#rose that becomes an engine of war

[annachum]

During the June Rebellion,

Both Eponine and Cosette are sometimes ' at war with themselves '

While Eponine's ' war ' is external - scraping for her siblings, literally often physically fighting against her abusers, often resorting to violence as a form of self defense ( and that includes biting and stabbing ), carrying defense weapons wherever she went, even dressing up as a man to sneak into the June Rebellion barricades to help protect Marius

Cosette's ' war ' is internal - battling the trauma demons inside her head at times, fighting to keep peace with herself, literally passionately choosing a more peaceful lifestyle, and sometimes internally battling her inner demons

Both Eponine and Cosette also have a teetering danger to repeat a similar cycle as their biological mothers

Madame Thenardier is one of cruelty and hate

Fantine is one of suffrage, love and martyrdom

Luckily for many, Eponine and Cosette don't have to repeat a similar cycle as their bio mothers

Eponine's story became one of redemption

Cosette's story became one of hope

[letsquestjess]

Hello 🤎

If you’re still looking for some requests, I have an idea for a fic where the reader gets in between Crosshair and Hunter when they are first bickering when Crosshair rejoins the group, defending Cross (who she of course has been in love with from day one but never said anything) and he is completely taken aback by her willingness to protect him.

And fluff and confessions and love ensue?

Thank you 🤎

Hi there! Thank you for the request 💜

I love this idea so much! There was probably a lot of tension on The Marauder on that flight back to Pabu 😅

In the Middle (Crosshair x GN/F!Reader)

Summary: Tensions run high after Crosshair returns, and after listening to enough bickering, you decide to take matters into your own hands.

Word count: 2K (yep, this one ran away with me)

Warnings: Bit of angst.

A/N: While this request was made with a female reader in mind, it's gender neutral like most of my SFW xReader fics.

-- -- -- -- --

With each pocket of turbulence, The Marauder shuddered and rattled. The latches on the cupboards struggled to withhold the avalanche of items, threatening to scatter them across the floor, while the unused hazard chairs juddered.  

“Those should have been secured before we set off,” Hunter grumbled from the co-pilot seat. 

“We’ll be through the worst of it in a minute,” you promised, manoeuvring your fingers over the buttons and pulling a lever. Slowly but surely, you handled the ship, making precise adjustments to the engine and applying incremental pressure to the thrusters, guiding it through the dense pocket and emerging unscathed. “There we go. May get a bit of rattling, but it shouldn’t be as bad now.” 

As soon as the shaking subsided, Hunter sprung out of his seat and got to work tightening the loose brackets on the hazard seats. Ever since picking up Omega and Crosshair, he’d been on edge, monitoring his sister’s every move and occupying himself with mundane, self-imposed duties. 

You turned in time to catch the intense glare Hunter shot at Crosshair when the sniper tried to assist him. You offered Crosshair a reassuring smile, but he flinched away, his tired eyes overflowing with a wariness that had become all too common since he returned. He’d taken to dawdling around the bunks at the rear of the ship or concealing himself in secluded spots while Wrecker and Hunter doted on Omega, making himself as small as possible and ensuring he wouldn’t be a nuisance. Not that he ever could be, not in your mind.  

In order to avoid detection by Imperials, you had all unanimously decided to forgo the hyperspace lanes and opted for a longer route to Pabu. At first, you thought nothing of it, the plan seemed perfectly reasonable, but the suffocating atmosphere on the ship soon amplified the palpable tension between them. 

The communications unit emitted a shrill beep, and before you had the chance to even think about responding, Hunter crossed into the cockpit and leafed through the message.

“What is it?” Omega asked, peeking into the front cabin. 

“It’s from Echo,” Hunter replied. “He’s planning to visit soon so he can welcome back our happy arrival.” The smile faded and his jaw stiffened the second his eyes rose to meet Crosshair’s as he wandered to the cockpit door.

“If you have something on your chest, Hunter, spit it out,” Crosshair told him, exhaustion tingeing his tone. “Ever since I got here, you haven’t stopped glaring at me, so just say what you want.”

You exchanged a glance with Omega, silently conveying your shared hope that Hunter wouldn’t. You saw enough hurt in Crosshair as it was. 

The moment you had laid eyes on him disembarking the Imperial shuttle and crossing over the pools of light to The Marauder, the affection you’d harboured for him since being assigned to Clone Force 99 during the war resurfaced. For a reunion you hoped would hold so much promise and joy, the atmosphere quickly soured as Hunter stood in the way, protecting Omega and preventing Crosshair from boarding the ship. 

If it weren’t for the young clone’s persistence and yourself and Wrecker coaxing him round, he most likely would have abandoned him. Since then, you’d spent the past few days contemplating what you would have done in that situation, but a small voice inside insisted you would have gone with Crosshair. Fortunately, you hadn’t been forced to make that tough decision, but now you found yourself dealing with backhanded remarks and agitated glares, and your patience wore thin. 

As they started bickering again, you positioned yourself between them. “Will you both stop it?” you demanded. “Haven’t we all been through enough? You are brothers.” Instead of allowing Hunter to continue his argument, you interrupted him by slamming your hand on the controls. The door whizzed shut, confining you both in the cockpit. 

“You have got to drop this suspicion of him, Hunter,” you all but begged. “I understand you’re on edge and this has been overwhelming, but we have no idea what he endured on Tantiss. Based on what Omega has shared, that place is a nightmare for anyone who opposes the Empire, so please quit looking at him like he’s a potential threat.”

You could see the gears revolving in his head as he processed your words, his resistance crumbling. Every time he clenched his fists or snapped at the slightest question, you had felt the urge to intervene. His actions were only aggravating the situation, particularly for Omega and Crosshair, but the months of stress were taking their toll in leaving his system, and the last thing you wanted was to make the tension worse. 

There was an absence of culpability in your words, and even if he’d tried, he couldn’t condemn you for confronting him in such a way. The days had passed by uneasily to say the least, and he’d done nothing to help matters. He was scared. Fearing failing Omega again, he also grappled to acknowledge his abandonment of Crosshair, and anticipated a reckoning. If his brother did hold him partly responsible for his suffering, he wouldn’t blame him. So often he scolded himself for accepting that he was a lost cause instead of putting up a stronger fight for him. And he had come to terms with the fact that he had played a role in everything you’d all suffered since. 

“They both need calm to recover,” you said softly. “Can you not see how your brother is hurting?” 

Hunter couldn’t have felt worse than he did in that moment, but he remained quiet. He knew you weren’t doing this to guilt him, but to jolt him out of the terrified haze that was making him lash out at his family, that was driving a wedge between them when they should be reuniting in solidarity. So he listened. 

Weary and with pleading eyes, you perched yourself on the arm of the co-pilot chair and gazed at the squad’s leader. “Whatever happened to Cross, it has left him visibly shaken, and for something to shake a man as sturdy as him… I dread to think of the horrors he went through.” A lump snagged in your throat but you breathed it down. “Ease up on him. That’s all I ask.” 

Outside the cockpit, Crosshair’s fingertips dug into the rigid metal of the door as he leaned a little closer, ears trained on the noise within and disregarding the ongoing conversation between Wrecker and Omega at the navigation console. Your determined protection of him stirred up his guilt, and he listened enraptured by your ability to hold Hunter accountable without losing sight of the underlying complexities of the situation. In truth, he hadn’t anticipated such a strong defence from you, and his chest fluttered. 

Prior to the end of the war and the fateful order, he had nearly confessed everything to you, poured out his feelings just to be free of them. It hadn’t mattered to him whether you reciprocated them or not. He merely wanted you to know so that he no longer had to bear that uncertainty. If he had to hurt, he preferred to rip off the plaster fast and move on as best he could. 

But the way you smiled around him when nobody else did, the easy flow of your conversations, the lingering touches that ignited a comforting warmth made him wonder if you shared his affections. You hadn’t treated the others in that manner, and it sent his mind spiralling.  

The situation had changed now, though. You survived with the Empire on your tail, with the daunting task of evading him while he hunted you without mercy or relent. Handled dangerous missions and daring ventures solely to provide for and protect his brothers. There was no assurance that the feelings you may have once held for him remained.  

