#you can recognize people’s humanity without excusing oppression

[abla-soso]

So I have seen your Israel vs Palestine posts. I don't know much about the conflict so I have been doing some research on the history and watching some news coverage.

I admit that I am slightly biased for Israel but there is so much information that it is hard to tell truth from lies. Israel says they want to eliminate Hamas but I don't understand how bombing Palestine is supposed to do this. I mean I don't think the Nazis were defeated by just bombing German towns. That makes no sense.

I want your take on this:

What is your ideal solution to this conflict?

After the attacks on Israel, how you would have preferred Israel to respond?

What is your opinion on Hamas and how they got elected into power?

How would you respond to people who disapprove of Palestinians on the news not condemning Hamas' attacks?

@fanfic-lover-girl

Hello. Sorry it took me so long to answer, but I've been mentally and emotionally drained by what's happening in Gaza. I'm glad you're willing to learn the truth and I hope you commit to it no matter how difficult it is to unlearn years of propaganda. The fact that you're open-minded and decent enough to admit your ignorance and your biases is a positive sign for growth.

I hope you've read my latest Palestine posts because they pretty much answered all of your questions, but I will try to summarize them as best as I can:

This genocide was never about Hamas. It was always about ethnically cleansing the land from Palestinians and turning the legally recognized Palestinian territories into Israeli ones. Israeli officials have publically stated this. There is no Hamas in the West Bank, yet the Palestinians there are still been bombed. Israel has been slaughtering and ethnically cleansing the Palestinians since 1948. That's 40 years before Hamas ever existed. Hamas existed as a response to Israel's state terrorism. Israel is using "fighting Hamas" as an excuse to justify its war crimes.

The ideal solution is justice. Peace can not happen without justice. The apartheid of Israel must end. The brutal occupation and military dictatorship must end. The genocidally racist government and ethnostate of Israel must be dismantled. Palestinians should get back their basic human rights. Zionists - whether they were Jews or Arabs - must be kicked out, because the defeated colonizers can NOT peacefully co-exist with the newly freed population and they'll always be a danger. Non-zionist Jews are welcome to stay as full citizens and they're allowed to call freed Palestine their home.

Hamas - like any freedom fighters group aiming for liberation from brutal tyranny - is certainly flawed and some of its methods can be problematic. But it's not a religiously extremist group. It's not a terrorist group. They're not aiming to kill all Jews or whatever bullshit Israeli propaganda spews. Their only enemy is the armed zionists. Do they care about Israeli citizens? No, not really. Hamas as a group does not systematically aim to kill or torture Israeli civilians (their humane treatment of the Israeli hostages should be clear proof of that), but they don't care if some Hamas members lash out on their own. They don't view Israeli citizens as innocent civilians, and I can't blame them. Not when ALL of these "civilians" have worked in the Israeli military (because military service is mandatory in Israel) and are actively and directly supporting the genocide of Palestinians. Most of Hamas members are deeply traumatized orphans who suffer from unimaginable oppression every single day. I can't condemn them when they lash out. Just as I can't condemn Nelson Mendiola (who was labeled a terrorist for using armed resistance). Just as I can't condemn the Native Americans who raged many wars against their colonizers. Just as I can't condemn the freed slaves in Haiti who massacred their white slavers during the slave revolution. I can objectively find some of their actions unjustifiable (mainly if they deliberately targeted children) but no one has any right to condemn them.

I'd tell them it's pretty fucking shitty to focus on the oppressed when they lash out at their oppressors, and it's even more shitty to condemn them for not being passive victims. I'd ask them: Why is no pro-Israel person being asked to condemn Israel's war crimes on the news? Why are they equating the violence done by the oppressive colonizers with the violence done by the colonized who are trying to be free?

#palestine #fuck israel

[straightfromthetorturedpoetsdept]

Totally Nuanced Tuesday Topic: Autism, Extremism, and Whiteness

At some point, we're going to have to accept that autism is a valid reason for past bigotry, to a certain degree. I see the popular take on here and on tiktok is that there is never a valid reason behind bigotry and autism doesn't exclude you from accountability and yes, I agree that you should always be held accountable for bigoted statements.

However, having a valid reason for something is not the same thing as asking for an excuse from consequences and this is an inherently ableist thought pattern to engage in and uphold as a standard of communication. Autistic people are not inherently asking to be excused from accountability, but it is important to recognize that Autism is entirely dependent on cultural norms and telling autistic people that "autism is not a valid excuse for bigotry" is asking them to deny seeing a bigoted cultural norm in society that influenced them to think a certain way to begin with. After all, how can an autistic person have racist thoughts and opinions if everyone else wasn't behaving in racist ways leading them to think this is how people SHOULD behave in social situations?

Take me, for example, I was very fortunate to grow up in the bronx during the early 00s and 10s. If I didn't have black friends since pre-school, I would have easily succumbed to my mother's beliefs (and I did for a hot second after we moved to an entirely white neighborhood in bumfuck mass and my social circle became insanely racist naturally) growing up. Instead, I spent my childhood getting into fist fights over whether or not black people had a natural chemical in their skin that made them smell bad or whatever my mother would throw at me. After being diagnosed, my brief stint into anti-feminism and racism (I say this like it lasted for longer than six months and wasn't just my "not like other girls" phase) made a lot more sense especially after I moved away for college and returned to the socialist I was as a child and even more radical. Like, I'm not saying that I didn't say fucked up shit (nothing I can remember now, mostly slut shaming other people and there's only 2 genders, etc. i was more of a truscum than anything, which makes sense since I was the most ignorant on trans people at the time when I was 13). But what I am saying is without my autism diagnosis, I don't know if I could have ever overcome the shame I feel now looking back if I didn't have the tools and language to describe ~why~ I was so sexist and thus, racist, as being part of my mask.

I see a lot of people say that "autistic people should be better at recognizing patterns of bigotry because they're good at recognizing patterns" and this ignores the fact that autistic people are human beings, and the fact that "pattern recognition" is a trait inherent to ALL humans not just autistic people. Like, by this logic, shouldn't all humans be good at recognizing patterns of bigotry especially after they are informed of the existence of bigotry? This is just more ableist rhetoric that stems from the "savant or savage" stereotype of autistic people. We're not allowed to fuck up because if we're "normal enough" to be racist, then we MUST know being racist is wrong? Like, do you see the ableism here- the othering of a neurotype, in this case- or do I need to continue spelling it out? I think I've debunked this argument enough. Moving on.

Another argument I see is "well autistic people have an innate sense of justice." No, we are highly sensitive to injustice perception. This means that if we feel like we are on the right side of history, we feel righteous anger and can be slow to persuade otherwise. This says nothing about what the individual autistic person is PERCEIVING as being "unjust." Again, you are dehumanizing a neurotype that's different than yours based on bad stereotypes and ignorance on not only autism but systematic oppression in general.

Because here is the uncomfortable truth about autism and bigotry. A lot of us adopt bigoted masks as a SURVIVAL TOOL in a violently ableist society. When we talk about intersectionality, it's important that we don't fall into the trap of stigmatizing certain oppressions as not "that" serious or life-threatening. Ableism is just as harmful, just as dangerous as racism as sexism as homophobia is. Autistic people die if they can't mask properly, either by socially-assisted suicide or homicide, and in the society that we currently live in, being a bigot is the fucking standard. You're ostracized as a kid if you're not normal, and racism is normal. Sexism is normal. Transphobia is normal.

Saying autism isn't a valid reason for bigotry is saying that we should've known better than everyone else who is saying and behaving in much worse ways and gaining social clout as a result. It's cool to be a bigot and autistic people need to be cool to survive. By refusing to hear out an autistic person who tells you their autism is why they were racist or sexist or homophobic etc, you are asking them to ignore the truth of the situation and minimizing the necessity of masking as a survival tactic for many autistic people.

#autism #bigotry #socialism #queer discourse #personal

[defat1]

Just going to put my thoughts on the Israel/Hamas situation here, because I know my reblogs have been a little all over the place. It may be controversial, but know I mean only the best.

I see this situation as the terrible but inevitable consequences of cruelty in rulership. Israel, while fundamentally a colonizer state for all that it claims to be reclaiming lost homeland, brought this on themselves by being terrible rulers who refused to accept the idea of sharing the land. They oppressed the people, treated them as less than human, and killed them for trying to suggest a peace. They culturally engineered the apartheid so thoroughly that civilian Jews, in full cognizance of their own history, are advocating for the same kinds of measures that killed their people less than a hundred years ago. Israel showed the seeds of Hamas, and sowed them deep in soil fertilized with the blood of their fellow Palestinians.

Hamas, too, brought this on themselves and their people. They should have known, after the last two decades of watching the US destroy the Middle East, that the worst thing you can possibly do as a rebel group trying to fight a guerilla war is to smash the hornet's nest with a bat and run. It's not that they can't outrun the worst of the retaliation; it's the fact that the people they're supposedly fighting for aren't prepared or often capable of running, and they're the ones left to take the fury unleashed by the act. Hamas is not noble in this either, because anyone with as intimate a history with the oppressors as them HAD to know they were a bad excuse away from bombing Gaza to oblivion and saying 'whoops' in the international courts, and instead the massacre gave them a blank check.

I hate, with all my heart, that the 'war' is happening. It shouldn't have happened, and it's not going to stop soon even though it absolutely needs to for the sake of all that is decent and right in the world. Throwing stones, saying one side or the other side are the inhuman monsters, that's not accurate, and you need to step back from your feelings and see the bigger picture. Israel are wrong here. Hamas are wrong here. The people who aren't wrong here are the innocent civilians that both Israel and Hamas are killing as if either of those two war machines cares about the losses as anything other than a rallying cry.

This is the hard part. The people who serve as cogs in those machines are still people, worthy of sympathy, even if they are committing and enabling acts that make empathy a poor idea at best. You can hate a person or organization without calling for it to die, and you can understand the circumstances of the person or organization being the way they are without allying yourself with them or deciding their status as humans is being revoked. You don't have to strip someone of personhood to judge them, and death isn't a punishment, it's just a loss. Both of these organizations have committed egregious acts borne of deep seated hatred, and both organizations need to be dismantled utterly, their cogs punished, their ill gotten gains turned to repairing the horrible things they did while grinding away at each other. It's what was supposed to happen at Nuremberg, what should have become the standard model of healing genocide after we finally woke up to how terribly much people could dehumanize other people.

If we want a better world, we have to learn to stop turning people into monsters so we can justify anything against them. We have to recognize that humans can be terrible, selfish, vicious and unempathetic, and still remain human. We have to learn to accept that humans can be punished for things humans do, that Nazis aren't bogeymen or video games enemies, that just because you're descended from slavers doesn't mean your ancestors must be above reproach for their endorsement of slavery. We as a species have to stop being children, making up monsters to explain our fear of the dark. It's the only way to break the cycle.

#israel #hamas #opinion #personal philosophy #peace in the world

[notaplaceofhonour]

so sick of call-out posts that target individuals and care fuck-all about systemic considerations

like SO AND SO SUPPORTS [EVIL HEINOUS THING] BOOT LICKER BOOT LICKER! THEY’RE EVIIIIILLLL!!

