#They follow different systems and have learned different rules to survive the worlds they were born in

[candied-cae]

Ed AND Stede both mask and I wanna talk about it

I know the fandom talks A LOT about Ed being a chameleon, flipping his entire personality on a dime to fit into the current situation and company, to the point that he can't even really recognize when it's happened and how far he's gone.

But I wanna look at it with Stede too. He literally asks his crew in the very first episode to give him constructive criticism so he can change what he is doing to better serve them, but he cannot fathom behaving different on a personality level.

They both mask so heavily, but in different ways. Edward masks with his personality, whereas Stede masks with his actions. And it is absolutely because of where they came from before they meet each other.

-Edward's Mask and His Struggles-

Edward learned to survive as a lower-class, mixed-raced, son of a physically abusive father and indentured mother. When he became a pirate, his survival on the water hinged on performing in a way that pirates approve. It isn't the mainland where you're protected by certain laws, if pirates don't like you, they can just kill you. It's important to be liked on the water. So, being hard, being cruel, being Blackbeard, when the company was right, it allowed him safe passage to climb the ladder and build his legend. He succeeded with that carefully crafted persona entirely devoted to this job.

In contrast, he is allowed mistakes. He may mess up a bit, but we all like Blackbeard. If a raid goes bad, if he gets too drunk, if he acts a bit erratic, if he loses sight of it all, if he faces critique? He's fine. His crew are loyal to the persona he displays and they allow him room to be imperfect because of it.

He is allowed to make mistakes as long as he is good company.

He can put on the right face and say the right things until he goes into crisis because he doesn't know what to do with himself. Because everything is boring to him that he can't force himself to keep doing it any longer. He's so tired.

-Stede's Mask and His Struggles-

Stede learned to survive as a upper-class, white, son of an emotionally abusive father and, as fas as we can tell, complete lack of mother-figure. His entire life has hinged on doing the right things. It's the aristocratic society, he has responsibilities he simply does not have any choice in abandoning. And, as long as he does as he's supposed to, he cannot be harmed. So, he'll be bullied, he'll get married, he'll inherit his family's fortune, he'll father children, he does all the things he has to do to just hold his position in high society and survive in that sort of world. And he does it well enough.

In contrast, he cannot figure out his personality. He cannot master what is it he's suppose to be to make people like him. It's no matter though, he does his job so there's nothing anyone else can do about it. If he's annoying, if he's too soft, if he's dandy, if he's an outcast, if he's not like the other boys? He's fine. He's safe under the veil of a rich man in mainland high society.

He is allowed to be disliked as long as he does what he's supposed to.

He can follow the rules and do all the right things until he can't be Mr. Bonnet because day in and day out he's alienated in his own home. Because he's been trying to find a way to make himself fit with his family and he can't keep trying any more. He's so tired.

-What Their Masks do to Each Other-

So - while Ed comfortably slips between "Blackbeard", "The Mad Devil", "Ed", "Jeff the Accountant", "Captain", "Beardie*", "Edward Teach", "Eddie", "The Kraken" - Stede cannot understand how one files down parts of themselves to fit in different places, to constantly act like someone they're not. He has always been completely himself, even when it doesn't work.

And - while Stede is able to navigate being a family man, starting a pirate crew, inventing people positive management, accepting critique and adjusting to it, smiling in the face of his abusers, learning to stun and kill, understanding and using passive aggression, throwing a fuckery, learning to duel, starting a treasure hunt for Ed, promising to do things he's not sure he can handle - Ed doesn't get how someone just makes themselves do all these different things, half of them things they didn't want to do at all. He has always done as he's wanted, even when it gets risky.

Which is why is it so fascinating that these two forms of masking, the gap between their communication, is what leads them to hurt each other in the last episodes.

Ed tries to be what he thinks Stede wants him to be, throwing away the Blackbeard title and trying to settle down into complete softness... and Stede tries to do what he thinks Ed wants him to do, promises to follow his plan and run away to China despite his anxiety about his family... But these things aren't authentic to themselves.

Edward Teach is a little bit of every persona he wears and a little bit done with the pieces he has grown from. They are all a part of him. And Stede would love them all if Ed shared it. If he trusted him enough to let down the curtain and shake off the performance.

Stede wants to do so many things that he's never spoken of and doesn't want to do so many things he thinks he has to. He just wants to get to chose. And Ed would support him in whatever he wanted if Stede would just tell him how he feels. If he would just be honest and stop forcing himself to do things for other people.

They have both been trying to please each other with the tools they've mastered to please the worlds they came from, but they were effectively lying to each other in a hundred tiny ways. Because they loved each other so much, but they didn't believe they were good enough as they really were.

They thought they needed the masks to keep their lover's affections - But they need to put them down so they can truly see one another.

More OFMD

#Another post analyzing the effects of Ed and Stede's very different traumas and how it shaped them in opposite ways? #it's more likely than you think #They are BOTH autistic and they BOTH heavily mask through out the entire season #They follow different systems and have learned different rules to survive the worlds they were born in #But I only see people wanting to talk about Ed's masking WHEN STEDE DOES IT TOO AND IT'S EQUALLY AS INTERESTING #LEMME TALK ABOUT STEDE AND HOW HE WALKS THROUGH THE WORLD TRYING TO EARN PEOPLE'S APPROVAL TOO #So yeah - I just really wanted a chance to explore all the 'actions' Stede has done over the season #and how - in a lot of them - he is clearly uncomfortable but doesn't allow himself to say no or fight against it #And it's so clear that he just does things that are expected of him - even if he struggles in being the 'person' he's supposed to be #A lot of Stede's life just happens to him - he never had much of a choice in so many parts of it and that doesn't change at sea #And in the exact opposite position #Edward just throws himself into becoming every different person he thinks people want him to be - whether he likes it or not #He doesn't know how to be himself and risk letting people down when they see who that is #so he plays the roles - even does them quite well - even if he struggles with what he things he's 'supposed' to be doing #And he doesn't just 'get fixed' the second he meets Stede - he needs time to understand he's safe #I'm typing a lot of stuff tonight guys #didn't sleep - must keep analyzing OFMD #I'm in THE ZONE #Our Flag Means Death #Our Flag Means Death Spoilers #ofmd #ofmd spoilers #hbo #Stede Bonnet #Edward Teach #Gentleman Pirate #Blackbeard #blackbeard x stede #gentlebeard #blackbonnet

[zodiactalks]

BOSSIEST Zodiac Signs Ranked

What does it mean to be bossy? Some people call it “Type A” personality. These folks are ambitious, aggressive, competitive, and impatient.

This type of person is outgoing and often appears to be very self-confident, yet they fear losing control deep down. They plan everything in advance and hate last-minute cancellations or spontaneous changes.

Therefore, bossy people are stubborn and do their best to make others adapt to their wishes.

Below, we will discover which are the bossiest signs of the zodiac and which have no problem following others' requests.

#1. Aries

Aries definitely needs things to be "my way or the highway." The Rams are the most stubborn, bossy, and ambitious signs, urging to come first and not give in to anyone.

They tend to relate to easy-going people who can go along with their plans and don't mind calling the shots. Aries feels like they must constantly prove their ability to be in charge, which translates into a dominant personality dictating to others what they have to do.

On the one hand, they are good leaders and are not afraid to venture into unknown territory, but on the other hand, their friends and family must have plenty of patience to coexist with them.

#2. Capricorn

Capricorn is a structured, responsible, and independent sign. These individuals live their life as full-time jobs they must fulfill effectively. From a young age, they have learned to overcome numerous trials and survive hardships, giving them the wisdom and authority to lead projects and advise others.

Therefore, Capricorns are caring and bossy. They speak to others with a firm tone that inspires respect, sometimes without even realizing it. If these individuals have the slightest suspicion that you can't handle a matter on your own, they will put themselves in the boss's shoes and tell you step by step how to proceed.

#3. Leo

Leo is a natural-born leader. They are ruled by the magnificent Sun, the leading star of the entire solar system. The rest of the planets revolve around it for a reason! The Sun has high magnetic energy that encourages other people to bring out the best in them.

So, Leo's are bossy and try to make others follow their lead, as they were born to shine. Most people agree to play along with their cues, for, after all, Lions seem to know what they are doing and help others walk the path of their heart.

However, personalities as strong as Leo can't stand it when they want to call the shots all the time and refuse to allow others to have a different opinion and do things differently.

#4. Sagittarius

Sagittarians don't look as bossy as other zodiac signs, but deep down, they think their way of perceiving the world is the only right one. Therefore, they assume leadership roles and become bossy individuals who tell others what to do.

You can find these characteristics in dogmatic and religious Sagittarians who try to gather disciples to follow what they preach. You can also find them in academic teachers who are stuck with one way of approaching life and cannot listen to the opinions of young minds with fresh insights.

This type of Sagittarian is highly bossy, dictates to others exactly how they should behave, and gets extremely upset when anyone rebels against their orders. They should learn that beliefs are mere constructs that can be rebuilt with new experiences.

#5. Virgo

Virgo is a notoriously bossy sign and not in a good way. These individuals do not usually lead projects, as they prefer to work alone and avoid dealing with other people. However, when they must, they are extremely perfectionist and criticize everything others do, to the point of telling them exactly what to do and how to do it.

Virgos are extremely methodical and organized and know how to deliver effective and lasting results. That is why if things are not done their way, they won't rest until they find a mistake and make sure everyone else is doing exactly what they told them.

#6. Scorpio

Scorpio has an intense urge to control everything that happens around them. These distrustful individuals think everyone else is plotting something, and the only way to keep their sanity is through obsessive and meticulous behavior, which often comes off as bossy.

If they are not bossy and do not tell others how things should be, Scorpio feels like everything falls apart, which is something they cannot tolerate.

In fact, Scorpios are so obsessed with controlling things. They probably prefer to cut everyone loose and do things on their own, regardless of whether this means they have to work day and night until they get the results they expect.

#7. Taurus

Taurus is easy-going and peaceful and does not usually tell others what to do, as they prefer to let everyone do their own thing without disturbing them. However, Taurus can be pretty stubborn when it comes to their plans, as they hate unforeseen and last-minute changes.

So, they will become very bossy and try to get others to do what they say and greatly resent it when things are no longer under their control (much like their complementary opposite, Scorpio).

As long as no one bothers them or tries to influence or change their ways, Taurus will remain calm and peaceful. Otherwise, they will bring out the worst side of their character and become bossy and bull-headed until everything goes back to the way they want.

#8. Aquarius

Aquarius enjoys group activities and resents authority. These individuals strive for a more egalitarian and horizontal world. In this world, each individual contributes their unique and valuable input without stepping on others' toes or telling them what to do.

So, Aquarius is not bossy, but neither are they the type to follow orders. These characters are not submissive and won't let anyone else tell them how to live their lives.

Aquarius believes in the power and authority held within each person. They want others to recognize it so they can break free from their own and others' oppressions and live the life they have always wanted.

#9. Cancer

Cancer is a sensitive water sign with a vast and private inner world. These individuals may appear very tough and independent, but they actually wear thick armor to protect their soft underbelly.

So don't be fooled by the crab's sometimes bossy and rebellious attitude. They will become utterly self-conscious in an actual situation where they have to control the situation and won't know how to proceed.

On the other hand, they know how to follow orders and support the leaders in a problematic scenario. They may not lead others, but they will make them feel protected and cared for until the whole situation passes and everything goes back to normal.

#10. Libra

Libra is a diplomatic and gregarious sign that considers the opinions of others before acting and often struggles to make independent decisions.

That is why they are not bossy, on the contrary. They follow other people's orders easily and trust the judgment of third parties more than their own expertise.

Now, when it comes to a cultural event, a party, or a wedding, Libra is not afraid to take charge, lead the whole thing, and ensure flawless results. These are the only scenarios where these signs can fearlessly take control and tell others what to do.

#11. Gemini

Gemini is a mutable air sign, which means they can adapt to all kinds of situations and people without a hitch. These individuals do not seek to control problems because they are not afraid of unforeseen or last-minute changes.

This sign says yes to life and all its experiences because they know it is better to go with the flow than to make everyone follow their way of doing things. So, Geminis are neither bossy nor controlling. They don't mind following orders as long as it doesn't interfere with their personal plans, and they can still have some leeway in their dealings.

#12. Pisces

Pisces is an empathetic and spiritual water sign. These individuals did not come into life to fulfill personal goals that benefit their ego and serve others and contribute to a much more compassionate society.

So, it is very rare for this mutable sign to become bossy and try to control other people. Just like the stream of a river, Pisces is carried along by the Universe's plan for them without opposing it at any point.

They also tend to blindly follow other people’s commands, which sometimes leads to abusive relationships. Overbearing people take advantage of their noble spirit and force them to do what they want without considering their opinions on the matter.

#Zodiac #Zodiac Signs #ZodiacFacts #astrology #astrology signs #Aquarius #Aries #Cancer #Capricorn #leo #libra #Sagittarius #Pisces #taurus #scorpio #Gemini #virgo

[balanceoflightanddark]

"Hungry by nature, with no stomach for civilization"

What's the first thing you think of when you hear the word Dinotopia?

If your answer is the 2002 miniseries coproduced by Hallmark and Disney, I would not blame you. For the uninitiated, Dinotopia is a series that takes place on an island where dinosaurs had managed to survive the KT event that ended the Mesozoic era. The island is surrounded by a deadly reef and a turbulent storm system, so it's remained hidden for generations. Over time, countless humans have shipwrecked on its shores with almost no hope of escape due to the impassable storms and reef.

Normally, this would spell doom for the survivors, but not in this case. The dinosaurs have evolved to essentially become sapient and have taken the humans under their wing. Together, humans and dinosaurs have managed to create Dinotopia, an idealistic society where conflict is essentially a thing of the past and most inhabitants have embraced the wonders of their enlightened civilization.

Well...most anyways.

While most of the predatory dinosaurs were able to switch to either a vegetarian diet or subsist on fish, the bigger carnivores like Tyrannosaurus rex didn't make the transition to being civilized.

In the miniseries, this resulted them being depicted as bloodthirsty monsters that only want to devour humans and "good" Dinotopians.

The thing is though...their portrayal was radically different in the source material.

Dinotopia was originally an art book series written and drawn by James Gurney, a plaeoartist in his own right. The plot of the first two books follows a lot of the same story beats as the original series. A duo find themselves on Dinotopia and have to learn how to fit in, while exploring the new world they found themselves in. I highly recommend them due to the fantastic artwork and a lot of the creativity gone into bringing the aforementioned setting to life.

Special mention goes in this case to the predatory dinosaurs who are handled...substationally different than they were in the mini-series.

On paper, the basic similarities are there. The big carnivores live as their ancestors did compared to the civilized dinosaurs and will attack those who wander into their territory.

The difference here is how they're presented. Bix, a Protoceratops ambassador who befriends our heroes, explains that it's less the predators being monsters and more being...well, predators. They simply couldn't make the transition because their appetites and big bodies' high demand for meat are major roadblocks.

And they aren't above reasoning. Those who wish to venture into their territory of the Rainy Basin can offer huge piles of cooked fish and smoked eel for safe passage. The carnivores will accept the offering, and the travelers can proceed with no trouble.

While they certainly can be a threat, it doesn't mean they aren't above diplomacy. In fact, they turn out to be allies more often than not in the original trilogy. During the second book, The World Beneath, Arthur Denison (one of the shipwrecked heroes I mentioned) frees a young carnosaur from being trapped by a fallen tree.

This turns out to be a huge boon for our heroes since they proceed to get menaced by a Tyrannosaurus shortly after...before a huge Giganotosaurus comes out of the trees and gets the tyrannosaur to back down, descalating the situation.

This is Stinktooth, the overall leader of the Rainy Basin's carnosaurs and more importantly, the father of the juvenile Arthur freed. Stinktooth is grateful for the rescue of his son and permits the group safe passage to a sacred temple that the predators guard.

It's here we get a lot more development for them. As it turns out, the Rainy Basin does have a society of sorts where all predators adhere to the ruling of a leader. In this case, it's Stinktooth. They're also revealed to have a sense of duty since their initial hostility was due to the heroes trespassing on grounds they deemed sacred. Which in hindsight, they have a good reason given what comes out of the ruins that could threaten them all.

This happens to be a strider, which the villainous Lee Crab tries to use to escape Dinotopia and potentially bring ruin to all. And here's where Stinktooth helps out again. He allows Arthur to ride on his back as he swims out to sea in pursuit of the strider so the machine can be powered down to keep Dinotopia safe.

Overall, the dinosaurs of the Rainy Basin (Stinktooth in particular) prove that they can be reasonable and even heroic when the need arises.

Interestingly, the third book also shows they aren't the only ones since many other predators have found different ways to coexist with the Dinotopians. A species of red-faced Tyrannosaurs in the Blackwood Flats have learned to become obligate scavengers.

And in the borders of Chandara, there exists several monasteries that are home to an order of carnivores (implied to be Acrocanthosaurs) that have learned to become shaolin monks.

Now I'm gonna repeat that cause it bears repeating.

Shaolin. Monk.

Acrocanthosaurs.

...if that is not one of the best ideas I've heard, I don't know what is.

It also shows how the original Dinotopia books tackled the topic of sentient carnivorous dinosaurs a bit better than the miniseries did. Which is one of the things that made them special due to the creativity needed to put all of these things together and build a believable and rich setting. Again, I highly recommend the original books for both the creativity and artwork, as well as Dinotopia Lost, a spin off novel by Alan Dean Foster that goes more into detail on the Rainy Basin, and features a pair of tyrannosaurs working with the heroes to save their offspring from a band of pirates.

...that might be worth its own post actually.

#dinotopia #dinosaurs #james gurney #carnosaurs #giganotosaurus #tyrannosaurus rex #paleomedia #dinosaur #paleoart #acrocanthosaurus

[lucas-deziderio]

Dezi reads Pact: Null 9.6

I truly hate being negative, but it's time for me to complain about Pact's power scaling. You see, most fantasy stories where people use powers to fight one another usually scale upwards. Our protagonist gets more powerful in order to face more dangerous foes and so give the story higher stakes. We all know that. Wildbow even follow that formula in Worm, where Taylor learns new tricks she can pull with her power, gets access to more varied insects and pairs up with more powerful capes to take down increasingly dangerous threats.

Now going back to Pact: a story about wizards and magical beings battling against one another, with a very wide range of possible powers and abilities. And even then, we're halfway through our story and our protagonist has absolutely nothing on him! All of the abilities he painstakingly conquered were taken away from him. If anything, Blake is weaker now than he was in the very first act. Still, the author is throwing him on a fight against a very powerful demon.

My man here just went through the magical equivalent of a 16 hour shift at your local Arby's! His hands are mangled, one of his eyes stopped working, he just relived a very traumatic event in the last couple hours. His only weapon is a broken sword that hurts him while being wielded. There is absolutely no way he's in condition to fight against Ur. Just a couple arcs back he went into that same fight but with actual preparation, a plan and allies and still got his ass kicked. There is nothing in the narrative that can justify him being defeated then but surviving now when the odds are even more against him.

It's not even like Wildbow wrote himself into a corner. In previous chapters we were made aware that Blake has had allies that were eaten by Ur. He could have met them again in the Drains and gotten their help. Or he could have made an actual deal for power with the dead god he found. But nope!

I came to this book waiting for battles were magic and preparation mattered. I love hard magic systems specifically because you can have tactical confrontations where the practitioners can use the rules themselves against one another. But this? This is a mangled man with zero tools in his arsenal going up against a Lovecraftian beast and surviving out of luck.

No. No, no, no! This might be a pyrrhic victory at best, but Ur has absolutely zero reasons to not swallow you up again right now. And I must emphasize:

WINNING 👏 DOESN'T 👏 MATTER 👏 IF 👏 YOU'RE 👏 IN 👏 THE 👏 DRAINS 👏 AGAIN!! 👏

That's it. I'm pissed. This is the second time that a big arc ending battle in this story has left me pissed with its plot armor. Blake should be dead right now.

