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athenaluthor · 4 months

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The Beginning

pairing- darth vader x reader

summary: A morning with his wife and son, what could go wrong? Vader's faith in Palpatine has finally begun to crack. Is this the beginning of the end?

warnings: SFW, Unburnt!Vader, Husband!Vader, Dad!Vader, Pregnant!Reader, fluff, Vader being a dad and lovesick husband, nameless son, slight child abuse(by Palpatine), mentions of Palpatine

Word count: 1.7k (unedited)

side note: any ideas for their kids' names?

masterlist

Vader creeps into the room quietly, not wanting to wake up the sleeping boy despite him being a heavy sleeper. His son's bedroom is warm and cozy, a stark difference from the imposing skyscrapers of Coruscant just outside the window. The sight that greets Vader tugs at his heartstrings.

His little boy lays sprawling on the bed, small blond curls poking out here and there, with small snores escaping him. Blankets are falling off the bed and his plushies lay messily on the floor, yet his son remains unbothered. He reckons the boy could sleep through anything. An invasion could take over Coruscant long before his son would wake.

The boy was such a deep sleeper it worried Vader at times. The force drains you a great amount especially during childhood, which is enough justification to have a chef curate meal plans for his son. Thankfully, Vader feels everything through the force. If something is ever amiss with his son or wife, he would know.

Vader sits down on the bed, hand instinctively reaching out to stroke his son's head. The boy is a carbon copy of him, from the hair, to the face and even the way he sounds, all reminds Vader of Anakin. The little boy's curls felt so soft between his fingers, a stark contrast to Vader's calluses.

Luckily for Vader, his son is far more well-mannered and kind than he ever will be. Courtesy of his wife, he supposes. The little boy is intelligent and cheeky like Anakin was, but he is far more empathetic and good-hearted. Only his wife, that kriffing angel of a woman, could turn his child into this beautiful and kind boy.

Suddenly, a sleepy voice snaps Vader out of his thoughts, “Papa?”

“Good morning. Did you sleep well,hmm?” replies Vader, smiling at the boy.

“Mmhm. No bad dreams.” Says his son in between big yawns and a stretch.

Vader takes this opportunity to pick the boy up and bring him onto his lap. Sleepy, the boy falls right back asleep with his head on Vader's shoulder and arms tightly wrapped around his neck. Vader melts each time the boy does this and today is no exception. Feeling his little boy's body melt onto his and the soft little breaths, it makes him want to stay like this for eternity.

Vader kisses the boy's head, breathing in the smell of his baby shampoo that seemed to fade each day the boy grows older.

Then, Vader wraps his arms around the boy and stands up to carry him. He adjusts the boy a little, making sure the boy is comfortable and wouldn't slip before moving out the door. The walk over to Vader's room does nothing to jolt the little boy whose sleep takes priority over everything else. His breathing is steady and Vader swears the boy is starting to snore softly.

“Snoring? Already?” Vader muses to himself.

Once there, Vader lays the boy on the bed and within seconds, the boy sprawls out on the bed. Vader supposes your parents bed is always much more comfortable than your own since his son seems so happy on his bed.

“He's sleepy.” says his wife, looking at their sleeping son as she steps out of the bathroom.

“He always is. The world is dead to him until he decides to wake.” Vader replies, smiling at he boy's antics.

Vader turns to look at his wife when she walks past him to the closet. Belly swollen, full of his child, Vader could barely take his eyes off her.

She waddles instead of walking now, careful with her steps in an attempt to not slip. These days, all she asks from him is a massage here and there. Vader can't complain. Soon, his wife will give birth to a second child. All she asks him to do in return is to bring her food and make her feel good.

Joining her in the closet, Vader merely leans against the doorframe and stares as she moves about the room. Picking her dress, jewelry and fussing about how the tones of her shoes didn't match everything else. He adores to see how she moves, the way her hair shifts as she does and the look on her face when she finds the right combination of clothes.

They eventually fall into their usual rhythm. A comfortable morning routine of getting dressed and ready before facing the chaos of the galaxy. In a way, it was reprieve from the stress of the Empire that is certainly suffocating.

Just as his wife finishes her hair and makeup, their son stumbles into the room sleepily. The little boy immediately catches the attention of his parents.

“Mama? Papa?” His little voice fills the room, all shaky and sad.

Without hesitation, Vader crosses the room from his side of the closet to the door where his son stands. Vader kneels down, face-to-face with his son. His son is all red-faced and full of sobs.

Vader wipes the boy's tears before picking him up. He looks at his wife, who looks just as concerned beside him. Seeing their boy like this tugs at their heartstrings greatly, considering their son is rarely reduced to tears like this.

Vader gently strokes the boy's back while his wife softly asks, “What's wrong, sweetheart?.

“Don’t want to see it again!” The boy lets out through his sobs. His wife softly brushes their son's curls out of his face, cooing at him, trying to help him calm down.

“See what, hmm?” Vader asks.

“The man! The old man! He's scary and he hurt me!”

At his son's reply, a chill washes down Vader's spine. A foreboding feeling washes over him like no other.

“Hurt you?” his wife asks.

The question only spurs on their son's tears. Now, he's buried his face in the crook of Vader's neck.

Vader doesn't take notice of the tears that are soaking his collar. Instead, his thoughts are light years away. Somehow he knows that the man his son talks about is none other than his master. In his guts, Vader knows Palpatine is responsible for this.

By noon, their son is much calmer. The sobs and tears are gone, leaving behind a very tired little boy.

Vader decides against leaving and opts to work from his study at home. The dining room is also set up for his assistants and officers to use while they work.

His wife stays with their son who refuses to leave his parents’ room. Though, Vader is sure his wife wouldn't have let their son leave in the first place because Vader wouldn't either.

When Vader left his bedroom earlier, he made sure breakfast had been served and both his wife and son were comfortable. Eventually the little boy fell asleep listening to his parents chatter.

Vader wanted to stay with them both, unwilling to leave his pregnant wife with a hysterical child. Ensuring the attendants and maids weren't far away from his wife, he also increases the guards around the house. The latter more for his sanity than their safety, truly.

Even then, it took his wife a ridiculous amount of convincing before Vader agreed to leave and attend to his work. Vader doesn't say it out loud but something still feels wrong and he can't put his finger on it.

The force feels quiet, too quiet in Vader's opinion. The quietness reminds him of the calm before a storm and he despises every part of it. As a child, he often had this feeling on Tatooine before the sandstorms would hit. Vader's mother, Shmi, would often be on the receiving end of his ranting.

Tonight, he decides, he will meditate on it. With enough focus, the force will show him everything he needs to know.

The dark side in Vader thrums in anticipation. Undoubtedly, it is digging its claws deeper and deeper into him today as anger takes over him. These days, Vader cares little for anything else except for his little family and the thought of anyone hurting them is enough to fuel his dark side.

Perhaps he should cast runes all over his home. Vader's knowledge of the dark side runs as deep as his knowledge of the Jedi. During his travels, Vader has found several Sith holocrons containing different rituals, spells and incantations previous Sith Lords had used. All were far more powerful than anything he'd seen in his Jedi days.

Suddenly, one of his wife's handmaid rushes in.

“L-lord Vader! My lady has requested you come quickly.” comes her voice.

The sight makes Vader want to burn down the entire galaxy. Their son's entire back is covered in force lightning marks. Unfortunately, easily recognisable to Vader as he had been on the receiving end of it for many years.

Now, Vader is entirely sure that Palpatine has done this. Even if indirectly, Vader is sure Palpatine is involved.

Thoughts course through Vader's mind, "Are there other Sith Lords he is unaware of? How and why could his master have done this?".

No wonder the little boy was so distraught. He had refused any attempts of taking a bath which were miracles at calming him down. Both Vader and his wife found it odd.

Now, Vader knows he was just in pain. Vader is reeling, he feels as if he's been plunged into the freezing ocean's depth. The sight of his son has his stomach lurching, "he's a child, he's only a child!" he angrily thinks to himself.

Vader's gaze turns to his wife who's distraught is palpable through the force and Vader moves to her side when she clutches her bump with a whimper. Vader helps her sit down as she nearly falls to her knees, groaning in pain.

Helping her calm down, he sits beside her and embraces her. Hand stroking her back until he breathing evens and the tension in her body subsides. Pulling away, Vader moves to gently stroke her cheek and wipes her tears away.

In tears, she heartbreakingly asks him “Why has this happened to him?”

