#holy shit what is wrong with me

[origamistarsandco]

Okay! So! I am! Absolutely fine! Nothing wrong! It was fine I was fine and I only lied like a little bit. I'm not gonna tell a room of 30 strangers I record podfic cause that would be weird right??????? And so????? When someone asks me how I got into """"""Recording Audiobooks""""""" (because I am Very Approachable(tm)????) I direct her toward castingcall.com or whatever that webbed site was that I used for like a day.

Because!!! I am very! Normal! Very normal and fine and not bad.

[deadsetobsessions]

Once more the hallucinations hit, and once more I am here writing it out.

My brain is fucking terrifying and I want out, so bad. This came to me in the form of a nightmare.

Also, please don’t take the timeline into consideration, because I have no idea what’s going on. Again, nightmares and dreams tend to not have the best coherency when it comes to plot and timelines. The reincarnation doesn’t have a name, I was too busy feeling terrified. Shit in parentheses was how I experienced the nightmare. Everything else is just me adding sprinkle sprinkle.

——

Ra’s al Ghul.

Talia al Ghul.

Two names that she had been aware of, in the peripherals of her hyper fixation. Two characters meant to enhance the story of the Dark Knight. Side characters, on a good day. Perhaps, a main antagonist on a better day.

On a bad day?

Main characters. Real, living people. Real, living, breathing assassins.

Unfortunately, they’re her new family. One she remembered coming into, bathed in a pool of blood and screams.

She was not a baby.

She is now, a baby. The first of Talia al Ghul’s children. The eldest, once Damian al Ghul was born.

Swaddled in emerald green and gold silks, she was presented to a man with silver streaked hair and a receding hairline. He too, was robed in green and golds.

“A daughter, Talia?” He rumbled, the smooth Arabic flowing out of his mouth failing to hide the acrid disappointment. The child, past the haze of confusion of suddenly being deported from her own adult body into one of a helpless child, felt a stirring of irritation. It’s good she learned the language, because now she knew exactly how Ra’s felt about her. The child grumbled a displeased sound. Not that she would have ignored the fact that her grandfather was Ra’s al Ghul. (He smelled like moth eaten fabric and blood- but I think that was because my cat accidentally scratched me.)

“My apologies, father.”

“Do not tell the young detective of this. Had it been a son, perhaps things would have been different. No, a daughter would only hinder him.”

Talia bowed, hands tightening on her daughter. “May I raise her, father?”

“A resource is still a resource. Go ahead, Talia.”

“Yes, father.” Talia took the dismissal and bowed before leaving.

On her way back to the room with the reincarnation’s crib, Talia al Ghul stroked her daughter’s head.

“I wish you were born a boy, my daughter. I am sorry my beloved will never know of you.”

The reincarnation looked at her new mother. She’s young, the woman-child realized. A teenager.

“You’ll have to be useful, my daughter. Your grandfather is not so kind as to keep the useless. I… do not wish for your death,” her mother muttered.

Great. She got new life and it’s already in danger.

——

She learned to swing a knife. Swords. She learned and devoured the teachings. She learned to be useful.

But then they asked her to take the life of a man who did her no wrong.

Her baby blues clashed with her grandfather’s Lazarus green.

She was still young. A child.

“No.”

“No?”

“He did no wrong.”

“He failed, granddaughter.” Ra’s smiled down at her, patronizing. Cruel. “Perhaps you possess your father’s heart, and you are foolishly sentimental, as women and children tend to be. But in the end, you are an al Ghul and you will obey. Plunge in your blade and I will reward you.”

The reincarnation looked at the man kneeling in front of her, resignation and a hint of pity in what little she could see of his face.

She’s already died before. What did she have to be afraid of?

“No.”

They tried to beat the weakness out of her. It didn’t work.

——

The reincarnation stared at the mirror, left alone in an opulent cage of gold and emeralds and precious stones that meant little to her now.

Her hands traced her back, small fingers finding purchase in soft skin. Her mouth opened fruitlessly, noise refusing to escape. She still felt the burning magic, the brand her own blood had carved into her skin and soul because she refused to kill. The chains her grandfather had shackled around her with magic and cruel amusement.

She had killed him, in the end. Obey, or be punished. Her body had moved without her permission, the reincarnation a prisoner in a body that refused to do as she commanded. The knife swung, a life taken, her hands dipped in red.

She learned a valuable lesson that day.

There were things worse than death.

“This is an order, granddaughter.”

The Magic had flared a searing heat at her neck, forcing her to kneel on broken legs. Ra’s loomed above, authority in his voice. She was bound to obey, regardless.

“You will never speak another word of affection, you will never speak another word to anyone unless I allow it. Perhaps this will teach you of your folly, and your place in this world.”

The loss of her freedom and the fear that came with it was a bitter and devastating lesson.

——

Ra’s al Ghul was so much worse than what little she knew of him.

She was right to be afraid for herself.

Her mother had worried, when she’d withdrawn and refused to speak to her. Even if she could, the reincarnation would not have wanted to. The reincarnation had felt furious, back then, when she thought of Talia. Her mother who refused to protect her. Her mother, who claimed she loved her but refused to see the chains Ra’s wrapped around her neck. She who plied the reincarnation with a supportive hand but forced her into the fighting pits.

But, as the reincarnation stumbled out on bruised and used legs from Ra’s al Ghul’s meeting chambers where he had allowed his business partners to partake in her, she realized that Ra’s was a monster in a human’s body and her mother was a victim of his making.

The lesson Ra’s taught her that day was that if she was not useful, if she did not kill, he would take what was left of her and make use of her.

