#can you believe its more than two years between the two

[queerprayers]

hi ! i hope you're doing well, and i just wanna say first that i love your blog and it just radiates comforting vibes :)

i wanted to ask for some advice. i chose god over a year ago after having this push-pull thing with him for almost ten before that. most of my issues with actually accepting him came from ideas i had about him from his more conservative/evangelical followers, which i began to debunk for myself after figuring out that god, not them, was who i wanted.

so i've been sticking to the old testament, mostly. i found god in there, grew to love him because of it, and it's just a beautiful text, but also there are far fewer conservative dogwhistles in there than there are in the new testament. the new testament is hard for me to look at, and i feel guilty about it.

and its like- ive grown up with jesus my whole life. my parents are methodist, i was raised methodist. but i've never felt very close to him, thanks to those who twisted his verses about love and kindness into weapons against people like me. i read these verses that mean so much (john 3:16 and the like) and all i get out of it is a crawling sense of dread. like the associations are Bad, and it seeps through the whole new testament.

all this long-winded nonsense is basically to say that somebody got their hands all over the new testament and now i look at it and it is just barren. have you ever experienced something like this? any advice on how to,, reclaim the new testament or something? (thank you so much for reading this holy shit it's long. sorry about that)

Thank you beloved, I'm glad you're here! No such thing as too long here, I promise—well, there might be on my end. (You've been warned.) I'm overjoyed that you've chosen to pursue God—separating what you've been told from what you seek to believe in is such a hard thing to navigate.

I'm gonna be honest, this is such a refreshing question and I'm glad that you're asking it. I overwhelmingly hear the opposite from Christians—that the New Testament is easy and loving and comforting, and the Old Testament is scary and violent or whatever. I always want to ask first, what their opinions of Judaism are, because that's a red flag to me; and next, have they read the NT? It isn't easy and it isn't always comforting, and I think too many Christians only read the parts that they think are. The fact that you're recognizing those hard things and wanting to deal with them is a beautiful thing—we should take these texts seriously enough to criticize and struggle with them.

First of all: You have no need to feel guilty for what other people have done with holy things, or for your emotions. You have not done something wrong by carrying this hurt with you. What we feel is not in our control—but we can listen to it. Let this be a movement of desire, not of guilt. You're seeking God past the dread. You want to grow enough that the ideas people have taught you don't stand between you and what you want—and you've already done so much of this growth. I believe that you can keep moving in the direction of God, and find God in more and more places. But you don't have to pretend it's not hard. And if it was easy I'm not sure that would be a good thing.

Your experiences and associations and discomfort and fear—they're your history and they're also the history of the text. I'm sure you've heard people say "Don't let stuff like that turn you away from the original meaning of the verses!" Or "Jesus didn't mean that!" But of course the verses hold weight. They've had baggage before they ever got to you—two thousand years of it. Hold space for the fact that they've been used to hurt you and others. That's not meaningless—it's part of the meaning now. People who claimed their destruction was what Jesus meant have added to the history of Jesus and the text—and people who created love and beauty in honor of those verses have also added to these histories. We can learn about the original meaning of the text, but we cannot erase or ignore the meanings that have existed over the years. Go into this without guilt or pressure or expectation, and bring the anger and confusion and bad experiences. The text is strong enough to handle them. God is strong enough to handle them.

I want to acknowledge that finding God in the Hebrew Bible and existing there with Them is a beautiful thing. You don't have to equally relate to every single part of a religion to create a home there. Of course I hope that you grow new connections with the NT, but if it's never the same as the OT, that's not a flaw or a failure. None of us can find all the places where God is present and hold them all equally. Our brains aren't big enough for that. You have created a beautiful connection with God, and I hope that you know that there are so many fulfilled, faithful people who have not, and will never, experience God in the NT. Of course these people generally aren't Christian—and that's obviously a choice you can make—but I hope that knowledge reminds you that you aren't doing anything wrong. You have a duty to God, not to religion. And you certainly don't have a duty to the ideas you've grown up with or translators or interpreters or even to Biblical writers. We enter religion to learn and create community and to fully live out our duty to God—religion serves us, not the other way around. 

I love that you brought up conservative dogwhistles because this is a point that, again, I've heard more people fall on the other side of! More people have a problem with the politics of the OT, for lots of reasons. The NT was written much closer to our current point in history, of course, in a time and culture much more familiar to most of us than Ancient Israel. The Roman Empire's language and government and philosophy has influenced the world immensely, and I think for most people it's therefore easier to exist in/relate to/project on. For you, though, this might be having the opposite effect. The fact that the Roman Empire is closer and more influential to our culture may make you more aware of its injustices and biases. Conservatism as we know it is much closer to values found in the Christian scriptures than the Jewish ones partially because it's more culturally and politically similar to ours. (Think about how many far-right people idolize the Roman Empire! And of course, think about how many conservatives are Christians.) 

I'm assuming, because you're someone who notices politics in texts, that you've probably confronted things in the OT that you've had to process and put in context and perhaps still struggle with. I know that you've been met with violence and patriarchy, and that you've read verses that you probably know have been used to justify racism, sexism, slavery, and homophobia. Perhaps you've come to these chapters and said something like, "Wow, this has been used for a lot of evil, and this is something I have to deal with, but I also want to give grace to the culture that existed this way and told these stories, see the times that systems like patriarchy are challenged and changed over time, and use this for good and liberation in my own life." Maybe this is easy for you, or maybe it's taken a lot of strength. 

Barbara Brown Taylor talks about "shadow languages" in her book Holy Envy (which I recommend)—languages in the Bible that assume things, that carry with them narratives we need to look out for. She identifies the language of contempt, the one of social hierarchy, the one that glorifies suffering for suffering's sake, the one that divides reality into opposed pairs. She tells us that "the purpose of staying on the lookout for languages like these is to prevent them from becoming uncontested parts of the Christian worldview. Every time I run into one of them hard enough to hurt, I turn around and look in the opposite direction, where there is almost always a counternarrative in scripture, just waiting for someone to notice it."

I think about how slavery is not abolished in the Bible—it has not been abolished ever. At various times in history, it has been taken for granted, challenged, uprooted, and changed form. Why are the ancient Israelites freed from captivity and go on to enslave people? Why does God move them to chip away at slavery but not fully eradicate it? Why does Paul say there is no slave or free under Christ Jesus, but preserves the social hierarchy inherent to that statement? It angers me that oppression is never abolished completely and immediately, but I also know that's not how people (or true stories) work. We take a lot of things for granted—and that leads many people to conservatism. I love Paul's writings, and I also know that his greatest sin (like many of us) was believing God's love liberated only as far as his imagination. He could imagine a God who loved the enslaved, could imagine a world in which their souls were equal, but could not imagine a world without slavery. He could imagine a spiritual equality of men and women, but not a social one. The gospel writers could worship a Jewish man as God, honor the scriptures he quoted, and add no nuance to the Jewish leaders who opposed him. They could imagine a messiah coming from Judaism but could not give grace to the Judaism around them.We all have failures of imagination, and we are always wrong. (Thanks be to God.)

I am not in the business of excusing harmful systems. I don't think you should do this when tackling the NT—I think you should challenge it and accuse it and dismantle it. But I also want you to remember the grace that you have brought to the Hebrew Bible. You have found God in a text with a lot of hard things and a lot of beautiful things—I bet you can do it again. Maybe it's more personal this time, maybe it's closer to your culture, but you have the skills. And maybe this is gonna make you go back to the OT with harsher eyes—so be it. Be curious about how this changes your relationship with history—humanity's and your own. However you understand conservatism, you can find it in both parts of the Christian Bible. And you can't take away the ways people have furthered that. But you can see them, and you can build relationships with the stories, knowing that your imagination can go further—and God's goes further still. You have been taught by bigoted people and a bigoted world, and you know it. You already know you want God, not them.

So what do we do when someone got their hands all over the New Testament? I love that question, because they absolutely have. They're still doing it. Someone got their hands all over the OT too—actually, probably more and worse someones seeing as it's a Jewish text and Christian hands are inherently meddling. But this is all part of the text's history. However much we believe God was involved, people wrote in their own language and from their own culture.  The curation and copying and collecting and translating and analysis inherent to the Bible's existence (it didn't spring fully formed into the King James Version) are people's hands. We can't take that away—and in fact, we needed their hands for these texts to get to us. 

Reclaiming the Bible for me has not included pretending those hands don't exist—especially when they're personal. What it has included is prying some of those hands off to see God underneath. The thing about that, though, is that it gets our fingerprints involved. You can't reach into a text and find God without getting your hands dirty. There is no pure holy text in this life. The NT that you're reading—unless you're smarter than me—is already translated. You can learn to read Greek, you can study history, but you're gonna be doing it with your own hands. While you're finding God in the text, accept that even if you go all the way back, the original writers' fingerprints are on the very first copy. 

Let this move you to know that none of it is empty. I acknowledge the barrenness you're describing as the only thing you can see right now—but know that even if this is overwhelming, it's proof that the text itself is full. The fact that so many people, for good and evil, have touched it and transformed it, the fact that you desire connection with it, means that it is not empty. There would be nothing there for you to want to reclaim—but you're asking.

