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bookshelfdreams · 2 years

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Opening discussion to the class: The juxtaposition of 'whippies', an entire scene devoted to Calico Jack's very specific brand of procribed masculinity, then direct cut to Frenchie and Wee John working on their room blueprints to "design [their] sanctum. [Their] space. No rules. It can be whatever [they] want it to be."

hmmm. very good.

I like the way you put this, "prescribed masculinity"( I'm assuming that's what you mean anyway, pls correct me if I'm wrong). Because that's what this specific brand of hypermasculinity Jack is performing really is; a set of very strict rules one has to follow to be considered a "real" man. There's a great essay by @mathildia that deals with the oxymoron of performative masculinity (as concerning Steve Rogers, so cw for the MCU lmao) where they say

But performative masculinity has a tension to it that performative femininity does not, because performing itself is seen as innately unmasculine. You cannot learn to be a real man, you are or you are not. You can’t make one or learn to be one. Because our story about masculinity is that it just is. It is an ur state of being. The most natural way for a human to be.

I read this in 2015 and haven't stopped thinking about it since.

You're right, Jack's whip is the epitome of his masculinity (a little unorthodox for a metaphorical dick but it makes sense in context). Jack is seen doing tricks with it. He's performing to look cool. Nothing about his masculinity is easy or natural; he may put on a veneer of "I don't give a shit" but he cares about how he is perceived, he very deliberately influences and manipulates the way people see him.

But the un-performability of masculinity means he cannot acknowledge the effort he puts into all this. he puts the whip in Olu's hand and expects him to hit a cup on the Swede's head, despite Olu saying he's never done this before. It's no coincidence that it is kind, gentle, caring, emotionally aware, community-oriented Olu, specifically, who is put on the spot like this.

Show me you're a real man, Jack says, as if he'd be able to insult Olu's masculinity.

ofmd turns the juxtaposition of performance and masculinity on it's head, because ofmd is aware of something the MCU will never understand: You do not have to fit in the gender box because there is no box. If you're a man, everything you do will automatically be manly; there is no wrong way to be a man.

Wee John especially is a really good example of this, because he's a deconstruction of that character trope, where the big, strong guy is really a sensitive soul, maybe slightly cowardly, with "unmasculine" hobbies or interests. This is also usually the Fat Guy, because fatness is seen as degendering; a fat man is inherently not a "real man" (in media!! I want to empathize that I think this trope is very stupid). And Wee John falls into this, kinda; he's sometimes seen with this little doll, he cries about Pinocchio, he used to make dresses with his mum. But. It's never a Thing. It never stands out all that much, because obviously the whole crew is Like That.

The room is "anything they want it to be", yes. But it's not about having a space to be yourself, because Frenchie and Wee John (and everyone else) constantly are themselves. It's about the luxury of privacy, not about finding a place where you can embrace your authentic self. They are not trapped in a gender prison of their own making.

Jack, for all his posturing and hall his swagger and for all the ferocity with which he swings both his metaphorical and literal dick around, is deeply, desperately unhappy. The crying about being marooned is just to antagonize Stede; but we are all social animals. One of the ways in which men are lied to is by being told that vulnerability, genuine connections, trust and openness are "unmanly"; will be their unmaking. Jack plays a grimdark Lone Ranger of the Caribbean and he thinks it makes him the ultimate man, that it makes him indestructable and heroic. But it just makes him lonely, and it is ultimately his undoing.

Now I would like to turn this over to the rest of the class :)

#that was as usual meandering and unstructured but hopefully there's something interesting in here for you <3 #the way they deal w masculinity esp in comparison w other media properties is SO interesting to me like #dont even get me started on the hair XD #our flag means death #thoughts #seaglassandeelgrass #message

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kottkrig · 1 year

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So the other day I picked up a graphic novel series called Requiem: Vampire Knight. The basic plot is, when most people die, they go to Hell where everything is opposite of Earth. The worse you were as a person, the stronger you are in Hell. The worst become vampires. As a whole it's funny, grimdark, takes itself as seriously and un-seriously as it needs to, and is a blast to read with absolutely GORGEOUS art. I thought of you and realized that it sounds like a series that I think you'd enjoy.

I've heard of it!! The artwork I've seen is gorgeous too, very detailed and grim, just like the story I imagine

I love everything about this. The artist is Olivier Ledroit I believe One day I'll pick it up myself

#obvious TW for a lot of things in the story itself #not this page tho #ask #requiem: vampire knight

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landwriter · 1 year

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TROPE GRADING TIME BBY

Going with the classics ofc

•hurt/comfort

•hurt NO COMFORT

•angst with a happy end

•fake dating/relationship

AND GO (love you btw ❤️)

ok i'm gonna cover the two middle ones here since the other ones have been asked/answered!! thank you for the love <3

hurt NO COMFORT i beg your fucking pardon. i beg YOUR FUCKING PARDON. no comfort at all? ever? not just delayed comfort, which can be sexy? just hurt? hurt alone?? hurt un-tended and un-cared-to??? tragedy plays a really important role as a genre socially but Personally For Me, this would be something i would never super want to read and maybe, like ONCE, experiment with writing (thinking of this post specifically) grade: F, allergic to this *except maybe when self-inflicted??

angst with a happy end while I am reluctant to categorize any of my fics as angst i am pretty sure i am about to be slapped with that label on oaths soon so these are definitely hypocrite hours for trope grading. which is to say: i can get with angst if it feels not excessive - but i do not Care For grimdark depictions, i do not care for cruelty, i do not care for people characters (HAH HA oops) being used as vehicles to make some sort of statement on How Bad Things Can Get Before Happiness Arrives. i wholly see why extremes of this arc are gratifying for people, esp those who've walked or are walking in dark places, but it's a really subjective ratio, innit, of ideal angst v happy end, and i would hazard a guess that my personal preference is on the lower side of average. it's very mary oliver, wild geese for me. You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees. for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. I can't bear fic where it feels like the angst is being sustained excessively to make the ultimate happy ending more poignant. I read fic to read about the soft animals of ourselves finding love together. if characters are the repenting sort, I like stories where they are almost immediately being helped up off their knees proverbially or literally. no desert sight-seeing tours for me grade: C, depends on the writing

(trope grading)

#asks #trope grading #angst with a happy end is SUCH a broad category but i hope i've articulated myself sort of coherently #tropes are just so insanely personal and i want to repeat that like i am not here to yuck and yum or insist you enjoy something you don't #me about to click post now and realizing flower king is absolutely angst with a happy end #throwing hands up helplessly #maybe it's not ratio but wordcount??#goodness who knows myself not me

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world-smitten · 2 years

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Kingdom: Ashin of the North Review

SPOILERS

Just finished Kingdom: Ashin of the North, and it is definitely my favourite part of the Kingdom series. I didn’t think Kingdom could wring strong emotions out of me (besides the usual rage at selfish nobles), but there were parts that really resonated with me.