Hate flared in her heart, and the beginning of Ra’s downfall began the day he let her go from the chambers alive. Injured, but alive. Injured and violated, but alive and furious.

——

She carved her hate and rage and helplessness and fear in the bodies of the people he bid her to kill. Her silenced screams were expressed in the way she splattered blood, the way she covered herself in it. A killing machine first, a stress reliever second, and a child… wasn’t on the list of things she was allowed to be.

His enemies were felled, one after another. He gave her his approval, something she detested.

But still, she continued, bodies racking upwards, tens turning to hundreds, hundreds edging into thousands.

The red in her ledger became ichor and guilt. Her language became violence and obedience.

“You have become a sharp tool, granddaughter.”

She was a genius, after all. And now, she could not disobey. A blade that Ra’s believed will never point towards him. She kneeled. She obeyed.

“Thank you, grandfather.” Her words were only allowed to come out- without searing, terrible pain- when she was thanking him. She tried not to do it as often as he wanted. He thought he broke her when he read the obedience she carved into her body language.

But she never bowed. Never. Not to him. Never.

——

“My weapon could learn much from your granddaughter,” David Cain sat across from Ra’s, wine in their stupid goblets. How she detested the green and blacks he’s seen fit to dress her with. She’s dressed provocatively, not of her own choice. She doesn’t have much of those- doesn’t have much in ways of choices- these days.

She was twelve, and Ra’s al Ghul deserved to die.

“Her combat is a higher form of what my daughter has achieved. How did you do it?”

When Ra’s began to reply, she slipped away.

She found the girl. She found… the cage- the black box- the child was placed in. The child flinched from her when she opened the metal box, fear only easing as the reincarnation kept her body language neutral and kind. (It was pitch black, and about the size of like, a closet. No light. Only from whatever door the box had.) (Cass’ hands hurt from banging on the walls to be let out)

David Cain’s daughter, her mind whispered, the memories of another life once more making itself known.

“Cassandra.” She whispered, regretting it immediately when pain wracked her body. She fell to her knees as the punishment for disobeying an order slammed into her.

The girl looked at her in concern, but did not move closer. The reincarnation stared at this girl and saw a reflection of herself.

David Cain would be here for a month. She will free Cassandra in those days.

——

The weapon stared at the girl in front of her, kneeling in pain.

She did not understand.

-

The girl came back. Water. Food. Kind.

The weapon felt warm. The girl was quiet. No sounds. Good. The weapon knew the girl understood. The weapon thinks that the girl is a weapon too.

-

The girl comes back, again. This time, she makes a sound. It hurt her, but she did it again. The weapon understands when the girl points at herself and repeats the sound. The sound means the girl. The girl expects something from the weapon.

The weapon makes the sound, flinching to see if the owner will come to punish it. The girl purposefully sits, relaxed but vigilant… and protective. Of the weapon?

The weapon relaxed. It repeated the sound, pointing at the girl.

The girl smiles, in pain. But approval. The weapon feels- the weapon is warm, like under the blanket. Approval.

The girl teaches her to make sounds but the weapon communicates without it. It does not like the sounds, does not need them, but the girl seems to think it’s important.

The weapon likes the girl, so the weapon learns. They still understand through no sounds, through reading each other.

-

The girl comes back, silently. Secretly. The weapon does not notify the owner. The weapon feels- does not want to.

The girl- the girl with the sound- she says a different sound. Her body tells the weapon that it’s important, this sound.

And when the girl points at herself and says her own sound, then points at the weapon and says that new sound again, the weapon begins to understand.

The girl had given the weapon her own sound.

“Cass—n- ra.”

“Cass,” the girl said, and Cassandra understood.

“Cass.” Cassandra pointed to herself.

-

The owner wanted- wanted Cassandra to end a life. Cassandra watched the owner kill and gesture to the dead thing.

Cassandra did not want to.

When Cassandra is placed back into the pitch black box, she waited for the girl.

The girl came.

“Don’t want.” Cassandra clung to her, reading the welcome and the sadness in the girl’s body. Cassandra tucked her face into the girl’s shoulder. She is cold. The girl is warm.

The girl hugged her back. The girl understood. Sadness hardened into lines of determination. Cassandra felt… light. Felt hope.

-

Cassandra slipped away from the place, water in her pack for the dessert and money to run from the country. The girl stayed behind, seeing her off. The girl tells her to never come back.

Cassandra did not want to leave the girl behind, but the girl could not go.

“Be free, Cass.” The girl had whispered through the pain. “For the both of us.”

——

Her grandfather knew. He allowed David Cain to break her, not kill because she was of use to him still, as a lesson. She found that she hated his lessons. But, she hated his attention more.

And still, she could not regret. How could she, when Cass trusted her with what fragile hope she had?

So, she lets him beat her, and provokes him with smirks and fearless eyes because the longer he’s focused on her, the more time Cass has to run.

Then, he gets too angry, and insults Ra’s, whose eyes grew cold. Her grandfather gestured and while she usually hated the command that followed that gesture, she could not feel that hatred now.

She got back up, legs broken and arms twisted once more, and attacked David Cain.

Ra’s would not follow Cass. Not when she was not his business to deal with, and not when David Carin’s fury amused him so.

David Cain would not follow Cass. Not while she still drew breath. The reincarnation stood, and threw herself at one of the best assassins of the century.

She tore his throat out with nothing but her teeth. She felt, for once, not like a monster. Not even when Ra’s nodded in approval and ordered for David Cain’s broken body to be cleaned up.

