#and then when he dies in his physical form he goes to the bastard box so that eldritch god can torture him more

[irregularbillcipher]

“doomed by the narrative” this, “doomed by the narrative” that, literally none of your blorbos are him

[ms-rampage]

Eden's Gate: Kidnapped Chapter 12 - Breaking In

word count: 2,482

warnings: some swearing, some angst,

some cuteness between Kate and Wheaty.

I'm lowkey shipping Kate and Wheaty!!!!!!!

5 days have passed, and still no sign of Paige’s family breaking into Jacob’s stronghold, and saving her redheaded hunter ass from the elder Seed bro’s redheaded ass. I just wanted to put some comedy relief into this for once. Anyway, Paige has learned from Ryan that Jacob goes by a schedule, and everyday he wakes up at 6am sharp, he goes over to his route with training his soldiers, doing paperwork, putting in orders, and torturing innocent people with classical conditioning. 

Between 8am and 10am that's when he goes to the cages, and taunts the elder Winchester sister. For the past few weeks Paige and Ryan have been keeping track on his schedule, luckily Ryan has a watch, and that makes everything easier for them. Everyday for the past 5 days, and even before that, between 12 and 1:30pm when the soldiers feed the prisoners the half cooked shitty raw meat, they also dump out dead rotten bodies of the innocent people Jacob as killed via his classical conditioning, and his trials. 

Paige and Ryan lay awake in their cages, Ryan looking down at his watch reading 5:52am.

“It's almost time for Jacob to get up” he whispers to Paige.

She nods her head, and says “So today is the day we bust out of here”.

“Yeah, I don’t wanna jinx anything but hopefully they go by the everyday schedule” he says worried.

Paige looks over at him with a somewhat mad look, while he looks down at his watch.

Kate still can’t believe it, it's been a few days and she still hasn’t told anyone, not even Kenny.

She never thought she would even see her again.

Her mother Mandy Winchester, she’s alive and well.

She hasn’t seen or heard from her mom in almost 8 years.

She lost custody of her and Paige when they were 13 and 16 years old. 

When they were attending school in Iowa, one of Kate’s teachers saw cuts, bruises and scrapes on her arms, and that was enough for the teacher to call Child Protective Services on them, and let's just say it didn’t end well for that teacher. 

But where in the Whitetails is she living? It's a huge region, nothing but mountains and forests.

She waits until everyone else gets up, because it's too early and she’ll never hear the end of it. 

Plus she’s known her mom was alive for a few days, and she never told anyone. 

“Maybe I should go out, and find her” she thinks to herself.

She decides to go look for her mother. 

She gets up out of bed, goes to her computer and looks up the saved location of her mother’s whereabouts.

It looks like she was near the wolves den? 

“Is she working with the Whitetail militia?” she thinks to herself again. 

She goes into the cameras, and checks. She sees her mom talking to Eli? Maybe? From what it looks like. 

Eli was helping us search for Paige, and does he know that Mandy is Kate and Paige’s mom?

She gets dressed, and quietly leaves the house trying not to wake up the others.

She gets into her car, and leaves to the Whitetail Mountains.

Ryan and Paige keep a close eye on Jacob’s schedule, he just stepped out of the facility, and now he’s giving orders to his men. He goes back inside the facility. 

“Okay if all this goes as planned, we should be able to get out by 2pm” he says softly.

She nods, and says “Okay, okay, good”.

“So for now, we just go by their schedule, and wait”.

Realization hits Paige like a train, she turns back to Ryan and says

“Okay but how do we get out of our cages”.

“Fuck” he mumbles under his breath.

“That’s one of the important parts. Getting out of the fucking cages is a very important part” she whispers to him, trying not to let any of the guards hear her. 

“I’ll figure something out” he whispers back. “God I’m so fucking stupid” he mutters to himself.

Paige looks around her cage, trying to find any opening, anything that’ll aid them out of this shithole. 

Kate is half ways to the wolves den. When she finally arrives, she climbs up the grassy like mountain, and sees that the bunker door is open.