On paper, several plot beats are predictable - I knew that Ashin must have tried to revive her dead family with the flower, I knew that on some level, the Joseon soldiers were involved with the death of her village. But the movie delays this info, made me doubt my own intuition long enough for it to reveal the truth in the most heartwrenching way possible. That shot of Ashin crawling towards her crippled father, realising that he has been imprisoned in the most degrading circumstances, trying to free him, denied of a proper reunion as he begs her to kill him, is one of those sequences that’s branded on my brain. Kingdom is full of those moments (the queen clasping “her” baby to her chest even as the zombies drag her off the throne), but this one has a certain emotional punch, which elevates it above anything else the show has offered me. And of course, the truth of Ashin’s village - cliche and a bit grimdark, yes, but executed so precisely with the full weight of the tragedy behind it that I felt my heart break for my poor girl.

And the filmmaking is so cruel! - the way the camera swings around the picture of Ashin’s happy, living village (and I was thinking, is this a hallucination? has she finally gone mad?), only for it to reveal that her village really is alive, and that Ashin’s madness has been a slower, crueler process from the moment she begs Min Chi-rok for vengeance. And speaking of which, I love what they did with Min Chi-rok’s character. He shows up S2 as a cool, competent soldier - and by clearing the very low bar of not being a craven, grasping fool, I got really attached to his character. But this movie reframes his character completely. He’s still Min Chi-rok: competent and cool, but now competence is pragmatism, and cool is rigidity; his cruelty to Ashin derives from the same attitude of the noblewoman who spat on her father - the Jurchen are lesser and to treat them as such is the natural state of the world. There isn’t any malice in his actions - how else should he treat the poor and those he perceives as racially inferior? How else should Ashin, a poor Jurchen woman, act, besides invisibly, her suffering and labour quietly out of the picture? It's cruelty that takes itself for granted (I'm using the word cruelty a lot, don't know how else to describe how Ashin suffers). Seeing Ashin transformed into a shadow - this really was an effective portrayal of how oppression wears down the spirit.

A lot of that is because of the actresses, as usual. This is an excellent tag-team performance between Kim Si-a and Jun Ji-hyun. Kim Si-a has so much potential - her scene with Park Byung-eun was amazing (how can she already be this skilled so young??). And Jun Ji-hyun - so publically glamourous I forget how totally she throws herself into her characters. Again, I cannot get over the moment where she realises what has been done to her father. I didn’t think Kingdom, of all shows, would make me shed a tear, but I’ll allow it lol.

That’s not to say that I’ve never liked Kingdom - I like the show, a lot, it’s the rare zombie-action property that I actually engage with (helps that S2 ends with the zombies gone, for now...). But Kingdom was always about the action, about slick filmmaking and gorgeous costuming, about ingenious worldbuilding and politicking. Everything was great, but I always felt at a distance from the characters - I felt that the plot moved too quickly for me to fully “marinate” in the personal drama (ironically that’s why the Queen is the character I look back on most fondly, she’s such a compelling figure, she draws you in). But here, I was hooked. The movie starts slowly, and keeps at that careful pace, making little marks here and there until the full, sorry picture emerges. I like my Joseon folks, and I don’t even want Min Chi-rok dead, but honestly? Kill ‘em all, Ashin, if that’s what makes you glad.

#kingdom #kingdom: ashin of the north #jun ji-hyun #kim si a #i'm feeling a little less sorry about my word-vomit reviews #but anyways this movie was great #revenge IS an option

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pepperpixel · 3 years

Photo

- M̶͇̞̎ä̷̠͚́̍̔t̸̜͚́̎c̵͉̘̀ḫ̶̪̉ë̸̡̺͖́̕ş̵̝̝͋͐̌ ̸̨̞̎+̴̮̭̂ ̶̪̔͐̽G̵̙̥̤̈́̎a̴͔̅́s̴̮̺͂̑͝ő̷̭͑l̶̡͍̞̑̀͒i̸̡̬͌ņ̶̯̺̚ẻ̴̫̰̍ -

some art of grimdark rose! (also + a closeup! and a pic of her choking out doc scratch.. w varying levels of intensity) cuz i used to always end up drawing at least 1 pic of her in all my sketchbooks, but i stopped doing that! so i wanted to draw her again cuz its been a while, and she’s always rlly fun to draw!

#homestuck #hs #rose lalonde #grimdark rose #doc scratch #hs rose #doodles #working on a video also but.. its kind of a big un so it aint gonna be done anytime soon ghgh-#but i sorta drew this as a break from working on it #probs gonna take several breaks from working on it ghgh cuz otherwise i'll go insane #but yes.. im rlly happy w how this pic turned out.. like. honestly???#i sorta.. for a while i've been like. shading along as i put the flat colors down #but w this one i put all the colors down first and /then/ shaded #and i think thats. def the better way to do it gghghg cuz i like how this pic turned out a LOT #which is u kno.. nice. its nice to like pic i drew.. very cool lol #gonna try to remember to keep doing the whole. coloring everything. then shading thing in the future #hopefully my brain retains this new wisdom ghg

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lux-void · 3 years

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//abuse tw, suicide tw, addiction tw

Hi! I'm Lux and I'm an 19-year-old non-binary transmasc person.

Due to the problems listed below, I'm opening writing commissions.

For years, I've been stuck in a toxic household with an emotionally and psychologically abusive mother that frequently indulges in neglect and/or gaslighting.

I need to absolutely escape this because as a result of this bullcrap - I have been developing different mental health issues: I struggling with anxiety attacks, depressive episodes, problems focusing/memorizing/staying motivated, as well as social anxiety.

(I have also happen to have a crippling tech addiction since I was 6)

I have been getting cognitive behavioral therapy for these but recovery is being a bit rockier than anticipated as I can only contact my therapist exclusively online, as well as in secrecy because for my mom has some weird gripe with mental health experts that I have to frustratingly dance around.

My body also doesn't really co-operate either, with scoliosis and scoliosis-related symptoms (muscle/nerve weakness and headaches) giving me hell everyday and physicaltherapy being expensive makes matters worse.

Even though I frequently breakdown thinking about the situation I currently have to live in and on rare occasions even think of suicide but I do know full well that my problems largely pale in comparison to others who have it much worse, so I have decided to offer some service in exchange for money, putting my writing skills to use to put your ideas out there and help scratch any creative itches you may have, so to speak.

I humbly request you to be gentle and reasonable with your orders as I happen to be terribly out of practice at the moment and this is my first time opening writing and translation commissions.

--WRITING COMMISSIONS--

PRICE:

-€1 per every 100 words, all the way up to €10 for 1000 words

GENRES:

They're more like "flavors", to be quite honest.

- Fantasy

- Romance (I prefer LGBTQIA+)

- Comedy

- Slice Of Life

Or any combination of the four

PLEASE PROVIDE:

- Characters and characterization

- Plot/Plotpoints

WILL DO:

//nsfw and kink ment

- Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Domestic.

- Slice of life

- Familial, Platonic, Romantic

Sex and NSFW are allowed as well!

