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bfpnola · 7 months

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IMAGE DESCRIPTION ADDED. REBLOG THIS VERSION AND THANK YOU @lab-labrava FOR WRITING IT!

ID: An infographic from the Instagram account @letstalkpalestine consisting of 10 slides. Image 1: The title page of the infographic. The text says: "Let's talk Anti-Zionist Jewish History." A smaller subtitle underneath the title says: "Jewish solidarity with Palestine until today." End ID.

Image 2: The infographic continues to the next panel. The text says, "As long as Zionism has existed, so has Jewish resistance to it. While today the majority of Jewish people and communities worldwide still have a Zionist connection, more and more Jewish people, especially from the younger generation, are unlearning Zionism & speaking out. Swipe to learn more about just part of anti-Zionist Jewish history - since there's more than we can fit in 10 slides." A semi-transparent image is overlayed in the background, of someone holding up a sign that reads: Jews for Palestine! #Free Sheik Jarrah. End ID.

Image 3: Icon of a location tag next to the words Eastern Europe. In large, blue text is the word "The Bund" and the subtitle describing what it is, "A Jewish Socialist movement, established in 1987." The following paragraph says, "Opposing Zionism from the start, its 50-year tenure saw hundred of thousands of members across Eastern Europe advocate for workers' rights and cultivate a Yiddish culture." Location tag and the title, "North America." The paragraph says, "After mass immigration to the US in the early 20th century, [American Jewish Labor groups] (highlighted in chalky blue and bold white text) criticized Zionism for its colonial, nationalist, and bourgeois nature." Next to this text, is a circle with women protestors holding up signs. End ID.

Image 4: The title, "Middle East and North Africa." The paragraph states, "In 1945 a group of Iraqi Jews founded the Anti-Zionist League. They recognized Zionism as a form of colonialism linked to Western Interests. They hosted events and published pamphlets throughout the Middle East about the difference between Zionism & Judaism. They warned that Zionism is dangerous to Arab Jews, forcing them to split their Arab and Jewish identities, and urged the UN to create a unified Palestinian state.

Image 5: The panel is titled, "Anti-Zionist Jewish figures." A faded image of Hannah Arendt's visage is in the background. Overlayed on top, the following paragraphs discuss her. "Before 1948, several prominent Jewish leaders and scholars came out in opposition to political Zionism. Writers like Hannah Arendt turned against the Zionist movement and opposed a Jewish state. They correctly predicted a dark future if Zionism continued on the same path in Palestine. End ID.

Image 6: The day after the Deir Yassin Massacre in 1948, when Zionist militants wiped out the Deir Yassin village & its inhabitants, Albert Einstein wrote: "When a real and final catastrophe should befall us in Palestine the first responsible for it would be the British and the second responsible for it the Terrorist organizations built up from our own ranks. I am not willing to see anybody associated with those misled and criminal people." The former paragraphs are imposed against a tan, parchment fragment, in typewriter font, and the letter ends with Sincerely yourn, Albert Einstein, both his signature and typed name. End ID.

Image 7: Titled "Anti Zionism Today." Blue sketchy image of someone's hand gripping jail bars breaks up the following paragraphs which say: Jewish solidarity with Palestinians is growing around the world, including even some Israelis who take the basic step of refusing Israeli military service. As punishment, Israel imprisons these conscientious objectors — but unlike Palestininas, they have a fair trial & often severe relatively short sentences of a few months . This is a first step towards solidarity and has the real consequence of depriving the occupation state of its soldiers. End ID.

Image 8: Titled "Israel's Crackdown on Jewish Anti-Zionism" Behind this text are a picture of handcuffs. In the corner is a picture of Jonathan Pollak. The following text says: Jonathan Pollak is a Jewish Israeli and long-time anti-Zionist activist. Israel has detained him several times, most recetly in January as he protested with Palestinians in Beita, (a Palestinian village) for allegedly throwing stones. Jonathan has been violently attacked for his activism. In 2018, Jonathan was slashed across the face by settlers who ambushed him outside his workplace. Earlier, in 2005, Israeli soldiers shot a tear gas canister. directly at him, causing internal bleeding in his brain." End ID.

Image 9: Semi-transparent image of an umbrella behind the title text is "Jewish Anti-Zionism isn’t one ideology. It’s an umbrella movement that encapsulates multiple communities and beliefs towards decolonizing Palestine. Some motivations or Jewish anti-Zionism include: 1. Pursuing millenia of Jewish tradition as a diasporic community 2, Detachibng religious and cultural tradition from political nationalism. 3. Socialist visions of a Jewish Society. 4. Believing in the right to self-determination for Palestinians Standing up to Zionism is: 1. Standing up to apartheid and colonization. 2. Standing up for a liberated, equal, and just Palestine from the river to the sea.

Image 10: An ending quote, and call to action, by the Anti-Zionist League. It says: "Jewish Men! Jewish Women! Zionism wants to throw us into a dangerous & hopeless adventure. Zionism contributes to making Palestine uninhabitable. Zionism wants to isolate us from the Egyptian people. Zionism is the enemy of the Jewish people. Down with Zionism! Long live the brotherhood of Jews and Arabs!" --The Anti-Zionist League. End ID.

#israel #jewish #jews #jumblr #palestine #resources #history #resistance #genocide #instagram #ethnic cleansing #activism #zionism #anti zionism #socialism #colonialism #colonization #judaism #free palestine

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popopretty · 4 months

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[Translation] Asagiri Kafka's afterwords for The Day I Picked up Dazai novel

Normally, afterwords would be the last thing I read in a novel, but as there are not many changes to the published novel this time compared to the movie bonus version, I was able to skim through the text quickly and get to this. And to be honest, despite not being a writer myself, I was so moved by Asagiri's views about writing and his characters that he shared in the afterwords, that I had to sit down and translate it right away.

This is just my crappy translation, as usual, but I hope it gave you a short, interesting look into the author and the characters. And please do not forget to buy the novel if you have the chance.

The translation is under the cut, thank you!

It has been a while. This is Asagiri Kafka.

Have you been enjoying Bungou Stray Dogs?

This novel, “The Day I Picked up Dazai”, is a compilation of the first week’s bonus novel “The Day I Picked up Dazai – Side A” and the second week’s bonus novel “The Day I Picked up Dazai – Side B” for the screening of “Bungou Stray Dogs BEAST” movie (hereinafter referred to as “BEAST”).

Normally, it is difficult to publish a bonus like this, but since "BEAST” and “Fifteen” that were published earlier by BEANS Bunko were originally bonus novels too, "The Day I Picked up Dazai” was also published in the same way, thanks to the efforts of all parties involved in the Bungou Stray Dogs series.

It is the story of Dazai and Odasaku’s first meeting, where Dazai who wants to die, collapsed in front of Odasaku’s place, who is neither a mafioso nor a hit man.

Why are there two different stores, Side A and Sode B? Regarding this question, please read the novel and see for yourself. If you keep in mind that this is the bonus for the BEAST movie, I think you will be able to understand it better.

Let me reminisce a little bit here.

This story was actually suggested to me by Igarashi Takuya, Director of the Bungou Stray Dogs anime.

Shortly before BEAST movie premiered, I was struggling. It was because I was asked to write a bonus novel for movie-goers again. I said “again” because, as I mentioned earlier, BEAST itself was a bonus novel for the Bungou Stray Dogs DEAD APPLE movie. I remembered having a hard time writing it, because I let myself run wild and wrote a total of 190 pages instead of 50 pages as requested.

But I had learnt my lesson after the last rampage. I can’t just write whatever I want anymore. I have to wrap the story in a reasonable length, like a pro should do.

A proper, professional story.

Huh?

My pen stopped right there. I stopped, looked around, feeling lost.

What is a proper story?

The act of writing novel is quite different in character compared to other types of media such as writing manga, anime scripts, or game scenarios. You can say it is almost a different thing. Writing novels, rather than narrating an event, is more like putting the flow of emotions into specific sentences. You use the sequence of letters to create rhythms, create flows, and create emotions. If anything, it might be closer to composing a song than writing a story.

Therefore, you have to decide “what kind of emotion will be put in this novel” from the very beginning, or you can’t start writing. That is the only and absolute rule.

Now, however, that is where the condition of a “proper story” hung over me.

A proper novel, of a proper volume, with a proper content for a bonus.

In other words, a proper emotion.

I searched through the drawers inside my head. For a proper emotion that is waiting to be brought out.

There was nothing but emptiness there.

A professional story teller is one with the skill to move the readers’ emotions. When people find the chance to move their own emotions, they will happily be paying for it. Human-being is that kind of creature.

And writers are ones who create and sell those kinds of emotions: the fear, the excitement, the heart throb etc., those that make you think. It is that kind of job.

It is supposed to be that kind of job.

Yet I became unable to move forward.

A good story is a story that moves people. I know that. Then what kind of emotion I should put in the story to make it "proper"?

How do I find that emotion?

I mean, how did I even write novels until now?

I stood still. My legs stiffened, my knees froze, unable to take even a step forward.

I then tried to at least pretend that I was moving forward, by listening to music, by taking a walk around the neighborhood at night. But as good as the night breeze felt, I didn’t manage to reach a single story that I needed to write.

What if I stayed like this forever, what would I do?

I felt a chill plunging into my back.

Then I realized, that stories, or probably emotions too, are not things you can search for or come up with. You have no choice but to patiently wait for it to come your way. You have no choice but to humbly and earnestly sit and wait for the story’s visit.

I got that, but the "proper 50-page story” still refused to come.

It was not long before one week passed. Then two weeks.

I was doing other work, while keeping my heart’s door open, waiting for the story to come to me.

At that time, I had an online meeting with the anime staff. I casually asked Director Igarashi, “Do you have any story you want to see?”

The Director gave it a little thought then told me, "I want to see the story of Dazai and Oda’s encounter”.

At that very moment, the story rushed in through my door, like a bang. I could hear that sound very clearly.

Two stories. Odasaku, and the two Dazais. A story where they met, and a story where they couldn’t meet. A story of gain and a story of loss. If I can portray the gain and loss side by side, the amplitude of the heart will be doubled and rise up in front of us.

That was a momentary event. Rather than pushing my way forward, I felt as if something was pulling my hand. Before I noticed, I have already finished the stories.

I came to realize.

It is not the writer who searches for the story. It is the story that chooses its writer, and at some point it will come our way. A professional writer is no more than someone with the ability to catch that call.

Also, this is the most important thing: there is no such thing as a “proper emotion”. Because after all, the feelings of other people belong to them only. That is why there is no guarantee that a novel can move others “properly”. However, you can move your own emotions. You know what kind of novel can and how it will move you. If you do, you can write just that. That’s the only way. That is the truly professional attitude. That’s what I thought.

Well then.

It is a little bit off topic, but as we are talking about “stories that come our way”, let’s talk about Odasaku’s first-person narrative.

Odasaku is a special character. For me, he is exclusively a novel character, and I have never portrayed him in the manga.

He first appeared as the narrator in “Dazai Osamu and The Dark Era”, then “BEAST” and now this “The Day I Picked up Dazai”. All are novels. That’s why for me, Odasaku doesn’t live inside the pictures, he lives inside the first-person narrative passages.

He is an eccentric guy. Even if you prepare the place and tell him to speak, he won’t speak to you that easily. His way of thinking is rather unique, that if I write his narrative after writing other characters’ first-person narrative, I would stumble for sure. Odasaku doesn’t speak. He just sits there in silence, while I can do nothing but sitting in front of my blank manuscript paper, trying to talk to him, like “What’s up?”, “Here, here”. However, he is a guy who won’t speak when it is not necessary. Sometimes it goes days or even weeks without him saying a word. Why did such a character come to me...?

