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bestworstcase · 6 months

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do you have theories about how the aura transfer machine is going to inevitably come into play

this is timely, because i’ve been chewing on it quite a lot lately.

let’s talk about the rule of threes!

the basic idea is that important things in stories often come in threes. narrative triads are a staple of fairytale/folklore in particular, which makes it very salient to the rwby narrative. often, you’ll see the rule of three described as a pattern where a thing happens a certain way twice, and then once more differently (aab); there are other configurations. abc/cba or abc/abc is pretty common in fairytales—think the “questing hero does a kindness to three entities and each repays with a favor later on” structure—and simple repetitions (aaa) or progressive triplets (a-A-A!) aren’t uncommon either.

the rule of threes gets cited a lot in discussions on the maidens and the ATMs in particular. this is a little thorny because maidens come in fours, not threes; i think rwby is taking advantage of this mathematical problem to develop multiple interlocking triads. we’ll call this the Fourth Maiden Exclusion Principle.

our first set of triads occur within each season. the seasonal triads, if you will. all of them—so far—follow this basic pattern:

fragile -> false -> freed

where the first maiden is introduced in a vulnerable state, the second maiden is either literally false (not really a maiden) or perceived as illegitimate, and the seasonal arc ends with third maiden removed from ozpin’s hierarchy and separated from her vault. thus:

amber -> pyrrha -> cinder

(spring) -> vernal -> raven

fria -> penny -> winter

the last spring maiden is unusual in that she’s a posthumous character, but she’s described as having been “a child” who ran away because the responsibility was “too much for her” and raven says she was “weak” and “scared.” we also know that raven mercy-killed her.

so the question to ask here is whether the summer maiden will repeat this pattern. if i’m correct about the Fourth Maiden Exclusion Principle, the answer is “no.” our triad is [fall-spring-winter] and our excluded fourth, in this case, is summer.

[SIDEBAR: the maiden arcs are following the gifts in reverse order (choice -> knowledge -> creation -> destruction). the seasons being “wrong” is a misdirection. thank u.]

our second set of triads interlace the maiden arcs. we’ll call them the perennial triads (laugh!). there are three Big Ones.

the first is the presumptive ATM triad, which might be drawn in two ways:

[amber-fria-(summer)] + (spring)

[pyrrha-winter-(summer)] + raven.

the former being three maidens fed to the machines, the latter recipients of machine transfers. the triad is [fall-winter-summer] and the excluded fourth is spring.

the second is the triad of maidens cinder tries to Get. i will discuss my reasoning for bracketing it like this in a bit, bear with me:

[amber-raven-penny] + (summer)

and finally, the third is the triad of maidens who got eaten by the fairytale, as it were:

[pyrrha-(spring)-penny] + (summer)

note that these last two match the seasonal triad-of-triads: [fall-spring-winter] + summer. This Is Important.

but before we get into the weeds of the Machine Question, we first need to sketch out why i don’t think cinder is going to go after the summer maiden. for the benefit of newcomers and in case this breaks containment, Mainly. it boils down to:

salem’s going to beacon next.

it is established in V4 that a) the crown is still in its vault, b) salem believes the vault is at beacon, c) the vault is Hidden, and d) salem has someone [summer rose] stationed at beacon to search for it. in V8, salem notes that The Situation Has Not Changed; she is preoccupied with gaining access to the lamp so that she can use it to discover the crown’s location. (<- the first thing she asks oscar is where ozma hid the crown; she asks for the password to the lamp only after confirming that oscar doesn’t know.) having been frustrated in her effort to wring the location out of oscar and with the lamp now out of questions, her obvious next move is to go to beacon.

she is also two for two on relics swiped after someone else—not cinder—opened the vault, and two for two on cinder Almost Fucking Dying at the hands of other maidens. she’s realizing that her opponents will open those vaults if she squeezes them hard enough, and the sword presents an obvious temptation for vacuo’s defenders; she also won’t be able to access the crown at all if cinder dies. the skeleton-key plan is a wash.

and, with the coalition in vacuo galvanized by the imminent existential threat of another massive attack, the strongest next move for salem is to do nothing: quietly go to beacon, search for the crown, and run out the clock while her opponents wait. the longer she can draw this out, the shakier that coalition is going to get as people get complacent or start to doubt that an attack is coming at all.

(it is also something of a toss-up whether salem plans to launch another assault; she hit beacon and atlas with overwhelming force to take ozpin off the board, but for haven she planned a covert infiltration.)

so salem has a lot of compelling reasons for going to beacon, and none for rushing to vacuo. further, the end of V9, the epilogue storyboard, and the second rwby x jl film collectively indicate that at a minimum, salem will not be in vacuo at the top of V10. a V7ish scenario where salem doesn’t arrive until the end of the volume is not out of the question (although i do think she’ll be in V10, just at beacon).

and she will, of course, want to keep cinder close, both for the purpose of opening the beacon vault and because she will need to manage cinder’s ongoing rebellion very carefully. cinder may not Like This, but a) she she swanned away from the winter maiden without a backwards glance because she Doesn’t Care About The Power That Much, she just wants to Win The Power Struggle With Salem, and b) the vault and the relic of choice and being The Only One Who Can Do This are going to appeal to her too, again for power struggle reasons.

and since the skeleton key plan is a wash, it’s likely that salem will try to ease cinder off the idea of Getting the summer maiden so as to avoid risking a repeat of what happened in atlas. that, plus the nascent villain->hero arc developments involved in returning to the choice arc, taper cinder off the maiden hunting such that i do not think she’s going to be a central player in the summer maiden arc. (or obsessed with winter, for that matter.)

the summer maiden arc, sans cinder

okay. here we go!

in order for the ATM triad to eventuate, as i believe it will, someone in vacuo is going to need a reason to pull that trigger. at beacon and in atlas, the reason was cinder. cinder is also the reason both of those transfers failed. because cinder is probably Not In Vacuo, the ATM triad is almost certainly the a-a-b pattern; the negated pair both failed because cinder deliberately provoked them for the purpose of gaining access to the maiden, so i think the likely reversal here is that a machine transfer initiated in a non-crisis situation will succeed.

this is a puzzle, because the ATMs are unequivocally Not Good. every single character in the story is on the same page about this; even ironwood regards it as a necessary evil. there is an asterisk here for pietro because the only person harmed by his use of the machines is himself and he made the choice freely. but in any other circumstance, using the ATM is wrong, because That’s Murder. so the decision to use an ATM in vacuo to transfer a maiden is not one that can be made lightly.

thus we have to consider what circumstances could lead to that decision, and to do that we need to zoom out a little.

let’s assume the CFVY novels are both canonical and relevant to the narrative of the show proper, as RH was to V9.

i submit that there are two (2) possible summer maidens hinted at in before the dawn. one of them is sun’s cousin, starr sanzang, who appears briefly at the end of the book and has an “uncanny sense” for the weather.

the other is gillian asturias.

she and her twin brother, jax, are the leaders of a virulently xenophobic nationalist movement called the crown; they believe themselves to be direct descendants of the defunct vacuan monarchy, all the way back to malik the sunderer, first king of vacuo. their “evidence” (such as it is) is a crown-shaped birthmark supposed to be had by every member of the royal lineage. gill’s, however, is actually a brand,implied to have been done to her by her father when she was an infant.

gill is the power behind the crown. her semblance siphons aura; in the novel, she uses captives as batteries to make herself virtually invincible. on the battlefield, she glows with a brilliant iridescent light—brighter than the moon.

their mother—luna asturias—developed some sort of sickness during pregnancy that caused her aura to rapidly deplete and gradually waste away; she died due to complications during an emergency c-section. jax was born with the same condition; gillian’s aura was “elevated” from birth. their father believes that her semblance manifested before she was even born and ate her mother’s and brother’s auras.

right before the climactic battle, there is a brief skirmish with gill and her lieutenant, carmine, in an abandoned dust mine, which ends with the kids deliberately triggering a cave-in by blowing up a vein of dust. this is the result:

“Did it work?” she asked Octavia. Octavia shook her head. “I think we got Carmine, but just before everything came down on our heads, Gill flew backward and out of the cave.” “Carmine’s telekinesis,” Velvet said. “She used it to save her friend at the last second.”

then, during the actual battle:

He heard gunfire and then Dust bullets exploded against Gill, amped by Coco’s Semblance. Gill stepped back, swatting at her face as though the explosive rounds were no more annoying than bugs.

if you wanted to hide a maiden in plain sight in a canonical ancillary novel, this is how you to do it.

gillian is extraordinarily powerful. flying, being surrounded by visibly glowing haloes, and banishing bullets with the flick of a hand are all Maiden Things—and also Gillian Things carefully given plausible deniability through the eyes of POV characters who don’t know about the maidens and interpret what they see as effects of a semblance.

gillian herself is stridently opposed to the use of dust for reasons; if she is a maiden, she has compelling political and ideological reasons not to use the dust-like elemental magic that comes with being a maiden. if she started lobbing fireballs, everyone would assume she was using dust to do it, and that would make her look like a raging hypocrite. but covertly using magic to augment what she can do with fifty people’s aura? sure.

and the summer maiden is the maiden of destruction. the asturias family identity revolves around descent from a man named malik the sunderer. her fanatic of a father BRANDED HER with the mark of this legacy as an infant. her dead mother who sickened and died in childbirth is named for the moon.

when ozma ended the great war, he did it in vacuo, the crown on his head and the sword in hand. jax asturias is the leader of the crown, the twin with the real birthmark, the mind of the operation. gill is the power—very literally the source of his strength, because she lends him some of her own aura, and metaphorically his shield and his sword.

and furthermore, the lesson taught by the summer maiden in the fairytale is “don’t view the world at a distance; take an active part in it and the events around you.” gill’s backstory very closely mirrors salem’s in one key way—their mothers die in childbirth, and their fathers see them as the cause—BUT. where salem’s father locked her in a tower about it, finn asturias chose differently:

“[Gill’s semblance] had caused us so much pain, but I couldn’t blame her, an unborn baby, doing what we all do: trying to survive. Over the years, I taught her to control her Semblance, and over time we unlocked her true ability—she doesn’t just sap Aura from others; she can transfer it, too. It turned out her power, which had seemed like such a curse, could be a force for good as well. She had a large reserve of Aura already, and so she shared some of it with her brother. And he began to thrive.”

throughout the novel there is also a recurring thread of other people (theodore, finn, rumpole) remarking on how much promise gill had and how she could have been a great huntress—if only she hadn’t stuck with her brother. once jax’s mind-control semblance is found out, everyone assumes that he’s using it to keep gill under his thumb… but he isn’t. his semblance straight up does not work on her, possibly because her aura powers it.

so gillian embodies the summer maiden’s lesson in two different ways; her father made a Huge Point of making sure she could take part in the world (instead of isolating her as salem’s father did), and gill bucked everyone’s assumptions about what she should do, actively following her own ambitions instead of passively accepting the expectation placed on her.

gill is alive and in custody at the end of the novel. (jax likewise, although his memory was at least temporarily wiped.) if she’s the summer maiden, that ticks the box for summer being the excluded fourth in the seasonal triad-of-triads; she is not, in any sense except moral, fragile.

and gill as the summer maiden throws an interesting curveball at the Machine Question: what to do with a maiden who can also absorb the auras of fifty people to turbo charge her abilities, when that maiden is a reactionary nationalist who led a violent insurgency a few weeks ago and the only thing keeping her in jail is that she loves her brother and he’ll die without her? what do you do with her when you expect salem to rock up with another legion of grimm any day now?

maybe you look at a machine meant for ripping aura out of a person to put in somebody else, and then look at her brother who has almost no aura of his own, and see a way for everyone to win? it isn’t like gillian asturias has any objection to transferring her own aura to her brother. she’s spent most of their lives doing exactly that, because she loves him.

the only difference is that the ATM can make that transfer permanent.

it won’t kill her: partial transfers are possible, and she’ll still have her ability to siphon aura.

it might strip her of the maiden power, and—because the magic will only cleave to a woman—there is at least a chance that something like what happened with amber, pyrrha, and cinder can be deliberately triggered with gillian’s willing cooperation. transfer half gill’s aura to jax while gill focuses on an eligible candidate (cough, starr, cough), and maybe you can convince the magic to separate from gillian’s aura, leave her and jax, and hop into the chosen heir instead, just as it would if gillian died.

the reasoning is sound. gill would probably agree to do it for her brother’s sake; she and jax already share her aura, a permanent split between them would give them both an average amount of aura, and the transfer being partial would keep their consciousnesses separate, thus avoiding the Ozma Problem. all the thorny ethical problems involved in using the machines are avoided, and the magic’s rules are bent (gill lives) but not broken (the machine triggers an ordinary transfer), which reduces the risk that the magic will resist or break free.

and if it does go wrong, the most probable outcome is that the magic ends up split between the asturias twins—which is not ideal, but you’ve also earned some goodwill from both of them by helping jax and you can maybe pitch them on an enemy-of-my-enemy alliance to defend vacuo from salem because they sure as fuck aren’t about to join her.

this is a) the only scenario where i can plausibly imagine RWBYJNOR et al deciding to use the ATM to transfer a maiden, and b) the only one i can imagine succeeding without having dire repercussions.

the other possibility—one i think is all but guaranteed if gill isn’t the summer maiden—is that a villain uses the ATM to steal the maiden power, with dire repercussions.

and in either case, as long as we’re prognosticating interminably on the summer maiden arc, we might as well think about what the shape of the V10 narrative arc might look like if salem isn’t in vacuo.

the first point to address here is how inadequate tyrian is for the job of leading the operation in vacuo. he is extremely good at indiscriminate killing and quite bad at everything else; watts was in charge in V7 because watts is a competent strategist. tyrian lacks focus and discipline. in the short term, he’ll start and spread fires; in the longer term, if salem intends to bide her time, she needs someone reliable.

summer rose has been holding beacon against vale’s huntsmen for the last year or so whilst searching for the vault. she’s been with salem fourteen years. there is no question that salem both trusts and relies on her. even if it weren’t a binary choice between her and cinder, she’s the obvious pick. once salem arrives at beacon, she can take over the operation there, send summer ahead to handle vacuo, and keep cinder safely away from any other maidens.

the strategic end of salem’s operation in vacuo is to retrieve the sword from the vault under shade academy. she is undoubtedly prepared to deliver a siege and capture shade by force, but as with haven it’s more likely that Plan A is to do things quietly.

summer also has an immediate personal interest in accomplishing this goal without an open assault (her daughters are leading the defending coalition) and, given the level of autonomy implied by salem handing off beacon to her for a year+, probably broad latitude to make the tactical decisions she deems best.

so summer’s priority is finding the summer maiden and getting her to open the vault. she herself is probably not an eligible maiden candidate—she’s in her forties—so maiden-killing is out. her options are to persuade the summer maiden, or capture her and steal the magic if she can get her hands on an ATM.

meanwhile, the crown is in shambles with the asturias twins in custody and the vacuo coalition holding strong in the face of the assumed-to-be-imminent threat, plus morale bolstered by team RWBY and jaune’s return. but the cracks still show. vacuans have always been hostile to outsiders, and the refugees are putting an enormous strain on the already-impoverished kingdom, even with aid pouring in from vale and mistral. the crown’s core supporters are people who believe that allowing refugees into vacuo will weaken its defenses, and the longer this drags on, the more they can capitalize on tensions to stoke dissent.

gill and jax are bound to escape or get broken out by their loyalists sooner or later. if gill is the summer maiden, and summer identifies her as such, then getting the vault open might be as simple as posing as a huntress disillusioned by the “weakness” of the powers that be and telling gillian about the sword.

the tricky part is getting the sword away from gillian, because a summer maiden who can drain aura and wields the sword of destruction is a walking nuke. summer might be able to pull it off if her semblance is along the same lines as ruby’s: have gill open the vault, rush the sword, cut her down before she can react. otherwise, cutting a deal—the sword in exchange for salem leaving vacuo alone—might work, because salem’s stated motive in the broadcast is to destroy the huntsman academies and that is also what gill wants, so summer could make a credible argument here that salem is a potential ally to the crown.

if gill is not the summer maiden, then the crown is still potentially useful—a nascent civil war will distract the coalition and if the crown rebels again and wins, they’re probably going to be easier to persuade or manipulate into opening the vault (and jax can control the summer maiden, if it comes to that). also, adding the imminent threat of a civil war to the imminent threat of salem attacking puts more pressure on the coalition to risk using the sword.

the other thing summer might do is eschew the cloak-and-dagger routine altogether and take a gamble on approaching her daughters to open negotiations; this is, to put it mildly, a risk. but a very high-reward risk.

