#might go another direction

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

Born to Die (Supercorp half bake)

Lena's family must offer a maiden to sacrfice to protect the realm. Lena is raised for the slaughter, but the community and religion indoctrinates her to believe death is a friend, that it is a privilege for her to serve her community in such a way. She lives her life in service to others-- helping the ill and wounded, feeding the homeless, toys to schools, etc. The realm loves and reveres her.

The first time she doubts her life's purpose is three weeks before her 18th birthday, and the date of her welcome death. She and her brother are arguing, and he says something along the lines of "we won't have to worry about what you think for much longer".

It's the first time her role has been cast in such a light-- so dismissive and cruel. A punishment, rather than a purpose. In the days that follow, she sees her world and her life in a new light. She is honored, yes, but as little more than an ornament with a limited shelf life. She has no real impact, no power-- not even within her own family.

When the time comes, she is taken up to the crest of the sacred hill. She knows she is to be burned-- not a peaceful way to go, but part of the ritual is for her to sip from the chalice, willingly drinking the elixir that will spare her the pain.

Only one person is permitted to accompany her up the hill and light the pyre, long ago decided to be her brother Lex. But when Lena sips from the chalice, she only mimes the act of doing so-- her first act of rebellion, of doubt, to keep her mind sharp.

Lex leads her to the hill. From the crest her pyre would be seen for leagues... a concept that now strikes apprehension into her soul. Is this what fear feels like?

When the pyre comes into view, already prepared with fresh bushels of hay and reads and sticks, Lena stops short. She turns to her brother.

"I can't do this, Lex."

Lex turns to her. "Yes you can. You've got to."

Lena swallows thickly. "I don't want to." She takes a thick breath.

"You don't want to?" Lex's features turn cold, full of icy rage. He leans in close to her fact. "Your whole rotten life you've been treated like a saint, and this is how you repay us?"

"Let go of me," Lena says as his hand tightens painfully around hers. "Lex, let me go--!"

She barely registers the rush of displaced air before her brother's fist slams into the side of her head, knocking senseless.

Minutes later, when she blinks back into awareness, Lena is on the pyre, hands bound around the post pressing against her back. Panic grips her when she sees the lit torch in Lex's hand.

"Brother, please! Please don't do this! I don't want to die!!"

"All your exalted life, you've only ever been good for one thing," Lex says stonily. "And now you won't even do that much."

"Lex!" Lena shrieks, yanking sharply against her bonds. "Don't, please!"

"Time to die, sister."

With a casual toss he lobs the torch onto the pyre. He doesn't even stop to look back when Lena screeches as the first of the flames lick at her bare feet.

---

Unknown to either of the royal siblings, the hill isn't as empty as they believe it to be. A forager keen on scavenging uncommon herbs and plants overhears Lena's shrieks and immediately sprints towards them. She arrives just as the flames catch and climb Lena's shift, reaching almost to her hip as Lena's screams hit a ragged pitch.

Without thinking the forager leaps onto the last patch of uncaught pyre and uses her knife to slice away Lena's bonds. She grabs Lena and pitches them both backwards off the edge of the pyre. She moves quickly to smother the fire that comes with them, clinging to Lena's cloak, but it doesn't take long to know that it may yet be too little, too late.

Lena no longer screams, but her breath comes in short sharp rasps, her body wracking with tremors against the pain of the burns that have blistered her bare feet and legs.

"It's going to be okay," the forager stutters, panic making her own hands shake as violently as Lena's, which curl tightly into the woman's blouse. "I'll take you to someone who can help. Just stay with me."

---

True to her word, the woman manages to carry Lena down the far side of the hill to a small village in the valley beyond. Lena isn't aware of much of the journey nor their arrival. Just the shout of her savior's voice as she calls for another, and the disorientation of being deposited on a small cot.

The pain is all she knows, and the world around her fades in and out, but always a hand grasps hers in a solid, gentle grip. When she has the werewithal to wonder, she thinks this might be what death was supposed to be like: a stranger's hand extended in comfort.

One morning, Lena wakes fully. The pain is still there, low and throbbing and agonizing-- but she can think past it, and experience a world the world that still exists beyond it. She sees a woman next to her cot, slumped dozing in a chair with her ankles crossed and bandages on her hands.

Beyond her, a simple cabin takes shape, slowing coming into focus. Another woman with dark hair busies herself with setting dishes upon a wooden table, and a third, older woman stirs a pot hung above a hearthed fire.