Alerted by the sound of steps nearing the door, he retreated and pretended to secure the cupboards after the earlier jolts and jostles. Thankfully, you took no notice of his sudden movement, but he didn’t miss the glimmer of a smile you directed at him, a comforting reassurance and a gesture of hope that everything would work out in time. 

With meticulous care, you finished cleaning the brunt of your blaster and slipped each piece back together with a satisfying click. As you worked with the rotary system, you encountered some difficulties and resorted to using the slim brushes to sweep each cleft in the cylinder. The pungent smell of oil clogged your nostrils, and with a brief wince, you sealed the container.

Lost in your task, you picked up on a set of footsteps drawing near but remained immersed in the intricate inner workings of your weapon. 

“Sorry,” Crosshair mumbled once he spotted you sat on your bunk. “I can go. I don’t want to interrupt you.” 

Your gaze shot up, locking onto his with a silent plea to stay. The confidence he exuded during the war had vanished, leaving him second guessing every action he took, and it pained you to witness how the Empire had savagely chipped away at him. “It’s okay,” you assured him. “I actually wouldn’t mind the company.”

With a sense of comfort from your soft admission, he wandered over to the upper bunk and reclined until his hip met the rail, scanning the weathered hull as though he was still trying to grasp where he was. “I apologise if the atmosphere hasn’t exactly been pleasant,” he said, massaging the palm of his right hand with his thumb as a tremor coursed up his wrist. 

“I’m just glad you’re back,” you said in a relieved breath. You finished reassembling your blaster and fastened it into the holster hanging over your bed. Shifting the tray of tools onto the bedsheets, you rose from the mattress. “Hunter will come round. Give him time.” 

“I missed that bright optimism,” Crosshair admitted. 

The shakes in his hand spread and he hunched his shoulders. Sensing the shame in the action, you gently enclosed him in your arms, waiting for any discomfort before squeezing him. 

“I wish I could repair the rift between you and Hunter,” you muttered, resting your temple against his as you held him. “Fixing the most complicated of ships is a breeze compared to working with you two and your stubborn natures.” 

Through a thin haze of tears, Crosshair clung onto you tighter, breathing you in and relishing your tender inclination. When you pulled away, his hand quivered as he reached out to wipe the lone teardrop that had trailed a path down your cheek. 

“But if I can help you both through this, then I will,” you told him. “Whatever it takes.” 

Struck by your compassionate, resolute statement, Crosshair pressed his forehead to yours, his heart skipping when you met him halfway. All he wanted to do was hold you close and never let go. “This is nothing compared to the arguments we had as cadets.”

“More than one bloodied nose, wasn’t it?” 

“Uh-huh.”

You both shared a grin as he cupped your cheeks and nestled into you. “I overheard what you said to Hunter,” he confessed. 

“I meant every word,” you whispered, settling your hands on his chest. “Cross, I can see you hurting and I want to be here for you.”

At the slight crack in your voice, Crosshair dropped his focus to your mouth before returning to your watery eyes. You answered his silent question with a nod, and he wasted no time in sealing his lips to yours. As he melted into the kiss, he dried your fallen tears with the pads of his thumbs, moving in tandem with you until your back hit the wall and his arms protectively encompassed you.

“Your willingness to stand up for others is one of the things that drew me to you,” he said, pulling away, breathless. Another sweet peck landed on your lips, feather light and full of promise. “I never should have left.” 

You hushed him with a slow shake of your head. “You’re home,” you reminded him. “That’s all that matters now.”

[wealmostaneckbeard]

Signalis and Dungeon Meshi: Unorganized Comparison

Both are about crawling through dungeons, fighting monsters, and picking things up to get into inaccessible places.

There's a pair of siblings and a lesbian couple, both are cruelly separated by powerful forces. The living half (Marcille Donato, Elster, Isa Itou, Laios Touden) is willing to do anything to bring back their loved one (Falin Touden, Erika Itou, Ariane Yeong) from the depths of the dungeon. The searchers are motivated not just by love but guilt too, a stubborn refusal to fail their beloved one last time by abandoning then.

Both stories are about the evils of anthropocentric ideologies. It is the inescapable first lense that we all see the world through. It is a subjective, selfish, and almost nihilistic view point. It is the belief that the universe cannot match the significance of humanities existence. For anyone who has loved another human, this is an easy ideology to embrace.

It's also the foundation for hierarchical authoritarianism which dictates that you are either a productive member of humanity or a nonhuman agent of a hostile universe. Those who try to view the universe as itself and not as a means of, or obstacle to, the gratification of human desire are put into the latter grouping. Those who conform are elevated to positions of power within the hierarchy. This is illustrated by the suffering of Ariane Yeong and Laios Touden. As well as the elevation of various political figures in Dungeon Meshi and Kommandant Falke in Signalis.

Both universes feature similar world building elements: a cosmic force grants individual humans their anthropocentric desires resulting in the formation of impossible things. In Signalis, bioresonance allows for the colonization of other worlds and the creation of replikas. In Dungeon Meshi, the Demon's intercession has resulted in the formation of different races, monsters, dungeons, and the magical arts.

And now we come to where the two narratives truly differ with each other:

The characters in Dungeon Meshi are able to triumph over anthropocentric thought and create a better world. Tragically, the characters in Signalis are not able to do the same and become trapped in a hellish existence. This isn't exclusively because of their traits, they are unconsciously conforming to a larger pattern.

In Dungeon Meshi, the natural world still exists and can be defended from corrupting supernatural influence. Even when the earth is devastated by magically augmented warfare, the world is big enough to recover. There are trained specialists, like the canaries, who are able to counter the expansion of dungeons and it's associated threats. Because magic is so important to the world dungeon meshi, knowledge is prevalent with a few severe restrictions.

In Signalis, Vineta/Earth was destroyed by the war between the Eusan Nation and Empire. The closest that people can get to nature is potted plants and a nights sky. The Eusan Nation limits knowledge about bioresonance so that no one can use that to challenge their authority. As a result, no one can understand what's happening during a bioresonance crisis.

In Dungeon Meshi, food preparation is a narrative focal point, it connects people to the world and each other. In Signalis, food is a secondary consideration, it is rationed out by the Eusan Nation, given to good citizens and denied to dissidents.

Ryoku Kui is a japanese manga creator and Rose Engine are a pair of german game developers. One could guess that the artistic differences between them are reflective of their nations history during a certain conflict that happened in the last century...

[wesleysniperking]

Strawhats’ Band AU

- The Strawhats’ sound is akin to Beirut and Broken Social Scene.

Band Members and Instruments:

- Usopp: Bass guitar. (Engineer and Songwriter/Lyricist)

- Luffy: Lead singer.

- Nami: Keyboardist/pianist/synth player.

- Zoro: Drummer.

- Sanji: Trombonist. (Might play other hard-a** brass instruments). (Lyricist/SW)

- Chopper: Maracas, Tamborine, and instruments similar to those. (He can play the Kalimba and idiophone type).

- Robin: Harp. (Can play the Theremin too).

- Franky: Electric guitar. (Engineer)

- Jinbe: Percussion line.

- Brook: Violinist. (Composer)

Nami: Keyboard/piano prodigy exploited by corrupt talent scout Arlong. She tried to sue him for damages after her adopted mom passed away. She had a breakdown but returned to music with Luffy’s help.

Zoro: Dedicated and talented drummer with a slight drinking problem. His playing style is swift, intense, and controlled. Learned to play in the same style as a late friend.

Sanji: Talented trombonist who left a philharmonic orchestra due to politics and personal reasons.

Luffy: Former member of the marine band, sent there by his grandpa after attending military/marine school but managed to escape.

Usopp: Music college dropout who is haunted by his famous father, whom he never knew. His girlfriend passed away from cancer. He had posted YouTube covers and gained a following. His late mother was an indie artist who never achieved widespread success. It is uncertain whether she was a groupie.

(all EB5 were homeless or broke at one point before meeting).

Both Robin and Nami have had experiences similar to Kesha, involving exploitation in the music industry.

Usopp’s dad, Yasopp or “Chaser”, is a famous bassist, ranked as one of the best of all time by Rolling Stone.

