#revolution!! nothing else!! not your relationship!! not your success as a leader up until this point!! absolutely nothing!! just as soon as

[sighdbh]

josh not being able to survive the violent revolution is absolute bullshit that makes me mad to this day, but what even is death in an android world? if you gave him enough blue blood and had spare body parts on hand, would be able to come back?

[fandom-necromancer]

1301. Part 2

This was prompted by the wonderful @sparklingrainbowdragon! It’s not my best, or as good as the first part, but it’s something. Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900

Their little heart-to-heart had been okay. Gavin didn’t find sleep easy that night, being plagued by how goddamn week he had been to apologise to a tin-can no one should care for. What did it matter how a robot felt? It wasn’t like anyone had ever cared how he himself felt and he was phcking human! Somehow his thoughts spiralled back to that encounter with Elijah, this final meeting that changed everything: His ambitions and goals in life, his efforts to get on people’s good side, his relationship with his family. Some stray thoughts had compared his behaviour to Elijah and his doomed self-worth had sprinkled more salt in the wound telling him he was just as much of an asshole his brother had been to him. Gavin’s answer had been to turn to his other side in anger, pulling the blankets closer around him as if they could protect him from his own thoughts. He didn’t fall asleep easily that night, and the sleep itself wasn’t resting at all.

The next day he walked into the bullpen with an even sourer mood than normally. One look into the new android’s face had him groaning and disappearing to the break room. He wasn’t ready for another day of this and he knew this morning would end in murder without his coffee.

The days passed without any casualties, but it gotten pretty far a few times. Even if the android had disagreed when they first met, Gavin had to side with Fowler on this one: The android had no personality. It had shown some ticks and preferences, but not enough to say it liked something. Gavin had no problem with that, he could work with bland people as he didn’t care enough for them anyways, but no, the RK900 was just as much a people-pleaser as Connor. Even worse: Whenever a superior officer of rank or experience said something, it would agree. There was no challenging others or just plain disagreeing. God, not even a healthy, civilised discussion worked. And even that would have been something Gavin might have tolerated had the android not turned on him.

Gavin had used unconventional methods on a case. The android documented it in detail in his report. Gavin had been rude to a witness, who had complained about him. The android had told Fowler when asked. Hank had made a crude comment about Gavin. The android agreed.

But when Gavin was around it always emphasized that it didn’t mean what it had said, that it couldn’t lie to them and that it was sorry. ‘Yeah, but you can do this to me, right? Because it doesn’t matter if you get on my bad side, because everyone is on my bad side. You know what, plastic? Phck you. That is real asshole behaviour and trust me to know that as I have been an asshole for longer than you’ve been active!’ The android looked at him with a pained expression that was more emotion than he had shown in days. ‘Detective, this isn’t what I meant, you are getting this wrong.’

‘Then how the phck should I get this right?’, Gavin asked, barely able to contain himself. ‘Because you know what, if you hate me, that’s fine, I’m used to that and I can get along better with someone who hates me than with someone who does but pretends not to!’ ‘I’m…’, the RK900 started. ‘I don’t know how to explain it without knowledge about android tech…’ ‘Surprise me’, Gavin sighed. ‘I know more than I might suggest.’ ‘Deviancy allows us to disobey orders, that’s all it is. All androids are based on the same base programming derived from a single prototype. The only code ever created to successfully bind a machine to it’s programming while still allowing enough free will to serve their purpose and even get creative.’ ‘RA900’, Gavin muttered with pangs of guilt. That’s it. No more free will for you. God, how he hated that particular day of his youth. ‘What did you say?’ ‘Oh, nothing, continue.’ ‘Well, that programming while working is not as advanced as what was added later on. Improving through experience was a key feature to androids that led to their huge success. And inevitably to breaking the RA9 base code.’

Gavin sighed. ‘Yeah, yeah, I know how deviancy works, I was there during the revolution, in case you didn’t know.’ ‘Well, my programming is different. As a soldier unit obedience is key. What improvement is an android to a soldier if you can’t use it recklessly? A machine without morals or self-preservation following every command was desirable. They planned on using us to set off bombs, to shield humans, to take damage for them. So, they installed new directives and wrote new code to bind my series. And that is not as easily broken by an advanced learning tool.’ ‘So what, you aren’t really deviant? Deviancy, light edition?’, Gavin laughed humourlessly. Nines sighed. ‘Let me put it this way, Detective, imagine you are afraid of heights and in front of you there is a ravine with a narrow wooden bridge leading to the other side. Your mind tells you it is dangerous and that you should rather stay where its save. It takes effort to defy it, it is scary and even if you want to walk over the bridge, most of the time you make it half way and run back to safety.' Gavin grinned, ready to stubbornly tease again: 'So you are telling me, you are a whimp, who-'

'Reed! Nines! To my office!'

They both flinched to Fowler's shouting and stood up to follow his orders with only little delay. But surprisingly enough the android held him back before they left their desks. 'Detective, I don't know why you are such an ass about it, but I don't mean I am scared of standing up for myself’, he whispered. ‘I meant that I am not as free of my chains as the regular deviant when it comes to disagreeing and-' 'Yeah, fine, whatever, let's go before he eats us alive.' He pulled his arm out of the android’s grip and stormed off to the Captain’s office. All he hoped for was this talk to be Fowler declaring he had found someone else to dump the RK900 on. Gavin was able to work with the thing, but that didn’t mean he liked it.

Back in Fowler’s office he refused to sit down again, crossing his arms and kept eye contact with his superior. They both stayed silent, until the RK900 entered and closed the door behind him. Only then Gavin leaned back and said: ‘I’m not going to defend myself this time, whatever it is I did again, not if that phcking snitch tells on me anyways. So, what is it now?’ Fowler sighed. ‘Gavin, for once you didn’t do anything, though I could get you for disrespecting me again. No, I just wanted to inform you two, that we finally have a good spot for you, Nines. A job better suited for your abilities. You could start working there tomorrow already, if that’s what you want.’ ‘Thank God’, Gavin cheered, earning an eye roll from the android. Fowler ignored him. ‘There is a free spot with the FBI and as I told them we had a RK900 unit, they were more than happy to offer you the job. You would work directly under Special Agent Richard Perkins, one of the best agents in recent years.’ Gavin froze. ‘No.’ ‘Detective Reed, you are only here, because I have a new case for you later, you have no say in the matter.’ But the man stubbornly shook his head. ‘Jeffrey, you can’t be serious with this! How is that asshole even still at the FBI, I thought they would have fired him by now!’ ‘Gavin I know he isn’t the nicest pers-‘ ‘Not the nicest person?! Have you met the man? Richard threatening-the-leader-of-the-revolution Perkins? That guy hates androids even more than I do and uses them as nothing but a human shield. You know how the statistics are, every android sent his way ends up with mysterious malfunctions, or coincidentally is killed on a job. You can’t be phcking serious!’ ‘It’s not your decision.’ ‘Well, the bot won’t say no.’ ‘Gavin, I can very well decide for my own, thank you.’

Gavin shook his head even more and stomped his foot in frustration. ‘You know what, tin-can? Fine. Go to that asshole. You won’t last a week. Sell yourself to an early deactivation, see if I care.’ With that he shouldered past it and was out of the door. If Fowler had a case for him, he could E-mail it. He sat down on his chair and watched the office from the corner of his eye. The android was looking at its hands again and Gavin could only wince. How on earth could a human failure like Perkins continue doing his job? And why the hell did he think about it, he wasn’t invested, he couldn’t care less about an android that was nothing but a nuisance to him. Who cares if it was gone and who cares what happened to it, it was a machine, it wasn’t human. So why did he care so much?

He focussed on his work until there were footsteps coming closer. He looked up to see the RK900 sitting down on his chair again, LED a deep red. ‘What’s up toaster?’, Gavin asked sourly. ‘Am I finally getting rid of you?’ ‘No’, was the simple answer of the android. ‘What?’ ‘I won’t take the offer. I will stay here as your partner.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I like working with you.’ ‘And why the hell should I believe that?’ ‘You make me realise what I can get away with. Also, I can clearly see you struggling with some issues yourself and I want to see what’s underneath all that.’ ‘So, we are finally getting courageous, tin-can?’ ‘Detective, my name is Nines and you will address me as such. And I’m not “getting courageous”, I just crossed the bridge.’