IN SUMMARY.

gillian asturias -> starr sanzang. probably.

summer rose is here and she’s not going to, at any point, Be the summer maiden but she is going to Cause Problems On Purpose.

one of the ways the summer maiden arc will be Different is that summer rose has some things to unpack (what happened to the last spring maiden That Night)

the vacuo ATM is either for the asturias twins OR someone (summer or jax) is going to do a murder OR there is no ATM, there’s just gill and her ability to (temporarily) steal the maiden power via aura, in which case it’s starr -> gillian -> starr and we might see magic-thieving conflicts between gill and winter or raven also.

if the ATM gets used for any other purpose than making gill’s and jax’s aura-sharing deal permanent it is going to be Very Bad.

maybe the real crown was the reactionary insurgents we foiled along the way?

#summer rose with the steel chair

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lakemichiganlolita · 2 months

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stuck in the jet wash bad trip i couldn't get off and maybe i bit off more than i could chew overhead of the aqua blue fall to your knees bring on the rapture blessed be the boys time can't capture on film or between the sheets i always fall from your window to the pitch black street and with the black banners raised as the crooked smiles fade former heroes who quit too late who just wanna fill up the trophy case again and in the end

i'd do it all again

i think you're my best friend

#local ab/ap acknowledger takes night off from hating to enjoy ab/ap #fall out boy #american beauty/american psycho #fob

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marypsue · 3 months

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find the word!

I hadn't even heard of this kind of tag game until @monsterhunting tagged me! What a great idea.

The words Grace gave me are lean, stare, change, pull, and trust. I have to see if they show up in any of my WIPs, and then post the snippet they appear in if they do. This was an exercise in discovering how much I overuse certain words, so I sort of...picked a WIP for each word, and then picked the best snippet if there was more than one result. Samples under the cut!

lean

From why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday, the Steve/Nancy/Jonathan bodyswap AU:

“Great.” Robin hands him the video she’s holding, piling it on top of the stack in his hands with a careful little pat, before starting to back away. “Just – man the counter, do those rewinds, and don’t – go anywhere.” “Where do you think I’m going to go?” Jonathan asks, but Robin’s already hurrying towards the door behind the half-wall with the garish neon Family Video sign. Robin pauses just long enough to lean back around the wall and catch Jonathan’s eye. “Just don’t go anywhere!”

stare

From that same small town in each of us, the Stranger Things ageswap AU:

“You know something,” El says, her face getting scary again, and just like that, the decision’s made for Mike. “Not about Joyce,” he admits. “But my friend Dustin didn’t show up for school today. Nobody knows where he is. The last time anybody saw him was leaving this after-school science club last night.” Mike meets El’s scary stare, and adds, “And I know he doesn’t have…gifts.” Will’s voice, his eyes, are sympathetic, but his words are definitely not. “If the lab’s people shot El – maybe Dustin and Joyce were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” “What – are you saying he’s dead?” “He could be,” El says, all soft, like that makes any of this better.

change

From former heroes who quit too late, the third and final part of the AU where (almost) all the Stranger Things kids have powers:

“Why did you say,” Lucas starts, cautiously, “ ‘while I’ve still got the chance’?” Mike looks up. He’s a little surprised Lucas even noticed that. He’s a little surprised Lucas has to ask. “One or more of us dead. That’s what Barbara said, right?” Lucas frowns at him. “That was if we can’t change it. It’s not guaranteed.” “Yeah. But we haven’t changed it, yet, have we? We don’t have the spy, we don’t know what’s going on with the Russians, we haven’t even been able to tell Hopper and Mrs B…and it’s already the fourth.” Mike laces his fingers together and pulls his palms apart, looking down into the basket he’s made with his hands. “We’re going to stop – whatever it is. I know. That’s what we do. It just – I just -” “It feels like you’re running out of time,” Lucas offers, and Mike shrugs. “I guess. It’s just – if the Mind Flayer really is back, or if there’s another monster, and it goes after us…” He has to swallow, hard, suddenly. Trying to breathe in this entryway is like trying to breathe soup. “El’s going to fight it. You know she is. She’s gonna be right out there in front of us, throwing the first punch.” Lucas nods. Mike pushes himself up out of the chair. Suddenly, he can’t stand the scratch of the woven fabric against the bare backs of his knees. “It just feels like I should say something, first. But she’s not making it easy. Come on, we’re gonna cook alive in here before Nancy and Jonathan get back.”

pull

From Something Borrowed, Something Blues, the sequel to Reincarnation Blues:

After a moment of apparent deliberation, one of the dryads gestured, and the branch Mabel had been trying to pull away from the woman’s face suddenly slithered away. The rest of the vegetation webbed around her started, creakily and in lurching, jerking movements like old stop-motion animation, to retreat into the soil. Two of the dryads had already gone to join their sisters trying to battle the flames. The third paused only long enough to catch Mabel’s eye and give her a long, hard stare, before hurrying off to join them. The second she was free, the woman Mabel had taken for Grenda gasped in a breath and then asked, almost demanded, “Mira?” She was looking right at Mabel. “No, sorry,” Mabel said. “Hey, how’d you get inside a tree?”

trust

From Blood Will Out, the The Lost Boys pseudo-sequel-slash-reboot fic featuring an OC sister duo and vampire girl gang because I am nothing if not Predictable:

When Edgar comes back, it is, unsurprisingly, with an implement of vampiric destruction. But the stake he holds out to Jamie is offered blunt end first. “Keep this on you at all times. Especially while you’re in Santa Carla. It might just save your life.” Jamie hesitates for a moment before taking it from his hand. It’s a beautiful piece of woodworking, unadorned, a little more than a foot long, turned and varnished so smooth and perfect that the grip sits satiny and comfortable in her hand with no risk of splintering. The end is sharpened to a point so fine she nearly pricks her finger on it. It’s surprisingly heavy in her grip, too, solid and dense. “Thanks, but -” Edgar cuts her off before she can finish the thought. “Don’t let my presence and my fearsome reputation lull you into a false sense of security. There’s still a serious undead element active in this city.” He pauses for just a moment, the only sign he’s uncertain at all, before adding, “And you can’t trust your sister.”

I'm going to tag @daddygrandpaandthebeaver, @mickeymagpie, @amethystunarmed, @enquiringangel, and @gretchensinister, and my words for you are: sharp, take, moon, pile, and dream.

#chatter #this is mary's fic tag #stranger things #why can't we be ourselves like we were yesterday #stranger things ageswap au tag #former heroes who quit too late #the hawkins indiana psychic baby boom #gravity falls #transcendence au #the lost boys #blood will out #oh look at that i finally got a canon character into blood will out

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getosbf · 8 months

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MTP Masterlist

Me And My Husband :- [fluff | oneshot | 1691 words] Summary: I like fluff. I like horses. I like sherliam. Not necessarily in that order. (Sherlock tries to court William. He wants to be the Prince Charming for him I am very serious about them. Set in NYC when Liam had the bandage eyepatch.)