The older woman turns to say something to the dark haired woman-- her daughter, perhaps?-- but stops short when she spots Lena watching.

"Oh! You're awake! Praise the gods..."

The bandaged woman at her bedside, presumably her savior, jolts awake at the exclamation. Clear blue eyes flash towards the older woman, then across to Lena.

"Wh--" Lena's questions dies in her parched throat, consumed by a deep, hacking cough that leaves her winded and gasping.

In an instant, her savior is at her side, lifting a wooden cup to Lena's lips. Cool, clear water coats her tongue and throat, making her sputter briefly before she begins to gulp.

Even that much saps most of Lena's strength. Her eyelids begin to droop even as clothbound palms cover Lena's hand.

"I'm Kara," her savior says, before motioning to her companions, "and this is Alex and Eliza."

Lena's brain struggles to make sense of the names, of her surroundings, of the events that have led her to this cot in a strange hut. Her eyes grow ever heavier, and struggles to remain awake.

"It's all right," Kara murmurs, stroking hair from Lena's sweat slicked forehead. "You're safe here."

Thus comforted, Lena slips back into the embrace of unconsciousness.

[acid-ixx]

mild spoilers for chapter six for my series again &. again, but i really feel the need to ramble about this, and i'd love to hear anybody's opinion on this hehe.

as i write outline chapter six (and write for chapter five), i'd like to say i couldn't wait to write the reader's face reveal in bruce's perspective. and it's not just angst, for me, this plays a very pivotal turn for the series— because bruce will spiral to insanity.

to never once see a single portrait of your second youngest child, whose presence has long been erased from the manor, not a single image, nor trace of you is sickening to the heart, even if he scours through the internet day and night for a single memoir of you, nothing— but to find your portrait in alfred's living quarters and seeing you for the first time in forever? graduating a milestone no less?

god, he's in for a ride just analyzing every aspect of your physical appearance.

the color of your eyes, the shape of your nose, the quip of your mouth, the fat in your cheeks; even the length of your lashes! god, does he brand it into the deepest parts of his mind to never forget you anymore. his pearl, his treasure.

the longer he stares, the more he notices and gazes even more, obsessive as he stands lonesome in the room with every bone in his body locking up, his eyes unable to look away from the portrait that showcases his baby child.

and there, there it is that he concludes a detail so small it's unrecognizable for someone who's seen it for his entire life; yet it's all the same triggered deranged emotions deep within him.

— you don't just share him and your mother's traits, no, your smile is also reminiscent of his mother's.

martha wayne, who'd died in his arms, laying in a pool of her blood with a bullet grazed deep inside her body. his loving mother, who caressed his face whenever he'd cry from his nightmares, who'd shown him motherly love that until now he still craves.

she died with her pearl necklace that once decorated her porcelain neck spilling to the ground and stained with crimson.

you wore pearl earrings on your graduation.

the thought alone is enough for him to just snap.

this? this is the child that he's been neglecting far too long? who shares the same, loving expression of his mother's? his child? not even a single memory could be conjured with you but fantasies now do. if your happiest moments were within the picture frame that he holds with shivering fingers at present; could your smile be any wider if you'd be with him?

how come he never once noticed? why is bruce always destined to fail left and right? why, just why is he brimming with jealousy for all the people who must've seen your smile before him, and contempt for himself that he was never there to pick you up from the police station beforehand?

bruce isn't a heckler for favoritism, but a darker part of him is motivated to take you away from wherever you are, and to never let anybody else witness his beautiful, little treasure.

he's gotham's knight, first and foremost. but he's a father, too, with goals to protect his children just like a father should.

and the things he'd do for you, his child, now? anything.

if it means he has to see that smile, then he'll turn the world upside-down.

he has to protect your smile.

[zylphiacrowley]

Love.

<previous - next>

[stagefoureddiediaz]

23 years!! So Eddie hasn’t been to confession since he was around 10?!

Well if that isn’t interesting!!! That feels so pointed because that is a very young age to stop going to confession - unless you’ve started to realise you’re different - that the church as been teaching you the things you’re feeling and realising about yourself are not ok according to their teachings and beliefs and the best and easiest way to avoid religious wrath, not look at yourself too closely and bury your feelings is to just stop going to confession (assuming he was still going to church with his parents as I can’t imagine they’d not have him go to church every Sunday at 10!)