During such time, there is only one thing I can do. That is, of course, to stay with him, sit patiently, and simply wait.

Finally he will start speaking. In his unique rhythm, word by word. His words have the power to cut through the world from a certain angle. That special cross-section is full of things I have never seen before and it never fails to surprise me.

And then when he finishes telling his story, he will swiftly disappear. To a dark and quiet place somewhere – probably, I can only imagine, somewhere like a bar. He will sit there calmly and keep his own time to himself. After that, it will be hard to call him again. It is a backbreaking task to me, but in the end, that is the type of guy Odasaku is, and if I am allowed to sound self-conscious, that is Odasaku's charm.

This story was written in such a way. There is a chance that he will come back again. And when he does, I will patiently listen to his voice again.

This story was completed and published thanks to the help of many people: in the Bungou Stray Dogs BEAST movie’s Production Committee, the anime staff, Young Ace’s Editorial Department, BEANS Bunko’s Editorial Department, and the many people who were involved in the publication of the book. Thank you very much. It is all thanks to you that the book was published without any problem this time as well.

Well then, see you in the next story.

Asagiri Kafka.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #the day i picked up dazai #traánlation

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coochiequeens · 17 days

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I know this blog focuses on TIMs invading women’s sports and locker rooms but Saving Women’s Sports means more than that. Like calling out sexist bs when companies give men real clothes to compete in and women get basically underwear.

The Nike Air Innovation Summit in Paris on Thursday.Credit...Dominique Maitre/WWD, via Getty Images

By Vanessa Friedman April 12, 2024

Ever since the Norwegian women’s beach handball team turned the fact that they were required to wear teeny-tiny bikini bottoms for competition into a cause célèbre, a quiet revolution has been brewing throughout women’s sports. It’s one that questions received conventions about what female athletes do — or don’t — have to wear to perform at their very best.

It has touched women’s soccer (why white shorts?), gymnastics (why not a unitard rather than a leotard?), field hockey (why a low-cut tank top?) and many more, including running.

So it probably should not have come as a shock to Nike that when it offered a sneak peek of the Team U.S.A. track and field unies during a Nike Air event in Paris celebrating its Air technology on Thursday (which also included looks for other Olympic athletes, like Kenya’s track and field team, France’s basketball team and Korea’s break dancing delegation), they were met with some less-than-enthusiastic reactions.

See, the two uniforms Nike chose to single out on the mannequins included a men’s compression tank top and mid-thigh-length compression shorts and a woman’s bodysuit, cut notably high on the hip. It looked sort of like a sporty version of a 1980s workout leotard. As it was displayed, the bodysuit seemed as if it would demand some complicated intimate grooming.

Citius Mag, which focuses on running news, posted a photo of the uniforms on Instagram, and many of its followers were not amused.

“What man designed the woman’s cut?” wrote one.

“I hope U.S.A.T.F. is paying for the bikini waxes,” wrote another. So went most of the more than 1,900 comments.

The running comedian Laura Green posted an Instagram reel in which she pretended to be trying on the look (“We’re feeling pretty, um, breezy,” she said) and checking out the rest of the athlete’s kit bag, which turned out to include hair spray, lip gloss and a “hysterectomy kit,” so the women would not have to worry about periods.

When asked, Nike did not address the brouhaha directly, but according to John Hoke, the chief innovation officer, the woman’s bodysuit and the man’s shorts and top are only two of the options Nike will have for its Olympic runners. There are “nearly 50 unique pieces across men’s and women’s and a dozen competition styles fine-tuned for specific events,” Mr. Hoke said.

Sha’Carri Richardson

Women will be able to opt for compression shorts, a crop top or tank and a bodysuit with shorts rather than bikini bottoms. The full slate of looks was not on hand in Paris but more will be revealed next week at the U.S. Olympic Committee media summit in New York. The Paris reveal was meant to be a teaser.

Anna Cockrell.Credit...Dominique Maitre/WWD, via Getty Images

Mr. Hoke also pointed out that Nike consults with a large number of athletes at every stage of the uniform design. Its track and field roster includes Sha’Carri Richardson, who happened to be wearing the compression shorts during the Paris presentation, and Athing Mu. And there are certainly runners who like the high-cut brief. (The British Olympic sprinter Dina Asher-Smith, another Nike athlete, told The New York Times last summer that while she opts to run in briefs, she also leans toward a leotard style, rather than a two-piece.)

What Nike missed, however, was that in choosing those two looks as the primary preview for Team U.S.A., rather than, say, the matching shorts and tanks that will be also available, it shored up a longstanding inequity in sports — one that puts the body of a female athlete on display in a way it does not for the male athlete.

“Why are we presenting this sexualized outfit as the standard of excellence?” said Lauren Fleshman, a U.S. national champion distance runner and the author of “Good for a Girl.” “In part because we think that’s what nets us the most financial gain from sponsors or NIL opportunities, most of which are handed out by powerful men or people looking at it through a male gaze. But women are breaking records with ratings in sports where you don’t have to wear essentially a bathing suit to perform.”

The problem such imagery creates is twofold. When Nike chose to reveal the high-cut bodysuit as the first Olympics outfit, purposefully or not, the implication for anyone watching is that “this is what excellence looks like,” Ms. Fleshman said.

That perception filters down to young athletes and becomes the model girls think they have to adopt, often at a developmental stage when their relationships with their bodies are particularly fraught.

And more broadly, given the current political debate around adjudicating women’s bodies, it reinforces the idea that they are public property.

Still, Ms. Fleshman said, “I’m glad Nike put this image out as the crown jewel of Olympic Team design,” because it may act as the catalyst for another conversation that has been long overdue.

“If you showed this outfit to someone from the W.N.B.A. or women’s soccer, they would laugh in your face,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to normalize it for track and field anymore. Time’s up on that.”

#Nike #Team U.S.A.#Track and field #Nike Air #Paris #They couldn't even give women short shorts?#Nike has a chance for a do over

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the-ninjago-girl · 2 months

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Ya wanna know what I just realized? The overall theme of scarlet and violet isn't actually about our treasure hunt, or making friends along the way,

It's obsession.(and how it hurts those around us.)

In the base game of pokemon scarlet and violet, we learn that the professor,(sada or turo depending on which version you play.) was absolutely obsessed with the paradox pokemon within the scarlet/violet book. They were so obsessed with these pokemon that they wanted, NEEDED to make them a reality by bringing them into our own. Their obsession was so bad, that they not only lost their significant other, but neglected their son to the point of completely abandoning him, all for the purpose of "paradise". Not realizing they already had one with their son.

The obsession has been with the professor since their childhood. As seen in the secret cutscene at kitakami's crystal pool with terapagos in your party, it brings the professor from iirc 10 years before the events of the game start. When they ask to trade for the book ms. Brair wrote they offer their copy of the s/v book and tell you "this book captured my imagination as a child and never let go." They were obsessed. It costed them their life, completely ruined arvens childhood, and almost caused the destruction of the Paldea region because they were too obsessed with having pokemon of the past/future along side them.

Then we go to kitakami, and meet Kieran. A boy who is obsessed with the ogre, a.k.a ogerpon. Kieran believes the two as kindred spirits, outcasts in kitakami because they were different. Though rightly upset at you and his sister for not telling him about meeting ogerpon, takes it too far when he steals the mask from his grandfather. As a result of winning the battle to get the mask back from him his obsession shifts, not really about befriending ogerpon anymore, but about beating you/being as good as you are. He becomes mean and ruthless to those around him in blueberry academy, becoming champion in order to try to be strong enough to beat you.

In the underdepths of area zero his obsession with beating you causes him to seek out terapagos, and catch it so that he can finally beat you.

And finally ms. Briar, obsessed with terapagos and proving it was real. Her ancestor, the original author of the s/v book, heath, was claimed and told to be nothing more than a liar after writing what he had found in area zero. Briar was obsessed, determined to prove terapagos' existence to clear her ancestors name, and that everything in the s/v book was in fact real. In kitakami she was more concerned with figuring out the terastal phenomenon than helping to guide the students from the 2 schools on their field trip.

And once in blueberry, she asks you, carmine and Kieran to join her in area zero to find terapagos. Once in the underdepths she puts herself in danger because of a strangely terastalized glimmora, of which you battle to protect her and the siblings. In the final chamber of the underdepths, she eggs on Kieran to take terapagos(in crystal form) out of the tera crystals around it to finally see the pokemon she's been trying to get to for so long, and then tells him to terastalize the pokemon, putting everyone in danger. As the amount of Tera energy is too much for the little pokemon to control, and thus it goes out of control, destroying the environment around it, nearly causing a cave in.

Ms. Briars obsession with finding terapagos nearly caused the group to get killed because she was so obsessed with finding terapagos. Obsessed with proving that heath was telling the truth all this time.

Pokemon scarlet and violet showed that obsession can hurt and harm those around you. That an obsession like sada/turo, Kieran and ms Briars', will cause the pain of others and themselves in order to reach their goal.

#pokemon #pokemon scarlet and violet #pokemon scarlet #pokemon violet #pokemon arven #pokemon sada #pokemon turo #pokemon kieran #pokemon briar #pokemon carmine #the hidden treasure of area zero #pokemon terapagos #pokemon the indigo disk #pokemon the teal mask #pokemon the hidden treasure of area zero

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margareth-lv · 3 months

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🏳️‍🌈 Every girl needs a gay best friend 🏳️‍🌈

Last week, I wrote a post here about the morbid shyness of a certain music manager.

My text was based on an interview Caitríona gave in mid-February 2018, shortly after her so-called 'engagement' and after she'd just won the Irish IFTA for her work on Outlander.

In the interview, Caitríona talked about how she met her fake fiancé. In the February 2018 version, Caitríona met her PA through one of her best friends.

So I decided to look into the subject of this "best friend" who brought the unfortunate music manager to Caitriona.

What I'm going to write today is, I think, 100% obvious to veterans of the fandom. But for those just starting out, I hope it'll be news. And I, well, I'm somewhere in the middle, between newbie status and more than three years of wading through the facts and the myths.

For me, the fun part has been reconstructing the chronology of events. The dates are interesting.

*** *** ***

The beginning of my story is quite surprising. Because we reach Caitríona's 'best friend' by clicking on a link in an article published in 'People Magazine' on 15 August 2019.

The article is entitled: 'Everything to Know About Caitriona Balfe's Super Private Relationship with Husband Tony McGill' and it tells us that: 'the couple tied the knot in England last weekend'.

😱

What excellent investigative journalists People Magazine have (bravo, bravo!), that in a twelve sentence article they could link to a post from Donal Brophy's Instagram.

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

And look at this description:

"It’s unclear exactly when Balfe and McGill started dating, but the earliest evidence of their romance dates back to 2015, when a friend posted a video of her sitting on his lap at a bar in Ireland on Instagram. (McGill was not tagged and does not appear to have any social media accounts of his own.)"

🤯

Isn't that brilliant work from Starz/TPTB/whatever's PR Dept?

*** **** *** From the above it seems fair to conclude that the 'best friend' who brought Caitriona bad luck in the form of an unfulfilling music manager was Donal Brophy, because who else could it be?

*** *** ***

And now, let's take a quick look at the Instagram post (dated 1 January 2015) linked to the 'People Magazine' article. We all know it, of course! Here is the irrefutable proof of the passion between our two lovebirds: the rhythmic (and how sexy!) patting on the hip.

🥱

Well, hip-slapping is boring (and not at all sexy).

Far less boring, however, is the look on the music manager's face, the look that seeks Donal's approval (tell me I'm patting her well, do tell!). Could it be that, like the People Magazine link, this video was made to show? I wouldn't rule it out.