Just DM me and:

1. Give me adequate age verification in DMs.

2. Describe all the kinks and fetishes you'd like. I'll let you know immediately if there are any I feel uncomfortable with.

- OCs

- school/college settings

WON'T DO:

//incest ment, pedophilia ment, abuse ment

× Incestous, pedophilic, abusive/toxic relationships and sex scenes (includes paraphilias)

I'm also gonna have to ask you to not ever interact with me or any human being ever if you support any of these things in any way shape or form, fictional or not.

× Heavy quantities of bigotry and discrimination.

They are very important but I'm not comfortable consistently unpacking such themes in every single order.

× Grimdark

× Dystopia/Bad endings

× Huge amounts of worldbuilding and lore

EXTRA TERMS:

1 commission/week, with frequent communication on status any possible updates

- Personal use allowed, just give credit

--TRANSLATION COMMISSIONS--

PRICING:

- 1€ every 100 words, up to 10€ for 1000 words

TERMS:

- Please provide the source material you want me to translate

All the commission info is on my ko-fi:

PayPal and Ko-Fi:

(COMPLETELY OPTIONAL, think of it as a tip jar)

Emergency/Relief" MoneyPool:

#writing #writing commissions #commissions #mental health #recovery #kink mention #ko fi link #ko fi account #ko fi promo #ko fi donations #ko fi support

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thesylverlining · 2 years

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Hi there! Lately my mind's been returning to Chameleon Moon, and I wanted to tell you how foundational it was for me as a young queer person when it first came out. Like seriously thank you for writing it <3 I'm thinking it's time for a reread. my copy is a first edition, so I'm curious to know what changed between the two versions, if you don't mind me asking? Mostly I'm wondering if book 2 will make sense coming off first edition book 1. Tysm ^-^

Ahh, hi there! Firstly, thank you so, so much for your sweet words. I appreciate that more than I can say, for real. <3

And secondly... yes, the second edition (indie pubbed in 2016) is quite different. Largely because I wasn't working with a publisher with their own vision for the book, which... did not always align with mine. Many things are revised or redone completely, and if you're itching for a re-read, I'd strongly suggest the second/canon edition - both because your suspicions are correct, Book 2 will really not make sense without it, and...

1) CHAMELEON MOON has a ton of continuing character/plotlines, and they get introduced properly in the "new" Book 1 - along with the short pre-story RUNTIME (which is a free ebook everywhere! It's in the collected short story volumes, but you can also get it free individually. CM Edition 2 ALSO comes with a free short story at the end, "Un-Dead!").

2) The tone of the book hits differently/more closely to the rest of the series. Regan is a much softer anxious and lovable lizard boy, not a gritty assassin, and the whole thing is less grimdark in general. Still intense and emotionally brutal, but more properly "hopepunk" than before.

3) Regan is explicitly asexual! The trans and queer rep is clearer and better all around, I think, especially with Zilch, Evelyn, Wren, and Lisette. Liam also isn't quite as much of an ass either, iirc. (Hans is still an ass but in a less outright malicious/more sympathetic way. I tried to make clearer that like everyone, he's doing his best in an awful situation, even if his best sucks.)

4) Zilch uses they/them, as God (me) intended.

5) Mild spoiler: Zilch/Regan are explicitly a (very powerful) romantic thing, instead of this being subtext. (Which means explicit Finn/Zilch/Regan polyam as well as Evelyn/Rose/Danae... who are also explicitly married, which I'm not sure if they were in the first edition!)

6) The whole thing is just... more emotionally raw and soft at the same time, esp re: Regan's amnesia and the themes of him actually having a life and people in it he loves despite the horrors of Parole, and would do anything to get back, knowing who he is and valuing that person instead of... basically being an asshole who had to be broken down and rebuilt to be less shitty. All of which is important to me as a queer and disabled person. Our lives, as they are, do have value, and now the book reflects that better.

7) In short, it's the book I wanted to write.

...That's all I can remember right now, but there is probably more lol.

So! Yes! I would highly recommend the second edition, because it's both a better setup for the rest of the series, and also just. Better. (Which makes me even more appreciative that you loved the first one so much. And convinced you'll like the second edition even more.)

That said, I don't want to make you/anyone buy it twice, so. If you feel like coming off anon and messaging again, we can talk about that lol.

#Chameleon Moon #Sylver Writes Things #anonymous

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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Trump's SCOTUS pick scares the ever loving shit out of me. I'm trying not to have a full blown panic attack actually.

Sigh. I know.

I’m not going to say that picking someone literally, un-exaggeratedly out of The Handmaid’s Tale for SCOTUS, especially to replace someone like RBG, isn’t mother fucking terrifying. It is. Especially since Mitch McConnell is trying to set her final confirmation vote for October 29, literally five days before the election. Yes indeed, that would be a third Supreme Court seat filled by an impeached president who lost the popular vote by three million votes, (possibly) confirmed by Republican enablers (some of whom are absolutely going to lose their seats in this election) who represent a sizeably smaller fraction of the US population than their Democratic counterparts, in a display of outright, staggering, truly breathtaking hypocrisy about the protocol of election-year vacancies on SCOTUS, which they themselves shouted about to no end with Merrick Garland in 2016. This is how tyranny by minority rule works, and... yeah. It’s bad. It’s awful. When is this going to end.

That said, however: we do not yet exist in this theoretical grimdark future where some dystopian 6-3 (or even 7-2) conservative SCOTUS strips us of our rights at every turn, with no recourse except for us to sit passively and take it, and there are a lot of things that we ourselves can do between now and then to make sure that it never happens. First off, House Democrats have proposed a bill to introduce 18-year term limits for SCOTUS justices, rather than it being an automatic lifetime appointment. This would also give every president the ability to appoint two justices per four-year term. Because SCOTUS has become such an instrument of partisan warfare, and because the obvious implications of having a partisan head of state pick the senior federal judges for a lifetime is part of what has fucked us up now, this would be a GREAT improvement. House Dems can’t make it into law right now, because Democrats do not hold a majority in both chambers of Congress and they do not hold the presidency. You know how this COULD be passed? If Joe Biden was elected with a blue House and Senate. That way, even if God forbid the GOP horror show snuck Coney Barrett onto the bench just before the election, this could be fixed.

Here’s another way to think about it. I myself have a HUGE problem with catastrophizing: a bad thing happens, and then it seems like an inevitable chain of nonstop bad things until everything gets irredeemably, unfixably even worse. This year, obviously, has not done much to help that, because yes, the bad things keep coming. But they’re still individual events and have not yet crystallized into some unbreakable, unavoidable future. History is made up of thousands of millions of choices, accidents, unforeseen developments, total random bullshit, and much more, as much or more as it is made up by the macro-scale actions of oligarchs. Obviously, globalization and capitalism have made us all more connected to each other, and thus changes to the system can ripple more broadly, but they are not the only people who make history. If there’s one thing I can tell you as a historian, it’s this: the future is just history that hasn’t been made yet, and it is subject to the exact same unpredictable bullshit that has constituted history throughout, well, history. Nothing is unavoidable and we have never existed in a world where we can’t do anything at all. Also, authoritarian regimes (especially those imposed without the consent of the people -- willing subjection to authoritarianism is one thing, but the other, yeah) have a relatively short shelf life, historically speaking. That won’t help all of us who could be hurt right now (though we can STILL fight back and speak up and help our neighbors), but it’s the truth. Authoritarian rule (especially when it’s not balanced by economic security, which sure as hell isn’t happening right now) can last for a while, sure. But it is always its own worst enemy, and it will always be ended. How that ends is a choice we can make.