[itwoodbeprefect]

you're the only person on my dash who's said anything about the nl govt collapse, I don't know lots about it but I'm curious what the feeling is on the ground chez vous. thoughts? how you feeling election-wise?

ooh! ohoho, that's a fun question right now, thank you!

i don't know how much you know, so apologies if i overexplain, and this also took me MANY DAYS to answer (more important apologies for that) because i immediately started writing too many words. i put most of them under a read more, but they're entirely optional and only there in case anyone would like to. read more, that is.

so, generally, the feeling from all sides is the absolute opposite of surprise. this cabinet sat for 11 months and 1 day after more than seven months of a very unhappy formation, and those 11 months (and 1 day) weren't much happier. this overwhelming lack of surprise comes hilariously paired with the fact that there was absolutely no good reason for the cabinet to fall now (on some level this did come out of the blue), because there was no sudden crisis, nothing new really happened, but wilders (leader of the far-right populist PVV, the biggest party in parliament since the last elections) got antsy and realized that all the things he'd promised (mostly extreme and often impossible anti-immigration measures) were about to fall through again/had already taken far too long (from the pov of his voters. politics takes time, that's how it goes, but he wants things (Far) Right Now), so he more or less made up a list of 10 new demands he wanted the other three coalition parties to sign for, and when they didn't (but told him he could propose those laws and they wouldn't block him, and he might even have their support. they just weren't willing to put their name on a sudden new coalition promise), he sort of overnight decided to pretend that this was THE line in the sand, and he couldn't stand for this any longer, and he HAD to let the government fall for the good of the country, i guess. the idea behind this is that if he's the one to pull his support for the coalition he can pretend he's been trying soooo hard to get something done but everyone just kept working against him (say "awww" please), and at the same time it puts immigration at the center of the next half year-ish of campaigns because that's the Big Issue this government fell over.

now. after the PVV bailed, the other three coalition parties could technically have decided to make a go of it as a minority government, but this was a doomed marriage right from the start and there was exactly zero will to continue from any side, and the opposition was also immediately calling for elections, so that's what's happening. summer is coming up, so the date has been set for late october, and i don't love that (i'd rather have them sooner, honestly), but i DO like the prospect of an election. in hindsight the conditions were perfect last time for a right wing... well, not quite sweep (there are 15 different parties in parliament right now. not much about dutch politics is ever sweeping), but they definitely blew up more than predicted, and i harbor a faint sliver of very guarded hope that results in the next election will be, like, maybe a few seats less doom and despair inducing. things won't be fixed suddenly, the PVV will continue to exist and get a large share of the votes (as will several other right-wing parties), but chances are... not huge? that they'll manage another entirely right-wing government (and you could debate if that's what this one was, but we'd be splitting hairs). there were a few voices from the right after the cabinet fell lamenting that wilders had wasted the potential of this wonderful first-of-a-kind truly fully right-wing government, and they're not wrong but it's also wishful thinking (this cabinet was never going to get anything done. for so many reasons), and obviously my feelings on it are more along the lines of yay! hooray!

so it's, like. it makes me nervous, because everything about politics does, currently. but at least it probably fingers crossed most likely won't get worse (it could! it can! there's plenty of room for things to be worse over here! i just mean that it currently doesn't seem very likely), so any chance of it getting slightly better (and not having to watch the PVV minister for immigration on the evening news every other night because she said some new wildly nauseating thing while smiling) is one i'll take.

also, it's just fun to witness the mess right now. sometimes it's the little things in life that bring one joy. <3

point in case, all i keep seeing in my head is this, from the national evening news on the night of the collapse:

this is the leader of the one of the coalition parties (NSC) responding right after the news broke, but she's standing next to a racist cartoon (it's part of a series of islamophobic... jokes? because she's in the hall near the PVV offices, a bastion of free speech. and islamophobia), but the text is so close to unreadable that really she's just. earnestly trying to do politics next to a picture of hole. there are no two ways around it that's just. it's just a drawing of an anus. with an arrow pointed at it.

which is a terrible place to put yourself if you want to be taken seriously! < the only words really needed to describe anything any of the non-PVV political parties in the coalition have done over the past year and a half.

the above also forced me to relearn that the public broadcast livestream doesn't allow screenshots, so i had to skip back and get out my phone and take a picture of my laptop screen, like a caveman. oh, the times we're in.

as promised, the entirely optional MANY MORE words for context on why i am (very very cautiously, a tiny little bit) optimistic about new elections under the cut:

okay, so the now ex-coalition had these players:

PVV (party for freedom), far right nationalist-populists under geert wilders. received the largest share of the votes. (note: by no means a majority of the votes, just the largest share in a very fractured landscape.) wilders wanted to be prime minister, and the largest party generally gets to supply one, but the other parties blocked him ("normal" political parties, generally, do not like wilders, and do not want him to represent this country), which is how we ended up with prime minister schoof (not from the PVV. a guy nobody knew, so nobody had any objections to him) heading a cabinet to which wilders kept playing opposition even though HIS party was in it. the PVV is genuinely awful and deeply racist, and they will dabble in a little great replacement propaganda (there was a minister who tried not to denounce something she'd said about this in the past, and then eventually did anyway so she could get the job. very believable), but they're a little too grounded to go full on Q Anon. (that's the domain of FVD, who had their moment but are now mostly irrelevant because of how deeply their leader got drawn into the conspiracy spiral. you can forget about the FVD now, they won't be important.)

VVD, mainstream right/center-right party (the liberals, but in a political context where that puts them firmly on the right), who were the largest party for a decade and a half until the last elections. i don't agree with them, i would never ever vote for them, they've done a lot of things wrong and left a legacy of problems they created and never solved, but under mark rutte (during that decade and a half) they were a very stabilizing force, so at least there was that. rutte left to become secretary general of NATO prior to the last elections (which meant we were finally rid of him), and the VVD is now headed by dilan yeşilgöz, who has been pushing them farther right to keep up with the PVV. they're not insane (currently), and they can be reasoned with, but they will really try to give tax cuts to the rich.

NSC (new social contract), a party quite literally so new that it didn't exist before the previous elections, and which won a stupid number of votes considering it wasn't entirely clear what they stood for. they positioned themselves as the party that cares about the constitution, and during the coalition forming process they kept asking concerned questions about the constitutionality of the PVV's proposals, and then they joined this coalition anyway. their leader and THE guy everyone was voting for the NSC for, pieter omtzigt, has been in a constant struggle with burnout and has now (probably?) left national politics for good (after leaving and coming back and leaving and coming back). things do not look good for the NSC.

BBB, the farmer's party. those words may sound sympathetic at first glance, but in reality they're a right-wing mostly single-issue party concerned with farmer's rights in a way that means they're very against, uh. nature. or animal rights. or doing anything to prevent climate change. this may not sound like an obvious party to draw votes, but for a tiny overpopulated country the netherlands does far more farming than you might think. they're a relatively new party but they have a strong core base of supporters.

genuinely, i think what this lineup really says about voters is that (like in so many places around the world) they want the government to take care of people, they want to feel supported, they want everything the left wants, but they keep trying to find it in right-wing parties, several of which have no clue what they're doing beyond shouting things that sound good and/or easy. out of these three only the VVD had any experience whatsoever at governing a country, the NSC barely existed yet, the BBB only really cares about one thing, and the PVV is great at playing opposition but you can't have it both ways. this was never going to work, and everyone knew it, even the people in these parties who were pretending that they might get something done.

now. when discussing him in an international context wilders frequently gets called the dutch trump, and i get why, and it's a decent enough shorthand, and they do align in being destructive unbearable racist anti-immigration populist right-wingers, but it's also, just. not really true at all. wilders has a firm grip on the PVV because he built it, and while trump is an idiot (a dangerous one! a powerful one! but an idiot), wilders is not, and he's been in politics since 1990, and in national politics as the head of his PVV since 2004. he's been here, spewing versions of the shit he's spewing now, and right now he's riding the wave.

and crucially, wilders doesn't get compared to trump a lot in his own country. that's not a thing in the mainstream dutch discourse around him, so the mess trump is currently making of the US doesn't stick to wilders in the way it seemed to haunt the right wing in the recent canadian and australian elections, and unless someone's campaign strategy changes that i don't think that will have much of an impact here.

also: it's important to note that the PVV is definitely a right-wing party, but it's not always that simple and they are, on a technical level, left on some social issues. they want to lower the cost of healthcare insurance (which is mandatory over here. everyone has it, but even so not all insurance is equal, and it's pricey), they were trying to push a rent freeze before the government collapsed (and their proposal was shoddy and about to get struck down, but in theory this could have been a good thing). and these kinds of things sound nice! it's just that wilders wants them for white people, and preferably no one else - but they have and will make people vote for him (sometimes without thinking too much about the racism), because he presents himself as a man who will say what no one else is saying AND cares about the cost of your groceries. during a debate in the runup to the last elections there was a confrontation between wilders and the leader of two left-wing parties which recently joined forces (GL-PvdA, THE mainstream left right now. we'll get to them), in which they were essentially saying they had the same stance on lowering healthcare insurance costs, but wilders was promising radical (impossible) change and the GL-PvdA leader was presenting an actual, reasoned, potentially workable plan that involved several steps. wilders came out on top in this debate even though he absolutely shouldn't have (and later, after the elections, he would shift to more or less parroting the GL-PvdA leader's "it's more complicated than that" stance, because it is more complicated than that), which is just a distilled version of the problem everywhere right now, i guess, because magical sudden solutions sound more attractive upfront than reality, and only certain people are willing to tell those pretty lies.

