#cw: genocide

[weirdozjunkary]

I normally don’t like to post about serious shit like this because in all honesty it makes me uncomfortable to talk about, as well as I don’t think I can talk about it as well as plenty of others who can, and I do fear about spreading misinformation. But fuck this shit, I have been silent during this for far too long!

It has been over 100 days since Israel has killed THOUSANDS of Palestinians and have flattened near all of the Gaza Strip. They say they’re doing this to free their hostages from Hamas, but when offered them back in exchange for a ceasefire they REFUSED IT. This was never about their people or their hostages or whatever fucking bullshit they decided to spread in hopes for sympathy. This is about control, this about colonization, this is about a GENOCIDE.

My country Canada is one of the few countries in support of Palestine, despite my government also doing minuscule things to help the Palestinians, because if they actually tried to help, they would also have to acknowledge the colonization, racism, and genocide of the indigenous people that live here. My country, like the others who are also supporting Israel, is being run by a bunch of fucking despicable cowards who have been playing into the lies and blatant propaganda that Israel has been spewing out like fucking filth.

They get to live comfortably in their homes, not worried about anything, while Palestinians are displaced, dying, cold, hungry, afraid. How many fucking times do they have to show you their dead families, injuries, ruined or destroyed buildings, sobbing faces to get it through your fucking heads?! Israel minister just renewed a call to strike GAZA with a NUCLEAR BOMB!!!

If you support Israel in ANY sort of way, you are a piece of shit, and I hope that hell has a place just for fucking assholes like you. What the absolute fuck is wrong with you?

[samasmith23]

I don’t know who made this artwork, but I feel need to share it since this is an incredibly important and dire situation! Ms. Marvel, Spider-Man, Nova & Snowguard all speak the truth here! Call for a ceasefire immediately! Free Palestine and end the Israeli apartheid & genocide in Gaza now! Palestinian rights are human rights and collective punishment is a war crime!

[venvellan]

da2's arishok is a good villain. if you have a fundamental understanding of the qun and listen to his thought process, the things he does makes sense. he uses the qun to justify slaughtering kirkwall's people, which is utterly inexcusable and what makes him a villain, but his character is complex enough to make dealing with him that much more thought provoking. he sends agents to kill petrice because she was killing his people, he doesn't give up the elves because they committed their lives to the qun, no matter how recently they converted, and he refuses to leave without the tome (and isabela) because his idea of justice hasn't been done. his logic makes sense, generally, though it is wrong on more than one occasion. he isn't moral, but he is methodical.

i feel this way about solas, too. i like da2's arishok for the same reasons that initially draw people to solas, i think. when we meet them, i find them interesting and educational to talk to, someone worthy of respect, and someone very honorable in their own way. similarly, many of my issues with solas compare with flaws in the qun/the arishok.

solas asserts that all of his beliefs are correct, and we're never allowed to challenge him on any of it. if he has high enough approval, he'll approach you to go, "yknow, i thought you were all [insert prejudice or stereotype] but YOU showed me that some of you guys are actually okay," which is NOT what it looks like for someone's beliefs to be challenged.

brief aside, i want to be fair in that we don't get this opportunity with many of the companions, and it's not even an inquisition specific issue. the dialogue format is agree, joke, be mean, and it's flawed, but it works in the majority of interactions. we don't really get to engage in nuanced discussions with characters, but there are positives and negatives to the system overall. it is possible to challenge and shape a character within this dialogue system (i.e., garrus vakarian) but in dragon age that really only comes in the form of harden/unharden. it was a little more doable with origins' system, but it really hasn't been a huge part of any dragon age game. most characters' beliefs remain largely unchanged by you regardless of how you play.

solas also possesses a strong sense of duty and purpose, though what duty he has, what his true goals are, he keeps hidden as long as he can. the most damning comparison though, to me, is how willing he is to destroy the world and bring back "his people," while the qunari fight to conquer the world and homogenize society into "their people."

in any case, with both him and the arishok, you can see the wheels turning in their heads. you can see why they do what they do, even if it's wholly immoral. it makes their threat a lot more personal, a lot scarier, psychologically, that a "normal" person, who doesn't want to cause suffering, can hold such specific beliefs and such strong conviction that knowing that they'll hurt people doesn't give them any pause. the root of their motivation is understandable. solas wants to right his wrongs, at his core. the arishok implicitly believes that the qun is safer, better for its people than life outside the qun. we can see that they're taking it too far, but they don't care. it makes them good villains.

