#( owes her too much ... )

[jibberjibbsart]

Supernatural “Power Hour” Part 16

Dean is a rated R character in a PG world

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[skywalkr-nberrie]

Throughout her career as Queen and later as a Republic Senator, Padmé became desensitized to romantic advances. Her life's work was surrounded by people who were fake, two-faced, manipulative, and full of loud bravado. Nobody was sincere, and anyone who approached her always had ulterior motives, whether seeking to benefit from her high status or gain importance by association.

What's often overlooked, however, is that Padmé also harbored similar reservations about the Jedi. While she deeply respected and admired the Jedi, she found their mannerisms, etiquette, and stoicism unsettling at times:

Padmé's discomfort with the Jedi endures, unaffected by her numerous encounters. This lingering unease is consistently reflected in her thoughts, as recorded in the Queen Amidala Journal and other Star Wars novels.

Padmé admits they’re brave, wise, and respected beings but she can’t fathom them the way they are in nature. She finds them rather irritating 😂

As we see here^^ Padmé also finds their lack of emotional repression quite obnoxious as well. So much that she’d made a vow that if she were to ever become Chancellor, she’d have every Jedi demonstrate at least “one emotion” a year.

{When the topic comes to companionship, trust, and seeking aid, Padmé has enough professionalism to know that the Jedi are people she can always rely on. She heavily respects them and trusts them no matter what. But outside the professionalism, she doesn’t mesh well at all with them because her ideals, values, and beliefs are like night and day with theirs.}

This understanding of Padmé's perspective sheds light on why she fell deeply in love with Anakin. She famously declares him the only Jedi she could ever love, and it's clear why. Despite the odds against them – his Jedi vows, her senatorial duties – Anakin proves his devotion, showing Padmé the depth of his love and desire. Passionate and hopeless romantics, Padmé and Anakin share a profound connection. Much like kindred spirits. Anakin's all-consuming passion resonates deeply with Padmé. His patience, vulnerability, and unwavering commitment ultimately capture Padmé's heart, making him her soulmate.

[rebellionsuite]

confirming in a tv guide interview that not only will claudia return as a ghost but she will possibly haunt lestat and continue to explore their father & daughter relationship as the memory of her also literally haunts him was like multiple planes hitting the pentagon

[swordmaid]

when the late night sleep deprived sketch doesn’t look like SHIT 🤭

[mymarifae]

i could not stop collecting screenshots of her beautiful cute face <3 right up until she fucking DIED

[xadensbiceps]

i relate to violet because i too have a husband who won't stop touching my fucking hair

[soulshards]

#Fenhyurary 24: Boss

"For my own daughter to betray me, again. What will it take for you to learn?" "You would betray your kin, your home, the people you swore to protect? All for what, her?"

We're getting into weird 'what if' territory, as in my head they're not here yet. No where close. (They're not even together in my head yet, they're still in the 'murder each other' phase). But they have too much trauma and trust issues to be this intertwined that they would kill their bosses for one another. Kura is too afraid. Takemi is too hopeful. So this is more of a possibility; though an open conflict such as this would be unlikely.

Kura would kill her boss father while he slept. Takemi would likely just hang up his garbs and quit the Sekisegumi - but neither of them are willing to do that just yet. Takemi has too much hope that Kura can overcome her demons, Kura has too much fear and guilt and respect for her father to ruin his family and end him.

Plus, Kura knows if she got away with it, she would be next in line. Which creates more issues. But, that's why he adopted her, after all. To build a child to be the perfect leader of a syndicate because his biological daughters are too precious to be in such a dangerous line of work; someone else, though. Not blood, but almost.

How do you escape fate when you have been so finely crafted for the role?

Another bonus shot, too!

[reformedmercymain]

Really good video for anyone feeling nostalgic like me

[aelincreativ]

Show Time - D.Va

They were kind enough to show up the day after her birthday.

She'd known they were coming. Having seen the articles and posts written about the others who had been drafted and disappeared from the internet for months before showing up mid battle.

So she didn't fight it. Instead greeting the officers in uniform at her door with perfect manners and hospitality. Showing them to the table where she had the tea set prepared and waiting.

They wasted no time. Telling her that she had been drafted and would submit to her training squadron in three days time. They relayed the consequences for if she failed to comply. Then the consequences for if she tried to run. Then the consequences for if she attempted to publicly resist.

She had already researched those thoroughly.

When she didn't fight them or try to argue they seemed caught off guard. Like they didn't know what to do when they didn't have to use force to get what they wanted.