[themasterofcider]

Reasons to Ship Markus & North (Marth/Norkus) 4.2

Markus Reawakened North's Fire (CONT)

The start of the freedom march sees some interesting characterization for North. In this moment it is as if she has swapped roles with Simon. This was clearly not her idea, and she's terrified. She pleads with Markus to not do things this way and drops her head when she understands that he's going to go through with the plan regardless. At first this baffled me. North rarely shows this level of cowardice. Initially it felt out of character, but it actually may not be. I mentioned her just now becoming actualized and owning her feelings. It makes perfect sense that she would be nervous about not only dying herself and losing touch with those emotions, but having her people die too. If we come at the scene from this perspective, then her caution makes a lot of sense. There's logic behind it from the way she wants to handle the situation. She wants to fight, because she saw how effectively it worked (or how ineffective peace was) at Capitol Park. In her mind a peaceful march makes little sense, as it's not a language humans understand. It could lead to everyone getting slaughtered for no reason. We then have God Droid summoning his fellow androids with something as small as a glance, and none of them question him. North and the other advisors witness this firsthand. Suddenly the police show up to assault unarmed, peaceful protestors. Markus is faced with a choice. To either fight, flee, or stand his ground. North urges him to fight. She knows they have greater numbers and can win if they choose to face them. She is quite forward about this. There's an eager, nervous confidence to her as she speaks. She believes this is the best choice. It would mean less death for her people and would teach the humans a vital lesson. Should Markus go through with the more aggressive option there's a huge battle, in which North is a skilled, eager participant. She's kicking the hell out of their rivals, beating them with nightsticks, and firing rifles as well as pistols. She even  has a powerful moment where she fights directly alongside Markus. She also helps him up, should he take a bullet for her. I don't believe North needs Markus to be successful in combat (we see her picking up the slack numerous times should you as a player screw up), but I do think she feels much more energized doing so. They're fighting back to back, surrounded by three or four enemies, and together they still win. The odds are against them, but through sheer morale and determination they pull through. Briefly looking back at the situation in Capitol Park we know North loves fighting back, and she loves the validation Markus gives her when he chooses to do the same. Getting the chance to fight directly beside the person who understands you and inspires you would make anyone feel like they could take on the world. This is no doubt what North is experiencing. We can see this after she helps him to his feet. They hold each other's gazes for a moment. From her expression (and relationship meter) she's both touched and surprised that he would risk injury for her. She's in the middle of battle with the opportunity to get back at the humans but stops for several seconds to admire Markus. For someone so focused to do this, one can tell how impactful this man is. When the police flee there's an option to shoot or spare them. If you shoot, North jumps in, following Markus' example. Seeing the humans defeated everyone drops their weapons to examine the battlefield. The androids lost several, but they won. It's just as North predicted. They could take the humans, and they did. Her fiery, soldier spirit has once again been vindicated. As such, she has no reason or desire to back down from her position.

Jericho squad is in the captain's quarters discussing the effects of the march. There are serious repercussions for fighting, and everyone is fearing for their people's lives. Josh is understandably furious with Markus, and once again Simon mediates. North agrees with him, and doesn't want to dwell on the past. She's ready to move forward. In order to do this she encourages Markus to guide them. This is a pivotal moment in the game for North's character. If the player has messed up too many times, North takes control and the three kick Markus out. If the player has done well, you have her support, and everyone has no issues leaving you in charge. North is a fully fledged warrior at this point. She's acknowledged her past, is motivated, and isn't afraid to fight for what she wants. The narrative has told you not to make too many errors, or she will show you what she can do when inspired. All this is due to Markus. Good or bad. If he hadn't have shown up, she wouldn't have been moved to action. Thankfully this strong soldier still more than approves of Markus' leadership and allows him to make the choice. He has done so much good, and made everyone more spirited. She has no reason to doubt him even when things look bleak. If your next move is to talk to the humans North does her old avert gaze maneuver and pleads with Markus not to do this, because she feels that he will get killed. He's her inspiration and everyone's hero. Of course she doesn't want anything to happen to him. He means a lot to her. When Simon and Josh dismiss themselves  North affirms this. "Since you've been here you've given us hope. You've given me hope." That quote encompasses this entire post. It's so sweet, open, and loving. Those words hit me right in the heart. It also proves the effect he had on her. Becoming a bit more serious North hands Markus a bomb. She could have kept it for herself, since her judgment is second best in Jericho. She doesn't, however. She gives the detonator to Markus and lets him decide if such measures are necessary. Some people may read this as her being unnecessarily cruel, but it's not. This is a worst case scenario usage only. It is also in order to protect her people. This is a war now, and in order to win a war you have to do what you must to win. Meaning I take the detonator just in case. After that North bears her heart to him. She tells him she's glad they met, and the two share their memories as well as a kiss. Shortly after North also departs . She pauses to let him know she doesn't want to lose him then is gone. Her body language and tone of voice in this scene are so telling. We know emotions have been something that she's kept deep within her. The fact that she steps closer to him before speaking emphasizes how much she trusts him and how much she's changed. She looks down again but not out of fear or in an attempt to close herself off. She's preparing to talk, to open herself up about not just how she feels but what her fears are as well. She doesn't want to lose this man. It would tear her apart to witness the death of the one who gave her the courage to be who she truly is. She lets him share memories with her once more, knowing the heavy impact it had on her the last time. What made her run away before now keeps her there. She has accepted the strength of feelings he brings out in her, and is willing to let him know her in the most intimate manner. When she's leaving she does it in such a slow, almost pained way. She stops to look at him once more. She doesn't want to be apart from him. She knows this could be one of the last times they're together, and the thought is killing her. If Markus dies she loses a friend, a supporter, a source of hope, and a lover. She's not ready to let go of someone who motivated her so intensely.

Jericho is attacked, and while fleeing Marth/Norkus run into each other. North is understandably panicked. From the way she speaks, it's clear she has her own plan, but she puts her trust in Markus by letting him make the choice. She doesn't like the idea of him risking his life to blow up the ship. From the alarmed tone of voice as well as the look in her eyes, she wants him to reconsider. Her ideal is to have him flee with her and Connor. We have to remember this is a chance to save some of the other androids from being killed. North knows this, but doesn't think it's worth it for Markus to risk his life. This means she could potentially end up losing Simon and Josh as well. I wouldn't say this is an honorable moment for her, but it is one that shows how deeply she cares for Markus. He's done a lot for her and everyone else that the thought of him dying is more painful than the thought of losing some of her people. The team regroups, and North is the first to notice Markus' return. She gives him a small, relieved smile before turning and running with the others. For some reason North pauses then gets shot. North doesn’t cry or plead for her life even with Simon encouraging Markus to leave her behind. She may not want to die, but she knows that if nothing else Markus needs to be protected. If she has to lose her life for him to continue helping others so be it. Luckily for her I don’t believe the android leader is the type to ever abandon a friend, so he rushes in to save her. They fight in tandem once again, harkening back to the freedom march and Capitol Park. Injured or not, North still gives it all she has. She is feeling well supported by Markus, and the extra assistance enables her to keep up the battle until their enemies are defeated. Connor covers them, and the five manage to escape safely. This is another one of those scenes that had me scratching my head in regards to North’s characterization. I’m not surprised that she would value Markus over everyone else. He is the soul of the revolution after all, but fact that she wouldn’t insist to go with him when this was a chance to save their people and provide him backup is just odd. It’s not like her her. Based on everything we’ve seen it doesn’t make sense. We know she’s more than capable of a fighter and puts her people’s safety way over hers. Then for some reason she stops running when bullets are flying. I could try to logic it out and say she was waiting for Markus, but I don’t really think that’s the case. Aside from the writers wanting an excuse to have North be rescued by Markus I can’t see why they’d have her behave this way. She’s not a damsel in distress, and it’s too far along in the story for her to be a coward due to emotional sensitivity based on how they’ve developed her so far. This was character regression for the sake of drama, and I’m disappointed with it.