——

She’s been granted a mission in New Jersey, once her months of discipline- of torture- ended. She does not get ordered to find Cassandra. She’s fourteen now, and as silent as ever. Her mother had adjusted to her silence by then- long ago, actually, taking it as a quirk her daughter had developed. She hadn’t been a terribly vocal child, after all. Talia praised her for being useful even as a woman- the self degradation something the reincarnation had no doubt Ra’s had insidiously trained into Talia- and for being loyal to Ra’s.

Sometimes, she hates Talia for being- for-

Never mind. She couldn’t afford to hate anyone else.

She killed her targets early, determination and wistfulness urging her movements into sharp . Then, she made her way to Gotham and slipped into the city of darkness- where her father was.

She watched as he hid in the shadows almost as easily as she did. She watched as he flew and glided with the younger Robin. (He was younger than her by a year. She checked.) He was free. They were free.

She wished…

As she turned away, she saw a child tumbling from the edge of a roof. It was an instinct she’d thought Ra’s had managed to bury after the months he’d spent making sure she killed only children.

She hated him.

She caught him, swooping in and tucking him against her side as she plucked him from the air and plopped him back onto the crumbling roof of Gotham’s slums.

“Oh, thank you! So much- are you a vigilante?” The boy asked, looking at her masked face. It’s a good thing she wasn’t exactly dressed like a regular League operative.

She shook her head. Her eyes fell onto his camera, faint memories rising once more. She had an inkling-

“I’m- uh- Tim!” The boy introduced himself nervously, edging away from her silence. “Thank you for saving me…?”

She nodded. She pointed to the camera, tilting her head.

“Oh- you… want to see it?” He clutched his camera closer. Oh, he did have some sense of self preservation. She wondered why a seven year old was allowed to roam these streets… but she did worse at seven.

She held her hand up and back up. The boy hesitated, and then showed her the camera. “Uh- I took pictures of Robin and Batman!”

They sat on that roof for hours, and she let Tim Drake tell her stories about her father and his son. Ward. Son.

She could tell that Tim didn’t have anyone to listen to him.

She didn’t have long until she had to go back or risk severe punishment, but… she could make time for Tim, to listen to him.

She wondered if Cass managed to escape completely. She wondered if her sister all but in name and blood learned how to smile.

——

Tim had never had a friend before!

She listened to him! And gave him hugs the one time he was brave enough to ask! And she seemed to like Batman and Robin as much as he did! No one who didn’t like them would listen to his endless rambling otherwise, right? (Tim was super skinny, like ribs poking out skinny. He looked like a sickly Victorian child and he was kind of cold)

“And then, Robin went like this,” he pantomimed the awesome punch Dick Grayson did on a Joker goon. “And the guys got knocked out just like that!”

His new friend nodded, looking interested.

“Sorry, am I talking too much?” Tim asked anxiously. He didn’t want to make his friend hate him!

She shook her head, and gestured for him to continue.

“Are you sure?”

She nodded.

His new friend was so cool! She even taught him how to throw a punch and to fight!

——

When she had to leave, she prepared Tim for it.

“Do you have to go?”

She nodded and placed a hand on his head, ruffling his hair. Her other hand held a duffle bag with an assortment of weapons she carefully kept from him. (One of the blades still had guts on it, which, ew.)

“Try not to fall off anymore roofs, little photographer.” She said, smiling at his shocked look before leaping away.

“Wait, you can talk?!” He shouted at her back. She smiled a little wider.

——

“A son, this time.” Ra’s al Ghul’s voice echoed in his disgustingly flashy throne room. It rings of approval.

The reincarnation stood behind her mother, eyes cast downwards.

“Well done, Talia. I finally have a worthy heir.”

Damian al Ghul cooed.

The reincarnation was scared. But… she could not allow her younger brother to be trapped like she was. She’s fifteen now, a decade of slavery having worn her down and nearly broken her. But with her brother… no, she could not allow it.

She met her mother’s eyes and knew then that they agreed. Protect Damian, at all costs.

She ignored the sting of envy. So what her mother could not find it in herself to protect her daughter? So long as she protected Damian, it didn’t matter.

Maybe she didn’t matter. Maybe she wasn’t worth anything. Maybe- maybe- maybe.

She also ignored the seed of disgust she had for mother’s actions in conceiving Damian. She couldn’t do anything about it. Talia was also a victim.

A louder voice in her asked if she could really excuse that, when Talia had a choice and she chose to hurt and violate Bruce Wayne like that. She wondered if she could truly ever forgive Talia. She wondered if Bruce Wayne got therapy.

——

She stared at the tome in front of her, eyes blank. (Actually, she had no eyes. Like? Empty sockets, but then later she had eyes???)

The brand- the shackles- the chains could only be broken if Ra’s died. She wasn’t opposed to that. But if he died, so did she. She couldn’t even kill herself to get out, because the chains would be there even if she died. If she was revived- a high chance, thanks to the fucking pits- then the chains would still be there.

Perhaps… she could use the pits?

Her mind turned and turned.

——

“This is your ukht.” Her mother pointed at her. Damian stared up at her, and she melted. Her brother was too damn cute.

“Ukhti?”

She nodded as her mother smiled in joy. “Yes, habibi.”

She was better at hiding the pain, now. She was better at enduring it, too, that fucking burning feeling. She spoke more, but only to Damian.

It would not do for her brother to grow up not knowing how to receive verbal expressions of affection. Not like she did, in this life.

Still, it hurt to speak. But then, she had an idea, based on Cassandra.

