#is the about the removal of an unjust state

[theghostiedyke]

not me seeing the same discourse the land back movement got being repeated for Palestine. 🤨 y'all aren't even trying to think critically.

[diabolicalworldwriter]

Jesus, I just got to the point in Words of Radiance where Kal is in prison and Dalinar basically says "You're not going to end racism by being radical and acting upset about it. You can't just expect us to treat you like an equal because you're not one. Play nice and maybe the racists will grow to respect you"

I.

Buddy what the fuck

In general I think I've found that I'm... Not as fond of Dalinar as I used to be. Don't get me wrong, he does some great things and he's constantly trying to improve and I appreciate that. Flawed characters make stories interesting and I think Brandon does a fantastic job of writing him. However, he is overly strict and judgemental (Still not forgiving him for hating on Adolin for trying to express himself a bit more through style in ROW; let my boy dress up a bit if he wants), he struggles to accept other ways of doing things (we could look to Adolin again, being "too friendly" with those he commands and Dalinar going "noooo they might respect you less if they think you see them as an equal individual"), and while he talks about how he wants to change how everything works, if someone tries to defy convention in a way he doesn't approve of he shuts them down. (Kaladin pointing out very fair issues with how dark eyes are punished severely and light eyes get away with everything only to be talked down at until he shut up and fell in line, for example.) He wants change and has power to bring it about but won't do anything too radical for it, I guess, and that frustrates me. He tends to support systems as long as they work for his own goals, even if they're still exploitative and deeply unjust, while also complaining that everyone else is being exploitative and unjust. I dislike that he acts like he's doing Kaladin such a favor by treating him as almost an equal. "I'm sticking my neck out by treating you like a human, act civil and don't try to speak too loudly about the injustices yet, you might make the others uncomfortable." Dalinar isn't like other light eyes, he's so quirky and different and sometimes acts a bit less classist and racist!!! Aren't we lucky!! Idk maybe I'm stating my point a bit too strongly but damn. He's giving "yeah I'm a stubborn old man but really I'm quite progressive, I don't even go out of my way to hate crime people"

Words of Radiance, while I enjoy it, is rather difficult to get through because it's just so many main characters who I generally appreciate being awful to/supporting or ignoring awful behavior towards Kaladin and if he reacts they're like ":0000 how dare he attack first" (I appreciate Zahel chewing out Adolin for antagonizing and then fighting Kal in shardplate because goddamn Adolin I love you but that sucked.)

I'm finding Elhokar a lot more unlikeable on this reread as well. He's meant to be unlikeable of course, so good job on that, but Jesus he can be the worst. Honestly standing beside my past thoughts that what Moash did wrong was not in turning on the system that oppresses him and all the dark eyes, but just that he knowingly hurt Kaladin and other people who cared about him repeatedly and severely to do so.

I'm on board with killing horrible leaders (especially if it seems the only way to remove them and stop them from causing harm: people shouldn't have to suffer and die as part of a leader's learning curve and character growth, and going "they're working on it" when people are actively suffering is garbage. I'm still sad at Elhokar's death but I'm not sad that he's no longer king) but I draw the line at abusing and killing one's friends and I am just hoping he comes to terms with what he has done wrong and improves in book five.

Anyways that was long and scattered I'm sorry lmao you should have heard my rant to my poor cousin, I was rambling for like half an hour.

[warningsine]

Bangladesh’s top court has scaled back the quotas on government jobs that led to widespread student-led protests and violent clashes that killed more than 100 people.

On Sunday afternoon the supreme court overturned a ruling that had reintroduced quotas for all civil service jobs, meaning that 30% were reserved for veterans and relatives of those who fought in the Bangladesh war of independence in 1971.

The supreme court ruling, which was brought forward in light of the protests, stipulated that only 5% of jobs would now be reserved for descendants of freedom fighters and another 2% for those from ethnic minorities or with disabilities, with the rest open to candidates based on merit.

The return of the quotas, which had been scrapped in 2018, sparked anger among students, who argued they were unjust at a time of economic decline and unfairly benefited those in the ruling Awami League party, which was founded by those who fought in the independence war.

Peaceful demonstrations initially broke out on university campuses across the country as students mobilised through social media to demand an end to the quotas. However, the unrest turned violent last week as pro-government groups were accused of attacking the protesters with weapons and riot police used rubber bullets and teargas to break up protests.

Protesters hit back at police with bricks and stones in clashes across the country and stormed the headquarters of the state broadcaster in Dhaka, setting it alight. In another city, protesters broke into a prison and released hundreds of inmates.

The clashes between pro-government forces and protesters have left thousands injured and killed about 150, though the government has refused to release official data on the death toll. Witnesses have alleged that police violence is responsible for a large number of the fatalities.

The government has also imposed a communications blackout, with the internet shut down and phone lines widely jammed. At least 70 leaders of the political opposition and several student leaders and activists have also been arrested, accused of stirring up unrest.

As the court ruling was given on Sunday, the country remained under a strict indefinite curfew, with people banned from leaving their homes and gathering in any capacity. Police were granted “shoot on sight” orders for those who violated the curfew and the capital, Dhaka, resembled a war zone, with military personnel and tanks patrolling the streets and army helicopters flying low over the city. While the roads were largely deserted, protests continued in some quarters of the capital.

Student organisers said the supreme court ruling did not mean the end of the protests, which have escalated into the greatest challenge in years to the prime minister, Sheikh Hasina, with many calling for her resignation. Hasina, who has been in office since 2009, has been accused of authoritarianism and rampant corruption and her re-election in January was widely documented as rigged.

Mahfuzul Hasan, a protest coordinator from Jahangirnagar University, said they still had several demands that the government must meet before they would call off the demonstrations.

“Now we want justice for the lives lost of our brothers. The prime minister has to apologise and those who are guilty have to be tried,” he said. Hasan said student groups were also calling for the removal of vice-chancellors of universities where protesters faced violence, and politicians who spread inflammatory remarks about the protesters.

He said he was among many student protest leaders who now feared for their safety and were concerned about being “abducted” by law enforcement agencies, as has often happened to critics of Hasina’s government.

Hasib Al-Islam, a Dhaka university student and protest coordinator, said he saw the supreme court verdict as positive but said students were waiting to see how Hasina’s government responded and were demanding that a quota reform bill be passed through parliament.

Islam said: “Our protest against the quota system is already under way, and it will continue until the government issues a executive order in line with our reform demands.”

Among those calling for justice was the family of Abu Sayeed, a final year English student who killed in the protests on Thursday, allegedly by the police. A video of Sayeed being fired at by police during a protest at a university in the city of Rangpur had gone viral on social media before the government shut down the internet. Hospital sources said Sayeed had rubber bullet wounds on his body when he was brought in dead.

Sayeed’s brother Abu Hossain said Sayeed had been the only one in the family to make it to university. “The entire family was so proud of him; we had such high hopes for him,” said Hossain. “My parents are in shock; our only hope is lost.”

Hossain said his family stood behind the protesting students and wanted justice for his murder. “My brother died for demanding fair rights for every student,” he said. “He died a martyr. I hope he’ll be remembered for it and his death was not in vain.”

[afanofmanyhats]

To my fellow gentiles:

The Israeli government has been oppressing Palestinians and passing horrendous legislation against them for too long while the rest of the world sat by.

However, Hamas is a terrorist organization whose manifesto/constitution explicitly states their goal is the extermination of Jews worldwide. Not the elimination of Israel as a state, not even the removal of Jews from the Levant (though that would still be unjust), but the death of every Jew on the planet. Their excuses are antisemitic conspiracy theories like blood libel and the one world government. They have also eliminated all political opposition in Palestine and persecuted journalists.

In other words, Hamas are nowhere near in the right. They've co-opted a legitimate movement for freedom and turned into a hate war.

This does not excuse the Israeli government's actions. And it does not excuse the antisemitism that's come out against the Israelis. The Israeli Jews do, in fact, have every right to live there, same as the Palestinians. The majority of Israeli Jews have been living in the Levant for 2,000+ years. Many of them were driven to Israel because of antisemitic violence from Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere after Israel was founded.

As for the European Jews in Israel, like the Sephardim and Ahskenazim: they also have a right to live in the Levant, as their ancestors were driven out of that region by force into diaspora. Most don't have dual-citizenships. And even if they were to leave, where would they go? Antisemitism is still rampant in Europe, and the U.S. isn't any better. Synagogue shootings and other hate crimes still happen. To say they should leave is unhelpful at best, as it ignores the problems the Jews in diaspora are facing today.

My point is not that the status quo should continue, or to make excuses for Israel's actions. But the goal should be for Israelis and Palestinians to live side-by-side in the land of their shared heritage. And for antisemitism the world over to finally freaking die. Condemn Israel's government and military, but the average Israeli Jew is not to blame for these crimes, just as the Palestinians as a whole are not to blame for Hamas' murders. Think about what you're saying the next time you share a post saying that the Israeli Jews should go back where they came from, because they're already there. Think about which organization is threatening a worldwide extermination of a people group that has been targeted for millennia.