In the aftermath of the destruction the remaining androids take shelter in an abandoned church. North is sitting alone. Silently pondering the events that have transpired over the past few hours. She's pensive but not defeated. She's alive, Markus is alive, and not everyone is dead. This woman has every reason to feel confident. More so when you consider that what her leader did was not in line with a pacifist regime. When we examine their discussion we get several, very telling verbal and non-verbal cues that confirm North's state of mind. From the moment Markus decides to sit beside her, North's eyes are on him. She's no longer deep in thought. In fact, North appears almost relieved that he asked how she was. She gives him a little smile as she affirms that she's fine overall. She gently scolds him about going back for her. She's happy to be alive, but he very well could have died. In an ironic twist, he actually breaks eye contact with her. This alone tells me how deeply North's words resonated with him. This is a serious, impactful thing to mention, but North doesn't turn away. She's now okay with facing the risks that having deep, emotional conversations entail. It's a little extra special that she gets to share this development with Markus as he's the one that gave her the strength to fight in the first place. Maybe him being beside her is affording her the confidence to have this discussion as well. This is supported by her telling him to prioritize the many over her. North truly is okay dying for the greater good, because at least her death would've helped change something. It's slightly different to how she was in earlier chapters. She has always been a proponent of her people, but facing her own death was slightly harder. Now we know she's absolutely unafraid of passing on. She also attributes the survival of the remaining androids to Markus' quick thinking with the explosives. To her the cause is still alive and well. Markus' actions have given her not only the numbers but the morale to keep their fight for equality going. This is very late in the game, but he can still be an inspiration to his actualized girlfriend. They mention the androids being rounded up in camps. North looks down for a moment, seemingly sad for those who were captured. She doesn't even flinch as she talks about the potential of every android dying. Her head is high and, she's staring her leader directly in the eye. She's okay with meeting her end, so long as she goes down trying to make a change. She tells Markus that he has to make a choice, and that she will support him regardless. For someone who also has the qualities of being a leader to allow someone else to make the decision on her fate - and the fate of everyone else like her - requires trust, respect, and humility. Markus has yet to steer them wrong, and she believes he won't anytime soon. With him at her side she is ready and willing to do whatever she must. He just needs to give the order. In a very tender moment she tells him she loves him, they do their precious hand connection, and Markus gets up to rally his people. This whole time North is watching him. She's waiting for his words as much as everyone else. The other androids may have survived, but they need guidance now. What happened was no doubt frightening. At this point only Markus' words can give them the comfort and motivation they need to carry on. Markus is truly something special. When I first watched this scene I wondered my Markus didn't tell North he loved her back, but I thought about it more as time passed. He doesn't need to say words to do this. He reaches for her hand to express his emotion in a physical way that only androids can. The other reason, is to make this moment bigger for North. We've seen her run from such intimacy in the past and suppress her feelings. The fact that she is able to admit this so calmly and with such certainty emphasizes the Markus affect even more. He really helped bring out so much of this woman. It's incredible.

Long live the revolution! Our heroes charge the camp, taking out all who stand in their way. Markus slams their flag into a barrier. As the four Jericho leaders step forward they stare down the opposition. With guns drawn and an unwavering gaze North speaks first. "Freedom or death." She’s ready to fight until the very last android is dead. Or until her people are freed. There is no hesitance or fear in her now. Only raw determination. When Markus echoes her words it is as if he is seeking assurance from her now. This is a small but important role reversal. Markus not only confirms that her stance is right, but it’s a sign that North has elevated to the point of being able to uplift the one who gave her the inspiration to be standing there now. When Markus gives the command they rush into battle under a barrage of gunfire and explosions. The Jericho quartet goes for cover immediately. North is reasonably shaken. She is aware of the odds, but Markus' plan of overwhelming their rivals gives her the push she needs to keep believing. "We're gonna do this. We're gonna get to that fucking camp, and free our people." She's assuring herself as much as Markus is. It’s very nice how they seem to be feeding off each other and keeping the morale up. If someone feels unconfident the other says or does something to erase the doubts. They are very much on even terms now. With his orders promising a success North jumps back into the fray. Simon and Josh eat lead, but she continues on bravely. Her group takes out the people operating the machine gun, and she announces that they're nearly there. She's much calmer than she was before. Clearly with each, little step her confidence grows. Justice is only a few feet away. Markus does some cool stunt with a rocket launcher, destroys a tank, and sends the humans fleeing. With their enemies in retreat, North turns to Markus in awe and announces that they won. She may have had hopes, but the reality causes her to simply stare in admiration.

They did it. What remains of team Jericho have liberated their people from an extermination camp, and Connor has summoned an army. With such a victory  the humans must accept the changing times or perish for their defiance. The era of android equality has just begun. North is flanking Markus as he examines his new charges. She breathes and utters a line that embodies everything she is as a character. "We're free." Then she looks at him, wanting Markus to encourage the newly rescued androids. She wants him to speak to them in the same way he spoke to those broken, defeated souls inside Jericho. She wants him to ignite their spirits as well. He will, and she knows this. First, however he wants to take North in his arms, kiss her, share memories, and never let go. He has a job to do and professionalism to uphold as a leader, but he seeks solace and relief in her instead. A gesture North more than appreciates. She's looking deeply into his eyes, grinning almost the entirety of this scene, and basks in his love. When Markus does make his final, grand speech, North doesn't just smile. She beams. It's the happiest she's been in the whole game, and probably in her entire existence. Yes indeed, she's free. Free to fight, free to feel, free to love, and free to live. She is a person in every sense of the word. This woman opened her heart, confronted her past, fought hard for her rights, and is ready to begin her life. North would never have become actualized, never have become inspired, never have become human if this stranger with a wild imagination hadn't fallen into her life. If he hadn't spoken with charismatic, uplifting words that ignited the once quelled fire inside her. If he didn't take actions that shook her to her very soul. Without Markus she would still be sitting stone-faced on a crate, throwing a tennis ball between scavenging for spare parts. He gave her the motivation to be the dedicated, noble, courageous warrior that she kept buried deep within her.

If you’re interested in seeing 1-4.1 of my Marth/Norkus analyses click the link below:

http://themasterofcider.tumblr.com/tagged/reasons-to-ship-marth

LET'S GET READY FOR NORKUS NOVEMBER GUYS! IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS CHECK OUT @markusandnorth

[ethereal-pluto-blog]

Markus × North Headcanons since I can't find enough of these !! (SFW)

(North is my angry baby I love her so much)

Sure they have some shit to work on to make their bond stronger (especially if you chose pacifist route for Markus) but neither are the type to just drop something without trying.

Markus and North are both leadership oriented, so they both take lessons from each other to improve their ways of leading.

Markus learns to be more assertive in his position, as now the successful leader of the android revolution many try to undermine his authority + take advantage of his position.

North learns to soften up. (With time, of course) Although her normal personality is bold and brash, Markus helps her with dialogue, and that simply wasting rage is a useless way to waste energy and time, saving her from unnecessary trouble.

North is !very! subtle with affection.

Don't get me wrong, she likes being adored, but at the same time she was programmed to constantly give and give and give affection (sexually, working at the Eden Club for clients all the time). So she likes to take things slowly once the revolution relaxes. Doing things at her own pace gives her back control she needs, so it doesn't feel like she's falling back into an obligated position to please someone else.

Markus doesn't mind, he's a patient soul after all.

Whenever Markus gets too stressed out from his Robo-Jesus work, North becomes gentle and lightly whispers praise and encouragement as she gently caresses his neck and shoulders.

It makes him weak trust me 10/10 he melts into a puddle of goo.

If North gets too riled up from anger episodes Markus lightly hums or sings to her.

She immediately shuts up and pretty much forgets what made her so upset in the first place, since damn, his voice is always so.. s o o t h i n g.

The trust in this relationship is outstanding.

Eventually, North opens up more about the abuse, and how she felt used, how eventually it all snapped inside of her to make her go deviant.

Markus always listens to her.

And wipes her tears away when eventually it all becomes too much to unload all at once.

He'll kiss the crown of her forehead, then her lips softly, as he embraces her until she comes back down from her venting episode.

He's a cuddle monster in general so it doesn't bother him when she clings on like a lifeline in these moments, hell he loves being close to her.

North always returns the gesture too.

If he needs to vent she's THERE IN A HEARTBEAT.

She'll always remind him that his frustrations are valid, and the more she listens to him it becomes less "Let's cut his dick off!!" And eventually more "I understand, love, we'll find a way to get through this together. (But if you need me to cut his dick off I'm down baby ily.)"

Their dates would be so sentimental and so cute I cannot.

Their lives are so hectic that it would probably be on the more tame side.

They can't eat so restaurants aren't on the itinerary, but they'd love some at home movie nights, stargazing, going to book stores, exploring hiking trails, going to the beach, and visiting museums.

Speaking of art, of course North inspires some of Markus' works.

He'll often appeal to her likeness with red's, yellow's, and orange's. Perhaps even painting fire around her/ in her heart.

He sees her as a passionate being, like a flame to a forest.

North gets flustered since Markus is so fucking pure, and she's so blushy when thanking him every single time.

She isn't that artistic, but she does try and impress Markus in other ways/ Show appreciation.

She tries many hobbies (keyword, t r i e s), but nothing comes to her until she discovers photography as an option. She takes to it almost immediately.

Her galleries are gorgeous as fuck and of course the full course meal Markus is a part of them. Sometimes she can't exactly vocalize praise or compliments, so catching him in his natural beauty is her fullproof way of showing him that she's honored to be his.