I think it would be really interesting for you to find the humanity in the gospels. Look for the people. Yes, these are characters told and retold—you can see the fingerprints—but they were people first. Look for people reclaiming and messing around and taking cultural things for granted and challenging other things—and live in it with them. Don't approach any of it as a solid text that exists—look at it as a living, breathing text that we all tear into. And, yes, this means people are going to twist it almost beyond recognition, but they do not have a monopoly on joining the story—you bring your experiences and your biases. Be human with it, the way that I'm sure you are with the OT, which is full of flawed, evil people who sing beautiful songs. Be human with them.

Enlarge your theological circle. Read liberation theology, queer theology, disability theology. Read the Quran, which is an amazing time that people got their hands on the NT (as well as having its own history of violence). Find different, beautiful hands that tell these stories in new ways. I can't promise you'll find beauty—that's such an emotional and personal experience. We can't force beauty out of anything. But other people have found and created beauty, and we can experience it secondhand—through stained glass, a musical, a movie, a song, a poem—not because their eyes are better than yours, but because they're also honest.

Barbara Brown Taylor (again in Holy Envy) recounts wisdom from a visiting imam, who "explained that the long lineage of Muslim scholars who have worked collaboratively for centuries to interpret the Quran in the most humane ways are more to be trusted than those who spill blood based on their own readings and ambitions." There are always other traditions, and when all we can see is a weapon, there are those who will unclench our fists. 

I would encourage you to make sure you have a NT text that has footnotes to tell you when someone is quoting the Hebrew Bible. The NT is in relationship with, building on and interpreting and philosophizing about, the OT. If you are coming from the OT, bring those verses with you, the same way Jesus and early Christian writers did. The New Testament as a body of work did not exist for the first Christians—the scriptures they had were the ones you have connected with. You're in such good company. Look at how easily Jesus quotes scripture, the verses he adds on to and interacts with, the prophecies he sees himself in. Look at the sacrifice imagery that the gospel writers use to talk about Jesus—assuming that the reader will be familiar with these themes. Even within the OT, we can see later Jewish prophets criticizing and conversing with earlier verses—humanity is constantly in conversation with itself and God. You have such a good foundation for understanding this relationship.

The other good foundation you have? Wrestling with a text. It's the ones we're in community with that are the ones we're most often in conflict with and hold to the highest standards—for Jesus, this was the Jewish community he was a part of, and for you, this might be the NT. Have beef with your own scriptures and communities and religious leaders—reclaiming and wrestling are what the gospels are about. Acts and the letters in the NT are continuously debating the relevance of various OT verses. Do hard work on a text, and do it in good company.

Carry with you the scriptures you love as you travel into unfamiliar or painted-over territory. Know that you have something to come back to, however far you g0. While wading into waters you don't understand, you know that there's land under your feet—and you know that it's land that Jesus valued, that all the people in the NT valued, even as they wrestled with it. The first verses of the NT are a genealogy from Abraham to Jesus's adoptive father. Christians see this all as one story—whether you believe that right now or not, the human story is constantly moving, and God is your solid ground. 

Jesus set down a foundation on that rock of God and Christians have added bricks to it and torn stuff down and messed around and burned it and kept building it—but you know there's God under it, because you've seen Them. So when you read Paul awkwardly shoving some bricks together and think, "That's not how I would build a community…" know that God's under there. When you read Peter denying Jesus, know that his name still means "rock," that you can still create solid ground after everything. You know where God is, and also, our lives are ever-expanding journeys of finding where else God could be. Yours looks different from the Christians who consider the NT to be that same rock, but that's okay! It's okay if the OT is a firm foundation for you, and the NT is one of the bricks. Look for God in those awkward bricks, which I know you can do because you've already done it. King David wrote the most beautiful songs I know—you don't ignore his murder and rape, you honor the whole story.

John 3:16 is a much-loved verse—but it being more important than other verses is a construct. You don't have to like it—in fact, the context of this is Jesus talking to Nicodemus, who doesn't understand what he's saying. Jesus is very familiar with confusion and even anger as a response—and he even seems to seek it out sometimes. Nicodemus comes to him as a genuine student, and Jesus starts going on about being born again, something that his new student seems to have no foundation for. Oh, to be a confused new student rather than someone whose had "being born again" held over my head! I wish I could come to the idea with no baggage! I wish I had no foundation for that idea, so I could start over—which would, perhaps, come closer to what Jesus is saying than any evangelical teaching. 

Take care, keep trudging. Whatever path this brings you to, whatever communities you end up building, know that with God as the foundation, even awkward haphazard fingerprinted ripped-up texts can tell stories that we need to hear. I can't take away the associations you have with these texts, but I can pray you create new ones. Learn new songs, meet new characters. Get your hands messy. 

Don't force a positive relationship—what people have done with the text is a barrier to you right now, and this might be more of a journey with a barrier than a going through it. There are pieces of barriers I've broken open that come with me when I revisit those verses. You already have a more honest relationship with all of this than so many others, and you have the skills already to know that it is God, not the world's followers, that you want. 

I hope this wasn't long-winded nonsense, and I hope something here resonates. The short answer (which I probably should have put at the beginning) is that yes, I've experienced something like this. The year I couldn't read the Bible without panicking, I cried while watching The Prince of Egypt. In the years after that, I almost came back to it like I was converting—reading the basics, starting from scratch. Growing up and becoming purposely Christian (rather than your parents exactly) is a kind of conversion, and you have to reclaim the texts, and ask God to reclaim you as you are now. 

Isaiah 55:10-11 tells us that God's word pours out like rain, and never returns empty. It sticks with us until something grows inside us. And John begins his gospel by telling us that the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. This is a living word, one that cried and got angry and fell in love with his friends and participated in a culture and wrestled with God's will and interpreted scripture and was a person with us. You'll have to forgive Christianity for being so human—God did it first. God got his fingerprints all over us, and we wrote texts that have God's living breathing word—and also our messy hands. Thank God for your hands, and the love that they will bring. 

<3 Johanna

#gonna be so real this was 11 pages on google docs and i got it down to 6. so if you think this is too long just know this. #asks

[quickcharlie]

Denis Villeneuve discussing Dune Part 2 in an interview with the New York Times today, including whether he will be reading any FeydPaul fan fiction lol

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here are edited excerpts from our conversation.

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

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

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

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

Someone makes a dig that Stilgar has found a savior again. This is not even his first time? All his life he has been raised with that dream. So I suggest that every time a guy comes from outside with a lot of charisma, he hopes he’s found him. Like in the Bible, we have tons of prophets before Jesus came.

The arc of “Dune: Part Two” is Paul accepting that he must become the Messiah — and get billions of people killed. Does he truly believe that he is the Messiah? Or does he just decide to let the Fremen believe that he is? I don’t think he believes that he is the Messiah. I think he feels the burden of the heritage that the Bene Gesserit [the mystical sisterhood that Jessica belongs to] have laid among the Fremen, and he sees the potential to use that religious power to survive. Paul is warned that no man can survive drinking the spiritual water of life. But as that’s part of the lore of a planet seeded with manipulative propaganda by his own mother, I have to ask: Have other men actually been drinking the water and dying? Have they been scared off from trying? Is the warning just a setup for a magic trick?

There are people that have tried it in the past and died. In Frank Herbert’s world, femininity is a power. I think Herbert was fascinated by motherhood, by the power of creation. I love this idea that the power is held by women. It’s something that was ahead of his time when he wrote it and I tried to put the focus on it. You say so much with Jessica’s costuming. In the first film, her look is immaculate and baroque. This film begins with her in rags, but she finds another path to being dressed and treated like royalty. And she gets a lot of tattoos on her face. Why did she get so many more face tattoos than the outgoing reverend mother?

She’s trying to play on the symbolism that was put in the prophecy. She’s supposed to be the mother of the Messiah, so I wanted to bring the idea that she was like the pope of the reverend mothers on Arrakis. There’s some kind of madness in writing elements of the prophecies on her face. Frankly, I think when you drink the worm poison, it affects your sanity — and the same with Paul. I like the idea that we feel she’s going too far. Jessica is already pregnant when the first movie ends, and she’s still pregnant at the end of this film. Which means you had to condense this massive story into less than nine months because her body is a time clock. The idea was to compress the book so that Paul will feel the pressure to get the Fremens’ trust, to start gearing up — but not to succeed, not to have the time to create a real war. Time is against him.

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

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

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

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

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

But “Dune Messiah,” the book your third film is based on, picks up 12 years later with a reunited Paul and Chani. How far did you feel you could push her anger? Because at some point, she’s going to have to forgive him. That anger is tremendous. I don’t want to reveal what I’m going to do with the third movie. I know exactly what to do. I’m writing it right now. But there’s a lot of firepower there and I’m very excited about that decision. In the spirit of no dumb questions, Chani says that Paul sand-walks like a drunk lizard. Which means Arrakis has booze?

