as dead as they had previously assumed. We could not risk them searching for her.” Regulus admitted.

“How could they have known she wasn’t dead? The only person who could have reported that to them is Peter and he’s a little tied up right now.” Remus said darkly.

“My cousin’s little art project on her arm was done with a cursed blade – the dark magic left a trace on her. When Yaxley tried to claim that she had died while trying to escape from his hold instead of admitting he let her get away, Bellatrix was quick to prove him wrong.”

“What?” Remus asked in shock.

Regulus rolled his eyes. “Good gods, which of you imbeciles did that old man send?” He asked before casting a quick finite over Remus. 

Remus felt the Polyjuice potion wash away from his form as he stretched out to his correct height. 

“Aren’t you wolves supposed to have superhuman hearing?” He asked condescendingly. 

“Fuck off.” Remus spat. 

“Now, now. There is no need for such language, Lupin; we are on the same side, after all.”

“Like fuck we are. You’re a marked Death Eater, and you abducted Y/N.” He spat. 

“I think it should be obvious by now that I have clearly defected here, Lupin.” Regulus responded.

“Why?”

This seemed to catch Regulus off guard. “Pardon?”

“Why defect?”

Remus watched as Regulus stared hard at him, when suddenly a filmy haze seemed to overtake Regulus’ grey eyes and his face grew hard. 

“I hardly think that is relevant.” 

The two men stared at each other sizing one another up. 

Remus felt conflicted. He knew Sirius hated his family, but Sirius never really could bring himself to hate Regulus – he was only a child, just like Sirius was. Regulus was a victim too. They were each dealt a shitty hand, but the way they played their cards were different. Regulus chose the path of least resistance by adapting and adhering to his parent’s wishes. Sirius rebelled, pushed back, and decided to fold, leaving the game altogether. 

Sirius wanted to hate Regulus; when he got his Dark Mark, and then again when he died. But he couldn’t bring himself to, because part of it felt like it was his fault; Regulus took the role that Sirius himself was born into – and in many ways, Sirius felt as though he forced his little brother into this. And in the end, it cost Regulus his life. 

But Remus, looking at Regulus now; having faked his own death, defected from not only his family’s legacy but also the reign of the 'Lord' that he had sworn himself to, all whilst helping the other side; how different were the two brothers, really? 

Twin Renegades. 

“Sirius is beside himself.” Remus admitted quietly. 

Regulus seemed pained by this admission.

“I wouldn’t have given her back yet if I knew it wasn’t safe.”

Remus’ heart stuttered. “Wait, you – you’re the one who brought her to Godric’s Hollow?”

He was responded with a single curt nod.

“But, but how? How did you know? The house is...”

“Y/N. She had described to me what she called ‘location seven’. I apparated her there.” 

Remus balked. Each Order team had several secret locations they would be able to travel to in case anything went sideways during a mission. Remus wasn’t as familiar, seeing as he was the only Order member who could attend his particular missions, but he had heard his friends discussing it before. Even Lily and Sirius didn’t know the areas of James and your secret locations; they were for your safety, and your safety only.

“Location seven was the cottage in Godric’s Hollow?”

“No, it was the wooded area behind it. I could feel the familiar sense of a fidelius charm nearby, so I brought her as close to it as I could before I ran, we...” Regulus heaved a sigh, “we had fought our way out, we’d barely made it.” 

“Where is she now?”

“She’s safe.”

“Regulus.”

“I’m sorry, Lupin. You may not believe me, but I am. I... I saved her because I could not watch the woman my brother loved die in front of me. I saved her for him, but the other’s discovered I had rescued her, and suddenly it became much bigger than him. I couldn’t just return her at the time.” Regulus admitted.

“The last time you saved her, she was hardly safe. How do we know she’s safe now?” Remus pleaded.

Regulus grimaced. “Again, the others had known I had rescued her last time. This time, they do not know she is here. They do not even know I am here.” 

“How is she safer with you than she is at home with Sirius? With us?”

“You moved five members of the Order plus an infant with a bounty on its head into one house. If they had gone searching for Y/N and found you, it would have been devastating for the cause.” He explained. “Listen; you will escort the Dark Lord to the Potter’s cottage in two days. He plans to attend with you as Peter Pettigrew, alone; he will show up unknowingly out numbered. He goes nowhere without Nagini, and we will be able to destroy the last horcrux before finally ending the Dark Lord’s reign of tyranny. She will be home to you soon.”

“What about you?” Remus asked.

Regulus’ eyebrows furrowed. “What about me?”

“When this is over, what about you?”

Regulus looked Remus up and down. “I hardly think it matters.”

“Of course it does; of course you matter.” 

Regulus’ eyes turned stormy. “Do not pretend to know anything about me, Lupin. I have never once mattered; not to my brother, hardly to my parents until I was the last one standing, never to Dumbledore, and rarely to the Dark Lord, lest my family’s money benefitted his cause.” 

“You matter to Sirius.”

“Enough!” Regulus shouted, seeming to forget himself. Remus was sure he’d never even heard of Regulus having ever raised his voice before. “Do not fuck this up, Lupin. We have one chance to end this.” 

And with a quick spin, Remus was left in the dense woods alone. He hadn’t noticed how late it was until now, the darkness seeping into his bones leaving him chilled in the late October evening. 

It didn’t exactly go well, but it sure could have gone a lot worse.

He walked towards where Regulus had been standing and noticed a small piece of parchment laying in the wet leaves. He picked it up and unfolded it. 

“Stay safe. 1, 2, 3. V.” 

It could have gone a lot worse.

October 30th

Regulus sighed – he felt exhausted from the meeting with Remus Lupin yesterday. He hated raising his temper, it made him feel like Sirius; it made him feel like a Gryffindor. 

Regulus’ cat form pushed past a vine covered gate and entered a grandiose stone outbuilding before shifting back to his human form.

“Can Kreacher get master a drink before Kreacher leaves?”

Regulus sighed. “You should not return until this is over, Kreacher. My brother is surely not happy with you.”

The house-elf scoffed. “Kreacher is not afraid of blood-traitors. Besides, Kreacher serves the Most Noble and Ancient House of Black; Kreacher belongs at Grimmauld Place.” 

“Underestimate my brother, Kreacher, and it will be your head on the wall.” Regulus muttered.

“Now cousin, do try to keep your patience.” Narcissa said as she opened the door to her hidden library located in a small building behind the gardens of Malfoy Manor. 

You sat on a Victorian style settee in Narcissa’s library with a babbling Draco on your knee as you cast colourful butterflies above him, causing the toddler to coo and clap. 

“We’re in.” Regulus announced, causing your head to snap forward and Draco to make grabby hands at him. “This ends tomorrow.”

Continue to part seven here.

#marauders era #marauders au #marauders fanfiction #sirius black #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #sirius black fic #marauders x reader #first wizarding war #first wizarding war fanfic #reader insert #escapism #self insert #canon divergence #hurt/comfort #sirius black hurt/comfort #sirius black one shot #sirius black blurb #sirius black ficlet #werewolf mcswearwolf #remus lupin swears a lot it's canon #regulus black #regulus makes his appearance #sirius is not well #thoughts and prayers

[hindulivesmatter]

Why Gandhi is a piece of shit and you should hate him.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi has been established in our history as a "Mahatma" which means "great soul"

This man is anything but that.

He is EVERYWHERE. He's on our currency, he's revered as a hero who saved India, and we have a mandatory holiday on October 2nd in honor of him.

If you didn't know, now you're going to get to know why he was a horrible human being. Let's begin.

This man managed to fool people Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela (among many others) into thinking he was a good person.

Here is some of the shit he's done:

In 1903, when Gandhi was in South Africa, he wrote that white people there should be "the predominating race." He also said black people "are troublesome, very dirty, and live like animals."

 Refused to have sex with his wife for the last 38 years of their marriage. He felt that in order to test his commitment to celibacy, he would have beautiful young women (including his own great niece) lie next to him naked through the night. His wife, whom he described as looking like a "meek cow" was no longer desirable enough to be a solid test.

Believed that Indian women who were raped lost their value as a human.

During Gandhi's time as a dissident in South Africa, he discovered a male youth had been harassing two of his female followers. Gandhi responded by personally cutting the girls' hair off, to ensure the "sinner's eye" was "sterilised". Gandhi boasted of the incident in his writings, pushing the message to all Indians that women should carry responsibility for sexual attacks upon them.

He argued that fathers could be justified in killing daughters who had been sexually assaulted for the sake of family and community honour. 

Gandhi also waged a war against contraceptives, labelling Indian women who used them as whores.

He believed menstruation was a "manifestation of the distortion of a woman's soul by her sexuality".

On 6th April 1947, he gave a speech where he said, “ If the Muslims are out there slicing through Hindu masses to wipe out the Hindu race, the Hindus should say nothing and peacefully accept death”.

He hated the great Hindu rulers, especially Shivaji Maharaj. To please the Muslims, he banned the book named ShivBhaavani which correctly depicted Islam’s intolerance and fierce fundamentalism spread by it.

Refused his wife life-saving medication (for religious reasons), but those religious reasons all of a sudden no longer applied to him when he was in a similar position.

Started a fast unto death when Ambedkar asked for separate electorates for Dalits.

Gandhi left his ailing father on his deathbed, to sleep with his wife. The child born out of this copulation died in infancy. According to Gandhi, the death of this infant was the result of this evil karma.

Gandhi, even when he claimed to be the angel of non-violence, made no efforts to prevent the British from deploying Indian troops at various locations during World War II.

Kashmir was invaded by Pakistan in 1947, the brutal Pakistani army committed heinous crimes against Kashmiri Pandits including mass rape and mass killings consequently many Pandits were forced to flee to Delhi and other places. In one incident Pandits took refuge in an abandoned mosque in Delhi. Infuriated, Gandhi threatened to fast to death if the Pandits didn't leave. The Pandits were slaughtered in a communal riot as soon as they abandoned the mosques.

Criticized the Jews for defending themselves against the Holocaust because he insisted that they should have committed public mass suicide in order to "shame" the Germans instead of fighting back. His exact words were, "But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions."

And this is all from a simple Internet search compiled here. I wonder what else is hiding if I do a deep dive.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

#hinduphobia #hindublr #desiblr #antisemitism #history #india #gandhi #can you guys tell i hate him #indian history #british empire #tw rape #tw assault

[jewish-sideblog]

What is Zionism? What is anti-Zionism? These are genuine, serious questions, because everybody seems to have a different answer and those different answers are causing a lot of trouble.

Zionism used to have a clear message. “The ethnic group of the Jewish people should have the right to self-determination in our own country.” That was it. Theodor Herzl didn’t even specify that the country in question should be based in our historical homeland. At the time, anti-Zionism was simply a clear opposition to the ideal of Jewish self-determination.

Now Israel does exist. It’s now a fact, not a hope. So what does Zionism look like now? Some people think it means “Some kind of Jewish state should continue to exist,” and some people think it means “All Palestinians should die.” There are a million different interpretations of modern Zionism between those two extremes.

Revisionist Greater Israel Zionists want Israel conquer and expand, eventually taking over the entire Levant. Labor Zionists prefer a peace solution with Palestinians and Arab nations, and want to establish a socialist Jewish worker’s community in Israel. Christian Zionists want all the Jews in the world to go to Jerusalem so that Christ can come back and smite us all for being nonbelievers. Reform Zionists want to establish a more tolerant, inclusive, and pluralistic society for all within Israel. Is opposition to any of those ideologies “anti-Zionism”? I think it would be difficult to fully agree or fully disagree with every single one of those movements. Many of them contradict each other. Plenty forms of Zionism are even antithetical to each other.

It’s far simpler for the undereducated who aren’t connected to the people or the land to define Zionism as “Jews who support the genocide of Palestinians” and define anti-Zionism as “Any and all support for Palestinians”. But that’s exactly the mentality that leads ostensible leftists to parrot actual Nazi propaganda and recycle ancient antisemitism.

There are similar issues to defining Zionism as “Not wanting the all Jews in Israel to be mass-slaughtered by Arab supremacists” and defining anti-Zionism as “Wanting the all Jews in Israel to be mass slaughtered by Arab supremacists”. That mentality leads to unfair and violent practical treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and it leads to unfair conceptions of what Palestinian self-determination means to those living abroad.

Both Zionism and anti-Zionism are being used as tools for political gain. Both have been used as tools to justify death, persecution, and oppression. Zionists cannot erase the overwhelming number of Islamophobic Christian supremacists that identify with and act in the name of “Zionism”. And anti-Zionists cannot erase the overwhelming number of antisemitic supremacist groups that identify with and act in the name of “anti-Zionism”.