As she gets closer she hears voices coming from the inside, and one of them is definitely a female, and the other two are male most likely Eli and Wheaty.

She slowly walks down the stairs trying not to alert them.

“Hello? Eli?” she says in a calming but somewhat stern voice.

She makes it down the stairs, her and Wheaty almost collide with each other.

“Hey Kate” he says in a “trying to sound nervous” voice.

“Hey Wheaty” she says back. She steps further into the bunker, and sees Eli, and Tammy. 

Bummed because she really thought she heard her mom’s voice moments ago, and she saw her on one of Jacob’s cameras an hour earlier.

“Hey Kate, do you need anything?” Eli asks with a concerned look on his face. 

She awkwardly scratches the back of her head, and says “Umm, this is gonna sound weird but umm. I was able to hack into Jacob’s cameras that he has set up around the region, and while flipping through the cameras. I uhh” she stumbles on the last part.

“You didn’t see anything off putting right?? Wheaty asks, somewhat embarrassed. 

Tammy and Eli look at him with disgusted looks on their faces. 

Kate just looks at him confused, shaking her head “no”. 

“What did you see?” Tammy asks, turning back to Kate

“I saw something. Well someone who looked familiar, and I haven’t seen in years”

As she’s talking to them, Mandy walks back into the room looking down at her phone.

“Hey guys, so are we-” she gets cuts off. 

“Mom!!!” Kate exclaims, causing Eli and Wheaty to jump. 

Mandy looks up, and she drops her phone in a dramatic form.

Tears start to form in Kate’s eyes.

“Katella?” Mandy says softly, getting choked up. 

Kate slowly runs into her mother's arms, both of them crying ugly.

Tammy, Eli and Wheaty leave the room to give them some space. 

They pull away after a few minutes.

“Where have you been?” Kate asks, with a raspy voice. 

“Saving people, hunting things, the family business. Looking for the demon who killed your father” she whispers the last part.

“Why didn’t you visit us when we were in Jackson?” she asks.

“Legally I wasn’t allowed to, and also I had too many people on my ass. I didn’t want you or your sister getting hurt”. 

They both look down at the floor, before she asks.

“Where is your sister?” 

Paige, Ryan and all the other prisoners sitting in their cages, listening to Jacob ramble on. Mainly Jacob’s attention is on Paige, like always, it's always on Paige and no one else.

She’s waiting for him to pull out that damn music box, and have her kill people again. 

He continues his speech to the prisoners. 

“You see this whole thing. 

It's gonna show you where you stand in this world.

You'll know your purpose, it's either dead or with the Project”

He continues but he looks over at Paige while saying this.

“You will say where you stand. You will decide who lives, and who dies.

It’s your choice. You decide. The blood is on your hands”

She stares at him with intense eyes. 

He slowly stands up, and reaches into his jacket pocket.

Paige and Ryan quickly exchange glances, realizing their plan to escape is ruined.

They turn their heads forward, she hears Jacob turn the handle of the music box, she closes her eyes, mentally and physically prepares herself for the painful headache, and the thought that she might kill her new friend in the trials. That was her only way out. 

“Only Yooooouuuuu”

Looking down at the floor, trying to figure out how to tell her mom that Paige was taken by the Cult.

“Katella, where’s Paige?” she asks

“She’s uhh” she stumbles over her words when Eli steps in and says

“She was kidnapped by the Cult, and she’s being held by Jacob Seed”

Mandy looks at him in shock, shaking her head.

“No, no, no, no” she says, panicking.

“Mom?” Kate asks worried. 

“That bastard has Paige” she says, almost hyperventilating. 

She drops to the floor, her hands on her head, and feeling the urge to vomit.

Her mood instantly changes from panic to anger. 

“I’m gonna fucking kill that asshole” she says furiously. 

Kate helps her up, and sits on the arm of the couch.

Kate’s phone rings. “I’ll be back” she says.

Stepping out of the room, she answers her phone. 

“Hey” she says.

“Kate where are you??” Kenny asks from the other end. 

“I had to go do something” she answers.

It's like a lightbulb went off in Kenny’s head.

“You better not be at St. Francis by yourself!!” he raises his voice. 