And maybe that was her first mistake. Not putting up more of a fight upfront.

She didn't fight it. Half because she knew they wouldn't let her. Half because she had believed at the time that she might actually be able to do something good.

Her mother didn't cry when she showed up an hour later. She'd asked her not to when she told her mom what would happen all those months ago when the first drafts were called. Her mother stayed strong while she was there. Taking the box of important documents and keepsakes from her hands.

She knew that after she left, her mom would put on her shoes and go walk the same path they'd taken together many times before. The walk, just fifteen minutes, would end the same place it always did. At her father's gravestone.

She'd already made her visit the night before. Promising him that she would make him proud and make sure no one ever suffered like he did again.

She would report to her training squadron early and in-process and begin her assessments. She would pass the tests with flying colors. Setting herself up as a fast track star. Set to complete her training in a record time.

It was less than a month before she made her first live flight test with a training mech. As compared to the three months most other drafted pilots took. She passed the training modules faster than anyone before her in half the time and earned the praise of all her instructors for her dedication and drive.

It seemed fitting that with her expedited training, that her live fire career would start with a bang. Her graduation ceremony from the program was a small but grand affair. With her being congratulated by the chain of MEKA command and welcomed by her new unit.

It was only fitting that as soon as her hand was clasped in the Colonel's that the alarms would ring and she'd be pulled with the rest of the unit to do what they had trained for.

Her success in her first battle was her second mistake.

Returning victorious with two Gwishin defeated and only superficial damage to her mech, she instantly cemented herself as the heavy hitter star of the unit. She let that victory settle in her spine and make her strive to be the best.

Training and learning all she could in the windows of down time between Gwishin attacks.

She worked hard to earn the respect and trust of her teammates and do her duty to her country and people with pride.

Then they approached her, and she made her third mistake.

They offered her a position back in the public eye. To become the face of MEKA by having access to her streaming platform restored. They told her that the budget was limited and low. With costs of constant repairs and upgrades, they needed public support funding.

She'd accepted without hesitation. And maybe she should have. Because once again they were stunned to not face opposition. Her first stream back was a carefully scripted fanfare of a staged tour of the MEKA facility. The one after that a test flight after an upgrade. Then a training skirmish. Then a scripted QnA with the pilots.

Then came the second test flight.

But the carefully scripted routine of maneuvers to show off the unstoppable power of MEKA was interrupted by the warning sirens. She snapped to attention immediately, switching her coms to connect to her unit and took command to organize an offensive.

She got lost in the fight, forgetting the camera feed attached to her mech. She forgot to be the person they wanted her to be and instead let herself slip. Letting lose just enough to make risky but calculated calls that ended in a sweeping victory with only one mech on the team too damaged to make it back under its own power.

It was only after the victory had been celebrated among teammates that her com was overridden and switched back to the channel she had been on. The channel that had her handler on it to feed her lines and remind her of the prompts for the scripted stream.

She was summoned back to base and given a choice. Though calling it a choice was generous, it was an ultimatum. The live battle had been received very well at first. Donations poured in like a flood as they watched the reality unfold before them. But the shift in her personality during combat had garnered negative attention.

The people didn't like seeing their bubbly streamer turn so serious and harsh as she barked out battle commands to her team. The handler had cut the stream once realizing the growing negative opinion, feigning that the camera broadcast equipment attached to the outside of the mech had taken a hit.

The ultimatum was this, stay strict to the script and maintain the personality at all times even under fire, or stop flight broadcasts and instead supplement the lost revenue with alternate means.

She'd promised to stick to the script and was given one more chance. She was permitted to do casual video game streams again but closely monitored and on a delay incase of need to censor her if the persona slipped.

She'd held out for two months until one of her team went down. Seeing her friend and ally potentially die made it impossible to keep the facade and persona.

Her return to base was met with the stern faces of her handler and an officer. They debriefed her and then laid out that since she couldn't be trusted with live fire situations on stream, they would be moving towards a new revenue system.

Sponsorships.

Something seemingly innocent at first. When it was just companies that wanted their logos plastered all over her mech. But then the logos on her started.

At first they stayed professional. On her arms and back. But as more “sponsors” became personal “investors” there was a need for more space for more logos and names.

The sides of her thighs were next and that didn't bother her too much. But those were soon filled. There wasn't any more room. She looked ridiculous at that point. And they realized it was starting to negatively affect her image.