Anyways, moving on, there is another detail that also pissed me off in this chapter:

Blake, you should definitely be taking a very long bath right now. First because that whole dimension was nasty and I don't want to imagine you looking like a sewage golem for the rest of the story. Second because, as someone who has experienced homelessness, you should be well aware of how people treat you differently when you're dirty or clean. And third because you desperately need power right now and we have been shown in this story that spending time on your home, relaxing and taking care of yourself can help one replenish theirs. NOW GET IN THE FUCKING BATHTUB!

OK, I think my negativity spree is over. Let's see what's next...

OK, this isn't the end of the world. Part of me was hoping he would get to reactivate his connections once he was back to our world, but it looks like that's a no-go. At least it's just a material thing. He can buy another bike or get the same back later. Don't worry, guys.

The important part is that now he's gonna meet the rest of the cast and get reintroduced into the main plot...

OH MY GOD, EVAN WAS THE ONLY ONE WHO RECOGNIZED HIM! EVAN WASN'T AFRAID!! I'M NOT WELL!!! SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!!

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#Dezi reads #pact web serial #liveblogging pact #pact spoilers #pactblr #otherverse

[doublebattled]

stealing my banner from my other blog because fuck it I might as well. detailed headcanon on Isshu, ancient unovan history (nothing that could be construed as modern, literally just up to the Heroes of Truth and Ideals), and the surviving culture. All of this is written AS IS KNOWN BY MODERN DAY HISTORIANS. This is largely why I am writing it on this blog instead of Adair's; lots of names are omitted because those have been lost, it's incomplete and in places not actually wholly accurate to the slightly more detailed version of canon that would be found over on @fusionbolts. I also have a lot of links embedded to other headcanons. So lets get into it.

The Foundation of Isshu

While the vast majority of Isshu's history is forgotten to time, there are a few oral traditions and folktales that have persisted, one of which being the most foundational to their culture: the founding of Isshu and Isshurem's pact with humankind. As expected, the details of the tale are somewhat fuzzy, being literal centuries old, but the core of it remains fundamentally the same:

In the distant past, there was a time when the differences between humans and pokemon seemed impossible to bridge; they lived entirely separate from each other and fought often. At this time there lived a young boy who was born with a gift that allowed him to speak with pokémon. This boy, who walked freely between the worlds of human and pokémon, sought out the Great Dragon, arbiter of balance, to help him bring about peace between their kinds. They forged a pact, that human and pokemon kind would walk side by side forevermore.

At least, that's the general gist of it. (A longer version of it exists on one of my older blogs, if you're so inclined. Fair warning I wrote it like five years ago. Probably more.)

This foundation myth is fundamental to Isshu's spiritual beliefs and their relationship to pokémon, information which can be found here. However, Isshurem has always been core to its belief system as the nation's sort of guardian deity, with the name "Isshurem" itself literally meaning Guardian of Isshu. In the old days, leadership of the nation meant being Isshurem's partner.

The Golden Age

Very little is known in detail about the golden age of Isshu Culture as much of it was destroyed, lost to time, untranslatable until very recently, etc. Part of it is the result of Unova's very tumultuous history and the eventual fall of Isshu, and part of it is just due to the fact that it's a very, very old culture and a lot of their written history fell victim to time. BUT,

The Golden Age of Isshu was, as the name would imply, the height of their civilization, but historically speaking—virtually none of it still remains. The only structures still standing from the Golden Age are the League Building and Dragonspiral Tower. Historians who have been able to study the few remaining writings from the era have also managed to learn something about "seals", a form of ancient "technology" developed by the people of Isshu that made their quality of life quite remarkable by ancient standards. It's also what gave us Golett and Golurk! Nobody knows how, though. The Golett that exist are... all of them. Ever. The art itself has been lost, but remnants of it remain in modern Isshu art and traditional crafts.

The original written language of Isshu has also largely been lost—or so it was thought until the Abyssal ruins were uncovered and translated, allowing them to serve as a sort of Rosetta Stone for the original alphabet. The modern version still follows many of the same grammatical rules (and uses the same pronoun system!), but beyond that, there's little resemblance.

In short: little is known about Ancient Isshu, but it was believed their civilization was highly advanced for the time. They were, perhaps because of their advanced technology, or perhaps due to their distance from many other regions, an extremely isolationist culture and did not have much exchange, cultural or otherwise, with the other large civilizations at the time. That was, until...

The Fall of Isshu

Short version: colonialism happened.

The long version: Paldea, Kalos, and Galar sometimes just got done fighting a real big war and somebody (we won't name names) set off a superweapon and just decimated both armies entirely.

Wars are very expensive and this was a large problem for everybody, so with this on top of it, two of those countries came out pretty broke and the third was having its own problems with a giant space worm and some dogs. It was a bad time! The solution? INVADE SOME OTHER COUNTRIES ABOUT IT!

Again, this is a particular part of history that is not especially well-documented from the Isshu/Unova side of things. Historians know that Isshu's rather limited military force was not prepared for the attacks, which made them a pretty easy target. We also know the then-sovereign of Isshu was killed in the ensuing conflict, and the original dragon was presumably quite badly wounded, which ultimately led to Isshu's utter defeat at the hands of invading foreign forces. (It is believed that the Abyssal Ruins, dating back to that general era, are a tomb or memorial for the last King.)

This is the period in which most of Isshu culture was lost. Either it was taken by foreign forces (which is why we have Golett outside of Unova!) or destroyed utterly. For the next two centuries, much of the remnants of these people lived in the northern, mountainous regions of their country, where they could live more or less in peace. At this point, the Village of Dragons becomes the last bastion of Isshu civilization, and remains that way for... pretty much the rest of their history.

The Isshu people were not treated well during this time, as tends to happen with colonialism. I will not go into heavy detail as I think we can all fill in the gaps as to what that means, but it wasn't a great scene. (Slightly further detail on all of that and the leadup to the Unovan Revolution can be found here.)

In the meantime, the three major countries that had done that colonialism and also had done a war with each other right before... started fighting again. Shocking. It was less of a full-on war and more infrequent, but definitely regular territorial squabbles that, unfortunately, the remaining Isshu got dragged into. So you know what that means!

The Unovan Revolution / Foundation of Unova

Two brothers and a dragon do a revolution! Again, this is not an especially well documented period of history, but it is heavily mythologized thanks to it being the precursor to Reshiram and Zekrom. The short version is a couple of guys found Isshurem, who most people thought was dead, and it helped them do a revolution. (The full story is much more complicated than that, but you get the idea.)

As you can imagine, this was incredibly important. Arguably, the foundation of Unova was the only thing that allowed Isshu culture to survive in any form during the modern day. But it wasn't without its problems. As with any colonial state, people were, uh, having some complex feelings about who rightfully belonged there and who didn't, the direction of this new country, etc. etc., which would inevitably create a schism between the two brothers who started the revolution, and... Well, we know the story from there. Three dragons!

The ensuing conflict(s) and family drama would drive the then-kings to their deaths and leave the dragons stuck in rocks for a few millennium while the new Unova got to mythologize them.

There is reason to believe that while the Heroes of Truth and Ideals were both in agreement of trying to restore and preserve Isshu culture (generally accepted as being the culture they came from), their successor let it languish for unknown reasons, presumably political. (Ironically, it's pretty well known that their successor was the progenitor of the Harmonia royal line... Harmonia being an Isshu name.)

Modern Isshu Culture

As to be expected, there are still remnants of Isshu's culture and people within Unova, particularly in the northeast. While it's been through some extremely tumultuous times, even after Unova's founding, there have been some troubles with homogenization. But, nevertheless, there remains a handful of people who consider themselves Isshu and keep a few key cultural practices (copy and pasted from another headcanon, you're welcome):

1. Isshu do not (traditionally) use pokéballs. Tradition is to find and befriend a partner pokémon without catching them. Now, mind you, in the modern day and age, this isn't always practical, so some would opt to capture a pokémon after formally befriending them, particularly if their partner was especially large, dangerous, etc. However, a partner pokémon is typically kept outside of their pokéball as much as possible.

2. Isshu do not eat farm-raised meat, but wild-caught meat is acceptable. Again, practically speaking, this is somewhat difficult in the modern day: that accounts for, y'know, most meat products. Depending on where they live, many Isshu are effectively vegetarian or pescatarian. (The rules regarding animal byproduct, like in gelatin, are a little loosey goosey, but it's generally regarded as fine: ultimately, it abides by another core principle of Isshu culture, which is to respect the body of what you hunt/kill as to not let it go to waste. What isn't used should be returned to where it was found and returned to nature.)

3. Though far from a hard rule by any means, Isshu marriage tradition dictates that the couple exchange emblems of their partner pokémon when engaged, so the couple is symbolically always together. It's all very cute.

4. The major cultural holidays take place on the summer and winter solstices, with the latter being the cultural new year, much like how other cultures recognize a lunar new year. Minor holidays are on the equinoxes.

5. Again, this is far from a hard rule, but music is a very important component of Isshu culture. Many of their core mores and norms are born from concepts that are, culturally and linguistically, tied very HEAVILY to music. As such, it's extremely common for Isshu children to learn how to play an instrument.

#hit the books ★ { headcanon. } #alright here it is #it's not especially detailed but it is the tldr version #there are a lot more fuckin complicated thigns i could get into with relation to Why isshu culture got squashed by poke-europe but like #we can figure it out right. #it was far from an incredibly socially equal culture but its social heirarchy did have ppl who were traditionally oppressed in - #- poke-europe like aura users and psychics at the Top

[myimaginarywonderland]

I am going to make this as clear as possible:

F1 as a sport would have died a long time ago had they not used modern media and had they not tried to actually show the people who are driving.

F1 over the years is becoming more and more inaccessible, more and more elite.

Starting with how hard it is for any person to even become a driver, to even get to some Form of formula racing let alone even make it into F3.

How linear the path for drivers has become because of the restrictive super licensing system.

How often drivers are genuinely tossed aside and shine in different series making you wonder if it truly is the drivers fault or maybe there is a fundamental problem.

How hard it is to understand F1 once you get into it because nowadays there's no explanation, nothing to clarify penalties etc.

But not just for drivers.

As fans you have to watch it on Sky. I know there's countries where there's still another option but coming from Germany where our beloved public broadcast was canceled (these were people who had been in the world of F1 for years and whether you liked them did a great job explaining it) and F1TV is also no longer available, there's no option for you to watch F1 without getting Sky. And for me, as someone whose other sports I am interested in (other racing categories) are available easily to watch, there's no way I am paying 30+ € a month just to watch maybe 2 races and qualifying because the Free Practices times are even harder to catch if you are anyone really (most people have school or work, pick one.)

As a viewer F1 is becoming more and more inaccessible and frankly, had I not started being a fan when it still was accessible even great racing wouldn't have made the troubles worth it.

But I am going to be honest here.

I became a fan over 4 years ago problem because the younger generation of drivers was actually more than just that.

They were people.

They were allowed to be silly, to do their own things, to be 20-year olds who just lived their lives having fun.

The first driver I ever came across (of course I knew drivers and the sport in practices but I wasn't actively engaging with it) was Lando.

And for younger fans there's probably a large percentage who see the younger generation because of social media.

And there's nothing wrong with that!

In fact social media is one of the main reasons it's so easy to learn about the sport now.

There's older fans to ask when you don't know anyone close to turn to, there's young people explaining the sport, there's videos to watch from fans telling you about the rules and teams history etc.

The only reason why F1 was able to even keep being popular is because not only the drivers but also fans decided to be out there.

Where would some of us be if they hadn't watched a cute edit of a driver?

Or if they hadn't stumbled across someone one Twitch?

Or if they hadn't seen Drive to Survive on Netflix?

Or if someone who you followed didn't just randomly post this picture of some white dude on here and made you curious where he came from?

Regardless of how older fans want to deny it, social media has opened the door that was firmly being shut more and more and allowed fans for so many reason to come to learn to love racing.

Because in the end that's what we stayed for.

We stayed for the racing, the action, the potential of someone getting their first win or podium and the hop that our favorite driver would do well.

And because this door was opened in this day and age of time, another box that was firmly being shut was opened as well, the box being the things in F1 no one wants to talk about because people would be seen differently.

Things like how dangerous the weight restrictions actually can be.

Things like how awful teams can be and seriously affect your mental health to the point where the drivers stops being a driver and just becomes a broken person.

Things like how there's a huge amount of racism and how easily it's brushed off.

Things like how female racing fans will never get the same treatment as male ones and will always have to prove themselves, to earn some sort of right to be heard.

Things like how incredibly damaging the lives of the mechanics are being away from their family for longer periods of time each year.

Things like how a driver would never be allowed to come out because they would never be seen the same and they could lose their job.

There's so much more that is in that box. But it's open now and drivers now have social media the same way we do, the same way other team personal do and now they could talk.

They could address the heavy weights, finally open up in the hopes of change.

Drivers could just be themselves. They could take silly pictures, have fun with friend, show the fans how much more there is to them and how much more goes into the driver we see on track.

But with the silencing we are right back to the point where F1 was before.

Hell it's even worse now.

Because we have seen what can be, we have seen the problems and by silencing the drivers they still aren't stopping.

By clearing social media there's a promise there.

A promise to make this worse and worse until there will be a point of no return, until something so bad and big happens that there is no way to stay quiet.

And I fear what that thing will be.

And I hope that when it comes every single member of the FIA, everyone who approved the silencing, who dismissed ours and the drivers voices, who didn't care about any of the burden put onto the team personal, I hope they all feel the heavy weight and responsibility of their actions.

I hope they see what they will have done.

#f1

[andrewducker]

One of the ways in which my brain seems to be different to other people's is that I find it much harder to learn a new thing to start with, and then much easier to end with.

Which is to say that if you ask me to remember a group of unconnected facts then absolutely none of them will sink in, and I will stare blankly at any tasks connected with it, unable to work out how to carry them out.

But once I work out *how* they are connected, and what the underlying system connecting them is, I then seem to be much more able to understand that system, and how to make it do things that others struggle with.

And so, for instance, I am terrible with names. Because names are a random collection of sounds with no meaning that connects them to a person, and so there's no way to connect the name to the person in my head. I just have to hear the name about 30 times before it finally sticks. (Or in the case of someone I've known, liked, and worked with for years up until 6 months ago, and then bumped into randomly at a bus stop I had to scroll back for months through WhatsApp messages until I found them.)

Or to give a more technical example - some people can memories 5 or 6 commands that they use all the time with Git, and then just churn them out when they need to use the particular piece of functionality they wanted. I absolutely cannot do that. I had to go and read multiple different explanations for what was happening under the surface until I understand what it was actually doing. And then making it do things was pretty trivial, I just had to find the command that would make it do what it was clearly designed to do.

There are clearly people out there like me, because otherwise people wouldn't be writing explanations aimed at, well, people like me. But I've never met anyone who's talked about thinking in that way. Which is a shame, because it used to stress me out a lot whenever I started learning anything new. I'd sit there in the class wondering how everyone was memorising all of these things, and feeling like I was an idiot who was never going to understand any of it, feeling horribly stressed that I would be found out. And then at some point it would click, and I'd whoosh ahead to doing better than everyone else. Except for those things that never clicked, of course.

One of the things that clicked with me very late was...people. And, specifically, myself. Which, I assume, is strongly connected to my autism. Lots of people seem to just memorise 753 arbitrary social rules and follow them. As I may have mentioned a few times above, I suck at that.

And so for a lot of my youth I felt like the world in general was a whirling cyclone of chaos. Things would happen, but not only did they make very little sense to me, I fundamentally didn't believe that sense could be made of them. I'd deal with the outside world enough to get what I needed, or when I was forced into it. And then I'd retreat back to the safety of a book, or a game - something which made sense, where you could tell why things were happening. Where, in the case of roleplaying games and computer games, there were nice hard rules about how the world worked, and what you could and couldn't do, and it was easy to understand wht was going on.

But at some point in my 20s, a collection of varying things I'd read over the previous decade started gluing themselves together into what you might call a theory of people. (There's absolutely no point me recommending any of them to other people, they're mostly wrong, out of date, or filled in gaps specific to me.)

The theory wasn't very good, it was full of stereotypes, and misapprehensions, and I doubt that more than a small percentage of it has survived to now. But once I had *a* theory of people, the world was no longer chaos - it was a thing I could examine, and make predictions about, and then take feedback from back to my theories when the predictions turned out to be badly wrong. It was something I could discuss, and argue about, and finesse whenever I had someone point out what utter nonsense I was talking. Until it became something which seems to work reasonably well most of the time (although I'm sure there is still wrongness lurking within).

However, even more than allowing me to understand the outside world, it made a massive difference to my understanding of *me*. At some point I realised that if my theories about people and how they acted were any good then they would also apply to me. And I changed from feeling like a being standing on the outside, observing to feeling like an inextricable part of what surrounded me. The change was so huge, internally, that I literally cannot explain what I was thinking before this point. In many ways it feels like I was not. I was reactive, and acting moment to moment, but I wasn't a mindful person making plans in the world to achieve things. My whole kind of consciousness changed, and the me from after that point can't make his thoughts fit inside the mind of the me from before that point - the two minds are such very different shapes. I have memories, but they're very much third-person "Here's what happened to that guy" type of memories.

Not that it was a single moment. I remember there being a period of at least a year, maybe longer, in my late 20s where I had a series of epiphanies. Not that any of them are that exciting, or that I have a good memory of any of them now - but there were so many moments where I realised that things that I believed just didn't match up with how the world actually was. Where it suddenly felt like the world fitted together in a different way to how it had a few moments before. It felt like I was working the kinks out of the tangled wires that made up my thought processes. And the mind at the end of that period felt quite different on the inside to the mind beforehand.

Which isn't to say that I haven't continued to find errors in my thinking - there was a very useful year of counselling I went through in my early thirties that helped me sort out a lot of things I was still carrying around. But it's (mostly) been a much smoother process since that point, and I can still put myself back in my shoes from anywhere past that point, and imagine what I was thinking, even if it was regularly something pretty stupid. It hasn't up-ended my world in quite the same way.

And, having had the recent autism diagnosis, I realised that this was something I'd just never talked about with anyone. Because it never seemed like it would be a useful thing to share, that it wouldn't connect with others at all. But I thought I'd give it a go, and see if it at least made sense to me when written down. And if it did, whether it made sense to anyone else.

#autism

[theresattrpgforthat]

THEME: Monster Hunters Part 2

There were so many exciting options for Monster Hunting Games, I decided to split them up into two parts!

Bubblegum Wizards 2, by Gormengeist.

You're a wizard who chews bubblegum and collects trading cards. That is to say, cards with the trapped souls of items and enemies within, obviously. An insignificant wizard in an infinite city has lots to prove and you've got to get help somehow. Break heads, steal money, drive stupid, chew gum, trap souls. Simple as.

Bubblegum Wizards 2 is about urban wizards surviving in world of vampires and psychics and cultists and beasts. It's the successor to Bubblegum Wizards, which is available as a pay-what-you-want document on itch.io. It uses dice mechanics that are narratively focused, and comes with pre-generated factions to fill out the world you're playing in.

The rulebook isn't an extensive one, so you'll have concise rules without a lot of lore. There's plenty of room to make this game your own, while still getting a good idea of the vibe of the game. Bubblegum Wizards 2 might be a great fit for a group that wants to participate in world creation, and want to feel extremely cool while they do it.

After the Great Beast, by Chubby Crow Games.

You are a hunter, and great beasts are threatening your village. Gather your weapon and your friends, and defend your home. Along the way, you will gather materials, craft traps and potions, and maintain your weapon, all while following the great beast's tracks.

After the Great Beast is a Breathless game inspired by the Monster Hunter franchise. Breathless is a game that works off of dwindling resources, so expect to be keeping a track of an inventory if you pick up this game. If you're looking for big, epic fights against powerful, animalistic kinds of monsters, this might be worth checking out.

CARRY ON - 24XX Monster Hunters, by Chaosmeister.