And for the love of everything that is holy, stop targeting random Jews online that don't even live in Israel with hate speech. Plenty of them condemn Israel's government too.

[remusinfurs]

[emphasis mine]

“The decolonization narrative has dehumanized Israelis to the extent that otherwise rational people excuse, deny, or support barbarity. It holds that Israel is an “imperialist-colonialist” force, that Israelis are “settler-colonialists,” and that Palestinians have a right to eliminate their oppressors. (On October 7, we all learned what that meant.) It casts Israelis as “white” or “white-adjacent” and Palestinians as “people of color.”

This ideology, powerful in the academy but long overdue for serious challenge, is a toxic, historically nonsensical mix of Marxist theory, Soviet propaganda, and traditional anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages and the 19th century. But its current engine is the new identity analysis, which sees history through a concept of race that derives from the American experience. The argument is that it is almost impossible for the “oppressed” to be themselves racist, just as it is impossible for an “oppressor” to be the subject of racism. Jews therefore cannot suffer racism, because they are regarded as “white” and “privileged”; although they cannot be victims, they can and do exploit other, less privileged people, in the West through the sins of “exploitative capitalism” and in the Middle East through “colonialism.”

This leftist analysis, with its hierarchy of oppressed identities—and intimidating jargon, a clue to its lack of factual rigor—has in many parts of the academy and media replaced traditional universalist leftist values, including internationalist standards of decency and respect for human life and the safety of innocent civilians. When this clumsy analysis collides with the realities of the Middle East, it loses all touch with historical facts.

Indeed, it requires an astonishing leap of ahistorical delusion to disregard the record of anti-Jewish racism over the two millennia since the fall of the Judean Temple in 70 C.E. After all, the October 7 massacre ranks with the medieval mass killings of Jews in Christian and Islamic societies, the Khmelnytsky massacres of 1640s Ukraine, Russian pogroms from 1881 to 1920—and the Holocaust. Even the Holocaust is now sometimes misconstrued—as the actor Whoopi Goldberg notoriously did—as being “not about race,” an approach as ignorant as it is repulsive.

Contrary to the decolonizing narrative, Gaza is not technically occupied by Israel—not in the usual sense of soldiers on the ground. Israel evacuated the Strip in 2005, removing its settlements. In 2007, Hamas seized power, killing its Fatah rivals in a short civil war. Hamas set up a one-party state that crushes Palestinian opposition within its territory, bans same-sex relationships, represses women, and openly espouses the killing of all Jews.

Very strange company for leftists.

Of course, some protesters chanting “from the river to the sea” may have no idea what they’re calling for; they are ignorant and believe that they are simply endorsing “freedom.”

[…]

I should also say that Israeli rule of the Occupied Territories of the West Bank is different and, to my mind, unacceptable, unsustainable, and unjust. Settlers under the disgraceful Netanyahu government have harassed and persecuted Palestinians in the West Bank: 146 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were killed in 2022 and at least 153 in 2023 before the Hamas attack, and more than 90 since. Again: This is appalling and unacceptable, but not genocide. The Palestinians in the West Bank have endured a harsh, unjust, and oppressive occupation since 1967.

Although there is a strong instinct to make this a Holocaust-mirroring “genocide,” it is not: The Palestinians suffer from many things, including military occupation; settler intimidation and violence; corrupt Palestinian political leadership; callous neglect by their brethren in more than 20 Arab states; the rejection by Yasser Arafat, the late Palestinian leader, of compromise plans that would have seen the creation of an independent Palestinian state; and so on. None of this constitutes genocide, or anything like genocide. The Israeli goal in Gaza—for practical reasons, among others—is to minimize the number of Palestinian civilians killed. Hamas and like-minded organizations have made it abundantly clear over the years that maximizing the number of Palestinian casualties is in their strategic interest. (Put aside all of this and consider: The world Jewish population is still smaller than it was in 1939, because of the damage done by the Nazis. The Palestinian population has grown, and continues to grow, at a substantial and healthy rate. Demographic shrinkage is one obvious marker of genocide. In total, roughly 120,000 Arabs and Jews have been killed in the conflict over Palestine and Israel since 1860. By contrast, at least 500,000 people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the Syrian civil war since it began in 2011.)

If the ideology of decolonization, taught in our universities as a theory of history and shouted in our streets as self-evidently righteous, badly misconstrues the present reality, does it reflect the history of Israel as it claims to do? It does not. Indeed, it does not accurately describe either the foundation of Israel or the tragedy of the Palestinians.

According to the decolonizers, Israel is and always has been an illegitimate freak-state because it was fostered by the British empire and because some of its founders were European-born Jews.

In this narrative, Israel is tainted by imperial Britain’s broken promise to deliver Arab independence, and its kept promise to support a “national home for the Jewish people,” in the language of the 1917 Balfour Declaration. But the supposed promise to Arabs was in fact an ambiguous 1915 agreement with Sharif Hussein of Mecca, who wanted his Hashemite family to rule the entire region. In part, he did not receive this new empire because his family had much less regional support than he claimed. Nonetheless, ultimately Britain delivered three kingdoms—Iraq, Jordan, and Hejaz—to the family.

The imperial powers—Britain and France—made all sorts of promises to different peoples, and then put their own interests first. Those promises to the Jews and the Arabs during World War I were typical. Afterward, similar promises were made to the Kurds, the Armenians, and others, none of which came to fruition. But the central narrative that Britain betrayed the Arab promise and backed the Jewish one is incomplete. In the 1930s, Britain turned against Zionism, and from 1937 to 1939 moved toward an Arab state with no Jewish one at all. It was an armed Jewish revolt, from 1945 to 1948 against imperial Britain, that delivered the state.

Israel exists thanks to this revolt, and to international law and cooperation, something leftists once believed in. The idea of a Jewish “homeland” was proposed in three declarations by Britain (signed by Balfour), France, and the United States, then promulgated in a July 1922 resolution by the League of Nations that created the British “mandates” over Palestine and Iraq that matched French “mandates” over Syria and Lebanon. In 1947, the United Nations devised the partition of the British mandate of Palestine into two states, Arab and Jewish.

[…]

The concept of “partition” is, in the decolonization narrative, regarded as a wicked imperial trick. But it was entirely normal in the creation of 20th-century nation-states, which were typically fashioned out of fallen empires. And sadly, the creation of nation-states was frequently marked by population swaps, huge refugee migrations, ethnic violence, and full-scale wars. Think of the Greco-Turkish war of 1921–22 or the partition of India in 1947. In this sense, Israel-Palestine was typical.

At the heart of decolonization ideology is the categorization of all Israelis, historic and present, as “colonists.” This is simply wrong. Most Israelis are descended from people who migrated to the Holy Land from 1881 to 1949. They were not completely new to the region. The Jewish people ruled Judean kingdoms and prayed in the Jerusalem Temple for a thousand years, then were ever present there in smaller numbers for the next 2,000 years. In other words, Jews are indigenous in the Holy Land, and if one believes in the return of exiled people to their homeland, then the return of the Jews is exactly that. Even those who deny this history or regard it as irrelevant to modern times must acknowledge that Israel is now the home and only home of 9 million Israelis who have lived there for four, five, six generations.

Most migrants to, say, the United Kingdom or the United States are regarded as British or American within a lifetime. Politics in both countries is filled with prominent leaders—Suella Braverman and David Lammy, Kamala Harris and Nikki Haley—whose parents or grandparents migrated from India, West Africa, or South America. No one would describe them as “settlers.” Yet Israeli families resident in Israel for a century are designated as “settler-colonists” ripe for murder and mutilation. And contrary to Hamas apologists, the ethnicity of perpetrators or victims never justifies atrocities. They would be atrocious anywhere, committed by anyone with any history. It is dismaying that it is often self-declared “anti-racists” who are now advocating exactly this murder by ethnicity.

[…]

The open world of liberal democracies—or the West, as it used to be called—is today polarized by paralyzed politics, petty but vicious cultural feuds about identity and gender, and guilt about historical successes and sins, a guilt that is bizarrely atoned for by showing sympathy for, even attraction to, enemies of our democratic values. In this scenario, Western democracies are always bad actors, hypocritical and neo-imperialist, while foreign autocracies or terror sects such as Hamas are enemies of imperialism and therefore sincere forces for good. In this topsy-turvy scenario, Israel is a living metaphor and penance for the sins of the West. The result is the intense scrutiny of Israel and the way it is judged, using standards rarely attained by any nation at war, including the United States.