This isn’t the “get out on the streets and Start The Glorious Revolution!!!” nonsense that the armchair internet leftists, none of whom are actually starting a glorious revolution or doing anything except bitching on Twitter about how Biden and Trump are alike, are fond of. This is an active choice to realize that there are always things you can do, that there are things you can do right now, and one of them, most obviously, is voting. This mess was all completely goddamn avoidable if people had voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. But well, they didn’t, and we get one last shot to fix this by democratic process. Trump is already openly setting up to contest the election results/try to invalidate them/throw out ballots. This is all old-school fascism. This is what is happening. He is counting on another razor-thin margin of votes that he can then contest in his hand-picked SCOTUS; he wants another Bush v. Gore very, very badly. The only way to blow away any legitimacy for anything like this is to vote in such overwhelming numbers that there’s no question of Biden’s victory, no need to wait for mail-in ballots (another reason the GOP has been trying so hard to destroy the post office) or anything else. At heart, Trump is a coward. He’s also an egomaniac. If it comes to stepping aside peacefully or being dragged out of the White House by the FBI for everyone to laugh at for the rest of time, hmm, I doubt he’s going to go for that. (And if he does, well, I will also savor the sight of him in handcuffs for all eternity.) However, that doesn’t mean the GOP machine won’t TRY, because Trump is not just Trump, but is his entire miserable cabal of enablers. I have written my fingers raw about how badly people need to vote. This is literally your last chance to do it.

I’ve seen a lot of the-sky-is-falling, we’re-doomed, they-have-the-votes-so-don’t-even-bother handwringing in the last few days. To some degree, yes. We all feel doomed. We have all been asked to find strength to deal with massive and unending waves of terrifying bullshit past anyone’s normal capacity, and we’re tired. We want it to end. But it’s SO CLOSE to ending, if we can all just get out and vote for Joe Biden in massive numbers on November 3 (or if your state has early voting, sooner; BANK YOUR VOTE). That’s such an easy thing to do. Nothing is set in stone. We can still fix things and make it so, you know, we’re not living in a fascist state ruled by Gilead. (And besides, all this Chicken Little rhetoric is super easy for the Russian troll farms to exploit. Don’t listen to it. Shut it down. Reject it.)

They want you to think you’re powerless. You’re not.

They want you to think this will never end. It will. We decide how.

They want you to think this is a foregone conclusion and you should just go back home and let it happen. You don’t have to.

They want you to think your vote doesn’t matter. It does.

They want you to think your rights are gone. They’re not.

They want you to think this future is inevitable.

IT’S NOT.

Hang in there.

Lots of hugs.

#politics for ts #anonymous #ask

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leconcombrerit · 3 years

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What are some of your favourite books/book series' and can you give us a brief description? 📕📖📚

-💙

OH YES I CAN

I have three that immediately come to mind. I'll try to give bad summaries to make it funnier.

1) Le cycle de Syffe, P. Dewdney

I'm not sure this one was translated to English, but if not, reading it could be reason enough for anyone to learn French. This is how good this series is. I can't give a bad summary because giving a summary at all is extremely difficult.

Genre : hard fantasy

Status : ongoing

The story is set in a fantasy world, but not a high fantasy one. There's seemingly no magic, only tribe folklore and various saints andgods worshipped in some cities. The story follows the story of Syffe, an orphan, and I honestly can't say anything that wouldn't be a spoiler. The pace is slow, the writing had me close the book and cry (yes, actually cry) no less than three times per book. Seeing such a hard world through the eyes of a child is heart-wrenching. Although we seemingly just follow him around as things happen, there's definitely an underlying plot point that has me shivering. Book three is out next September and I'm here for it.

2) The Broken empire, Mark Lawrence

My comfort book. Which does not mean this book is comforting. It's deep and unsettling and funny as hell, but sometimes you wonder if you really can laugh because someone just died.

Genre : grimdark fantasy

Status : finished

Jorg is a 13 year old bandit with morals as low as his wits are great, and he's definitely the boss of a whole bunch of not so recommendable people who go around ransacking villages. Turns out he's actually a prince, what a surprise ! Featuring assholes, bigger assholes, plot twists that leave you gaping, and even zombies (yes zombies). Bonus point, this author actually has a whole connected-universe thing between his series, so you get easter eggs all the time.

3) The Age of Madness, Joe Abercrombie

I could have put almost any Abercrombie book, this series just happens to be my current favorite. It's funnier if you've read all his other books cause you know the characters, but it can be read as a standalone. And since I know many people care about representation a lot, one of the main characters is gay (so far in the closet he's found Aslan, but more on this matter as it develops).

Genre : grimdark fantasy (do you see a pattern do you)

Status : ongoing (finished next September)

Set between the city of Adua, going full industrialization-profit-baby, the North with their constant wars, and another city that's on the verge of rebellion because industry sucks. Abercrombie is the Holy King of grimdark, so the story is... Grim. And dark. And very funny. The characters are flawed and realistic and loveable still. You want to get in the book, slap some people, hug others, and have Savine walk over you with her high heels. The writing is to die for, the tone changes vastly from one character pov to the other, and knowing the author, it will end badly. Had me go to bed past 4 so I'd know what happened next. Impossible to put down.

As you can see, I'm 100% dark fantasy, with occasional lighter ones. I used to read many thrillers, but I got used to them and now I just... Sort of guess who's the culprit very early on. Une putain d'histoire (French author again I'm sorry) and A quiet belief in Angels get honorable mentions though. Anyhow, it's sad stuff. Bittersweet stuff. Crush my heart under your boots. Make me cry. I get high on that shit.

#this ended up quite long #and I did try to make it short #I could go on and on and on #they're all so good #so very good the best books I've ever read #this is what I want to write this is the level I'm setting #the bar went orbiting around earth but like one can dream #the broken empire #the age of madness #le cycle de syffe

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depizan · 3 years

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I noted here that I'm not fond of the current dark n' gritty take on Star Wars that a lot of the new!EU favors (nor, for that matter, the worst timeline approach of Disney!Star Wars in general).

The weird thing is, a lot of the fanfic I read could be considered darker or grittier than canon (Even, arguably, the fic I write, since I don't go with bloodless violence.) and I - obviously - don't have a problem with it.