Monsters are real. You have known for a while and tirelessly try to rid the world of  their existence. You have seen friends and family die in grisly ways during the  pursuit of one horrible thing or another. Sometimes you wonder if it is worth it. You  won’t always win. There is no fame, glory, or money in it. Still, you carry on against all odds. Because what else is there to do if you know what’s at stake? Give up? God may have. Hunters never do.

Carry On comes with a series of tables that help you generate a character quickly, and is built on the basic framework of the 24XX Micro-game. Each character receives a Knack that makes them special, and just like other 24XX games, will use a few different polyhedral dice to represent your strengths and weaknesses. Like other 24XX games, good for pick-up games and short sessions, great for monster hunters that might be down one person or for folks who want a quick change of pace from their regular campaign.

Steel Horse, by KuumatheBronze.

Dive into Sunder City, a bustling metropolis not unlike many others. It's got one big flaw though. There's SHADOW MONSTERS and for whatever reason only BIKERS can see them? Why is that? Explore that question and more as you try and defend the inhabitants of the City from the Seeker (that's what they call them) threat.

Welcome to Steel Horse, a Caltrop Core game about beating up shadow monsters on the highway while riding motorcycles! In this setting, bikers are the only people who have the ability to hunt down the Seekers, a nigh-invisible threat.

The system uses d4s and presents players with 3 basic stats: Speed, Streetwise, and Cut. There are 4 classes to choose from, a ruleset that gives you 4 possible outcomes, and a GM guide separate from the player kit that contains some pieces of advice about how to run the game, as well as the designer's ethos behind it. This game has an excellent concept, an easy-to-learn system, and a new take on monster-hunting for players who want to fight monsters but be a bit punk-rock about it.

DETENTION, by Goat Star.

In DETENTION, you're an edgy alt kid (or a Prep) in a monster hunting high school who's been given a quota of monsters to kill or else face expulsion.

Detention is a one-page ttrpg that uses d6s and requires no GM to play. The creator has also written a supplement, called Under Pressure, which helps groups generate different monsters to fight. The rules are pretty bare-bones, which means that the mechanics are mostly there to help you fight a monster, but with the right group, you could probably fill the in-between moments with conversation and roleplay. Genre-wise it gives you the chance to play the edgy, badass, angry-at-the-world teenager that you have inside.

Way of the Demon Slayer, by Agent Fintcher

It is the third year of the Taishō era. After a forty years slumber, the father of all demons, Onizuka Satzumai (鬼塚 殺舞), has been seen in Tokyo. Last time he awoken, the Shinano river was dyed red by the blood of his victims. The only weapons the human have to stop him are the sun... and the Demon Slayers.

You are a Demon Slayer, the last line of defense between humans and demons. The Demon Slayers gather their power and endurance from the same blood that flows in the demon's veins. The price they pay for this incredible power is a slow corruption that inevitably kill them or make them into the very same creatures they have sworn to fight: the way of the Demon Slayer is death...

Way of the Demon Slayer is a game that requires the AGON ruleset to play. Most of the rules are right on the itch.io page; the download is just a character sheet. The AGON ruleset is great for self-contained games that are easy to keep within a predetermined schedule. There are some new mechanics, such as a pair of tracks for the Gods, and Righteous paths, which players will need to follow in order gain access to new moves, or techniques. If you are already familiar with AGON and are interested in using it for a different genre, this may be worth checking out!

Bump in the Dark, by jexjthomas.

It's 1994 in the region of the fictional Ontonagon Peninsula known as "Iron Country," a belt of mining towns barely clinging to life. These towns are surrounded on all sides by the Sylvan Wilds, a forest known for old-growth pines and strange happenings. All of Iron Country seems to be teeming with the supernatural, a fact those in power would like to conceal.

Bump in the Dark is a tabletop roleplaying game about a group of people who’ve dedicated their lives to hunting and dealing with monsters. There are gruesome attacks, tense investigations, nasty cryptids, nefarious factions, powerful demons, action-packed showdowns, and regular folk caught in the middle.

This game seems to contain all of the hallmarks of a traditional Forged in the Dark game, with playbooks, a series of actions, and a "pact" that determines your group goal. It also contains the Redacted Materials investigative system as found in External Containment Bureau, which means that the Game Master doesn't need to plan out all of the details - they just need to hand out enough clues to give the players something to work with. If you like investigation and modern monster-hunting, with a strong narrative focus and enough mechanics to keep your brain churning, Bump in the Dark is for you.

#indie ttrpg #game recommendations #monster hunter #dnd #yokai #tabletop games #monsters

[bellafragolina]

Different Types of Pokémon (Reincarnated) Self-Inserts;

Perfect Memory Fans—Ones who were big fans of the series and can remember every little thing. Like a random conversation with an NPC, serious plot points of the manga, or all of ash’s exploits. If done well enough to where they are still challenged then I like reading these stories.

Learned through Osmosis—Were never really into Pokémon, but learned a few things through sheer exposure to the franchise. Fair enough some people are die-hard digimon fans or somehow aren’t frightened by horror games. (I have nothing against them, Digimon World Dawn was just too much for my digimon game.) Interesting to see how their limited knowledge interacts with the Pokémon World’s info.

Them’s Nuzlocke Rules/Grimdark—Stories where Pokémon can get injured just as easily as humans in battles. Friendship’s a minor concern overtaken by simply surviving, not my favorite yet tend to have pretty well thought out World building for such dark takes on things.

Pokemon Were A Game/Anime/Story?—Ones where self-inserts don’t retain much memory from our world. They are Pokémon-natives who grew up with all that craziness until at some point they get previous life memories. Fun to see how their reaction to our animals and so so very rarely do they retain their original mindset.

Wait so an Anime Protag, Game Protag, AND Manga Protag are around?—Find themselves in a combined universe sharing elements of all three main versions. I would probably not be able to recognize the last one since I barely know anything about the Manga. Where does one versions influence begin and one end?

Guess I’m not the only one—Stories where multiple self inserts exist and influenced the world before the most recent one remembered. BANIX’s stories have this element and it is well implemented. Self inserts don’t interact until much later in their lives, one has a normal family at least so not all tragic backstories.

Somebody has too…—Ones where they get self-inserted as a canon character (usually Ash) who they know plays a major role in the world. Why, oh why are they shoved into the Chosen Ones responsibility? Most tend to act as if everything is already determined just going with the flow. Others will use the time they have before to prepare themselves for better than their “canon” selves. A brave few might be stuck on the fence whether to stick with what they have or follow the MC to make sure the kid doesn’t get themself killed. (SI-Hard Enough.)

Cracked Rose-Tinted Glasses—The world is more complicated than the games/anime/manga made them out to be. Pokédexes don’t have a level telling system so evolving becomes a guessing game. Battles are more complicated than “Raichu used Thunderbolt… It wasn’t very effective on Enemy Ivysaur”. Pokémon are living creatures who can lose pass away from old age or diseases. Maybe certain regions have prejudice against one another cause of ancient wars. Did bombs ever evolve in missiles and nukes when we have the destructive power of Pokémon? Legendaries (and Mythicals) might be actual gods or demigods! We might be the only ones who know their actual appearance. Ten-year-olds can’t stop a criminal group and there might be a raised Trainer license age. Will the world end if people can catch legendary Pokémon? (Not as dark as nuzlocke/grimdark)

Pokémon are still Pokémon—Someone who has been reincarnated from the Pokémon past or another Pokémon universe. Spin on the knowing everything thing since they could come from a fan-game.

Why so changed?—Traveling companions, family, or friends who notice this certain person is different overnight. I would love to find a story where people watch the chaos without knowing the person’s thought process.

[Just a few things I noticed about self-inserts that I wanted to share.]

i love them all

it's always so interesting to see someone's personal take on a self insert story, pokemon or otherwise. everyone tweaks it based on their own preference, and it's always an interesting read!!

i'm partial to the "isekai" type of self insert stories. it has the most potential for both comedic situations and angsty ones! i tend to lean towards that in my stories

~Renee

[soulvomit]

I went from not knowing the rules and being an eager puppy who didn't know how to make friends, and feeling like an alien.

To knowing the rules, being able to navigate society, knowing rules that people won't even admit to following, knowing rules on the absolutely Next Level about some things, and being great at reading the room... and being sick/disgusted.

And whenever I talk about this stuff? People try to gaslight me. (Thank fuck most of them don't know i am diagnosed Officially Socially Stupid and Naive. Not that NTs ever believe I have that label, anyway.)

All my life, I've observed people, I've learned... maybe not the usual way, but my way. I wasn't great at making friends but I know things that served me in other ways. I was encouraged to learn. Eventually in my 30s I finally learned to make friends with NTs and I can't tell the difference between what you are calling NT vs Hegemonic Culture. The 50s were more honest about this than we are being.

Knowing the rules existed, learning to read people, didn't get me normie friends, it didn't get me what it was supposed to

Because once I knew, then I KNEW what I was excluded from and I knew WHY and it had very very little to do with my manners! But in the US we are not allowed to say anything is wrong! Some people are allowed to be rude and some aren't and the whole reason is heirarchy!

I don't know how to tell you it's largely about class and hidden hierarchies and societal breakdown, Susan

The lie is that most ordinary people pretend their societies and values change, and they really don't. Most people have to say what they have to say, because they're stuck in a system. Most people are captive to the social worlds they're in.

What I discovered is that most people (but especially people neither at the top of the hierarchy, nor at the absolute bottom) place following these rules somewhere along the level of survival.

You are not supposed to mention that these hierarchies exist. Ever.

It's in race and class and gender spaces that I have seen this stuff discussed. Tony Attwood and various autism authors said these rules exist but even they won't tell us what they are! They wouldn't be allowed to function in society! They're in the system, too!

What if it was never our brain

What if we are normal and soon everyone will be as alienated as we are?

#The Obsoletariat #Whether asd

[magnetic-messaging-review]

Bobby Rio and Rob Judge “Magnetic Messaging” Review [PDF Download]

Magnetic Messaging is a 191-page guide that teaches readers the proper way to craft seductive messages. It is the fast-track way to make women, whether friends or strangers, to become attracted to you. With most women practically having a cell phone super-glued to their hand these days, texting has become a critically important aspect of dating. Bobby Rio confessed how he decided to collaborate with Rob Judge and created Magnetic Messaging which reveals three proven texting strategies you can apply immediately to “turn any woman on and get her out.” The program works by teaching you the key lock sequence, which comprises of three simple text messages that would trigger the emotional parts of her brain and make her think about you non-stop.

Most people use texting to stay in touch between dates, but few utilize the potential properly. I usually don’t advocate copying other guys’ text messages, but if you want a shortcut method of attracting hotter girls without having to work at it, then Magnetic Messaging is a winning formula.  The book not only provides a great deal of word-for-word examples, but it gives you specific rules of how to text her, when to text her, and how many times to text her. The author of the system believes that the smart phones plays an important role in any relationship and it has change the entire concept of the dating. In it, you will get actual and specific examples of texts you can send, based on in depth research done by 2 dating experts. If you struggle with getting a girl to meet up with you after you got her number, this system will be immensely helpful. 

Once I noticed an improvement in how women were connecting with me, I moved on to the second stage. The trick here is not to overdo it, as you want to be able to build on it later when you meet. The last step is the most important, each of these phases requires you to text differently, and the techniques are well covered in the book. If you have ever pondered what goes on in a woman’s thoughts, then a guide gives you a lot more than you need to know. You will not only learn about texting because the book teaches about attractive communication. It explores the female mind and shows you why you should message in the style and sequences laid out in the program. This system helps ready our mindset, to address this communication opportunity (and its potential pitfalls), from a personal leadership point of view. The best way to learn anything is learning from example and the case studies make it easy to see exactly how to put the books teachings into practice. 

Rob and Bobby teach you the importance of ’emotional experiences’ – and how to embed them in your messaging. Women crave these experiences; it’s how they become attached and attracted. If you can get women to attach emotions in their text messaging conversation with you, you’ll know your skills are working. These women will feel closer to you, giving you a massive advantage over other men. Magnetic Messaging and associated bonus books demonstrate how you can make women feel safe, special and attractive – all through your text messages. Once you’ve built this connection and rapport, they will be putty in your hands. The biggest advantage to Magnetic Messaging is its simplicity. It is a guide that is very easy to follow and quite easy to read. Aside from this, everything that a beginner needs to survive in the world of dating through text is presented in a clear manner. Aside from this, the guide is packed with information and advice that one can really use in real-life.  The guide is also great for those that already have experience with women and texting.  There are many great “done-for-you” texts that will work for anyone. I feel like I learned a ton about how women think and how to communicate with them to have a shot at dating them. 

Click here to visit the Magnetic Messaging website.

[acosmicventure]

4th House Ruler

YOUR INNER CHILD

4th house dictates what kind of environment you were brought up in. Oftentimes, as we grow older we get disconnected from our inner child. This creates chaos because we unconsciously repeat the same patterns from where we came from. Allow yourself to feel.

Your inner child wants you to acknowledge the past emotional trauma so that you can start healing. You don't have to suppress your authenticity for anyone. People you live or hang out with don't define you, only you define yourself. Healing codependency issues is the way. Who are you when no one is watching?

4TH HOUSE INDICATES...

Your emotional patterns, feminine energy, your generational history. In astrology, the 4th house is a cardinal house ruled by the zodiac sign Cancer and luminary, Moon. Also known as IC.

Discovering the 4th house leads to the discovery of generational patterns that are passed down to you. If the 4th house is afflicted, then you need to heal the generational trauma. It is your karmic responsibility in this lifetime.

Once the foundation is strong, only then you can survive this world. Find and build your emotional stability without external approval. Check the sign ruling 4th house cusp, sign ruler and also if there is any other planet.

Aries: Mars

Taurus: Venus

Gemini: Mercury

Cancer: Moon

Leo: Sun

Virgo: Mercury

Libra: Venus

Scorpio: Mars & Pluto

Sagittarius: Jupiter

Capricorn: Saturn

Aquarius: Saturn & Uranus

Pisces: Jupiter & Neptune

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 1ST

Your 4th House ruler in the 1st makes you sensitive towards other people. Giving you a bit of Cancer vibes. Your personality is shaped by your mother or family. Overcoming any toxic generational trauma will help you earn your independence and strength.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 2ND

Your 4th House ruler in the 2nd makes you reliable and provides your wealth through getting into a family business. Your material stability comes from home or when once you find your emotional stability in life. Remember to set your own values and follow them.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 3RD

Your 4th House ruler in the 3rd makes you highly imaginative and your home played an important role in forming your communication style (verbal, written or intellect). You should always remember to differentiate which emotional language is yours and which is not.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 4TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 4th makes you compassionate in nature. You receive a lot of security from home or want to create stability at your home. You seek comfort from get together and spending time with loved ones is necessary for you.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 5TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 5th house makes you quite creative at heart. You seek emotional abundance through creative projects. Your mother might influence your artistic abilities. Any creative pursuits related to feminine energy will be successful.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 6TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 6th house makes you seek emotional abundance through having pets at home, your self-care routines, your relationship with your health. It may seem like home life requires a lot of effort. This is why choose wisely with the people you live with.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 7TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 7th house makes you seek emotional abundance through partnerships. If not conscious, you may also repeat your family patterns. Choose people who make you better. Avoid codependency. Better relationships provide better security.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 8TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 8th house makes you seek emotional abundance through the occult, transformation, intimate relationships. Your family might have some generational trauma that you need to heal. Practise shadow work and create your own rituals.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 9TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 9th house makes you seek emotional abundance through learning, travelling, seeking higher knowledge. Make sure to build your own belief system. You might live far away from home or travel often. Finding family in different cultures.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 10TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 10th house makes you seek emotional abundance through career, status, reputation. Your family influences your career patterns. Don't let anyone control your career or life choices. Embrace your inner authority.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 11TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 11th house makes you seek emotional abundance through friendships with like-minded people. You must choose people wisely. Hang out with those who make you a better person. Get involved in communities that feel like home.

4TH HOUSE RULER IN 12TH

Your 4th House ruler in the 12th house makes you seek emotional abundance through spirituality, solitude and slow living. It's better for you to live in foreign lands. Heal your abandonment issues. You are destined to live with those who come from a different culture.

© A COSMIC VENTURE

#inner child #4th house #astrology #astrologyfacts #zodiacsigns #aries #taurus #gemini #cancer #leo #virgo #libra #scorpio #sagittarius #capricorn #aquarius #pisces #rising sign #saturn in 4th house #capricorn rising #scorpio rising #capricorn moon #scorpio moon #aries moon #moon square saturn #moon square pluto

[rmnamjoons]

Taking Flight [KNJ Oneshot]

➳ summary: More than a decade after the alien invasion that wiped out most of the planet, you and Namjoon are both in the Pilot Cadet Corps, training for if the alien attackers ever come back. What begins as a playful rivalry between two overachievers develops into a deep friendship and emotional bond, but when the aliens suddenly return and you and Namjoon are separated, you find out just what you’re willing to do to get back to him.

➳ pairing: pilot!Namjoon x pilot!reader

➳ genre: smut, sci fi au, post apocalypse au, alien invasion au, rivals to friends to lovers

➳ word count: 15.2k

➳ read on ao3, link to my masterlist

➳ tags: smut, reunion sex, oral (f receiving), fingering, emotional loving sex, soft dom namjoon, dirty talk (no degradation), rivals to friends to lovers, sexually charged fight/sparring scene when they’re rivals, previously seemingly unrequited love/mutual pining, shower sex, multiple positions, namjoon is needy and so in love

➳ warnings: unnamed character death/death mention, blood mention, injury mention/vague description

➳ a/n: I know this is kind of a niche genre for smut fics; I primarily wrote this for myself, and I definitely had fun and like what I came up with! What’s the point of fanfiction anyway, if not to have fun? Also, this takes place over a few years, and I tried to portray how Namjoon was feral and angry when he was younger but is now a loving gentle giant. Enjoy!

I.

Everybody lost someone in the attacks that killed most of the planet. Friends. Family. Partners. You had lost everything and everyone, like most people who’d lived in the cities that no longer had names — what once had been centers of commerce, tourism, and civilization were now nothing more than craters, and with so few left who remembered them, what they’d once been were now lost to time.

You'd only survived by chance, really. You and your family had been in a tunnel leaving the city, on foot like everyone else, and when everything had turned to chaos, you’d gotten lost from your parents and sister. You still remembered the way people screamed and ran through the tunnel, their voices echoing harshly off the cement walls. You’d spotted someone hiding off to the side in a utility room in the tunnel, and when the blast hit the city center, that person had made you hide in the room too, their body shielding yours from the hellfire, melting around you.

You were five years old then. You were pretty sure your sister had been eight. You couldn’t remember what your parents or sister looked like, or your house, or where you’d gone to school, other than vague flashes and shapes of people who’d once been your whole world. All you’d had with you were the clothes on your back, and even those had been taken away once you’d gotten somewhere safe and been given something clean to change into.

After the ships fell and surviving aliens left, it had taken years to clear the rubble and start over. The attacks that changed and destroyed everything had also been a gift, or so they now preached, in which humanity was able to grow, learn, and become united. The religions and cults who now worshiped the alien attackers believed humanity had deserved extermination, but you liked the more academic approach to the alien race’s lessons: the technology humans had been able to reverse engineer from their fallen ships.

One of the many ways humanity had advanced in the last few years was flight technology. Planes were faster, turned sharper, could go farther, burned cleaner energy. The one thing everyone seemed to agree on was how important Earth’s planes had been in beating them, so that was where all the technology and progress was focused now.

You loved planes and flying, you always had, but the real reason you wanted to be a pilot, you held much closer to your chest: your entire life, you always felt like the attacks when you were young were just the beginning. Like an unhealthy obsession or open wound, it was all you could think about sometimes, what drove your every decision, what led you to the Pilot Cadet Corps. You wanted to be part of the team that took them down if they ever came back. You wanted to be ready.

You were eighteen when you’d joined the Corps. You’d jumped on that opportunity the first moment you were able, without so much as a second glance back at what you left behind. You’d been adopted fairly soon after the attacks, but your adopted parents never felt much like family.