Nevermind that 9/10 of these posts are extremely abstracted ship-of-Theseus half-truths in the first place: don’t you think maybe people who are threatened with a boot on their neck without the means to get out from it themselves might be a little more willing to lick the boot if it means alleviating the pressure on their neck? You think maybe part of the problem with destructive systems is how they instill learned dependence, how they make themselves necessary to people, and the people hooked into the systems aren’t The Problem?

#half the time the accusation boils down to ‘person x is a normie liberal’ and it’s presented like they’re a fucking Nazi lol #and no that’s not saying prioritize the oppressor over the oppressed #it’s saying don’t essentialize people #it’s saying prioritize and organize against the system rather than replicate a system of competition #you can recognize people’s humanity without excusing oppression #and understand that the wheels of oppression do not turn at the whims of some random tumblr or twitter user #istg

[materialisnt]

smth that really makes syscourse like, extra potent as a poison is that on both sides uve got ppl who are very very very personally invested. like, a core aspect of how they identify themselves as human/alterhuman/nonhuman beings is hinged on how they understand system inclusivity.

on the one hand is the medicalization supporters, who see in DID/OSDD a lifeline and the theory of structural dissociation says "don't worry, you(singular) are a person! something really bad happend to you(singular) and it wasn't your fault! you(singular) are fractured, here's how you heal."

and on the other hand are people with and without diagnoses who say "excuse us, who is defining personhood? who are singlets embedded in a structure which continues to torture us and our Mad siblings? who gets to say what is and isn't a "fractured" existence? why would we want to define ourselves by a term that hinges on the idea that how we conceive of our person-hood is disordered, sick, in need of intervention?"

and its so hard to react compassionately to people who tell you they don't like a community (imperfect and rife with contradiction and discord) that is based on the fundamental principles of self-determination and inclusivity. people will say you're ableist, you're faking, you're spreading misinformation just for saying "we choose to define ourselves, and make space for others to do the same"

system medicalists will look at plural pride as a symptom, a threat to their integrity and ability to assimilate into a society that demands sacrifice to maintain the white supremacist capitalist death machine. this is a pattern those with other marginalized identities will recognize: "you can be yourself(singular) as long as you define yourself on our terms and don't challenge our assumptions about you."

having DID/OSDD, it should go without saying, is not a bad thing, and using "parts"/"alters"/" disorder" to identify yourself/selves is not a bad thing at all if it is what feels right to you and those you share a body with. if resources for DID/OSDD help you, then use them and do not feel shame about it.

what is a problem is assuming you know more about another's experience than they do, and basing your politics off of it. telling people they are "faking" or "delusional" isn't going to make pluralmisia and ableism go away, and while you may get clapped up by your fellow medicalists (including many, many singlets), you're reinforcing the structures that oppress all of us in the hopes of some temporary sense of righteousness. disparaging the plural community for challenging the authority of structural sanism just makes a day without plural/multiple oppression that much further out of reach.

no-one and no-many should have to identify as disordered or attack plurals who defy categorization in order to have community. none of us should be contributing to each other's oppression. the plural community is fighting for liberation for ALL of us, and you are welcome to join us. Are you in?

#syscourse #anti-endo dni #psychiatric abuse mention

[bunnyywritings]

May I please have headcanons on how hawks and grown up!midoriya would react if their daughter turned into a villain if it's ok? Thanks!!

their daughter becoming a villain

[a/n: this is such an amazing prompt! Thank you anon 💓I’m guessing the daughter is the reader? If that’s not what you had in mind then go ahead and let me know ☺️ I tried to make it as angsty as possible, I hope you enjoy! Uhh these came out longer than I thought...sorry -yours truly, bunnyy -`ღ´-]

takami keigo

✾ he honestly had no idea you existed

✾ he was on parole one day and there was an incident

✾ he was too far to help but he saw the headlines

✾ the hero had completely disregarded the woman being held hostage and had gone for the villain

✾ this resulted in the woman being brutally murdered

✾ his stomach churned as he shut off the tv, she had looked vaguely familiar but he shrugged it off

✾ later on in the day, he got a call

✾ he had a kid...a daughter to be exact

✾ the woman he had just seen on tv was the mother, someone he had a one night stand with and forgot about

✾ so there he was, sat across from a 13 year old with his wings and her mother’s lightning, who had refused to talk to him

✾ it took a few months but you finally warmed up to him, even calling him dad/papa

✾ you had gotten accepted into UA and were very excited

✾ it wasn’t till the anniversary came up, you though you had repressed the memory but it all rushed back

✾ and as time went on, everyone saw the change

✾ you were questioning the principles of being a hero, questioning why heroes were in the right and all villains were automatically in the wrong just because they didn’t agree with the ideals of being a hero

✾ the last nail in the coffin was when you met Dabi

✾ it was completely by accident but you had recognized him and had asked him what it was like to be in the LOV

✾ he was gonna completely brush you off since he knew why your wings looked familiar but the tears in your eyes and the genuine pain in your voice tugged at his heart and he had taken you to the hide out and had somehow convinced shigaraki to hear you out

✾ he did and invited you to join...an invitation that you had greatfully accepted

✾ sneaking back into the house, you got a few things and left nothing but a feather on your pillow

✾ that was the last time your dad saw you

✾ until...

-

After having run away from home, you were confined to the LOV hideout for a bit because police and heroes alike were searching for you and Shigaraki didn’t want you to draw attention.

Taking a page from Dabi’s book, you bleached and dyed your hair. It was now a bright, fun color instead of the drab natural hair you had before. You quite liked it. Your wings, however, were the same maroon as before. There wasn’t much you could do about it, at least not until one day that Toga had rushed into the hideout with some pet safe dye she bough. It would effectively dye your wings without damaging them and without needing to use bleach. Whenever you looked into the mirror, you barely recognized yourself. Your hair a fiery red and wings a jet black. Dabi had even given you a few piercings per your request, your favorite was the tongue one.

“Hmm so what d’you think?” You hummed, sticking your tongue out to show the metal stud.

“Ooh (y/n)! You look so adorable!” Toga squealed in delight.

“I agree, it looks super cute!” Twice agreed before downturning his thumb. “Looks terrible! Any hero with a magnet quirk would rip it out!” You giggled and thanked him.

Dabi watched from the side, a small smile tugging at his lips. It had been a bout a year since you had joined and he had noticed that you were way happier than before. He had felt a connection with you and he couldn’t help but see you almost as a little sister. He looked out for you, made sure you were eating and sleeping well.

After you had been missing for around two years, Keigo gave up looking for you. He had lost hope of ever finding you. There was a new villain who had joined the league that he had to worry about, it didn’t seem like they were up to anything violent...just petty crime. He couldn’t help but notice that as the anniversary of your mothers’ death came up, the crimes got more and more violent. It wasn’t until he was called on the scene that he had realized why.

On that day, Shigaraki had called a meeting. You were finally going to get the chance to get justice for your mother and there was absolutely no hesitation when you had agreed to come along. You had just through you were going to go in and smack him around a bit. You definitely did and it was more than a bit, but he was still breathing when you left him a limp mess on the ground...just barely. What you hadn’t noticed was that Dabi had gone in after you and set fire to the agency, after making sure those who weren’t targets had made it out. So you were a bit surprised to see the building being engulfed by gorgeous blue flames. Dabi smirked and threw an arm around your shoulder.

“How’s it feel kid? He finally paid up.”

“Yeah, and I say good riddance.” You smirked along with him, absolutely no remorse in your voice.

“B-aby bird?” You cringed at the name. Dabi frowned as he felt you tense up. Both of you turning around to see Hawks and Endeavor. He couldn’t believe it was really you. “(Y-Y/n)...w-what did you do to y-yourself?” There was tears in his eyes as he looked you over. Watching as you rolled your eyes, reaching a gloved hand up and removing the muzzle like mask from your face.

“What do you think Keigo?” You spat, “I got justice. That disgusting excuse for a human being murdered my mother and was basically praised for it!”

“That’s still a human being...where’s his justice?” His mind was racing, trying to figure out what in the hell was going on.

“We just gave him his justice, bird-brain!” Dabi snickered from beside you.

“You’re more angry about this bastards death than my mother’s?” You stalked over to your ‘father.’ “HOW DARE YOU! My mother was INNOCENT! She was held hostage and murdered because a hero wanted to make it on the front page!” Your feathers ruffling up with your anger, lightning crackling to life around them.

“I thought-but you said you wanted to be a hero? W-what happened?”

Scoffing, you brought your finger up to your cheek and pulled down the skin under your eye, tongue sticking out and a wicked look in your eye. “Things change pops! Try and catch me if you can!” You felt Kurogiri’s warp gate ruffle your feathers and you tugged at Dabi’s coat sleeve. He threw his arm around you once again and stuck his tongue out at both pro heroes as well, Keigo took notice of the matching tongue piercings the both of you had. “I’ve got a new family, I don’t need a phony holding me back.” You winked, flapping your wings and both you and Dabi leaned back and fell into the the purple mist. While Dabi’s heart swelled with warmth at your words, Keigo’s grew cold and crumbled into little pieces. He fell to his knees, holding out both his hands to catch the stray feather that had floated down. He gently caressed it with his gloved thumb, gazing sadly at the faded black dye, the natural maroon was faint but it shone through.

He felt like he couldn’t breathe. Kicking himself and trying to see where everything went wrong.

He lost his baby...he wasn’t sure if he’s ever bounce back from it. Not only was it the day that your mother died but it was the day he lost you too.

pro! midoriya izuku

✰ never would he had thought that things would end up like this

✰ he had been blessed with a beautiful wife, but with a healthy set of twins

✰ a baby boy and girl

✰ however, you were both quirkless

✰ either way, you and your brother were loved and cared for

✰ you grew up idolizing both All Might and your father

✰ it wasn’t until the both of you were going to take UA entrance exam that it happened

✰ you both new that he had possessed One for All

✰ so when your brother had suddenly manifested a quirk, your heart broke

✰ Midoriya watched as tears cascaded down your cheeks, a blank look in your eyes

✰ you couldn’t believe it, he had passed it down to your brother...

✰ you withdrew your application for the hero course and applied to the General Studies course

✰ with your grades alone, you instantly got in

✰ and even as your father congratulated you, you could see the overwhelming pride in his eyes as he praised your brother for getting into the Hero Course

✰ it wasn’t until your third year that you had enough

✰ you watched your brother receive special treatment, how he flew through each semester with absolutely shit grades but he was going to take your father’s place as the symbol of hope

✰ you watched your brother become the pride and joy of the family

✰ your accomplishments never even got any attention, always being brushed off by your father who was too busy helping with your brother’s training

✰ even your mom ignored you in favor of babying your brother

✰ so you left

✰ it took them a whole three days to notice

✰ in the first week of working as what society viewed as a “villain”, you made quite the name for yourself, in your first year of working...well, let’s just say that there was a good amount of heroes on the look out for you

✰ in reality, the villains were the ones abusing their power to oppress those that lacked those insignificant quirk cells...those a re the people you got rid of

✰ you had captured a low level “hero” that had been framing innocent people for crimes they didn’t commit, all to get his name to the top of some stupid list

✰ that’s when your father saw you again

-

“How pathetic.” You spat, wiping the blood from your Bowie knife on your black cargo pants. The man whimpered in fear, still trying to escape his restraints. Relacing your boots, you stomped on his ankle. A sickening crack echoeing through the empty room. Tears leaked from his blindfold. “This would be so much easier if you confessed, y’know?” You chuckled manically, gazing into the camera before refocusing on the task at hand. “No? Okay then.” Shrugging, you pulled the cloth sack over his head.