She could not speak, but speaking wasn’t the only way of communication. She’ll teach Damian sign language- standard, as commanded- but also her own version. Yes, she could do it. It wouldn’t be hard.

She was a genius, after all, and creating languages wasn’t as hard as people seem to think.

——

Damian copied her, small fingers patting his hand four times.

She did it back to him. “I love you.” She tells him, with sounds and with motions.

He does it back, excitedly, because he had a secret with ukhti!

——

Sometimes, she dared not to touch Damian. She wants to ruffle his hair and give him hugs but the ichor on her hands reminds her to not get to greedy. She did not deserve it.

Not when her hands were stained with the lives of so many people.

——

Another mission.

She was twenty now, and not much closer to escaping her bonds. Though, once she hit her majority, Ra’s lost interest in her in that way. A blessing, even if she had to seduce his “business partners” into giving him better deals more often now.

She stops by Bludhaven. The Robin she watched so many years ago- six, by her count- had grown new wings and moved. She wanted to see if he could fly still.

He could. He flew as free- no, freer than his days as Robin.

She dipped away to complete her mission (nuclear weapon trading, really?) and swings back to see a spider trying to break the former Robin’s wings.

“No.” Nightwing whispered, staring upwards at the cloudy sky blankly. “Please, stop.”

She didn’t need to hear any more. She saw red, and dove feet first straight onto the spider’s head, knocking her out.

She picked up a near-catatonic Nightwing, and helped him to his apartment. She left Tarantula in the rain and felt zero guilt about it.

He changed mechanically, some kind of instinct keeping him from removing his domino, but it was a bit pointless considering she escorted him to his personal apartment.

She watched as Nightwing slipped into an exhausted sleep before leaving. She had a spider to squish, and traces to hide.

——

Dick wakes up, drained and exhausted. He… someone saved him.

He sees a scrawled note, handwriting impeccable enough to be a font, written with his pen. He picked it up from his table, and his eyes tiredly read the message.

“Don’t worry about Tarantula. Or your identity.”- A friend.

He remembered- the mask- the mask of the stranger that saved him vividly. He’d remember. And he’d thank them if they ever came back.

——

She was in charge of training assassins, these days. A year and a half later after Bludhaven, she was back in Nanda Parbat, and she’s devoured every magical tome she could get her hands on. They all say the same things.

Her assassins were trained well, and Ra’s praises her with more responsibilities as he followed the pit in his obsessions. Her mother began to splinter the group, not knowing that as Ra’s began his descent into madness, people looked towards her instead of Talia for leadership. They did not know that her unwavering presence by Ra’s side wasn’t voluntary but it is their true that she became his right hand out of pure skill. And flawless obedience, of course.

Then, someone new joins.

Someone with pit rage and empty eyes that goes rigid when she approaches.

Then again, most of the operatives freeze up when she walks towards them.

Her memories roar. A child.

He bowed, and her eyes followed the streak of white hair at the forefront of his skull.

She gestured at him to follow, and ignored the pitiful eyes the rest of the assassins gave to the kid- they act like her training was hard when she went easy on them (it was)- and led the kid towards the training rooms.

She knew who he was, even if her grandfather and mother didn’t think she knew.

Her… Bruce Wayne would probably appreciate his son being returned relatively sane.

But first, she had to beat the Pit out of him. Then, she could assign body guarding duties to him, in an attempt to protect him.

——

“Grandfather, I will take Damian’s punishment.”

“A whipping girl, granddaughter?” But he nodded anyways. He made Damian watch.

She kneeled and allowed the punishment. She couldn’t always protect him from Ra’s, but this she could do anytime. It’s not like she was unfamiliar with the torture. (The whip had barbs. Rusty. And they sprinkled salt.)

——

“I liked poetry….” Jason Todd tells her after a training session. “I think.”

“Sure. I’ll call you Grave, then.” Pain. But she was used to it.

He tilted his head, eyes going blank once more. She sighed. There went his memories again. (His eyes were blank and glazed. Like looking at someone you love and knowing they’re looking through you.)

——

“I would not trust her,” she says to the air, next to a Red Hood emerging from Talia al Ghul’s chambers. She could see it, the beginnings of Gotham’s new crime lord. But still, “Talia al Ghul is known for her lies.”

She pushed away from the wall. It was up to Grave if he listened. It was out of her hands now.

——

She’s twenty-five, and she’s helping Damian pack for his first meeting with Bruce Wayne.

“You must not tell him about me.” Because he’d come rushing here, and she had worked too hard to save Damian for her fool of a father to come and ruin all of that effort.

“I promise.” Her little brother said solemnly. Ukhti said it out loud, which meant it was important and she expected him to keep that promise.

The only other time he’d heard her speak was to tell him she loved him.

The reincarnation smiled and told him through their special sign language, to treat the current Robin with respect and to try his best to get the current Robin to pass down his title.

‘Robin is earned. They have different rules, over there. Try your best to learn those rules.’

Her brother was sheltered. She loved him, but he was spoilt and sheltered. Of course she was worried. Talia barely mothered him.

“I know. You do not have to remind me so often, ukhti.”

She smiled, and patted his head.

“Be safe,” she whispered. “I will miss you.”

Damian darted in for a hug. “Of course. Goodbye, sister. See you soon.”

She hoped not. It was hard enough to convince Ra’s that Damian would learn more under Bruce Wayne.

(She was locked in a small closet- like Cass- for about a week, because she brought up the idea first.)

——

She found it.

The answer to pit rage laid in an old, all but crumbling tome from Atlantis- answers “from a ghost.”