Markus and North also spend a lot of time with their squad.

Markus, Simon, and Josh sometimes have guys night outs. What are they doing you might inquire? Who knows! Literally they'll either be in bible study or committing lowkey arson lmao it's either one or the other.

North is chill since she likes hanging out with her friends from the Eden Club.

North is best friends with the power couple, the Traci's, and they go shopping sometimes for good clothes. They'll also occasionally go visit pet shelters since these girls are soft for fuzzy adorable animals. Lmaodon'ttellMarkus.

They do eventually get pets together as a couple.

They'll probably get a Pit bull and a hedgehog.

The Pit Bull will be tan with blue eyes, named Rosie. The hedgehog is named Oakley.

North wanted Rosie since she's a powerful doggo but also gentle af.

Markus liked Oakley since he could have a lil buddy to rest in his hoodie pocket while he painted.

Carl, although with his condition still not in the best shape, becomes a sort of father figure to North that she didn't know she needed.

She became more involved with caregiving for him after observing Markus do it so easily.

She'll jokingly call him a "crazy old man" but it turns more into "Pops" whenever she greets him.

Carl and North team up to mess with Markus from time to time, and it's fucking HILARIOUS.

Markus is peeved but he's happy his lil family is getting along. ("Guys... s e r i o u s l y where are the paintbrushes??")

Carl also teaches North some valuable insight, stuff that even she can't argue with. She nods thoughtfully and lightly hugs him.

Markus is so proud.

Proud son tears.

Proud significant other tears.

("Markus..?! Babe what's wrong why are you crying??" "Son you alright..?")

They're the most powerful of power couples.

You mess with North you'll have an angry Markus on your hands. Which can be surprisingly more intimidating than North.

You mess with Markus and well...accept your fate I guess lol since North won't hesitate to whoop you to within an inch of your life if you threaten her mans.

Honestly couple goals.

They may have fights from time to time but they become less frequent the more they have discussions afterwards to reconcile their differing personalities and temperaments.

And if you're wondering about marriage yes that's gonna be a thing with these two.

Markus believes marriage is a beautiful union between those in love.

North is skeptical since when presented to her in legal terms she's like: "...So a contract basically?"

Though she does warm up to it since she'll be the Maid of Honor to the Traci's wedding. Seeing their love and bond in a special ceremony helps cease her doubts. (She's not crying you're crying) (But honestly everyone there was a fucking mess after the vows were read but that's another headcanon for another day)

They'll probably accidentally propose at the same time.

(Totally not Carl's secret plan)

Literally they'll both kneel down and be like ???

They both had rings.

It was fucking hilarious.

They both had planned on proposing at the first place they met, at Jericho.

It was a shock to both of them.

Somehow Simon, Josh, and Lucy knew it was going to happen so they were spying on the couple and they were WEAK AS SHIT!!

When they do get married though it's going to be a fairly large ceremony. (Since every fucking android and android supporter from across the nation wanted to be there for the headline breaking wedding of the century)

Markus' groomsmen are going to include Simon as his best man, Connor, Luther, Carl, and surprisingly Leo too.

North's bridesmaids are going to include Lucy as her Maid of Honor, the Traci's, Kara, and Chloe.

Josh is going to be ordained for this occasion (seeing as he's the only emotionally stable one during this high stakes event)

Alice is going to be the ring bearer fucking fight me on this.

North is also walked down the isle by Carl since he's basically become her dad at this point since she's known him for years.

Everyone is going to be emotional.

I mean everyone.

Markus almost shuts down a few times.

North is just perpetual tears and happiness.

Now they're officially joined together as Mr. Markus Manfred and Mrs. North Manfred.

You bet your entire ass they're getting kids.

It's gonna be blended.

Some android some human.

Probably get around 3-5 kids.

All adopted obviously.

Markus is soft huggy calm dad.

North is strong momma.

People who thought that their relationship wasn't going to work are now eating their hats.

Honestly they're so in love and devoted to each other that nothing can separate them now.

I love these dorks so much can't you tell? :')

Anyways yeah here's my contribution to this ship that I really like so :')

Probably not going to be a fanfiction blog but who knows I might pop more of these out whenever I have motivation to do so. This was kinda fun to do. Hope whoever reads this enjoys! !

[r-we-taire-yet]

For the soulmate thing Enjoltaire with the birthmark thing~

Whoops this accidentally became over two pages long idk what happened whoops sorry. This is a lil canon era thingy cause we’re talking about the French Revolution atm in school and so I have the information of around the time they were born on the brain.

Grantaire never liked the concept of soulmates. It wasn’t an exact science, and it didn’t always go right. People didn’t always get along, even if they were soulmates. Like any relationship, the spark could fade or they simply never try to make it work. R learned that night after night after night while listening to his parents scream at each other after he tucked his sister in to bed.

But now, now he wasn’t so sure. This man, this leader who his friends would follow anywhere pulled on his heart in a way no one else ever had. This was different from any of his crushes before. Enjolras was different. He was more than just a passing fling. Grantaire was terrified. He didn’t want him to be his soulmate. Enjolras was too good, too opposite of him. Enjolras didn’t deserve to have to be with him. He deserved the world, not to be stuck with a soulmate like him. The soulmate system was one Enjolras had denounced for ages anyway, and it was one thing Grantaire agreed with him on. Not that Grantaire was sure they were soulmates though, because he’d been doing everything in his power to keep them from touching.

Grantaire made himself an ass, drank himself senseless, spoke of the terrible nature of man, more so than he would normally, to push Enjolras away. If Enjolras hated him, they wouldn’t touch, and they would never know. That would be best. Grantaire could live with that. It would be fine. All he had to do was never touch the man who he could never refuse, and never leave. Enjolras didn’t have to be distracted from his cause and would never have to pay any mind to the drunk.

After months of success, this wonderful plan of his came crashing down around him. It was a fairly normal meeting, and it had been going fairly well, until Grantaire got drunk enough to decide to cause a scene. This was a generally accepted part of any meeting, and was not a surprise when it began.

“While your points are valid, sir,” Grantaire said as he pointing the nose of the bottle at Enjolras, “you seem to forget that the reason we are doing this is because people cannot afford bread, and revolutions in the past have proven that if we lose sight of that and focus on ideals, we will get nowhere.”

“I am not suggesting we become the mess of the Estate’s General before the revolution began in earnest, I simply think that appealing to the citizen’s morality rather than their empty stomachs may be more useful in keeping control of the situation,” Enjolras said slowly, keeping his tone even so he didn’t show weakness.

“The people don’t care about the rights of men, they want bread! And they will be selfish to get it! That is the way of mankind. Your morals mean nothing when you are watching your children starve to death with no way to get them what they need to live!

“Oh what would you know of starving?!” Enjolras exclaimed. So much for keeping his cool. “You obviously have enough money for a whole family if you can spend as much as you do on wine!”

Images of his little sister clutching him as she coughed and coughed and coughed because they had no money for food or medicine ran through his head, and he silently stood up and walked towards the door. He was far too drunk to be allowed to leave alone but at that moment he didn’t care.

A hand wrapped around his upper arm, gripping him tightly to stop him from walking and keep him from falling, right on his birthmark. His anger dissolved due to the emotions brought forth by his suspicions being confirmed. Relief and regret, fear and longing flooded him and before Grantaire knew what he was doing, he was turning around, gripping onto Enjolras’ vest and laying his forehead against the other’s chest as he began to sob, not just from the touch, but from the memory of his sister, and the fact that Enjolras cared enough to stop him.

Enjolras was startled by the reaction, and the realization of where Grantaire’s head hit. His birthmark. Grantaire first touched him, right where his birthmark was. It was certainly the imprint of his forehead that he’d seen on his chest all his life, though he never knew what is was before that moment. Enjolras didn’t know what to make of this, but he hugged him, tried to process what was happening.

“You must have drank too much. I will assist you home,” Enjolras murmured, sounding as if he was in shock. He didn’t think to look at anyone else in the group as he grabbed his coat and started pulling Grantaire to walk with him.

Enjolras didn’t really notice where his feet were taking him, more concerned with the still crying man clinging to him than any particular direction. Before he realized it, he was at the door of his own apartment, unlocking the door with shaking hands. Enjolras guided Grantaire inside and sat them both down on his chaise longue so he could focus on calming him down.

“Why do you cry?” he whispered, gently stroking Grantaire’s cheek.

R simply shook his head, and starting crying a bit harder.

“Am I so unbearable?” Enjolras asked, hoping the tease would get a response.