Which leaves me trying to figure out what the difference is. There must be one, beyond one being canon and one not -- something that might be a valid difference if I felt that way about Star Wars. But Star Wars is one of those things where I have a very...uh...mythological attitude toward "canon." I don't feel like there's a One True Story, I feel like it's all (official canon, no longer official canon, fanfic, weird ancient Marvel comics, whatever) in kind of a state of, I don't know what to call it, Shrodinger's Canon? It's like...it's like Robin Hood. I like some versions better than others, but there's not a True Story Of Robin Hood. Like I said, a mythological attitude. There's Star Wars I like and Star Wars I don't like, and I don't much care where on the canon spectrum it falls.

So it's not really a case of, well, it's okay for people to explore darker stuff in fic, but I don't want canon to do that. Or at least it isn't that simple, because I do feel like distinctly non-canon things (fanfic, What Ifs, etc) have more freedom to explore possibilities within a fictional universe than official canon does. Mostly because there are things that simply don't fit together well. (I think I've used Jupiter Ascending as an example of this before. You start with Jupiter's father being killed by a random criminal, then you have her being born with no medical help while her mom is being smuggled to America and it's all very gritty and un-fantastic... and five minutes later you've got hoverskates and bees knowing royalty and my brain feels like the movie has done the mental equivalent of throwing a car into reverse from 5th gear.)

But, if I'm going to be honest, the fic I like (including my own) is just as much Real Star Wars to me as The Empire Strikes Back or Han Solo's Revenge. So why does the Aftermath trilogy bother me, but [insert assorted fics here] don't?

Because of the story "alignment" chart I hunted back down and just reblogged. Star Wars was NobleDark. The fanfic I like is still NobleDark. Disney!Star Wars is Grim or, on a larger scale, even GrimDark with, in the case of the movies, a weird sort of candy coating on top. In an attempt to distract you from the tonal shift, I think. (Or, worse, somehow no one at Disney has realized the tonal shift. D: ) Never mind that accomplishments are fleeting and only achieved through pain and suffering on the part of characters (Notice how people must die for anything to be accomplished in the sequel trilogy.), we'll slap some heroic, nostalgic music over the top and shoot the film in pretty colors instead of real-o-vision and no one will notice!

I actually used the wrong words in my complaint in that other post. I don't object to dark n' gritty. Star Wars was always set in a Dark world, and grit isn't the issue. It's the Grim. And if I'd remembered to say that, I wouldn't have been confused. You can have stories where the world is Dark and the action is gritty, but outcomes still land it solidly in Noble.

I think the tricky thing is that people talk about the difference between Noble and Grim as if there's only pain and suffering in Grim. And even the chart I reblogged suggests that. But that's not really the case. There are degrees of suffering that push things out of Noble and certain kinds of suffering that do, but it's a pretty rare story in which being a hero never hurts. And if you're heroing in a Dark world (or even just protagonisting), it's definitely going to hurt. It just isn't going to hurt the way trying to be a hero in a Grim world would. (Even a GrimBright one!)

And that's why, even though the actual violence levels and presentation aren't different, something like the Aftermath trilogy feels very different from the fic I like. It's about whether or not things get accomplished, and, if so, to what degree. It's also about what the characters learn over the course of the story, how they grow or don't grow, whether their situations get better or worse. How the world is shifting, or not shifting. Where you think (or know!) they'll be in ten years.

And the weird thing is, sometimes a character essentially holding steady can feel like an accomplishment, like proof that it's a world where positive change is possible. Because, in a shitty enough Dark world, not becoming like the people who make the world Dark is a victory, in and of itself. As well as being a kind of proof that the shitty people are wrong. Something else is possible. Maybe this character alone can't shift things, but by not being shifted, themself, they're holding the door open on possibilities.

Just as characters accomplishing things can not save a story from seeming Grim if the audience knows that all of their accomplishments (and possibly their lives) will be destroyed. If your characters triumphantly sail away on the Titanic, the audience is not going to be cheering with them. And if the accomplishments come on the back of characters deciding they can't be better people, well, we're definitely in Grim land, then. Particularly if they're right.

(And this all probably comes down to the fact that I tend to view reality as Dark, so naturally I would much prefer that fiction told me change was possible than that change was not possible. So sorry, you appear to have booked onto the Titanic.)

#Mac ponders fiction #long post

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richmond-rex · 3 years

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Salut, J'ai regarder tout les épisodes de the white princess sauf le 7 parce que j'ai eu le bon instinct de savoir que j'allais beaucoup trop m'énerver dessus néanmoins je connais les événements de l'épisode grâce à YouTube et Tumblr

Est en parcourant le # ici je suis tombée sur ceci et j'avais déjà connaissance de cette scène mais pas que future Henry viii était la ou est que il était la ? Dans les gifs photos et tout que je peux voir c'est Henry VII QUI EST COMME LANCER DES PIERRE etc (j'ai vraiment bien fait de pas regarder cette épisode) mais bref en gros j'ai besoin d'éclaircissement sur cette scène en espérant que vos souvenir soit assez bons pour que vous n'ayez pas à revoir cet épisode pour moi

Personnellement je n'arrive pas à me résoudre de revoir la série c'est à propos de personnages historiques que j'aime ça leur manque de respect à un niveau où j'ai l'impression qu'on me manque de respect aussi donc bon

Et j'espère que ma longue demande ne sera pas trop dure à traduire si c'est le cas faites le moi savoir et je repasserais à l'anglais pour les prochaines

(la capture d'écran est traduite par Google Chrome)

@aliciatudors-love

Salut! I didn’t directly publish your ask because in that screenshot you sent me we could see op’s url/blog handle and icon. Next time just try leaving those out because I don’t know whether they are okay with their name being published on another person’s blog, right? That said, let me just say: Gosh, now you’ve brought back a whole load of memories (not particularly pleasant hh). To be fair, I watched The White Princess three years ago, and from what I can remember, only episodes 3 to 6 are worth watching. So you really made a wise decision in choosing not to watch past episode six. Episodes 7 and 8 are a trainwreck, and as you’ve pointed out yourself, extremely disrespectful to the historical figures.

Elizabeth of York is completely stripped of her kindness and popular touch and everything that made her be who she was in Emma Frost’s effort to make her ‘the new Margaret Beaufort’ — because that’s a character they despise so much, in the grimdark but ‘feminist’ Emma Frost Universe the only possible option is for Elizabeth to become her worst enemy, I guess. Henry VII becomes completely paralysed at the thought of losing his throne, breaks down between the scenes and has to be nudged on by his wife to do something. Not like we have contemporaries reporting that King Henry never tarried in the face of peril, right? They have this whole absurd plot where the English people love Perkin Warbeck (when they don’t even know him?) and the royal family has to tell people to throw stones at him and spit at him, yes, I remember something along those lines.

And I think it’s so extremely absurd and hamfisted the way Emma Frost tried to foreshadow what Henry VIII would turn out to be later in life when he was only, what, a 5 or 6-year-old boy? It comes off as extremely creepy: the boy cheats during cards, speaks ill of his grandmother, is excited when he sees violence and executions (because.... taking their kids to executions is exactly what Henry VII and Elizabeth of York would do, am I right). I don’t exactly remember if little Prince Henry was there to throw stones at Perkin (whom they tried very hard to turn into a Jesus or Biblical figure), but to be honest I wouldn’t put it past them because by then Prince Henry was very much established as the creepy violent kid.

