#aside from war and like... racism

[mutfruit-salad]

read your criticism and have a genuine question about your thoughts on the branding scene. i completely understand how max's branding is inherently tied to a racist history, and it always will be, but i dont feel like the scene itself was written with that bias/intent. thaddeus also gets branded in later episodes and it's implied to happen to every aspirant upon their promotion. at what point in writing are black characters morally barred from specific story points because of their similarities to a history that's not directly related? sort of similar with barb, at what point can black characters not do bad things at all, especially in a story where there are near a dozen non-black characters who do worse things? also considering it's implied (at least, i understood it as) she's sticking to vault-tec to protect her family?

I am not in the best position to comment on this, because I am not black. I will do my best to add what I can, but this is a space for others to chime in.

Barb is interesting because she's essentially become the person who did the most heinous crime in the entire setting- by far and away worse than anything anyone has ever done. There really aren't white characters who did worse things- because all the crimes of Caesar or the Enclave or whoever else pale in comparison to being the one who literally set into motion the total annihilation of all nations on Earth. (This is setting aside her willing participation in the inception of the vault experiments- which is an entirely separate also horrific crime.)

The issue is they've created a setting that is, as presented, colorblind. Race is invisible to the writers, who did not consider it meaningfully while producing the show- as is often the case with white creatives putting characters of color into their stories. Colorblindness does not always produce entirely racist results- and when done with tact and intentionality it can even be revolutionary. Look at the relative inclusivity of star trek as an example, and the radical depiction of Uhura in the original series.

The thing that makes Fallout different from Star Trek however is that it is not depicting its colorblind future with tact and intentionality. This is a show that is intensely concerned with depicting the specific brand of nationalistic American politics of the 1950s and the Cold War- and they've reproduced that system for the show but with a black woman at the head. That's where the issue comes up.

This was a system that had racism baked into it by design. It still does. American Nationalism and corporate violence are built on racism against black people and other minorities. And this show desperately wants to depict these things, but they've decided to put a black woman at the head of them. They're depicting systems that are, by their nature, violently racist- but they've decided to portray them as being run by a black housewife.

Fallout 3 does a similar thing with how it depicts every major slaver as a black person. Eulogy Jones, the slave buyer at Paradise Falls, the head slaver in the Abe Lincoln memorial, Ashur in The Pitt. Hell Mothership Zeta adds in a black woman from the wasteland and even SHE'S revealed to have been a slaver. This is something Bethesda consistently does- depicting ideologies and practices with a deep history of racialized violence- and then showing black people at the head of them, seemingly to try to avoid actually addressing any aspect of racism in their stories outside of hamfisted metaphors like synths and ghouls. (I use Fallout 3 as an example but Fallout 4 does many of these same things.)

Thaddeus does also get branded, and he does also get treated to the same demeaning servanthood as Maximus. The difference, quite frankly, is that Thaddeus is white. There are just some things that are straight up inappropriate to depict happening to black characters without appropriate thoughtfulness and context. Never before this series has the Brotherhood ever done brandings- and yet this show opens with it in the first episode and introduces this brand new jarring concept with the visceral image of a black man being branded by faceless fascist cultists.

It's also important to note that even if they didn't intend the scene as racist, it still is. Like I don't think the scriptwriter sat down and said "oh I'm gonna do a racism" cuz intent just doesn't matter here. The scene was intended as a way of showing the severity of the brotherhood- but it also thoughtlessly reproduces images of historic black violence.

@orange-coloredsky I know you've been talking about this stuff all day, and your initial posts about the antiblack racism in the series were what prompted me to write my thoughts today- which is what this ask is in response to. I was curious if you have any other input with all this.

I'd also be more than happy to have any additional input from people better suited to answer these questions.

#fallout #fallout show #fallout 3

[centrally-unplanned]

I strongly appreciated that Matt Yglesias a bit ago put some focus on the long tail of the educational reform movement in America, because in the Trump/Woke era its got tossed aside as a salient issue in exchange for new fronts. But history never works quite like that, and its still the grounding for a lot of modern issues that is just opaque, but still powerful.

And he completed my thought for me when it came to this ridiculous story of a consulting company called, inexplicably, "Woke Kindergarten" that was paid 250K to give antiracism training to a San Francisco elementary school's staff. Obviously it did nothing because DEI trainings don't work even for their own goals and sensitivity training for SF teachers is not the vector any issues with student achievement is riding on, but we all know that.

Instead its notable that up until the early 2010's, there was a strong, bipartisan initiative to use test scores to hold schools accountable for their results. Which schools hated! For the classic reason of all institutions hate scrutiny, but also for the somewhat fair reason that schools don't have that much agency of their student's learning to begin with, so that accountability could often be arbitrary. So one of the ways to outflank that initiative - at the time led by the Obama administration - from the left was to critique it from the angle of racism. Both accurately pointing to structural inequalities outside of the system (which proponents thought they could account for etc etc, its a whole debate) and using far more dubious critiques like saying standardized testing is inherently racist. This was always an idea "in the water" but in ~2000 you didn't find school principals with this idea - but by 2012, you did, as they had picked it up as ammo to fight the Reformers.

And then when Trump got elected and the culture war exploded, this was a ready-made faction to jump into the fray and piggy-back off the agenda. Its a real showcase of the "long roots" of ideological shifts - they are almost always composed of shifting factions under the surface bringing their own baggage into the system. Since we memory-holed the 2000's education wars, we often miss this side of it.

[loveoaths]

Anakin is not racist

oh, man, that was fast!

listen. i’m gonna assume you’re an anakin fan — great! so am i! — but anakin is objectively an awful person and a canonical space-racist. that’s apparent even if you’re new to Star Wars like i am.

from Legends:

when asked about his view of the tuskens, anakin’s immediate response is “i have no use for tuskens.” i mean, i don’t know what there is to explain about that, because it’s right there. a whole race of people he doesn’t care for because they aren’t “useful,” as if that’s all people are meant to be to him. his issue with them is apparent but he won’t name it.

a’sharad hett directly names anakin’s issue: he is prejudiced. and anakin does not deny this. he “apologizes” but does not specify for what, because he knows he’s supposed to. you don’t just admit you’re a racist, especially not to a Master Jedi. which is exactly what irl racists do, lmfao.

when push comes to shove, anakin outright SAYS it.

“I know what you are — filthy, sneaking, Tusken! Animals! Hiding behind your masks! Your kind tortured and killed my mother and I’m glad I killed them all!” (Emphasis mine)

like, listen. this is racist as hell. the racist dog whistle is now a racist klaxon, alright. he sees the tuskens as subhuman, as inherently untrustworthy because of their appearance and their culture, and he is not only not bothered by killing them, but he’s happy he did it. you could argue anakin is shielding himself from his guilt with self-righteousness, which i might buy with any other character, but anakin is down right unrepentant.

it wasn’t enough for him to kill the tuskens responsible, which even a’sharad notes would have been acceptable in Tusken culture; anakin wanted them all dead, because they’re all guilty to him solely by virtue of being Tusken. this anger and hatred and bigotry pushes anakin to even lash out against a’sharad, a tusken jedi, fully dropping any pretense that he is okay with a’sharad despite him being half-tusken and a jedi. because you know what anakin is following? the ONE DROP RULE! even a drop of Tusken blood is too much tusken.

and still the wrong lessons are learned. for some godforsaken reason a’sharad learns he needs to be seen as a Jedi first and not a Tusken, which is not only antithetical to the Jedi way, but totally opposite to the point of this encounter, which is that we are all many things all at once, and pretending otherwise leads to destruction. anakin is a jedi and a murderer and a racist and the chosen one. ignoring the unsavory and cruel parts of him, never exposing him to the jedi council, and hoping his “better nature” would win out over time ensured that it never would. a’sharad is a Tusken and a jedi and many other things, but his wrongful assumption that pushing aside his heritage will gain him favor eventually causes more problems for him.

the only reason anakin and a’sharad stop fighting is because a’sharad removes his mask, revealing, tada, a hot human face! now anakin is capable of an insincere apology. but he still assumes the markings on a’sharad were forced on him, because he still believes tuskens are a barbaric and cruel people. then the moment is moved past so they can escape.

and despite this shit-ass “heart to heart,” anakin walks away with zero appreciation for a’sharad or the Tusken culture. he fails a’sharad’s lesson: it’s not that he can’t see a’sharad as human, as a person, as a jedi, it’s that he won’t, because he is attached to his view of the tuskens as lesser than, because it excuses his behavior, because it makes him righteous, because it makes him feel better, because it solidifies his entitled view of the world. which is exactly how irl racism and whiteness work.

and the final word on the subject is this. when all is said and done and anakin is asked if he would kill the tuskens again, knowing what he knows about them now, his answer is a cold, unmoved, “Yes.”

now, i know the Legends comics are not officially canon; the new canon is whatever Disney chooses to use and whatever appears in the movies. however, even if we just look at the clone wars, which are now canon to the Disney SWU, there are several instances in TCW where anakin makes disparaging comments about another species’ appearance, intelligence, and capability. i don’t have those on hand because i am not trawling through 7 seasons for quotes for you, but you can find them if you want to look.

my final thought here is this: i am not disparaging anakin fans (fanakins, if you will); like i said earlier, i am fascinated by his character, and enjoy him as a concept. what i am doing here is asking you (especially if you’re white) to consider the lengths to which fandom goes to ignore the very obvious signs that anakin is not just genocidal but racist. like him all you want but don’t ignore that part because that makes you uncomfortable. he kills kids. that’s not any better than being racist.

understanding the role of racism in his depiction, and his turn to fascism, only aids your storytelling and view of him, because it’s true to life. society is willing to ignore massive red flags if someone is white (and in Star Wars universe, we’ll add “human” to the list), male, and conventionally attractive. obi-wan is willing to ignore these things because he is the same, and because anakin does not treat HIM this way, obi-wan can blindly believe anakin would never treat anyone like this — which is, again, a phenomenon people of color call out often, where white people will say “X can’t be racist because he’s never said anything racist around me!” well yeah. because why would he? nevermind the fact that obi-wan and ahsoka witness anakin treating non-human suspects with extreme prejudice, abusing his power and authority as a jedi to get what he wants, and worse. anakin is and always has been a shitty racist cop on a power trip, but because he worked with “good cops” and knew better than to say anything out loud, he got away with it until he killed them all too.

this all feeds into the concept that while anakin’s fall is tragic, it is by no means unexpected. the only reason the main characters of the prequels are surprised is because they willingly looked away from the warning signs. the characters who didn’t — the Council, Mace, even Ahsoka at some points — are vilified by anakin, and because the main characters love anakin and have an attachment to him being the chosen one, they believe anakin over those who are suspicious of him and ignore or downplay the warnings until it’s all too late. the tragedy of anakin isn’t a tragedy of not being loved enough, or having people fail you; it’s the tragedy of refusing to get help, of refusing to let go of things even when they hurt you, it’s the tragedy of the bitter man drinking poison to kill someone ekse, and it’s the tragedy of the bystander: of what happens when we all stand by and watch people we love do terrible things without stopping them, because we’re as afraid of them not loving us anymore as we are of confronting what it means that we still want to love and be loved by cruelty.

tl;dr: anakin skywalker is racist and prejudiced. you can still like him as a character; this is not a moral judgment. but maybe you should prod at your like at him a little, and investigate the ways in which both anakin as a character and the fandom’s dismissive view of his many faults is indicative of the insidious way racism and whiteness works irl. especially if you’re white.

#this isn’t even getting into the whole clusterfuck mess of the writers fumbling a chance to half genetically half Tusken Jedi as well. fools #white mutuals pls interact with this man. i know it’s unpleasant but acknowledging this shit acfually does wonders #i mean idk. not forcing you to but ya. #walkie talkie. #not anti anakin

[imamcactus]

TF2 mercers with a reader from the future/our time

So, tf2 canonically happens in 1968. Imagine what it would be like if you got thrown into the late 60s after bumping into Merasmus, who somehow got to our time via some magic shit he did

Slight TW: (serious)mentions of war, political activity throughout the ages (specifically USSR), and mention of racism, (joking)my horrible writing of accents and sayings

Also, the reader in this doesn’t have a specified gender, aside from Scout calling the reader “toots” once

You woke up tied up to a chair in the middle of an empty room

And then 9 men enter room and start asking you all sorts of questions

“Who are you?” “How did you find this place?” “Why are you dressed so weird?”

So you just try to explain that the last thing you remember is going about your day when a weird guy with a with a goat skull on his head did some weird abracadabra shit and now you’re here

The only thing they understood out of all that was weird guy with a goat skull on his head

Spy gets a hold of your bag/purse to look for something like a tracker or a weapon you could have on you (despite your protests) and finds your ID, and looks fairly confused

Slowly, that confusion turned into realisation and slight shock

“Say, ms/mr (Y/N),” The man with a mask on his face starts, tearing his gaze away from the ID card, his brows furrowed and eyes stern. “What year is it to you?”

