#HOWEVER see it as how it is : civilians killed to kill other civilians. for profit. we are just pawns in a guess game. sacrificable | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mllysmphotography · 2 years

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Contextual Studies - Ethics

Saigon Execution By Eddie Adams

Taken in 1968 during Vietnamese War. Prisoners were being rounded up in Saigon and in this instance a general walks up to a prisoner and shoots him in the head. The General claimed the man had killed several of their soldiers therefore took the man's live seeking forgiveness from Buddha.

There are definitely some ethical implications to be regarded here, Photographer knows a man is about to be killed yet not doing anything to prevent it instead watches it happen and captures the death of a human. However, could argue that ethical charter states you're not supposed to intervene. The photographer was also in a dangerous, hostile environment and could put his own life in danger by intervening. It is also was the photographers job as a photojournalist to document what is going on in front of him.

This image was a powerful one and helped to give Americans another viewpoint from the War from what they were told by the "trusted" administration. It gave a glimpse of the brutality of the Vietnam War and fuelled a shift in opinion, causing people to question whether they'd been fed lies.

To this day, I believe this still would have a pretty large impact as this is a totally shocking image. However, we do now have easy access to brutal images of War on social media from other sources online. We don't often see such graphic images like this widely documented in mainstream media as it is still a horrific image.

Napalm Girl By Nick Ut

This image was taken in 1972 after planes mistakenly dropped bombs on Trang Bang against their own forces.

There definitely are ethical implications to this image such as hysterical children in total distress being photographed. As well as this, there is also the fact that there is a naked child being photographed which raises the question of taking away someones dignity who had no say in it. Could question the morals since the photograph took photos before intervening, however the photographer did in fact intervene and help the girl. It should also be taken into account how many lives did this photo save, this image is one of the factors that may have potentially led to the ending of war.

The reaction to this image was strong seeing children suffering and after learning that it was an accidental attack. To people in the West, this image humanised the Vietnamese. Like previously mentioned, this image was so powerful that it was one of the factors leading the end of the Vietnam War.

This image did lead to some change as afterwards, Napalm use was restricted and is now illegal to use on battlefields and its use on civilians is a war crime.

As a group, We agreed that in this situation we would likely still take the image as it is so powerful but use it for anti-war purposes.

Shell-Shocked Soldier By Don McCullin

Photo of shell shocked soldier, taken in Vietnam during the Battle of Hue. Soldier had been so deeply traumatised by all the horrific acts he had witnessed that he was. After photographer left he soldier mortar shell hit the rough area, photographer has no idea if soldier had been killed in that attack and has gone on to say he feels terrible as he did not go back to check. He also mentions he shot five frames and soldier did not blink once.

Some ethical implications for this particular image would be, is it right to take a photo of someone who is literally frozen, has no awareness of what is going on therefore taking away the soldiers agency by taking the photograph. It could also be questioned when taking into account that this image sold at auction for £20,000, profiting off of a presumably now deceased soldier who had no say in their photograph being taken.

#contextualstudies

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maboroshi-no · 3 years

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Hamefura LN11 Moments: JeffreyxSusanna

While reading Hamefura Light Novel Volume 11, I wrote some summary / quick translations of some moments.

Here is the JeffreyxSusanna moment in the book.

Context:

Sarah has attacked Katarina during the day

Susanna / Larna has used her wind magic against Dewey’s father to stop him from beating his children

Susanna / Larna have made arrangements so that all of Dewey’s siblings could move into the houses for Ministry’s employees

I, Susanna Randall, also called Larna Smith in the Ministry of Magic, after taking care of the formalities for the move of the Percy siblings and making my report to the Ministry of Magic, was finally heading to where my fiancé, associate and supporter, Jeffrey Stuart, was. After knocking on the door and requesting permission to enter,

Jeffrey: "Please come in~~"

He replied with his usual carefree voice.

Susanna: "I am coming in."

When I entered the room, Jeffrey was sitting at his desk, checking some documents. Jeffrey may look happy-go-lucky and unmotivated but his work is quick and accurate. The person himself doesn't seek it at all, but there are voices recommending him to be the next king. He also has the capabilities to make people accept him.

Susanna: "I sent you a notice earlier, but I have come to give you the fully completed report."

As I said this, I handed over the document. Jeffrey casually took it and looked over it, flipping the pages.

Jeffrey: "Hmm... It is mostly what was written in the previous report. Still, Lady Katarina seems to get involved in lots of incidents. Like she is cursed."

Susanna: "Yes, I agree. However the person himself does not seem to feel that way at all."

Whether it is the orphanage incident from before or the kidnapping incident from even before, at the center of the disturbance there always seems to be Katarina who somehow got involved in them. And despite all this, the person himself always leaves unscathed, cheerful and unconcerned. This is just worrisome. I am worried, but the people who hold her dear must be even more so.

Susanna: "For the time being, I gave Lady Katarina a calling magic tool. I also told her to properly use her dark familiar. It is up to her, though."

The dark familiar who lives inside Katarina's shadow can transform into a gigantic wolf. If she used it, it would be an extremely strong ally. However, Katarina considers her dark familiar as a pet so when she is in trouble she forgets to summon it. This is just like her, but if she doesn't summon it when she really is in danger, her strong familiar will be wasted.

Jeffrey: "Let's consider giving her a guard working from the shadows if by any chance we decide that she is really in danger. There is a possibility that Duke Claes already gave her one, so I am confirming this."

After he said this, Jeffrey raised some documents towards me. And then

Jeffrey: "Even so, it seems like you didn't keep your calm this time."

He said this lowering his eyebrows a little.

Susanna: "Yes, I am aware of this."

It was about Dewey Percy's father. I rashly used magic on a civilian outside. I was well aware that this act would cause problems. But I couldn't stop myself at that time.

Susanna: "This man was treating his children horribly, considering them as tools. When I saw it, I felt the blood rushing to my head."

I have been living without paying much attention to things which are not related to magic. But there is this one thing. I can't forgive parents who treat their children as tools. It is because of how I was raised. My father, Marquis Randall, is a man who is not interested in anything but raising his social position. For Marquis Randall, his children are tools he can use to get ahead or get profits. He thinks the same of his wives. To get more and more tools, Marquis Randall married lots of women and had them give him children. As a result, there is no love in our family. My dead mother was Marquis Randall's legal wife. It is because she was a woman with a high social position who could be used. She ceased to be useful when her body broke, so Marquis Randall lost interest in her and kept her away. She left this world without Marquis Randall seeing her. Since I was little, I was smart, I behaved as Marquis Randall wanted and was appointed as the fiancée of a prince. But when my mother died, it became absurd to continue to do as Marquis Randall said and I stopped listening to him completely. Marquis Randall has hated me since then, always saying I am a hindrance he wished he could erase. However, since I am engaged to Jeffrey, he can't do it. He proposed another daughter to Jeffrey, but I can still do as I please even now. It may be because I am greatly fed up with this man, but I just hate parents like that. It makes me want to kill them. Jeffrey, who knows my circumstances, said

Jeffrey: "It can't be helped then."

while shrugging his shoulders.

Susanna: "...I investigated it a little afterwards but they truly were horrible parents."

That mother too was horrible. All she did was give birth to children, and once this was done she would just toss the newborn to her other children and go back to playing around. The father was gambling and drinking, and the mother was greatly enjoying playing around with men. I am fairly sure that the children there were not all the father's.

Susanna: "Even so, these siblings were all living every day helping each other."

Desperately supporting each other, the older brother called Rory was desperately protecting his younger siblings.

Susanna: "...He was so different from me."

I have several siblings coming from different mothers but I lived on without interacting much with them. Because of this, I don't really know them. Even I, who was the child of his legal wife, was treated this way. There was no way my other siblings were treated decently. They were all made to follow Marquis Randall's whims. And now, even though I am aware of it I can't do anything about it. It has been several years now, I have borrowed Jeffrey's strength and built my own but I still can't stop Marquis Randall.

Susanna: "...I am so powerless."

I looked at my hands and let out these words. "I want to live by my own strength". The figure of my half-sister crying out these words appeared in my mind and my feelings sunk. And then he pulled my head towards him.

Jeffrey: "You can't yet but you'll keep getting stronger. This is why we're working so hard, right?"

Jeffrey said this while holding me in his arms. Against his warm and large chest, I was completely enveloped by a familiar scent. My sunken feelings rose up little by little.

Susanna: "...You're right. Thank you."

As I said this, Jeffrey gently stroked my head. And then I borrowed his chest for a short while.

#hamefura #bakarina #my next life as a villainess: all routes leads to doom #susanna randall #larna smith #Jeffrey Stuart

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acti-veg · 3 years

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if the police / prison were abolished what would happen to people who aren’t safe to be around the public - murderers etc?

I don’t propose just abolishing prisons on its own, if we did they then we would end up in a situation where we have a large number of offenders who can’t yet be rejoin civilian life. I propose radically altering our political, economic and social systems, so that most of the people who now go to prison would never end up on that road in the first place. Keep in mind that most people who kill aren’t just ‘murderers’ by nature, poverty, trauma and poor socialisation are strongly linked to almost all violent crime. These are primarily social and economic causes, and those can be solved.

I think that in a fair society where wealth is fairly distributed, there would be a robust healthcare and social welfare systems, meaning that crime would be drastically reduced since citizens would no longer be desperate, disaffected and disenfranchised. People don’t generally commit crimes because they just love crime, it’s our current ‘justice’ system that treats human beings as if they fall into broad categories of good or bad, where we punish the bad but never seek to address the underlying cause.

However, even in a fair society there would be violent individuals, abusers and outliers who need to be separated from the rest of society, for their protection and ours. I believe this would be far more community-based than prisons are, in fact, I don’t think it would look or function anything like how a prison does now. It would be about rehabilitation and reintegration, not profit or deterrent, and I don’t think that it would even be thought of on the same terms as a prison.

We should also remember that we are not asking this question in a post-prison world, but trying to imagine how we would deal with people after the industrial prison complex is abolished. Part of the problem with this is that it is difficult to even conceive of how humans would behave or guess at rates of crime in a post-capitalist society. We look at people as they are now and think this is pie in the sky thinking. But remember, most white, middle middle class people even now will never see the inside of a prison.

The basic message here is that we wouldn’t need prison as it exists now if everyone benefited from the same privilege of access and financial security that the middle classes and the rich already do. Prisons are a tool of control and profit, there is no other fair way to explain how countries like the US have such high prison populations and the race and class disparity that exists there.

Regardless, we can talk hypotheticals about a post-prison, post-capitalist society, and there are a lot of different ideas about how criminal justice should function at that time. However, what is not hypothetical is that our current society, with high crime rates, high rates of incarceration and low social mobility, absolutely does not work for the vast majority of people.

#ask #politics #prison #prisons #prison abolition

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mymelancholiesblues · 3 years

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No, Mia isn’t "low-tier" compared to Ada (morally speaking, or w/e) – a measured answer?/essay

So, a couple of Ada haters tried to put up a false symmetry between both of these characters there on twitter, and it inspired me to put my own thoughts down in a more articulate essay as to why that's (Ada's somehow being morally worse than Mia) not sustained by canon in Resident Evil.

standing there, killing time

can't commit to anything but a crime

all the good girls go to hell

'cause even God herself has enemies

and once the water starts to rise

and heaven's out of sight

she'll want the Devil on her team. ⁕

First things first: let us debunk the false symmetry that they tried to establish between these two characters with extremely distinct archetypes – and worse, the following replies to this false symmetry and its poor arguments trying to validate it, pointing out that, in fact, no, character B (that would be Ada, btw) – which is so evidently and ridiculously different from character A (and that would be Mia) – is, in fact, WAY WORSE than character A, and then proceeding to assert some unsupported propositions about misogyny in Resident Evil (which, tbh, definitely IS a recurring problem in the franchise, but that in this case particularly, little or does not apply AT ALL) and how Ada contributes to "the perpetration of a biological cold war".

Starting with what differentiates Mia from Ada grotesquely: we know NOTHING of Ada's true alliances in RE's world. Mia, however, canonically worked for a group that participated in the importation and exportation as well as the manufacturing, testing and marketing of biological weapons: "The Connections", a CRIMINAL SYNDICATE which, amongst other things, was also involved in money laundering, assassinations as well as weapons and drug trafficking. I don't care at all about Mia, so I don't intend to waste much of my time going on about her role in the plot, but people should've already realized by just that much how infinitely dishonest is to try to put these two characters as "similar" ones, or argue that Ada is somehow worse.