Vader leans his head in until his forehead and hers are flush against each other, choosing not to answer. He tucks her hair behind her, letting her lean into his touch.

Vader's faith in the Emperor has always been constant and unbending. The galaxy is certainly well aware of Vader's loyalty in carrying out the Emperor's orders.

How could Palpatine have done this? Let him believe he could have another chance at a family and go after his child. Has this been the plan all along? Was he blind all this time?

Has Emperor Palpatine truly betrayed him?

banner by @cafekitsune

#anakin skywalker x reader #darth vader x reader #anakin skywalker #darth vader #hayden christensen #vader x reader #star wars #fluff #angst

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youryurigoddess · 4 months

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The stuff dreams are made of, or the interesting case of Anthony J. Crowley

We’ve talked a bit about Crowley’s trauma and his way of reclaiming the narrative in the past, but it’s time for some deep dive into the story he’s trying to tell. A story that meanders through the fabric of time and space, slightly changing with the human fashion trends, but slowly and surely bringing the demon closer to a certain angel like the red thread of fate.

1793

Some stories start in a garden, some even Before the Beginning, but this one starts with an Arrangement. Or, to be precise, a little bit after that.

See, most of the iterations of Crowley we saw throughout the history until then didn’t delve too deep into human cultural tropes. If anything, they were the inspirations behind more or less prominent biblical figures, maybe some nameless villains matching his demonic provenance and role assigned to him by his employers.

But in the hustle and bustle of the revolutionary Paris, Crowley emerges as a prototype of the Scarlet Pimpernel — a chivalrous Englishman who rescues aristocrats before they are sent to the guillotine. Stan Lee famously called him “the first character who could be called a superhero”.

Sir Percy Blakeney, the main character of the novel and the West End play under the same title, leads a double life. Appearing as nothing more than a wealthy fop, in reality he’s a formidable swordsman, a quick-thinking master of disguise and an escape artist. Even his own wife, Marguerite, has no idea.

Unfortunately Marguerite is being blackmailed with her brother’s life to find and expose the wanted Pimpernel. She regrets betraying her husband the moment she's forced to do it and spends the rest of the plot working to save him. She does, they make up, and return together to England.

In Aziraphale and Crowley’s case there was just a short stop for crêpes. But what seems to be an inspiration of a specific scene might as well come up later in the wider perspective of the show, so keep in mind those fragments of the musical’s libretto:

We all are caught in the middle

of one long treacherous riddle.

Can I trust you?

Should you trust me too?...

We shamble on through this hell

taking on more secrets to sell

'til there comes a day

when we sell our souls away.

We seek him here, we seek him there,

Those Frenchies seek him everywhere!

Is he in heaven? Is he in hell?

Where is that damn elusive Pimpernel!

1941

The London Blitz is when we see a full-fledged iteration of the superhero Crowley performing dashing and heroic deeds under the literal cover of darkness and air bomb smoke. In a bespoke double-breasted suit and a fedora — still free from the unfortunate modern connotations from the internet culture — he’s clearly channeling Humphrey Bogart as a private investigator Sam Spade in The Maltese Falcon (1941) now.

It all starts with a woman and a simple plan gone wrong: Spade’s partner is shot dead, just like the man he was supposed to be tailing upon the request of a mysterious Miss Wonderly. And when a very soft-looking, sweet-scented man named Joel Cairo appears in his office willing to pay a hefty price for a "black figure of a bird", Spade starts not only a new job, but also his own quest for truth.

On the surface, The Maltese Falcon ends happily: the killer gets caught, and the hero winds up with the Falcon. But Spade's victory is completely hollow. The Falcon itself, originally meant as a symbol of loyalty, transforms into a symbol of a corrupting, futile, and self-destructive greed that makes people betray their own loyalties.

The treasure is just a worthless forgery and he’s fallen in love with the criminal — one of the first femmes fatales on screen. Despite his feelings for her and a kiss, Spade gives her up and submits the statuette as evidence, describing it as "the stuff that dreams are made of".

Remember the eagle lectern? The eagle was believed to be flying highest in the sky and therefore closest to heaven, symbolizing the carrying of the word of God to the four corners of the world. Aziraphale in the 1941 church scene is the closest to Heaven we’ve seen him on Earth. Just look at him: dressed in a smart, well-fitted coat with peaked lapels, symbolizing his Heavenly allegiance, and doing good this time not as a work assignment, but of his own accord. Being the closest to Heaven means the furthest and most unattainable for a demon like Crowley.

The Maltese Falcon is a metaphor for unattainability — things out of reach to desire and fight for, although never truly possess. It’s “the stuff that dreams are made of”. But Crowley secured the original — made of gold and encrusted with jewels, but hiding its real value under black enamel — eerily reminiscent of the demon himself and the unending kindness behind his inappropriately tight black clothing.

Quoting Michael Ralph — the production mastermind behind Good Omens — from the S01E04 “Saturday Morning Funtime” DVD commentary, “We wanted to tip our hat to the Maltese Falcon as being a precious object that no-one thought really exists but it does”. So we can safely assume that Crowley can and will achieve his dream in the future.

1967

Do you know what else happens in 1941 in Scotland? Ian Fleming, a British naval intelligence agent, meets with the famous occultist Aleister Crowley and asks him to lead the interrogation of newly imprisoned Rudolf Hess — a leading member of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany appointed Deputy Führer — given the two men’s shared enthusiasm for the occult.

This meeting has a significant impact on Fleming’s work as a writer; Aleister Crowley becomes the inspiration for his first villain Le Chiffre and creates a blueprint for most of the James Bond’s franchise ever since 1953, the publication date of the novel Casino Royale.

Meanwhile our Anthony J. Crowley believes in himself not being the villain he’s usually and sometimes forcefully painted as, but a superhero in disguise. The character of James Bond in particular inspires him so much that he buys petrol to get the limited You Only Live Twice (1967) window decals for his Bentley, dons his own tactical turtleneck, and sets off to organize a heist like no other. Sean Connery style.

Like a typical superhero, Crowley’s once again both saved and betrayed by his love interest. Aziraphale leaves him with a thermos of Holy Water, a faint smile, and a hope that they’ll soon match their speeds to meet halfway at the Ritz. The cancelled heist is not an ending, but a promise of a new beginning. And the fact that UK decriminalizes homosexual acts in the very same year is more than telling in this regard.

2019

An exceptional situation calls for exceptional solutions, and what’s more important than the impending Apocalypse? Demon Crowley does his best to put the arsenal of his 20th century film inspirations to good use.

"Ask yourself, do you feel lucky?" Crowley drawls, clearly imitating (although slightly misquoting) the titular Dirty Harry (1971). He’s hoping to be menacing and making the point of being the one on the right side of the law and history.

Some situations require more than quoting action heroes is not everything though. He knows what to do:

A jeep was heading purposefully towards the gate, and it looked as though it was crowded with people who were about to shout questions and fire guns and not worry about which order they did this in.

[Crowley] brightened up. This was more what you might call his area of competence.

He took his hands out of his pockets and he raised them like Bruce Lee and then he smiled like Lee Van Cleef.

'Ah,' he said, 'here comes transport.'

When in doubt, Crowley acts. He transforms into a combination of a stoic martial arts phenomenon and a sardonic, menacing character. His smile alone — even on Aziraphale’s angelic face, as seen in one of the final cut scenes — seems to be enough to ward off evil spirits, angels, and humans alike.

But we all know that even as breathtaking performances as those can’t protect anyone from the cogs of the Heavenly machine and its plans.

2023

No wonder that Crowley’s tactical turtleneck comes back in style after mere four years of retirement with a self-introduction “Former Demon, hated by Heaven, loathed by Hell. How will our hero cope?”. Something has changed during this time; he’s more mature now, not playing pretend by hiding behind the usual veneer of sarcasm and movie quotes anymore. Finally comfortable with the fact that this is his own story and there’s no need to become anyone else than himself.

The bookshop fire and the Heavenly trial still seem to haunt the demon in a way that makes him realize what all humans know: that every hero is his own biggest enemy. His ultimate dream might effortlessly change into his greatest nightmare any moment now, and the only thing he can do about it is hover in a two-minute distance from the epicenter of his feelings. But Crowley has no time to work on it when a new mission appears, to protect his angel from Gabriel and the combined powers of Heaven and Hell. Even if this — rather ostentatiously — is the last thing he wants to think about at the moment.