So genuinely— and I know I’m inviting a flame war here— what is Zionism to you? What is anti-Zionism to you? I honestly believe that most people are decent-minded, and that those who are decent-minded believe in peace and self-determination for all the native peoples in the Levant. And I think we can come to more meaningful solutions when we have genuine conversations with each other and better understand how the terminology is failing us.

[fairuzfan]

(This got soo much longer than I meant for it to be omg... sorry about that!!)

American Holocaust by David Stannard is a flawed book with some dated language, but of everything I've read, I think I like its explanation/argument against this weird sort of... competitive genocide stuff. I'm gonna butcher it a little by cutting out a LOT in order to not nuke your inbox with a super long ask, but:

[…] To say this is not to say that the Jewish Holocaust-the inhuman destruction of 6,000,000 people-was not an abominably unique event. It was. So, too, for reasons of its own, was the mass murder of about 1,000,000 Armenians in Turkey a few decades prior to the Holocaust. So, too, was the deliberately caused "terror-famine" in Stalin's Soviet Union in the 1930s, which killed more than 14,000,000 people. So, too, have been each of the genocidal slaughters of many millions more, decades after the Holocaust, in Burundi, Bangladesh, Kampuchea, East Timor, the Brazilian Amazon, and elsewhere. Additionally, within the framework of the Holocaust itself, there were aspects that were unique in the campaign of genocide conducted by the Nazis against Europe's Romani people, which resulted in the mass murder of perhaps 1,500,000 men, women, and children. [...]

Each of these genocides was distinct and unique, for one reason or another, as were (and are) others that go unmentioned here. In one case the sheer numbers of people killed may make it unique. In another case, the percentage of people killed may make it unique. In still a different case, the greatly compressed time period in which the genocide took place may make it unique. In a further case, the greatly extended time period in which the genocide took place may make it unique. No doubt the targeting of a specific group or groups for extermination by a particular nation's official policy may mark a given genocide as unique. So too might another group's being unofficially (but unmistakably) targeted for elimination by the actions of a multinational phalanx bent on total extirpation. Certainly the chilling utilization of technological instruments of destruction, such as gas chambers, and its assembly-line, bureaucratic, systematic methods of destruction makes the Holocaust unique. On the other hand, the savage employment of non-technological instruments of destruction, such as the unleashing of trained and hungry dogs to devour infants, and the burning and crude hacking to death of the inhabitants of entire cities, also makes the Spanish anti-Indian genocide unique.

[…]

A secondary tragedy of all these genocides, moreover, is that partisan representatives among the survivors of particular afflicted groups not uncommonly hold up their peoples' experience as so fundamentally different from the others that not only is scholarly comparison rejected out of hand, but mere cross-referencing or discussion of other genocidal events within the context of their own flatly is prohibited. It is almost as though the preemptive conclusion that one's own group has suffered more than others is something of a horrible award of distinction that will be diminished if the true extent of another group's suffering is acknowledged.

Compounding this secondary tragedy is the fact that such insistence on the incomparability of one's own historical suffering, by means of what Irving Louis Horowitz calls "moral bookkeeping," invariably pits one terribly injured group against another […]

Denial of massive death counts is common--and even readily understandable, if contemptible--among those whose forefathers were the perpetrators of the genocide. Such denials have at least two motives: first, protection of the moral reputations of those people and that country responsible for the genocidal activity (which seems the primary motive of those scholars and politicians who deny that massive genocide campaigns were carried out against American Indians); and second, on occasion, the desire to continue carrying out virulent racist assaults upon those who were the victims of the genocide in question (as seems to be the major purpose of the anti-Semitic so-called historical revisionists who claim that the Jewish Holocaust never happened or that its magnitude has been exaggerated). But for those who have themselves been victims of extermination campaigns to proclaim uniqueness for their experiences only as a way of denying recognition to others who also have suffered massive genocidal brutalities is to play into the hands of the brutalizers. Rather, as Michael Berenbaum has wisely put it, "we should let our sufferings, however incommensurate, unite us in condemnation of inhumanity rather than divide us in a calculus of calamity."

The whole thing is available to read on the Internet Archive if you're interested. (This part starts on pg 149, if you'd just like to have the full context without the parts I chopped.)

Additionally, Carrol Kakel's book The American West and the Nazi East, while imperfect, too, is also very useful in getting at the core issue with these arguments and what makes them harmful--regardless of intent. I'm gonna spare you and not quote too much from this one, but the general gist of what it's about and argues in favor of is summed up like this in its conclusion:

In the case of the Holocaust and its contexts, the new ‘optics’ helps us see that – contrary to the prevailing image of ‘industrial genocide’ – many aspects of the Holocaust are akin to earlier ‘colonial genocide’. It is worth noting (and emphasizing) that the distinction I make between ‘colonial genocide’ and ‘industrial genocide’ is not to suggest some type of crude and arbitrary ‘partitioning’ of the Nazi Holocaust; it is, rather, to suggest and reassert the (settler) colonial roots, content, and context of the Nazi project in the ‘Wild East’ – a content and context linked, in Hitler’s and Himmler’s ‘spatial’ and ‘racial’ fantasies, to the ‘North American precedent’. And finally, the new ‘optics’ also allows us to understand that the ‘genocide and colonialism’ nexus holds the key to recognizing the Holocaust’s origins, content, and context; that the Nazi Holocaust is not a copy – but an extremely radicalized variant – of earlier ‘colonial genocide’; and that ‘holocaust’ is not a separate category from, but the most extreme variant of, the blight on human history we call ‘genocide’.

One of the more infamous examples of someone trying to argue against comparison (at least in the NDN circles I run in, anyway) was Deborah Lipstadt claiming that "[What the United States did to Native Americans] was not the same as the Holocaust" because, she says, "The Native Americans were seen as "competitors" for land and resources. There was, therefore, a certain logic-horrible and immoral as it was-to the campaign against the Native Americans."

Just for context, the full paragraph from her blog post:

What the United States did to Native Americans was horrendous. I have not studied it closely and it's not my area of expertise, however, it seems clear that the treatment of the various Native American tribes was revolting. However, it was not the same as the Holocaust. The Native Americans were seen as "competitors" for land and resources. There was, therefore, a certain logic-horrible and immoral as it was-to the campaign against the Native Americans. [Please note: I am NOT justifying the attacks.] The German campaign against the Jews had no logic and was often completely illogical. People who were "useful" to the Germans were murdered or exiled, e.g. slave laborers in factories producing goods for the Wehrmacht and scientists who were producing important technological advances for the Germans. In a prime example of illogic, in June 1944 at the time of the landing at Normandy, when the Germans were truly on the defensive, they used precious ships and men to go to the Island of Corfu and deport the 1200 Jews who lived there. They ended up in Auschwitz. Approximately 100 of this old Jewish community survived.

This is obviously a repulsive take, but the bizarre rationalization of abject evil isn't what I think makes this such a good example of the big issue at the heart of the constant emphasis on "uniqueness." There are plenty of people who hold these "exceptionalist" beliefs without taking it that much further and dismissing other genocides altogether. No, the thing that makes this such a perfect encapsulation imo is the very first sentence, where this historian, this professor of "Holocaust Studies," this woman who's ostensibly spent most of her entire life studying genocide openly admits she's never really bothered to look into what, exactly, happened to all those Indians way back when.

This is ultimately what I, personally, see as the main issue with this line of thinking. The harm doesn't necessarily come from holding the Holocaust up as "worse" than any other genocidal event, though that way of thinking definitely has its own problems, but from holding it up as fundamentally different.

It's the way this view holds it up as completely separate, in its own little bubble of history where we can study it and analyze it and teach about it all we want... all without ever having to broach the subject of colonialism. You can have entire classes where you study every single minute detail of this one specific genocide without ever having to mention or--god forbid--criticize the system that's driven pretty much every other instance of it.

Deborah Lipstadt has spent the better part of a century learning everything there is to know about the Holocaust, but in all that time, she's apparently never felt the need to look into the events that its perpetrators openly and repeatedly referred to as their inspiration.

This is what makes this sort of framing so dangerous imo. You can spend your entire life educating yourself about genocide, but if it's only in the context of one genocide and the belief in the uniqueness and incomparability of that single event is core to your understanding of both it and your worldview as a whole, you will still be completely incapable of recognizing the signs when it starts to happen again.

this is a really informative ask. thank you so much for sending this in (love the citations haha) i think it adds a lot to the overall discussion.

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

According to yesterday's reports, about HALF A MILLION Israelis are currently displaced and homeless. The number is expected to rise as the war progresses, when Hamas and Hezbollah will intensify their rocket fire into Israel.

These next pictures only begin to explain the scale of devastation in Israel. The picture on the left was taken before Hamas' massacre, the one on the right after.

Since Oct 7, BBC has refused to call Hamas "terrorists," instead they preferred the terms "militants" or "gunmen." When criticized for it, BBC brought in one of their top reporters to explain that it is not the BBC's place to judge who is a terrorist. Yesterday, when a man killed two Swedish soccer fans in Belgium, right away the BBC referred to the killing as a "terror attack."

This is the kind of bias that makes your Jewish friends feel unsafe.

Another thing that makes Jews everywhere afraid is this, it's a speech made by a Cornell University professor, speaking about how exhilarating the Hamas massacre of innocent men, women, children and babies is, and how thrilled he was. According to him, any one of us that was not exhilarated by the beheading of civilians is not actually human.

Another personal story, this time of a little boy, who was murdered on his birthday, and no family members were there to attend the funeral, because they had all been slaughtered by Hamas, too.

An Israeli Arab officer saved countless lives when he realized what was happening, took off his army shirt, and called out to the Hamas terrorists in Arabic. Believing he's one of their own, they came out of their hiding places, and he was able to take them out.

A video was released by Hamas yesterday, showing one of the hostages, badly wounded in her arm, saying she's physically alright. Analysis of the New York Times shows it was filmed 6 days ago, casting doubt on what her state might be now.

I've posted these two bits of info separately, but I'll post again, because this is important if you want to understand Gaza right now.

Hamas stole fuel and medical supplies from UNRWA, the UN agency designated with helping the Palestinians.

2. A convoy of evacuees was mistakenly reported to have been hit by Israeli missiles, but after further investigations, no missiles were launched at it. The likely culprit of blowing up the convoy is Hamas, whose terrorists have been desperate to kill the civilian population of Gaza as human shields.

Lastly, more info about why the process of identification for the bodies is so difficult...

Some of the bodies will never be identified. Some of the bodies will never be identified. I am once again thrown to the post I made where I tried to explain why Hamas' atrocities, while nowhere near the scale of what the Nazis did, echo the horrors of the Holocaust to me. I never, not in a million years, thought that in my lifetime we'll be talking again about the bodies of Jews that are too disfigured to ever be identified.

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

#israel #israeli #israel news #israel under attack #israel under fire #israelunderattack #terrorism #anti terrorism #antisemitism #hamas #antisemitic #antisemites #jews #jew #judaism #jumblr #frumblr #jewish

[semidecentpoet]

What gets me ab western mainstream news coverage of the genocide in Palestine—besides the obvious lack of morality—is that it’s, frankly, shit journalism.

(For context, I’m a journalism major with a focus in print reporting. This is literally what I’m going to school for.)

(Forgive me if this is slightly disorganized. Harder to write when I’m pissed.)

My instructors tell me ab the importance of active voice over passive voice all. The. Time. There’s a difference, for example, between “More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed” and “Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians.”

More recently, I’ve had instructors tell me to be more skeptical of official sources (e.g. police), fact-check their claims and get alternative sources whenever possible.

But, from what I’ve seen, a lot of outlets seem to just take Israel’s word as fact without searching for further evidence. For example, when Israel made that claim—with no real evidence—ab the 40 beheaded babies and it was everywhere. And then they said they can’t confirm shit, and now these outlets have to backpedal.

And of course, on top of the blatant misuse of language (beyond just active vs passive voice) and the false/unsupported reporting, there’s the lack of reporting.

I don’t see western mainstream outlets quoting the assholes who call Palestinians “human animals.”

I don’t see them pointing out the sickening abundance of social media posts of Israelis celebrating the genocide, of IDF posing in front of the rubble of what once was Gaza or with the undergarments of the Palestinian women and girls they raped.

I don’t see them setting their headlines ablaze with the countless historic holy sites Israel has destroyed, mosques and churches alike that were some of the oldest in the world. (But when Notre Dame was on fire—)

I don’t even see the context of the more than 75 years of Israel’s bullshit leading up to now.