“I’m not, I’m not okay. I just had to go find someone. It's very personal” she says. 

“Personal? What do you mean personal?” he asks, getting annoyed. 

She can hear the annoyance growing in his voice, and she somewhat snaps at him.

“Did you have a stroke? Personal as in my own grown up personal I don’t know crap”

If she could see through her phone she’s pretty sure Kenny looks offended but she’s too happy to see her mother to give a fuck, and she hangs up her phone. She sighs, and turns around. 

Not realizing Wheaty walked in, standing 5 feet behind her, and overheard her end of the conversation.

“Hey, is everything okay?” he asks, concerned.

She nods her head “Yeah that was just my brother in law. He thought I was at St. Francis by myself”. She sits down on a table.

He nods, and sits next to her. 

”Are you planning on going to St. Francis to get your sister?” he asks. 

“Yeah me, Kenny and a few others were gonna break in. Through a tunnel that runs underneath the Veteran’s Centre” she replies. 

She can feel the awkwardness between her and Wheaty. She knows he likes her but she is terrible when it comes to reading those types of signs.

She clears her throat, and says “We were, uhh, supposed to go later today, maybe tomorrow. But after getting my mom back, I’m sure she should want to meet them first. Or maybe I can surprise them with Paige and my mom” she says, trying to keep her breathing steady.

He puts his hand over hers, and says “I think you should surprise them with her”. 

She nods her head, and says. 

“Yeah, I think I’ll do that. Kenny is gonna… he’s gonna be so happy when he sees her”

As she’s talking, Wheaty just stares at her in admiration, not hearing a single word she says. 

“But I’m sure, 100% he’s gonna want to rip his head off” she finishes. 

He snaps out of his trance, and says “Yeah, yeah absolutely”. 

She smiles at him, and looks down at their hands. His hand is still on top of hers.

He quickly moves it, somewhat embarrassed, she gets up from the table and says.

“I’m gonna go check on my mom”, 

Before she leaves the room, she turns to Wheaty and says.

“And Wheaty?”

He looks up at her.

“You don’t have to be nervous around me” she says with a smile, and she leaves the room.

She goes back to her mom.

Her, Tammy and Eli are going over a plan. “What’s this?” she asks. 

“We’re getting Paige back” Mandy says.

“When? Right now?” she asks. 

“Yes” she responds.

She stands next to her mom, and looks at the map of the Veteran’s Centre.

“So if we get a bunch of our men, the Resistance, and the Cougars. That’ll be enough to bring Jacob’s army” Eli says. 

“Okay we have everything ready right?” Mandy asks. 

“Yeah, we have the guns, ammo, throwables, and explosives enough for everyone” Wheaty answers. 

“Okay, good” Mandy responds.

“How are you guys getting in?” Kate asks.

“Through the front gate of course” Tammy answers.

“You guys are gonna go in, and get detected?” she asks

“That's our only way in” Eli says. 

“Actually Kate told me there’s a tunnel that runs underneath the VC” Wheaty says.

Eli, and Tammy look over at her. 

“Really?” he asks.

She nods her head, “Yeah it starts 1.5 miles away from the Centre, starting from the Northeast”

“But if she’s outside in the cages it's better to go through the front gate” Tammy says.

Kate agrees it’ll be easier to get Paige, and get the fuck out of there. 

They go over the plan again, and then they leave for the Veteran’s centre.

Guns, ammo and everything else all set, and ready to go. 

Kate texts Kenny saying “I’ll be home in a bit”, and sends it. 

Thinking that’ll be her final words to him. She doesn’t know if she’ll come out of this alive.

Her, Mandy, Eli and Wheaty leave in one of the militia’s trucks.

Eli driving, Mandy in the passenger, Kate and Wheaty in the backseats.

He can tell Kate is tense about all this.

He places his hand over hers, hoping it”ll calm her down. 

It helps a little.

4 other militia trucks follow behind, and a few planes above them. 

Paige goes through the trials once again, and wakes up her cage.

She shoots up and looks over at the next cage. 

She is relieved to see Ryan is still alive.