Crowley tries to plan ahead, while his story slowly warps into a different genre due to Aziraphale’s interruptions. He eventually changes back into his usual Henley shirt after agreeing to swap places and guarding the bookshop while the angel is off to Edinburgh, collecting more clues. Did he finish his personal quest off-screen? Did he just give up on it in the whirlwind of matchmaking shenanigans? Remains to be seen.

In the S2 finale our master of disguise in yet another turtleneck proves that he can successfully infiltrate even the universe’s back office. We don’t know where he drives off in the end, but one thing is certain — he’s got a plan. And a world (and his dream) to save, like a superhero he is.

#a turtleneck kind of day #crowley is a superhero #and a master spy #with a plan #good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #go2 meta #ineffable husbands #crowley #turtleneck crowley #yuri is doing her thing

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tender-rosiey · 2 years

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Protective husband Dazai 💳💥💳💳💥💥💳💥

how far — dazai x f!reader

ᴀ/ɴ: this man makes me want to bark and give him my money

“y/n! I am home!” dazai sings as he enters the house happily, a grin plastered on his face. a grin that falls as fast as he opens his eyes to see what’s in front of him.

broken glass, thrown furniture and blood.

he places the groceries he had on the ground and walks deeper inside your shared house. he catches the glimpse of a badge, and his eyebrows quirk. dazai takes a hold of it and examines it, the culprit is but a foolish amateur.

because rule number one is to leave no trace.

“listen up woman,” the scruffy man in front of you starts, “you either tell us everything you know about the agency or your head will be sent to your lanky boyfriend.”

you shake your in refusal, eyes swelling from the amount of tears you have cried in the past few hours already. “keep dreaming—,” you are cut off by yourself when you scream as another harsh kick is delivered to your side.

the man in front of you sighs and approaches you, forcefully tugging your hair up so you can look him in the eyes, “well if you can’t say anything, then you should at least do something,” he grins.

“boss, there is an intrud—“ the subordinate falls to the ground as he is shot in the head.

the man throws you to the ground, looking now at his men, “EVERYONE STOP HIM!”

to his surprise, none of the men took a step without being struck down. he could see nothing but his dead men; he could see nothing but a shadow, and that alone made him smirk, “you think you’re so good at hiding?!”

“I can just shoot this woman and you would—“ the man’s words die in his mouth as he slowly looks down at the knife tickling his throat.

soon, he locks eyes with the owner of the knife behind him.

the kidnapper smirks, despite his nerves, “oh so the crazy man is already here for his little wife?”

dazai is silent, watching the man which makes him panic even more.

“what? too scared to actually slice someone? is that why you only used a gun?—“ he stops once the knife nicks his throat, a small trail of blood flowing down his neck.

dazai smiles, an empty and cold one, “you said I am crazy right?”

your husband looks at you, “y/n, close your eyes,” his gaze snaps back to your kidnapper, “I don’t want you to see this.”

you whisper a small, “okay,” before doing as told.

a knife to the throat, and a gun to his back, the man gulps and dazai soon speaks.

“you seem to have underestimated just how far,” the knife caresses the throat of the man in front of him, “a ‘crazy’ man will go for his wife.”

you hear the sound of a slash, and the shot of a gun. your husband frowns in disapproval at the body below him, and he mumbles, “a painless death is something you don’t deserve for what you did.”

he flicks the blood of the knife and rubs its handle with a cloth, and you just noticed that he is wearing gloves.

dazai puts the knife in the man’s hand before sighing and getting up.

he walks towards you, steps cautious, “love, are you alright?”

“y-yeah,” you manage to get out before your eyes meet your husband’s and they slowly drift to the corpse lying ahead, “osamu, is that okay?”

he hums as he kneels down to help you up, frown deepening at the sight of your bruises.

“forgive me for having to witness that, but he,” dark gaze directed to the man for a split second before they meet your own in a much lighter and softer way, “shouldn’t have hurt you.”

“now,” he smiles, “let’s get you home, shall we?”

you rest your head on his chest and he caresses your hair, making you sigh in relief.

osamu’a grip on you tightens and he wonders if his actions are a step forward or backward to what his friend wanted for him, but for now he will acknowledge that he will do anything for you.

taglist: @magenta-cat-drawingss @pompompurin1028 @scul-pted @dazaisdeathwish @requiem626k @nameless-shrimp @shinys-bsd-world-1 @sonder-paradise @ravenina14 @jessbeinme15s-notebook @todorokichills @ginneko @missrown @shrynkk @simplyxsinned @beautiful-is-boring @bakugossanity @izukus-gf @irethepotato @thekaylahub @luciferspen @sweetcloudsimp @waosobii

do not copy or plagiarize or i will make you kiss the pavement

#anime fluff #dazai imagines #osamu dazai x reader #dazai headcanons #dazai san #dazai #bungou stray dogs dazai #dazai x reader #bsd dazai #dazai fluff #dazai angst #dazai x you #dazai x y/n #bsd x reader #bsd x you #dazai x fem reader

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forestshadow-wolf · 10 months

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Part 1 || Part 2 || Part 3

"How?" Soap whispers the broken word after a nameless amount of time, bags and food and everything else had been long forgotten. "You didn't come back. They- they gave me your tags." The words no less broken than before.

Simon opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out, his lips seal again. Johnny can see in his eyes some inner turmoil, like simon doesn't quite know how to explain. A lock of sandy blond hair falls over his forehead, nearly reaching his eyes. Simon will probably want it cut soon, he doesn't like it getting too long, especially since he said it makes the mask uncomfortable. Simon's not wearing the mask, he realizes.

It's that thought that makes him realize he really could have never seen that hair again, his eyes water but the tears don't fall. Johnny sniffles, nosing into Simon's neck. He feels small, like he's a kid again and just woken from a nightmare. He runs his hands through that hair, over his neck, along his arm, down his torso, feeling just to feel. And simon smells like simon. Alive. And safe. And at home. Simon is alive and is wrapped as tightly around johnny as he is around simon.

"Kate's wife, Joan" johnny had no idea where this was going, but he stayed silent. "she's also CIA, 11 weeks, and 4 days ago her team found me while they were looking for someone else. They found me wandering the woods in some sort of daze. I must've hit my head in the explosion 'cus I don't remember much for the first couple days after." The more words out of Simon's mouth, the more worry worms into soap's gut. It was supposed to be a simple milk run, get the target and get out, simple. None of this... explosion shit. "They had to put me into a medically induced coma for 2 weeks. I have no records so they had no idea who I was. That's why they didn't cantact you or price. Laswell works hand to keep my record scrubbed, so Joan couldn't exactly tell them who I was. But she helped get me back here herself, stocked the fridge with easy meals, made sure I wouldn't accidentally kill myself, but she couldn't stay any longer, only had one day. I was still kinda fuzzy after that, couldn't barely figure out how to get myself food and water, much less work a phone.. I was sleeping most of the time anyway. I did try to call a few weeks back, but I think either the power went out and the router needs to be reset or the router broke or something, I don't know any of that stuff but I got no signal, and I haven't exactly been able to get around to looking at it, and the car's at base obviously so..." simon scratched the back of his head sheepishly.

"I'm so reading the report you give to price. How'd you even manage to fit an explosion bad enough to give you amnesia on a simple in and out mission?"

Johnny opended his mouth to say something else, but simon beat him to it. "And before you ask, Joan and Kate don't share anything about their cases with eachother.. plus I think Joan's tean found me somewhere classified or something. She wasn't allowed to say anything. Also I'mnot the one who caused the explosion, so don'tblame me." He closed his mouth.

Johnny hugged him again, "you're alive." He whispered, "I missed you." And simon hugged him tighter.

"How long'd you get sent on leave?" Johnny mumbled something into his neck, sounding disgruntled. "C'mon, johnny, can't hear you like that." Simon smiled.

"Whose to say I got sent here." He huffed, Simon laughed

"Because if you'd have listened to me you'd have been here a month ago. C'mon how long?" Simon prodded.

"... 6 weeks."Simon whistled at that.

"What'd ya do to get that long?"

"... beat up one of the first day recruits." He grumbled, "but they were talkin' a loada gob 'bout you." He sank deeper into a pout.

"Defending my honor? And they say chivalry is dead, thank you." Simon kissed the top of his head.

Should I make a part 3?