and finally, while he's been around all this time, he and his PVV have never been in government. they got very close once in 2010-2012 during the VVD-led Rutte I cabinet, when they were a kind of semi-part of the coalition (a very culturally dutch construction, in so many ways), but this ended so badly that nobody even wanted to consider working with them since then, not even on the mainstream right. the VVD (and everyone else, but crucially the VVD, who kept getting the lead in coalition talks) had an unofficial boycot in place against working with them, which essentially left them dead in the water - you can vote for the PVV, but you know up front that it's not getting them anything but opposition seats.

which brings me to the thing that happened last time to give the PVV the unexpected boost they got. so, it's 2023, the cabinet led by mark rutte (of the VVD, then the largest party. this was Rutte IV, so his fourth turn as prime minister) toppled over something they called an asylum crisis (so, over immigration). this was mostly the VVD at work, who were hoping to gain votes with their stance on the issues in a next election.

but who is even louder and meaner about immigration than the VVD? the PVV! so wilders was doing alright anyway, this was perfect for him (adding some to the incremental growth of the far right he could have counted on anyway), but then rutte (finally) left dutch politics, and the VVD leadership was passed to yeşilgöz. yeşilgöz, in an attempt to show that she's doing "new" and "different" politics (a lot of people had gotten tired of mark rutte) and also to appease PVV voters, says that she doesn't rule out working with anyone, even the PVV.

this, now, suddenly meant the PVV was a viable option again. instead of drawing votes for the VVD because they're so cool and chill and also totally tough on immigration, it had the opposite effect of drawing votes for the PVV because they're a Real Political Party! so they more than doubled their seats, going over what they were projected to get in votes, and getting easily their highest number of votes ever. the VVD meanwhile did worse than expected (they had been going strong for the previous 15 years, after all) and then suddenly yeşilgöz had to backpaddle and announce that she wouldn't stand for a prime minister wilders, which is how we wound up with a very odd situation in which wilders (annoyed) kept attacking a guy HE put in the prime minister seat.

so looking ahead now, for these next elections wilders is 100% hoping to somehow get another shot at being prime minister. he wants to grow the PVV even further, but looking at current polling numbers (which mean nothing yet. but are nonetheless all we have) that wouldn't be happening. they'd still come out as the biggest, but they might lose a few seats, and that's not getting wilders in a better spot than where he was. also, while he was of course trying to present as reasonable during the coalition talks, he showed his true (entirely known and expected) colors later on, so whatever his voters or the general population may think, politicians from other parties are supremely annoyed with him (once again).

(important bleak sidenote: this could also be what wilders wants. either he wins more seats, and then they Have to take him seriously and let him be prime minister, or he doesn't, and then he doesn't get to be a part of the next government, and he gets to go back to yelling very loudly about everything everyone else is doing wrong, which is his strong suit anyway. there are no real bad outcomes for him here, probably. that's the bad news (for everyone else).)

meanwhile the VVD would maybe gain some in new elections right now, maybe stay where they are; BBB would shrink a bit (but they're nowhere near those other two in size anyway), and the NSC, crucially, would essentially disappear off the map. this has happened before - something new pops up, dutch voters flock to it in hopes of positive change, nothing really changes and they all flock to the next newest thing/return to more well-known lettersoup acronyms - and it will probably happen again. many NSC voters came from the CDA, the christian democrats, a conservative but centrist party. the CDA had an extremely deep low point in the last elections (omtzigt, who started the NSC, came from CDA, and a lot of CDA voters had also hopped over to BBB already. CDA used to be big, but this was a gradual process of erosion over many elections), and came out with only 5 seats, but they're still a well-known name and i (and current polls) expect them to do much better this time. many former NSC voters will probably go back to CDA. which could be good? at the very least, the CDA is established and, like, knows who they are.