You fixed the plain face mask that you had worn and made your way into the convenience store and picked up some cheap and quick things to eat before heading back to the abandoned warehouse that was working as your base for now

What you hadn’t noticed, was the person following you. They watched as you entered the building.

“Deku...I can’t believe I’m saying this but I think it’s her.” He spoke into the earpiece. “I’m going in.”

Back inside, you sighed and tossed the wrapper of your meat bun to the side. You were growing irritated. You had this man chained up for three days and he hadn’t said a word. No matter how much you cut at his skin, no matter how much you made him bleed. Growling, you went to your table of toys and grabbed a gun and reloaded the magazine. The sound of a cocking gun made the hero quiver in fear.

“Alright, I’m done playing games with you!” You pulled off the cloth hood and ripped off his blindfold. You placed the muzzle of the gun right under his chin. “Confess or pay for your sins!” His lips quivered.

You were intimidating, despite technically still being a third year. You had a mask that was similar to Shinso’s artificial vocal cords, it distorted your voice and your eyes were wide with insanity. Your outfit could be classified as tech wear. You had a harness strapped above the black long sleeve you were wearing. Multiple knives and other weapons strapped to the harnesses on your thighs.

He stayed silent, eyes glossing over with more tears as you pressed the cold metal into his skin. “OKAY! OKAY! I DID IT!” His voice cracked as a satisfied smirk played on your lips.

“What did you do, Mr. Hero?”

“I-I framed all those people. The ones in jail, people that were put on death row. They’re innocent!”

“Good to know Mr.” You giggled. “The jury finds you guilty of all accusations, Penalty: Death.” You grinned.

“WAIT-!”

A gunshot echoed through the warehouse as he fell limp in his chair. The splattering of warm blood against your skin made you shiver.

“Great, now I’m all dirty...” You sighed.

Just before anything else happened, an explosion sent you skidding across the room.

The dust clearing and your eyes widened. “Uncle Katsuki?” You asked softly.

When Bakugo saw the blood, he panicked that he had hurt you but then he noticed the body that had fallen to the ground. Gun still in your hand. Anger bubbled in his chest.

“YOU DAMN IDIOT!! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU-“ Before he could finish his reprimands, Shoto ran in.

“Uncle Shoto...” The fog in your head cleared as memories of simpler times flooded your brain. The days where you’d get spoiled by Uncle Katsuki and Shoto before they had their own kids. The comfort they offered you before you ran off.

Shoto took advantage of your distraction and slowly approached you. “(Y/n)...sweetheart I need you to put the gun down okay? You’re safe now.” The look in your eyes was too familiar. It was the way his mother’s eyes looked when he first saw her in the hospital. Broken, lost, terrified. He knew you weren’t in your right mind. Hope filled both him and Katsuki as your trembling hand held the gun out to him. Of course, that was until-

“(Y/N)!!” You flinched, snapping out of your docile state. Eyes hardening once more as you kicked away form Todoroki’s knelt form. Seeing your father filled you with absolute rage.

Midoriya froze, eyes running over the scene. Realization setting in as he saw the gun clutched in your hand.

“D-did you do that?” He asked, eyes glossy.

“And what about it?” You giggled. “Why do you care all of a sudden? HUH? DAD? WHY NOW?!”

“You’re a murderer (y/n)...a villain.”

“Better than being a phony and pathetic hero! I’M NOT IN IT FOR THE MONEY!” You growled, cocking the gun and pointing it at Midoriya. “But he was. He’s had dozens of people locked away for life, people sent to the electric chair for things they didn’t do...all because he wanted to be in the top 10.” You shrugged, biting your lip coyly. “He’s the real villain here, not me.”

Midoriya clenched his fists, holding in his tears. It felt like his heart was violently being ripped from his chest. “I thought I raised you better. How do you think your mom feels? Or grandma? Your own brother-“

“Uhm, news flash! This is all your fault! Plus, I couldn’t care less about my degenerate of a brother!” That’s what made Shoto and Katsuki realize what happened. “WHY?! WHY HIM?!” They were all caught off guard by the tears that drenched your cheeks. “I worked hard and did my best...but that wasn’t enough for you! He was failing all his studies but NOBODY CARED! He was your successor and that was enough! I got a B on my final exam and all you did was give me a lecture about the importance of studying...HE FAILED! HE GOT AN F AND ALL YOU SAID WAS TO TRY HARDER NEXT TIME!”

The tears finally escaped Midoriya’s eyes. ‘Did he really do that to you?’ ‘Had he been such a terrible father that it drove you to this?’

“HOW WAS A QUIRKLESS DISSAPOINTMENT LIKE ME SUPPOSED TO COMPETE WITH THE GREAT DEKU’S SUCCESSOR?! YOU BASICALLY SET ME UP FOR FAILURE!” The tears were streaming down your face but instead of sobs leaving your lips, they were replaced by deranged giggles. “It’s okay Papa...don’t feel bad. It’ll all end soon.” No one noticed when you pulled the pin from the sphere in your hand. Not until the flash bang went off and everyone turned to shield their eyes.

Once they regained their senses, you were far gone. Leaving behind empty meat bun wrappers and several cassettes taped with confessions of those that you had ruled guilty. He screamed. It was so gutteral that it hadn’t sounded human. His body filled with dread and anguish.

“I’m sorry (y-y/n)...I never meant to-“ A choked sob interrupted his whispers. Then another...then another. Both Katsuki and Shoto watched helplessly as their friend completely broke down. Their hearts heavy as well. The little girl they watched grow up was gone.

“I lost her...she’s gone.”

𝔊𝔢𝔫𝔢𝔯𝔞𝔩 𝔱𝔞𝔤𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱(open) : @ohbois-biggay-bnha @yuiji-yuiji

#hawks x reader #takami keigo x reader #midoriya izuku x reader #izuku x reader #pro hero midoriya #bnha headcanons #mha headcanons #anon ask #anon request

[sawwyouuinadream]

FIFTH HARMONY EXPOSED

Isn’t this the type of headline that intrigues people? Well, here I will expose some myths that the so-called Exposing accounts go on exposing. Just declaring something here in the beginning: I love all my Fifth Harmony girls, OT5 that is, and read it at your discretion. The thoughts stated below are opinions of mine, gathered over months and years, and I firmly stand by them.

Cutting to the chase, here we go:

1)      Fifth Harmony the Band Image:

This group was manufactured by Simon Cowell on the X-Factor, back in 2012, and it broke up in 2018. On the show, Lauren Jauregui, the green-eyed white Latina was given the majority of solos and they performed songs in Spanish and garnered Hispanic fans banking on the fact that there were three Latinas in the group.

After they signed to Syco/Epic when the show ended, we saw Camila Cabello, the more convincing Latina, who was born in Cuba, get more and more solos. Normani Kordei was promoted as the “dancer” of the group, Ally Brooke as the “unproblematic one”, Lauren as the “broody edgy girl” and Dinah Jane as the “relatable Polynesian”.

Not surprisingly, Camila was the first one to do a solo venture with Shawn Mendes, the song I Know What You Did Last Summer, which, according to me, was a song to test the waters for both Shawn and Camila.

As more time passes, Camila was portrayed like the lead, not by HERSELF, but the trademark that Fifth Harmony was. She stopped talking in interviews, started doing more and more solo stuff, and even signed to a different manager. Voila, we were getting the rift in-band vibes galore.

Now here’s my verdict:

Fifth Harmony was made by Simon to not get the next One Direction, but to get the next Taylor Swift. Little Mix was already there in the U.K, and people know Girl groups don’t do as well as Boy Bands, mostly because of the inherent Misogyny in the society.

They wanted the next relatable girl next door who could influence teenage girls.  Camila being Latina, could now have an even larger fanbase, in Latin America as well as South Asia, because South Asian music is quite similar in a groove to Latin Music.

Why Not Lauren or Ally then?  Well, they were simply not interesting or Latin enough.

Why Not Normani? Do I have to tell? Those bitches are racist as fuck.

Why Not Dinah? Same thing. Less Appeal to a large fanbase.

That’s why Camila was the goofy dorky most relatable person on 5H. That’s why she readily had a high budget tour all set up for her the moment she left the group. That’s why they promoted her. 5H was never the long-lasting plan. Camila was. 5H was just an excuse to get her a strong fanbase and give Epic 4 more mediocre artists. I am really happy that Normani proved her worthiness and released smash hits as well. And mind you, this was done without Camila herself wishing for it. It was just the label’s decision.

 2)      Camila- the beauty or the bitch?

Camila Cabello is a very intriguing person to me. At the first glance, you haven’t seen a more dorky, goofy, and relatable celebrity like her, eating bananas and tripping on air. But then she starts talking about profound and deep experiences, and you go on her Tumblr and find quotes from books and aesthetic pictures. But then you see her leaked text messages and old Tumblr and all those images crumble before your eyes.

Think about this. Among the 5H girls, Dinah, Lauren, Ally, and Normani have friends outside the industry whom they talk to and hang out with. They have family they post about. Camila? She seems to have no friends apart from Sandra and Marielle Guzman, and those are the people we got the leaked texts with. What about her school teachers and school friends? Nothing.  All she hangs out with is Shawn Mendes and Taylor Swift and her mom who follows her like a hawk. She doesn’t seem to have a social life at all except for events she goes for business.

In my opinion, Camila has a pretty big secret that is guarded closely by everybody but her.

Is she racist? Yes. She was. She didn’t have any sensitivity to Black people or their struggles whatsoever. But you have to understand she is Hispanic, and not born in the U.S. And she has sort of always been a big mouth. I am from a country that doesn’t have a single black person in the near 30000 miles. We grow up using racial slurs as if it's nothing. I had to unlearn my indoctrinations and consciously undo the wrongs in my head and implement them in my actions. Bit it doesn’t undo things I said as a child. I bullied one friend of mine in middle school simply because her skin tone was darker than mine. But I was not canceled. Because I am not a celebrity. Have I learned? Yes definitely. I will never dare to act like that again because now I understand the pain of being ostracized and I recognize the struggles of black people. But that happened over time.

I feel like Camila is a changed person now, and tries very hard to educate herself. She is not perfect, but she doesn’t deserve so much hate. She deserves a second chance.  If she was indeed like that, Normani wouldn’t post a photo with her in IT on the eighth anniversary of 5H.

As far as her being a jealous bitch goes. The rest of 5H always had good things to talk about her after 5H dissolved in 2018. Lauren, the activist, even praised her. Dinah still seems pretty close to her.

Did she do solo stuff without 5H knowing?

No. If she did, and the whole not attending meetings thing happened, Dinah wouldn’t go to her Bad Things concert one day before she left the band. Lauren wouldn’t laugh with her in the VMAs like that if they weren’t friends and just work colleagues. The whole 5H vs Camila feud was planned by management because apparently shade helps sales. For both parties. Another manipulative misogynistic example of society.

 3)      Are/ Were Camila and Lauren romantically together?

All the roads lead to Rome honey. Camren has too many coincidences to NOT be real. From song lyrics to shady potato photos to weird comments and body language in interviews, I am pretty sure the Camren blogs will keep you covered.

Why does Lauren hate it so much? Why are we being invasive?

Lauren is supposed to nix it every time because she is contractually bound to do so. She needs to be the one to keep Camila’s straight image intact, although we have more than tons of evidence that Camila is anything but straight.