I think you put it into the right words when you said “ça leur manque de respect à un niveau où j'ai l'impression qu'on me manque de respect aussi”. Emma Frost and Matthew Graham created a universe that is so falsely feminist and absurd that it goes beyond their disrespect for the historical figures and becomes an affront against their own audience. I’m glad their story is finally over! Sorry for not exactly remembering if Prince Henry was there, but really, it would be just another one of the things that made that kid ridiculously creepy 🌹x

#ask #show: the white princess #this blog is anti-emma frost #aliciatudors-love

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robotslenderman · 3 years

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VTM tumblr fandom drinking game.

I felt salty about dumb fandom OC tropes, so here’s a passive-aggressive drinking game I made.

Take a drink every time you see:

A Brujah whose entire personality is “take down the Camarilla”.

Take another drink if they have absolutely no plans for what it should be replaced with.

Take another drink if their plans are “everyone does whatever they want and this could not possibly go wrong.”

A Brujah whose entire personality is “activist for the oppressed”.

A Brujah who, for some reason, is never contrarian against ideas their player agrees with, and never argues with ideas for the sake of arguing or understanding those ideas from a different perspective, ie is mysteriously missing this particular trait they canonically have.

Actually 99% of Brujah OCs just make me want to drink because they’re basically photocopies of each other with no originality whatsoever. Altho shout out to @missn11 for Miranda, who's the most original Brujah OC I’ve ever seen and is absolutely fascinating.

A Ventrue whose entire personality is Evil Corporate Overlord.

Someone who chooses Anarchs because “government bad” and somehow working with what you’ve got with the intent of improving that government is just... not an option???

(I’m honestly baffled by that one because being anti-government is a VERY Republican thing to be.)

(no seriously what are these vamps going to do if whatever they replace the Camarilla with isn’t perfect either, just... do it all over again because fixing something that already exists is bad?)

Someone acting like taking blood bags from medical centres and hospitals -- you know, the blood bags they need for people who are DYING?? -- is morally superior to giving a random guy in an alley anaemia without consent. ‘Cause that motorcycle crash victim who’s bleeding out totally gave consent to the blood that would’ve saved her life being sold on the black market I guess.

Someone who isn’t vegan unironically having a problem with vampires treating their food source like animals, even though vampires (generally) treat humans better.

Someone gets the message “uphold the Masquerade at all costs” drilled into their head in the games, but still thinks it’s Problematic for vampires to not ask consent of their childer for the Embrace and wonders why they would possibly not do that except for the Evulz? I mean it’s not like the sire or prospective childe would get destroyed if the childe just said no and fucked off, right?

Someone makes Strauss white, despite him clearly having the facial features of a man of African descent. Bonus points if this person knows he was based on a Black man.

A Malkavian whose mental illness neatly fits diagnostic boxes of mental illnesses.

Human mental illnesses.

Alternatively, tho this one is rare on Tumblr -- a fishMalk.

A character whom the player is trying to make into a cinnamon roll who Never Does Anything Problematic Ever, such as drinking blood without consent or taking on a ghoul so that they can actually function in mortal society due to not being able to use a birth certificate, bank account, driver’s license, etc. For some reason, this character never feels guilty about being kindred, never actually struggles with their own morality (although they usually have a problem with everyone else’s morals) or deals with suicidal ideation. It’s almost like there’s no ethical consumption under vampirism?

Take another drink if the character is a Lasombra and shouldn’t be (un)ALIVE without having personal service ghouls making sure they can walk through a fucking automatic door or starting a car for them. Because if there’s something human society is swarming with, it’s humans who are able to spend their entire time holding a vampire’s hand and willing to give consent for it!

An OC's issues with their sire have an uncanny resemblance to the kind of issues people have with their parents, despite said sire entering the OC’s life when they were already either a grownass adult or very close to it.

Every time you read an OC concept and wonder, “Why the fuck did you make them a VAMPIRE, then???”

Someone who thinks that because a certain aspect of VTM is cringily GrimDark^TM, it means that the only other alternative is to go the complete opposite direction with no nuance whatsoever. Spectrums? What are those? There are clearly only two options, ever.

#Dusty has opinions #VTM for ts #fandom critical #fandom salt #I'M SORRY I JUST HAD TO VENT #ABOUT THINGS THAT DO NO HARM WHATSOEVER #BUT STILL MAKE ME FEEL ANNOYED LOL #drinking games

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thisiswhatwereupagainst · 5 years

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The latest minor Marvel character that I’m obsessed with is Laynia Petrovna aka Darkstar, a mutant superhero that largely serves the Russian government but has also worked with the Champions and the X-Corps. Laynia and her twin brother Nicolai were taken away by the state at birth, and raised by government scientist Professor Phobos in a “school” (read: facility) for super-soldiers. They were trained in combat and taught to be loyal to the USSR above all else. They were also told that their parents had abandoned them (when in fact their mother died in childbirth, and their father was told they had died too) and were NOT told that they were siblings, instead being given different surnames so that their familial loyalty would not supersede their loyalty to the Soviet Union. It wasn’t until they were adults and discovered their bio-father during a mission that they ever found out they were related. Yet, despite this, and despite occasionally joining superhero teams in the USA (Champions) or aiding the X-Men (X-Corps), Laynia has remained loyal to her country first, though she has often turned her back on its government (though she has returned to serving it now that the USSR is no more)