The first full year of Corps was bootcamp. Bunk rooms were co-ed, and every moment of your lives was dictated down to the second. You woke up at six in the morning and ran laps around the track. You had as much free time as you earned between whenever you finished your laps and when breakfast started at seven: the faster you ran, the more free time you got.

Eight to noon was physical training. After lunch was different depending on the day: three days a week you had mental training for whatever field you were going into, mostly flight simulation for the pilots. Another day was more combat training, and the last was an alternate, for first aid, written tests, marksmanship, and other courses along those lines. After that you had more physical training, like sparring and hand-to-hand combat, then dinner, then free time. Lights out was strictly at ten-thirty every night, and then you’d start it all over again the next day.

Now, you stood in line with the other cadets training to be pilots, waiting to hear your class ranks. Every month, they would announce a ranking of all cadets, a score averaged in test results, simulator scores, and overall performance. The better you ranked, the better your placement once you graduated.

“Third place, Park. Eighty-nine point nine,” the sergeant read off, making a small boy a few rows away from you puff up his chest in pride. You weren’t sure why anyone would feel proud of not getting an A, but you pushed that thought away.

You swallowed hard, holding your breath. There were only two spots left, and if you’d scored higher than Park, that meant you got an A and were either in second or first place out of the whole class. You didn’t know everyone’s names yet, so you weren’t sure who you were competing with.

“Second place, Y/L/N. Ninety-five point two.”

You heard the impressed murmur of others in the class before all of them were silenced by a firm look from the sergeant. Your heart sank, your hands curling into tight fists. Second place? You’d been so sure before now that you were working harder than all the other cadets. You were smarter than them, faster, more focused. Who the fuck had beaten you?

“First place, Kim. Ninety-five point three.”

Your brow furrowed. You weren’t sure who this Kim was, but you set your jaw, becoming determined to learn everything about them so you could beat them. Whatever their weaknesses were, you’d find them and exploit them.

You snuck a glance around you, trying to figure out who Kim was, and nearly jumped out of your skin when the tall boy next to you made eye contact with you, raising one eyebrow in the most smug, cocky, asshole-ish look you’d ever seen. That one singular eyebrow quirk, the corner of his lip curling up barely noticeably, all of it made you want to seethe and strangle him.

You’d noticed this man before, but had never thought much of him. He was taller than all the other men, but he hadn’t come off as particularly smart or extraordinary. This guy was the one who’d beaten you?

Now that you looked at him, you noticed he was definitely very muscular. Had he beaten your score through his strength? You could work harder at weight lifting and beat him. Were his test scores perfect? You could make yourself study even more.

Whatever it was that made him first place, you’d find out and beat him.

II.

In the following weeks, you began to wonder how you’d ever missed Kim Namjoon.

You and Namjoon both worked harder than everyone else. You both trained longer, started earlier in the morning and kept going until you were the last ones left. You both pushed yourselves harder than all of your other classmates, academically and physically. Before he was placed first in the class, you hadn’t even noticed him, but now he was the bane of your existence, and you existed only to beat him and come out on top.

You were faster and more agile, but Namjoon was by far stronger. You almost wanted to dispute the scoring system; what use was strength for a pilot? You weren’t soldiers. He needed fast reflexes and precision, not fighting skills or the ability to deadlift two hundred pounds. Was he planning on picking up planes and throwing them at the alien ships? It was so stupid.

The second month of bootcamp, you were the top of the class, and Namjoon was second place now. You smiled smugly to yourself and kept your eyes focused forward, staying perfectly at attention like the other cadets, but you could feel his eyes on you and almost sense his focused anger, that same emotion you’d felt when he’d first beaten you.

After the ranking announcements, you went to combat training in the gym, but your instructor called out both your name and Namjoon’s before you could even get started.

“I want the two of you to spar,” the instructor said as the two of you ran up. “No rules, just fighting. You can use boxing, wrestling, martial arts, whatever you want — just don’t kill each other.”

You narrowed your eyes at Namjoon, almost expecting him to refuse to fight you, for being a girl. Besides occasional glares, the two of you had never so much as said a word to each other, but you figured smug alpha male assholes were all the same.

But instead, Namjoon smiled and said, “All right.” He almost seemed eager to get in the ring and teach you a lesson.

Now, you eyed him from across the ring, how he was watching you with a smug little smirk as he wrapped his knuckles.

“To win, pin the other person’s back to the mat for five full seconds,” your instructor said carefully. “Their back has to fully touch the ground, not just shoulders. They don’t have to be conscious to be pinned.”

You and Namjoon made eye contact at that.

“Whoever wins doesn’t have to run laps next week. Loser runs double laps before eating. You both ready?”

You and Namjoon ended up drawing a crowd of spectators.

The moment the instructor said start, you ran, jumped, and wrapped your legs around his head, twisting and throwing him to the ground so that he was on his back and you stood over his head, smirking down at his stupid surprised face.

He’d hit the mat hard, the breath completely knocked out of him. A few people in the crowd murmured quietly to themselves and quietly asked each other if the fight was already over. You let out a shaky breath, letting yourself feel proud for a split second as you glanced at the spectators, but before you could register what was happening, Namjoon grabbed you by both your legs, making you twist and fall hard on your back, too.

You tried to crawl away from him, but he just pulled you under him by your legs, climbing on top of you and trying to hold you down with his hands. You arched your back as high as you could, touching the mat only with your shoulders and ass as Namjoon fought to grab your wrists. He was on top of you, straddling your abdomen and trying to keep you down without actually touching your chest, and you watched him bite his lip and heard him growl as he focused on not getting hit while you thrashed beneath him.

You brought your leg up and kneed his kidney as hard as you could, making him groan before moving back to pin your legs down too. You could now easily keep your back fully off the mat, but he was straddling you much lower now, bending over you and still trying to grab your arms. This close, you could smell him, his sweat and masculine scent mixed with the cheap soap you all were given, and you had to push aside the fact you kind of liked the way he smelled.

You were panting hard, your chest rising and falling rapidly with each deep breath. You watched Namjoon as he glanced down at your breasts, before his eyes snapped back up at your face, his eyes wide as if he were surprised he’d let himself look.

“Having fun?” you teased, smirking up at him.

“Tons,” he growled, finally catching one of your hands and pinning it down by your wrist.

You hooked your leg up as far as you could, wrapping it around him and using his close proximity to your advantage. This seemed to catch Namjoon very off guard, and you felt more than heard him make a noise in surprise as you essentially embraced him, not giving him any space to move or do anything as you pulled your hand free and wrapped all your limbs around him, hanging off of him like a leach.

Namjoon sat back on his knees, and you held onto him, your legs around his waist and arms around his shoulders, waiting for your moment to use his weight against him and throw him on his back. He was squirming and wearing himself out, while you just squeezed him, hard enough you heard something in him crack.

“What are you doing?” he grumbled, trying to pry you off of him. Before you could answer, he grabbed you by your hair and jerked your head backwards, making you gasp and cry out. He started to force you off by getting his hands between your bodies, but you surprised him, grabbing his throat with both hands and squeezing.

Namjoon forcefully brought his hands down on your arms, bending them so that you let go of his neck, and now you were much closer to his face, nearly nose to nose as he still sat there on his knees with you hanging off of him. He held your wrists with both hands now as you tried to struggle free from him, and when you realized you couldn’t, you twisted one wrist, bringing his hand up to your mouth and biting down as hard as you could on the meat of his thumb.

He yelped and let go of you, but before you could use the moment to your advantage, he grabbed you and pushed you off of him, throwing you down away from him while he scrambled back and looked at his hand.

Your body bounced as you hit the mat, rolling a few times until you slammed against the edge of the ring. Namjoon was back on you before you could react, and you felt him behind you, trying to roll you over so he could pin you down on your back again. You brought your head back hard and connected with his nose, making him jump back again.

When you looked back at him, Namjoon was standing across the ring, holding his nose and glaring at you as you jumped to your feet too.

You circled each other for a moment, both closely watching the other’s every move like prey.

His nose was bleeding heavily, both of you out of breath and covered in sweat.  You were pretty sure you had a bruised rib from him throwing you, your lungs burning from exertion from the fight. Everyone who’d been in the gym was now watching, none of them speaking as the two of you circled each other.

You ran at each other at the same time, Namjoon throwing a swing that you easily ducked. While his momentum was off, you punched him hard in the stomach, making him bend over in pain.

He was being sloppy, maybe distracted from his pain and anger, or maybe he was just more of a big clumsy oaf who relied on strength alone than you’d thought. You knew he was smart based on his test scores, but none of that appeared to translate to agility or finesse. He was fighting clumsy and angry, but you only felt more focused now, catching yourself smiling as you almost enjoyed yourself.

When you tried to strike him again, moving to hit your elbow between his shoulders while he was bent over, he turned and reached up, grabbing your neck with both hands. You broke his hold easily, and used that moment to bring your hand up and smack his injured nose.

Namjoon groaned in pain, holding his nose again. You grabbed his free hand, twisting it until he turned around and fell to his knees, yelling in pain, his arm bent painfully behind his back. You now stood behind him, Namjoon unable to move unless he wanted you to break or dislocate his arm, you on your feet with him on his knees.

“Do you forfeit?” you said, pulling his arm up another inch and making him hiss in pain. You could see how much he was sweating and panting, and ignored the way it sent a shiver of lust through you.

“You play dirty,” he seethed. Just standing close to him, you could feel the way heat radiated off of him. You’d noticed before that he was a sweaty guy, but now he was shining with it.

“I seem to remember being told that there were no rules for this fight,” you said, smiling proudly to yourself as you held the large man in place with one hand.

Instead of responding, Namjoon threw himself backwards into you, knocking you off your feet. You were on your back now and he was on his back on top of you, pinning you there. He had to have at least pulled his arm out of socket doing that move, and his body tensed from the pain, but he didn’t stop.

Namjoon pushed down with his shoulders as hard as he could, arching his back and standing up on his feet, bending his legs to put even more weight on just his shoulders to trap you there under him. You were crushed by him, barely able to breathe, let alone keep yourself fully off the mat.

He was so big and heavy, his shoulders wide enough to pin your arms down. You did the only thing you could think to do in the moment, what you hoped would give you an advantage again. You leaned in and bit down where his shoulder met his neck, the same side his arm was dislocated, and you bit down hard.

Namjoon yelped in surprise and pain, and you wrapped your arms around him in a chokehold so that when he tried to roll away, you went with him. He twisted in your arms until he was on top of you, facing you again, and this time you brought your knee up hard between his legs, his eyes closing as he groaned in agony.

You easily pushed him off and got on top of him, straddling his chest and pinning him down. Your knees pressed your full weight down on his biceps, including his injured arm, which made him groan in pain with every harsh exhale. He arched his back and tried to push you off of him, but he could barely move or reach you, his arms both pinned outward.

“Tired of getting your ass kicked yet?” you goaded, raising an eyebrow when Namjoon glared up at you. “How were you ever the top of our class? This is a little too easy.”

“Fuck you,” he growled, seething hard, blood all over his mouth and chin from his broken nose. His back still wasn’t technically on the ground though, so you needed to think of a way to make him stay down.

You were straddling his chest, so you moved your hips forward suddenly before throwing your whole body back, slamming yourself down hard and completely knocking the wind out of him. You simultaneously knocked him down so that his back was against the mat, and purposefully hit the back of your head against his crotch, which had to still be hurting from when you’d just kneed him a minute ago, so that he wouldn’t have the strength to get himself back up for a few seconds. You heard what you thought was a crack, which you really hoped wasn’t his crotch, before you heard and felt him groaning in pain.

The instructor counted out, and you won. You immediately jumped off of him and looked down at the damage.

Blood covered Namjoon’s chin, mouth, and neck, all from his nose wound, which you’d smacked more than once. He was bleeding from the bite on his neck, and his shoulder did not look right, pulled painfully out of socket and potentially broken. He rolled onto his side away from you and moaned, the hand of his arm that wasn’t dislocated over his crotch as he curled up in a ball on the ground.

“You all right?” you asked cautiously, stepping out of the way as the instructor rushed in to help him. Namjoon held up his middle finger to you, closing his eyes as he tried to breathe steadily.

You snorted in amusement and went off to the locker room to shower.

That night, Namjoon limped into dinner.

You were sitting by yourself at a table near the back, reading a book written by a pilot from before the attacks. Namjoon sat down across from you, as if sitting together was something the two of you normally did.

His nose was badly bruised and taped up, definitely broken. Judging by the limp he’d come in with, you’d messed up something below deck. His arm seemed to have been popped back in socket, but you could see the bruising spreading over his collarbone under his t-shirt, and his arm was in a sling. He had bite marks on his neck and hand, and the one on his neck had needed stitches.

You tried not to smile to yourself.

“Y/L/N?” he asked, like he wasn’t sure of your name, like you two weren’t rivals constantly competing and you hadn’t kicked his ass a few hours ago.

“Kim,” you said, returning the formality.

He didn’t say anything for a moment, so you went back to eating, trying not to look over at him. He rested his non-injured hand on his stomach, and you wondered if you’d broken one of his ribs or if he was just hungry.

“You planning on eating?” you asked him after a moment.

Namjoon actually smiled, laughing to himself weakly.

“I don’t think I even have the energy to walk across the room to get food,” he murmured, his voice a little deeper than usual.

Without a word, you stood, walking straight across the room to get another plate of food. When you returned and placed it in front of him, he looked up at you with wide eyes, confused and shocked by your gesture.

“Do you need me to cut it up for you, too?” you teased, though glancing at his arm, you wondered if he’d actually need that.

Namjoon shook his head after a moment, glancing down at his plate.

“Thank you,” he said quietly. You saw a small, genuine smile on his lips, and you realized then for the very first time that he had dimples.

III.

The following week came, as did Namjoon’s punishment week for losing the sparring match. The first morning, you noticed him waking up earlier than everyone else to go start his laps, since he had to do double. You quickly got dressed and followed.

You ran up beside him as he slowly jogged around the track.

“What are you doing?” He looked over at you, furrowing his brow but not stopping.

“Running laps,” you answered flatly.

You ran the same number of laps as he did that morning, despite having won the right not to run this week. Namjoon, you learned, had a broken rib and pulled groin in addition to all the other stuff you’d done to him, and he’d been given an out and didn’t have to run any laps after all. Your instructor had told him that he needed to focus on healing and not accidentally hurt himself more. He didn’t have to do combat training or anything else physical until he was healed, but he still ran his punishment laps anyway, completely by choice, and so you ran them too, matching his pace the entire time, neither of you saying a word to the other.

Despite getting his ass kicked in the sparring match, the rest of the cadets viewed Namjoon as almost a superhero after that. They respected how well he’d taken a beating; he was the guy who kept fighting, even with half a dozen injuries and multiple broken bones. You were the only one who’d been able to best him, using just your speed to outwit him, and now the rest of the class respected you both even more. Namjoon was a nearly unstoppable tank, and you were the lithe fox that beat him.

As boot camp continued, you and Namjoon continued your quiet friendship, neither of you the overly gushy or warm type, both focused only on training. You studied together, and started helping each other instead of competing. Both of you only improved your scores and times.

Namjoon helped you with your physical training, helping you get stronger. You helped him with his marksmanship, precision, and speed. You regularly sparred and fought and pushed each other further. You studied together, fought together, ate together, did everything together.

The first year of Corps ended, and you entered the second year. This was more specialized, focused on specifically becoming a pilot with more time on flight training instead of physical and military training, which you still definitely had a lot of.

Your class was smaller now, but you still slept in a co-ed barrack. You and Namjoon picked spots next to each other this year.

One night during winter break, almost everyone else had gone home for the week, the two of you essentially having the base to yourselves. It was well past midnight and after lights out, but you and Namjoon laid in your beds talking quietly, both on your sides facing each other. You only had about a foot of space between your beds, and you could just barely make out his face in the dark.

Namjoon told you that he remembered the attacks, losing his family, everything. He’d had a sister too, and had lived in a suburb, not one of the cities. He didn’t explain further, but said that he remembered what happened to his family, and that he’d been found in the woods by himself weeks later. He’d only been seven years old at the time, and you wondered how the hell he’d made it on his own for so long.

You got the feeling he was used to being on his own, and didn’t let himself get attached to anything or anyone. Part of you wanted to reach out and touch him, put your hand on his shoulder and tell him he didn’t have to be alone anymore. But instead you sighed, ignoring the way his sad eyes made your heart ache.

IV.

Your second year turned into your third, and you and Namjoon only became closer. You both planned to go on to a fourth year of training, even though it wasn’t required, as it would give you higher credentials and clearance when you finished. Both of you still strived to be perfect, after all.

Halfway through your third year together, you realized Namjoon was the closest thing you had to family. You both saw each other pretty much every moment of every day. You both didn’t leave the base for holidays, so the longest you’d been apart since first meeting was a few hours, at most.

You were constantly together, even when you didn’t need to be. You woke up early and ran laps, even though you were no longer required to — only first year cadets ran laps, but you both continued because… you didn’t know why, and you didn’t question it. You loved running with him.

That first year together, Namjoon had been stoic and quiet. He didn’t talk much, unless directly questioned, and even then he kept his answers as concise as possible. You weren’t exactly talkative, but when the two of you talked to each other alone, especially in the past few years, Namjoon began coming out of his shell. When he wasn’t guarded and quiet, he was warm and funny, almost loving in his own kind of way. You got the feeling he was naturally full of love, but had pushed that part of himself down in the years he’d spent alone and in shelters.

Now, you were giving Namjoon a haircut. His hair grew weirdly fast, and there were rules about keeping everything, including hair, perfectly in uniform. Men had to have very short hair and be clean-shaven, which meant Namjoon had to get a haircut basically every other week.

When it was warm you did this outside, but now it was winter and you were in the locker room. While you worked, you talked about upcoming tests and other little things. You kept catching Namjoon looking up at you as you stood in front of him, between his spread legs, and he seemed to be getting bolder, watching your face outright instead of just stealing glances.

“Close your eyes and tilt your head back,” you mumbled, trying to hide the fact you were blushing and flustered. Namjoon listened without a word, and you let yourself look at him for just a second; your faces were close, even with him sitting and you standing, because of how tall he was. You’d been obsessed with his lips lately, finding yourself fantasizing about them at the most inopportune times, thinking about how soft and full they looked and wondering what they’d feel like against your own.

Before you could pull yourself from your thoughts and start on the front of his hair, the power suddenly cut out.

You let out a small gasp, but this wasn’t exactly surprising around here. The power went out often because of the testing they were doing with switching over completely to alien tech for larger power structures. Still, you’d gasped in surprise because you’d been so focused on Namjoon’s face, and now the two of you were alone together in a dark locker room.

“Are you okay?” Namjoon asked, his hands coming up to rest on your hips.

Of course you were okay; the lights had just gone off.

“Yeah,” you answered anyway. You moved your hands from over his head to his shoulders, feeling him in the dark.

“It’ll be back on in a second, we’re okay,” he said, his thumbs moving slightly, like he was trying to comfort you.

“I know,” you said, your voice sounding small. You weren’t afraid at all, but you didn’t want him to stop what he was doing.

The lights came back on then, and you looked down at him. Namjoon smiled up at you, dimples on full display, and it nearly took your breath away. He had a little piece of cut hair on his cheek, which you gently brushed away, and he wrinkled his nose at you, making your heart ache.

You finished giving him his haircut, and afterwards he pulled off his shirt and went over to one of the showers, to wash off the pieces of hair you’d cut. You gathered up the electric razor and your other belongings while you heard him undressing behind you, turning on the shower and humming happily to himself.

You stopped yourself from looking at him as you walked out of the room and went back to the barracks, refusing to let yourself think about him showering or the way he’d looked at you.

VI.

Your last year of training was mostly just the two of you working together and with various superior officers. You’d get promotions and rank changes after some time in the field, but you’d start out as Senior Airmen, and would probably both make Staff Sergeant within a few years of graduating. There were no wars or active duty anymore, but it meant you’d both be given leadership positions, if ever the need arose.

After graduation, you and Namjoon would both receive your assignments and placements. You’d both requested to be placed together, without requesting anything else. You could be sent anywhere in the world, given any position; you didn’t care where you ended up though, as long as you were with him.