To everyone who says we shouldn’t force sexuality on people. Heterosexuality is not the default. Don’t force straightness on her. She never said she was straight. We’re just speculating she is with Lauren, and that’s it. Lauren just happens to be a girl. That’s IT.

Why did the nosy shippers out Lauren?

Nobody did. They just speculated on her sexuality based on assumptions. But no fan posted photos of her and Lucy from her aunt’s Facebook, because it was password protected. It was most probably intentional. Note that she shot a coming-out photoshoot with her “ex-girlfriend” Lucy Vives even before the Wedding where she was supposedly outed. Why shoot a photoshoot TO COME OUT and then hide behind the closet? Her coming out was planned as early as 2015, and so was the bearding of Camila simultaneously.

To me, Lauren and Camila are contracts bound to lie, at this moment. But they have a very grown-up and well-communicated relationship that is very sacred and private, and only the two of them know everything about it. Lauren and Camila are still related to the same contract, and this intuition of mine was confirmed yesterday. She was shooting something for Roger gold’s label. I hope the best for both of them, and I would love it if they were together. But them going public would be huge and in my opinion, detrimental to them.

4)      Who’s Shawn Mendes?

A really career-oriented artist. Shawmila is for him and his promotion only. Not his fault though. He is just a conceited boy with good guitar skills who wants to be extremely famous. I will not talk about his sexuality, because unlike Camila, I can’t trace him to anyone in particular.  But I can say this, Camila’s solo career had plans for Shawmila since the very start. I also believe it will end like Jelena and be back and forth for some time for minor promotions.

 Final Verdict:

Nobody is perfect. Don’t make this about Shawmila Vs Camren. Every artist has their struggles. But please break out of the shell of heteronormativity, misogyny, and racism. Love human beings. The 5H girls and Shawn Mendes are teenagers, now adults, who have been oppressed and manipulated by a capitalistic racist homophobic industry, for money and money only. And only the fans have the power to see the truth and choose the right stuff.

#fifth harmony #camila cabello #camila and lauren #camren #ot5 #shawmila #syco #lauren jauregui

[devilsskettle]

@talus-the-broken i'm not gonna keep harping on this on someone else's post because i'm not going to be rude to the op, but yeah, let's get into it

popular nonacademic ideas about mythology don't define what greek mythic tradition is. there might not be a difference to the "general public" because they don't know what the difference is, and taking their definition of mythology as just as legitimate as the accepted academic definition of mythic tradition is blatantly anti-intellectual and ridiculous. you and other people making this argument are reifying the idea that humanities aren't a legitimate discipline. accepting the idea that there's no meaningful difference to the layman so anything that anyone claims without any citations or background knowledge (even to a basic level!) can and should be given equal weight is simply justifying the spread of misinformation about ancient greek culture, history, literature, and religion. maybe that doesn't seem important to you, but again. blatantly anti-intellectual and destructive to the perception of history as a discipline 

there's no denying the way that ancient mediterranean studies as a field has a long history of reinforcing regressive social standards, perpetuating racism, sexism, homophobia, etc to this day. it's a huge problem. it's also, in my experience, what you discuss on day 1 of an intro classics course. it's also been written about and widely discussed since the 80s with the beginning of the black athena movement. right now, it’s a subject of much controversy and debate about how to progress as a field. also, i have to ask: what field of study doesn't have a history of and is still impacted by systemic oppression and bias? there are problems of accessibility in every discipline of academia. including science, if we continue the comparison. biology has been used to legitimize racism for hundreds of years. do we reject biology as a field or do we reject the scholarship that is entrenched in bigotry and work to do better going forward as a field? you need to learn critical thinking skills and recognizing legitimate sources of information, if you’re taking everything (anything!) at face value, you’re a bad historian. and of course much information has been lost to time, but that is not the same as “much of history is lost.” that’s a fundamental misunderstanding of history as an academic field, especially one as interdisciplinary as and covering as long of a timespan as ancient mediterranean studies. although we only have like, what, 1% of the literature spanning all of the time that we call antiquity? that’s still more writing than any person could even come close to reading in their lifetime. it doesn’t mean we don’t know anything and modern historians are just making shit up. not to mention archaeological evidence lol 

on the question of separating the "true" from modern fabrication, or what you call “fanfiction of the myths,” for the layman: look at the texts from antiquity that we have. we don't have to wonder what these stories were because we have them. we have the text of the iliad. we have the text of hesiodic poetry. we have the text of many greek tragedies. and guess what? they are translated! they are free online! there are resources to understand these texts free online! there is no excuse to post unfounded opinions based on misinformation when you could just. not. you could read the work that you want to say something about before making baseless claims about it on the internet lol and the way you talk about sources of mythology, i have more than a modicum of doubt that you have read anything beyond bulfinch and text posts on tumblr.edu, so i can hardly count you as a reliable source of information on the topic 

so. you say that the differences between adaptations is time. that is part of it actually! but what aren't you getting about "a mythology that is no longer naturally developing over time doesn’t include works written thousands of years after the culture itself doesn’t exist anymore." that's an incredibly important distinction because if you give equal weight to these stories as part of ancient greek mythic tradition, you are once again supporting the spread of misinformation about ancient greek culture, history, literature, and religion. and it is so egotistical and entitled to act like we can be equal contributors to the history, literature, and religion of a culture that we don't belong to. that doesn't exist anymore. and if you're so concerned about people using mythology to justify racism and imperialism, maybe you shouldn't be reifying the propaganda that all "western culture" is derived from and has a stake in and overlaps significantly with ancient "greco-roman" culture, that we are a part of this tradition and lineage, because we're not. modern greek culture is not. also, to say that these stories were written by "random writers" is to once again show a fundamental inability to understand that greek mythic tradition developed orally over centuries and was a part of everyday life and culture. homer isn't a "random writer," it's a name that was assigned to a figure who is essentially mythological in his own right, and it's still used today as shorthand attribution and as a way to talk about the many aoidoi who established and continued the stories of epic tradition across generations. homeric epic was written down somewhere in the 8th century BCE but existed in oral tradition well before that. the mythic pool of traditions developed the same way. this shit doesn’t exist in a vacuum. it's not like writing fanfiction for a fucking marvel movie in the year of 2022 CE

also i don’t get why you keep harping on the validity of modern adaptations that deviate from the “original” story. i don’t care about that at all and i have actively enjoyed adaptations that are wildly different from their mythological basis (autobiography of red for example). so. i will try to say this as clearly as possible to avoid further confusion: modern adaptations of mythology matter because of what it says about our society. it’s a legitimate part of our canon of literature. we should be critical about it based on what it means for us, what they changes the author chooses to make means for us. it is not part of the ancient greek canon for the reasons i have already stated multiple times. it is distinct from greek mythology. if you want to call it fanfiction because you can’t engage with literature in any other way, fine. but writing in general is not fanfiction (again: modern original fiction) and mythology is not fanfiction 

and so we come to the ludicrous idea that any piece of writing can arbitrarily be called fanfiction because it is “based on” something, meaning any aspect of reality (biology is just fanfiction of animals! physics is just fanfiction of the forces of nature! history is just fanfiction of the past! if you can't see why that's stupid, you're a lost cause). you still have not defined "fanfiction" in a meaningful way, but apply the term to whatever literature you feel like. here's a definition for you: fanfiction is a genre of writing developed in the late 1900s at the advent of the internet, referring to works written based on another author's work, existing outside of that work's canon, as a way to further explore the characters, setting, or themes of a story (addendum 1: often written by nonprofessionals and then self published, addendum 2: often, but not necessarily, of a sexual nature). that is what i mean by "fanfiction" and i believe it aligns with most people's definition of it. don't take my word for it, though! always demand those sources! here's the definition and graph of use over time from the oxford dictionary:

to sum up. basically your argument is: 1) the layperson makes no distinction between oversimplified mythology or adaptations vs the actual ancient greek mythological tradition, so we shouldn’t either. 2) scholarship around mythology and derivative works have been influenced by bias and prejudice, so it doesn’t matter how we talk about mythology. 3) we don’t really know anything about these made up stories written by random people in antiquity so made up stories written by random people in the modern era should have equal weight in the discussion of the ancient greek pool of traditions. anything i missed? because i believe i have covered why each of these points is extremely flawed 

and i still haven’t seen an answer on the following: why do you guys insist on taking the idea that fanfiction isn’t inherently garbage to the most radical opposite extreme possible? do you think you’re somehow legitimizing fanfiction? or do you think you’re making history and literature more “accessible” by dumbing it down until it’s unrecognizable?

anyway, you said it yourself: “[F]or all practical purposes, to the general public there IS no difference. That's not to say there shouldn't be.” i agree! there is a difference and there should be a difference and we should not reify the idea that there is no difference even if it seems like it doesn’t matter, because somehow it has become a popularly held belief that engaging with mythology as if it is a fandom on the internet is just as legitimate as rigorous scholarship on the same subject to the point that the most common interpretations of these myths are based on misinformation and defended with anti-intellectual rhetoric, much of which is steeped in socially regressive views, and that speaks to a bigger problem of media illiteracy and anti-intellectualism that extends beyond shipping discourse or what have you on this shitty ass website 

sorry about the bulfinch/bullfinch inconsistency though, i liked the “bullshit mythology” pun 

#greek mythology #long post

[sophieakatz]

Thursday Thoughts: Under The Bus

Here’s something I hear a lot, in many different contexts, and I hate it every time.

Someone who belongs to an oppressed minority group is speaking out against an act of oppression against their people. This person is justifiably angry and hurt about the things that have been said and done to their people. And in the process of expressing their anger and pain, this person says, “You know that terrible thing that you said about my people? You wouldn’t say that kind of terrible thing to THIS OTHER minority group! So don’t say it about us!”

I’m being deliberately vague here because I do not want this blog post to actually say any terrible bigoted things about anyone. But I encourage you to fill in the blanks for yourself, quietly in your head. You may have said or thought something like this yourself – “You wouldn’t say X terrible thing about Y group! So leave my group alone!”

I understand that the intent of a comment like this is to point out the absurdity of bigotry by comparing it to another kind of oppression. But here’s the problem: whenever someone says, “You wouldn’t say X terrible thing about Y group!” the answer is always, “Actually, people DO say that terrible thing about Y group.”

There is no minority group who is objectively better off than other minority groups. Unfortunately, there is no oppression that is “a thing of the past” and therefore totally okay to be invoked now. The bigots who say terrible thing about your people ARE, in fact, saying terrible things about other people. And when you say, “You wouldn’t say X terrible thing about Y group,” what you are saying is, “I don’t believe that Y group is oppressed. I neither understand nor care about what Y group is going through.”

Oppression comes in many forms. Every oppressed group experiences oppression in a different way. This only gets more complicated when you recognize that everyone is a combination of identities – you can be privileged in some ways and oppressed in others, and as a result, that experience of privilege or oppression is different. It is different, and it still exists.

This is not an easy thing to understand. The human brain craves for things to make sense, for things to happen for a logical reason. But bigotry doesn’t happen for a logical reason. Bigotry is objectively terrible, and humans are not very good at understanding things that are objectively terrible. You are naturally most likely to be able to see and understand the oppression that you and your group face. It is much more difficult for you, and for anyone, to comprehend the oppression that other groups face.