But the decolonizing narrative is much worse than a study in double standards; it dehumanizes an entire nation and excuses, even celebrates, the murder of innocent civilians. As these past two weeks have shown, decolonization is now the authorized version of history in many of our schools and supposedly humanitarian institutions, and among artists and intellectuals. It is presented as history, but it is actually a caricature, zombie history with its arsenal of jargon—the sign of a coercive ideology, as Foucault argued—and its authoritarian narrative of villains and victims. And it only stands up in a landscape in which much of the real history is suppressed and in which all Western democracies are bad-faith actors. Although it lacks the sophistication of Marxist dialectic, its self-righteous moral certainty imposes a moral framework on a complex, intractable situation, which some may find consoling. Whenever you read a book or an article and it uses the phrase “settler-colonialist,” you are dealing with ideological polemic, not history.

[…]

The Israel-Palestine conflict is desperately difficult to solve, and decolonization rhetoric makes even less likely the negotiated compromise that is the only way out.

Since its founding in 1987, Hamas has used the murder of civilians to spoil any chance of a two-state solution. In 1993, its suicide bombings of Israeli civilians were designed to destroy the two-state Olso Accords that recognized Israel and Palestine. This month, the Hamas terrorists unleashed their slaughter in part to undermine a peace with Saudi Arabia that would have improved Palestinian politics and standard of life, and reinvigorated Hamas’s sclerotic rival, the Palestinian Authority. In part, they served Iran to prevent the empowering of Saudi Arabia, and their atrocities were of course a spectacular trap to provoke Israeli overreaction. They are most probably getting their wish, but to do this they are cynically exploiting innocent Palestinian people as a sacrifice to political means, a second crime against civilians. In the same way, the decolonization ideology, with its denial of Israel’s right to exist and its people’s right to live safely, makes a Palestinian state less likely if not impossible.

The problem in our countries is easier to fix: Civic society and the shocked majority should now assert themselves. The radical follies of students should not alarm us overmuch; students are always thrilled by revolutionary extremes. But the indecent celebrations in London, Paris, and New York City, and the clear reluctance among leaders at major universities to condemn the killings, have exposed the cost of neglecting this issue and letting “decolonisation” colonize our academy.”

Simon Sebag Montefiore is the author of Jerusalem: The Biography and most recently The World: A Family History of Humanity.

[renthony]

From the article:

State lawmakers in Tennessee could soon pass a bill that would limit the types of flags that can be displayed in public schools, sparking outcry from LGBTQ advocates who say the measure is an attempt to ban the Pride flag and curtail free speech. The Tennessee state House advanced HB 1605 to the state Senate Thursday, an amendment to the Tennessee Code that sets out which flags can be displayed in schools. The new bill designates several types of flags that can be displayed, including the U.S. flag, the official Tennessee state flag, and any flag that is protected by the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act. Critics argue that including the Tennessee Heritage Protection Act in the amendment would allow the Confederate flag to be displayed, while banning the Pride flag. The Heritage Protection Act, which went into effect in 2013, states “no memorial regarding a historic conflict, historic entity, historic event … that is, or is located on, public property, may be removed, renamed, relocated, altered, rededicated, or otherwise disturbed or altered.” The law specifically notes memorials and flags dedicated to what some euphemistically call the “War Between the States,” but is historically known as the Civil War, cannot be removed. Although the law does not specifically name the Confederate flag, many critics have noted that it would be protected under the act. Tennessee state Rep. Gino Bulso, a Republican, said he introduced HB1605 last November after receiving complaints from parents in his district about the Pride flag and after contentious debates over whether the flag should be allowed in classrooms erupted during a local school board meeting. Last month, during a Tennessee House education subcommittee hearing, Bulso said the bill “does not allow any other flag beyond the 10 that are listed” to be displayed, adding that the ban also includes “flags that teachers are currently using to indoctrinate students in a particular set of values, including the Pride flag which is becoming more ubiquitous in schools.” Several people at the hearing groaned in response to Bulso’s claim that teachers were “indoctrinating” students by displaying the Pride flag. On the floor of the state house, Democratic State Rep. Justin Pearson called the bill “immoral and unjust” and proposed an unsuccessful amendment that would have banned Confederate flags from being displayed.

[jron]

“Well, we survived all of these assholes”

I took a tour of the US Capitol on Saturday with some friends.

I had toured it a few years ago and didn’t exactly want to go to that part of town in the unbearable heat, but we went anyway and it made an interesting perspective. Hot on the heels of the Biden-Trump debate, newspapers like the NYT were calling on Biden to leave the race (presumably they’re happy with Trump staying in it), the Supreme Court was busy helping Trump avoid Justice and undermining safety regulations, and most people I know were essentially freaking out about our choices this fall.

If you’ve been on the Capitol tour, you’ll know it’s fairly short, but still well-done. It doesn’t visit the chambers, but goes through the crypt and the Rotunda, as well as the foyers that once acted as the much smaller original chambers. The focus of the tour is on the art, especially the statues, of which every state sends two.

Our state has sent Dr. Crawford W. Long & Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens. One is known for inventing treatments for malaria (yea!), and the other for his speech declaring that slavery and white supremacy are and always will be the “cornerstone” of the Confederacy that he supported.

Our travel friends from California were represented by Father Junipero Serra, declared a saint but mostly known for torturing indigenous people until they accepted Christianity, and Ronald Reagan, one of the most destructive presidents of the modern era who looks worse and worse with each passing year.

In fact, the whole tour is something of a rogues’ gallery. The occasional hero on display tends to stand out because so many of the people depicted were powerful villains. Robert E. Lee has fortunately been removed, replaced by civil rights hero Barbara Johns, but the visit itself can be whiplash inducing, because it is a display of the fight between modernity and an unjust past.

On the way out, our friend announced to the rest of us, “Well, we survived these assholes. Maybe things aren’t so bad right now.”

Maybe he’s right.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have more work to do to clean up this mess than we did only a week ago. But it’s true, the nation has been in the hands of some fairly terrible people for quite a lot of its existence. And some terrible people are still honoring their destructiveness.

It’s also true - and the Capitol tour shows this - that a lot of extremely talented and visionary people came together to build the government we have today. And that this work is never finished. Some of those new statues bring that message home better than others, but it was inspiring to see them there.

Overall I’m glad we went. The nation has survived some awful people. Maybe we’ll make it through these.

(Edit to add: At one point in my diatribe about Stephens, it was suggested that perhaps his statue should stay as a learning experience. For example, visitors should know about the Cornerstone Speech. However, no one else in our highly educated group knew anything about that statue’s subject, only that the state of Georgia thought it should honor him above all the rest of its citizens. Our conclusion? Get rid of it.)

[crowleyholmes]

Bonus:

Don't mind me, I was just thinking about how Crowley must feel every time Aziraphale seems to put him in a box with the rest of hell. I know he tells him he's nice and kind and good and his friend just as many times or more, but still - after 6000 years of friendship and Doing The Right Thing together, it must have hurt when Aziraphale told him he's evil, and then even more when he told him you're the bad guys.

I just find it sooo interesting to look into every instance of Aziraphale talking about Crowley in either way. I want to take his thought process apart and study it under a microscope. We know that he knows that Crowley isn't evil, and we know that Crowley knows that he knows, and we (and Crowley) know that Aziraphale (up until a certain point) is just incredibly Heaven-brainwashed and it's hard for him to break out of that unless there's a situation at hand that requires Direct Action (see giving away the flaming sword to protect Adam and Eve, or protecting Job's children, or helping Elspeth to help Dalrymple, or stopping the Apocalypse).

How does he travel the world and the ages with Crowley and still somehow manage to call him evil with any level of seriousness? He is so convinced that all demons are evil, and at the same time he knows that Crowley's fall was unjust and a mistake and Crowley is NOT evil, but Crowley is a demon, but he's good and kind and nice and just, and Aziraphale sometimes struggles with that. Not consciously, I think, consciously he loves Crowley and trusts him and knows him well enough to see beyond angel/demon good/evil black and white thinking, but sometimes thoughts slip out of his mouth that are just. So far removed from what we know he knows.

He believes so strongly, in two things that could not be more mutually exclusive, and it's so fascinating. There's a lot of growth in that regard over the course of the series, we know that by the end of season 2 when he's talking to the Metatron, he is very clear in stating that his priority and his loyalty lie with Crowley, not with heaven. And I hold firm to my belief that he is going to Heaven because That's The Right Thing To Do, because he believes he can Make Things Better, for everybody, yes, but most importantly for Crowley. For the two of them!!

And YET. AND YET "you're the bad guys" somehow comes out of his mouth, when Crowley has Never really been a part of hell, and has always wanted to do the right thing for as long as Aziraphale has known him, and has been free of hell for Years now.

Still, Crowley is a Demon, and Demons Are Evil, angels and demons are hereditary enemies, right?

Except.... it's a little different when it's someone you know, isn't it?