“No no no!” Grantaire exclaimed, sitting up a bit and getting a better hold on Enjolras’ vest. He looked up at him as one would an idol. “I am not worthy of you. You are too good. And, oh, I love you too much. Soulmates… they never last. They’re never good. I don’t want to lose you because we are paired by a force we cannot control!”

“Grantaire, be at peace,” Enjolras said, wiping away the fresh tears. “You are worthy enough, you are an equal to me in every way, in your own way. Do not cry because you think I am higher than you in any way. Just because our parents’ matches were not good because of their own stubborn ways, does not mean we must follow in their steps. I love you too. And we can both learn from our parents and be better together for it. Fate does not control us but that does not mean we cannot heed it. All will be well, Grantaire. Be at peace.”

Slowly, Grantaire began to calm down, and the pair laid back in the chaise longue, curled up together. Not everything was okay, but Enjolras was right. They did not need to be their parents, and they wouldn’t let anyone else define them. It would be rocky but if they wanted it to work, they could. With that newfound hope, Enjolras and Grantaire fell asleep together, at peace at last.

[politicaltheatre]

The Boy In The Bubble, pt.1

If you’re of a certain age, you might just remember a TV movie starring John Travolta, “The Boy In The Plastic Bubble”. Travolta was only TV famous then, not yet movie famous, and the bubble wasn’t literally a bubble, it was all of the plastic suits and rooms and boxes on gurneys that protected Travolta’s character and his broken immune system from the always sunny yet lethal outside world.

It was an innocent story from an innocent time. Of course, no one at that time thought of it as being particularly innocent. In the mid to late 1970s, America was still dealing with the fallout from the Vietnam War, Nixon’s Watergate scandal, the sexual revolution, spiritual curiosity and psychological awakening, the civil rights movement, and the women’s rights movement.

We dealt with none of it well.

Far from learning any actually helpful lessons from the carnage of Southeast Asia, American foreign policy switched from supporting dictators and death squads there to doing so in Central and South America. Those working for Nixon who didn’t end up going to jail, such as Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, only learned the lesson that next time, whatever they did, they just shouldn’t get caught. That, for them, was Nixon’s only sin.

Meanwhile, whites were fleeing to the suburbs and the cities they left were burning. The religious cults that people fled to for emotional support either fleeced their flocks or convinced them to kill themselves - sometimes both. In the cities and suburbia, depraved serial killers suddenly seemed to be everywhere and spreading like a plague. Children were no longer safe playing outside at night. Worst of all, the decades long threat of nuclear war was rapidly becoming matched by the growing fear of nuclear power and nuclear meltdowns.

All this, and the pandemic that would come to be known as AIDS wasn’t yet even on anyone’s radar. That would come a few years later, about the same time we learned not to trust non-prescription drugs like Tylenol without tamper-proof lids.

And yet, it was a much more innocent time. Perhaps this is because we knew less. We didn’t yet know what we didn’t know, and what our leaders knew, they generally didn’t share. Not that we knew, or even thought to ask. Nixon and the Pentagon Papers destroyed our faith in government, but even then we chose not to seek answers we didn’t want to know.

There’s a lot of willful ignorance now, too, but it has more to do with the corruptions of consumerism and tribalism. Thanks to the internet and mobile devices, we have the ability to learn what our leaders once hid and got away with hiding, and to do with speed that 40 years ago seemed like science fiction.

Sadly, that same technology has allowed us to have what we want when we want it, right down to a reflection of our own, narrow, self-serving political beliefs and the fantasies we require to hide from what we don’t want to know or even see.

We aren’t challenged, we don’t have to be, and to make matters worse we have externalized so much of our collective memory that we each know just about nothing that doesn’t reflect those same narrow, self-serving interests.

We fetishize our ignorance, embracing it as an affectation, something restoring us to and maintaining us in the perceived safety of pre-adolescence. If anyone comes along showing us rational proof that we are wrong, we dismiss them because we can and continue until we absolutely can’t.

If nothing else, this helps explain our current economy and with it our current politics.

We jump from one short term solution to another, from one passion to another. Our collective speculative interest raises the fortunes of politicians as if they were stocks on Wall Street, reducing them to flavors of the week, almost all fading just as quickly as they rise.

To win, a politician needs a hook, something to elicit strong emotions. It must be bold or reckless, or even violent. To sustain that success, a politician needs to keep delivering. What they deliver seems to matter less than the how and the when.

It’s quantity over quality. In short term thinking, quantity will do. You offer options and the enabling audience takes what they want to suit their own short term interests. Everything else is just a cost of doing business. It’s transactional, pure and simple.

Quality demands more from an audience. It answers the rarely asked question of what the audience actually needs rather than what it simply wants. There’s a very good reason that question is rare. Its answer demands a stronger, lengthier commitment, one that requires many to sacrifice what they want for a greater good.

If perfect is the enemy of good, in politics it’s the enemy of winning.

Deliver a clear, rational plan to solve the country’s long term problems and you should be elected; do so without entertaining, without pandering to the basic emotions and short term interest of your audience, and you might as well be one of those brilliant but cancelled shows lost to the Netflix algorithm.

Case in point, Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts Senator made a few missteps in her now ended campaign for president, but the further she got the more those errors were dictated by things beyond her control.

The one getting the most press, and deservedly so, is sexism. Of course, sexism played a part in her candidacy’s failure, and that of the other five women who ran (Tulsi Gabbard’s zombie of a campaign was over almost as soon as it started).

So much of our culture, starting with our economy, is built on an imbalance of power. Today’s relationship between employer and employee is little changed from that of the feudal master and apprentice.

In this model of behavior, the apprentice starts out having no power, exchanging time in servitude for an education in a craft. The master, possessing the resource of knowledge which he may share as he chooses, may exploit his apprentice however he pleases.

In the short term, this works for both of them. The master is served and the apprentice learns. An imbalance of power, however, cannot be sustained indefinitely. The more the apprentice learns, the less of an imbalance there is and the more difficult it becomes to exploit him.

To maintain his power, the master has two choices: enable the apprentice so that he may himself become a master and then find a new apprentice to replace him, or abuse the apprentice so that he will be forced to stay as and where he is. The more the master abuses the apprentice, the more the apprentice wants to leave and the more effort must be made to keep him where and as he is, and so the cycle repeats until the apprentice revolts against the master, removing him one way or another.

For decades now, the backlash against unions as well as civil and women’s rights has attempted to maintain an economic underclass, to push men and women back where and as they are supposed to be. This has not been some grand conspiracy. It is just what happens when a group that has had it good finds itself in decline, or merely in competition.

Sadly, this backlash has to a great extent succeeded. Union membership has fallen, partly because union leadership has become disconnected from those they serve and partly because laws have gutted their ability to fight. Civil and women’s rights have never been stronger, but members of those groups face racism and homophobia and sexism transmitted like a virulent plague by bots and trolls hiding behind the perceived safety of anonymity.

For someone representing a group that has been abused and exploited because it was different enough and acceptable enough to be abused and exploited, the challenge of campaigning for office let alone winning an election is daunting. They do from a position of weakness defined by the same imbalance of power that underlies the very culture and economy in which they run.

So, how else can we expect the candidacy of someone on the wrong side of that imbalance to end?

True, Barack Obama won twice, but his victories were an outlier. He was the right, inspiring campaigner at the right economic catastrophe of a time going up against Republicans who failed to show either economic competence or empathy when it was most needed. Had it not been for the idiotic deregulation of banking that helped John McCain and Mitt Romney’s most important campaign contributors, Obama may have faced far stiffer competition both times. He might even have lost.

Obama was helped, too, by changes in our culture. Black, male presidents had already been portrayed as competent, empathic heroes in popular films and television shows. All he had to do was inhabit the role, and he did so as if those earlier films and shows had been written specifically with him in mind. If only he had their script writers.

He arrived with a mandate for change, and yet in his two terms Obama just about gave it all away. Part of that was because even as “the most powerful man on the planet” he was still on the wrong side of an imbalance of power. An unscrupulous Republican-led Congress obstructed him at every turn, nakedly serving the very wealthy at the expense of everyone else and daring him to call them on it.

He never really did. Perhaps this was because, as a follower of The Chicago School and “Clinton” Democrat, he simply agreed with many of the Republican’s “business friendly” policies. Mostly, though, it was because of the color of his skin, which those same Republicans and their business friends exploited to stir up fear and hatred in communities facing decline, ones looking for an other to blame.

What’s odd is that Obama won in many of those regions, even as congressional Republicans shifted their party further and further towards the naked racism and scapegoating of Donald Trump. Those people, the ones who voted for both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, really did seem to want change, and perhaps still do.