You will never completely understand what another group is going through, and they will never completely understand what your group is going through. It is useful to recognize this inability to understand – but we should be careful to NOT mistake that lack of understanding for reality.

Claiming that someone else does not experience oppression is not useful. It’s just using your own pain as an excuse to throw someone else under the bus. The goal should be ending all kinds of oppression, and we cannot achieve that by pretending that only one group is truly oppressed.

When you speak out against the oppression you face, by all means do so loudly and angrily. But it is entirely possible to do so without making light of another group’s suffering.

#thursday thoughts #bigotry #oppression #social justice #privilege #minorities #whataboutism #intersectionality #understanding #empathy

[tlaquetzqui]

What are the problems with Firefly? I've only ever heard people gushing about it.

A long (but not complete) list:

The Confederacy analogue just wanted to be free and the Union analogue just wanted to oppress them for literally zero reason. Nobody even points out that an Independent victory would likely have just resulted in their territories devolving into the petty fiefdoms of the crime-lords who run most of the places the show takes place in.

The Companions are both Orientalist as all fuck (they’re a creepy fetishized version of a middle-schooler’s understanding of geishas), and a creepy libertarian and first-world white feminist fantasy about “sex work” that does not actually resemble anything in the real world that has ever existed, nor can. (The highest ranked o-iran in pre-Meiji Japan were somewhat similar…but they had to spend years as sex-slaves with no right to refuse clients, before they got to that point.)

The Reavers are one-dimensional monsters, which, aside from the troubling implications given they’re the “Space Western” equivalent of “Indians”, is a wasted opportunity to do something interesting.

Why didn’t they just re-terraform Earth That Was? Gotta be easier than schlepping light years to another group of stars and terraforming dozens of planets, never mind how unlikely it is that more than a tiny number of planets would be remotely livable for any length of time, even if terraforming didn’t actually take tens of thousands of years if it’s possible at all.

The Alliance, that’s supposed to be so oppressive, lets Mal have a spaceship, and even name it after a battle he fought against them in. No government would let Mal have a spaceship, the things are WMDs—the spaceship equivalent of 9/11 is an extinction event. Just in general, they forget to be oppressive whenever the plot needs them to allow something.

The Operative in the movie just wants a world without sin, but he sure acts like a Metal Gear villain whose dream is Outer Heaven, the utopia of mercenaries. The Hands of Blue are the most clownishly conspicuous assassins in the history of fiction.

The episode “Out of Gas” only happens because they impose the realistic outcome of a spaceship design (the engine in the pressurized compartment) that nobody would use, precisely because of what happens in that episode. We excuse you putting the engine inside because this is space opera and you don’t have the budget to depict EVAs (or remote-controlled waldos) when they have to work on the engine, but you can’t then have them suffer the realistic consequences of a design they’d never realistically use.

There are no Asians with speaking parts despite the widespread use of East Asian material culture. Whedon’s excuses for this (that Summer Glau “kinda looks Asian” and that no Asian actors who auditioned were “cute enough”) are contemptible and disingenuous.

The “Chinese” in the show is not only so mangled that Chinese bootleg DVDs subtitle it “speaks galactic language”—as in they don’t even recognize it as an attempt at their own language—but Whedon felt that he was permitted to make up his own profanity, like “Mother of God and all her wacky nephews”. Because it’s not like Chinese profanity is actually easily found, particularly in Hollywood, given LA has a gigantic Chinese-American community.

Who gives their slave-telepaths super-soldier training? Who lets someone with a head full of secrets tour a facility full of slave-telepaths?

Whose testing for new drugs consists of the two steps “drawing board” and “full-scale field trial”? If they did one human trial in between, they would have at least found the “99% of subjects go catatonic” result, if not the “1% turn into Reavers”.

The exchange “Psychic? That sounds like something out of science fiction.” “You live on a spaceship, dear.” Which means that spaceships, which are so common even Mal can have one, are still a matter of science fiction in the 26th century—just like tanks and submarines are for us, right? Since they first appeared in Wells and Verne stories over a century ago, I mean. (This is a thing with Whedon: his characters have the audience’s assumptions, not their own. In one of the Buffyverse shows, a guy goes into a clock tower with a rifle…to shoot himself, because that’s totally how you’d do it, if you didn’t want to fake out an audience you aren’t supposed to know you have into thinking you’re going to perpetrate a mass shooting.)

You can, in fact, stop a signal, it’s called jamming. You probably throw up massive ECM whenever engaged in space battle, to disrupt the enemy’s missiles if nothing else. Know who jam their enemy’s comms before attacking? The Trade Federation in Phantom Menace and the Grand Army of the Republic in Attack of the Clones. That’s how Naboo and the Separatists, respectively, know attacks are imminent. The people who made Firefly know less about military science fiction than George “Armies with Blasters Would Totally Use Formations Designed for Musket Volleys” Lucas!

There’s actually more, but I think I’ve made my point.

#anti firefly

[trashmenofmarvel]

Branded - Chapter 20

Pairing: Demon!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Bucky reveals some of the worst parts of his time with HYDRA. But when he starts to spiral, you're there to catch him.

(This is a fan AU of Falling’s Just Another Way to Fly by @araniaart​ . Please check out this incredible series for all of your demon Bucky needs.)

Chapter Warnings: References to past sexual abuse/rape, internalized victim-blaming, angst resolved with cuddles

Word Count: 2k

AO3

You’d thought Bucky would be difficult when it came to the bed-sharing situation.

You were wrong. He was impossible.

The rest of the day had gone surprisingly well. Your family had behaved themselves, except for when Uncle Walter had asked how Bucky’s arm had been “burned.” The cover story was he was a war veteran, which was entirely true, just for a different war. He’d been too close to a firebomb and he’d suffered third degree burns.

Bucky seemed to have found that part of the story funny when he’d told it to you. Something about demons and fire and how he actually couldn’t be burned. You hadn’t found it funny at all.

Your mother had shot Uncle Walter a glare at the question, but Bucky had simply smiled and recounted the false tale. He was the perfect gentleman and doting boyfriend; not even your protective family could find fault with him.

And you? Every time he slung his arm around your waist and kissed the top of your head, you died a little more inside.

Perhaps with how smooth everything had been going, you should have expected it to hit a wall that night.

You’d gotten into bed, scooting over to make room for Bucky, but he hadn’t joined you. He wouldn’t even look you in the eye, his shoulders stiff and his posture rigid.

“I’ll take the couch downstairs,” he said when you looked up at him expectantly.

It was not the response you’d been expecting, and your voice was a little too sharp.

“Downstairs? Why?”

Bucky met your eye then, the blue in his eyes going dark. You knew that look.

“Because it’ll be safer for the both of us.”

“Safer?” Your voice nearly cracked as you bolted upright. “What the hell does that mean?”

You thought you’d been through this. You really had. You trusted him, knew he would never hurt you, so why was he still—

Bucky’s gaze seemed to waver, but his voice was steady. Almost flat. “I would be more comfortable sleeping downstairs.”

His response effectively killed your anger. A sharp ache in your chest took its place, leaving you somewhat bewildered.

“Okay,” was all you said. You wouldn’t force Bucky to do anything he didn’t want to, even if… even if it meant you’d spend the night alone.

Bucky paused, hovering as if there was something he wanted to say, but he turned and left without a word.

For the first time, you felt genuinely afraid it wasn’t going to get any better than this. That Bucky would only touch you, be near you, when the bond forced him to.

You didn’t sleep that night, or if you did, it was only for an hour or two. You could barely function the next day, but you warded off the questions from your mother and ignored the looks from your aunt and uncle. You could only imagine what they all thought about Bucky sleeping downstairs.

At around two in the afternoon, when you’d started to doze off while watching TV with your family, you excused yourself and went back upstairs to bed. You could barely keep up the act of being Bucky’s girlfriend, not with so little sleep and the ache in your chest growing with every look Bucky gave you. Every faked touch and every false bit of affection was wearing you down, slowly but inevitably.

You were starting to hate it. You wanted it to be real so badly that it left a bitter taste in your mouth. The last thing you wanted was to be resentful towards Bucky, but your patience was a threadbare strand held over a burning candle.

When you crawled into the guest bed and closed your eyes, the faint afternoon sun caused your old pink curtains to fill the room with a rosy light. When you woke up, the room was dark and you were no longer alone.

You sucked in a sharp breath before recognizing Bucky’s familiar silhouette as your eyes adjusted to the dim light.

He said nothing, but you refused to speak first, simply waited curled up on your side on top of the covers. When he did finally say something, his voice was low and very quiet.

“Do you know how scared I am?”

You frowned and leaned up on one elbow, trying and failing to see the expression on his face.

“Scared of what?” It felt like one of those moments where if you spoke too loudly, something dark and ominous would hear you, so you spoke as quietly as he did.

“That I’m going to hurt you.” You could hear something rustling, skin on cloth. His tail was on the covers next to you. He had dropped his guise for this. “And you’ll finally see me for what I am.”

You released a heavy breath.

“Bucky…”

“No. Listen to me.”

The bed creaked as he shifted towards you, though he still sat on the edge of the bed, too far for comfort. You wanted to reach out and touch him but refrained.

“I’ve lived a very long life,” he said. “Most of it doing terrible things. It doesn’t really matter that I didn’t have a choice, I still live with those memories and nothing can change that.”

You closed your mouth. This felt different than the other times he’d tried to push you away. This felt like he was trying to do the opposite.

“I’ve taken… so many lives. To the extent that I’ve lost count of the bodies. When HYDRA tried to erase my memories, they told me I was a literal demon. That I possessed the body of a dead soldier and was summoned to serve them. I was their weapon of terror. A ghost their rivals whispered about in fear. Even those within HYDRA didn’t know if I truly existed, and the possibility kept them all in line.”

Bucky released a slow, trembling breath. You remained frozen, unable to do anything but listen as his words grew heavier.

“But even before they broke me, when I was still myself, the demon part of me did… evil things. HYDRA captured an Allied soldier. He was my age, scared, just wanted to go home. He could have been me or… or someone I knew.”

He paused, and in the silence of the room you could hear the click of him dry-swallowing.

“It didn’t matter, because HYDRA had starved me as punishment and threw us in a cell together.”

You knew what he was going to say, and the dread filled you like watching a train heading for a broken track.

“I raped him.”

You could feel the tremble through the bed as Bucky shuttered.

“I couldn’t stop it. I was starving, and even with the pheromones making his body respond, I knew he was afraid. I did it anyway. And then they ordered me to kill him.”

Bucky’s voice had gone flat, emotionless, and that was somehow worse than the shaking.

“That wasn’t the only time. After… after HYDRA killed me, sent me to that demon realm, and then I came back through the portal… I was starving. I lost control, again. And that’s when the wizards found me.”

Your eyes had adjusted enough to the dark for you to see Bucky’s bowed head, the curtain of his hair shielding his face.

“You know the rest.”

Carefully, you reached your hand across the bed and gently touched his human arm. Even through the thick fabric of his jacket you could feel the tremble under your fingers.

“I’m… not going to pretend I know what you’ve experienced, because I don’t know,” you said. “I just want to say I’m sorry it happened to you. I’m sorry you had to suffer. And I’m sorry that because of what was done to you, you feel like you don’t deserve to be happy.”