Angels like you can't fly down to hell with me :- [angst with happy ending | 7/7 chapters | 19,396 words] Summary: Soulmate AU where you dream of a single moment of your future with your soulmate. As the end of the final problem draws near, William is more and more convinced that his soulmate dream must be false or of a past life, because he can see no possible way he and Sherlock Holmes will have a future of drinking coffee made using a handkerchief for a filter in a cozy apartment with no curtains.

Partners (In Crime) :- [fluff | oneshot | 2315 words] Summary: When William and Sherlock find out a local restaurant has been cheating innocent people out of their money, the former Lord of Crime and Hero of London take it upon themselves to serve justice. But it seems they chose to have quite a bit of fun in the process.

Feverish Fondness :- [fluff | oneshot | 2315 words] Summary: "Even the walk from the kitchen counter to the couch had felt impossible, legs shaking under him as his 'minor' headache turned skull-splitting. Silently, William cursed himself for going out for groceries in the rain the previous day. 'Liam?'" / In which William James Moriarty gets sick and Sherlock Holmes takes care of him.

A Bleeding Nose And A Blessing :- [fluff | oneshot | 1054 words] Summary: Sherlock Holmes comes to Mycroft's office with a gold ring on his finger, and the elder Holmes is smart enough to know what that means. / Sherlock marries William and goes to Mycroft to get his blessing hehe

Cotton Carnage :- [crack | oneshot | 1083 words] Summary: PILLOW FIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS / Bedding provided for late session became ammunition when Lord Moriarty threw a pillow at his parliamentary boyfriend in the middle of a meeting

Sorry About The Blood In Your Mouth, I Wish It Was Mine :- [songfic | hurt/comfort | oneshot | 1055 words] Summary: Some write about the hero saving the day, some write about the happily ever after, but who writes about the gap between them? Staining your hands with scarlet leaves you ridden with guilt. That's a tale as old as time. And when there's someone to kiss your crimson palms and not worry about the blood in their mouth, it isn't easy letting that happen. After all, it had always been easier for him to hold a sword than a hand.

The Five Times Sherlock Holmes Got Constructive Criticism From A Stranger And The One Time The Stranger Was His Boyfriend :- [crack |6/6 chapters | 5449 words] Summary: Sherlock works at a diner. William loves going to said diner. Problem? William is a little infatuated by the pretty chef and so the pretty chef in question finds anonymous notes every other weekend. Sherlock, too, is more than a bit interested in this secret "Lord Of Cuisine" and makes it his mission to find him.

Until It Killed You :- [wip | reincarnation au | modern au] Summary: "Hear me well and clear: fate does not change for anybody. But you defied me. You tried to die. You tried to die and leave him behind. And now he is dead and you are left behind." In which William James Moriarty defies fate for his ambitions, and pays the price for it by having his life's only love taken away. It's up to fate itself to decide whether he deserves it back or not. Though one thing is for sure: he would have to atone for defying it. But can he? While his lover wanders through the lonely valleys of the afterlife, he is a mere ghost lingering in the night. Both grieving each other as a soul grieves a body. And all they can do is wait.

#moriarty the patriot #sherliam #yuukoku no moriarty #william james moriarty #sherlock moriarty the patriot #Mtp fanfic #yuumori fanfic #yuumori

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dewitty1 · 6 months

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Fic Recs Wrap Up - October 2023 ꐑ(ꐌ◡ꐌꐐ)࿐࿔࿓[¬º-°]¬･*ᕐ ̆̈͜͡ ᕐ ોु✩°｡⋆:.｡. .｡.:*･ཥ•̬͡•ོཤ゜ﾟ･*☆ʔ•̫͡•ཻʕ

Nothing Like the Sun by Lomonaaeren

Harry finally realizes that he has trouble keeping lovers both because of his looks and because he isn’t very good at sex. He does what he can to alter that, but it seems he’s never going to be good enough to satisfy a wizard lover. When Draco Malfoy offers, Harry thinks a casual relationship with him might be the solution to his problems. But he should have remembered one thing: when it comes to Harry, Malfoy has a problem staying casual. Rec Post

And Still I Dream by greenmegsnoham, Yoro_Kobi @greenmegsnoham @gaudium6191

Draco was beyond frustrated with the school’s preferential treatment of sports programs over the arts. Determined to collect what is due, Draco must come toe to toe with the ever incessant thorn-in-his-side, Varsity Basketball Captain, Harry Potter. Though Draco may not receive the financial support he’d been hoping for, he just might get a boyfriend out of it instead… OR When you Dream a Dream, it just may come true… Rec Post

Curiosity, Wonder, Spontaneous Delight by cloudings

After Harry hears some rumours about Malfoy, he becomes more and more curious until he just has to get some answers. Malfoy is more than prepared to give him anything he needs, just as long as he gets something back in return. Harry’s not sure why he’s surprised that it’s something moderately illegal. In which Ron continues to get far too many eyefuls, Hermione has had quite enough with everybody, and Harry’s not sure why enemies to friends to friends with benefits isn’t enough for him. OR Harry becomes incredibly curious, and somewhere along the line ends up accidentally falling in love with Draco Malfoy. Because of course he bloody would. Rec Post

Romp and Circumstance by wolfpants @wolfpants

Since the war, Harry Potter has gone from Saviour to Scoundrel—not that he’s complaining. With a schedule full of gorgeous men, alcohol, and late nights, why would he want to change? Enter Draco Malfoy: beautiful, sharp, and completely untouchable. When Draco comes to Harry with a proposition to help him attract an engagement, Harry’s up for it—after all, how hard can it be not falling for his former nemesis? Very hard, apparently. Rec Post

A Shower, A Meal, A Nap, and A Shag by chickenlivesinpumpkin

Harry’s supposed to be alone in Grimmauld Place…so why is there a Malfoy in his shower? And what’s Harry going to do about it? Rec Post

Sunseeker by shiftylinguini @shiftylinguini

Harry is a struggling writer. Namely, he is struggling with: writing his next book, dealing with his agent, finding a decent tea strainer, fielding his friend’s concern over the aforementioned book, and figuring out who the cat loitering in his garden belongs to. He also has a slight liking-Malfoy problem. Okay, he has a massive liking-Malfoy problem. Rec Post

A Life Worth Remembering by Writcraft @writcraft

Severus Snape wakes in St Mungo’s, to discover that a potions accident has wiped the last forty years from his body and mind. Just twenty-five years old, Severus is reliant on Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, now both in their forties, to help him fill in the missing decades. As Severus tries to navigate a much-changed world, Harry and Draco struggle with a secret of their own. Rec Post

New Message by Mosrael @mosrael

Harry Potter has a crush on his roommate–like, a BIG one–but he can’t say anything to him, can he?! Naturally, he does what any early 2000s young adult would do and asks the internet for help, and gets a lot more back than he expected. Rec Post

Life skills outside the curriculum by Endrina @llendrinall

It was "Witch Weekly", of all people and organizations, the first to notice and comment on The Boy Who Lived’s absence from the ranks of first years at Hogwarts. The magazine went on to elucubrate that the young hero was studying at a foreign school, possibly Beauxbatons or Holzschuhkäse. Rec Post

Here are a few more fics I've read recently that y'all might like to check out as well!(ノﾟ∀ﾟ)ノ━☆ﾟ･*:.｡. .｡.:*･.*･｡ﾟ*:・ﾟ✧

Howlr by partialtopotter @partialtopotter

Howlr is the new dating application enchanting Witches, Wizards and Everyone in between. Are you looking for the one or a one-night stand; it’s all here folks. Howlr is sponsored by Weasley Wizard Wheezes, the same team that brought us the Spellular just two years ago. Ginny Weasley, famed chaser for the Hollyhead Harpies, swears by the app, ‘guaranteed to make sparks fly,’ she says. The magic awaits you!

where all the veins meet by eight_of_wands @saxamophone

It's the summer of 1998. The battle is over, and Voldemort is dead, but Harry still has more questions than answers. Who is he without a piece of Voldemort's soul in his head? What is he supposed to do now? His friends try to help, but the only thing that can hold his attention—one of the only things that ever has—is Draco Malfoy, out on parole and weirdly hanging around the British Museum. As they keep running into each other, Harry sees that Malfoy is different, and he wonders if he can be someone else, too. Featuring rumpled band shirts, poker games everyone hates, fumbling sex, and a Harry going a little mental over how wands even work.