*** *** *** Now let's talk about dates: the sexy (not 🤢) slap on the hip was posted by Donal with a date of 1 January 2015, but two days earlier, on 30 December 2014, Donal shared another photo on Instagram featuring both the hapless music manager and Caitríona. ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Perhaps the decidedly less seductive and sensual appearance of the 'fiancée' in the December photo was the deciding factor in "People Magazine" not publishing a link to it?

Who could know?

*** *** ***

It certainly wasn't love at first sight. The new boyfriend seems rather tired of Caitriona's presence. 😉

I know this is a mischievous conclusion. I am so, so sorry, my friends.

❓

But one thing is for sure: Donal is an old friend of Caitríona.

I haven't done too much in-depth research, but the oldest photo I've been able to find of both Caitríona and Donal is… a photo in a Flickr album belonging to Caitríona's ex-boyfriend, Dave Milone. The photo is dated… 2002.

😨

You get the idea - Caitríona's ex (and real) boyfriend, Dave, Donal, and after many, many years a new 'fiancé'. It feels like my brain is exploding. 🤯🤯🤯

*** *** ***

But back to Donal: I have a feeling that Donal may have been Caitríona's +1 at times when she did not have an official boyfriend.

*** *** *** And let's not forget: Caitríona has a sweet and tender relationship with Donal.

June 2013, Miss you babe!

December 2013, Caitríona on IG:

December 2013, Donal on IG:

April 2014: They even went hiking together in the Scottish Highlands.

I wonder, by the way, who was their mountain guide? Was it an unfortunate music manager? I think not.

I would rather point to someone else, someone who loves (and knows!) the (S)cottish (H)ighlands. But I won't name him.

⛰️🧗🏻‍♂️

*** *** ***

For those who are unfamiliar with the name Donal Brophy, here are a few words about his professional profile:

You know, it works for me: "While in New York, Donal was also known for epic parties. Everything he organized automatically became a “must-attend” event for New York’s most with-it residents."

You know, that kind of vibe (2007):

😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

*** *** ***

Had he been Caitríona's false fiancé, it would have been easy for us to believe in the beautiful, loving bond that existed between them. But he was only the messenger of bad news. What wouldn't you do for your best friend?

❓

PS. Unless something has changed, Donal was married to Emrhys Cooper, a British actor, singer, dancer, and filmmaker. Together they run Idyllwild Pictures, an entertainment company.

Taken in July 2023:

[January 23, 2024]

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orikiys · 4 months

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✿ ✿ falling out of love with skz ( first pov version )

✰ pairings: ot8!skz x fem!reader

✰ genre: angst, romance, heartbreak

✰ warnings: heartbreak, guilt, falling out of love, sad, unedited ( i wrote this before i go to sleep ), based on real life events.

✰ word count: 1.8k + words

౨₊ৎ chan

falling out of love, but why is it? is it because i don’t read your texts no longer? or is it because that the mere sight of you no longer has been jumping on my feet? like that heart that used to skip a beat, tell me baby, did we not love each other? you were the muse to each of my poetries, you were the lover but i’m still disheartened by the fact that i couldn’t be. i made it out. i removed you from my life, to those little gifts you gave from your clothes that i had— all of them. and maybe, just maybe a part of me did get removed as well. snatched away and lost in the process. but i don’t need your help in getting it back. because i know that if i do, history would repeat itself. i would fall for you over and over. but… you wouldn’t. it’s been a hard month to try not to look at your socials, to see if you’re just as miserable as me or not. it’s been hard to try not to unblock you and keep re-reading our texts all day long. it’s been hard to not think of you. because my love i hate the fact that i still want you after all that happened, but you don’t. but i can’t love you like this, not anymore. i keep picking myself apart and framing together the left fragments of us. but there’s no us anymore, is there? i don’t want to pretend any longer. i missed you. i loved you. but i keep forgetting the fact that maybe i no longer do. or maybe i’m just getting better at pretending? all i do know is, i don’t think i know how to love you anymore.

౨₊ৎ minho

i may have forgotten the reason, but i loved you once. i truly did with all of my heart. falling in love was hard. it felt restricted, constrained and suffocating. but falling out of love? that was even harder. with each sun rise, i feel myself drifting apart from you. it’s like i don’t even know you anymore! i wish i could go back to the time where i asked you about your favourite colours or maybe your favourite movies or your favourite songs, but i can’t. we are no longer lovers. nor are we friends. we are strangers with memories. strangers who once crossed paths. we walk past each other and it’s like i don’t even know you, like i’ve never met you. i’ve seen our pictures on my phone and i question what went wrong? but maybe we were just habits and we thought we’d always have it? guess not. it’s the way i know you’re no longer around, but everything reminds me of you. is it the scent of your lingering perfume on the pillow covers? or maybe it’s your half-empty coffee mix? if promises were meant to be broken, i accomplished them. i am sorry for all the late nights that i whispered to you telling you that i’ll always love you. i’m sorry for all the times i couldn’t be there when you wanted me to. i’m sorry for all the times that i failed to understand you when you were just trying to protect me. i’m sorry for learning how to unlove you. i’m sorry min. i truly am.

౨₊ৎ changbin

remember when you said that we have forever? then why does it feel like our time’s already over? it started not so long ago, then why? was it written in fate already? or did we make it happen? i remember the time we held hands and shared umbrellas. i remember the time where we’d talk for hours. i remember the time when you first kissed me, then why am i still waiting for a proper goodbye? i wish you would break me at once, so i wouldn’t have to feel guilty for loving you a little lesser everyday. i wish you weren’t so perfect that i didn’t have to find excuses to avoid you. i wish you would snap my heart in half, crumble to pieces and throw away the broken fragments, so i don’t have to feel like i’m in the wrong. for once, just let me escape the reality. for once, please don’t love me. for once, please forget me. for once, let me go. for once and for all, forgive me for not trying to love you harder. i don’t know where it all went wrong. i wish i could turn back the time and erase myself from your memories, so you won’t even think of me or the pain that i caused you. i may be the villain of your story, but i too was once the protagonist.

౨₊ৎ hyunjin

i wonder if you ever noticed when i stopped telling you my secrets. i wonder if you ever noticed that i stopped bringing home your favourite packet of chips. i wonder if you noticed that i began tensing up whenever you hugged me. i wonder if you ever even noticed the way my soul began detangling from you. and when you tucked my hair behind my ear, it didn’t leave a trail of fire like it did before. my body— it stopped reacting to you the way it did before. and i wonder, why you never said anything. because you noticed it. you noticed every single thing yet you stayed quiet right by my side. it’s the way i began hating you for making me feel guilty. but it always did feel better to blame others, didn’t it? would you mind if i sat next to you but didn’t smile? would you mind if i ask you what you liked once again? because i didn’t want it to end. you were the most beautiful dream that i ever experienced, yet now i can’t even recognise the beat of your heart. i realized that i fell out of love when i could no longer guess what you wanted. or maybe that time when i couldn’t bring myself to even kiss you. baby, where did it go? help me. help me get it back. falling out of love with you is a nightmare and i wish i could wake up.

౨₊ৎ han

i had all that i wanted, and then none. from the perfect life, to a fallen apart one. nothing stays for too long. and i wish i let go of everything a bit sooner. so it would hurt me less whenever i see you. it would hurt me less whenever i hear someone mention you. your letters, they still rest in my drawers. your rings, they still fit on me. except they feel too cold. i no longer wear them for an entire day without feeling the urge to throw it. but i don’t want that to happen, so instead i keep it locked away in a box. but the key, it’s with you. so i can’t bring myself to open it. many people told me that i have changed. but i truly wonder, have i? or is it just the fact they can’t fathom that i no longer love you like i did before? it may be my fault for it all, i’m the one to blame. but i tried my best to stop myself, to stop these unwanted feelings and in the end i broke your heart. i still remember that look on your face when you held me tight for one last time. goodbyes weren’t the best, but i wish it was. so i didn’t have to live everyday thinking that i killed your spark from the inside.

౨₊ৎ felix

i wish i could go back to the time where i didn’t have to think thrice before waking you when you couldn’t sleep. i hoped that i could’ve told it all to you sooner, but how could i have predicted that unfortunate ending? loving you was beautiful, delicate and everlasting. until it wasn’t. falling out of love was harsh but slow. the flowers have begun withering, i noticed. do you not water them? or is it because they remind you of me? i know what you’re trying to do. i’ve tried it as well. but it didn’t work. i tried erasing you and everything related to you. but at the end of the day it’s the way my phone’s lock screen still has your face. your number, it’s untouched. and perhaps if someone were to ask me about my favourite movie, without hesitation i would reply with the texts we sent, the little date vlogs we made. call it guilt or call it lost love. the time spent with you gave me happiness, and i called that love.

౨₊ৎ seungmin

i knew you were hurting. so maybe i should’ve applied bandages to your aching heart. i knew you were hurting when i began replacing our memories. was there something that i could’ve done to make your heart heal faster? but i knew it couldn’t replace the pain i’ve caused you. i used to tell the moon about you, now the stars await to hear my stories. i used to have that stupid grin on my face whenever you called me, now we stopped meeting. and it kills me to know how you’ve been living all this long after knowing that the one who you loved broke your heart. it hurts me too when you agree to everything and anything i say. is that how much you love me? that you’re even willing to be vulnerable in front of me? if given another chance i would fall in love with you over and again till i can’t escape it. i want to trapped, engulfed in your love just like you are in mine.

౨₊ৎ jeongin

my heart breaks at all the possibilities we could have been. it breaks even more every time i remember you wanting to start a family with me in future. i ended it all at once, didn’t i? i wonder how i could be lifeless that now a single tear falls while you cry for me. i wonder how i could be so lifeless that i forgot you’re my other half. i want to experience that spark of sleeping and waking to your texts once more. i want to experience being called ‘my princess’ for the rest of life. but it’s the way that we don’t even talk. we blocked each other from our lives, it was for the good. then why am i having sleepless nights filled with remorse? is this the part of moving on? or is it the part of moving back? because my ship seems to be sailing in the wrong direction. so my love, don’t pray for me anymore. the moon won’t listen.

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highseas-swede · 6 months

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Aziraphale and Trauma

[Just a note that I initially wrote this in response to this post: https://www.tumblr.com/theangelyouknew/732357015604756480?source=share&ref=_tumblr which is full of insightful info. I'm reposting my response here with some minor edits so it's easier to find in tags.]

This is something I actually find interesting within the fandom, because there seems to be this weird divide in fandom when it comes to Aziraphale.

See, I love Aziraphale. I think he's an amazing and well nuanced character, but a lot of the time fandom boils him down into this really simple version of himself. This happens both with people who dislike him and claim he's a bad person as well as with those who want to soften him up and make him more palatable. Aziraphale isn't the only one who has trouble with black and white thinking here!

Things like Coffee Theory remove Aziraphale's agency because the thought of Aziraphale doing something to hurt Crowley deliberately is something they can't stomach. If Aziraphale is acting under some kind of major magical influence, it means that it's possible to brush over the fact that he can - and has - hurt Crowley in the past and it certainly hasn't always been accidental.

There's a lot of Psychology I could touch on here, but it's honestly such a complicated topic that I don't really feel I can do it justice attached to a completely different topic.

But one thing I do want to touch on a bit is how Aziraphale asserts control in his own life via his connection with Crowley, and that touches on something equally complicated, which is something that's probably hard to understand.

Abuse victims are often manipulative.

I don't mean this at all as some kind of slight or insult. I've been an abuse victim myself and it's one reason I know it's true.

Fandom talks a lot about Crowley's trauma and he's got loads, to be sure. I think of that meme about "this bad boy can fit a lot of trauma" and it's very true. I've even seen people mention that Aziraphale has a different kind of Trauma than Crowley, which is also true.