Another detail that shouldn't escape anyone's attention too, are the origins and nationalities of both – and yes, I intend to briefly bring up racism against eastern-Asian looking characters (a silent plague that takes form by each passing day in all fiction fandoms) and anti-China xenophobia, but for now, hold this tea there just before I drop it: Mia is canonically American, and previously a Texas-state resident; meanwhile, we have no confirmation of Ada's nationality except for her pretty evident Chinese ancestry. But, as I said, hold it there for a while.

i) espionage — the job

red so silent

wait a minute

or just a little while.

what are you looking for? ⁕

At all times that Ada's "job" was brought up in this franchise, in ALL of her cameos, she has NEVER been called a mercenary in the original Japanese. She's always referred to as a SPY. Even in RE2R, the most recent title in which she's featured in, the original text of the game makes a point of labelling her as a SPY (and not a mercenary) in the dialogue that transpires between Annette and Leon.

It's the North-American translation and correspondent localization that now and then falls for the equivocal use of this other term. This distinction is important since espionage NECESSARILY implies operating in an organized service for, perhaps a country, or a political cause, or a class/group, or a corporation, or whatever. While a mercenary is someone who's acting per their self financial interests, indiscriminately selling their specialized "labour" and skills to anyone who'll offer more.

Ada's not a mercenary, she's a spy. But Mia, in addition to being hired to a canonically criminal company, was also the handler personally assigned to Eveline. I don't care how exactly Mia got in that predicament but the fact is: Mia was canonically employed by a company that profited over illicit activities and directly watched as a family was destroyed and toyed with by this new killing machine (Eve). Yet, we can't state for sure that we know to whom or to what Ada is truly affiliated with.

ii) sources — check them

who's a heretic now?

am I making sense?

how can you make it stick?

and I'm on a trial

waiting 'til the beat comes out. ⁕

This fandom should put a little more thought into which translation and localization of the game texts, dialogues and files they are using to support their arguments. I know that in some cases the United States people have a bit of an inclination to think of themselves as the owners of the planet and deem English as the only language that matters in this world, but let's not forget that RE is a Japanese franchise (wow, insane, right?!). Therefore, the most valid script, with the greatest amount of details, and highest credibility, is the Japanese original. Throughout these years, there have been several errors in translation and localization of the Japanese original to North-American English. And, believe me, curiously enough, plenty of those concern Ada, since she's often mentioned or referred to in a very vague way – without the use of pronouns or adjectives or adverbs that could help in indicating gender. This ended up causing those details and mentions to her to get overlooked, even though in the Japanese text it was a clear reference to her character (per observation of context).

iii) the good guys — one of

head in the dust

feet in the fire

labour on that midnight wire

listening for that angel choir

you got nowhere to run

careful son, you got dreamers plans

but it gets hard to stand. ⁕

Yes, as much as haters try to minimize it, it is SIGNIFICANT that Ada saved so many important characters and stood for unquestionably heroic actions in so many moments - like stopping everything she was doing so she could help completely random Chinese civilians with the helicopter she managed to pilot in that chaos in China (yeah, I know you haters love to forget about this, but it happened, it's there in canon, and no, it wasn't her direct OR indirect responsibility what was going on in China: REPLAY RE6 and for the love of GOD, never again argue that what she did was somehow "the equivalent of evacuating a city after selling a WMD to destroy that same city". It's a case of pure intellectual dishonesty to say such a thing. It's canon that Carla was the one who caused what happens in China, PLEASE, PLAY RE6).

Furthermore, Ada shows compassion on some occasions even for characters who are directly putting her in harms ways, like Annette (in RE2 OG, right after - in order to defend herself - she slaps Annette leading her to lose balance and collapse over the sewers fences, Ada makes an effort in trying to pull Annette back and prevent her from falling) and Carla.

Replay RE4 and pay attention to it, pay attention to her solo campaign: getting involved with Leon's journey in Spain hasn't brought any real benefit to her mission or herself: Ada deviates from her main path several times due to worrying about him and trying to help him and almost ends up dead in several of these occasions over her insistence in doing so: by saving him from Bitores Mendez, by helping him and Ashley against Sadler, by confronting Krauser and stopping him.

It's so lazy to only read/listen to a file in which she says in English that "Leon might be useful to her plans" (this is way more nuanced in the Japanese original of Ada's Report), and ignore everything that was SHOWN in the game: every effort she made to ensure that Leon could rescue Ashley, remove the parasite from his and her bodies, and escape from that hell-island.

The jet-ski she left for their escape was ALREADY there before she was captured by Sadler (or you think she arranged it while she was caught?). Leon having to intervene and save her from Sadler WASN'T her plan. It WASN'T her plan to take the sample from Leon's hands. She wanted to help him get out of there with Ashley and she guaranteed he could do so, she wanted to get the sample by herself and escape too while sending that hell to kingdom's come. But, because she chose to help Leon rescue Ashley right in front of Sadler, she ends up captured.

On her end, Mia never did anything minimally compared to that, and all of her "selflessness" or self-sacrificing actions involved a much, MUCH smaller scope than Ada's: wanting to help her husband and HERSELF is not at all comparable to saving a few dozens of unknown Chinese civilians. So no, they aren't "cut from the same cloth". They don't come from the same place, nor do they share the same intentions or goals, and their contributions to the RE storyline are quite different.

iv) unknown true purpose (shades of grey)

lining up in the background

waiting for the crowd shot to be seen

in the shadow of the big screen

everybody begs to be redeemed. ⁕

In databooks, Ada is recurrently described as "a Chinese spy with extraordinary physical abilities, vigorous health and composed mind and spirit, capable of coping with grim situations and handling even the most difficult requests without losing composure". If we are paying attention to the storytelling ingame, however, we know that this isn't always the case: Ada did let her mask of unswerving emotional and physical strength fall and showed a very fragile side under strenuous circumstances a couple of times already.

Also, in these databooks, they often point out that "she has her own 'true purpose' and has FREQUENTLY betrayed organizations and clients to achieve it". Huh, we can AGAIN, by this only, see how completely different she's from Mia, who personally watched an entire family being driven to insanity by Eveline's hand.

Furthermore, in these databooks, it's often said that "this true purpose is still obscure and whether she truly cared for anyone or simply used her charms to manipulate people that crossed paths with her isn't ever clear". If people are willing to be open-minded and exercise their text comprehension skills, though, they'll see that in multiple occasions of emotional confrontation it has been established time and time again that yes, Ada DOES care. She wasn't capable of shooting Leon and there has been a couple of other times that failing to choose a cool, sociopathic calculation and pragmatical demeanour over empathy and humanity towards others has put her in harms ways: nonetheless she still chose it.

v) positive impact

I'm gonna break the cycle

I'm gonna shake up the system

I'm gonna destroy my ego. ⁕

To this point, RE's plot systematically leads us to believe that Ada has been covertly acting behind the scenes of multiple biological incidents COLLECTING INFORMATION (the job of a spy, who would've thought! lmao), that is valuable to numerous organizations, companies, groups and different contexts, but at the same time of allegedly offering to handle this knowledge for the right price to the big players involved with bioterrorism and clandestine trading of bioweapons, she's also working to sabotage said players.

This is evident throughout the franchise: she intended to hurt Umbrella's business. She outwitted and deceived Wesker multiple times. She even undermined Simmons, someone who was in a position of power in the US government and actively using that position to lead bioterrorist ventures on the parallel side.

There's no concrete evidence or hint as to what she does with the information she collects, and for all purposes and effects, I can presume that she's gathering this knowledge to assist in the discovery of countermeasures and vaccination studies. I might as well argue that she is a Chinese spy who is working against European and North-American capitalism and the imperialism that creates such monsters like the biochemical and bioweapons industry and that her real objective is to dismantle the market for bioweapons and bioterror supported mainly by the USA (see: Simmons and The Family).

That is, as long as it is unclear what her true purpose is, I have the freedom to surmise whatever the heck I want and that all of what she's been doing was for the sake of the greater "good" - and I'll even have canon moments to support this reasoning as it's clear that she regularly sabotages her customers (customers that are unquestionably established as playing for the "evil" side, with perverse intentions) - throughout the franchise. She did this on RE2, RE4, RE6 and Damnation. It's there, transparent in canon, people just choose to ignore it.

She laughs in the face of whoever she's talking to by the end of Damnation, saying she doesn't intend to deliver the Plaga; she scoffs at Simmons; she betrays Wesker and kills Krauser. She had been sabotaging Wesker for so long, that he sent Krauser to be the main agent in the mission in Spain, and Ada was just a "side effect" that he didn't have in control and had to keep an eye on, so he ordered Krauser to keep tabs on her. It's not a mutually beneficial dynamic. Ada doesn't want Wesker to succeed, she despises him; this is clear in the games in which they interact. There are even files that indicate that she was trying to double-cross and get in the way of his plans for at least 2 years before Spain, and he was constantly catching up with her. See here and here.

On her end, Mia was employed by and consciously working for a criminal syndicate.

vi) a (secretly) helping hand

oh, I'm a master pretender

just felt more alone

the further I'd go

but I'll stick around

I'll be your master defender

yeah, I'll stick around. ⁕

Ada approached characters such as John Clemens and Luis Sera, and both had a canonical intention to, in addition to putting an end to their connections with the criminal companies and organizations they've been working for, also expose and denounce them for their crimes. It's in this context that Ada comes into contact with them. And why is that?

Check John's background: he had made up his mind about disclosing Umbrella's crimes to the public. Check Luis' background: Ada went to Spain to assist in his extradition since he feared for his own life if he resolved to turn his back on the cult of Los Illuminados, and also dreaded the consequences of the liberation of Las Plagas on an international scale.

Keep in mind that Ada handed over to Wesker a USELESS Plaga sample. Wesker only got the sample currently circulating in the underground market because he went after Krauser's body. We don't know what Ada did with the master Plaga sample she obtained. We only know from Ada's Report and the Plaga Recovery file that she didn't deliver it to Wesker, and he needed to go out for a plan B to get it.

Even the G-Virus sample that fell into the hands of the clandestine business, it's possible to argue that Ada's involvement in it was flimsy, since Simmons CANONICALLY made over a thousand laboratory tests in Sherry, and, as we know, he was a leading figure in bioterrorism and bioweapons trading with the aid of his position in the US government.

But, guess what, Ada clearly is a non-white character with obvious Chinese heritage and Mia is white, so of course, OF COURSE, someone can so nonchalantly affirm that Ada, this "vile bitch", is somehow WORSE than Mia. The same Mia who watched the Bakers being destroyed. Right.

Also: trying to validate one's point by claiming anything related to the misogyny present in RE franchise, while IN THE SAME BREATH AND TWEET reducing Ada's entire character arc to that of "a sociopathic bitch cured by the magic dick of her love interest" is supposed to be a joke, right? No, really. Joke.

conclusion and a word against misogyny

we are waiting on a telegram to

give us news of the fall

I am sorry to report

dear Paris is burning after all

we have taken to the streets

in open rejoice, revolting

we are dancing a black waltz

fair Paris is burning after all. ⁕

To any Ada fan that has been reading this so far: PLEASE, I ask to consider refraining to use the "oh yes, Ada did some bad shit, bUT" take to defend the character because that isn't sustained by canon in RE, lmao. She didn't do anything evil that had an indisputable bad impact on the plot and other characters arcs. For one, I myself do love some villains, but that isn't the case with Ada.

She did do some unconventional shit yes, since she's a morally GRAY character and an anti-heroine, but by the end of the day, each and every action of hers had a positive impact on the journey of other characters and main plot. Just pay attention to it.

Like idk man, Black Widow, Elektra Natchios, Scarlet Witch and Black Cat from Marvel, Catwoman from DC, Yennefer from The Witcher (some pop culture examples that come to mind).

Saying that this is an "extremely selfish prototypal bad bitch except when it comes to the magical redeeming dick of her love interest" it's a grotesque reduction of a complex female character, and, in its attempt to critique the misogyny present in RE's franchise an expression of misogyny in itself.

Remember: Ada has actions and impact on the franchise ASIDE and IN ADDITION to her romantic involvement with Leon.

#Resident Evil #Ada Wong #Leon x Ada #Ada x Leon #Aeon #Leon Kennedy #[mine]#[meta]#//#Aeon fandom

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fancyfade · 3 years

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I really like the way Hardware (1993) addresses the topic of superhero ethics.

Quick synopsis of the set-up: Curtis Metcalf, genius inventor, comes from a working class family and winds up from his perspective being set up to be the heir apparent to the inventor/businessman, Edwin Alva, who takes him under his wing and funds his schooling and, once he graduates, his projects. However Alva was actually just funding his schooling and appearing to encourage him in his endeavors so he could lock Curtis in a contract that gives him no rights to the royalties his inventions makes Alva (unclear if he has any like legal right as in copyright to his inventions as well I would assume not but it was not addressed yet). Curtis can’t work for a competitor either in the same field so he’s essentially stuck working for Alva if he wants to do what he’s dedicated his entire life to (inventing technology stuff).