"i am not corypheus, i take no joy in this." sure, which is a very similar sentiment, emotionally, to the qunari sense of duty. you can say you don't enjoy it all you want, you're still committing genocide. you can hate the qunari all you want, but you fight with their ferocity, their unshakeable faith in their own cause. their need to "do what's right," no matter who's caught in the wake.

i understand why people like solas, i go back and forth on it myself, but i don't think he's all that different from the arishok in method and motivation. they're each thrust into a world so different from what they believe is "right" that they demand it change around them. if we had to kill the old arishok, then if solas refuses to give up, he will have to die. he doesn't get to do genocide just because he's romanceable. he's a good character, he's a good villain, but he's not a good guy, and unless he stops before he does any real harm (which he will not do), he should share the arishok's fate.

[maple-unfortunate]

[ocelot-art]

Rahadin Headcanons

I've been working on a Curse of Strahd fanfiction for a while now. In case anyone is looking for character inspiration for their own campaign or just want a fanfic lore dump, here's the amalgamation I've amassed over the past 2 years!

Spoilers under the cut.

Identity: cisgender, he/him. Demisexual (VERY rare attraction), demiromantic

Age: 465. He was banished by the dusk elves when he was 30 and spent 5 years as a wanderer (and often a beggar on the outskirts of the town Bellemeade) before King Barov recruited him

Equipment (Changed from module): Rahadin's deathly choir is connected to his cursed scimitar. The blade became cursed when he drove it through his own mother's heart when killing the dusk elves. The ability activates when Rahadin is not in control of his emotions; over time, he's mastered this ability and can control when it activates. He also wields a bow (I refuse to let the lad use DARTS), and wears studded leather armor atop a doublet. As he gets cold easily, he wears a fur-lined cloak with hood to protect his ears

Personality: Loyalty above all else. Rahadin will remain stone-faced through any comment/insult unless it offends Strahd's honor, in which he will attack if the issue is pushed. The only exception is sexual comments, in which he will try and quickly excuse himself from the situation red-faced. He has no sense of humor and his attempts at jokes often fall flat. (Those points in charisma are solely for intimidation and diplomacy.) He avoids discussing his own feelings and will rarely disclose his thoughts on matters unless Strahd is specifically seeking his consult

Hobbies: Rahadin loves botany, and his office is filled with plant-related books. He used to be a prolific gardener before he was banished by the dusk elves. In the early years, he would tend to the gardens of Castle Ravenloft. Before his turning, Strahd had instructed Rahadin to prepare and tend to a rose garden dedicated to Queen Ravenovia, and it would become his pride and joy - until Strahd had it destroyed in his grief upon his mother's passing. After Strahd chided him for wasting time on such a useless hobby, Rahadin pretty much stopped gardening and allowed the gardens to run wild. He still grows his own poisons for his weapons in the chapel garden

Skills: Despite seeing most animals as dirty (and preferring to ride spectral steeds for this reason), he is a skilled horseman. He’s also a skilled tactician, and has a way with extracting information from (or punishing) prisoners. Strahd is happy to delegate torture to his chamberlain and sees it as a reward for his loyalty. On the other hand, Rahadin is painfully bad at physical labor and crafts.

Relationships: Rahadin despises most of Strahd's consorts, but he usually keeps his thoughts to himself so as to not annoy Strahd. He enjoys taunting Escher with stories of how Strahd has locked previous consorts in the catacombs when he grew bored of them. Otherwise, he sees Escher as an attention-starved puppy and is constantly annoyed by Escher trying to start conversations with him. Strahd, knowing that Rahadin cannot stand Escher, takes great joy in sending the two out together on missions. Ludmilla and Rahadin respect one another and are on friendly terms. He respects her loyalty and calm counsel and sees her as the main source of wisdom besides himself in the castle. He and Anastrasya are not on good terms; with an overly polite facade masking an insulting interior, she never shies from throwing thinly veiled insults his way. The most feral of the consorts in his opinion, Volenta is primarily ignored by him.

Rahadin once fancied Ludmilla before she was turned, and had begun the process of courting her. Strahd, concerned that a spouse would distract Rahadin from his duties as chamberlain and decrease his loyalty, interjected himself. Being the more charming of the two, Strahd wooed Ludmilla and turned her. This upset Rahadin, but he would never question the will of his master.

Religion: While he no longer fully worships the elven pantheon (Corellon, etc.), he still has a reverence for nature and elven lore (particularly the stories behind constellations)

Diet: Vegetarian, like most dusk elves

Strahd: He's wary of and has plenty of snide remarks for anyone that shows the slightest romantic interest in Strahd, believing that they are only interested in him for his power/wealth. He believes that he is the only one that truly appreciates Strahd for who he is. He is always looking out for his master in this regard, which annoys Strahd greatly.

Valuing his loyalty, Strahd gave Rahadin his word that he would never bite him after he became a vampire.