What I haven't seen is someone addressing that the type of religious trauma is a form of CPTSD. CPTSD or "Complex PTSD" is a very specific form of PTSD. PTSD is characterized as being the result of a traumatic event - Crowley's fall, for example, is a good example of PTSD and I can go into that at some point. CPTSD is different because it's not a singular event, it's the result of being in a constant high stress situation. A lot of abuse victims - especially those abused by parental figures or significant others - have this form of PTSD.

A good way to see the difference is in comparing how they relate to their trauma. When Crowley thinks he's lost Aziraphale in S1, it sends him into a spiral. But importantly we see that this traumatic event is causing Crowley to go back to another traumatic event in time, triggering his memories of his fall. This emphasizes how much Crowley's fall defines his trauma. We rarely see him experiencing trauma at the hands of Hell, as he's mostly allowed freedom to handle his job on earth the way he wants.

https://cptsdfoundation.org/ defines CPTSD as "the results of ongoing, inescapable, relational trauma. Unlike Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Complex PTSD typically involves being hurt by another person. These hurts are ongoing, repeated, and often involving a betrayal and loss of safety."

In humans, this is caused by having no sense of safety in key moments of development. It strips away sense of self, sense of worth and really any agency. We even see the angels using direct gaslighting tactics on Aziraphale in S2, which I'm surprised doesn't get mentioned more often: When they come to the bookshop looking for Gabriel, they mention Gabriel and then almost immediately when Aziraphale asks "you were looking for Gabriel", Uriel outright says a line that goes something like "Did we say we were looking for Gabriel?", leading Aziraphale to fumble and try to remember if they did, in fact, say that at some point (they did).

So, one big thing to know about CPTSD and this kind of abuse related trauma is that learning to lie and be manipulative is often what people have to do to survive. Children with abusive parents will learn how to be manipulative in order to get what they need or avoid losing things they need.

We see this with Aziraphale, time and time again. He could just ASK Crowley for things he wants. A lot of people point out that he could ask and that Crowley would probably give in to him most of the time anyway. But that's not how it works in an abusive home. Instead, Aziraphale maneuvers Crowley into situations where Crowley is forced to give him what he needs or wants.

His lack of agency, as a result of his CPTSD, is also why he needs to be worked into making decisions that he already knows - or at least suspects - are right. That's why they have their little dance every time Crowley has to talk Aziraphale into something by finding the right way to frame it so it makes sense with Aziraphale's strict rule structure. These rules exist as a defensive mechanism too. Having rules makes it easier to figure out how to avoid being hurt and Aziraphale cannot simply step outside the rules because it's Not Safe. Not even with someone he trusts as much as Crowley.

The entire apology dance scene stands out for a few reasons. Everything Aziraphale does in the entire scene is an act that allows him to take control of the situation. He's already won, so to speak, because Crowley is back and Crowley is going to do what he wants. The apology is unnecessary on every level.

This post talks about how uncomfortable Crowley has to be sharing a space with Gabriel. Gabriel is with the abusive team, whether or not he was directly involved with Crowley's fall. Crowley also harbors a severe distress and mistrust of Gabriel because of Gabriel's attempts to destroy Aziraphale, the most important person to Crowley. But it's worth noting that Aziraphale is uncomfortable too.

Another good indicator of how stressed Aziraphale is with all this is that he doesn't eat ANYTHING when Gabriel is in the shop. The only food he consumes in modern era is when he's in the Bentley which is a "safe" space. Gabriel constantly hounded Aziraphale over eating and despite offering Gabriel hot chocolate, we don't see him partaking himself. He does briefly drink to demonstrate how "drinking tea" works for Muriel, but he doesn't seem to drink from his cup at all after demonstrating.

The bookshop is also Aziraphale's safe space, his ONLY safe space - Crowley still technically has the Bentley, and honestly I feel like Aziraphale wanting to borrow the Bentley is actually partially because he needs to get away from Gabriel and the Bentley is the only place that feels safe for him at the moment. Shax ruins any illusion of safety for him, but Aziraphale is much more enthused for his trip in ep3 and a fair amount of it is because he's not trapped with Gabriel.

A small note here, as a thought occurs to me. Aziraphale asserting that the Bentley is "our car" is probably mostly for himself. He's trying to realign his thinking to make the Bentley an acceptable "safe space" for himself prior to the trip.

There is a very different relationship dynamic when it comes to Gabriel and Aziraphale because Gabriel is the constant source of Aziraphale's trauma. He's Aziraphale's superior, the one he has to report to, the one who passes down his missions and his punishments. When Aziraphale takes Gabriel in, he's just invited his former abuser of over 6000 years into his safe haven. This is a hugely uncomfortable thing for an abuse survivor.

Worst of all, because Jim is, for all intents and purposes, NOT Gabriel, Aziraphale can't bring himself to lash out at his former abuser the way he wants to.

That brings us back to this apology scene.

There are two major things going on here and both of them are bad and hurtful toward Crowley. They're also both intensely unfair. I love Aziraphale but this was definitely a dick move.

Firstly: Aziraphale is using Crowley to reassert a sense of control over the situation because he is spiraling. He can't assert control over his life and his shop, which is one thing that he falls back on heavily, and that leaves him scrambling to find somewhere where he can control his situation. He makes Crowley go through this whole unnecessary apology and dance routine because it makes him feel like he has control over SOMETHING in his life right now.

Secondly: Aziraphale is also enacting his own trauma on Crowley. He's treating Crowley the way Heaven treats him. This is a direct parallel to the way Crowley terrorizes his house plants because he can't do anything to the people who actually caused his trauma. This is, obviously, wildly unfair of Aziraphale to do - and I'm fairly sure there are other small moments where Aziraphale does this in a mild way, I'd have to rewatch again.

These are both behaviors common in CPTSD caused by environments that apply this constant state of stress.

I'm not going to say it's right, or that Aziraphale isn't being a bit of a bastard in this moment - he absolutely is - but this behavior does have some obvious triggers that might be easy to overlook. It's just important to understand that Aziraphale is falling into self-preservation habits that are actively detrimental to his relationship with Crowley. It's not just the manipulation, he's also hiding things and lying to Crowley when he really shouldn't be - both things often necessary in abusive environments - but he's doing it because that's the method that he's created that works with his abusive relationship in Heaven and he's falling back on it because he feels unsafe. The trouble is, this survival tactic does not work with Crowley and actively makes things worse because it shuts down open communication entirely.

#Aziraphale #Good Omens #Good Omens Meta #good omens s2 #aziraphale meta #crowley x arizaphale #CPTSD discussion

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furiarossa · 2 months

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"Danny looked down, thinking. Only then did he notice an inscription on the pedestal holding the three statues. “Madeline Walker | Vlad Masters | Jack Fenton The ghost friends honor them, April the 3rd, 1983: For the heroic saving of our lives" «They… they never told me anything» Danny looked at the statue, then at Skulker, then back at the statue «Why?»."

Okay, this lineart is so good that inspired a scene in me (I wrote it, even though I practically never write in English) and TWO different color versions.

7th submission for the @green-with-envy-phandom-event! This is a collab: the lineart was created by the awesome @ecto-stone, while we did the color.

Alternative (golden) version + ficlet under the cut!

Danny approached the sculptural group, vaguely in disbelief. At first he didn't really understand what he was seeing... he just had the feeling that it was something familiar, that the shapes of those greenish bodies reminded him of something. There were three people, dressed like ghostbusters, with tools and protective goggles. There were also other details, rays and small figures.

Danny squinted. One of the three was too similar to his father... but younger, with more hair, with a cheeky smile. So the other two, they were... yes, he had only seen them like this one other time, in a photograph from their college days, but... they must have been his mother Maddie and Vlad Masters.

It was quite impressive, to see a statue of three people he knew so well as adults, but immortalized forever, frozen in time, as the version of them that had been real only years before.

«Why is there a statue of them in this place?» He asked Skulker «They are ghostbusters, why did you immortalize them here, in the Ghost Zone?».

Skulker looked up at the sculptural group, his gaze unreadable, machine-like. But his silence, which lasted a few moments too long, spoke for him.

«It's a celebration» He said «From the times of the ectoquake. We all risked dying... or losing all the information in our cores, due to altered magnetism» he touched his chest with his large gloved hand «We would have forgotten who we are, we would have become a bunch of babbling ectoplasms devouring each other to survive, unable to recognize ourselves. A fate worse than death».

Danny looked down, thinking. Only then did he notice an inscription on the pedestal holding the three statues.

“Madeline Walker | Vlad Masters | Jack Fenton

The ghost friends honor them, April the 3rd, 1983:

For the heroic saving of our lives"

«They… they never told me anything» Danny looked at the statue, then at Skulker, then back at the statue «Why?».

Skulker pulled his gun from the holster, a handkerchief from his back pocket, and began cleaning it. That gesture worried Danny, but the other ghost didn't seem to want to attack him.

«They never told you anything because they don't know anything» Skulker revealed, speaking in a low voice «They themselves asked for their memories to be erased»

«Why?» Danny shook his head «Vlad certainly wouldn't have thrown away the opportunity to be adored as someone's savior»

«You know nothing about Vlad» Skulker's voice was thick, sticky, full of menace. Danny realized that they had never talked about Vlad before: how had he and Skulker met? What did they think of each other?

«Vlad wouldn't let anyone, not even himself, see him as a hero» The ghost hunter continued, moving the cloth more rapidly on the butt of the gun, as if he was trying to remove a stain «That's not what he does. But on that distant day… he and your parents saved the lives of all of us. They saved the entire Ghost Zone ecosystem»

«My parents probably did all the work and he joined the group only to take the glory» Danny snorted

«You don't know anything» Skulker said slowly

«I know Vlad quite a bit»

«No. You are a fourteen years old boy who thinks he knows how things go, but he doesn't. I've known him for twenty years, and you for... how long? Less than a year? And most of the time you just argue like two children»

«The fact that he fights with a fourteen year old» Danny pointed to his chest «I think already says a lot about him»

«He's training you, brat. For my part, if I could I would have taken your head off a long time ago... but he saved you, remember?».

Danny blinked. Yes, the first time they had seen each other… he had been trapped in the cube, powerless, with only his head sticking out, like a trophy. And Skulker would have gladly used his new blade on him, if it hadn't been for Vlad, who had stopped him.

«He's only doing it because he wants to have me as his son» Danny muttered

«Doesn't sound like a bad reason to me» Skulker growled.

For a few moments, there was silence. Only the movement of the ectoplasm could be heard, like the riptide of the sea in a bay, there wasn’t even the sound of breathing.

«So...» Danny, who had no intention of arguing with Skulker, continued «What's this about the ectoquake?»

«It's something that... happens» explained the ghost hunter «Every now and then. It's not exactly cyclical, but almost. And anyway, you can predict it, but you can't stop it. An ectoquake is the most terrible circumstance the community can experience: it not only destroys the lairs, but also the physical forms of the ghosts and their memories. It is a magnetic storm of such magnitude that it destroys everything it touches, rearranges it and turns it into something different. Every time an ectoquake occurs, thousands of species disappear forever and those who survive become mindless cannibals. It takes years for species to re-evolve and for ghosts to regain a minimum of reasoning»

«Wow. It really sucks...»

«Indeed. Usually very few ghosts survive: those who have access to a portal and can escape into the material world, for example. You get out of here» Skulker pointed up, as if there was a ceiling (which wasn't there) «The ectoquake can't get you. But the problem is that ectoquakes can also be predicted by humans»

«And so?»

«And so the ghost slayers remain stationed outside any natural portal, trying to kill every ghost that is escaping. It's a sealed fate»

«The ghost slayers?» Danny wrinkled his nose «I've never heard of them...»

«You're used to seeing those ridiculous ghostbusters... the Guys in White, those bad copies of Mystery Incorporated, your parents... but there are real monster hunters out there, with real weapons capable of blowing your head off. They don't go hunting for flying kids, they want to collect large quantities of ectoplasm at once, and to do so they predict ectoquakes and capture and kill those who escape»

«Terrifying».