Shanks or “Red Hair” is Luffy’s mentor. He is the famous lead singer of a Grammy award-winning band.

Red Hair Pirates - They are a famous Grammy award-winning band with a sound similar to War, King Harvest, Dire Straits, and Guns N’ Roses, depending on the era.

Usopp and the band have a falling out when they alter their sound and remove a fan-favorite song, "Merry," from the setlist.

Usopp leaves the band after a public feud with Franky and Luffy’s decision to remove "Merry" from the Water 7 music festival setlist, which is akin to Coachella or Lollapalooza.

Sabaody Groove Fest: This festival is similar to the controversial Warped Tour, with various allegations surrounding it.

Usopp modified Nami’s keyboard to have unique synth sounds, similar to the Climatact.

“Merry” was believed to be an ex of Usopp’s, but it’s revealed that the song personifies the band’s journey and dream towards success. The band is surprised by this revelation.

- Franky writes a successful song called “Sunny” that charts well, but fans believe "Merry" will become a classic.

Each bandmate will receive honorifics and titles in their 40s or 50s. Usopp will be ranked #1 or #2 on the best rock bassists of all time list, surpassing his dad.

Usopp also creates a musical collective with other Black artists, developing a following of 8,000+ fans.

The band’s (Strawhats) fandom name is Nakama or Sailors

- When not singing, Luffy plays the cymbals, fooling around when he’s not leading the vocals.

- Usopp returns at the Water 7 festival as Sogeking, playing a crucial bass solo riff, symbolizing his readiness to rejoin the band. Luffy pulls him on stage to finish the song with a cool bass riff.

The Strawhats might decide to make a political statement during a performance, similar to when Luffy told Usopp to shoot the flag in the show. This could involve revealing an anti-government poster or banner, which could then go viral. Alternatively, they might do something in support of Robin, who is in a dispute with her former record label.

I have a dirty little secret. I wrote a song about Merry to accompany the fic idea. It’s a little cringe but I recorded it and everything. I might share it one day. Lol!

This is what I mean by the band’s sound…

They’d pull something like this in public.

BSS lyrics are pretty raw and bombastic in a way I feel like the SHs would be.

Music video is basically about pirates (???) and it reminds me of one of Luffy’s moves.

[accord-vn]

Major Players in the War Against the Firmament

The Republic of Stauros

The Republic of Stauros is a global superpower that controls the Americas and much of eastern and southern Africa, its imperialist agenda funded by the exploitation of abundant natural resources. This influx of resources means that they have been able to rapidly advance technology, particularly in bio-science, engineering, and materials science fields, and their advanced technology in turn makes for political capital with which they can bully nations into being subsumed by the Republic.

Stauros is a meritocratic oligarchy with republican structures, and presents itself as being a place where the best can rise to the top. It is centrally governed in its capital of Etorios, by a council of (what were originally) six departments that oversee facets of government such as treasury, military, agriculture, etc. These department heads are chosen from among a democratically elected parliament that makes up the upper levels of each department by the previous council. In short, the system rejects change very stubbornly as those who are eligible to lead have been entrenched in the system for a very long time. This entrenchment means that the Republic, while founded on progressive ideals, has now fully embraced the authoritarian streak that has haunted it since its inception.

Most prominent in Stauros's war against the Firmament is the ExoCorps, the executive arm of the Department of the Exterior. The Dept of the Exterior was created in order to protect Stauros's offplanet interests, however in the decades since they have come to rival the power of the Dept of Military, even surpassing it in many instances. The most notable example of this power imbalance is in the ExoCorps' development of Synaptic Transfer technology and the resulting Janissary program.

The Sophic Church

The Sophic Church originated as part of the Third Awakening, a reactionary revival in religiosity coupled with anti-Christian sentiment and strong undercurrents of paranoia brought about by a sharp rise in conspiratorial thought. What were several grassroots Gnostic revival movements came together to form a single ecclesiastical society, united in their desire to dismantle current institutions and build something new. These movements, originally different sects, syncretized their beliefs, though after several decades of transformation, their doctrine has evolved into a largely ahistorical conflation of Valentinianism and Sethianism alongside some entirely new ideas.

The Sophic Church played a key role in the formation of the Republic and rose alongside it, shaping it in the process, and as a result, within Stauros there is a strong presumption that most residents of the Republic are a part of the church.

Naturally, due to this relationship the Church has amassed a large amount of wealth and influence, and has invested this wealth into a number of corporate assets. The most prominent among these is Ascension, a corporation with child companies for mining, manufacturing, logistics, pharmaceuticals, and many other industries.

As a result, the Sophic Church has control over a substantial amount of the economy not just of Stauros, but the rest of the world as well.

The Stereomatos

In 2068, Olympia, Stauros's first permanent Martian research base, collapsed due to mismanagement. Due to the nature of the Stauros Dept of Research's control over the research base, while researchers lived permanent lives on base and even raised families there, leadership was not only appointed from a bureaucracy located on Earth, but also frequently rotated. As a result, most Directors of Operations viewed the position only as a temporary station, and ultimately failed to carry out their duties.

This culminated in 2067, when a failure in the water system caused dozens of people to become ill and 14 deaths. Civil unrest had already started to stir, but now was in full swing.

A nearby ExoCorps detachment was then stationed inside the colony to dissuade uprising, but the additional strain on resources that they caused served only to exacerbate discontentment. Before any violence broke out, the base was declared no longer fit for human habitation and disbanded, its residents either returned to earth or stationed in other colonies. The base was leveled shortly thereafter.

A mere two years later, Synesia was founded on Olympia's ruins. Synesia was intended to serve as a colony and an experiment in autonomous government, as well as a center for Stauros' civic operations offplanet. This quickly expanded into a semi-autonomous satellite state, granted nominal independence by Stauros in return for serving as the governing body for bases and offplanet stations too large and too distant from Earth in order to be effectively managed by a planetary bureaucracy.

In practice, the Stereomatos is a puppet state. Most of its leadership is either beholden or sympathetic to Stauros, and lives under constant threat of dismantlement. Stauros maintains exclusive trading rights with the Stereomatos, and uses the leverage of their monopoly on space infrastructure as means of controlling the nation.

The Firmament

The Firmament is a revolutionary movement across the Stereomatos with the ultimate goal of eliminating Stauros control over space.

The movement is comprised of several cells across both inner sphere and outer sphere colonies and stations, which frequently work together to improve the living conditions of Stereomatos citizens, smuggle goods and resources across planetary boundaries, and wage asymmetric warfare against Stauros.

The Firmament's immediate strategy is to hold Stauros at resource-point through piracy and targeted attacks on military installations so that they'll agree to several key conditions:

The right to self-govern independent of Stauros control, including reforming the government from a parliamentary republic into a syndical state.

Better access to tertiary industry, including the means to utilize synaptic transfer tech

Access to Stauros trade networks in order to carry out trade with other nations with minimal interference

The Stereomatos as a whole may be generally divided in their opinion on the Firmament's methods, however it is an unspoken rule to side with them whenever possible, because the Firmament represents hope for a freer future and an end to overcrowding and military police actions. Even those ideologically opposed tend to avoid speaking out, because the members of the Firmament are ultimately members of their community. A number of Stereomatos politicians have direct connections to Firmament leadership, and work to achieve the movement's aims through diplomatic means.

On Earth, however, the opinion is generally much more divided. Typically the details of their actions are largely reduced to the effect that they've had on Stauros, and are branded terrorists due to civilian casualties from their attacks. Within Stauros, media is sufficiently skewed that those who are aware of them despise them. Outside of Stauros, the Stereomatos is shown more sympathy, and even those who skew more conservative are open to the idea of free trade with the Stereomatos.

Federated Oceania

As climate change ravaged the global south, Aotearoa (formerly New Zealand) successfully pushed back the encroaching ocean with a sea wall, reclaiming additional land in the process. Having secured their new position as a safe haven for climate refugees, they pushed Australia into adopting a similar strategy. As a means of allowing displaced people to retain their sovereignty as well as protect against the threat of a subjugation-hungry Stauros on the horizon, the bloc of Federated Oceania was formed.