Curtis initially tries to get some blackmail material on Alva so he can get out of his contract, but finds out Alva is involved in the criminal underworld via weapons and drugs dealing and smuggling.

also the character’s races are important to the story: i’m going to not comment a lot on this because I don’t want to be talking out my ass, so I’m going to just be like... relating things without commentary or sourcing what the original intent was from the creators: Curtis is a black man and likens what Alva did to him as slavery. Denys Cowan, one of the co-founders of Milestone comics and artist on hardware 1993 and the new series, who worked with the main author of hardware (1993) dwayne mcduffie, mentions that Hardware’s experiencse and the way he is treated (especially the glass ceiling) are part of how it felt to be a black creator in comics (link). (Back to the comic, not the interview) Curtis points out how many people perceive him as angry and bitter with a chip on his shoulder (Curtis describes himself as angry for good reasons). Alva is a white man who is too big and has his hands in too many pockets for the evidence curtis initially got on him to stick.

This is why Curtis created hardware: initially, his plan was to blackmail alva, when he finds out what Alva is up to he tries to send the evidence to the authorities because it goes beyond his personal problems with Alva. Then when that fails, he creates his armored suit (which he calls Hardware) to interfere with Alva’s operations and prevent him from doing more damage while getting revenge.

When he initially starts out as Hardware, Curtis has very little social life, he divides himself entirely between working his day job as cover for Alva, then working his night job as Hardware. he barely sleeps due to this. When he’s hardware, has a variety of lethal weaponry, the biggest of which is his omnicannon (which seems to like.. explode everything? he KOs a helicopter with it). He uses his weapons only on people working for Alva who are usually trying to kill him as far as I can tell. He’s also pretty unconcerned with killing them. He blows up a helicopter with someone still in it, shoots people, drops a guy he had pulled out from a helicopter from an unsurvivable fall, and cuts off a the arm of a construction worker who was holding a gun on him.

Curtis is more thinking on his end goal (getting revenge on Alva and stopping Alva’s criminal enterprises) than he is the means he takes to get there.

Pretty early in the run, Curtis is injured and found by his long term female friend Barraki. Since she finds him in his Hardware armor, he has no choice but to tell her what’s going on and she is disgusted. She views Curtis as extremely selfish -- she refers to it as him killing people “because his boss wouldn’t give him a raise” with no visible remorse. Curtis says he has no remorse period, not just no visible remorse. Barraki leaves and says doesn’t feel like she actually knows him.

Curtis obviously cares a lot about her opinion, because once she makes her stance on it clear he is kind of at a loss of what to do. When she asks him what he wants, he says he just wants her approval (also that she’s his only friend and he doesn’t want to lose her).

He winds up solving things as Hardware non-lethally for a while (replaces his omnicannon supershot with a neural net to paralyze people rather than blowing them up, tho he still has access to the omnicannon’s main shell for when he needs it), gives alva’s employees in the stuff he’s blowing up time to evacuate, etc

Then he has like I guess this... dream sequence? Guilt induced dream? Where he is seeing the people he harmed (the guy who’s arm he chopped off talking to him about his injury and losing his job, the dead bodies of the people he killed) and then Curtis talking to him as he is Hardware (like a his non-armored civilian version is berating his armored version for his life choices) and giving him a running commentary on his own life up to this point. People who are either personally important to him (Barraki) or socially important (a priest, Oprah) attack him for his decisions. Then when it comes to who speaks in his defense in his dream, it’s his employer, Alva, who created this situation from when Curtis was a kid to exploit him and benefit off Curtis’s talents and treats Curtis as no more than a cog in his machine (When Curtis initially approaches Alva for his profits, he does so with the assumption he’ll get them, because he had believed Alva to be like a father to him, Alva laughs at him and says he’s not respected, merely useful, and dehumanizes him by likening him to a dog).

Dream Alva’s defense of Hardware’s previous actions is that as Hardware, Curtis is doing what he was supposed to do -- treating other people as expendable resources in pursuit of his goals. So in Curtis’s guilt, he likens himself to Alva, the man who has been treating him like a tool.

I think this is kind of interesting because it’s something I’ve seen a lot in recent discussions of whether it’s okay for superheroes to kill people and one of them is that when you kill a person you’re not just killing that person. You’re killing whoever they were to the people who cared about them, if they’re looking out for anyone you’re affecting whoever they were providing for as well -- I think that’s why the initial person who appeared in Curtis’ guilt-dream was not someone he killed but the man who’s arm he cut off. There’s sort of this commentary on humanizing people I suppose with how the villain so clearly dehumanizes Curtis and treats him as a tool to his own ends, and then how we see Curtis imagining how the people he injured or killed while being Hardware might be affected not just in terms of “they got injured or killed” but also he imagines whatever their lives beyond working for Alva were. Curtis’s guilt is humanizing them in his head where earlier he said he had no remorse whatsoever.

Throughout the comic, there’s this metaphor for being trapped in a cage and then getting out but not actually being free (initially told through Curtis’s pet parakeet he had as a kid -- the parakeet flew out of his cage and tried to get out via the window, but only kept busting his head against the window, unable to understand he couldn’t go outside)

[image: 3 comic panels from hardware 1993 #1 showing young curtis metcalf standing in front of a window where a parakeet is laying down on his side with his feathers ruffled. curtis grabs the parakeet gingerly in his hands and puts the bird back in the cage with a clang. his internal monologue reads “my bird made a common error. he mistook being out of his cage... for being free.” end image]

Curtis straight up says that his earlier actions as hardware were not letting him be free: he turned hardware into another cage.

[image: 3 comic panels from Hardware (1993) #4 showing barraki young and Curtis Metcalf standing and talking. Curtis is initially looking down regretfully at his hardware helmet. He says “I built the hardware armor to help me escape from the cage that alva put me in. Then I proceeded to turn hardware into yet another cage.” he looks at a parakeet that is flying around his house (his new pet) and says “see, Alva will make a mistake... eventually. And then I’ll put him away for good. That’s still very important to me. But it’s not going to be my whole life.” end image]

I don’t know whether the cage was supposed to only be in terms of how he conducted himself as Hardware or whether it also extended to work life balance (right after this he says that he was not going to make putting Alva away his whole life, he is letting Barraki in rather than pushing her away and he got the parakeet) and also his general view of the world (I already analyzed how he changes the way that he views the people working for alva). Either way I feel like the way that it was addressed was in a very satisfying manner that never wound up being preachy but did ask a lot of questions.

EDIT:

more commentary on the parakeet analogy from the writer of hardware: season one (the new relaunch)

The original Hardware #1 opened with a flashback of a young Curtis Metcalf remembering his pet parakeet escaping its cage only to be stopped by a barrier of glass, mistaking “being out of the cage for being free.” A brilliant meta-commentary, Thomas believes that it is “one of the greatest monologues in the history of comics,” and perfectly captures the entire story of being black in America.

#dc comics #hardware 1993 #hardware #curtis metcalf #barraki young #dakotaverse #racism #in terms of the comic commenting on it and the what hte creators experienced

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gale-gentlepenguin · 3 years

Note

I have like 50 questions about your show idea? Is there like a hero society? A villain society? Are heroes and villains Common? Is hero work a legit job or is it like vigilantism?

Oh okay that is a lot of questions. But I do have a bunch of ideas for it so here is what I have.

A hero society? Its kind of like seeing a fireman. Like cool to see them do their job, but most are not celebrities. Heroes have to register with the city, get jurisdictions, etc. Heroes however do not answer directly to authorities, they can work with them, but not for them. Heroes are established separate, kind of like private security. They even get to keep their identities secret from the public. They just mark on their taxes that they do Security work. Multiple heroes can be active in a city, but they need the right paperwork for jurisdictions. Unfortunately it does not provide health insurance, but does provide payment so that a hero can get their own private insurance. Depending on how much jurisdiction you have, the more you get paid (as your work is more important).

Heroes can range from neighborhood watch, to city level, to statewide, and even Country wide. Then there are a few International level heroes. They are the big guns that prevent world destroying threats. (Also they get paid the big bucks and don't have secret identities. But at that point, they don't need it).

As for villains, think like a massive conglomerate of evil. But with a lot of different specializations. Super villainy is a lot more organized because people don't want others to get in each other’s way. So if a villain wants to rob a bank on 5th street. They put a request to the guild, they get assigned date where they are free to rob the bank with no other villain getting involved. It makes sure that villains don't butt heads. Also it encourages villainous team ups. (They also get cuts for setting up the jobs.)

Several types of villains include

Evil super scientists, Master thieves, eco terrorists, crime syndicates, etc.

There is a ranking system based on Success rate, level of crimes committed, and other such things.

The higher the rank, the more perks a villain gets. Like minions (which the conglomerate pays for you), access to better technology, even gets claims to villain lairs. So getting high up as a villain is highly sought after. Because having your identity known at a high level isn't even a big deal. Being a small time villain and getting exposed, basically kiss your ambitions good bye. You get arrested with no resources your done for.

Side note, Killing civilians is not a big deal to the villain conglomerate, so long as you are profitable.

The main hero in the story is working her way up to be a City level hero. But is only really watching over several city blocks. She is paying off her student loans so to save money, she is rooming with two other people. She gained her super powers after passing her SHATs (Super Hero Assessment Test). Which allowed her to choose her method of gaining super powers.

The main villain comes from a whole family of villains and is trying to make a name for himself as a stand alone villain. So he is currently a small time villain. Who while incredibly competent is starting from zero. But he is making a name for himself.

So TL:DR: Yes hero work is a real job. Villain work is super organized.

#gale's idea #story idea #premise #world building

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zarathelonewolf · 3 years

Text

BNHA - STOPPING, OR SAVING DABI?

Here I come with theories!

DISCLAIMER: I do not condone abuse, may it be emotional, physical or psycological.

Now, as I’ve stated in the tags and the meta on chapter 325, I like the whole Todoroki family. Aside from Shouto and Enji, they may seem like minor characters, but they are actually well enstablished and deep and their reactions and reasoning after Endeavor begins his atonement arc are very nuanced.

I’m sure you already know what the point of view of every family member is: Rei won’t forgive him, but she’s also watching as he stones for his past awful deeds; Fuyumi is probably the one that wants to forgive Endeavor the most in order to have a semblance of a normal family; Natsuo righteously hates him to the moon and back, and Shouto is still on the fence but willing to work alongside his father on a professional standpoint. At times, Shouto also calls him “Father”, but only in certain circumstances and very rarely. And then...

Then we have Todoroki Touya, Enji and Rei’s firstborn.

I won’t be talking about Fuyumi, Rei or Natsuo much on this post; I’ll concentrate on Touya, Shouto and Enji. They are, at least from what the narrative seems to be building up, the focus of the Todofam arc.

Let’s start with Touya, or at least I’ll write how I’m interpreting the narrative here...You can disagree, people have different ways of reading the same text.

He wants his father to go down, burn in hell, HARD. And he doesn’t really care if it takes to kill Shouto, whom he sees as his replacement, or put Natsuo’s life in the crossfire: anything that makes Endeavor suffer is justified. He even goes as far as killing innocent people and being an accomplice and supporter of terrorism, and bringing his family’s trauma and situation out in the public without their consent: one may argue it was correct to expose Enji, but in my humble opinion the approach was wrong. Touya wanted his father to suffer, without realizing or caring enough that his family may have traumatic reactions to the reveal as he did it, or may not be ready for it. He also isn’t doing it out of genuine feelings of justice, in my opinion: he’s weaponising the narration to bring down his father and the heroes.

Touya, at times, accuses Endeavor of killing the innocent people HE killed with HIS fire, because Endeavor’s grave neglect and irresponsible behavior towards his situation caused Touya to start hurting himself to the point of burning up at Sekoto Mountain, before vanishing and becoming a Villain because of, presumably, all the unresolved pain and feelings pent up inside of him.

Shouto is saved by the deadly fire embrace of his brother by Midoriya, that agrees with Touya about the fact that the past never dies, and as much as Endeavor will change, the past won’t; Midoriya admits this while saying that the actual Endeavor is trying to change, and Dabi isn’t Endeavor: which means that Dabi can’t fault Endeavor for those he killed and his uncaring behavior towards those that suffered his same trauma.

As some argued, during the war Touya is shown as an ensemble of Endeavor’s worst traits, which is important as it signifies that his behavior originates from the way Endeavor raised him.

Now, onto Shouto.

Shouto, who we’ve seen being on the fence when it comes to forgiving Endeavor, actually seems to be trying to empathize with Touya during their fight, various times, really, as can be seen by his expressions. He also takes it upon himself to stop Touya before his family reunites in the hospital and opt to stop Touya together, with Endeavor and Shouto as the focal point.

Sorry I have to go.

I will finish this tomorrow I swear--

EDIT: Expect this to be over tonight. I'm currently busy.

EDIT: I'll reblog this and complete it later.

EDIT:

Here we are once more. Sorry for making you guys wait.

As I was saying...

After Shoto extends his hand to his father in the hospital, and some months (I don’t remember how many, sry) after the press conference where the Top 3 spoke to the public, the Top Three throw themselves after Midoriya, that as abandoned UA, trying to track AFO and his followers down.