but! i also honestly think the NSC looked more left-leaning to many voters than it was, due to omtzigt's reputation as Man Who Stands Up For The Little Guy (there's a particular political scandal around welfare benefits he had a hand in uncovering that earned him this reputation, which gained him a lot of goodwill. but i think what he really stood for is transparency, not progressive social politics), so who knows, a few of those NSC votes could land left of center, IF the left plays their cards right.

and, okay, the left. there are plenty of parties on the left, of many types, but the most interesting development and by far the biggest and most relevant player on the left right now is the GL-PvdA united left. GL (groenlinks) is the green left, which is what you would expect it to be, and they've never been huge nationally but they're growing. this is where my vote usually lands. PvdA is the labour party, and they have a very long history and traditionally used to draw in a major share of votes (we had a PvdA prime minister when i was born. take me back), but in the last two elections which they took part in on their own they did very badly (like, they lost 29 seats between 2012 and 2017, and then never gained any since, leaving them in single digits. because, and this is a fun one, they were in a deeply ill-advised coalition with the VVD, and none of their voters liked that), and then in 2023 GL and PvdA (both small but present, and neither of them actually tiny) joined forces, and lured frans timmermans back from european politics. he was already a well-known face, and he's strong in this position and i like him and he's saying the right things (we have to stop moving to the right - we have to make center parties want to lean into the left instead), though it does have to be said that he's not very exciting. in an ideal situation, some fresh young face would suddenly rise up through the ranks in one of these parties, but until that happens timmermans will do - and these two parties together DID pull votes in the last election. polls currently have them growing a bit, keeping ahead of the VVD even. because, okay. numbers.

there are currently 15 different parties with at least one seat in parliament (de tweede kamer. which only has 150 seats), and that's not counting parties that were on the voting ticket but didn't make the cut (enough votes for at least 1 seat. so, the lowest cut-off point possible without chopping people in half), so there's plenty to choose! the PVV may be the largest right now, but they still have only 37 seats out of 150 total, which is a fuckton (and 20 more than they had pre-2023) but also, importantly, still MILES from achieving a majority and letting them just fuck around and do whatever they want. that's what wilders would want, obviously, but it's just not how dutch politics works, because there has never been a government in my lifetime (or my dad's, for that matter) that wasn't a complicated union of at least two, far more typically three or four different parties in order to actually get the seats for a majority in parliament. this is a good thing! one could argue there are currently far too many tiny parties active in the dutch political landscape, and one would not be entirely wrong, but i would still rather have this splintering than a consolidation into a political system with only two real options (i'm not naming any names, US americans, don't worry).

so in actual numbers: out of the 150 total the VVD holds 24 seats currently, NSC 20, and BBB 7. (before the PVV left, the coalition had 88 seats total, with the remaining 62 split across 11 opposition parties.) but in between the right-wing PVV and VVD, there's GL-PvdA, who received the second largest share of votes and therefore seats, at 25. note that they beat the VVD with this! this was a growth of 8 seats versus GL and PvdA results counted up (because they were still operating independently then) in the elections prior to the last. they were never going to join talks with the PVV (this is ALSO a good thing), for so many reasons, but they are there! these 25 seats were a victory in their own right! D66 is a centrist party that's in fifth spot with 9 seats. the socialist party SP has 5 seats (which may not sound like much, and it isn't, but it's still 5 clearly left wing people in parliament), the PvdD (party for animals), initially a single-issue animal rights party but now a broader, general left and ecological party, has 3 seats. VOLT is a (center-?)left pro-EU party with 2 seats (note that being far right in europe essentially always means being anti-EU). it's hard to say how many seats all left-wing parties hold if you count them up because it's hard to say which parties are the left wing once you get into the weeds (DENK has 2 seats and is pro immigrant minority rights! but terrible on LGBTQ issues), but it's not nothing, and once again, there is so!!! much!!! to choose from!!!

people just need to, like. stop voting against their own interests because some guy yelled the loudest and made the most impossible but pretty claims.

so, in summary: PVV bad. PVV hoping for more growth, but unlikely to get it, which may put them back in opposition seats, which also could be right where they want to be, but at the very least that would mean we wouldn't have the PVV governing the country. it would probably be tough to get a majority government that's entirely left-wing, so i wouldn't hope for that, but the left may do okay in the next elections and GL-PvdA will hopefully remain at least in the top 3 largest parties. the VVD is around, trying to figure things out. there is still, in the middle of all this splintering and shifting towards extremes, something of a political center, which is also good. there are so many parties with so much to lose and often such different interests that the election may be held in late october of 2025, but it would not surprise me (or probably anyone) in the least if we only had an actual new government in summer of 2026 at the earliest.

or an even shorter summary: things bad; things could be worse; i will stubbornly continue to hope for them not to be. fingers crossed emoji, fingers crossed emoji, fingers crossed emoji ten more times.