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

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

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

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

By the way, who decided that Fremen was pronounced Freh-men and not Free-men? All the pronunciations, I took them from recordings of Frank Herbert’s voice. Frank Herbert used “Freh-men,” which I love. It makes it less on-the-nose.

You kept two major characters out of the first movie and only introduced them now: the princess Irulan, played by Florence Pugh, and the Baron Harkonnen’s nephew Feyd-Rautha, played by Austin Butler. The princess is the first voice in the books, the first face onscreen in David Lynch’s “Dune” [1984]. What made you sure holding them back was the right move, despite three years of fans asking, “Hey, where are they?” When people ask me what was the biggest challenge in making those movies, it’s writing them. In order to make this adaptation, we have to make big, bold decisions. One was that the first movie should be seen from Paul’s perspective. I wasn’t able to do that entirely because I had to go to the Harkonnens’ side to introduce them so that the story will be clear, but I tried to find an elegant simplicity in the story structure. And I wanted, frankly, to keep some firepower for the second movie.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“There’s so many darlings that you kill,” Denis Villeneuve said of filming “Dune,” a book he loved. “An adaptation is an act of violence.”

#dune part 2 #denis villeneuve #timothée chalamet #austin butler #paul atreides #feyd rautha

[ladychlo]

HARRY STYLES X ZANE LOWE: 2019//2022.

#can you believe its more than two years between the two #queue #edit #zane lowe #hlcreators #stylesnews

[st4rstudent]

I AGREE its so crazy how zap gags weren't a thing.... like TTCC really popped off with that one! i understand TTR is moreso sticking closer to the way TTO was but WOW zap just feels so natural with a REALLY good mechanic that uses strategy in using squirt and its just so good.... also my favorite track

YEEEPP!! That's how I feel about it. Squirt and zap just mix well together. I also think the addition of an 8th gag track was also a good move, allowing for a nice rotation of combinations (like how lure-trap and throw-drop are together as a combo). And also its a nice even number. I also think it helps utilize squirt, idk just feels good to do in general. Of course, I don't really have anything to compare this to and it's just me speaking as a player of (currently) one server, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

It's my favorite too, zap warriors UNITE!!

#clemask #clemramble #this is also not me hating on tt r either #actually i probably dont have to space that out because this is going to appear in word search anyways but still #i know sometimes there's a little bit of competition (is that what youd call it)? between the two servers. i want it to be stated that #i do not care about server comp. play what you want. who cares. i think both servers have their pros and cons and finding value in what YOU #like is more important than which one is the “”best“”. I think TR does an amazing job of taking TTO and transforming it into something more #while also staying true to the original game. i love the fact it brings some of the old concepts that were originally scrapped or lost #i also like the toon events that they have. like there was the halloween one and if i believe correctly it had a parade in it? #SUPPPERR COOL. i shouldve atleast played a little during that time just to experience it. but to be fair during the school year my #playing in general is toned down a lot. im sure everyone reading this knows how it is #and obviously i like ttcc. it has mac and winn. i mean what who said that.theres a ghost in here.... #and i can understand why people like or dont like each server. they all have pros and cons. but to me its like the two cakes image #sorry i felt the need to clarify bc i know im kindof exclusively a ttcc guy and me going 'ummmm well tt r doesnt have zap' might sound #like im hashtag hating but im not. tt r is awesome ok. i need to try it out one day. #i just really like zap as a gag. like anon stated i think it just really feels natural to the game #that water electric combo does wonders

[yaoianime]

Soon im rly gonna do it

#🕸️ #sui mention #< in the tags tho cuz it feels nicer to talk abt this in tags than in the post itself cuz to me posts are like talking normally but tags are #like whispering? talking you can tune out if you want but whispering is rather more voluntary to say it doesnt matter however #every single year passes and i wish i didnt live in each and every one of them i feel disconnected dissatisfied empty disappointed every day #it can be a small part of a day or a bigger but its still there clenching onto me like and never letting go im tired of it theres always a #wall between me and otyer ppl im unsure if i put it there or was it put there by other ppl but its there and even if anyone tries to reach #into it do i understand how even if close are we really far away it makes me understand just how much of an abnormality i am and how much i #cant ever be like them no matter how much i try and climb and crawl until i bleed its exhausting its maddening #almost everything i do is shaped by spite i wear one bracelet for years out of spite i dont smoke out of spite i dont shave my hands not #only because im normal abt body hair but also out of spite the more i know ppl the spiteful i get only way for me to truly like someone is #to keep them at a lenght outside that wall if they get in then theres only two choices for them to dislike me or even hate my entire being #or me to shove them back out without ever letting them get in #coworkers say im a nice kind person but im not its all just a facade to make my life easier and to suit myself im hateful but i dont believe #its entirely my fault after all they will to my face make fun of. laugh at. and hate everything of me they would see in other ppl that dont #hide it deep within like i do and then it rly hits me how different abnormal foul disgusting and unnatural i am #im hit with his every talk that goes on too long every word that keeps going every touch every expression every comment made on my behalf #its exhausting to live this way i fear im near my limit i havent reached it but who knows when i will #i sometimes dream of doing it and leaving behind a note wishing nothing but painful suffering to everyone i ever knew irl but i dont want to #do that to my best friends and my dog but who knows how long its left before the thread breaks #thats all like comment and subscribe if you personally would do me a favor by taking me out back and shooting me

[fourteenthz]

he is just like me fr fr

#this quest is a bit creepy i'm gonna be honest with yall I'm still not sure abt this one chief #but they did put that quote in there by the end SO I was like “he gets me. it IS all about balfran. we all DO own it to them.” #anyway obligatory fxii update post (dw I leave the balfran rant at the end): starting for the boys bc vossler+basch? lowkey ilberd+raubahn #I was trusting him but at some point it didn't felt right (maybe bc he showed doubts for balthier but whatever) but it gets to me #when he goes “did I act too quick? or was your return too late?” its exactly about that. basch has been sentenced to death for 2 years but #vossler was out there seeing how things were doing. i'm at the point where ashe agrees to go with larsa now and it DOES #feel hypocritical but he was right. and I truly believe vossler to know what he was getting into like yeah empire bad and honestly #if theh can trust anyome there is larsa and no one else but he didn't know that. and he didn't saw any other way. he IS wrong but at the #same time i adore how the narrative goes with it like yeah he is wrong but would anyone do otherwise? it's fun. I love political intrigue. #eating this game up raw everytime they start to talk abt it even if I don't rememeber the name of half the cities/judges. guessing time: #basch's brother is like lowkey at larsa's side. he will probably be redeemed at some point. + i unsure abt ashe + the controling those #crystals... but I'm sooo into everybody's flaws in this game and how intricate they are to the dynamics around them #ashe is quick to jugde and protect bc she is extreme about her opinions hence why she trusts easily when other wouldn't + stubborn #there's such sweet (i want to say ALMOST sibling like/older sis) relationship growing between her and vaan i ADORE it #the talk of them about vaan's brother like.. she just listens... and say sorry when she can help and gets all smiley when he says they will #find out together it's just so sweet. i love thag ashe cares so much and this is why she is so harsh 90% of the times. she just. cares. #and I LOVE how basch is much more understanding of all of this than vossler ever was. #LOVE how he has his knight morals but trate everybody as equalls even ashe. the “a shame for me and you. but for dalmasca is hope” #part got me tearing up lol. they are the same these two. theh have different views and expectations and responsibilities but their experien #are the same.so its always fun having a glimpse of them talking about it #we should have more of those please. but honestly overall the dynamics between ffxii characters is so much better than I expected/remember #they may have their cliches like character tropes they fit (yes I'll admit half of them are star wars og trio coded) BUT their relationship #are so refreshing it just feels new. no one treat the kids with disdain but they still call them out on their bs + the basch having his #knight morals but not thinking of himself/royalty higher that I spoke before + how fran and balthier are both the contrast of what anyone #would make of them like COME ON. It's so good. and haha speaking of them.... I have 4 tags left to talk abt those mfs so I'll be QUICK like #I look insane thinkng and watching these two interact bc sometimes balthier will throw bs like “i always knew she didn't like being tied up #aigh... what.. what am I suppose to do with this info.. like have they ? talked abt this ?? or did he think abt it enough to make a guess ? #I can never tell my hc for them bc ?? I don't remember them being 100% cannon so I'll have to finish the game again to tell u guys abt it #but I think until then they can be a little freaky u know. as a treat for the horrors they are going through. also I need another post hold #kelly plays xii

[gaysindistress]

Things that I feel like would happen when you’re in a relationship with Simon Riley.

Simon Riley masterlist

1. First off he hates the word ‘boyfriend’.

Maybe it’s because he’s in his mid thirties or something but he can’t stand being called your boyfriend. He’s more than that but also not at the same time. You live together, have access to each other’s bank accounts (which is only because he hates it when you try to fight him about him giving you money), and you’re each others emergency contact. He thinks of himself as your husband. The man wears a silicone ring when he’s home and a necklace with the ring that’s totally not a wedding band when he’s working. Price has seen the chain once or twice and smirks, shooting him a knowing look but never says a word.