——

Bruce Wayne died. Months after Damian came to live with him. That- irritating- she sighed and worked with her mother to turn Ra’s al Ghul’s attention away from Gotham, lest he called Damian back in Bruce Wayne’s absence.

The little photographer caught grandfather’s attention. She stood vigil as he played chess with Ra’s. His interest in Damian wavered. Anticipation blurred in her veins.

She saved his friends. Her assassins. She let them go, telling them to wait for the little photographer’s plan. (Y’all miss girl had fucking bloody handprints on her pants like someone tried to grab it.)

The first few people who had an inking she might not be loyal to Ra’s… and it was them.

When her other assassins attacked Red Robin, she cut them down before they could touch him, helping him with a furious League of Spiders or whatever operative. She hated spiders.

“What…?”

“You’re a lot of trouble, little photographer.” She sighed. His jaw dropped.

“It’s you!”

“Go,” she cut him off. “Blow this place up. I left a surprise for you outside.”

——

“Owens?! Z?!” Tim trembled, exhaustion and shock and wonder hitting him at once.

“Heya, boss!” Z chirped. Owens helped Tim up while Z helped Tam. Pry walked around them, looking out for further threats. “The nightmare trainer let us go. She knew you, I think.”

Tim smiles, all shark teeth and zero hero. (In the background, the song zero to hero from Hercules 2, played in reverse.) “Tell me more.”

——

Damian grunted, bracing himself for the magical creature’s attack.

“Robin!” His father barked out, panicked. Damian hoped he’d survive-

Shhhlk!

He looked up and there stood his ukht. She bounded forwards, using the odd fauna of the magical plane to bolster her movements as she sliced the creatures apart with her swords, magic humming brightly as she cut through them… and the magicians attacking them.

“What- what are you doing here?” He asked. She greeted him, three fingers curled over her shoulder.

‘My question is,’ she signed. ‘Why were you here without a magical weapon.’

Damian sighed as father stepped in between them.

“Who are you.”

“Batman. Cease your excessive worry. I trust her with my life,” Damian snapped. He stepped around a shocked Batman, looked him in the eyes, and unsheathed his katana. He handed it over to his ukht, who took it with amusement.

‘See?’ His eyes seemed to say. Father tensed when his sister unsheathed her own blade and handed it to him.

‘Are you here for a specific reason?’ His sister signed to him.

“Uh, you gonna introduce us, little man?”

Damian sent the Flash a derisive look and ignored him.

“We’re looking for a magician. He set a squadron of demons loose into D.C. last night. He has a tower.” Damian added.

“Robin,” Father growled. “Who is this.” Damian shot him a look and turned back to his sister.

The reincarnation tilted her head. ‘Tower… it’ll have to be that way.’

“Could you take us there?” Damian asked. Truthfully, he could find the way himself. But he wanted more time around his ukht. She nodded and Damian straightened.

“I feel like we should be concerned that Robin’s friend just murdered a bunch of people.”

His sister glanced back and ignored them.

“Silence, incompetents. Speak another word against her, and Batman’s no killing rule will be applied creatively.” He hissed. (The fucking surroundings hissed with him y’all what the fuck)

He turned when his sister ruffled his hair (Superman muttered a super shocked “what the fuck.”) and Damian allowed it. He had missed his sister.

——

[anotherqueersnailowner]

us arospecs really do just get on Tumblr dot com and choose violence huh.

anyways be aro bash bigot with a crowbar <3

[shalom-iamcominghome]

List of classes I'm taking just for judaism:

Intro to judaism

Intro to judaism (this one's different, I promise (also it's upcoming))

Hebrew and yet another ITJ

Miscellaneous jewish topics

Help 😭

[nikoisme]

wait wait wait oh my god holy shit you're telling me that jonathan from the mechanisms and tma are the same guy??? oh my fucking god.

[moe-broey]

GOD I would HATE to be stuck at a family dinner with them 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 I would NOT fucking survive, the vibes alone would do 1000 points poison damage to me 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Also JUST. JUST.

THE VIBES. ARE RANCID. SHARENA DARLING YOU DESERVE SO MUCH BETTER THAN THIS (ALFPNSE TOO BUT DEAR LORD. Sharena LITERALLY was just told to Don't Speak Unless Spoken To RANCID. RANCID FUCKING FAMILY)

[furylad]

u guys are crazy for saying someone deserves to be made disabled because they were mean I just want to express that. ty.

[whollyjoly]

for some reason i can't explain i know saint peter won't call my name

nothing that lives, lives forever - an immortal soldier!alton more au

(1.1k of snippets from my old guard(ish) au where alton more is old, too old, and has been living and fighting far longer than anyone should. full description/other thoughts at the bottom. tw: blood, violence, mentions of death)

Alton clicked the lighter closed, running a thumb over the silver case. The night was warm, sticky in a way that he never could get used to. He sucked in a breath from the cheap cigarette, letting his head fall back against the rough side of the barracks.

It was quiet. Typically, there would be no end to the commotion coming from the small building, one of many that littered Camp Toccoa. The wall of sound was ever-present, no matter if it was shouting or laughing or snoring. But whatever the cause, there was always noise. 

No matter if it was a blanket of noise he knew well, unchanging except for the language and the scenery. Soldiers are soldiers, and some things are a constant. It could almost be comforting, if it didn’t also mean that the need for soldiers was a constant as well.

However, tonight was a Saturday, and it was one of the few weekends that Sobel had allowed Easy the use of their weekend passes. Almost every man in the company had jumped at the chance to get off base, to travel home if they could and spend time with loved ones. The ones with farther-flung hometowns had spirited off to Atlanta, happy to spend their time drinking and dancing and fucking instead of slogging through another run, three miles up, three miles down.