With a vested interest in environmental sciences and sustainable energy, Oceania rose to prominence by implementing the first viable fusion reactor and selling off excess energy from successive plants. This paved the way to further successes until it became the non-Stauros leader in technology on a global stage, and served as the first country to challenge Stauros's self-proclaimed "monopoly on space".

As a staunch rival of Stauros, Oceania is one of the few terrestrial nations to openly provide support the Firmament.

The Archon Program

The disappearance of the Caesarea is a mainstay of conspiracy circles system-wide. From independent blogs hosted on the clearnet to chatrooms on planetside LITEs to forums and message boards maintained on Firmnet servers in the belt, no hushed whisper passes through the internet's lips without mentioning its name, and the Caesarea is rarely mentioned without the words "Archon program" in its wake.

However, there is little consensus on what those words mean.  

They say that Archon Program is run by the Dept of the Exterior— no, by the Sophic Church— no, it's the secret Dept of Suppression— as a psyop— actually, it's in order to crush unions (the IPU has NEVER been able to touch Ascension)— no, to serve as a counter to the Firmament's dark matter bomb— and eventually, to dominate the world— utilizing heinous machines that are larger than any Cataphract, that bleed, that drive their enemies and pilots to madness.

When asked for proof, however, the stories converge. A would-be whistleblower from Ascension Aerospace, killed when lightning struck her complex as she was uploading the leak, severing the connection and her life at once. All that was uploaded was the first gigabyte of a single file, titled Archon Program, completely blank except for the image of an A with an ouroboros divided into seven pieces.

Nothing more is known by the public.

[tyrantisterror]

What's the worst legacy sequel you've ever seen? What, in your opinion, separates a good legacy sequel from a bad legacy sequel and what's the worst thing you think a legacy sequel can do?

The worst that I've seen is probably Rise of Skywalker. It's close competition, though - both Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and Jurassic World: Dominion have moments that are significantly more stupid than anything in Rise of Sky Walker, but I also think both have a bit more creative effort put into them - Fallen Kingdom has that third act where it basically becomes a Resident Evil adaptation except with a murder-saurus in place of the Tyrant, and Dominion has the whole locust plotline which, while terrible, is at least an unexpected direction for a Jurassic Park sequel to go into that tries to figure out something ELSE you could do with the genetic engineering premise of the franchise beyond just making dinosaurs. Like, all three Jurassic World movies have big problems and they get progressively dumber with each installment, but they're also all ambitious to some degree that I still feel respect for, even if they never really actually reach those lofty aspirations.

Rise of Skywalker, on the other hand, has no ambitions at all. It has nothing it wants to say, no unique twists to pull, no real identity of its own. It's a potroast made of leftovers from better movies, a resuscitated corpse of something much more interesting, patched together like a Frankenstein's monster and abandoned to a cruel world just as callously.

It has no desire to do anything new, merely a checklist of Things You've Seen Before That the Focus Groups Say You'd Probably Like to See Again. Any character that can be slipped into an arc that was done in a previous Star Wars film is slipped into one no matter how little sense it makes for them, and any character who can't is either forced to tread water with nothing to do (hi Finn!) or just quietly shoved off to the side early on and forgotten about (hi Rose!).

Any story beats that weren't in the original films are simply grabbed from a box that reads "time tested cliches to keep your script moving with minimal effort." Make the plot a treasure hunt so we can just race from scene to scene with the flimsiest justification possible and try and trick the audience into thinking something is actually happening! What's that, audience interest is flagging? Quick, throw in a cameo of someone from an older movie! What's that, they're bored again? Pretend to kill one of the old characters, but make sure to reveal they actually lived in no more than two scenes down the line, or else we might piss off the fanboys! Hey, let's look at the Cinema Sins videos for the original movies and see if there's some gripes we can "fix" with this one for added fan cred! Can't disappoint our audience!

It's the story-telling equivalent of smothering something in salt to cover up the funky taste of the close-to-the-expiration-date ingredients.

As for what makes a good vs. a bad legacy sequel... ok, so, let's define legacy sequel first. A legacy sequel is a film or TV show that is a sequel to a popular film or TV series that ended a good many years ago, which brings back some of the old cast of characters (generally played by the same, and thus much older, actors that played them in the past) along with adding a new cast of characters played by younger actors. It tries to replicate the tone of the original series despite being made in a different era and probably by different writers and directors, and generally aims to give you that Ratatouille style moment of nostalgia.

I think most Legacy sequels are kind of doomed to be mediocre at best on the outset because the goal of them from the moment of conception is so mercenary - they're not created to Tell A Good Story, they're created to Keep Consumers Invested in a Lucrative Content Franchise. They have the artistic aspirations of a McDonald's Hamburger - "This tastes exactly like what you had as a kid, and doesn't that make you crave more of it?"

I don't think that art made for mercenary reasons is doomed to be bad, mind you - I mean, almost ALL movies and television were made to make money first and foremost. Even the classic High Art movies I love like Seven Samurai and The Third Man were made for mercenary reasons at the end of the line - it didn't stop the people who were working on them from having artistic goals, but it's a fact nonetheless.

But Legacy Sequels just have an uphill battle in the "artistic aspirations" department, because most people with artistic aspirations don't want to recreate the feeling someone else inspired with their art - they want to put their own stamp on it, their own spin, their own voice. And that will often mean something VERY different will be made, something that might piss of the fans - something that doesn't taste like the McDonald's hamburger you had as a kid, even though it came in the same wrapper.

The worst parts of Legacy Sequels are the only parts that Rise of Skywalker is made of - the parts where the story is clearly only trying to show you things you know, only trying to reheat the leftovers so they taste like your memories, only trying to trick the nostalgia center of your brain that you're four years old again eating at McDonald's. "Here's the thing you know! Here's the running gag you liked, repeated five more times by actors with far less enthusiasm! Here's the same basic premise as the first film, but the stakes have been inflated to make it feel like a progression! Cameos! Catch phrases! Eat your hamburger, you consumer pig!"

The rare good legacy sequels don't really TRY to be legacy sequels. They're just... sequels. Another story in the same world as the first, bringing back the characters who actually have interesting arcs left in them, creating new characters with their own shit going on who have good chemistry with the pre-established characters and setting, expanding on themes from the original and exploring parts of the setting that hadn't been explored yet, and all in all telling their own story that's related to the first one's but still manages to be its own distinct thing.

There are not many good legacy sequels, because a good legacy sequel is different than the McDonald's hamburger you ate when you were four, and might make less money than desired because of it.

[ranahan]

What’s the goal of the struggle/overcoming in Mandalorian philosophy? Why is it considered important and necessary?

Does it accrue personal karma or glory?

Is it because those who succeed become eternal in the memories of their descendants (biological or spiritual)?

Is it a part of an ongoing cosmic battle between stagnation and change, a part of the engine keeping the entire universe alive and not falling into Haran? Haran btw comes from the same root as haryc; I interpret that to mean the Mandalorian hell is not a fiery place of punishment; instead, a better translation might be annihilation or apocalypse: an eternal stagnation, a cold and eternally lifeless state. It’s the cosmic annihilation, the final stagnation and heat death of the universe, the apocalypse of the Mandalorian religion. Maybe the Mandalorian religion holds that the universe is constantly in a state of creation in the war between change and stagnation, and there are two possible results of this war: either the universe will keep going, or it will end in stagnation and Haran. So in that way, if Haran is not inevitable, for those who practice the Mandalorian way of life, it would be their religious duty to help keep the universe going?

Something else?

All of those? Perhaps there are different schools or sects that give different significance to the same shared ideas. Perhaps there are different syncretic traditions that rose from all those peoples adopted into the Mandalorian culture.

[skellymom]

"THE PLATFORM"

THE BAD BATCH CROSSHAIR FICLET

ᴛʜɪꜱ ꜰɪᴄ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴀɪɴꜱ ɴꜱꜰᴡ ᴄᴏɴᴛᴇɴᴛ. ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ɴᴏᴛ 18+ ᴅɴɪ

Word Count: 628

Background: The story we didn't get of Crosshair's trials and tribulations while being left on the Kamino platform. (This ficlet may eventually be included as a future installment to my long running TBB OC series "Vagabonds". To read it:

https://www.tumblr.com/skellymom/738467105361494016/vagabonds?source=share

Warning: Swearing, fear, physical pain, starvation, dehydration, Star Wars Canon violence.