Simon cannot stand it when people get nosy and want to know what your relationship status is. You’re together and that’s all that matters. No one needs to know that you’re the beneficiary of his will and life insurance policy or that he’s put you on all of his accounts. No one needs to know that he buys you anything you want but has only ever bought you two rings; a thin gold band with a flower engraved on it and its twin a matching emerald ring. No one needs to know that when he gifted them to you, there were tears and promises of safety, love, and happiness whispered against feverish skin. No one needs to know that he has your name woven into his chest tattoo.

No one needs to know any of that because your relationship is between him and you only.

2. You are not some submissive little house wife. You are a strong independent woman and he prefers it that way.

I know this one goes against what most people say but hear me out on this. Simon has been independent since birth practically. He’s only had himself to count on for years. Even in the military, he’s only been able to rely himself. Sure the others watch out for him but if it came down to it, he’s the only one who’s going to get himself out alive.

The thought of someone else relying on him in that way is terrifying. He can’t even fathom what it would be like to look at another person and fully trust them in that way. Half the time he feels like he can’t even be trusted to take care of himself let alone another human. In theory a sweet docile housewife is great with the meals and clean house but not for him. He needs to know that you can hold your own. He needs to know that you can be independent and carry on without him if something happened while he was working. He needs to know that you will be okay if he doesn’t come back.

You have to be okay without him no matter how much it pains him to think about it.

Like I said before, he’s made you the beneficiary of everything so he knows you’ll be set financially but that’s not enough. He’s made Price promise to keep an eye out for you. He’s made you promise to let Price do that and you agreed because it’s Simon who’s asking but you’d tell anyone else to fuck off.

In addition to all of that, he’s installed the best security system the government has to offer in your house. You have a very expensive and large safe in your shared closet that he’s instructed you to only open if you feel unsafe. While you might not like it, you agree to go shooting with him so he can sleep at night knowing that you could protect yourself if he’s not home. He’s gone as far as to make sure you have all of the licenses and certificates that are needed to legally own firearms in the UK.

He’s not leaving any opportunity for you to be vulnerable or have your ‘safety checks’, as he calls them, taken away.

3. Simon Riley is a godless man…until he meets you.

Now this is entirely my own headcannon with no evidence to support it so bear with me.

Simon had a shitty childhood where his mom would pray to a god who never listened and his dad would shout verses at him when he was drunk. God was a mythical figure that he was told stories off with nothing to show for it. He did believe at one point but then his dad never got better, his mom wore bruises of every shade, and his brother found comfort in drugs.

He found himself praying when he was being tortured by the Mexican cartel. Between the flashbacks of his abusive past, he prayed to a god who had failed him so many times before to help him. He prayed again as he dug himself out of that Texas grave with the major’s jaw bone. He wailed his prayers when he found his family executed after Sparks tried to kill him.

After that he deemed himself a Godless man. Years of praying had passed with nothing. This god had decided that Simon was not worthy of a miracle so why would he continue to worship him?

That was until he met you. He finds himself praying before every mission, every time he has to leave you, every time he’s on his way home, and just about any other time he thinks of you. He doesn’t know what exactly he’s praying for other than for you to be there when he gets back.

He whispers his prayers to an absent god against your skin as he worships your body, soul, and heart. He promises to be devoted to you until his last breath and vows to find you again in whatever afterlife awaits you. He pledges to find solace in you and only you when his haunting nightmares return. He makes an oath to your heart that it will never weather another storm alone again for his will take whatever beating that comes your way. He shows you that he will love you in the same manner as a Hozier song; putting you above all else because you have become his religion, his faith, his beliefs, his life.

You have become all that he is and he thanks the god he once believed in for you. He prays again but to you, his heart, his love, and his beacon through the enteral storm of life.

#simon riley x you #simon ghost x reader #simon riley x female reader #simon riley imagine #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley #simon riley #ghost imagine #ghost call of duty #ghost x reader #ghost cod #ghost #ghost x female reader

[jytan2018]

I read the comic in one sitting less than an hour after finishing the movie, and wow I have many Thoughts™.

- It's very obvious the two versions were meant to cater to different audiences AND tell different messages. I don't get why people are going "But the comic was better! It had more nuance!" just because Nimona was easier to root for in the movie.

- The comic was written back when ND Stevenson was still trying to process a lot of stuff, so all the characters are morally grey/straight up evil and the climactic battle is between a Ballister who regrets turning against Nimona, even if it was to save others vs. a Nimona who's too hurt to care if her lashing out was going to hurt innocent people.

- By the time Nimona got a movie adaptation, ND was a lot more secure in his sexuality, so the climactic battle was Nimona vs. the Director, the symbol of religious oppression and bigotry. It's not just about your friends turning on you because you're "too much" for them anymore, it's also about a society that would rather bring itself to the brink of ruin than coexist with you.

- (I totally get why people were upset about Ballister's surname change, though. Like come on, the media dubbing him Blackheart just to be mean was RIGHT THERE).

- Nimona's metaphor for not shifting is such a neurodivergent thing. Even in the comic, Nimona's parents insisting she's a monster who replaced their daughter is reminiscent of the changeling myth, which is what many parents thought their neurodivergent kids were—changelings who replaced their "real" children.

- Ambrosius being trained to cut off HIS BOYFRIEND'S WHOLE FUCKING ARM instead of merely disarming him is a very cop thing to do. As much as cops claim they're trained to de-escalate situations, their training still teaches them to treat everyone as a potential threat, and that level of constant vigilance can turn anyone into a trigger-happy/arm-choppy bastard. Even the Director, who can use a sword but probably hasn't actually fought someone in ages, STILL can't see Ballister reaching for the squire's phone without assuming he has a weapon.

- And on that note, the Queen getting killed simply because she was trying to reform the Institution and allow commoners to become knights? That's the best "no such thing as a good cop" metaphor I've seen. Because even if there ARE good cops and they ARE in leadership positions, the system will crush them before they make any meaningful change. It's not a good institution that turned rotten, it's an institution that only exists to spread its rot and refuses to be good.

- That's why Ballister's characterisation is so different in the movie vs. the comic. Comic Ballister had 15 years to come to terms with his trauma and the Institution's evildoing, while Movie Ballister is still freshly traumatised and hasn't found a way to define himself beyond the role he was assigned by the Institution.

- Not to mention Comic Ambrosius was not very noble to begin with and genuinely believed Ballister was better suited to villainy than heroism, while Movie Ambrosius never wanted the glory that came with his lineage in the first place and only antagonised Ballister because of indoctrination he needed to unlearn (which he did, all by himself, after witnessing the lengths the Director will go to just to kill Nimona).

- It really shows how important it is to surround yourself with loved ones who are open to change. Comic Ambrosius can love Ballister all he wants, but he'll still blast his arm off because he thinks Ballister deserved it anyway. Movie Ambrosius will stop to question what "the right thing" even means, even if he didn't love Ballister enough to defend him unconditionally.

I have so many more thoughts bubbling beneath the surface, but I'll probably address them some other day. In conclusion:

[ID: A pink-haired Nimona grinning evilly while holding up a knife.]

Watch Nimona. This is not a request.

Edit: Added more thoughts!

#nimona #nimona meta #nimona comic #ballister blackheart #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin

[reasonsforhope]

"The California state government has passed a landmark law that obligates technology companies to provide parts and manuals for repairing smartphones for seven years after their market release.

Senate Bill 244 passed 65-0 in the Assembly, and 38-0 in the Senate, and made California, the seat of so much of American technological hardware and software, the third state in the union to pass this so-called “right to repair” legislation.

On a more granular level, the bill guarantees consumers’ rights to replacement parts for three years’ time in the case of devices costing between $50 and $99, and seven years in the case of devices costing more than $100, with the bill retroactively affecting devices made and sold in 2021.

Similar laws have been passed in Minnesota and New York, but none with such a long-term period as California.

“Accessible, affordable, widely available repair benefits everyone,” said Kyle Wiens, the CEO of advocacy group iFixit, in a statement. “We’re especially thrilled to see this bill pass in the state where iFixit is headquartered, which also happens to be Big Tech’s backyard. Since Right to Repair can pass here, expect it to be on its way to a backyard near you.” ...

One of the reasons Wiens is cheering this on is because large manufacturers, from John Deere to Apple, have previously lobbied heavily against right-to-repair legislation for two reasons. One, it allows them to corner the repair and maintenance markets, and two, it [allegedly] protects their intellectual property and trade secrets from knock-offs or competition.

However, a byproduct of the difficulty of repairing modern electronics is that most people just throw them away.

...Wien added in the statement that he believes the California bill is a watershed that will cause a landslide of this legislation to come in the near future."

-via Good News Network, October 16, 2023

#united states #us politics #right to repair #planned obsolescence #enshittification #big tech #iphone #sustainability #ewaste #consumer rights #electronics #good news #hope #california #silicon valley

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Controversial opinion among Dune book fans maybe, but I loved the changes they made to Chani's character. Making her a fedaykin who is already an experienced fighter before Paul arrives was a brilliant choice. Dune Part Two is a war movie, and this puts her at the center of the action, side by side with Paul, and gives her a much more active role than she has in the book.