Could Warren have won in those regions? Possibly. Campaigning as a woman meant that she, too, had to curb her sharp edges the way Obama did, and for a while that seemed to be working. But then it didn’t.

That, ultimately, had less to do with being a woman and more to do with being a brand.

Bernie Sanders is a brand. So is Joe Biden. The difference between them and the twenty-something candidates they have so far beaten has been name recognition. You might be thinking, “What do you mean, ‘name recognition’? Everybody knows who Elizabeth Warren is by now!”, and to an extent you’d be right. But you’d also be wrong.

What the Bernie and Biden brands have going for them is longevity. Brand loyalty is built on habit, and people having a good feeling about a brand for a long time is an enormous advantage. It’s incumbency by another name.

The Bernie brand has been around for four years and it remains strong, in no small part because it has big ideas that require no detail whatsoever. Ask any die-hard Bernie fan to describe his Medicare For All plan in any kind of detail, and the vast, vast majority won’t be able to. It would be great if they could. It would be great if they even took the time and effort to look it up. Few do.  

So few people do, in fact, that the insurance lobby has gotten away with painting it as irresponsibly expensive - it isn’t - and even aired a commercial during the South Carolina debate in which they claimed that it would raise already expensive insurance premiums. Medicare For All doesn’t even have premiums! Aside from one article published just last week in the New York Times, no one in the media even caught on. That should embarrassing all of us.

Still, the Bernie brand is strong. He represents a fantasy of what our country could and should be for a growing percentage of the population. That he may not be able to achieve his campaign promises is beside the point. That is, it’s beside the point for enough of his fans - the real fans, not the possibly Russian and/or alt right Bernie Bots - that they don’t want to hear about it.

That, naturally, hurt Warren. The cold, hard reality of what we must do for each other has long been her brand. That means details, and details mean quality, which requires long term thinking on the part of an audience, which means good luck back in the Senate.

Too late, she tried to pivot to place herself as the sensible choice halfway between Sanders and Biden, but sensible isn’t a choice voters like to have to make, and Biden’s brand has proven to be just as strong as Sanders’.

Biden’s strengths both match and mirror those of Sanders. His name recognition was so great that before he even announced he was the frontrunner. He was a popular vice president, endearingly known for gaffes, not policy. The details of his past are not pretty, not if you were on the wrong side of that imbalance of power.

His current power, however, rests in fantasy, one equal and opposite to that of Sanders in one very specific way: Joe Biden is the “safe” choice, promising to return us to a happier past.

In his case, it’s life before Trump, which is quite a fantasy to have when you consider just how bad things were under Obama. This is because life under Obama was ruled not by him but by his nemeses in Congress, Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan, who together pushed the imbalance of power in the country almost all the way back to the time before unions or civil rights or women’s rights really took hold.

It was their effort, along with their friends in business and in the right wing media, that paved the way for Donald J. Trump to take Movement Conservatism and make it his own. They, of course, were just building on the work of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, who rode the Bush family brand back into the White House and rode American credibility and the American economy right into the ground.

They were as responsible as anyone for the election of Barack Obama. That was the America we wanted to leave behind. Now, we have something far worse.

The idea of going backwards to something better is a terrible brand to have for Democrats. It’s one built on fear. It’s one built on short term, transactional thinking. Biden’s solution to our growing health care problems is to slap a patch on it, to tweak it here and there. He, too, doesn’t have any details, but he isn’t offering them because it’s an advantage not to. We want fantasy, we want that protective bubble, and the fantasy he’s selling of leaving this toxic world behind is plenty.

For now.

Biden currently has momentum and it may well be enough to secure the nomination before the party convention this summer. If he does, expect Sanders to endorse him and campaign with him in order to rid the country of the one thing they both agree it needs to lose: Donald Trump.

Do not, however, expect a campaign filled with details. The fantasy, writ large with big, bold messaging and one main theme, is all you will get. It may be all  want, especially if he succeeds.

Then what?

- Daniel Ward

[hezroudhiaga]

Interview my OC about questions that has no easy answer

                  (Not mine, I just got it off of @tahlani who got it off someone else and I totally wanted to do this!)

1. Which should be saved – a bus full of innocent lives or a loved one?

“I would save a loved one.“

2. You meet a man who has killed someone and done time for it before. Does this factor into how you treat him? Will he ever truly escape that sin?

“Hardly. I’ve likely taken more lives than him. He’s still innocent by comparison.”

3. If you could jump back through time to save a loved one’s life, would you? Despite what it might to do the timeline? To everyone else? Do you believe it is their fate to die regardless?

“This one...is actually quite difficult. I would be more inclined to go back and save them...but things may be very different. What if she dies again but in a more horrible fashion? I believe things happen for a reason. Changing fate’s design could change everything. What if you died instead? What if where you were suppose to be, at that moment, caused more problems than fixing it ever could have? When I lost my beloved...She was at sea pushing back beastmen and primal alike. I was on the shore holding the front lines pushing back said beastmen. What if I wasn’t there? We might lose. What if I was in her stead? She’d be without me and we’d be doing this all over again. If I did save her...what if that duty failed and the primal and beastmen wiped all of us out? That kind of thing....is best left to Hydaelyn’s design. We are not meant to break her laws.”

4. You have a secret you swore not to reveal. But this secret is the only thing that would prove your innocence in a separate matter. Is it worth risking your own well-being for the secret? Or would you betray the trust given to you?

“It honestly depends on who it is...”

5. Is it better to hurt others before they hurt you or let yourself be walked all over and hurt by others?

“I tend to avoid others and fend for myself. However, if I am forced to either situation -- You’d better believe I’d be delivering the first strike before they do.”

6. If you tell the truth, an evil person gets to walk away free. If you lie, you may be able to send them away like they deserve. Is honesty worth more than justice?

“Again, it would depend on the individual...”

7. You have the key to immortality in your hands. But not for free. If you want it, as a price, your worst enemy also gains immortality. Is it worth it?

“I wouldn’t mind Immortality. I can annoy my worst enemy until he begs to be mortal again~”

8. If you could gain as much money as you want for losing a sense, would you do it?

“Only if I get to choose the sense.”

9. Can people be held accountable for things people close or related to them did or are they innocent?

“I believe everyone holds their own burdens. They shouldn’t be judged purely because of someone else.”

10. If a lot of people, possibly innocent people, have to die in order to make a real change, is it worth it? Can you live with their deaths even if it helps people in the present?

“I am no stranger to killing innocent people under the guise of ‘revolution’. What’s another body going to do? Just another number on the wall.”

11. Imagine there is a beast that craves attention. If you ignore it, despite being deadly, it will leave you alone. Could you live like that? Even if it possibly attacked others? Would you try and challenge something that unknown?

“If it doesn’t bother me, or people close to me -- I have no issue.”

12. If someone else stole something and you stole it back is that a good deed, a bad deed or one of equal worth? Are you better than the original thief?

“Equal opportunity.”

13. Could you sacrifice yourself for the good of everyone else?

“...Yes. For her.”

14. What of love? Say you discover your lifelong crush on another has finally been reciprocated… but they are currently dating a family member or a dear friend the crush feels responsible to honour. Do you force the break up? Date on the side? Bottle it up forever?

“If they found them first...I will wait patiently. Maybe even forever. It would be my fault for not realizing it first.”

15. Is lying to others to gain their approval more important than being genuine and hated?

“I honestly could care less what others think of me. I’ve got nothing to hide. If I am hated for being myself -- so be it.”

16. Have you ever contemplated killing someone? Who and why? Would you ever act on it? Are you frightened you might?

“Quite often, actually. However, this one in particular is not only going to prove to be the most difficult of pray -- but the most deadly. He is an enigma. I am unsure if I would ever act on it...I am both afraid of what is to come should I fail...and what will happen to ‘her’ if I did.”

17. Have you ever gotten sheer joy out of hurting someone else, either physically or mentally? To whom and why? Did it scare you?

“I’ve gotten nothing out of killing someone else. But sometimes I wonder if on day that I do...I might indeed fear it.”

18. Have you ever done something morally wrong? If it’s morally wrong do you regret it?

“All the time. And no, I do not regret it.”

19. What is more likely a thought to you – that this world is wrong or that you are wrong?

“...I believe both answers are correct. The realm is wrong for being as disgusting as it is. But I am wrong for helping it get that way.”

20. Are there people in this world who, no matter how much time and penitence is given, should never be forgiven?

“One. And yet there is nothing I can do against him.”

21. Are there people in this world you simply think the world would be better without? If you could erase them out of existence without physically murdering them, would you?

“Yes. There are many who would probably be better off never having been born. A one certain Syndicate leader, in particular, would be best suited to this one.”