Even though he was in his ghost form at the moment, Danny still felt goosebumps. Perhaps his ectoplasmic body simply remembered the reactions of his flesh body, or perhaps the idea disgusted him enough to change the surface composition of his ghost.

«At that time I was… little. Small. In the physical sense of the term» Skulker seemed a little embarrassed at this revelation, but he didn't stop recounting «I didn't have the armor yet, I was a small and defenseless body, and I managed to get out early, without the ghost slayers noticing. The ectoquake was a month away. But I was captured by them» he pointed to the three statues «They were in college and still studying, they weren't dangerous. Maddie and Jack wanted to dissect me, study me and then kill me» Skulker's voice softened «Vlad begged them not to do it. He saved my life»

«I can't imagine it»

«Too bad for you, kid. Too bad that you can't imagine that your parents, exactly as they do today, try to destroy the ghosts, while Vlad, exactly as he does today, helps me»

«Touché»

«I told them about the ectoquake. And they did something incredible: they built a portal for the first time. Not that little thing that would later destroy Vlad's life: a real portal, bigger than all the others. Huge, inside an abandoned building. Six meters in diameter, so that ghosts of any size could fit through. No ghost slayer expected us to escape from there, because they didn't know that portal existed. And then they invented something else, the Fenton thermos, a device capable of capturing ghosts, with which I was able to collect and transport the slowest or weakest ghosts, or those who were too afraid, into the material world» Skulker frowned «When the ectoquake came, the damage to the Ghost Zone was incalculable, but… but we didn't have to start from scratch. There had been many casualties, but many of the plants and animals were safe, my friends and I were still sane, we were fine. We had spent all the necessary time inside the abandoned building. Some inside the thermos, others free… we were all alive. Thanks to them: Madeline, Jack, Vlad»

«I… I didn't know. Why didn't I know?»

«I’m telling you, they don't remember anything»

«Why?»

«They knew ghost slayers were dangerous, boy. They knew they might have let some information slip: how to build the portals, where the escape route they'd created for us was. They decided together that they would forget it. There is one of us who can make wishes come true...»

«Desiree»

«Yes, exactly, Desiree. To protect us all, they wanted to forget what happened»

«Couldn't you just wish the ghost slayers would stop hunting you? Or that ectoquakes didn't exist?»

«You have a skull as thick as a bison's» Skulker placed his index finger on Danny's forehead «Do you really think ghost slayers are stupid? They are protected by amulets, ghost powers do not work on them. As for ectoquakes, they cannot be avoided in any way, they are an integral part of the Ghost Zone!»

«Well, yeah, I didn't know» Danny's cheeks turned a light shade of green.

Skulker withdrew his hand and approached the sculptural group, placing his hands on the pedestal. «Their heroism, their intelligence, their sacrifice… we will never forget them. They have already forgotten them» He sighed «It's a real shame that Madeline and Jack betrayed him and abandoned him like this. He didn't deserve it. Together they could have conquered the world, obtained everthing, but instead...»

«They didn't betray and abandon him!» Danny exclaimed

«You weren't there, ghost boy. How would you know?» Skulker looked at him over his shoulder, a single green eye visible, luminescent like a light bulb «You should listen to the story as told by others too. And maybe even your stupid parents would be ready to admit what they did to him. You weren't there, but I was. And I don't wish for anyone to see what I saw».

Danny looked up at the statue, feeling a myriad of emotions boiling inside him. An invisible hand squeezed his stomach. He didn't know about this, about how they had become heroes of the Ghost Zone… what was there that he still didn't know about them?

---------------------------------------------------

(I will definitely expand this thing later... for now, you got the idea XD).

Aaand here there is the golden version (of course there are gold statues of the saviors, somewhere!):

[Oh, and a lot more of our Danny Phantom fanarts: Here’s our tag!]

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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 8 months

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PRELIMINARY ROUND - DC COMICS

PROPAGANDA

Cassandra Cain

1.) essentially her character premise is that shes more or less an unbeatable martial artist due to the way she was raised. in the comics, she's the second batgirl and had a very popular solo series from 2000-2006. However, essentially DC editorial really didn't like that a teenage chinese girl was a better hand-to-hand fighter than batman, and so mandated that she be turned into a extremely random (also remarkably racist, as she was more or less turned in a 'dragon lady' stereotype) villain, which completely derailed and destabilized her character enough for her to almost entirely disappear from comics for the next decade. this is a far more detailed write up if wanted: https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/pdue0e/american_comicsdc_comics_the_saga_of_cassandra/

2.) Following the events of One Year Later, Cass was turned into a homicidal villain who led her own league of assassins and wanted to force Tim Drake into murdering people. This was later retconned as her being drugged, brainwashed, and manipulated by deathstroke.

3.) Literally canonically a better fighter than Batman and probably most of the DC universe. Killed one person once and because of the way she grew up (never taught to speak, learned to communicate by reading body language, in order to make her the ultimate weapon), saw what he experienced as he died and then refused to ever kill again. Had an awesome initial run… And then got hit with "evil mind control" that made her go completely OOC, depopularizing her character so much that a lot of people don't even know she exists.

Barbara Gordon

1.) Was shot as angst value for Bruce and her dad, implied to be sexually assaulted in The Killing Joke with absolutely no respect for her long career as Batgirl. When Alan Moore asked if he could, the editor said "cripple the bitch." She became paralyzed from the waist down. THankfully, an actually good writer picked her up from there and then wrote one of the best stories ever written (Oracle Year One: Born from Hope). Was one of the most iconic disabled characters in comic book history, hell, as Oracle, she was definitely up there as one of the most iconic disabled characters ever as well as a fantastic character, period. There were a few moments where people kept trying to make things out of her disability and had her be shitty to other women for no reason but for the most part, she was awesome. During her time In 2011, Dan Didio and some other misogynistic/ableist comic book writers were responsible for "curing" her disability and forcing her back into Batgirl, despite her having shown absolutely no desire to do so, as part of the New 52. They also made it an editorial mandate that she couldn't have glasses, a cool secret base, and her time as Oracle couldn't be referenced. This was because those writers were nostalgic for the 60s Batman show where Babs was played by an actress they all had the hots for and couldn't accept she'd grown up and moved on. That was bad enough, but over time, she's been increasingly deaged and reduced even further to just Dick Grayson's on and off again girlfriend and a generic girlboss. Batgirl of Burnsides burn in hell.

2.) Famously fridged in 1988, which was so popular with misogynists it became canon. After almost 2 decades of being one of the only disabled characters, was rebooted to a younger, more fun version of herself whose only history is that she was fridged but not disabled by it.

3.) The Killing Joke is one of the biggest comic examples of a female character getting hurt to motivate male characters. Also tbe way different cannons will trade off who her romantic intrest is out of Batfamily is pretty disturbing ranging from Bruce Wayne in Batman the Animated series universe (ew) to Tim Drake in the Arkham games (ew). Not to mention DC now is not letting her grow out of being Batgirl taking away her legacy of other young female heroes taking up her mantle and her getting to mentor them instead forcing her into a Batgirl cycle of purgatory when she was always better as Oracle (Its a little more complicated in the new Batgirl book but its still not solving the issues in a way that feels meaningful enough to make up the damage).

#polls #preliminary round

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chucapybara · 1 day

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—monsters.

a short arlecchino x harbinger fem!reader drabble.

notes: "innamorati" is one of the cast in the commedia dell'arte, with the theme of the lovers, if i remember correctly. they are usually a pair, as well. wrote this a few days ago; this came to me with my own version of a harbinger!oc in mind (hence it may come off as self-shippy), but i think it's vague enough to substitute a reader as innamorati. :3c inna also has cryo-inclined abilities (hence titled "Permafrost") and covers themselves in armour!

"You still bleed like a man does."

"And how does... ngfh... a man bleed?"

"Red."

Were it not for the slickened crimson coating her cursed palms, Arlecchino may as well have thought that the Innamorati was no more than an inanimate suit of obsidian. Innamorati's breaths come heavy, misting like frost at the base of her visor.

There is a kinship, in the blood and in the ghastly taint that sours them both. Like beckons like, as the familiar recognises the familiar from a sea of crowds.

For a moment, Arlecchino's dead-eyed gaze flickers over the shadows in Innamorati's helmet, as if searching for a glimpse of the soul that stares beneath. She almost catches the abyssal-flecked hazel, the dredges of human, or what once was human.

"Innamorati."

"Mmh."

"The children will mourn your passing," the Fourth mutters. It's difficult to dress the wound of an acquaintance who refuses to shed their armour, but she improvises. The bleeding must stop eventually.

"Will they, now?"

Arlecchino bows her head, the slightest nudge of a nod. It was not often that Innamorati passed by the House, but every instance always brought with it the intrigue from the children, and the rumour of the risen "abyssal knight". For all the Lovers' aloof frigidity, a wonder it had become when said abyssal knight would bring souvenirs and trinkets for the children of the Hearth after and between deployments, when said abyssal knight would converse with the fosters in a voice soft as snow, gentle as a whisper upon a dandelion breeze.

Quickly, Innamorati had unknowingly earned a place for herself among the denizens of that organisation, and had come under the scrutiny of its unfeeling Father. Hence had Arlecchino found a wounded Innamorati, returned from a mission, stalking past whilst nursing an injury; hence had Arlecchino beckoned her fellow Harbinger into her office, where a box of medical supplies sits in her cabinet for unforeseen events much like this.

"And of you?" The words come slow from 'neath Inna's helm, a gravelled drag to them, strained. "Will you mourn my passing, Knave?"

There is a long silence. With calculating coldness, the baleful moon falls quiet, perhaps contemplative, perhaps resentful of the question.

How many has she reaped? How many throats slashed, heads ground into a marrowy pulp? And of the many, of what number were those she had no strength to aid, left to keep the reminder of their lives in their final breaths?

Even now, from the depths of that icy past blazed upon a crimson pyre, Innamorati ferried recollections that the Knave had not pondered in a long time: her first blood, on that fated arena, within the cage of a woman madder than she—the blood of a fallen dreamer, an heir to tragedy.

When Arlecchino does not answer, Innamorati answers for her.

"Well," the Permafrost mutters in a rasp, "I have yet to forfeit my life, stubborn as I am. You do not grieve for the living."

"And yet we grieve, still, for what eludes us in the present."

Their gazes meet—or Arlecchino thinks they do. She feels a knowing shiver at the tilt of Innamorati's head, in her direction, where the fiery moon meets a frigid sun.

We grieve for what we have lost.

And if naught else, yours is the grave whose flowers I shall never allow to wilt.

#🌙 chuca drabbles #arlecchino #arlecchino x reader #hmmmmmm #ah yes to mourn for your lost humanity #to mourn the blood on your hands that were never your own...#there's a lot of brainworms in my head about arlecchino and innamorati rn #i should be working on my finals AHAHSNDLKA

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disasterarea-podcast · 11 months

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So given the writer’s strike, some people are concerned about their shows and movies being postponed or canceled, and aside from the fact networks have already BEEN canceling shows for no reason for years (I still maintain a healthy anger about what Netflix did to Sense8), I thought I would suggest some books on disasters you might want to read if you’re into that sort of history. Which you are if you’re here, I imagine.

Note: I’m suggesting these books because most books on disasters don’t get a huge audience, and so I recommend them because this sort of writing can be hard on the writer and requires a bunch of research. We throw so much money at true crime, we can spare a few bucks for the stories of people who died in disasters.

Also, please check with these with your local small bookstore or library. Amazon can be great, but let’s lend a hand to those who need us more.

