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visd3stele · 3 years

Note

Hey author absolutely love your works and you're amazing...just wanted to know if I can request a bit angst, like after sirius breaks up with reader (pureblood), she's forced to marry regulas and sirius is heartbroken. But then homie gets motivation from jily and wrecks the wedding (like the drama queen he is) and marries her. Bonus point if you do this in after Hogwarts plot ♥️ take love <3

hi, dear nonnie 💛. I must say, I'm very happy to write your request and I hope it'll do justice to your idea, but first of all THANK YOU SO MUCH! I'm so glad you think so

TW: angst (duh) but happy ending, smoking, bad parents, implication of child abuse, a semi descriptive fight scene with casualties (one of which is a child), death (talks and mentions of it) cussing (twice, but still); anything else you think should be up here?

A/N: this is my first anon request and it feels special to me. Is this normal? I don't quite understand why myself... it just... does. Anyway, I really got carried away with the story, so buckle up for a loooong, painful ride (I'm not even sorry, I love it sm). Also, I recently rewatched Anne with an E and the use of big words set me on a classic books reading haul again which in turn influenced my writing a bit. I like the finished draft, but I can admit it might seem a little weird.

The white sheep of the House of Black vs the poisoned snake

masterlist and requests

"Sirius! Watch out!" Y/n's strident voice echoed through the foggy mind of the oldest Black brother. The young soldier leaned on his flat's open window, starring in the quiet night. His fingers became cold and numb around the forgotten cigar as Sirius tried to shake off the events of the day.

"Levicorpus," a masked figure whispered in the crowd, sending a muggle passer byer flying into the nearest wall. Sirius, Peter, y/n and another member of the Order of Phenix had just arrived, being tipped off about an attack on one of the safe camps. After the Death Eaters gained more and more power, Dumbledore created small settlements for muggle borns and their families, where they could hide from Voldemort's rage. For maximum security, a different group of wizards and witches had been assigned their own safe camp to watch over. They were the only one who knew how to find it, or so it was meant to be.

Sirius closed his eyes tight, crumpling the cigar in his fist. The fire has been put out by the wind for a while now, but the young man couldn't notice. Not when another fire, shone behind his forged lids.

Y/n was the first to run forward. Waving her wand to make space between fallen roofs, broken furniture thrown in the streets and remains of what used to be strong buildings, the witch shouted spells to lift the heavy concrete off people, or shield them from curses. Sirius woke up from his stunned trance and moved to cover his girlfriend's back. Together, they weaved a passage for their proteges, leading them to where Peter and their friend waited with healing potions.

The disowned wizard took an uneven breath, preparing for the worst part. Colorful spots danced in the darkness of his closed eyes, the powerful hold on his lids a poor attempt to keep tears from spilling.

"Sirius, watch out!" She yelled, tackling him to the ground as the familiar criss cross of a cruciatus spell passed above their heads and hit a small boy. Y/n was holding his hand, whispering comfortingly over the sound of battle and his own tears when she heard the mad cackling of Bellatrix Lestrange. The witch turned right in time to see her cast the unforgivable towards Sirius and all things left y/n's minds. Except for one: save him.

The little boy cried and trampled on the ground. Before either of them could get on their feet, a loud explosion boomed close by and the nearest building blew up. Sirius shielded his face with his arm, pushing y/n under him to protect her with his body. She let out a strangled sob, but didn't protest. Nor did she move. When the smoke cleared off enough to see through it, the image burned deep in both of their souls.

Y/n was quiet on the way home. Thinking. Brewing hatred towards her enemies. She never followed the rules that seemed inked on all pure bloods brains. She didn't comply to the path her parents laid out for her. Because deep down, y/n always knew how wrong all of it was. Is. But never in her most painful dreams did she expect such a vicious, ruthless war.

She collapsed on her and Sirius' bed, hugging herself and allowing the tears to fall. Angry, sadness, shame, disappointment. They flew from her, lulling her to a restless sleep, while Sirius dealt with the reports and aftermath of the attack.

Once home, the former Black heir paced around for hours. His thoughts swirled like a hurricane. In his fourth year at Hogwarts, the rebel pure blood felt butterflies in his stomach for the first time. Sirius managed to let down his family in all aspects of his life – beginning with his love for muggles, following with his Gryffindor sorting and the pride he took from it and ending with his loyalty towards his friends. But one thing he did right.

No one saw it coming. It was the shock that went simultaneous through the entirety of Hogwarts. Sirius Black dating the notorious y/n, a witch descending from a family with blood as pure as their hearts were frozen. The pair landed rumors in every corners of the wizarding Britain, even making an appearance in the papers: The Black heir came around and accepted his heritage ; The union between y/l/n and the Black family is confirmed ; Two ancient blood lines, what does it mean for the wizarding future and how will it affect the current situation?

After the fateful summer when Sirius has been disowned, everyone expected the couple to be pulled apart. But y/n stood by his boyfriend's side, defying her parents and asking to be disowned as well if they can't accept her choices. It never happened, as y/n was the only heiress to her name. They only deprived her of the rights to the family fortune and hoped for a better match one day.

It didn't bother Sirius as much as he'd think. He knew it didn't matter. Y/n was still on his side, the right side. And that knowledge was something he never questioned. Until now. Until he saw the worse the war could offer and had a feeling it was just the start of it.

Sirius Black had a hard time believing the rumors of a traitor in their rows. He couldn't bring himself to believe someone he's close with, someone whom he bled for, someone who killed for him, could do such a thing. But as Dumbledore grew more and more worried, groups formed within the Order and speculation found a home at their table.

It was James who'd always reassure him. James who trusted his friends more than he trusted the sun to rise at the dawns of every new day. James, whom Sirius convinced in the sixth year that y/n was worthy of that trust. Because just like him, he relented the old ways and prejudices and wanted to be free from her awful family.

A dark thought crept in the abyss of Sirius' mind. A guilty doubt which seemed to turn into a painful truth right before his eyes. Sirius knew Peter wouldn't ran his mouth to anyone about the safe camp, he's a marauder, after all. And the friend they've got paired up with was a muggle born, with no motive to be loyal to the Dark Lord. Which means, it must've been y/n.

As if Sirius summoned her with, the witch climbed tiptoed behind him. She swinged her arms around his waist and he felt her shiver from the cold.

"Hey," her thumbs rubbed circles on the back of her hands where they meet on Sirius' chest.

"Hey," he answered. "Why aren't you sleep? It's late."

"I could ask you the same." She moved in front of Sirius, arms still locked around her boyfriend, trapping him in the hug. Y/n's lower back now pushed against the window's edge, her shoulders facing the chilly air.

For a moment, Sirius considered breaking into a crooked smirk, willing playfulness to imbue his voice as the words "Ah, but I asked first," almost left his lips. But he decided against it. Seeing her, feeling her, tired him more than the hours of self torture did. She looked drained. Eyes swollen from crying, lips pierced here and there from biting, muscles flexing involuntarily at her own flashes of recordings of the day. But it couldn't be, right? Because she betrayed them. She betrayed him.

Sirius shook his head, a handful of black locks tickling his face. He pulled y/n away from the window, pushing it with his shoulder and freeing a hand to properly close it. "Go back to bed," he said, fixing his quartz eyes on her for the first time. She wore one of his AC/DC shirts that covered her body, but did little to keep her worm. "It's cold," he swallowed thickly, grey orbs almost shining in the far away light of stars, a crescent moon and street lamps down below.

"I know," she gave Sirius' own attire a pointed look, unwrapping her arms and rubbing his bare arms. He stilled under her touch for a second, before gently pushing her away. The wizard took snatched a blanket from one of the armchairs and placed it atop his girlfriend while searching desperately for another he could use. Y/n moved faster. The witch engulfed her boyfriend with the material, bringing him with her to the couch.

She nestled against him, knees to her chest, half sitting in Sirius' lap. Ignoring the stiffness of his body as she assumed it's due to the fight from earlier, y/n lightly threaded her fingers through her boyfriend's hair. "Couldn't sleep," she mumbled out of breath.

"Me neither."

Y/n pulled back. The wizard still avoided to look at her. Sighing, the young woman rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm sorry –" she started, starring at nothing in particular – "for the boy." Sirius tensed, which y/n took as a sign to continue. "You blame me, don't you?"

When he didn't answer, the witch dared a peak through her lashes at his face. For the first time since they started dating, y/n couldn't read it. Sirius wore his heart on his sleeves all the time and today was no different. But she didn't understood what she was seeing.

"I shouldn't have..."

"No, you shouldn't've."

Y/n watered her lips as she nodded at the harsh tone. "I know. I'm sorry. I was trying to –" her voice broke – "I only thought about you. I had to protect you."

"You had to keep that kid safe."

"Fine. I needed to protect you."

"Why? I can take it, you know I can. I'm sure I build enough strength against the cruciatus that I wouldn't've felt a thing." His voice was void of any emotion, but somehow accusing. Y/n felt the bitter taste of guilt morphing into anger.

"Because I wanted to!" The witch screamed. "You should never have felt it and I‐ I," her voice cracked. "I want you to never feel it again." She had so much more to say to him. Tell him of how she promised herself she'll never allow such cruelty upon him ever again. How when the glow of the spell caught the corner of her eyes, she acted on impulse alone. But a knot twisted on itself from her very own vocal chords and y/n could speak no more.

Silence stood no chance to properly settle over the two of them when Sirius jumped to his feet. He had enough of it already and it only hurt him. So the wizard argued back, vigorously. "I'm a grown fucking man, y/n! The damage is done already. But that boy? That little boy?" Sirius' irises twitched in response to tears pinching the sensitive eyeballs. He spat the next words with great hardship, voice dripping with reprieved feelings unlikely to reach other's ears. "Him you could have saved. But you didn't."

Y/n rose to her feet as well. Her mouth opened and closed while she failed to decide how to respond. However, Sirius has never been a patient man and he is known for his temper to burn bright and short, after all.

"What were you thinking, y/n? Fuck it!"

"You! I was thinking about you and only you."

"We're not in school anymore! We don't prank people and bully to take revenge for how they hurt us. We're soldiers! And this is war."

"You think I don't know that? You think I wanted him to die?"

Deafening silence suddenly stilled the room. Glistening grey bore into tears stained y/e/c. His jaws pulsed, clenching and unclenching. Her nostrils flared, realization sinking in.

"You do," y/n whispered. "You do!" She yelled. "You do?" The witch forced her eyes to focus on her boyfriend through the mist of moisture. "How can you- you believe... why?"

Sirius grew restless and begin pacing, messing his hair when his hands gripped his scalp. "Why? Why?!" He broke into a phrenetic laugh. "Because you sold them out, y/n!"

"What?"

"You're the spy. Of course you are the spy! You told Voldemort where the safe camp is."

"Oh-huh," y/n scoffed. "So not only you think I wanted a little boy to –" she couldn't bring herself to speak the word, wiping furiously at her eyes instead – "but you also think I tried to get everyone killed. Bloody hell, Sirius! What's wrong with you?"

"I don't know, y/n. You tell me. How did the Death Eaters where to come?"

"I didn't tell them."

"Then who did?"

"I don't know!" The witch spreaded her arms then twisted them over her chest within seconds. She closed the gap between her and Sirius. "I don't know, Sirius. Why does it have to be me?"

"Because there is no one else who knew about our camp. Who else could've?"

"What is that supposed to mean? What, you still see just a pure blood puppet when you look at me? No matter what, I'll always ran back to mommy and daddy and condone to their actions. Is that it?"

Sirius' lack of an answer was telling enough. He crossed his arms over the thin white undershirt he was wearing. The wizard's lips trembled, but he fixed the shining cold of his quartz eyes on y/n. His brow wrinkled his forehead with a swift lift.

"Is that it? Bloody answer me, Sirius!"

"Yes."

Y/n gasped. The witch took several steps back, the single word hurting like a hard slap over the cheek.

"If you really think that, why stay with me this long?"

"I, uh, I don't know. I s'pose there is no real reason to drag this along anymore." Sirius forced to gruff out. Anger dimmed within him like a used match. And despite his suspicious, putting an end to such a long, meaningful relationship wasn't easy.

"Drag this along? So that's how you think about us, then."

"I can't be with you, y/n, if you compromise the mission. If you're a danger to my friends."

The woman passed a hand over her face. She nodded, withholding the cries threatening to escape her throat. "You accuse me of treason, having no proof at all. And you're wrong, Sirius Orion Black. You are so very wrong!"

"Good bye, y/n. I'll send your things home, I assume there's where you'll be now that you're finally free of the disgrace that I am."

°•▪︎~▪︎•°

Y/n did indeed returned home. Not out of longing or a deep rooted feeling of belonging. In fact, walking down the paved path, leaving house after house behind and closing in to the small palace that stood as y/l/n's home, the witch felt more and more like climbing a rooftop and screaming as loud as her lungs could support it.

Her heart ached, but there were no tears. Y/n's eyes were dry as the wind blew in her face. Her feet carried her out of muscle memory alone, her head throbbing with so many thoughts none actually made any sense. A numbness took over the young witch when the chilly air and too much pain to bear met on her body.

"Y/n?" When she was but a young little girl, she imagined this is how the jewels in her mother's box would sound like. Regal, nonchalant, demanding. As if the entire world is meant to gawk and obey.

"Hello, mother."

"What in Salazar's name are you doing outside dressed like this?"

Y/n has forgotten she still wore Sirius' shirt. And if she wasn't staying outside of the palace like house, she'd have pull it over her head and toss it in the mud.

"May I come in?" She decided to ignore her mother's question. It took a while, but eventually, the older woman stepped aside and allow y/n passage to enter.

"What is this?" The dusty voice of mister y/l/n exclaimed, briefly glancing up from his newspaper to capture the abnormal sight.

"Our daughter seemed to have misplace her shame, along with manners and values."

"That much is obvious. I don't know why it comes as such a surprise to you, my dear."

Y/n resisted the urge to roll her eyes and run up the stairs to her childhood room like she used to whenever her parents admonished her in the past.

"Shouldn't you be with that blood traitor, mud bloods lover of yours?" Her father continued.

"Sirius and I broke up tonight." Y/n murmured. It was enough, though, to lighten up her mother's petrified face.

"Is that so? You have finally come to your senses, I see."

"He cut me off."

"Ah!" Her mother's face deformed in an almost comical depiction of outrage. "How dare he, that little scum. Does he know the honor you were doing him by simply allowing him to be near you? After he dishonored his family the way he did, that good for nothing boy had the nerve to..."

"Mother! That's enough. Please."

"Well, that's it, then. You washed your hands of that embarrassment at last. Good."

"If you are to return in this household, y/n, I expect you to act properly. Start by changing that... attire." Her father commented. Which sounded close enough to a dismissal for y/n, who gladly seized the opportunity and rushed up the stairs.

Meanwhile, Sirius tried to wrap the muggle's sticky tape over a carton box. He spent all the time since y/n's departure packing her stuff and sealing them the muggle way. It was petty, but the quickest revenge he could piece together at the time being.

His cheeks were heated, painted in an angry red. His nose hurt from the many times he snuffled, suppressing his tears. Fueled by his pain, Sirius Black tore his flat upside down, using his fists, his legs, his wand. Until he dropped to the ground, too tired to keep it up and started boxing y/n's belongings.

The wizard heard muggles say it helped. It supposedly healed. But Sirius was just as terribly shattered as before by the end of it. He waved his wand and muttered a spell, vanishing every proof of y/n that might have been laying around in his flat.

Days passed and Sirius heard nothing from y/n. She ceased her attendings to the Order meetings, which he took as a sign he could safely tell everyone she was the spy. James was more than happy to fill the vacant place she left in Sirius' group, seeing as the people who fell victims to the vial attack were in drastic need of as much help the Order could spare.

"Alright, mate. Speak up." James Potter took his best friend by the shoulder and led him sidelong. The noises of rebuilding, using both magic and muggle ways, echoed under the rare sunny sky above the outskirts of London. Lots of volunteers offered to help and the camp starting to look anew. The two young men afforded a break.

"What are you talking about, Prongs?" Sirius fickle with the lighter before giving up and enchanting a flame for his cigarette.

"You know what, Padfoot. Your sulking. I can't help of you don't talk about it."

"There is nothing to say, alright? Y/n betrayed us, she lied to us, she was a peril for these people and our cause. She had to go."

"Us, these people, the cause... Sirius, my friend, you're not talking about yourself at all here. And you dated her for what? Four years? Five?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm not the important one right now."

James bumped his best friend playfully in the arm, a tentative grin forming on his face. "I never thought I'd hear the day Sirius Black would say such a thing."

The grey eyed wizard smiled at the other's joke, but his lips couldn't hold it for too long. He masked the fall of his smile with drawing a breath around the smoking stick.

"Look, Padfoot, I think you need some time away from the war. Lily and I are going to have a big family dinner tonight. My parents, her parents, even her sister is coming. It'd only be fair if I bring my brother too, what do you think?"