(Credit: Cool moving star dividers by @4ngelic-wh1spers )

Crosshair opened his swollen, burning eyes to the intense Kamino sun.  The sea spanned for miles around the platform.  The ruins of his home poked out of ocean.  It had stopped smoldering days ago.   

There had been NO rain since his brothers and Omega left him behind. 

No fresh water to quench his thirst.  Only his urine.   

Did his brothers DISPISE him so much as to NOT leave at least a canteen of water and some rations??? 

An exhausted, deep HATE rose in Crosshair.  He should have shot Hunter square between the eyes when he had the chance...except the kid would have seen it... 

...and his squad would have killed him outright.   

I deserve it...I’M A FUCKING FAILURE.  My brothers are gone...forever... 

He’d cry...if he could produce tears... 

Crosshair’s hunger was only abated after shooting down the occasional sea bird, feasting upon the body and drinking its blood. 

Fishing was impossible...as he was constantly being watched... 

...by the Saber Jaw trolling around the platform in the waters below. 

It’s large eye, the only thing poking above the surface, keeping tabs on ole Crossy. 

He initially watched it swimming around the wreckage, looking for bodies left after the Empire bombed Kamino City. 

Now it was coming for him.  Crosshair closed his eyes and wished for a quick death soon.  Baking in the hot Kamino sun until he died of dehydration was excruciating. 

Hours later a distant hum had Cross open one dry eye.  It was difficult to see.  Everything was a blur. 

The sound, now louder, slowly become a roar. 

His eyes strained to look skyward, but the glare blinded. 

A shadow fell over him, as the craft descended onto the platform. 

About KRIFFING TIME the Empire showed up...   

Although Crosshair was unsure if it truly was a ship...or mirage. 

The platform shook slightly as the craft landed.  Then the engine died.  Sounds of a gangplank opening.  Footsteps... 

Please make it ANY other officer.  I can’t STAND Forcedamned Cockstain Rampart’s uppity-assed voice. 

An image flashed across Crosshair’s mind: mustering the last of his strength to blast Rampart to bits AND have the stormtroopers shoot him out of his misery...at the same time. 

Crosshair smiled and giggled dryly.  

The footsteps stopped. 

“Would give the WHOLE galaxy if that smile were for US” 

Crosshair’s eyes popped wide open.  He jerked up on one elbow swinging Firepuncher up to sniper’s position. 

He attempted to swallow nervously...but he had no saliva... 

...Hunter stood meters away, intensely staring at Crosshair.  The words didn’t match the action.  Instead, Hunter emanated anger and hurt. 

He’s FUCKING with ME!  Coming back to torment!!! 

Echo and Wrecker flanked each side of the Marauder’s gangplank.  Their weapons weren’t raised but they held them ready just in case. 

Cross could barely see Tech’s head inside the Marauder.  Everything far away was a blur.  

Hunter turned them against me!  All for that kid... 

...AND THERE SHE WAS! 

Omega had slipped out of the Marauder, following Hunter. 

Crosshair growled and ground his teeth in rage.   

“I TOLD YOU TO TAKER HER AWAY SOMEWHERE!” 

Hunter blinked at the sound, his teeth on edge. 

Omega stopped in her tracks; eyes wide. 

“AND YOU BROUGHT HER BACK HERE AGAIN!” 

Crosshair kept on spewing more anger, hurt, and delirious vitriol.  While Hunter was intensely hurt and angry at his brother, there was concern.  Cross’ high emotional stress, severe dehydration and starvation drove his eyes to roll back...causing a loss of bodily control. Crosshair fought unconsciousness... 

...causing his finger to pull the trigger. 

Firepuncher jumped in Crosshair’s grasp.  It jerked him back to consciousness. 

Hunter barely had time to duck.  The bolt flew past his temple, shearing free the bandana from his head...and a few locks of hair. 

Crosshair stared in horror at what he just did... 

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[wutheringskies]

Wei Wuxian's first life was doomed

I really implore people to understand absolutely nothing would've saved Wei Wuxian and the Wens in his first life; either he'd end up half a prisoner, or in a bad deal or they'll all end up dying.

The tragedy of MDZS is that a bunch of powerful people decide to snatch all resources, because nobody stood up, nobody cared, nobody dared until there was a war which killed THOUSANDS, destroyed cities, probably let an immense number of resentful spirits linger. The Wens had a literal torture chamber. Wen Chao threw Wei Wuxian into the Burial Mounds so that he can never come back for revenge - they didn't even let the dying speak.

And then the one who fought the hardest realizes that now another sect was heading into the same direction, torturing people, taking the seat of chief cultivator, delving into demonic cultivation. He stands up against it but once again the world is blind, and instead fall prey to the newest authory to fill their own wallets.

Once again, this guy stands up even as the stakes are terribly against him. People say it was his hubris at thinking he could manage it all alone but I've two statements:

1. There was no other choice; it's either surrender and hand power to that sect, have the innocents die and live with that for the rest of your life OR wait until they kill you.

2. It is true as Jin Guangyao said that even if he hadn't lost control at Qionggi Path, could he have really never lost control? But regardless, that means that the world will continue to put him into unfavourable positions instead of just leaving him alone. Imagine, they could've just not invited him; or not ambushed him; or not accused him with an ambush; just left him alone.

Regardless, the point is - he dies, falling into the numerous plans and agendas. In his first life no matter what, he would've died. If not Jin Zixun, someone else would've had something bad happen; if not, one could paint it out; the rumors could worsen; they could literally ambush him while going to the market.

It's an unfair game because if he lives, then he becomes more and more ostracized and the attempts would become all the more devious. If he dies, then it's over anyway - the Wens would die. His cultivation would fall into the wrong hands. If he backs down they will push forward. If he even kills one, that death would be used to incriminate him further. If he gets a public ally, the ally would be killed too (Think about how nobody knows LWJ saved WWX other than the Lan elders - that was the mercy they grant him. Because they were afriad he would be killed)

But it gets torturous when now the sect that rose to power, that is the Jins are revealed to be annihilating entire minor sects and clans in their backyard, building watch towers, killing important people, taking complete domination over the cultivation world - the same things he had once spoken against.

And then another major clan's head summons this guy back to life to go on a personal revenge rendezvous engineered by him, with both the Jin side and the Nie side constantly putting a bunch of kids into danger so that they could hold it over each other's head or ultimately blame it, once again, onto the same guy.

So, yeah, he goes through the entire plot, trying not to fall prey to anyone's plans and saves the children twice and everyone marches over to him to demand compensation for having their parents killed when they came to kill him or their leg broken when they tried to kill him (lmao) and get saved by this guy and the innocents they robbed of from entering the reincarnation cycle by throwing them into the blood pool (sounds familiar yet?)

and now, this guy gets to see the Jin clan fall and immediately people turn onto the Jins because now they're sure to fall, right? It's not righteous. It's not to avenge anyone who was killed. It's to fulfil their own ambitions by dragging those who are at statuses of power to gain some for themselves.

And the fact his ending narration is expectation that Nie Huaisang will perhaps show the world his edges soon is just...like he has no belief in these people anymore. At 20, he perhaps held a sliver of hope. At 35, he understands all of these people are headed for hell and wishes to take no part in it

[dream-in-fall]

The theory of "The Hidden Morse Messages"

These people have done a unique work. They discovered and deciphered The Hidden Morse Messages.

@theastrophysicistnextdoor

Here's my theory "The Hidden Morse Messages."

1 SHE’S IN MA PHONE (or He's) Ma phone is an outdated name for a magnetophone. During World War 2, german engineers developed a device for recording sound on magnetic tape.

Crowley uses such a device and even gets inside - into it magnetic field. Together with Hastur. And we know that you can get stuck there, just like Hastur got stuck. Who exactly is this "She" or "He" who is in the "ma phone", I do not know yet. Perhaps the "dreadful eternity" itself.