You stared up at him, slightly confused and uneasy with how seriously he asked that. “Uhh, it’s 2023.” You answer carefully, observing how the rest of the men exchanged looks, each looking more confused than last. The man in a doctor's coat took a look at the ID as well, realisation washing over his face just as fast. “Mein Gott…”

“What?? Why are you all looking at me like that?”

The group stays quiet, disbelief and confusion still in the air, until finally the one in construction helmet speaks up in a southern accent. “Well, I’m afraid you might be over yonder in the wrong day and age, pardner.” 

Soooo, you’re in the past

About 50 years into the past

Your parents are not even born yet

After they untied you, you spent the next half an hour just walking back and forth panicking and trying to understand what to do next

The entire time you’re muttering to yourself stuff like “fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to get back? Can I even get back?? Has anyone noticed that I’m missing yet? How long have I even been here? Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck I’m doomed I’m doomed I’m doomed I’m doomed”

Meanwhile the mercers are just looking at you slowly losing your mind

Eventually, the southern on (who told you to call him engineer) broke you out of your little panic circle, proposing that you stay at the red base for a while until they figure out how to help you get back, or until Merasmus shows up again and he can send you back

“Does he hang around here often?” “Well…” “...I’m doomed I’m doomed I’m doomed-”

Nonetheless, you accept the offer (Despite some of the mercers being against this, they’re still vary of you, unsure if you can be trusted or not), and you’ve been chilling with them since, learning about each and every mercer (as much as you can that is, some wouldn’t budge)

Even getting to spend time with them individually

Scout

Scout would most likely be the one of, if not the most, curious about what the future is like

Will ask like 3000 questions at once

“What’s it like in the future? Do flying cars exist? How does bonk taste in the future?” “What is bonk???”

From that moment he doesn't want to know more about the future, the mere knowledge that bonk has been discontinued ruined him

Still thinks it’s pretty cool despite the fact that you don’t tell him much

You know, first rule of time travel, don’t reveal shit

You do give him subtle clues that leave him wondering cause he’s not smart enough to figure it out

“Heyyyy, toots, question. I know you can’t tell me much, but do you happen to know if I get married to certain assistant-” “Scout for the last time I don’t even know you in the future”

Soldier

“Tell me, maggot, is America still the greatest country in the world?” “...I’m legally not obligated to answer that question.”

At some point you do want to tell him about all the shit that America has done over the years and how knee deep in shit it currently is, but you can’t for two reasons

One, the time travel rules

Two, he seems so genuinely happy and proud to be an american that you don’t want to burst his bubble

Expect a LOT of history lessons about America and everything to do with it that you didn’t know about. He will tell you everything

Hey on the plus side, you’ll pass any american history test 

Also fun fact, the construction of the twin towers started on August 6th of 1968, he’ll be telling you all about it while you just sit there sweating

Pyro

Does he even know what year he lives in??? I feel like he doesn’t have a proper concept of time because of the goggles

But in all seriousness, I feel like he wouldn’t really care that much about a lot of real life stuff

He’ll most likely just wonder if we figured out how to make cotton candy grows on trees 

Honestly, he’s kind of a fresh breath of air to you

He thinks life is just sunshine and lollipops in the future, just like he sees it now, and you just let him live that fantasy, wishing the world actually was the way he sees it

(Aside from the time you saw him on the battlefield. In that moment you wondered if cotton candy really was the only thing on his mind)

Demo

“Aye have to know, did me pa succeed in bombing the Queen of England?” “...Well-”

He’s probably more interested in what assortment of alcoholic drinks you have in the future

You can tell him that much at least, and that satisfies him

When he gets drunk, however, he asks about the rights of black people in the future and if they still face just as much shit as they do now

In that moment, you weigh your options between telling him the truth and tell him that black people still face discrimination but have significantly more rights and are actively fighting for them everyday, or tell him yet again that you can’t tell him anything

you choose to tell him the truth

he is probably the only mercer who you’ve told about the future in such detail

he won’t remember it in the morning, mostly just asking if he said or did anything stupid and laugh off whatever excuse you came up with

And you don’t know whether to feel happiness and relief that you didn’t screw up the future, or feel sad that he doesn’t remember the answer to his question that is probably bugging him a lot  

Engineer

One of those who asks the least questions

Don’t get me wrong, this man is very curious and wants to know how the technology evolves in the future

But he also understands that you can’t reveal anything for everyone's sake to not cause a butterfly effect 

He has 11PhDs, he can figure that the future might change drastically if you reveal anything that will happen 

And you want to tell him everything

All the stuff that we have, even if not as impressive as what he makes for this team, some of the stuff would still leave him surprised

You would show him your phone and how it works on a condition that he doesn’t do anything with this knowledge

He also figures a few things along the way the longer you stay there

Like your surprise that teleportation is possible

Heavy

You wanna tell this man so badly that USSR doesn’t exist anymore 

If you are from one of the post soviet countries, he will apologise so much about what his country has done to yours and your people

You’d probably give him a whole speech how what is happening right now is not his fault as he is an anti communist

(Bonus, if you happen to be from one of those countries and know Russian, you’ll most likely sometimes speak in his native tongue)

My personal headcanon is that Heavy most likely spent his free time with people who were deported from their countries to Siberia to labour camps, learning about their cultures and even a little of their languages, so, surprise! He can somewhat communicate with you in your native tongue!

If you’re not from one of the post soviet countries, you still feel bad for the big fellow, especially with what is happening in the world right now

You simply tell him that the system is so flawed it will cause its own downfall. You don’t tell him how or when, but it will

You definitely don’t tell him about the current mess his home land has caused, but you’re pretty sure he would be against it as well.

Medic

Another case of wants to know more, but understands you can’t say much

He’s insane not stupid, he did have a medical licence once upon a time, so there is a smart brain up there

He’d be the most interested in how the medical field has advanced though

But after hearing all about the crazy messed up shit he has done, you tell him there’s nothing interesting in the future that would amaze him

This man has revived people, cut them open while they stay awake and managed to keep them alive when their organs explode, replaced their vital organs with animal ones, created mpreg, has a Spys head in his fridge that is begging for the sweet release of death, figured out how to make people bulletproof, HAS A GUN THAT HEALS UP ANY AND ALL INJURIES 

And we’ve done a surgery on a grape and turned a woolly mammoth into a meatball

Yeah he would not be impressed

Maybe by some of the technologies we now have for surgeries and all the possibilities for people to live past their expected lifespan

But mostly no

Sniper

“Is being an assassin still a good job?”

I feel like Sniper wouldn’t really care all that much

Hey, what happens, happens, not his place to do or change anything even if he wanted to

So you two mostly just chill, not having access to the internet has made you appreciate nature more that’s for sure. You can’t check the latest news and how horrible things are in the world, so you just chill without a worry

He once caught you recording a voice message for your friend/family member, thought you were akin to spy after all and was ready to attack

Until he got closer and heard you saying to whoever the message was meant for that you are unsure when you’d be back, if you ever made it back, saying how you’re doing and to take care

After you sigh as yet another message doesn’t go through, he sat down next to you and you two just talked

Since then you two just kind of hang out in the wild

He’ll tell you all about the creature and plants you two happen to see

He’s also smart enough to figure a few things out on his own

“oooh, I’ve never seen this (plant/animal) in real life!” “probably cause at the moment these are endangered, probably won’t see those again when you go back”

And sadly, he’s right almost 85% of the time

Spy

oooooooooh boy

This guy doesn’t want to know what happens in the future for personal gain or to do something about it, no no no, he just wants to get as much of the information out of you as possible for fun

he’s used to the fact that he can get information about anyone and anything, it’s just a matter of a few strings pulled

But the fact that he couldn’t get any information about you (like who you were, where you’re from, your background and family information) drove this usually calm and collected man insane

He doesn’t show it, but it’s there

So he made it his personal goal to get as much info about you and the future as he possibly can

Which isn’t a lot, and that drives him up the wall even more

If you are a vaper and happened to have one on you while in this whole mess, congratulations, you just confused the living shit out of Spy with this refillable cigarette that runs on juice and electricity 

Doesn’t understand why anyone would choose …that…over good old fashioned tobacco

Is however amazed by the variety in flavours when you tell him about those

He does smoke menthol cigarettes after all

Admittedly, not my best work out of everything I’ve ever written, but hopefully I’ll post something better soon enough

Also, let me know if you wanna see more story-like scenarios rather than headcanons of this same concept!

#tf2 #tf2 x reader #tf2 medic #tf2 scout #tf2 sniper #tf2 engineer #tf2 soldier #tf2 heavy #tf2 demoman #tf2 spy #tf2 pyro #tf2 headcanons #team fortress 2

[victimsofyaoipoll]

Round 2

Propaganda Under Cut

Iris West

Treated terribly by fandom because of racism and misogyny

Iris is one of the oldest Flash characters (well, oldest by measure of the Silver Age Flash) and despite the show's problems she was adapted pretty well. Her being pushed aside 100% has to do with her being Black in the adaptation. The most popular ship on Ao3 for that show is her white husband x a white passing supervillain clearly intended to be read as actually white who has been in LITERALLY ~SIX EPISODES. He DIED IN 2016. THEY ARE STILL DOING THIS

Gets mom friended like you wouldn't BELIEVE. People hate her because she was childhood best friends with The Flash and has chemistry with him :( like it's her fault she's sweet and smart and not the male blue coded villain to the red hero. I am so tired

Stephanie Brown

Literally my best friend ever!!! Every time she shows up in a comic I point at her and smile!!! She’s the vigilante known as spoiler & batgirl & was a robin before getting fridged because of editorial mandate and misogyny she deserves so much better @_@. The m/m that some people hate her for is timkon; like they ARE very gay but people are genuinely insane about hating her instead of also realizing that she too is gay (insane amount of subtext w her bff cass). Basically she was Tim’s girlfriend for a long time on and off. People will literally call her abusive for no reason they’ll be like oh but she didn’t apologize for starting a gang war accidentally and faced no consequences for it :/ as if she wasn’t literally KILLED OFF BRUTALLY. And although hate is rarer for her nowadays from what I’ve seen she’s also a victim of Background Lesbian Syndrome. And also a victim of Woman Not Allowed To Have Ocmplex Feelings in the source material itself (tim is canonically bi now yay but like steph wasn’t allowed to have any complicated feelings at all at her on again off again ex breaking up with her for good???). Anyways she’s the light of my life.

she’s the light of my life my baby girl my everything. she canonically dated tim drake, but people love to ship tim with his male friend kon or his male brothers (🤢🤮) and so they constantly sideline her, making her the quirky wingwoman or sometimes even villainizing her by trying to claim she was abusive to tim. i don’t know why so many people hate her my girl will literally just be standing there and people will hate on her.

Stephanie was first introduced in the 1994 Robin series as a side love interest for Robin, but when she turned out to be really popular she became the main love interest. Because of this, she was fully fleshed out as a vigilante calling herself Spoiler to try and take down her villainous father, the Cluemaster. She later grew a lot closer to other cast members, such as Batgirl and Oracle, to get herself a firmly established place among the bats. Then, she dies in a gang war after taking up the Robin mantle. Eventually, in 2009, she was brought back from the dead and took on the Batgirl mantle. Her and Robin get back together sometime around ~2010 and they are solidly together until 2021. Then, Robin breaks up with her off panel for zero reason in canon, only to date some really boring guy named Bernard. By fanon, she's often demonized and turned into an abuser to make either this ship, or a lot of other mlm ships happen. Either that or things are mysteriously set in the time she's dead despite characters who were not yet introduced until she returned appearing. strange.

#poll #round 2 #dc #dc comics #the flash #the flash cw #iris west #iris west allen #stephanie brown

[torukmaktoskxawng]

can u make a enemies to lovers with neteyam or jake? x fem!reader? xx!!

(Gifs not mine)

Pairing: Jake Sully/fem!reader

Summary: Y/n doesn't like being outranked by Corporal Jake Sully, and Jake doesn't like Corporal Y/n's attitude. This rivalry eventually stretches past their human existence.

Warnings: Military attitude, one-way thinking, implied brutal death, enemies to tolerated allies to lovers, alien prejudice/racism? (that one's a little tough to word I guess), swearing, etc.

Word Count: 2k+

A/N: Thank you for your patience, and sorry it took so long!