So instead they switched the system. Reducing the number of logos and areas they were displayed to just her top sponsors. Instead they started to offer meet and greet events. Where sponsors would buy in at different levels for different amounts of her time and attention.It worked for a month. But then the novelty of it wore off. The masses were no longer satisfied with the casual group interactions. They wanted, no demanded, more.

Her handlers were at a loss for a while on what to do, and as the numbers coming in steady started to decrease, they panicked. Trying to throw her at anything to see what would stick.

Talk show interviews were one of the first they tried. It got a few whispers but not enough for them. Sending her to a celebrity hotshot party got murmurs. Doing television ads for her sponsors. Playing a game show contestant. Being a patient in a medical show. A few episodes of a reality show as a minor character. Then as the female lead in a B-grade movie.

Those worked for a while. She managed to fit it all in between her other duties. Nevermind that Dae-hyun kept looking at her with concern and making comments about pushing herself too much.

Everyone else thought she chose to do all those things. None of them knew how much of their funding relied on her. No one but her and her handler team knew that she had no choice in what she did.

She hadn't had control of anything but her own thoughts in almost a year at that point.And then the money clips tightened again.

And her handler came with a new “request”.

And this time she tried to fight it.

But you can't fight back when you're already in chains.

So began the meetings with sponsors one on one. Getting rented out like a lady of the night for hours at a time. To the tune of tens of thousands of dollars per hour.

At first they were respectful. Basking in the novel concept of having her undivided attention. But it only took a few meetings for them to grow more bold. To encroach on her personal space. To push and break her boundaries and the terms established for these meetings.

They had deluded themselves that she cared about them. Felt something for them besides their checkbook. That she thought they were special.

The first one who tried to put his hands on her suffered for it. She broke the offending hand and kneed him in the balls to make her escape.

She was sanctioned for “use of excessive force against a civilian”.

The second only had a finger broken.

She was sanctioned again, taking a pay cut and put on suspended privilege status.

The third was slapped.

She was dragged into her handlers office where she was scolded like a toddler throwing a tantrum.

She was then told, plain and simple, that the money they'd lost from those three “sponsors” would be near impossible to replace. That she was to blame now for the lack of parts and supplies in the coming months.

Told that if she lost any more sponsors, they'd have to cut her off and find a replacement for her. And then, once she was out of MEKA and their protection, the three men she'd “attacked” would go after her legally and summarily destroy her reputation and any hope of a career she could have outside of MEKA.

“Am I understood?” Her handler sneered. The look on his face was one she had seen many times before whenever she dared to go against his commands by even a single step.

“Yes, sir.” She spoke. Clearly and without a mumble as she had been scolded for before.

The man looked smug at her compliance. Like he always did.

“Then you are dismissed. Return to your quarters and prepare for the 1800 stream of game three on the roster.”

She nodded and left the office swiftly, but not too quickly as to seem she was running away.

She was not allowed to run away.

She made it to her room and knew she had an hour to get ready. But instead of moving to her makeup table, to change the look placed on her for her earlier meeting with the sponsor, she sat on her bed.

She looked at the spread of things she had once enjoyed. Soft blankets and pillows, stuffed animals of game characters and creatures, posters for shows and movies.

All things that were similar to what she once plastered her childhood bedroom in.

But nothing here had been chosen by her. It was all a carefully staged backdrop. A set that she had to make up with precision every morning. There was a reason she often slept in her workshop.

Despite what Dae-hyun and the others thought, she did not just randomly fall asleep while working too late. She chose the discomfort and lingering aches of sleeping in a chair at a desk or in a pile on the floor.

It was more comfortable to her than to try and relax inside the stage she was forced to puppet around in.

She set the pillow she had grabbed down, exactly in its designated position, and stood up. Smoothing the sheets she had wrinkled before walking to the vanity that held the hundreds of products she was to make use of.

She opened the pack of makeup wipes, a sponsored brand that she didn't like, and slowly and carefully removed the makeup from her face. Taking her time to not rub excessively and cause any redness or irritation. She wiped away the layers painted onto her. The ones that had been specifically catered to enhance the features the sponsor had preferred.

She made her way to her bathroom and wet a cloth and added a pump of a sponsored face wash she had filmed a commercial for the day before. This one at least actually worked for her skin, even if it didn't actually do all it promised to do. Not that it mattered, she had five other products that filled in the gaps.

She rinsed off the foam and braced her hands on the sink before looking up.

She stared at the girl in the mirror. Soft brown eyes that looked so tired without the layers of concealer and color corrector applied. No specifically picked and color matched eyeshadow either to give the allusion of a brighter attitude either.