The Secret's in the Telling by Verayne @veraynes-blog

Draco Malfoy suffers the unthinkable when he is turned into a werewolf. How is he supposed to live any kind of life afterwards, especially when Potter continues to stick his unwanted nose into things?

Wherever You Go, There You Are by Anonymous for hd-fan-fair/HD Career Fair 2023

Four years after the War, Harry still fights to save the wizarding world. Only, he’s traded prophecies and duels for fundraising and politicking. Worried that he’s burning himself out, his friends sign him up for a week-long muggle relaxation retreat in the mountains of Snowdonia. The last thing he expects to find there is Draco Malfoy, his old school rival, working as a yoga instructor. How on earth is he supposed to learn to relax when Malfoy’s meant to teach him? Rec Post

Connecting Lines, Connecting Crimes by Anonymous for hd-fan-fair/HD Career Fair 2023

Magic is going haywire after ley lines all over the world are mysteriously failing. A cross-border Task Force is set up by the League of Wixen Nations with Expert Cartologist Draco Malfoy and Ley Line Specialist Pansy Parkinson being called in from Britain to work with Magi-Geographers Harry Potter and Parvati Patil in India. But can they get to the root of the issue before it’s too late? Rec Post

Full Fathom Five by Anonymous for hd-fan-fair/HD Career Fair 2023

“Draco Malfoy is not a merman, and he does not perform for an audience in a tank,” Hermione said crossly. Harry had thought this would be just an ordinary holiday… Rec Post

( •ॢ◡-ॢ)-♡ I hope you enjoy these fics as much as I have! Happy reading, y’all! xoxo, Carey (◍•ᴗ•◍)♡ ✧*💜💙💚💛❤💗💕💖

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mariacallous · 3 months

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Russian women have, shockingly, embraced the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine despite the heavy toll it exerts on their men.

Though Russia doesn’t disclose casualties, they are mounting. Scores of new graves housing the remains of “heroes” are popping up across the country as the labor ministry requests certificates for families of the deceased by the hundreds of thousands. While the state heaps praise on these men in death, in life it seems to view them as disposable. Russian officials have made this abundantly clear, repetitive to the point of cliché: “Women will give birth to more.”

Despite standing to lose so much, the wives, mothers, sisters, and girlfriends of Russian soldiers have largely nodded along with the Kremlin’s moribund determination to grind down their men. They weep at makeshift memorials to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the late chief of the paramilitary Wagner Group. They show little gender allegiance to the women of their former sister republic. Some are actually proud of their “defenders,” egging them on to rape Ukrainian women should they get the chance. In packed concert halls across the country, girls sing along ecstatically to “Ya Russky” (“I am Russian”), the country’s new patriotic anthem. Their faces soften the song’s promises to “fight to the end” and “spite the whole world.” That seems to be the point.

Russian womanhood, routinely held up in the country’s lore as a paragon of strength, patience, and sacrifice, is now functionally a cover-up for the crimes of Russia’s men. Two of Russia’s most notorious propagandists, Margarita Simonyan of Russia Today and Olga Skabeyeva of the Russia-1 television channel, are women, as is Maria Zakharova, the boorish spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Beneath them lurk less prominent figures with important platforms. There’s Putin’s Brigades, a motley crew of activist grandmothers who have abandoned their communal yard benches to rally the masses for President Vladimir Putin and his war. They call on U.S. President Joe Biden to stop “NATO’s war against Russia” and on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to surrender. The Project in Red Dresses, which is supported by an organization run by one of Putin’s relatives, mobilizes women across Russian towns. Draped in red, they waltz through public spaces, seeking to both boost women’s confidence and unite Russians around their leader.

Women support the war effort in other ways, too. Back in my hometown, my mother’s acquaintances are knitting camouflaging nets for Russian troops and teaching children how to make trench candles to send to the battlefield. Schoolteachers—the majority of whom are women—are now responsible for children’s patriotic upbringing. In the state-mandated weekly class “Conversations about important things,” teachers disseminate Kremlin-approved talking points and rally support for the war among children as young as kindergarteners—lining them in Z-formations, organizing visits and weapons demonstrations from “defenders of the motherland,” and even engaging children to help produce those weapons. Teachers who disagree with the war or try to get out of this duty are denounced—often by other women—and subsequently fired or forced to quit.

Women haven’t always been so compliant with the state’s agenda. In 1917, they famously took to the streets to protest food shortages and the monarchy, sparking the strike that eventually triggered the Russian Revolution. More recently, the Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers of Russia was instrumental in pressuring then-President Boris Yeltsin to end his war on Chechnya in 1996.

Nearly two years of Russian carnage in Ukraine, however, have produced mostly acts of individual heroism. For instance, Channel One Russia employee Marina Ovsyannikova made an on-air appeal to viewers not to believe the state’s lies about the war. The artist Sasha Skochilenko swapped supermarket labels with messages about Russia’s crimes in Ukraine. These acts did not go unpunished: The former has since fled the country, while the latter was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Subversive performance art, once a tool of female dissent, is no more. After serving prison terms for their anti-Putin anthems, members of the feminist band Pussy Riot are now in exile, raising money to support the Ukrainian military. These days, the mere suspicion of “radical feminism” can land one in prison. Playwright Svetlana Petriychuk and theater director Yevgenia Berkovich, the duo behind an award-winning play about Russian women who married Islamic State fighters, were accused of “justifying terrorism” and were jailed in May 2023.

Women are now more likely to spend their energy on procuring fake medical certificates to excuse their sons and husbands from war than on resistance of any kind. Those who privately disagree with the war—their number is anyone’s guess—keep the sentiment to themselves. But their personal hesitations have sparked nothing remotely political, let alone a challenge to Putin’s willingness to wage war.

It is hard to say how much of the population’s 70 percent approval rate for the war is driven by fear, propaganda, or ignorance, but one thing is clear: Since the start of the invasion, the already-malfunctioning Russian moral compass has broken irrevocably. Designated to reproduce life, women now must participate in Putin’s show of death.

Seeing their men off to some kind of calamity has long been considered part of the bargain of Russian womanhood. The movies of my adolescence, which coincided with the last decade of the Soviet Union, featured countless examples of men marching off to fight our enemies—World War II, World War I, the civil war, the Napoleonic wars, the Mongol invasion, the Viking raids. In literature class, I memorized the monologues of wounded heroes; during choir lessons, I sang sad ballads with titles like “Goodbye, Boys,” begging soldiers sent to war “to come back alive.” This proposition wasn’t theoretical: My male classmates faced a real prospect of being drafted into the Soviet-Afghan War upon graduation. After that war, there were others; even during the post-totalitarian 1990s, war was never absent from the public’s mind. Someone, somewhere, was always waiting for “our boys”—the absolving way in which Russia routinely refers to its soldiers—to return.

While the boys were hailed as heroes, the options available for girls and women were less inspired. In a patriarchal society, like Russia and the Soviet Union before it, there are few acceptable female archetypes during times of war. Motherhood is one. In the Soviet era, it was epitomized in Mother Heroine, an honorary title awarded to women who bore and raised 10 or more children. Introduced under Joseph Stalin in 1944 to address the massive population loss during World War II, Mother Heroine codified the Soviet woman’s primary duty as the producer of manpower, a resource to be used at the state’s discretion.

After providing children for the state, the Soviet woman’s task was then to galvanize them into fighting for it. At the site of the Battle of Stalingrad, there is a colossal statue of a woman brandishing a sword, titled The Motherland Calls. At 279 feet, she is the tallest woman in the world, perpetually summoning her countrymen to battle. The Motherland Warrior, as we might call her, reminds citizens that their motherland is under threat and then assures them of the righteousness of any war fought in its defense.