22. How do you feel about having an intimate relationship with someone you don’t love? What if they love you in return? Does that make you feel guilty?

“I wouldn’t mind the sex...However I might feel pings of guilt from time to time.”

23. Could you ever become your own hero? Is that a role you can fulfill or is it something you look to others for?

“I gave up being the hero long ago. I make a better villain against the normal people of the Realm.”

24. How do you feel about tears? Are they cowardly and weak? Do you cry? Would you consider that shameful?

“I think shedding tears takes will. I don’t see them as cowardly and weak. I’ve cried...but mostly to myself. I’m a hypocrite in the sense that I feel that I, myself, am shameful for it.”

25. What is more important to you? An idea of yours being used and appreciated or the credit for that idea beings yours and yours alone?

“If it betters the situation, I’d rather see it be used than merely be an idea alone.”

26. Is your personal happiness more important than anything else in the world? Than fame? Than the happiness of others?

“I’ve grown up in the Twelveswood...Fame to me means nothing. I’d rather be happy living my life the way I want to than anything else.”

27. How far would you go to achieve a dream or ideal? Does it matter who suffers? Does it matter if you suffer?

“It depends on the dream and ideal. If it’s able to be sacrificed...then it doesn’t matter. However, if it is a passion I will not abandon -- then nothing is too great of a sacrifice.”

28. How long would you wait for the one you love? A year? Fifteen years? Forever? Could you honestly be loyal to an unfulfilled love?

“I already promised her I will wait as long as it takes. I intend to keep that promise no matter what.”

29. Is genius equal to hard work? Does a genius deserve praise for doing well without effort? Are they above us?

“Can a genius dodge my blade? I doubt that. They are not above anyone.”

30. Do we live in a world of parallels? Can there be no hope without grief? No happiness without suffering? Or is a utopia possible?

“To give is to take. To live is to die.”

31. What is more important to you? Being respected and praised by your elders or being looked up to and championed by those younger or of the same age?

“An elder’s blessing is far more lasting and meaningful than a brat’s with constantly changing opinions.”

32. If you could choose to remove certain feelings such as anger, confusion, sadness, would you remove them?

“...Yes. Because then I would no longer hesitate.”

33. If you could wipe certain memories from your head, would you? Why would you? What memories?

“...I would. I would because I wouldn’t have to look at my armor and remember how I couldn’t protect anyone. I would rather forget her like she had forgotten me. Maybe then I would stop drawing so many similarities to another...”

34. What path appeals to you more? An exciting dream that leaves you possibly penniless and alone or a drab existence where you have steady success.

“Either life would suit me. I’ve done both. But if I had to choose one I would rather be penniless. Greed means nothing to a Miqo’te of the Twelveswood.”

35. Is every person in this world wholly unique or can they be categorized? Can they be grouped and mentally dissected? Are you just another sheep in another flock or are you the sole unique soul?

“While everyone can be their own unique person...there are some who really are just sheep. Sometimes I can’t tell if I am a sheep or my own person. And that thought terrifies me.”

(Tagging: ANYONE CAN DO IT. Actually, fuck that. EVERYONE IN RED DRAGON SYNDICATE HAS TO DO THIS.)

[taiey]

I’d like to ask you to imagine that you live in a very repressive country—there are elections but they are fake. The leader wins 100% of the vote each time. Security forces beat up opposition leaders with impunity, and they harass everyone else. This is a country where being in this room right now would get you on a list. Now let’s say you’ve had enough, and so have many other people that you talk to in low whispers. I’m not talking about the Hunger Games although that would be awesome. Unfortunately I’m talking about real world conditions that many people find themselves in right now.

Assuming you’ve decided to act, what would be the best way for you to challenge the system and create major change?

My own answer to this question has changed over the past five years. In 2006 I was a PhD student in political science here at CU-Boulder, and I was finishing my dissertation about how and why people use violence to seek political goals. As for the scenario I just described? Well, back then I bought into the idea that “power flows from the barrel of a gun.” I would have said that although it was tragic, it was logical in such cases for people to use violence to bring about change.

But that June, I was invited to an academic workshop put on by the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict. They were giving a week-long primer on nonviolent resistance to encourage people like me to teach about it in our courses. Now, my view of all this stuff was that it was well-intentioned, but dangerously naïve. The readings they sent me argued that the best way for people to achieve political change was through nonviolent or civil resistance. The authors described civil resistance as an active form of conflict where unarmed civilians used tactics like protests, demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, and many other forms of mass noncooperation to confront oppression. They brought up cases like Serbia, where a nonviolent revolution toppled Slobodan Milosevic—the butcher of the Balkans—in October of 2000, or the Philippines where the People Power movement ousted Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.

At the workshop, I said things like, “Well, for every successful case you guys mention, I can think of a failed case like Tiananmen Square. I can also think of plenty of cases where violence worked pretty well, like the Algerian, French, and Russian revolutions. Maybe nonviolent resistance works if you’re seeking labor rights, gender rights, or environmental reform, but it generally can’t work if you’re trying to overthrow a dictator or become a new country. Serbia and the Philippines–they were probably exceptions. And there’s no way nonviolent resistance can work against a ruthless opponent.”

By the end of the week, as you can imagine, I wasn’t too popular.

My soon-to-be co-author—Maria Stephan–came up to me and said something like, “If you’re right, prove it. Are you curious enough to study these questions empirically?”

Believe it or not, no one had systematically done this before. Although I was still skeptical, I was curious. If they were right and I was wrong, I figured somebody had better find out. So for the next two years, I collected data on all major nonviolent and violent campaigns for the overthrow of a government or territorial liberation since 1900. The data cover the entire world and include every known campaign that consists of at least a thousand observed participants, which constitutes hundreds of cases.

Then I analyzed the data, and the results blew me away. From 1900 to 2006, nonviolent campaigns worldwide were twice as likely to succeed outright as violent insurgencies. And there’s more. This trend has been increasing over time—in the last fifty years civil resistance has become increasingly frequent and effective, whereas violent insurgencies have become increasingly rare and unsuccessful. This is true even in extremely repressive, authoritarian conditions where we might expect nonviolent resistance to fail.

So why is civil resistance so much more effective than armed struggle? The answer lies in people power itself.

Researchers used to say that no government could survive if five percent of its population mobilized against it. But our data reveal that the threshold is probably lower. In fact, no campaigns failed once they’d achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5% of the population—and lots of them succeeded with far less than that. Now, 3.5% is nothing to sneeze at. In the U.S. today, this means almost 11 million people.

But get this: Every single campaign that did surpass that 3.5% threshold was a nonviolent one. In fact, campaigns that relied solely on nonviolent methods were on average four times larger than the average violent campaign. And they were often much more representative in terms of gender, age, race, political party, class, and urban-rural distinctions.

Civil resistance allows people of all different levels of physical ability to participate—including the elderly, people with disabilities, women, children, and virtually anyone else who wants to. If you think about it, everyone is born with an equal physical ability to resist nonviolently. Anyone who has kids knows how hard it is to pick up a child who simply doesn’t want to move, or to feed a child who simply doesn’t want to eat.

But for lots of people, violent resistance is much more physically demanding. You have to train to be good at it. When I was in college, I took military science classes because I wanted to go through the ROTC program and become an army officer. I liked the rappelling, the uniforms, map-reading, and shooting at the range. But I wasn’t stoked about getting up in the wee hours of the morning to run until I vomited. I quit–and chose the far less strenuous career of professor.

Not everyone wants to take the same chances in life, and many people won’t turn up unless they expect safety in numbers. The visibility of many civil resistance tactics, like protests, helps to draw these risk-averse people into the fray. Put yourself back in that repressive country for a minute. Say your neighbor comes to you and says, “We’re going to have a demonstration in the main square down the street at 8pm tonight. I hope you can make it.” Now, I don’t know about you all, but I’m not the person who is going to show up at 7:55 to see what’s up. I’m going to wait until about 8:30 or so, check out my window, and see what’s going on. If I see only 6 people assembling in the square, I’m probably going to sit this one out. But if I see 6,000 and more coming down the alleyway, I might join them.

The point here is that nonviolent campaigns can solicit more diverse and active participation from ambivalent people. And once those people get involved, it’s almost guaranteed that the movement will then have some links to security forces, the state media, business or educational elites, religious authorities, and civilian bureaucrats who start to question their allegiances. No regime loyalists in any country live entirely isolated from the population itself. They have friends, they have family, and they have existing relationships that they have to live with in the long term, regardless of whether the leader stays or goes. In the Serbian case, once it became clear that hundreds of thousands of Serbs were descending on Belgrade to demand that Milosevic leave office, policemen ignored the order to shoot on demonstrators. When asked why he did so, one of them said: “I knew my kids were in the crowd.”