And Shouto...well, he isn’t happy, much like the rest of Class 1A: they are majorly upset and preoccupied because Midoriya is missing, but Shouto is also angered by the fact that his father is following Midoriya around instead of concentrating on how to convince Touya to stop hurting himself and others and thus STOP/SAVE HIM. This is what, presumably, Shouto and Endeavor’s goal is regarding to Touya: stop him from being hurt and hurting others with his flames, which will save him and give them a chance to repair the strained relationship.

Endeavor, Hawks and Best Jeanist’s mission to follow and support Midoriya in the meanwhile is failing splendidly: they endeavored (I’mnotsorryforthepun) in this mission because they wanted to compensate the lowering number of heroes active, hunt down villains and find AFO at the same time, all by profiting from Midoriya’s Danger Sense ability. The plan di per se wasn’t that bad, but Midoriya was going too fast for even Hawks, the fastest hero, to follow him; a reminder of why: Midoriya has a lot more Quirks than the top 3, and he was way more desperate than them to find AFO, trust me...the heroes, that also started to include Mt.Lady, Edgeshot, Kamui Woods and others, try to support him from the sidelines, but they are, at the same time, becoming a burden to Midoriya, as Endeavor recognizes before entering UA in chapter 325.

Also, the students mentored by the top 3 try to reach out to them like crazy, because they want to know what the fudge they’re doing and where Midoriya is: Tokoyami called Hawks, Bakugou tried to contact Best Jeanist and Shouto called Endeavor, without receiving exhaustive answers. Endeavor, in particular, doesn’t really want to sideline Shouto, after all they’ve been through, but when he missed the call, he was probably also feeling uncertain on how to deal with Touya, while at the same time worriyng on how to stop AFO and make sure the chaos the country is in doesn’t become worse. When he’s called to UA by Nezu and played a trick by the students who have now started figuring things out, he receives a wake-up call by his son.

Shouto makes him notice how they had told each other they’d stop Touya together, but Endeavor had sidelined him and took it upon himself to find his eldest son and Shouto’s older brother, all while making an exception for Midoriya. I don’t think Shouto didn’t understand his father was also trying to find AFO, but he also didn’t want Endeavor to ditch him and instead wanted to be included. Endeavor seems to slowly understand that the plan he and the other top heroes were following REALLY wasn’t going for the best, thanks not only to Shouto’s wake up call but to Bakugou’s words as well. If All Might, or Midoriya in this case, are left alone with the full weight of their responsibilities heavy on their shoulders, they are going to hurt themselves tremendously. While Endeavor thought that the plan was a good approach, Bakugou clearly says that it wasn’t the best one. Endeavor gives up his phone and looks to be reflecting on many things.

When the class works together to help Midoriya and bring him back to UA, he finally realizes that letting the kids convince Deku was a good idea and tells his colleagues not to intervene, for the students are dealing with it just fine.

We later see him out of the UA barrier with Hawks and Shouto, listening to the citizens screaming at Midoriya to stay away, scared for their safety and mistrustful towards the heroes; not even Best Jeanist and Present Mic can keep them calm. Shouto is super frustrated: he would love to go amidst the civilians and protect Midoriya form their accusations, “put them at ease” like his original heroic goal was. The circumstances, however, don’t seem to be his allies; he still looks extremely relieved when Uraraka takes the megaphone and finally convinces the citizens.

And, here we are to the last actual moment of the STOPPING TOUYA TO SAVE HIM narrative: Endeavor, after recognizing what exactly was wrong with the top 3 plan, looks a bit shocked when Shouto addresses him as “father”. He also look very...sad, somehow: sorry that things aren’t working out as well as he’d have hoped them to go, and that the Touya situation is still unresolved. Shouto extends a hand to him again, by saying that this time they’ll save Touya together. The thought of Dabi’s haunting eyes crosses both of them. Endeavor is probably still afraid that stopping Touya may be a burden too heavy for Shouto when he says, his face a bit obscured, “yes”.

THEORY TIME!

The narration seems to be headed towards the redemption of Shigaraki, Toga, Dabi, Endeavor and mayyyyyybe Overhaul. We know that Shigaraki’s saviour may be Midoriya, Toga’s will be Uraraka, and Overhaul’s rademtion’s factor will mainly be if Eri wants to forgive him.

Endeavor’s redemption’s weight depends on how efficient he actually is at saving Touya at this point and Dabi’s redemption will probably happen thanks to Shouto with contribution from Endeavor. To resume: Endeavor and Touya’s redemption are tied to each other, and Shouto is fundamental to help them both.

How could Hori bring forth Endeavor’s redemption without screwing over Dabi’s redemption, and not screw Endeavor’s redemtion at the same time? I’ll be focusing on Endeavor and dabi here, because I really don’t know how the dialogue between Shouto may be written.

I have no clue. Sorry I don’t. There are some viable options, like Endeavor gets kidnapped or fatally wounded while he fights Dabi because AFO is also there, and could ultimately steal his Quirk. In this case, Endeavor could be alone or with Shouto.

There is also the option in which Endeavor dies while trying to stop Touya from burning up, while recognizing his mistakes, validating Touya’s harsh feelings and accepting to burn in hell.

Frick, they could both die as they burn up, both recognizing the wrong in their ways, but it wouldn’t be really satisfying now would it?

There are so many outcomes possible, but with everyone of them i feel like something is missing. I also feel like I’m the only one that wouldn’t find Endeavor’s death outrageous because “it’s sweeping things under the rug”, or counterproductive because “it would suck for Endeavor’s redemption arc, because everyone is tired of the redemption-by-death trope”.

Endeavor’s death could actually be the best moment of his redemption arc and what makes it truly valuable, depending on how well it is written. Maybe Endeavor isn’t sitting at that table in his dream because he died, and his death actually helped his family heal and smile, because while he had changed his views in the year before his death, it’s still relieving to be free from his presence. However, Touya isn’t present at the table as well, so really...the conclusion to both of their arcs could be anything. Some may say that making Dabi die would be wrong on an ethical standpoint: yet another victim’s death, that makes victims in the real world think there is no hope out of difficult situations; yet another unfair death, because abusers deserve death and not their victims.

Let me tell you why, exactly, I think, neither of their deaths would be useful; you are free to disagree.

Endeavor’s, Touya’s or both their deaths could make the future of the Todofam very traumatic, because the family wouldn’t really manage to find proper closure.

Which is why I don’t think Endeavor or Dabi will or should die, but they will both live with consequences: maybe Endeavor will lose his Quirk, and Touya may turn on AFO and protect Shouto.

I don’t know, honestly.

Plz. help.

All I know is that Horikoshi will surely try to make the outcomes as emotional and epic as ever, so I hope I won’t be disappointed, because so far I’ve been on board with seeing where Endeavor and Touya’s journey may bring them

Anxiously waiting for the next episode, and end of this volume.

#bnha #endeavor #todoroki shouto #todoroki touya #todoroki family

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ilummoss · 4 years

Text

One thing I really liked about Mace Windu: Jedi of the Republic is that it is really one long philosophy discussion, mostly concerning the war and the Jedi’s new role in it. It’s also a story about who Mace Windu is (vs how some perceive him).

Most of the discussions are the Jedi speaking amongst themselves, but it also includes some “debates” between Mace and the main villain of the comic, evil-money-grubbing-droid*. Many of these discussions also echo each other or other events in the comic in a way that is either intentional or someone accidentally striking gold. *(The droids name is technically AD-W4, but honestly evil-money-grubbing-droid fits it way better. This thing makes General Grievous look like he has a healthy outlook on life.)

This is going to get long so buckle up (or blacklist the long post tag).

The comic starts on a discussion between Ki-Adi Mundi and Mace about the war and the Jedi’s new role in it. This discussion is then (spiritually) continued between other Jedi characters. It follows through the entire comic.

They continue to discuss how the Jedi strive to lead by example and Mace wonders if it would be easier to guide the Republic down the right path from the front of the battle lines.

Mace later discusses his doubts with the ugliest Yoda ever painted. (It pains me to think that this is what Yodel/Yodito will look like in just a millennia.)

Mace and Prosset Dibbs also discuss this very same thing, but here Prosset is the one who brings his doubts to Mace.

(*Prosset speaks several times about sensing an unease in the force, which is interesting, considering how we know that the Clone Wars is a trap that has just sprung shut around the Jedi.)

Then we have my favourite moment:

A discussion about how they are peacekeepers is literally interupted by the war. We have the entirety of Clone Wars right here. The purpose of the Clone Wars even. This is an important conversation, but the Jedi do not have time for it. Because of the urgency of the war. It’s the worst and I love it.

There are also some good moments between Kit Fisto and Prosset but I’ve discussed those before, so I won’t be going into them as much here. To summarise, Prosset falls into despair over all the people who have died on this planet as a side-effect of the Separatist’s ruthless exploitation of the planets natural resources, and the failure of the Jedi to protect them.

Prosset then accuses Mace and the Council of having turned their back on the orders teaching and advancing their own agenda (though he is unclear about what said agenda would be), that Mace is fighting this war for his own sake. He then goes even further and accuses the Council of tossing away the lives of this planets inhabitants as collateral, declaring that the true reason behind the mission is a power grab, that they too are aiming at explotating this planet, something we as readers know is false. They were sent there to figure out why the separatists are interested in this place. We have also seen Mace throughout the comic focus on protecting the civilians and trying to find a way to shut down the Separatist operation there, explicitly so that it won’t end up destroying the planet.

But the confrontation between Prosset and Mace echoes an earlier confrontation between Mace and AD-W4.

This moment follows AD-W4 introducing his motivations* and Mace declaring that the Jedi fight for peace throughout the galaxy (”the greatest cause there is”). It also ties into AD-W4′s misunderstanding of who Mace is, what actually drives him, which eventually leads to his mission there failing. *(Evil-money-grubbing-droid openly states that he is only fighting for money, that he doesn’t care about who’s wrong or right in this conflict, only that the conflict continues so that his services are needed and he can make more money.)

This bit about a void is terribly interesting however, because Mace also speaks about being driven by the need to fill a void in this comic, but not in relation to himself, but to Prosset.

“I have experienced first hand what insecurity does to men. How a mind warps with it’s obsessive quest to fill the void. With power. With wealth. With lust. With truth.”

Prosset denies it, but he has twisted, warped what is actually happening around him, into something that he can deal with. The Jedi Council have to be bad guys, there has to a conspiracy, because the truth that this is just out of their power and an uncountable amount of innocent people are going to die despite all of them trying their hardest is too much for him to handle.

Prosset also threw out a vague accusation that Mace is fighting this War for himself, something we see again in Mace’s final confrontation with AD-W4. During their fight the droid repeatedly taunts Mace:

“An excuse for your violence. You’re a hypocrite. Perhaps I am force-sensitive myself.”

It is certainly not a flattering picture of Mace Windu these two adversaries paint up. But this confrontation in turn ties into a mission from Mace’s youth which we are introduced to in flashbacks, where Padawan Mace Windu and Jedi Master Cyslin Myr has been sent to a planet suffering under a plague to investigate the disappearance of the Jedi in charge of an outreach temple there. The temple has been taking over be a “Master Drooz” a charlatan exploiting the suffering population, which has left young Mace outraged.

*(Look at this, more Jedi philosophy. In this comic? What a surprise ^u^)

This moment is pretty clearly here to introduce us to Mace’s struggle with his anger, a characteristic both antagonists of this comic has honed in on. But this anger is connected to how deeply idealistic Mace is at heart, something they miss. As they confront the swindler, Drooz mocks them for what he sees as “squandering” a chance for profit and power whilst Mace’s answer underlines how those things grow pale in comparison to higher goals.

This confrontation ends on a Palpatine parallel as subtle as a hammer blow to the head.

This is the last part of the flashback, and it’s positioned right in the scene where Mace finally subdues Prosset, standing above him with his lightsaber pointing down. And then Mace knocks Prosset unconscious and says that he will be brought to the Jedi council. Master Myr’s lesson was heard.

A fire burns in Mace, that is true. It is something Mace must struggle with and control. But he has learned to keep that fire tempered. He is no longer that hotheaded Padawan, but a disciplined Jedi Master.

The fight between Mace and AD-W4 ends in AD-W4′s defeat, but with evil-money-grubbing-droid gloating that his actual mission was still completed.

Except AD-W4, like how the fake “Master Drooz” did not understand the Jedi and what drives them, does not understand Mace.

AD-W4 thinks he has Mace figured out, so he missed that Mace was really using himself as a distraction, whilst young Jedi Knight Rissa Mano rigged that ship to explode. As Mace tells AD-W4 during this fight: “Do not mock, nor underestimate, that which you do not understand.”

Mace actually believes in peace. Truly and deeply so. This belief, this want to do good and protect people, is what drives him forward. By believing that Mace was driven foremost by his anger AD-W4 misjudges his entire situation.