Bucky said nothing, but from the way his shoulders tensed, he didn’t have to. You’d guessed correctly what all his gruff, prickly behavior meant. How he seemed to care one moment and be aloof the next. Hot and cold. It didn’t have anything to do with you, not really. It was a defense mechanism, and Bucky wasn’t as slick as he thought he was. He couldn’t fool you, not when you were well-practiced in the art of pushing away people yourself.

“I’m telling you right now, and you’re just going to have to trust me on this, Bucky. I’m not going anywhere.” You could practically feel him about to argue, so you quickly said, “And not because of the bond, but because I want to be here. I think I have a decent understanding of how dangerous demons are, and I know you would never hurt me on purpose. That���s all we can really ask of anyone, isn’t it?”

When your speech was met with silence, your confidence deflated like a balloon.

“So… yeah. You’re stuck with me. Sorry.”

More of the same silence. You didn’t have any idea if you’d managed to get through to him. You were beginning to wonder if you ever had. Maybe words weren’t enough, and you needed to try a different tact. Anything was better than the heavy, oppressive quiet.

You scooted backwards so you were almost against the wall, tugging on his jacket as you did so.

“Come here,” you said, trying to keep your tone light. “Come lay down.”

You really hadn’t expected him to listen, so when the mattress dipped next to you and warmth radiated across the small space between you, you almost lost your train of thought entirely. Forcing your attention back on what Bucky needed, because this was about him and not you, you swallowed thickly and met his gaze in the dark.

“Is it okay if I touch you?”

He expelled a shaky breath, heavy as if he’d been holding onto it for a long time.

“Yeah. Course. You… you can always touch me—“

Bucky barely got the words out before you wrapped your arms around his shoulders and pulled him against your chest with a ferocity that surprised even you.

He was larger than you, but you held onto him as if he was precious and fragile. Something you needed to protect from all the bad shit in his past. You rested your chin on top of his head, right on his hair between his horns. It was a little awkward with you both on your sides, but you managed to snake your other arm around the back of his neck. Under your palms and through his jacket, you could feel the hard shell of his compacted wings.

He was warmer than you, and his piney, earthy scent filled you scenes. Something that had been coiled inside you loosened and reached out to him. You wondered if it was the bond, but really, you thought it was just plain ol’ human need.

It took Bucky a longer time to relax than it had for you, but not as long as you would have thought. The tension in his muscles gradually loosened, and his arms which had remained tight at his side cautiously looped around your waist. His nose was pressed against your neck and the puffs of air from his breathing sent goosebumps across your skin.

You pressed even closer, needing more contact, and loosely tangled your legs with his. You faintly smiled against his hair as something hooked under your knee and wrapped around your leg. Bucky might be reluctant to show physical affection, but his tail never was.

The stimulation, feeling so much of Bucky at once in a clear-headed, non-feeding situation… the knowledge that he was letting you hold him like this, after sharing with you what must have been his most painful memories…

A hard lump formed in your throat and your eyes burned. To keep yourself distracted—you were not going to cry—you ran your fingers through Bucky’s hair and focused on the surprisingly soft strands. With his chest pressed so close to yours, you could feel him take each breath, and it was easy to match your breathing to his. Easy and natural, as if this was where you were supposed to be all along.

You continued to pet his hair until your movements became sluggish and your eyelids drifted close. But you didn’t let go of him, even as sleep tugged at you and made your limbs heavy. You didn’t want to miss a moment of this, but you felt comfortable and safe, and it was hard not to relax completely into it.

Bucky’s words, when they finally came, were quiet. So quiet you wondered if they were just a part of your dreams.

“Thank you.”

Next Chapter

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #demon!bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #demon!bucky x reader #branded #my fanfiction #my writing

[basementdwellercreaturefeature]

Current  DA2 Thoughts

Per usual, I have thoughts. 

TL;DR Anders fucked up but that doesn’t make him irredeemable. 

Jennifer Brandes Hepler said, “Personally, my view of it is that Anders wants to blow up the Chantry AND wants to die for it -- that way he gets the revolution he/Justice believes is necessary, but still gives justice to those who died in the Chantry.”

First, yes. People died in the Chantry explosion. Not like, 5 people. A lot of people. Not up for debate. Second, it didn’t start the revolution or the mage rebellion, it was a tragic loss of life. Also not up for debate. The following events of Inquisition confirm this, even if you don’t read any external Dragon Age content. Anders’ actions did not start a mage rebellion.

What Jennifer Brandes Hepler said here touched me though. Anders, like Solas and Loghain, and other controversial characters in the canon, walks his own Din'Anshiral and believes his death is the only atonement he can offer to the victims. With the prompting of Justice, he moves toward violence as a catalyst for his revolution. It’s an illogical move rather than a strategic move toward mages’ freedom. It really is not even discussed in DAI as a significant plot element regarding the Mage Rebellion. Frankly, Anders... it was dumb. Love you the most, but it was dumb.

So I am never going to argue that Anders was right in his final solution because I think the political climate of DAI objectively shows us that he wasn’t. Was he right regarding mages rights? Different topic, one too dense for one post. To me, his final decision doesn’t really matter when it comes him being redeemable/empathetic or not. You want to talk about the merits or issues of the Circle? The potential crimes of Kirkwall’s Chantry specifically? Fine, then whether or not he was “right” matters in the context of those discussions. However, in regards to character study and the merits of his redemption, I feel that him being right or wrong is irrelevant. Here is why.

Kirkwall is a dumpsterfire. Weakened Veil, wealth disparity, alienages, blood mages and Abominations running rampant, poor control of both the Circle AND the Templars, abuse of both, overwhelming refugee influx from the Blight, both Orsino and Meredith and their own brand of crazy, etc. What we have here is a chaotic clash of both magic and material. Basic, real world problems and fantasy RPG elements. Let’s throw fucking Anders in the mix, see what happens.

How would a mage joined with the spirit of Justice not go a little batshit being there?

And that’s just Justice standing alone. With the kinds of injustice present in Kirkwall? I mean, think about it. We aren’t even factoring in a traumatized ex-Warden whose blood may have tainted Justice (or his anger, we don’t know for sure) into Vengeance. Just Justice in itself would have been difficult. Frankly, I am amazed that he was even sane for as long as he was and able to do as much good as he did in his clinic.

Elements of Justice improved Anders, ironically. In DAA, we see a something of a fuckboy who loves his cat and runs away from responsibility and who probably likes Nickelback. In DA2, our first introduction to Anders is in his free healing clinic in an impoverished area where he is offering aide to refugees and Kirkwall’s maligned and he has definitely moved on to Nirvana. Big difference there. Would he have remained a non-violent advocate for mage freedom outside of Kirkwall’s magic influence and internal chaos? Unclear, but I find it interesting to think about. Sometimes in my personal head canon AU Hawke got him out of there and they moved to a farm with cats before it all went to shit. 

JFK said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” BLM taught me that when a group is oppressed long enough, when screaming from the rooftops and offering peaceful solution for decades doesn’t work, when years go by with no change, people get mad because they’re fucking human beings. So, when some protests engaged in looting and rioting and violence (even though it was minor and the news harped on it like a bunch of assholes) it didn’t invalidate the movement. What else do we expect when we ignore their cries for justice for so long? 

You shit on people for years and get surprised when it bothers them?

The question to me is not whether or not Anders was right... but is it fair to not expect this from him? In so many ways, that boy was setup to be a disaster. Childhood trauma, Circle trauma, becoming an Abomination after the taint, then the horrors of Kirkwall... Look at all these red flags we all ignored! But still, he works to improve the lives of refugees and mages in Kirkwall. Did our other companions do the same? No, they laugh off his pleas for mage freedom and dismiss him as a fanatic. What does that say about them? 

It’s strange to me that there is such a cry for empathy for Solas and not for Anders. People dismiss Solas’ actions because “he hasn’t done it yet” but he is advocating for the eradication of entire races knowingly and has already been partially responsible for hundreds of deaths in Haven and at the Conclave. Solas does this without being possessed by anything. Less of the argument with Solas I have noticed is whether or not he is “right” but more so if he is worthy of redemption because of player affinity, empathy, love in some cases. There’s a desire to save the Dread Wolf from himself, despite his past and future mistakes. Because his "intentions” are good and he wants to restore Arlathan. But with Anders, him being “right” often is the most discussed... as if redemption and grace has anything to do with that. Less popular is discussing the value of intentions. It appears to be a minority that want to reach out to the fucked up apostate idiot cat man and offer atonement despite all these external factors, which I think make mercy more... amiable? At least it did to me. The dissonance here is confusing and sometimes I wonder if it comes down to player preference. Solas is pretty damn smooth. Anders? Not so much. Complete dumpsterfire.

When romanced, Anders might be given the chance to live and atone, to come to terms with himself as an Abomination. Hawke can provide a more stable atmosphere and offer grace and mercy in the moments when he curses himself for joining with Justice and the chaos that decision wrought. Whether or not that is healthy or justified is up to the player to decide. But, I have to wonder what it would do to him seeing the mage rebellion prompted entirely by something else years later and the lack of revolution his actions caused. Mages reject him and his own self-hatred may be all-consuming at this point. While I love the idea of my favorite sewer-dwelling apostate and my kick-ass Hawke growing old together, it very likely would be an agonizing journey, ripe with toxicity and painful dynamics for both of them. Frankly, I have yet to decide what my canon decision is there. Thank the Maker its a video game and I can change my mind as often as I want to.

I see a lot of myself in Anders in a way I have yet to experience with other Dragon Age characters, so I can recognize that this factors into my level of empathy. But all the same, I wanted to share my thoughts. Even as someone who loves the guy, I can see that he is a complete fuck up who may be better off dead... then he is at least free. Unsure. What are your thoughts regarding fandom empathy and objectivity towards more controversial characters?  Now excuse me as I return to my Sewer Apostate Spotify playlist and cry for a good two hours looking and Handers fan art like an idiot I just feel for the guy.

#anders positive #kind of #ish #mages rights #mostly #i dont know #solas negative #but only a little #i like them both #da2 #daii #dragon age #i love the cat man #handers #hawke #lol can you imagine #the wardens response to DA2 anders #like this guy? really? #give my son a cat

[lgbt-stims]

No hate but like about the transmisandrist flag: I can't help but feel you're painting transmascs as a whole as the main perpatraitor of transmisogyny when from what I know it's Terfs and Cis folks, like I read the tags and understand you're apparently joking but even so, it's painting transmascs as a group in a bad light and in my opinion playing right into terfs hands, we need solidarity not to be at eachothers throats. Not to be one oppressed group making jokes at another's expense, with that kind of logic a group of native americans would be allowed to make a racist joke about a group of black people, there's a massive difference between reclamation and just working for our oppressors, even on accident. For example, for the trans lesbian mod, all gender aside, howd you feel if a gay man made a "useless lesbian" joke? It's very much in the same vein, but anyways, thank you for your time, I hope you hear my opinion

A trans woman being accused of being a “transmisandrist” for just existing as a trans woman, and taking this and making a joke about it is not in any way even remotely on par with outright racism and lesbophobia. The flag compiles things that transmascs do to trans women to label us as transmisandrist, ie literally just existing as trans women and expecting to be treated as people, and making a joke out of the idea that trans women wanting to not be hurt by transmascs is somehow actually bigoted. The flag is literally “for when youre tma and youre an evil transmisandrist or transandrophobe because ummmm youre tma and dont like transmisogyny thats all that qualifies someone as being bigoted towards trans men apparently”. This is in no way comparable to a nonblack person being racist, nor is it even comparable to “useless lesbian” jokes. These two examples are just mockery of Black people and lesbians. This flag is a mockery of the idea that trans women are “transmisandrists” for wanting to be treated as human, not a mockery of trans men.