She stared at the scar on the tip of her nose from her first crash landing where one of the display screens inside Tokki shattered and a piece of the glass sliced into her.

She visually traced the hairline jagged crack across her forehead from when she was ejected and slammed into King as a last resort as Tokki was shredded in the grasp of three Gwishin.

She licked the scar on her lip from the street fight she got into a few months ago that had earned her a sanction and two months of restricted and monitored communications.

Worth it though. The omnic she'd saved had escaped and she'd made it out with only bruises besides her lip. She'd snuck out of the base to try and visit her mom and instead found an omnic being beaten in the street.

She looked at the girl in the mirror.

This was her. Not the makeup and cameras and scripts.

This.

With her scars and dark circles and eyes that looked so tired.

She wondered where it all went wrong. How she had lost track of herself. How she had allowed herself to be so thoroughly beaten down until she didn't even know who she was anymore.

Was she even herself anymore? Or had all of her parts been stripped away and replaced until all that remained was the depressed spark in the back of her mind that could barely raise its head anymore to tap on the cell walls she'd been chained in.

Was she Hana? Or was she D.Va?

Hana looked back at her in the mirror. But that was the only place Hana was allowed to exist. As soon as she walked out of this bathroom she'd be forced to put on the mask of D.Va once more.

To parade around like the well trained dog she was. Following every command of her master with not so much as a single thought in her head that was not put there for her.

And what did she have to complain about when she lived a life of luxury. Surrounded by high value items and things. Having all the love and adoration from the public she could want. The people sang her praises and cheered her name. They trusted her to protect them and she honored that trust.

Casualties to Gwishin attacks had been cut to a quarter of what they were before she was drafted and joined the battlefield. Half those remaining casualties happened on the rare times she was off duty and not in the fight. She had done it. Had made the difference she had so desperately wanted to make when she first decided not to fight the orders to serve.

What was a complete lack of autonomy over her body and soul for that?How could she protest the sacrifice of herself to save everyone else?

She couldn't. At least not outloud.

So instead, she waved Hana goodbye in the bathroom mirror, and went to go greet D.Va in the vanity mirror.

Carefully applying the layers of her war paint.

Dark circles vanishing beneath a bottle that cost more than a house. Bright colors teased on her eyelids to make a sparkle appear where there had been none before.

Red blush dusted on the tip of her nose and then stamped over with a custom white bunny.

Hair curled and pinned to further shadow the filler on her forehead.

Lips carefully traced and colored to erase any sign of vagrant behavior in the defense of those who her handler would have her spit on.

She contorted her face and D.Va smiled back at her. She waved. A cute coquette thing that was just a flutter of her fingers.

She looked at the clock. Ten minutes to go.

Show time.

To her knowledge, no one saw her leave Hana Song behind in that bathroom. No saw the final shudder that shot through her frame as the spark in the back of her mind was gagged and bound into submission as lights flickered on. No one saw as the spark in her eye became artificial and painful as her cheeks stretched into a bright smile as she shouted out a greeting even though there was no one in the room with her.

No one should have seen. But someone did.

The only other being in the world who knew exactly how that scar on her lip was created.

Someone who couldn't get the figure of a tiny human rushing to his defense out of his mind. Not until he had identified her and tried to figure out why?

And now he had more questions than before.

[yingren]

i keep falling asleep in bed with my old man slippers on and when i wake up the left one is always next to my head i don't know what that is about anyway good morning i will respond to some inbox stuff later first i gotta do some other things

[kikithefox231]

Yall. I’m unwell. I can’t handle listening to Elena talk abt her sister and how mundane that day had been before it ended up in disaster o(-( I’m not strong enough for this o(-(

[skywalkr-nberrie]

One of the biggest arguments I’ve seen used by the Ob*d*l*s against Anidala, is that scene in the ROTS novel where Padmé says she could trust OW with the secret of the rebellion and was hesitant to tell Anakin and I just wanna say:

Padmé wasn't an idiot. She was an extremely intelligent and competent woman, perfectly able to understand that loving Anakin and thinking that he could be trusted with a certain politic-related matter were two very different things and reducing her choice regarding who to trust with an important political matter only on the basis of her feelings of romantic love diminishes her professionalism, and this is why I say y'all could never understand her.

Padmé didn’t have to "love" OW or even like him at all to know he was the perfect Jedi to ask for help in a secret political matter.