2 HAVE A DREADFUL ETERNITY

- it is said to someone who is stuck in this "dreadful eternity"

- it is said about some eternity that has become dreadful, because it has become closed perhaps. (It's a little difficult, I know).

3 TOMMY’S A LEGEND I think we're talking about Tommy Westphall here. And about Tommy Westphall universe hypothesis.

In short, there is a kind of crossover of all (or many) shows /series in the consciousness of Tommy Westphall. A little more: In a 2003 article published on BBC News Online, St. Elsewhere writer Tom Fontana was quoted as saying "Someone did the math once… and something like 90 percent of all [American] television took place in Tommy Westphall's mind. God love him."[9] (link 2) When directing episodes for the eighth series of the revived Doctor Who in 2014, Ben Wheatley had the art department create a replica of Tommy Westphall's snowglobe, which Wheatley placed in the TARDIS set as a reference to the hypothesis.[11] (link 2)

4 PAUL’S OUR MIXING HERO Re-recording mixer Paul McFadden. He was actively involved in the creation of a huge of TV series. This man literally lives in the universe of a TV show. (Tommy Westphall universe).

He was not only a sound engineer, but also a dialogue editor. I wouldn't be surprised if he is the co-creator of this magic (secret dialogues and hidden hints).

5 HEAVEN LOOKS DOWN ON YOU BECAUSE YOU ARE PATHETIC ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE CHEER UP IT’S ONLY ETERNAL DAMNATION DO NOT LICK THE WALLS

Here is one of my generalizing theories of Morse messages. We are really stuck in the universe of Good Omens, like a hellish web. This universe is full of references to literature, music, series and movies. In addition, a large of dialogues in the series are written in such a way that you can read between the lines and find new meanings. We literally "lick the walls." That is, we examine every pixel on every damn frame. Heaven (the creators) suggests that we give up all hope of saving our long-suffering souls. But they cheer us up - it's a sweet eternal damnation. Heaven looks down on us because we will never be able to find all the hidden meanings.

In this post: 20% jokes 5% sarcasm 20% pathos 100% love and admiration for the creators of Good Omens 40% hope to find another meaning of these secret messages 15% of the fatigue from Googling.

p.s. I'm going to formulate a more complex theory, good luck to me

[talesfrommedinastation]

The Knight is Crowned King

“I am saying it is time to put aside the trooper, the CT number, the clone who served under a sergeant in a Republic that no longer exists. It is time for you to become the captain that we– your people –need you to be.”

Tech stood up straight. “Then, if that is the case, Camina, I have a request.”

“Say it.”

“Get me a tattoo gun. Now.”

-Camina Drummer and Tech, Far Past the Ring

————————-

I really can’t thank @cloned-eyes enough for this wonderful piece that they did. She she taki taki!

It is Camina Drummer giving Tech the infamous 'collar' tattoo of The Belt in her presidential office, LDS mural still behind her.

For me, this culminates the spirit of Far Past the Ring, especially for canon characters Camina Drummer and Tech.

The story was initially conceived as a fun little romp for Clone Force 99, where Tech would meet a Belter engineer, they’d chat, maybe have a short romance, and move on with their lives.

This was February 2023.

But after Plan 99 aired a month later…well, we all went a little nuts. I did, too. Blame the Wellbutrin.

Also, blame me taking folklore classes at Berkeley as an undergrad. I decided the short story was going to become something bigger, and Tech was taking center stage.

On that note, I was so angry for Tech.

I was angry for all of his potential as a character, thrown down the mountain on Eriadu.

So, I decided to whip out the ol’ English 251 notes I had from years ago, and chart out Tech’s own Hero’s Journey, through the world of The Expanse meeting the world of Star Wars.

But I did not want Tech merely limping off into the sun into a simple, happy ending. No.

I wanted him to face challenges, fight, win alliances, and be received as the goddamned hero that he is.

To quote Campbell himself from The Hero with a Thousand Faces:

“A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man.”

And who better to bestow this mighty power and crown unto Tech then Camina motherfuckin’ Drummer.

If you haven’t seen The Expanse, know that Camina Drummer goes through the Hero’s Journey of Hero’s Journeys herself. She rose from an orphan working the docks on Ceres, to a foot soldier for Anderson Dawes, a director under Fred Johnson, the first commanding officer of the largest vessel in human history (The OPAS Behemoth, later Medina Station), and then, the first president of the Transport Union, arguably the most powerful person in the universe.

It isn't an easy journey: she's shot, beaten, breaks her spine, loses the love of her life, watches loved ones get murdered in front of her, and is abandoned by those who professed to love her.

But Camina Drummer never gives up. She fights to the end to make things right. Girlfriend is rewarded....and now she passes that onto Tech.

After all, Camina’s people, the Belters, adorn themselves through tattoos. They live their lives in space, in the vacuum, where jewelry can be lost, damaged or hurt the owner. So they tattoo.

Years ago, cheap suits were supplied by Inners for Belters under their governance. They demanded Belters to work and extract resources from the Kuiper Belt and other outer planets in order to make them rich. The helmet connections ot the suit would often burn the wearer's neck, as seen below on Anderson Dawes.

In many ways, it is also a symbol of the yoke of slavery, of a chain around one’s neck.

Although younger Belters now wear better vacsuits, they still wear the tattoos to remind them of what their ancestors went through, seen on Naomi Nagata below.

A symbol of pain is now a symbol of what Belters are fighting for–freedom. Which they earn.

So, by getting that tattoo, done by Camina Drummer, the hero and president of the Belt, is our Tech getting crowned.

It’s right after Camina makes him their Chief Systems Engineer as well as a commander. He bled and fought for his chosen people, and he is rewarded as such.

It's him saying I'm here, I'm one of you, and your leader is the one putting it on me.

Oh, and in true fairy tale hero’s journey mode, Tech also gets a beautiful Belter ‘princess’...Sjael Drummer, Camina’s cousin.

Once again, something that originally wasn’t in the cards last year, but I wanted a full Hero’s Journey and I was damned if Tech wasn’t going to get it!

Tagging those that have commented and enjoyed the story: @eyecandyeoz @perfectlywingedcrusade @megmca @skellymom @cdblake1565 @thecoffeelorian @supremechancellorrex @that-salmonberry-punk @autistic-artistech @deezlees @littlefeatherr @nahoney22 @freesia-writes @eelfuneral @yeehawgeek @isthereanechoinhere96 @sued134

[ofliterarynature]

TBR TAKEDOWN: Week 17 (September 22)

TLDR: I have too many unread books, and I’m asking tumblr to help me downsize. Pick one or none - it doesn't have to be something you've read, just the one you think sounds the worst! Comments and reblogs welcome, book descriptions below the cut. See my pinned post for more info.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

In the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska's ice. Thus was Dr. Blue's Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue's widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

A World Without Heroes by Brandon Mull

Jason Walker has often wished his life could be a bit less predictable--until a routine day at the zoo ends with Jason suddenly transporting from the hippo tank to a place unlike anything he's ever seen. In the past, the people of Lyrian welcomed visitors from the Beyond, but attitudes have changed since the wizard emperor Maldor rose to power. The brave resistors who opposed the emperor have been bought off or broken, leaving a realm where fear and suspicion prevail.

In his search for a way home, Jason meets Rachel, who was also mysteriously drawn to Lyrian from our world. With the help of a few scattered rebels, Jason and Rachel become entangled in a quest to piece together the word of power that can destroy the emperor, and learn that their best hope to find a way home will be to save this world without heroes.

Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse

A bold translation of Nobel Prize-winner Herman Hesse's most inspirational and beloved work, which was nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read

Hesse's famous and influential novel, Siddartha, is perhaps the most important and compelling moral allegory our troubled century has produced. Integrating Eastern and Western spiritual traditions with psychoanalysis and philosophy, this strangely simple tale, written with a deep and moving empathy for humanity, has touched the lives of millions since its original publication in 1922. Set in India, Siddhartha is the story of a young Brahmin's search for ultimate reality after meeting with the Buddha. His quest takes him from a life of decadence to asceticism, through the illusory joys of sensual love with a beautiful courtesan, and of wealth and fame, to the painful struggles with his son and the ultimate wisdom of renunciation.