Recommended books:

“The Circus Fire,” by Stewart O’Nan - This is one my favorite books on a disaster, because the whole thing creates a very vivid image of the circus prior to the fire in Hartford in July of 1944. There’s one specific line in the book which always makes me pause because it’s so affecting, about how everyone who escaped being able to hear the sounds of the animals screaming as they died - except all of the animals were out of the tent by then.

“The Only Plane in the Sky,” by Garrett Graff - This, I highly recommend you get on audiobook. It’s an oral history of the events of 9/11 with a full cast, and it’s incredibly affecting to listen to.

“Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic,” by Jennifer Niven - Ada Blackjack was a badass: flawed and weak at times, but hardy and steady when necessary. Half of her story is how she survived, but half is how she was exploited following her rescue. Both stories need to be known.

“Alive,” by Piers Paul Read - If you’re watching “Yellowjackets,” this should be required reading. If you’ve seen the movie adaptation from the 90s, there is WAY more you don’t know. The story of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 is a tough read, but a worthy one.

“A Night to Remember,” by Walter Lord - This is to disaster nonfiction what “In Cold Blood” is to true crime. It’s not a long read, but it’s a great one. Lord had the advantage of writing the book while many of the Titanic survivors were still alive and could give a very good description of what they went through.

“Dying to Cross,” by Jorge Ramos - I recommend this not just because it is good, but because it is timely. Nineteen people died in an un-air-conditioned truck as they were attempting to make their way into the states from over the Mexican border. It’s a horrific story, and one that humanizes an issue for whom some people need to be faced with the humans involved and what they go through.

“Bath Massacre: America’s First School Bombing,” by Arnie Bernstein - Harold Schecter also wrote a very good book on the Bath school massacre called “Maniac,” but I have a preference for this version. It’s a good reminder that schools in the U.S. didn’t just become targets in the last twenty years or so.

“Into Thin Air,” by Jon Krakauer - I feel like this is a gimme, but it’s a fantastic book from someone who was actually on Mount Everest during the 1996 disaster and knew those involved very well. I happen to like Krakauer’s work anyway - I even like “Into the Wild” despite my feelings about McCandless and his legacy - but it’s understandably my favorite.

“And the Band Played On,” by Randy Shilts - The one thing I will say is that Shilts’ treatment of Gaetan Dugas is *rough* to say the least and outright wrong on some points, God knows. But it’s still an amazing book, and if you come out of it not wanting to dig up Reagan and punch him a bunch I’m impressed at your restraint.

“Triangle: The Fire That Changed America,” by David von Drehle - The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire is one of the disasters I am most interested in, and I would argue this is the definitive book on the subject. Also, if this book introduces you to both Clara Lemlich and Frances Perkins … I mean, talk about badass women.

“The Radium Girls,” by Kate Moore - Look, I’ll say this. If you know of the Radium Girls, this is a great book on their story. If you don’t know, go in blind and prepared to be horrified.

“Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine,” by Anne Applebaum - Ukraine has always been a target. During the Holodomor, they were victims of one of the worst genocides in history.

“Midnight in Chernobyl,” by Adam Higginbotham - Like the miniseries? This is a great source for more information for what happened at Chernobyl and all of the ass-covering involved.

"Boston Strong: A City's Triumph Over Tragedy," by Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge - If you’re interested in the Boston marathon bombing, I really thought this book did a good job of connecting the stories of the victims, the authorities searching for the killers, and the killers themselves.

“Show Me the Bodies: How We Let Grenfell Tower,” by Peter Apps - As I understand it, Apps did a lot of covering the Grenfell Tower fire for the British press, and it shows. He provides a mountain of information, and you will come out of reading this book absolutely LIVID about what authorities allowed to happen in Grenfell and so many other council estates in the UK.

“Dark Tide: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919,” by Stephen Puleo - I feel as though the molasses flood gets treated like a joke a lot of the time, but y’all, twenty people died. That area of Boston was *wrecked*. The photos of the devastation are terrifying. Puleo treats all of this with the proper respect it deserves.

“In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex,” by Nathaniel Philbrick - Forget the movie. Read the book.

“The Great Influenza,” by John M. Barry - Want to read about the 1918 flu epidemic? Want to be mad that a hundred years later we didn’t learn a damn thing?

Now, that’s just a start. If anyone wants, I can always post photos of my disaster book collection on Kindle and next to my recording desk. Or if there’s a specific disaster you’re interested in, I may know of a good book about it you can read.

But just remember if SAG and the directors’ guild joins the strike too - there is so much out there to occupy your time until they come back. Entertainment work is work, and it deserves to be supported financially and fairly as such. Rock on, WGA. ✊

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mumms-the-word · 1 month

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Shadow Curse Events Pt. 1

Ketheric, Selûne, Shar, and Aylin

I’ve played through the game a few times at this point and I always find myself struggling to understand the timeline or at least order of events that occurred with the Shadow Curse. I know some things conflict because there was one version of the story in Early Access (the version where Halsin accidentally killed Isobel) and it was heavily altered for the final version of the game, and some things just got *gestures vaguely* waved away, but I keep wanting to make sense of it anyway.

So that’s what this post (edit: I mean series) is going to do. After the cut, obviously. Long deep dive post ahead! Picture of a tired Ketheric for attention and because same bro c':

TLDR: These events happen either in the 1370s or the 1390s. Ketheric loses Melodia (his wife) and Isobel (his daughter) and turns to Shar. He captures Aylin, then builds a Big Dark Justiciar Army, training them and forcing them to kill Aylin over and over. Meanwhile, a Selûnite resistance is brewing in the town, and it's kind of making everything worse. One Selûnite rebel even goes so far as to make a deal with a devil. And all of that is BEFORE the Harpers and druids arrive as an army.

We don’t have dates, unfortunately, aside from knowing that the shadow curse itself was unleashed about a century ago, so “timeline” would be a loose term to use if/when I use it. But I have two theories about when it happened.

One theory is that because the Spellplague was happening between 1385-1395 DR (during which there was neither a true Weave nor a Shadow Weave, which is what the shadow curse is made of), the shadow curse likely started around 1396-1399, just shy of a full 100 years before the game’s events in 1492. But that’s just me conjecturing based on the idea that if the Shadow Weave is gone…how does the shadow curse stick around?

The other theory is that the shadow curse was unleashed sometime between 1371 and 1374. This is because a) Dark Justiciars were still being sent by Ketheric Thorm to destroy Moonhaven (the Blighted Village) in 1371 (Ketheric writes a letter about attacking Moonhave and a journal dated 1371 boasts that Ilyn Toth, the basement apothecary-necromancer dude, got killed by Dark Justiciars) and b) because Khelben Arunsun himself, the literal Blackstaff (super powerful and very old wizard), wrote a letter negotiating surrender on behalf of the Harpers.

We cannot be party to the suffering of the people of Reithwin, and indeed, of the great loss of life that this war will visit upon the Sword Coast - and, perhaps, beyond it. So it is written, and so let it be done, Khelben Arunsun, on behalf of the High Harper Council and its allies.

Wiki says Khelben broke his alliance with the Harpers in 1370 due to some disagreements, but it’s possible his splinter faction was at the battlefield with the other Harpers. I doubt he was there personally, but who knows. I wouldn’t go any earlier than 1371, though, because Baldur’s Gate II happens in 1369, and Jaheira would have been too busy dealing with those events to deal with Ketheric too. But it can’t be later than 1374, because Khelben Arunsun dies in 1374.

(I have questions about how the shadow curse survived the Spellplague and the loss of the Shadow Weave, but the answer to that could simply be All Magic Was Weird and Unstable at the time…plus Thaniel was already in the Shadowfell by this time, so the land couldn't heal.)

So it’s either 1371-1374 (because of the Khelben timeline, and I guess the Spellplague didn’t affect it) or it’s 1396-1399 (because of the Spellplague, but the writers just forgot Khelben was dead by that point, or maybe his ghost wrote the surrender notice idk). Both are good enough for Halsin and Jaheira to talk about things happening “a century ago,” but you can see why I’m avoiding dates.

But let’s push it back a few more decades. Back when Ketheric was a Selûnite and Isobel a very small child.

As we’re probably all well aware, during this time, Ketheric worships Selûne along with his wife, Melodia. At some point, he even commissions the local Mason’s Guild to build Moonrise as a testament to Selûne herself, according to Morfred the mason (who you can talk to in House of Hope, it’s pretty cool). Ketheric and Melodia have Isobel, but then Melodia dies while Isobel is still pretty young. Ketheric remains a Selûnite, mostly for Isobel’s sake, until she dies too.

Ketheric: I’ll tell you a story, True Soul. About a man who sold himself piece by piece. He had…everything. A wonderful wife. A brilliant daughter. They lived not far from here. His wife died too young. Grief tore through their home like a thief, snatching away the scent of her hair, the rustle of her skirts. But the man did not break. He could not break. His daughter needed him whole, after all. She grew up—grew strong. Challenged him. Filled his heart with such joy it supplanted all sorrow. When she was killed, the man…he tried to remain whole, but it wasn’t possible. Do you understand? Player: So the man fell to pieces. Ketheric: The pain was unbearable. All-consuming. He decided he’d do anything for reprieve. First, he sold himself to the goddess of loss. But the pain did not subside, no matter his obscene feats of devotion. Then a new god came—a god who promised the man something wonderful: his daughter. Her life returned. Imagine it. He would have to give everything: his body and soul entire. He did not hesitate. Not for a moment.

We know this story. Ketheric turns to Shar and everything goes Very, Very Badly. But the exact details/order of Ketheric's Sharran days are a little hazy. So here's what I've been able to piece together to sate my own curiosity.

While Ketheric is still a faithful (but waning) Selûnite, Dame Aylin visits as an emissary of Selûne. Moonrise/Reithwin is a Selûnite refuge and the Thorms are allegedly devout favorites of the moon goddess, so it's a big deal. While she's there, she and Isobel fall in love. Ketheric disapproves, in part because Aylin is immortal and Isobel is not (Isobel and Aylin both say this in dialogue).

Plus, and this is a personal opinion, I think Ketheric might have seen Aylin's interest in Isobel as another thing Selûne was trying to take from him. It isn't enough that Selûne let Melodia die, now her daughter is trying to woo his daughter and take her too.

But then Isobel dies. Somehow. The launch version of the game isn’t clear how. Aylin mourns but Ketheric spirals. He turns to Shar, hoping she will force him to forget about Isobel, but he doesn't. Nevertheless, he becomes a zealous Sharran.

[A journal spanning years, beginning with the birth of a child and ending with what appears to be a series of dateless tragedies.] How can she be gone? Where did she go? The Moonmaiden cannot be so unfeeling - so cruel. Not toward her most devoted servant. Not after Melodia. It makes no sense. It makes no sense. I won't survive it. That much I know. Forgetting is the only possibility. The embrace of oblivion. The reprieve of nothingness. It would not be possible for a man to survive knowing what he knows. Knowing what can be lost. Shar understands that. Hers is the only mercy I can comprehend. My mind is full of holes - yet not enough. The emptiness. The time. The nothingness. And still I remember. Still I remember it all. There is no mercy in this beating heart. There is no mercy in life at all.

He builds the Gauntlet of Shar (or maybe renovates and Shar-ifies it, maybe it was already there) beneath the Thorm mausoleum, connecting it to the much more ancient Grymforge area. Grymforge becomes a kind of base or stronghold for the Justiciar army while the Gauntlet is designed to test their mettle and prepare them for the task that will make them official Dark Justiciars—killing Aylin, though it's not clear when Ketheric and Balthazar lure her into the Shadowfell.

I'll get back to that later.