What I really like about Laynia’s backstory is how different it is from most “I was raised as a weapon” stories in that it lacks overt abuse or trauma. She seems to have been treated just fine, she was never tortured, there was never shown to be any needlessly brutal training or treatment of her and the others, etc. She was raised to be a loyal servant to the state, and she was treated in a way that would actually facilitate that, and IT WORKED. So many scientists/trainers/etc in fiction seem to think it’s a great idea to treat your living weapon in ridiculously over-the-top violent, abusive ways for no real reason (except, of course, THE DRAMAZ) and will often be portrayed as insanely sadistic towards their pet projects...even though that’s obviously the LAST thing you would want to do with a valuable asset that you wanted to be loyal to you and have no desire to escape or turn sides. And as I said, it WORKS with Laynia. One of her biggest and most constant struggles FROM THE START is her loyalty to her country, versus her own conscience when she’s asked to do things she finds questionable. She also finds out again and again that she’s been lied to or manipulated by the people in charge of her, and sometimes she’ll defect, but she always ends up back again. And while she’s angry at the things that government asks her to do to others, or has done to others, she never really questions what was done to her. We never see her actually being like “holy shit, I was kidnapped and brainwashed and exploited and I’m really fucking angry about this!” like so many characters in similar situations realize (and often very quickly despite supposed brainwashing; even when still “loyal” they’re usually portrayed as hating their captors) And you know why? Because, again, what was done to her WORKED. Like she has a MOMENT in the issue where she finds out her real history and vows she won’t blindly follow a government ever again, but...she still sticks with the USSR, then Russian, government. She may not be “blindly” following, but she doesn’t seem ever able to leave them for long either. And her brother Nicolai/Vanguard strays even less than she does. And the writers never focus much on this. There’s never been a story that focuses on Laynia’s mindset or giving her a journey that helps her grow in any way or even just examines all this. Partly I think that’s because she’s so minor and has never had a story IN GENERAL that focuses on her. Partly I think it’s because writers just aren’t INTERESTED in a story like hers UNLESS it involves all the dramatic grimdark “tortured test subject” cliches, and they assume readers aren’t either. But I think this does a disservice to readers. One of my pet peeves, perhaps my MAJOR and BIGGEST one, about abuse in fiction is that it is ALWAYS portrayed as BLATANT and EXTREME, committed by people who are OBVIOUSLY monsters and who act like said monsters 24/7. They might get a shallow charming veneer to fool people, but the victim and audience both know that under that they’re un-nuanced, two-dimensional demons. And some abusers are like that. Some abuse is super extreme. But lots of abusers are much more nuanced, and lots of abuse is far for subtle. If only the most extreme types of abuse and abuser are portrayed, that’s all people learn to recognize “real abuse” as being. And real-life victims of abuse already have enough problems feeling that they weren’t “really abused” or “abused enough” to qualify. So I think stories like Laynia’s are important, and they’re worth exploring. They don’t treat abuse as torture porn, something to lingeringly emphasize to the audience in every gory detail for sheer shock value even when it makes NO SENSE for what the abuser is trying to accomplish. Instead, her story makes sense for what the government and its scientists employees were trying to do, and it has an accordingly realistic effect on her that manifests in a far less subtle but no less meaningful way than dramatic “media PTSD” cliches. And it’s a story I’d be interested in seeing more of and finally unpacking fully, if any writer ever steps up to the plate ready to treat it with the sensitivity it deserves. Also, her teammate STARLIGHT was enslaved by the same man who turns out to be Laynia’s long-lost father, so I think a story involving the pair of them coming to terms with their respective pasts could work really well, like the explicit robbery of Starlight’s agency by super-powered means contrasting the more subtle robbery of Darkstar’s through mundane ones. And their former teammate-turned-Dire-Wraith FANTASMA could appear too!

#marvel #xmen #x-men #x men #darkstar #laynia petrovna

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bugsongs · 4 years

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dark heresy anon not an update but yeah telling you about the sessions is like, how I decompress so thank you!! it's a very grimdark system which I am into for some reason. Hopefully the next session will just be dealing with the administratum to get us legally un-dead and get our eight months of back pay (and finally get the cybernetic eye i ordered like almost an in game year ago lol)

okay that definitely makes me feel better about it 😅 it sounds like a super intricate and cool game so it’s good that it helps you decompress! i hope u get that cybernetic eye and that its the best cybernetic eye imaginary money can buy 🙏

#i am baby so i worry about everyone hskdjghsdkj #dark heresy anon #anonymous #ask

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aces-to-apples · 5 years

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DVD commentary meme! Whatever part of Family Before Honor you'd like to talk about, please!!

Alrighty, since there isn’t much of it posted and chapter two isn’t very long to start with, I’ll just do that then. Author’s commentary on chapter two of “Family Before Honor” beneath the cut:

Two Months

Domestic: 1) of or relating to the home, the household, household affairs, or the family. 2) no longer wild; tame.

I suppose the first thing to note is the pattern of the chapters and summaries—each chapter, and there’s only going to be three, is titled based on how long it’s been in the fic since Cut’s death and each summary is the theme on which the chapter is built. “Two Months” is more meant to bridge the gap between “Two Hours” and “Two Years” and is based around Rex making the transition from military life to civilian life. Settling into a rhythm with Suu and the kids that works for everyone.

Rebuilding the La’Cuane farm is an undertaking both larger and smaller than Rex had first estimated.

Ah, yes, “La’Cuane”. Because fuck Dave Filoni. Before I watched The Deserter, I was under the impression that Lawquane was most likely pronounced more like “lah-kayn” but, as is my custom, when I learned the “official” version I said “nah, fuck that” and came up with my own. So, “Lawquane” is a mistranslation as so many Basic Twi’lek names are. Because fuck you, Dave.

The first few days are an unending game of hurry-up-and-wait: for Republic forces to finish routing the Seps, for Jesse and the boys to come back to retrieve him when he didn’t answer their comms, for Suu to sniffle and stutter her way through the story they’d cooked up to explain his ‘death.’

I just don’t like “Seppies”, okay? I just don’t. “Covies” I’ll accept from Halo, because Marines, but “Seppies”, “tinnies”, and “shinies”? Mmm, how ‘bout the fuck not?

Then waiting for various scans of the remains to come up positive for Fett’s genetic material, for ‘his’ chip to come up too damaged to ping as more than simply present, for Kenobi—well, it turns out that Kenobi had a softer heart than Rex had ever thought. From what Rex spies, he looks damn near devastated for a few heartbeats after Suu tells him the news.

Departing from @norcumii’s version, “Dead Men Tell No Tales”, I decided that it’s too early in the war for Rex and Obi-Wan to have actually started a romantic relationship and kept it as more of a “what if” kind of thing for them to regret. More pining, that way ;)

Then the children march up to him and Jesse, carrying Rex’s armor in their undersized little arms, and Jek loudly proclaims that they want to keep Rex’s bucket. “He was like a, a superhero,” Jek says earnestly, and next to him Shaeeah nods vigorously. “He was so brave and he saved us from the monsters and we’ll take really good care of it.”

Listen, the La’Cuane kids are just insanely cute, okay? And according to Legends (I think?) they were aware enough that they had several million uncles out there in the universe that Shaeeah wrote a book about it, so they absolutely grew up with stars in their eyes about their extended family.

Suu makes a little scene of chastising them, calling it disrespectful, saying that his brothers should have his helmet, it was only right. Rex is dazed by the layers of manipulation they all go to just for him to keep his face; he’s even more dazed by how well it works.

Kenobi clearly melts at the display but looks to Jesse, Kix, and Hardcase for the final decision. Rex can read the silent conversation between them as clear as day. When Jesse crouches down to gaze intently into the visor of Rex’s helmet, he knows the children have won.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Jesse says decisively, and it’s settled. Quieter, he adds, “I think he’d like that…”

If Rex wasn’t so traumatized right now, he’d be absolutely indignant that Jess just blatantly lied like that. How dare you slander the good name of Captain Rex, good Lieutenant, by implying this small child whom he only knew for a few hours and “died” to protect should keep his face when Kenobi is standing over there trying not to cry. Come say that to his helmet, coward!

Rex doesn’t think about where Cut’s bucket had ended up.

I like throwing out lines that if you think about them for longer than it takes to read them then they might become incredibly depressing. What did happen to his helmet? What happened to his armor?