Also, Jake and Neytiri don't end up getting together and having kids in this one. I couldn't bear to do my Mama dirty like that.

~~~~~~~~~

Corporal Y/n L/n was many things. Tough, capable, determined, and loyal. The RDA was lucky to have her... at least that's what she tells people. No task was impossible and no mission was too dangerous. Y/n followed her orders down to a tee, so you could imagine the anger she felt when her loyalty was shoved aside in exchange for wheelchair-bound Corporal Jake Sully.

There's no such thing as an ex-marine, and yet Y/n has never met the next closest thing until she met Jake. Honorably discharged after the loss of his legs in Venezuela, Jake was only in Pandora for the sake of the RDA not having to waste millions of dollars on an avatar whose rider, Jake's twin, is dead. Technically, Jake shouldn't have been mingling with the war dogs at Hell's Gate and should've stuck to the scientists. But Selfridge and Quaritch had other plans and had asked Jake to go undercover as their eyes and ears among the Na'vi.

Y/n didn't think Jake deserved all the credit he had been given after he managed to insert himself with the Omatikaya, and she voiced her opinion to him, "What'd you have to do? Bat your cat eyes at them?"

Jake knew when he was being mocked, clenching his jaw and narrowing his eyes back at her, "They accepted me after I told them I was a warrior from a neighboring clan."

"Seriously? What clan?"

He had the gall to look bashful in front of her, the tips of his ears turning pink while muttering under his breath, "The Jarhead Clan?"

She laughed in disbelief and likely disgust, "Are you kidding me? 'They fell for that? If it's that easy, maybe Quaritch doesn't need you after all. I bet we could just walk in there claiming we're all from the Jarhead Clan."

"They're smarter than they look, and I don't see you volunteering yourself to communicate with them." The marine sassed back, his attitude getting the better of him.

"They're not worth my time," Y/n shrugged, nonchalantly, "They're clearly not smart enough to handle me if they ate up your punk ass lies."

"You don't exactly have anything better to do. Other than complaining, I guess."

She snaps her attention back to the man in the wheelchair, eyes glaring into his soul. It wasn't every day someone had the guts to match Y/n's cold exterior, and she didn't appreciate being badmouthed by the rookie who just got a lucky shot of working the same rank as her, "Watch yourself, Sully."

He smiled, the bastard, turning his chair in the direction he wanted to go, wheeling away, "I gotta head out. Unlike some folk, I actually have a mission to accomplish."

~~~

The scientists were moving out. Apparently, Dr. Augustine was spooked at the idea of Parker breathing down the neck of her operation so she's bringing her avatar team up to Site 26 in the mountains, Sully included.

Y/n was strutting down the hall and happened to catch Jake after he left the control room to let Quaritch know what was going on. She noticed a suspicious-looking smile on the marine's face and something didn't sit right with her at the sight of it. Without much thought, she held her foot out and it abruptly stops the wheelchair in its tracks. Jake peered up at her, his smile quickly fading when he realized who it was, his jaw tightening.

"You're smiling." She stated her observation out loud, gracing him with a frown to match, "It's not a good look, much less a normal look for you. Just remember whose side you're on, Sully."

How could she have possibly known what he might be thinking? She couldn't have known he was smiling at the thought of getting away, wanting to forget all about this place in exchange for seeing this world through the eyes of Neytiri.

No. There's no way she could know that. As suspicious as Y/n was, she was blind to everything Jake has experienced out there. He leans close, staring up at her with those hard, daring eyes, "I do. My side."

~~~

It bothered Y/n to learn Jake had betrayed them. Did she expect it? Obviously. So it bothered her all the more that she expected it. She could have prevented this by stopping Jake from leaving or reporting him to Quaritch, so why did she let him go?

She decides that she can fix this mistake by helping blow up Hometree and further help in the battle waiting for them in the Hallelujah Mountains.

Did she feel regret watching the magnificent tree crash down, likely killing hundreds of Na'vi in the process? Only for a moment, her mindset now on her orders to return back to Hell's Gate. Best foot forward, she manned the gun as they flew to the Tree of Souls, only to be ambushed by the Na'vi, astride direhorses, and ikran. Y/n didn't feel regret gunning down as many as she could after watching the bastards kill her friends and acquaintances, people she worked with for years and formed bonds with living on a moon so far away from home.

She was thrown from her gunship, however, before she could fully enact her revenge. As she fell to her death, she watched the battle going on above her. She watched her gunship being tossed around by the devil itself, the Great Leonopteryx, larger than any ikran she had ever seen. The beast and its rider, Toruk Makto himself, smashed Y/n's gunship against the side of one of the floating mountains, and she's forced to watch it explode in debris and flame. Her heart drops, however, when the blades of the ship came spiraling through the air and toward her falling form.

That was the last thing she remembered before everything went black.

~~~

FIFTEEN YEARS LATER...

Instead of black, she's blinded by an overly bright hospital light. Only, Y/n wasn't in a hospital and she felt like she was lying on top of a stainless steel dissection table. Disorientated and sore, Y/n focused on the voice of the doctors (were they doctors?) surrounding her field of vision. They instruct her to take it easy and flex her fingers. When she lifts her hand to do so, she's suddenly wide awake and self-aware.

Her hand was blue.

~~~

Following her resurrection came the other Recoms of Project Phoenix. Z-Dog and Wainfleet were next, then Ja, Brown, Fike, Lopez, Prager, Walker, Warren, Mansk, and Zhang. Most of them she knew back at Hell's Gate, or at the very least was acquainted with them. Finally, Quaritch came to and Y/n couldn't lie how entertaining it was to watch the colonel wake up and immediately kick in his fight or flight mode. It didn't help that Lyle thought it would be a great idea to greet Quaritch with his new ugly avatar mug. Later on, Wainfleet admitted that he already forgot about his new body and didn't think how the colonel would react, and in response, Y/n laughed and called him an idiot.

~~~

Their temporary resurrection and reunion were cut short when they arrived back on Pandora. Quaritch gets them to work immediately after receiving his orders from Ardmore and the Recoms are sent out into the wild to test out and see if the moon would react to their presence. So far, they hadn't triggered any immune response. No animal attacked them and the plant life kept still. The new and improved avatars track down the old shack where Quaritch breathed his last breaths, locating his remains and extracting the old footage from the AMP suit.

What they didn't expect to find there was a human boy, running around, acting like one of the Na'vi, apart from his breathing mask and exo-pack. He was about sixteen and clearly someone who had been left behind in the initial evacuation when the humans were driven off Pandora. When they captured him, he introduced himself as Spider Socorro, none other than Paz and Quaritch's son. But Spider wasn't very adamant at the idea of the colonel standing over him being his sperm donor.

"You're not my father! My Dad is Toruk Makto! He's on his way to save me! He knows I'm here, and he's going to kill every single one of you!"

That bit of information only enraged Quaritch even further, and Y/n couldn't exactly blame him. First, Jake betrayed his own kind, killed many humans, forced them to go home with tails tucked between their legs, and now he's raised Quaritch's son up and brainwashed him to be an animal.

The Recoms take Spider's threat to heart and secure him, keeping him tied up in the center of their circle as they wait for Ardmore to come and pick them up. It was dark and it had started to rain. They kept their backs to each other and kept their eyes peeled on the jungle line. And yet, they never saw him coming.

It was all a blur. Due to the darkness and the rain, Y/n was one second too late to realize that she had been separated from the group as the Recoms were getting picked off, one by one. There was the familiar sound of a grenade launcher being triggered before Y/n had the time to dive down and cover herself to the best of her ability. The explosion goes off somewhere nearby and her ears begin to ring, debris of dirt sprinkling down on top of her. The shouts from her team slowly die away, following the sound of Ardmore's ship picking them up. She tries catching her breath, her mind not yet realizing what had happened just as hands began to grab at her shoulders, her instincts driving her to fight or flight mode.

She kicks them away and scrambles to put a distance between herself and the stranger, lifting her AR in her arms and pointing in their direction. In front of her stood a tall Na'vi man, only he had the traits of an avatar-- a very familiar avatar.

The snarl she let out wasn't as human as she was used to. It was more feral and she tried not to let it surprise her, "Shit. Sully."

Jake Sully's eyebrows furrow at the voice, eyes frantically scanning her form. Definitely an avatar but dressed in camo and currently pointing an AR at his face. The voice sounded strangely familiar, but it wasn't until he noticed the name patch on her bulletproof vest did his eyes widen in recognition. He peered back up at her eyes, tilting his head, "L/n?"

She cursed again, rage pooling through her eyes as she gnashed her sharp teeth at him, "Traitor!"

Y/n goes to pull the trigger, but something from behind had clubbed her in the crook of her leg, forcing the limb to give in and collapse against her will. She shouts and the trigger slips, the gunfire missing Jake by an inch as he barrels forward when the moment of opportunity strikes. He wrestles the rifle out of Y/n's hands and pushes her to the ground, using the orange slap-cuffs she possessed and using them against her, restraining her hands behind her back. Y/n snarls and hisses like a wild animal caught in a trap, her ears and tail lashing violently as she's forced face down into the mud, the whole front side of her wet and cold with the rainfall still pouring like nobody's business. With her head tilted off to the side, she realized her attacker was none other than Spider with a large branch still heavy in his hands. With his captive secure, Jake stood up and stepped toward the human boy, kneeling down to meet his height and checking him over for injuries or cracks in his mask.

"You alright, kiddo?"

"Yeah," Spider breathes, smiling faintly when Jake gently knocks his knuckles against the glass of his mask affectionately. 

"Good. Let's get you home. Your sister's probably worried sick."

That was news to Y/n. From what she understood, Quaritch and Paz only had Spider, unless the colonel was getting around. Looking back, Paz could have cozied up to others, but from the few encounters Y/n had with her, she didn't seem like the type. Socorro was high maintenance. 

Still left on the cold, wet ground, Y/n continued to struggle until Sully remembered that she was there, and the bastard had the gall to smile down at her while patting Spider's shoulder proudly, "Well, son... not bad for your first catch."

