#story of the someday revolution

[ikuhara]

all i know is they should be besties

[empty-movement]

CONTENT DROP!!! Here's a tour of magazines boosting the Revolutionary Girl Utena Sega Saturn video game, Story of the Someday Revolution.

Top to bottom: Sega Saturn Magazine, December 1997 Dengeki G's Magazine, January 1998 Sega Saturn Magazine, April 1998

Enjoy this strange taste of 90's Sega Saturn media! These magazines were absolutely wall to wall massive JRPGs and low-key porno games, the Sega Saturn really and truly was the superior platform of its era and any other, I bought one on day ONE and will simp forever

[to-revolutionize-my-world]

I noticed I have four+ hour videos recorded in my computer still of some of the Utena sega Saturn game routes, I never did get around to posting them. I had intended to record all ten routes before posting but perhaps I should post what I have now and then just update as I finish each following.

I for sure have Utena’s route, Saionji, Juri, Miki, and I think Touga? I know i hadn’t done perfect or Anthy yet, and I don’t think I actually recorded bad end besides noting it in the menu of a subsequent route. Which means I still have at least four to record, amounting to possibly about 20 hours of playtime to get through orz

[episodeoftv]

Quarterfinals: Round 6 of 8

propaganda and summaries are under the cut (May include spoilers)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 6.07 Once More, With Feeling

tw for dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts

In this musical extravaganza, Sunnydale residents find themselves bursting into song, and flame, when a demon attempts to make Dawn his bride.

The greatest musical episode of all time! Pretty much all of the songs are unironically bangers, it's better choreographed and shot than frankly a lot of the bad movie musicals that have been inflicted on us in the past few years, and despite the goofy concept it still manages to tell an incredibly affecting story about the protagonist's struggle with depression. Pulls off an absolutely monumental tonal shift from comedic musical theatre homage to devastating emotional gut punch that manages to never feel tonally dissonant / Best musical episode ever (character development, lots of bops, and spontaneous combustion)

It is the best musical episode of any TV series. It is whimsical, but also far from filler and major plot beats happen while the characters sing jaunty little toons about them. Willow and Tara have sex. Spike gets and angsty alt rock song about his unrequited buffy crush. Buffy admits that when her friends resurrected her she was violently ripped out of heaven and doesn't wanna be on earth anymore. Spike and Buffy kiss. Its the best.

Invented musical episodes and is also one of the only good ones ever to have been made. Changed the game. Insane that it’s as good as it is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_More,_with_Feeling_(Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer)

Revolutionary Girl Utena: 1.39 And Someday, Together, We'll Shine

This whole show is full of TWs here's a link.

Utena's once again betrayed by Anthy. With the prince's sword in hand, Akio attempts to open the doors of revolution while the fallen prince contemplates her and Anthy's fate.

Series finale of Utena. Makes me sob every time. The betrayal, the fact that Utena still is trying to save Anthy, Anthy's coffin, their brief touch of hands before separated, seeing a montage of all the characters, and finally, seeing Anthy leave her abuser to find Utena. It's. Perfection. It's a traditionally happy ending but so hopeful that despite the heartache I'm still happy. That I know it'll be okay.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1401511/

[max-nolastname]

types of story that different black sails characters think they're in:

jack: typical underdog overcoming unbeatable odds story; he is the main character and the show is 100% about him and his joseph campbell hero's journey. he is like achilles seeking eternal glory. he is also like gilgamesh, seeking immortality because he's afraid of death

flint: one of those fairytale retelling stories from the villain's pov; he is the fire-breathing dragon/big bad wolf/wicked witch that his village has ostracized, chased out of his home with pitchforks and torches because they feared him and what he is and what he stands for. he knows that in another show, a more popular show, the story would be told from the pov of the villagers about the dangers that lie beyond the village walls and into the forest...but this is HIS show and in HIS show HE is the one that survived the villagers not the other way around and HE is the one that has been wronged and he WILL see them pay for it

miranda: at first she thinks she is the witty and cunning heroine of a regency period romance novel. she is critical of high society and it's archaic and sexist traditions, turns her nose up at the institution of marriage and yet against all odds finds a true partner in thomas. she thinks herself happier and smarter than her peers, for finding a way to explore her sexuality freely and still keep her high status. she is caught in a whirlwind romance with a handsome naval officer and well....then her story turns into a tragedy and a decade caught in lifeless loveless joyless limbo where she is sidelined into the background of someone else's story

max: overly aware that she is in A Story and that she is Not The Main Character; the spotlight is never on her, she will never take centre stage. in fact, she is in the wings, or perhaps watching the show from the back of the theatre as the stage manager, setting the scene and directing others to pull ropes, shine lights, open and close the curtains so that other actors can strut and fret their way around the stage

billy: revenge quest story! thinks he is the good guy, there to protect his friends and get revenge on the tyrant who killed his father. gains some genre awareness and realizes that he is not, in fact, the main character, but rather a side character caught in a romance between his captain and quartermaster and if he really wants to survive he's really gotta break them up

madi: a story of hope told around a campfire, passed on from generation to generation so people don't forget about the time that an island of maroons stood up to a seemingly eternal and unbeatable empire. some days, it's a cautionary tale, on how volatile solidarity can be with divisions like class, race and gender .... or how revolution necessitates violence that people who are comfortable in their oppression rather not pay... but no empire lasts forever and nothing is inevitable. the story sticks in the hearts and minds of future revolutionaries and someday someone somewhere will pick up the torch and continue the fight

season 1 walrus crew: workplace comedy

silver: [redacted]

[ramjam]

Revolutionary Girl Utena: Someday, My Revolution Will Come; Special CG of Sanjouin Chigusa and the Protagonist

Commentary from the official game guide:

"In terms of the game's story, Chigusa will not have a happy ending. However, the opening sequence hints that the main character and Chigusa could be happy together. If the player completes all of the endings, you can see a special image of the main character and Chigusa. I want players to look at that and imagine what those girls were thinking."