Jek clutches the helmet to his chest in victory and Shaeeah smiles sweetly and Suu has this fond, exasperated look on her face that Rex assumes comes standard with being eyn buir. The children magnanimously offer the rest of his armor to the men, stacked as neatly as they could manage. Rex stares as Kenobi helps pack it away with the supplies for safekeeping, subtly pocketing his left vambrace as he does.

I’m gonna be honest, at this point canon and fanon have merged so much for me that I don’t even know what’s true and what’s not. Just go with it.

Rex doesn’t think about maybes and what-ifs.

Then Kenobi turns back to Suu and his gaze goes past her to the ruined farmhouse and Rex gets the feeling that Kenobi’s about to do one of those terribly un-Jedi-like things he had never, ever admitted to sometimes doing. He pulls out a credit chip and Rex knows.

He has to turn away from the scene and take careful breaths. Kenobi wasn’t perfect—Cody has spent hours venting to Rex and Wolffe and whoever else managed to meet up at once about his hypocritical, sanctimonious Jedi—but just like Skywalker, just like Tano, just like Windu and Yoda and Secura and every other Jedi, he had his moments of breath-stealing goodness.

Listen, I love some Jedi characters to death, but I have—had, now that Tumblr filters out posts with words like “fuck” and “wank” in the tags when you search for them and pretends they don’t exist—a #fuck the jedi order tag for a reason. The narrative tends to frame both the Jedi Order and most Jedi characters as Righteous and Good, while also having them commit pretty heinous acts and tossing the audience horrific implications/pieces of information at the same time. I’ve said it somewhere before, but The Clone Wars wants to have its “deep, edgy, grimdark exploration of war” and eat its “fun, wacky space adventures” too and while we’ve all noticed the tonal whiplash that the show gives us, it plays hell with the narrative itself. Unspeakably bad shit happens in one arc, and nobody ever mentions it again. The Jedi control a slave army, and that’s Bad, but we’re told that they care about their troops and want to help them Later, which cancels out the Bad and keeps them Good Guys. In universe, it absolutely doesn’t work. We all know the Jedi pull some fuckshit every two weeks, so you bet your ass the clones know it too and routinely get sauced and rant about it to each other where no one can hear them. But they also can be extremely helpful and empathetic between three to five every other Thursday. Sorry, just mentioning #fuck the jedi order sends me off into a rant and I actually deleted a lot of other stuff from this part because Not Important.

Rex should’ve known his last act as a captain, and his first act as a free man, would be finally witnessing one of those moments.

And then Kenobi is gone, his brothers are gone, and the work begins.

- - -

It’s slow-going, and at times back-breaking, and it quickly becomes apparent that the nerve-damage Kix had warned about has set in good and proper. After the children have gone to bed, Rex and Suu go outside to have a rousing argument about what to do—the first of many on the horizon.

I know, I know, it’s common wisdom that disagreeing with your partner are normal but knockdown drag-out arguments Are Not and while I absolutely understand that, I come from a family with an absurdly large number of siblings that subscribe to the Taika Waititi School of Siblings and therefore it’s perfectly reasonable to shout yourself hoarse about some nonsense or other and get mad and stomp off and then two hours later throw a pillow at the other person’s head and say “hey dickhead come look at this funny post what’s for dinner later”. And as such that’s how every sibling relationship I ever write will function because I genuinely don’t understand siblings who don’t drag each other at every opportunity and then pop up around a corner like an awful gremlin to scare them at 2:30 in the morning just to fuck with them.

Suu demands they use part of Kenobi’s credits to pay for surgery to remove and replace the dead arm; Rex counters that he can function with only one arm, but none of them can function without a roof over their heads and walls to shield them from the elements. Suu says that they will contact a doctor she knows on the other side of the planet tomorrow and that’s final; Rex blinks, says understood, sir, and stands down.

The next morning, between frying eggs and waking the little ones, Suu apologizes for 'pulling rank’ on him. Rex can tell the words sit strangely in her civilian mouth. He accepts her apology and says nothing about how he hadn’t even noticed his own automatic reaction to her tone the night before, but. That was exactly how he’d reacted, wasn’t it?

When next they argue, about him ‘overdoing it’ and ‘exerting himself too much’, he’s ready for the gut-punching Commanding Officer Voice and shouts back when it’s his turn to talk. It works for them.

Listen, I don’t know about you, but when I hear certain tones of voice I automatically respond in certain ways. Like the vocal version of being full-named.

- - -

“White is death,” Rex explains once the final layer of base paint has settled on the plastoid. He runs his hand firmly down the prosthesis in its finalized form, from the ball of the synthetic shoulder to the tips of each finger. It’s as much to test that the molecules of paint bind properly as it is to get himself used to the difference. “White is the bones of those long gone. White is the snow that covers the fields in winter. It… stifles, and kills, but it’s also. Possibility, I suppose. White armor is shiny and new, but that just means it has yet to prove itself. You never know what you’re gonna get when you scratch beneath the surface.”

I had a lot more of @izzyovercoffee’s Mandalorian color theory stuff that I ended up cutting just because it didn’t really fit, but you should check them out because they’re suuuuuuper interesting. I love cultural worldbuiding shit like that.

Hanging on his every word, Jek and Shaeeah nod breathlessly. They watch as he picks up a foam brush and dips it into a small pot of 501st blue. He sets it to the very top of the arm and brings it down in a smooth, careful, practiced motion.

“Blue is reliability,” he continues. The unbroken line he draws down to the wrist is thinner than it was on his armor, but copying his armor isn’t the point; the point is to create something new out of its loss. “It’s faithfulness, and consistency. It’s the sky—the very air—and you can always in trust that.”

Listen, if you want subtlety, go read deadcat’s stuff. If you want to get bashed over the head with this shit, you’ve come to the right place.

Lastly, he picks up a fine detail brush and dips it into a second pot.

“This one is different,” he says eventually, gauging his little cadets’ avid expressions. “You use red to honor a parent and the word for ‘red’ in Mando’a is ge’tal—literally, ‘almost blood.’ It’s a complicated word, because to Mando’ade, your family isn’t always going to have the same blood as you. It might not be red at all—it might be green, or blue, or something else entirely. But with family, you’re always ready to spill others’ or your own in order to protect them; it’s about honor… and love.”

“Mom,” Shaeeah deduces, her voice quiet as a mouse as they all gaze at the sharp, cutting magenta that coats the brush.

Rex nods.

“Just so.” He twirls the brush around and offers it to them. “Now, what should we do with it?”

Listen, it’s very important to me that we cut that toxic masculinity shit out of Star Wars, stop linking pink to femininity, more important stop linking femininity to weakness, and ultimately I want to see more clones wearing pink. Pink flowers and curlicues mixed in with 501st blue on Rex’s sick robot arm? Sign me the fuck up.

—

Aaaaand that’s the Author’s Commentary on Chapter Two of Family Before Dishonor, hope you enjoyed!

#ask meme #dvd commentary meme #answered asks #by apples #norcumii #family before honor #star wars #the clone wars #captain rex #suu lawquane #sw fic

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