We got a hint of where things were going in the beginning of Dune Part One. The first thing we ever know about movie Chani is that she's a fighter. She serves as a voice for the Fremen, telling us the story of their struggle from her point of view. I wrote here about the difference this change makes compared to other adaptations of Dune, what a perspective shift it is to have the world of Arrakis introduced not by an outsider, describing it as a dangerous but valuable colonial prize, but by one of its native inhabitants, who tells us before all else that it's beautiful, her home that she's fighting to liberate. I am so, so glad that the second movie followed up on this characterization.

I never found Chani and Paul's love story in the book particularly convincing, because why would this woman, who already has a prominent and respected place in Fremen society, even give the time of day to her deposed would-be colonizer, let alone fall in love and have children with him? Without a compelling reason for Chani to love Paul, she ends up feeling like a prize to be won, and "indigenous culture personified as a woman to be wooed (or conquered) by the colonizing man" is a trope we've seen and don't need to repeat.

But as soon as you tell me it's a barricade romance I get it. Cool cool cool, I know exactly what this relationship is now and it makes sense. Movie Chani doesn't respect or even particularly like Paul when she first meets him, and she doesn't think he's the fulfillment of any prophecy. She comes to respect him, and eventually love him, through his actions. He's brave--sometimes recklessly so. He fights well. He's willing to stick his neck out on the front lines with the other Fremen fighters. He can (after a little help) hack surviving in the harsh desert environment. He's not too proud to learn from others. He seems to genuinely want to be her equal in a common political struggle. All these qualities make sense as things she values.

Fighting side by side as equals is just about the only way I can see movie Chani falling for Paul. And it fits perfectly with the film's pattern of reversals that Paul's capacity for violence would initially be one of the things Chani likes about him, only for her to be repelled later when she sees what he becomes.

And as for Paul, well, he's had people deferring to him his entire life. Someone who doesn't take any shit from him is probably refreshing. He seems to like people (Duncan, Gurney) who challenge him and engage in a little friendly teasing--and aren't afraid to go a few rounds in the sparring ring.

It's easy to speedrun a romance when you're spending all your time together in mortal danger fighting for a shared political cause. Especially if you then start winning in a war your people have been fighting for decades. Are you kidding me? That is the perfect environment for intense battle camaraderie to turn into romantic love, and lust.

It makes sense that this version of Chani never believes Paul is any kind of messiah. Of course a character like movie Chani wouldn't believe in or trust some outside savior to liberate them. She's been working to liberate her own people for years. The more Paul invokes the messianic myth, the more he starts sounding once again like someone who plans to rule over them, and the more uncomfortable Chani becomes. In this way she becomes a foil to Jessica, the two of them representing the choices Paul is pulled between. It's a great way of externalizing the political and philosophical debates that often happen within characters' heads in the book.

And of course this version of Chani would leave Paul at the end of the film. It's not just the personal, emotional betrayal--although that stings. What common cause does she have with someone who just declared himself emperor and is sending her own people off in a war of conquest against others? Given the important role she plays in Dune Messiah, I am super curious to see how they get her back into the story, but girl was so valid for being willing to just gtfo. Given that she has the last shot of the whole movie, I'm sure she'll be back somehow, and I can't wait to see what they do with her character in any future installments.

#dune #dune part two #dune part 2 #chani kynes #paul atreides #adaptation #dune spoilers

[itsclydebitches]

Just finished Good Omens 2 and I'm honestly boggling at the Aziraphale hate because yes, his decision led to the angsty cliffhanger, but it makes SO much sense for his character. Not just in a "Religious brainwashing and sunk-cost fallacy" kinda way but also a "Aziraphale has no reason to believe this isn't the perfect solution" way. That scene among the nebula is crucial because it establishes that Crowley loved being an angel—reveled in his ability to create and allow his creations to grow kinda like plants—and the only problem was that someone else was calling the shots, someone who wouldn't listen to his criticism. Aziraphale has also spent 6,000+ years watching Crowley do good, all the while forced to deny the fact that he's "nice" lest embracing his original nature get him into trouble with hell. Now, Metatron comes along with an offer that fixes everything in one fell swoop. Crowley can be an angel again, be nice without censure, his ideas and criticisms will hold weight because he'll be answering to Aziraphale, and they'll be together.

It strikes me that Aziraphale isn't there when Crowley sees Gabriel's trial, ergo he likewise doesn't see the (non)acknowledgement that there's an institutional problem up in Heaven. There just happen to have been two archangels who called it quits. Same when Gabriel blurts that phrase out to Crowley. Aziraphale has always been more blind to the ways in which Heaven is "toxic" (for very understandable reasons) and this season he's continually sheltered from new evidence of its structural problems. The plot just preaches to the choir: Crowley. He likewise wouldn't see the conflict Gabriel and Beelzebub have caused as evidence of an underlying problem because that's a problem he and Crowley will no longer share. Why would they be worried about Heaven still being unable to accept partnerships between angels and demons when Crowley will no longer be a demon? And that's something he presumably wants based on Aziraphale's memories of him and the ongoing admission that he's lonely.

The way I see it, they got what they thought they wanted at the start of Season 2. Heaven and Hell are keeping an eye on them, but functionally they're left alone. Crowley can spend all the time he wants with Aziraphale and nothing comes of that except that they're both continually named traitors and the higher-ups grumble about it. If Gabriel had never shown up, things should have been perfect based on Crowley's "Let's just run away and have each other's company" standards. Better, even, considering that they get to be together on their beloved Earth, rather than being bored out in Alpha Centauri without any sushi, plants, books, or Bentleys. And yet... Crowley doesn't strike me as particularly happy. Because, you know, based on that kiss he wants to be with Aziraphale, not just literally be with him, but the point of this post is that his "Let's run away and be an 'us'" falls totally flat when he doesn't explain that specific desire to Aziraphale; the desire to change what an 'us' means. From Aziraphale's perspective they're already an 'us.' That was the entire point of "our side" in Season 1 and now they can continue to be 'us' up in Heaven. Plus, Aziraphale likely sees this as a sacrifice on his part. He will give up his bookshop, his Earthly indulgences, take on the responsibilities of leadership (which I don't think he actually wants for a variety of reasons), and spend the rest of eternity in a place where he's felt so small because he thinks that's what Crowley wants. Crowley was happy as an angel. Crowley wanted them to be together without risk of permanent discorporation. They were able to achieve that after not-Armageddon and he still wasn't happy... so surely those two things together will do the trick. Crowley never actually articulates how he wants their relationship to change and the kiss comes much too late, when he's already rejected what Aziraphale must see as a perfect, selfless solution he's secured for them. Even if Crowley wasn't always moving too fast for him, an overture of romance isn't going to go well after that.

Is this crushing and angsty and devastating as a hiatus? Damn straight, my heart it breaking. But it's a good setup. More importantly, it makes perfect sense for their characters, particularly when they're still talking past one another. Aziraphale is someone who has always moved more slowly as a matter of course, as an angel he has remained immersed in the rhetoric of Heaven, his main avenue of breaking free of that (Crowley) has a huge communication problem (to say nothing of his own denial. He only made headway with the help of Nina and Maggie, seconds before Aziraphale shows up), and Metatron (in a no doubt incredibly manipulative manner) has just offered Aziraphale a job that presumably makes him happy AND Crowley happy AND allows him to maintain the moral this-is-how-the-universe-works perspective he's had since he was literally created. Of course he's going to say yes to all that!! And sure, there are problems in Heaven, Aziraphale isn't completely blind, but he can fix them now that he's in charge. How? Well... he'll figure that out later! Kinda like how he's been making plans on the fly this entire season. That seems logical from his perspective, right? It's not like he's gotten a crash-course in the concept of the master's tools never being able to dismantle the master's house...

#Good Omens #Good Omens spoilers #Good Omens 2 #Good Omens 2 spoilers #GO2 #GO2 spoilers #mymetas #this is so rough and I'll probably write better metas later #but I just have FEELINGS RIGHT NOW OKAY

[vixensbrainrotts]

TR men reacting to little kids wooing you

Content: reactions

Tropes: established relationship

Warnings: none (lmk if im wrong)

Summary: A little boy, perhaps four or five of age comes waddling over to you two whilst you're out on a date together and offers you a flower, confessing his spontaneous love for you. How does your man react to that?

Vixen’s two cents: hi! This has been sitting in my drafts forever so i need to get it out cause it’s collecting cobwebs. It’s sort of a random idea but whatever, i found it entertaining. Also im editing this in the car and its giving me a stroke why is the road so fucking uneven? If you have any ideas for me to write please please please my requests ans messages are open! Yeah, let me know if there are any other characters that fit those types and enjoy!