Taught Strahd Elvish when Strahd was a young man

He is unaware that Strahd is the one that killed Sergei. Instead, he still believes it was by the hand of an assassin/one of Leo Dilisnya's men that Sergei died. Rahadin will brush off any related comments from PCs as hearsay and attack if the issue is pushed.

Shippy stuff: Rahadin developed feelings for Strahd when the both of them were still young men. When Strahd became a vampire, it crushed Rahadin to see the way it changed the man he loved. His personality had changed, and although the dread lord would never admit it, Rahadin could tell that Strahd was miserable. Knowing that Strahd would never return his feelings, he's kept them secret for over 400 years. Although he has not made it known, Strahd is aware that his chamberlain has feelings for him and will use it to his advantage if necessary.

He is a sadist and, in later years, a masochist

[meowmeowmage]

Late Night Conversation

[ Anders and templar!Carver have a conversation post-Chantry boom. Anders positive. Carver is actually nice to Anders. Handers ]

They had all escaped Kirkwall on Isabela's brand new ship. And while everyone was currently in the gallery drinking for variety of reasons, Anders was out on the deck, still processing being spared. Hawke hadn't expressed any anger, hatred, or judgement towards him like Anders had expected. There had been only support and love which Anders still found so surprising.

He heard footsteps and turned slightly to see Carver walking up to him, thankfully having gotten rid of his templar armor.

"Have you come to berate me?" Anders asked. Carver had been rude to him on multiple occasions before, and Anders being the reason both he and his brother had to leave their home would alone be a reason for Carver to have come seeking retribution or simply to vent his anger at the person responsible for it.

"No," Carver said, "Garrett actually forbade us to speak badly to you or upset you in any way, though that's not why I'm not doing it."

Anders lifted his eyebrows in surprise.

"He did that?"

"Yeah," Carver said with amusement, "He has this particular look when he's protecting people he thinks won't or can't protect themselves. He used to wear it all the time when Bethany and I were little. And while I've poked him quite a lot in the past I actually know when to quit. Fenris apparently doesn't and now he's nursing a broken nose. Garrett can throw quite the punch, especially for a mage."

Anders bit his lower lip with satisfaction. A warmth spread through his body at the thought of Garrett protecting him like that.

"It probably had to do with growing up and living free. The Circles are not exactly the places for mages to build muscles. Or to live." He couldn't help adding that.

"Yeah, definitely not for living, that's for sure," Carver said with a note of acidity in his tone that Anders didn't expect. "Speaking of the Circle, I actually came here to thank you."

Anders got a whiplash from how sudden he turned towards Carver, eyes wide with shock.

"What for?"

"They were gonna annul the Gallows," Carver said, "There were talks, or rather vile boastings, about Meredith having sent for The Right of Annulment. So many of the Order couldn't fucking wait to start killing and maiming even more brazenly and in the open."

The disgust in Carver's voice brought a smile to Anders's lips. How low the bar was, if not being a murderous bigoted piece of shit was worthy of a smile.

"I wanted to be so sure that she'd be denied," Carver continued, "But eventually I had to admit to myself that it wouldn't have mattered. Even if the Divine refused, and I don't think she would've, it wouldn't have mattered two shits to Meredith. Look how quick she was to decide to annul the Gallows without official approval just for the actions of one mage who had never even been part of the Gallows. There's just no way she wouldn't have had the whole Circle slaughtered in the night sooner or later if you haven't forced everyone to act."

Anders was stunned. He definitely didn't expect Carver to have seen the situation the way Anders himself had.

"Yes, she would have," he confirmed, "But I don't see how that's a reason for you to thank me. Unless... you had someone to lose if the Gallows were annulled. A mage...," Anders trailed. He had always found that kind of relationship quite disturbing.

"No!" Carver said hastily, "It wouldn't have been right. Getting involved with someone who couldn't really tell me 'no', or would say 'yes' out of self-preservation. I... once I got propositioned by a fourteen years old girl just because she thought if I claimed her as mine first, the more nasty templars wouldn't rape her or turn her tranquil... it's so fucking messed up... I refused, of course. Three months later she was made tranquil by that bastard Alrik."

Anders took note of how much what Carver had said had affected him. He wasn't sure what Carver had thought life in the Gallows as a temple would be, but it clearly was worse than he had prepared for.

"You weren't cut out to be a templar you know. But that still doesn't explain why you're thanking me."

"Right. You're painfully aware of what happens to the mages during an annulment. But do you know what happens to the templars?"

Anders frowned in confusion. The answer was obvious, surely.

"They murder mages," Anders said tersely.