Where is the coverage of the entire families Israel have wiped out? Where is the coverage of how Israel treats its hostages? Where is the coverage of the Palestinian people’s injuries, physical and mental, and the reason for the lack of proper medical aid?

Countless children in Gaza have to undergo amputations in unsanitary environments without anesthesia. Where’s the coverage?

Who is asking Biden the important questions? Like, if you’re trying so hard for a ceasefire, why has the United States vetoed United Nations resolutions for an immediate ceasefire three times since Oct. 7? Why a temporary ceasefire instead of a permanent one?

How ab Israel’s attack on Rafah during the Super Bowl?? Rafah the designated safe zone?? While airing a $7 million ad?? During what is arguably the most famous and most-watched sports event in the U.S., which has given billions of dollars in support of Israel’s genocide?? How are these outlets not blowing up????? This is a U.S.-funded slaughter during a national event???? Is this not newsworthy enough for you??????????????

Maybe they include some of these things in their articles. But when and if they do, is it a full-fledged story or just a brief?

Is it toward the top of the page or buried lower? (Journalists typically use the inverted pyramid style, which means the most important information in a story is at the top.)

I understand that, as journalists, we have to be objective. But this is not objective reporting. It is clearly biased in favor of Israel. If it were any other country, any other people under siege, this would all look a lot different.

On the topic of objectivity, I’ve heard a few arguments along the lines of, “We can’t pick a side.” But is there truly more than one side to this crisis?

One instructor of mine has said that “both sides” is a false dichotomy, meaning there are rarely ever exactly two sides to any given issue. Sometimes that means there are more than two sides, and sometimes that means there is really only one.

Coincidently, an example he gave of only one side was the Holocaust in Nazi Germany. Even though there are assholes who say otherwise, it was real. It happened. It was wrong. There’s no other way to look at it.

Ik that journalists bending objectivity and imposing morality in reporting is a relatively recent and controversial debate within the media industry.

But.

If we do some actual goddamn reporting—take the numbers and the quotes and the experiences caught on video and add them all together—we start to paint a pretty clear picture of who is the victim here. And who is responsible for the atrocities.

Just bc our government supports Israel does not mean Israel perspective is on equal footing with, much less more important than, Palestine’s.

When Palestine’s death toll is roughly 30 times that of Israel’s, there’s only one side.

This is some pretty shit journalism.

I’d look forward to hearing from other journalists/student journalists what they think ab coverage of the genocide.

Personally, I’m a little heartbroken that some of these outlets I’ve looked up to and dreamed ab being a part of someday have been so lacking in their coverage—to say the least. Especially since journalism is so important and is supposed to be a major means of holding people in power accountable for their actions.

Life’s bitter irony, I suppose.

Free Palestine.

#cnn is particularly shit when it comes to this #free palestine #free gaza #palestine #gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #current events #save gaza #save palestine #cnn #journalism #news coverage #journalist #journalism student #united nations #united states #israel #israhell #israel is a terrorist state #israel is committing genocide #israel is committing war crimes #objectivity #media #western media #mainstream media #rafah #super bowl #children of gaza #save the children #children

[idle-daydreams]

Hii, your demon king Chuuya story is really cool. So since s/o is pregnant, she will give birth. What will happen if the baby is actually born? What will s/o do and Chuuya do? Ignore this if it troubles you. Thanks. Xoxo

Demon King - Part 4

[A.N: Apologies for being late, I clearly have time management issues]

Tw: Soft yandere, mentions of forced pregnancy, mentions of blood and violence, Stockholm Syndrome.

(Despite all these warnings this is really not that bad).

Chuuya raced down the mountain, veins still thrumming with bloodlust. The moon cast a silvery light upon the scene, but the beauty of the quiet night was wasted on the Demon King.

I shouldn’t have left [Y/N] alone, he thought, not [Y/N] or the kid!

It had been two months since you’d given birth, after nine months of a harrowing pregnancy. Chuuya hadn’t been able to believe that he’d sired a child with you, a healthy - if half-demon - baby girl at that. Demons didn’t really have children; they were more likely to slaughter or eat their offspring in fits of jealousy or rage, inherent to their own nature. Chuuya’s own first instinct had been to destroy the fetus to keep you safe, but his desire to have something tangible to chain you to him had made him from going through with it.

Now, he wondered if he’d made a mistake.

Something in you had changed. You’d always been guarded around Chuuya, unwilling to relinquish yourself to him entirely no matter what he did. But for the last two months you seemed colder, harder, as though the birth of your child had forced something between you, a new chasm that he couldn’t simply leap across.

I pushed her too far, Chuuya thought angrily. I shouldn’t have - no kid is worth this. She hates me, [Y/N] hates me, she hates me for being just like those rat bastard humans I swore to protect her from.

And now it was too late. He’d returned home from a fight to find you gone, the seals he’d placed around your quarters broken. He’d slaughtered the guards in a fit of rage, but that hadn’t brought you back. You were gone, having escaped the Demon Realm entirely. It was only by accident that Akutagawa had picked up your trail on his way back from the human world, saving Chuuya hours of precious time.

But he couldn’t rest until he had you back in his arms.

Chuuya came to a crossroads halfway down the mountain, a human city visible through the trees. A very familiar city, built on the bones of your human home. He gritted his teeth, blood roaring in his ears.

I’ll kill them, he thought, fists clenched. I’ll kill all of them, every man, woman and child that stands between me and my family. I’ll rain hell on these fuckers; I’ll rip them to pieces and scatter their scraps all over the Demon Realm.

A figure appeared along the path before him, distracting him from his murderous thoughts. They walked towards him, a bundle dangling by their side.

Chuuya started with relief. It was you.

“[Y/N]!” he called, before belatedly realizing that he should have ambushed you instead. He hurried towards you, summoning his power to bind you before you could escape.

“Chuuya.” You stopped in your but didn’t otherwise retreat. An odd smell permeated the air, the sharp metallic tang of blood. With another start, Chuuya realized that your clothes and the bundle you held were stained with blood.

“[Y/N],” he said hoarsely, “What is that? What did you do? Where is our kid?”

“Relax.” You came closer to reveal another bundle in other arm, smaller and visibly squirming.  “I didn’t kill our child. She’s safe.”

“I-” Chuuya looked down at the baby, glancing her over quickly before turning back to you with suspicion. “What the hell, [Y/N], what were you thinking? Where did you go? Why did you run away from me?”

“I wanted our child to meet my parents.”

“Your parents-”

“-are dead, I know,” you interrupted. “I took her to their graves, or what’s left of them.”

“Right.” Chuuya exhaled, running his hands through his hair. A million thoughts were running through his head, but the chief amongst them the fact that he needed to get you to safety. You couldn’t outrun him point-blank, but he could hardly bind your limbs without risking hurting the baby.

“Chuuya,” you said, cutting through the jumble of his thoughts. “I’m fine. The baby is fine. You don’t need to worry.”

“Like hell I don’t!” he snapped. “You can’t do this again, [Y/N]. Not to me, and not to our kid! You know just how dangerous the Demon Realm is - you can’t just walk out like that!”

“I wasn’t asking for permission, Chuuya.” Once again, your tone was gentle but firm, a far cry from your usual behaviour. “I’m your wife, I can handle myself.”

And you threw the bloody bundle at his feet.

Chuuya stared as the object rolled to a stop. It was a head, a demon’s head wrapped up in cloth. “What is this, [Y/N]?” he said, eyes widening. “Where did you get this? Did - did he kidnap you? Did he hurt you?”

You laughed. “No one kidnapped me. I broke out myself. I told you, I wanted to take our baby to my parents’ graves. This guy-” you gestured at the decapitated head- “was hanging around the place. He tried to attack me, so I killed him.”

“You-” Chuuya looked at from your child to the head, then back at you, mind whirling with panic. You’d escaped on your own. You’d killed on your own. That meant that you were strong enough to counter his power, strong enough to withstand him.

He couldn’t keep you safe by force any more.

“Chuuya.” Gently, you put a hand on his cheek. Chuuya started at your touch, and gripped your hand tightly.

“Don’t leave me, [Y/N],” he said hoarsely. “Please. Look, I know I haven’t been the best of husbands, but I swear I love you. But you can’t leave me. I won’t let you.”

“I’m not going to,” you said. “You may not have noticed, but I was coming back to you.”

He blinked. “What?”

“The graves are down there.” You gestured down the mountain. “Why do you think I’d be coming up the mountain?”

Chuuya opened his mouth, then paused, taking in the scene again. “So... you weren’t running away?” he said cautiously. “You really were gonna come home?”

“Of course. Where else would I go?”

“Literally anywhere else?” He looked away, rubbing his forehead. “I know you hate me for forcing you to have our kid. And for kidnapping you. And - well, a lot of things.”

You laughed again, but this time with genuine warmth. “I did think about it,” you said, snuggling your child. “But when I got here I realized I didn’t want to. My home is with you.”

Warmth bloomed in Chuuya’s heart. “Really?” he said eagerly. “You really mean that, [Y/N]? Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not lying.” A tinge of wistfulness entered your eyes, a momentary sadness that you quickly shook away. “I don’t want to live in isolation any more, but I don’t want want to leave. I don’t have any other family, do I? You’re all that I have left. You our child are... my whole world now.”

“Hell yeah,” he muttered, pulling you into a hug. “You’re my world too, [Y/N], both of you. Don’t ever forget that.”

You chuckled softly, resting your head upon his shoulder. Chuuya knew that you were giving in rather than accepting him, but felt relieved nevertheless. He still had you. You hadn’t abandoned him. You could have taken your child and left, but you’d chosen to return.

You were willing to stay by his side.

Things would have to be different now, of course. He couldn’t restrain you now, not when it seemed like you’d finally reached your limit. Nevertheless he couldn’t stop a grin from creeping onto his face as gazed upon the decapitated head. A true mother Bear, he thought proudly. My wife, the mother of my child. Demons and humans be damned, we’re going to be together forever.

______________________________________________________________

[A.N.: I thought about breaking the darling's mind entirely, but decided against it because it'd be too depressing to think about. Also, lets be honest, Chuuya is gorgeous. He'd genuinely be the best boyfriend/husband/father anyone could ever ask for so, and I it'd be genuinely easy to fall in love with him. And Oni are different from Judeo-Christian demons, so the darling wouldn't really have to worry about eternal damnation and all that. I hope this is okay.]

#yandere bsd #yandere chuuya #yandere nakahara chuuya #yandere bungou stray dogs #bsd x reader #bsd imagines #shutendoji!chuuya au

[thatshirleylee]

brennan's statement on instagram

I'm calling on my government officials to immediately demand a ceasefire and de-escalation in Gaza.

I applaud anyone and everyone calling for peace, with the understanding that real peace only exists if it deeply and honestly accounts for and fully ends violence in all its forms. Real peace addresses and corrects wrong-doing in the past and guards against it in the future. It goes hand in hand with justice and requires truth, restoration, reconciliation, reparation.

Peace cannot co-exist with collective punishment, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement. It cannot co-exist with blockades, embargoes, or with 2.2 million people, half of which are children, trapped with no hope of escape or political recourse. It cannot co-exist with murdered journalists, bombed hospitals, or years of protesters being shot and killed at the border. It cannot co-exist with illegal settlements segregated roads, and the silent, imperial chill that settles over the gaps in the yiolence - the unspoken geopolitical consensus that a group of people need to unflinchingly accept permanent subjugation and occupation.

My heart breaks for every Israeli person who lost loved ones during the attacks of October 7th. It breaks for every Ukrainian person who has lost their loved ones. It breaks for every Congolese person who has lost their loved ones. I do not speak on behalf of Palestinians now because some lives are worth more than others. I speak on their behalf because, as an American, my government is actively championing and financially funding their mass slaughter and forced displacement.I speak on their behalf because l, and all Americans, have a responsibility to pressure our government because we are responsible for this. Some have said that this situation is complicated. The United States government clearly disagrees. It has definitively, categorically, militarily chosen a side, and I do not agree with that decision.