(Takemichi, Chifuyu, Souya, Hakkai, Shinichiro, Sanzu (I don’t care what anyone says. Shy Sanzu is forever on my agenda), Inui)

Nearly deceased type, it took him so long to get you. How HOW is this little ass kid wooing you better than he could ever dream of? What the actual fuck was happening? He couldn’t believe his eyes when that actual toddler came up to you with a flower, the stem freshly plucked, and a glimmer in the kid‘s hopeful eyes. The boy had almost serenaded you the way he sang praises to you: „excuse me miss, you’re really pretty! Would you accept my flower please?“. And what was even more unbelievable, was when you giggled and accepted the flower giddily. Then the little boy crossed the line: „can I have a kiss in return Miss?“. And you did. You pecked the cheek of the boy meek two minutes after meeting him! Unbelievable! It took him 3 dates to even hold your hand. Outrizzed by a five year old.

(Nahoya, Mikey, Baji)

Ready to fight the kid. He's deadass about it too, rolling up his sleeves and cracking his knuckels and snapping the kinks in his neck, looking menacingly at that poor little boy. He doesn't care that this may be the kid's first crush, he'll crush him in return. You were his damnit and he was gonna prove it to anyone who tried him. Kids included. When you pull at his arm though, prompting him to calm down, he stops a little. What do you mean you dont want him to establish his dominance? He's genuinely stumped and just kinda stares at you for a second, watching you intensely as you lean down to the boy, whispering something in his little ear and taking the flower from him. The boy giggles at you, his former horror dissipated, instead replaced with a furious blush that spread all the way down his neck and up his ears. He blew you a kiss before skipping away, giddily going back to whatever he was doing beforehand. Your boyfriend turns you around by the shoulders immediately and gives you a harmless glare. “What the fuck was that about?” But he doesn’t get a response, as you just wrap your arms around him and laugh. “You’re so cute when you’re jealous!” Well… that wasnt the answer he was looking for but he’ll take it.

(Ran, Shion, Draken, Benkei, Wakasa)

Sitting back and watching the show. He finds the little kids advances hilarious and will gladly watch the little shrimp try to win you over whilst you’re trying your hardest not to burst out laughing. “So sweets, how old are you anyway?” The boy asks you with a smirk on his face. “Too old for you.” You answer incredulously, just about ready to cry from laughter. “No no no baby, no one has to know! It can just be between the two of us and that’s fineeee!” He draws out the syllables and leans one elbow on table you and your boyfriend are sitting at. Your boyfriend all the while has probably pulled out a phone, discreetly filming the whole thing whilst leaning back and hiding his tears. You shoot both boys an amused look and then answer the awaiting kid. “Come back to me in a few years and maybe we can arrange something, yeah?” The little kids eyes widen as he looks at you with a determined smile. “Yes! You won’t regret it! And I’ll beat up your wannabe boyfie over here once I’m strong enough too!” He exclaims and runs off leaving you howling in laughter and your boyfriend, who is suddenly enraged by a child, fumes silently, sending daggers across the room. “Relax baby.” You reach a hand over the table to hold his, wiping the tears from your eyes. “Don’t touch me.” He hisses and puts the phone down, crossing his arms in fake offense.

(Hanma, Kokonoi, Izana, Rindou)

The false hope typa guy. In this case, the boy made the mistake of coming up to HIM and innocently asking for your name. “Why, you like what you see?” Your boyfriend uses language much too mature for the little kid, but he gets a timid response of “yeah, she’s real pretty..” nevertheless. Your boyfriend chuckles and pats him on the shoulder. “I say go for it, I’m sure you’ve got a chance with her!” The little boy has wide eyes and an open mouth “Really? You sure she doesn’t have some super big ‘n scary boyfriend?” He has to suppress laughter when he answers. “I’m sure she doesn’t, go talk to her, ask her for her name and tell her that I said hi too.” And with that, he’s sent the kid on his way. Your boyfriend watches him shyly go up to you and pat your leg slightly to get your attention. He watches you smile down at the little boy and talk to him, your eyes widening and laughing when you exchange a few words with the kid. When he sees fit, he comes stalking over to the two of you and wraps his arm around your waist and smirks at the kid. “Hey there.” You greet your boyfriend and turn to look at him. “Have you met—“ he guesses that you’re about to introduce him to the little boy but he doesn’t care to listen, and leans down to shush your lips with a long, over-the-top kiss, even going as far as to cracking one eye open to look at the little boys horrified face before finally pulling away. You’re a little dazed and very confused when you look down and find your little admirer gone. You throw your boyfriend an accusing look but he only raises his hands in surrender, claiming innocent with a smug smile on his face.

#tokyo rev x reader #tokyo revengers #tokyo revengers x reader #x reader #tokyo rev x you #tokrev #tokyo manji revengers #tr content #tr headcanons #shinichiro #draken x reader #tr shinichiro #tokyo revengers fluff #tokyo revengers sano manjiro #tokyo revengers shinichiro #tokyo revengers souya #tokyo revengers kokonoi #tokyo revengers sanzu #tokyo revengers headcanons #tokyo rev #hanma shuji #ran haitani x reader #hanma x reader #sano x reader #Izana x reader #Takemichi x reader #nahoya x reader #tr rindou #rindou haitani #rindou x reader

[heritageposts]

how do i start to read marxist leninist/leftist stuff ? i searched on the internet but it’s super confusing lol

the most important value for me as an ML is anti-imperialism, so i guess i'll always recommend that people start with works centred on that

some suggestions below (all books should be available either on marxist.org or as pdf/epub files on libgen)

American Holocaust by David E. Stannard

about the colonization of america. not explicitly marxist, but it's probably done more to radicalize me than any other piece of writing. this is the pile of corpses capitalism is built on:

Within no more than a handful of generations following their first en counters with Europeans, the vast majority of the Western Hemisphere's native peoples had been exterminated. The pace and magnitude of their obliteration varied from place to place and from time to time, but for years now historical demographers have been uncovering, in region upon region, post-Columbian depopulation rates of between 90 and 98 percent with such regularity that an overall decline of 95 percent has become a working rule of thumb. What this means is that, on average, for every twenty natives alive at the moment of European contact-when the lands of the Americas teemed with numerous tens of millions of people-only one stood in their place when the bloodbath was over. To put this in a contemporary context, the ratio of native survivorship in the Americas following European contact was less than half of what the human survivorship ratio would be in the United States today if every single white person and every single black person died. The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world. That is why, as one historian aptly has said, far from the heroic and romantic heraldry that customarily is used to symbolize the European settlement of the Americas, the emblem most congruent with reality would be a pyramid of skulls. - David E. Stannard

2. Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism by Vladimir Lenin

Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. - Vladimir Lenin

3. The Wretched of The Earth by Franz Fanon

Let us look at ourselves, if we can bear to, and see what is becoming of us. First, we must face that unexpected revelation, the strip-tease of our humanism. There you can see it, quite naked, and it’s not a pretty sight. It was nothing but an ideology of lies, a perfect justification for pillage; its honeyed words, its affectation of sensibility were only alibis for our aggressions. A fine sight they are too, the believers in non-violence, saying that they are neither executioners nor victims. Very well then; if you’re not victims when the government which you’ve voted for, when the army in which your younger brothers are serving without hesitation or remorse have undertaken race murder, you are, without a shadow of doubt, executioners. And if you chose to be victims and to risk being put in prison for a day or two, you are simply choosing to pull your irons out of the fire. But you will not be able to pull them out; they’ll have to stay there till the end. Try to understand this at any rate: if violence began this very evening and if exploitation and oppression had never existed on the earth, perhaps the slogans of non-violence might end the quarrel. But if the whole regime, even your non-violent ideas, are conditioned by a thousand-year-old oppression, your passivity serves only to place you in the ranks of the oppressors. - prefrace by Jean-Paul Sartre

4. Discourse on Colonialism by Aimé Césaire

Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man, it is not the humiliation of man as such, it is the crime against the white man, the humiliation of the white man, and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa I have talked a good deal about Hitler. Because he deserves it: he makes it possible to see things on a large scale and to grasp the fact that capitalist society, at its present stage, is incapable of establishing a concept of the rights of all men, just as it has proved incapable of establishing a system of individual ethics. Whether one likes it or not, at the end of the blind alley that is Europe, I mean the Europe of Adenauer, Schuman, Bidault, and a few others, there is Hitler. At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. At the end of formal humanism and philosophicrenunciation, there is Hitler - Aimé Césaire

5. Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti

probably the most accessible introduction to communism that doesn't demonize countries that have undergone—or attempted to undergo—a transitation into socalism (like the ussr, cuba, etc.)

The very concept of "revolutionary violence" is somewhat falsely cast, since most of the violence comes from those who attempt to prevent reform, not from those struggling for reform. By focusing on the violent rebellions of the downtrodden, we overlook the much greater repressive force and violence utilized by the ruling oligarchs to maintain the status quo, including armed attacks against peaceful demonstrations, mass arrests, torture, destruction of opposition organizations, suppression of dissident publications, death squad assassinations, the extermination of whole villages, and the like. - Michael Parenti

#i'm too lazy to write an introduction for all of them #but i've included some quotes #get reading sickos #this is now on the tumblr university curriculum

[sabersandsnipers]

Drabbles: Reader is Sick or in Pain

Gortash

Enver Gortash considers himself a very busy man, but still finds himself wanting to spend every free moment he has at your side. And he feels anger. Anger at the fact that he can’t cure you instantly. Sure, there are spells to heal wounds and cure disease, but nothing for a simple cold. 