Women under war were also encouraged to share its burden on the battlefield. In Soviet books and movies about World War II, women were often comrades-in-arms. Female sharpshooters killed Nazi officers, blew up German trains, and suffered Gestapo torture without shedding a tear. Though she fought alongside men, the Comrade-in-Arms still carried the emotional responsibilities of womanhood: She cared for the wounded and inspired them to commit more acts of heroism, just like their Mother Heroines did from the home front.

Between wars, women were equal partners in delivering on the state’s agenda, whether harvesting fields on collective farms or laying the bricks of the great construction projects of communism. In the iconic Moscow statue, Worker and Kolkhoz Woman, a man and woman put this partnership on display, holding up a hammer and sickle triumphantly as they labor together toward the building of the socialist state. This gender equality, however, was less the product of idealism than economic necessity: Soviet leaders had to conscript every resource available to compensate for the flaws of their planned economy.

These archetypes, defined and promoted by the state, were meant to carve out and assign value to women’s roles in Soviet society. The reality behind them, however, was far less glorious.

The equal partner’s experience, for instance, did not feel very equal. Though women were emancipated by the revolution and encouraged to labor alongside men, their contributions were not rewarded with political power. Only four women ever breached the ranks of the Politburo, the highest communist body of political power; their prospects at the local level were similarly bleak. Beyond poster cases like sending a woman to space, an average Soviet woman’s celebrated equality mostly amounted to the double burden of work and household duties.

Nor could those state-imposed archetypes override the informal but pervasive attitude that women were the “weak sex”; this sealed their inferior position in society. From childhood, girls were groomed to compete for men by looking pretty, excelling at housework, and guarding their fertility (“Don’t sit on cold surfaces—you’ll freeze your ovaries!” our mothers, schoolteachers, and concerned strangers instructed.). In the lighter Soviet movies, even imaginary women who held positions in high society pined for marriage and children. Female intelligence was viewed as a handicap. A smart woman was a woman who didn’t know her place, a criticism that dogged Mikhail Gorbachev’s obviously smart wife, Raisa Gorbacheva, throughout his political career. In marriage, patience and self-sacrifice were considered the highest virtues, as demonstrated by the wives of the Decembrists, the 19th-century aristocratic women who voluntarily followed their husbands to Siberian exile in the aftermath of the failed uprising.

In the provincial town where I grew up, little respect existed between genders. In divorce, which was common, men’s infidelities, drinking, and beatings were often sheltered under the legal euphemism of “irreconcilable differences.” In the street, catcalling women and grabbing their bodies were the norm. Three of my close friends had their first sexual encounter in the form of rape. All three assaulters were boys we knew: our boys. My friends never reported the crime, unwilling to add societal condemnation to the despair they suffered in private. There were only so many ways to be a woman in the Soviet Union, and a victim was not one of them.

Perestroika, the period of liberalization started by Gorbachev in the mid-1980s, brought real rather than proclaimed agency to Soviet women. Shaken by the unfolding collapse of the socialist economy, most women had to concentrate on pulling their families out of financial ruin and had little time to spare for politics. But not all. Though they were still exceptions in the male-dominated political scene, several female trailblazers rose up during this time. Political dissident Valeria Novodvorskaya, who lived through decades of arrests and forced psychiatric treatments for protesting the Soviet regime, created the country’s first non-communist party, Democratic Union, effectively breaking the one-party state system. Galina Starovoytova, a democratic politician and advocate of ethnic minorities’ right to independence, became one of the most recognizable faces of the Gorbachev-Yeltsin era, as did journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who rose to the top of the largely male profession with her human rights activism and fearless coverage of the Chechen wars.

The 1990s, a decade of relative freedom ushered in by perestroika and the collapse of the Soviet Union, proved insufficient to revert Russia’s bend toward patriarchy. Gender equality is an expression of freedom, and Putin liked control. It didn’t help that both Starovoytova and Politkovskaya were assassinated, or that Novodvorskaya, among the first to ring the alarm on Putin, was repeatedly labeled “dem-shiza,” or “democratic schizophrenic.”

As Putin gradually retooled the country into an autocracy, he hijacked the ever-present fear of war lingering in a nation that had seen its men mowed down by the millions and painted it not only as inevitable but honorable. In his endless military spectacles, women in period combat nurse costumes marched alongside Topol missiles, walking reincarnations of Soviet-era war film stereotypes. Their cheery presence lent an air of legitimacy to the state’s escalating violence.

Putin wrapped sexism in dated chivalry rituals, like flowers “for the beautiful sex” (as women are often referred to in Russia) sprung on female politicians. Crude sexual jokes and rape talk, previously taboo in public discourse, were now gamely dispensed by Russia’s man in charge, met with laughter and applause in return. The international community may have been aghast in 2022 when Putin quoted an obscene Soviet-era punk rock lyric about raping a sleeping woman to explain his demands for Ukraine: “Whether you like it or not, bear with it, my beauty.” But in Russia, this phrase is familiar, quoted by men and women. In a society built on violence, revolutionary or otherwise, a woman always loses.

There is no obvious end in sight to this regression. The war in Ukraine has hastened the post-perestroika narrowing of paths available to Russian women, and their value is once again defined by their compliance with the war effort.

Today, even mothers and wives demanding the return of their sons mobilized to fight in Ukraine often start by avowing their support for Putin’s war; many simply insist on replacing their men, who paid their dues, with others. The promise of the equal partner is also fading: In wartime, putting their careers first is not a viable option for most women. The longer the war goes on, the less funding will be available to health care and education, sectors that traditionally employ women, as money is redirected to industries that more tangibly support the war effort. The GDP boost from increased military spending will be offset by Western economic sanctions, so women planning business careers may have to reconsider how they spend their time.

As abortion restrictions expand, there are now few legal offramps available from the path of motherhood, and aspiring career women will instead have to make do with the task of raising and educating future soldiers—an occupation they are encouraged to start shortly after completing their secondary education.

The resurgent Russian Orthodox Church, Putin’s main ally in turning Russia into a conservative bulwark, has expanded its mother-forward offerings to help women bear with this reality. New rituals and holidays were introduced to celebrate “traditional family” and “traditional values,” code words for LGBTQ denialism, and the woman’s role as the “keeper of the hearth.” In squares and plazas across Russian towns, Vladimir Lenin’s statues have begun sharing public space with those of previously unknown saints designated as the patrons of family and marriage.

The Mother Heroine, Motherland Warrior, and Comrade-in-Arms are alive and well in Putin’s Russia. Joining the ranks of these surprisingly durable Soviet archetypes is the soldier’s wife-in-waiting. She supports the war from the rear, infuses children with pride, and doesn’t ask questions if her man is reported dead or missing. This last attribute, not asking questions, seems to be the defining feature of acceptable Russian women today.

What, then, is the Russian woman’s reward for her compliance? The short answer is: not much. Russian oligarchs, the country’s proxy for economic power, are almost exclusively men. Women make up roughly 18.3 percent of the Russian parliament. In terms of pay equality, women earn about 70 percent of what men do in similar jobs. Culturally, misogyny and sexism flourish. Russian comedy shows often portray women as too dumb to tell the steering wheel from the shifting gear.

A deadlier plague is domestic violence, a problem recycled from Soviet times and the times before them. One-fifth of all Russian women have been physically abused by their partners. Every year, some 14,000 women are killed by it—that’s nine times more than in the United States, which has twice the population. The actual number is likely much higher, since many women are afraid to report incidents of violence against them. In 2017, with the support of the Russian Orthodox Church, the Russian Duma decriminalized domestic violence that doesn’t require a hospital stay. It is as if the state itself has embraced the worn Russian saying, “If he beats you, it means he loves you.” Given the toughness of this love, it’s possible that for some women, seeing their abusers off to war becomes a path to liberation.