[inklesspen]

A thing you see a lot in Star Wars material is "The Will of the Force". It's simply taken for granted a lot of the time. Oh, Jedi can argue about what the Will of the Force is in a particular situation, but nobody (except Kreia, I suppose) is ever seriously arguing that maybe the Will of the Force shouldn't automatically be obeyed. My guess is that this has something to do with how the Will of the Force is often synonymous with the Direction of the Plot. It's certainly convenient, but it raises ethical issues with which Star Wars rarely if ever bothers to engage.

“Well, the Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It is an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together.”

I was thinking about how you can have a Jedi take direction from the Force in a way that's generally reliable (after accounting for individual error), but which doesn't require setting the Force up as a moral authority, and I came up with this:

To begin, let‘s suppose that part of how the Force interacts with sapient beings is that when you make choices — when you settle on an intent — that creates a sort of “status effect” in your connection to the Force. Even if you have no idea how to wield the Force, you‘re still leaking out that intent. And part of what a Force adept can do is basically query the intent states of sapient beings in her vicinity. This is generally done at a subconscious level. A Jedi wants to be able to intervene in unjust situations? Well, then her connection to the Force is basically running a query across all the nearby Intents, looking for someone Intending to do unwarranted harm (according to the Jedi‘s moral guidelines). This is less a "configure search agent, send it to search the net, read results later" scenario like we‘d see with technology and more like a constant feedback loop between the Jedi‘s moral instincts and the collective Force auras of everyone in town. And this produces what the Jedi senses as "the Will of the Force". (We can also say it‘s slightly acausal, allowing Jedi to react to Intents that haven‘t actually been formed yet.) But the same function that queries Intents can also “broadcast”, which is how Obi-Wan mind-tricks the stormtroopers, and part of how Battle Meditation probably works, and so on.

He called upon the Force, gathering it to himself and wrapping himself within it. He breathed it in and held it whirling inside his heart, clenching down upon it until he could feel the spin of the galaxy around him. Until he became the axis of the Universe. This was the real power of the dark side, the power he had suspected even as a boy, had sought through his long life until Darth Sidious had shown him that it had been his all along. The dark side didn’t bring him to the center of the universe. It made him the center. He drew power into his innermost being until the Force itself existed only to serve his will.

The Sith warrior, of course, has other priorities. He will certainly want to keep abreast of certain Intents in the Force, but he‘s doing a lot more spamming of his own Intent upon others. It won‘t always work, but he only has to overpower someone once, right?

Which brings me to a thing that I‘m pretty sure is just fanon — the idea that beskar‘gam can protect a mando‘ad‘s mind from jetii tricks (or, that someone wearing real Mandalorian armor is effectively a void in the Force). If this is true, then someone wearing beskar‘gam isn‘t radiating their Intent into the Force like everyone else does, though a Jedi can still sense them, if imperfectly, by the way their actions influence other people‘s Intents. Still, if you have to go up against a Force adept it‘s worth it to wear beskar if you can, because it effectively removes their precognitive sense; they can‘t react to your Intents until you‘ve acted on them in a way others can see.

So what about droids? There‘s a lot of stuff in the Clone Wars show about the battle droids being fully sapient, with feelings and fears and individualized reactions. But they‘re still networked, still driven remotely.

And that‘s because, yes, a droid can have an Intent in the Force too. Not every droid; not the little mouse droids, or at least they only have small, simple Intents. But a droid with a complex personality, like Artoo? Sure thing. He presents in the Force like any other living being. And the battle droids are getting up there in complexity.

So what do you think happens when a droid has an Intent aura, but doesn‘t do what that Intent would suggest? When a droid wants to do anything other than run headlong at the lightsaber-wielding maniac and the legion of clone troopers, but is forced to do so anyway by its programming?

I think the result is a lot of Jedi being badly served by their instincts. They know what the droid wants to do, and they want to react to what the droid wants to do, but the droid doesn‘t actually do that thing, so they have to force themselves not to react that way. They have to force themselves not to pay attention to “the Will of the Force”. And doesn‘t that sound just like something Palpatine and Dooku would want for them? The better they get at killing droid armies, the worse they get at being Jedi.

[stayarmytinyzenmoa-l]

NCT Spooky Season [Day 18]

Faux Fur

TW: Monsters Genre: Romance, Comedy Pairing: Lee Mark x Reader YN Pronouns: Not specified Word Count: 0.6K Prompt: “That's not real! ... right?”

[NCT Masterlist] | [NCT Spooky Season Masterlist] | [Yesterday] | [Tomorrow] [Ao3 Link] | [Wattpad Link]

Notes: WE'RE ALMOST DONEEEEEE Disclaimer: Please remember that this is an AU and a work of fiction, obviously the idols mentioned/written about in this story would never partake in these actions. The idols mentioned in this work are meant to be seen more as face claims rather than the actual idols themselves.

Feedback is greatly appreciated!! Thank you for reading!

"So, why did we think this was a good idea again?" You asked Mark while moving about the supposed haunted house.

"We didn't, but Johnny did, and now I have no idea where he is."

You, Mark, and Johnny are somewhat of "paranormal investigators." Johnny's channel was semi-popular and occasionally he'd ask the both of you to join him. Today was on such instance. He'd heard of some "haunting" things happening in this house the next town over and he jumped at the opportunity to get some quality content.

And, he noticed, the most views he gets are on the videos with you and Mark in them. So, two birds, one stone.

"Ew!" Your hand retracted as soon as you'd touched the cobweb. "This place is... decrepit."

"Don't need to say that twice," Mark adjusts the go pro on his chest and you both continue throughout the house. "So what's the story of this place anyway?"

"I did a quick google search before coming here, but basically it's that run-of-the-mill thing where someone died an unjust and terrible death and now they haunt the place."

"Oh so, ghosts."

"According to the reviews, a werewolf too, maybe," you shrugged. "But I don't buy it."

"No?"

"Well, you know me, I'm a skeptic," you shrugged.

"And I'm a believer," Mark stays close to you as you shone the flashlight throughout the house.

"Whoa, Mark, look at this," you shine the light on what looks like a hunter's trophy at the end of the hall. It was a large wolf on it's hind legs, it's maw has been frozen in a predatory state and it's eyes crazed. "Looks like this is the so-called 'werewolf' everyone was talking about," you turned away from it to look at Mark.

"That's not real, right?" Mark asks.

"I mean, I've never heard of wolves standing on two legs so I doubt it," you shrugged. Then, you felt a hand clap down on your shoulder. "What?" Mark raises his hands and you felt the hairs at the back of your neck stand. You look at the hand on your shoulder or, more accurately, the paw. And slowly you looked up, seeing the monster snarling above you. "Fuck."

"Run!" Mark grabs your wrist and yanks you away from the werewolf, it's claws grazing and cutting the skin on your arm, right before it could take a bite out of you and you both started running out of the house.

"Oh, crap, Johnny!"

"He'll be fine!"

"Mark!" You grab his walkie. "Johnny! You gotta bolt, dude!"

There's no response.

"Johnny?!"

Again, nothing.

"It got Johnny!" You shout and hand the walkie back to Mark just in time for you both to stumble out. The werewolf stops right before the door, snarling all the way and watching you and Mark with a predator's gaze. It slams the door shut and you and Mark catch your breaths.

You came back the next day, hoping you'd find something of Johnny's if not him himself. And you were ready for the worst when, suddenly, you and Mark found him slumped behind the front door with dried blood crusted under his fingernails.

General Tag List: @stopeatread @bat-shark-repellant @raeincitizen @umbralhelwolf @yangsrose @kazooms @sadcoffeecritic 

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If you want to be added to either tag list or removed just send me a reply to this post, and ask, or a DM and I’ll add you as soon as possible!

[blueseachelle]

Hi I was wondering if you could write a scanlan x fem reader smut where the reader is either a human or a half orc, I don’t have anything specific in mind. Vox machina smut is rare and I can’t find anything for scanlan 😭

Hello! Of course I can do this one! I have a half orc imagine in the works so, I’m gonna do a female human reader for you! Tbh, the reason I started writing stuff again was for the same reason as you stated. Time to fuel the Fandom! One post at a time! Of course as always, if this is not up to your standard, let me know! I can always retype! Happy Reading!

Critical Role Vox Machina

Sweet Melodies

Scanlan X Fem! Reader

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

Scanlan, a player and a Bard. Looking for love yet scared to be held down.

He doesn’t know why he has this problem. He has always had this fear of just giving all his love and affection into someone and them to just discard it like nothing and leave. He thinks it will always be this way. Well, maybe he hasn’t met the right person to change his thought process.

Y/n is a monk. She dedicated herself to be holy and never medal with the affairs of the darkness. No matter what it was. She had her stray moments that she is not proud of but, she forgave herself and her ancestors have as well. She is not associated with a God of any sort. Not yet anyway. She hasn’t found the right one she wants to dedicate her life to.