He’s in and out of your shared chambers throughout the day to check on you. He walks in after a particularly time consuming event only to find you buried under the covers, a cough bursting from you every minute or so. Your congested breathing causes his heart to ache. He wishes he could take the pain for you. 

He pulls back the covers a bit to take in your beautiful features. Your eyelashes flutter at the sudden brightness. He places his hand on your forehead. The warmth of them feels good against your skin, and you lean into his touch. 

He can’t help himself, he leans down and presses his lips to yours. Your hands find their way to his chest. He waits for the feel of your palms sliding over his skin, but instead you give him a slight push away. 

“No, you’ll get sick,” you say, eyes staring up at him. 

“I think I’ll live,” he responds, grinning. Then he climbs right into bed with you, robes and all. 

Astarion 

Astarion had all but forgotten what it was like to get ill. In all his two hundred years of living as a vampire, he had never gotten sick. It was perhaps the only perk of becoming such a creature. 

So when you fall ill, he delves into every book he can find on helping with fevers, flus, and everything inbetween. He also visited Shadowheart and Halsin, hoping they could help provide some remedies for you. 

The stomach flu is currently what has you in its clutches. Every hour, your stomach rolls and empties what little content is left. Astarion is right there by your side every time. He holds your hair back and uses his cold fingers to trace along your neck. 

Every time you get sick, your body flushes with heat. Sweat gathers on your forehead and your body shakes with fever. Astarion notices your struggle, and will pull you into his cool chest for relief. 

The feel of his cold skin against yours brings a sigh of relief from your lips. His chest is firm yet smooth, and grounds you against the pain you feel. And he’s more than happy to help you. He prays to whatever gods you believe in that you will recover soon. 

Halsin 

Your cycle is here earlier than its supposed to be, and it’s here in full force as well. The pain in your lower abdomen is blinding, radiating to your lower back and digging in its claws wherever it can. Curling up into a ball and applying heat when it’s available is the only relief you can find. 

Halsin paces in your shared tent, gathering whatever remedies he can to help you. Something you didn’t realize about Halsin until you shared a tent by the way, was that when in private, he’s always naked. Usually watching his massive frame do such gentle work has you craving his touch. But today, the pain takes over. 

“My heart, what has helped you the most with your pain?” he asks, leaning down to lightly brush a strand of hair out of your face. 

“Heat,” you respond, leaning into the warmth of his touch. 

He smiles. “I think I can help with that.” 

He scooches in behind you, pulling you back so you’re flush with his chest. One of his magnificently large hands snakes over your lower abdomen, pressing down so waves of warmth radiate towards the spasms and cramps that won’t leave you be. He’s not done yet either. He nudges a large, muscled thigh between your legs, right up against your core. The heat from him soothes the soreness you feel there. 

“Oh gods,” you sigh, moving your hips back to get as close to him as you can. 

Halsin groans. “Careful, little one. I need you to rest, and it’s hard to let that happen when you move like that.” He twitches against your bottom. 

You grin. Even in this condition, he still can’t help but find you irresistible. 

#bg3 #bg3 imagine #enver gortash #enver gortash x reader #gortash #gortash x reader #astarion #astarion x reader #astarion imagine #halsin #halsin x reader #halsin imagine

[eratosmusings]

Loyalty (I)

Daemon Targaryen x Hightower!reader

summary: the king decides it's time for his brother to produce more targaryen heirs. who better than another hightower daughter to carry them?

warnings: adults only, all characters over 18, dubcon smut in later chapters, arranged marriage, abortion allusion (moon tea), coercion, terrible parenting

word count: 2.3k

dividers

“I won’t allow it.”

“You won’t allow it?” Viserys asks with an air of frigid humor. “Who are you to deny your king what he has commanded?”

Otto seethes, decades of practiced court manners faltering under the demand. “Forgive me, Your Grace, but she is my daughter. I will not have her married off to a man whose love of violence and debauchery trails him like a shadow. She is a pious child. To marry her to Daemon is—“

“A blessing. She will marry a prince and a valiant knight.”

The other men at the table are silent. They'd expected talks of reinforcing the kingdom's claim on the Stepstones or of quelling rumors that had cropped up of Daemon corrupting his young niece in a brothel a year prior. The king commanding a marriage between Otto Hightower's youngest daughter—his only child from a tragically short second marriage—is an unpleasant surprise.

"He is already married."

Viserys gives a taut smile. "Daemon's marriage to Lady Royce has been annulled. By royal decree and with the blessing of the High Septon. It is in the best interest of Westeros that the Targaryen line remains vast and strong and it has been decided your daughter will do what Lady Royce did not."

Otto's face falls in disbelief. He's heard nothing of it. This had been set up to corner him. "She is a child."

"She is nearly four years older than Alicent was when we wed. The queen has proven your daughters are strong vessels for Targaryen children."

"It is different. She is different. She is not as strong as Alicent."

The king shakes his head. "I will hear no more discussion of this. She will wed Daemon and this feud between the two of you shall end once and for all.”

Alicent’s touch is feather-light as she takes hold of your hands. Her eyes wander across your form, taking in the exquisite ivory gown. Its crimson embroidered dragon along the skirt a special request from your soon-to-be husband. “You look beautiful, sister.”

You can say nothing to your half-sister, barely able to retain the tears brimming in silence. A fortnight was all you’d been given to prepare to wed the vilest creature in Westeros. Daemon Targaryen was all you could have ever hoped against in a husband.

Your father stands tall behind Alicent, head held high. "The image of the Maiden herself."

A choked sob escapes you at his words. This marriage was punishment by the Seven for every sin you'd ever committed. For the impure thoughts you'd had of knights. The white lies you'd spoken to save yourself the wrath of Septa Agerrea. The gambling you'd participated in when you’d bet your favorite embroidery needle in a game of cards with Lysa Tyrell. Had you only followed the Faith more faithfully, this torture would not be yours to endure.

“I believe it is time to take your place with the king, Your Grace,” your father says.

Alicent hesitates with glossy eyes. She draws you into a tight hug and whispers an apology and how much she loves you. You have the faintest memory of her wedding to the king a few years before. The happy sister who’d spent hours braiding your hair when the handmaidens failed to do it properly disappeared into a hardened queen round with child seemingly overnight. The smiles and giggles you’d shared daily turned to fond, distant memories. She withdraws a moment later, wiping at her face.

When the door shuts your father moves behind you. You watch in the ornate mirror as he drapes the green maidencloak of House Hightower across your shoulders. The new burden's weight feels uncomfortable.

He returns to stand before you, his expression sorrowful. "I am sorry, my sweet child, for this atrocity. You deserve far better.”

“I could have saved myself this fate had I been less worldly and become a Septa.” Your palm wipes at the tear that had fallen.

He cups your cheek. “Perhaps. But we cannot lament on what we could have done. Indeed we must focus instead on your duty to the realm.”

“To be a good wife,” you state. It was what he had raised you to be.

“No, sweet child,” he says softly, “I fear that I must ask something far more difficult of you. For your duty to the realm must supplant your duty in marriage.”

The wedding takes place in a haze. You tremble, stumble over words, and can not meet the eyes of your now husband nor the Septon. Soon you would betray them both.

For the good of the realm.

You do not eat or drink through the feast. You barely speak. You think you might have danced, though all you remember of it is a blurring background and an embroidered dragon that matches your own. It had stared at you accusingly.

“Shall I call for the bedding ceremony to begin, brother?” the king slurs loudly. If there had been anything in your stomach, it surely would have come out now. It was one vile thought to have him touch you. But to have other men undress you as well?

Your hand is pulled from your lap, enclosed in another twice its size, callous and rough against your skin. For the first time that day you look at your husband. You’d never seen him this close. The lavender gaze cannot have been of this world. It’s too vibrant, too knowing. “Too many of the men here have wandering hands. I’d hate to spill blood on such a blessed day.” His lips brush against your hand. “My sweet wife should not have to endure such tragedy.”

The king responds dismissively. Something of disappointing guests, but to do as he pleases. Daemon takes it as a dismissal and pulls you from your seat. The last thing you hear is the call from many about bloody sheets.

Perhaps the Mother has decided to take mercy on you. For you cannot breathe as the doors to the prince’s chambers close behind you. Death can take you before he can.

He stands in front of the fire, pouring some drink into a goblet. The flickering orange light suits him. Like he was born for flames. “You must relax. There is nothing for you to fear from me.” A lie. There was much to fear from him.

A booming knock echoes through the room.

“Enter.”

Two servants carrying trays of bread and fruit enter. Then they are gone just as swiftly. The door closes once more.

“You must eat,” he says, taking your hand once more and leading you to a small table. You sit and a piece of bread is offered. You take it and, after an expectant nod, take a bite. It’s still warm and soft. You take another bite. And another.