#el rambles #john soap mactavish #simon ghost riley #call of duty #cod #cod mw2 #ghostsoap #soapghost

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ae-neon · 9 months

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More IC ideas curtsey of my rewrite

Mor should have been Illyrian and Azriel should have been Keir's son. This solves 70% of the problems surrounding the IC, trust me

First of all, we are desperately in need of a female Illyrian perspective and not just in the context of Illyria. Having one as a prominent character throughout would have been so much better than 3 Illyrian men with internalised racism

Secondly, Mor, Cassian and Feyre's friendship would make it appropriate for Feyre to go to Illyria and work alongside them to sort things out. We get Cassian as a representation of the class discrimination and Mor, a noble born Illyrian woman, as a representation of the misogyny. Feyre continues her role as protagonist and general cursebreaker. She also produces active change, earning her title as HL.

Thirdly, Mor faces the same sort of treatment for being born in the CoN but it's not really plot relevant in any way. Making her character Illyrian ties into the overall narrative (which is ass but we're working with what we have)

Edit: Mor is supposed to be a warrior, it could have been she's wanted to participate in the blood rite for years but never got the chance, even when Cassian and Rhys did, and "silver flames" could have been the chance to do that. It would hold so much emotional weight

Cassian should have ended up with an Illyrian woman, in this case Emerie. It helps centre his story around Illyria but - because he and his female friend were also affected - it doesn't root his actions in his love interest's trauma in a way that detracts from her and makes him the centre, but a collective experience of himself and the women important to him (his mom, his best friend and his wife/mate)

+ Azriel being Illyrian serves no purpose except to add to the fetishisation of moc. He is literally a shadowsinger and Keir's army is called the Darkbringers. He works in the CoN, he's a spy and the capital is teeming with plots against Rhys

Through Illyrian Mor just existing as a member of the IC we would get a sense that Rhysand is more aware of and concerned with the struggles of female Illyrians. Since his mom and sister are both dead and nameless and have no weight in the story

Of course she and Cassian would still be narratively problematic considering the writing around Illyria as a whole but that's why I said 70%

#anti sjm #sjm critical

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scary-movies-on-netflix · 3 months

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ZONE OF INTEREST (2023)

This is a deeply unsettling movie about the Nazi commander and his family who ran the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II.

There isn’t much plot. We simply follow the family as they live their daily lives on the edge of the camp of horror. The wife receives a delivery: clothes stolen from newly-arrived prisoners, which she invites her household staff to share. The wife takes for herself a fur coat. She tells a servant to have it cleaned and mended. Her husband, based on the real life person who perfected the machinery of mass murder, named Hoss, receives visitors with plans for improved incinerators. The wife tends to her garden, and they have dinner at night as a family. The only intrusion of the camp is auditory: there is an ever-present rumbling, at times punctuated by gunshots. One can look from the garden toward the smokestacks of the incinerators spewing ash into the air.

The wife’s mother comes to visit. The mother looks out the window at night at the glowing incinerators. She leaves without telling her daughter. The wife, pissed, threatens a slave with incineration. Hoss sexually assaults a slave and furtively cleans his genitals in a basement sink. He is transferred to another post, but his wife doesn’t want to leave. “This is our Lebensraum,” she says, pointing to the house. Hoss attends a meeting where men in uniforms and suits plan the destruction of Hungary’s Jewish population. Hoss is transferred back to Auschwitz, but beforehand he attends a party. Later he calls his wife and explains that he spent the time thinking about how to most efficiently kill everyone there.

He leaves the office at night but stops to vomit in the stairwell. He pauses on a landing and looks in our direction. There is a hard cut and we are at Auschwitz, now, as employees clean the museum. They sweep and vacuum the floors. They clean the glass displays, behind which are the shoes and clothes of the dead. We cut back to Hoss, who descends the stairs into darkness.

This is existential horror. We don’t have to wonder if people could ever commit industrial-scale murder, because they already have. We view the perpetrators here with detachment. Shots are framed with wide-angle lenses. One of the only close-up shots is of Hoss at work, focusing in on his face as he looks at something off screen and we hear terrors around him. The only other close-up we get is of a nameless Polish girl. We see her twice throughout the movie as she sneaks across the landscape, hiding food for the slaves of the camp, before returning home. She’s presented in reverse colors, like a film negative, the moral opposite of those running the camp.

This film is not especially enjoyable to watch, yet it is a work of art.

#zone of interest #movie review #horror movie #existential horror #2023

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eretzyisrael · 3 months

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by Ben Shapiro

This week at the Oscars, a director named Jonathan Glazer made international headlines. Glazer won an Academy Award for his film, "Zone of Interest," which centers on the family life of Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Hoss and his wife, Hedwig, who happily cultivate their home and garden as just behind the wall, Jews are tortured, shot and gassed. Glazer had an incredible opportunity to point out the obvious continuity between the victims of the Holocaust and the Jewish victims of Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Envelope on Oct. 7; he had the opportunity to point out the continuing plight -- largely ignored by the media and the left -- of some 134 hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas, including American citizens; he had the opportunity to observe the international community's willingness to, for its own political reasons, pile on Israel by attempting to stop the Israeli Defense Forces from destroying Hamas wholesale.

Instead, Glazer did something truly shameful: he used his Jewish background and his Holocaust film to attack Israel.

"Right now we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people, whether the victims of October the 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza," Glazer intoned nervously.

There are a bushel of lies in this single sentence. First, there was no "occupation" of Gaza prior to Oct. 7; the Israelis abandoned Gaza in 2005 and turned it over to the Palestinians, who promptly tore down Israeli infrastructure and elected Hamas, who themselves turned Gaza into a full-scale terror ministate. Second, no "occupation" could justify the wholesale slaughter of some 1,200 innocents in Israel and the taking of 250 hostages on Oct. 7. Third, it is certainly not "Jewish and the Holocaust being hijacked" to point out that Hamas literally targets Jews for extermination, just as the Nazis once did. And finally, Israel is taking extraordinary measures to protect civilian life in Gaza; Israel has taken measures no military in history has taken, including sacrificing the lives of its own soldiers to go door-to-door in a terrorist-ridden urban hellscape.

In fact, Glazer has it all backward. It is he who is using his Jewishness and the Holocaust as a weapon -- in favor of Hamas. Glazer has little actual involvement in Judaism on a day-to-day level -- he grew up reform and there is little evidence of his Jewish practice today. But he's happy to pull out his Jewishness card -- to say that he, As A Jew, stands against Israel defending itself. This allows him to garner plaudits from his fellow political left-wingers, all the while maintaining his status in the intersectional hierarchy. Jews, as it turns out, are only allowed in the intersectional hierarchy so long as they use their Jewishness to attack Israel, or whatever the left-wing cause of the day is.

In reality, Glazer is the villain of his own film. In "Zone of Interest," there are no Jews: all we can hear of them is their screams from beyond the wall. Otherwise, they are nameless, faceless victims. And those are precisely the kinds of Jews Glazer likes. He's happy to use their corpses to win Oscars, even as he attacks the live Jews defending themselves from the ideological descendants of the Nazis, Hamas.

All of which makes sense. After all, as author Dara Horn has pointed out, people love dead Jews. It's the live ones who are so problematic for people like Jonathan Glazer. The live ones have the unfortunate habit of fighting back and making life uncomfortable for doctrinaire left-wingers who want to be accepted in their morally benighted social circles.

#jonathan glazer #zone of interest #jews #israel #hamas #gaza #dead jews #asajew #occupation

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glasskey · 3 months

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Lawrence & June's Mix tape Vol. 2

This mix tape contains easily my favourite Lawrence and June moments and it takes us all the way from the shadowy hallways of Lawrence’s abode to the far reaches of Canada.

I'll bet that felt good.

From the moment we meet Eleanor, she is seen constantly stifling a mouthful of secrets and covering up improprieties, like dead bodies with a pretty new flower bed. She’s the voice of Lawrence’s conscience and he does just about everything he can to keep her out of harm’s way. In the episode Unknown Caller we learn that Lawrence was once young and sensitive, partial to making Eleanor mixtapes, far from the shell of a man who now keeps her hidden.

After June and Eleanor’s jaunt down to Hannah’s school, Lawrence notices the fresh air and sunlight has done Eleanor the world of good. Consequently he asks June to start spending some time with her to hopefully alleviate the effect, the horror show he calls home, is having on his wife.