She wears a sapphire and gold amulet to represent her family. She is a fighter. She’s not all that much peaceful. She has righteous judgment and will crush her enemies. She uses a specially crafted short sword that was pasted down in her family for generations. She also has an enchanted gold arm brace that turns into a gold staff on command to get her out of tight situations. She travels around the world trying to find her place. She helps people when needed and she brings judgement upon the unjust.

How her and Scanlan met was interesting.

Scanlan and the crew were doing a small bounty to get some coin in there pocket for there new (New to them) Keep. Well, the thieves camp they came to clear had the thieves that they were looking for… plus, a lot of company. Scanlan thought it was a criminal convention with how many there were. He soon got surrounded as did the rest of the group individually. He was about to strum to use Mage Hand to get out of there but, one of his strings broke,

“Oh Damn it. Why now of all times!?!”

Right before one of the attackers struck, a SHING was heard. Scanlan watched as a girl launched herself out of the tree that was behind him, land in front of him, and deflect the attack coming towards him. She wore blue robes that crossed her body from hip to shoulder. She had wraps around her chest and knuckles. From this angle, that’s all Scanlan could see. She kicked the attacker away with such a force that he was knocked back into the crowd behind him and he knocked over a few of the guys he flew into. Scanlan’s eyes were wide,

“Oh Damn.”

The mysterious girl sheathed her sword and quickly turned to the gnome bard. She held out her hand,

“Let’s help your friends now. I’ll be by your side.”

The bard blushed slightly. She was gorgeous. She had beautiful raven hair tied in a ponytail with a stripe of silver hair pulled forward to blow in the wind. Her stunning blue eyes made contact with his amber ones. He hesitantly took her hand,

“Y-Yeah. Let’s do that.”

The girl took the gold band off of her arm and tossed into the air, instantly turning it into a staff. Soon enough, they were launched into the air.. The staff was back to the band on her arm. Scanlan kept his eyes screwed shut until his feet gently made contact with the ground. He opened his eyes to see the rest of his group. Pike was the first to say something,

“Scanlan! Where did you go? You just upped and disappeared!”

Scanlan finally removed his hand from yours as he ran towards his group,

“Well, I got surrounded and my string broke but, this girl saved me.”

The said girl was already taken off into battle. She had her short sword drawn and was helping. She weaved amongst the group like she had been fighting with them her whole life. She knew where she was needed and when.

After that all the thieves were defeated, the group finally caught there breath. Scanlan looked up and saw his savior making her way out of the village. He quickly tossed his lute aside and ran to catch up with her.

“Wait! Hey!”

He called out as he ran towards her. She stopped in her tracks and looked at him over her shoulder. When he finally caught up, he put his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath,

“B-before you g-go. I just wanted to ask you a question.”

He finally got his breathing under control and stood up,

“I want to know the name of my savior please.”

This made the girl tilt her head and put her hand into her short pocket. Her eyes held such purity and kindness.

“My name is Y/n. I am one with the wind and the bringer of justice. If you need me, Call to it.”

With that, she tossed an opal carving to the gnome bard. Little did he know that the carving was of her family crest, if he was going to ask around about her, that would give him the answers he seeks. He stumbled to catch the the carving but caught it. The carving was a ring with a beautiful flower in the middle. As he struggled slightly, a breeze swept over the land. He looked up to see that she was gone. Gone with the breeze.

He stood there for a second with the words ringing in his head. He slowly turned back to the group and made his way back to them.

*TIME SKIP A COUPLE MONTHS*

Scanlan could not get the girl out of his head. Every time he went to make moves on anyone, his heart would hurt. He thought about her every second of every day. Every time he would think of anyone else, his heart would ache. He didn’t know what was happening to him. He kept her carving in his pocket at all times.

The day after that encounter with her, he asked around with the carving until he found a monk that knew what the carving was. He told Scanlan that the carving was the crest of the Sato family. The last of them pasted away long ago. There has been many rumors of a helping girl that carry’s the crest. The monk told him that the only girl born in the Sato family was a girl named Y/n, which the monk thought that‘s who the girl was. Scanlan confirmed it. The monk told him as much as he could remember of the family. Scanlan absorbed all of it. He at least knew a lot more about this girl but, the more he knew, the more he would think about her and the more his heart would ache.

He sat up in the night and just think about Y/n. His room was eerily silent. His ears picked up on the whistling of the wind. Wait… wind. Hold on.

He quickly sat up and put on his robe. He will get to the bottom of this right now. He will stop these all nighters and the heat aches.

Scanlan made his way to the Keep’s garden and stood in the middle of it. He held the carving and looked at it before speaking to the wind,

“Hey. I don’t think this is what you meant but… Oh screw it. Y/n, I need you.”

The carving softly glowed blue before the glow disappeared. He looked up to see the cause of his inner turmoil. Y/n stood on the wall of the Keep. She dropped down and walked to the nearby pond and took a seat, crossed legged.

Scanlan stared in shock. His heart pounded in his ears. His breath caught in his throat. He slowly walked to the sitting figure. Y/n eyes watched him carefully. He sat next to her, facing her. He locked eyes with her. The pure, kind eyes looked into his troubled ones.

Y/n knew what was wrong. She reads auras. She can feel the turmoil and confusion in his. She closed her eyes to ask her ancestors what to do. She slowly opened her eyes after being told. To cleanse his spirit would be more than a ritual, it would be a self sacrifice.

She locked eyes with him again and reached her hand out and caressed his cheek,

“I know what your troubles are. I sought out guidance on how to help you. You seek love but, is scared to take the leap of faith.”

She leaned closer to inspecting his face before continuing,

“As someone of faith, I know the consequences of wrong leaps but, sometimes, we have to just do it and hope it goes the best. My ancestors tell me to leap but, only if you are.”

The gnome’s brain short circuited. She knew everything. She understands him.

‘Am I ready to leap? Love one person for the rest of my life? It’s what I want…. Yes. I want to leap.’

After a couple seconds of thinking, Scanlan leaned forward to meet his lips with her’s. Finally, Scanlan found relief in his spirit. He knew that she was his ground. He refuses to be though out it for any longer. The kiss got progressively more needy. Scanlan snaked his tongue it her mouth. She let out a small moan. Her hands reached out and wrapped around him and found there way into his hair.

Y/n couldn’t believe that her ancestors were approving this. They know he is the one so, this is going to help him be put unto the right track. The one he has longed for. She was his savior, his salvation, her ground. He will let her know that she is all those and more.

Scanlan pulled her into his lap. He groped at her body. He knew this is the one. He will change for her. She is what he desired. He knew that she would be loyal and never just disappear. She will always be there for him.

The breeze woke them from there lust induced haze. He shivered.

“Maybe we should take this to my room.”

He lead her by her hand into the Keep and to his room. When he got to his room, he opened the door. After leading her to his plum silk sheets, he shut the door. He soon joined her on the bed. Of course, taking control.

The kissing resumed and soon, clothes were tossed across the room. Y/n lied under he kissed down her body, worshiping every inch of her. She absorbed every single kiss, suck, and nibble. He left hickeys across her body. Not one place didn’t have a bruise forming.

Y/n was a moaning mess as he made his way down.

“My Love, before we continue, how long has it been for you?”

Y/n swallowed thickly,

“It’s been about 8 years, My Beloved.”

Scanlan smirked,

“I promise I will be as gentle as I can but, with as beautiful as you are and ALL mine, I don’t know how gentle I can be for long.”

Y/n nodded,

“Scanlan, I am prepared. I’m stronger than I look and flexible.”

He kissed her thigh as he sat between her legs as he stared up at her,

“I know but, overstimulation is the slayer of the strongest people.”

With that he kissed her open clint, her heat was covered with her slick, she was more than ready for the real deal but, he wants to play with his beloved. He was to drive her insane. He wanted her to cum as may times as she could. She has been deprived for so long. He will make her reliant on his touch and his cock for pleasure. She is now his. He is now her’s. He wants the first time to be the best time of both over there lives.

As his lips kissed her heat, she let out a moan. Her hands reached down to grip his hair. He kept on. He started to prod your entrance with his tongue.

Soon enough, he added one of his hands that were holding onto your quivering thighs. He inserted a figure in to the tight wetness. He could feel you clinch on his finger.

Y/n arched her back and moaned. He started to move the finger back and forth with his hungry mouth. He was hungry for you. He wanted you to cum in his mouth. You taste like heaven to him already. He wants more, so much more.

Y/n’s thighs quivered more and more. Her hands gripped his hair as more stimulation was added. When he added a second finger, she felt a long sought feeling build in her abdomen.

Scanlan started to scissor the two digits, slowly stretching the tight hole. He sucked harder as he felt her start to arch and quiver more. He removed his other hand from your thigh and moved it to play with your swollen bud. That’s when you lost it. Hands gripped harder, thighs squeezed together, and a cry left her lips,

“My Beloved! Scanlan!”