“My righteousness is anything but self-motivated. There is definitive right and wrong. Good and evil.

Mace is going after AD-W4 not because he wants the fight and victory, “the power trip”, but because what evil-money-grubbing-droid is doing is wrong. The destruction he brings to this planet and it’s locals and his very indifference to it, is evil.

This comic isn’t trying to pretend that Mace Windu is perfect. The very obvious Palpatine parallels reminds us of the moment in his future where Mace will not manage to temper his righteous fury. But this is not yet that point.

Which brings us one final time back to Prosset. The crux of Prosset’s Fall lies in that this war is horrible and should not exist. The people of this planet should not be hurt and killed by it.

But, as Mace points out here, it is not up to the Jedi to decide if there will be a war or not*. Peace is already lost. Not fighting will not protect these people. *(The greatest irony of the Clone Wars is of course that it is an artificial conflict designed to benefit one person solely. There is someone who has decided that there should be a war and has moved everything into place for it. Palpatine could decide to end this any day, but the very core of his character declares that he never will.)

During Mace and Prosset’s fight Rissa is echoing the point Yoda made at the beginning of this comic. If the Jedi don’t keep moving, if they don’t fight, things will get even worse and more will die.

The Jedi have to move forward and commit fully to their choice, because anything else will get people killed. It’s not about not doubting or questioning, but that sometimes you must move even when there is doubt.

This is the conclusion to the discussion going on throughout this comic. The choice to enter the clone wars wasn’t uncomplicated or easy. The Jedi clearly have great doubt about it, both as an organisation and individuals. But sometimes all you have are bad choices, and the responsibility to choose.

#mace windu #jedi philosophy #the jedi order #jedi order #prosset dibbs #mace windu: jedi of the republic #meta #long post #my meta #posting this today at this time might be a bad idea but I do not have the patience to wait xD

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kendrixtermina · 4 years

Text

The “Genocidal Edelgard” Shallowtake

I was not going to make a post about this because it’s most likely futile and not going to convince anyone nor do I believe in dinifying the purity police with attention, but maybe it will let some ppl know that they dont have to let themselves be shamed for liking the wrong video game character

Whatever might have been the case in the distant past when Nemesis was around, by the “present day” the Nabateans are not at all some commonly oppressed stereotyped minority - the setting is chock full of characters that fit that bill a lot better like Dedue or Cyril. Characters that are ordinary humans not magic dragons.

And even that is more founded on general purpose xenophobia than from the specific, relatively new early modernity construct of racism. (the dedue situation probably comes the closest)

Sure, Seteth and Flays have to hide from their old enemy the Agarthans, I see how some might find that relatable etc. but most of the population isn’t aware that they exist at all. They hold high status positions, are worshipped by the local religion and Rhea all but rules the entire continent (and says so herself to Byleth in that speech about how she was just “ruling this wayward country in your stead”, “you” being Sothis) - though that is mostly Rhea’s doing of which Seteth and Flayn are relatively innocent.

The interviews pretty much confirmed that the Nabateans constituted the local aristocracy and that many humans genuinely saw the Elites as liberators - though there was definitely also an element of ppl going around killing random Nabateans to gain superpowers, not to speak of Nemesis’ very obvious very unambiguous mass murder. Not wanting to be ruled over by foreign powers is understandable, though obviously killing them all down to the last civilian was just flat out evil - its certainly not a simple situation, we can all agtree Nemesis & the Agarthans were evil but there is no clear defined good guy.

There are historical conflicts you could compare this to, perhaps some conflicts in Africa or the middle eastwhere different groups took turns being the ruling class after the latest war, but it’s not at all like the modern USA or early modernity colonialism, and forcing every real or, in this case, imagined scenario inherently dependent of fantasy elements, into this one framework from the present or near past isn’t conductive to understanding at all.

And in the present day, by the time Edelgard is alive, we are talking about three specific people that she has good reason to dislike individually. Not any sort of group at all.

She calls Rhea a cruel beast because that’s all she’s ever seen Rhea to be. She’s the shadow tyrant who rules her world, who created the crappy world Edelgard grew up in. It’s no different Cubans thiking badly of the castros after suffering through famines - or, no need for such extreme examples really, ppl call their least favorite politicians monsters all the time.

She’s wrong to assume that Seteth & Flayn are wholly on board with this, but on the other hand, it’s not at all a far-fetched assumption to make: They hold high positions in the church though they ostensimbly just appreared out of nowhere one day. Do you have to be an evil bigot to assume that the brother and right hand man to the tyrannical god-queen is condoning & supporting her actions?

The truth is of course that underneath her pseudo-parental facade Rhea is sort of a scared girl, very lonely, very afraid, and ashamed, in a shallow, childish way, for “breaking the rules” just because they are rules. She says she can’t trust anyone, that she feels lonely & isolated... and while no one can blame her for distrusting humans after the slaughter of her people, but the reason she can’t trust Seteth is that she’s keeping her bad deeds secret from him. He wasn’t there the whole time, he just showed up a few decades earlier.

She sees herself only as filling out for Sothis and doesn’t quite grasp that she’s in charge, very much a follower personality bent on stasis & regularity.

Is Edelgard obliged to try & unravel the complex psychology of the tyrant who rules her home to correctly deduce why she would deceive even her own family? By all intents and purposes, Edelgard is the one getting rid of an oppressive government that doesn’t let ordinary humans let a say at all. A government where ppl of others faiths and nationalities are typically oppressed unless they work directly for the church.

It’s like having a disdain for, say, Ivanka Trump. She holds a high position in her father’s administration despite having no obvious qualifications, she appears to be profiting & making bank from her father’s atrocities, she certainly hasn’t done anything to stop him or disavow him the way that, say, her cousin Mary did - if you suffered under Trump’s regime you’d be very justified in assuming that Invanka is probably a bad person.

Flayn only looks young (She might not if we saw her in other clothes). I mean, Kronya could badly impersonate a schoolgirl. At the very least they’ve supported the regime by refusing to question their own side and they show some however benevolent belief that it is their duty to “guide” the people. Leaving her to the Agarthans is certainly questionable, but no more so than doing it with Rhea herself, under the assumption that she’s guilty and that it’s a sacrifice that will prevent larger chaos. The agarthans had their plan long before they created Edelgard as we know her, and she couldn’t stop their plots all on her own.

You could say that it’s callous, distasteful or a deal breaker - as the death knight is her direct subordinate & she makes a personal appearance in mask, I would argue that she definitely knew & sanctioned the kidnapping - but she’s no more callous towards Flayn than towards anybody else.

Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re evil, or that they deserve to die.... and Edelgard would agree with me. She doing all this to prevent death – flipping the lever on the trolley problem so it crushes one person instead of five so to speak. She always gives her enemies the chance to surrender, unwilling allies the chance to leave, and jails enemies whenever leaving them alive wouldn‘t lead to further death… even the ones she has the most personal reason to hate, like the PM.

As servants of the church who have chosed to back her enemies, she’ll certainly kill them if she has to, but not any more than any other enemy. At no point anywhere in the story does she say anything like that they need to die on principle. Nowhere at all. Indeed there is much evidence to the contrary.

The church paints her as being completely against the religion or even wanting to set herself up as a satanic godess cause it‘s good politics & they don‘t get what she‘s doing – to an extent her own credibility & messaging is compromised by her secretive and at times unscrupulous actions, no one said she was perfect. In truth all she wants is to have the church out of politics, you know, what we have in nearly every modern country outside the vatican and saudi arabia.

You can absolutely let Flayn & Seteth go on CF and there is no word, no fuss about it anywhere. No „make sure to kill em all“ which would certainly be there if the narrative wanted to portray Edelgard that way. It requires the mediation of Byleth as someone they would talk to & not immediately assume the worst of, but, they see the church as the embodymet of all that is good & fighting its enemies as their sacred duty so of course it wouldn‘t be possible for just anyone to talk them down. It‘s framed as Flayn letting Byleth go cause they saved her life once, even if we know from behind the screen that she wasn‘t going to survive a fight to the death against the player-controlled faction.

Heck, even when it comes to Rhea, the one most guilty that Edelgard has the most reason to loathe, she‘s ultimately surprisingly gracious. She gives her the option to surrender – and this is not a lie, she discusses this with Byleth in a lecture question, and seriously ponders the possibility. Here Byleth gets a range of options like „stab her in the back“ and „keep the church under imperial control“ but you know which one nets you the support points? „Strip her of her authority so she can‘t interfere in politics“. She wasn‘t gonna mess with the religious folks & their religion at all, just make it so it‘s separate from government. Rhea could even keep being pope, if she could be satisfied without having complete supreme authority (and ripping her precious artifact out of Byleth‘s chest) – even when she puts her down she‘s not 100% without pity, telling her that „Your duty is done“ (the translators mucked this up)

Couldn‘t be any further from „lets kill them all on principle“.

What really annoys me is how ppl go and twist everything Edelgard says out of context to ascribe a motive to her that just isn’t there.

Common examples:

„If you have Flayn or Seteth fight her she‘ll say they need to die because they‘re nabateans“

Actually what she says is this: „You are a child of the godess. You must not have power over the people!“ Not getting to be privileges rulers anymore =/= being opressed. Stay out of politics =/= Diediedie. Also, this is from the VW/SS boss fight, where they have literally come to get her in her own capital.

„Linhard & Leonie don‘t tell her & hubert about Indech, probably cause he expects that she‘ll go & kill him„

What he actually says is: „Lake Teutates is a place that concerns the saints of the Church of Seiros. It may become bothersome should the two of them find out...“

„It may be bothersome“ as in, „we might get in trouble“, for doing the possibly very inadvisable thing of waltzing into what could possibly be an enemy location to satisfy personal curiosity. If it‘s something related to her agenda she might take over and Linny wouldn‘t get to investigate as he pleases – at very most you might construe it as Linny fearing that they‘ll be accused of consorting with the enemy, but „bothersome“ suggest possible annoyance not imminent murder.

The whole scene ends with Linhard telling Byleth to fill her in later. Doesn‘t sound at all like he expects her to go back with a harpoon.

„She said Claude isn‘t fit to be a ruler cause he‘s a foreigner“

What she actually says: „I understand your ideals are not so far removed from my own. But without knowledge of Fodlan‘s history, I cannot entrust its rule to you“

Now without the additional contexts that Claude won‘t get until after the fight, it might easily feel a bit like the former with the raw spots he‘d have from his backstory, but what she means is that he‘s ignorant of the Agarthan threat – which he is. Edelgard is all for making peace with Almyra and sees fostering isolationism & prejudice as one of the many faults of the church.

Once Claude basically kills Edelgard for information, he winds up having to take care of the storm she had been holding back. But to his credit, he DID „finish the job“ and get the info. But he didn‘t have it at that point.

And I don‘t mean any of this in the least bit as a diss of Claude - He is the smartest character, so there would be no plot if he got easy access to the info. At this point, they both think they can probably do better, and more importantly, both their backstories have made them so that they won‘t let down their guard far enough to cooperate in this scenario.

That‘s also why the outcome in CF is contingent on Byleth‘s choice. - You‘d sort of have to trust that he will also act so as to minimize casualties.

Very disingenious since many players wouldn‘t necessarily trigger these dialogues.

I guess because Adrestia got a vaguely central-european aesthetic (partially; all the countries are hodgepodge mashups and there’s more than enough spanish or ancient roman vibes there) and central europe existed only for those 12 years of tyranny I guess, even though many other places have had similar BS happening, including the US that delights in making craptons of movies about their faraway victory because their governments haven’t added much of value to the planet as of late. -.-

Faerghus (vaguely french/ russian - not at all places where nothing bad happened ever) has actually annexed some territory from their northern neighbors in the recent past, not to speak of the whole Duscur atrocity - but no one seems to go around laying that at Dimitri’s feet, because it would be nonsensical - he was a child at the time and as an individual he is super against it and champions a policy of reconcilliation if he gets to rule. after all, there wouldn’t be much of a plot if the characters inherited three perfect faultless problem free countries.

Edelgard, too, is completely against the previous administration under Duke Aegir (which was in charge during the Bridgid war). She deposed him and is plotting to do the same with Arundel once she can politically afford to do so. For all that one can understand why she would chose the other path (depending on how much she knows about what Edelgard’s doing and why) it makes all the sense in the world for Petra to support her on CF or if not recruited, because again, she got rid of that previous administration.

#edelgard #edelgard von hresvelg #fe3h #fire emblem: three houses #fire emblem three houses

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elizabethemerald · 4 years

Text

Best role in a fantasy world? Beloved Shopkeeper

Ok, the best job in a fantasy land has got to be beloved shopkeeper for an adventuring party. Like, imagine: you’ve owned this small enchanting shop/ potion shop for years. It was your dream to run just such a shop ever since you were a little girl.