For a brief moment, Sirius felt warm and a pleasant feeling tickled his senses. The war erupted as soon as the marauders graduated Hogwarts, giving them all too little time to further explore their blissful friendship. Even though the united group remained the same in their minds, there could have been whole weeks in which they wouldn't talk to each other. And even when they managed, the change of words tended to be short and restrained to good luck wishes.

It was the first time James called Sirius his brother since after their seventh year when the Black disowned heir was allowed access to his uncle Alphard's inheritance and bought the flat he moved in, leaving the Potters' house behind.

Then, as soon as it came, it was gone. Replaced by a bitter taste as Sirius' mind drifted to y/n. Who made him feel real – one rebellious pure blood seemed odd, out of place. He begin to question his choices in fifth year in the light of everyone pointing out how wrong he was. But two descendants of old families, sharing stories and beliefs, soothed his mind. And now? Now all that proved to be a sham. And he was alone all over again.

Sirius pondered if he should decline James' invitation. Not only would he ruin the jolly mood with his sour one. But he could use his time better. Make amends to all the people whose lives his love ruined. However, he decided against it. Knowing James Potter as good as he did, Sirius was aware that he won't take no as an answer. And one needs double the normal doze of energy to argue with the Quidditch star.

"Sure, Prongs. I'll be there."

°•▪︎~▪︎•°

"Y/n! We are waiting for you. We mustn't be late."

The young woman groaned inaudible. She hadn't even finished to unpack the mountain of boxes Sirius sent her and her parents were expecting smiles and attendants to pure bloods events. Where she was expected to be glad of being rid of the wanker she had the displeasure to call boyfriend for too many years, to put it in their words.

"You didn't even tell me where are we going this time." She complained.

Y/n's parents exchanged looks. "I suppose we can tell her now."

"Yes, yes. Maybe it's for the best she won't be taken aback by the news."

"What news?" Y/n asked, seemingly impatient, but dread climbed its way up her spine.

"Oh, dear, maybe you can marry a Black heir, after all. Isn't it wonderful?"

"What?" Y/n knew her parents allowed her to date Sirius only because of his family's name. The dream of one day being a Black caught deep, thick roots in their minds. Even after he got disowned, they clung to that hope. It's never too late, her father would say. He'll get bored of playing games, her mother would agree. And y/n would bite the inside of her cheeks to keep from defending her boyfriend.

It went on like that until the war started and it became clear Sirius Black was too far gone in his honorable morals. Apparently, y/n's parents only gave up on him, not their dream of tieing unbreakable connections to the most Noble and most Ancient House of Black.

"Regulus Arcturus is of age, only a year younger than you. Wallburga wants to be sure the blood line will continue as pure and powerful as it is and we'd like nothing more than mix our ancestry with such a good family."

Now no amount of chewing her own skin could stop y/n from rolling her eyes and speaking up. "I just ended a relationship. I can't marry! And what about Regulus? What does he have to say about this arrangement?" Because the witch knew the youngest Black resented and condemned his brother's friends. Including her own self.

"He should be thrilled of having such a beautiful, sharp, educated, wife." Her mother answered and hurried her out the door.

Once the group made it to Grimmauld place nr. 12, the unfriendly house elf presented them to the household.

"Walburga, such a pleasure to see you again. And in such happy circumstances no less." Y/n's mother greeted. The Black matriarch inclined her head and smiled tightly.

"The pleasure is all mine, lady y/l/n. Good day to you too, lord y/l/n."

"Thank you for having us, lady Black. Lord Black." Y/n's father nodded towards the scrawny, tall boy by the chimney. He held his hands entwined behind his back, back straight and chin slightly lifted. Although it was clear he was still young and shoved into his mother's expectations from infancy, Regulus behold his title well. After his father's passing, the youngest Black took upon himself the responsibility and great honor of being Lord Black. Which laid proof enough of his association with the Dark Lord even without the ink y/n knew was dancing creepily up and down his sleeved forearm.

"Y/n, it's good to see you again," Walburga fixed the witch with her emotionless eyes.

Panicking, y/n curtseyed and muttered a greeting. A snort snapped her head in Regulus' direction. She frowned at him, while he only rolled his eyes and shook his head.

"Maybe we should let the newly engaged to their own." Y/n's mother suggested.

"Yes. Come, we have plenty to discuss about the wedding."

As soon as the two of them remained alone, y/n turned towards her betrothed. "You look as bad as I feel." She commented, noticing the sickly pallor of his face, the bags under his eyes, the too thin hair – though perfectly arranged even so – and his wobbly feet.

"Marriage may not suit me well, m'lady." Regulus mocked.

"Hey! Don't act like the victim here. You're one of them, aren't you supposed to be on board with all this?"

The boy shrugged. "Weren't you supposed to be my brother's bride?"

"Shut it, baby snake." The words, though as light hearted as they could be coming from Regulus Black, hit her hard. Her stomach shifted painfully and a familiar sting wailed up behind her eyes.

"Original." Regulus mumbled. "How come you're not with my idiot brother anymore? I can see it's not because you had a change of heart."

"Why do you care?"

"Aren't I supposed to care about my future wife?"

"I thought you don't want the wedding either."

"I didn't want a lot of things. It never stopped them from happening," the young Lord Black threw matter of factly at y/n. Arms still behind his back, the witch couldn't see how he rubbed his wrist, where the mark itched. But she noticed the shift in his demeanour. The tremble of his jaw muscles, the lost gaze in his grey eyes, the lids slowly disappearing as long eyelashes connects with eyebrows when his eyes widen.

"Want to elaborate on that?"

"My tale for yours, if you are willing to start." Regulus wasn't a talkative person. He shared little about himself and his views, his voice tended to take people by surprise as the youngest Black preferred to observe things from the shadows. But this secret he had now, he needed to unburden his shoulders of its weight. And y/n made it clear where she stands with the purists nonsense.

Y/n chuckle took him by surprise. "I think that's fair." She brought her arms in front of her, cupping her elbows for a sense of support and sat on the sofa. "Sirius and I broke up," her gaze never left the carpet. "It was his idea. He assumed I betrayed the Order and switched sides."

"And did you?"

Now, her head snapped up, eyes blazing with fury. "No!" She spat at Regulus. Who immediately put his hands up in deffence.

"Alright, alright. Sorry."

Y/n grunted. "Whatever. Your turn."

Regulus told her about Kreacher and the cave. About how he searched for a way to make the Dark Lord pay and weaken his plans. By the end of it, y/n grinned genuinely for the first time in weeks.

"Wicked. Didn't know you had it in you, Black."

Regulus sent her a shy smile as well, tugging at some wanton raven strands of hair. "My brother truly is an idiot, y'know. He's fast to jump to conclusions and then never thinks twice about it."

"Yeah," y/n sighed. "I know."

°•▪︎~▪︎•°

Sirius seized the opportunity to make himself scarce after the dinner ended. The young man was now on the terrace, blowing off twirls of smoke in the early night. Lily and James saw to their guests as they leaved, but Sirius couldn't bring himself to join them. As bad as he felt about avoiding Effie and Monty, the wizard didn't want to face them in his state. The older Potters had enough on their plate with already without adding his sour mood to it.

"Oi, Sirius! Lily asks if you want to stay the night?" James leaned on the door frame after his and Lily's families were gone.

"Nah. I should be on my way as well, thanks mate."

"I insist." The young man with glasses blocked Sirius' way. He pressed gentle hands on the older Black brother's shoulders, making an effort to look up into his eyes and still be convincing. "It's exactly what you need, really. Some time with your friends and you'll be anew in no time, you'll see."

Sirius doubted it. Not only was he blind to his own girlfriend malice intentions, but by it, he also endangered so many people. The betrayal stung worse than his parents' punishments, but still couldn't compare with the ache in his heart from ending his longest, most wonderful relationship.

However, he nodded, being met with James hopeful and worried gaze.

"Sirius," Lily exclaimed. "You're staying, right? Good –" the redhead mused when the taller wizard hummed his confirmation –"you can borrow some clothes from James, I'm sure he won't mind." She smiled sweetly, but the edge of her lips' corners showed how troubled Lily was because of him.

"Of course not!" The bespectacled young man huffed and landed on the couch, remote already in his hand. Lily rolled her eyes at his antics, but chuckled softly and nestled against him.

"Thanks," Sirius' voice chocked and caught in his throat. The pair sitting lovingly tangled on the couch reminded him of himself and y/n on so many occasions. Cuddling after a long Order meeting, falling asleep on each other when they both thought they could play early birds for once, murmuring sweet nothings while the newspapers spread dread and uneasiness.

James and Lily were doing just that: comforting the other. Lily just said good bye to her parents and sister for good, being too dangerous for the muggles to remain close by. And as much as James' parents tried to hide their hurting from him, he saw right through their acts.

Lily stroked her husband's wild locks, twirling and untwirling the messy strands around her fingers. James rested his palm on her knee, toying with the material of his wife's jeans. Their free hands entwined, Lily and James conversed silently with each other.

Sirius shifted from foot to foot, an intruder. Before he had the chance to excuse himself and go back outside – something about the chilly air soothed him – a familiar owl flew by the window. The prey bird didn't stick around, though. And in its place, a letter found its way inside the house.

Well, letter was an overstatement, actually. A single piece of parchment, folded carefully. Sirius recognized the elegant calligraphy of his little brother.

If it's any of your concerns, y/n and I are to marry. You're not welcomed, of course, mother wouldn't allow it. But I thought you should know. She loves you still, brother – the ink smudged over the word and the loops of the letters were too squared. As if Regulus grew unsteady. Drops of ink colored the thin paper in a futile attempt to write more.

Sirius drew in a breath. His fingers flexed involuntarily and crumpled the parchment. Swallowing thickly, he allowed himself to drop on a armchair.

"Sirius? What's wrong?" Lily asked. James was on his feet within seconds, kneeling in front of his best friend and trying to catch his eyes.

"Padfoot?"

Without a word, the taller wizard passed the note over. James scanned it briefly before returning his attention to Sirius. Lily picked it up as well, thoughts drifting away as she gave the two men some space.

"I'd ask if you're ok, but clearly that'd be stupid even by my standards," James jocked. "Seriously, though, how do you feel about this?"

"Don't know, Prongs," Sirius shrugged hopelessly. "It shouldn't bother me, right? I mean, she's a traitor. They're both on the wrong side here. I shouldn't care what either is doing." His voice grew louder and louder, pitched and edged. "In fact," Sirius stumbled over a pitiful laugh, "I should be happy they found each other."

James shook his head. "Look, I know you don't want to hear this right now, but are you sure? Are you sure–" Potter begin again at Sirius' puzzled look –"that y/n really betrayed us?"

"What are you talkin' about, Prongs? Of course I am, she's the only option. She's a..."

"Pure blood?" Lily interfered with a pointing look. Sirius had the decency to blush. Lowering his gaze, the wizard fidget with his hands joined in front of him.

"I don't know how bad your fight was, but it's clear you still love her. And if we're to believe Regulus, she loves you too. There are no actual proof of her betrayal, Sirius. I never thought you're the one to chicken out in bad times."

James nodded. "You should go, mate. Settle this for good. You deserve closure."

"And what if I was wrong all along? What if she's innocent and I've been such a wanker?"

"Then you'll figure it out from there."

"Bollocks! Thanks a lot, Prongs!"

"Hey, relationships aren't easy, mate. I can't tell you the number of times Lily-pad here makes it a woeful... Ouch!"

From where the redhead witch stood, a small army of pillows flew towards James. "But it's ever so worthy, my dear. Ouch!"

"You should try living with yourself, Potter. I'm a perfect saint by comparison."

"If you say so, Mrs. Potter."

The light tease carried on, leaving Sirius to dwell in his mind.

°•▪︎~▪︎•°

Y/n and Regulus stared at the empty room. By the end of that night, they'd be husband and wife. Both enjoyed the peace for a couple more minutes, before the guests would arrive and the ceremony would start.

"You know what's funny?" Y/n suddenly asked. "I always knew I'd end up with a Black. I just assumed it'd be Sirius."

Regulus nodded. "You're not the only one. He was mad about you, everyone could see that."

"It wasn't meant to be, after all, was it?" Her voice dripped with sorrow.

"Have you tried to reach out to him after the fight?"

"I doubt it'd've made any difference. If he can think so low of me after all the years we've been together..." she sighed and shook her head. The witch pursed her lips, holding back tears she didn't want to spill. A sob still escaped the carefully locked prison of her rib cage.

It startled Regulus, but the young Lord Black came to his senses and tentatively opened his arms for his future wife. Y/n walked in the hug and broke as soon as his arms engulfed her.

"It just hurts so much, Reggie." She sobbed.

"I know," the wizard said solemnly while stroking y/n's head. The heavy silence that followed spoke to both of them. There was no need of words anymore as two souls clung desperately to each other, calling for the kind of understanding only sharing experiences could really bring out.

Regulus lost a brother long before y/n lost a boyfriend. But Sirius believed them both traitors, mindless followers of Voldemort. And left, never glancing back once. It was a type of heartache the silently rebellious pure bloods shared.

"Do you think it'll ever pass?"

"Not sure. Supposedly, yes, I guess. Maybe if we have each other?" Regulus struggled with the question. It's been a good five years since Sirius was disowned and yet, the younger brother still weeps in his dreams, calling for him.

"Like actual partners?"

Regulus turned red. "I, I don't want you to hate me like mother hated father. I know there's pressure on our duties, I just... I thought..."

"We could be allies," y/n sufficed, a small smile growing weakly on her face. She pulled herself back at arm length and brushed her thumbs under Regulus' eyes. The digits wettened from his own tears, which softened the witch's y/e/c gaze. She nodded. "I think that'd be best. Great marriages started with less than this... at least in muggle novels."

Regulus rolled his eyes, but chuckled along with y/n anyway. The genuine smile playing on his lips caused the witch to burst into giggles. Sometimes, the relief of having another supporting oneself is so great, it leads to temporarily madness.

Mere hours later, the young Lord Black gripped y/n's fingers reassuringly in front of a sea of noble, ancient wizarding families. She squeezed his hands back. "Are you ready for this?" Regulus whispered.

"No. You?"

"Absolutely not."

The wizard dared a peak to the pure bloods gathered. Whatever he saw made his gaze snap back to y/n's face. Who was currently stealing glances all over the place. Her roaming eyes finally settled on Regulus' for the vows when the thick wooden door blew open.

Wind still swirled at the entrance, hiding whoever disturbed the wedding. As the view cleared, it revealed a tall, lean figure with a wand stretched forward and strands of hair whipping the air framing the silhouette. Gasps erupted under the high ceiling and at the same time y/n breathed out a name she thought she'll never have reason to speak again.

"Sirius Orion!" Wallburga screeched. The old woman refused to call her wayward son by the family name. He was unworthy of it. "What in Salazar's name do you think you're doing?!"

The crowd was on their feet now, confused or angry murmurs following the young man as he took a few confident steps forward. Though it was clear for y/n that he didn't feel as powerful as he made it look like.

"Why, hello, mother dearest," Sirius managed to slip bitter venom to his words. "I see you're wasting no time to ensure more precious heirs. Good to know you hadn't changed. Imagine the shock I'd have to face if you actually cared about your kids for once." With one look at Regulus' hidden grin, Sirius knew he pointed perfectly the reason this wedding was taking place during a gruesome war. Wallburga needed to see with her own two eyes the blood line of the most ancient and purest family in wizarding Britain being secured.

"You will leave this place in an instant!" Wallburga emphasized her words by pointing her wand towards her son. Y/n saw the gulp Sirius wished to pass unnoticed. Both brothers tensed, growing even more restless as few others in the gathering drew their own wands. Regulus' fingers curled and uncurled around the magic wood at his side. Y/n prepared herself for a fight as well. Though it was unclear why Sirius showed up, it could only be a matter of the Order, right? Which must mean he came as an Auror. Probably to pick her up for interrogation. But all alone? That was a new kind of brave idiocy on his part.

"I can't do that, I'm afraid." Sirius advanced. "I made a terrible mistake and I won't leave... unless y/n wants me to."

Under the pressure of too many pairs of eyes on her, the witch widened her own and stumbled backwards. Regulus caught her elbow to keep her from falling, giving a subtle nod at the same time. Hear him out, it seemed to say.

"I can't say I do." The witch ignored her parents' burning glares and the disapproving sighs around the room. As much as she wanted to dispatch her insufferable son, Walburga knew causing a scene wouldn't be the best course of action. So she stepped back, allowing Sirius a clear path to y/n.

The wizard tucked his wand away and strode forward, stopping a few inches before the pair about to marry. Disregarding the audience, Sirius fell to his knees. His grey eyes bore through y/n's, trying to travel as far as her soul. "I am so, deeply sorry, y/n!" His head fell, a curtain of black hair muffling the sound of his voice.

"I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions. I should have listen to you, truly listen. I..."

"Don't think I'm a purist sod anymore?"

Sirius winced. "I never thought you a sod," he mumbled. "But that's not... what I try to say is- uh, I was wrong. You couldn't have been the spy, you're so much better than this, I know that."