He quickly removed his fingers and lightly sucked on your womanhood until all the juices were cleaned up by his mouth. While catching her breath, Y/n looked down to see Scanlan sucking on his fingers, cleaning them off. She saw her wetness drip down his hand as he lapped it up like a thirsty animal.

He smirked up at her,

"If you think that was all, Babe, you are greatly mistaken."

With that, he crawled forward, taking off his boxers in the process. She blushed at the slight glimpse she saw of his manhood before Scanlan blocked her sight with a kiss.

He kissed her with such passion and love that her hands reached up and found his way into his hair. The kiss seemed to last forever until Y/n felt his tip prod at her entrance.

The kiss ended. Scanlan breathed heavily has he looked down at her with such lust and love,

"Let's make some Sweet Melodies together."

She nodded vigorously.

When he entered her, all his work paid off. He was able to slide right in. No discomfort crossed her face, only pleasure filled moans and sighs.

Scanlan thrusted his hips at a set rhythm. He groaned along with her symphony of moans. The slapping sound of skin on skin was heard along with it.

His hands traveled around her body as hers did the same. He caressed her body while whispering sweet nothings to her has they made love.

Soon enough, Y/n felt that knot in her stomach form for the second time tonight. Her back arched once again. Scanlan immediately wrapped his arms around her. He could feel her start to tighten around his cock. He started to move his hips faster.

He actually felt like he was gonna come with her. This would be the fasted time he came in his life but, he was happy it was with his Love. Maybe that was a sign that she was the one.

Soon enough, Y/n reached down and grabbed his shoulders. She gripped onto him as she chanted 'I'm cumming' over and over again. Scanlan responded after a couple seconds with 'Me too, My Love. Me too.'

They then came together. He never usually empties himself in this partners but, this time, he did without hesitation. Y/n felt his cum fill her up. She knew why he did. He felt safe and secure with her. He knew that whatever happens, will happen and he will be there every step of the way and so will she.

After they both came down from their highs, Scanlan grabbed a nearby washcloth that he had in his drawer. He pulled out and cleaned himself off before cleaning Y/n off. He tossed the rag into the darkness and crawled up to cuddle his beautiful girlfriend.

She turned towards him and he turned to her. They interlocked on hand as they gazed into each other's eyes. He squeezed his hand a little tighter,

"I love you so much. Thank you for wanting to be mine."

She gave him a smile and squeezed back,

"I love you so much too. Thank you for overcoming your fears and deciding to stay with me."

"We can thank your ancestors for that."

They then shared a sweet kiss before cuddling under the sheets, sleeping until late in the morning.

Scanlan's dreams were not troubling to him now that the one with him is now his. His past dreams that he used to have with faceless women now all had his Love's faces. He knew this was it and he would fight to never have it taken away.

Thank you for reading! Let me know if you enjoyed this! I do take requests, as most of you know! See you in the next one!

[dmagedgoods]

Please tell us more about Salvadore? 💘

Who is/are their best friend(s) among companions and why?

What is their alignment, and why? How do they feel about it? Do they change alignment at one point?

Where do they come from in Golarion? Do they miss their homeland? How do they feel about their homeland, its politics and current state?

Did they separate from any companions? Why? (Consider killing a companion too for this question)

What would their domains be after a potential ascension?

thanks for how you have been putting spoilers below the cuts. I tried to avoid what might bring them in my question choices, but you never know <3

Ohhh, those are great, thank you so, so much. 🥺💕💕 12 What is their alignment, and why? How do they feel about it? Do they change alignment at one point? Salvadore is lawful good, by decision, and has the discipline to (almost) always follow his principles. Nonetheless, despite a love for order in general, he puts his own set of rules above the individual laws of groups and countries should they be flawed and unjust in his eyes. Salvadore has a strong inner urge to change the world for the better. He always strived for a leading position to make his specific visions of it reality. To justify his own position, he is very strict with himself. Those who choose to lead need to live up to the highest standards, in his opinion. Still, Salvadore has a cruel streak toward his opponents and his approach is utilitarian. While striving to protect as many lives as possible, the end justifies the means to him. If truly challenged, Salvadore can become lawful neutral. ((There also are AUs where he loses his way and slips for dark reasons and becomes lawful evil.)) 24 Where do they come from in Golarion? Do they miss their homeland? How do they feel about their homeland, its politics and current state? Salvadore comes from Absalom. While he developed a strong love for Drezen after a rough start with the city, Absalom will always feel like a second home to him. He especially misses the ocean, the harbor, and his estate. While he agrees with the political fundamentals in Absalom, he always fought to gain influence in the Grand Council - before he had to flee to Mendev and became the Knight Commander - to improve the system and the lives of its people. His own family blocked his attempts wherever they could. Now he is more removed from it all but still has an eye on the developments in Absalom. 29 What would their domains be after a potential ascension? Domains: Light, Leadership, Politics, Discipline Subdomains: Pride, Ambition, Willpower, Diplomacy, Strategy 3 Who is/are their best friend(s) among companions and why? When Salvadore actually uses this word – friend –, he means it deeply and those people are highly important to him, and can be sure he’ll be there for them always. His closest friends aside from Daeran, and together with him his strongest source of support and comfort, are Regill and Woljif. This sounds absurd, I know, but for Salvadore both makes a lot of sense. [The why includes strong spoilers, do not read it yet. The answer to "Did they separate from any companions? Why?" is under the cut for spoilers too]

Regill: After a complicated start, Regill quickly becomes one of his most trusted companions due to their shared views about working morale, efficiency, and discipline. His sacrifice at the hellknight outpost deepens what Salvadore already has seen in him before and would he be asked to describe him he’d also add that he is one of the most selfless people he knows. Highly cherishing his own position and rank, Salvadore understands on a deep level what it must have meant for Regill to give it up for him and to support their shared goal. Regill, on the other hand, won’t call Salvadore a friend out loud. Due to their nature, Regill’s and Salvadore’s as well, their relationship seems very professional to those witnessing it. It’s mostly Salvadore who openly breaks this picture here and there with some words and gestures of appreciation and affection beyond the things they’re working on together and sometimes with well-meant teasing. Of course, Regill usually brushes it off and reminds him to stay focused. That the feeling of friendship is mutual – or as far as Regill allows it – becomes mostly visible in his trust and loyalty after Salvadore proved himself to him many times. Aside from Daeran, Regill often is the first one Salvadore asks for advice in difficult situations. It’s rare for him to view someone as knowledgeable, reasonable, and experienced enough to admit that he can learn from them in certain regards, but Regill is someone he respects and admires on that level. Salvadore appoints him Lieutenant Gouverneur of Drezen. He is in charge of his troops and of ruling when he and Daeran are absent. [I wondered a lot if I should and finally decided to change Regill’s ending slide in Salvadore’s story and think I can justify it with their relationship and the strong extent to which he’s needed. He doesn’t leave and he doesn’t die. And if he even thinks about bleaching further, Salvadore will tell Daeran to mess something up so badly, it will bring back his color immediately.] Woljif: Woljif is a very different case and Salvadore’s opinion of him quite low in the beginning. He continues stealing even in highly inappropriate situations, he ignores some of his orders, and – worst of all – he runs. Still, a part of Salvadore immediately likes his humor, his way of talking, that he is surprisingly capable in what he’s doing. Salvadore is sure that Woljif could become more than the tiefling believes himself. Salvadore doesn’t trust him for quite some time and he feels bad when he has to pretend friendship in the Abyss to guide Woljif away from his demonic side – only to realize not much later that no …, it hasn’t been a lie. Suddenly, he can’t help it, he’s looking at him with affection and softness. Yes, Woljif is even stronger than he thought. Woljif proves him right and Sal is overwhelmed with pride of him when he starts giving up the shady business and uses his newly achieved fortune to support tiefling rights and the both of them (well, three of them, Daeran as well) often do charity projects together. Furthermore, Woljif becomes one of the few who manage to coax out Salvadore’s more playful side. Salvadore’s and Woljif’s friendship only grows tighter after the game and – as the ending slide says as well – Woljif, Sal, and Daeran are often seen having fun together. 26 Did they separate from any companions? Why? (Consider killing a companion too for this question) Sadly, he had to execute Camellia after he discovered her secret. He would have preferred to arrest her but she didn't give him a choice when she attacked. Wenduag betrayed him and he executed her as a consequence. He had taken her with him instead of Lann because he saw potential in her and had been sure to be able to show her a better way.

[barbiegirldream]

where's my Song of Achilles anon at ! I read the book. liked some stuff didn't like other stuff. it was fanficition of a two thousand year old poem from a three thousand or more year old story. stuff gets silly. Odysseus was still my favorite he's always my guy. Anyway rest of my thoughts under the cut

I think I liked the perspective of Patroclus a really normal guy next to the warrior of the ages. One pov of a boy unsure of his place in the world surrounded by men older and claiming to be wiser and his godly boytoy.

this personally made me cackle. Patroclus is that oh my god get him some brown contacts please meme.