Normally, Alton would have joined them in their carousing - it was easier to pass the time with the effortless camaraderie built during a training camp than bored and alone. 

But today had been a bad day. The sound of swords and the shift of sand beneath his feet followed him out of his nightmares, the humid summer of Georgia morphing itself into the baking, dry heat of the desert. 

His shouts must have been real, because when a hand came to shake him out of his dream, the first face he saw was not that of a grouchy NCO, but of a blood-caked Saracen, eyes alight with righteous fury. 

Alton didn’t think. He had grabbed the knife from under his pillow, an old thing that had been sharpened more times than he could begin to count, and was on the man in less than a breath, pressing the blade into the side of his neck. The familiar thrum of blood beat against his fingertips, the grit of sand scratched his gums. He knew what he had to do, had done it a thousand times, a thousand thousand times, what was a little more bloodshed spilled across his feet-

Alton had blinked, and came to himself in a rush.

Instead of an unnamed Saracen, the ashen face of Johnny Martin stared up at him, eyes wide behind the knife.

Alton drew back his hand, retreating almost as quick as he had lunged earlier. He mumbled a quick curse and apology as he stepped out of arm’s reach from the man. It wasn’t until Martin’s eyes widened even farther that Alton realized his tongue was slipping out Arabic of all things.

Usually, Alton was better about remembering himself, who he was almost as important as where he was. But for whatever reason, his demons had decided to catch up with him that night.

After a quick smile and some quip about the Krauts in his dreams, he managed to wave an only-slightly-mollified Martin off. The shorter man apparently hadn’t forgotten it though, if his watchful eyes during chow that morning were anything to go by.

Alton was just glad that no one else was awake to see it, at least. That was the last thing he needed.

And so, instead of joining in on a weekend of broads and booze, Alton found himself waving away the invitation by an eager Smokey and bemused Alley. When the horde made their way out of the barracks, fantasizing in bawdy terms about their planned misadventures, he felt like he could breathe easy.

Fucking finally.

~~

Alton took another drag from the cigarette. He watched the smoke curl, up and up until it faded into nothing amongst the darkening sky.

The lighter was a welcome weight in his hand, grounding him to this time, this life.

The design was worn by now, details barely visible after a half century of worrying. It still managed to amaze him, sometimes, what people could do with the smallest of canvases. Alton didn’t feel the same wonder however, wasn’t as mesmerized by the beauty man could create as he once was.

But in the quiet moments, he could still appreciate the time some French craftsman took to transform a hunk of metal into a small token carried around by a dead man.

Luz had spied the lighter one weekend, and laughed at him for using something so old-fashioned. Alton just shrugged, not caring to admit that he was still getting used to having a light at his fingertips. It wasn’t all that long ago when he was still lighting a pipe with a flintlock pistol, and not so long before that when he would carry around a flint and steel.

Time was passing all the more quickly these days, technologies changing and advancing, and everyone was obsessed with needing things to be quicker, cheaper, simpler. Alton scoffed. He could hardly find it in him to care.

He glanced down at the lighter in his hand, shifting it back and forth in a practiced motion and watched as the light skittered across the sides. 

It had shown flowers, once. A veritable garden of carnations, daffodils, and lilies of the valley, with leaves spilling across the front panel onto the back. They represent good fortune, he was told. Good fortune, luck, and hope. 

When the merchant described it to him, eyes ablaze with a passion known only to those with wares to sell, Alton didn’t try to hide the snort that escaped his throat. 

Fortune and Luck had abandoned him long ago, and hadn’t returned since waking up in a battlefield abandoned by all but the dead, sword in his chest and blood in his mouth. 

And what the fuck was Alton supposed to do with hope?

It was the quote on the back that had caught his eye, all those years ago in a street market in Reims. The beveled edges had faded with time, the familiar letters Alton traced were more memory by now than any physical mark. Une vie honorable est une vie éternelle.

An honorable life is an eternal life.

Alton couldn’t help but stare at the message, both then and now. He hated that goddamn word. Immortal. Unending. Eternal. 

They were such flowery words, used by people who craved what they couldn’t have, what they shouldn’t. The romanticized idea of the everlasting, the fountain of youth, the gift of life! Alton was sick of it.

This wasn’t life. He was a fucking dead man walking. And he sure as hell didn’t do anything honorable to deserve it.

months ago, while thinking about the absolute insanity of the almost...cavalier? attitude we see alton more have over the course of the series, an idea hit my brain: what if there was a reason nothing seemed to phase him - not panzers, not being a breath away from a car wreck, not bastogne, not speirs? what if this wasn't his first war? that thought spiraled me into a minor insanity that is this: my immortal soldier!alton more au, loosely inspired by the movie the old guard (2020). the idea is that, once upon a time, there was a soldier in a land many centuries ago. one day, he died in battle. and then, he woke up. and then he died. and then he woke up. over, and over. drawn to countless battles, conflicts, and wars, each one etching itself into the core of his soul. a never-ending cycle...until one sweltering summer, where he found himself at a training camp at the foot of a mountain. anyways. at some point, i plan on writing this as a full story, but that is admittedly a long ways away. however, in celebration of alton more's birthday today, i wanted to post my favorite scene that i've written for this au! it's set sometime at the beginning of the story, in the early days of camp toccoa. mostly, it's just a character study of this version of alton more. hope you enjoyed! and of course - happy birthday alton more!