"Now you know that?"

"I've always did. It just took me too much to admit it. I was looking for someone to blame and you were there. You've always been there... I'm so bloody sorry, y/n!"

"What made you change your mind? Why now?" Y/n's voice ringed hoarse and unsteady.

"I missed you. I've gotten jealous on Prongs and Lils, I couldn't lose you."

"You broke up with me. How is that not losing me?"

"I don't know. I don't... just, I don't know." Sirius' shoulders shrinked but he brought his silver eyes up in a teary plea. "Just, please? Please forgive me. Please."

In the silence that followed, in which y/n took her time to process what happened, Wallburga scoffed. "That's ridiculous! Get on your feet, boy and get out of here. You wasted enough of our time." Some rumbles of agreement echoed from person to person. But Sirius didn't move. It seemed like he didn't even hear his mother, with how focused he was on y/n.

A few guests moved to forcefully remove the stray wizard, but Regulus hexed them subtly. The spell wore off as soon as it bloomed, but it gave y/n enough time to reach her ex. She played with her sleeves, unfurling threads by mistake which she later ripped off altogether.

"Get up, will you?" Y/n tried to keep her voice even. But to Sirius it sounded like a final sentence. He shook his head, rubbing his bowled fists over his thighs. "Y/n, please. Please. Don't tell me to leave." His voice broke as the wizard chocked over his feelings.

Y/n rolled her eyes to sooth the stinging of tears. The y/e/c landed on the lean muscled figure at her feet. "That's not what I'm doing, Sirius." She said, wiping her face and dropping down next to him.

Her palms cupped his face, forcing Sirius to look at her. "You really, really hurt me."

"I know..."

"But," y/n quickly cut him off, "you hurt yourself too while at it. And I missed you." A miserable chuckle surfaced from the bottom of her lungs. "I missed you so bloody much!"

Sirius looked confused. Too afraid to hope, but feeding it to his yearning nonetheless. "Does it mean I'm forgiven?"

"Promise to never pull something like that again?"

"Yes! Merlin, y/n, yes. I swear it!" Sirius suddenly jumped, cackling like a maniac as he scooped her up in his arms and twirled and twirled and twirled until he lost his balance and had to stop.

"Sirius," y/n breathed between laughs. The man in question leaned down to press a kiss on top of her head.

"Sorry, m'love. Couldn't help it."

Y/n rolled her eyes again, but the glee that took over her remained as strong as ever. Lost in their happiness, the newly found couple missed the crowd circling in on them. Sensing the danger of all the man Death Eaters against them, Regulus grabbed his brother and friend and apparated away.

"What the hell?" Sirius eyed his little brother with a scold on his face. The magic took him by surprise.

Y/n raised a brow at him. "I think what you really mean to say is 'thank you, Reggie', isn't it?"

The young Lord Black smiled complicity to her, grinning at Sirius' expression. It varied from short lived anger to a quick fright only to stop at annoyance. "Maybe. Whatever," the wizard mumbled, sighing resigned. "Thanks, little brother." He said eventually, a small smile playing on his lips.

Regulus nodded, pleased. "I'll leave you alone. It's probably for the best."

"Wait!" Sirius exclaimed. Taking everyone by surprise. "I was thinking," the wizard starting, sounding uncharacteristically nervous. "Well, if y/n is dressed for the occasion... wouldn't it be a shame to waste such beautiful clothes?"

"Sirius Orion Black! Are you proposing to me?"

"I don't have a ring yet, but I promise I'll sell my bike if I have to so I can buy you the prettiest one. That's it, if you want to. Do you? Want to marry me, that's it."

"Who's gonna perform the ceremony if I say yes?"

"Not to influence your answer; in fact, I truly beg of you to consider it more, but I could do it if you're sure." Regulus chimed in.

Both Black brothers were starring expectantly at her. But it didn't faze y/n. She knew exactly what she'd choose. "I see you are a man of many talents, Lord Black," the witch started, mocking a high class accent. "Very well, then. Proceed to marry us."

Sirius actually squealed, though he'd never admit it. And when the sun sat far in the distance, leaving Britain behind for warmer places, two shadows mingled together in a passionate kiss, filled with love and longing, desire and despair. But most importantly a shared cheerful dream of a bright future together.

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cipheress-to-k-pop · 3 years

Text

Supernova (Chapter 6)

Pairing: Dick Grayson as Robin x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of murder, mental health issues and episodes.

Word Count: 3.1K

Summary: As the daughter of Wonder Woman, you always knew you were destined for something more than the life of a mortal. It seemed like your wish for a life of adventure came true but whether in the form of a blessing or curse, you didn’t know. All you know is that you were the sole witness for a chain of murders that would begin. It’s up to you to find out who was the murderer before it’s too late……

A/N: Oof it has been a while since the last update

Supernova Masterlist

“I told you specifically that you were not to get involved! And you deliberately disobeyed me!” Your mother scolded but her voice was getting a decibel louder each time. You looked unfazed and unbothered, not even trying to maintain eye-contact while receiving your mother’s disappointment and instead staring out the window.

It was not what you had wanted to hear at the moment if you were being honest. The past few days had been hard and you even missed training since Valerie’s death. Robin had been by your room multiple times trying to get you out of bed but you just remained there. Not living, not dying, just existing.

Your mother’s comfort might have done nothing to change the way you downward spiraled after the events and while your mother yelled at you, the same images kept replaying in your head as they did for the past few days; Robin ripping you away from her body as the police and press showed up, Valerie’s parents finding out what happened and then watching her mother break down in front of her daughter, Valerie’s little sister wailing during the funeral.

You didn’t leave the bed after that, still dressed in the black blazer and trousers you had worn that day. It had been a couple days. You had managed to swallow down Robin’s green smoothies and even a couple slices of fruit but you didn’t quite remember what it was. They all tasted bland and disgusting.

Your mother had found out about your identity through the multiple press reports and articles and while you were sorry that she had to find out that way, you didn’t have the capacity to show it. The last thing you had was the energy to fight with her, or even resist her.

So instead, you just listened to whatever she had to say, hoping that she’d leave sooner or later but the more you felt your head throb, the more frustrated you got. This was just so typical of her, of course the unstoppable, fearless, undefeatable Wonder Woman would have no idea what you were going through. And instead of asking you for your two cents, instead of comforting you, she had been trying to imprint her anxieties onto you.

Had she even thought how hard this must have been for you? For even a second? You couldn’t imagine it because if she had thought about you for even a moment, she would’ve realized that you literally saw your best friend murdered before your eyes. She would’ve realized that you were feeling like you didn’t deserve to live on the face of the earth. And she would’ve tried to comfort you.

Instead, she stormed into your room, tossing her phone with the news article on the bed before beginning her lecture and now fifteen minutes later she had yet to ask you if you were okay.

Her argument was stupid as well. You didn’t ask for any of this to happen to you; you were hardly responsible and yet no matter how hard you tried to avoid the matter, it kept pulling you back in. You couldn’t deal with this like a human, no matter how much your mother wanted you to, because you knew that you were more than that and you could have done something. It left you feeling guilty.

But at the same time, you couldn’t handle this as a god because you weren’t. You kept thinking about how you ended up coming short in each fight; had you been blessed with just a little more, had you not been part human then you wouldn’t have gotten injured the night Mary-Anne got captured and you would’ve saved her. If you weren’t limited, you would’ve been faster the day Valerie was killed, you would’ve reached her before it happened, you would’ve stopped it.

You were truly useless, but you didn’t have the excuse to be.

That made you feel absolutely worthless. Even after being blessed with so much, you still came up short. You still failed.

And who was to blame for that? The cruel fate that had you in the position you were today.

“If you weren’t my daughter—” Your mother muttered to herself in her anger, realizing that you weren’t reacting to anything she said but you caught the start of her sentence, cutting her off with a humorless and tired laugh.

“If I wasn’t your daughter,” You finally looked at her and you saw her features morph into one of worry when she finally noticed all the tears that were skating down your cheeks, “I wouldn’t be here.”

“Three people are dead, mom.” You cried, voice cracking but she stood there as if she was nailed to her place, “And I only have myself to blame. If I had been faster, stronger, if I didn’t have these human side to me, they wouldn’t be.”

“I can’t live like a god because I’m not competent enough, not gifted enough.” You sobbed, wiping away your tears and holding a hand up when she tried to approach you. You were too overwhelmed at the moment, too much input was there and it was overloading all your senses, “And I can’t live like a human because if I was this wouldn’t be happening to me.”

“If I wasn’t your daughter,” You spoke and it scared her with just how much malice you put into it, like you were disgusted with yourself for being her child and in a way, you were, how could you be Wonder Woman’s daughter and still be so weak?

“Those people wouldn’t have died when I was there to do something about it. Mary-Anne would have been gone without me knowing, my principal wouldn’t have been a casualty and I would’ve gotten Achilles’ tarot.” It was like you had given up. So many emotions were rushing through you that you couldn’t understand what was pushing you anymore, if there was anything there.

You weren’t ready just yet to give up on being a hero, not after another death. You wanted to help, you couldn’t continue to be useless and yet it felt like you were burning the candle at both ends.

“Please just go. I don’t expect Wonder Woman to understand what it’s like to be caught between paradise and hell.” You said, laying down once again and pulling the covers over your head, “Just go.”

You heard the door open and click shut before you were bathed in silence and darkness once again. For a minute it felt peaceful and you let the minutes bleed into hours without realizing just how much time passed as you were curled up in the hollow of your blankets.

You heard the door click open but didn’t bother to rear your head from your shelter until you felt someone poke you in the back. When you turned, Robin was standing with a tray in his hands and a reassuring smile on his face, “I got you something to drink.”

He didn’t ruin the silence that you had been yearning for, in fact the sound of his voice was sweet to the ears. This was what you needed.

Shifting slightly, you patted the empty spot next to you and when he settled comfortably beside you, it wasn’t suffocating or difficult like how you felt with your mother. Robin handed you the glass of fruit cocktail smoothie and you accepted, sipping the drink quietly and enjoying the chill slipping down your throat.

This wasn’t uncommon. Ever since you both started training together, you often found yourself searching for him when you needed comfort, since Robin was the one you had gotten closest to during your stay here. Now, with just an inch of distance between you, you were feeding off his energy and it was putting you at ease.

You leaned your head against his shoulder and he didn’t flinch, having been used to it by now but the first time you had even held his hand, the poor boy had jumped out his skin. You just needed the physical touch to put you in balance for a while and recharge, he realized that a while ago. Robin even felt better himself whenever you played with his fingers, specifically taking off his gloves to feel his skin or leaned against his back after a long day of training.

It felt so intimate but not romantic. He just felt needed and supportive whenever you relied on him this way, delicately threading your fingers together and sitting in the silence of your room. He didn’t even have to look at you, just feeling his presence beside you was okay.

The sound of you finished the drink through the straw filled his ears before he realized he should speak up.

“(Y/N).” He said gently and you didn’t lift your head, just humming to show that you had heard him, “They’re interrogating her murderer today.”

He would’ve thought that you were unshaken by the news had he not felt your hands tighten its grip on his. You just nodded, burying your head closer to his neck, wishing the ground would just suck you in. He didn’t say anything else, gently drumming the fingers that were set on his thigh.

***

Your hands clenched into fists as you gazed at the figure behind the one-way window. She looked too simple, too mundane to be a murderer but you knew she was the one responsible for Valerie’s death. Afterall, you had been the one to catch her red-handed.

Messy red hair was thrown into a bun, her unkempt strands and frizz making her look like she hadn’t slept in days and you were part to blame for that. Her lip was still split from where you punched her, your knuckles pricked at the sight, eager for more.

Looking at her, you couldn’t imagine how she was responsible for this, a frail looking woman who looked like she couldn’t even hurt a fly. Her name was Thelma, at least that’s what it says on her identity card. Thelma had been denying that as her name since the interrogation had begun.

Going through her file, she looked just as you had assumed; ordinary.

Batman hadn’t gotten a word out of her, she had refused to co-operate with the interrogation at all, pretending not to hear his questions, going as far as to even deny committing the crime at all. That part made you clench your jaw so tight you could’ve sworn your teeth could crack. She knew she had the advantage here.

As per the rules from the UN, you weren’t allowed to use the lasso of Hestia without her consent to assist the interrogation as it violates their right to remain silent. Watching her blatantly deny the crime that you knew she had committed had your blood boiling in your veins. If only you could wrap Hestia’s rope around her throat.

You growled as Batman tried to intimidate her but it was in vain before grabbing the lasso from your mother’s waist and stomping to the door.

“(Y/N)!” She warned, as if daring you to defy her again.

You didn’t even spare her a glance before throwing the door open and stepping inside. Batman stalked up to you quickly, leaning in with a cold fury but you didn’t back down, holding his stare. You couldn’t just stand back anymore, the feeling of knowing that you could have done something but didn’t was too much for you to take anymore.

“Give me a chance.” You murmured, “I won’t go against protocol. You have my word.”

His gaze hardened for a second before giving you a curt nod and moving to the corner of the room. He didn’t trust you not to lose your temper, not just yet and you were more than determined to prove one of the big three that you could handle yourself. Although the urge to slap the condescending look off her face was getting more tempting.

You fastened the rope to your belt before stepping in front of the table, resting your hands against it in a self-satisfying way that you saw in movie before finally looking Valerie’s murderer in the eye. Haggard green eyes behind thick lenses and wrinkles running deep into her pale skin. She looked pathetic. That made you feel both frustrated and proud.

“Your name is Paris,” You bit out with such venom, making sure to keep your voice loud enough for the members behind the glass to hear you clearly, “Isn’t it?”

She smirked and her eyes flashed with some pride that had you resisting the urge to throw her across the room. It would be so easy to snap her neck right then and there, to make her pay for what she did to your dear friend but you controlled yourself.

“Finally, someone with a brain.”

You mirrored her smirk, feeling your spine straightened with a little confidence, your hunch had been right, “How couldn’t I have known The Great Paris? The brave soldier who slayed Mighty Achilles.” You purred, taking your eyes off her and glancing at the glass. You were keeping your tone even, your gaze steady to show your mother but you were comforted knowing that Robin was behind it.

“The brave, skilled, mighty Trojan Prince Paris. Made a name for himself by being the best of his kind. Only a mortal but still managed to take down a divine god.” You droned, noticing how she began beaming at your words. You turned back to her and even though it was just a moment, they had seen something change in your eye. Your glare turned dark and you smirked.

“Only we both know one thing; your name isn’t Paris.” Her smile vanished and you took a step closer, sitting right across her to look her in the eye. “Tell me if this sounds familiar, hmm? A lonely, old woman living all alone. She’s at a dead-end job. She has no family, no friends, no light in her life.”

The way you spoke had your mother on edge. Every single word that came out of your mouth was like hitting a nail on the head. It was unlike anyone had ever seen before.

Robin clutched his cape nervously in his hands as he watched you interrogate Thelma with something settling in the pit of his stomach. He had seen that look before, the very same dark glare on his father and now it scared him that it was almost identical on you. He couldn’t let you turn out as his dad, he just couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

“And then finally she gets something in her life. A chance at hope. A chance at purpose. Something to finally make her believe that her life is worth living. Sound familiar? I bet it does, Thelma.” You hissed, “Because that pathetic woman was you, wasn’t it? You thought that if you killed Achilles you’d be rewarded, worshipped even. And finally, your miserable little life would have some meaning. Didn’t you?”

The look of fear in her eyes fed your hunger for a while. She was shaking her head feebly, looking at the ground since she couldn’t hold your gaze and you could only get angrier. Where was the pride and arrogance that she was showing earlier? Where was the crazed look in her eye as she murdered your best friend in cold blood?

“Only you were stupid,” You spat, “You were careless and you got caught. And suddenly, you weren’t the Mighty Paris that defeated Achilles. No, you were pathetic, irrelevant little Thelma who killed an underaged, unprotected girl in the locker room of her high school. I saw it all. You’re despicable.”

Robin watched your eyes swirl with a darkness he had never seen before. You were always trying to fight against your demons that were pulling you into the deepest recesses of your mind but now it was like you had finally surrendered to it. It was scary to watch such a pure person slowly get corrupted and Robin felt his resolve harden a little. He wouldn’t let you end up like the Dark Knight.

He had known Wonder Woman for most of his life and it was always your mother’s unconditional love and hope for the human race that made her what she stood as today. You always wanted to be like your mother, in body and mind. Now it felt like you were throwing away all those principles. Now it was to protect your own, and no one else.

If there was anything he could do to prevent you from going down that path he would, he realized when he saw the manic look in your eye. You were so close to being lost. Robin spared a glance at your mother, seeing her stand steady and tall. You were teetering over the edge at the moment and if your mother pushed just a little in the wrong way, you could possibly be lost to the rest of them. He wouldn’t let it come to that.

The darkness storming in your eyes suddenly ceased. Your features went slack in a terrifying way as you leaned towards the shivering woman in front of you as your fingers went white around the edges of the table.