The myths were actually pretty good. I like how vague they were about Patroclus's mother there are like six different women in history claimed to be her it's really Patroclus's paternal ancestors that matter.

I think it's genuinely a major issue with the plot that Patroclus knew of the prophecy and still acted in accordance to Homeric Legend. I just think he should have found out right before but too late when they're in Troy already perhaps in an angry scorn from Thetis about he'll lose too.

Like you I also thought it was stupid as fuck how Patroclus was a totally useless twink. Didn't even know about legendary Myrmidons the fighting force named after his great grandfather mind you. The mythic ant stuff is literally his own family history.

Achilles being so nervous about the war only to fall into it so easily. Like a god finding their domain he was born for it. I really enjoyed the nitty gritty of war planning too. Him getting Achilles dressed the lips being the only part of him still soft. That was awesome why is that no quoted more. Achilles climbing onto Patroclus covered in blood like god that scene is going to be in my head on a loop. There is so much to it. Patroclus knowing him by scent and touch alone but what creature has come to wake him? Achilles so proud of what he's done seeing the revulsion in his lover who was so sure nothing Achilles could do would revolt him.

There could have for sure been so much more to a much more sensitive Patroclus being unable to love Achilles anymore and that's why Achilles stops fighting until Patroclus realizes he can't hold back his demigod lover from greatness. Taking the book in a radical direction but alas.

Brisies was very well done I appreciated her character a lot. I think it was a very good choice to expand on her mythos and remove a lot of the violence. People often read myths and go oh so he raped her when that's either not stated in the text/not needed to include other than their fetishes driving them.

ALSO so fucking annoying Patroclus doesn't die because he's no good at fighting he dies because Hector is Better. Hector is the sole reason the Acheans struggled. He was the Trojan Achilles idk how that point got turned into well Patroclus could barely hold a spear tee hee. Spending the whole book being like Patroclus can't fight ooh one of Achilles's generals is useless. To then be like jk as in accordance with the Iliad he's really good and killed a bunch of people is actually bad writing sorry. I did giggle at Apollo just fucking with him knocking him off the wall all pretty like just twirling his perfect hair.

Turning Troilus the son of Apollo who Achilles chased down tried to rape and then beheaded in the temple of Apollo leaving his mutilated body for his father to die and therefore the reason Apollo kills him into a random death cause the boy was an idiot. Like Troilus literally the Greek representation of losing a young son to unjust murder. Well okay then...

Thetis raising Achilles's son here is so perfect because that boy is rancid. He saw Agememnon and said I could do worse watch I'll go kill Hector's baby just for fun. And they really delivered on what a piece of fucking shit he was.

Thetis giving in, in the end was really good. Liked it

Overall I think the book was really good. I approached it from the knowledge this is taking thousands of years of myths and giving it to the perspective of a side character and I think it delivered.

[idrisofficial]

what if grace had mint gum

i think this is the question of all questions tbh. what IF grace had mint gum.

honestly i think gum chewing would probably benefit her considerably. girl needs wayyy better coping mechanisms and i think just having the sweet, refreshing flavor of mint to focus on instead of the horrible amount of trauma she’s endured would help her find inner peace. would it solve all her problems? no. would it subside her grief over her fiancé’s execution or her anger at the political state of idris? no. but would it help her to focus more on what needs to get done and prolong her ability to carry on as a noble without breaking down completely? probably. though honestly if gum existed in idris i think it would be a delicacy among the wealthy. which would give grace complicated feelings about chewing gum, especially when it comes to being around other members of artemis’s rebellion. it also then presents some harrowing symbolism: is grace only able to find solace after natal’s death—who died trying to bring down the aristocracy—by indulging herself in a privilege of the wealthy? can she only escape her grief by immersing herself in the twisted identity of her birth? that in itself might remove any soothing effects which the easy rhythm of gum chewing initially offered. maybe grace is doomed forever to wallow in the unjust circumstances of her heritage and mother nation. so many things to wonder about mint gum.

[give-me-a-movie-camera]

I was watching I Love Lucy on Pluto TV last night and it completely slipped my mind that yesterday marked Desi Arnaz’s 106th birthday.

His was a classic Riches-to-Rags, Rags-to-Riches Cinderella tale. Desiderio Alberto ‘Desi’ Arnaz y de Acha III was born 2 March 1917 in Santiago de Cuba, Oriente Province, Cuba, the only son of wealthy landowner Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Alberni II (a prominent Cuban politician, who, to date, was the youngest mayor of Santiago de Cuba from 1923 to 1932) and his wife, Dolores ‘Lolita’ de Acha y de Socías (one of the most beautiful women in the Caribbean, the daughter of a businessman, one of three founders of Bacardi Rum Limited, the world's largest privately-owned spirits company). Desi was of the small but vastly privileged, upper-class y de Acha, the descendent of Cuban nobility of whose colonial ancestors originated from Santander, Provincia de Cantabria, Cantabria, Spain. (His grandfather, Dr Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y Alberni I, was assigned to the first United States volunteer cavalry in Cuba, the ‘Rough Riders’ under the leadership of ‘Hero of Cuba’ Theodore Roosevelt during the Spanish-American War on 1 July 1898. To legend, they sieged San Juan Hill on horseback, and though the forged conquest did not belong primarily to Roosevelt, for the conflict was an integrated effort between the white volunteer regiment and the 1,250 black Buffalo Soldiers, the famed battle gained Cuba her independence from Spain—a victory for the people, the Cuban people).

At the height of the Cuban Revolution of 1933, Desi and his family were forced to flee their Motherland, leaving their riches behind. Following a brief election, the government collapsed with the removal of President Gerardo Machado y Morales from office in August of 1933. The opposing anarchists seized all political leaders and stripped them of their power. Among them, Desi’s father, imprisoned by the regime, before his brother-in-law, Alberto de Acha, intervened on his behalf, thus making his escape to Miami, where he was to remain in exile. Having lost their holdings to the rebels who confiscated their property (their palatial home, a cattle ranch, two dairy farms, and a vacation villa on a private island in Santiago Bay), his father sent for Desi and his mother, who took refuge in Key West, Monroe, Florida in 1934. When Desi washed upon the shores of the Americas, his father had established an import-export company, where the family of three took up frugal lodgings in the company warehouse and dined on cans of cold beans. Desi came to live in New York City and Los Angeles for about one year, where he tightened his belt for survival and scrambled for employment as a struggling musician. Following an engagement as a guitar player for a Latin-American band at the Roney Plaza Hotel in Miami Beach, and a cursory stint with the Xavier Cugat Orchestra in 1937, he made his Broadway debut in the Rodgers and Hart musical Too Many Girls, where he reprised the role for RKO's major motion picture of the same name in 1940. During the course of filming, he fell head-over-heels for the Apricot Queen, Lucille Désirée Ball. The couple eloped on 30 November 1940 in Greenwich, Fairfield, Connecticut. By 1949, at the age of thirty-two, Desi established himself a renowned nightclub entertainer as conga-playing band leader for the travelling self-titled Cuban orchestra.

Most Hollywood buffs would do well to remember the Power Couple formed by Desilu Productions—a celluloid empire built on the backs of Lucy and Desi’s American Dreams, despite the public scandals and tumultuous marital woes. But at the crowning glory of their golden existence, there are those who neglect Desi's legacy and his reluctant resignation to his fate as the Man Behind the Curtain, to remain in Lucy’s shadow so long as he lived. Lucy, of whose celebrity distinction was of higher standing than her husband’s. Desi, though undoubtedly talented, who was not exempt from the unjust ostracization and societal prejudice that plagued him as a Cuban Spaniard immigrant in racially-charged Hollywood. For those who clutched their pearls at the prospect of Middle American households who might've dismissed acceptance of the world’s first interracial couple on television, Lucy and Desi defied those expectations and dissolved racial barriers in an era dominated by cultural strife. Audiences of all races, colour, and creed came together to shower the Ricardos with adoration and praise, because they came to understand the Ricardos epitomized the human experience, no matter that they didn't reflect the typical post-war domestic demographic. Against all odds, the world fell in love with the All-American Ricardos… white, Hispanic, or otherwise. Lucy and Desi, to be envied by all... America's Sweethearts.

On his 106th birthday, we remember Desi for the pioneer he was, as the Mastermind behind the nation’s most Beloved Redhead.

Behind every great woman lies a greater man.

Perhaps Desi speaks for us all when he declared his everlasting love, in his own words... ‘I Love Lucy was never just a title.’

💓 Happy Heavenly Birthday, Desi.  💓

       𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・𓆩♡𓆪 · ・ 𓆩♡𓆪 · ・

[deanosaur666]

The Woodchipper 3

"My son. My darling son. I have shed so many tears for you. I will not rest until I have avenged your unjust death."