-

a few of the most recent developments because i took so long to get this posted: yeşilgöz announced yesterday that the VVD wouldn't consider working with the PVV again because they were "irresponsible" and "unreliable" from day one. fork found in kitchen, but sometimes it takes two years and a doomed coalition to remember what a fork is, i guess. (sunnier take: at least now we know, and if the VVD sticks to its guns on this, there's a high chance it would get nigh impossible for the PVV to drum up a feasible majority coalition, unless something very weird happens. there are unlikely to be a lot of other big players on the right (especially if the NSC melts like cotton candy being washed by a raccoon), and overall this would point towards a center-right coalition at worst, or possibly something much weirder (left-right cooperation? historically bad for the left, so that's scary, but who knows).)

meanwhile, the remaining coalition parties are squabbling over who gets to fill the empty ministerial seat on immigration (left behind when the PVV exited - all of their ministers left, so those ministries need temporary heads), because all three of them want to be the ones who get to say they're Tough On Immigration, and they're Taking Charge, etcetera. they wouldn't even really have to solve any of the current problems because this cabinet is just sitting it out until there's a new one after the next elections. it's win-win!

also meanwhile (and as an example of why we do need someone in charge, even if just so the press has someone to point their mics at and ask questions), a group of random civilians wearing reflective vests has been flagging down cars along the dutch-german border as "border patrol" (against "illegal" immigrants), which is, of course, a totally normal and chill and not at ALL deeply scary and dangerous thing to be doing, if you are a random person with zero authority whatsoever. wilders is delighted. these people were conducting their checks on the german side of the border at first, until they stopped a car that had german police in it, and the german police went hey! what the fuck! and sent them, in a deeply ironic twist, back over the border where they came from. this would be funny if any of this were funny.

[nefelibatat]

If Arcane was going to show us a “perfect world”, an alternate universe where Zaun never sunk (which is already a thing btw!) makes infinitely more sense than implying that Vi's death would fix classism somehow.

[oriolus]

These gamers on my mind

[amelikos]

Day 47 of being positively shook at the bit of info revealed at the end of HZ092.

[squarerice]

New era for Indigo De Souza album covers!!! The first three had pink slowly overtake green in a reclaimed Earth setting and now we have blue and blue-green in an aquatic setting!

[shouts-into-the-void]

Cannot believe the solution is that they eat Falin

[icewindandboringhorror]

One of the interesting bits of trying to resume working on the game after so long is looking back at my ancient Draft Placeholder versions of an image from 4 yrs ago trying to remember what the hell I meant back then, to hopefully interpret it into some more final (ish..) form of the same thing .. making slow progress lol

[antiquatedsimmer]

Some screens of my tiefling sorceress + clairvoyant, Circe!

[vaniliens]

Im not even sticking around for the drama that stuff gives me heart diseases im just here to see where this guys gonna lead us and to make fun of him if it ends up bad and ignore it if it was good

[pencilofawesomeness]

Pencil's 2024 Art Summary

It's that time of year again where I look back on everything I've done and go "wut" with varying levels of impressed and horrified. Anyway, I discovered that I really did not draw much at all this year.... o_o Especially in the second half. Whoops. (I think I did way more writing though, especially come Whumptober season, whereas in the beginning of the year it was more being socially dead and some drawing.) I'm calling this my Colored Lights year for the time being.

May I draw more things in 2025~

-

January: oh baby bird [Gojo Fanfic Scene]

Feburary: I had been lost to you, sunlight [Gojo Fanfic Scene]

March: Never take me lightly, silly fool [Lilia Fanfic Scene] (and an honorable mention to the Team Erza Sleep Pile, but Lilia looked cooler in the preview)

April: Sound of Silence Jellal [FT Manga Redraw]

May: Red, the Color of Life [Erza Color Event Piece] (!!! and it won best Canon Artwork in the Guild Awards!!!)

June: Dual Mode: Toxic Sky Dragon [Wendy & Erik Unison Raid]

July: I never posted any art?? Actually? I just slept on that month, but I was doing some personal sketching. Nicest/most polished one that I am 90% sure was from July was a color experiment/sketch for a scene in a Sukuna fic I've been working on all year. I'll do a nicer version of it one day.