“You took something very precious from me,” It was like poison was dripping from your tongue and you kept your voice low enough so only the both of you would know what you were saying, “Watch how easily I can do the same to you.”

Suddenly you pulled back and turned towards Batman with a small, disarming smile, “She’s free to go, Batman. She isn’t the one who killed Valerie. She’s just an ordinary, insignificant civilian.”

It was like a thread snapped.

“I DID IT! I KILLED HER! IT WAS ME!” Thelma shrieked lunatically, kicking the table and banging her hand-cuffed hands against the tabletop. She began sobbing loudly, screaming about how she was the one who killed Valerie and your heart lightened with satisfaction just a little. Just what you wanted.

“It’s my word against yours, Thelma. I witnessed the murder. I just think you’re just confused.” You replied, seemingly unfazed by her episode. The way she was crying in poor agony would usually have you off-put, concerned even. But right now, all you felt was your eardrums sting. She deserved none of your remorse.

“NO! NO, I DID IT! I DID IT!”

The smirk on your face was unmistakable, “Oh really? Will your confession hold up against the Lasso of Truth? Do you think it can?”

Her crying died down until she was softly sobbing into her hands, knowing that she had no other way out. She had lost, “Yes. I did it.”

You loosened the lasso around your waist, letting one end fall to the ground before wrapping it once around your wrist for better leverage, “Then let the interrogation begin.”

Forever Taglist:

@simonsbluee

@hanbedumbaf

@superheroesaremyjam113263

DC Taglist:

@emmacata

@p--e--a--c--h--e--s

@sometimeseverythingsucks

@sokkas-honour

@unstable1902

@lostgirlheart

@missdisapear

@tadpole-san

@isawachickeninatree

@uxavity

@battlenix

@capricorn-stark

@evermoore580

@dumbbitchgalore

Supernova Taglist:

@tinybeantm

@adc2016

@seoulnights5

@renjunvrse

@brightjimini

@mad4hugs

@uniyasi

@wierdlypineapple

@mono--moonchild

@smol-book-nerd

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anonil88 · 4 years

Text

The Crown s.4 ep.3 reaction

Poor sweet Diana

I know Camilla is not trying to be friends with Diana. The way I would knock her head clean off her shoulders.....chile.

Fuck Charles exponentially

All Diana wanted was to be loved by this man and his family. Which I guess is what anyone wants with someone they care for.

He flew in and went straight to Camilla wowwwwww. When your mom calls you and cusses you out to bring your tail back to actually interact with your to be wife. Not your side piece but your wife.

The way I wish someone, anyone from that family had stood up for Diana. Even if they did privately (we don't know), I wish they did publically. It would have meant so much if they had.

Just imagine who Diana would have been now if she had lived to 60. The sheer freeness both her boys would of had and enjoyed.

Ep 4 reaction

Margaret Thatcher interviews grind my gears, also on YouTube the fucking comments gag. A bunch of old conservatives who do not see how she completely shitted on the people, not the political structure, but the people of England. She screwed the working class, how they are still up her dead ass idfk.

Her favorite is Mr mommy's boy himself, cause as soon as Andrew caught himself up with being a creepy pedo Queen Elizabeth snatched his money and his job lmao.

Anne just be chilling in the public eye fr f

Yea fuck that, go away colonizers.

😂 I completely forget she has a whole third son. Oh Edward.

I know bullying is bad because I was the bullied kid, but I would probably give royal kids stupid nicknames. Even if they were my friend I'd be like okay but you're still never getting a crown.

The Queen: how about you go to your fucking wife you fucking dumb nut.

If I had a child and they pulled some shit like this I'd simply bring it up whenever they are around me pretending they aren't having an affair or a fucking creep head ass.

This must hurt though not being able to mother and not because you don't want to but because your career (imposed on you by a lineage you inherited) would not let you.

Another instance where personally if my wife is upset and crying imma just sit there and be there for her, should she need me.

Margaret Thatcher was an asshole.

Ep. 5

When you break in just to have a conversation. Not even to be angry, assassinate her, or anything wild just a conversation.

Which yaknow maybe government leaders idk could benefit from having conversations even just virtual meeting times and actually engaging with their constituents.

Thatcher really said; "just work harder." People did that and then she proceeded to cut their jobs.

Any casualties, I hope that didn't only mean the British side but probably.

Fuckkkkkkk Margaret

Funny how blue in the uk is conservative and red is liberal lol, opposites for the USA.

"Devil woman" and dog nabbet every country uses this dumb ass rhetoric to justify work and fucking over the little man.

This break in could of and would have never happened in this current time lmao

Funny as heck though a drunk man stumbles into the queens residence.

He wants to see his kids, also besides getting laid off why did she leave him.

This harkens what I said before, listen to the people who live in the country you govern. Their lives are directly impacted by your choices.

Another reason I could not be royalty or the queen is because I would of had to really restrain myself from strangling Margaret Thatcher. Straight up would of just:

Schizophrenia? Wow so let's commit him for speaking the truth about how shifty you are.

A fucking 11 day or however short ass war.

Nah fuck that bitch.

People are broke and hungry Phillip they aren't delusional just broke and hungry.

I cannot wait for the queens memoir one day when she's just like 🖕

#the crown netflix #the crown #the crown spoilers

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nuzlockechronicles · 5 years

Text

Pokemon Yellow Nuzlocke Ch. 3: To Die Standing or To Live Kneeling

Two badges and one Rocky training montage later we arrive in Vermillion with our newest compatriot, Che the Charmeleon in tow.

The team scouts Route 11 for worthy foes, and with a few close calls against Raticates and Nidorinos we manage to come out on top with some level ups. Fernando was really channeling his inner rooster when a Poliwag landed a hypnosis on him and then woke up in the same turn. Along the way we find Pepe the Drowzee, and just east in the Diglett Cave we add Rafael to fill out the B-Team.

On the coastline of Vermillion docks the S.S Anne, the lavish cruise-liner that Lula & co. protest is too bourgeoise to be seen aboard. I wave away their concerns saying there is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and also we need to advance the plot along anyways. Begrudgingly our crew steps on board and rectifies this contradiction by wiping the smirks off wealthy passengers, going from cabin to cabin and ridding them of their delusions. Up until this point Ramona's really been an MVP, and at level 23 I decide to promote her to a leadership position, receiving a moonstone and an evolution into Nidoqueen for her hard work. Lula tries to convince the ship-hands to stage a mutiny, but the sailors stare down in bewilderment at an electric rodent making pika noises.

We head towards the Captain's quarters but bump into Gary along the way, eager to link up for a round 3 smackdown. Ben Shaspearow gets skewered by Che's embers while a single kick from Ramona sends the Rattata off the boat's edge. Eevee bows out to Lula's electrifying sermons, and an eternally befuddled Gary dismisses his loss to brag about meeting the Anne's captain. We rub the sick old man's back for HM01 Cut, and depart as the ship sets sail for its maiden - and potentially final - voyage.

Approaching Lt. Surge's gym, I figure we're leveled enough as is and don't need to do much grinding. Che's starting to manage his own battles without many switch-ins, so he's able to take on most the trainers. I was wary about Voltorbs since I couldn't quite remember when it'd get dangerous, but its screeches were only followed up with tackles and sonic booms. As Che went to spit his last flame, the Voltorb decided to take the young firebrand with him and self-destructed. Our first casualty in this Nuzlocke, and a heavy one at that. Che was brimming with potential and could've been a valiant fighter in the battles to come, but his light was cut short. Lula remained somber yet stoic, remarking that Che's death will be the spark that ignites a revolution throughout Kanto. I hope he's right.

While training Pepe in the Diglett cave I ran into a level 31 Dugtrio who buried the poor elephant man and landed a critical dig. We didn't have much time to bond but he was a comrade nevertheless, and José Carlos is next in line to fill my psychic deficit. I learn my lesson, nurturing him outside the cave until he evolves into Kadabra and mindfreak all the wild pokemon in a 2-mile radius until José is up to par with the rest of the crew.

Returning to the Vermillion Gym, Lt. Surge gives us an army recruiting pitch, saying he too has lost soldiers but hey, that's war. I see what Surge and his Raichu have become and refuse to be another cog in the Pokemon industrial complex, letting Ramona take center stage. Like a samurai showdown it ends in a single move - Raichu launches a fatal mega kick but Ramona dodges, retaliating with a critical sumo slam and taking Surge out of commission to secure the 3rd badge.

I leave Vermillion reflecting on the cruel irony that I had to lose two teammates for a gym battle that lasted all of 10 seconds, bumping into a Squirtle who exudes confidence. I do a double take as I look down, a small cigar protruding from his mouth and a cocky grin; he was looking for me. Impressed, I direct Fidel to the PC and make way for Celadon.

RIP Che and Pepe

-Firebreather Spencer

#pokemonyellow #nuzlocke #charmeleon #raichu #nidoqueen

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years

Text

Kurtbastian one-shot - “Miracle Worker” (Rated PG)

Summary: With three hockey qualifiers scheduled on a very special night, Kurt has his work cut out for him. (925 words)

Notes: I figure this takes place when the boys are in college, but maybe visiting to help out with coaching the teams or something. I'm not sure of the timeline yet, but there you go.

Part 62 of Outside Edge

Read on AO3.

“Coach Hummel! Coach Hummel!”

“Kurt! Kurt!” Sebastian yells, racing into the locker room with a player in tow.

“Another one?” Kurt sighs, turning to greet them with brows stitched together, bleary eyes swimming from the bright white lights and the stench of stale sweat that never goes away. He’s done everything he could to soften the blow of that smell with a cocktail of Lysol, Febreeze, and a few spritzes of Chanel No. 5. But it eventually became so overwhelming, he had to throw in the towel and keep the doors open to air the place out.

“What is it now!? Good gracious!” Kurt tsks when he sees the girl Sebastian has brought him. Courtney Dale, senior forward, freshly showered, in sweat pants and a white tee, sporting a black eye and a split lip. “Who the heck schedules three championship qualifiers the night of Prom anyway!?”

“That would be the league,” Sebastian answers. “They typically have no respect for primitive teenage dating rituals.”

“Obviously. I can’t imagine having this as an accessory for a five hundred dollar dress.” Kurt touches Courtney’s chin, gently moving her face from side to side so he can assess the extent of the damage. “What happened?”

“Some douche canoe helmet-checked me.”

“I hope you got them back,” Kurt says, overlooking her language and rifling through his makeup kit to find a tube of concealer her shade.

“Sure did, coach,” she says, puffing up proudly as Kurt begins applying a layer of green color corrector to her swollen eyelid. “I got the one shiner, but he’s got two!”

“I don’t normally condone violence but good for you. Though, you know …” he peeks over her head and glares at his boyfriend, who has done nothing in this battle against bruises but bring him more casualties “… if your guys on defense aren’t going to protect your girls, you should learn how to do this.”

“Harsh!” Sebastian pulls a wounded face. “And a little outdated. My girls can defend themselves. Besides, it wasn’t their fault, Kurt! You should have seen the other team! They’re huge! I’m not even sure they were kids! They looked like they could be in their thirties!”

“We still won, though,” Courtney says.

“Well, hurray for silver linings.”

“But Coach Hummel,” another girl sitting on a bench across the room, waiting for her curls to set, pipes up, “we’d come to you anyway because you’re such an artist!”

“Yeah!” a third girl adds. “You’re better than any other stylist in town!”

“And so nice …”

“Compassionate …”

“We’re really lucky to have you!”

Kurt looks at the girls in the room, in various stages of ready for the dance, with glowing, innocent grins on their faces. He shifts his gaze to Sebastian, who immediately looks elsewhere, whistling a light, airy tune as he discovers something captivating on the ceiling to fixate on.

“That’s a good one, Emily.” Kurt smirks. “Did Coach Smythe tell you to say that?”

“Kurt!” Sebastian gasps, throwing a hand over his heart. “I’m hurt. Deeply hurt. In no way would I ever tell these girls to butter you up! Can’t you see that they’re genuinely grateful for everything you do?”

“That, and there’s not a single stylist open right now willing to take a walk-in client, not to mention seven!”

“Kurt!”

“But I’ll take it as a compliment. Thank you, ladies.”

“You’re welcome, Coach Hummel,” they say in bizarre unison, and Kurt rolls his eyes.

“Erhm … keep that in mind,” Sebastian says, suddenly nervous. “It gets worse.”

Kurt looks up from his work on Courtney’s eye, the stitches between his brows threatening to become a permanent feature. “What do you mean it gets worse?”

“Uh …” Sebastian gestures at the door, to a face peeking in that Kurt didn’t notice since he was fully invested in fixing Courtney’s eye. She walks sheepishly over to Sebastian, arms clasped in front of her, gazing at Kurt through thick eyelashes and clear eyes. In fact, clear skin. Her face looks completely untouched. Kurt frowns, confused.

“I don’t understand.” He crouches lower to get a better view of her face. “She got away unscathed. I don’t see a mark on her.”

“Hold on to your hat.” Sebastian takes the girl by the shoulders and turns her around. Kurt gasps when he sees her hair, relatively alright from the roots to above her ears, but after that a ragged, uneven mess.

“Jesus Christmas! How in the hell did this happen?”

“I guess their defense got her skates sharpened before the game,” the girl offers. Kurt’s jaw drops to his chest.

“Do you mean someone skated over your hair and cut it off!?”

“Yup.”

Kurt stares at the poor girl’s hair another second, then drops his head into his hands.

“I’m going to give your foundation a second to dry, Courtney,” he says, rushing to his makeup kit again. “I need to deal with this real quick.”

“Okay, coach,” Courtney says, admiring her flawless skin in a nearby mirror. Except for the fact that she can’t open her eye all the way, no one who sees her will be the wiser.

That’s because Coach Hummel truly is a miracle worker.

Kurt leads the girl to an empty bench and sits her on it. “Do you like Anne Hathaway?”

“I love her!” she beams.

“Well, you’re in luck.” Kurt pulls out a Wahl hair trimmer and plugs it in. He switches it on, and it buzzes to life. “Because you’re going to have her hair in about twenty seconds!”

#kurtbastian #sebkurt #sekurt #frankie writes

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pinkletterday · 6 years

Text

Oh thank God they aren't waiting till shit goes down to brief Team Flash.

LMAO Iris "what the newspaper says some shit? That's like Tuesday for us, bro."

Seriously though I'm tired of Iris being "tough". The best thing, maybe the only good thing, about Season 3 was that she was allowed to be soft and vulnerable and scared and sad. We badly need to roll back on this stoic tough chick trope. LET WOMEN BE EMOTIONAL FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

I miss Soft Princess Iris. :(

SINGH. I missed Captain Singh. He's like Barry's number one stan. "You got an intern working a crime scene without going through any hiring protocol whatsoever, Allen? Good job!"

Incidentally how can you "hire" interns if you don't pay them?

So. Now that we've seen a man become compressed into a block of meat, can we have some PG 13 post-coital Westallen nookie? This show's attitude to sex is so fucked up. Shishkebab people 96 times per season but zero hints of a sex life between a loving, committed couple.

Nora, I love you but you may actually be worse than your Dad at showing up to crime scenes with flimsy excuses...*flashes back to introductory episode on Arrow 2x8* nvm

That block of meat is making me hungry. Need breakfast.

"Please stop caring about me" LOL

Ralph is sort of growing on me. Granted, so could fungus.

Okay that was mean.

I really hope Barry also tables his family drama for five minutes to be there for his best friend. Caitlin and Cisco keep being deprioritized since S2 - S3 and its grating on me. Be there for your friends too, Barry.

Excuse you, going to Thailand and painting your toes is a great way to get over a break-up. However, I strongly advise against any drastic hair decisions.

Oh. Poor guy. Be gentle, Mad Dog West-Allen

(Get it? Mad Dog Lane? TNAOS? Ok then)

I do like when they show civillian casualties. It makes what they do seem more impactful.

Is Joe on paternity leave?

I like these West family subplots. Joe and Cecile are v cute.

Cecile reading the mind of your child without their consent is the opposite of being the perfect parent. Wait till she's out and raid her room for drugs like everyone else.

Barry is like me with teenagers. "When I was your age it took five minutes just to connect to the internet and your search history turned up on your phone bill shut your gob."

Oh Nora. *facepalm*

Idk why Barry always calls his villains out. He's a speedster with the advantage of surprise. Its stupid.

"Denser than people who still believe in love." I feel you so much Cisco.

I see the CW is still forcing us to be minutely acquainted with people's chins.

SERIOUSLY just let Barry take five seconds out to give Cisco a comforting pat on the back Im so tired of this.

LOL Barry you're giving Nora math homework? That's just harsh.

Lmao Cisco is getting Anne Hathawayed HANDS OFF THE HAIR BRUCE. **proteccs lush beautiful Cisco curls*

"Does that mean you think there's something wrong with me?" NO BABY YOU ARE THE MOST PERFECT AND BEAUTIFUL

"You cut my hair I cut you" YOU TELL HIM

Oh. Oh my. Oh.