"Go to Hell!" She screeched back. This had gotta be the worst night of her life.

~~~~~~~~~

Part 2? Lemme know!

Have your own request? Click here for the rules! If you wanna see more of my works, click here for the masterlist. Thank you!

#jake sully x you #jake sully x reader #jake sully imagine #jake sully #atwow imagine #atwow #avatar 2 #avatar 2009 #avatar imagine #james cameron avatar #avatar #avatar the way of water #james cameron #avatar 2 imagine #avatar twow #avatar 2022 #sam worthington

[sage-nebula]

Thinking about how they decided to bring back the whole "one Gerudo male born every 100 years to be king" bit in TotK for whatever godforsaken reason, thereby creating the question of: why have there been no kings since this Ganondorf?

The flashbacks with Ganondorf took place well over 10,000 years ago, considering the first recorded Calamity took place 10,000 years before BotW. Fast forward 9,900 years ago, and we have the plot important Calamity that leads to BotW. Fast forward 100 more years, and we have Link waking up in the Shrine of Resurrection.

And yet . . . there is not a single Gerudo voe.

The magic law governing the sex of Gerudo babies doesn't specify that the previous king has to have fully died before a new one can be born. We can assume that's usually the case given Gerudo aren't known to live past 100 without magical intervention, but that's not part of it as far as we know. So even though Zombiedorf's crusty ass was hibernating underground, there should have been, what, at least 100 kings after him? There at least should have been one EITHER during the first Calamity, or born around the time Link woke up in the Shrine of Resurrection (with "around the time" including a time frame like a couple decades or so).

But there isn't one, and Gerudo Town is instead led by a chief. And further, men are (usually) not allowed inside.

Which makes me think that, after Ganondorf decides to go full Demon King . . . maybe the Gerudo said, "we're sick of this shit, no kings ever again." In other words, when a boy is born to a Gerudo mother, he is NOT sent back to Gerudo Town when he's old enough to talk, but is instead raised as a Hylian.

If we consider Sonia and Rauru's Hyrule to be Hyrule 3.0 (which it kind of has to be), this is not the first time a Gerudo King has made life worse for his people. In OoT, the Gerudo were regarded as thieves because of IRL racism / colorism lbr and Ganondorf actively made things worse for them by trying to take over Hyrule, having Koume and Kotake brainwash Gerudo who didn't fall in line, etc. In one branch of the timeline, this led to the Gerudo being left to drown in the Great Flood. In another branch (the one that leads to Twilight Princess) we don't see them at all, suggesting that they were perhaps driven from Hyrule's borders after Ganondorf's bs was brought to light and he was put on trial. And then we have the timeline merge and this Ganondorf, who again took them to war and transformed himself into a demon king and just overall fucked over his people. When you consider all of that, along with the fact that we don't have a single good Gerudo King in recorded history . . . it's not too much of a stretch, I think, for the Gerudo women to say "no kings ever again, no men allowed in Gerudo Town aside from Princess Zelda's twink."

And thus, the 100+ sons that would have come after Ganondorf . . . were raised as Hylians.

(Of course, if one of these AMAB Gerudo-raised-as-a-Hylian later realized she was a transgirl, she would be welcome in Gerudo Town. But she wouldn't be there to take the throne. She's just there to be with her sisters. Transvai are vai and welcome in Gerudo Town. Just no voe, except Princess Zelda's twink.)

So if we consider this a possibility, then it could be that there is actually a Gerudo voe—who wouldn't acknowledge himself as Gerudo since he was raised Hylian—in present day Hyrule. Someone with dark skin, tall, with a muscular build, accustomed to warm climates . . .

Someone like Tauro.

#nintendo opened the question by bringing up the exposition in a flashback #when we were FINE in botw #so we have to do what we can to fill in the blanks #anyway Gerudo lore is messy as hell and full of racism/colorism #like how this whole SERIES is full of racism/colorism #(i will never forgive Nintendo for whitewashing Tetra when she took on her princess garb that is the MOST VILE shit) #but that's enough ranting for now i think #loz: tears of the kingdom #totk critical #gerudo #meta

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 1/30/2024

a good 60% of my brain is screaming in unemployment terror at all times so these will be somewhat abbreviated until that situation resolves itself

listening

sleeping on the ceiling by friday pilots club. this is a song by a five-piece alt-rock band from chicago that could EASILY open for mid-aughts fall out boy. i would like to think it is from the point of view of a freshly-turned vampire. listen this slot isn't about the best song i heard this week it's about the one that got stuck in my head the most

Hey, I swear I'm okay Honey, I been sleepin' on the ceiling all day Yes way, like hey I swear I feel great Looky, looky, love the feeling of being okay Yes way

spotify.

reading

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and the Amulet of Power by Mike Resnick. it was in a dollar book bin and i got it as a joke gift for a friend. mike resnick is a remarkably prolific writer who's done a lot of tie-ins. i don't have anything particularly notable to say about his star wars books but they are a sort of minimum viable product? they feel star warsy and don't annoy me on every page.

this book was published in 2003 and treats the people of the Nile delta and their beliefs with all the delicacy you might expect from a 2003 video game tie in novel. i do think the twist is being telegraphed way too hard. perhaps i should say instead of sending a telegram mr resnick has simply set the telegraph office ablaze as a signal fire. the titular triangle-pointed woman herself ms croft is VERY insistent she's just as good as the boys. this is pretty on par for my experience of 2003 empowering womens' feminism AND my experience in a male-dominated field so i can't really ding it too hard? aside from the racism, in the notably racism-free fields of archaeology and video games and archaeology video games, this book is aging a little strangely overall. i do not know if i will finish it before i mail it out to my friend, but despite its sins it is a very fast read.

watching

watched the four dungeon meshi episodes. it's cute! ProzD was an unexpected delight! it made me want to make something fancy for dinner but alas i still have to go food shopping!

some posts on my dash were talking about how the episode with the mollusks inside the living armor really got them hooked and i have to agree. i also saw the full potential of the show's speculative biology unspooling before me. i don't know if i currently have the brainwidth for the manga but it is going on my reading list for after i finish berserk. which is kind of like saying i'm going to watch chopped after i finish up hannibal

playing

forgot i had an original gen switch, given to me through a complex series in a complex series of friend barters back in uhhhh late '21? early '22? i got through 3/4 of the divine beasts the first time around and then could not crack the camel. it was well past time to create a new switch profile so i could start a new game without losing the old one.

omg twinnsssssssss

i did forget how goddamn big the map is. i have just now unlocked the camera and the memory quests, i have not really. done much more than basic tutorial and beginning of game stuff.

making

anxiously junebugging between a whole bunch of shit. finally figured out the correct charger/extension cord setup for my bedroom. replaced all the fluorescent lightbulbs and took them to be recycled. fixed the hall door enough so it latches closed and an irritated cat can't claw it open. tidied up the balcony and patio and repotted the surviving houseplants.

in textile news, started this cross stitch. this is a Bless This Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy Star Wars themed sampler, i have made two as gifts and had to throw out a mostly-completed one i made for me bc of the moths. but i now know exactly where this will go in this apartment and i already have the frame and i bought all the floss pre-being fired, so might as well? the real bitch of the situation here is backstitching the buildings. it's so start and stop. it's so much tan. i talked about this on the weekly siblingchat facetime and now my brother has requested one lmao. that's his christmas gift settled. i suppose.

i had somehow forgotten how loadbearing textile crimes are for me. i haven't done much of anything since the moth debacle, and that was almost two years ago. last night i found some suspicious holes in a camisole and i'm really really hoping it's just cat claws and not moths or carpet beetles or any other fun things that eat clothes.

#tuesday again #tuesday again no problem #feeling unsettled. feeling petulant.

[kemetic-dreams]

How Italians Became ‘White’

Congress envisioned a white, Protestant and culturally homogeneous America when it declared in 1790 that only “free white persons, who have, or shall migrate into the United States” were eligible to become naturalized citizens. The calculus of racism underwent swift revision when waves of culturally diverse immigrants from the far corners of Europe changed the face of the country.

As the historian Matthew Frye Jacobson shows in his immigrant history “Whiteness of a Different Color,” the surge of newcomers engendered a national panic and led Americans to adopt a more restrictive, politicized view of how whiteness was to be allocated. Journalists, politicians, social scientists and immigration officials embraced the habit, separating ostensibly white Europeans into “races.” Some were designated “whiter” — and more worthy of citizenship — than others, while some were ranked as too close to blackness to be socially redeemable. The story of how Italian immigrants went from racialized pariah status in the 19th century to white Americans in good standing in the 20th offers a window onto the alchemy through which race is constructed in the United States, and how racial hierarchies can sometimes change.

Darker skinned southern Italians endured the penalties of blackness on both sides of the Atlantic. In Italy, Northerners had long held that Southerners — particularly Sicilians — were an “uncivilized” and racially inferior people, too obviously African to be part of Europe.

Racist dogma about Southern Italians found fertile soil in the United States. As the historian Jennifer Guglielmo writes, the newcomers encountered waves of books, magazines and newspapers that “bombarded Americans with images of Italians as racially suspect.” They were sometimes shut out of schools, movie houses and labor unions, or consigned to church pews set aside for black people. They were described in the press as “swarthy,” “kinky haired” members of a criminal race and derided in the streets with epithets like “dago,” “guinea” — a term of derision applied to enslaved Africans and their descendants — and more familiarly racist insults like “white nigger” and “nigger wop.”

The penalties of blackness went well beyond name-calling in the apartheid South. Italians who had come to the country as “free white persons” were often marked as black because they accepted “black” jobs in the Louisiana sugar fields or because they chose to live among African-Americans. This left them vulnerable to marauding mobs like the ones that hanged, shot, dismembered or burned alive thousands of black men, women and children across the South.

The federal holiday honoring the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus — celebrated on Monday — was central to the process through which Italian-Americans were fully ratified as white during the 20th century. The rationale for the holiday was steeped in myth, and allowed Italian-Americans to write a laudatory portrait of themselves into the civic record.

Few who march in Columbus Day parades or recount the tale of Columbus’s voyage from Europe to the New World are aware of how the holiday came about or that President Benjamin Harrison proclaimed it as a one-time national celebration in 1892 — in the wake of a bloody New Orleans lynching that took the lives of 11 Italian immigrants. The proclamation was part of a broader attempt to quiet outrage among Italian-Americans, and a diplomatic blowup over the murders that brought Italy and the United States to the brink of war.

Historians have recently showed that America’s dishonorable response to this barbaric event was partly conditioned by racist stereotypes about Italians promulgated in Northern newspapers like The Times. A striking analysis by Charles Seguin, a sociologist at Pennsylvania State University, and Sabrina Nardin, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona, shows that the protests lodged by the Italian government inspired something that had failed to coalesce around the brave African-American newspaper editor and anti-lynching campaigner Ida B. Wells — a broad anti-lynching effort.

A Black ‘Brute’ Lynched

The lynchings of Italians came at a time when newspapers in the South had established the gory convention of advertising the far more numerous public murders of African-Americans in advance — to attract large crowds — and justifying the killings by labeling the victims “brutes,” “fiends,” “ravishers,” “born criminals” or “troublesome Negroes.” Even high-minded news organizations that claimed to abhor the practice legitimized lynching by trafficking in racist stereotypes about its victims.

As Mr. Seguin recently showed, many Northern newspapers were “just as complicit” in justifying mob violence as their Southern counterparts. For its part, The Times made repeated use of the headline “A Brutal Negro Lynched,” presuming the victims’ guilt and branding them as congenital criminals. Lynchings of black men in the South were often based on fabricated accusations of sexual assault. As the Equal Justice Initiative explained in its 2015 report on lynching in America, a rape charge could occur in the absence of an actual victim and might arise from minor violations of the social code — like complimenting a white woman on her appearance or even bumping into her on the street.

The Times was not owned by the family that controls it today when it dismissed Ida B. Wells as a “slanderous and nasty-minded mulattress” for rightly describing rape allegations as “a thread bare lie” that Southerners used against black men who had consensual sexual relationships with white women. Nevertheless, as a Times editorialist of nearly 30 years standing — and a student of the institution’s history — I am outraged and appalled by the nakedly racist treatment my 19th-century predecessors displayed in writing about African-Americans and Italian immigrants.

When Wells took her anti-lynching campaign to England in the 1890s, Times editors rebuked her for representing “black brutes” abroad in an editorial that joked about what they described as “the practice of roasting Negro ravishers alive and boring out their eyes with red-hot pokers.” The editorial slandered African-Americans generally, referring to rape as “a crime to which Negroes are particularly prone.” The Times editors may have lodged objections to lynching — but they did so in a rhetoric firmly rooted in white supremacy.

‘Assassins by Nature’

Italian immigrants were welcomed into Louisiana after the Civil War, when the planter class was in desperate need of cheap labor to replace newly emancipated black people, who were leaving backbreaking jobs in the fields for more gainful employment.

These Italians seemed at first to be the answer to both the labor shortage and the increasingly pressing quest for settlers who would support white domination in the emerging Jim Crow state. Louisiana’s romance with Italian labor began to sour when the new immigrants balked at low wages and dismal working conditions.

The newcomers also chose to live together in Italian neighborhoods, where they spoke their native tongue, preserved Italian customs and developed successful businesses that catered to African-Americans, with whom they fraternized and intermarried. In time, this proximity to blackness would lead white Southerners to view Sicilians, in particular, as not fully white and to see them as eligible for persecution — including lynching — that had customarily been imposed on African-Americans.

https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/2019/10/10/srw1011-staplesgallery/4792c59ca6f516c487b724c1c77fd4899b3050d3/photo_cat.jpg