The idea that this is “working for our oppressors” (t/rfs in this case) is absolutely wrong. No, trans women joking about the way trans men mistreat them is not helping t/rfs in any way. The notes have literally been full of t/rfs vehemently defending trans men and being vile about trans women. If you think t/rfs saw that post and thought poorly of trans men, you’re dead wrong. Every single one of them has been defending them and praising them. You are not the object of t/rf hatred, despite the fact that you are an object of transphobic hatred. There is a major difference.

Furthermore, the idea that transmascs (both binary and nonbinary - mlm and wlw) are not a main perpetrator of transmisogyny could not be more false. Transmascs are absolutely one of the main perpetrators of transmisogyny, both online and in person, all tme trans people are. They are probably the most prevalent and most dangerous transmisogynists, because unlike cis people, they are inside the community and have an immense amount of leverage against transfems because of it. If a cis woman says “Trans women are predatory and scary, they try to infiltrate our cis women’s spaces and force us out so they can have a dickhaver only space. They’re so oppressive and they aren’t even that oppressed compared to us”, most trans people will recognize it as transmisogyny. If a transmasc says the exact same thing, it’s excused and even praised because they are also trans, and “you're painting transmascs as a whole as the main perpatraitor of transmisogyny when from what I know it's T/rfs and Cis folks”. Transmascs constantly traumatize and endanger transfems, just like t/rfs and cis people, but they do it while hiding behind the fact that they’re also trans and so they get away with it. Tme trans people often don’t care about the bigoted feelings of a cis person towards a trans woman, but they obsessively cater to the bigoted feelings of a transmasc (or other tme trans person) towards a trans woman. Tme trans people are still absolutely capable of transmisogyny, and often are transmisogynistic, and trans women have every right to talk about transmisogyny in the lgbt community without being accused of bigotry. Which, ironically, is exactly what the flag was talking about.

#this was a very long response. i hope this all explains it #ask #anonymous #mod rose #transmisogyny

[kinetic-elaboration]

December 2: 1x26 Errand of Mercy

Errand of Mercy is truly a trip. I’m swiftly losing my ability to be coherent because I need to go to sleep but here are some attempts:

First of all this is, of course, a straight-up, pure, unfiltered Kirk/Spock episode with a tiny bit of unrequited Kor/Kirk on the side. Like, we’re not even going to pretend to find stuff for the rest of the crew today. I see you, Gene Coon.

This is the first Klingon ep. I just... the actual Klingon-centric episodes ARE good, but the Klingons in general are pretty boring and I legit don’t understand why they became the standard Star Trek villain. (DC Fontana apparently thought that it was because their make up was simpler v. the Romulans, acc. to Amazon trivia and....I’ll buy that.)

Is the “cultural scale” called the Richter cultural scale? I seem to recall another scale with the exact same name....

I get why there would be such a scale but they are dead wrong about where the Organians fall on it.

Anyway not to harp on this yet again but @ fanom this isn’t the military right?? Lol

Oh, no, it’s Code One! No idea what that means but the music tells me it’s a big deal and it’s bad!

“Curious how often you humans manage to obtain that which you do not want.” He’s talking about war but I can think of some other things that fall into this category.

I think it’s pretty funny that Kirk records his Captain’s logs in public.

CAPTAIN SULU.

“There’s a war happening, so Mr. Spock and I will just leave the ship... together.”

“You’ll get out of here, Sulu, and leave Spock and I... alone.”

“You’ll fall back to rendezvous with the rest of the Fleet in the Laurentian system.”

Why do these people show no interest in us beaming down into their village? Hmmm, I wonder. If the Organians really were what K and S think they are, beaming down in that way would be uh a bad idea.

Spock seems much less awkward at gesturing than Kirk does.

Finally, by the end of the season, they’ve figured out the context for the Enterprise: Starfleet, the Federation, etc.

I wish the Organians were our alien overlords and taylor.

So the Klingons are a military dictatorship.

Kirk finds them so frustrating. I feel like this ep falls into the genre “Kirk is frustrated by hippies.” All this generic peace talk and faultlessly chill attitudes are just not him.

“I’m a soldier, not a diplomat.” That’s why Spock likes him so much.

The Organians are trying to follow the Prime Directive but Kirk is making it SO HARD.

“Space vehicles.”

I know the Klingons are actually supposed to be in yellow face but you know what it looks like black face to me and I RE-ALLY wish they had not done that.

They look good in those Organian outfits. Love that they kept their command and science colors lol. I feel like this is the sort of outfit AOS Kirk wishes he had in that boring ass closet of his.

Mr. Spock does not look like an Organian.

I MUST know more about these “not uncommon” Vulcan merchants. “Dealing in kevas and trillium.”

KOR IS SO INTO KIRK. This flirting is the least subtle. “You’ll be taught to use your tongue.” “Where is your smile?” “You’re a ram among sheep.” “I need your obedience.” “You seem to be in command.” Is all of this supposed to sound sexual or...?

Right up there with “a stallion must first be broken.”

Whereas Kirk is so not into this. That expression says, “Don’t even think about talking about Spock’s tongue.”

The mind sifter is actually a crazy advanced sci fi machine and STID wanted us to think Klingons don’t have warp usdfsf go fuck yourself.

Kirk is so turned on by Spock’s mental strength.

Every spare moment of this ep is given over to K/S flirting. They legit act like an old married couple. “I thought you were going to fight that guy.” “I just might.” Or whatever.

I love that Kirk’s method of fighting is to literally launch his WHOLE BODY at enemies.

Whereas Spock’s there just running awkwardly in the background. He is Not coordinated friends.

Kirk’s speeches ARE admirable. He is lacking context here but in general if they WERE an oppressed people, this should be inspiring.

“For some reason, he feels as though he must destroy you.”

This Kor and Kirk scene... Kirk literally canNOT stop himself from flirting. His default smile is Charming. “Nothing...inconsequential [was destroyed] I hope...” Flirty smile, wink.

GO CLIMB A TREE I MEAN WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT.

We are the same species...tigers...hunters

Is this not the same cell they always use?

I feel an “and there was only one cell” fic coming on...

The Organians are actually kind of hilarious. They’ll basically let these rando aliens do whatever they want, as long as they do no violence. That’s it, that’s the one rule.”Your captors planned to do violence to you, and to that I said...naw.”

THIS is real Pacifism @ Commander Spock.

Kirk ready to go out in a blaze of fire for a bunch of annoying hippies like “I’m going to white savior you now, ungrateful Organians.”(I say this with love; I love him.)

Can you believe Kirk and Spock are about to die in an unwinnable fight of 2 against Lots of Klingons, and they’re using their last moments to FLIRT AGAIN?

Gene Coon loves writing dialogue in which Spock calculates statistics and Kirk is turned on.

Also can you BELIEVE he just pulls Spock along by the arm? Any excuse to touch him.

Okay the Organians are officially tired of your bullshit.

Too hot! Hot damn!

“We find interference in others’ affairs most disgusting.” Prime Directive! Like I said!

This is basically the plot of A Taste of Armageddon except in that ep Kirk was the Organians.

“People have the right to handle their own affairs.” Is he wrong though??

The Organians are like “okay, we all had our fun here, now get out. Seriously.”

Can you imagine how fucking weird it would be to just randomly see this alien dude materialize in the White House, or, like, Starfleet San Francisco HQ, or wherever the “home world” of the Federation is supposed to be? Just a little throwaway line in there.

By the end Kor is just straight up hilarious. He’s giving off real Ian McKellan in Vicious vibes when he says “I can handle them.”

“I guess that takes care of the war.” Yep! Very efficient!

The “it” in “It would have been glorious” is DEFINITELY not the war lol.

Good game, good game.

“I was furious with the Organians for stopping a war I didn’t want.” I’m sorry but could not THAT have been the plot of STID?

“Spock, your math was wrong the whole time.” And now Spock and Kirk can BOTH sulk lol.

Those were all of my liveblog thoughts and it’s late but.... I had so many additional thoughts on this episode... Like a lot more.

First, I love when humanoids turn out to not be humanoids, that’s one of the best things.

Second, I think this is a very gutsy episode to air at the time, and that it would still be a gutsy episode to air now. I feel like it’s one of the peanut gallery’s favorite criticisms of ST nowadays to say it’s “colonialist” but this ep makes it pretty clear it’s not--that’s the opposite of the lesson of this story.

To attempt to explain better: I completely and unironically love Kirk but I do recognize that like all 3 dimensional characters he has flaws. In this ep, I thought that while his speeches and general point of view and strategic plan were definitely right for situations a population is oppressed--that people do have the power to fight back against dictatorships, even when the odds are bad, and that it is worth it to have the courage to fight back against such oppression--he was ultimately shown to be wrong in this instance because he wasn’t actually coming into that situation. He didn’t understand as much as he thought he did. He thought he was going to be the savior here: taking control for peoples who didn't know better, saving them from oppression, and then gifting them with technology and advancement as he understood it. The Federation wouldn't have enslaved them, but the Federation did want to use them. But the Organians really truly didn't need help--the native people understood their own needs better than the outside people. That's the lesson I took from the episode. Your intentions can be good but if you're coming into a foreign situation looking to control it, without understanding the actual people involved, you’re not being a true friend or ally, and you're likely to do no more harm than good. Opposition to tyranny has to come from the source, the oppressed peoples themselves.

When he refers to “weak, innocent people” standing in the way of superpowers in the beginning--he’s not attempting to derogatory, but that is a pretty demeaning characterization.

I also thought it interesting that the Organians can take any form they want and put their society at any stage of "advancement" they want and they chose a basic agrarian aesthetic. Cottagecore rights.

Kirk really had a confirmation bias when it came to the Organians. He had an image of them--innocent, weak, oppressed--and he only took information that fit with that characterization, rather than listening to them and what they were saying.

My mom and I also discussed whether this was IC or OOC of Kirk. I’m of two minds, myself. I think Kirk at his best is much more open-minded than this. His core morality is good faith, peace, friendliness, and care for all life forms, and there are plenty of examples of this (Charlie X, Mud’s Women, and The Corbomite Maneuver all immediately come to mind.) But he does have a blind spot that I think comes up often enough to be canonically part of his character: if something is threatening or killing his crew, or his people more broadly (the Federation), then ALL he cares about is neutralizing the threat. Rare alien? Possible scientific discovery? Might not have the full details of the situation? Doesn’t matter. I’m thinking The Man Trap, The Devil in the Dark, Arena. He wants to protect aliens, but not if the alien is killing his crew. He wants to make overtures of friendship, but not if the new being has already been aggressive.

I mean like I said... a part of me is like "no he is better than this!" but another part is like... well he does have that 'soldier' side of him, he is intensely loyal to his people. The “evil” Kirk of The Enemy Within. I think he just sometimes gets these blinders in certain situations when he's just sure he's right, which is very human.

Also although he's between McCoy and Spock on the continuum of "an objective right thing exists for all people and in all situations and we should always follow that morality" and "morality itself is relative, we should be respectful of alien ways of living even when we don’t understand them" I think in general Kirk and the show is more like McCoy. There IS a right morality here. (I’m thinking of The Apple or even A Taste of Armageddon.)