"Yes. And if they refuse - they get killed as well. So you see, I would've either had to murder in cold bood dozens of innocents, children included, for not even a half decent reason, and would have had to live with their blood on my hands for the rest of my life. Or I would've been killed. So I would've been either a dead or a man I would've hated. But thanks to you I'm neither. And I can say I was on the right side and fought for a good cause."

Anders couldn't blink away the tears. He had prepared himself for hatred, accusations, persecution. But never for this. Never to be thanked. Tears rolled down his cheek and upon noticing them Carver swore in mild alarm.

"Hey, don't cry! If Garrett sees I made you cry he'd break my nose as well!"

Anders managed a small laughter.

"I'm sure he wouldn't. Thanks for talking to me, Carver."

Carver nodded and left. A few minutes later another set of steps was heard and Anders turned to see Garrett approaching with a small smile.

"Hey, love."

[ AO3 link ]

[historicity-was-already-taken]

An Account from Inside a Death Camp Transport Train

I came across this account of Franciszka Kaszubowa’s experience on board a train from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka in summer 1942 on pages 737-739 of Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak’s The Warsaw Ghetto: a Guide to the Perished City. It’s very....affecting, and I feel compelled to share it.

As with previous posts of this nature, please be warned that the below excerpt contains deeply disturbing material. Though I lack the ability to appropriately gauge how disturbing various accounts are (studying genocide breaks you like that), I will say that this account, much like Filip Muller’s account of his time working inside the gas chambers of Auschwitz, immediately carved itself into my....”brain” feels too flippant and meme-esque, and “soul” feels too purple and melodramatic, but yeah, one of those.

And without fruther ado:

I got into the car relatively early; there were not yet many people inside. I stood under the window, and I stayed there the whole time. People kept getting into the car. It became crowded, and then more crowded, and you could no longer move, you could no longer breathe, and they kept on stuffing people in…They packed about 240-250 people into our car, in which normally 60 people could have been fitted.

The doors were closed, the bar was dropped, and that was that. You could no longer get out. I hung onto the windowsill and stood like that with one hand hanging down and one hand on the window. Behind me was a crowd of intertwined people: the old, the young, and children. Just beside me standing by the wall was a man from our labor site with his little four-year-old girl in front of him. So that she should not be suffocated, he leaned his arms on the wall of the car, his hands over the little girl’s head, but the crowd was pressing on him more and more, and his hands began to go numb from exhaustion. His strength left him, despair that he could not protect the child from this mass tore at him, and a moment later he weakened so much that he began to faint and suffocate his child with his own body…

It began to get impossibly hot…I looked at the wall and saw the strange color of the walls, painted with something white or gray. I began to understand that it had been done espe­cially to choke us. So many people breathing, carbon dioxide was released, and this together with the temperature in the car caused the emission of gas, which was to poison us all… People were already choking, suffocating. It got hellishly hot, so that there was no air to breathe…some people were already losing consciousness for a few minutes, and fainting, and so, still standing, the process of dying began...Those dying on their feet could not fall to the floor…so their bodies began to intertwine and they fell in a heap stuck together in this way.

Those who were still alive now had a bit more opportunity to move, and began to get out from under the corpses, treading with their boots on the bodies of people who only a little while before had still been alive. Trampling, clambering mercilessly, for they wanted to save themselves, they wanted to live a little longer. They tore off their clothes and then, naked, died one after another in terrible torments of suffocation…

I was still standing by the window...still not fainting, holding on hard to the window and aware that letting go meant inevitable death. Behind me there was a growing heap of the dead, still shaking with their pre-death throes and the groans as they suffocated…People are still walking on them and often trample on someone who is still alive but unconscious. At this moment human ethics cease to exist; there is no respect for the dead even if they used to be close. Only save your life for a few seconds.

With all this I am standing ever higher, for under my feet the floor is covered with an ever thicker layer of the dead. A moment later I feel that I am collapsing...I am conscious, but I can already feel an approaching wave of choking in my throat and my head…Like the others I began to take off my clothes to give myself a little relief...I was standing now on a high pile of the dead. And beside me lay Karola, with whom I’d worked the whole time...I could not believe that she was no longer alive...I no longer felt anything, no physical pains, my hand was falling…Everything went dark, I began to writhe, to shake, and I lost consciousness...

When I came to and opened my eyes from the faint, actually semi-death, it was completely dark in the car. The train was moving, with a measured rhythm of the wheels on the rails...I was aware that it was night, that we were going toward Treblinka to be burned in the ovens, that I was lying on a pile of corpses, and that if I arrived alive in Treblinka, then perhaps they would burn me alive, along with the dead from this transport.