She hears Jacob’s chuckle next to her. She turns her head, staring at him angrily.

He says. 

“You’re little friend there took one Hell of a beating. I’m surprised he held on that long. He won’t next time though”.

She hears planes flying in the distance, and they shoot at the front gate of the Veteran’s centre. 

Jacob quickly gets up, and runs inside the facility.

The sound of machine guns and explosives make her ears ring. 

One explosive goes off in front of her cage. Luckily she didn’t sustain any injuries,

“What’s the fuck going on!?!?!” Ryan yells out.

Paige can’t even hear anything, her vision is all fucked up, smoke clouds are all over the place. Gun fire, dead bodies of peggies everywhere. She sees a truck pull up in front of her cage, and sees someone break the lock and does the same to the other cages.

Her vision still blurry, she couldn't recognize the face of her little sister.

“Paige!! Paige!!!!” she yells. Her vision goes clear, and tears immediately form in her eyes.

“Kate!?!?!?!” she yells over the sound of gun fire, and people yelling.   

[a-swines-baptism]

🎂 -midnight-radio-host

{Let’s dial in to this recently passed Blight season for a little treat for @midnight-radio-host​, how about?}

Jude wouldn’t normally say that there was such a thing as too much time with Amanda, but this was the one exception to that rule. He shifted uncomfortably in his spot on the concrete floor, wincing as the shackle fixed tight around one wrist tugs at raw skin. How long had it been since she’d chained him up? It’s hard to say, easily days’ worth, but beyond that time really didn’t have meaning in Gideon. All he knew is that she was there, watching him. Always keeping at least half an eye on her Jude, making sure he stayed safe and by her side as she prowled and babbled to herself in those low, drowned tones. It’s hard to look at her, warped and diseased by the Blight that infected her. Sometimes she gets up close, forcing the intercoms in the room to speak for her in their garbled voice and repeating his name over and over as she makes him look at her distorted mask, grip only getting rougher and more distraught when he tries to look away. It’s not his girlfriend, right now... it’s something else. The lights are on in Amanda’s head but nobody’s home.

Not that there’s anything he can do about all this, chained up as he is to the bed in one of the alcoves in her control room. She took his ring, the gift given to him by the Bastard that was supposed to keep him safe. Whatever part of her brain still worked understood that it could free him, get him away from her. He tried that, while he still had it-- you can’t blame him for it, he was scared-- but she’d seen, and got to him quickly. Freaked out, and gave him a nasty knife to the throat. He was lucky that none of that glowing stuff had got in him, but it turns out that without the Entities to resurrect you, you just wake up right where you died anyways. Same body, too, barely healed. That had been a rough day. He’d had to plea with her once hunger started to kick in, something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Were the survivors all this cut off from the Entities right now, or was it something about being near her? She knows to bring the ring back to him every so many hours, at least, though she keeps her knife right at his neck as he uses it to summon food for himself, or clean himself up. Then it goes back on her desk.

She’s brought him other things too, random stuff to keep him entertained. It’s like she thinks he’s a housepet in need of enrichment or something, but there’s not really much more he can do aside from waiting for her to get better, or for something to change, so he fiddles with the random things to pass the time. Apparently she’s found something else for him to play with, the killer dropping to her hands and knees (it seems to hurt her less than walking around) and pulling herself over to him.

“Jude-- jude- jude, jude, jude--” the speakers in the room fade and fail as her scattered thoughts filter through and she scoots her hideous form right up in front of him, roughly grabbing his shoulder and shaking it to get his attention.

“Yeah? I’m looking, I’m looking, what is it?” He can’t keep the mental and physical exhaustion out of his voice, but he knows she doesn’t hear it. She’s already pressing the new toy into his hands-- it’s the steel puzzle box she gave him a while ago. He’s only gotten so far into solving it, she’s refused to help him each time he asked for a hint. “You want me to work on this?” He sighs, trying to scoot a little further away from the not-Amanda and nodding sluggishly. “Sure, okay. Fine.” That seems to appease her, and with a few more garbled  “jude”s she leans in to give him a painfully tight embrace before pulling back and going to her desk to do... whatever foul mimicry of her usual actions she’s trying this time. Maybe she’ll go play with whoever she lured here again, he could have sworn the yelling and begging sounded like Samuel that one time. Either way, she leaves him alone as he starts to work slowly at the box, managing to actually make some headway by the time his energy flags and she returns to put the rough sack over his head (apparently this is how the blighted brain understands ‘let me sleep’, instead of, oh, turning off the lights?).