Since it was your last year, you were both given proper rooms instead of barracks. The rooms were small and minimal, but your room was right across from Namjoon’s. You spent a lot of time in each other’s rooms, even sometimes sleeping over.

Now, you laid on Namjoon’s bed in his room, while he sat at the chair by his desk with his feet propped up on the end of his bed. He was playing with a stress ball, passing it back and forth between his hands. You’d finished all your testing and training, so you were both basically just resting until graduation, anticipating your placements. It was late at night, the rest of the base quiet and sleeping.

“Dream placement,” you said, turning your head and pointing at him. “Go.”

“Oh, man…” Namjoon rolled his head back, looking at the ceiling. “Southern California.”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes. “What’s in Southern California, besides desert?”

“That’s the closest base to where the first ship went down. They’ve got the best tech out there, the best planes.”

“Okay, true,” you sighed. “But there’s nothing out there for miles. There’d be nothing to do.”

“What else is there, besides flying?” Namjoon threw the little ball he was playing with gently so it bounced off the wall beside you and landed on your stomach.

“I like flying and being able to see something besides sand, rock, and craters for hundreds of miles,” you said, tossing the ball back to him.

“You feel like you’re going faster if you don’t have anything to look at,” he said, catching the ball with one hand and tossing it behind him onto his desk.

“You also get lost easier,” you laughed, propping yourself up on your elbows.

“Not if you’re a good navigator,” Namjoon laughed too, standing up and moving onto the bed with you. He wasn’t exactly tickling you, but he was touching your body and you were both giggling as he laid down beside you.

“If you want to feel like you’re going fast, then just go fast,” you said, your hands on his shoulders now as you grinned up at him. He was partially on top of you, partially beside you as he smiled down at you, his mouth so close to yours.

“I want to go even faster,” he said, but he stilled suddenly, looking down at you with wide eyes. He seemed to have suddenly realized the position the two of you were in, and he moved so that he was just beside you, laying on his side as you laid on your back.

You sighed. It was always like this — not that you were complaining, because you loved the relationship you already had with him. But lately, you’d get so close, almost kissing, almost embracing, almost something, and then he’d back off. You still loved the moments before, where you could forget that you were just friends and pretend you were something more, as much as it ended up hurting your heart in the long run.

Even now, you loved this. Namjoon propped himself up on his elbow, looking down at you as you continued talking, a different topic now. Your mouths were only a few inches apart. It would be so easy for him to just lean down and kiss you, like you wanted him to so badly.

Namjoon’s hand that wasn’t supporting his head rested on your stomach. You put your hands there too, playing with him, feeling his long fingers and how big his hand was, and Namjoon let you, pretending not to notice.

You talked about graduation plans, life plans, little nothings that made each other sadly smile. Neither of you said it, but you both worried you wouldn’t be placed together.

“What’s your dream placement?” he asked you gently, his voice soft.

“You know, I don’t even care,” you said. Because it didn’t matter where they put you as long as you were with him, but you didn’t say that.

That night the two of you fell asleep like that, in that position. It wasn’t the first time.

VII.

When you woke up, you could feel Namjoon’s gentle breathing on your neck. You turned your head and looked at him, studying his expression in the early morning calm.

He was still on his side facing you, so now you were face-to-face, your foreheads and noses only a few inches apart. His hand still rested on your stomach, and you still held his hand there with both of your hands. You felt his fingers twitch a little in his sleep and wondered what he was dreaming about. His other arm was under the pillow now, and through it you could almost feel the swell of his bicep and warmth of his skin.

You only ever let yourself really look at him like this when he was sleeping, when the two of you had sleepovers in each other’s rooms. You studied the shape of his nose, the way his big, plush lips parted, the puffiness of his cheeks as he relaxed and breathed, every freckle and mole on his face that you wanted to kiss so badly. Cuddled up with him like this, you could feel how warm he was; Namjoon was a furnace of a man, and you’d gotten so used to sharing a bed with him the past few months, you now had to layer up and sleep with an extra blanket whenever you slept alone.

Namjoon sighed then, shifting a little in his sleep. You quickly closed your eyes and turned your head back so you weren’t facing him directly, in case he opened his eyes.

You felt him moving, shifting so that his arm was hugging you instead of his hand just resting on you. His hand was now on your side, below your armpit, his thumb on the side of your breast. He sighed and seemed to fall back asleep, softly snoring again after a few moments.

You laid like that for a while, enjoying this feeling, knowing you’d never have this for real. You'd never wake up next to Namjoon in the context you wanted, but this was more than enough for you. You were so in love with him, but he didn’t see you the same way, so you’d enjoy waking up in his arms for as long as you could.

When Namjoon eventually woke up on his own, he seemed to slowly realize the position you were in, moving his hand down carefully to more platonic territory. You opened your eyes and turned your head to look at him, and were caught off guard by the way he was staring at you so openly, looking down at your mouth for a few moments before looking back at your eyes with an expression you couldn’t name.

“Y/N,” he murmured, so softly you could barely hear him, but you could feel the rumble of it in his chest. You didn’t say anything, both of you just looking at each other in the peaceful quiet stillness of early morning, the only noises both of your gentle breathing.

Namjoon moved his hand up to your shoulder, and then his hand was cupping your cheek, brushing your hair back from your face. The tips of your noses were almost touching, his warm breath on your lips. He closed his eyes and put his forehead against yours, your heart almost stopping in your chest from how close he was. He’s never done anything like this before, and you definitely were not going to stop him.

He turned his head slightly, your foreheads still connected as the tip of his nose skimmed along your cheek, by your nose. He brushed his lips against yours so lightly you could barely feel him, his eyes still closed. You could feel his eyelashes tickling your cheek, and prayed he couldn’t feel how fast your heart was racing or how you nearly whimpered at his every touch.

Namjoon moved and brushed his barely parted lips against the corner of your mouth, your chin, your jaw. His hand on your cheek, he stroked your skin with his thumb slowly, touching you, feeling you. His leg moved up slowly, hooking over yours, and you spread your legs for him. You couldn’t even think straight right now, the only things your brain were processing were the touches and sensations Namjoon was giving you.

What the hell was he doing? The thought of him seeing you romantically, the same way you saw him, had seemed so impossible before now, but now, as he brushed his lips against your skin, you wondered if he’d been longing the same way you had.

Namjoon turned your head carefully, slightly away from him, so that you were looking directly up again. He kissed your cheek closer to him while he stroked the other, pressing gentle open-mouthed kisses down your face and neck as he slowly moved himself on top of you. You, matching his slow movements, wrapped your legs loosely around him and held onto his shoulders.

Namjoon kissed your skin as lightly as he could, feeling you anywhere you’d let him, and you were lost in him. He switched to your other side, kissing your collarbone and neck and jaw, and one of his hands moved up behind your head, tangling in your hair. Every movement was slow and deliberate and gentle.

You never would’ve guessed Namjoon was the gentle type, but now that this was happening, it made sense and you craved it. He closed his lips lightly against your earlobe and you gasped loudly, trying to arch up against him.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured against your ear. “So soft, so perfect, my angel, my love.” His voice was so warm and deep, and you quietly whimpered, holding onto his shoulders even tighter. You felt like he could make you come just from this, just from his light touches and hearing his deep voice praise you. You'd wanted him so badly for years now, you’d dreamed about him, fantasized nonstop, and now here he was, and the tension was already building up for you.

He hadn’t even fully kissed your mouth yet. Namjoon pressed his lips against your cheek, caressing the other side of your face with his hand, just holding your body so close to his. You swore you could die right now and be fine with that.

An alarm suddenly blared, and both of your bodies stilled and tensed.

Namjoon jumped off of you and sat back on his legs, looking around the room like he was expecting to see what was happening written on the walls. You sat up too, looking around. Your legs were still spread, your brain still hazy from Namjoon’s kisses, and you looked at him as you saw him working through what was happening.

“Something’s wrong,” Namjoon said, quickly jumping up. He sat back down on the side of his bed long enough to put on his shoes. “Come on,” he said, pulling you up when he stood again.

You snapped yourself out of your lust-haze. The alarm was still going off, which meant something major was happening right now. It wasn’t just a test.

You left, quickly scampering across the hall to your own room so you could get dressed.

You and Namjoon met up in between your rooms a moment later, both in uniform, and ran down together to where the rest of the base had gathered, Namjoon taking your hand in his as you ran.

VIII.

It was another attack, like when you were young.

You all stood there at attention receiving orders, none of you looking anywhere except forward blankly. This was it, everything you had trained for, the exact reason you’d trained so hard. They were back.

You and Namjoon were both assigned as squadron leaders to two different units, Namjoon to Red One and you to Blue One. Those were two of the best, most elite units of fighter jets, but you looked over at him when you got your assignments. You weren’t together, so you wouldn’t know if he was okay until after it was all over.

You were all dismissed and had fifteen minutes to get to your planes and prepare for launch. You went straight to your plane, not stopping to talk to Namjoon. You knew you wouldn’t be able to leave him once you looked at him, so it was better to just pretend this morning hadn’t happened.

You were just starting to climb the ladder up to your plane when you heard his voice.

“Not saying goodbye?”

You froze in your tracks, but didn’t turn or look at him. You couldn’t make yourself say anything, instead just staring straight in front of you with your hands on the rungs of the ladder.

“Y/N,” he said, his voice much softer now as he walked over to you. The planes were close together so you were in tight quarters, and he stood right behind you, his hands not quite touching your sides.

“What?” you said, not looking back at him.

“Please don’t leave without saying goodbye,” he said. You'd never heard his voice like this. Quiet, pleading, loving. It was like this morning in bed, but more desperate, yearning, begging you to look at him.

You started to move up the ladder without turning around, and he put his hands on your hips, stopping you. He immediately let go, not wanting to trap you there.

You sighed and turned around to face him, only partially, still a step up on the ladder so you were just slightly taller than him. You reached back and held onto the ladder with one hand as you looked at him.

When you saw the expression on his face, it took your breath away. He looked almost tearful, sick with worry, trying to be stronger than how he obviously felt.

“Goodbye,” you said softly, bringing your free hand up to his cheek.

He stood there for a moment, just looking at you. You stroked his cheek with your thumb and tried to smile weakly. His hair was getting a little long, you noticed then for some reason. He was supposed to keep it short to stay in uniform, but now it looked long enough for you to run your fingers through.

Namjoon’s eyes were wide and innocent, searching your face. Around you, the base was chaotic and busy as other pilots ran to their planes and officers barked out orders and engines started up. The two of you just stood there in your quiet moment, both a lot less excited about your first mission than you’d thought you’d be, everything happening so much sooner then you’d both thought and on such a larger scale than you ever could have anticipated. You remembered almost wanting this when you were young, promising yourself that you’d be ready if they ever came back. Maybe the universe was punishing you; whenever you loved someone, the universe immediately sought to take it from you. Your family when you were young, and now Namjoon.

He looked like he wanted to kiss you or tell you something. He parted his lips and glanced at your mouth, his brow furrowing as he breathed, and he looked back up at your eyes, his expression so worried.

“I’ll see you soon,” you said, smiling gently.

You turned and climbed up into your plane without another word.

V.

There had been twenty pilots in your squadron when you left, and four when you returned.

You didn’t really remember the aliens from when you were little, but you’d seen countless videos. You knew what they looked like, how they performed, what their technology was supposed to be like, what their weaknesses had been.

You saw so many planes go down. The alien ship had a different defense than last time, and the fight was only over when the alien ship suddenly left and moved on, seemingly just because it wanted to, not because the humans posed any kind of threat to it. When it left, it had taken out an entire city, just like last time. The town near the base had only recently gotten its infrastructure set up.

You and your three surviving pilots returned first out of all the other squadrons. You quickly climbed out of your plane and ran down to the hangar, asking about the other pilots still out there. You needed to know if Namjoon was okay.

Before you even got to the hangar, another alarm started blaring. A plane near you exploded, and you spun around, looking up at the sky.

There had to be over a hundred alien ships in the sky, all firing on the base and the planes.

“Get inside, now!” you yelled, pointing at the pilots from your squadron who’d ducked down near their planes. You knew the base had a bunker, and the number of people at the base now could easily survive down there long-term.

There was panic as people got down there as fast as they could, all climbing over each other and yelling. You stayed back where you could see the sky, ducking down in a safe spot and watching as long as you could. You only saw alien ships, none of your own.

You imagined Namjoon’s last seconds. If he hadn’t made it back to the base, there was no way he’d survive. The ships would find him. You could only see the planes you’d seen exploding earlier, hear the voices of the pilots in your squadron on your coms as their ships exploded. A cut-off shout, and then nothing.

You finally made yourself run down to the bunker. In the distance, you could hear the ships destroying every visible part of the base, every last truck and car and plane and tank exploding as the blasts hit them. The walls shook and lights flickered and dust fell from the ceiling as you made your way down the stairwell to the bunker.

Over the destruction above you, you could hear Namjoon’s voice that morning in his bed, the world frozen around you then, the only things that mattered his large, gentle hands, his slow, exploring mouth, and his soft voice.

“You’re so beautiful,” he’d breathed against your neck. You'd been able to feel his smile, the tip of his nose tracing your jaw, the warmth of his breath on your skin. You'd never felt safer than when you were laying in bed with him.

You pushed the door of the bunker shut behind you, your hands shaking and eyes welling up. You could not think about this; you had to push all of that aside for now. You had a job to do.

After about five minutes down in the bunker, the lights went out. The weak backup generator kicked on near-immediately, but now there was no connection to the outside world. If any pilots managed to survive this long, the base wouldn’t know about it or have any way of contacting them.

When you’d taken off, both you and Namjoon had been promoted to captains, to lead your squadrons. Once all of the remaining people at the base were down in the bunker and accounted for, you were promoted again, this time to major.

Almost everyone out of the thousand or so people on the base had gone out to fight. The only people who’d stayed behind were ground control officers, technicians, first years, civilians who worked on the base, and the top few people in charge. There were maybe a few hundred people down in the massive bunker now, and you ranked sixth in command out of all of them.

Namjoon would’ve been so jealous you outranked him, you thought with a small smile.

VI.

Four days passed with no news.

There was no service. There was no internet, radio, or any connection to the outside world.

You were itching to get out. There was no news from the outside world, but there also hadn’t been any explosions since the first day. The alien ships had to be gone by now. On the second day, you’d tried to suggest to the general that you could go up to the surface and see if an evacuation could be planned, but the general and other officers had all said that there was no need to evacuate, because there were plenty of supplies down here. They would continue to work on regaining communications with other bases, and nothing else immediately mattered until then.

Now, you were on your cot, staring at the ceiling above you. It was the middle of the night and just about everyone else was asleep. Most people slept on cots in what looked like an old gym, all lined up in long rows. Everyone had been given two changes of clothes, all gray jumpsuits. You felt like you were in prison.

The scratchy wool blanket was pulled up to your neck. You tried to imagine sharing the cot with Namjoon, the two of you squeezed onto the spot only meant for one and giggling when you just barely fit. You imagined him spooning you, kissing your neck and shoulder and holding you close to him. You imagined feeling his heartbeat in his chest. You imagined his face when his plane exploded.

It wasn’t fair. You’d literally just become something more than friends, maybe, kind of. Your relationship with Namjoon meant everything to you, and it had suddenly been changing in such amazing ways, and then he’d immediately been taken from you.

You refused to cry about this. You refused to even accept he was gone. There were ways he could’ve survived. There had to be. He could’ve flown low and ejected and hidden in the rubble of the city. Except he wasn’t a coward; you knew him, and you knew he was the type to win or die fighting. He could’ve led other survivors away from the city. Except there was no way these planes could’ve outrun the alien ships. They weren’t fast enough.

There had to be a way. You had to get up to the surface and find out. You had to find him.

VII.

After one week down in the bunker, you felt like you were going out of your mind.

You had a plan. You were going to go to the surface whether they let you or not. You were going to find Namjoon, or at least the remains of his plane. You were going to find him or find closure.

You needed climbing gear to get up the destroyed stairwell. You’d need to find rope and gear, a lot of water, and survival supplies. You began your plan, looking around for spare supplies nobody would notice was missing until you were gone. You knew where to find rope, but you had to figure out how to acquire and carry enough water. Plus you would need to bring medical supplies, in case Namjoon was injured. God, you could just imagine him, laying somewhere, bleeding out and barely conscious. You wondered if he’d thought of you, imagined you coming to save him.

You were seconds away from stealing rope from a supply closet when a short little man walked around the corner.

“Major?”

You froze in place. You weren’t in the room yet; you were innocent.

“Yes?” you said, smiling politely.

“The general wants to see you,” he said, and left without adding anything else.

Shit. How had they known? You hadn’t done anything yet, or told anyone or written anything down.

You made your way to the command center. Not much was going on there in the way of commanding anything, but it was where the higher ups — which now included you — met, and it was where they were attempting to reestablish communications with the outside world.

The room was busy with officers buzzing around. There were a lot of exposed wires hanging out of the walls. It looked like they were rebuilding a computer system circa 1970.

“Major,” the general said, motioning you over.

“Yes, sir?”

“You’re the highest ranking field officer, so this goes to you first,” he said, handing you a manila folder. “We’ve established communication with a base a hundred and fifty miles from here, but only briefly. They said they have seven survivors from our base. They didn’t say who.” The general quickly added the last part when he saw your face light up at the mention of survivors.

You glanced down at the folder. Before you could speak, the general continued.

“We need someone — a pilot — to go up to the surface and see if any planes are still intact, and if so, fly to Walker Base. If there aren’t any planes left, we’ll probably have you try to find a car, or hike if you have to. We need to get our relay codes to that base, and once we do, we’ll have full communication with them again. You up for it?”

You looked up at the general, smiling.

VIII.

It took you about an hour to climb the staircase. Most of it was rubble and a lot of it involved throwing up a rope and securing it on something to climb the huge gaps where the stairs had fallen out, but you eventually got to the top, pushing aside debris to get yourself outside.

The base was gone. There was no way any planes survived this. Still, you walked out onto the strip, just in case.

Some of the piles of charred metal were still smoking. A few small fires were still going, most of them out in the lot, where jet fuel must still be feeding them. You tried to see if you could spot where your and Namjoon’s rooms used to be, but it was all just rubble, ash, and charred cinderblocks.

You walked down the landing strip, looking at the piles of scorched plane parts, blasted to nothing. Pieces of metal jutted up, a plane wing here, a part of engine there. Every pile you saw, you imagined seeing Namjoon’s body among them. You knew if he was dead, he wouldn’t be here, he’d be out in the city — but seeing all of the destroyed planes wasn’t helping.

You stopped in your tracks.

At the end of the landing strip, under a broken wing of a much larger plane, was the most beautiful F-15 Eagle you had ever seen.

You ran to it, climbing on it when you reached it and pushing aside the wing of the bigger plane until it clamored to the ground. You climbed into the cockpit, dropping your backpack with supplies and the relay codes into the little compartment, feeling nearly dizzy in euphoria. You prepped the jet for takeoff, everything going smoothly, and you imagined Namjoon’s face when you showed up at the base. He’d be so happy to see you, but so surprised, and when you told him that you got promoted to major–

You stopped for a moment, your smile falling as you stared blankly at your hands on the switches and dials.

You didn’t know if he was one of the survivors at the other base. You shouldn’t get your hopes up just to show up and find out he wasn’t one of the pilots who made it. For all you knew, you’d get there and one of the pilots from Namjoon’s squadron would tell you all about how he died.

You focused on the task in front of you. You were on a mission, first and foremost, to get the relay codes to the base. That was the important thing right now, not yourself or Namjoon.

You got the plane prepped and ready to go. The center of the runway was clear, since most of the planes had been gone.

F-15s were always your favorite.

IX.

You didn’t attract any alien attention while flying, thankfully. You got there in just over twenty minutes; around the fifteen minute mark, you slowed down and the base contacted you on your descent into their airspace. You had to identify yourself and state your intentions, but the base seemed completely willing to let anyone human land.