Never one to miss a trick, June takes the opportunity here to really stick the knife in Lawrence and give it a nice deep twist. Given the delicate state of his wife, why hasn’t he gotten her out? Doesn’t he realize he’s killing her with his own creation? June’s not asking questions, rather confronting Lawrence with the truth of what he already knows. Lawrence looks like he’s been hit, she’s found a deep painful recess where his guilt festers every single day. There’s no rage, no threat, nothing except suddenly the appearance of a deep wound as Lawrence chokes out the words “I bet that felt good”.

It seems both a dig at her for being so underhanded and an acknowledgement that June has so very many, many justifiable grievances. I mean who could blame her for wanting to indulge in a little knife twisting after so many years of abuse? June’s stay in Lawrence abode is simultaneously therapeutic, illuminating and empowering to say the least. Prior to this Gilead had been a nameless, faceless construct. Now June’s like Dorothy finally discovering what a huge liar the Wizard of Oz actually was, just a sad old man with a slight of hand and a world full of regret.

It came for you.

Lawrence has constantly argued the merits and rewards of Gilead with June, always assuming that he would never have to bear any of the costs, but this is the moment that he finally has to pay the piper. Lawrence is extremely skilled at psycho analysis of all those around him, but he can barely stomach the hideous reflection in the mirror. The fact is he’s a whole lot of talk and not much action, in other words, Lawrence isn’t a TRUE believer. If he was he would participate in the ceremony and he would demand compliance from Eleanor. From the get go their relationship appears different; he loves her, dotes on her, fiercely protects her and Junes attempts to manipulate him through acts of infidelity are brutally rebuffed. Eleanor is the figurative voice of conscience calling from beneath the floorboards, and it’s no coincidence that Lawrence goes to great lengths to keep her away from official guests lest she blabs.

During the forced ceremony she screams and wails loudly, Lawrence pleads for her to be quiet, pledging his undying love and begging for her forgiveness for doing the one thing he swore he would never do. It’s all for naught, Eleanor is absolutely inconsolable, he promised this would never happen. It’s fucking heartbreaking to see Eleanor’s incredible distress at what is about to happen to June, she’s fragile, helpless and utterly cornered. Ironically it is June who soothes her and leads Lawrence through what must be done.

This ceremony engineered by Fred, is the moment that directly results in Eleanor’s death in later episodes. This scene elicites the devastatingly cool and casual “at least it wasn’t you” mic drop from June, and undoubtedly earned Fred a blind eye from Lawrence as Nick dragged him off to die. During S3 we observe a growing if not begrudging respect for June from Lawrence and the idea that he now has to rape this woman in front of his beloved wife is utterly horrifying. June sits waiting calmly for the inevitable, she understands this moment of panic and trauma all too well, and above all the absolute futility of fighting it. This is the moment that Gilead in its full walking womb, horror show glory “Comes to his door”, and rips the veil off Lawrence’s illusions. His wife is the voice of empathy and conscience and he finally understands, his monstrous creation will surely kill her sooner or later. As Lawrence and June share a drink, he offers June a way out and a means of escape for his wife, but as we later learn, tragically it’s too little too late. The deed is done and for the remaining seasons Eleanor will haunt Lawrence’s every step

You really think this is still your house?

The beginning of the episode Mayday scares the absolute shit out of me, June is just getting her first introduction to Gilead, watching women being brutally categorized as she is herded into the back of a truck. June begs for help, the guard remains indifferent. The entire scene reeks of desperation, fear and dark unknown territory. Deep trauma lives here. “To the ruthless go the spoils” June muses, so what is she willing to do to get 52 children out of Gilead? Everything it seems, for her power now lies in her willingness to die for her cause. June officially has nothing to lose and everything to gain; she doesn’t know where Hannah is and Nick is very likely dead. For a dictatorship like Gilead that relies on fear to maintain order, individuals like these that inspire leadership, are a fucking nightmare.

The minute June returned from the hospital, super twitchy and scheming gleefully about escape plans openly, Lawrence should have known his power was a thing of the past. From the very first shot of this end of season showdown between June and Lawrence, it’s obvious he’s not going to win this one. June sits at the head of a long dining table with a gun in the center like her sword laid out for battle. Lawrence ever the expert in human behavior, senses June’s dangerous instability. He tries to gently navigate her and wrestle back control without enraging her further. She plays with her gun like she’s twirling her hair, musing over the brutal injustice of being a woman in Gilead.

“This is still my house, young lady” he stammers pathetically in the face of her frightening new found power. “You really think this is still your house?” she scoffs, his home is festering with rebels and his previous authority now means nothing. As Osborn so eloquently warned him at the start of the season “they’ll put you on the wall, even a commander”. With the words “get me a fucking map”, Osborne makes it clear that not only will Lawrence be steering clear of their plans, he WILL help facilitate them. The reality is Lawrence willingly relinquished his control the minute he adopted the most notorious handmaid in Gilead and turned his home into a half-way house for rebels. “You’re not going to be any trouble are you?” Lawrence asks June when she first arrives “No sir” she replies, but make no mistake, news of June Osborne had reached his gilded prison long ago.

Gilead's gonna Gilead.

In S5 the boundaries between Canada and Gilead began to get a little hazy, with audiences wondering why Lawrence was able suddenly to stroll in and out of Canada. As we later discovered this blurring of the lines was an intentional device used to demonstrate Gilead’s ability to seep across the border. At the inception of New Bethlehem, Lawrence shows up on June’s doorstep to ask for her help to make it look legit. She’ll get to live there with Nick, Luke, Hannah and Nicole, like one big Gilead sized Brady bunch, but there’s just one catch; Hannah still has to do the whole “child bride” thing. She’s seriously conflicted, understandably she is desperate to be with her child but this is a bridge too far. She pleads with Lawrence to stop it and he shrugs it off with an almost resolute “Gilead’s gonna Gilead”. June launches into a blistering attack about how he’s responsible for all of Gilead’s horror but apparently she’s not telling him anything he doesn’t already know.

“I was trying to save humanity…..and I did it, I fucking did it, then it got away from me….it went septic”. Lawrence is calculating and manipulative, however June always manages to pry out his emotional core and here he finally breaks down admitting the incredible weight of his conscience. He can barely live with himself; Gilead’s like a wound and Lawrence is desperately trying to stop the rot. Currently Gilead looks like a U.N. nightmare, but perhaps given a generation or two the fanaticism may ease up just a wee bit, he argues to a skeptical June. Hannah might get the short end of the stick but Nicole won’t. He needs June’s thumbs up if he wants to actually get any outside residents to pull up sticks and move there.

But Lawrence also needs HER, he knows that in the larger scheme of things Osborne gets shit done. Lawrence may have built the village, but he’s certainly smart enough to realize that it was the gutsy little handmaid who managed to smuggle out a planeload of children, when all he’d done was sit around in his dusty old house for nigh on a decade.

Cups of sugar

Make no mistake, this IS the Lawrence and June break up scene and it’s no coincidence that next episode Nick and Lawrence break up too. Here the gloves are off, Lawrence tries to lure her with the promise of Hannah and Nick, but in exchange he demands she relinquish her pride and forsake her beliefs. June is enraged that they are being used as bartering chips. It’s crystal clear in this moment that just as Lawrence has the power to withhold Hannah from June, so too he holds Nick firmly in his clutches.

Lawrence’s reference to Nick and June’s relationship to “a cup of sugar” is dropped as a humorous quip but it’s insultingly reductionist and he knows it. Just as living next door to her enslaved daughter should be enough, an affair with the man she loves should also suffice. As far as Lawrence is concerned, June should be grateful, just as Nick should be grateful for his pseudo family in the burbs, why can’t they just be happy with the scraps?

June doesn’t pull any punches, here she tells him point blank that his dear departed wife had died from the heartbreak of the man he’d become. She reveals she’d watched Eleanor die and did nothing to stop it. Despite his existing suspicions, Lawrence is devastated by June’s admission none the less. I was reminded of the June and Serena break up scene in S3 in which they both collapsed into a smoldering, teary wreck of raw brutal truth. Lawrence spent both S4 and 5 trying to become “a better man” but ultimately he couldn’t help himself. He’s a political animal, and after losing Eleanor, giving Gilead a nice little make over was pretty much all he had left to live for. Lawrence knew that Nick and June were desperate to be a family again and he used it for currency to bring one of Gilead’s most notorious rebels to heel, and hopefully his own life some meaning.