In writing this, I have been wrestling with what I am sure many people like me wrestle with: There is a powerful narrative surrounding violence in the Middle East that asserts an ever-moving goalpost of self-education and study in order to even be qualified to have an opinion. As someone with a love of research, I have at times in my life fallen into the trap that I am not educated enough, clever enough or aware enough to have a worthwhile perspective, and that three more articles and two more lectures and one more book will do the trick. Unfortunately, democracy doesn't work that way - we, the citizens of any democracy, cannot possibly be experts on every aspect of the policies of our governments, and yet if we do not weigh in and make our voices heard, the entire experiment falls apart. Not only do people constantly doubt themselves and the things they can see with their own two eyes, but old shortcuts for political action can fall apart as well: This specific issue exists along a raw, charged and unique faultline in American politics. Nobody I grew up with has ever challenged me on my support for abortion rights, LGBT rights, Black Lives Matter, anti-capitalism, anti-fascism, none of it. The people in my country who would despise me for those positions are, for all intents and purposes, strangers to me. But there are people who l've broken bread with and shared honest affection with who will see the words l've written here and incorrectly conclude that I do not wish for the security, dignity and happiness of them and their loved ones, and that breaks my fucking heart. Full-throatedly condemning the actions of the Israeli government while battling rampant anti-semitism at home is an urgent moral necessity, and doing so is made unnecessarily challenging for the average person to navigate by the pointed obfuscations of cynical opportunists, bigots, and demagogues on all sides of the political spectrum who see some advantage in sowing that incredibly dangerous confusion.

So, I'm calling my representatives. I'm having hard conversations with friends and family. I'm here, talking to you. I should have done it sooner. If you're Israeli and hurt by this statement, know that I want freedom, dignity, security and peace for you, and that every ounce of my political awareness believes whole-heartedly that the actions of your government are not only destroying innocent lives, but doing so to the detriment of you and your loved ones' safety. If you're American and feel lost and confused - I understand and empathize. This, the whole country, only works when we get involved. I am constantly haunted by the specter that maybe I have missed some crucial piece of information on this, or any, important world event: I'Il just have to make my peace with that self-doubt and trust my gut by going with Jewish Voice for Peace, Amnesty International, the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations, etc. And if you're Palestinian and reading this: I unreservedly support your right to life, to freedom, to happiness and human flourishing, to full enfranchisement and equal rights, to opportunity, prosperity and abundance, to the restoration of stolen property and land, and to a Free Palestine.

#free palestine #brennan lee mulligan

[koisuko]

Is it alright if I request mk1 characters with a reader who is a black panther, tiger or lion? Platonic, of course.

Lost motivation for this one, and it’s been sitting in my drafts for a million years so I’ll only do these three fellas.

TW: potential mentions of animal mistreatment, gn reader, slight gore

ft: Liu Kang, Raiden and Kung Lao

Liu Kang

Being a god, he had seen his fair share of unusual things, big and small, yet even this took him by surprise. Walking through the woods near the Wu Shi Academy, his bright glowing eyes took in the serene environment around him, centering his mind and relieving the stress simultaneously.

It wasn't long before he was stopped in his tracks, a bewildering sight before him, a sleek black panther. Your fur bristled down your back, your ears folded as you bared your sharp canines to him in fear. Your fur was slightly tinted red, flesh wedged between your teeth, and a brown leather strap circled your neck. A now broken chain connected to a loop in the collar, a gash severed your side in your fight for freedom. You were once a pet, a toy, your existence solely for the entertainment of humans, your mother slaughtered in front of you and your siblings sold at auctions. You were subjected to cruelty, the sick treatment of your kind made your stomach churn, you weren't about to let it happen again.

You bared your teeth once more, a deep guttural hiss left your throat, this human was strange, his eyes bright like headlights. If you weren't so afraid, you would be curious, his aura felt..safe, comfortable, yet you didn't let up on your defenses. You didn't dare move, the gash on your side stinging and irritated. Dirt festered the wound further from your earlier scuffle with your captors.

The human put his hands up, kneeling down to your level with a smile. He didn't move forward yet strangely, he didn't run away in fear. You nearly gave in to your curiosity, but the memories of similar behavior from your captors only to be met with betrayal lingered in the back of your mind, freezing you in place. Your hissing ceased, your breathing still rapid, reflecting your inner battle and fear for your life.

“I mean you no harm.” Just his voice in itself brought you a small amount of peace. Slowly, you stepped closer towards him. Your nose held high to sniff the scent carried through your nostrils from the gentle breeze of the forest. He didn’t smell like your captors, no, quite the opposite. Sensing your unease, he stood, taking a small step back. “Come, let us tend to those wounds.” As he began retreating where he came, you followed silently behind.

Raiden and Kung Lao

“No way, that has to be a beetle!” Kung Lao brought his finger to point at the small bug, having harshly removed it from its cozy home while farming. “Look at that, see?” He gestures to the shiny bit on the back, “definitely a beetle.” Raiden rolled his eyes at his antics, “we have more important things than this debate, Kung Lao.” He tilts his head, raising a brow at his best friend. “Oh come on Raiden, just admit that I’m right,” Kung Lao brought one hand to sit on his hip, while the other gripped the hoe, leaning his weight on it slightly. Raiden didn’t even entertain the idea. Instead, he simply rolled his eyes before resuming his vigorous harvest of cabbages.

Kung Lao had a witty reply at the tip of his tongue, ready to further irritate his friend. Until a sudden commotion reached their ears, causing them to perk up and look to eachother with confusion. In the center of the village, a crowd had formed. Various villagers stood in a circle with their arms raised in defense at the thing in the center of it. Children who were once playing, now cower inside their homes. “What’s going on here?” Raiden asked, a villager running in fear had stopped to answer him, “tiger!” Perplexed, the two men looked to each other before pushing their way through to the center. The villager certainly wasn’t lying, there in the center of the group was a tiger, whipping around with massive teeth bared in defense. Its ears were flattened, stature low as if ready to run at any moment. It didn’t seem to be looking to hurt anyone, more like it looked afraid and confused.

Raiden and Kung Lao pushed further towards the center, standing before you with outstretched arms and palms foreword to convey their means for peace. “Everyone stand back,” Kung Lao ordered, not once taking his eyes off you. They didn’t look at you in fear, their eyes wide in both shock and awe. What a magnificent creature, Raiden thought to himself while he admired your stripes and fearsome display. The group surrounding you slowly became more sparse and spaced out, easing your stress only a little. You brought your focus to the two in front of you, another guttural warning sent their way. “It is okay, we mean you no harm,” Raiden took a small step towards you, hoping that if you were to run away from him that it would be in the direction of the nearby forestry. You were not hurt, but had followed a goat towards the village and had been found by terror ridden villagers. Their shrill shrieks and shouts had coaxed you away from your home and unfortunately, right in the center of human territory.

You never had a good relationship with humans. The last experience being trapped in a cage, poked and prodded until you snapped at them, only to be punished for such behavior. A interaction burned into your brain, forever tainting your view on such beings. They took another slow step, causing you to tense up and hiss aggressively, the hairs on your back bristling. “Hey, we want to help, we won’t hurt you,” Kung Lao uttered, he kept his hands up and held a submissive posture. Raiden followed suit, mirror Kung Lao to, in theory, say they mean no harm in a language you understand. You took a second to glance to your right, where you could see the luscious greenery of the forest, peeking through two humans stood side by side. All you have to do is wait for the right moment, and bolt for safety between them.

Raiden could see you look, he glanced as well to meet where you were looking. He knew what you wanted, and was willing to help. He pointed slowly towards the two in your way, still keeping a heavy gaze in your direction, “you two, move to the side — slowly.” They did just that, moving at a snails pace to avoid causing you further panic. All the while, you were stiff and still, unsure and frankly, feeling unsafe. Raiden gestured to where you were looking with a steady hand, “we won’t hurt you,” he spoke softly. You stayed completely still for a moment, weighing your options and stalling out of fear. Was this a trick? Humans always play tricks, but what other options do you have?

With a surge of adrenaline, you burst into a sprint towards the entrance to the woods. As you neared, you slowed your pace to a trot before reaching a full stop, just before the entrance to your home. You turned to give one last look to the men. A small huff flaring your nostrils.

Raiden and Kung Lao watched you retreat into the forest, disappearing behind the shrubbery. A smirk played on Kung Lao’s lips, elbowing Raiden in the side, “so, still think it’s not a beetle?”

#mk1 #fanfic #mortal kombat #mk1 x reader #mk1 2023 #mortal kombat1 #requests open #request #bi han sub zero #mk raiden #mk1 liu kang #mk1 imagine #mk1 fanfic #mk1 kung lao #mk1 raiden #mk1 x you #mk1 bi han #mk1 sub zero #fanfiction #gn reader #animal reader #tiger #black panther #mk fandom #mk x reader #mk #mortal kombat 1 2023 #mortal kombat fandom #mortalkombat1 #cats of tumblr

[strangebiology]

This Scientific American article from 1869 (!!) argues that the value of bones "is sufficient to induce care in their saving and preparation."

Because: "one hundred pounds of dry bone-dust add to the soil as much organic animal matter as three hundred or four hundred pounds of blood or flesh, and also, at the same time, two-thirds of their weight of inorganic matter—lime, magnesia, common salt, soda, phosphoric acid—all of which should be present in a fertile soil."

Another interesting, but likely out-of-date statement: "The farmers of England understand the value of bones. Beside those gathered in their own country, they import them from the pampas of South America, the feeding and slaughtering grounds of millions of semi-wild cattle, and prepare them for their soil."

I'm sort of curious whether when we throw away perfectly good bones, what happens to the land of "away?" Assuming they're buried, or something, rather than incinerated. I asked the local landfill where I live in Wyoming and they said they get lots of carcasses cleaned up from the side of the road. Is the landfill, or wherever else you choose to dump your carcasses or bones, super good and fertile and the best land ever? I don't think so. There is such a thing as an overabundance of nutrients, like eutrophication.

Also, I've been talking with the Center for Biological Diversity about the environmental impacts of tossing a bunch of dead livestock (deadstock) in one place. The USDA has a document on methods of disposal for lots of deadstock, and the pros and cons and contextuality of each method, which is obviously a very cool and normal thing to talk about at your next cocktail party.

#bones #vulture culture #carcass book #dead animals

[tswwwit]

Med student dipper finding bill on the verge of dying and panics, I mean sure he's an ass but he doesn't deserve to die

Sure, here's a thing!

The body lying before him is a mess. And that's putting it politely.

Dipper's clenching his jaw tight, and the expression he's wearing can't be reassuring. He schools it back to a neutral state, trying to take in -

There's a lot to take in.

All his training, the tests. The patient practice and medical diagrams. Nothing prepared him for a body like this. All this blood, not in vials or on the cool white sheets of a hospital bed, but bare and leaking on the ground. Nothing between him and the reality that life is fragile, and can end so, so soon.

Training fails. So does tact.

Dipper takes a shaky breath, and says, "You're dying." "Pfft, hardly." The demon waves an idle hand - the one not holding his chest, failing to keep that weird, viscous blood inside. How he manages to smirk despite everything is a mystery. "I've had way worse!"

Bullshit, he's - A demon, sure, but anatomical facts are facts. With a hole that big, Bill Cipher shouldn't be moving, much less able to talk.

"This? Is basically nothing! Not even a patch on the times I've had a limb come off, or been impaled." Bill Cipher lies on the grass, waggling his hand in a so-so gesture. Despite the half-circle of chest missing, bitten right out of the torso. "Or even the time someone blew up this body's entire skull!" A low whistle, a shake of said very intact head - then a grin. "Though that one worked out pretty well, if I do say so myself."

Bill buffs the nails of his free hand against his ruined shirt, examining them with a bit of pride. How is he still moving.

Dipper stares at the concave gap in his torso. The slow leaking of the thick blood hasn't spread far, but it's just. Part of Bill is missing, Dipper finds it tough to look at. His stomach churns.

If it hadn't been Bill, it would have been him.

A dragon is. Well. A dragon. Who the hell knows why Dipper got snatched up and flown back to the den in the first place, but once he was there he wasn't getting out anytime soon. Or in one piece.

Dipper's talents aren't meant for combat, only trickery, and his chosen profession. Five minutes and three bites later, he'd have been a fairly forgettable snack. A random demon wandering in was the best stroke of luck Dipper's ever had, or could ever have, in a million years.

Hell, there's a lot of people who would take this entire situation as a win. One fire-breathing lizard gone, one fire-wielding demon about to follow. Two monsters, taking each other out with one stupid, pissy, ego-powered destructive battle.

Dipper, though, is perfectly fine. Aside from some burns and acid spit marks on his jeans, he's in great shape. He could just turn, walk away, and leave this monster to die next to the other, slaughtered one.

With this amount of damage, Bill Cipher isn't going anywhere. Eventually, he'll bleed out, pass out, pass away-

And Dipper would never forgive himself for letting it just... happen.

He takes a deep, calming breath. Lets it out, slow.

Okay. Back to basics.

He drops to his knees next to his patient. The scene is safe, the dragon's - Dipper glances over his shoulder - very, very dead. Bill himself is in no position to do much but be mildly annoying, by continuing to talk about more grievous wounds he's seen and experienced.