When you landed, a few people ran out and took care of your plane for you, as you were escorted inside. You handed over the relay codes and quickly asked if you could see the survivors from your base.

“Most of them were pretty shell-shocked when they got here, but they’re soldiers. They know how it is,” the officer escorting you said as the two of you walked. “How many survivors at your base?”

“Three hundred and forty-two,” you said flatly, staring straight in front of you as you walked. “We had four pilots including myself return, the rest were non-flight officers and civilians. No casualties on the ground, but the base was destroyed in an aerial attack shortly after we landed.”

“Yeah, we heard about that. That’s why we got your other pilots,” the guy said, motioning in front of him in the direction you were walking, assumedly at the surviving pilots. “They didn’t have anywhere to land and thought the base was gone, so they came here. All from different squadrons, but led by one captain.”

You perked up when you heard that. A captain had survived.

You really did try not to get your hopes up. Your base was huge; there were so many squadrons, only one captain surviving was not good news for Namjoon. Still, you were hopeful.

You were led to a barrack where a few pilots were sitting around together, all men looking bored out of their minds. You recognized Park from your training class, and a few others as well. You scanned their faces quickly, looking from person to person, desperately searching for him, frantic and anxious and despairing when you looked and didn’t see him–

“Y/N?” a voice said from behind you, and you spun around.

Namjoon had walked in behind you from the other direction; he looked like he’d just taken a shower, from the wet hair, clean clothes, and bag over his shoulder, which he dropped as he stared at you in disbelief.

Neither of you even said anything. You were only about ten feet apart already, but you immediately met in the middle, desperately grabbing at each other, hugging tightly. Your legs were up around his waist and he held you to him as he kissed all over your face. The room was spinning or maybe Namjoon was just spinning you around, you didn’t care, you just held onto him and tried to kiss him, one hand in his hair and the other arm around his shoulder, trying to pull him closer.

As much as you wanted and tried to kiss him, Namjoon was just too much; it was like he was trying to kiss every last millimeter of your face at least twice. He was holding you so tight you almost couldn’t breathe, but you didn’t even care. His skin, his hair, his mouth, his kisses were all the most amazing things you’d ever felt. You were pressed chest-to-chest, arms wrapped around each other, and you could almost feel his heartbeat pumping along with your own.

Namjoon stopped kissing you long enough to nuzzle against you, closing his eyes as he rubbed his cheek against yours, nearly animalistic.

“I missed you so much, my love,” he breathed. You swore his face was wet with tears, his cheek still pressed against your own. “I haven’t thought about anything other than you. I haven’t stopped thinking about you this whole time, I love you so much… god, fuck, when I thought I’d lost you…” He started kissing your cheek again desperately, his hand coming up to hold your other cheek and hold you in place.

“I missed you too,” you gasped, your voice small and high-pitched as you tried and failed to hold in your tears.

“I love you so much, sweetheart. I love you, I love you, I love you,” he kept repeating, not even stopping speaking as he kissed you, so some of his words were muffled.

“I love you, too, Joon,” you managed to say before he kissed your mouth, tilting his head to kiss you so deeply it took your breath away.

“Okay, Jesus Christ,” somebody else in the room said then. “Do you guys want us to, like, leave or something?”

Namjoon stopped, catching his breath as you turned your head to look back at the six other pilots and the officer all awkwardly watching you.

“Uh, sorry,” you muttered, putting your feet back on the ground and turning around. Namjoon kept touching you, not taking his hands off you, even as you faced the others.

“I know you both outrank us, but get a room,” a different pilot laughed, his smile boxy and voice deep.

“You have a room, actually,” the officer that led you in said, perking up like that was his cue.

“We do?” Namjoon asked, confused. He stood behind you, hands on your hips, tall enough to see over your head.

“She does,” the officer gestured to you. “She’s a major. All superior officers class O4 and up get their own private room.”

“Major?” Namjoon said, tilting a little to look at your face. You smiled to yourself smugly.

“I can take you there now,” the officer said, motioning to the door behind him.

Namjoon stepped to the side and looked down at the ground shyly, glancing up at you and pouting. You wanted to roll your eyes; he actually thought you weren’t going to invite him to come with you.

“You too,” you said, holding out your hand for him.

Namjoon beamed, and quickly picked up his bag and jogged over to what must be his bed, grabbing the few belongings he had, and shuffled back over to your side, taking your hand and kissing you on the cheek before following along with you.

“Go get it, captain,” one of the pilots jeered at him, the others all snickering and wolf-whistling as Namjoon dropped your hand long enough to flip all the other pilots off while the officer led the two of you out and down the hallway.

As soon as the door was shut behind you in your room, the officer gone and the two of you alone, Namjoon dropped his belongings and picked you up again, your legs tight around him, the two of you kissing again. You felt your back against the cold metal of the old-fashioned blast door, one of Namjoon’s hands holding your face.

“How’d you get here?” he murmured against your neck after a moment, kissing your cheek between gasps. “They said the base was destroyed, no contact.”

“The attack happened right after I landed. Everyone got down in the bunker, no casualties on the ground,” you gasped, still a little short on breath. As you spoke, Namjoon kissed your neck, working his way up to your jaw. “They needed a pilot to bring relay codes here.”

“What’s this about you being a major now?” he said, smirking, his lips not leaving your cheek.

“Got an upgrade while you were gone,” you said, and then you gasped, laughing as Namjoon suddenly sucked your skin over your pulse on your neck, leaving behind a deep purple hickey.

“Well, Miss Major, that means you outrank me now,” he said, leaning back enough to smile at you, his expression a mix of mischievous and proud.

He stepped backward then, still supporting you with his arms, and walked back until he got to the bed, sitting down on it. He laid back, pulling you down on top of him gently, your mouths connected the whole way down.

He was the best thing you’d ever felt, his large, firm body contrasting his gentle touches and kisses. You couldn’t get close enough to him, but it was slow, lazy, loving, everything you’d ever wanted with him, his soft tongue in your mouth, his firm arms around you, his warm body under you.

You couldn’t get over how good he smelled. There was the soap he’d just used, but you’d known him and been close to him long enough to know his scent. He tasted so good too; he swirled his tongue with yours slowly, tracing lazy patterns on your tongue, kissing you so deeply your head spun. His hands rested on your back, his fingers spreading wider as he tried to touch more of you.

You parted for air as he rolled you both, holding your body to his with one hand as he pulled you up the bed, resting your head on the pillow as he gently laid you down. Even though you would’ve only fallen a few inches and the bed was soft, he set you down like you were made of glass, looking down at you with love and hearts in his eyes, not breaking eye contact as he gave you a small, warm smile.

His dark hair was mussed up a little from you running your fingers through it, and it looked fantastic on him. His face was flushed and his parted lips were red and a little swollen, and he looked like he’d been crying, or was about to cry, or both.

You pulled him down to you and kissed him again. He set his body against yours, lining himself up with you as you wrapped your legs around him. You were both still fully clothed, but you could feel him, pressed perfectly against you from your collars to his growing erection and your throbbing core.

“I love you,” he groaned against your neck, grinding slowly against you. “I’ve loved you for so long, I wanted to die when I thought something happened to you and I never told you. I promise I’m going to tell you now, every single day, every time I see you, every time we make love, every second of every day–” He cut himself off by kissing your neck desperately, moving down toward your breast.

“I love you, my angel. You’re the most beautiful thing in the world, I love you so much,” he said, kissing along your skin frantically by the collar of your ugly flight jumpsuit. “You’re my best friend, and I love you, I love you, I love you,” he said, kissing up the center of your chest toward your clavicle. His messy hair tickled your chin, and you rested one of your hands on the back of his head as he worked, gently stroking his hair.

“I love you too,” you managed to say, though words weren’t really coming to you right now, with all Namjoon was doing to you.

Namjoon got up then, and you watched for a moment as he started quickly stripping off his clothes. You sat up too, pulling off your jumpsuit, and Namjoon got all but his boxers off before your arms were even out. He helped you, running his hands along your skin as you peeled off the jumpsuit, leaving you in just the undershirt and shorts you’d had on underneath.

There was a moment where the two of you just sat there looking at each other. You’d both seen each other in this context — nearly naked — before, from sleeping in the same room to swimming to other random things you’d done together over the years, but this was the first time it was ever like this.

Namjoon raised his hands slowly, his fingers just barely skimming against your hips. His eyes were on your breasts, his mouth nearly watering, and you smiled at that. He looked up at you, his eyes innocent and showing every emotion he had within him; he was asking for permission.

You brought your hand up to his face and kissed him slowly, savoring every movement of his lips, the feel of his tongue, the taste of him. His hands went to your thighs and helped you wrap your legs around him, and then you were laying down again, Namjoon on top of you.

He kissed down your chest, this time simultaneously running one of his hands up your stomach under your thin undershirt. He cupped your breast with that hand, feeling you fully, while his mouth kissed back up to your neck. He got your undershirt off without either of you having to get up, though he did have to lean back a little to give you room to wiggle around, and then he unhooked your bra and threw that and your undershirt somewhere behind him.

Namjoon swirled his tongue around one of your nipples, gently squeezing your other breast with his hand, your peaked nipple hard against his palm. He rolled one nipple between his thumb and forefinger slowly while sucking the other, just barely using teeth and making you gasp, and then he switched sides, doing the same thing again.

“That feels so good, Joonie,” you sighed, closing your eyes and smiling to yourself. You stroked his hair while he worked, closing your eyes and tilting your head back. Every moment or so, you’d let out a moan for him, tightening your fingers in his hair whenever he did something that made you see stars, and he’d hum back to you, responding without taking his mouth off you.

Namjoon moved down your abdomen, kissing every rib, every freckle, every last inch of your skin. He dipped his tongue into your belly button and you gasped and giggled, feeling his grin against your skin as he kissed down your navel, his tongue tracing along the edge of the little shorts you still had on.

You reached down and tried to pull off your shorts, but Namjoon’s hands replaced your own, slowly pulling just your shorts off and leaving your panties. He tossed your shorts the same direction he’d tossed your bra, and then looked down at you, sitting back on his legs. Your legs were spread wide, your soaked panties the only thing covering you, your eyes desperate for him, your breasts rising and falling as your breath quickened in anticipation and need for him.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, his expression almost dazed in love and adoration. He looked like he didn’t know where to look, his eyes scanning your face, your breasts, your spread thighs, the spot on your panties where you were already wet and soaking for him. You bit your lip and whimpered, and he closed his eyes, sighing and smiling to himself, like he couldn’t believe how lucky he was.

Namjoon bent over and kissed your ankle, slowly, chastely. He moved to the other side and repeated that, kissing your anklebone. He moved up your calf, staying on that side, kissing you over and over and moving so slowly you started to whine for him, begging him to go faster and reaching down for him. He reached up and took one of your hands, holding it and lacing your fingers together as he continued what he was doing, not at all speeding up.

He kissed your knee, the side of it, the front of it, and tilting your leg gently to kiss the back of it. He moved up, kissing your inner thigh while still holding your hand. You spread your legs further for him, whimpering and squeezing his hand as he got closer and closer to your center.

Namjoon pulled back then, a smug smile on his face as he started moving down to kiss his way up your other leg, starting again at your ankle. You let out a whiney moan, pulling his hand and looking down at him, pleading.

“Okay, sweetheart. I’m sorry,” he said gently, moving back to where you wanted him most.

He kissed you right over your panties, a deep, open-mouthed kiss that made you cry out. You could feel him breathing hard through his nose, smelling and inhaling you as he moved his mouth against you, letting go of your hand so he could hold your thighs with both his large, perfect hands.

He licked and sucked the fabric of your panties, tasting where you were soaked for him. It was the most amazing thing you’d ever felt, and you spread your legs even further for him, your hands holding onto the sheets of the bed, your knuckles turning white.

You gasped when you felt teeth, and then Namjoon was slowly pulling your panties down your legs with his mouth, looking up at you with playful eyes and a smirk. You wanted to roll your eyes at him, but instead just closed your legs enough for him to get your panties off of you, letting him have his fun. He let out a small growl at you, your panties still in his mouth, and you giggled, a soft noise that made his eyes light up.

Before you could think or do anything, Namjoon was back between your legs, spreading you open with his fingers and licking a slow, thick line up your folds to your clit.

You cried out, your head falling back and eyes squeezing closed. Namjoon repeated the motion, even slower this time, moaning a little too as he let the tip of his tongue enter you for just a moment. You whined, pulling his hair hard and trying to spread your legs even further, and Namjoon stopped, humming softly as he turned his head and kissed your thigh.

“I love you so fucking much,” Namjoon murmured against your skin, kissing you there again. “Your pussy’s so pretty, my love. So soft and wet for me.”

“Joonie,” you sighed, stroking his hair. You could feel his smile against your thigh, and it made you smile, too. You felt warm, like you were glowing from his love.

Namjoon turned his head back and dipped his tongue into you again, this time further, like he was trying to see how far he could go. His lips sucked at your entrance as his tongue flicked in and out, not fast enough to get you off, but not slow, either. He moved his tongue like he was trying to drink you, lapping you up, bringing your wetness into his mouth and down his throat.

You moaned loudly for him, pulling his face harder against you by his hair, and he reached up and grabbed one of your hands, lacing his fingers with yours over one of your thighs.

He moved his mouth up to your clit, drawing random shapes over it with the tip of his tongue lazily while he curled two fingers into you. He moved clumsily, like he wasn’t exactly sure of what he was doing but just wanted to make you feel good, and what he was doing was definitely working. What he lacked in experience he more than made up for in eagerness and love, and when he moaned around your clit, and you nearly screamed.

“Jesus Christ, Joon, fuck. God, your mouth is… mmm, god, you’re so fucking good, that feels so good, Joonie, Joonie–” You cut yourself off with a long, agonized cry as Namjoon sucked your clit into his mouth hard, swirling his tongue around it as he suctioned his mouth and moved his fingers inside you faster. You repeated a chorus of nothing but his name between breathy moans as you held onto his hair with your free hand, your other hand squeezing his.

You gasped when you came, your whole body tensing as you saw stars and every nerve in your body exploded in pleasure. Your mouth hung open in a silent scream as you failed to breathe, your lungs tightening and your orgasm only building and building as Namjoon kept moving his tongue and fingers. You felt like you were floating in space, millions of stars around you all bursting at once, the entire universe stopping for you and Namjoon and the love you felt for each other.

After a moment, you took in a shaky breath, trying to recover while your mind was still mush. Namjoon was still moving his mouth on you, now licking up your wetness at your entrance and moaning to himself at the taste. If he kept that up, you were going to come again, and soon.

You moaned, pulling on his hair enough for him to look up at you, not stopping what his mouth was doing. You pleaded with your eyes, whimpering and pulling his hair again, and he put his lips to your entrance one last time, this time spreading his lips as wide as possible and sucking as he slowly closed his mouth. You gasped and almost screamed at the sensation of him actually drinking you, desperate to taste you.

Your second orgasm was smaller, making you shudder and gasp for just a moment before steadily breathing deeply as you tried to recover again. You looked down at him, barely able to lift your head; Namjoon was kissing your thigh, your hips, pressing gentle kisses to your skin as he slowly worked his way up your stomach. You could see how hard he was, his precum glistening on the head of his cock as it bounced against his stomach with his movements.

You started to reach down to grasp him, but he gently stopped you, bringing your hand back up by your head and lacing his fingers with yours. He kissed your collarbone, leaving a trail of wet kiss spots all over your body, your own wetness in the shape of his lips and chin.

“Please, Joonie,” you hummed, and he came back to you, kissing your lips slowly and letting you taste yourself on him. You wrapped your legs around him tightly as he lined himself up with your entrance, moaning when you felt the head of his cock against your folds, gasping when he started slowly sliding into you, every amazing inch of him filling and stretching you.

Namjoon buried his face in your neck, the length of his nose pressed against the curve of your jaw. He turned his head enough to kiss your neck, feeling your rapid, heavy pulse with his lips.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured against your neck, not opening his eyes. “So fucking tight and wet for me, my angel, my princess, my heart, my love. I love you so fucking much.” He kissed your neck again gently before pushing all the way into you and bottoming out, the stretch so wonderfully tight and full. You cried out, spreading your legs further and higher for him, grabbing at his shoulders, scraping your fingernails down his back as he filled you up so completely.

Namjoon pulled out slowly and then pushed in again, rocking into you. You were desperate, nearly delirious and just about ready to cry if he didn’t start moving faster. He seemed to just barely be holding on by a thread, his own orgasm already one sudden movement away from overwhelming him.

“God, Jesus Christ, Joon, fuck,” you cried, close to actually in tears now. You started to say something else but it turned into a small whimper as he thrust into you again, hard.

“I love you,” he groaned against your neck, “I love you so much, Y/N…” Your name turned into a long moan as he began his slow, torturous pace, both of you so close to the edge already. You didn’t know how he was possibly going so slow still, other than the fact he must want to torture you.

“Go faster, please,” you cried out, holding onto his shoulders as tight as you could and digging in your fingernails. “I need you so bad, Joonie. God, fuck me, please…”

“I love you, angel,” he said, kissing your shoulder. He picked up the pace a little, but it wasn’t enough. “I love you, baby, I love you so much. I love you, I love you–”

“Go fucking faster, now, please…” you sobbed, pulling his hair, making him hiss in pain, but he listened, reaching down and holding your hip with one hand as he started pounding into you, the force of it making the bed creak and your breasts bounce with each quick, powerful thrust. You were long past gone, moaning loudly with each exhale, and Namjoon groaned and grunted, his head against your shoulder as the two of you moved together, you rolling your hips up to meet him thrust for thrust.

Namjoon broke first. His orgasm hit him suddenly and he tried to keep moving, his thrusts sloppy, erratic, and uneven as he spilled into you, his mouth hanging open and eyes squeezed shut. He let out a long groan until he ran out of air, and then he didn’t inhale again until he finished, suddenly and harshly gasping in again, his whole body shaking in your arms.

He reached down and rubbed your clit furiously, and you only lasted a few seconds before you gasped too, clenching around his still half-hard erection inside you, which only made him groan in overstimulation as you squeezed and spasmed around him, gasping nothing but his name and feeling nothing but him, your love, your Namjoon.

Namjoon somehow managed to keep himself from collapsing on top of you. He moved to the side enough to fall beside you, one of his legs still between your thighs as he laid on his stomach, slightly turned in toward you. His hand moved up to cup and stroke your cheek as he lazily kissed your shoulder.

“I love you too, Joonie,” you said between shaky breaths, your vision almost blurry from lust and exhaustion and a dumb happy smile on your face. “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

X.

You laid there for a little while together before you eventually went another round, this time as slow as Namjoon had wanted to go the first time.

When you came this time, your orgasm had to have lasted at least five full minutes (or at least, it felt like that) as Namjoon kept moving in and out of you, keeping up his steady, slow, overwhelming movements that left you delirious with his cock inside you, his thumb on your clit, and his lips on yours, breathing in every moan of his name.

After you both laid there a while again, lazy in post coital haze, you eventually got up and went to your room’s personal little bathroom, where you turned on the tiny shower and let it warm up. You stood there feeling the water’s temperature with your hand while Namjoon stood behind you, arms wrapped around you and lips on your neck. It was like he couldn’t go more than a few minutes without saying “I love you,” not that you were complaining.

You showered together, Namjoon standing behind you the whole time and washing your body for you. He massaged your breasts, hands sudsy as the warm water fell down over them as he kissed your neck, murmuring sweet nothings in your ear. One of his hands fell down to your folds, stroking you slowly as his other hand moved to your breast, arm wrapping around you so that his forearm could also press against your nipple, stimulating and touching both of your breasts at once.

Namjoon slid two fingers into you as he kissed your temple. You could feel him hard against your ass, and that feeling made your eyes flutter.

“You don’t know how many times I’ve dreamt of touching you, pleasing you, making love to you,” he murmured into your hair. You responded with an agonized moan, reaching back and holding onto his shoulder for support. “I’ve wanted you like this since we first met. I dreamed about eating your perfect little pussy so many times, doing exactly this to you, feeling you squeeze my cock like you did earlier when you came so prettily. You’re better than anything I ever could’ve imagined though, baby. Your pussy tastes like heaven and feels even better. You’re so fucking perfect, princess, I love you so much, more than my heart can bare.”