I also maintain that to say in 1967 "the very personality trait of being warlike is a common denominator between enemies at war" is a dramatic statement.

My mother suggested that Kirk was “strangely appealing” in his desire to save the Organians, with or without their help, and I do agree... I think that’s the complexity of the episode. The overall thrust of the plot is that Kirk was wrong--he’s left embarrassed at the end. I stand by what I said above. And they certainly go out of their way to show that the Klingons and Federation have something in common--namely, as I said, their very capacity to wage war, and interest in waging war.

BUT, as much as I get the point that they have certain similarities with the Federation--and I think this concept of 'these war-worthy disagreements seem trivial to an advanced and neutral species' is interesting, and even more so in comparison with A Taste of Armageddon which, as I said, is this same scenario from the Organians' POV essentially--at the same time it's a bit irritating to hear the democratic Federation compared to the oppressive dictatorship of the Klingons. Like yeah, okay, none of them are light beings and they both wanted to destroy each other--point taken. But would the Federation park itself on a random planet and kill 200 people the first day? I think not. So in this sense Kirk IS right. The Klingons are an adversary worth fighting, just not over the Organians.

I don’t know what I would think of his position if the Organians were being harmed but were also just...actually sheep. Like I guess I would say "well they have to have a reason.” And in fact they did--their bodies cannot be harmed, so they really don't care if the Klingons pretend to harm them. But I just can't comprehend people being like really honestly okay with that level of oppression, as opposed to too scared or too beaten down or too brainwashed to fight it, which is different.

...And from there we went into a discussion of curative v transformative fandom and yet more on what’s wrong with AOS sdfasfjsaldf it’s past 1 am I can’t be stopped BUT I SHOULD BE STOPPED.

#star trek tos #the year 2020 #2020: fandom thoughts #2020: star trek #omg this is long

[perhapsitmaybedragons]

God's a Right Bastard, but Then So Am I

Oh look, chapter 2 already! Odd for me.

If you prefer to read on AO3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/26633029/chapters/65005873

or keep reading below:

Newt sat back at the table, not noticing that his tea had grown cold. He couldn't figure out where to begin with his question, so he had swallowed it down since Crowley's party, but found that it kept repeating on him, trying to come up. Finally, he pushed the tea away and jumped up from his seat. “I thought we burned that book.” He hadn't meant it to be accusing, not really. But it still came out that way.

Anathema looked only slightly guilty. “We did.” He waited for her to continue, but she just turned back to chopping up the vegetables for dinner.

“Well?” he prodded.

She put the knife down and turned back toward him. “We did burn it. And...” now she looked truly guilty. “And I went back to where we burned it and there was one scrap left in the fire. You know Agnes had to have predicted that, right?” she didn't wait for an argument. “So I picked it up, and it's what lead me to the box for Crowley. I don't know what's in it. You know how Agnes could be about people opening things from her that weren't intended for them.”

That was certainly true. He felt placated, but only for a moment. “Why didn't you just tell me?”

“I thought you'd be upset. I told you I was done being a Professional Descendant and then I couldn't resist looking to see if any of the new book hadn't burned up.”

Newt just shrugged. “I mean, I don't mind. I wouldn't have made fun of you or anything,” he picked his cup of tea off the table and took a long swig before almost spitting it out. “Blech. Cold tea,” he dropped the cup in the sink. “What did the part that led you to the box for Crowley say? Anything else we should be worried about?”

Anathema rocked a little on the spot, biting her lip. “Nothing else about us, I promise. It just led me to the box. How long should it be taking us to reach London?”

The sudden shift in topic threw Newt off momentarily. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, when you and I go to London by ourselves it can sometimes take hours if the traffic's bad enough, right?” He nodded. “Did you notice when we drove there yesterday it took ten minutes?”

“I thought the pleasant company just made the time feel like it went faster,” Newt was trying to be charming. And if Anathema weren't so worried, it might have worked.

“It didn't just feel like it,” she shook her head so vigorously that some of her hair started to spill out of her bun, “It actually took ten minutes. I checked.”

“Maybe Aziraphale worked a miracle to get us there faster?” It wasn't a new idea for him. He'd noticed each time they'd gone how impossibly easy the trips had gone and how they had arrived at their destination much sooner than they should have. But he'd been worrying that maybe his inability with computers had somehow shifted so that it infected clocks as well, so he hadn't wanted to be the one to bring it up.

“It's happened before. But only when I end up there because Adam wants me there.”

“So,” Newt said as comprehension dawned on him, “You think he still has his powers? I thought he got rid of them since he made his dad his real dad and the other guy,” he pointed down “he told to get lost?”

“He did, and it's like his powers went away for a little while, but then they came back almost immediately. And if Adam still has his powers...”

“Then is he still the AntiChrist?”

Crowley usually didn't bother with it, but he could sneak and skulk with the best of them. The first assignment – it hadn't been spelled out that it was a first, but Crowley knew, whether by experience or instinct, that it was just one of many – was to sneak his way into Hell.

Now, glamours don't usually work on demons. But they only expect humans or angels to bother with such tricks. The best way to hide is often to be front and center. A minor miracle and Crowley looked like just any ordinary demon – no glasses, no snake eyes, no red hair and the hardest part, no sauntering walk. Instead he slouched himself over as though the very weight of the air were oppressive to him. Not a hard feat in a place that smelled so foul.

As promised, God had beamed the knowledge of where to go directly into his mind, though She still refused to answer why she couldn't do this Herself or even tell him what exactly was going on.

He weaved in and out of the aimless crowds until he reached a hidden area under a stairwell. He knew this room well – he used to give most of his presentations in here. Crowley had received a commendation for that as well, the invention of the Work Meeting That Could Have Been an Email – not that he'd ever managed to get the other demons to learn how to use email.

He was a little irked to find that it now looked like a broom closet. All the more insulting since demons weren't known to clean. He closed the door behind him and started searching, grumbling the word 'ineffable' as he went, cursing that he didn't even know what he was looking for. He slipped on a wet floor sign (that for some reason was lying on the floor completely soaked) and landed on his butt. “Damn it,” he muttered, glancing around to make certain no one had heard.

No one was reacting as though they had, but he saw a shadow fall across the bottom of the door way. He scooted back against the wall and tried to cover himself as best as he could with miscellaneous brooms, mops and buckets. He managed to block himself in so that he could still peer out, but someone would have to know to be looking for him to find him.

“You're late,” This was Micheal, who appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the room. Crowley was trying to quickly think up an excuse, but she didn't seem to be talking to him.

“I'm a demon,” Hastur grumbled, closing the door behind him as he joined her. “Isn't timeliness close to godliness or something?”

“That's cleanliness, though it seems your lot isn't doing a good job on that part, either. So I guess that's good for a demon.”

“Right, right,” Hastur waved the insult away, “Beelzebub said they're too busy for this.”

“Gabriel said he was too busy,” Michael responded. “Though I think maybe he just didn't want to come here,” she made a face. “How is it that the room for holding your cleaning supplies is somehow even worse than the other rooms? What are you even doing with this room if you aren't going to use it?”

“I dunno. Maybe a new torture idea,” he quickly opened the door to glance around, then shut it again. “No one's listening. What else has to be done?”

“The new riders are selected,” she smirked. “It took quite a bit of work, but we figured it out. Won't even have to get the old ones out, aside from well...You know.”

He nodded darkly. “And how do you get the kid to go along with it? Why does he still have his powers anyway? Shouldn't your side have removed it from him?”

“Why would we be the ones to deal in demonic power? No, that was your side's screw up, not heaven's,” she lifted her head proudly. “As agents of God we can't be the ones to have messed this up. Had to have been your side.”

Hastur's hand burned for a moment, but Michael miracled a glass of holy water into her own hand. “If you want to play around with mutually assured destruction, I promise we will still come out on top.”

He extinguished his hand. “But hang on,” he said, “If it's mutually assured wouldn't that mean both sides get taken out?”

Crowley had to fight back the urge to say “Good for you, Hastur, a cogent thought!”

Michael crossed her arms. “Anyway, back to The Great Plan,”

“Ineffable,” Crowley muttered softly from his hiding place. Luckily neither of them seemed to hear him.

“So, he still has his powers and he's still on for the part. Why can't we just kill him and get another one?”

“Because then we have to start over. At least eleven more years of waiting,” her hand twitched, “Gabriel may not come out and say it, but we all know that the Great Plan was corrupted, mostly by your man Crowley.”

“Seems your guy Aziraphale had a hand in it.”

“Humanity needs to come to an end. There time was supposed to have been over by now. This will not only sort out the battle between Heaven and Hell, it will finally put this planet to rest and we can move on with things. Not sure why She's so fond of the place.”

“Now we're on the same page. Burn it all down, I say,” his hand was on fire again.

“Not yet. If we rush it again we may end up running into more trouble. The riders are selected, but I will need demon assistance with their corruption.”

“I'll get someone on it. Give me the names.”

Crowley found himself leaning forward. That would at least be a nice start for some thwarting, them just handing the identities away like that. But he wasn't that lucky.

“No. Not here. Not yet. Soon.”

“Don't see why we have to wait,” he sniffed.

“We're working backwards here. This is one of the last pieces – we plan each part out carefully, then work back so there are no loose ends. I trust at our next meeting you'll be on time?” she disappeared without a goodbye.

“Yeah, right. Be on time for a meeting with heavenly forces,” Hastur muttered to himself as he left the room.

Crowley waited for what felt like hours. He hadn't worn his watch as even that had been a custom piece that might have gotten him recognized. Hadn't thought to swap it for a replacement because he usually brought a phone, and he'd left his phone off and in his car parked several streets away (and glamoured, disgustingly enough, as a Ford Fiesta). He finally chanced moving again, sneaking out as stealthily as he snuck in.

Fortune seemed to be back on his side as he clambered back into his car without incident. He turned on the radio expectantly, but no voice of God filled his car.

“Well? I did your bloody errand, what's the next task?” he waited. No answer. “Oh son of a...” he beat his hands against the steering wheel. “You do know what happened back there, right Almighty? That's your job, to see everything? You could at least say 'so glad no one caught you and dumped you in holy water'.”

No answer came. He drove home, frustrated and disgusted with the whole situation and with a burning desire to call Aziraphale and complain to him. But no, if he told Aziraphale the angel would want to help. And might even be a little jealous that Head Office had gone to Crowley and bypassed Aziraphale completely.

Better to keep this one close to his chest, at least for now.

Adam was having trouble sleeping. Not entirely unusual for an active eleven year old, but this had started with a feeling of worry down at the pit of his stomach. He'd first misdiagnosed himself with hunger. Half an hour and two bowls of ice cream later, he still had the worry but now he also had a stomachache.

Dog curled up at the foot of his bed, but he wasn't sleeping either. Dogs, even hellhounds, can sense their master's upset. He whined and scooted into Adam, nudging his nose against Adam's hand. “I thought it went away, Dog. Or that I'd figured out how to control it. But it's not over and I don't want my friends to get scared again. I don't want to lose control again.”

Dog whimpered and Adam smiled as reassuringly as he could.

“It'll be all right. I'll go see Anathema tomorrow. She'll know what to do.”

#Good omens #fanfic #good omens fanfic #chapter two #an update