No airway trouble, since he's talking. It's amazing he's breathing at all. Even with a good portion of the lower chest gone, Bill hasn't passed out. And has enough air to talk, so. Probably fine? Yeah.

Dipper takes Bill's free arm in both hands. As a neat side effect, it stops the dramatic gesturing.

Pulse is.... slow, at first. But it picks up as Dipper takes it at the wrist, then a bit quicker at the neck. If this were a regular human he'd consider it bradycardia. By demonic standards, it's... probably fine? He thinks?

He checks Bill's face - grinning, and wiggling his fingers at Dipper - so, no signs of distress. He's not certain how to evaluate disorientation in a demon, either. Skip that for now.

So far, Dipper's working with the idea that this isn't immediately fatal. The next step is inspecting the wound, and see whether or not he can do anything about it.

"Okay." Dipper moves to check the damage, and finds it covered with ash, and shreds of cloth, and that acidic dragon drool - with this much in the way, it's hard to evaluate. "Bill, I'm going to have to cut your shirt off."

"Sure! Need a knife?" Bill produces one from seemingly nowhere. Dipper leans away, startled. That's. More enthusiasm than he expected. Bill notes his response, eyebrow rising. "What, you squeamish or something?"

"Uh." Dipper hesitates just a moment, but that's long enough for Bill to do the job himself, splitting his shirt open bare from chest to groin, which is. A lot. With a flourish of the knife, he lies back, tucking his arm behind his head.

And. What is there to say to that. "Thanks?"

Bill just gives him a slow, slow smile, and tucks his arms behind his head. Whatever look he's going for, it's too oozy to be effective.

Despite Bill's best attempts to be an ass about it, Dipper clears the wound area, as best he can. Not fully making eye contact, it's going to be bad. It's going to be a mess. Odds are he's going to have to tell a demon he's dying, even, and it's -

Dipper glances down.

It's.

The first, insane comparison that comes to mind, is 'like a cake'.

Bill's human enough. On the outside. Layers of skin, and muscle, and bone, and a considerable amount of 'blood' from the - Dipper feels it deserves the quote marks, now - 'body'.

But where there should be organs, and interstitial fluid, and a broken, leaking, seeping mess, a tangle of bitten flesh, there's. Not.

Organ-like shapes, certainly. They work unimpeded by any holes, pulsing, and alien. Apparently alive. Not spilling anywhere, either, since they're threaded through a pitch-black, non-leaky substance. This demon's body is like... layers of human fondant, over a weird jelly filling.

Dipper grimaces. Shakes his head, hand hovering. Not certain where to touch. Or if that would even be a good idea.

The human part is leaking everywhere, though. And when Dipper tentatively presses against it to slow the bleeding, one finger on the other bit - a couple drops of bright yellow ichor ooze slowly out, landing with a sizzle on the ground. He flinches back -

And Bill starts giggling. Like that freakin' tickled.

Dipper sits back up, shutting his eyes tight. He raises his hands as if in surrender. Which he's not doing, he just. Needs a second.

Overall, his professional evaluation is that the patient isn't dying. Not having a great time by any means, but outside of immediate danger. Theoretically, something could be done to help the... damage -

But. Bill Cipher's way, way outside of any of Dipper's experience. And that includes the several courses he's taken on nonhuman beings. Even the ones about demons, and otherwordly creatures, and spirits. Hell, the seminar he attended about elementals didn't mention this.

Bill is - or rather, Bill's wearing? Bill exists in? Some type of bizarre, semi-organic, mostly-magical hodgepodge of kinda-human kinda-demonic.... molded material? Specially created container? Oddly organized organic goop?

Whatever it is, Dipper's got no idea how it works. Or what would work on it.

"I don't-" Know what to do, Dipper almost says. Despite himself, his mind is racing. "I don't think I can fix you?"

The upturned inflection betrays him. Bill's grin brightens by several degrees.

"Now there's my curious guy! Part of you does know you can fix me! Don't overthink it, kid." He slaps the wound with a wet sound, making Dipper cringe back in sympathy. "You've got the mojo, so let's get things moving."

"I have life magic, yeah," Dipper adds. He fails to disguise the irritation in his voice. Shit, he has to learn to control that. Even if the patient's being a condescending dick. "I just. Don't think that works on demons."

"And typically, you'd be right!" Bill raises a finger, wagging it at Dipper. He almost looks proud that Dipper knew some random demon fact, like a weirdo. "Lucky for both of us, I'm in an... interesting body situation. Your stuff'll work just fine."

"No matter how much 'stuff' I have, there's nothing to reattach." Dipper gestures vaguely at the still-steaming corpse, smelling of iron and salt. There's a portion of Bill's torso in its stomach, and though the dragon's dead, he's not going digging around in there. He'd lose a limb in the attempt. "You can't regrow-"

"Stop thinking 'human', then. I'm nothing of the sort!" Bill chides, wagging a finger at him. Dipper pushes his arm back down, but it pops up again to snag him by the shirt. "All I need is some tailoring done on the flesh-suit. Super-duper easy for a guy like you!"

Dipper starts to protest. Then shuts his mouth, and ducks his head.

Maybe - just maybe - Bill has a point. Whatever this is, it's miles away from normal, what with how Bill's still alive and talking, to boot.

The sheer absurdity of Bill's body situation did make him hesitate. Wondering what he could do, with something this clearly, purely magical.

What Bill's proposing is still insane, of course. Dipper doesn't know why he entertained it in the first place.

Despite not having graduated yet, Dipper's used to helping save lives. He's done a few rounds, and shadowed several doctors. Bill's injury is the worst he's ever seen. He's the worst, most deadly being Dipper's met. Leaking and immobile as he is, he's still a demon. They're absolutely the worst.

But in terms of patients? Bill doesn't even rank in the top ten.

"Hello!" Bill's glaring. He clears his throat, and snaps his fingers twice. "Tired of waiting, kid. Do I gotta ring a bell for service here or what?"

Maybe in the top nine, or eight, though.

Dipper takes a deep breath, and lets it out. "Look. This is way beyond what I'm qualified to do." He squeezes Bill's hand, held in his own, and feels a deep sense of relief. "I can help stabilize you. Though you're, uh, pretty stable, and I can call an ambulance - " He glances around the woods. "Or. Get us at least closer to where I could call one. I might have healing magic but I can't just. Do it."

The entire idea is insane. Recklessly use medical magic on an unknown being? On a strange, unfamiliar semi-organic whatever the fuck body? Without knowing how, and where, and what type to use, any part of it could go wrong in so, so many ways.

Bill's asking so casually. Like it'd be easy. Maybe he thinks it is.

Sure, his 'body' might be fine. But it really deserves the quotation marks. Assuming that it's a type of magical construct, trying to 'fill in' his missing parts might work. Demons could, in theory, be able to synthesize a... something or other, out of Dipper's efforts.

But even if it is a construct - Dipper doesn't have the blueprints.

Bill's 'body' is very, very real, not some gossamer-thin creation. Both solid, and living enough to bleed. Without a plan to follow, while he poured regeneration into an organic form? One this complicated? He'd totally screw it up. The sheer amount of magic it takes to sustain it alone is absolutely insane.

"Fine. Then back the fuck off, if you're squeamish." Bill interrupts his train of thought, voice sharp. His teeth bare as he sneers, and Dipper makes another note on the 'not human' chart. "Or hey! Find a neat stick or something." He pats at the gap on his side like it's more of an annoyance than a grievous, leaking wound. "Gotta get something to prop me up so I'm not tilting forty degrees just trying to get around."

"Cut that out." Dipper uses his stern, professional tone, to zero effect. "You need to keep that clean." Probably. Does Bill even have an immune system, or-?

His train of thought gets interrupted as Bill pats around, finding a chunk of a blasted-apart log- then compares it to his wound, with a contemplative look. Like he's judging whether it's sturdy enough to replace the flesh and bone missing from his friggin' torso. Like he only needs to plug it up as a structural issue.

"Oh my god," Dipper says, and swats the stupid splintery thing out of this idiot demon's hand. "Do you want an infection?"

Bill opens his mouth. Presumably, he was about to make some quote-unquote 'witty' response, but Dipper's already covered his mouth. Running his over hand over his face.

"If I try to patch you up," Dipper starts, slowly. Already knowing he's doing something dumb, just so someone else won't do something dumber. "Will you please not shove anything into it. After."

"It's a deal, sapling." Bill gives him a smug grin, and an irritating thumbs up. "Go for it! And tell you what." The wink is totally unnecessary. "I'll even back you up on the magic front."

"Sure," Dipper says, very dry. Because transferring magic being-to-being is that easy. Everyone just. Hands it over, on a whim. Bill has lost a lot of blood, though. Maybe it's made him loopy. "Go for it."

That, at least, shuts Bill up. He hums a little tune, lying back and waiting for....

Dipper to do the dumb thing.

With a sigh, He sets his hands on Bill. His skin is bare, so there's a the brief relief that Dipper won't have to channel through it; a total lack of modesty does have minor benefits.

Another breath. Dipper shuts his eyes. focusing on his magic. Drawing it down, through his own source of life, through is arms, to his fingers, pressed into Bill's soft skin like he's testing the ripeness of a peach.

Welp. Here goes nothing.

Literally nothing, mind. Demons are powerful, and weird. Mortal magic doesn't mingle well, or easily, with the kind that demons throw around, and the form Bill's wearing looks hand-crafted. Whatever made it is going to be way beyond Dipper's ability to fix. Possibly beyond his ability to comprehend.

If he's lucky, though, he might be able to slow the bleeding. For some reason that hasn't really stopped, but it'll make transporting him less messy if he can manage to stem it. but the best case scenario is that he doesn't murder Bill outright in the attempt.

The first trickles of magic bleed into Bill's flesh, spreading through that layer of fondant, down into the jelly-donut center. His magic feels bone and blood. He feels the little tangling twine of veins, and the strings of muscle.

Following his training, Dipper pushes magic in. Carefully. Slowly.

A moment later, his eyes shoot open.

He stares at the wound. Then he stares Bill.

All he gets in return a is a big grin, and a nonchalant wave.

Dipper blinks back down a the gap in this demon, and how it slowly, slowly closes up without even being guided.

Fixing up a person would be a multi-step, long, lingering process. Like repairing the circuitry on a delicate electronic, or gently guiding the weave of a tapestry.

With Bill, Dipper's just. Pouring wax into a mold. As long as he keeps putting magic into it, it reforms back into shape. No blueprints needed.

Holy shit, this is easy.

What the fuck.

Whatever form Bill's wearing is truly bizarre. This is - he doesn't know - technically organic, but absolutely a constructed thing. How the hell was this made? Who did it? And what the hell, why is it growing back so fast?

Dipper nearly pulls back out of sheer surprise, intending to stop - before quickly realizing he can't.

He slams his palms back on Bill's torso, shivering as the small plumes of flame fade. Bill doesn't seem to mind; which both is and isn't a surprise. No blisters form, either, which proves Dipper's startled assumption about what the fuck just happened.

Swearing again, Dipper shuts his eyes, shoving harder against Bill's skin. No backing out now. He has to keep focus, and see this through.

Bill wasn't kidding about how easy this would be.

He also wasn't kidding about backing Dipper up with his magic.

Even though this is easy, Dipper wouldn't have enough on his own, not to heal a huge chunk like this. Too much missing material, even in a magical construct. Too complicated, and strange.

But Bill's here. A guy who's very invested in getting up and around again, and - shit, demons can hand over power to humans, it's kinda their thing. God, why didn't Dipper think of that before.

Though he started with a trickle, just to see what would happen, Dipper amped it up as things seemed to be working. A little increase to the stream of magic, admiring the effects.

Somewhere along that line, it turned into a torrent.

It figures. Bill's power must be behind this, and he's a demon, and an asshole. While Dipper wasn't paying attention, Bill opened up some kind demonic valve, without Dipper ever noticing.

There's a whole river of demonic magic coursing through Dipper's veins now. Arguably still controlled by him, but fed by a pushy demonic asshole. The magic doesn't feel bad at all, but it's big. Vast, and seemingly endless.

Demonic power courses through Dipper, hot and thick in his arms, lighter in his chest, swirling around his own heart, both his and not-his -

And all of it has to go somewhere.

Underneath his hands, the flesh.... flows.

Dipper watches the arch of the ribs, gently connecting back together, and the sheets of muscle blossom back. Skin spreads over what was empty air. Something is made from nothing, as full and complete as that power inside him.

Bill pulls Dipper's hand away from his chest, and takes a long, deep breath. His eye shuts.

And Dipper blinks as if coming out of a daze, jerking himself upright. He doesn't know when he started leaning over Bill like that, but now it feels super weird.