Instead of thanking him for his offer, June promptly disintegrates into an inhumane fit of furious rage. Lawrence’s proposal of a life half lived in New Bethlehem is nothing but an attempt to bend June to Gilead’s will once again, and a way to hopefully finally ease his conscience. I was always confident in Lawrence’s abilities to maneuver pieces across the board, but watching June literally frothing at the mouth and seething with venom, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe Lawrence hadn’t gotten just a tad bit greedy this time, and bitten off more than he could chew.

Join me next time for a Mixtape from our favourite S4 and 5 bromance: Nick and Lawrence.

#handmaids tale #june osborne #hulu streaming #june x nick #max minghella #nick x june #nick blaine #the handmaids tale hulu #osblaine #elisabeth moss #commander lawrence #bradley whitford #THTplaylists&mixtapes

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victimsofyaoipoll · 2 months

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Round 3

Propaganda under the cut

Erina Pendleton

Erina is SO MUCH MORE than just a "Generic Love Interest" that was brought in the story to continue the bloodline after everything that happens (and it's made abundantly clear time and time and TIME AGAIN that she means everything to Jonathan, to a point that she was his exact reason to standing up against Dio for the first time) but without fail she's only ever allowed to be the supportive best friend. Or a wingman for Jonathan and whoever he's being shipped with. Or simply supposed to sit there and allow her husband to have a male lover (the amount of posts I've seen of ppl using the excuse that 'it was very common back in the Victorian Era for men to keep male lovers that their wives were aware of and quietly accepted so it isn't a stretch to say that Erina and Jonathan wouldn't be the same--especially given how progressive she's written". Or of course my favorite when they completely erase her from the narrative and pretends she doesn't exist Jonathan's got their son for some reason, but nope she ain't there!

a lot of times ppl who ship her CANON HUSBAND jonathan joestar with speedwagon will put her on the back burner of HER OWN CANON RELATIONSHIP in favor of propping up jonawagon, to the point where 90% of the archive for jonawagon/jonawagon(eri) is either erina giving jonathan and speedwagon consent to be happy together while she acts like a #LoveIsLove wingman OR they'll have the audacity to write fics where erina comforts speedwagon at HER HUSBAND'S FUNERAL

Our hero’s hot wife who was the first (and arguably) only person to give him the emotional support he needed. She’s the only person who never expects him to fulfill some mythical role, she just loves him for who he is. She’s been his best friend and the love of his life since he was 12 years old. When it comes to hero/sidekick ship, she’s forced to be a wing woman for her own husband, either nobly letting him go or peacefully agreeing to an open relationship but only for him!!! She gets nothing out of it, she’s just a good Victorian wife who is “ahead of her time”. Usually, just so she can provide a womb so that the hero/sidekick can be dads and she can conveniently be offscreen. OR she’s written as a lesbian in order to completely and “justifiably” take her out of the equation but there’s a.) no other woman in her vicinity to even ship her with b.) there’s vaguely some faceless, nameless woman we’re meant to assume she’s pursuing, not even a real OC for her.

Molly Hooper

She's in love with Sherlock, and in fandom she's just considered annoying. Listen, I don't ship them but jesus christ

Honestly I thought her relationship with Sherlock way too abusive (he treated her so badly wth) to turn into a healthy romantic one but the Johnlock shippers were super nasty to the actress -I think she even received dead threats ??? Over playing a fictional character ??? Just because people shipped two dudes ???- and the character deserved better personal development that didn't revolve around her unresolved crush for the main character

Set up as a romantic partner for Sherlock. Often gets shit on for being in the way of Johnlock.

#round 3 #poll #erina pendleton #jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba #jjba part 1 #molly hooper #bbc sherlock #sherlock

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elains · 5 months

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Some ideas on Theia, Fionn, Pelias and the High Lords

Since House of Flame and Shadow is coming out soon, I want to leave this registered here for posterity hahaha. I'm doing most of this by memory, I haven't really reread, so any mistakes you find that's probably it lol. Also this is WAY more focused on CCity and its character's than ACOTAR proper.

ACOSF introduces us to the Daglan and Fionn, the First and Only High King of Prythian. According to the Prythian side of the legend, he has a sword called Gwydion which was dipped into the Cauldron by the High Priestess Oleanna, which he used to defeat the Daglan. Milennia of peace followed, the land was divided in the precursors to the courts, but then they were at the brink of war. He became High King and was betrayed by his best friend and his Queen, who was also queen of her own territory in her own right.

In Crescent City, we are introduced to the figure of Queen Theia, the Starborn Queen who led the Fae out of their homeworld and brought them to Midgard. She had two daughters, Helena and an unnamed second one. She was betrayed by her most trusted general, Pelias, who then married her daughter and forced her to bear his children. Her other daughter escaped, never to be heard from again. The Starsword beloged to Theia. Come HOSAB, we learn it and Gwydion are one and the same.

Applying Occam's Razor to these two characters, the simplest outcome is that Theia was Fionn's wife and the one who betrayed him, Helena and Nameless Daughter are their children, and Pelias is the best friend and general who betrayed him. Fionn probably wasn't a great person because let's be real, Theia found Aidas later and SJMs has a thing for making past love interests looking bad when a new one is in town (example: Shahar for Hunt).

I don't want Fionn to have been evil! And I guess this is what these ideas boil down to. I'm not even gonna call them theories because they aren't really based on hard evidence. Just fun What Ifs, possible parallels, headcanons. Who knows? So without further ado:

What If Pelias played the role of Iago?

We all know Pelias is utter trash. He betrayed his Queen and forcibly married her daughter so she could be the mother of his now royal children. If he was Fionn's best friend, I have exactly zero reason to think he wasn't trash and power hungry then too. All in all, regardless of what Theia and Fionn's relationship was like (and I want to believe they were both good people), I believe Pelias was the root of all evil.

I can see him feeling inferior to both: Theia with her blazing starlight compared to his meagre one and Fionn was probably remarkable in his own way. I like to think that though they didn't love each other, there was respect and trust and even camaraderie. They both played their part in expelling the Daglan. Fionn got to be High King and married Theia, who was Queen of Dusk. He was their friend, relegated to their shadows.

This gets even juicier if we accept as true that Pelias was always a Starborn Prince. Maybe he was Theia's illegitimate brother, maybe a distant relative. I can see him wanting everything his friends have: the crown of High King, the title of King of Dusk, everything. Greed and Jealousy that drove him to manipulate his closest friends into turning against each other and ended with Theia slaying Fionn.

He never got to reap the rewards in Prythian, though: Theia's killing of Fionn sent the realm into disarray. We are told the Fae were lured to Midgard, and I think that's because Theia took the chance to flee a whole land that wanted her dead for her crime either for justice or their own greed (we will come back to it). Theia escaped believing Pelias was her friend and trusted general. I don't think they were ever lovers. Maybe that too played a role in his jealousy and anger, how Theia never loooked his way and found love with Aidas.

Regardless, he betrayed and murdered her anyway, dooming her daughter to a lifetime of unhappiness.

What if Fionn and Theia were siblings?

Frequently, across Crescent City, we hear that the Starborn have intermarried to keep their bloodline pure (how utterly Targaryen of them). We have yet to hear about any historical examples of such unions, but Fionn and Theia provide a fine opportunity for this to be brought to the table. The Last Starborns marrying out of duty to keep their bloodline pure in their old world. It also goes well with how Gwydion and Truthteller are siblings blades, one belonging to each.

Could Theia have been a Queen of her own territory in her own right then if they were siblings? Why not? Plenty of queens in history were queens in their own right, regardless of their husbands. She could have been the oldest and heir to the Dusk Territory, Fionn the younger sibling who was chosen as the High King. Or maybe he was the eldest and gave up the throne to her. Maybe the territory passed down in the female line or to the strongest starborn. In any case, it's not really a hurdle.

In this scenario, Pelias as their best friend (distant relative/bastard half-sibling/wtv) still works. In fact, it complements it because it highlights Pelias's hatred and envy for them both. They get everything, he gets nothing. Taken further if Fionn didn't have the Starborn's light, but was a legitimate prince.

It would also create an interesting parallel between Ruhn and Bryce. Siblings, one dark and one light. "Maybe there's a knife for me out there", Bryce herself says. Ruhn's the older brother and as far as we know, the heir, but it's Bryce who is most often compared to a Queen. Not him, though if I recall, Bryce think she will be a good ruler. She is right. Ruhn might carry Pelias light, true, but his shadows are Fionn's.

This time, it doesn't end in tragedy.

What if Theia was Fionn's daughter?