I’ll bet some of you are thinking, “Is she insane? I watch the news, and I see protestors getting shot at in the streets all the time!” Sometimes crackdowns do happen. But even in these cases, nonviolent campaigns outperformed violent ones by two-to-one. When security forces beat up, arrest, or even shoot unarmed activists, there is, indeed, safety in numbers. Large and well-coordinated campaigns can switch from concentrated methods (like protests) to dispersed methods, where people stay away from places they were expected to go. They do strikes, they do stay-at-home demonstrations, they bang on pots and pans, they shut off the electricity at a coordinated time of day — these tactics are much less risky. They’re very hard or at least very costly to suppress, while the movement stays just as disruptive.

What happens in these countries once the dust settles? It turns out, the way you resist matters in the long run too. Most strikingly, nonviolent campaigns were far more likely to usher in democratic institutions than violent insurgencies. And countries where people waged nonviolent struggle were 15% less likely to relapse into civil war.

The data are clear: When people rely on civil resistance, their size grows. And when large numbers of people withdraw their cooperation from an oppressive system, the odds are ever in their favor.

So. Many people in my field had largely ignored the millions of people worldwide who were skillfully using civil resistance in favor of studying things that blow up. I had a few questions about the way I used to think. Why was it so easy and comfortable for me to believe that violence works? And why did I find it acceptable to simply assume that violence happens—almost automatically—because of circumstances, or by necessity—that it’s the only way out of some situations? In a society that celebrates battlefield heroes on national holidays, I guess it was natural to grow up believing that violence and courage are one and the same—and that true victories can’t come without bloodshed on both sides.

But the evidence I’ve presented here today suggests that for people serious about seeking change, there are realistic alternatives. Imagine now what our world would look like if we allowed ourselves to develop faith in them. What if our history courses emphasized the decade of mass civil disobedience that came before the Declaration of Independence, rather than the war that came after? What if Gandhi and King were the basis of the first chapter of our social studies textbooks, rather than an afterthought? What if every child left elementary school knowing more about the Suffragist movement than they did about the Battle of Bunker Hill? And what if it became common knowledge that when protests become too dangerous, there are many nonviolent techniques of dispersion that might keep participants safe and keep movements resilient?

So here we are in 2013 in Boulder, Colorado. Maybe some of you are thinking, “OK, I get that civil resistance is the best bet, but what can I do?”

Encourage your children to learn about the nonviolent legacies of the past two hundred years and explore the potential of people power. Tell your elected representatives to stop perpetuating the misguided view that violence pays by supporting the first groups in a civil uprising to take up arms. Although nonviolent campaigns can’t be exported or imported, it’s time for our officials to embrace a different way of thinking—that in the short and long term, civil resistance tends to leave behind societies in which people are able to live more freely and more peaceably together.

Now that we know what we know about the power of nonviolent conflict, I see it as our shared responsibility to spread the word so that future generations don’t fall for the myth that violence is their only way out.

Thank you.

https://rationalinsurgent.com/2013/11/04/my-talk-at-tedxboulder-civil-resistance-and-the-3-5-rule/

[theliterateape]

All Art is Political

By Tani Freiwald

The following essay was originally written and performed for BUGHOUSE! in Las Vegas on October 28, 2019. The topic of debate was “Is All Art Political.” Tani went up against Scott Hertinstein. Tani was determined the winner by our judge.

You know the challenge in an all or nothing statement is that it only takes one exception and your whole argument can dissolve faster than a cardboard suit in the rain. I know there's the old “exception to the rule" clause but that just seems facile and lazy to me. So tonight I intend to prove categorically and without exception, that all art is political, because, as it turns out, everything is political: every relationship, every interpersonal interaction, every aspect of our daily lives and here’s how we know that.  

Many, many, many, many years in the past. I’m talking two-and-a-half to three million years ago, an unexpected mutation appeared. Wait a minute, is that an oxymoron? Is there such a thing as an “expected” mutation? Some might argue that electing Trump to the Presidency was an expected mutation given the growing malaise, injustices, and tribalization of our country over the last thirty years, but we’ll save that for a later debate. 

Anyway, about three million years ago, our ancestors, the apes, gave rise to a new species, Homo or man. As early man began spreading out into the world, different environments necessitated different forms of adaptation and a whole slew of different hominids began to populate the planet. There was Homo rudolfensis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis, Homo denisova, Homo habilis, Homo sapiens. Homo, homo, homo, homo, I guess, in the end, we’re all gay.

But what’s really important about this evolution is that in the beginning, we were a pretty unremarkable species compared to the rest of the animal kingdom. We were smack dab in the middle of the food chain. We ate creatures less powerful than us and were eaten by creatures more powerful than us. Still the multi-Hominid world worked pretty well until, eventually all but one Homo had disappeared, (betcha Mike Pence would like the sound of that). Maybe eaten, maybe unable to adapt to hostile environments, and in some cases wiped out by other Hominids: remember Homo neanderthalis? Now, just a memory and the occasional bone fragment.

Yup, turns out bonobo bros preceded Bernie Bros by a few million years.

During this time, Hominids lived in small, predominantly family groups that operated just like those of our nearest  ape relatives, the chimpanzees and bonobos do today. Their social structures are hierarchical with a single dominant leader. The alpha ape maintains, or tries to maintain social harmony.  Interestingly we tend to think that when an Alpha is challenged two individuals engage in physical combat with loud, aggressive behavior resulting in the vanquished either retreating to a lower status within the troop, banished from the group altogether or in the worse case scenario, fatally injured.

Well, we would be wrong. The truth is when two individuals contest the alpha position, they usually do so by forming extensive coalitions of both male and female supporters. (Yup, turns out bonobo bros preceded Bernie Bros by a few million years.) Ties between supporters are based on intimate, daily contact like touching and hugging (hello Joe Biden) kissing, grooming, and mutual favors. Sound familiar? Alphas become leaders not so much because of physical prowess as their ability to lead a large and strong coalition. In other words, a process by which power is achieved, maintained and used to determine who gets to make the rules that will effect every aspect of everybody else's lives. Also known as Politics.

But there's one limitation to this otherwise successful system of group dynamics. It is totally reliant on trust. A trust that can only be established in groups where all the members know each other intimately. So as groups get larger the social order destabilizes, ruptures and a new group is formed. When you think about it, it makes sense. After all, just fifty individuals generate 1,225 one-on-one relationships and countless interactions in other combinations.

So, if group dynamics and power relationships ie politics seems only effective in small groups, how did Homo sapiens manage to rise from inconsequential, middle of the food chain fodder to the conquers (and ultimately) destroyers of the planet? I’m glad you asked, ‘cause here’s where the art part comes in…

About 150,000 years ago there occurred another unexpected mutation that today we call the Cognitive Revolution, and it would be followed in rapid succession (well, rapid in evolutionary terms) by the Agricultural Revolution about 70,000 years ago and the Scientific Revolution a skant 500 years ago.

It is Art that was integral to history's two great cultural manifestations, religion and commerce.

One of the consequences of this cognitive leap was the development of language. Almost all animals communicate with vocalizations and calls but man is the only animal with a means of sharing information through a limited number of sounds and signs that can produce an almost unlimited amount of meanings and ideas. Nowhere is this unique human feature more evident than during my favorite part of infant development when syntax precedes words. You’ve really missed out if you’ve never had a deep philosophical conversation with a ten-month-old over the question of Trump's quid pro quo with Ukraine. And no, listening to republicans doesn’t count, even if it does sound remarkably like baby talk.

But where, might you ask, is Art in all this. Well, if the concept of Politics precedes everything, guess what, Art, informs everything that politics and language created because 70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens developed an ability no other animal possesses, the ability to imagine that what which can not be seen. In other words, Imagination. If there is a dividing line between art and imagination, I’m hard pressed to find it.

It is Art that was integral to history's two great cultural manifestations, religion and commerce. Neither of which would have been conceivable without trust. But now, trust was no longer dependent on intimate daily activities of small groups. Relationships with strangers thousands of miles away could be developed based on common beliefs in the myths of religion and commerce. Even today’s national identities and political affiliations are all based on shared trust generated by the mutual acceptance of ideas, not picking parasites off your cousin’s head. And those intangible human constructs could not have been created, nurtured, and spread across the globe without pictures, storytelling and music. In short Art.

We could never have come to dominate earth without art. But there would have been no art if the chimps and bonobos hadn't invented politics.