I have never been so attracted to Cisco Ramon before. Clearly I have been a fool.

Heee she raised her hand. "But Dad, I wanna punch stuff!" Most precious bean.

Errm pretty sure your Dad killed the Sand Demon, Nora. I don't care about DC's no-kill rule but that was not his finest moment.

Lmaoooo welcome to fatherhood, Barry.

Maybe a stern little talking-to wouldn't hurt at this point.

Whenever she says "Dad" my insides melt a little more.

Okay, Barry and Iris need to draw some hard lines between their professional lives. The investigative journalist cannot just waltz into her husband's CCPD lab and look through his laptop. Literally you could have done this at home instead of the lab. One day they're going to be accused of evidence tampering.

Shit like this takes me out of a scene unnecessarily.

Barry: "NORA ISN'T LISTENING TO ME SHE THINKS SHE CAN DO ALL THESE THINGS BUT SHE CAN'T, NEMO!"

Joe: *internally laughs himself stupid*

So this is why parents want their kids to reproduce. The sweet, sweet karmic payback. xD

(Fourth grade? Barry came to live with them when he was eleven. Also pretty sure Barry kinda hated Joe for a while what with having arrested his Dad and being traumatized. I can see him hero-worshipping Joe a couple of years later maybe.)

I can't get over how hot Cisco is. Bruce better not have burned his iconic t-shirts tho.

Aww, Caitlin. That sucks. :( I know the theme this season seems to be fathers and daughters but you should really talk to Iris about absentee parents who faked their deaths.

No seriously this is a great bonding opportunity for them! I need to see a solid friendship between the two main female cast members so bad it's been four seasons please throw me a bone

Oh, step twenty seven is hitting me hard too. I think I might actually like Ralph soon.

Okay, real talk. Yeah the superficial stuff can't distract you from the truth that your relationship tanked. But that whole cry on your couch for two weeks, get away to a seaside with friends, getting a makeover, buying new clothes, redecorating your living space - these are also rituals of grief and helps you cope till you get enough emotional distance to deal with reality. Superficial stuff is what makes life bearable, okay?

The other thing is to give relationship advice nobody asked for

Moving on.

I love that Cait and Cisco are always there for each other.

Awww Barry's showing Nora what a fuck up he truly is loool.

Oh my God. Season 1 Barry. "Sometimes for people with our abilities the most impressive thing is restraint." WE HAVE COME SO FAR. I'M LOVIN' IT! *prouds*

Yessss Iris being as smart as the nerd herd!

GO TEAM WEST-ALLEN!

Young lady, you roll your eyes at your mother one more time and we're gonna have words.

Kinda hate that in order to give villains a chance against speedster powers you gotta significantly bring the latter down several IQ points.

Baby got moves! Nice!

Barry! What about those moves you used to lay out the ARGUS guards??

This fight would be more impressive is I could see jackshit. Lighting, people!

Hmm. Did Cicada just have a "Save Martha" moment?

Nora is so scared and worried for her father, poor babb.

YES MARVEL REFERENCE!

Wait, so they got their powers back?

Y'know he didnt have to vibe that to realize the obvious next step is confronting Caitlin's mother.

Actually that sounds like respiratory problem. New villain - Halitosis.

Oooh Future Spoilers Girl knows who Cicada is

Aaand that's a wrap folks.

Ngl I had hoped for more "West" in Team West-Allen but this was a solid ep.

Please have Nora call Barry "Dad" as many times as possible k.

#the flash #the flash spoilers #liveblog #the flash 5x2

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nityarawal · 2 years

Text

8/29/22

Kneed Magdalenas-

Needing Nitya Neat

Morning Songs

Sitting in The Woods

Thinking about Stuff

The Birds are Chirping

All Around Me

I Enjoy Their Motherly Touch

Could Anyone Possibly Mind

A Girl Who Spoke

Truth To Power

Beautiful Brazen One

Who Could Mind?

An Indigenous Blonde

Who Wanted to Come Out

For a Moment in Time

Witchunted for Her DNA

Who Could Blame

The Vultures Who Preyed?

I do!

I Don't Want This Kind of Murder

To Ever Get Normalised Again

From The Courts

I Don't want

My "Anne Heche

Snowflake!"

They Laugh & Hurt!

She Jumped Up

And Told All She Could!

God Help Her!

She Was Kidnapped

Her Car Malfunctioned

All the Tech Geeks Know!

Drone Operated!

Brakes Broken!

Just Another Casualty

Of Divorce Court War

Yeah, The Peeps

Are Tweeting!

She's Got Her Movie

About "Room 13"

Coming Out!

Whatever Does That Number 13 mean?

In Military Language

A- ABC

C For That Word

I won't say!

C***

DID THEY THINK

SHE WAS A-SEXUAL?

And Discriminate

Against Her On Judgement

DAY?

Is That Really

The Courthouses Role

To Bully Our Birds

To Death?

And Knee Poor Britney

When She's Down?

And Anne Heche?

You Might Feel This

Is None Of My Business

And Ask Me

To Turn

The Other Cheek!

I Will For All Small Matters My Dear!

But I Also Know

The Knee Of Court!

Nitya For Eternity!

Britney For a Badass Military!

Nitya 4 Eternity!

Stop Kneeing Us!

We Beg of You!

Please.

The Singers

The Magdalenas

The Mothers of Court

Oh Madres!

See Us Please!

For Who

We Are!

❤️

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal

0 notes

holbyconfessional · 6 years

Text

Casualty S32 Episode 35

I found this to be a reasonably entertaining episode when all is said and done. It managed to avoid too much ‘deep water’ drama - I’m not trying to minimise what happened to the 17yo boy, and it was pretty tense stuff, but considering it’s Casualty, they could have taken it far further, and put Iain or Sam in grave danger - you know, bump on the head, further entrapment, yahdiyahda. But they didn’t, so yay!

Enter new paramedic boss, Jan Jenning, and here begins the tropes. Oh, she’s so brusque and mean, but hey, she’s a diamond in the rough, with a heart of gold, and she’ll have your back when it counts, whilst patronising you all the way. Sorry, but yawn. Don’t really see myself becoming a fan.

On to pity party Bea. It’s interesting, I quite liked her when she joined, but she’s been declining in my opinion of her as the weeks went on - and assuming this was supposed to be a ‘oh, poor Bea, now we can see why she is so <insert character trait here>, it missed the mark for me, and I just found her more irritating. She could be a really interesting character, I hope they find a way to make her so. As far as her story, however, I did enjoy the COTW aspect with her father. Interesting stuff - and glad that Dylan didn’t share his own battle (there was a moment I thought he might). Just happy that he’s back on screen.

Had to have a 2 min cameo from Leigh-Anne, just to remind us that Ethan is still seeing her - fickle viewers that we are, who may well have entirely forgotten by next week ;-)

What else? Oh, early Jacob/Sam set up. I still rue the end of Jacob and Connie, so can’t really feel the love for that pairing.

Final thought - it occurs that these thoughts might come across as a bit negative. The fact is, I actually did enjoy this episode, it was far greater than the sum of the niggles!

#casualty #bbc casualty #iain dean #sam nicholls #Jan Jenning #tropes #bea kinsella #Dylan Keogh #Leigh-Anne Carr #ethan hardy #jacob masters #Connie Beauchamp

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kirwond · 6 years

Text

Baying For Blood: A Persona 5 Playlist

A playlist following the Persona 5 storyline - characters, Palaces, the whole lot. Cover art by sangrde at deviantart.

Listen at Spotify.

Even more playlists here.

Tracklist and notes below the cut.

Everybody Knows – Concrete Blonde

everybody knows the fight is fixed the poor stay poor and the rich get rich that’s how it goes

I Know What I Am – Band of Skulls (Ryuji Sakamoto)

gasoline, saccharine I got no reason for the state I’m in but I know what I am, they know what they are so let me be

Castle – Halsey (Ann Takamaki)

and there’s an old man sitting on the throne that’s saying I should probably keep my pretty mouth shut

George – Fiona Mcdonald (Kamoshida’s Palace)

want to use me, emotionally abuse me show the rope and dangle it above me

Beautiful – Michael Penn (Madarame’s Palace)

you’ve got to laugh as you inscribe his autograph they are the ones that everybody chooses

Painting Pictures – Adele (not on Spotify, sorry!) (Yusuke Kitagawa)

running riots inside my soul fire burning and it’s lighting me up

Million Dollar Dream – Headless Chickens (Kaneshiro’s Palace)

we’ll throw you from the window if you start to make us seen so keep it down and come with us don’t tell them where you’ve been

Unstoppable – Sia (Makoto Nijima)

I know, I’ve heard that to let your feelings show is the only way to make friendships grow but I’m too afraid now

Virus – Deltron 3030 (Medjed)

I want to devise a virus to bring dire straits to your environment crush your corporations with a mild touch trash your whole computer system and revert you to papyrus

Echo – CIRCRUSH (Futaba Sakura)

no something isn’t right my enemy’s invisible I don’t know how to fight

Work Bitch – Britney Spears (Okumura’s Palace)

you wanna live fancy? live in a big mansion? party in France? you better work bitch

This Life Is Mine – Casey Lee Williams (Haru Okumura)

born to live your legacy existing just to fill your needs, a casualty of this so-called family that you have turned into a travesty

Keep The Car Running – Arcade Fire (Morgana)

there’s this fear I keep so deep knew its name since before I could speak

Everybody Wants You To Emerge – Fischerspooner vs Billy Squier (not on Spotify. sorry!) (Goro Akechi)

everybody wants you (uh huh that’s right)

Cops And Robbers – The Hoosiers (Sae Nijima’s Palace)

blame Simon because he said you could think better with a hole in your head

Glory And Gore – Lorde

and the cry goes out they lose their minds for us and how it plays out now we’re in the ring and we’re coming for blood

You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring (Goro Akechi again)

there’s something in your way and now someone is gonna pay and if you can’t get what you want well it’s all because of me

Cult Of Personality – Living Colour (Shido’s Palace)

I exploit you, still you love me I tell you one and one makes three I’m the cult of personality

Golgotha Tenement Blues – Machines Of Loving Grace (Mementos)

down on the boulevard the children are sold to pave the way for your streets of gold

Free – Vast (Yaldabaoth)

you can’t tell me what to do anymore now I’m free, now I’m free, now I’m free

Raise Your Glass – Pink (driving off to the beach vroom vroom)

we will never be never be anything but loud and nitty gritty dirty little freaks

#persona 5 #p5 #playlist #fanmix #ryuji sakamoto #ann takamaki #yusuke kitagawa #makoto nijima #futaba sakura #haru okumura #goro akechi #morgana

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pieloudrowsrads1973 · 4 years

Text

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couchmonkey · 5 years

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PILOT season!!

When I was young, Brandon Tartikoff was a hero of mine. I always fancied myself a closet programmer, so I love pilot season. THR published a list of the projects moving forward and as I was procrastinating, some are already on the air.

Let’s start with Stumptown. Inspired by the Oni Press graphic novels, Dex Parios (Cobie Smulders), a strong, assertive and unapologetically sharp-witted (but, let’s face it, hot mess) Army veteran working as a P.I. in Portland. Michael Ealy plays the cop because there must always be one. His boss is Camryn Manheim (yes!!), and the whole reason I heard about the show is Tantoo Cardinal, a powerful local Native American tied to Dex’s past. Oops, almost forgot the best friend, JakeJohnson of New Girl. His past is a little messy, too. He now owns a bar and employs Dex’s brother Ansel (Cole Sibus). It’s a tight cast, and Dex really is a hot mess nut she gets things done.

All Rise, it looks like, was originally pitched as Courthouse, good thing they changed the name! Simone Missick is a former DA who just became a judge and is encircled by Ruthie Ann Mills as her assistant, Lindsay Mendez as her stenographer, J. Alex Brinson as the deputy in her courtroom, and Marg Helgenberger as her mentor. I was not familiar with the first three when I started the show but they are a strong team. The 2 main lawyers are Wilson Bethel, a DA and old friend of Missick’s judge, and Jessica Camacho, a VERY determined public defender. I like the dynamics of the show, it’s very seldom a case of the week situation (even though there is one). Viewers get little snippets of most of the characters’ lives organically so, in my opinion, you enjoyed the show more the more you watch.

Evil is one of the most unique shows on the air this season. It pits science and religion, Katja Herbers plays a skeptical clinical psychologist who joins a priest-in-training (Mike Colter) and a blue-collar contractor ( Aasif Mandvi) to investigate supposed miracles, demonic possessions and other extraordinary occurrences to see if there's a scientific explanation or if something truly supernatural is at work.The give and take between science and religion is truly engaging and Michael Emerson is truly creepy and possibly playing for the other side in this battle.

Bob Hearts Abishola follows Bob (Billy Gardell) who, after having a heart attack, falls in love with his Nigerian nurse (Folake Olowofoyeku). I think I saw the pilot, the rest of the episodes are on my DVR at the moment and thanks to some of the promos and Christine Ebersole, I do plan to get to them. ETA: I’ve watched a couple. Folake Olowofoyeku is really great but because this whole thing seems to involve the progress of their relationship, it runs a little slow for me.

Carol's Second Act is also piling up on my DVR. I’ve been on bedrest because of an injury and have been mostly streaming. But, like Bob, I do plan to get to it. I do like that Patricia Heaton is the lead, a med student of all things. I have to think it’s also still on the air because it also has a strong male lead, Kyle MacLachlan, although I’ve never personally seen him do comedy. Cedric Yarbrough is a strong motivator for me as well as I saw every episode of Speechless. ETA: Well, plans change. I erased them all. I thought if I hadn’t gotten to them by now, watching them would be a chore.

The Unicorn is a sitcom I actually have been watching. I didn’t want to at first because, although I’d heard of Walton Goggins, I had never actually seen him in anything. But it’s kind of like Seinfeld in that there is such an impressively strong group playing the couples who are his friends. Omar Benson Miller (yes!!) and Maya Lynne Robinson are a couple with 4 kids and essentially a no nonsense approach and Rob Corddry and comedy goddess Michaela Watkins are the white color kid with a single kid who is well on her way to nerdhood. These four a Goggins’ lifeline after his wife passes and he becomes a single father. The whole widower thing is handled well. His wife is mentioned or remembered in a completely organic way and allows the show to stay away from a trajectory that could have become maudlin.

Prodigal Son is another fairly unique concept for this season. Tom Payne plays Malcolm Bright, the son of a notorious serial killer called The Surgeon (Michael Sheen) who understands how killers think. The criminal psychologist uses his skills to help an NYPD unit led by Lou Diamond Phillips, a cop he’s known since his youth. What is interesting for me so far is that Bright’s mom, Bellamy Young, is her own kind of nuts, and Malcolm, who started off as a little nutty (I mean consider his past), is well on his way to possibly off his rocker.

Bluff City Law is a case of the week legal drama set in Memphis. The viewer is getting smidges of the character’s private lives each week but character development seems a little slow. I like Caitlin McGee’s performance but I’d never heard of her before watching this. The anchor for the show and the law firm in it is Jimmy Smits. The supporting cast, especially Barry Sloane who’s mostly navigated a single case for the first part of the season, is just starting to get noticed. It’s not something I race to watch but I like it. ETA: It has gotten cancelled. Poor Barry Sloane.

Emergence was a show I was waiting for as it marked the return of Allison Tolman. She plays a sheriff who takes in a young child that she finds near the site of a mysterious accident who has no memory of what has happened. The investigation so far has been weird and sometimes violent and definitely is affecting her family, including father Clancy Brown and ex-husband Donald Faison. But, bless her, she is nowhere near ready to give up. The cliffhanger before Christmas break was very illuminating.

I have watched a couple of episodes of Perfect Harmony��(the rest are on my DVR). I love that Bradley Whitford is doing outright comedy although his character, an Ivy League music professor, is quite cranky. But I’m not in a rush to get back to it because it doesn’t seem like there’s enough material for it to run for multiple seasons. ETA: Like Carol’s Second Act, these got dumped off my DVR.

While we’re talking about enough material, Sunnyside was one of the first casualties of the season and, I have to say, I saw it coming. The pilot was well done, Kal Penn played Garrett Shah, a disgraced former New York city councilman who finds his calling when faced with immigrants in need of his help and in search of the American Dream. I know the immigration and nationalization process in the US is a lengthy process but it just didn’t seem like there was enough to keep people coming back despite the presence of talent like Diana Maria Riva.

Almost Family revolves around Julia Beckley (Brittany Snow) having her life turned upside down when it's revealed that her father, a pioneering Nobel Prize-winning fertility doctor, used his own sperm to conceive dozens of children over the course of his career. She connects with two “sisters” in particular and I think that’s what they’ve built the show on but I had a hard time believing any of the negative effects of all this coming from Snow and chose to stop watching. I do have the Australian show it’s based on as part of my Netflix list, I think I will probably end up watching that first.