(song insp.)

taglist: @sweetxvanixlla @coco-bean-1218 @bucky32557038ww2 @georgieluz @samwinchesterslostshoe @xxluckystrike @next-autopsy @ronald-speirs @land-sh @ronsparky @panzershrike-pretz @theredrenard @kyellin

[supermaks]

Kit do you not rep Charles anymore 😭

Of course I do he’s prime I just need a break from his team and that fucking dog

[akkivee]

kuukou encourages and believes in jyushi’s strength while firmly believing that he’s a weak person. if kuukou is having a bit of a rough time forgiving himself for past mistakes while telling hitoya that he needs to move on from his past weighing him down in harmonious cooperation, then i hope with every fibre of my being that this is going to be something jyushi and hitoya are actively saving kuukou from (from himself lol)

[primus-why]

I really love the headcanon that, to tfa warbuilds, challenging an authority figure can also be seen as flirting.

I especially love to imagine Optimus' crew having to temporarily team up with Megatron to take down a threat, and as the leaders continue to butt heads over tactics/protocol, all the 'Bots are like "omg so scary poor Optimus 😣" while the 'Cons are like "omg get a room already 🙄"

[cthulhu-with-a-fez]

i started naruto a few years ago and made it to like the second arc in shippuden before stopping so i never made it to the kakashi backstory but....your notes compel me. tell me more.

okay so like take this with several grains of salt because the sum total of my sources here are "my understanding of the plot and characters as synthesized from the Abridged Revised Illustrated Edition my datemate's been writing me over the last two months", a handful of clips, and the only three (3) episodes of this 600+ episode show i've seen in my life, none of the three of which were relevant to the kakashi backstory

h o w e v e r

oh my god. my dude. my man. [holds him up like longcat] there is so much wrong with you and i'm enthralled.

so like here's the thing. here's the big takeaway that i'm understanding. this whole series is an ongoing exercise in generational trauma bullshit and everyone trying so hard to course-correct from their own tragic backstories that they accidentally set up their kids/students to have completely different but still somehow exactly the same tragic backstories, and naruto's chronic case of shounen anime power-of-friendship-itis is, i mean. yes it's him being the platonic ideal of Pure Of Heart And Dumb Of Ass but it's also a direct response to seeing ninja society's perpetual tragic backstory generator and going "this is bullshit, why are we even fighting? tell me what your side is, and i'll tell you what our side is, and then we can figure out how to make our sides the same side so none of us have to fight about it at all!" and honestly i love that but this ain't about him

so like. to explain kakashi we have to explain kakashi's father sakumo first. because sakumo was one of konoha's powerhouses, been on tons of successful missions, well-liked, well-respected, one of the earliest and loudest adopters of konoha's then-new and radical pivot towards a ninja being people first and disposable tools never ideology.

he really, genuinely believed in that.

except then he and his team went on a mission. and it went really, really badly. and he had to choose between completing the mission objective or saving his teammates' lives, and he chose their lives, because those who fail their missions may be scum, but those who abandon their teammates are worse, right?

... no, actually.

just because the ideology had been circulating and people were broadly toeing the party line didn't mean they actually believed in it, and sakumo's mission failure was already causing critical backlash.after sakumo made it back to konoha he was a fucking pariah for it. he was never officially reprimanded, but he didn't need to be if people went out of their way to personally spit at his feet, and... one day young kakashi comes home to find his father's body on the floor, wrists slit and suicide note devolving into begging apologies beside him.

this, as you may imagine, fucked him up, and didn't exactly predispose him towards believing the party line about the value of life.

he gets put on a genin team that was. basically the alpha build of the sasuke-sakura-naruto team dynamic. because it was him, and rin the healer girl with a massive crush on him who he never gave the time of day, and obito the Loudest High-Vis Uchiha Who Ever Lived who had a massive crush on her, and minato their teacher who was doing his absolute best to try and get them through to understanding each other, which is an Ordeal

because kakashi at this point has internalized that the party line is pretty lies for the gullible, that his teammates are only there to drag him down, and it drives obito nuts because that's the same exact bullshit that his family keeps spouting that he's rejected as thoroughly as a 12.9-year-old can, how does kakashi not see that it's bullshit? and there's rin who's looking at kakashi like i can fix him?? and getting upset when he doesn't let them in at all or even really visibly care that they're trying, and it's one hell of a dysfunction junction but minato is working on it.

... and then the worst happens. their team is caught out alone and everything goes wrong. rin is captured and obito's body is half-crushed under a rock and one of kakashi's eyes got slashed out and none of them are going to make it out of this, at this rate, until obito calls kakashi closer and tells him to take his eye. take the sharingan. he'd give him both but the other one got squished. kakashi will do more with it than obito ever did, so use it to save rin. please. and here's kakashi in the middle of field surgery on his dying teammate finally, horribly realizing that sometimes the win condition is, actually, protecting your friends, and he's already lost. but he can still try to save rin, it was obito's dying wish.

by the time he found her it was already too late.

the people who'd captured her had tried, poorly, hastily, messily, to seal one of the Tailed Beasts into her, and she was already dying. she had a demon thrashing in her soul that was tearing her to shreds around it and all kakashi could do was mercy kill her

and she thanked him for it.

and he goes back to konoha, sole survivor of his team, charred by the newfound comprehension of why you have to care and what it feels like to lose what you love and with obito's sharingan in his head and rin's blood on his hands and something in him that was already hanging on by a thread finally snapped.

and the only thing he could think to do, the only way he could even parse that grief through, is to just... make himself into a living memorial to them. he started trying to live as obito. adopt his mannerisms, his interests, craft his entire adult persona around his memories of his friend like a grave offering, and quarantine the bleakly mercenary anything-to-get-the-job-done ice in him off into the hound mask he wore as part of konoha's black ops division, which he joined at the ripe old age of way too fucking young.

he uses the sharingan to incredibly brutally efficient effect, copying enemy jutsus and bringing them back until the library's overflowing with them. but in the end, no matter how many he can technically use, they're still just cheap copies. and so is he.

and in the meantime the uchiha are collectively losing their shit about this random outside kid having one of their eyes in his head and getting all kinds of dubious 'glory' with it, and oh, wouldn't you look at that, they have a prodigy too!