The next day he works at it some more. Then a little more the next day... It’s interesting, at least. Amanda clearly put a lot of work into it, each step solved primes another lock with a different solution to any of the ones before. It’s fun, if frustratingly hard. But he keeps at it for a good few hours each day, until finally, on day whatever of his captivity-- there’s a ‘click’. The mechanism he just solved slides back and fixes itself in position, and suddenly the lid isn’t as resistant as it was. It’s open. And so, after taking a second to bask in his little victory, he opens the lid to find--

There’s a little drawstring pouch sitting inside, nestled in little space of the box. On top of it sits a little slip of paper with Amanda’s tight, hurried handwriting.

‘Jude,

You know I’m kind of shit at romantic stuff, but hopefully you can forgive me on this one. I really can’t figure out how to keep shit simple, huh?

There was a point to this, though. I’m not gonna get too depressing here, but you know how my brain is. I’m a worrier. So here we are, I guess you could call this my solution. If you’ve stuck around long enough to actually solve the box and open it to read this... I guess you must be really serious about us. So, uh... this is the part where I show that I am, too.

Love you, buddy.

--Your messed-up girlfriend’

Jude’s brow furrows as he reads. It’s sweet, and needlessly complicated-- that’s definitely not unusual for anytime Amanda ever tries to talk about her feelings-- but what is all this? Glancing at the pouch, then to the feral Blight wearing her girlfriend’s body and sitting at her workdesk, then back to the pouch. He starts to put an idea together... but it couldn’t be, right? Probably not, he’ll just check and make sure--

And he removes a simple ring. Simple, made of hammered copper, no gems or anything fancy, clearly handmade, but a ring nonetheless. A ring and some words from someone who’s not quite there right now, but clearly meant it then.

{I would write more, but I think we should leave Jude to process his feelings in peace. Hope you enjoyed this little moment.}

[sherzasboss]

I can’t not. I saw a Snape!hate post earlier today and just ... yeah.

Ok, first of all. I am not a Snape Apologist. He does some severely fucked up shit in the books and there is no getting around that.

That said ... it doesn’t surprise me that he does those fucked up things. It does not surprise me at all that he became so bitter and angry etc. Also, he is not quite the demon some people like to paint him as.

Snape was born into a piss-poor family where, at the VERY least, verbal abuse was plentiful. Given what we’re told, physical abuse is not off the table, and neglect is strongly implied. His only ray of hope? Lily Evans, who only comes into his life when they’re 8 years old or so.

From this environment, Snape goes to Hogwarts. He barely gets on the gods-be-damned train before rich, entitled, spoiled James Potter and rich, entitled (but himself abused) Sirius Black lock onto him and start giving him shit. Because Snape wants Slytherin, the, to their eyes, evil House.

They claim Snape, as a first year, knew more Dark hexes than most older students. To which I say ‘BULLSHIT’. Snape was raised in a Muggle home, people. He might - MIGHT - have known the names of some Dark Hexes, but that’d be it, and it’d be debatable as hell. Because the fact that Eileen Prince walked away from her family to marry a Muggle strongly implies she was the equivalent of Andromeda Tonks nee Black. Meaning she very probably turned her back on pureblood propaganda bullshit. Which makes Snape knowing the Dark Arts unlikely as hell.

So basically, James and Sirius’ reasons for making Snape’s life hell boiled down to ‘he’s poor as fuck, a loner, an easy target, and “evil” because he WANTS the Devil House’. Also, I (James) have called dibs on Lily and he’s her friend. Since boys can’t just be friends with girls, I have to chase his skank ass away from MY girl.’