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"What an incredible story," Barnaby said, "I've never heard of ghosts operating a woodchipper before."

"Yes," Ozias said, cutting his steak with a knife, "I'll admit it was a first for me."

"Ozzy's always the first one I call." Betty said, "He's so reliable. I haven't called 911 in years. I know Ozzy can handle anything."

Barnaby smiled. "My sister has told me so many stories about you, Ozbek. I'm happy to finally have gotten a chance to meet you."

"Ah, thank you. I hope I didn't disappoint."

Barnaby laughed. "You're an interesting guy, Ozbek."

Clementine politely sipped tea from a baby-sized teacup.

Barnaby considered Ozias. "I must ask, though. Why the mask? It seems like everyone knows who you really are, anyways."

Ozias paused in thought. "When I put on the mask, I become the Night Disassembler. Only the Night Disassembler can do these things."

"Ah," Barnaby nodded. "Very interesting."

Betty stood up from the table. "I must practice Clementine's speech. Today's a big day."

Ozzy was back in his workshop, carefully dissecting a fish. He had put each of its organs in its own little jar. His mind wandered. Barnaby was a beautiful and charming creature. What did he say he did for work? If only Ozzy could disassemble him. He had beautiful eyes. Perhaps he had a beautiful heart and and skull and lungs and–

The fish's eye slipped out of Ozzy's tweezers, and rolled onto the floor.

"Damn it."

He reached down to find it, but it had rolled off somewhere.

The phone rang.

"Oh, Ozzy!" Betty's voice called from the other end.

"What's happened?"

"Someone kidnapped Barnaby! They were wearing the mask of the Night Disassembler! Wearing your mask, Ozzy!"

"My mask?"

"I know it couldn't have been you, Ozzy! I know you have a pure heart! Someone must have disguised themself as you!"

"I'll find him." Ozzy put down the phone.

"If I had taken Barnaby," Ozzy picked up the fish eye, "where would I take him?" He stared into the fish eye. "Why, I'd invite him into my home. I'd serve him dinner. I'd treat him nicely. Maybe then I could convince him to let me… well… my house really is a mess right now. I should really clean it up."

Ozzy opened the door from his workshop to the living room. The roar of a woodchipper nearly deafened him.

A huge woodchipper stood in the middle of his living room. A figure wearing the mask of the Night Disassmbler carried Barnaby, bound and gagged, over his shoulder, ready to feed him into the machine.

Ozzy jumped at the machine with his screwdriver, and reduced it into a pile of parts.

The figure dropped Barnaby on the floor, and then began to laugh.

"Who are you?"

The figure removed the mask.

He was a massive man. His arms and legs were as thick as tree trunks. His sharp teeth gleamed in his huge grin. His eyes were fiery and piercing. His brow was contorted in an expression of hate.

"I am Dagon Dirk." He sneered. "You killed my beloved son, Night Disassembler. For that crime, I will shred you in the same woodchipper you shredded him in."

Ozzy lunged at Dagon. Dagon reached into a pocket and pulled out a huge sheet, covering his body like a curtain. Barnaby tore through the sheet and landed on the ground. Where was Dagon? His eyes darted around the room. The man was gone. How could such a huge man just disappear?

A small screw rolled out the front door. But Ozzy didn't notice.

He turned to Barnaby, still bound and gagged. Why, he could take Barnaby into his workshop and disassemble him this afternoon. Barnaby couldn't object in this state. No. He would just untie and ungag him.

Betty Blake stood at the podium, sweating.

"Well," she said, "uh, today we're cutting the ribbon for this new school my daughter Clementine helped create. It's for impoverished children, you know. Uh, I'm just going to read the speech Clementine wrote for this event…"

Out from the crowd, a small toddler toddled. He approached the podium.

"Oh," Betty looked at him, "where are your parents, little one?"

The toddler pulled out a remote and pressed a large red button. The roaring sound of a woodchipper emerged from behind the school.

Crash! Crunch! A giant woodchipper rolled through the school on massive treads. Giant mechanical crane arms pulled out pillars and fed them into its gaping maw. The crowd screamed in terror.

The toddler cackled and pulled off his mask. The huge form of Dagon Dirk appeared behind the disguise. He turned to the cameraman recording the event.

"Night Disassembler! You child murdering bastard! The woodchippers hunger and thirst! They will not be sated until they feast on your flesh and blood!" And then Dagon pulled out a sheet and vanished.

Ozzy watched the events unfolding on his television. "That's not good."

"Oh God." Barnaby said. "Betty and Clementine."

Ozias threw open the closet. The mask sneered down at him. "It seems you can't do anything without me."

"Shut up." Ozzy said. "It's time to get to work."

"What?" Barnaby said.

Ozzy just shook his head.

Betty's leg was trapped under a piece of rubble. The giant woodchipper roared louder and louder as it approached her. Clementine pulled at Betty, trying to free her.

"Oh Clementine!" Betty cried. "Leave me! Save yourself! The world needs you!"

Betty turned and saw the machine, almost on top of her. And then it collapsed into pieces.

The Night Disassembler emerged from the mess. He pulled the piece of rubble off of Betty.

"Are you all right, Betty?"

"Oh Ozzy," Betty cried, "we put so much of our souls into building that school. You must stop this terrible man before he destroys even more!"

"Ozbek," Barnaby emerged from the pieces behind him, "I found this. It must have been hidden inside the giant woodchipper." He handed Ozzy a note.

An address was written on the note.

A woodchipper roared in the middle of the playground. A conveyor belt slowly pushed a pile of sleeping puppies towards its mouth. A small dog was tied to a post, barking and yelping, just barely unable to reach the puppies.

Just before the puppies reached the mouth of the machine, the contraption exploded into pieces. Ozzy pulled the puppies from the pile. They were unharmed. He untied the small dog from the post.

"You're ok. It's ok." Ozzy petted the dog. Dagon was nowhere to be seen. Besides the dogs, the park seemed to be completely empty.

A car door slammed in the parking lot. Barnaby and Betty had arrived.

"Is this the place?" Betty yelled.

"How peculiar." Ozzy said.

"You fool!" The small dog pulled off its disguise, and Dagon emerged, towering over Ozzy.

Before Ozzy could react, Dagon bound him tightly in rope.

Barnaby rushed towards him. "Stop!"

Dagon turned towards him and grinned. His head crashed into Barnaby's, throwing Barnaby into the ground. Barnaby was dazed.

"Next time," Dagon laughed, "DON'T use your head." He carried Ozzy into a helicopter that was inconspicuously parked nearby.

"Barnaby!" Betty arrived at her brother's side. The helicopter flew off into the air.

Barnaby groaned. "We have to stop him, before Ozbek is nothing but giblets."

Barnaby and Betty arrived at the abandoned factory. The helicopter was parked just outside.

The noise of a roaring woodchipper could be heard from outside.

Ozzy was tied to a conveyor belt, slowly approaching the huge woodchipper.

Barnaby jumped onto the conveyor belt.

"Don't worry Ozbek, I'll get you out of this."

"Wait!" A voice called from nearby.

Barnaby turned and saw another Night Disassembler tied to another conveyor belt, running parallel to this one.

"It's a trick!" The second Ozzy called. "That's Dagon in disguise! I'm the real Night Disassambler!"

Barnaby froze. There was only time to untie one of them before the woodchipper shredded the other one. His eyes darted between the two figures, looking for some small difference. But they were exactly the same.

He turned to the first Night Disassembler beneath him.

"I trust you will make the right choice," the first one said, "Barnaby."

Barnaby untied the first Night Disassemble, and then pulled him from the conveyor belt, just as the other fell into the woodchipper.

Barnaby held Ozzy steady. "Are you all right?"

Ozzy laughed. "You fool!" He pulled off his mask. Dagon towered over Barnaby. "Not only is the Night Disassembler dead, but at the hand of his foolish friends, too!" He cackled.

Barnaby sank to his knees.

"No!" Betty cried.

"The blood of my darling son has been avenged." Dagon's voice was quiet. "Justice has been served. The woodchippers will terrorize your town no more."

There was a clanking noise. The woodchipper fell into pieces. Ozzy emerged from the tangle of metal. His clothes were torn. His mask was cracked. But he stood.

"How?" Dagon yelled. "That's impossible! Even I couldn't escape from those bonds!"

"It doesn't matter how tightly you bind me," Ozzy said, "I can disassemble anything and everything. And you're next."

"Not this time!" Dagon yelled. He jumped into his helicopter. "We'll fight again, Night Disassembler!" The helicopter lifted off the ground. "And again and again! Until you're shredded down to nothingness! Until my son is avenged!"

"He's getting away!" Betty yelled.

Ozzy leaned down and picked up a loose screw.

He smiled wryly.