... yeah.

itachi gets shoved through the rank advancements on a timeframe of "whatever he did you have to do it faster and better." and then the kyuubi broke free. and minato and kushina died, and a fuckton of the home guard uchiha died, and suddenly he's the most able-bodied fighter in their clan overnight at age 11 and the uchiha pull strings to get him into ANBU as well.

and kakashi is his teammate.

kakashi is his teammate and kakashi sees in itachi a whole awful lot of the edges of the way kakashi used to be, sees itachi trying to live up to and embody the absolutely impossible ideal of the perfect ninja, and he tries so god damn hard to nudge him gently towards something, anything, other than that.

but in the meantime, the uchiha have been... scheming. with danzo, Guy With The World's Biggest Chip On His Shoulder About Not Being Hokage, who's been marinating in a paranoia spiral for years. danzo had tried to set himself up as kakashi's palpatine, and tried to get him to assassinate hiruzen, and kakashi hears him out, and turns right around and goes to hiruzen with it instead, and danzo is pissed. the uchiha are pissed. danzo warns hiruzen that they're almost definitely going to try again and they're gonna make the uchihas' little prodigy do it this time, and kakashi silently braces to have to fight and maybe kill his teammate he was trying so hard for, and then...

and then itachi, who'd been watching his clan get. worse. for a long time. finds his cousin shisui, his best friend shishui, bleeding out in the dirt, who tells him everything, tells him danzo tried to have shisui killed for finding it out, and it worked, he's dying, but he's not dead yet, so please. make it count.

.......................................... And Then The Uchiha Massacre.

and now itachi is one more person that kakashi tried to care about who got destroyed.

and then fast forward a little bit further, he's been retired from active-duty ANBU after a decade-plus of service because the sharingan is starting to burn him out, he's starting to lurch to a halt like unwound clockwork without something to Do, and... he gets given team seven. the worst of konoha's gremlin children.

a bitter, disillusioned loner with a chip on his shoulder and the skill to back it up, the healer girl with a crush on him that he never gives the time of day, and the Loudest High-Vis Pest In The Village.

you see where this is going.

kakashi who at this point has been coasting along by bouncing between mask-personae for years is now having to dynamically engage with life again because if he isn't present and actively responding to his team then there's a nonzero chance he'll turn around to find all three of them chewing on the drywall and he cannot default to scripted responses because they don't work on a pack of middle schoolers hellbent on squabbling til the cows come home. and it's kind of good for him?

but also, uh. [gestures broadly towards... Sasuke(TM) and the rest of the plot]

and yeah i'm not gonna get too much further into it because i'm not confident enough in my own comprehension of the timeline to do that XD but like.

hatake kakashi is a scarecrow of a man stitched together out of his dead best friend, a hunting hound, and his dead best friend again, who's spent his entire life behind one mask or another, who over the course of the series keeps surviving shit that by all odds he shouldn't have, or survives specifically because the people he cares about throw their plot armor around him before they die, and he has a personality mostly composed of the crumpled-up pages of the memetically worst-written trashy bodice-ripper novels ever published because obito used to love them and the inexplicable receipts of other people's love for him, and i want to put him in a gas station hot dog roller and perceive him.

thank you for coming to my ted talk XD

[majoringinsarcasm]

I held it together even tho everyone almost got me but Qrow knocked me over the edge. No show has ever made me cry with such genuine emotion or feel hope or happiness the way RWBY has. The way it Does. There is no other show like it in the world and I say that not as a cocky fan but as a person who struggles so much to feel things. RWBY lets me feel things without fear or shame or even an attempt to hide. It’s so special. It’s the most special thing I’ve ever had the honor of witnessing. Which means I have faith it will be given a proper concluding arc. It doesn’t matter to me how long it takes. The people of Vacuo waited for their return. It was hard but they found the good in that passing time. Not knowing the future. We can wait too. And we’ll hold each other up until we see them again.

[randomchaotichuman]

just watched the first season of the bear (the second one is not available in my country yet) and I need more fanfics for this show

give me everyone else in the restaurant realizing Syd and Carmy are basically dating without realizing

give me a look at Richie's life pre divorce and Mikey's death (I have the headcanon that Michael was his kids godfather)

give me a social media au where the general public gets to react to the absolute mess that somehow works that is that kitchen

or maybe some network offers them a shit ton of money in return for allowing them to make a documentary on the start of the restaurant, which means the in universe audience is just reacting to that

give me the crew finding out Syd and Carmy are together through security cam footage of a day where they stayed last to finish cleaning up and maybe made out a bit

I have so many ideas, but don't really want to write them because I am shit at writing romance and haven't really seen the second season. If anyone writes these let me know, please, if not, wait a couple of months and I might write them myself.

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

guess who got so brainrotted over jaiden animations that they finished their first animatic

[blueberryspyder]

I AM SO NOT FUCKING OKAY AFTER THAT EPISODE