One day, a new group of “Adventurers” wander in. You’ve seen adventurers, mercenaries, local toughs of all kinds come in through your doors claiming to be hot stuff. They want your finest healing potions and to peruse your enchanted items. Turns out they aren’t as flush as they think they are and have to beg for a discount, even then they have to scrap together every copper to afford it.

You roll your eyes internally, but give them a small discount. Sometimes its nice to help a new adventuring group get on their feet. A little kindness early on could help shape their whole journey.

And you can definitely tell they have only just gotten together. Half of them look like, up until very recently, they were homeless and they all wear their trust issues like a uniform. Still they have some coin and you’re more than happy to take it from them, expecting to never see them again.

Except they come back. The next time they come through your door there is the jingle of gold in the coin pouches. They come to you and immediately purchase some of the enchanted goods they couldn’t get before, restock their potions and head for the road again.

And they keep coming back. They buy out your stock of healing potions every time they come through town. They commission spells or scrolls. They refill their magical components at your store even though they have probably come across cheaper options during their travels.

Each time they come to see you, you can tell they are about to head off another grand adventure. They come in request a helm of water breathing. The next time they trade the helm for your entire stock of potions of fire resistance. They still smell like smoke and ash the next time they drop by ready to sell a dragon’s horn, and a large handful of red dragon scales.

As they grow as adventurers they grow to become your close friends. You keep an ear to the ground for any gossip they might be interested in the next time they come in. They keep an eye out for interesting potion components or enchanted items they don’t need that you could sell.

One time, they dash in, grab a single potion of strength and throw some coin on the counter and run out before you can even greet them. When you count the coin you find its short the cost of the potion. You dismiss the difference as a best friend’s discount. However you are surprised when they return the next day to pay the difference plus more.

“We can’t be shorting our favorite shop keep!” They say.

You smile as they leave. This is the first group of adventurers who had done that. It warms your heart.

Another time they come in and you’re tired but you try and put on a good face. The quiet one in the back notices and asks you whats wrong. Eventually you tell her that a local criminal element is threatening you. They want to extort protection payments, or they’ll destroy your work. You tell your friends that you fear they are being funded by one of your rival enchanters.

She asks you some pointed questions, this may be the longest conversation you’ve had with her. Normally she’s completely silent when she visits your shop. The party leaves with an oddly serious air. You feel better for having a chance to complain about the threats. Hopefully the Watch will catch the culprits soon.

The next week the miscreants are in chains, brought before the law master. Your competitor has fled town after rumors spread of his involvement with the slave trade. Your favorite adventurers come in shortly after. The quiet one assures you that you will not be bothered like that again.

Once they leave on their next adventure, you close the shop early and sit against the closed doors sweat pouring from your brow. You hadn’t asked them to go after the criminals, much less to expose your competitor. They took the chance themselves because of your close friendship.

As time goes by, you watch them grow. They are quickly out growing what you are capable of making them. Yet they continue to shop with you, mostly just to enjoy your company it seems. Now they are selling back to you items they had to scrape together every coin for when they first bought it. The rings of water walking are being traded out for rings of protection, or even more powerful items that they are digging out of dragon hoards or lich dens.

Eventually powerful folk begin entering your shop with the names of your friends on their lips. Some are interested in purchasing their own enchanted items or potions, mentioning the party’s recommendation. Others are interested in business arrangements, saying your friends thought you would work well together. And still others...come with worse offers.

You stare at the heaping pile of gold and platinum. Create an item with a hidden curse. That will trip your friends in a dire moment, leave them open to attack when they most need their strength. You have your morals. As a shopkeeper, as an enchanter, and most importantly as a friend. You proudly cross your arms and turn down their offer, a smirk on your face, this fool thinking your loyalty can be bought like this.

The next offer is more serious. Create the cursed object, or die, burning in your own shop. You sweat. You are many things, skilled in many ways, but you haven’t faced death like your friends are. You’re terrified. You try to rebuff this person, who wants you to hurt your friends, and they make you regret it.

You create the cursed piece. When your friends return you try and dissuade them from buying it by pricing it exorbitantly. You know they won’t be able to resist it, you know them so well, the enchanted item is exactly up their alley. You however didn’t expect them to put down the money gladly, laughing and cheering after their successful raid on a dragon turtle’s lair and the horde they found within.

The quiet one, who always notices so much, who always stopped the rogue from stealing from you, who assured you that you wouldn’t be troubled again, notices your fear. She pulls you into the back room. With spells of warding against scrying and other magical spying cast she gets the truth out of you. The truth of the offer, and the threat, and the trap hidden under your enchantment.

The faces of the party are stern. Maybe you think they are angry with you for what you’ve done. However they say that no one should dare threaten their favorite shop keep. You can’t help your relief that they don’t hate you.

As quickly as you can you shove what items you can into a bag of holding. Your wand and tools of your trade. They stand guard around you, ready to kill anyone who would try and enact their threat.

You are snuck out of the city that very night. It takes you days to hear about the explosion. Your shop, your life’s work. Destroyed. Nothing was left after the flames were extinguished. You are now presumed dead.

You cry in her arms. The quiet one. Who had been so loud, so ardent that her companions would protect you. You cry yourself to sleep, while she watches over you, a silent sentinel.

The party agrees that the threat to you, by this powerful enemy of theirs cannot stand. They march to the door of their enemy’s tower, and with flying spells and powerful blows, rend that door to splinters. You can only watch, jaw agape as the battle unfolds. You hadn’t truly realized how powerful they had become. Or maybe it was just that they fought harder and more ruthlessly because someone had dared to threaten you.

After the battle, you and the quiet one find a side chamber of the tower and she absolutely rails you.

The party sets you up with a new establishment near their residence. A new shop, where you can once again weave your spells, and work your craft. They are more powerful than even your strongest enchantments, and so are no longer your most loyal customers. Instead they sell their old equipment and other artifacts they find on their adventuring to you and you turn a tidy profit selling them in turn to the next generation of young adventurers.

Each time they leave you on the path to a new adventure, a new monster to hunt or mystery to explore you wave goodbye from your shop door. You Watch them ride away, watch them vanish into a teleportation circle, watch them take off into the air. And you wait for them. You wait for them to return. For her to return.

And they do. And she does. Each time they return, battered and bruised but alive and triumphant and more importantly alive, you are there to greet them. You buy their excess treasure, tell them of the news and rumors in town. And with lingering eyes, lingering hands, and lingering lips welcome her home.

Eventually a fight comes that could be the end of the world. It could be the end of the party of adventurers. It could be the end of you and her.

They all buckle on their armor. Ready their weapons. You give them any potion or enchantment you have. Anything to bring them back to you.

She finds you in the press of her friends. She pulls you aside for a quiet moment, just the two of you. She presses a ring into your hands. Its a simple thing, especially in comparison to the magical rings she’s been trading in in recent years. There’s not a scrap of magic to it.

“Keep this safe for me?” She asks. Its her mother’s ring. She’s carried it on a silver chain around her neck since her first days on the road. You hold the ring on its chain tightly in your hand, and hold her just as tightly. You press a ring of your own into her hands.

“Keep yourself safe for me?” You ask. The ring has the most powerful protective spells on it that you are capable of casting. She smiles and nods, tears in her eyes. And she turns away from you with out another word.

You drag any civilians into a local shelter while the battle rages over head. You can hear the crash and din of combat, louder than any thunder and the earth shakes like the entire world will be torn asunder. You do your best to keep those around you protected from the rubble that falls down. Until suddenly, everything grows still and quiet.

Trepidatiously you lead the others out of the shelter. Tears jump to your eyes as you see your merry band of heroes triumphant. They did not escape the cataclysm without damage but they are here, and slowly it is setting in for them that they survived, that they won. Laughs and cheers slowly began to echo around.

You are smiling so wide your face hurts as you are looking in between them for her. Where is she? You are looking for any glimpse of her hair or the shine of her armor. But you can’t find her. The smile dies on your face and tears spring again to your eyes. They run down your cheeks as your despair grows. You are gripping her mother’s ring so tightly you are afraid you might break it, the stone is cutting into your palm.

Then you hear it. The laugh. Her laugh. For someone so reserved she has the most beautiful laugh. It is a laugh that is exclusively heard by her closest friends. Her closest friends, and you. You turn and see her there in the crowd of people starting to celebrate a new day they never thought they would see.

She wraps you in the tightest hug. She kisses away your tears.

“Did it help?” You ask. Pointing at your ring on her finger.

She smiles past her tears. And she nods. You try to offer her mother’s ring back.

“Keep it?” She asks. “For our children?”

You nod and she puts the ring on your finger. And she kisses you in a way you’ve never been kissed before.

Years down the line, you two are living together. She is, mostly, retired from adventuring. You are still running your shop, though you no longer need the money and are doing it mostly for something to keep you busy. You children have her eyes. You have her ring on your finger.

The two of you wonder which mother your children will take after. Will one of them take over the shop when you are ready to retire? Will the call of adventure be to strong to resist for one? Who is to say. You certainly don’t know. Children need to forge their own paths in life. Though their story is one for another time.

Please reblog if you like! Let me know what you think of this story!

#Dungeons and Dragons #stories #adventurers #shopkeep #writing emerald #i was blushing while I wrote this #its so so so gay #and I love it so much

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redcrownedcrane · 3 years

Text

Biography

__ Basics

Name: Danzō Takahashi. Age: 32 (03/02/1990) Gender, Pronouns & Sexuality: Male (he/his); bisexual but prefers women Hometown: Kyoto Affiliation: Civilian Job position: Martial Arts Studio Owner Education: Homeschooled Relationship status: Single Children: / Positive traits: Pragmatic, loyal, crafty, wise, composed Negative traits: Ruthless, stubborn, secretive, proud, mistrusting

__ Biography

Danzō was born in Kyoto 1990 in a family of businessmen. Because their blood line could be traced back to several hundreds of years back to the golden age of the samurai and beyond that the Takahashi’s deemed their family and their traditions highly – or at least that’s what Grandfather Hayashi claimed. Nobody dared to contest it to this day, though that wasn’t to say there was no doubt. Hayashi most notably was the father figure of Danzō and his older brother Sen. Their biological father left when Danzo was only 4 years old and nobody spoke of him since –– as if he never existed. That was to be expected for those who betrayed the family. Whether he escaped, ran away or whether one of Hayashi’s men assassinated him was a question he was afraid to know the answer to. His mother would not speak of it, anyway, no matter how often Danzo inquired. Over the years, his anger became a mere ache, one he could never shake but background noise, nonetheless. He had not forgiven her silence. He had only learned to live with it.

Anyone will betray you. Anyone.

These were not the words of his mother, not even the words of Hayashi. No, his brother of all people was the one to share this wisdom with him. Danzo did not grasp the meaning of the words until much later. Their relationship was an odd one. Danzo and Sen were opposites it seemed. Sen was obedient if not a little shy, docile almost but quick to read Grandfather Hayashi’s lips which, of course, fed Hayashi’s pride even further. He read often and painted, both with near-supernatural talent. Danzo was wilder and more boyish, always outside knee-deep in dirt. Hayashi had to punish him more often for sneaking away, for observing the workers at the factories after daytime or for simply being too rude. But they were inseparable for the bond they shared. Sen trusted him –– I thought. If his word was to be believed, Danzo was the only one who knew just how cunning his brother could be. He still remembered the day when he saw Sen stood against the window like he was expecting him, and he looked even more confident, even more vain than Hayashi himself. Danzo never quite understood why he felt he had to pretend in front of the others, but he enjoyed being close to his brother, feeling like he was special and, of course, he enjoyed the gossip of the house and the secret hideouts and all the trouble they got up to. Most of all, Danzo felt safe, because Sen needed him. If Hayashi found out that he had been lied to for so long, that would be the end of him, there was no doubt about it. No, surely, he could not lose Danzo as a brother and an ally. The way this family worked, this bond was exploited one time or another for rather mundane things – to get away with a girl, to lie about work, to do all the things boys did when they were young. But Sen was two-faced. The racoon dog was his favourite animal and that perhaps was the perfect depiction of his true nature – a trickster at heart.

Grandfather Hayashi was a businessman more than anything. He owned two big factories in Kyoto where he employed hundreds of workers to work textiles into luxurious shirts and suits. Business started to boom again in Japan in general so there was no lack of demand for business attire and hip gadgets. The workers often were provided rooms and meals on site to allow them work for longer and cut their wages. Their families were allowed for free too which made many of them want to come voluntarily. We say workers now because the rules have gotten stricter over the years. Hayashi always thought the hypocrisy amusing. They changed the language but all it did was to make conditions worse. Now, many hundreds of people were tricked into slavery because that was really all it was. Hayashi made sure they could not escape because there was nowhere else for them to go. Hayashi thought himself above them and so did everybody else in the house. The best thing? It made him look good in public. People thought he was doing them all a favour by employing them and giving them shelter. Laughable! That said, his main business came from the drug plantation he operated and his connections to the local mafia. Methamphetamine was the drug of choice and especially with the yakuza on their side, Hayashi had no trouble distributing white crystals to the paying man. People needed suits for sure, but they were fucking desperate for meth. And contrary to public perception, there was no such thing as dirty money.