[empirearchives]

Washington Allston and Paris of 1803

Washington Allston: Self Portrait, 1805

Allston was an American artist and poet who traveled to France in 1803 and lived in Europe until 1818.

The Paris to which Allston and Vanderlyn came in November of the year 1803 was not the Paris which the modern world knows. The beautiful city painted by the Impressionists so often that the whole world is familiar with its charm and cheerful elegance is the creation of Baron Haussmann and the second half of the nineteenth century. The Paris of 1803 was very different both in outward aspect and in its spirit. It had not yet become the great pleasure city of the modern world. Outwardly it was small and rather more medieval than modern in appearance. The traveler from Holland and the north, approaching by the road from St. Denis, passed over a flat stretch of open country whose only feature was a village on a small hill to the right of the road, called Montmartre. Then, passing through suburbs, he came to the St. Denis gate, inside which was a city of tall stone or plaster houses that seemed even taller because the streets were so narrow. From its streets rose the famous smell which travelers still commented on as they had in the time of Villon or Louis XI. A medieval king of France, looking out a window of the Louvre, once fainted at the stench of the street below. Not until the engineering feats of the great Baron Haussmann did the odor of those medieval streets vanish into tradition. There were no boulevards and no Eiffel Tower in the Paris of 1803, no Madeleine and no Arc de Triomphe. The larger portion of the Louvre had still to be built, and where now the pleasant gardens of the Louvre are was a warren of close-packed medieval houses. Beyond the gardens of the Tuileries lay the vacant space made sinister by the terrible memory of the guillotine. The shadow of that instrument still hovered over the city, although its labors had ceased ten years before. When Allston arrived, Napoleon had restored order with a strong hand and was seeking to re-create once more around himself the elegant society of the old regime. The twenty-six-hundred-odd persons who had died on the scaffold during the Reign of Terror, between September 5, 1793, and July 27, 1794, seem few enough compared with the endless butcheries of the modern world. But the world had then been taught by its literary men to believe that man was naturally rational and good. It had not been accustomed to mass massacres and to the sight of fanatics coldly murdering hundreds of thousands to prove a theory. The shock of that first outbreak of killing was so great that its memory is still green, while the vast systematized performances of our times are forgotten almost before they are over. As soon as Napoleon restored order in France, the eminently social nature of the French genius had begun to reassert itself.

Farington, the English painter, who visited Paris in 1802, reported: “A remarkable change has taken place in the appearance of the people from what they were a few years ago, gloomy,—savage,— without regard to dress or cleanliness. They are now coming fast round to chearfulness and civility.” But he also noted that the houses of Paris were out of repair because people still felt too insecure to lay out money upon the care of their property. And if Napoleon, a child of the eighteenth century, was a milder despot than one of the modern sort, his government was, after all, a military dictatorship with its secret police and censorship of opinion and all the other traits we have learned to know so well. Moreover, France was again at war.

This Paris was not a city in which an American of Allston’s day and temperament would linger for love of its atmosphere. Allston came there to study the Louvre.

— E. P. Richardson, Washington Allston: the Biography of a Pioneer of American Art and a Study of Romantic Art in America, (p. 62-63)

[nextgensquad]

I'm curious, what careers do you think the new generation will pursue? (Weasley, Potter, Malfoy, Lovegood, Lupine and Longbottom)

just gonna put my (pearl) answers here for now and publicly pressure everyone else to come and edit theirs when they have a moment! sorry it's taken so long, anon, i love this question <3

becca's answers now added too!

pearl:

victoire - my victoire is a v different from fandom typical victoire nowadays and she is a sporty, quidditch-obsessed jock who lives and breathes for the sport. one of the best captains gryffindor has ever seen, gets scouted for five teams out of school, including two french teams, and chooses the holyhead harpies like her aunt ginny.

dominique - unspeakable researcher at the department of mysteries. dom is into arcane witchcraft, crystals, tarot, astrology, things like that, which everyone else thinks is silly, but she puts a lot of time and effort into researching it and her discoveries catch the attention of the dom who send her an offer letter out of the blue. nobody in her family knows exactly what she researches down there but it makes her very good money. eventually, i think, becomes the divination professor at hogwarts.

louis - one of the only two academically gifted weasleys, he goes into politics after his uncle percy, which you may claim makes him a nepo baby... and you'd be right. doesn't actually have ministerial ambitions, and works in public relations, eventually becoming press secretary for the minister after percy.

molly - investigative journalist for a leftwing paper called the legacy, founded by susan bones a couple years after the war. she didn't start out as that, though, but worked her way up from fluff pieces.

lucy - out of school she makes her money drag racing and bartending, but hard to say what she'll do after that. she's very reactive and doesn't put a lot of thought into her future.

fred - magical engineer, taking muggle things and reverse engineering them and making them better with magic. probably arthur's favorite grandchild because of it.

roxanne - magical ice dancer, quits hogwarts after her fourth year to pursue it professional in the wizarding olympics called the meteorics

rose - artist, she's very smart but in a completely different way than hermione, also dyslexic so doesn't love academia even though she would if she didn't have to deal with hogwarts being completely unfriendly to kids with learning disabilities. mostly works with painting but also does other types of art

hugo - another one that's hard to tell, mostly because like lucy, he gives the impression of not caring very much one way or the other. also like lucy, it is a false impression, he cares very much, and is also super smart, just hides it well. i think ultimately his girlfriend edie urquhart (pansy's daughter) will be the breadwinner of their house though

james - just like victoire, a born and bred quidditch fanatic who gets scouted out of hogwarts and (unlike her and most hogwarts recruits), gets placed on a starting position at the falmouth falcons (one of the best teams in the leagues) at age 18. nearly monumentally fucks up his quidditch career at age 21 though.

albus - magical hacker, ran a black market ring of illicit muggle tech goods in his time at hogwarts and also likes to amuse himself by dicking around the ministry of magic's fledgling magic internet systems. this eventually gets him scouted for the aurors, mostly against his will.

lily - magical photographer, ends up working at the scamanders' magical creature sanctuary and kind of accidentally winds up doing public relations for them via her photography

scorpius - future comic book artist, once he gets over his internal prejudice about muggle things and his refusal to admit he likes comic books and drawing. also future wizarding art professor at hogwarts i think

teddy - he's in a band with his best friends that accidentally gets very famous

lorcan & lysander - run the magical creatures sanctuary their parents helped set up

jake longbottom - auror like his godfather harry

abigail longbottom - healer, with a special focus in magical neurobiology, in the hopes of one day finding a cure for her grandparents

becca:

teddy - loves working with animals and children but lacks any noticeable ambition; works a bunch of random jobs after school, to fund his real passion, which is mainly volunteering at various magical animal rescues. eventually in his late 20s gets around to following the career that's always been in the back of his head, care of magical creatures teacher at hogwarts.

victoire - the opposite of teddy, very driven and ambitious. goes into the department for international magical co-operation as an assistant and rises through the ranks to become a delegate to the international council of wizards.

dominique - could probably have been a professional quidditch player but takes a different route into journalism. writes an anonymous gossip column for a while, which causes upsets with the family when it's revealed. they forgive her, and she eventually becomes a travel writer.

louis - works for the wizarding wireless network, in the behind-the-scenes broadcasting team, where he works for years, and ultimately becomes a programme commissioner.

molly ii - works at obscurus books, initially as an assistant and eventually as an editor.

lucy - develops a passion for theatre at a young age and turns her school drama club into a travelling theatre company. will one day be one of the foremost magical theatre directors in the business.

fred ii - inherits his dad's entrepreneurial spirit and starts his own business with some friends, selling all sorts of magical illusions, spectacles and experiences, for pleasure and entertainment. highly experimental stuff and sometimes not quite legal.

roxanne - studies fashion design at the lugh school of magical art, in northern ireland, and designs beautiful clothes imbued with magic and charms.

rose - follows in her dad and uncle's footsteps and becomes an auror.

hugo - becomes a bestselling romance novelist under a penname (to hide his famous connections), it's big news when his identity finally comes out.