I began to make a great effort to move. I felt terribly cold...I began in the dark to feel the corpses, looking for a woman so I could take from her some clothing for myself. I found a head covered with a shawl and quickly took it off and covered my own head. From another corpse, this time a male one, I pulled a thick winter coat, which later turned out to be too big for me, but that covered me from top to bottom. I put it on and then decided to jump through that little window...with great difficulty, I got up and stood on the top of the corpses.

The last living man in the car helped me to get up to the level of the window—I pushed out my clumsy body, wrapped up in that thick coat, and threw myself with a superhuman effort onto the other side. I was still holding the windowsill with my hand when I noticed that my coat had caught on wire sticking out of the window. I understood that this would prevent me falling to the ground, and so once again I mobi­lized my reserves of strength, and unhooked the coat with my other hand...I fell to the ground and again lost consciousness.

[syn0vial]

yesterday, i learned that one of my acquaintances from church is like, gleefully and unreservedly supportive of the gazan genocide despite going to a church where every sermon for the past few weeks has been about the horrors and tragedy of said genocide. like, i could not fucking believe how hilarious he seemed to think it is that innocent palestinians are dying, just grinning and laughing and shaking his head and rolling his eyes when my pastor and i expressed horror at the innocent people being killed. just remembering it makes me choke up with anger.

anyway, i'm going to be very stupid and try to talk to him about it this coming sunday. i'll use all my teacherly tricks to try and gently lead him to feel one single scrap of empathy for the victims of israel's civilian massacre, but lbr: he'll probably respond with the same amount of glee and condescension as last night and it's going to end with me making me a scene at church.

but i know i shouldn't. so here are some things i should NOT say, no matter how angry he makes me:

i've always hated the sound of your voice, even before you said such horrible things. you say everything with such condescension. when you read the gospels in church, i have to hide my face behind my program to hide my grimacing. you make the words of christ himself sound like a grift of some oily used car dealer who thinks he's smarter than he actually is. i pity you for going through life with such a voice, and pity you even more for thinking it charming.

it baffles me that you'd allow something as basically human as compassion for the suffering of others to be so utterly sanded away by propaganda. it's pathetic that you could laugh at innocents dying. you've let yourself be lobotomized by a clumsy surgeon and style yourself wise with the icepick still sticking from your skull.

i've always thought your face looks like an easter island head sculpted from a raw chicken breast.

see? none of those would be productive, no matter how truly they express my feelings about this person.

thus: people of faith, pray that god grants me the wisdom and restraint to not light this motherfucker up in the middle of coffee hour. amen.

[cloud-based-and-rainpilled]

The Good Omens fandom is fascinating because they’re vocally supportive of the lgbtq community, especially trans people, including not misgendering, yet when Crowley and Aziraphale consistently go by “he/him,” they call them nonbinary

In the book, angels have no gender unless they “make an effort.” Is that not an effort to you, or are you just willingly misgendering them while calling anyone who thinks that’s hypocritical a terf lol

[snow-hart]

Little Warrior

This one is going to be brutal, and is not from Michael's point of view after the second paragraph/segment. After that up until the final paragraph, it will be told from his daughter's pov. This drabble is regarding the destruction of the nephilim species and will be tagged accordingly

As with the previous, the whole thing will be under a read more.

Reader discretion is advised.

My little warrior grew like a mighty tree, proud and strong, brave and true... she grew among the people of Greece, and put her faith in their gods over her grandfather. A wise choice, though even her patrons would not be able to save her in the end, though they did try. Sixteen years...that's all I had with her. I had thought that by hiding her in Delos, in the shelter of another pantheon, that perhaps I could save her from what was to come. I was woefully wrong. I trained her in leadership skills, in battle, in all the things I could...all in the effort to give her a fighting chance. She showed such promise, able to wield my divine weapon as easily as myself in time. I was so proud of her. I wish I had stayed that day...I wish I had not been called into the front lines...or that I had refused the summons. Perhaps then she would still be alive. Perhaps they all would be...

Pater had not left us for all that long, not in the grand scheme of things...he'd been gone for longer before. Cain and I had taken our small band hunting, as well as some of the youngest of us who had wanted to tag along, unknowing that we were leading them into the crucible of our doom. Our prey, a mountain goat, had traveled into a narrow ravine. I knew the island like the palm of my hand, and knew that there was no way out of this canyon but the way we came.

I felt the danger before anything else...today felt wrong, wrong in ways that make the hair on the back of your head stand on end. Slow, deep, rumbling footsteps.... different than a Titan...no...it was too much like ourselves. This...Oh no...this was a Nephilim. Not one of our kind, the ones Pater always warned us about. I glanced over my shoulder at Cain, who quickly ushered the children behind himself in an effort to shield them with his own body. He knew as well as I did that this monster would eat them first if it could. Unless we slew this monster, none of us would get out alive....But this thing towered over all of us, his head rising above the canyon top...how even had it gotten onto Delos? This place was meant to be hidden...unless...unless the island had drifted too close to another shore. That didn't matter. All that mattered to me was trying to save as many as I could...but if this thing was here...the angels hunting it would soon follow. And subsequently, they would find us...just as Gabriel had warned me. And I knew they would make him be the one to put us to the sword. Or spear in his case.