As Bill mutters something under his breath, wiping a hand down his face. Dipper backs up, then sits down heavily on the ground.

He didn't know he could - but he did that. Or Bill did that, through him. It's. A lot. To think about, and to have handled.

Either way, the result's slightly dizzying. As is the sheer amount of leftover magic.

For a moment, Dipper stares at his hands. He flexes his fingers, then rubs at them.

There's still a heady, warm sense of having way, way more to work with than usual, which is. Weird. But what's left no longer feels like it's being rudely shoved forward, and that makes it more manageable.

So. Kind of a controllable, reasonable level of absolutely absurd power. Without Bill powering him ,it should fade over time, and Dipper won't let himself miss it.

"Oof," Bill says, sitting up and stretching. "What a huge pain in the side that was!" He rises to his feet, brushing off dirt and debris. "Do you have any idea how many muscles a human shape needs to ambulate right? And there aren't any backups? Shitty engineering, if you ask me."

Dipper only vaguely pays attention to the rambling. Bill's up and about, and the patch of ground where he was lying is bare. Stained, but empty, and it's all -

Bill clears his throat, and reaches down. Dipper blinks at the intrusion of a sudden hand, but takes it and lets Bill haul him upright.

"That worked." Dipper says. He saw it with his own eyes and yet. "I can't believe that worked. How..?"

Bill says nothing, only smiles. Enigmatic, and dickish of him.

Dipper frowns as he runs a hand over the place where there was nothing only five minutes before. The temperature matches all the rest of the skin, and the stomach jumps a little under his touch. It's complete and solid, hot to the touch. Bill looks perfectly healthy, he guesses. But. "Are you doing okay?" Dipper asks, reaching up to take a pulse again at the neck. Much faster this time; maybe a sign that he's improved. "You look alright, but I don't know your vital signs." There's only one pupil, and it looks slightly dilated. Nothing to compare it to, sadly - Dipper frowns. "How are you feeling?" "Good question, sapling!" Bill takes Dipper by the wrist, lowering it to his shoulder. And winks, leaning in with what could only be called a leer. "How do I feel?"

"Uh." Dipper darts a glance down at his hands - resting on Bill's bare chest, the other on his shoulder.

This isn't - He was checking - Okay, fine, the assessment is over. Time to stop touching him.

Dipper takes a step back, clearing his throat. Bill follows, leer annoying wider.

Not that that's. Unnerving or anything. Dipper's just sweating because of the magic he used. That was pretty intense.

"Well, you're fine." He stammers, then grimaces at Bill's raised eyebrow. "I mean, you're okay-fine, not-" He manages to get one hand off the chest, but Bill's not letting go of the other. He lets out a nervous laugh. "So. You're all better, and I should, uh. Get going now."

Bill hums a little in thought. Clearly an affectation. Dipper doesn't have to be a mind-reader to know Bill's already made up his.

Pulling away doesn't work; Bill's grip is surprisingly strong. One might even say, inhumanly. So. Dipper offers a smile, weak as it is. "Yeah, I should really leave now."

"Nah, I don't think so." Bill shrugs, then grins again. "I didn't fight a friggin' dragon just for the prize to run off at the end."

Yep, Dipper figured.

Out of the dragon's den, and into the demon's.

He should have left Bill there to die and rot and be a dick somewhere in a demon realm. He should have known that stupid turn of luck was way too good to be true.

"Now you and I are gonna-" Bill's stomach jumps again, and he grimaces. Tapping a fist against his chest, he sucks in a breath through his teeth. "Ugh, life magic." He ducks his head, breathing slowly. "One sec, kid."

Dipper seizes the opportunity, wrenching his arm away and clutching it to his chest. He backpedals until he stumbles. In front of him, Bill growls - then rests his hands on his knees, and makes a small choking noise.

Oh thank fuck, Bill's not perfectly fine. Healed, sure - But something's gone wrong because he almost looks.... sick?

Dipper turns towards the woods - then pauses. He fixed him, sure, but - "Uh. Are you-?"

"Fine! Fine. 's just a side effect." A hiccup, and a dismissive wave. Bill stops, holding back a dry heave, then groans ."Won't last long, so don't try anything funny." He glares at Dipper, pointing at him like a command. "The second this is over, I'm-"

Before he can finish the sentence, Dipper's halfway across the clearing and rounding the dragon corpse. It blocks Bill's line of sight, and from there, it's a straight running contest. The nausea should by him some time to truly get the hell out of dodge.

Good thing it's still daylight out; he might be able to find his way back to civilization, or, like. Follow a river or something. With the extra power in him, he might be able to throw up a few illusions too. That should help keep the literal goddamn demon off his back.

What a goddamn mess today has been.

Dragons, demons. Magic and monsters and crazy assholes who have who-the-fuck knows what intentions after someone just helped their jerk ass.

This was supposed to be relaxing. A break before Dipper finally went into residency -

And much like other parts of his life, it's turned into a complete and absolute shitshow.

The pine trees whip past as Dipper keeps up a breakneck pace. God, he should slow down lest he sprain an ankle or something -

But behind him he hears Bill cursing, and there's a growing blue glow that's as terrifying as it is ominous. He picks up speed out of sheer terror, and makes a promise to himself.

Next time Dipper gets vacation, he's going absolutely anywhere that isn't Gravity freakin' Falls.

#answers #Warning for mild/moderately described gore but the person's fine cause it's Bill and he's a weirdo #Here is me attempting to break through the writer's block #Have some very silly bullshit #Written entirely in tumblr's draft thingy so apologies for any errors and the quality overall #I might have fun tag facts but I'll add them later when I think of it

[fuckyeahisawthat]

While this article does not answer my #1 burning question of how you dismount from a speeding sandworm, there are a lot of great pull quotes, including:

On Paul and Chani:

"...I wanted to make sure the audience will understand that Paul becomes a dark figure, that his choices are exactly what Chani was afraid of. He becomes the colonizers the Fremen were fighting against.... He betrayed her in many ways. But the big thing for Chani is that it’s not about love. It’s about the fact that he becomes the figure that will keep the Fremen in their mental jail. A leader that is not there to free the Fremen, but to control them."

On the duel between Paul and Feyd-Rautha:

"...we approached their fight at the end like some kind of symbolic union. The way their bodies get close to one another, there’s something animalistic, an intimacy, I was looking for."

On the infamous popcorn bucket:

"I’m at peace with the bucket."

Full article text under the cut, including Fremen sex lives, murder toddler adaptation choices, and the teeny tiniest of teasers for Dune Messiah:

Denis Villeneuve Answers All Your Questions About ‘Dune: Part Two’

He explains why Lady Jessica’s face is so heavily tattooed, whether Paul considers himself the Messiah and what he thinks of those Javier Bardem memes.

By Amy Nicholson

April 17, 2024

This weekend, “Dune: Part Two” muscles back into IMAX theaters with the verve of Timothée Chalamet rodeo-riding a giant sandworm. After nearly two months in theaters, the film is the current champion of this year’s box office race, with a total take of more than $680 million. (It’s also available to rent or buy on some streaming platforms.) The film’s success is thanks in part to audiences that have returned over and over to get lost in the rocky warrens and spiritual reckonings of the planet Arrakis. One admirer reports he’s seen the movie 25 times to date.

That there’s so much to explore in “Dune: Part Two” is a credit to its writer and director, Denis Villeneuve, who boldly reshaped Frank Herbert’s complex and cerebral 1965 novel “Dune.” Villeneuve split the book and its themes into two films: “Dune: Part One,” released in 2021, focused on the political struggles between two families, the Atreides and the Harkonnens. “Part Two” delves into religious fervor as the two surviving Atreides, young Paul (Chalamet) and his mother, Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), ingratiate themselves with Arrakis’s Indigenous desert tribe, the Fremen, by allowing the locals to believe that Paul is their Messiah — a prophecy that, if it comes to pass, will mean the slaughter of billions of victims across the galaxy.

Villeneuve has yearned to tell this story since he was a teenager in Quebec. His devotion is palpable; every frame feels steeped in monkish contemplation. Yet, he’s also a visual dramatist who doesn’t want audiences to get tripped up by too much exposition. His scripts give only passing mention to core concepts like spice, a psychedelic dust that powers everything from space travel to Paul’s clairvoyant hallucinations.

Though Villeneuve doesn’t want to overexplain, he was willing to provide some answers in an interview via video where every question about the film — even silly questions! — was on the table.

Does Chalamet’s Paul Atreides actually believe he’s the Messiah? What’s the meaning of Jessica’s face tattoos? Villeneuve also got into the erotic lives of his desert dwellers and the extra narrative weight he threw behind Paul’s Fremen love interest, Chani, played by Zendaya. As Villeneuve said with a grin, “Chani is my secret weapon.”

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

The last time we spoke, you weren’t sure what to make of the sandworm-shaped “Dune” popcorn bucket. It went on to be so popular that it sold out in cities before opening day and is being resold online for around $175. What do you think of it now?

I thought that the bucket was an insane marketing idea. I laughed so much. It is so out there. I don’t know who designed it, but they’re a bit of a genius. I’m at peace with the bucket.

In this film, Javier Bardem’s character Stilgar is reduced to a guileless follower of Paul Atreides, who Stilgar believes is the new Messiah. His conversion is tragic. But also, Bardem’s awe-face has become a funny meme, and the second time I saw the movie, people laughed at almost every line he spoke. Did that reaction surprise you?

No. I am very happy when you say that he is a tragic figure. For me, he is the most tragic figure of all. The idea to bring humor to Stilgar was to make him lovable, to feel the humanity in that character. He’s not an austere figure, he has a big heart. But his beliefs, his faith, his reactions bring humor — and that is something I love about making a sci-fi film, because I can talk about that without offending people because it’s a fake religion. I designed all the prayers myself, so I know it’s fake. I find Stilgar very funny. And when people laugh, I’m happy because that was the intention.

Someone makes a dig that Stilgar has found a savior again. This is not even his first time?

All his life he has been raised with that dream. So I suggest that every time a guy comes from outside with a lot of charisma, he hopes he’s found him. Like in the Bible, we have tons of prophets before Jesus came.

The arc of “Dune: Part Two” is Paul accepting that he must become the Messiah — and get billions of people killed. Does he truly believe that he is the Messiah? Or does he just decide to let the Fremen believe that he is?

I don’t think he believes that he is the Messiah. I think he feels the burden of the heritage that the Bene Gesserit [the mystical sisterhood that Jessica belongs to] have laid among the Fremen, and he sees the potential to use that religious power to survive.

Paul is warned that no man can survive drinking the spiritual water of life. But as that’s part of the lore of a planet seeded with manipulative propaganda by his own mother, I have to ask: Have other men actually been drinking the water and dying? Have they been scared off from trying? Is the warning just a setup for a magic trick?

There are people that have tried it in the past and died. In Frank Herbert’s world, femininity is a power. I think Herbert was fascinated by motherhood, by the power of creation. I love this idea that the power is held by women. It’s something that was ahead of his time when he wrote it and I tried to put the focus on it.

You say so much with Jessica’s costuming. In the first film, her look is immaculate and baroque. This film begins with her in rags, but she finds another path to being dressed and treated like royalty. And she gets a lot of tattoos on her face. Why did she get so many more face tattoos than the outgoing reverend mother?

She’s trying to play on the symbolism that was put in the prophecy. She’s supposed to be the mother of the Messiah, so I wanted to bring the idea that she was like the pope of the reverend mothers on Arrakis. There’s some kind of madness in writing elements of the prophecies on her face. Frankly, I think when you drink the worm poison, it affects your sanity — and the same with Paul. I like the idea that we feel she’s going too far.

Jessica is already pregnant when the first movie ends, and she’s still pregnant at the end of this film. Which means you had to condense this massive story into less than nine months because her body is a time clock.

The idea was to compress the book so that Paul will feel the pressure to get the Fremens’ trust, to start gearing up — but not to succeed, not to have the time to create a real war. Time is against him.

Because in the book, this takes years. Long enough for Jessica to give birth to a very unnerving daughter, Alia. We glimpse Alia as an adult — she’s played by Anya Taylor-Joy — but you skipped over seeing her murder people as a toddler. Was it hard to decide no “murder toddler”?

I think pregnant women look tremendously powerful. To use that power was very exciting. And usually when you see a pregnant woman onscreen, she’s always giving birth. To avoid that moment, to stay in the state of being pregnant, I thought was very Frank Herbert-like. I was going away from the killer toddler, but I thought that was more fresh and original. Honestly, it’s one of the things that I’m proudest of in the adaptation.

Speaking of female power, let’s talk about Chani.