james - fails to make it onto a professional quidditch team out of hogwarts (for reasons unrelated to his quidditch ability) so takes a job at the ministry sports department, which he loathes, so quits and does bar work for a bit instead, before he goes into lower league quidditch and makes his way up to international player.

albus - overcomes his anxieties to become a healer, eventually specialising in pediatrics, he's especially good with other anxious kids.

lily - drifts about for a while, works some retail, slowly develops her baking hobby into something professional and in the end sets up her own little patisserie.

scorpius - uses his skill with intricate, technical charms to go into magical invention, essentially creating magical tech, particularly (in the end) forensic technology.

iseult malfoy - quidditch player for the holyhead harpies, teaches flying at hogwarts after she retires.

caelum malfoy - currently in my fic he's approximately eighteen months old so i haven't thought of a career for him yet.

lysander - starts a magical co-operative living project with lorcan and a bunch of their friends/partners, where he takes charge of the practical side and spends his days growing vegetables, mending roofs and caring for animals and children.

lorcan - lives in the same community as lysander but is a poet, philospher and stargazer.

aidan longbottom - photographer and filmmaker in the embryo magical film world starting to grow up.

sophie longbottom - actor and wardrobe mistress in lucy's theatre troupe

[rabbitcruiser]

Truck Driver Day

Professional truck drivers are honored and celebrated today with Truck Driver Day. In the United States, a driver is considered to be a truck driver when their vehicle has a gross vehicle weight—the weight of the vehicle loaded—of at least 26,000 pounds. They must obtain a commercial driver's license (CDL) to drive a vehicle of this weight. Employers often require their drivers to take a safety training program, and some also require a high school degree or GED.

Truck drivers carry all kinds of freight—livestock, food, canned goods, liquids, packages, and vehicles—all across the United States and the world. They often have to load and unload their freight and must inspect their trucks before taking to the road. Truck drivers often ship products to stores, and some may have to undertake sales duties. Many truck drivers work long hours. Some may have daily local routes that keep them close to home, while others may have routes and schedules that often change, and many have to be away from home for an extended amount of time.

Some trucks were on the road in the United States prior to World War I. Trucks continued to be used and developed during the war, and by 1920 there were more than a million trucks on the roads of America. Trucking continued to expand over the following decade, on account of advancements such as the introduction of the diesel engine, improved rural roads, the introduction of power brakes and steering, and the standardization of truck and trailer sizes. In the 1930s, a number of trucking regulations were implemented, and the American Trucking Association was created. Trucking activity increased in the 1950s and '60s, in large part because of the creation of the Interstate Highway System. Regulations on the weight of trucks continued to be updated.

The heyday of the truck driver came in the 1960s and '70s. At the time, a wide swath of the public viewed truck drivers as modern-day cowboys or outlaws. The rise of "trucker culture" was signaled with the proliferation of trucker songs and films, the wearing of plaid shirts and trucker hats by the public, and the wide use of CB radios and CB slang. The romanticization of trucker culture subsided by the dawn of the 1980s.

Many truckers went on strike during the energy crises of 1973 and 1979, after the cost of fuel rose. The Motor Carrier Act of 1980 partially deregulated the industry. As a result, many new trucking companies were started. Trucker union membership also drastically declined, leading to lower pay. But the deregulation did reduce consumer costs, and it increased production and competition in the trucking industry. By the twenty-first century, trucking dominated the freight industry. In 2006, there were 26 million trucks on America's roads, which hauled about 70 percent of the country's freight. Truckers continue to play a prominent role in keeping the wheels of the economy turning, and for the hard work they put in to make this happen, they are honored and celebrated today!

How to Observe Truck Driver Day

Some ideas of ways the day could be spent include:

If you are a truck driver, get out there and drive! Or, take the day off. It should be up to you!

Wave to truckers or make a gesture like you are pulling a truck horn in an attempt to get them to honk their horns.

Thank a truck driver. Tell them thanks in person or make a social media post of thanks. Include the hashtag #TruckDriverDay.

Become a truck driver.

Listen to some truck driving songs such as "Convoy" and "Truck Drivin' Man."

Watch some truck driving films such as Smokey and the Bandit, Convoy, and Big Rig.

Talk on a CB radio.

Eat at a truck stop.

Attend or take part in the National Truck Driving Championships, which are held around the time as Truck Driver Day.

Read a book about trucking or truckers such as Trucking Country: The road to America's Wal-Mart Economy or The Long Haul: A Trucker's Tales of Life on the Road.

Explore the websites of organizations and companies related to the industry such as American Trucker, Truckers News, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the American Trucking Associations, and the Women in Trucking Association.

[tarttsweetshriek]

Get To Know Me

Basic Info

Name: Tartt Sweetshriek

Gender: Female

Race: Goblin

Class: Death Knight

Faction: Horde

Affiliations: Bilgewater Cartel, The Ebon Blade

Eye Color: Lichfire Blue

Hair Color: Purple

Skin Color: Green

Height: 4’

Age: Adult

Server: Wyrmrest Accord (NA)

Birthplace: Kezan

Profession: Engineer

Body Shape: Small, but Athletic

Likeness: Rhea Ripley (Mami)

Voice Reference (Speaking): Melissa Rauch (Harley from “Batman and Harley Quinn”)

Voice Reference (Singing): Lzzie Hale (Halestorm)

Sexual Orientation: Straight

Relationship Status: Single

Piercings: Tongue Stud (Kaja’mite green color), Skull earring and a stud, (L) Studs (Right Ear), Nose Studs (Right Side)

Tattoos: Shadowmoon Clan symbol from the Kosh’Harg (Left Shoulder)

A tattoo on her back of Blight Boar outlined in purple and green- the colors of Inner Beast. She got this at the Tournament of Ages. This tattoo glows.

Languages: Goblin I Orcish I Common

Hobbies

Likes: Blight Boar, ETC, Inner Beast (Rp band), Heavy Metal, Death Metal, Motorcycles, Explosives, Tight outfits, leather corsets, dresses, dark makeup, socializing, “death knight things”, playing guitar, dancing, attending concerts, singing, raves, hanging out, dressing for special occasions, exploring new places, reading, collecting tomes and letters. Enjoys getting roses on occasion. (Mainly a variety of black roses, Sanguine roses from Revendreth and dread roses from Ardenweald).  

Dislikes: Gallywix, Arthas, forces that threaten Azeroth.

Note: Tolerates Paladins to an extent.

Love Language: Physical touch, complements, kisses, hugs.

Other Info

Smoking: Hookah (if there is one available)

Other drugs: None. (She tried a void mushroom and had a bad experience. Never again). 

Drinking: Socially

Fears: Being alone, “accidentally” not sating her Endless Hunger and becoming a murderous maniac. Being rejected.

Kinks

Breast play: She doesn’t mind if others look/ glance at them. Enjoys them being squeezed, massaged, nipples teased, pulled, pinched, sucked and tugged.

Blindfolded: Enjoys being blindfolded on a soft bed.

Is curious about whips, riding crops, and flogs.

(When she’s feeling dominant): She’s discovered a form of spanking using the Abomination Limb ability. (Glowing green spectral hands that flail around and hit the butt).

Traits

Flirty at times, enjoys company. Serious when she has to be.

Despite expressing negative emotions most of the time (as Death Knights should), she tries to be happy when she’s near the people around her. (Plus, I can’t rp an edgelord all the time).

Family Members

Siblings: Bogble: Goblin Rogue (Alive, but they don’t talk much).

Parents: Deceased.

RP Hooks

You may know Tartt Sweetshriek if:

You fought with or allied with the Ebon Blade during the Northrend Campaign against the Lich King.

You are a Third War and/or Fourth War veteran.

You attend Blight Boar concerts at the Darkmoon Faire (Or Caverns of Time during the anniversary event).

You frequent the World’s Faire Carnival or the Tournament of Ages.

You attend the Lordaeron Night Market. (Rp market)

You attend the Wings and Metal concert. (Rp concert).

You have seen her as part of the security in the Gilnean Black Market. (She started that recently).

(Pic was drawn by PoodleArt during the Lordaeron Night Market last year).

Note: If a character has not been to the Shadowlands, black roses will do just fine.