I prayed to Ares for the courage to face my fate with honor, whatever it might be...I knew Cain wasn't trained in battle, and given all that had happened to him, he'd never even brought a weapon. What I did know was that he would defend them till the end. And if that sacrifice was not enough to appease our grandfather, nothing would be. I raised my blade and issued the battle cry.

The fight...it lasted for hours, though it felt like days...and to my shame I froze for just a minute when the first of our number died. I had never seen someone die like that before. I had never felt the spray of another's blood hit my face until that moment, and in spite of all the training in the world, no one could prepare you for that. I snapped out of it, but not fast enough for it not to be able to grab me by my arm and crush it in it's grasp. I...I could feel as well as hear the snapping and crunching of my arm as I detached from it, hitting the ground with a harsh thud. I was vaguely aware of Cain screaming my name, running to me. I didn't have the time to bandage it nor the resources...but I still had life in me. I managed to slash open the monster's femoral artery, taking it down, but not before my leg met a similar fate to my arm.

Cain...where was he? I looked to see that he had been apprehended by two exterminating angels...they wanted him to watch us all die? Would they leave him live? To wander this world alone for all eternity? Or...would they kill him too?

I was dying...I could tell that much, it didn't take a genius to figure that out. I hoped, prayed, that I would die before Gabriel got to me...at least then my soul would be judged fairly.

I should have known better than to hope. I felt myself being moved onto my back....and I looked up into Gabriel's tear stained face. He looked every bit as sad as I knew he would, for Gabriel had a kind and gentle soul...and I could not find it in me to hate him for what he was going to do. All around us the rest of my people were being slain, and I could see the flinch in the Archangel's frame.

"I'm so s-sorry..." he whispered brokenly, the tears from his eyes mingling with the blood of my fellows. His hand was shaking so badly that he was struggling to grasp his spear.

"It's.....o...okay..." I tried to inform him, tried to let him know I bore him no ill will, though I don't know if he could hear me. My voice sounded so far away. I watched as his spear rose above my heart, my eyes closing as I readied myself for the blow.

The blade fell swiftly, for he did not wish to prolong my suffering. Ironic...given where I am now. Where all of my kind end up. I still pray to the gods...I don't know if they can hear me, but it brings me comfort. My only hope is that one day, perhaps redemption will include us in it's plans....

A strangled, silent scream left my lungs as I sensed the first death from where I was stationed. Something was wrong...very, very wrong. Gods...I wish I had left sooner...or that I had known. Because as bad as the Fall of Lucifer was....

As bad as losing my beloved wife was....

This... there is nothing on earth, heaven, or hell itself that could prepare me for the sight before me when I arrived. I had abandoned my post, flying as fat as I can, hoping and praying I arrived in time.

Gods...I wish you had taken me instead

There was so much blood that it ran up to my ankles, and I ran through it, crying out her name, trying to find her. Hoping to find her alive...praying that I would not stumble upon her...her...

No

NO, No, No...not like this...

My baby....my little flower...my brave little warrior.

I should have been there....I should have... I....

[puissantveil]

Re: Tarkat disease

CW: fictional genocide (albeit in an unconventional manner)

At first I thought "oh, that's a clever reference to Mileena's past Tarkatan genetics" and left it at that. But people smarter than me have brought up the possibility that Liu Kang turned the Tarkatan people, with their own culture, their own set of values, their own sexual practices even...and turned them into a literal disease.

What a swell dude.

Bastard didn't even think to spare Mileena.

I really hope this isn't the case, and it's just a coincidence, but if it is they better not play it straight. I hope they approach this from a dystheist (i.e. the supreme being isn't completely good and sure as shit isn't perfect) perspective, or reveal that some things are locked in stone by fate, or that Liu Kang fucked up real big when he made this wonderful decision /s

I hope we see some Tarkatans in MK1, if only to put such a horrible idea to rest.

[littleapocalypsekitten]

In defence of silly matters...