Nevertheless, as the historian Jessica Barbata Jackson showed recently in the journal Louisiana History, Italian newcomers were still well thought of in New Orleans in the 1870s when negative stereotypes were being established in the Northern press.

The Times, for instance, described them as bandits and members of the criminal classes who were “wretchedly poor and unskilled,” “starving and wholly destitute.” The stereotype about inborn criminality is plainly evident in an 1874 story about Italian immigrants seeking vaccinations that refers to one immigrant as a “burly fellow, whose appearance was like that of the traditional brigand of the Abruzzi.”

A Times story in 1880 described immigrants, including Italians, as “links in a descending chain of evolution.” These characterizations reached a defamatory crescendo in an 1882 editorial that appeared under the headline “Our Future Citizens.” The editors wrote:

“There has never been since New York was founded so low and ignorant a class among the immigrants who poured in here as the Southern Italians who have been crowding our docks during the past year.”

The editors reserved their worst invective for Italian immigrant children, whom they described as “utterly unfit — ragged, filthy, and verminous as they were — to be placed in the public primary schools among the decent children of American mechanics.”

The racist myth that African-Americans and Sicilians were both innately criminal drove an 1887 Times story about a lynching victim in Mississippi whose name was given as “Dago Joe” — “dago” being a slur directed at Italian and Spanish-speaking immigrants. The victim was described as a “half breed” who “was the son of a Sicilian father and a mulatto mother, and had the worst characteristics of both races in his makeup. He was cunning, treacherous and cruel, and was regarded in the community where he lived as an assassin by nature.”

Sicilians as ‘Rattlesnakes’

The carnage in New Orleans was set in motion in the fall of 1890, when the city’s popular police chief, David Hennessy, was assassinated on his way home one evening. Hennessy had no shortage of enemies. The historian John V. Baiamonte Jr. writes that he had once been tried for murder in connection with the killing of a professional rival. He is also said to have been involved in a feud between two Italian businessmen. On the strength of a clearly suspect witness who claimed to hear Mr. Hennessy say that “dagoes” had shot him, the city charged 19 Italians with complicity in the chief’s murder.

The monument to David Hennessy rises above nearly all the other tombs in Metairie Cemetery in New Orleans.William Widmer for The New York Times

That the evidence was distressingly weak was evident from the verdicts that were swiftly handed down: Of the first nine to be tried, six were acquitted; three others were granted mistrials. The leaders of the mob that then went after them advertised their plans in advance, knowing full well that the city’s elites — who coveted the businesses the Italians had built or hated the Italians for fraternizing with African-Americans — would never seek justice for the dead. After the lynching, a grand jury investigation pronounced the killings praiseworthy, turning that inquiry into what the historian Barbara Botein describes as “possibly one of the greatest whitewashes in American history.”

The blood of the New Orleans victims was scarcely dry when The Times published a cheerleading news story — “Chief Hennessy Avenged: Eleven of his Italian Assassins Lynched by a Mob” — that reveled in the bloody details. It reported that the mob had consisted “mostly of the best element” of New Orleans society. The following day, a scabrous Times editorial justified the lynching — and dehumanized the dead, with by-now-familiar racist stereotypes.

“These sneaking and cowardly Sicilians,” the editors wrote, “the descendants of bandits and assassins, who have transported to this country the lawless passions, the cutthroat practices … are to us a pest without mitigations. Our own rattlesnakes are as good citizens as they. Our own murderers are men of feeling and nobility compared to them.” The editors concluded of the lynching that it would be difficult to find “one individual who would confess that privately he deplores it very much.”

Lynchers in 1891 storming the New Orleans city jail, where they killed 11 Italian-Americans accused in the fatal shooting of Chief Hennessy.Italian Tribune

President Harrison would have ignored the New Orleans carnage had the victims been black. But the Italian government made that impossible. It broke off diplomatic relations and demanded an indemnity that the Harrison administration paid. Harrison even called on Congress in his 1891 State of the Union to protect foreign nationals — though not black Americans — from mob violence.

Harrison’s Columbus Day proclamation in 1892 opened the door for Italian-Americans to write themselves into the American origin story, in a fashion that piled myth upon myth. As the historian Danielle Battisti shows in “Whom We Shall Welcome,” they rewrote history by casting Columbus as “the first immigrant” — even though he never set foot in North America and never immigrated anywhere (except possibly to Spain), and even though the United States did not exist as a nation during his 15th-century voyage. The mythologizing, carried out over many decades, granted Italian-Americans “a formative role in the nation-building narrative.” It also tied Italian-Americans closely to the paternalistic assertion, still heard today, that Columbus “discovered” a continent that was already inhabited by Native Americans.

The “Monument to the Immigrant,” commissioned by the Italian American Marching Club of New Orleans, stands along the Mississippi River in Woldenberg Park.William Widmer for The New York Times

But in the late 19th century, the full-blown Columbus myth was yet to come. The New Orleans lynching solidified a defamatory view of Italians generally, and Sicilians in particular, as irredeemable criminals who represented a danger to the nation. The influential anti-immigrant racist Representative Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts, soon to join the United States Senate, quickly appropriated the event. He argued that a lack of confidence in juries, not mob violence, had been the real problem in New Orleans. “Lawlessness and lynching are evil things,” he wrote, “but a popular belief that juries cannot be trusted is even worse.”

Facts aside, Lodge argued, beliefs about immigrants were in themselves sufficient to warrant higher barriers to immigration. Congress ratified that notion during the 1920s, curtailing Italian immigration on racial grounds, even though Italians were legally white, with all of the rights whiteness entailed.

The Italian-Americans who labored in the campaign that overturned racist immigration restrictions in 1965 used the romantic fictions built up around Columbus to political advantage. This shows yet again how racial categories that people mistakenly view as matters of biology grow out of highly politicized myth making.

#italians #sicily italy #wop #african #afrakan #kemetic dreams #brownskin #afrakans #africans #brown skin #congress #new orleans lynching #new orleans #massachusetts #european #europeans #how italians became white #becoming white #white people #white #white culture #western europe

[cyb-by-lang]

I kinda already commented and it felt weird to do it again? So I thought I’d ask here instead:

I just saw a post on tumblr that Batman did try to kill Joker and Superman stopped him??? And it was because Joker was somehow linked with Iran, and couldn’t be killed cuz it would start a war. And other Batkids also tried to kill Joker???

I’ve honestly always thought Batman didn’t kill Joker cuz he’s too popular a villain so it was just sort of waved off because of ‘Batman rules’ and publication reasons.

Is Batman almost killing Joker included in your fic? I have very little knowledge of the comics and hearing about newer versions overwriting previous stories makes me even more confused.

Congrats to you for having unlocked a secret level of rambling through deciding to send an ask rather than a comment. This would totally have ended up on AO3 below your comment. :p

And it is going below the cut because it's long as hell.

The scenario you've heard about was from the original run of A Death in the Family, which is the story arc where Jason was killed back in the 80s. In the aftermath of Bruce finding Jason dead (and Jason's birth mother dying shortly thereafter), he hunts for the Joker after realizing that the warehouse explosion didn't, in fact, kill the clown. Somehow (racism!) the Joker ends up being appointed as the Iranian ambassador to the UN. This was later retconned to the fictional country of Qurac, because even DC realized that was a step too far. In the scene after that fun little reveal, Superman is on hand to try and keep shenanigans to a minimum, the Joker predictably tries to gas the entire UN assembly chamber anyway, and then flees via helicopter. Batman, who has been trailing along this entire time in a rage, pursues.

He's planning to kill the clown. Superman, for reasons related to "we don't whack ambassadors and start wars," has been holding him back for the arc thus far. Helicopter pursuit turns into a helicopter fight, during which the Joker's henchman fires a spray of bullets that kills the pilot while everyone is on board and having a bad time. Batman exits the aircraft alive, intact, and furious, and doesn't give a single shit if the Joker died when the chopper hit the sea.

And then a month later the fucking clown comes back again like nothing happened. Only the entire setting has undergone a serious tone shift since Jason's death, which means you're gonna see a lot heavier, dramatic stories that have more significant body counts. Batman cannot get over the death of his son, because no, and eventually Tim Drake pops up in the middle of that death spiral with a hypothesis: "Batman needs a Robin."

He's not wrong.

He also doesn't go about it super gracefully, including an attempt to convince Dick to come back to the Robin mantle that goes nowhere, but eventually he convinces the Dark Knight to take on a third Robin. Unlike Dick and Jason, Tim is locked the fuck down for training and not allowed out in the field willy-nilly. And when he does go out, he is ferociously competent.

Incidentally, this is because the writers/editors realized that after the child murder storyline they'd just done, Batman had to have one hell of a reason to ever take on another kid sidekick. And they needed to try and drag the Robin role's popularity back up, since killing a kid sidekick was also a symptom of DC's tanking sales at the time; the whole thing was ultimately a publicity stunt. It was a bad idea and now we just live with it.

So Tim is, broadly, never portrayed as incompetent in any aspect aside from maybe high school socializing. I don't think he gets kidnapped even a tenth of the number of times Dick did during his decades-long career as Robin. Certainly never falls for a honey trap plot or anything like that.

But yeah, the meta reason why the Joker never dies is because he's an iconic villain who drives plots. But unless you step out of the main continuity, he's also never just been a "no-frills funny" villain since.

ANYWAY.

As far as the rest of the Batfam taking a swing at the Joker, there's one incident that I can recall off the top of my head.

Dick Grayson, currently Nightwing, wasn't especially close to Jason while he was alive. During Jason's original run, they had a cordial (if brief) relationship, but they basically didn't get any storylines together, so it's hard to really tell how strongly they bonded. After Jason died, Dick began experiencing...I wanna call them chronic night terrors. The idea is that a boy in a Robin costume is falling, and falling, and Dick can never save the kid.

I'm sure it has nothing whatsoever to do with his dead brother, no sir.

So, some time later, the Joker gets told he has terminal cancer by a psychiatrist who assumes that if the clown was convinced he was going to die, he might try reforming or something. A terminal turnaround. Lots of people do that, right?

He assumed wrong.

The Joker goes on an utter tear, doing all sorts of escalating villainy that starts with gassing everyone he can get his hands on, including other Arkham inmates. Somewhere amid this rampage, Robin III goes missing and the Joker cheerfully tells Nightwing that yeah, he killed the kid. And he has the gall to bring up Jason in the middle of all the gloating. By name. (The Joker knows Jason's name due to some nonsense involving Crane and Fear Toxin hallucinations and Batman in a prior story arc.)

And Dick

fucking

SNAPS.

Pummels the Joker right there on the floor. Barehanded. No sticks, no pausing, just beats him to death.

Two seconds later, a very alive (if hurt) Tim manages to get there and go "oh god what happened." Because Dick is not doing well! He has a crisis about killing a dude, no matter how terrible. He never thought he'd go that far.

Batman swoops in and resuscitates the clown. In the time between Jason's death and The Joker's Last Laugh, he has apparently decided that it's more important to keep Dick from suffering a breakdown than it is to kill the clown. DC editorial was gonna keep him alive either way, but whatever.

And now for the third part of my ramble.

As for Under the Red Hood, Jason's death is seriously streamlined for the film. In this version of events, none of the UN chicanery happens. Ra's al Ghul hires the clown for a distraction job while trying to crash the world economy (again) and whoops, the clown killed Batman's son. Crowbar, bomb, whatever. Before Jason's body can be buried, the League of Assassins steals it, hucks Jason into the Lazarus Pit, and now he's alive again!

Except, given how he died and how long he spent dead and how that interacts with the magic, he wakes up as a berserk ball of rage and pain, kills two of Ra's al Ghul's guards with his bare hands, escapes, falls into a river, and disappears.

...So much for making that whole thing up to Batman. The League of Assassins just quietly lets Bruce bury a latex dummy and doesn't ever bring it up.

Cut to Gotham, years later, when Red Hood is tearing up the place and Batman goes "Ra's al Ghul, what the fuck" and the whole story comes spilling out.

In A Ninja's Guide to Gotham, Jason's dropped hints in his narration that he was actually with the League of Assassins for a while, even before going 'round the world training with assassins and stuff. The Lazarus Pit just got him back to full functionality. So, you can assume it leans more on the comics' "spontaneous resurrection" scenario.

If Bruce ever tried to kill the Joker while Jason was dead, Jason doesn't know about it. And because we haven't been in Bruce's head, there's no indication either way.

(Bruce makes mention of how easy it would be kill the Joker in the film, but that he could never come back from doing so. It is not specified if he made the attempt or just thought about it a lot.)

I've been holding back on Jason's and Bruce's accounts of events because they're both owed a moment of dramatic catharsis (and shouting). You can generally rest assured that it'll be more likely to be a mix of events than a pure account of any one take on what happened in the warehouse that day.

Thanks for setting off an exposition bomb~

#a ninja's guide to gotham #jason todd #bruce wayne #batman #dick grayson #tim drake #asks #anonymous #comics are weird #so weird that there's not really a simple answer for a lot of things #tl;dr: none of the POV characters so far know the truth

[princeescaluswords]

Delivering Justice

(Should Scott deliver justice for the Hale family before or after this scene?)

I can't get out of my head the Teen Wolf rewrite idea that appeared in the #scott mccall tag (because of course it did). Let me reproduce it.

I want someone to rewrite Teen Wolf, but making it about Scott bringing Justice to the Hales and restoring some sort of supernatural balance, and saving the town from a curse or destruction or whatever brought on by that crime, by bringing justice and forcing the Argents to face the consequences of their actions, from both a human and a cosmic pov (i still think Allison should have been the one to kill Kate). Even if he doesn’t like the guy because of his issues with male authority, he sees that what happened was an atrocity and vows to make things right.

The fundamental racism of this post is undeniable. The fundamental misogyny of this post comes in a very close second. I'm sure that some people are scratching their heads about how I came to this conclusion, so let me explain. It's about whose lives are considered important.