This is VERY far-fetched, I freely admit to it, and was born out of me trying to rationalize the difference between ACOSF and CCity: Gwydion is Fionn's sword, but it'salso the Starsword, which is Theia's.

Simplest solution is either: it was Fionn's and Theia took it all after she killed him and Midgard doesn't have the full story or it was always Theia's and Prythian remembers it incorrectly. The Dread Trove we know was likely made by the Asteri and it wasn't originally Fionn's.

Crackpot theory: Fionn was the Starborn King, hero to the Fae, and married the Night Queen to secure his rule (that's where shadow power would have com into the bloodline). Fionn and his Queen have a daughter, Theia, and Theia herself has two daughters of her own. Who fathered these kids is 100% irrelevant. Sarah didn't give the Archeron sister's father a name, I'm not holding my breath he isn't just a no one.

Pelias is Fionn's best friend and general, and madly jealous of the man. Likely wants to marry his daughter, too. In any case, he and the Queen betray and murder Fionn, intent on setting Theia on the throne. In the end, Pelias tricks Theia into believing it was all her mother, and he is on her side. The Night Queen, ruler of Nightmares, was always a means to an end. Maybe she was aligned with the Asteri too, considering the Wild Hunt imagery in the CoN.

Or maybe the Queen was dead by then, and history has conflated her with Theia. Maybe Theia, Queen after her mother, thought her father was becoming a tyrant and decided to kill him. Maybe Pelias pushed her into it, thinking he could marry her. We actually never know how long Fionn reigned. Theia never stole anything at all: it was always hers by right. She was to be the next High Queen.

And then the High Lords intervened.

What if the reason Theia fled to Midgard was because of the High Lords?

Theia was lured by the Asteri to Midgard. But why? Why did she gave up everything in her former world to a new one? What could have driven her to take such a risk? I think she wouldn't have, had she any other choice. Theia was, to put it simply, pushed against a corner because she had a rebellion in her hands.

If she killed Fionn and he was recognized as the High King and well loved, this may as well have started a rebellion. Not even because he was a good king (maybe he was), but for their own power. The Royal House is in disarray, regardless of its familial arrangement, and what better place to strike? They do not want a High Queen whatsoever.

So they attack Theia. Maybe at some point she loses parts of the Dread Trove, which is why Helion has the reaction he has to the mask: it's an echo from when his ancestor used it against Theia. In any case, she's fighting a losing war. Her people will be eliminated. She's losing and desperte, and the Asteri's call is her salvation. She doesn't notice the trap.

Victorious, the High Lords weave history to be whatever he wanted, twisting or erasing the role she played. And, perhaps, this is why there have been no High Ladies: there's magic preventing it, magic which the first High Lords established to keep the power at bay, because Fionn's only heirs were women.

And this closes the bunch of ideas I wanted to write down lmao. Probably none of this will become canon but hey, it's fun to think of other possibilities! Again, this was all by memory, incosistences galore, self-indulgent, I don't really expect any (except Pelias is the Iago but that's pribably what EVERYONE thinks, but I needed to write it down for the rest to make sense you know).

#ccity #hosab #acotar #hoeab #sjm #crackpot theory

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agoddamn · 1 year

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@waxpet GOD LIKE _(:3」∠)_

Tobirama is also the FIRST Hokage to throw hands in defense of Konoha, too. There's a fanon perception that he had a cold reputation but as soon as we see him on-page he's the first one to go "your philosophical breakdown ain't cute, people fucking live there and you don't get to kill grandma because you're mad at The System."

Which is an interesting flavor of character practicality that I think often goes underappreciated in fiction. A lot of rebellious characters want to tear down The System for a hundred different (good!) reasons but there's very few people willing to up and say, "yeah, but unfortunately a lot of people even worse off than you rely on that crappy system so you don't get to throw a tantrum about it that kills them."

Which, admittedly Tobirama never spells that out either and I'm projecting at least a little! But that's what his instant defense of Konoha says to me, because unlike Hashirama he doesn't have a wife and kids that he left in Konoha and he doesn't have his whole identity from childhood invested in Konoha as a concept. The only logical explanation left is just...that Tobirama is honestly defending all those nameless generic NPCs that nobody cares about. Peace-loving Hashirama is the one willing to entertain Sasuke's questions; cynical bitch Tobirama is the one to say, "this isn't a philosophical hypothetical, this is human lives."

So like. That he's got this quiet dedication to shitty, worthless, forgotten people he has no personal connection to but he also feels like he's living in service of other people's dreams and he takes the first available opportunity to die as soon as all his closest people are dead, because he can support someone with a dream but he can't personally live for that dream.

_(:3」∠)_

#senju tobirama #nart opinions

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yangzhouman · 9 months

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long post about batman beyond because i have feelings

batman beyond is so damn bleak in the obvious ways and yet it goes all the way thru. like it initially positions itself as a story about how “keeping it in the family” just ends up with dead family members and the only way out of being eaten by generational trauma is to abandon the family structure. what bruce and terry have at the start is loose and resistant to definition even when others try (”your keeper’s here” and “who else could take care of his affairs? he has no wife, no children.” / “me. i could do it.” / ) and when they (meaning terry and bruce) eventually label it as an employer/employee kinda thing it feels fresh.

when you’re the best man for the job you can call your boss a bitch. and he’s not gonna be in your living room at the end of a stressful day. there’s distance. there’s employee rights. they both care deeply about their job and eventually about each other but there’s no guilt when the job gets in the way, because there’s nothing for it to get in the way of -- their relationship IS batman.

it feels un-familial EVEN WHEN the family metaphor gets pushed onto them. it’s important that bruce isn’t terry’s father; terry has a father that he loves, and bruce needs to come to terms with a more impersonal, wider guilt of being an ageing bat in a city that will never stop needing batman. when others do try to conceptualise whats going on with terry and bruce thru a family lens, it jars because that straight up isn’t the connection they have, and people can tell -- they’re just missing the context of both being batman.

it’s good! it’s really good! it turns batman on its head by looking at it as an ideological gap that people can slip into, rather than something that is handed down, man to boy, with a clear lineage and direction -- now it’s an analytical framework of vigilantism that is open to all who feel brave. widening batman up like this makes barbara’s relationship with bruce & batman a little more complex too, as she is distinctly not a wayne and does not see bruce as her father, but still stepped into a sort of shadow/partner role to the big bat (misogyny... she’s proto-terry in the context of batman beyond but why does terry get to be more? questions i know the answer to.)

imo batman beyond, when at its best, makes batman a possibility: a nebulous idea that centres around gotham and righteousness rather than an individual and his grief. it’s a way out for bruce in particular, who calls himself batman in his own head but has to come to terms with a new bat who has no debt with him in any way -- and he grows in that safe relationship. as an old man! he grows!

and then. and then. oh my god. oh my godddd dc falls to its old ways and terry becomes bruce’s biological son? he gets narutofied*? it is single-handedly the worst thing that has ever happened to me. there is no escape! batman is bruce wayne and can only be bruce wayne. it/he is a trap that absorbs anyone who comes near! batfam is a curse that infects and infects! i am putting up with it because i like batman beyond so much even with this. but god. what a letdown what a needless twist in a universe that already has MANY cloning stories and MANYYYYY biological heir stories

*this refers to uzumaki naruto from NARUTO who starts as a nameless orphan in a hostile world, but then discovers that he is actually the son of two very important people, which stands in opposition to the earlier story beats and makes him special in a way that i find very gross, as it cheapens the work that he has done as a character-in-story to carve out a place for himself in the narrative world, and shows a lack of commitment on the author’s part to challenging storytelling by relying on the tired shonen tropes of bloodline rights and inherited power as proof of character significance

#🐸#Batman Beyond #dc

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hotxcheeto · 1 year

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❥ 𝐕𝐢𝐨𝐥𝐞𝐭

"𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗴𝗼𝘁 𝗶𝘁, 𝗰𝘂𝗽𝗰𝗮𝗸𝗲."

❥ 𝗿𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 - 𝘀𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗾𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁

❥ 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜

❥ Ace of Spades | Angst + Fluff - An old friend comes back from the dead, and you just so happen to using everything she taught you. Even if you hate her at the moment, her tactics aren't half bad.

❥ My little Angel | Fluff - After becoming some ones science experiment, you grew wings. You like them sometimes, but you girlfriend Vi, she likes them all the time.

❥ My Dead Girlfriend | Angst + Fluff - You loved her, and then she left. Dead and gone you thought, until she comes back. And then you realize, damn, you still love her.