You felt like he had to be bending you over slightly, his firm chest against your back. You swore you could actually feel his cock throbbing.

“I need you,” you moaned, your eyes closed as you felt nothing but his hands.

“I’m here,” he said, kissing your cheek. “I’m here, angel. I love you.”

“Need you inside me,” you said, spreading your legs to stand with your feet braced wider apart. “I love you, too, Joonie. Please…”

Namjoon didn’t need to be told twice. Hooking his arm around your waist for support, he bent you both over a little more, sliding into you from behind in one smooth motion. You cried out in ecstasy, he felt so good and big and yours.

It was fast and sloppy; he hugged you against him with both arms while you braced yourself on the tile wall in front of you. The sound of skin smacking against wet skin, his hips hitting your ass coupled with both your quiet moans and the wet squelching of him moving hard and fast inside you, echoing off the tile walls with the sound of the running water. He filled you so perfectly, stretched you out so far, you felt like he was fucking up into your guts, so hard and deep and good.

You came at the same time, Namjoon groaning and squeezing you harder as your eyes rolled back in your head.

When you’d both recovered some, you stood there under the water, still in the same position. You both knew base rules about wasting water, so you needed to wrap this up, but neither of you wanted to move.

You eventually got out and dried off, both of you getting ready for bed with the toiletries provided by the base. He couldn’t keep his hands off of you the whole time though, so the whole process probably took three times longer than it should’ve.

When you both finished, he pulled you to him, your arms wrapping around his shoulders as he kissed you, his hands spreading out on your bare back. Namjoon’s tongue slowly swirled with yours as he let out a small, contented hum, and he wrapped your legs up around his body, supporting you with one hand on your back and the other on your thigh.

Namjoon walked to your bed, carrying you, and laid down with you on top of him. You didn’t end up going another round, but you kissed for a while until eventually you started to move off of him to sleep beside him. Namjoon, though, held you there on top of him, keeping you there.

He murmured a soft little “please,” stroking your back gently, begging you to stay where you were on top of him. You laid back down and kissed right over his heart, before turning your head and resting your cheek on his chest, nuzzling in against him to sleep as he pulled the sheets up around you both.

You were safe in his arms. The world around you didn’t matter; not the people down the hall, not anything outside the base, none of it. The whole universe was just you and Namjoon in this bed, and nothing else existed. He was yours, and you were his.

#ksmutclub #hyunglinenetwork #bangtanarmynet #namjoon smut #bts smut #rm smut #kim namjoon #namjoon #my writing #namjoon fic #*

[jesawyer]

No Power Left to the Vanquished

My feelings, Conscript Fathers, are extremely different, when I contemplate our circumstances and dangers, and when I revolve in my mind the sentiments of some who have spoken before me. Those speakers, as it seems to me, have considered only how to punish the traitors who have raised war against their country, their parents, their altars, and their homes; but the state of affairs warns us rather to secure ourselves against them, than to take counsel as to what sentence we should pass upon them. Other crimes you may punish after they have been committed; but as to this, unless you prevent its commission, you will, when it has once taken effect, in vain appeal to justice. When the city is taken, no power is left to the vanquished.

- Sallust, quoting Cato the Younger, Bellum Catilinae

In the late years of the Roman Republic, a conspiracy arose from within the ranks of the Senate.  The aristocrat Lucius Sergius Catilina attempted to seize control of the government after his bid for consulship failed.  One of the consuls, Cicero, exposed the conspiracy and Catilina fled Rome to prepare an army.  Five of the conspirators were captured after the letters they wrote, in which they urged people to join the conspiracy, were intercepted.  The letters were read before the Senate and Cicero urged for the execution of their authors.

Julius Caesar pled for patience and clemency; after all, Rome had laws and customs to observe. He did not want to set a precedent that the ways of Rome could be set aside because they were inconvenient.  Cato the Younger, a longtime (and future) opponent of Caesar, spoke next.  His appeal won out because the Senate understood the reality of the scenario he was describing: when an institution is in imminent danger from those who seek to dismantle it, you must question if strict adherence to the institution’s laws and customs is worth more than the existence of the institution itself.

Fourteen years later, Julius Caesar, champion of Roman laws and customs, crossed the Rubicon in defiance of law, custom, and the explicit order of the Senate to mark what would become the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of Caesar’s rule of the Roman Empire.  Caesar’s respect for Roman norms and civitas ended when they put him in personal danger.  As for Cato, he died with the republic and subsequently became its most lionized martyr.

In 1923, Adolf Hitler and Erich Ludendorff, accompanied by hundreds of other Nazis and members of the paramilitary Sturmabteilung staged the Beer Hall Putsch, an attempted coupe d'état against the regional Bavarian government.  Hitler’s goal was to pressure the elected representatives in Munich to turn against the federal government in Berlin through a public show of force and violence.  It failed.  Hitler was imprisoned, but he used his trial testimony to continue spreading his propaganda and dictated Mein Kampf while serving his sentence.  The Beer Hall Putsch was a success for the Nazi party in spite failing to achieve Hitler’s goals.

Ten years later, Hitler was the presidentially-appointed Reichskanzler of Germany. While the Nazis had the most seats in the Reichstag, it was still a minority party.  To ensure the passage of the Enabling Act, which gave the chancellor the power to enact laws without the involvement of the Reichstag, Hermann Göring, President of the Reichstag, suspended the rules for quorum and outlawed the opposition KPD (Communist party) from participating. Sturmabteilung forces entered the assembly chamber to surround and intimidate the non-Nazi representatives into voting for the law.  The passage of the Enabling Act marked the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of Hitler’s dictatorship over the German Reich.

The differences between the Beer Hall Putsch and and the Enabling Act were differences of organizational power, instruments, and outcome, not intent.  In both cases, the same bad actors were seeking to overthrow an existing government.  President Paul von Hindenburg and Franz von Papen failed to recognize that Hitler and the Nazis not only threatened the principles of the aristocracy or their other political opponents, but the Weimar Republic itself.

Was the Weimar Republic worth saving?  It was, by most accounts, including the little my grandmother remembered of it, an awful state.  Its government was, putting it mildly, dysfunctional.  Many of its citizens lived through an era of terrible poverty and violence following the end of the first World War.  But the Reich is what came after.  All other avenues of evolutionary institutional or truly revolutionary change ended with the fall of the republic.  The world suffered for it.

Trump and his allies have been attacking American institutions for the last four years.  Trump doesn’t have the ideological drive of Hitler or the strategic acumen of Caesar.  He just has the most base populist instincts to agitate a mob.  What he shares with Hitler, Caesar, and other would-be dictators is a desire to remove opposition and the institutional mechanisms of opposition through whatever means are at his disposal.  If he can do it through an executive order, he will.  If he can do it through political pressure, he will.  If can do it through intimidation, quid pro quo exchanges, and other illegal actions, he will.  And if it requires a mob of supporters to storm the capitol during a Senate session to overturn their certification vote, he’ll try use that, too.

People have been likening what happened in the U.S. capitol to the Beer Hall Putsch.  It’s a fair and reasonable comparison, though Hitler did actually march in his own coup attempt and was wounded during its defeat; Trump just gathered people together, lit a fuse, and watched them go.  But it’s important to remember that the differences between the Beer Hall Putsch and the Enabling Act were of organizational power, instruments, and outcome.  What if there had been more pro-Trump agitators at the capitol?  What if the Senate had not been evacuated in time?  What if Trump had more supporters within the Senate to begin with?  What if Trump were even mildly more intellectually competent or the various online factional leaders in his mob were more coordinated in their tactics and goals?

Facebook, twitter, and other social media sites have deplatformed Trump.  Several companies have suspended hosting services for online communities that have been involved in coordinating fascist, white supremacist mobs in the past. Trump’s supporters, in ignorance or bad faith, have decried that this violates 1st Amendment rights.  They are wrong, but even if they were not, the events of January 6th, planned armed protests on the 17th, and threats of violence against Biden’s inauguration on the 20th, represent the kind of imminent institutional danger that Cato spoke of during the Catiline Conspiracy.  “When the city is taken, no power is left to the vanquished.”

We have wrestled with how the government and corporations should moderate social media since these platforms emerged.  We will continue to do so in the future.  While we must take guard against the transformation of severe actions in time of crisis into the de facto way of handling our day-to-day problems, we must also recognize and act to resolve crises as soon as they appear if we have any interest in preserving the institutions they threaten.

I think of myself as a socialist.  My political thought is not as educated, as principled, or as nuanced as many other socialists I know, some of whom think that any efforts to preserve or work within existing American institutions is, at best, naïve; in practice, counterproductive; and, at worst, actively reactionary.  I often look at our institutions through the lens of a designer.  When I do, I see systems that do not work to produce meaningful social change.  I see systems which do not often work to accomplish any goals of its body politic.  In practice, our systems serve the needs and interests of the ruling class and the powers that have the means and knowledge to manipulate the members of that class.  The systems confine the use of violence and its instruments to the state, as the state sees fit, often to the detriment and mortal peril of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable among us.  It is hard for me to sympathize with those who deify the state and its institutions, especially a state like America that treats its citizens so cruelly.  It becomes even harder when adjacent political cousins perennially denounce any hesitance to support milquetoast centrist candidates as tantamount to treason.  Even so, when fascists, white supremacists, advocates of genocide are positioning themselves to imminently dismantle these institutions through intimidation and violence, it is not difficult for me to see the value in their immediate preservation.

But if the state and its institutions do survive the next few weeks, we will still live in a world where social media and the principles of freedom of speech are vulnerable to the predations of those who would use their contentious legal status to spread lies, foment popular dissent, and, if necessary, coordinate another violent coup d'état when the time is ripe.  The next time, perhaps the popular figurehead will not be as ignorant, as incompetent, as craven, as plainly stupid as Donald Trump.  You can already see his would-be successors positioning themselves for 2024 in the waning hours of his presidency.  The next time, the populist agitators may be more focused in their goals, more coherent in their strategy, more careful in their communication.  Those among them who have witnessed the spectacular failure of imbeciles like Jake Angeli, Adam Johnson, and Richard Barnett may be shrewd enough to learn from the disaster as they prepare for the future.

The Weimar Republic became vulnerable to the schemes of the Nazi party because its representatives failed to address the needs of its citizens and because its leaders failed to recognize the magnitude of threat posed by leaders like Adolf Hitler, propagandists like Goebbels, and paramilitary groups like the Sturmabteilung.  Our elected representatives may have finally, at this recent brink of disaster, comprehended the threat that Trump and his supporters pose to the existence of the state.  After they make their way through January 20th, the federal government will have to address the needs of a disaffected, impoverished, violently-policed, often disenfranchised populace.  They will also have to disentangle the mess that the government has created through their laissez-faire attitude toward social and news media regulation.  Their actions in the immediate future will tell if they intend to effect meaningful change or if they are content to use the next four years to pave a road to the ruin of the republic.

#essay #politics

[rainy-day-coffee]

hi... how about head cannons about the dorm leaders with a magical girl mc from either the puella magi magica madoka, magical girl site, magical girl raising project or princess tutu universe please?

I'll be doing Magical Girl Raising Project for this one! I’ll be using the abilities found in the anime since I’m not creative enough to think of any myself. The personalities of the characters themselves have nothing to do with the abilities I chose, they’re their own person! This is written as platonic! I hope this is alright!

As an extra note, this was a really interesting topic to write about. I enjoyed it! I actually just binge watched this anime for this request! It was quite good, I might pick up the light novels!

Warning: Mild mentions of gore; spoilers for Magical Girl Raising Project(?)

Dorm leaders reacting to a Magical Girl Mc

A new game has been released! Customize your own Magical Girl and work hard to defeat monsters!

Granted a 1-in-10,000 chance to be a real-life Magical Girl, the unfortunate souls who agree to the contract are unknowingly pulled into a world of bloodshed. All Magical Girls are expected to collect Magical candies through acts of helpfulness. Whomever is at the bottom of the ranking list by the end of the week is greeted by death. That is, if they can even make it that far.

Magic: Swimming through objects as if they were water - the objects do not affect the user as they pass through them.

He’s never heard of an ability quite like yours! It isn’t teleportation--it’s literally going through objects, ignoring any kind of barrier. It sounds impossible. Understandably, he doesn’t believe you until you show him.

Please refrain from popping out of random places in an attempt to scare him. He doesn’t want to be on edge everyday, the stress he has now is more than enough.

He’s curious about the whole situation. Just how and why did these “people” wrap you (and others) into such a terrible contract? How is it possible to grant these special abilities onto otherwise magicless people? Unfortunately, you most likely don’t have answers for those questions.

Sadly, Riddle doesn’t know of a way to help you out of this. The library may have some information, but the chances are slim nonetheless. He can offer assistance in candy collecting instead!

Something always seems to be going on at his dorm, it would help him greatly if you were to keep an eye on everything and everyone. He knows it isn’t much, but every little bit counts. You have his full support.

Magic: Entering the dreams of others - the ability to pass through the Dream World, granting access to the dreams of those who are currently sleeping.

He’s extremely annoyed. He doesn’t understand what’s happening. He’s only seen you a couple times before, so why do you seem to plague all of his dreams?

In his dreams, you move so vividly and in-character, it baffles him. Dream versions of people can be accurate, but never to such an extent each time. He’ll confront you about it soon enough. He has no evidence of what you’re doing, however vivid memories of dream-you push him to demand answers anyways.

Highly uncomfortable to know his dreams, his usual safe place, can be invaded by a person. He demands that you stop. You can go bother someone else, he doesn’t need that kind of help. If he sees you in there one more time, he may have to resort to other methods to get you to stop.

In regards to earning candies, unless you ask him specifically for help, there isn’t much he can do. You can always help Ruggie out with chores around Savanaclaw and you’ll be set. It’s a good deal for both sides, you can earn some candies and Leona can finally sleep comfortably again.

He finds the system you’re stuck in deplorable. Unfortunately, he can’t get you out of it, but if you ever need extra help he can always have Ruggie find one or two ways to get you those extra candies you need.

Magic: Hearing the thoughts of those in need - with enough training, the user can pinpoint the location of a person. Additionally, they can hear thoughts apart from cries for help.

Your special magic interests him greatly. He already has a good pool of information of all the students, but being able to hear their most inner thoughts is something truly amazing. No amount of research could easily give him those kinds of details.

He has the twins watch over you for a bit, gathering as much information as they can about your situation and what you go about doing.

Given the circumstances, he doubts he can rob this ability of yours through a contract. This does however present an amazing opportunity.

This could blossom into a wonderful partnership. You need to collect candies, and he’s always willing to accept requests from those “poor” souls who need help. By helping him, you can meet your quota! The rules never did mention what kind of help you were limited to offer after all.

He pities you, nothing can be done about your situation at the moment. You can rest assured though, you’ll never be at the bottom of the leaderboard with him around!

When time allows it, Floyd and Jade will be busy poking their noses where they don’t belong. The mascot that appears when you’re around seems to come from that phone you use. If they can see it, then that means these beings have made a mistake somehow. Is it possible to find a way to free you from this through that?

Magic: Transforming into any biologically living being - the size and shape of the creature do not matter, anything is fair game.

When he first discovers your special magic, he’ll be amazed! Transformation magic isn’t exactly easy, so being able to turn into whatever creature you want sounds like a lot of fun!

He’ll be begging you to turn into a wide variety of animals. Can you please turn into a tiger? How about an elephant? Maybe an alpaca? This could go on for hours if you don’t stop him.

Upon learning the darker side of the Magical Girl world, he starts to cry. He knows the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, but this is too cruel. You didn’t know you would suffer this way. They should have at least given you all the information beforehand. Better yet, they shouldn’t be doing something so awful in the first place.

Because he finds it hard to keep secrets from Jamil, he ends up telling him about you. He then needs to convince Jamil that you aren’t trying to get him killed.

He goes around asking if people need help. He wants to do everything he can to ensure you survive. Money can’t get you out of this game, he’s tried to use it but that mascot that follows you around always refuses it.

Kalim doesn’t want you to die. Just thinking about it makes his head spin and worry bubble. It wouldn’t be his fault if you died in the first place, but the guilt would consume him entirely.

Magic: Freely manipulating sound - the user can generate sound from anywhere and even recreate the voices of others. As an added result of this ability, the user has enhanced hearing.

Vil won’t forgive you if you decide to mimic Epel’s voice so he can escape. He may be evading his lessons for now, but Vil will find a way to drill them into him later on.

He never would have thought such a thing was possible. This terrible fate you’ve had forced onto you makes no sense. The beautiful power you’ve been given is nothing compared to the price. He doesn’t blame you, he blames whatever is doing this. 

If such a game exists in the world of Twisted Wonderland, he’ll use his influence to dissuade people from playing. Vil will do this behind the scenes of course, his public image has to remain intact.

He actively requests your assistance. For example, helping his dorm improve their instrument playing--your impressive hearing can detect small mistakes they need to work on. Apart from this, he regrettably can’t offer more help.

Hone your abilities and work with what you have. He knows you can prevail. Please take care of yourself as you move forward.

Magic: Receiving one futuristic tool a day - the ability to randomly pick one useful tool out of 444,444,444. The tool breaks down and is no longer of use after a day passes.

He’s in awe. A real life Magical Girl! To think they could really exist outside of anime! Just what kind of world did you come from? Forget living in a world where magic is common, Magical Girls are on a different level entirely! Curiosity gnaws at him, but given how shy he is he won’t approach you with questions himself. Ortho is more than happy to ask any questions for him in his place though!

Once he finds out you’re one of those Magical Girls, he feels a tad sympathetic. You really got the short end of the stick in life didn’t you? He knew the possibility was there, that trope is not uncommon, but a small piece of him wished it wasn’t the case.

He supposes your special magic can be compared to gacha luck. You never really know what you’re going to get. Unfortunately, in your case you can’t even calculate rates for good rolls.

If you’re willing to let him, he’ll happily take apart the tools and gadgets you get from your daily pull. One of those future items should help him create even better machines than he can now! And even they can’t, disassembling and reassembling objects he’s never seen is a thrill in and of itself

If you happen to hear a small tip from Ortho or someone else about an issue occurring around campus, it may or may not have been Idia. He has eyes all around the school, spotting problems is quite easy.

He’ll be rooting for you from the sidelines. You’re a protagonist in this story, he hopes you can make it through to the end.

Magic: Extreme regeneration - being able to recover from any wound so long as a portion of the user’s body is left.

Mortified when he finds your body all mangled and bruised after a rough “accident.” Malleus is ready to destroy whoever or whatever did this to you. He cares about you greatly, the very thought of seeing you in such a state makes his stomach churn and pure rage wash over him.

Once you explain your situation, he can grasp enough to understand the major gist of it. He doesn’t quite know what a “Magical Girl” is but obviously it isn’t something good. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be in such a terrible situation.

To know that you can take care of yourself in the face of danger, makes him relieved. Although he doesn’t like the idea of you getting hurt at all, a healing ability is always wonderful to possess.

While you earn candies, Malleus will be working on a way to free you.

Even if these beings who granted you this ability are “all-powerful,” his magical capabilities are among the top in all the world. Perhaps, he can start by politely asking for answers from the leader of this group. If that seems to fail, killing off that mascot seems like a good place to start instead.

#twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst #twst x reader #twst headcanons #riddle rosehearts #riddle rosehearts x reader #leona kingscholar #leona kingscholar x reader #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #kalim al asim #kalim al asim x reader #vil schoenheit #vil shoenheit x reader #idia shroud #idia shroud x reader #malleus draconia #malleus draconia x reader

[bigskydreaming]

If you were editor of Nightwing's book ever since at least the start of Rebirth to today and you were given free reign, what would your story mandates?

Oh no, this is dangerous. LOL. Hmm, I have no idea what to shoot for here, so I'll try to keep it to ten. That's reasonable right? Ten is good. Yeah. Is fine.