I did start watching Batwoman before my injury, it being female led and all. Ruby Rose does inspire a bit of monotony in the voiceovers that populate the show but I get it, she’s tired, she’s working hard and only making minimal progress, I understand she’s not full of pep. It is kind of weird to watch her slip into the suit and try to make it work for her and watch Camrus Johnson, the steward of the life Bruce Wayne abandoned, do his best to both avoid and become her Alfred. ETA: That got dumped off the DVR, too. There’s SOOOO much TV.

FBI: Most Wanted is a spinoff of FBI (somebody may have to stop Dick Wolf) featuring  Julian McMahon of Nip/Tuck as the head of team tasked with hunting down fugitives. Sadly, it’s been pretty run of the mill so far except for McMahon’s in-laws, which include Nathanial Arcand as his brother-in-law and a member of his squad.

The CW did reboot Nancy Drew and while I did not hate the concept, I’m still loyal to Pamela Sue Martin and chose not to watch it.

These are the shows that are on the air. Some mid-season shows are still ready to roll out. Some are already being bolstered by promos like Deputy. I am looking forward to that one and watching Stephen Dorff unexpectedly be made the sheriff of LA County. I think and really hope Yara Martinez, last seen and underutilized on Bull, will get to be a meaty part of this drama. ETA: Yara has gotten some featured episodes and done well but she’s essentially in the same boat as David Conrad on the Ghost Whisperer and Jake Weber on Medium.

Tommy is another cop show but thankfully Tommy is Abigail Thomas’ nickname and Edie Falco is front and centre as the first female chief of police for Los Angeles. She got the position as part of a court mandate after some ugliness in the department and often has to deal with the mayor, Tom Sadowski. Tommy’s assembled a pretty tight circle so far and, of course, does things her own way, so I’ve been trying to watch this live.

Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist is SOOOOOO good. I’ve missed Jane Levy so much and this has not only a lovely story but singing and dancing (with choreography by Mandy Moore). After an accident in an MRI machine, Levy’s character can hear people expressing their feelings through song. Her supporting cast is top notch. Alex Newell of Glee plays her neighbor who is trying to help Zoey figure this out, Skylar Astin of Pitch Perfect and Crazy Ex-Girlfriend is her BFF, Lauren Graham is her boss, and Mary Steenburgen and Peter Gallagher are her parents. Some of the most touching scenes (and songs) have involved Levy and Gallagher, who has lost many functions, including speech and a lot of movement. Thanks to Zoey’s condition, he is able to express himself to her through song and Gallagher’s voice is so sweet.

Geniuses has become Outmatched and features Maggie Lawson and Jason Biggs as parents of 4 children, 3 of whom are geniuses. I’ve seen 3 episodes so far. Everyone except the “normal” child seems to be waiting for a rimshot. I did enjoy Tony Danza as Jason Bigg’s dad but I am not going to be busting my butt to watch it.

Uninsured has become Indebted. Adam Pally and Abby Elliott end up having to take care of Dave's parents (Fran Drescher and Steven Weber), who have mismanaged their finances and need help paying down a sizable debt. Sadly, like Outmatched, everyone seems to be waiting for a rimshot and the jokes seem really repetitive. Weber’s character, for example, is constantly talking about spending extravagant amounts of money even though he is deep in debt and I doubt they’re going after a dementia storyline with him. When the name Dan Levy popped up on the credits I did a lightning fast search on IMDB to make sure it was not, in my mind, THE Dan Levy of Schitt’s Creek, and thankfully, there are 2 of them.

Lincoln Rhyme, who was played on the big screen by Denzel Washington, is now Russell Hornsby from Grimm and Fox’s failed Proven Innocent. There’s still an Amelia Sachs, there’s still a Bone Collector, and Michael Imperioli is always a strong utility player but I’m finding it collecting on the DVR because of the plethora of good stuff available on Thursday and my need to get through that because sampling Friday’s mostly guilty pleasures.

Katy Keene has made it air. It’s a Riverdale spinoff on the CW and they are spending a lot on advertising but not enough to rope me in. Not that I think it’s not a good show, I’m just not the target audience.

Of the rest of the list, I know the planned reboots of New York Undercover and NYPD blue did not make it out of the gate.

I’m never going to get this post finished if I included all of the pilots on the list I still haven’t talked about, so I’ll go with bullet points about the ones that stood out to me:

Nana: Katey Sagal playing a grandmother. Yeah.

An untitled comedy pairing Leslie Odom Jr. and Kelly Jenrette: GREAT team, well matched I think.

The Republic of Sarah: Sarah Drew of Grey's Anatomy goes from mayor to president. So much story potential there.

Broke: Jaime Camil and Natasha Leggero plus Pauley Perrette - uh, yes please. Sounds like a very strong team to me.

Next is a vehicle for Jon Slattery of Mad Men, who I adore, but I don’t recognize much of the supporting cast, which could be a problem if none of them are able to rise to his level.

Filthy Rich features Kim Cattrall and Gerald McRaney, a very strong base but I’m wondering how the religious community will respond to a story about how imperfect true believers can be. Another plus for me, it’s supposed to be filmed in New Orleans.

Richard Lovely is a vehicle for the uber talented Thomas Lennon, who plays the disgruntled author of the best-selling children's book series, Mr. Mouse. It looks like he’ll have Wendie Malick as a frequent scene partner and I believe that to be an ideal pairing.

Council of Dads is getting a lot of advertising but will involve death. If they handle it as well as The Unicorn has, I think it might have a chance.

That’s all I’ve got. I wish I’d finished this sooner. My DVR is 63% full. I’m going to match more TV.

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pro-ag-gressive-church · 7 years

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X.C.R.I.S.I.S. will kill us if we don’t stop them NOW!

X.C.R.I.S.I.S. (Xrisitian Conservative Right In Seditious Insurrectionist States) The only "terrorist" group ACTUALLY posing a threat to the United States.

The "Conservative" movement in this country has become an unholy alliance between self proclaimed "christians" who ONLY quote the parts of Leviticus or Deuteronomy that validate their hate, and NEVER quote Jesus CHRIST (I call them Xristians to separate the extremists from the faithful), and the Cult of Ayn Rand who worship an economic fantasy from a badly written sci-fi novel that has NEVER worked in ANY practical application.

“You know the Bible says beware of false prophets. And there are people out there, you know, spreading noise about how much can get done. I mean this whole idea about shutting down government to get rid of Obamacare in 2013 – I mean, this plan never had a chance.” -Fmr. House Speaker, John Boehner

Read more at: http://www.forwardprogressives.com/john-boehners-trashing-ted-cruz-tea-party-just-proved-liberals-right-video/

The sooner we start treating Confederate Scum like the disease they are, and stop pretend they are human beings "with an opinion", the better.

Are Conservatives even people?

“What defines a person? What defines property? What’s the difference? The anthropologist and ethicist Dawn Prince-Hughes argues that the standards for personhood include self-awareness, an ability to understand complex emotions, and the capacity for empathy.” -Ted 2.

Conservatives clearly lack both the capacity to understand complex emotions and the empathy that particular definition of a "person" requires.It’s easy to see, in this perspective, how a corporation or fetus might seem like a “person” to them since they lack all but self awareness to qualify as one.

Unlike the primates Dr. Prince-Hughs studied to come up with this theory in her book "Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism", conservatives are clearly NOT people.

While that makes them property by the logic presented in the film, the truth is they should be at least considered as other primates until they can join the human race in it's otherwise unanimous understanding of those concepts.Some wild animals need to put down no matter how we anthropomorphize them, especially when they are as dangerous to society as conservatives have proven to be.

Some will see this as satire, but seriously... why are we treating these animals like humans, when they can’t provide the simple comfort of a purring cat, or loyal dog?

As the thinking and rational members of society, we have to take responsibility for letting this destructive “invasive species” of humanity loose. Like Coy fish or killer bees, we need to recognize that they are not capable of being part of society, or even the ecology in many cases, and instead of granting them membership as a right, make them earn it. Isn’t that exactly THEIR attitude with the undocumented, refugees from terror, and the poor. Do we not owe ourselves the right to hold them to the standards they set for others? Conservatives have EARNED genocide. Like poor Anne Frank, Liberals believe that all people are basically good, and just "misguided". They still haven't learned that Conservatism is a CANCER that needs to be ERADICATED like all cancer.

Just like the Civil War Criminals that we simply allowed to have all the spoils of their slavery in order to "make peace", we didn't execute the lying Conservatives who got us into the illegal wars in the middle east when we found out what they had done to us, and made us to do those nations.

Name a single liberal policy that will kill someone.

If we taxed the top 2% who make over $250,000 at a rate of 90%, do you know how many would be below the poverty line?

ZERO!!!!

Not a single one of them would have life as tough 45 million Americans live with EVERY DAY.

The fact is, in every way, the cause of Conservatism is to kill or enslave everyone not born with money.

Executing a Conservative is no more an act of violence than spraying germs with disinfectant, or taking an antibiotic.

Something is trying to kill you, slowly, but never the less it is trying to kill you.

Killing a Conservative is inherently an act of self defense.

Conservative = Cancer

You can't negotiate with cancer.

You can't reason with cancer.

You can't yell at cancer and make it behave.

You don't sit there dying and try to figure out how much of you, you will allow cancer to kill.

You poison it with chemicals. You cook it with radiation. You cut it out.

Cancer has lost its right to be part of your body because a small part of it’s “code” has become corrupt. It ignores the rules of the anatomy, and grows out of control reproducing that altered bad code jeopardizing your life.

Sometime you lose a lot in treating cancer. Especially if you've ignored it for too long and let it get out of control.

You can lose limbs. Vital organs. Lots of good cells and tissue that are NOT cancerous will die from the treatment the longer you pretend you DON'T have cancer.

You CAN be too late. You can face your final days in agony, knowing you are going die from cancer, because you didn't act soon enough.

Cancer may be a part of you, but it is a part of you that has betrayed EVERYTHING ELSE about you.

Conservative thought is social and political cancer.

We need to STOP pretending that this is a difference of opinion that can be negotiated and reasoned out, because "We The People..." are dying from it.

It looks, upon a casual examination, like it’s following the Constitution and the Bible, but it has altered a SMALL amount of those “codes” needed to keep this nation alive, and replicates that deadly code.

Isn't that what EVERY cancer does? Tries to re-write the code that keeps the system working?

In the case of Cancer the code is DNA.

In the case of society, the code is education of future generations, It needs to be treated like the danger that it is. It needs to be poisoned, cooked, and cut out of society, TO SAVE SOCIETY.

We need to try and cure it, and hope that it is not too late.

And that is going to hurt.

The question is... is the continued life of society WORTH the pain. Can we recover enough from the losses we will endure to have a life after we've killed all the cancer?

I think we can THRIVE. Unlike our bodies, removing this cancer will just make way for us to regrow the damaged parts, but only if we stop trying to talk it out, and start fighting for our lives before it's too late.

WE ARE AT WAR AND WE ARE DYING EVERYDAY.

IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP and START CAUSING CASUALTIES ON THEIR SIDE.

Killing a Conservative is not murder because CHOOSING the cause of Conservatism is not just a abandonment from American values, or betrayal of this nation...

It is a declaration of resignation from HUMANITY!!!!!

The Jews were dehumanized BY the Nazi's to justify genocide. Conservatives have DEHUMANIZED THEMSELVES, and EARNED their genocide as no Jew ever did.

JUST FUCKING LOOK AT WHAT THESE TERRORIST ARE CLAIMING!!! AND WHY?!?!??!

SO THEY CAN VALIDATE THEIR OWN VIOLENCE AGAINST US, AS "SELF DEFENSE"!!!!!

The delusion of Liberalism is that somehow they will find an acceptable middle ground with these religious fanatics.

The very act and method of embracing the ideologies and principles that these people have, DEFIES reason. There is NO amount of education or explanation that will change their mind. They are as immune to rational thought as the Muslim extremists in I.S.I.S./I.S.I.L. or Boko Haram. In fact, comparing their goals... the groups are identical save for two things.The respective books they aren't smart enough to actually read, and the amount of money they have to wage their war.

While the Islamic Extremists have access to millions, the Xrisitan Extremists in America have access to Billions!!!! Maybe even Trillions. When you can purchase rule from an unscrupulous "representative" of a democracy, you don't need overt violence to achieve your goals.

Your "Terror" to maintain control, takes the authoritative tone of POLICE BRUTALITY!

That's a hard concept to swallow. We are used to "terrorism" being an overt act that disrupts our daily scheduled lives.

In fact, there is no generally accepted definition of exactly what qualifies as terrorism, but every definition includes two common things. The use of FORCE and FEAR to obtain a goal. Daesh (ISIS/ISIL) can't buy the election processes in the myriad of countries they seek to control, so they use horror and military power to terrorize the population there.

Conservatives in America have bought our representation, and the media that can complain about it.

They use the law and daily policing as the FORCE to keep us afraid, and the ever changing media boogeyman to divert attention from their rule.

They are, by a legal definition, insane.

Under the "Model Penal code", a defendant is legally insane if at the time a crime is committed they are unable to:

1. Appreciate the criminality of his conduct; or

2. Conform his conduct to the requirements of the law

"The second question is whether the mental illness interfered with the defendant's ability to distinguish right from wrong. That is, did the defendant know that the alleged behavior was against the law at the time the offense was committed."

Tell me this does not define the actions of the Conservative movement at this time.

So how do you protect 38-41% of the nation's population from harming others, and themselves, without allowing yourself to be the victim of their insanity? THAT is the question the left needs to answer among ourselves before we can start to move forward.

Peaceful resistance can only work if you can embarrass your opponent with their hypocrisy. The "right" in America has already convinced themselves that WE deserve to die for our "sins". They will slaughter us without a hint of guilt, and thank their god’s name for having been given the opportunity. Liberals believe that "Nobody wants war." That is our fatal flaw. THESE people DO want war. They are just not rational or reasonable. Fighting back is not the choice we WANT to make, but a necessity for our survival. We need to force these extremists to accept OUR authority, or we will cede it to them.

This really comes from the fact that "American Christianity" or as I call it, Xristianity isn't a form of Christianity at all.

It is form of "Protestant Judaism" where the Old Testament is given more weight than the word of Christ.

The hate all comes from books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

The Xristians are really a heretical form of Judaism in the belief that there WAS a Jesus Christ, and the adaptation of Baptism as a forcible means to expand their faith, where if they just accepted the fact that they were in fact Jews, they would by tradition be required to shun converts, not seek them aggressively.

They are also a heretical form of Christianity in the denial that Christ fulfilled the Covenant of the old Testament, making the word of Christ supersede most of the old Testament.

Making it worse, there is the historical "persecution" of Christians by the Roman Empire, who ALSO considered them to be "just Jews".

The Christians of the day were at odds with traditional Judaism, and basically refused to pay the tax levied by the Romans against the Jews for worshiping gods other than the Pagan Roman gods. Something the Jews had not had problems with for centuries.

That and the fact that according to Christ, prayer should be in secret and NOT a public display made the early Christian faith a target for Roman suspicion and justice, which was then rewritten from denying reasonable demands of society that provided for, and protected most of it's citizens, into history as "Persecution”.

Today’s Xristians represent the worst of all worlds. They’ve retained the “persecution” myth while forcing people to accept their faith, all the while ignoring the actual peaceful teachings of the man their faith is named after.

They SHOULD be afraid to admit they loved Jesus if they actually READ the parts of their bible that Jesus is credited with, because Jesus preached keeping your faith between you and God.

But it is a faith that has been mutated into a political entity, which goes against the U.S. Constitution they ALSO fail to read, and forced on a group that is REWARDED for ignorance.

"WHITE HERITAGE" It's time "white" people learn what they really supposed to be "proud" of instead of what they have been sold on as "white pride".

I've never had to kick ass at 6 to 1 odds with "Black Power" people. I've had to deal with that shit with "White Power" assholes, and I'm a pasty ass, pink as shit, Irishman.

Clearly I'm NOT "white", honestly... see no advantage to being one outside of prison where I would probably be pigeon holed into being by extremists into aligning with ARYAN Nation simply because my white skin would prohibit me from teaming up other groups.

A majority of Xristianity SHOULD be under attack. The fear of Jade Helm, and Obama is a representation of their collective guilty conscience.

They KNOW they have violated the Constitution.

They know they have taken God’s name in vain.

They know they have the wrath of God coming and refuse to accept that they are the "bad guy".

They are so afraid, because they knows they have this coming, and if our roles were reversed they would gladly bring US to HIS justice.

They know… deep down, that they deserve to die. That their children need to be saved from his ideology.

War is never an agreement to violence. It is one group deciding they have they have the right to kill the other to enforce their will.

You either watch those your loved ones die, and you are victim to those trying to kill you, or you fight back.

The question is, who is trying to "kill" the "Conservative Confederate South"?

We've tried to give them Health Care. We've tried to give them an equal vote.

If anything, the "liberal media" has bent over backward to try and give these inhuman monsters an equal voice to those of sane people with, fact based, reasoning.

YES!!!! I SAY WE SHOULD ENFORCE OUR WILL ON THEM.