❥ The Nameless Drink | Fluff + Very Slight Angst - You love to sing in a bar you own, running it to keep yourself a float. A song that means so much to you is sung, and a girl in the crowd just so happens to recognize your lyrics.

❥ Painting & Panting | NSFW + Fluff - You just want to paint but your mischievous girlfriend has another idea.

❥ Brains and Brawn | Angst + Fluff - You always did the talking, she did the punching. You were a coward, and after you ran away from her, somehow she'll always find you. Even when you blame yourself, she'd never blame you for a second.

❥ Boring Books Filled With Blurry Ink | Tiny Angst + Fluff | MODERN AU - Studying for important exams can take a lot out of a person, but don't worry, Vi's here to make sure you take care of yourself. She'd do anything to make sure you're alright.

❥ Sorry Won't Cut It | Angst - You're reckless and you know it, and you're girlfriend? She freaking hates it.

❥ The Girl With Nothing but a Name | Fluff - You're a reckless writer who loves a story. You meat an equally as cocky girl who just so happens to take interest in you. But all you know about her is her name. And she'd love for you to learn more.

❥ The Letters I Left for my Love | Angst + Fluff - You'd write a letter to her everyday, leaving them in a box you designed. Only you and her can open it, and when she finally finds it, she finds you. Her lost love that never stopped writing her letters.

❥ For You To Be Okay | Angst + Fluff - Vi would do anything to make sure you're okay, even if you think you're being ridiculous.

❥ Scarred Skin | Angst + Slight Fluff - You have burns across your body, scars that will never go away and you hate it. Gods you hate them. But Vi, she loves you. And she loves them, even when you don't.

❥ Sweet as Sugar | Fluff - You're Viktor's sister, a well known inventor ranking high. But you're also a cocky bastard, and that catches a certain girl's eye.

❥ Pressure for the Pain | Fluff + Very slight Angst - You don't get hurt often, but Vi makes sure that if you do, you'll be okay just as long as she's your caretaker

❥ My Only Sunrise | Angst + Fluff - You lost your Sunrise when she died, but now she was back and you could truly see the sky.

❥ Doctors Orders | Fluff + NSFW - Vi makes sure to patch you all up, but of course she has to have some fun with it.

❥ Prison Wife | Fluff + Slight Angst - Vi and you are in prison, you're her prison partner, she's your prison wife. It just makes sense.

❥ Intruder | Fluff + Slight angst - You hadn't seen your best friend in years, going from thinking about her to hearing a knock at the door. An intruder deciding to pop into the house. But thinking about it, why did they knock? And why do they know your name?

❥ Tension in the Air | Angst + Fluff - Vi and you have an equal hatred for each other. Jealous of the other. Angry at each other every time you have to interact. That's until you say too much, and she begins to realize, maybe you aren't so bad. And maybe, the anger hid just a bit too much tension in the air, and maybe she liked you a bit, or a lot... yeah definetely not. Right?

❥ High Spirit | Slight Angst + Fluff - You were too sweet for the world and Vi knew it, some people were assholes. She just there to always remind you of that.

❥ Late Night Routine | Fluff - Vi has been working her life away for you, more then you could in an entire week to give you a safe place to live. So you decide to treat her with a nice dinner and a whole lot of cuddles.

❥ Teenage Dream | Slight Angst + Fluff - You've know Vi since the beginning of the end. Teenagers forced to grow up in a world that has everything against them. But you have each other and that's all that matters. From beginning until end, Vi is your forever

❥ Going Nowhere | Angst + Fluff - You were dragged from home a long time ago. Your step-dad not being the nicest. Vi believed you left her, and now that your back and the air has been cleared. You make sure to tell her you're not going anywhere.

❥ Hold Me | Fluff - You haven't been feeling the best, good thing Vi is here to take care of you.

❥ Graceful | Fluff - You're a ballerina, Vi loves to help and watch you practice. Even if she doesn't listen.

❥ The Boxer and the Bubble Bath | Smut + Fluff | MODERN AU - Vi comes home to you very nicely sat in a nice hot bubble bath. Sore from training she doesn't need an invite to get in, and then you make sure you take good care of her, and she always does the same for you, since your her perfect little wife after all.

❥ Seven Sensitive Minutes | Suggestive | MODERN AU - Everyone is playing seven minutes in heaven and hoping to make your ex jealous you play along, until it lands on her and another guy. And you have to make a choice that you end up not regretting.

❥ Countdown | Fluff | SOULMATE AU - You expected and dreamed of meeting your soulmate in a cute and romantic way. Well Vi makes sure to crush that idea, along with a few ribs.

❥ Pretty Nurse | Fluff - You're Vi's lover, that sometimes doubles as the pretty nurse that takes care of her when she's sick.

❥ The Three Times Vi Wasn't Sure, and the One Time She Was | Fluff - Vi didn't know if you were gay, you were just always so open, so free, like a fairytale character that spoke in riddles. But at some point, she figures it out. With a little help from you of course.

❥ Fragile as Glass | Angst + Open Ended - You have taken care of Jinx since Vander died, protecting her. But she brings all of the mess right to you as usual. Though this mess, is a bit nostalgic.

❥ Street Affairs | Smut - She can't wait to have you, literally, her jealousy can't wait. See that alleyway? Exactly...

❥ Dinnertime | Smut + Fluff - Vi loved to care for you, especially after you've been working yourself away to keep you guys afloat. And seeing her after so long spent away from her arms makes you feel... excited, to say the least.

❥ Old Memories | Fluff? + Slight Angst - You run into an old friend.

❥ 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

❥ Vi With a Short Big Spoon | Fluff

❥ Spicy Piercings | Fluff + Kind of NSFW

❥ Cheek Kisses | Fluff

❥ Tracing Her Skin | Fluff + Slight Angst

❥ SFW & NSFW Headcanons | NSFW/Smut + Fluff + Slight Angst

❥ Enemies With Benefits w/ Her | Angsty + Smutty + Slight Fluff

❥ Having an Affectionate Girlfriend | Fluff + Slight Angst

❥ 𝐝𝐫𝐚𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐬

❥ smut drabble #1

❥ 𝐦𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐢𝐩𝐥𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬

❥ Fight Club | Part 2 | Angst + Fluff - You fight to survive, and then you see an old friend again. But you aren't too happy about who she's with.

❥ Better Than a Prison Wall | PART 2 | Angst + Fluff - Anything is better than staring at a prison wall. Including seeing your family that casted you away. Or so you thought they did.

❥ Thief Vi and Her Princess Masterlist | Fluff | ROYAL AU - A princess meets a thief, and just so happens to fall in love.

❥ Beachy Beauty | Part Two | Fluff | SEMI MODERN AU - You're the adopted Kiramman, the notorious for being sweet and great with the kids of the family. And while taking care of them on the beach vacation the family annually takes, you just so happen to meet your sisters new friend. Who she forgot to mention, was very attractive.

❥ 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜

❥ I Don't Know You... Yet | Fluff + Slight Angst - You're Vi and Jinx's sister, and you meet and enforcer that just happens to catch your eye, but you guys aren't very close just yet. But she'd like to be, now will you let her?

❥ 𝐩𝐨𝐥𝐲𝐚𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬

❥ 𝐜𝐚𝐢𝐭𝐥𝐲𝐧

❥ Out of Reach | Fluff - Your girlfriends love to put your potion ingredients higher then your arms can reach.

❥ Sleepy Morning Light | Fluff - You and Vi want to sleep, Caitlyn however needs a bit of convincing.

❥ Welcome Home | Fluff + NSFW - You and your dominance wasn't what they were expecting, but they aren't complaining.

❥ Busted Face | Angst + Fluff - You'd run into some people from your past you just happen to have a rough relationship. Punches are thrown on both sides, and the girls are left to help you pick up the pieces.

❥ Predicament | Fluff + Suggestive - Your girlfriend just got out of prison, and brings a friend who just so happens to be an enforcer. Oh, and did I mention you kill people for a living?

❥ 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬

❥ Poly Relationship W/ Them | Fluff + Slight Angst

❥ NSFW Poly W/ Them | Fluff + Smut/NSFW

❥ Dealing with Their S/O's Inner Child | Fluff + Slight Angst

❥ 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐤𝐚

❥ Them With a Pregnant S/O | Fluff + Slight Angst

❥ Relationship With Vi & Sevika | Fluff + Slight Angst

❥ Having a Teeth Insecurity | Angst + Fluff

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