Okay, so, in no particular order:

1) Let Dick be competent 101. None of this him having to play hype man for every other character to pop up in HIS title bullshit. Nope. That's not what they're there for. He's the lead man, LET HIM BE THE LEADING MAN. Like sure, everyone has their areas of expertise, he doesn't need or have to be the best at everything, blah blah blah.....but its about the nuance. All of that is kinda lip service because the thing is, you don't go into MOST comic books and NEED to be reminded of that because the lead characters of those books are all constantly getting saved or shown up or chastised by every guest star in their books, you know? This is a very weird, very niche phenomenon very specific to Dick's character, and I'm super over it. I'm here to read about the guy who has literally been doing this longer than most superheroes twice his age. The guy who's been doing this since before he hit double digits. The born acrobat. The destined ultimate warrior or whatever of Gotham's Ornithological Society Of Murder and Pretentiousness. Gimme that guy. And that guy doesn't need to be 'humbled' every other page, because the thing is, he's not some egomaniac to begin with so the everpresent need to humble him doesn't actually come off as humbling! It just comes off as pandering and not even to actual fans of the actual character, so its like.....wyd DC.

2) Let other people take responsibility for their own crap with Dick rather than always just expecting a mea culpa from him. I'm so unbelievably tired of the words I'm sorry from Dick. I love personal accountability, so I never thought I'd have to say this about a character, but enoooooough. They have made it completely in character for this dude to apologize to everyone ELSE for being brainwashed, getting amnesia, being KILLED, like.....the amount of things he's groveled for forgiveness for when he didn't actually do a damn thing wrong or worse yet, was the ACTUAL victim of is like....pretty damn staggering. And meanwhile, there's nary a peep of apology from the people who regularly insult or belittle him, get physically violent with him, take advantage of him or take him for granted, etc, etc, etc. Its entirely too one-sided and imbalanced, and the pendulum needs to swing the other direction, like YESTERDAY, and in a fairly big way, IMO.

3) None of this Baby's First Social Justice Awakening 101 crap. I'm sorry, but no. Especially not when you go out of your way to acknowledge that Dick is Romani, only to then turn around and act like he's only JUST had his eyes opened to an awareness of like, classism and poverty and the real struggles people face day to day? Sorry not sorry, but especially for other white writers out there, do not use people of color as self-inserts for dipping a toe into Learning To See Past Privilege. And especially when talking about a character who has a history of being actively abused and hurt by the system and institutions of power, or hell, even leaving out that particular origin story, who has still been out on the streets helping people since he was a literal child. You can not tell me that this is his first face to face experience with social issues, or the first time he's had the inclination to try and address those head on. (And its also particularly egregious that the people second-guessing Dick in his own title and giving him reality checks or acting like they have more of an awareness of all this than he does like, happen to all be white? OPTICS. LEARN ABOUT THEM. COMMON SENSE. GET SOME.)

Know what would actually be a better way to approach this? Flashbacks. Show us Dick running into situations that make him think back to a case when he was still Robin, when he and Batman had started fighting over their approaches to things, actually SHOW us those conflicts and how their viewpoints had started diverging, and how much of that was due to Dick not having the same experiences as Bruce, or the same standing in society, no matter what house he lived in. THEN you can jump BACK to the present, with the reminder/awareness that this is something that isn't NEWS to Dick, but that he in the past felt he was forced to make his peace with as something he wasn't in a position to do that much about....only NOW, he's in a very DIFFERENT position, and suddenly it just hits him how he's still acting like he did when he was limited in resources or in having to be part of a chain in command or having to factor other responsibilities into things....now he ACTUALLY has the power and the resources to make meaningful change in the ways he ALWAYS wanted to, but maybe just needed time to figure out HOW.

Like you know what would have made Shawn Tsang's story arc so much better? If Dick didn't just remember her as the Pigeon's one time teenage sidekick he'd briefly fought as a kid, but like.....if he remembered her as someone he and Bruce had FOUGHT about. Because he didn't agree with sending someone to juvie for defacing public property as a form of political protest, when it was someone's LIFE who was going to be irrevocably damaged by that while the damage to the city could be fixed with a check, and what made Dick any more deserving of Bruce's leniency and faith in his potential or underlying goodness than Shawn?

But he was still a kid himself back then, and when Bruce responded with his usual conviction, talking about the importance about rule of law and etc etc, Dick just didn't have the words to get through to him then, to get him to understand that this wasn't just Dick not getting it because he was too young, it was BRUCE not getting it, that Dick was literally just saying well he wasn't too young to have been in juvie himself, and of the two of them, he's the one who has experience there so why was Bruce's opinion on whether this was the punishment that fit the crime the one that got to hold more weight here? When Dick's the one who knows what that punishment actually LOOKS like beyond the abstract, for whom it was a reality that still haunts him in ways that even defacing a few statues of some rich old fucks doesn't deserve?

Or hell, go back FURTHER than when he was Robin. Idk where any of those posts are, but I've always wanted to see something where Dick maybe runs into someone he remembers from his time in juvie, maybe a guard who is like, the source of the reasons Dick mistrusts figures of authority and is so hung up on independence and not being under anyone's thumb, or maybe someone who was in there with him, another kid who looked out for him when he didn't have to, etc. Gimme Dick tackling head-on his firsthand awareness that there's no rehabilitation to be found in a jail for kids, when most of those kids don't even need rehabilitation in the first place and only did what they did in order to survive or escape from worse situations or like, were there purely because of racist cops, etc. Let him go after THAT system, driven by personal experiences and memories that maybe only hit him in full after recovering his memories from the Ric Grayson arc, like they're things that he put in a box in his mind a long, long time ago because he didn't have the spoons or reserves to deal with them when he was a kid still so traumatized in so many ways, like, something had to give and so he put all those memories away for another day and just....never got back to them because life kept hitting him with new and fresh trauma every week.

But now something has him thinking back to those early days in Gotham, and reminding him that not everyone had a Bruce Wayne willing and able to give them an out from that place or acrobatic skills to escape it on their own, and like. You want to do something about the cycles of violence in Gotham and Bludhaven? Why not start with the places that literally MANUFACTURE cruelty on an institutional level, that teach kids that no matter what they did to get put there, even if that was nothing at all, they're all going to be treated the same way and given no reason NOT to do whatever it took to be top dog in a dog eat dog world by the time they got out.

There's SO many better approaches to social awareness in the Batbooks than what we're seeing, and like. Sheesh. The bar is way too low.

4) On a related note, if I'm editor of the Nightwing book, the FIRST thing I'm doing is making it a priority to find a writer of color for that book, ideally someone of Rom descent. Its waaaaay past time to let a Romani writer take the reins on Dick, Wanda, Pietro or Doom, aka some of the only prominent Romani characters out there? You can't tell me that there aren't talented writers who identify as Roma who would be more than willing to add their perspective to Dick's archive of narratives, and if an editor's gotta go looking for them? Go fucking look. DC and its fans have milked a lot of mileage out of the idea of Dick being Romani with very little in the way of nuanced storytelling to show for it in the past twenty years, and if DC wants to trot out little reminders that Dick is Romani every couple years, like in the form of a freaking line that has no follow up or expansion to any degree and is offset by an internal monologue that otherwise reads as incredibly privileged, the least they can do is TRY to expand on that with the narrative perspective of someone they claim to be representing via that character.

And no, this isn't gatekeeping, this is prioritizing. Its not about preventing other writers from writing this character, like just for the hell of it, its about being proactive about finding a writer who can write specific aspects of this character that have long gone unaddressed or poorly represented. And like. Okay. Its not easy breaking into the comics industry for anyone, but its particularly not easy for marginalized writers. Most every major comic book company just recites 'make your own stuff first and then show us that' but when you're a writer specifically, finding a compatible artist to partner with on creator-owned indie stuff first, when those artists are in the same position as you are and apologetically and understandably tend to have to take paying work over yours if you can't pay except on the back end, like....there are a lot of hurdles to getting your start in comic books, and while there are more and more marginalized writers in comics these days, DC and Marvel kinda fucked up, because you know what?

After being told 'make your own first, then we'll talk,' writers DID do just that....but then found out that well, due to the ease of online distribution and access these days, for any writers who CAN find an artist to partner with, its a hell of a lot easier to get their content out there these days WITHOUT a major publisher behind them.....and for a lot of marginalized writers in particular, its worth it to keep full creative control in exchange for smaller circulation. Especially when they don't have to deal with editors 'softening' their work to make it more palatable for audiences that quite frankly aren't necessarily their primary target. So yeah, marginalized voices are becoming more and more present in comics, but Marvel and DC for the most part are keeping the same voices centered they always have, and what these voices have to say is becoming less and less relevant and outdated. Because much like this arc from Taylor, even when they DO dip their toes into story matter that's of interest to wider audiences, they're doing so to a degree that still puts them years behind the conversations everyone else is having.

5) The same holds true of disability representation. I stopped reading Taylor's run for a lot of reasons but his way of responding to people unhappy with his depiction of Babs was a key one. If I'm editor on a book, and someone tweets at one of my writers that their depiction of a disabled character was hurtful because it feels like they're doubling back on everything Babs has ever said about not being defined by or ashamed of her disability and now its being treated like a dirty little secret, and that writer's response is essentially to just laugh at them and say there's nothing wrong or ableist about their writing of a disabled person, TO a concerned disabled person? That writer's ass is getting fired. Full stop.

Either you give a shit about this stuff or you don't. Don't pay your readers lip service about how important social issues are to you and how much you care about using superhero narratives to inspire people on these matters if you're gonna turn around and show your ass the second you don't feel comfortable and prioritized by the conversation, like it wouldn't exist without your oh so valuable contributions. ESPECIALLY if you don't identify as sharing the same identity of the marginalized character you're writing. You are a guest in someone else's lived experiences at that point, and you think you've got the right to belittle and talk down to the people who LIVE THERE? Fuck off, my dude.

6) Re-center Dick as someone who the superhero community RESPECTS. I love seeing Dick depicted as someone who has an awareness of his own limitations and an appreciation for what others bring to the table, and so I'm not opposed to him calling on others when he needs to.....but I also would like to see more of the opposite. But not in the way we usually see it these days, where he's asked to come help with a crisis and then usually second-guessed the whole way, and then sent back home without so much as a thank you when its done. Yawn. Sorry. I've read that story by now.

You know what story arc I freaking LOVED as a kid, back in the 90s? In Green Lantern, when Kyle Rayner first became the sole GL, one of his very early arcs, before he ever joined the JLA or anything....was him realizing how little he knew about being a superhero. He was like, my predecessors all had a full fledged CORPS to teach them everything they needed to know, but I had a few lines of exposition from a funny little blue guy in a red pillowcase and then I was off to the races. That's not good enough. There's so much I don't know about being a hero, I don't even KNOW what I still need to know.

So he went on kinda a superhero training roadtrip. He went to Metropolis to ask Superman for advice, he went to Batman to learn from Batman and Robin (Tim at the time). He went to Wonder Woman, Sentinel (Alan Scott, the first Green Lantern), etc, etc. And in the end, Kyle very much became his own kind of hero who wasn't just a pastiche of all those other heroes and the advice they gave him, but like....this put him on the road to that.

And I'd love to see something like that happen in Dick's solo title. We've seen him train in a team setting, we've seen him train the other Robins.....I'd love to see like, young superheroes from OTHER books, not ones created by the title, but like names people actually recognize from other franchises, like, guest star in Nightwing's book to learn from HIM, specifically. I wanna see something where Wally looks at the latest speedster and is like, you know what, if you really wanna be the best hero you can possibly be, then Nightwing's who you gotta go to, because there's no one I trust to make a better hero out of someone than him. I want the newest kid on the JLA block to worry that people aren't taking him seriously because of his age or experience, and he's always hearing them talk about Nightwing and how young he was when he started and so if anyone knows something about how to gain the respect of your older superhero peers, that's the guy to talk to.

Gimme Dick's couch being crashed on at various times by a half dozen new or upcoming young superheroes who all heard or figured out that if they really want to up their superhero game, Nightwing's the guy to see.

7) Bring back Bea. There's no long paragraph expansion on this, its really simply. Bring back Bea. She was one of the freshest breaths of air in Dick's supporting cast in ages, most of the current run is based off her character direction in the first place, she's literally the best suited TO help Dick in this venture, and the reasons they gave for writing her out of Dick's life were all bullshit and they just wanted to focus on his previous relationships, which would be fine if they didn't fall into the same two endless cycles of bring back up, go nowhere with, awkwardly avoid each other for years, rinse and repeat. Like. Bring back Bea, please and thank you, the end.

8) Focus on new villains. Heartless is meh, but the idea of new villains is still better IMO than rehashing Blockbuster, Zucco, etc. Like, nostaglia ain't it. If I want to read Blockbuster fucking up Dick's life, I can do that. They're called back issues. The thing is, love it or hate it, the Blockbuster arc WAS iconic. It left its mark. And anything that doesn't leave just as much of a mark, if they're going to bring him up again, is just gonna be a waste of time, you know? It'll just dilute his overall presence when like, what he was - worked fine as is. We don't need Round Two.

The trick to good villains, IMO, is they have to speak to a fight that needs fighting.

What I mean by that is....the best villains are those who resonate on a more instinctive level because they embody something that already exists in a reader's mind as a conflict that needs fighting. Like, if superheroes exist, if the embodiment of larger than life presences and forces devoted to protecting the world from various things are real....then their villains need to embody the kinds of fights or conflicts that NEED larger than life figures to combat them, at least on a one to one level.

Look at Superman and Lex Luthor. Superman at his core embodies the strength of community. He's the ultimate hero of the people, his essence is that he was the last survivor of a doomed race who was raised by two honest, hard working people to see the beauty in just being ONE of them, in using what he had on behalf of all of them and not just himself. In contrast, Lex Luthor is basically the embodiment of capitalist greed, of excess, of the entitlement of being able to have anything with a snap of your fingers and thus assuming that gives you divine mandate to make the kinds of choices that he sees as only his right to make.

He hates Superman, ultimately, because Superman is the WRONG savior of the people. He wants their only savior to be HIM, half the time he honestly believes he's saving the world FROM Superman, but just as often he's perfectly content to be the villain and not shy about it....because Lex Luthor's ultimate motivation is he wants everyone to know when he's dead and gone that LEX LUTHOR WAS HERE. He genuinely doesn't care WHAT his impact or legacy is at the end of the day, just that it exists and it overshadows most everything else...because all that really matters to him is the irrefutable proof that HE mattered. And thus at their cores, Superman and Lex are perfectly opposed. Ideally situated to eternally be in conflict, their own forever war, because their core natures are incompatible. They CAN'T compromise, without compromising themselves and essentially ending up as someone totally other than who and what they are already.

And you can go down the list. The Joker is the chaos to Batman's order, while Mr. Freeze is the stagnancy of that order taken too far, he's what you get when you freeze everything in your grief and refuse to let anything go on, anything new grow, because that would mean having to admit once and for all that what you're mourning is really gone. Two-Face is the ultimate embodiment of Man vs Self, a once good man at war with his own worse nature, and reminding everyone who looks at him how easily they could fall to the same fate.

And so on and so on. What Dick needs, is more of the same. Like, as much as I'm not a huge fan of Talon stories, I maintain that the Court of Owls were a great foil for him - just they tend to be poorly used in canon as well. But I also think how poorly they come off in canon has a lot to do with canon not really touching on WHY they're such a perfect foil for Dick....and that's Dick's history with being outside the system, mistreated and even exploited by the system. Because the Court, their core concept, is they ARE the system. They are entrenched, enfranchised, institutional power, passed down through generations, dynastic control that is a perfect counterpart to the dynastic power of the Wayne family, embodied in its youngest generation in the form of Bruce's FOUND family, the children he adopted regardless of whether or not his peers found them deserving of that honor. The Court, and their entire....thing...about the Gray Son, is the entitled fury of those denied something they deem theirs simply because they WANT it, and who will burn the whole world down rather than admit defeat or let someone else have it instead.

And that resonates. It could resonate a lot MORE if DC would actually lean into those concepts and allow Dick to explore how the Court are nothing he's not used to, they're literally made up of the same people who have looked down on him ever since he came to Gotham, but now they're actually a face and a name put to all those attitudes, something he can literally FIGHT BACK AGAINST. The Court are literally human-sized embodiments of everything and everyone who's tried to confine Dick since his parents' deaths, tried to define him without his permission, tried to make him other or lesser than who and what he is.....and who thus now exist in a form that Dick can literally BATTLE. So that he doesn't HAVE to just take this stuff lying down.

Thanks to the Court, he doesn't HAVE to just passively accept it, that this is just how life is, that some people are going to view him this way and think this about him and there's nothing he can do about it. He CAN do something about it, in superhero stories. He can kick its ASS, in the form of the Court of Owls and everything its members think about him and intend for him. He can refuse to bow down to them, to accept their mark on him. He can say lol, no, and then blow their shit sky high, ideally with a little help from his family. He can BEAT them, in this incarnated form, and in doing so, even though he can't beat everything they stand for and represent, that victory still matters, still means something symbolic to readers it resonates with.

And that's what we need more of. Villains created specifically to embody concepts that are diametrically opposed to Dick and what he represents. The system, yes, but also villains who embody the kind of tyranny and control he fights back against in his constant battles for autonomy and self control. Villains who embody the 'new hopes' of a second generation just like Dick himself is the focal point of the hopes embodied by the second generation of heroes. I'm actually not the hugest fan of multiversal constant Dick Grayson, but I might like it more if he had an opposite number there, someone he was specifically contrasted with. Idk.

But you get it.

9) Dick having a social life. Gimme the Titans and his siblings showing up JUST to show up. We have room enough for at least a couple pages every other issue where we just get to see these characters having some breathing room, taking a beat to stop and be something other than just a superhero, to be human as well. There's more to life than 24/7 fighting, even for them, and that's largely been lost in modern superhero comics, which kinda sucks, because that was what made most of the more iconic and lasting dynamics between various characters like, STAND the test of time. The larger than life battles between good and evil might be what many of us come to superhero comics FOR, but the relatable back-and-forths and ups and downs of their private lives spent with friends and family tends to be what keeps most of us coming BACK. And lately its all just mission, mission, mission, and I'm like blah, blah, blah and its like, meh, meh, meh. Y'know? Give the guy some down time, and let his friends come spend it with him.

10) Boone. This is purely self-indulgent, but if you know anything about me, you know my obsession with Robin: Year One, Dick's brief time at Vengeance Academy, and the hate/hate relationship he has with his brief frenemy from that period, Boone aka Shrike. This character has SOOOOO much potential to be Dick's true archnemesis and rival, and like. *Sobs* I can't get into it all again. Its too much. I can't do it.

Okay, I absolutely can. And will, probably. But like. Later.

BONUS ROUND:

Other thing I would absolutely insist upon if I were Nightwing editor....

GET THAT FUCKING MEME SHIRT ABOUT BRUCE SLAPPING DICK THE FUCK OUTTA HERE.

Like. Seriously. WHAT THE HELL. Why would you double down on THAT? Why is Babs STILL wearing it? (Last I checked, like I think I saw it in a scan from last issue? I'm pretty sure its still there? If not, forget this entire rant, and I am very embarrassed. Okay not that embarrassed. I don't really care if I'm wrong here but like, in case I'm not)...

WHY. Who thought that was funny? No, seriously, on behalf of any other abuse survivors who like me are SERIOUSLY not amused, who the FUCK thinks its FUNNY to have one of Dick's best friends sporting a shirt that no matter what it represents IN universe, to readers OUT of universe, is always going to call to mind the fact that this meme only freaking EXISTS because of all the times DC has obliviously and without acknowledgment written Bruce abusing his children, including the BFF that Babs is literally wearing that right in front of.

Like omg do you hate her, DC? What other possible reason could you have for thinking that would be a cute, funny thing for her to wear around the guy getting SLAPPED, by his DAD, in your shirt's iconography.

Okay I'm done.

LOL.

Sorry, that last one was brewing for awhile. Deep breaths. Woo.