Chani is my secret weapon. Frank Herbert was sad to realize that people saw the book as a celebration of Paul Atreides. He wanted to do a cautionary tale against messianic figures, a warning against blending religion and politics. I wrote the second movie trying to be more faithful to Frank Herbert’s intentions than to the book. In the book, Chani is just a follower. I came up with the idea of her being reluctant. She gives us the critical distance and perspective on Paul’s journey. I wanted to make sure the audience will understand that Paul becomes a dark figure, that his choices are exactly what Chani was afraid of. He becomes the colonizers the Fremen were fighting against. And then the movie becomes the cautionary tale Frank Herbert was wishing for.

Paul makes a choice at the end that will go on to kill billions of people. That’s so large and theoretical that it’s hard to grasp. But you structure your climax so that in that moment of betrayal, he’s also betraying the love of his life — a betrayal we understand.

He betrayed her in many ways. But the big thing for Chani is that it’s not about love. It’s about the fact that he becomes the figure that will keep the Fremen in their mental jail. A leader that is not there to free the Fremen, but to control them. That’s the tragedy of all tragedies. Like the Michael Corleone of sci-fi, he becomes what he wanted to avoid. And he will try to find a way to save his soul in the third part.

But “Dune Messiah,” the book your third film is based on, picks up 12 years later with a reunited Paul and Chani. How far did you feel you could push her anger? Because at some point, she’s going to have to forgive him.

That anger is tremendous. I don’t want to reveal what I’m going to do with the third movie. I know exactly what to do. I’m writing it right now. But there’s a lot of firepower there and I’m very excited about that decision.

In the spirit of no dumb questions, Chani says that Paul sand-walks like a drunk lizard. Which means Arrakis has booze?

Actually, there is spice beer. In the book, there are Fremen parties, even some orgies involving spice. I didn’t bring that into the movies because it’s PG-13.

Body fluids have significance to the Fremen. Spitting is the giving of water, a sign of respect. But tears and vomit are a waste. So what is kissing?

As long as you don’t lose your humidity, you can kiss. It’s an exchange of fluids — an act of love, when you think about it. Fremens love to kiss.

What about the, um, other romantic fluids?

You cannot have sex outside, for sure. But they are very sexual. I suspect that all sexual intercourse happens in environments that are protected from losing moisture. When they are in their sietches [or caves] underground, those are sealed. You don’t need to wear stillsuits inside them. We can deduce from that there is no problem to have sex in a sietch.

By the way, who decided that Fremen was pronounced Freh-men and not Free-men?

All the pronunciations, I took them from recordings of Frank Herbert’s voice. Frank Herbert used “Freh-men,” which I love. It makes it less on-the-nose.

You kept two major characters out of the first movie and only introduced them now: the princess Irulan, played by Florence Pugh, and the Baron Harkonnen’s nephew Feyd-Rautha, played by Austin Butler. The princess is the first voice in the books, the first face onscreen in David Lynch’s “Dune” [1984]. What made you sure holding them back was the right move, despite three years of fans asking, “Hey, where are they?”

When people ask me what was the biggest challenge in making those movies, it’s writing them. In order to make this adaptation, we have to make big, bold decisions. One was that the first movie should be seen from Paul’s perspective. I wasn’t able to do that entirely because I had to go to the Harkonnens’ side to introduce them so that the story will be clear, but I tried to find an elegant simplicity in the story structure. And I wanted, frankly, to keep some firepower for the second movie.

Why is Feyd-Rautha’s gladiator scene in black and white? And what are the splats in the sky above the dome?

Frank Herbert explores the impact of ecosystems on cultures, on humans. How it influences the way we evolve — our biology, culture, technology, mythology, religion. The psychology of a tribe is linked with their environment. If you want to know things about the Fremen, you observe the desert. I wanted to have the same approach to the Harkonnens. They killed nature. It’s a plastic planet. One thing left was sunlight, but instead of a sun that reveals color, it kills colors. When you are outside, it’s all black and white. It gives us ideas about how these people perceive reality, politics, violence in a binary world — it brings the idea of fascism. It also gave me the opportunity to bring images that remind us in our memories of World War II and the Nazi regime. So it’s an idea that I had as I was writing. Then I had the idea to have strange fireworks in the sky that will look like Rorschach drawings. It’s a nightmarish celebration. The perception of a dome is not accurate. It’s just that the fireworks reach a certain altitude and then they explode. But it’s true that it looks like a liquid that falls from the sky.

Forgive me if I am not being fair to sadistic, psychopathic Feyd-Rautha. But all of the gladiators were supposed to be drugged for his happy birthday massacre. The one who secretly isn’t puts up a worthy battle. So I assumed that Feyd-Rautha isn’t that great of a fighter. But at the end, he’s the only warrior who is Paul’s equal?

It’s a show. You see that the Harkonnens are very cruel and their society is very paranoiac. His opponent is known in the books as one of the great fighters, Lieutenant Lanville. I tried to show that Feyd is excited to have a real opponent. He has a code of honor, he respects the effort, and he has fun with it. That’s the idea I tried to convey — he’s not a coward.

Audiences might remember that the Bene Gesserit wanted Jessica’s child to be a girl, that Timothée Chalamet’s Paul Atreides was supposed to be female. And they specifically bred Feyd-Rautha to be a male. Were they hoping these youngsters would mate?

Yeah. They are trying to increase the potential of humanity by breeding the best specimen of each tribe or family. A baby between Feyd-Rautha and an Atreides daughter would have brought peace between Harkonnens and the Atreides, and created an über being.

Will you read any of the internet fan fiction spawned by the idea of Timothée and Austin hooking up?

[Laughs] But you know, we approached their fight at the end like some kind of symbolic union. The way their bodies get close to one another, there’s something animalistic, an intimacy, I was looking for.

I rewatched the first film again recently. It opens with a quote in another language: “Dreams are messages from the deep.” I love that quote. It feels like how a film resonates, too. But it wasn’t until I had subtitles on at home that I realized who said it. Of all the important characters and cultures to establish, you gave that major moment — the very beginning of your franchise — to an anonymous Sardaukar from the murderous imperial army that we’re cheering to see get killed. Why?

I love your question. The Sardaukar are the dark side of the Fremen. I thought it would be interesting to have a tiny bit of insight that they are not just tremendous warriors, but they have spirituality, philosophical thought. They have substance. Also, their sound was designed by Hans Zimmer. I absolutely loved how it feels like it’s coming from the deep, from the ancient world. Frank Herbert said beginnings are very delicate times. By starting with a Sardaukar priest, I was indicating to the fans that I was taking absolute freedom with this adaptation, that I was hijacking the book.

But you also deeply love the book. So when you make these bold changes, do you feel like asking Frank Herbert for forgiveness?

Yes. There’s so many darlings that you kill. An adaptation is an act of violence.

#dune #dune part two #denis villeneuve #paul atreides #chani kynes #as usual i think he gives frank herbert way too much credit when it comes to writing female characters #agree to disagree on that one denis

[j0eyj0rdis0n]

heyyy i know this is weird but i need some creeps angst in my life so could you write the general creeps finding you dead?

thank youuuu i love your writing sm!!

You know honestly me too. I live for creeps angst/angst in general so I’m happy to give it to you! Angst writing is actually strangely comforting to me too.

THE CREEPS FINDING YOU DEAD

JEFF THE KILLER

Finding you dead wasn’t on Jeff’s bucket list at all. It hadn’t crossed his mind that he could come home one day to find you slaughtered just like he did today. Your blood ran through the grooves in the tiled kitchen floor as he stood above you.

Jeff had felt rage before, but nothing like this. Nothing so burning, nothing so strong. He knew he was hated, but that had nothing to do with you. Nothing.

He stormed out of the house, going house by house, neighborhood by neighborhood. Murdering, killing, slaughtering, torturing. One by one. Person by person. Each time leaving at least one alive to witness, to feel the immense pain that he did. The agony of losing the one you loved.

All of this was for you. A final way to show his love.

“TICCI” TOBY

Coming home late from missions was a common occurrence. He often found you curled up in your blankets sound asleep. And honestly he couldn’t tell the difference until he took his place next to you in bed. He felt something wet against his neck, feeling around further to find a majority of the bed to be just as wet. Toby quickly turned on the light, turning to find your blood staining the sheets.

“N-no! Y/N fuck!-“ He tried doing CPR like EJ had taught him. But his mind was running a million miles an hour and the cracking of your ribs as he tried the compressions quickly deterred him.

Toby felt his heart shatter as he realized this was it… You were gone and there was no way to save you…

He turned from your lifeless body, clutching his head and breathing heavy. He felt like he was dying too. His chest tightening and his hands shaking. He felt tears running down his face as he fell to his knees, rocking back and forth while trying to calm down.

“No- n-n-no- no-“ was all he could repeat to himself as he tried his hardest to self soothe.

TIM/MASKY

“Honey I’m home!” He called as he shut the front door. Tim had just come home from getting the groceries you asked for. You had told the creeps that you’d make dinner tonight if they felt like coming over.

When no response came he felt a wave of worry rush over him. He swiftly dropped the plastic bags of groceries and began looking through the first floor of your shared house. He climbed the carpeted stairs with heavy anxious steps from his hefty work boots, pushing open your bedroom door he found you. You lay out on your large bed, your dress soiled in crimson blood. He didn’t even dare enter the room, he couldn’t.

His body was frozen in place as he stared… He felt his hands tremble as he looked you over from afar. Your skin had gone pale, your chest unmoving… Every part of him wanted to lose it. He wanted to scream, yell, break down and cry, smash everything in sight. But his body remained frozen. Even through the whirlwind of emotions going through his head he stood still. All he could do was stand and stare.

It felt like seconds but hours had long passed and he felt a hand on his shoulder. Only then did he slowly turn his head to see Jeff. He had never seen him look so somber.

“Let’s go man… They’re gone…”

BRIAN/HOODIE

You’d been on a mission together, get equipment from the hospital nearby and get out. It had seemed like an easy job, you both walked into it with full confidence. But running out in your partners arms, you didn’t feel confident at all.

Your side burned from the bullet lodged deep in you. Holding back tears was a battle you couldn’t win as you writhed in pain in Hoodie’s arms. Only when he deemed you two were far enough away did he let you down, laying you gently on the grass. The bleeding was worse than he had first thought. He watched as your movements slowed, your eyes fluttering. The masked man worked quickly to try to stop the vicious bleeding. Applying heavy pressure against your wound, barely whispering words of assurances as he tried his best to keep you alive.

He was glad his mask was on because underneath it all he was freaking out. His gaze was crazed, his eyebrows upturned in worry as his gloves soaked up your warm blood. It wasn’t long before your chest fell one final time and your heart stopped beating.

His hands shook as he pulled them away, rising from the ground and running as fast as his legs would carry him.

EYELESS JACK

As soon as he heard your heart stop beating from the other room he went running. Scrambling to get to you, to save you. He started compressions immediately, hands precise as he worked to bring you back. He knew you were seriously ill, he had been doing everything he could to heal you, to make you better. He didn’t realize all he had done was prolong your pain.

If he knew it was this bad he would’ve made you as comfortable as he could. He would’ve let you go…

Right..?

He was selfless enough to let you go wasn’t he? He wouldn’t keep you around selfishly…?

He worked for close to fifteen minutes, working up a sweat. Hoping, praying that you’d open your pretty eyes to him. His chest sunk when he realized there was no hope for bringing you back. Taking off his mask, Jack climbed into bed and curled into you. The demon stayed next to you, inhaling your sent until your warmth had disappeared. Even after you’d gone cold he stayed. He growled when anyone dared take a step into the room, snapping when anyone even got close.

Only on his terms would he prepare you for a funeral.

#creepypasta #marble hornets #creepypasta headcannons #creepypasta hcs #creepypasta requests #marble hornets hcs #marble hornets headcanons #jeff the killer #jeff the killer headcanons #jeffrey woods #ticci toby headcanons #ticci toby #toby rodgers #tim wright #masky marble hornets #masky headcanons #hoodie #hoodie marble hornets #hoodie headcanons #brian thomas headcannons #brian thomas #eyeless jack headcannons #eyeless jack #jack nyras #anon request #asks open

[jewreallythinkthat]

Ok so ... Today's absolutely fucking batshit post that I had to read with my own two eyes

We all know Mohamed Hadid is a foaming at the mouth antisemite but this is a new level.

Let's start with the caption:

1. The implication all Jews are American? Insane, untrue, erasing all Jewish history in Israel which dates back to before the Arabization of the middle east.