It’s certainly a path to economic improvement. The $2,535 monthly starting wage offered to those enlisting to serve in Ukraine is nearly 14 times higher than the median salary in Russia’s economically depressed regions, which deliver a disproportionally large number of recruits. If they die in combat, oh well. Better to go out a hero than, as one Russian priest said, the usual “choking on their vomit.” The families of fallen soldiers can also receive lucrative “coffin money” payments for their troubles, a rare glimmer of economic opportunity for working- and lower-class Russians. In July 2022, Russia-1 aired a story advertising the riches of enlisting to fight: The family of one deceased soldier sorrowfully recounted how they bought a previously unaffordable Lada car with the payout for the death of their son who dreamed about having a white car—“just like this one”—then drove it to his grave.

For many women, the price of resistance may be higher than they’re willing to pay. But if they continue to go along with all this, they’ll be doing so under increasingly dangerous conditions. Already-rampant domestic violence will only get worse as the war goes on and civilian men are maimed by battle and replaced back home with traumatized veterans and pardoned convicts. In the past year or so, returning “heroes” have raped teenage girls and burned their sisters alive. One convict-turned-Wagnerite stabbed to death an 85-year-old woman after terrorizing others with an ax and pitchfork in truly Dostoyevskian fashion.

For crimes against women, however, there are few punishments so long as they are committed by those willing to sacrifice for the Kremlin. A lieutenant colonel from Kuzbass was detained for the murder of an 18-year-old girl nearly two months after Putin made him a “Hero of Russia.” Following the arrest, he was defended by his superiors for having “brought invaluable benefit to the motherland in the fight against the Ukronazis.” Another man was pardoned from an 11-year prison term for murdering his girlfriend and putting her corpse through a meat grinder, after enlisting to serve in Ukraine.

A nation can be judged by how it treats its women and its girls, to paraphrase former U.S. President Barack Obama. Russia’s abuse of women, plastered over at different points of its history by the rhetoric of equal rights and traditionalism, underwrites the brutality of its war on Ukraine. If men can pillage and plunder their own, nothing stops them from exercising that right in a foreign land with a gun and a hero’s medal. Having abdicated their collective responsibility to call their men to answer, Russian women find themselves in an increasingly dehumanized society, where support for the war is not a guarantee against becoming its victims.

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supremechancellorrex · 1 year

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In all honesty I'm getting a little bored of people absolving the Jedi Order of even allowing slavery because the Order was drafted. Muhammad Ali was drafted and he resisted, and others have as well. There's always a choice, however dire the situation. The idea that a 'moral' organisation of Force Users powerful enough to lead the war effort, with abilities, lightsabers and mind tricks, couldn't even think to try is patently ridiculous.

The Reasons the Jedi Order isn't "good" anymore by the peak of the Republic

Slick: "It's the Jedi who keep my brothers enslaved. We serve at your whim. We do your bidding. I just wanted something more."

In the canon, as it is, Slick accuses the Jedi of keeping his brothers enslaved and nobody, not even Anakin or Obi-Wan, deny it. He didn't even accuse them of starting the slavery and system, just helping maintain it. The fact is, the Jedi could advocate for clone rights and side with actually helping people who need them in a meaningful way but they don't because they maintain the status quo, the Republic, however vile and corrupt it gets. Even when they're told, as part of Palpatine's cover story, that their men's brains have just been a little neutered by the 'inhibitor chips' to keep them less aggressive and essentially more servile.

Choose your side, a corrupt state blatantly sliding in to fascism (and believe me it wasn't subtle) as it fights separatists or actually freeing slaves being abused and killed right in front of you. The Jedi choose the former for the vast, vast majority of the War.

This is because...

Master enablers, again

Jedi Master Dooku: "The Jedi blindly serve a corrupt Senate that fails the Republic it represents."

More than once, the Jedi are accused of siding with corrupt entities over victims. This is shown explicitly in the Tales of the Jedi, but it continuously remains obvious with the clones and the Ahsoka trial. Now, I've heard people accusing panicking teenage Ahsoka of "making herself look guilty", but the Jedi weren't even fully convinced of her guilt. The reason they jettisoned her was primarily political.

This is what Mace Windu says in response to Obi-Wan's protest that things don't quite add up and Ahsoka could be innocent.

Mace Windu: "I understand your sentiment, Obi-Wan. But, if the council does as you suggest. It could be seen as an act of opposition to the Senate. I'm afraid we have little choice."

Apparently, innocence is a matter of "sentiment". Again, politics, their dated mandate and the system matter more to the Jedi Order than fighting for the right thing. When laws are unjust, it is a moral imperative to resist them, and allowing unjust courts and slavery is too big a pill to swallow even for war. Plenty of fascist states had soldiers and civilians follow inhumane orders, systems and laws throughout history, it still doesn't absolve them of just going along with it.

Not all that Compassionate

Ahsoka: "It's every citizen's duty to challenge their leaders, to keep them honest, and hold them accountable if they're not.”

From enabling slavery as opposed to resisting to just flat out callous decisions like never investigating Pong Krell's casualty numbers to leaving clones' bodies to rot while pausing a high stakes mission for the late Evan Piell to have a Jedi funeral, none of the Jedi's individual-based kindness absolves them of their role in the Republic's corruption and the systematic hierarchy of slavery that is GAR, draft or no.

Fives: "We are loyal soldiers. We follow orders, but we are not a bunch of unthinking droids! We are men! We must be trusted to make the right decision, especially when the orders we are given are wrong!"

At the end of the day, Fives was more of a hero than any of them and it shows. Resist, regardless! Sure, be smart and tactical, but resist, regardless. The fact we're even debating on the morality of system-propping organisations and characters allowing slavery for "the greater good" is making me despair.

#star wars tcw #star wars #the clone wars #clone rights #clone troopers #the clones deserve better #jedi critical #anti jedi #arc trooper fives #the jedi order aren't pure and innocent #I know I did a post like this before but whatever

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lilacthebooklover · 25 days

Note

3, 9, and 22 from this ask game

Of course! Thank you for participating! Here, have a piece of writing...

3) That encompasses my style (@acacia-may)

Hmm... My style's developed a lot over the years, and while I haven't had much time to write lately, I do think this little bit of Clamour from a couple months ago works pretty well! It's got the signature Lilac Anaphora, lots of flowery language, an abundance of commas and a little hint of enjambment as a metaphor for mental decline. (Sorry Acacia, I know you aren't in the fandom!! If you like, you can always submit another ask- 3 is just one that I struggled to think of something for :'])

His spiral down into insanity was not a quick process, nor was it without turmoil. It had been torturous, losing himself to the whispers inside of his brain, every thought overcome by that intoxicating need for more. His heart thrummed in his ears with each movement he made, fingers itching with the need to puppeteer once more, his head full of a throbbing, pulsating, incessant craving for control. Hiding it had been easy enough. His friends were long-since accustomed to his eccentricities, so when he began acting a little more oddly than usual, no-one batted an eye. He kept his lips sewn firmly shut and a toothy smile across his face, the chanting in his head growing louder and louder and louder with every lie he told. Maybe if he’d have been a little stronger, he’d have been able to overcome it. Maybe he would have told his friends. Maybe he would have been good enough to give up the power slowly killing him from the inside. Letting go was as inevitable as it was involuntary, in the end. As the floodgates burst, a rush of distorted euphoria like nothing before had sunk deep into his soul, a growing hunger beginning to fester within him. It grew and grew, and he took and took, and his friends fell with him as he watched , and he laughed and cackled because wasn’t it so ironic that anything heavenly or good be quashed in a place that couldn’t possibly hope to fathom it, and eventually, he had stopped caring about anything at all. The other Fallen Heroes mean nothing to him. His friends had died with him all those decades ago, only crude facsimiles of their former selves remaining. So here he is, the only performer left on a dusty set of cobwebs, and that hunger inside of him never stops. Something akin to loneliness aches alongside it, the lingering results of his isolation digging in deep and refusing to grant him even a moment of solace.