So, I've been on the tumbles too much today and have had to get off of it after a while when it was making my head hurt... So, I wasn't into the Super Bowl today. I'm not much of a sports person, but I didn't even bother watching it for the commercials. It was all "Meh, none of our teams are playing and I'm not so big into either Usher or Swift." And, of course, it's not like the commercials cannot be seen later online. Instead, I was all "Ooh, Cartoon Network is running reruns of Adventure Time and Futurama!" and I was reading fanfictions that people had put up for a fanfiction challenge in one of my fandoms that I am a part of. But browsing tumblr.... just outrage-post-after-outrage post over the ongoing Gaza genocide and lots of "why aren't more people outraged at this?" "How dare Americans be distracted by a football game when this is going on?!" and... it's just... *Sigh.* News of the latest series of atrocities... definitely enough to cause compassion-fatigue and I do not *want* to stop caring. I want to continue doing what I can (which is not much, mostly complaining to people online and in real life. I wrote my senator, but while he's progressive on most issues, he's identical to the fiercest Republican on this one and has been known to taunt pro-Palestinian protesters. You've probably already guessed who he is, haven't you? Basically a progressive-traitor). My rep's a Republican (despite my personal vote) and isn't gonna do shit. And this is really the boat most of us are in. And I'm at a place where I simply cannot be aghast and outraged all the time, or it will overload my system. So, yes, I am going to turn away from the news and from people telling me to be aware and outraged at all times to watch a damn cartoon. And this is why I defend people watching and enjoying the Super Bowl. Maybe it's trendy to be ANGRY! THAT! AMERICANS! ARE! ALL! ABOUT! SPORTSBALL! when the Horrors are happening, but I think that maybe enjoying the sportsball and the musicians is just a thing that many people need right now. They can't really do anything, so cheer on a team, beer and snacks. I learned last year, before all of this happened, on a very personal level just how important distraction is just to keep you from losing your mind or laying down and dying: I lost someone very close to me last year to an unexpected, sudden death. A lot of what kept me going? Trigun: Stampede (a reboot of an anime that was pretty much my entire life in the 2000s. I have a fanblog for it now, fandom renewed), and acquiring The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and playing it every day for about two and one half solid MONTHS after I picked up my pre-order. I did these things while being heavily involved in memorial / funeral planning, a task I had never done before. My nephew's memory was a "more important" thing. Gathering his friends for a memorial service / party was a "more important" thing. Getting his last affairs in order was a "more important" thing. But enjoying a damn anime and a damn video game were also important. And so I don't condemn people for taking a frigging BREAK. We can always continue holding our leaders' feet to the fire and screaming out into the void about the utter injustice present in our world.... But we've also gotta self-care. (And yes, I get mad when I'm finding a boss-battle in a video game to be too hard. It doesn't mean I do not care about more serious matters in the world at the same time).

[yuriswitch]

there's this one thing that's been bothering us particularly badly as of late, and it's this recent surge in "normal people" going out of their way to mark all evildoers as "abnormal". It's far from the first time we encountered that kind of behavior, and we more or less get why so many people say things like "he's not a real christian" or "she's not a real mother" or "how sick do you have to be to do something like that" or "you have to be abnormal" and so on and so forth, especially when put in front of a shocking news of a particularly gruesome murder or something equally drastic.

It's uncomfortable, and hard to imagine yourself doing that, but you still see a person looking like any other, with all the outward features of a human just like you. I'm not really surprised, that when faced with someone that looks similar enough to them to count as a human, most people immediately separate themselves out by making up some sort of a "difference" major enough for them to be able to re-categorize this uncomfortably human-looking person as an inhumane monster. Completely outside of the realm of "normal people".

The problem is, that what that essentially does is create this assumption that harm is some sort of a symptom of "not being me enough syndrome" that ought to be treated in some way, or at least dealt with by means of isolation. This often involves throwing insults, accusations or otherwise asserting that the perpetrator must be mentally ill, or disabled, or an Arab or whatever is considered too far away from "normal"

On one hand, this is just another way normal people balance out the desire to be the only thing X in existence (something that we might as well call the "oneness perversion") with the need to recognize and react to any signs of something or someone unusual. Everyone is supposedly the same person, but depending on the degree of "deviation", weirdos like us either have a "sickness" that they believe they can "heal" (thus eliminating that pesky differentness) or don't even count as a human at all.

At the same time, doing this reassures the normals, that they will never have to assume responsibility for anything serious, because they're not "off enough" to do anything other than a minor, forgettable offense. And the way this interacts with both big events like the rise of fascism, with millions of people asserting that the fascists were all abnormal mental monsters from hell, and smaller more personal moments like "mommy loves you so she'd never do something like that" in response to us trying to tell her to stop doing something like that, is a major issue that could potentially result in yet another tragedy.

Unfortunately, the normals would have to acknowledge their capability to commit any harm imaginable and unimaginable, but most of them still seem to prefer comfort at our cost than any conscious effort to change and be a better person. And there's something really shitty about so many people immediately diagnosing all sorts of people from J.K.Rowling all the way to Adolf Hitler (admittedly it's not a particularly long way, but still) with all sorts of mental illnesses - schizophrenia, bpd, psychopathy, narcissism, even low libido and high libido for some reason.