We know that Grymforge was used as a Dark Justiciar stronghold and possible training ground because of all the Sharran stuff we find there. It's like super obvious. The feasthall room, the dormitories, the weapons that lay everywhere. There's basically a whole Sharran city in the Underdark beneath and near Reithwin, some of which we can see from various points in Grymforge. In fact, if you go through the poisoned room where Nere is, you can see the Gauntlet down below.

(It's a little hard to see here 'cause I play on console but there's a glimpse of the giant Shar statue that takes up a ton of space in the Gauntlet. Somehow, the two places used to connect.)

Ketheric's new Sharran teachings are ruthless and vicious. He encourages his Dark Justiciars to kill a Selûnite once a tenday or more as part of their training and service to the Lady of Loss.

The Law of Nightfall: From the moon falls the foulest of lights. iIt peeks through cracks and fissures, illuminating the most remote recesses of the Underdark. Light bestows hope, a pernicious notion which must be extinguished. At the darkest hour, pray to your Lady and feast in Her honour. The second day after, slay a disciple of Selûne. If none may be found, a Lathanderian or Mystran are an acceptable offering. Do this once a tenday, and the Lady of Loss shall know you.

Reithwin and the surrounding village soon become a hunting ground. Most people convert. Those who don't get hung in the square as examples (according to a shadow memory). All faithful Selûnites are forced to practice their devotion to the Moonmaiden in secret, led by Morfred the mason and his brother Halfred the innkeeper of Last Light Inn. Halfred hides Selûnite relics beneath Last Light (you can still find them) while Morfred plots a true resistance.

[Hidden amidst columns detailing the income and expenditure of a tavern is an aside, written in tiny, urgent handwriting.] I have concealed the sacred relics of our revered goddess in the darkest corner of this place. Morfred, my loyal brother, seeks to forge a network of allies to stand against the oppressive reign of Ketheric Thorm. Sadly, fear has gripped the hearts of many, turning them away from our cause. I cannot truly blame them, for trepidation fills my soul as well - but I must put aside my own fears and reunite with Morfred in the bowels of the Mason's Guild. Together, we shall preserve what we can of the Moonmaiden's light, and hope that the banners of the faithful soon rise against that treacherous dog, Thorm.

But as time goes on, Morfred grows increasingly distressed with the events happening in Reithwin and the ease with which people are eager to switch faiths.

- How quickly things change. The Thorms are Selûnite through and through - or so I believed. Perhaps Ketheric only converted for Melodia, and with her death - and then his daughter's - his faith died too. But to turn to Shar? It beggars belief. - Ketheric's Justiciars are growing greater in number, and more determined to rout out any traces of Selûne in Reithwin. Why do they think this town was built? One cannot rip out the foundations of a building and expect it to remain standing. - Brother and I remain the last two bastions of Our Lady of Silver in the town. A few - the trusting few - come to worship in secret by moonlit nights. Others - converts, all. Whether they truly believe, I cannot say. Impossible, isn't it?

(Don't worry, the second page is further down lol spoilers!)

Life is not going well in Reithwin, even if you're not a Selûnite. Ketheric is determined to destroy all traces of Selûne and treason of any kind. His Dark Justiciars begin tormenting citizens to reveal pockets of Selûnite resistance. He also suffers no treasonous word against him, even if the citizens in question aren't Selûnite. We see a glimpse of this and of the Justiciars' cruel influence during the questline with He Who Was and Madeline, who ratted out her friends' innocent(?) complaints about Ketheric to some Justiciars, resulting in their brutal deaths.

Eventually Morfred realizes that the Dark Justiciars are too powerful to resist and turns to Raphael, offering his soul in exchange for something to destroy the Dark Justiciar army.

- Sick of standing idle while Justiciars gain power in our humble town. What will become of us if we allow it? I met a man who was no man. Touched by a devil. Or maybe worse. But he offered me something I couldn't refuse - help. - The time is now. Ketheric's Justiciars, their stronghold in the temple below - they will be wiped out. All of them. I didn't ask how. I just want them gone. Let the Harpers have at Ketheric now. They'll make short work of him.

You can ask Morfred about this in the House of Hope, actually, where he confirms the details. I mean, he's in Raphael's house, so it's pretty obvious the he did, in fact, make a deal with him.

Infernal Mason: When tragedy came, my master fell into darkness and despair. He marshalled a great army to ruin the world and bring all into shadow. I could not let it happen. I sought out the devil Raphael and signed an infernal pact with him. He promised to destroy my master’s army, and I promised him my soul in return. The devil was true to his word. Fiends slaughtered my master’s forces, but he endured somehow, and blighted the land.

The Fiend in question here is Yurgir, who ends up crashing through Grymforge and the Gauntlet to kill all Dark Justiciars in his path. (He misses one, because Raphael is a sneaky bastard who let one get away by turning him into a swarm of rats, but I digress.) We know Yurgir caused the destruction in Grymforge, too, because of the Merregon masks and hellbeasts we find around the area, and the fact that if you pass all the checks with the Duergar mason examining the stone, he helps you piece together this narrative:

Stonemason Kith: An ancient city, hewn from the stone by the disciples of Shar, later abandoned. Untold centuries later, a new tribe revives it. Fresh walls, fresh sculptures...until a great hellbeast charges through, toppling the walls and crushing the people! Heh - that explains the infernal plate I found. Perhaps you might have use of it.

Further proof that Grymforge and the Gauntlet were once connected...somehow.

Anyway, by the time Yurgir is called in, Morfred's already been found out. Thisobald overhears him drunkenly complaining about Ketheric in the Waning Moon and informs Ketheric of his treachery. Ketheric orders a raid on the mason's guild, leaving Halfred the lone source of Selûnite resistance. It's unknown what becomes of Halfred, but considering the fact that the inn was still taking guests (like Art Cullagh) and housing the Harpers right before the shadow curse descended (there's a shadow memory of a Harper toasting his comrades in Last Light right before the battle with Ketheric long ago), it's likely he's a victim of the curse and not Justiciar brutality.

I’m not sure which is worse, honestly.

It's unclear when Morfred dies, though he admits to witnessing the first part of the shadow curse (i.e., "...but he endured somehow, and blighted the land"). But Morfred's deal coincides in some ways with the arrival of the Harpers and druids. I think he probably makes the deal with Raphael before the Harpers officially march against Ketheric and then gets caught after he hears rumors of the Harpers.

Raphael makes good on his deal around the same the Harpers arrive, perhaps a little afterward. This means Yurgir's slaughter of Justiciars in the Underdark must happen concurrently with the battle happening topside between Ketheric's army and the Harpers/druids, meaning Ketheric is losing his army on two fronts at the same time. Victory seems assured for the Harpers and druids, but of course we know now that Ketheric had a way of cheating death already in place.

He had already imprisoned the Nightsong in a Shadowfell soul cage.

Again, we’re not sure exactly when this happens, but it’s after Isobel dies and before the shadow curse, which unleashes with Ketheric’s supposed death in the battle against the Harpers and druids. However, Aylin herself says that Ketheric and Balthazar lured her into the Shadowfell under the pretense of saving an innocent.

Dame Aylin: He and his loathsome advisor Balthazar lured me into the Shadowfell, claimed they'd found someone in need of my aid. There they trapped me in their infernal cage. I was killed, murdered, made dead, over and over and over by Justiciars of every make and kind. I was reborn, for it is my nature. And Ketheric fed upon my immortality all the while.

This makes me think that Aylin wasn’t aware of Ketheric’s conversion yet, so it must have been very soon after, because otherwise, why would she trust a known Sharran telling her to enter the Shadowfell, the realm that is entirely under Shar’s control? I also suspect Ketheric built (or renovated) the Gauntlet around Aylin after her capture, perhaps at the behest of Shar due to their collaboration in making up new Justiciar teachings, or perhaps out of a sick, vengeful desire to see Aylin tormented for daring to love his daughter.

If this is true, then there’s a very real chance that Ketheric was unkillable before he truly started to torment Reithwin town, and well before the Harpers stepped in to take him down.

Anyway we at least know that Ketheric trapped Aylin in the Shadowfell before the big battle against the Harpers because a) both Isobel and Aylin talk about her being there for a century and b) because Ketheric is already using her invulnerability to survive assassination attempts on his life prior to or during the actual battle against him and his army:

23 Elient The Harpers came too close - they poisoned Father Ketheric himself, yet he professes no ill effects. Malus insists it a fluke. Doctor he may be, but he is no less a fool for it: Father has achieved that of which I can only dream: immortality. I have long suspected. I can guess Father's purpose, but I cannot fathom the means.

This brings us to the eve of the battle itself. But this post is already hella long, so keep an eye out for part 2, all about the Harper and druid battle against Ketheric!

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taranida · 5 days

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What exactly happened in the 70’s

I’ll start with The Poet and The Muse. I’ve written about the real Thomas Zane being a poet already, but left out this piece of evidence (not at all on purpose, truth be told), but I want to discuss it here, since it goes well with the point I want to make.

In the song we learn the story of a Poet living happily with his Muse and telling her stories about treasures beneath the waves. Then one morning the Muse goes to the lake and drowns. The Poet at some point realises that something happened and comes to the lake, calling for the Muse, but to no avail. Whole day spent in search, and in his desperation, he swears to bring his love back. He writes a story and succeeds to some degree. The husk of the Muse comes to him in the night, possessed by some dark force. The Poet takes her in, but in trying to fix his mistake, vows them both to silence beneath the lake. The story concluded with the peculiar:

Now if its real or just a dream One mystery remains For it is said on moonless nights They may still haunt this place

Now, what exactly the boys of the Old Gods of Asgard are hinting at here (aside from the existence of the Dark and Bright Presences) I can’t tell for sure: they might just toy with all those who have that buzzing question of “who wrote whom”, but I will treat the story of Thomas Zane the Poet as a true story, that happened without any help of tortured writers. Although I will use the manuscripts as well as every other source of information.

Prepare for a long read, since firstly, I would like to present all the bits and pieces that I’ve managed to collect, and then tie them all up in a version of events, I believe, happened in July 1970.

First, the dialogs.

Tor and Odin (whom I cannot stop lovingly call “the boys”) say this:

“Tom’s just lost, is all. Baba Yaga got to him too, the damn witch!” “She used us all, taken from all of us. Took my thunder, the witch.” “And my ravens, what was...what were they? Memory and Thought! The hag.” “She took something from you too, didn’t she? That’s what she does.” “Oh, we’re better off. This place, the lake, it gives you power. If you’re a creator.... An artist, a god!” “Nightmares shifted in their sleep in the darkness of the lake...” “Heh heh, yeah, that’s the one. She makes sure it comes out twisted and wrong. Just ask the Lamp Lady. She knows what happened to that other writer.”

Cynthia Weaver tells us:

“I knew them both. Tom and Barbara. I had such a crush on him...such a beautiful man. I was jealous. There was a part of me that was maybe a little glad when she had the accident. And then Tom started writing and woke the darkness up.... He tried to bring her back...but you can’t do that. There are no free rides like that.” […] “The witch looked like her, but it wasn’t. Barbara was sweet. He didn’t understand until it was too late. He tried to undo it, wrote himself, her, everything he’d ever written out of the world.”

We have Samantha’s dream in “This House of Dreams”, that gives us even more details:

“The diver told me that a dark presence had taken over his girlfriend (the woman in the photos). He’d tried everything he could think of to banish it from her, but everything had failed. In the end, he finally understood what he had to do, finally understood the true nature of the dark place that was hidden under the waves of the lake where they lived. The lake was an opening to dark place that was much bigger than the lake itself, in fact, much bigger than the whole universe we live in. He wrote one last poem, his masterpiece, a secret poem, a hidden poem, a poem that’s not among the poems I’ve found in the shoebox. And he took his girlfriend for one last dive. Together they sank down into the depths, far deeper than he had ever dived before.”