9) With characters I love

For this one, I think I'm going to have to go with an extract from Take A Bow- I'm hyperfixating hard on CRK at the moment lol. This was my first time writing both Pure Vanilla & Shadow Milk, and it was a lot of fun imagining how the story might progress before Theatre of Lies was released!!

Just as quickly as the darkness had arrived, a face shot out of the tree like a jack-in-the-box, sharp white teeth glinting down at them in a twisted, elated grin. A warped, reversed version of Pure Vanilla’s own symbol gleamed in the newfound turquoise light, his breath catching in his throat as he remembered all that Elder Faerie had told them. This must be the Beast who had originally possessed Pure Vanilla’s soul jam. The blonde found his hand subconsciously drifting to the crest on his own chest, gaze darting rapidly over every aspect of the uncaged monster’s face. “Ah!” A long, high exclamation pierced through the quiet, just as delighted as its voice’s owner. “Doesn’t this fresh air just feel… Divine?!” The last word ended in a growl, something manic heightening even further as the creature lazily surveyed its surroundings. Its unwavering stare passed over each of them in turn, finally settling on Pure Vanilla. Something in its glare sharpened, distorted cerulean light dancing along iridescent pools of insanity. “Oh, I see I have quite an audience here,” it remarked, its jauntiness seeming far too out of place amidst their own fearful grimaces. “I am so terribly sorry to have kept you waiting.” The voice fluctuated between shrill shrieks and inhuman snarls, every word laced with venomous glee. Its head alone was larger than all of them combined, and Pure Vanilla was loath to imagine how excessive the casualties would be if they were to instigate another fight. “But now… The wait is over. Your favourite trickster is here,” it lowered its head in a flamboyant half-bow. Its value had become Deceit, Pure Vanilla recalled. Undeniable intelligence shone among clear madness, for this was a being born of knowledge and corrupted into lies. It was– “Shadow Milk Cookie.”

22) That is so blissfully self-indulgent

Here, have a snippet of an Owl House AU I came up with on a whim one night in which I threw Caleb Wittebane into the future and leapt over plot holes like they were hurdles on an obstacle course >:]

Caleb was going to die. There was a dagger in his brother’s hand, glinting with the dark promise of blood to be spilt and aimed directly at him, merciless and unwavering in its pursuit. Caleb’s breath caught in his chest as he stumbled backwards, heartbeat pounding in his ears with a new sort of rapidity. It used to be such a thrilling feeling: the quick yet predictable pounding against his ribs, excitement making his lips quirk or anticipation leaving them agape. It was the adrenaline that used to come with a hunt, the dread and uncertainty and wonder that brewed within him as he stepped through that portal, the butterflies fluttering in his stomach that only Evelyn could incur. Now, his heart threw itself desperately against the confines of its prison, nausea rising within Caleb’s throat and poison in his mind because he was about to die, to be killed at the hands of the person he loved more than anything. The person he had loved more than anything. The person he’d given up everything for. The person he’d raised since childhood. Ever since Caleb was young, Philip had been his biggest priority. Their parents passed when they were both young, Philip so much so that he could scarcely remember them. It fell to Caleb to raise his brother, working odd jobs so they could afford accommodations as they passed from town to town. In a world where no-one could be trusted and not a soul was on their side, it had been Caleb’s responsibility to keep his little sibling safe. To keep him alive, protected. To keep him well. Looking at the pure resentment in Philip’s glare, Caleb wondered how it had all gone so wrong. He knew, really, exactly the reason behind his brother’s murderous intent; it simply seemed impossible to associate his hopeful, smiling, playful Philip with the spite-fuelled monster before him. His head swam with memories long since tainted by acidic regret. There were so, so many ways he could have prevented this situation, eradicated even the possibility of Philip wishing harm upon him. So many things he could have done. So many things he didn’t do, and here he was now, paying the price. Caleb’s days were numbered, he’d always known that. His fate was sealed as soon as he first took Evelyn’s hand.

Thanks again for the asks! <3

#this is harder than it looks lol #i've been locked out of google docs bc i'm out of storage #so while i'm itching to write something #i physically can't continue any of my current wips hfhkgf #fanfiction writer #fanfiction writing #ask game #writing ask game #cookie run kingdom #ao3 fics #shadow milk cookie #pure vanilla cookie #caleb wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #philip wittebane #the owl house #toh fanfic

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writtenonreceipts · 1 year

Text

MerMay Writing Prompts

Find other prompts I’ve done here!

These are probably terrible…lol. Mostly for my own benefit and I was kinda bored...maybe they’ll inspire you?

Feel free to alter gender/pronouns as you see fit.

Disclaimer: Please do not repost. Reblogs are welcome.

A girl is thrown overboard from a ship after stowing away, only to be rescued by a strange creature beneath the water.

Siren’s are the violent counterpart to mermaids' gentler nature, Person A thinks they are speaking to a mermaid only to realize too late they’re being enticed by a siren.

A shipwrecked sailor makes a deal with a mer creature trapped in a pool of water--only to realize too late not to make bargains with creatures they don’t know.

You steal a pearl from the beach, turns out it belongs to a mermaid who will do anything to get it back.

A siren’s rite of passage is to kill a human. Person A is about to complete their own rite only to realize they know the human they’re assigned to kill.

A fisherman captures a mermaid in his nets and can either release it, or take it back to land and be crowned a hero.

A mermaid is captured by humans, their friend (mer or human) will do anything to get them back where they belong.

You grew up on stories of mermaids and sirens and creatures beneath the water--now that you find yourself on the beach you go searching for a little hint of those stories. Only to get stranded in a cave with the rising tide. Turns out…you’re not alone.

A mermaid finds their true love in the person that can hear their real voice.

There are legends about a creature out in the depths of the sea, one that holds power over the weather of an island. Person A chooses to sacrifice themself for the safety of their home.

Person A goes swimming early in the morning and gets stranded on a buoy/floating dock in the middle of the lake. Their rescuer? A mermaid.

Turns out you have the ability to shift into a mermaid, the catch? Any bit of water that touches your skin sparks the transformation.

Walking along the beach you find a creature washed up on the shore. Grateful for help, they offer you a favor in return.

For a simple kiss a mermaid will grant you one wish.

You thought you were a strong swimmer, but after you get caught in a riptide you find yourself struggling to the surface when you hear something in the waves: come to me.

A witch curses you to never stray from the water until you find your true love.

The sea is never supposed to be silent. While sailing one day, everything goes still and then you see the eyes looking up through the water at you.

Mermaids are slight kleptomaniacs. After losing your favorite piece of jewelry/item, you go diving in the ocean to steal it back.

You press a conch shell to your ear and hear a voice calling out to you.

You collect trash from the beach hoping to help clean up--a sea creature decides to thank you. By kidnapping you.

You’re the mermaid keeper of an underwater library, when an item goes missing you vow to bring it back safely.

Mermaids are known to be good astronomers, a sailor is tasked with steering a ship at night with no idea what he’s doing. He relies on the help of the mermaid but has to give up his voice for a day for every night he gets help.

Death on the ocean is common, as it turns out mermaids are simply the souls of those who have passed. A sailor, lost at sea, soon becomes haunted by a mermaid looking to say good-bye to a former lover.

“Do not go out onto the water at night.” // “Why?” // “That’s when they come to the surface.”

“The last time I saw you, you were drowning.”

Using a mermaid as an alarm clock is quite useful actually--they’re very in tune with times of day and they are quite skilled at screaming.

“I don’t want to be a lady. I want to lure men and women to their deaths.”

After leaving the water to explore the world, a mermaid discovers the miracles of ice cream.

There’s a monster in the river that sinks passing ships that sail by unless they offer a sacrifice: a perfect pearl found only in a specific part of the sea.

Turns out the princess to the kingdom by the sea isn’t actually human. The merfolk have chosen to take back what is theirs.

“The song doesn’t affect me.”

#mermay #mermay prompts #writing prompts #prompts #writing #mermaids #fun #writers of tumblr #are yall sick of me yet?#back on my dumb little things #jily #rowaelin #elucien #nessian #feysand

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