This is really frustrating, because it's the everyday Joes of 20th century Germany that did the Holocaust. It's the standard view havers that radicalized so far right, that tried to do colonialism in Europe, and that were already okay with the concept enough to consider applying it to the "Wild East" as they called Eastern Europe in direct reference to the so called "Wild West" in America.

The serial killers and psychopaths and all the black characters that normals whiten themselves with were busy mentally breaking the fuck down from another day of burning the corpses of all the "abnormals" the nazis were exterminating on a mass scale. It's all wife-loving, dog-having, typical, everyday people that committed all of these atrocities, and we, the undesirables, were their primary targets of removal and eventually extermination. And it's high time the general public admits that and recognizes their own ability to do all evil, including the most disturbing and extreme of acts. If they can't do that, then we will all be doomed one day. Mind my words.

/Yui

[nostalgia-tblr]

are you armenian? unfortunately, no one gives a flying f@ck about any of us, the people of caucasus. we have been genocided, colonized, occupied, war crimed left and right since like, the ancient times, but no one, not left nor right not progressives, care about us ;(((

i'm not and it's not even something i know that much about but that's still more than the average apparently :(

[enchi-elm]

(studying for my citizenship test)

Discover Canada Guide, official study material:

From the 1800s until the 1980s, the federal government placed many Aboriginal children in residential schools to educate and assimilate them into mainstream Canadian culture. The schools were poorly funded and inflicted hardship on the students; some were physically abused. Aboriginal languages and cultural practices were mostly prohibited. In 2008, Ottawa formally apologized to the former students.

My notes:

1828-1997: residential schools were part of systemic government-sanctioned genocide operated in the name of assimilation and cultural integration. 2008: formal apology to students from Ottawa

[farchanter]

R.F. Kuang: The Poppy War

Power dictates acceptability.

As I wrapped up The Poppy War, I couldn't help but think of how different my opinion of this story would have been if it had been written by anyone other than Rebecca Kuang.

The story ends with a deus ex machina. If we look at the book from a macroscopic perspective, from the traditional elevated perspective of fantasy, that ending might feel forced, abrupt, and unsatisfying.

For Kuang, and for us as the reader, we are instead focused on the microscopic version of The Poppy War— the deep inner conflict of Fang Runin. The conclusion of The Poppy War is the conclusion of Rin's intense tightrope walk across inner evil. Far from abrupt, it is the climax of a booklong build of emotional tension.

This is a dark, dark book. It is, broadly, about cycles of hate, fear, grief, pain, and death, each iteration more awful than the last. There are frank, graphic depictions of murder, rape, genocide, self-harm, and drug abuse. That is also my greatest caution about the book: if you're sensitive to those topics, particularly laid as bare as The Poppy War presents them, this is not the book for you. None of them is contextually inappropriate, but they are omnipresent.

This is not a "knights in shining armor ride out and vanquish evil" sort of fantasy. There are no "good guys" here. This is not a "defeated enemy vanishes in a puff of smoke" sort of fantasy, either. Its war, like real wars, can only ever be a terrible thing. The Poppy War is ugly and violent— by design. That brutality propels both the outer and inner conflicts.

Fang Runin is a peasant and a war orphan. To escape an arranged marriage, she makes a desperate bid: she tries to test into the most prestigious military academy of the Empire. When she makes it, against all odds, some crucial truths are told to her. Among these:

The third Poppy War could begin at any time.

When it does, the Empire will probably lose.

Rin is party to a strange power that could decide whether or not it does.

If I had to critique one thing, it would be that I couldn't quite square up the Academy scenes with the war scenes. They were both well-written in their own ways, but they didn't quite feel like they belonged in the same book together.

My particular edition of The Poppy War included some discussion questions (which, let me tell you, made my job much easier), and those questions brought up some good points that let me think about this incongruity a little more clearly. Kuang is a lifelong academic, and both facets of The Poppy War show that academia from different perspectives. The portions at the Academy clearly reflect her life as an academic, but the wartime sections are representations of her area of focus. Kuang studies China, including a current doctoral pursuit in East Asian Languages and Literatures. Kuang has said that The Poppy War and its sequels are inspired by the pains and revolutions of China, particularly the time British oppression during the time of the Opium Wars and through the Chinese Communist Revolution. That influence shows clearly, and that outline makes me very interested to see what comes next.

I'm excited to read the two sequels, The Dragon Republic and The Burning God. But, if I'm being honest? I'm also scared. I'm scared of what happens next to Fang Runin. I don't know where we're going, I can't stop reading it, but I do dread it.