I SAY WE SHOULD USE WHATEVER LEVEL OF VIOLENCE IT TAKES NOW, BEFORE WE ARE THE VICTIMS OF THEIRS.

We are literally fighting to make their lives better.

If we cannot find a way to remove them politically as mentally ill, we MUST take this to a level of force before X.C.R.I.S.I.S. is a threat far worse than Daesh (I.S.I.S./I.S.I.L). could be.

I know this ends with SOMEBODY in DEATH CAMPS, and I know it's usually the person willing to compromise that walks into them, and those who look at compromise as weakness who send them, leaving us with only the worst people in the world.

https://medium.com/message/how-white-people-got-made-6eeb076ade42

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transcriptroopers · 8 years

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Extraordinary Female Soldiers

Hello recruits! It's International Women's Day, so I thought I'd introduce you all to a few outstanding soldiers in army history. While I once explained this in a previous post, here’s a quick reminder: the military refers to its soldiers with “male” and “female” exclusively and when necessary. We’re discouraged from using either “men” or “women” to refer to each other. While in a civilian setting this would be seen as rude, especially in the case of “female,” in this case it’s actually more disrespectful to refer to female soldiers as “women.” Not only is it othering in a military setting, but to amplify a soldier’s womanhood is to separate her from her fellow soldiers, and often not in a positive way. Consider that we prefer to say “police officer” now instead of “policeman” and “policewoman.” As I’ve heard my female comrades say more than once: “I’m not a woman; I’m a soldier.” While I’d never assume that all females who’ve enlisted feel this way, it’s been my experience overwhelmingly that female soldiers not only prefer this, but sternly enforce it. Given this, I will most frequently be using the word “female” to refer to the soldiers we’re talking about today. I hope everyone understands that by using this terminology I’m actually conferring respect rather than the opposite. I hope everyone understands that I’ll be focusing on the U.S. Army, since that’s my lane and I’d like to stick in it.

Deborah Sampson

“I am indeed willing to acknowledge what I have done, an error and presumption. I will call it an error and presumption because I swerved from the accustomed flowery path of female delicacy, to walk upon the heroic precipice of feminine perdition!”

We’ve all heard of the tale of Hua Mulan, but have you heard of America’s own Deborah Sampson? She’s widely considered to be the first enlisted female soldier in the U.S., and she served honorably in during the American Revolution as light infantry. The oldest of seven children, Deborah grew up both in poverty and without her father until she was eventually hired out as a servant to a very conservative family. They ignited the flame of patriotism in her, and when she left the family at 18 it took only two years before she chose to join the army. Of course, this was 1781, (or 1782; her biography lists conflicting records) and women weren’t allowed to enlist. So Deborah sewed her own waistcoat and britches and enlisted as Robert Shirtliffe (or Shurtliffe or Shurtleff; again, it’s conflicting) in a light infantry unit in Massachusetts. For two years and through two wounds, one of which she removed the bullet herself, Deborah Sampson served in this unit honorably. In her biography, the Female Review, or the Memoirs of an American Young Lady, her biographer details the horrors of war she faced. “She says she underwent more with fatigue and heat of the day, than by fear of being killed; although her left-hand man was shot dead at the second fire, and her ears and eyes were continually tormented with the expiring agonies and horrid scenes of many others struggling in their blood. She recollects but three on her side who were killed, John Bebby, James Battles and Noble Stern. She escaped with two shots through her coat, and one through her cap…She now says no pen can describe her feelings experienced in the commencement of an engagement, the sole object of which is to open the sluices of human blood. The unfeigned tears of humanity has more than once started into her eyes in the rehearsal of such as scene as I have just described.”

I dunno about you, but that last sentence especially gets to me. Deborah came down with a terrible fever in 1783 and her secret was discovered while in the hospital. She was allowed to recover before being revealed, and she was spared from punishment, instead receiving an honorable discharge and being returned home with as little inconvenience as possible. Nonetheless, it was years before Deborah would receive a pension for her service. She spent the last years of her life publicly speaking about her service, dressing in her old waistcoat to reenact her moments of glory on the battlefield.

Sources: History of Massachusetts.org, Encyclopedia Britannica, National Women’s History Museum

Harriet Tubman

Yes, THAT Harriet Tubman. “God’s time is always near. He set the North Star in the heavens; He gave me the strength in my limbs; He meant I should be free.” Everyone knows Harriet Tubman, one of the mightiest heroines in American History, but few people know that Harriet actually served in the army during the Civil War, and at the urging of the federal government no less. Born a slave in 1822 and escaped to freedom in 1849, Harriet spent eleven years returning to slave states and personally shepherding dozens of slaves to freedom in the north. She was not only brave but clever, devising numerous tricks and deceptions that fooled slave catchers again and again. Devoutly religious, she believed wholly in God’s deliverance, and she even earned the nickname “Moses” for her part in guiding the exodus of slaves. During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman continued to dazzle with her many talents. A nurse, a scout, a spy, and a foot soldier, Harriet served dutifully in South Carolina for eight years. Her patients were very often primarily black and poor white soldiers, and she treated then with medicinal herbs and roots when medicine was scarce. She was efficient and kind, and some say protected by God himself, for she never caught any of the many, many diseases she treated while enlisted.

Harriet Tubman is credited with being not only the first black female soldier, but the first female soldier period to lead a military expedition. This was not a small expedition, either; hundreds of soldiers were involved in what’s now known as the Combahee River Raid. Its purpose was to harass plantation owners while rescuing their slaves, and as the boats sailed up the Combahee River, its riders shifted: the soldiers jumped onto the shore to assault the Confederates while slaves climbed aboard to safety. Faced with too many slaves to rescue and dissension growing amidst the crowd, Harriet Tubman sang to the escaping slaves to calm and encourage them, and those slaves would recall how they rejoiced and praised her and God. Approximately 750 slaves were rescued in this mission and the Confederacy was dealt a massive blow while the Union soldiers suffered no casualties. Despite her honorable services, Harriet Tubman was denied a pension. Brigadier General Rufus Saxton’s report of the raid included the following statement: “This is the only military command in American history wherein a woman, black or white, led the raid, and under whose inspiration it was originated and conducted.” Sources: NY Times, Liberty Letters, Harriet Tubman.com

Oveta Culp Hobby

“Women who stepped up were measured as citizens of the nation, not as women��this was a people’s war and everyone was in it.”

Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby never intended to become so involved in the army. As a young woman, her trade was publishing: newspapers, editing, editorials. She and her husband ran newspapers and radio stations, and when her husband became Governor she dabbled in politics, eventually writing “Mr. Chairman,” then and now a textbook on legislature and parliamentary law. She served on committees, planned and organized, and especially advised others on how women could contribute to society.

In 1941, in the wake of the drafts, she was persuaded by the federal government to write up a plan clearly lining out how women could participate in the war, something hitherto unpublished. She did this by studying the participation of women in Britain and France and personally investigating the jobs at which women could assist the war effort without having to undragono specialized training, which at the time was often refused even to women who desired it. Though she at first denied the limelight, as she so often had in her life, she eventually became the director of the Women’s Army Auxilary Corps. A corps entirely of females, she and her unit were shunned by sexist military officials who refused to allow mingling between the WAAC and the regular army and even refused to issue pay. Because the women were not technically enlisted, (although Oveta later took the Oath of Office herself in 1943 to become a colonel) they reasoned that they shouldn’t have to treat the women the same because the women of the WAAC were still civilians. They partly reasoned this because so few jobs in the army were actually open to female soldiers, a point which Oveta Culp Hobby sought to remedy. By the time she was done, over 200 jobs in the U.S. army became accessible to female soldiers, over four times the “generous” proposal outlined by Congress. Her plans, policies, and training methods would later be nationally acknowledged and implemented. Even after leaving service, she continued to argue for fully equality in the army, not limited to only females but race as well. In 1945, she became the first woman to be awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, and a very distinguished legacy she leaves behind indeed. Source: Texas State Historical Association, Rice Fondren Library

Lori Ann Piestewa

Our final extraordinary female soldier is Lori Ann Piestewa, a Hopi native from 11th ADA Brigade (my old brigade, as it happens) who enlisted in the U.S. Army in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

"I’m not trying to be a hero. I just want to get through this crap and go home." Lori, born in 1979, was the youngest of four. She played softball and was active in her high school’s ROTC program, showing in both a strong aptitude for challenging herself. She came from a family of soldiers who raised her to have confidence in herself and her abilities, and it came as no surprise to her family when she enlisted in the army, eventually settling with the 507th Maintenance Company. Numerous accounts of her peers recount Lori as being a dependable and enthusiastic comrade for the two years she was enlisted. Lori’s MOS was 92A, Automated Logistical Specialist, a non-combat MOS. She kept records on equipment and accounted for much of her unit’s inventory. In 2003, Lori Ann Piestewa was deployed to Iraq during Operation Iraqi Freedom. A mere PFC at the time and a mere three days into the U.S. invasion of Iraq, she and her company’s convoy were traveling through the harsh desert. They intended to pass by Nasiriyah, an enormous Iraqi city under enemy control during the early stages of the Iraq war. Unfortunately, a navigational error brought them to Nasiriyah’s front doorstep, and a firefight ensued, one of the first of the Iraq war. All but three of their vehicles were destroyed and eleven soldiers were killed in combat, with six being captured. Lori was taken prisoner along with other famous POWs Jessica Lynch and Shoshana Johnson, but unfortunately, Lori had been wounded in the head during the attack, and there was no suitable medical equipment or personnel available to treat her. Lori Ann Piestewa was posthumously promoted to specialist following her death, and she also received the Purple Heart and the Prisoner of War Medal. Jessica Lynch has maintained ever since the ambush that Lori performed admirably during the attack that took almost a third of the soldiers present and that she was a heroine for her efforts, and her death has resonated with people of all races across the country. The Hopi and Navajo people prayed for her despite their long-time feud, and the Arizona Sports council has immortalized her in their annual Lori Piestewa National American Games. After her death, efforts across the country began to rename the various national landmarks named with the offensive “squaw” term, one of which includes Piestewa Peak, a location where many now come to hike, bike, and pay their respects to Lori.

Lori was not only the first Native American female killed in combat, but the first female to be killed in the Iraq War, and this fact, along with her dedication, has cemented her place in history as an extraordinary female soldier.

Sources: Rolling Stone, Indian Country Media Network, Piestewa Native Web.org

I hope you enjoyed this post accounting the stupendous bravery of American women in the military! There’s so many more amazing women in history and I couldn’t possibly account all of the lives and achievements of female soldiers, but I hope that on this International Women’s Day you’ll join me in saluting the memory of these four pioneers of freedom.

-Kingsley

Was this post informative? Entertaining? Eye-opening? Then consider supporting SPC Kingsley on Patreon!

#international women's day #female soldiers #military history #deborah sampson #harriet tubman #oveta culp hobby #lori ann piestewa

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thegharibian · 8 years

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The politics of the personal: January 25 through the lens of depression

“It’s like you died, and God said ‘I will show you heaven’ and then as soon as you put one foot in, he grabs you by the scruff of your neck and takes you to hell. We really saw heaven during the 18 days, and then we went to a terrible reality, worse than where we were before.”

Omar, a leftist involved in politics for nine years and who was dealing with depression, anxiety and hypochondria for about a year and half before the 2011 revolution, was in Tahrir during the 18 days.

He found out about Hosni Mubarak stepping down a couple of hours beforehand and called his therapist asking if it was possible to die from too much happiness.

The enthusiasm stayed for a while after the revolution but with waves of violence, this “broke.”

“Maspero, with army APCS running people over, broke the state of euphoria and feeling of strength and freedom,” Omar recalls. “And then with Mohamed Mahmoud — and the scene of throwing dead bodies into the rubbish — and then the Cabinet clashes.”

In December 2011, there was something else that was “fatal” for Omar. A woman was beaten and her chest stomped on by soldiers during the Cabinet clashes, revealing her blue underwear beneath her abaya. Here what broke him was less the incident than the social reaction: instead of condemning the perpetrators, the more common refrain was, “what made her go there” and of course a fascination with the woman’s blue bra.

For Omar, this was so devastating because of the hopes the “ethics of the square” had given him.

When he feels broken like this, it “adds to the depression which triggers the anxiety which triggers the hypochondria which triggers the depression which triggers the anxiety, so it’s a closed circle, and it goes on and on and I enter into a spiral.”

In the summer of 2013, those around him in activist revolutionary circles starting using the word “depressed” to describe their state of mind.

The revolutionary slogan “despair is betrayal” (al-ya’s khiyana) had been hard to uphold at different times under the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and then the Muslim Brotherhood. But it essentially disappeared in 2013, more precisely after the dispersal of Rabea al-Adaweya Muslim Brotherhood sit-in in August 2013, in which over a thousand people were killed.

The notion of “political depression” — developed by the Public Feelings Project, associated with a group of feminist academics at the University of Texas exploring the role of feelings in public life — may be appropriate to describe this collective downer.

In her book, Depression: A Public Feeling, Ann Cvetkovich links political depression with political failure — those “moments of political crisis when organizations fail or collective goals are in doubt and ‘what is to be done?’ becomes an expression of futility rather than a call to arms.”

Dina Makram Ebeid, an anthropologist who has been researching the place of emotions in public life, suggests that the magnitude of Rabea enabled it to act as a kind of trigger.

“Because of its enormity, it breaks the sense of space, the sense of time,” she says. “There is a sense of rupture that enables bigger things to be expressed. Rabea became a way for people to express other forms of frustration and losses that were never big enough to interrupt time.”

Rabea interrupted time not only in the sense of its enormity but also quite literally. In the following weeks, there was a curfew at night and people were stuck at home — in the midst of political confusion, people also became literally stuck.

This narrowing of the political space continued apace and accelerated as street politics — a key center of gravity in Egypt’s political sphere in the first two years after January 25 — was displaced with a draconian protest law and mass arrests of protesters. The Muslim Brotherhood, an organization with a huge following, was outlawed and scores of members arrested.

Civil society was at the forefront of the confrontation with the current authorities over the past year, with the reopening in 2016 of a case against a number of NGOs and human rights defenders. The case so far has seen the imposition of travel bans and asset freezes, as well as the interrogation of NGO staff, some of whom face charges that carry life sentences. The screw was further tightened with the drafting of a new NGO law late in the year that threatens the work of all civil society organizations, whether political or more charitable or arts-based.

Courtesy: Salam Yousry

When political and personal depression meet In 2013, Omar was working abroad in a good and stable job, coming back and forth to Cairo, but with the Rabea dispersal, he was destabilized.

“From August 13, 2013 until January 21, 2014, I was taking huge amounts of medication — anti-depressants, anti-psychotics, things to help me sleep — and even then was sleeping maximum a couple of hours.”

In the past few years, Omar has had some paranoia, which he didn’t before. “I think someone is following me, that my phone is tapped, that kind of thing.”

Ghada, who has suffered from chronic depression for several years, echoes some of these sentiments, reflecting on how the surrounding state of precarity has easily affected those politically engaged, but also with a history of depression.

“2016 has been the year of fear for me. I experienced fear in a way that I haven’t before. When fear meets depression, it becomes very crippling.”

She recounts how when the door knocks after 8 pm, fearing the police, she hides quietly in her room. She also expresses fear about getting on anti-depressants as she worries about coming to rely on them and then being imprisoned.

Ghada speaks about two dimensions in the current political sphere that affect her depression.

One is related to a struggle to feel alive after the revolution. Ghada has long linked her depression to political boredom, in the sense that the pits of otherwise constant chronic depression can be triggered by anti-climactic moments in politics.

“The revolution was a fissure in political boredom, of dealing with the same things for a long time, as a journalist, as an activist, as a human rights defender. The 18 days broke that cycle of boredom in a very spectacular way. And suddenly, you are experiencing things you have never experienced before,” she says. “That’s one of the problems of the revolution: nothing can match that level of excitement. You’re constantly looking for something that matches this moment and nothing can. It’s bound to be disappointing.”

Speaking about her current state, she says, “Nothing inspires you, nothing speaks to your spirit, nothing sort of pierces through your chest and your mind and makes you feel alive. You’re alive in a very mechanical way.”

The other way in which Ghada’s political involvement and mental health have interacted, is having to constantly work through external crisis that is bound to delay the internal one — she spent much of the past five years visiting friends in prison, going to court hearings, dealing with their families or awaiting anxiously for others’ imprisonment. “I think that’s why I feel there is an acceleration of my symptoms of depression. I have always felt it is not a priority. There are more urgent things. My personal state always became the casualty.”

For Sara, diagnosed a year and a half after the revolution with bipolar disorder, a condition characterized by periods of depression and of elevated mood, the moment of Rabea interacted with her internal state in a toxic way.

“I was a bit manic during 2013, in a high elevated mood, and then with Rabea unhappiness and feelings of anger met with this mood, and it developed into a very traumatic psychosis, very much drawing its content from what happened at Rabea.”

Reflecting on the ruptures she has experienced in her own mental health, Sara suggests all major events whether personal or political can be a trigger of sorts.