Notice, first off, that in this proposed rewrite, they don't talk about what happens to Scott at all. What will change for him in this story? Is he still a sixteen-year-old lacrosse player at the start with asthma and a broken home? Is he still attacked by a power-mad Peter in the woods and transformed against his will? Does Peter still mentally and physically violate him? Does Derek still stalk him, beat him, manipulate him and sell him out to his uncle? Will Derek and Peter be required to set aside their own personal trauma to train Scott to be able to "bring justice" to the Argents or will Scott just have to figure it out by himself with the help of his just-as-much-in-over-his-head best friend once again?

As an aside, Scott does not have issues with male authority, because the Hales were not authorities over him. See here.

Notice that the consequences of actions should only fall upon the Argent family. Maybe after Scott is done restoring the balance for the Hale Fire, he can restore the balance for Paige Kraiskeva? Or for Julia Baccari? Or Braeden? Or Marie-Jeanne? Or for the entire village in Gévaudan? Or for the victims of Aiden and Ethan's alpha? I have a feeling that the OP may not know who half those people are, so let me put it another way. The show made it clear that the Hale Fire wasn't unique. Derek said as much. The endless war between Werewolf and Hunter has continued for centuries. Why does this particular instance need balancing? Because good looking white men cried about it? Because the primary culprit was a woman? In any event, why is it a good thing that Allison should have to pay for Kate's crimes? What is attractive about having Allison murder her aunt, someone she sees as her sister, for a crime that happened when she was eleven years old? Or does Allison have to earn the right to be a good guy by killing another woman?

Notice that the OP completely missed that Teen Wolf was almost entirely about Scott bringing justice and restoring supernatural balance! He did it by saying "No!." He did it by stopping the self-destructive spiral of endless vengeance. He did it by refusing to accept the ancient calculus that a crime can only be redressed by committing more crimes. He did it by valuing each life, ranging from a supernatural serial killing werewolf who personally tormented him to people he didn't even know, for their own sake. He delivered it by not privileging one life over another. That was Teen Wolf's central tenet! The Hale Fire would never be balanced by an Argent fire; it would only be balanced by Hale Auto.

This is the poison that runs through the core of this fandom. It isn't enough that Scott spent the first 36 episodes of a show which was supposed to be about him cleaning up the mess of the Hale/Argent feud. It isn't enough that he looked past Peter's viciousness, Derek's brutality, and Cora's hostility to care for them when he absolutely did not have to. Of course not; it will never be enough, not for a fandom that says, again and again and again for over 12 effing years: "I love Teen Wolf, but I would love it more if it was entirely about white people!"

BUT IT'S NOT RACISM.

#scott mccall #scott mccall defense squad #fandom racism #allison argent #fandom misogyny #derek hale #peter hale

[thembolaura2]

Babel is a book that came highly recommend to me from people I trust, and honestly I can see why. On it's surface, it should've been something I was really into - a book about anti-imperialism set against the backdrop of the Opium Wars while also being about etymology and the inherent imperfections of translating between two languages. Hell it even quotes Frantz Fanon at one point.

And yet.

I've been thinking about it a lot recently, and I think I've come to some conclusions of the things about it that really rubbed me the wrong way - major spoilers for the whole book follow.

Fundamentally, it comes down to one word: class. I think RF Kuang has a massive blindspot around class and classism, and it seeped through in this book in a way that I found quite aggravating.

I'll start by saying that the only working class characters that I can remember are Professor Lovell's housekeeper Mrs Piper, and the northern strikers. And kind of Griffin.

Mrs Piper is basically shown as a stereotypical loving, kindly housekeeper. She's Scottish and makes scones for Robin! That's...about all there is to her character, aside from one particular thing that sticks out to me - there's a bit early on where Robin gets beaten by Lovell for hyperfocusing and missing the start of his lesson, and Mrs Piper gets judged (not by Robin mind, by the book) for not acknowledging anything was wrong:

Some other child suited to better, kinder treatment might have realised that such nonchalance on the part of adults like Mrs Piper [...] to a badly bruised eleven-year-old was frightfully wrong

Now ignoring that this is a book set in 1830s Britain where this would have been a common occurrance anyway (yes it still would've been wrong back then but given the cultural context I don't think there were many other children "suited to a better, kinder treatment"), what grates me about this is that there's absolutely no interrogation of why she might not want to speak out about it. Her job is as a housekeeper. Presumably she is reliant on this job to survive. If she spoke out about this, chances are she'd both lose this job and potentially any future housekeeping jobs. And like, it's not a huge thing, but it's an early sign that the approach to class is at best, lacking.

So then we come to the northern strikers. First introduced as a rowdy, scary crowd - fine, it's from Robin's perspective and he's had a very bourgeois, sheltered upbringing after being picked up by Professor Lovell. They come back later, now on Robin's side, to act as. Uh. A barricade. Only one of them, Abel Goodfellow (lol) is the only one who gets any particuar characterisation, the rest are just a faceless crowd of people who the book doesn't seem to have any real interest in. The only reason they exist is to give the Oxford students and professors an extra layer of protection so none of the actual characters are in any sort of risk for a few chapters.[1]

Which brings me to one of my biggest issues. This whole book has been leading up to this "revolution" - but the revolution is a bunch of academics hiding in the big Colonialism Tower, while a bunch of proles are the ones who actually put themselves at risk. They are basically treated as cannon fodder to protect the brave academics, but then end up getting cold feet when it seems like they might be in some actual danger.

What the fuck.

What puts an even bigger point on this is knowing, throughout the entire book, that RF Kuang herself went to Oxford and pulled from her experiences. While this makes her exploration of the racism in the upper echelons of British society very real and is a legitimately good critique, it also makes the way she approaches the working class in this book feel extremely patronising - made worse by my recent discovery of just how bourgeois the rest of her background is (she went to a Greenhill School where each year costs upwards of $30k, Georgetown University which has a dispropotionately high ratio of students from wealthy families, studied at both Oxbrige unis, and finally an Ivy League uni in Yale.)

And I get it, I'm white, that is absolutely a privilege I have that she does not. I would never deny that, and I never want to talk over people who have experienced racism. But also, class-based oppression is very fucking real. So to have a literal Oxbridge scholar write a book decrying British imperialism and colonialism, criticising Oxford for being a racist driver of these things, while simultaneously glorifying the glamourous aspects of the institution [2] and just glossing over the intensity of classism in British society is, quite frankly, fucking galling.

Oh also, if you want me to be sympathetic to a character, maybe don't make them the fucking prince to another empire??? Utterly bizarre choice.

[1] As an aside, this section is another good example of her blindness towards class:

Despite all expectations, Abel's supporters grew in number over the following days. The workmen strikers were better at getting the message out than any of Robin's pamphlets. They spoke the same lanugage, after all. The British could identify with Abel in a way they could not with foreign-born translators.

The implication I get from this is that because they're foreign academics, those stupid, racist proles ignored them, but like. There is a long, storied history of solidarity across racial lines among the British working classes - admittedly my knowledge of this history doesn't go back as far as when this would have been taking place, but either way, the fact it's not mentioned that the British working class would see them primarily as Oxford toffs just seems like such a weird thing to skip over.

[2] Honestly my issue with all the anachronistic things like the oysters isn't that it's anachonistic but that it comes across as bragging about all the special things she got to experience at Oxford

#babel an arcane history #babel rf kuang #rf kuang #classism #colonialism

[flowersandbigteeth]

Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my long ask about Kherae alien courtship, and reading my rambles about misogyny/racism!

It was also intriguing to read about what you wrote with the domestic abusers. Your stories are always such a nice break from reality.

Sorry for a few follow up questions I have…

What’s the height, hair, and eye color range for the Kherae? Aside from being shades of purple, and having tails and horns, I was wondering what other characteristics they possessed.

Are there any marriage ceremonies the Kherae would like their brides to take part of that is important to the Kherae culture?

Similarly, what’s the culture around raising Kherae offspring? Especially now that it’s an interracial/intercultural relationship between them and the humans.

Also another thing I forgot to put into my first ask was that I resonate with the PCOS  reader in Balim’s story, as I have it too. Though it’s more “mild” compared to others that have it. Cause I want a cute hubby too (and kids as well). But like I understand the concerns of a Kherae not wanting to couple with me because of potential fertility issues. T^T

No problem! It was very interesting to think about! 😸 It's also fun to nail down some of the lore, because it is mentioned in stuff I haven't posted yet for whatever reason. This comes from unfinished books and fics sitting in my drafts , lol

There's a boat load of lore below: 👇🏾

As the cultures combine, especially after a period of about ten-twenty years where the Kherae aren't in danger of becomimg extinct, the focus on children will dramatically wane. Especially because, I haven't mentioned it in my published works (it's briefly mentioned in Idreod's story) but I have several stories in my drafts about this: there are MANY other alien species humans are exposed to after they meet the Kherae. They kind of open the floodgates to the whole universe.

So there is competition, advancements in technology, other wars, pirates, new empire's rise and fall, trafficking, trade, etc. and human relationships with the purple aliens dramatically change.

I have two different fics about small human colonies on some different planets. One about alien pirates, one about a tentacled race that takes every other species as servants, because they believe they are the peak of evolution. The first Kherae that makes it to Earth as a scout. There is a race of pink aliens that are not compatible with anyone and I have a love story about two of them 💖 Orc Aliens (mentioned in Cato's fic) as some examples.

So the dynamics shift as humans go from:

Phase One: a few humans abducted for trafficking, a few aliens in secret on earth

Phase Two: Kherae discover humans are universally (loosely, there are a few races they are not compatible with for body shape, composition reasons) compatible, saving some from trafficking on one of their war ships. Kherae descend on earth "defending" them from all other races.

Phase Three: the intergalactic war with the Golt shakes everything up, alliances change, more civilizations fall apart, some rise

Phase Four: other aliens come to Earth en masse as the Kherae hold on the solar system wanes

Phase Five: humans get into space independently and appear more and more frequently on other planets, creating colonies, engaging in independent intergalactic trade

The Kherae are all kind of united on survival when they first arrive, but every individual is different. Some don't want kids or big families and feel little stifled with the expectation that they are supposed to, Dessin being one.

Kherae society had a certain structure that their parents lived that many Kherae are happy to abandon when they see how humans live 😄

Before I get too off topic, the answers to your questions are below 😸 👇🏾

1.

Height Range: 6'5 - 7' tall

Skin color range: Deep plum to lavender

Eye color Range: shades of violet from pale to deep, shades of gold/Amber/brown, shades of gray to black

Hair color range: shades of violet from lavender to plum, shades is gold, amber, and brown, shades of gray to black.

Hair texture range: Kherae have similar hair textures (coily, curly, wavy, straight) to humans but the actual threads are much thicker creating more overall weight with a thicker cuticle

Horn Shapes: Horns come in many shapes and sizes, some are short and straight, some arch, some curl like ram's horns and some face forward, while some face backward. They are largely dark purple to black, but gray with age. They all are symmetrically placed about an inch or so behind the hairline.

Tail types: Most Kherae have spade tails, but some have smooth tapered tails. A very small group of Kherae from a specific island region have long tails with a sort of fin at the end. Their tails are prehensile and can lift small objects. Some Kherae engage in tail strengthening exercises to achieve a thicker, more muscular tail that can lift larger objects. A tail that can carry a Kherae's weight is like a body builder in our terms and very unusual

Other characteristics: They have considerably better physical strength, hearing, and healing ability. They tend not to get sick, but do suffer from some similar mental illnesses (depression, anxiety, etc ) though their health care is far superior to human's, so those issues are generally discovered and treated from an early age. Because of their tails they have better balance and can move and climb more nimbly than an average human.

Both sexes were built with more muscle and taller on average than humans, as their planet is mostly thick forest, so their tails are an evolutionary byproduct of their ancestors living largely in trees. When humans were first introduced, there was a concern that they are "delicate" and everything that goes along with that implication.

They also have a natural attraction to high places, a little like cats. Their features tend to be a little more what we would describe as feline with more almond shaped eyes and high cheekbones. Their ears are slightly pointed. Their skin has a very slight pearlescent sheen and is a bit thicker. As they lived in what we would describe as a cool rainforest (more like Washington than the Amazon), their skin and hair is designed to shed water easily.

2+3. Since most Kherae grew up without marriages, many of them prefer to participate in human ceremonies, though there are some who are interested in reviving traditions.

There are two minds about it. Some want to get away from the tragedy of their pasts and don't feel personally connected to old traditions, while some want to preserve traditions. It's mentioned in another story I have in my drafts, that some women choose to go to the Kherae home planet, and are expected to participate in cultural traditions, and move their whole families with them. Some Kherae don't like the idea of raising their children on Earth and would rather marry women who want to live on their home planet in the traditional way.

Traditional Kherae marriages were more like binding ceremonies than western weddings. Families met at ceremonies to share gifts (not just to the bride and groom and not a "dowry"). It was considered a gesture of good will and pride to share products of their businesses.

The event was like a potluck dinner where the elders of the family brought traditional dishes and wares to share. There was a brief ceremony where the couple were officially bound, but most of the event was getting to know family members, sharing stories, and, playing games to encourage social cohesion. There was sometimes a ceremonial tattoo, depending on the region.