2. No one has a single percent of Semite in them because Semite is not a race, it's an obsolete term for a family of languages (including both Hebrew and Arabic) however I need to specify that "Antisemitism" was coined as a term specifically about Jew hate. That's what it means, it's actually nothing to do with the language Hebrew at all, it was an attempt to sciencify "judenhass" and make it sound acceptable.

Now to the post itself:

3. If you demand an end to colonialism, boy have I got something to explain about why the official language of Morocco, a country the width of a continent away from the Arabian Peninsula is Moroccan Arabic... Or to be honest, the reason that Arabs are the main demographic anywhere outside the Arabian Peninsula where they originally came from. I understand that peoples migrate but that involves moving from one place to another, not expanding our and literally colonising everything around you. The Arab conquests of the MENA region are a well documented part of history...

4. Demanding a ceasefire is all well and good but we are all aware that we will never be going back to the status quo of before - which frankly is all a ceasefire with no actual work done to rebuild and move towards peace will do. A ceasefire neccestiates thought on what happens next. This is not to say people shouldn't be advocating for an cease to the fighting, they should, this all needs to end. What people have to also do is also be discussing what happens next. The old status quo was unsustainable, and with the mounting evidence that Gazans who worked in Israel helped with the planning of Black Saturday, we will never again see the relations between the people in southern Israel and those in Gaza go "back to normal".

I would love a ceasefire but we need to talk about what happens next in the same conversation. To ignore that is at best naïve and at worst, willfully ignorant because just stopping and Israel withdrawing will do nothing to help rebuild because we all know that everyone will lose interest if that happens, as has happened over and over again.

5. It's well known that Jews are indigenous to Israel and the ancient kingdom of Judea. It's literally in the etymology of the world. Now, obviously multiple groups can be indiginous to one area, but length of time residing there is not a marker of indiginunity, it's literally a childlike playground tactic. Straight up rewriting history... We all know how bad that is.

Mohamed Hadid has over a million followers. His daughters have a total of 130 million. They can post misinformation and almost ten times the number of Jews who exist in the world will see it. This is so dangerous and frankly this level of deranged lying on the internet does not nothing to help end the war, it just puts Jews outside of Israel more at risk. We are being murdered in the streets, in our places of work and everyone is cheering it on.

The irony of people applauding the murder of Jews calling us neo-nazis is not lost on me and it's unreal that we aren't even allowed to stand up to it. Let's be very blunt here, if you are justifying the slaughter of Jews, who's the real nazi?

An additional Edit:

There will never be a ceasefire without release of the hostages and bodies kidnapped into Gaza. Like it's so stupid to think otherwise. Especially with Hamas currently refusing to give a list of who is still alive (they said they couldn't give a list until they knew the terms of a ceasefire which clearly means they COULD do it, but they are choosing not to)

#jumblr #antisemitism #i/p #cw nazi mention #this man and his daughters are a danger to jews everywhere #his daughters holiday in israel and then demonise it online. the least they could do is habe integrity and not be hypocritical #this sort of lying is so dangerous #and he knows that #he is just as dangerous as the extreme zionists who believe gaza and the west bank should become part of israel #he is an antisemite and he is applauded for it #im embarrased for everyone who has liked his post

[flwrbo]

TF 141 as Lana del Rey songs:

(entirely self-indulgent. i enjoyed this, i might do more parts if this gets any reach!

cw : just a touch of smuttiness in price's. tw for toxic relationship in simon's)

simon "ghost" riley - million dollar man

"and i dont know how to get over, get over, someone as dangerous, tainted and flawed as you..."

"it isn't that hard, boy, to like you. or love you. i'd follow you down, down, down. you're unbelievable."

"if you're going crazy just grab me and take me. i'd follow you down, down, down. anywhere, anywhere..."

being in a situationship with simon is rough. he'll hold you close, giving you glimpses of his closest struggles just to toss you to the side again when it gets too real for him. it's hard for you because you would do anything for him. he could take you by the hand and ask you to leave the country with him, and you'd just pack a bag and leave the next hour. he knew this, of course. it just made it all the harder for him.

it was a rough mission. he'd lost a lot of comrades, brothers. his men. you were there with open arms, so sweet, he could barely stand the sight of you. the blood on his gear could seep through his skin, and you'd insist on washing it away with your bare hands.

you'd pulled him into a hug, too fast, too soft for him. after months of being shot at, being targeted like a sheep for slaughter, he moved too fast for his brain to catch up. you ended up with your back to his chest, his hand on your throat to neutralize the threat of your warm embrace. he hated the sight of himself through your glossy eyes.

he knew he'd drag you to hell with him if you'd let him. and you would. seeing you in pain, struggling to push your own feelings down whenever he'd make a mean comment, or get too rough with you, was hard. seeing you take it all with a smile was harder.

he knew he was no good for you. he just needed you to see it, too.

john "soap" mactavish - blue jeans

"i will love you til the end of time, i would wait a million years. promise you'll remember that you're mine. baby, can you sleep through the tears?"

"love you more than those bitches before. say you'll remember, baby, say you'll remember."

"just want it like before, we were dancin' all night. then they took you away, stole you out of my life..."

being side by side with john until he turned eighteen. he knew in his heart and soul that he wanted to be in the military from a young age, ever since you knew him. you had hoped, prayed, and begged to a higher being that maybe you could be enough to make him stay. but you weren't. and you knew that to be true when he left on his eighteenth birthday with his bags in his hands and a kiss on your forehead.

you kept your home open to him. always had his mug ready by the coffee machine in case it was the day he returned home. you had a shoebox of letters he'd written, pictures he'd drawn, pieces of himself he'd shipped to you. you'd made a secret vow to yourself that the scot would always be with you, physical or otherwise.

the day before his fourth deployment had been spent in bed. you were both twenty now, teetering on the line of your future adulthood. you always thought johnny had so much promise, so much ahead of him in his future. "you'll remember me, right john?" both of you pretended not to feel your tears against his neck as you peppered kisses there. "here in this bed, or 3,000 miles away. i'm still yours. and you're still mine," he'd made a promise. it was the only thing piecing your sanity together.

kyle "gaz" garrick - video games

"i'm in his favorite sundress, watchin' me get undressed, take that body downtown. i say 'you the bestest', lean in for a big kiss, put his favorite perfume on."

"it's you, it's you, it's all for you. everything i do. i tell you all the time. heaven is a place on earth with you. tell me all the things you wanna do."

"they say that the world was built for two. only worth living if somebody is loving you. well, baby, now you do."

being the girlfriend of kyle "gaz" garrick was never dull. your front door's hinges had to be loose by how much your home was deemed the hang-out spot of his task force. there you were for him, sweet as always, bringing out homemade goods for his men to enjoy.

he was so proud of you, his girl, and liked to show you off in your adorable little outfits. "show them your nails, sweetheart," he'd grin, taking pride in the adorable set he'd helped you pick out.

even when he was away, you felt well-loved. he'd call you every minute he got, hiding little gifts around the house for you to find when you were missing him real badly. "check the flower pot in the kitchen, love," "is this a cartier bracelet?!" he got a little carried away sometimes.

never too much for his girl though. not when he knew he'd always be taken care of when he got home with your sweet kisses and sweeter hands.

captain john price - off to the races

"swimming pool glimmering darling, white bikini off with my red nail polish"

"because im crazy, baby, i need you to come here and save me. im your little scarlet, starlet, singin' in the garden. kiss me on my open mouth."

"i'm not afraid to say that i'd die without him. who else is gonna put up with me this way? i need you, i breathe you, i'd never leave you. they would rue the day i was alone without you."

john price is a man who needs stability in his life. with as many lives as he takes, how many men he loses, how many towns he sees destroyed, he needs an anchor. and that anchor is you. you felt soulbound to this man, needing to be by his side in every way you can when you can.

you were always there for him, ready with dinner and a cute hidden set on under your clothes when he came home, and with his bags packed and a goodbye gift on your knees when he was leaving. you made him feel young again, so full of energy and promise. he made you feel stable, grounded, needed in a way no one else has ever made you feel.

you hum, swaying a little to the beat in your own head as you trim some dead plants from your little rosebush when he comes up from behind you, pulling you deep into him. he smelled like gunpowder and regret. you smelled like french perfume and roses. he greets you as he always does, with an open-mouthed kiss and a promise to make his absence up to you.

#<3.cod #<3.simon riley #<3.john mactavish #<3.kyle garrick #<3.john price #cod x reader #call of duty x reader #simon riley x reader #john soap mctavish x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #john price x reader

[i-love-invincible]

Let's Talk About Atom Eve

Invincible Spoilers and Gore CW Abound! Please watch this incredible series... So who is ATOM EVE?

I would love to talk about this, but first we have to talk about character design in Invincible. The costumes, personalities, and heroes of Invincible are all self-referential. Take the Guardians of the Globe for instance, the first heroes we see on-screen.

We see these people, and IMMEDIATELY we get what they're about... even if these characters are new to us, we KNOW who they are. Flash, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Batman, Green Lantern, all obvious parodies and fun little characters.

I'm sure your eyes will start glazing over once I go "blah blah subverting tropes blah blah absolute genius." but one thing that Invincible does very well is destroying the audience's connections with established superhero tropes (See the one million white boy video essayists talking about why Evil Superman is awesome.) The reason why the slaughter of the Guardians of the Globe in that fucking THREE MINUTE LONG SCENE is so surprising is because THEY ARE THE FUCKING JUSTICE LEAGUE (while the fight scene also conveniently tosses some casual shade to DC Comics.) Not only is it stunning since we have some frame of reference for how powerful they are, but also stunning because we have ALREADY become attached to these characters.

What follows are a couple real quotes from people I've shown the first episode to: "Oh Batman + Silver Surfer that's awesome!" "OH DUDE! FISH AQUAMAN" "Wonder Woman but she's a lesbian.. as she should be..." .. and all these people, the ones with the most superhero experience, were the ones all most taken aback by the ending.

So let's look at Eve.

At first glance, we get the same impression as a lot of the heroes we meet in Invincible: knockoff. In the same way Omniman and the entirety of the Guardians of the Globe are made to resemble the Superman and the Justice League so to does Atom Eve's costume and powers SCREAM token. She is the first female hero we meet that is Mark's age and perhaps more importantly (and more evident to a first-time viewer) she has some very clear themes of femininity. Such as her costume, which Doc Seismic callously points out in Episode 3 (neglecting the fact she designed her own costume)...

... as well as her name. "Atom Eve" is a combination of her ability to influence atoms and her middle name, but it is also a reference to Adam and Eve (see the bible.) She even has a female symbol with two revolving electrons around it emblazoned right on her damn shirt. So just like the Guardians of the Globe, her design is meant to carry a lot of weight and immediacy to the viewer, you see them and you understand who they are and what they stand for (or at least you think you do.)

So we've seen the way that the Guardians subvert our expectations so how does Eve diverge from the audience's first-impressions? Well for the first couple episodes she doesn't. You might even suspect her of being some one-dimensional, neglected and under-characterized female character (and to be honest if you were reading the comics you wouldn't be too far off...) until you start to see her dissatisfied with being a superhero. Her boyfriend cheats on her, the Teen Team breaks up, her parents consistently disrespect and talk down to her, she's misunderstood by the naive and silly Mark Grayson, and she struggles to find connection with anyone outside of when she's "beating up bad guys." She even goes as far as to reject a position in the Guardians of the Globe just to avoid her ex-boyfriend, despite her killer tryout.

She's frustrated by the frame that's been left for her, and realizes her powers enable her to do much more than beat up random villains. Her powers BY THE WAY, which up until now anyone could have mistaken for "shooting pink stuff," is actually atomic manipulation. She can just fucking rearrange matter to make anything she wants. So instead of being a superhero she fucks off to do things that ACTUALLY help people. Like idk she could be irrigating rivers and feeding the starving or like manufacturing free medicine or something. Atom Eve is a hero who is chronically misunderstood by literally everyone around her, even in the final episode Mark is under the impression Eve just stopped being a superhero to get away from her ex, parents, and school. However with the earth-shattering familial trauma that Mark goes through in the Season 1 finale, maybe they will have more in-common than either of them think.

and NOW there's a surprise ATOM EVE SPECIAL EPISODE! it shows off her origin story which goes even more in-depth into her trauma, and her loss of the only people who even WOULD be capable of understanding her. It also has my FAVORITE FIGHT SCENE OF ALL TIME!!! It was absolutely incredible

ps: omg why tf did they make her far-shot model have an x over the female symbol instead of the detailed electrons (crying emoji) cool i didnt proofread this okay i might do more of these okay bye, i love this show okay

#invincible #invincible show #atom eve #invincible spoilers #cw: gore