“And with the intensity of the past few years, something big is happening in the external world and at the same time, the internal world is also changing,” she says.

As such, Sara thinks that the past five years activated dormant mental health issues among those prone to them.

Mental health and politics In general after revolutions, wars, civil wars and other kinds of political turmoil, rates of mental health problems increase, particularly anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. But psychiatrist Mostafa Hussein cautions that in Egypt, evidence is anecdotal as the last epidemiological study was published before 2011.

At the same time, however, over this period there has been a decrease in the availability of services, Hussein points out, as well as shortages of basic drugs that many people suffering from mental health conditions rely on.

For some people, Hussein says, the revolution and turmoil uncovered mental illness, which they had been functioning with, and sometimes alongside a traumatic experience, their ability to function was disrupted.

Hussein doesn’t think it’s too early to consider the impact of the upheaval of the past few years in terms of mental health, “but we have to acknowledge there are short-term, medium-term and long-term effects.”

His patients include people who have a family member in prison, for example. “And we know theoretically that paternal deprivation at an early age is one of the risk factors for developing mental health problems such as addictions.”

Hussein also points to increasing poverty, which has long-term impact on mental health. A report released by the state statistics agency CAPMAS in 2016 acknowledged increasing poverty and widening inequality, suggesting that price and tax hikes have disproportionately affected the poor.

Times of political upheaval provide a way into looking at the sociality of mental and emotional disturbance.

In Argentina, during military rule, the main association for psychotherapists was seared by deep conflict on the question of the politics of mental health, significant in Buenos Aires where there is one of the highest ratios of therapists to population in the world. Described in Avery Gordon’s Ghostly Matters, a latent disagreement about the relationship between the individual psyche and the social world broke into open conflict in the context of state terror and widespread disappearances. The leftist therapists had theoretical concerns (such as did it make sense to talk about repressed trauma in terms of childhood and the family when the state is a primary agent in repressed trauma), as well as practical concerns (such as how could free association, the technique of unstructured talk, occur on the therapist’s couch in a society in which free association was not possible).

But the exceptional moment in which we see the social nature of these individual experiences is also a gateway into seeing how the sociality of mental health is inherent in the everyday not just moments of crisis. These therapists were arguing that mental health is always political and social.

For Makram Ebeid, Cvetkovich’s work is useful because it “brings the social and political into the picture but doesn’t also say ‘this is the thing.’ We don’t want to replace medical discourses of depression with discourses that say it is just capitalism or just colonialism or whatever.”

“As Cvetkovich writes in her book, saying that it is capitalism, racism or sexism doesn’t help me get out of bed in the morning,” Makram Ebeid elaborates.

Psychiatrist Hussein warns against confusing being depressed about the political situation with suffering from depression or higher drug use with higher addiction rates.

There is a sense in which though there appears to be a greater acceptance of mental health concepts and greater understanding reflected in the increase of this language, that with these confusions mental health can actually become less visible.

For Omar, that those around him have increasingly used the word depressed to describe their states of mind and feeling since 2013 has made the meaning of depression more hidden.

“If we say this is depression that you can’t be happy, what about the person who can’t feel happy but also doesn’t sleep or sleeps 20 hours a day and is constantly smoking and drinking and can’t talk to anyone, scared to see people, not working, not talking on the phone and so on? What’s that called then?”

Courtesy: Salam Yousry

He is concerned that if we keep on using a term it will lose its meaning, but this is not to say that he doesn’t see a real state of collective sadness that exists among his comrades.

He takes a term from mental health to describe it, anahedonia: the inability to experience pleasure. “This inability to feel pleasure is a part of depression but can exist alone,” Omar says. “It exists now in a general sense — it’s not a condition, it’s a symptom.”

In Sara’s estimation, depression is being used as a metaphor for a loss of hope, in ways that aren’t always helpful. “The depression of the disordered does not correlate to the event. It will stay for life, it has its own rhythm.”

Unsettling hope and despair as opposites Hope and despair also have a rhythm a bit more complicated than that suggested by the notion that hope gave way to hopelessness and despair. This has implications not only for activists dealing with their own feelings, but also in terms of how we understand politics.

There is an obvious linearity in the narrative that January 25 was a time of hope, elation and euphoria and then came the despair with a falling and loss of hope, and as Makram Ebeid points out, “nothing, let alone social movements, which come in waves, are ever that linear.”

Makram Ebeid points to how “the ‘despair is betrayal’ slogan and ‘we are depressed’ mantra are both domineering discourses.”

“With the idea of despair as betrayal, there was a sense that if you want to be part of this group, this is the range of feelings that you are allowed to have. And if you have others you are excluded on some level. Just as now it wouldn’t be acceptable to go on Facebook to say how much you love your life. Maybe some people are happy, and embarrassed to say they are happy.”

Among those who experienced 2013 as a devastating political defeat, “There is this we’re only depressed because of everything that is happening around us. It is good there is a venue for talking about other feelings, but it also stifles the sense of saying, even when we are winning I am actually also not feeling well.”

As part of the informal research she has been doing, Makram Ebeid has been exploring what she calls “mental health trajectories.” One of the emotions that emerges strongly in the first couple of years after January 25, and complicating the simple narrative about progression of emotions, is the fear of not being enough of a hero. “For those people who already struggle with a feeling of not being enough, this was rampant.”

It is important not to create new hegemonic discourses of feeling or to label certain emotions as more revolutionary than others.

The left internationally has long insisted on a politics of hope as the only transformative politics. Part of the work of the Public Feelings Project has been an increasing questioning of this classic association between hope and revolution among some academics, exploring for example how there is not only governance by fear but by hope. One of Cvetkovich’s key contentions in her book is that good politics doesn’t only come from “good” feelings but may also emerge from “bad” feelings.

Mai Khamissi has researched how trade unionists who helped oust former President Hosni Mubarak allied with current President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, signing a deal that put on hold their right to organize, believing the rhetoric that strikes and protests are both against their interests and those of Egypt. Previously hailed as a revolutionary force in 2011, independent trade unionists were then slammed in revolutionary circles for being co-opted. Khamissi argues that, “the same fear of losing their livelihoods that makes them afraid to protest urged them to other action.” She discusses how through trying to change the law, negotiating with the state and interacting constantly with local government can change their definitions of politics, learning through doing this work together, for example about how democracy can be participatory. This is how other forms of politics and change come about, and thus she argues that so-called negative feelings “can be generative and in that sense hopeful.”

As hope is in short supply, perhaps some solace can be taken from this notion that as Cvetkovich puts it, feeling bad may have “productive possibilities,” though these do not come easily.

Article link: http://www.madamasr.com/en/2017/01/25/feature/society/the-politics-of-the-personal-january-25-through-the-lens-of-depression/

#depression #politics #mental health #political depression

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itshistoryyall · 4 years

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Part 4: Burn Them All

photo credits: here

A little foreword before we begin:

I had to start over for this part because, I’m gonna be honest, it’s a mess. For some reason historians have this aversion to keeping history in a tidy chronological order, and I’m not sure why, but I basically had to sift through other people’s research for multiple days and then come up with a game plan for how all of this was going to be laid out. To put into perspective just how large this part of the research was, I made this photo of the links that I found on Wikipedia.

The rest of this will include only the trials that I wanted to research or thought were interesting or had some sort of historical importance, so if you feel like there’s one I didn’t mention and you would like researched, please email me or PM me and I will do my best to do a separate post about it. I have to admit, it was just too much for me to do without spending a few weeks researching. Now, back to the good stuff.

In the mid-1500’s we begin to see a wide-spread persecution of alleged witches and a mass hysteria driven by religious persecution and fear of accusation. This time period between 1560-1630 is considered by most historians to be the bulk of the trials, and that idea is backed up by sheer numbers. The death toll from these trials is somewhere in the 40,000-50,000 range, though, historians of the past have wildly unpredictable and outrageous estimates numbering in the millions. Taking into account a “normal” level of fatalities for crimes outside of witchcraft, plague fatalities, and normal death rates, it’s a bit safer to assume somewhere in the thousands 40-50,000 even seems a bit steep to me, but no one can ever know for certain. The important thing to takeaway from this was that it was a lot. In this section we’ll be focusing on the trials that have enough historical information to be granted a name and some basic description located somewhere other than Wikipedia, or (more likely) the ones that piqued my interest most. Those are as follows: The Witch Trials of Wiesenteig, Trier, Berwick, Bamburg, Nogaredo, the Pappenheimer Family, Pendle Witches, and the Affair of Poisons. The Salem Witch Trials are a unique set of events that I feel require special attention and will therefore write on that subject separately. size

As we learned from Part Three, these trials began in a region of southern Switzerland and spread from a French-speaking side to a German-speaking side, so from that we can deduce why the first major trial took place in Germany. The Wiesenteig Witch Trials began in 1562 amassing a death toll of around sixty and earning its reputation for the first mass execution of this magnitude[1]. To understand why we saw such extreme numbers here, we need a little background. The city of Wiesensteig, like many other cities in Europe,[2] was facing a difficult few years. Some might call these things simply unfortunate, but not Wiesensteig. They were clearly cursed by witches because no other city in the world could possibly have inclement weather, the Bubonic Plague—among other epidemics, and (I think at this point it goes without saying, but alas) religious turmoil! So obviously, the first course of action after a particularly brutal hailstorm in 1562 was to arrest a few ladies for witchcraft. Of the accused, six were made to confess through torture and were executed, but before facing their punishment they claimed to have seen several other women at their Dark Sabbath[3]. The women that were named from neighboring Esslingen were soon arrested, and then shortly released leaving authorities in Wiesensteig outraged by the lack of sentencing. In reaction, Weisenstein saw forty-one more executions. In December of 1563, the execution of twenty more women was approved leading ultimately to the production of a widely used pamphlet, True and Horrifying Deeds of 63 Witches. Further executions in the area occurred in 1583, 1605, and 1611 leaving an estimated total of ninety-seven women who perished.

These were certainly not the largest trials to have occurred in Germany, however the Trier Trials taking place in the diocese of Trier near the borders of France, Belgium, and Switzerland[4] certainly left their mark on the world. We can’t know for sure the number of casualties because existing records of the trials only include those that occurred within the city-limits, and they do not include statistics for the entire diocese or those that may have perished via torture or while imprisoned. The number that most sources reference is 400; however, it’s likely that the number closer to the thousand mark rather than the low hundreds, and as such it can be an assumed low estimate of the actual number of deaths. This incident is considered the largest mass execution of peoples during an extended period of peace in Europe’s history.

The appointed archbishop of Trier in 1581, Johann von Schönenberg, was quick to order a purge of three groups that he didn’t like very much. That included Jews, Protestants, and lastly, witches. Due to Johann’s support for these trials, we see a large upturn in the popularity and commendation of these executions among increasingly more church officials. The largest number of executions took place between 1587 and 1593 when 368 people were burned at the stake in twenty-two villages. The number of those executed was so heavily comprised of women, that a couple of villages were left with only a single female resident amongst the living, but that is not to say that it was only women who were executed for sorcery. A large number were members of nobility, held positions in the government, or were people of influence, and of the victims, 108 were men. One notable male victim was rector of a university and a chief judge in the electoral court who didn’t approve of the trials; Dietrich Flade, the rector/judge, doubted the effectiveness of torture practices and opposed the violent treatment of the accused, and as such, was arrested and subjected to the same abuse as those he was attempting to protect. His execution was a turning point, and it effectively ended any opposition to the trials in Trier and making way for hundreds more burnings.

I would like to issue a trigger-warning for the sensitive material that is to follow. It is graphic, detailed, and gruesome, so please do not read further if you feel sensitive to these subjects.

One other case worth mentioning in Germany is the Pappenheimer Family Trials. Though it was a small number of fatalities, it was unusually well documented for the time and that gives us a great deal of written detail to refer to when describing the torture practices in these trials. The family comprised of a mother, father, and three sons—Simon (22), Jacob (21), and Hoel (10). The mother, Anna, was born the daughter of a grave-digger and began life on the fringes of society, and her husband, Paul, did not fare much better in life as an illegitimate child and day laborer. Throughout their lives they lived apart from most of society and were likely not even treated kindly by other poor laborers. In fact, the surname suggests that the family was in the business of privy maintenance and cleaning, and it was not their original surname. The real family name was Gämperle, and they were in for a fate much worse than name-calling after Paul was accused of murdering pregnant women in order to gain magical benefits from their unborn fetuses. The whole family, aside from their youngest son, was subjected to cruel and relentless torture until they had confessed to hundreds of unsolved crimes over the past few decades including murder of the elderly and children, spoiling cattle, thievery, and burning people alive in their beds.

On July 29, 1600,the following took place: the eldest sons and their parents were brought before the town along with two others accused of witchcraft, Anne was placed between her two sons, the executioner cut off her breasts, and then he proceeded to beat her and her sons in the face with them three times each. Next, Anne was whipped five times with a “twisted wire,” then both of her arms were broken on the wheel, and her body was immediately burnt. Next the men’s arms were also broken, they all received five lashes with the twisted wire whip, and all of them except Paul were tied to the stake and burned. Paul was then spitted alive and roasted to death, and then once he was dead his body was also burnt.[5] This was all displayed for the entire town to see and was then used as a punishment for ten-year-old Hoel, who was made to watch the entire ordeal. Later that year he was also tortured, strangled, and then burned at the stake after having confessed to eight murders on his own. The importance of pointing out these torture proceedings is to make a reference point for how tortures took place during these executions, and to give you an idea of what this could look like at each and every execution described hereafter.

For our next trial, we turn to Scotland’s famous witch trials where, purportedly Shakespeare gained the inspiration for one of his most famous tragedies, Macbeth, and where we begin to see an association with witches and the natural forces of weather. The Berwick Witch Trials took place for a year beginning in 1591, and it was all due to the inclement weather that beset King James VI after he had sailed to Copenhagen to marry Queen Anne. While the royal couple were sheltering in Norway and waiting on the storms to subside one Danish Admiral, Peder Munk, made mention that high ranking official of Copenhagen’s wife was to blame for their misfortunes. After the suggestion, several nobles of the Scottish court were also accused and confessed to plaguing the voyage of Queen Anne with raging storms and for sending devils to climb up the sides of the ship. More than a hundred of the accused were executed marking this as one of Scotland’s largest witch hunts on record. These events prompted King James to publish his dissertation Daemonologie in 1597, marking the beginning of a secular persecution of witches and conversely inspiring a well-known playwright.

Shortly after the publication of Daemonologie, and the execution of the Pappenheimer’s, the famous English witch trials known as the Pendle Witches[6] (part of a larger series of trials known to history as The Lancashire Trials) took place in 1612. These trials are some of the best kept records of the executions taking place in the 17th century. We know that these trials led to the execution of around 10 people (two were sons of the accused), and although these numbers seem inconsequential when compared to the thousands who perished in Germany, it actually made up a significant portion of executions that took place in England where it’s estimated that the combined executions during this era were fewer than 500. Inspiration for the witch hunt that accused 11 people, included an instance where an unfortunate series of events involving Elizabeth Southerns and her granddaughter Alizon Device. Elizabeth also went by the alias Elizabeth Demdike which was a title derived from “demon woman,” and she was commonly believed to have been a witch by her neighbors for around fifty years prior to the Pendle trials. Her granddaughter, Alizon, one day had the misfortune of running across a beggar selling pins that had an ill-timed stroke after refusing to sell her his products. Pins were often handmade and expensive, and although considered a fairly common item, could also be used for magical purposes including divination, healing, and love magic. The beggar, John Law, was left lame and stiff with a permanent distortion of his face, and subsequently almost the entire Device family, including Elizabeth Southerns now in her mid-eighties, was put on trial for witchcraft.

Next we have a rather large historical event that took place, known as the Thirty Years’ War, and I don’t want to spend a lot time on that subject, so I’ll hit the highlights. It took place mostly in Central Europe from 1618-1648, and it is known as one of the most destructive wars in human history. During this time, we see somewhere around eight million casualties due to human violence, war, plague, and famine and a twenty percent loss of Germany’s total population on par with the casualties that it faced in WWII. We can also see witch-hunting efforts exaggerated by the raging war between most of Europe, and consequently some of our largest casualties from the following executions. Two of the four largest executions of witches in the Early Modern Period (1500-1800) took place during these thirty years of chaos and they resulted in fatalities numbering in the thousands.

[1] Though, we do see an execution a few years earlier in a region of Italy that mirrors the scope of the trials in Weisensteig, it is not as well documented and I thought, for brevity’s sake it would be best if I left it out.

[2] You’re not special, Wiesensteig.

[3] Not the band, that’s a different kind of sabbath.

[4] Remember Switzerland where those other crazy trials started? Me too.

[5] (Unknown, 1600, pp. 1-10)

[6] The Lancashire Trials consisted of the Pendle witches and the Salemsbury witches among other hunts in the area.

#witches #witch trials #european witch trials #early modern period #history #itshistoryyall #plague #thirty years war #covid-19 #coronavirus #social distancing #blog #blog post #history blog

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