August: Ghost King Danny Phantom

September: Shadow Chaos Spear

October: Deception (An Outrage) [TFOne Megatron]

November: TWST x HSR Smoothie Meme

December: Jolly White Boi Wednesday [FT Screencap Redraw]

[reneesbooks]

saturday scene

because i feel like it. enough people voted for fabin in the febuwhump poll that i thought i would drop the scene where he gets his iconic sword, from the dragons of kiltide

the raedoran cycle

Muiris squints at Fabin. “Saw you wrestling with the other boys. You’re a strong young lad, aren’t you?”

Fabin eyes him sullenly. “You smell like piss.”

“Fabin!” Emilia gasps, horrified.

The miller roars with laughter, slapping Fabin’s shoulder and thankfully not noticing the poof of feathers that quickly disappears back into his hair. “I like him,” he says with a sharp grin. “He’s all teeth. He’ll do just fine.”

“The hell are you talking about?” Fabin demands.

“I heard that he needed some help with the mill,” Emilia explains.

“We got such a good harvest, these old hands can't keep up,” Muiris says. “Looking for a strong young lad to haul sacks of flour so I don't throw my damn back out again.”

“I can help if it hurts,” Emilia offers, even as Fabin eyes Muiris with more than a little suspicion. “I'm good with herbs and the like.”

“None of that for me,” Muiris says with a wave of his hand. “If the gods want me to suffer my age they'll have to listen to my complaints as well.”

Emilia hides a smile as Fabin's lips twitch into what might have once been a laugh.

“So you'll be at the mill bright and early in the morning,” Muiris continues, turning his shrewd gaze back on Fabin. “I get the delivery from the farmers around dawn and I'll need you to bring the wheat into the mill for the day. Then after its ground, you'll take it to the storehouse. Understand?”

“I didn't say I would help you,” Fabin snaps, shrinking back a little.

“But you will,” Muiris says with the same sharp grin. “Because you're a dour little shit who's going to kill somebody if you don't get some outlet for all that anger you've got bottled up in you.”

Emilia blinks and Fabin bares his teeth. “You don't know me.”

“Oh, boy,” Muiris laughs, clapping him on the shoulder again. “I know you a lot better than you think.”

“I don't want to help you with your stupid fucking mill or your stupid fucking flour,” Fabin snaps, stepping out of his reach. “Leave me alone.”

Muiris examines him for a minute. “All teeth,” he snorts. “Wait here.”

Fabin looks like he wants to run, but Emilia gives him a pleading look and he waits while Muiris disappears into the mill. He returns after a minute, holding a long silver sword. Fabin's eyes widen a bit at the sight, curiosity getting the better of him.

“I was a soldier when I was a younger man,” Muiris says with a sigh. “Fought in the War of the Pirates and came back here when it was over to start a quiet life. I'm too old for all that fighting; it’s why didn't go to the dragons' den with the others. But you're a strong young man. You'll put this sword to good use, I'm sure.”

He holds it out to Fabin and Emilia almost protests—he doesn't need a sword—but Fabin takes it with wide eyes and an air of reverence. “I can really have it?”

“Sure,” Muiris laughs. “If you know how to use it.”

Fabin's expression falls a bit. “I don't.”

“I'll teach you,” Muiris says. His sharp grin returns. “If you help me with my stupid fucking mill and my stupid fucking flour.”

Fabin’s eyes flash with something like respect and annoyance wrapped up in one. “Fine. You’d better be good at it.”

taglist (ask to be added <3): @k--havok @oh-no-another-idea @space-writes @lyssa-ink

[ceiling-karasu]

I haven’t really explored hybrid animal OCs in the AUs, huh?

I am thinking that it is possible, but like sah-headcanons and I have discussed, it might not produce very healthy individuals most of the time, which is why it is not practiced as much.

I mean, I could get a lot of use out of a hedgehog and mouse hybrid, but I’ve stayed away because someone else has one as a main character.

But still…

Kind of want to have the child of a rabbit and a mouse hanging out with Pangulggot the pangolin, and often get mistake for a Jeroba.

(Why are your arms so tiny? Is that something I have to implement with him or her, or maybe getting arrested because Flower Hill is weirded out by the larger arm size until they figure out the issue could be a thing?)

Then again, maybe it is not a canon compliant thing that can happen. Maybe one of the reasons villages are separated is because there is an older belief that there is no point if they cannot reproduce, but it is slowly lessening up.