Business deals and alliances were often formed at these get-togethers. Marriage was considered an act of fate and a gesture of trust, so sometimes political alliances were also hammered out at weddings, as their spiritual belief was that fate brought them together and a fated mating brought prosperity. Often rivalries were squashed this way, as well. (Romeo and Juliet would have ended differently if they were Kherae)

As an aside: The concept of fate also informs why many Kherae want to abandon their traditions. "Fate" allowed half of their population to be murdered and "fate" brought humans to them...so emotionally it's a little complicated for the young Kherae. Idreod mentions he never believed in the "fated mate" story, and many other Kherae his age also share that. Also many Kherae are dissatisfied that their value is assessed by the children they can produce as Balim's general mentions in his story.

Their family dynamics were large families living in village-like compounds or if they live in urban areas, they had multistory buildings to house their families. Kherae family members would take on jobs within their family business (eg. Ranchers may have members who run shops and stock houses, raise animals, guard ranches, do marketing, etc.). There were many jobs available to support the family and cater to different interests and abilities. From Idreod's story: Dessin not actively contributing to Idreod's business is both unusual and a bit of an insult to him.

Either party in the marriage can choose whose family they want to live with, but if the families were small, many of them simply combine families to live together. A smaller family may also join a larger family. Large families with a few different business interests were considered ideal. It was considered a point of pride (lightly) if the couple chose to live with one or the other family. There was an old thought that the couple would choose to live with the family who brought the best food. 😅

Kherae marrying western wives, were a little confused and turned off by our small, independent families that are sometimes spread across the country, when they first arrived. Since most Kherae of marriage age grew up without that tradition, as most were conscripted into the military after the calamity, about half are excited to adopt new traditions and half want to return to their tradition, creating some conflict in this universe. Some Kherae appreciate how other human cultures do have similar family structures and feel more at home with them.

Kherae father's are generally very involved in child rearing. Everyone is expected to have a job in the family, so they often tag along with their parents at work if it is safe to do so. Another cultural difference is women in Kherae society don't necessarily stay home and raise kids because usually kids are running around whatever shop, ranch, farm, or whatever they have. They spend a lot of time playing outside, learning from various family members, and running around as a group doing small jobs (deliveries, helping preparing meals, etc)

Children are very integrated into the day to day activities of the family. Going back to Idreod, Dessin being sent to a boys school was unusual and also a bit of an insult, which is why he's a little angsty about it. Children with no family, families involved in businesses that would be too dangerous for a child to be around, or children who didn't get along with the other's socially for whatever reasons were sent away to school.

Many fathers after the calamity sent their boys off to school, largely for emotional reasons. Raising their sons on their own was difficult for them (not because they couldn't do it, but because they were watching, possibly the last of their people grow up) Most children, traditionally, learned reading, writing, and math from a member of the family whose role was to teach them.

Their planet is largely forested and naturally they feel more comfortable with a bit of cover, so most family groups were a bit isolated unless they lived in cities. The average Kherae family would only clearcut exactly enough space to do whatever they needed to do (raise livestock, roads, storage areas, etc.) using vertical farming and hydroponics to raise vegetables and fruits.

Families mingle with other families on market days, holidays, and organized events for socialization, but most goods were shipped directly from the source with drones or personally delivered by a member of the family who was given that job. Families in cities would mingle more frequently at cafe's, parks, and other common areas, and some Kherae prefer that lifestyle.

There are some municipal, infrastructure, and military positions that a member of the family would not explicitly work at their family business, especially in cities, but a large family in the countryside might have a family doctor, scholar, accountant, etc. Some individuals simply don't like their family for whatever reason and choose to either move to a city or another family might take them in, depending on the circumstances. A small family would likely bolster their numbers by taking in individuals.

When Kherae arrived on Earth some loved that human adults are often independent of their families and felt liberated!

Since their planet is very wet, there's no shortage of water for agriculture and aquaculture. Homes were generally built in sturdy, old trees in the countryside and tall, narrow buildings in the city, allowing for lots of room for parks and old trees.

So that's a lot of the general lore 😄 sorry if that's too much, but I have a lot worked out for this universe 😅

#kherae lore #alien headcanon #alien oc #my ocs #sweet asks #sweet anons #my asks

[aotopmha]

FF16 seems like such a strange game to hate for me.

I always look at this from an identity perspective.

You don't like the gameplay – fine.

Or the story or sidequesting – fine.

But I just don't get the vitriolic part to it, sometimes the insistance that it is inherently hateful.

Yes, people are allowed to hate a piece of media, but aside from that, the more interesting conversation to me is why.

Is it that it depicts the topics it does at all?

Because it shows the slavery, the violence, even if it fiercely condemns them? Or simply shows sex at all, even if it's actually fairly tasteful when it shows up?

This *has* become an incredibly common criticism for any media depicting tough topics in internet spaces (and personally causes me unease because it leans into this trend of puritanism and scraping all art clean of any "dirt", so to speak).

I've been doing some digging on the history of FF because I'm actually fairly new to the series and I actually found some old FF7 thoughts that basically sounded exactly the same as some of 16's currently.

Just like 7, the majority of reviews really liked the game.

But the less positive ones said that the game was "too much" of a departure from what came before. That it had too mature themes. That there was sexual content, exactly the same as 16.

This is fascinating!

I've actually heard a lot of anecdotal talk about how FF7 had a very vocal section of the fanbase hating it for "not being like Final Fantasy" because it was more cyberpunk.

Is it because people have a preconception about what Final Fantasy should be based on their favourite entries?

Of course, other culprits can be the console war, western racism against RPGs created in Japan and disingenuous negativity in the form of clickbaiting, for example, but it's the similarities to how FF7 was recieved at the time of release that really fascinate me.

History essentially repeating from 25 years ago.

What a fascinating series.

#Final Fantasy XVI #Final Fantasy 16 #FFXVI #FF16 #Final Fantasy #FF #Final Fantasy VII #Final Fantasy 7 #FFVII #FF7

[uuuuuugh0-0]

Socialized medicine in the US is a partial solution to the myriad of problems with western medicine at best.

Western medicine is theoretically speaking the application of the scientific method to the human body, right? So it seeks to isolate "variables" in the name of "objectivity". Another word for variables here is context. And you just can't in a real way separate context from an individual's state of health; something medical professionals are VERY MUCH AWARE OF (see: shit life syndrome for one example) that exists in tension with both the current regiment of distributing healthcare and with the foundational mythos of western medical knowledge formation.

Western medicine is also beholden to the rest of the world. In places in the US where medicaid is actually relatively accessible, for example, you still have shit like racism and sexism and transphobia and ableism impacting care people get. And I understand that like, when people talk about their ideal socialist utopia, there's mechanisms in place that deal with social oppression; but I want you to think about just how big a project uniform care actually existing would be.

So in our current world, another obstacle to Making Medicine That Works is legality, especially re: the drug war. Very useful, known, well-studied substances have documented properties making them extremely useful or potentially useful for a variety of medical treatments (examples: THC for everything from gut stuff to emotional support; LSD for crohns and potentially diabetes; good old opiates and opiate-related-chemicals for chronic pain, some cases of depression and a subset of the experiences often diagnosed as schizophrenia and/or ADHD): but prohibition prevents application or further study (even for chemicals like THC that are legal in some states, if any program that receives federal funding is involved, can't use it! Fun right?). But sure, we can waive that one aside to and say that universal healthcare will also mean a total end to prohibition. That'd be cool!

So now that we've magicked away these problems, we have uniformly available healthcare that's getting better every day because all the social, legal and financial limits on medical exploration have been taken away. What do we have?

Well aside from a system that's gonna die with the rest of industry any time from next year to a few decades from now, still heavily dependent on plastics and factories and worldwide shipping and coerced labor in other countries, we still have a hierarchical structure where prescriptive knowledge is generated by centralized institutions who's abilities and members are dictated by governmental legislation and that inherently cannot see or account for the context of various people's bodies and lives and thus still limits the ability of disabled and mad people to explore/access unapproved/not-yet-approved treatments. But no, we can magic this one away too, obviously in the ideal socialized healthcare, everyone's needs will be accounted for so we'll have decentralized community medical exploration! And we'll use existing holistic healthcare tools and make more to account for individual people's context! And nobody will be subjected to coerced labor or nonconsensual treatment! And we'll find ways of creating medicine that are locally feasible, don't require global industry, and are resilient against climate collapse!

...so we no longer have contemporary western medicine (or civ, for that matter). Cheers!

But wait! There's more! You can live in this brave new world RIGHT NOW! what do you do with ur time, huh? You play video games? I bet you've put a lot of time and effort and skill-building and resource accumulation into it! Maybe you're poor as shit like me and have figured out emulators and pirating or talk to other people who share your interests about how to access them or you're into indie games! That is cool and meaningful! Maybe you like music! Maybe you like fiction! I bet you know a lot of lore/specifics/techniques/etc related to SOMETHING! maybe it's birds! Idk you but I am absolutely positive that there is SOMETHING you know a lot about that you have figured out how to know in a way that's accessible to you and applicable to your life. Maybe it felt easy, maybe it was really hard, maybe you did it because you want to, maybe you did it because you had to, maybe it's a really big topic, maybe it's a small one, maybe you can think of it right this second and maybe you'd have to ask some friends to point it out to you. Whatever it is, whoever you are, YOU HAVE BUILT A KNOWLEDGE SET AND YOU CAN BUILD ANOTHER ONE! You can start learning about the medicine that is applicable to your life right now. Go read the Wikipedia page for some medications you have around! Or for some ingredient in a food nearby you don't know what is! Or one you do know what is! Figure out a question about it! Google that question! Keep googling! Read some studies that come up and then search all the words you don't know and keep looking until you understand them! Look at you you're doing it! Keep going! This is how it starts!

Medicine exists in the same world we do and we can take it for ourselves and make it better!

[safely-in-vhagars-belly]

The Doomed Jaessa

Aemond x reader (Slight Avatar au inspired)

Tags: Fantasy, au, avatar au, powers, fantasy,

Cool devider credits: firefly graphics

🔷Summary: You are a witch hunter, looking for the witches that killed your family all those years ago. Those people are called Heyks or Summoners.

🔷Author's note: Based on the Grishaverse stories, based on Avatar the last airbender, based on The Last Kingdom, based on a lot of different influnces from all these combined. I say based on avatar but this story is a lot darker and more graphic.

🔷Wordcount :3230

🔷Warnings: Murder, violence, war crimes and propaganda. Description of violence and brief racism to reader (though she deals with that by nearly drowing the brat) ((and aemond wont be racist to her ever) blood)

There have been stories for as long as humankind has been alive, and stories that will remain long after humankind has gone. 

Stories and legends, told in the light of campfires, in the open skies with only the stars and the moon to witness. The stories of elements, the story of powerful humans, blessed by the gods with abilities beyond our understanding. They claim these people are called ‘’Summoners’’ and can control the elements, bend them to their will, and create chaos and misfortune for whoever may cross them.

It is why kingdoms have been divided, lands have been uprooted and people have fled their native lands. And it’s why your mother was killed, and your father was sacrificed. And it is why you swore to destroy these vile creators until none would be left.

—--------------

It is a wintry day in the village of Winter Town. You and your people prepare for another beautiful day full of hunting, preparing sacrifices and cooking food and making fires to survive the cold winter.  

One of your commanders of the wolf army, named Sterk, calls for attention by blowing on a big horn. You and all the other villagers pay attention to what your leader is about to tell you. ‘’My good people! Today marks a wonderful victory. We have received word, and the final tribe of heyksen has finally left these lands!’’ You feel your smirk increase as you let out a whoop, together with others. 

Your best friend Kef smirks, leaning in closer to you. ‘’Looks like when they can’t attack harmless children or women, these monsters don’t like sticking around.’’ 

‘’They will pay for what they did to us in blood.’’ You murmur, looking at the single finger bone you carry around your neck. ‘’As long as any Heyks is alive, they will keep breeding, they will keep spreading.’’ You murmur.

Sterk does not hear the two of you over the cheering of the other members.  ‘’The Water-heyksen are cowering together with the Fire and Earth and Air heyksen in what they call the upper lands of this cursed infidel country!’’ He shouts so that even the gods can hear them. ‘’But we won’t give them rest or peace there. They tell stories, stories of an almighty heyks who will rise one day, an almighty heyks who will doom us all. Their armies, their kings are looking for this heyks.’’

Two boys close to you start talking in hushed tones, excitement getting the better of them. ‘’What do you know of the powerful heyks?’’ One of them asks you. You shoot him a glare. ‘’They said you met a Heyks.’’ He rudely points at your scar, by your chin. You cover it with your scarf, annoyed.

How dare he bring up that day. You were just a child, so was your brother. They ripped you from your mother’s warm embrace, slaughtered her like cattle and dragged you and your brother to the place where they worshiped their seven gods. ‘’Just that he can likely bend blood and revive the death.’’ You lie, absently.

For a moment you are back in Yi Ti, your whole life ahead of you and your heart pure, unaltered by hatred. ‘’Can he really?’’ The little boy asks, gasping.