Cue Snape getting hounded, by as much as four-to-one odds, on the regular. And probably more than that, because let’s face it, kids have a herd mentality. Especially when it comes to the ‘cool’ kids. Half or more of Gryffindor House probably went out of their way to give Snape shit because he was the Marauders’ favorite victim.

And just to make matters worse, Snape GOT Slytherin House. At a time when the likes of Bellatrix, the Carrows, Lucius Malfoy, Mulciber, et al were in that House, pureblood propaganda fanatics all.

Snape would have had to start parroting the pureblood propaganda just to SURVIVE in that mess. He didn’t have the money, social connections or political clout to survive making any kind of stand otherwise. And I sincerely doubt that the Society of Future Death Eaters would have permitted mere silence on the issues of the day.

And Slughorn was way more interested in currying favor than, you know, doing his goddamned job as Head of House, so Snape had no support from that quarter. And Dumbledore proved once and for all in Snape’s fifth year that he didn’t give a shit if Snape lived or died, so there went THAT faint hope.

And then, in a moment of fury and panic and fear, he alienated Lily by blurting out a word he’d learned to say in order to survive in Slytherin House and ... there went that.

Small wonder he went ‘fuck it’ and went ‘bad’. Then one day he overhears part of a prophecy. And things get SO MUCH WORSE.

Because let’s be real here. First of all, Snape had NO reason to believe that Voldemort would take that shit seriously. Further, there is not a shred of evidence anywhere in the books that he knew Lily was pregnant (and ergo, her and her child now a target) when he reported to Voldemort.

But Voldie does take it seriously. And Lily is pregnant. And now Snape’s aimed this asshole at the one person in all of creation he gives any kind of flying shit about. He immediately drops fucking everything to try to save her.

And let’s, again, be real here. Snape had NO chance whatever of saving Harry, no matter what he did. Voldemort was locked on. End of story. If ‘maybe you shouldn’t kill the kid’ had, in any form, come out of Snape’s mouth, he’dve died for it. And fucking NO ONE in the Death Eaters was gonna buy him trying to save James’ sorry ass. Not when fully three quarters of them were in school with the two and KNOW exactly how badly the two hate each other.

But him begging for Lily’s life? That, they’d buy. And Snape? He *knows* Lily. He fucking goddamned knows she wouldn’t step aside and let Voldie kill her son. Yeah, no fucking way in hell. But if Voldemort’s capricious, batshit crazy ass stops to talk, rather than storm in throwing AK’s, it might just give Lily a chance to do something.

And then Snape doubles down on that by selling his soul to Dumbledore, who he KNOWS doesn’t give a shit about him. Whom Snape knows is a manipulative asshole.

So yes, Snape is an asshole. He’s vindictive and angry and bitter as fuck, and he does shit that is way out of line. But he also, possibly literally, got down on his fucking knees to beg for the life of a woman who’d once been his friend, and spent more than a decade under the thumb of a manipulative bastard. Three of those years he also spent under the thumb of a batshit insane psychopath. Seven of them, despite being an asshole at the same time, he spent trying his best to keep Harry Potter alive, despite Harry’s constant attempts to get himself killed in increasingly inventive ways.

In short, Snape is one of those characters that simply can’t be tucked into a single neat, tidy box labelled ‘evil’.

[justastormie]

I’m doing two, because I can. 

Ancient Historical meme from my drafts;

First things first: What’s their name and when and where did they live? If there are any/ you have one, add your favourite picture of them. 

Erwin Johannes Eugene Rommel (1891-1944), Germany, lived around Württemberg for most of his life, the occasional world war aside. Of historical note for being a masterful tactician, writing an important book of military theory about wwi and commanding the german forces in the north african campaign of wwii. 

Napoleon (1769-1821), France technically but had a great deal of fun on camping trips all over Europe. Of historical note for one-uping Alexander the Great. Created landmark legal, military and social organizations. List of fuckups is longer than most people’s list of accomplishments. One of the most enduring military and political legends of the modern era. Bees.

1. How and when did you first hear about them?

Rommel- I honestly can’t remember. My father is a wwii nut so i was raised on the stuff. I got serious in my interest of him about 12/13 when I first read the collection of his papers translated into English. 