Then we have the manuscripts, that expand on the story:

More so, we have the dates and newspaper articles:

The last one is cut awkwardly, but, really, all I needed from it are the dates of publishing and of the seismic activity.

So, what really happened during this week? On the morning of 10th July Barbara went for a swim and drowned. As Cynthia notes in her article, Barbara was quite a swimmer and her death does seem odd. At the same time, we have another article (that I will put in the very end for those who are curious) about a writer visiting the area and encountering Taken — Robert “The Colonel” Hambleton dated 6th July 1970. Thomas even makes a snarky remark about not ever hearing about him and calling him “an uninvited guest”. All hints that with all the artists in the area: the boys of Old Gods of Asgard, Thomas Zane, Cynthia Weaver and Barbara Jagger, the Dark Presence still pounces on every other creator unfortunate enough to choose Bright Falls as a place to visit. Might’ve been because it could not make the gang mentioned above do its bidding?

The Dark Presence might be of a very different mind, alien to humans, but it’s cunning. As stated in one of the manuscripts, when it senses Alan, “all he'd need was a little incentive.” For Alan it had to drag Alice to the pier and into the lake; for Thomas it might’ve used the help of its ravens or some other means necessary to overwhelm Barbara long enough for her to drown, as at the time the Dark Presence had no physical body (but there might’ve been some other Taken swimmer around). And after Thomas spent the whole day searching for his lover, succumbing to desperation more and more, he got that incentive, the Dark Presence needed.

In the night Thomas wrote a poem to bring Jagger back. The Dark Presence plan worked and it was now in the world, almost free, wearing Barbara’s skin. But it was still constrained by the story Thomas wrote, and in his story he surely wrote something along the lines of them being together and in love again, therefore we see that the Dark Presence cannot do anything to Thomas as he ties it to the chair, carves its heart out and writes countless pieces to undo his mistake. It just couldn’t get out of the role of the loving Barbara, who would never hurt Zane. It had to go through the story in which, probably, Thomas and Barbara lived happily ever after and died on the same day, to be completely free. Which doesn’t mean that the very, pardon, presence of the Dark Presence in the world was not affecting Bright Falls at the time, the Taken might’ve been multiplying and awful things happening during this week. Yet, unlike Alan, Thomas didn’t go into the woods, fighting for his life, he searched for a solution at the cabin, armed with his typewriter and the (kitchen) knife.

The only solution he found in the end — one last dive. To bring this darkness back to where it came from.

There are still a few mysteries left:

in the guide for the first game we can read excerpts from the book “Taken by the Dark Presence” found in a shoebox that has no author, but has initials of T.Z. and J.Z. on some pages, apparently written in the late 1960’s. And, oh boy, I have lots of questions for this one!

the Bird Leg Cabin and the Diver’s Isle, that might or might not been retroactively removed by the eruption under the Cauldron Lake.

the extent of Thomas’ writing powers, since as much as it is stressed a lot that he wrote himself out of reality, Barry, with a little research, is still able to find out about his existence, yet Alan in one of the “Writer in the Cabin” TV’s claims “A story is a beast with a life of its own. You can create it, shape it, but as the story grows, it starts wanting things of its own. Change one thing, and you set off a chain reaction of events that spreads through the whole thing.” The chain reaction here never happens: we have hard evidence that both Thomas and Barbara existed.

But those are theories for another day. This is already a long enough read to throw those into the mix.

And here’s the article about Robert “The Colonel” Hambleton (spoiler alert: there is another one, confirming that he died):

#alan wake 2 #alan wake #thomas zane #alan wake ii #alan wake remastered #remedy entertainment #remedy connected universe #remedy games #RCU theory #alan wake game #tom zane

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taringill · 18 days

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I've finally finished it! Phew... Get to know each other. Norimi Tatoru or Nori. What? Which Nori? Yes, I changed Miwa's name and now her name is Nori.

Наконец-то доделала! Фух... Знакомьтесь. Норими Татору или Нори. Что? Какая Нори? Да, я поменяла имя Миве и теперь её зовут Нори.

Nori was human, but at the age of 14 she mutated. But here she is 16 years old. She met Leo after the events of the film. She mutated into a turtle because she had a pet, a yellow-eared turtle. And before the mutation, Nori held her turtle in her hands. I described it in more detail in this post (I will leave the link). Nori used to be an Alabama turtle, just like her pet, but then I realized that she looked more like a yellow-eared turtle. Interesting fact: the red-eared and yellow-eared turtle are of the same species. They are subspecies of the red-eared turtle. The differences are only in appearance, but in general they are similar.

Нори была человеком, но в 14 лет она мутировала. Но тут ей 16 лет. Она познакомилась с Лео после событий фильма. Мутировала она в черепаху, потому что у неё был питомец, желтоухая черепаха. И перед мутацией Нори держала в руках свою черепашку. Подробнее я описала в этом посте (ссылку оставлю). Раньше Нори была алабамской черепахой, как и её питомец, но потом я поняла, что она больше похожа на желтоухую черепаху. Интересный факт: красноухая и желтоухая черепаха одного и того же вида. Они подвиды красноухой черепахи. Различия лишь во внешности, а в целом они похожи.

Those who have subscribed to me for a long time know that Nori (get used to it, guys, get used to it...) was in the Foot Clan, but then moved to the Hamato Clan. This is to put it very briefly. Read more in this post (I'll leave a link). That's why I drew Nori in the clothes of the Foot and Hamato Clans.

Те, кто давно на меня подписан, знают, что Нори (привыкайте, ребят, привыкайте...) была в Клане Фут, но потом перешла в Клан Хамато. Это если совсем кратко. Подробнее в этом посте (ссылку оставлю). Поэтому я нарисовала Нори в одежде Кланов Фут и Хамато.

Лео: "Без маски ты ещё краси́вее🩷"

Why did I change her name? The fact is that Nori is not a new character. I didn't come up with her for the first time until 2021. And I was inspired by the story of Karai and Leo from TMNT 2012. And the old name was a reference to Karai. Yes, I am very original... But I thought it was cool at the time. In the comments of Pinterest, a person wrote that this was not Karai. And someone in Tumblr explained everything to me. And then I decided to change her name. Like, if Miwa marries Leo in the future, she'll be Miwa Hamato. And this is another detail that confused me. People could really get confused. In short, that's it. I like the new name. I hope you enjoy it too. I don't regret changing my girl's name at all. I should have done it earlier... In fact. And if my ship was called Miwanardo before, now it will be called Norinardo. In short, guys, get used to it :) Good luck.

Почему поменяла имя? Дело в том, что Нори персонаж не новый. Впервые я придумала её не раньше 2021 года. И я вдохновилась истории Карай и Лео из TMNT2012. И старое имя была отсылкой к Карай. Да, я очень оригинальна... Но мне тогда казалось это классным. Но как-то в комментариях Пинтерест, человек написал, что это не Карай. И кто-то в Тамблере мне всё разъяснил. И потом я решила всё таки поменять имя. Типо, если Мива выйдет замуж за Лео в будущем, то она будет Мива Хамато. И это ещё одна деталь, которая меня смущала. Люди действительно могли запутаться. Короче , вот так. Новое имя мне нравится. Надеюсь, вам тоже понравится. Вообще не жалею, что поменяла имя моей девочке. Надо было сделать это раньше... По факту. И если раньше мой шип назывался Миванардо, то теперь это будет называться Норинардо. Короче, ребят, привыкайте:) Удачи.

P. S. I will also redesign the human version of Nori (here is her old design, I'll leave a link). I will fix this post for some time for your convenience.

P. S.Редизайн человека Нори я тоже сделаю (вот её старый дизайн, ссылку оставлю). Этот пост я закреплю на какое-то время для вашего удобства .

#art #my art #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #save rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise oc #oc & canon #rise leo #norimi tatoru #nori & leo #norinardo #tmnt #rottmnt oc

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rainybyday · 2 years

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Not twin au but more of Danny is the eldest while Danny is the youngest au

Anyways so before Damian was ever introduced to the family there was a problem that Batman found when looking through the JL’s reports only to see three declined “helped needed” by John Constantine who wrote that the place asking for help, Amity Park, is a no go zone. That is by the most simplest and shortest version of that anyways.

Of course after from some talking (yelling) he managed to get in Amity with some ward(s?) to not get ghostly possessed

(also this is around earlier in Danny’s career, so maybe two or three months -ish pass?)

That was when he met Phantom

Phantom, he soon learned, was a boy that died at 14 in a suit that was never supposed to be put on by a child. This child died yet it seems like most of the town hates his very existence. This little ghost boy who shouldn’t have to protect a town who hates him from his own kind but he doesn’t leave because he said it was his home.

Amity Park is the place he died.

(Bats went feral once he found out how recent his death was)

in hindsight, he should have done this before but he finally sat himself down to do research on Phantom, Amity, the hunters, and everything

he found a lot

By the end of three days of research, a internal breakdown as he sat down starring at Danny Fenton’s medical records, and some much needed clarifications from many magic users he made a decision

Phantom was under Batman’s protection

Batman did confronted Danny and after managing to calm him down from a panic attack he stared to explain his intentions. Danny didn’t trust him at first (understandable from the high hostility he was getting from everyone else) but he soon started to open up to the only adult that seem to give a dam about him as both Danny and Phantom

Slowly Batman stared to teach Danny to fight more effectively and in different styles (which weirdly, he found Danny dose know how to fight but doesn’t know how to use his fighting skills correctly). Batman gave him a panic button, communicators, leeway to Gotham, and gave advice to the poor ghost boy

(he did try to lead him away from the vigilante life but knew, that just like his children, he couldn’t do anything that was far to late)

of course, Batman can’t be gone from Gotham forever and he soon had to leave as well. But he made it a point that Danny should communicate with him and keep in touch with him or he will fly va bat plane to make sure he is alright

Two years pass by and the relation with Phantom and Bats has grown. Even if Batman can’t be there all the time for Danny, Bruce made it a point to visit Amity occasionally, write down the reports that Phantom gave him, send him a gift when he mentioned his parents forgot his birthday, comfort him after the events of Dan and helped Danny with Ellie/Dani to find a way to stabblelize her

(of course some events have to stay the same such as how he met Clockwork, Vlad and Dan

also him becoming Ghost King as well

The reaction of those two just finding out that he is the Ghost King is-)

but anyways, relationship that was builded in two years of trust for both Phantom and Batman with both as Danny and Bruce. It’s at the point that Danny knows who is Batman and that Bruce knows Danny enough to look away when one of his kids makes a detour to Amity to met Phantom (there soon to be brother)

(his children like to joke he was just adding another bird into his clan or another bird under his leather wing which he would ignore when he later hold up his caps over Danny)

now to the fun part

at this point Danny is getting a little angsty and weary of his parents on how close they are to finding out about Phantom and Bruce is learning all he can about ghost adoption after things seem to settle down.

then Talia entered the picture

along side with Damian

immediately he gets red flags blaring in his head as soon as he sees Damian. It’s not that he doesn’t trust that Damian is his (he looks far to familiar (but he still needs that dna test)) but it’s the fact that he looks a little to close to Danny.

knowing you have a bio son all these years is devastating when your not there for his first years of his life, but knowing he looks like the child he was planning on adopting a little to much only tips off Bruce’s paranoid brain even more

so he confronts Talia if Damian is his only son she had with him.

she denies ever having another child

She lied, to extent

she did had another child, but said child died before he was born with his remains sunken to the bottom of the Lazarus pit

(she didn’t know that time choose it’s own course)

Bruce wasn’t the only one to see the similarities of Danny and Damian when the rest of the bats met Damian, which brings up the next question

is Danny Bruce’s biological child?

[adding more later]

#danny fenton #danny phantom #dc x dp #dp x dc #batman #batfam #damian wayne

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