It’s gone quickly. Too quickly for a lady. A bowl of berries clatters softly in front of you. You pick at it slower, though not as slowly as you’d like. They are sweet. Perfectly ripe.

“Would you like some wine?”

Despite the juice of berries coating your tongue, your mouth is dry as you speak for the first time since you’d said your vows. “Yes, please.”

“So well mannered.” A smug smile spreads across his face as he raises his goblet and sips. He reaches over and sets it down beside the half-empty bowl. “I forgot to have them retrieve another cup.”

The crimson red liquid ripples. A challenge.

“You are very gracious, my Prince. Thank you.” You lift it by the stem and drink. It was stronger than you’ve ever had before. The taste takes you aback, coughing as it soaks your tongue. Hastily you set the cup back down.

"I take it you don't often indulge in Dornish Reds."

"No, never."

His head cocks to the side appraisingly. "I suppose such a thing has never been offered to you before. Not within the confines of your father's authority. He has given you a rather sheltered life."

A prickly heat seeps up your neck. "My father did not confine or shelter me. He has only ever guided me to live as virtuously as the Seven wished for all their children to live.”

“How very kind of him to not let you endure the same vices as himself.”

You blink, his words sinking in. The implication that your father is a drunkard stings. He isn't, but you don’t fight his accusation. Selfishly, you do not wish to defend your father. Instead, you pluck a berry from the bowl, hoping to end the conversation entirely.

"Are the berries quite good?"

You nod, not wanting to speak again.

"Might I have one?" When you go to pick up the bowl, he stops you. "Pick me out the best one."

The best one? The bowl is still half full. Which berry was the best? Would he be disappointed if you picked one he did not like? Or one that was not ripe enough? Not sweet enough? What would he do to you if he disliked the one you chose?

It was the largest blackberry that you finally settle on, prepared to hear how terrible the choice had been as you hold it out to him. He doesn't simply take it. He leans over the table, taking the berry and your fingers into his mouth.

The act is heinously intimate. It leaves you frozen and breathless as he pulls away, his eyes alight in devious amusement. "I'm not sure which taste I prefer. The berry's or your's."

Fire spreads across your cheeks. You flinch away, embarrassed. In the escape effort your arm knocks against the goblet. To your horror, it clatters against the table. The liquid sloshes across your front, staining the white gown.

The crimson seems to seep from your womb, condemning you for something you had yet to do. You paw at the stain as the chair clatters on the ground from the force with which you'd stood.

Tears brim in your eyes as it continues to spread.

“There's no need to fret. It is only wine.”

“I have desecrated it.” The tears have not stopped falling and your hands have not stopped scrubbing at it with your fingers. “The stain will never come out.”

“It is only a dress.” He cups your face, encouraging you to meet his gaze. It searches for some understanding.

He would never understand.

“I am so sorry, my Prince.”

He shushes you softly and places a kiss against your forehead. This was the monster? The vile, unholy beast whose every action was an affront to the Seven? This man who had shown you nothing but kindness?

You cry harder.

He is not the monster.

You are.

You aren’t sure how long you cry. But he holds you through it all. He speaks little more than a few consoling phrases, but it is more than you deserve. His presence, arms around you, kisses on your hair. All of it more than you deserve.

You’re finally calm, only left with sniffles, when he says, “We should get the dress to the washwomen before the stain sets.” What good would it do? The stain can never be removed from your soul. Still you agree and turn for him.

His fingers are swift as they loosen the strings of your bodice. Practiced. He is practiced. Behind closed doors you assume, but there were numerous tales of his public debauchery. It has been gossiped that he prefers the thrill of open affairs and touches of multiple women.

“Why did you refuse the bedding ceremony?”

He pauses. “Did you wish to have one?”

“No,” you say quickly. “But given your…tendencies I…I thought…” A quiet hum has your words trailing off.

His work continues, though slower. “You are not a whore in a brothel.”

“Neither is your niece and yet...”

Air blows across your neck as he chuckles. “Has my pious little wife been gossiping about the chastity of the Crowned Princess?”

Your lungs seize at the realization of what you’d just said. It’s treason. Questioning her virtue is treason.

“Relax, jaesa.” His hands slip between the shoulders of your shift and the loose gown, pushing the sleeves down your arms. “I took you under my protection today. You may speak freely to me.”

“I,” you hesitate, freeing your hands of the garment, “I had heard that a year ago you snuck the princess from the castle and—“

He bunches the fabric at your waist and tugs. “Had my way with her in some brothel?”

“Yes.”

The gown struggles for a moment, snagging on the curve of your behind. Another tug and it is a pile around your feet. “My niece wished to see King’s Landing. I showed her and returned her to the castle, still a fair maiden like yourself.”

“Of course.”

“You doubt me?”

“No, my Prince.”

"It would do a great disservice to our union to begin it with lies." He prompts you to turn and hesitantly you do. He is shorter than your father, yet his presence is as commanding. More so. It makes you aware of how thin the fabrics of your shifts were when his gaze drifts down. "My niece's heart belongs elsewhere. As do my desires."

His touch is gentle as he cups your cheek, but the feeling's it stirred are rough and uncertain. Bordering on traitorous.

“Shall I call a servant to fetch the dress?” The words waver. You wonder if they’re comprehensible at all.

They are, it seems as he rejects the offer and slips out the door himself with the dress. The reprieve from his watchful, astute eye is welcome. You fall to your knees at the edge of the bed and recite the prayer your father had taught you minutes before you’d been led down the aisle.

Warrior, give me strength for what I must do. It is for the good of the realm.

Mother, forgive me for what I must do. It is for the good of your faithful servants.

Stranger, lead my children to peace. It is for the good of their innocent souls.

a/n: all your thoughts and reblogs are appreciated 🌺

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#daemon targeryen x reader #daemon targaryen x you #daemon targaryen smut #targaryen x reader #hotd x reader #loyalty

[hades-in-bloom]

Scars

Leon S. Kennedy x Reader

summary: thinking of Leon’s scars (with a little bit of touching).

warnings & contents: fluff; assumed older Leon (more of RE6 and Vendetta, although I keep using ID! to illustrate); could be age gap, could be none; lots of cuddling; mentions of violence (sorta); the reader could be any gender; no mentions of y/n

a/n: a blurb, because I can. As always, proceed at your own risk. Minors DNI! Masterlist xoxo

soundtrack: billie eilish — when the party’s over

***

Leon’s figure was resting on top of the bedsheets, his bare back exposed to one’s curious sight with his features relaxed, while he was catching up on hours of sleep he was deprived of this week; thanks to another one of those excruciating missions. You couldn’t hold back a small smile; he looked so peaceful, lying there with disheveled dirty blonde hair and not a glimpse of worry on his face—something you would die to see more often after everything he has endured.

You were doing your best to stay as quiet as humanly possible so you wouldn’t wake him up when your gaze got drawn to the network of scars, interspersed with moles, scattered across his pale skin. There were a couple of fresh bruises flourishing into purple and yellow blobs, too, adding to a rich picture. You winced like you could feel his pain. You’d never get used to seeing him this way—seeing him hurt.

Your touch was lighter than one of a feather when your fingers slid over one of his scars, tracing its shape slowly, with care. This one seemed to be old, fading away over the years, thus one of the rarest ones—as there were many more those anew, coming in different shapes and shades of pink. It didn’t matter, though, how many of them were on Kennedy’s body—you knew them all, keeping the count.

You pulled your hand away in a swift motion as you felt Leon stir. He was still half-asleep when he opened his eyes a crack, his gaze fixed on your features. You looked guilty.

“Hey,” he muttered hoarsely with a faint smile. He didn’t sound irritated—rather exhausted. “Can’t keep your hands off of me, sweetheart?”

You chuckled softly as you eliminated the distance between the two of you, and then rested your head on the edge of his pillow. His hand immediately wrapped around your waist, pulling you even closer.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to wake you up.” You pressed your lips against his forehead. You kept your voice barely above the whisper, hoping he’d be able to go back to sleep.

He hummed, “It’s okay,” with his eyes almost shut again, as his mind stayed in the half-place between awakeness and dreams. His thumb caressed your side mindlessly, soothing himself down.

You put your hands on his back in a kind of hug, feeling the bumps of his scars under your fingers.

“You have never told me their stories,” you said quietly, cradling him with your touch.

Leon’s body tensed slightly, his face now hidden in the crook of your neck. His warm and even breathing sent shivers down your spine.

The man became silent for a moment, taking his time before he replied, “I don’t believe these are stories that I should make you listen to.”

He preferred not to bring his work home.

You didn’t insist—you have always respected his choices. You left a kiss on his temple while Leon hugged you tighter.

“I’ll listen to anything you’d be willing to tell me, handsome.”

He smiled; you could feel his lips stretching out on the skin of your neck. It wasn’t a trust issue; Kennedy could tell that much—but he needed time to gather the courage to drag you into his waking nightmare.

“Maybe one day, sweetheart,” Leon sighed deeply, his tone calm as he admitted; his eyes now closed. “Maybe one day.”

You spent the next minutes running fingers through his hair until he drifted back into a blissful sleep.

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