Napoleon- fourth grade (about ten years old). We had a section of world history, dismal though it was. In one of the little “fun facts” thing they had a tiny little box describing Nap’s return from Elba with an itty-bitty reproduction of Steben’s Returned From Elba. I thought that sounded like the most badass thing I had ever heard, and was also a little in disbelief because surely someone can’t just walk back and reclaim their kingdom. Like, that shit didn’t happen in real life. So I bought my first biography to find out the real story. 

2. What do you like most about them?

Rommel

he tempered his ambition and leadership with compassion and a fierce sense of honor

genuinely seems to have been a nice dude

he and his wife are cute as fuck 

was later cute as fuck about his son Manfred 

was incredibly clever

was a peach eating lunatic adventurer masquerading as a srs prussian soldier 

he was a romantic both in the age of chivalry sense and the modern sense

Napoleon

SUCH A BADASS, oh my god

was an over-invested mono-maniac at all times, which I can related to

incredibly capable in many fields

i have been napoleon and josephine trash since day one

crowning himself. i just love that moment.

was really smart. on a ‘holy shit’ level. (even if he did some massively stupid shit sometimes)

meritocratic promotion structures

hamilton WISHES he were this non-stop. 

never gave up, never gave in. even on st. helena he started dedicated his energies to preserving his legend and legacy, to great effect. 

3. Is there anything about them that makes you angry or that you don’t like at all?

Rommel 

literally worked for nazis

pretty sexist

there’s a lot i disagree with him about, but very few things that make me truly pissed off. ie he was of the period opinion that military men shouldn’t be involved in politics, as he thought that would mean the military as an organization would start defining germany’s political future which would turn into military rule and he was catagorically against that. which i think is both wrong and allowed him, and others in the german army, to disclaim responsibility for political shit they didn’t agree with that was being done by their government. but i can absolutely see where he was coming from, and i think his concerns were reasonable and legitimate. 

so yeah. a lot of disagreements, but very few things that just piss me off.

Napoleon

w h e r e   d o   I   b e g i n

allowed his obsession with legend and conquest overwhelm his moral values 

sold his honor and his moral principles in order to maintain power

frequently only took into account the human cost of warfare way too fucking late

rampant misogyny

really fucked over Junot

really fucked over tons and tons of people who were loyal to him, from close friends to the soldiers who followed him

got a truly staggering number of people killed on account of his own short-sighted obsessions

to paraphrase the old tv show Wiseguy, You don’t get to shove people around just because your fire burns brighter, no matter how brilliant that fire is. 

never gave up, never gave in. even when he fucking should have, looking at you reasonable peace terms of 1813. 

4. If you had one day with them in our present time - what would you do together?

Rommel - Aviation museum, he’d absolutely love it. I’d get him to pick some German place to eat and interrogate him ruthlessly about what inter-war rural Germany was like. 

Napoleon- Smack him repeatedly in the face for invading Spain  Walk and talk. Have him show me around Paris and have a debate over legal systems. Nerd out over Ossain. Show him a modern bookstore. Let him see how much of his work has survived into the present day. Shove him into at least one shrubbery.

5. What would you like to talk about with them?

Rommel - Engineering, aviation, dogs and funny army stories

Napoleon- All of the things. I can only imagine the conversation would be a pinball game of madness as to topics covered. And okay. I’d have to ask about Waterloo. I’d be that person. I don’t think he’d do it, but I’d love to hear him talk about Corsica. 

6. In which way do you identify most with them or a figure they created?

Rommel - He was an intensely practical man who tried very hard to do the right thing and frequently failed. I hope that one day I’ll have the strength of character to try to rectify my mistakes as he did his. 

Napoleon - I too am an over-invested, bossy weirdo. 