That's the point being made in the novel, she’s hit with the realization that Anakin in this particular moment could not be told this piece of info because of his relationship with Palpatine, and Padmé specifically mentions in the Junior ROTS novel that she didn't want to make Anakin “keep a secret” if he didn’t agree with their stance because it’d be “unfair.” So this also played a part in why Padmé didn’t think it best to inform Anakin about the Rebellion. It honestly had little to do with her actually lacking trust in him, and more to do with the circumstances she was in not allowing her to be open with her husband and her not wanting to make him choose between his wife and his “father figure.”

However, Padmé knows OW’s political ideas aren't tied to ONE particular person but to a philosophy, one which is closer to her own, at that point. None of this was ever meant to be hinted as “romantic” or even remotely insinuated as romantic. It’s strictly professional and even the tone of the scene makes that so abundantly clear.

All I’m saying is that, some of these proshippers are doing the most out here to try and prove their ship, like my loves? You forgot a very important thing called ✨ context ✨ and regardless of her rational thinking, Padmé still went out of her way to try and talk out all of this Rebellion secrecy stuff with Anakin when she confronted him in the scene where she asks if he ever thought they were “fighting on the wrong side.” Padmé didn’t trust OW in the same way she trusted Anakin (with her entire self and being) she had the level of trust and love for Anakin that was only meant for him.

Mixing up her unwavering faith in Anakin as her husband with her trust in OW’s devotion to duty as her comrade/ally is purposely deluding yourself, because the two aren’t the same and therefore can’t be compared. An example of this is: Padmé constantly putting more value to Anakin’s words over OW’s in the end of ROTS when he came to tell her of Anakin’s “crimes”. She completely disregarded what OW had claimed about her husband and instead made her way to where Anakin was herself, to ask him directly. Despite what the truth was, this is proof of her trusting Anakin unconditionally, and I didn’t even think I had to spell that out because it’s as clear as day.

In conclusion, Padmé didn’t trust OW more than Anakin, she just knew the circumstances she was in didn’t exactly make it easy for her to openly talk with her husband about these matters and that’s part of what played into the issues they had in ROTS, it’s exactly what Sidious wanted. This scene in the novel doesn’t exist to imply some hidden romantic undertone that George was intending all along. No, far from that. George was always an “open, , clear and easy to understand” type of storyteller, so if the former was the case, this scene wouldn’t be any different if there was some hidden message or subtext the reader should be made aware of, George would make it obvious. Fact of the matter is, the one and only reason for this scene in the novel to exist is only to show to us as the “reader” that the narrative is tearing apart the Star-Crossed-lovers (Anakin and Padmé.) and visibly putting the two of them on different sides in the story because the consequences of this narrative choice is what will foreshadow and play into the inevitable and great fall of the couple and character in the future. Even the novel makes a very purposeful and clear distinction between “love and trust” in this chapter where all this occurs. Padmé’s dilemma in ROTS was overtly “Love vs Duty” and both GL and Natalie Portman have said so in ROTS features and a perfect example of this is the fact that Padmé loves Anakin, but knew she had to trust OW with the situation at hand. And if you want to talk “narratively” Padmé needed a reason to keep the Rebellion a secret from Anakin, thus leading to Palpatine to sense “betrayal” in Padmé later on, and using that to his advantage to manipulate Anakin even more into getting him to “suspect” her. It’s all spelt out for us and it’s not hard to miss. All it takes is a little media literacy and understanding context.

(Mind you, hypothetically, if this scene existed for literally any other reason, it would’ve been brought up again, but it wasn’t. It’s only mentioned once and exists for only one moment which was meant to serve a certain narrative and then it was done. There’s not much to make of it since the context of the scene is so clear.)

[tojisun]

that “do you think we’re still __ in any universe?” makes me ill because i remember that one time my sister and i had a convo about if we weren’t siblings in another universe, would we still be friends at least? and she gave me this self-deprecating laugh and said, “i don’t think you’d even wanna be friends with me” as a testament to how different we are and i just crumbled in front of her sobbing

[stil-lindigo]

emily carroll has once again permanently changed my brain chemistry

[chewbaccawithouthan]

Semi-BAD BATCH SPOILERS

~

It’s so funny to me, in the last three episodes, the bad batch really said: “you wanna f*ck around? Okay now you’re gonna find out.”

And the empire is, in fact, finding out.

[navree]

i request monetary compensation from all the bitches in season 4 who were whining at jon about how immoral it was for him to ask people questions when apparently he could have been making people run to death or otherwise kill them after forcing statements (without even having to ask a question). y'all got the nicest version of what the archivist could be and you were assholes about it for no reason, shame shame i know your name