You shrug. ‘’I don’t know, I never met him.’’ You reply, dryly and uninterested. ‘’Do you two mind shutting up, I want to hear what Sterk has to say.’’ You push them aside and sit closer to Sterk giving him a smirk. When the Waterheyksen still remained here, he was one of the first to slit their throats, setting fire to their villages. The original heyksen were burned alive in their castle, the castle they named ‘’Winterfell.’’ The Heyksen seem to learn from their environment. Most Heyksen you caught and killed here were water heyksen. They drowned your people. 

And now you will return the favor. Stark comes close to the bridge of his speech. ‘’We shall never bow under the terror of these freaks! We shall never surrender!’’ You applaud as people around you break into cheers, hug each other and drink to his words, honoring the gods.

You approach Sterk, a cheeky grin on your lips. ‘’Excellent speech. But I found it a little predictable.’’ You say, keeping your walls up around him. Sterk pushes his soft blond locks behind his ears, grinning madly at you. ‘’I thank you.’’ He nods to the two little boys. ‘’Did they give you trouble?’’

You turn your head and notice a tall girl staring at you, her green eyes mirroring anger and hatred. You wave at her, smirking. ‘’Not like Nax has.’’ You say. From the very start, Nax has told you to ‘’return’’ to your lands, and called you a ‘’Monkey-tail.’’ You kindly shoved her into the river for that comment, and someone had to save her before she drowned.  Yi Ti was once your home, but now the Heyksen have taken it from you. You left when you were a child, and you doubt you will ever return.

Stark glares at Nax as she pretends to be busy studying her nails. ‘’Nax can go fuck herself, another won’t do it.’’ He means himself as he pulls you closer with a wink. ‘’She is just jealous of you. You are brave, strong, and gorgeous. All things she lacks.’’ He tells you. Yet you remain uncertain. You have the feeling too many don’t want you here. Too many don’t trust you and too many don’t like you. Sterk reads you easily, holding you by your wrists. ‘’I told you before, I don’t care where my fighters are from. From Yi Ti to the Dothraki sea, fuck, even the Crown Lands…We all have our reasons to want these Heyksen dead.’’ You nod, touched, as he caresses your face. 

Even Nax has her reasons.

You remain by the fire, creating traps by binding ropes together and cutting wood with your favorite ax. 

A horse approaches out of the wastelands, carrying a scout of the hunters. ‘’Nik. What news do you bring?’’ Sterk asks the moment Nik has jumped off his horse.

Nik looks around the campfire. ‘’Good and bad. The Crownlands have sent a patrol party our way. They are here likely to spy on our numbers, to count our people before they send the full army. There are perhaps ten of them.’’ That is bad news. They must not know you and another part of the army split up. The majority remains in the North, while the other, a small portion sails around Westeros, to attack via Dorne, once Dorne has been weakened. 

Sterk briefly twirls his dagger, likely recalling the moment these monsters invaded his home and kidnapped his sister. ‘’Let them come. I’m hungry for them.’’ he grins at Nik. Nik nods.

Sterk runs back to the stone he uses to preach, before climbing on top of it. He shouts and his voice carries miles. ‘’The moment we waited for has arrived! The Goddess has granted us more Heyksen to slaughter! More innocent souls to liberate and more territory for us to grow grain, to grow old and to grow strong! Are you with me?!’’ He yells at his people and you hide a proud smile. You could not be any prouder of your friend.

People respond by raising their swords, daggers and other weapons in the air. You join in, raising your ax sky high. ‘’Then what are we waiting for?! They will learn that their reign of terror is over!’’ Sterk jumps off the rock before marching the crowd towards the horses. Men and women climb the horses, while children remain in the village. Elderly people watch over them, when chanting blessings over the weapons of the departing warriors.

You follow Sterk. ‘’Can I ride with you?’’ He grins. You hop onto his horse, holding onto his waist. 

But he does remind you of your duties. ‘’One day you must learn how to ride horses.’’ He tells you. ‘’One day, you must take the saddle and ride. It might save your life one day.’’

You scoff. ‘’I don’t trust horses. They are like people. You never know what they are up to.’’ You tell him as the two of you ride towards the smoke on the horizon. The horse picks up speed as you hold on for dear life, your ax in your left hand ready to wield it at whoever comes at you two. 

You finally notice a ship that is docked to the side of the cold waters, and people in red and black colored armor enter and leave. The horses of your troops have the ship surrounded, with the woods giving clear you all an advantage of the shelter and hiding. 

‘’Are you with me? 'For Freedom!’’ Sterk cries and charges with his sword swung at the soldiers leaving the ship. 

A different, much bigger war cry is answered by the enemy as they attack from behind the horses, behind trees, and storm from the ship to the place you gathered. You are pushed off the horse by Sterk and watch as two fireballs hit him at once, burning the flesh of his face, as he cries out in pain and horror. You scream, clutching your legs as you crawl to him. 

All around you, friends and family are murdered within two seconds, blasted and fried on the spot as chickens trapped in a fiery coop. Two soldiers hold a girl and melt her armor into her skin, when making comments about what they will do later to her. You weakly lift your ax, your whole body hurting. You release a war cry before rushing at one of them, placing the ax right at his head and you just chop.

His head breaks free with a satisfying crush, rolling on the floor as his body shatters. 

His friend is furious, heartbroken, and upset. He fires a series of fireballs at you, and while you dive out of the way, some of them end up hitting you, burning your hair and blackening your face slightly with ash and smoke. The goddess protects you, as you fall to the ground and manage to avoid most of it. 

The girl that was attacked has turned around and lifted her sword before decapitating her tormentor, before falling to her knees and going into shock.

You look around at the corpses of your friends and loved ones, and realize that Nik was wrong about the amount of people. They never stood a chance. You climb on a horse, trying to get it to listen to you. The horse is terrified and bucks you off him before rushing off to the place of the camp. You end up in a worse shape than before, likely with your hips or legs broken.

A man with silver long hair emerges from the beach area, carrying a golden edition of the normal red and black armor. ‘’Status?”’ He barks at a nearby soldier following him closely.

‘’24 out of 28 killed.’’ The man informs him.

This must be an officer. ‘’Excellent.’’ He says, simply, looking around the blackened corpses gleefully. He takes in the remaining survivors. His soldiers kick and spit at the burned remains of your family, but he does nothing to stop them. ‘’The gods will eat well tonight. 24 witch-hunters. That is a victory, your Highness.’’ The man tells the officer.

So he’s a prince. A royal. Perhaps a good hostage. If only you could get to him.. ‘’This is pathetic. Burn their remains.’’ The prince comments.

He is stopped before he can. The girl you saved jumps in front of him, blocking his path. ‘’No! They should be buried.’’ She demands justice for him. ‘’Their remains will find the skies.’’ She believes they will find peace. They murdered and pillaged. The goddess has no mercy for that, even you know that. 

The prince pretends to think, but you can read his body language and see how furious he is. ‘’You know what? You’re right. Bury this one alive.’’ He tells the officer, pointing to the girl. The officer nods as two other soldiers grab the girl and start digging a grave.

One of them grins as they throw her in it. ‘’Yes, Prince Aemond.’’ You remain frozen, praying that your luck won’t wear out. But once his blue eyes have found yours, you know you are done for and they won’t let you go ever again. ‘’And what do we have here?’’ He mocked. ‘’You’re far from home.’’ 

You grin, smiling despite your pain, putting up a brave face. 

‘’We come from hell itself to kill your kind.’’ You stand on your injured legs. You see he misses an eye.

Prince Aemond rolls his good remaining eye. You wait for him to be distracted. And that distraction comes. Sterk fights himself free, standing up and swings his ax at Aemond. ‘’Let her be!’ He cries, but an arrow hits his heart before he can kill Aemond, and he drops dead in front of you.

‘’Sterk! No!’’ You weakly crawl to his body, ripping the arrow out of his heart. You hear someone scream in the distance as you cradle his soft blond hairs and whisper him goodbye. ‘’I'll see you soon.’’ You mutter.

Nik runs out to the fields and instead of being fried, he is welcomed by prince Aemond. ‘’Cregan Stark. Good to see you.’’ 

You hear something snap inside your brain. You don’t hear anything as you rise from your injured legs, that seem to have healed. You pass the water that boils, as your eyes have become a glowing bright yellow. 

This man has lied to you.

This man has slaughtered you all.

He is a heyks. He is Cregan Stark, his family is Heyks, he is Heyks. A water Heyks  The earth around you starts to shake as the prince is escorted to safety, quickly pulled away by Cregan. Water pours down from the skies, creating massive waves you control, but you don’t at the same time. Something takes hold of you as you bend the waves around the forest clearing, putting out fires and throwing soldiers into the sea. They drown because of their heavy armor, and the waves you keep splashing over them. Fire is thrown at you again, by new soldiers that have come out to defend their prince. You simply raise your feet with precision before slamming it back down, creating an earthquake that destabilizes most of them, before you bring your hands together, and separate them, digging a grave. The bodies are stacked up inside the grave and you hear the men scream as you throw the earth on them, burying them alive. Your fingers work next and with the tip of your tiny finger, you can lift a man into the air before smashing his head open against a stone, smearing the blood everywhere. You are no longer there. What remains is this ancient source, this ancient slumbering power that has been awakened. A power that was always there. 

The air is sucked from lungs as they choke, and finally it is time for fire. You turn your head to a terrified Cregan Stark, before lifting the traitor into the air. You bend your index and middle finger down, and finally bow your hand as if retrieving something from him. He falls to the floor, screaming and crying as blood pours from his eyes, ears, and mouth. You bend the blood in his veins, twisting the veins until Cregan becomes a wailing crying mess. And the worst part is you like the fear you are seeing. You should be feared. 

Men are crushed like bugs under stones you control, tortured by waves until they beg their gods for death and their eyeballs receive so much pressure that they pop.

That is until someone rushes up from behind you, grabbing you by your throat, and pushes a necklace around your neck, collaring you. You gasp briefly for air as you crash back down on earth, your power fizzling out. You try to recall what has happened but nothing makes sense. Your healed legs, the man you drowned and burned and buried. None of it makes sense. Your brain repeats one word over and over again. 

Heyks. 

You are one of them. 

‘’No!” You scream as the necklace touches your skin. The prince holds you by your throat, his wet hair revealing you almost had him too.

‘’O, yes. You’ve killed enough.’’ He grits out, choking you for a brief moment as well.

You weakly gawk. ‘’Hurts doesn’t it? Your kind uses it on people like me. It blocks your summoning abilities.’’ He is right. It burns Heysk. And now, it burns you.

‘’You mean your witchcraft? I-I’m not a witch. I’m not evil.’’ You mutter disoriented and afraid. Afraid of him, perhaps. Afraid of yourself? For certain.

‘’From what I just witnessed, I’m not sure of that.’’ Aemond comments before chaining your hands together. ‘’I will bring you to my father. To the capital. You will be dealt with.’’ The bodies of the remaining men are collected and even dug up. You buried them deeply and they need the rest of the day and a small part of the night to find all those who you buried. Only a few have survived.

They are escorted back to the ship. One of them glares at you. You lift your chained hands at him, spitting in his direction and yelling a made up phrase. He and the other soldiers take off running as you cackle. ‘’Idiots, where did you find these idiots?’’ You wonder to the prince who remains at your side as his men are collected, and finally wrapped in black with red cloth. ‘’Do you plan to give them to someone?’’ You joke.

The prince has folded his hands on his back, ignoring you.

‘’I do. To their mothers, to their fathers, to their loved ones.’’ You become silent, as you realize what you have done. But they tried to kill you first.

‘’You were planning to kill us first.’’ You tell him indifferent to it all.

He nods. ‘’I agree, that much was true. Cregan and I set the trap much earlier.’’ You watch as bodies are dragged from the sea and put on the ship.

‘’We lost eighty-seven men, my prince.’’ The officer tells Aemond as you remain his captive.

Aemond shrugs. He does not care. You are worried for your safety.‘’We gained a weapon. A powerful weapon.’’ He looks at you, and you spit in his direction. He simply tugs the chain so you are choked. ‘’The last of her kind, the last Jaesa.’’

‘’I thought they were all killed centuries ago. Jaesa are dangerous.’’ The officer says as if you are not with them. 

Aemond nods, recalling what you had heard as well. ‘’Hm. When Valyria met her doom, they assumed all Jaesa killed. But this is no ordinary Jaesa. This one can control all four elements. This girl will be our salvation….And the doom of our enemies. She will gives us Dorne, she will give us the North, she will give us the known damn world.’’ He adds when painfully grabbing your chin. ‘’And she will bring an end to her kind.’’ 

world building and notes

Worldbuilding.

The terms of summoners are from Valyrian words for the elements.

Fire=Dracary

Earth=Tegonry

Air=Jedary

Water=Nykeerdary

Jaes=God/goddess

Certain families and bloodlines have the elements born into them for example the targaryens. We dont see him use it, but Aemond is a very good Dracary. Certain places are also more likely to have more people who can summon a certain element than others. The North is said to have a lot of Nykeerdaryies because of their huge amount of snow/ice. At least before our story starts, because the witch hunter have killed them.

The word Heyks is literally a play on the dutch word Heks, meaning witch. Sterk means literally strong, another dutch word i used. 

The racism our mc deals with: The racism, im white as f so i dont know what poc experience or go through, at all, and i cant relate to your pain at all, but i tried keeping it still fun for people to read, but at the same time it felt important to be there. to be present. Mc feels alone there, mc feels like her fighting doesnt matter, but sterk tells her to believe in herself.

Another reason why i kept it: Because that happens to people, sadly and we must continue to talk about it to avoid it, to stop it. there is nothing so fucked up as hating someone for something they cant control and just for being who they are.. I went with the classic ‘’go back to your own land’’ because It shows the stupidity of the bully, she does not understand, our mc cant return and doesnt want to return. this is her land now, she will fight for it. and i went with the monkeytail insult because apparently according to the wiki, merchants from yi ti wear them.

Yeah, obviously the necklace aemond captures oc with is a very zukatara moment excuse me for that.

The au is more a war between the witch-hunters and the summoners. Some part of the known world have fallen into summoners and into witch hunters. I really hope to show you guys that you got assholes on both teams.

I think we cleared the most important parts out.

Thank you for reading.

#tags #hotd #hotd fanfiction #hotd fanfic #hotd smut #aemond targaryen #aemond #aemond one eye #hotd x reader #hotd x you #aemond x reader #aemond x you #aemond smut #aemond fic #aemond fanfiction #hotd x oc #aemond x oc #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x oc #Warnings: Murder #violence #war crimes and propaganda. Description of violence and brief racism to reader (though she deals with that by nearly drowing the brat) ((and