7. Thoughts about their death? E.g.:Was it too early, was it deserved, woud you have tried to prevent it and how? 

Rommel- oh god TOO EARLY, UNDESERVED, that poor brave bastard. I mean the fact that he was murdered because of his role in a plot to overthrow hitler and make peace with the allies is reason enough. would have definitely tried to prevent it, but would need like. the a-team to stop it. because you’d have to rescue not only rommel but his family that was being used as leverage against him. unless you’re allowed to go really far back and then i’d just start slapping the shit out of everyone at the versailles peace conference.

Napoleon - hoooo boy. uuuuuuuh. i mean. do i like it how he died? no. does that dislike come from a rational place? ...nooo. best case scenario for me would be he gets shot before the last charge of waterloo. hell if i had my way i’d go back and convince him what REALLY needed done was him personally leading the imperial guard up the hill. heroic, dramatic death and historians get to fight over wellsley actually beat napoleon for the rest of forever. europe also gets a break from napoleonic insanity. which doesn’t happen if napoleon gets to live. once more if you’re allowed further back, i slap the shit out of him before he invades Spain and point out that Ireland is lovely this time of year (it’d still be a clusterfuck, but less of one).

8. Is there a book or movie etc. you would recommend to someone who’s new to the person and would like to learn more about them?  

Rommel - The Rommel Papers is a good place to start, there are frequent letters to his wife but the content is primarily military. 

Napoleon - Shannon Selin’s website and book. The book is fiction but she is the lord our god in this fandom for her mad research skills. She provides sources for everything, which makes her the perfect jumping off point. (Now if I can just convince her that what she REALLY needs to do is write another book starring josephine) 

9. What can we learn from them? 

Rommel - when in doubt, bluff like a motherfucker right action is not a mystical, obvious thing at all times, we must do what we believe is right to the best of our abilities while being willing to let compassion guide us onto different paths.

Napoleon - 

human beings are capable of astonishing intellectual and physical feats, and the best of our stories can still be written, they are not confined to antiquity. 

find friends who will support your goals and then listen to their good advice even when it challenges your ego. 

if loud, bossy weirdos can find devoted friends and romantic partners than we’ve got a pretty good shot too.

don’t invade spain

propaganda is half the battle

love, in all its forms, is a resilient motherfucker

don’t interrupt your enemy when he’s making a mistake

strive to be so badass that hundreds of years later, the historical fiction that is all about fighting you has their characters become complete fanboys any time you actually show up (ft. Richard Sharpe in Down With The Tyrant But OMG Harper Look It’s Napoleon *SWOON*, hon. mention also goes to William “Why Aren’t I French” Laurence). 

a willingness to take charge is half the battle for power

bees are a cute fashion accessory and go with anything  

10. Would you want to be friends with them if they were still alive? 

Rommel - I think he’d be a good Dad Friend to have. Someone to ask for advice and go to reenactments with. A good person for moral/personal advice even if their political/social views are outdated. Definite bonding over dogs.

Napoleon - Would entirely depend on how we met. I feel like we’re similar enough on a personal level that it’d be very easy for our personalities to clash, and we’d have to declare ourselves mortal enemies and neither of us would back down from that because what is admitting you might have been hasty. Or, if fate were kind, we’d get on splendidly with constant low levels of dry sarcasm and prank wars. There would also be lots of emotions everywhere, at all times. People would hide. I have to admit I’d still stab somebody if it meant I got to be a Marshal. 

11. The most powerful quote by or about them?

Rommel - have  short one and a long one

"We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general." 

- Winston Churchill during 1942. During the fucking war. I mean damn, it doesn’t get better. Though since this is easily the most famous quote about him, have a personal favorite;

“Living legends, they project, each in his way, the classic image of a the warrior: brave, vigorous, sharp of eye and mind, rapid in decision, alert in danger, faster and bolder in the fight than his enemies. of this extraordinary brotherhood is Rommel-the brotherhood of Hector, of Rupert of the Rhine, of those who can only be described as heroes; and it is curious that so determinedly practical a modernist as Rommel-the least fanciful of men- should have joined a company so bonded by myth.” 

-David Fraser from Knight’s Cross: A Live of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

Napoleon - 

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others

i mean; 

History is a set of lies agreed upon. 

- Napoleon at some point, i’m not sure. But i’ve always loved it and found it apt.