The dream started to crumble when Danzo turned 25 years old. He learned to watch his brother every so often. He used to joke he had some sort of sixth sense, that he would get this feeling whenever Sen was up to no good. This time, the older Takahashi had taken things to the extreme, taking one of the slaves to bed in the factory. Danzo knew he occasionally lusted after the girls. He didn’t understand why for that he lacked neither looks nor reputation to get intimate with a real woman but that itself was only of little concern. Sen had gotten away with it a few times, fucking the whores in their rooms. This time, however, it was different. He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. The girl knew about the assassins the Takahashi family had sent to put an end to a local rivalry and there was only one sentence for that. He understood the need for privacy, but Sen very much must have known about the guards. Sen usually disposed of the girls or silenced them after and Danzo hoped this would be no different, though it never came to this. One of Hayashi’s men had spotted them and was about to bring news to Hayashi. It happened so quickly, Danzo did not realize his blade cutting through the man’s chest until it happened – until the guard sank to the ground lifelessly and he was faced with the scared eyes of the girl and the shocked expression of his brother. He had never seen him like this before. Shit! But this only would bring them both down. The workers were docile people. They never complained, they knew better than that, and they certainly would not rebel in such abrupt fashion. So, he had to make them. Danzo and Sen that night killed every man guarding the plantation and piled their bodies into the fabric. The workers not understanding what happened very much knew what fate would await them if they stayed. So, most of them left before Hayashi found out, some of them were tortured until they gave out. This was a close shot. Sen would joke that he made him a man later on. It was the first time he had blood on his hands. His demeanour had changed since, he had gone quieter, more distant but they got away, nonetheless. There was no reason to suspect any of the brothers. Besides, Hayashi managed to make a profit out of the whole ordeal by launching an investigation and graciously accepting the reimbursements of the government.

It was a 3 years later that life fell apart completely. It’s the only way you learn. Anyone will betray you. So, he did. Long story short, Sen told Hayashi the truth. Of course, he did not do it openly but something, one day, led Hayashi to believe that Danzo was to be suspected to have triggered the bloodshed. He was called into the room and he swore he could see the unwillingness in his grandfather’s eyes. That only made it worse. Yet it was when quiet, docile and obedient Sen spoke up to tell the others what he saw. Sen rarely spoke unless he was spoken to and this only made it more believable. But it was the sword he cut the first man with that was matched against the wound they located and that served as proof enough. It was the truth – that was the biggest tragedy of it all. Danzo felt like his breath was taken away and his flesh was pierced by a thousand swords all at once. What was he going to do? Danzo was sure Hayashi would have him killed for this. And it was fucking Sen who spoke up once more, begging to leave his life. To say he was confused was a massive understatement. But he had to take it. Hayashi let him go but not without atoning for his crime. He felt the blade against his arm, then his skin. Hayashi nearly skinned him alive, allowing one cut for every man that fell that night. Everyone betrays everyone. Danzo’s arm was lined with layers and layers of thin scars. They covered his skin lengthwise.

Danzo had spent the next years travelling from one place to the other – mostly America and Europe, as far away from Japan and Hayashi’s men as he possibly could. There was too much grief and anger still to move on and build a life of his own. Besides, there would be no place safe for him. Sen made sure of that. If there was one thing he had learned about his brother was that what you thought would be his end game, never was his end game. There was always another move to make, another trick up his sleeve.

#bio #wb.intro

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aradias-crypt · 5 years

Text

Black Hat with a Subordinate S/O

You meet during an attack, the perfect interview

It was supposed to be a simple outing. You were out on a little excursion before getting ready to go to work the next day. Now, in a place like Avidité Central where mostly corrupt merchants run the system, you are always watching out for crime. Villains are expected in this county, drug lords work with the top merchants and shady arms dealers are often having meetings in your local cafes. An attack like this was bound to happen with arguments over trade routes at an all time high. But the mastermind behind the sudden turf war was not who you expected, seeing as you live miles from the coast of Hat Island.

You cover your head as you hide behind a stone bench, the sounds of screams filling the air as debris rains down. Yet another attack in only two weeks of semi peace. The Indigos and Silks had been bumping heads for months now, this fight was expected- but in the PARK?! SERIOUSLY?!

An iron arm flies over your head after a blast shakes the ground beneath you, turning back into flesh as it rolls away.

You begin to regret your investment in your apartment.

“Le Mavroir! Le Mavroir!” A soldier yells, his tone full of panic.

The fighting stops.

To your right, you hear the soft tapping of a cane on the cobblestones.

Memories of history lessons flood your thoughts, a timeline of past heroes and villains. Legends and the forgotten.

Le Mavroir.

The Black.

“Well, well, well. I expected a bloodbath, but this, this is absolutely sublime.” His guttural voice echoes from every direction, loud and clear, and demanding attention.

“Andreas Indigo,” the tapping of his cane stops on the other side of the bench. You see the bottom of his trench coat as he sits down. “This fight doesn’t seem to be leaning in your favor.”

A man seethes, “Your so-called advice began this you-“ He stops abruptly when he begins to choke.

Black Hat clicks his tongue, “Don’t test me boy.”

You slowly move away from the bench, silently sliding away towards the stairs to the subway.

The poke of a blade in the middle of your back stops you from moving any further.

Black Hat turns his head, his eye glowing from under the shadow of the brim of his hat. He purrs, “Where do you think you’re going?”

Bravery gets you everywhere and out of there

You clench your fists to try stopping them from shaking.

“I just- I just w-wa...” You suck in a breath, feeling the blade dig into your skin. You push down your fear and bow your head, “Aplires, mos Mavroir.. I wish to leave..if you would allow it.”

The villains in front of him snicker, knowing his bloodlust ran deeper than theirs. There is no escaping him alive.

Slowly but surely the blade stops and sinks back into the ground. He chuckles.

“Trevikla. Very well, little mouse.”

They fall silent. Your eyes widen in awe.

“Run swiftly, before I decide to use you to whet my appetite~.” He grins fiendishly and shoos you away.

He turns around, continuing where he left off.

“Now. Where were we?”

Leaving no time for him to reconsider his decision, you rush underground and cover your ears once more as the screams begin again.

You meet again under slightly better circumstances

You work at a bakery where the owner is less than chivalrous. You pretty much handle the whole thing: prepping, cleaning, baking, paperwork and paying bills. Often waking up at 4 in the morning to prepare for the day. Really the man is there to make sure you don’t touch the money and to occasionally help with the ovens. It sucked, but you liked the patrons.

However, upon arriving to the store that morning, you can tell something is off.

Unlocking the backdoor to the bakery, you flick on the lights and grab your apron from its hook.

“You don’t look like an Avarician.”

You shriek, turning around and whipping out your gun from your jacket pocket. A hand wraps around the barrel.

Black Hat towers over you, his coat covered in blood splatter.

“You don’t act like one either.”

“How do you know if I am or not?”

“A true Avarician would have shot already.”

You look at his hand, “If I were to shoot the Mavroir, the Blackwells would kill me.” You say, referring to the new rulers of the east and west side, after the Indigos and Silks were all slaughtered by the being before you.

“Aufils voudra de tolfier prokaló moi.” He says confidently. His voice is thickly accented, but you still understood the message. No one would go against his wishes.

You frown, “They may not defy you but I am an adeiázo. An empty shell. I have no use to them.” Or to you, you think to yourself.

“Luckily for you, a new position has opened up in my organization~.” He yanks the gun out of your grasp and turns on his heel, heading further into the room. He beckons you over his shoulder.

You reluctantly follow.

On the bright side, he wasn’t here to kill you.

The body of your now ex-boss catches your attention.

His chest was cracked open, its contents oddly missing..

You step around him,”Did you do that..?”

“Unlike you little mouse, he had the guts to to steal from me. But rest assured, I took my time ripping those guts right out.” Fluorescent green drool drips down the side of his mouth.

“O-oh..”

“I suggest you get used to sights such as these.”

Soooo... heard of hat flavored bread?

Black Hat never really visited Avidité Central often, though many of his top clients used it as a clandestine transaction area. Originally he had planned to buy an island to set aside for auctions and whatnot, but now that he has taken control of Avidité’s capital he can arrange it to his liking. It was already structured decently, with a port not far off from the city. And now he had you to manage the coverup.

To civilians, you would be a regular baker: catering to events and keeping up a cafe for everyday life.

To villains, you would be their drop off spot and cover.

And a place to buy Black Hat approved goods.

“The cargo will be shipped at night and will arrive at dawn but I can hold it for you for up to five days.” You take notes as you lean on the counter, talking casually to the villain in front of you. It has only been a few weeks since you’ve been doing this “job”, but after meeting your first few villains, you weren’t as scared anymore.

They nod and hand you a roll of cash. “I will be back to pick it up on Thursday.”

You put the money into your pocket. Normally this would be a big no no, but to reveal where a safe was to a villain was even a bigger no. ”Alright. Would you like to buy anything else before you leave?”

The villain looks at the menu on the counter, lifting a brow at the new item.

“Black bread?”

“Hat flavored.” You shiver, “Its.. okay.”

They chuckle, “I think I will pass for now.”

- -

“The bread is having some mixed reviews.” You roll your neck.

Black Hat counts the stack of bills next to him, quietly muttering to himself.

This has been your nights for a few days now.

A car with flaming exhaust pipes and rides up the the bakery with Black Hat inside. He enters the building and counts his profits, leaving you a portion behind to handle the needs of the shop. Once he gets what he needs he leaves.

“It will catch on,” he stuffs the bills into a suitcase, “If not, start over.”

“Yes, Mavroir.” You respond dutifully before flinching at the abrupt sound of his chair scraping against the floor as he stands up.

He smirks.

“Very funny.” You frown.

“Hilarious.” He says. Handing you a slightly thicker stack of money, Black Hat retrieves his keys before heading to the door. “Don’t disappoint me little mouse.”

You wave as he leaves.

Oddly, you didn't mind his presence like you did before.

Hope you don’t mind constant non-business visits cause you’re getting them anyway

Don’t feel special or anything, he’s only checking in on you to make sure you don’t try stashing away some of his well earned money- and that you haven’t been killed by a villain raging over fees.

“Sir?”

“What is it human.”

“Would you like something to drink while you’re here?”

“I have no need for drink.”

“Oh.. Well I just thought you might want to sample a few packets of blood Ms. Mawrasite brought.”

“...”

“Bring them over.”

Be prepared to deal with his vanity

Black Hat hates beauty, but takes pleasure in showing off his human forms. Usually they’re pretty normal so he can blend in with crowds, but there’s one he especially enjoys showing off~.

The mornings are always the busiest time for you when it comes to regular people. You figure it’s because of the need for caffeine and whatnot, but in the evenings Black Hat arrives it’s almost completely packed.

Well.. you know exactly why in this case.

“Sir, I think that disguise of yours draws more attention than a disguise is supposed to.” You whisper to him.

Black Hat twirls his cane in his hand as he scans the room. His blue eyes shine with wicked amusement.

When he drove up to the front of the cafe today, you weren’t sure if it was really him. He was in a suit like usual, but his skin was a normal tone unlike its normal dark grey. His voice was smoother but fortunately still had his normal British accent.

“Indeed it does. But, my pet, in cases like these, you catch more flies with honey than vinegar.” He says as he tips his hat to a woman passing by.

You tilt your head, “Its just ..weird.. seeing you look so human.”

He smirks. His teeth are white and blunt though his incisors remain rather sharp. It’s charming.

And unnerving.

“Do you not enjoy my disguise?”

“You’re intentionality handsome, which makes me a bit uncomfortable.”

Slicking back his jet black hair, Black Hat croons, “Would you rather I change into a more beastly form~?”

You wave him off, “Fáse ó que tu thevu.” Do what you please.

“I will.”

For the rest of the day, he keeps himself busy sending his shadow around to break glasses and trip the patrons ogling at his new form. Though he is occasionally swarmed by groups of women, he does not fail to notice your amused smile at his misfortune.

He’ll remember that, he thinks grumpily.

Work perk

You don’t mind his constant visits at all (besides when he breaks plates and cups). For one, he doesn’t really threaten you. Two, because villains know you work for him you can live without fear. Walking at night has become so much easier!

Mostly anyway.. but rest assured, he takes care of it when you’re not around.

Black Hat slinks down the wall of an alleyway and follows behind a drunken man. His putrid stench pollutes the air around them as he stumbles into walls and laughs under his breath.

The human had been loitering around the shop for quite some time, often leaving empty bottles of alcohol at the entrance. Night “clients” would normally enter from the back, so the man would be of no concern to them. Black Hat did not worry about this thing interfering with his business. Any villain worth their salt would be able to get rid of this human trash.

But his worker was awfully human.

They did not complain about the man, though he was known to scare away patrons of the day cafe. In fact, he only learned of this man when he saw a developing bruise on the arm of his little human.

It was a hand print that encircled their upper arm, and no matter how much they brushed it aside, he knew the human could not have done it to themselves.

Therefore..

Black Hat rolls his neck, his skin shifting into scales as his body contorts. Eyes litter his body and tusks grow between crowded rows of sharp teeth as he walks to the man on four clawed legs.

He would have fun with this one.

He’s surprisingly pretty goofy and a bit childish

It’s not long before you realize how silly he is. He reacts over the smallest of things and if he wasn’t so powerful you’re sure he would’ve died a hundred times over from the shit he pulls.

“Sir!”

“What?!” Black Hat hisses and lifts his hat covering his face. He was relaxing damn it!

You hold up an empty canister for him to see, your eyes full of fear.

“Someone stole the fluoroantimonic acid from the storage area.”

“Oh.” He chuckles and covers his face again, “No need to worry little mouse.”

“Why shouldn’t I be worrying about a superacid?!”

“I drank it.” He says simply.

You slowly lower the canister, “But.. why?”

“Why not?”

You begin to hide your cleaning products from him after that.

- - -

“Bloody hell, human!” Black Hat screeches and stomps his foot on the plush carpet in the foyer of his house.

You come running over with your hands and apron covered in flour. Eyes wild, you scan the room, holding a whisk over your head, “What is it sir!”

He points to the cake on the cart you had just wheeled in from the kitchens.

“What is that?!”

You look to it.

The aggressor is the candied dahlia petals you used for decoration.

“..sir..?”

“How dare you use such bright colors! And they look fresh!” He snarls in disgust.

You deadpan, “I’m going back to the kitchen sir.”

“Get rid of those wretched things first!”

With a sigh, you wheel the cart back into the hall.

He could be such a baby sometimes.

He supposes he’ll let you stick around

After the first year of working for him, Black Hat realizes you’ve managed to become one of his permanent workers. You did what you were told and did satisfactory work, you didn’t complain and you were rather decent company when he required it. You somehow weaseled your way to a spot of importance. And if he was being honest with himself, he enjoyed your existence a bit more than he should. Still, he wouldn’t tell you straight out about any affections he may have developed for you, but he wouldn’t be that subtle about his intentions.

Finally after a long day of work, you close the back door of the shop and lock up for the night.

Despite the rapid changes to your routine in the past year, you can’t help but feel content.Your job was never boring, and you enjoyed hearing the stories of adventures and battles from the villains that come by.

It felt good to be spoken to like you mattered.

The honking of a car rips you from your thoughts.

Black Hat barks from his seat, “I haven’t got all night!”

You roll your eyes and join him in the car, sliding into the passenger seat and buckling yourself in.

“You don’t even sleep.”

He starts up the engine, “Why would I sleep when there’s billions of humans waiting to be tormented?”

- -

Arriving at your home in better shape than the dozens of poles and stop signs on the way there, you look back at Black Hat. He looks at you expectantly.

“You know.” You start. “I’ve been working with you for quite some time and you haven’t tormented me yet.”

Black Hat straightens from leaning on the car. “That is because I have something else planned for you.”

“And what would that be?”

Caressing your face, Black Hat whispers in your ear, “I’m going to make you feel one of the seven deadly sins.” He moves away and releases you, leaving you dumbstruck as he enters his car and laughs.

“I’ll let you figure out which one it is~.”

#black hat x reader #blackhat x reader #black hat #Villainous #villainos #villainous x reader #black hat headcanons #Partially based off of things Alan has said from the streams #hat flavored bread makes me doubt my own existence #i just have one question #who would buy that??????#Black Hat human form is Tom Hiddleston #not me #Alan said it first #im just the dumbass who fully supports that motion

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croc-odette · 4 years

Text

i love ds9 and here are some episode premises that i wish had happened

DND EPISODE: already talked about this but a dungeons and dragons holosuite episode. jake is the overly prepared DM obviously, nog, ziyal, and alexander are players. nog’s player is clearly his idea of sisko, a lawful good paladin; ziyal plays as a cardassian rogue (played by dukat, but clearly based in personality on kira); alexander plays a mage who is kind-of worf kind-of jadzia and keeps switching between them through the game). there’s an NPC version that’s clearly also based on sisko at one point, but from jake’s point of view knowing him as his dad to compare how differently jake and nog, a cadet, see him.

as the game progresses, it becomes clear that the Big Bad is based on a combo of dukat/winn (corrupt government/religious figure). ziyal struggles with the classic DND question of ‘just because i would do this, does that mean my character would?’ except she’s realizing that her dad wouldn’t do any of the selfless things she wants her character to do. alexander keeps trying to solve shit through weird cantrips or puzzle solving instead of fighting and jake is like ‘it’s not deep it’s just a cave bat please roll initiative’. bashir and garak show up as like, the old couple from the princess bride and everyone has to be like ‘jake they’re not dating in real life this rpf shit is kind of inappropriate’ and he’s like ‘wait what? i thought they were dating’. miles is an NPC and dies. nog thinks jake’s-sisko-npc is too silly and disrespectful and jake is like ‘he’s MY dad’ and they have to take a break to argue about it and jake is like ‘your dad is cool too’. nog’s character changes to lawful good paladin rom. actually this whole game is ‘arguing about dads’ time now that i think about it, which jake is not really equipped to jump in on since he has a normal cool dad who he basically just thinks is embarrassing because he’s the ~messiah~ or some goofy bullshit. ends with them calling it a day after the final boss battle and then jake and nog privately talking about whether or not they can trust ziyal if she has to choose between ds9 and dukat, which was an ulterior motive of the game. ziyal is clearly clearly rattled by what the game made her realize and goes to see kira, who she doesn’t tell about the game but who still gives her a hug, and ziyal realizes that kira’s her hero (and like, her mom). alexander tells worf and dax about the game and dax thinks it sounds fun as hell and asks alexander if they can come next time, and worf is like ‘....... only if i can be a blood mage’. nog and jake go home and tell their dads they love them.

shit i blacked out

PRANK WAR EPISODE: escalating series of pranks starting with jadzia putting hair dye in bashir’s shampoo and ending with the space station accidentally going into a meltdown self destruct scenario. garak is torn between helping jadzia and quark, who are clearly the better pranksters, or helping julian and odo, who suck at pranks but are his lunch friends. everyone has to tell garak that he’s way too intense about ‘pranks’ which are actually just really dangerous booby traps he puts in people’s quarters. sisko ends the episode by grounding everyone; no holosuites for a month!! yes even dax

GREAT RACE EPISODE: there’s some kind of macguffin resource on a planet (a klingon escape pod with a survivor with crucial intelligence information?), but they can’t teleport directly to it. a vorta and jem h’dar team and a ds9 team beam down on opposite sides of its location and are both racing to get there first, having to macgyver together vehicles and tools on the way. lots of excellent outdoor on-location settings and comparison of the jem h’dar/vorta dynamic and the ds9 federation dynamic. ends with the jem h’dar almost winning but turning on the vorta at the last few yards, and sisko’s team beams out as the jem h’dar chant victory. no i refuse to think this is same plot as ‘the ship’ or whatever

KASIDY EPISODE: set earlier in kasidy/sisko’s relationship, kasidy agrees to go with jadzia as a third-party observer to negotiations with a nearby bajoran colony over a trade agreement with the federation. jadzia and kasidy bond over gossiping about sisko on the way, but once they get there kasidy disagrees with the starfleet’s contract during negotiations which causes tensions, and recommends that the bajorans reject it. she and jadzia get into an argument about starfleet and its ideals, and why kasidy chose to be an independent captain rather than a starfleet captain, and how that doesn’t make her lesser than starfleet captains. jadzia realizes that kasidy is right and petitions superiors for a new contract, which kasidy approves of. they go home tenser then when they left, but when sisko asks jadzia what she thinks of kasidy, she very seriously says that she has incredible compassion, intelligence, and integrity, and that she doesn’t need or want jadzia’s approval. but has it anyway

MUSICAL EPISODE: someone already outlined a great musical ep where lwaxana comes in with a betazoid cold and it makes everyone burst into song in another text post and like 100% cosigned

SHAKESPEARE EP: holosuite shenanigans; every character is suddenly stuck as someone from a different shakespeare play. garak is an enthusiastically combative beatrice, kira is cordelia, worf is hamlet, jadzia is a very amused katerina, julian is puck, miles is duncan (”i get MURDERED?”), odo is benvolio and kind of bummed he’s not romeo, etc. i actually don’t know any shakespeare play that well but i think it could be neat. julian is the only fucking person on ds9 who actually knows any of it well enough to figure out what’s going on, except for sisko who doesn’t really care for shakespeare but generally knows about the plays (maybe a good opportunity to talk about the racism in most ‘classic Earth’ pop culture that star trek tends to uphold without criticism). i don’t know shit about the 40 plays that shakespeare wrote about british kings but i could see sisko ending up in that kind of intense role and refusing to play into it, as do the rest of the characters who refuse to fulfill their respective roles and instead find another way to end the program.

KLINGON OPERA EPISODE: goodddddddd can we see some klingon opera, mac. i’ve been dying to see some klingon opera. premise is they believe that someone is assassinating ambassadors and so they tag along with a andorian ambassador who loves opera to see if they can figure out who the assassin is, however the andorian plays it down as over-worrying and that they should use it as an excuse to enjoy themselves. worf and jadzia go and have a lovey dovey time, sisko and kasidy go and have a lovey dovey time watching worf and jadzia get super into the opera together. julian is asked to go in case there’s poison used or first aid needed, and miles is like ‘the last time i went undercover i came home with trauma and someone’s cat so no thanks i hate klingon opera’ and after some increasingly overt passive aggressive implications that julian should take HIM, julian asks garak to go with him. bonus points if for some reason they are wearing the stupid tuxedos from doctor bashir i presume. a lot of loud arguing about the opera which almost gets them kicked out. at the end of the first act, one of the actors DOES try to kill the andorian but jadzia jumps in front of the phaser beam (cue worf being very concerned and annoyed that she could have gotten killed, jadzia being very smug and pleased with herself, her head in his lap, in a pose mirroring an earlier couple in the opera). julian feels like he would have noticed if he hadn’t been distracted by garak, and when it turns out the andorian ambassador has sensitive info about cardassia’s civilian government, julian accuses garak of intentionally trying to distract him to make sure the andorian actually died, which turns into a huge argument (ideally in a very opulent klingon opera house bathroom). during the argument, julian realizes that garak was trying to hint to him that something about the assassination attempt was off; he pieces together aloud that the andorian and the actor must have been in league together, to fake the andorian’s assassination so they could not be tried for profiteering by illegally selling weapons to the cardassian central control during bajoran occupation, which they are currently under investigation for. the other ambassador assasinations were planned by the andorian to cover their tracks. the andorian is arrested, as is the actor. at the ballroom afterparty, sisko and kasidy, in a good mood that everything worked out, agree to join in on traditional klingon dancing. worf and jadzia take a peaceful walk through the gardens and worf recites some really lovely klingon poetry about how sometimes it’s NOT a good day to die if someone loves you, that none of us fucking understand without looking it up. julian and garak talk on the balcony, and julian posits that garak is loyal to cardassia, but which part of it? garak answers, very close and meaningfully looking at julian, ‘like most things... it’s complicated.’

i was about to say ‘fake wedding episode’ but literally LITERALLY that was the shotgun wedding lwaxana/odo ep. i love star trek

KEIKO BOTANIST EPISODE: kira accompanies keiko to bajor to help find a medicinal plant that was thought to be wiped out during the occupation but might still exist in a remote mountain region based on local reports. a nice episode where we learn more about bajor and see how bajorans are coping and healing. over a campfire, kira thanks keiko for accepting her into their family. keiko tells kira that she was really intimidated by her when they first met, and then realized she’s one of the most loving people she knows. just a nice episode, maybe some mild nature survival conflict, but ends on a hopeful note of them finding the plant. miles beams down with the kids to have a picnic with keiko and kira, and kira’s happy to see children playing carelessly on bajor again.

JAKE AND ZIYAL EPISODE: everyone thinks jake and ziyal are dating because they’ve been hanging out. julian’s an idiot and mentions to sisko ‘must be hard, huh’ and sisko’s like ‘WHAT must be hard’ and julian’s like oh my god were we not supposed to talk to him about this. jake and ziyal aren’t dating but as soon as sisko tries to talk to jake about it jake is like ‘i’m not but actually maybe i SHOULD ask her out’ and sisko is like fuck. okay no that’s fine. this is more of a B-plot but basically give jake and ziyal age-appropriate love interests they’re both RIGHT there

#i'm really about to write fake screenplays for episodes for a tv show that ended 20 years ago #star trek blogging #THIS GOT OUT OF HAND.

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