[comicaurora]

Happy Glorious 25th of May. Thank you for getting me into the discworld books (at least in an indirect way). They have quickly become one of my favorite series of books, even if I've only read a handful of them. As for a question, what have been your biggest takeaways or lessons from the discworld books? Whether it be how you write, how you engage with stories, or even how you look at the world.

we got another one lads

It's a little hard to boil it down! The books cover so much ground, and I read them at such a formative age it's hard to tease out how much of me is made from them.

On the most basic level, I love how angry those books are. Every POV protagonist is seething at unfairness and injustice and this is never framed as a bad thing - just something that needs to be controlled, directed, weaponized.

I like that everything is a joke, but in-universe everybody is absolutely sincere. The characters are charicatures and punchlines because of their sincerely-held beliefs and ideals. Captain Carrot is shiny and literal-minded and perfection personified and it's funny because he really is that good. Nanny Ogg is an outrageously horny and boisterous old woman and it's funny because she's having such a good time with it, especially when contrasted with her stern and serious foil Granny Weatherwax, and it's funny because the two of them know each other incredibly well and deal with each other's eccentricities with the practice of decades. The dwarves are funny because they're goofy little guys with big beards that think about nothing but gold and new songs to sing about gold, and as the books go on, the complexities of a culture that looks like that punchline become the deepest and most fascinating element of the worldbuilding in the entire Disc. The world is mounted on the back of four elephants and we made a book called the Fifth Elephant, how wacky, hey let's casually integrate the worldbuilding consequences of massive deposits of perfectly-crisped organic matter caused by the collision of a planet-sized elephant with a planet-sized planet. The discworld tells a joke and then commits to the consequences with its entire ass, and I love that.

A lot of the characters are in some way one-of-a-kind and unprecedented, or at least appear to be on the surface because nobody like them has even been publicly known, and the stories frequently explore how these unique people navigate their existence without a roadmap and trailblaze the way for the people just like them to someday follow. People who break rules by existing and make the world question what purpose those rules serve if they aren't actually unyielding principles of reality. The dwarf gender cultural revolution, the female wizard, the golem given a voice, the entire existence of Susan Sto Helit. It produces a world that feels like it's absolutely full of protagonists, like every story is one-of-a-kind and every individual person matters and has the right to choose the way they want to live, no matter what anyone else thinks. can't believe some terfs really think these books are for them as if they aren't precision-built to tell them to go fuck themselves

The cast full of protagonists makes the crossover events a delight. All these characters existing in the same universe means they can just run into each other sometimes, and they're all such absolute weirdos that their interactions never fail to be absolutely incredible. The world feels very thoroughly lived-in, to the point where the stories sometimes almost feel like they're telling themselves.

they're just really fuckin good ok

[ga-yuu]

About Ikegen Management Team Message!

The fact that Ikemen Genjiden Management Team formally send out a statement to thank everyone who send them supportive and kind messages after the announcement of EoS and saying that they themselves are sadder than the players itself really makes me think that Ikemen Genjiden must have been their passion project. This really feels like a shut-down that is forced rather than planned like Ikemen Revolution. Correct me, if I'm wrong, because Ikemen Revolution suddenly stopped releasing new trailers for their game out of nowhere, and sometime after, they formally announced their EoS. Usually, an EoS of a game means that, a new game announcement is right around the corner. Ikemen Revolution was killed to bring out Ikemen Villains. But I feel like Ikemen Genjiden's EoS is out of nowhere. I don't really think they planned this to happen, at least not this year. I don't know. Everything really feels sus, because they just released Kurama and Ibuki's sequel and everything was going well. Let's just wait and watch if there will actually be an announcement for a new Ikemen game this year or not.

According to them the management team haven't changed since the start of the development of the game, which means, every single member in the management team has longing memories for this game.

The story is about Rikka was already in development 2 years before the game's launch, and he is meant to be the counterpart to Tamamo and the starting point of the whole Genjiden story. According to the Management team, the story hasn't even reached its full potential yet. If the game was still on-going, we would have been able to see more crazy things unfold. It's sad that no matter how many kind words and encouragement to continue the game we sent, nothing will change because at the end of the day, it's a business and this is a strategic decision made for making profits.

The management team, did say that they will try and release as many stories as possible before the end day. So lets' look forward to that.

I really love the management team of Ikemen Genjiden. They are so creative and passionate about Ikemen Genjiden that it saddens me that the game did not get the recognition it rightfully deserves. People were asking for the English release, but they don't seem to understand that if the Japanese market doesn't do well, they won't be releasing it in English. That's why I have always been saying people to go play the Japanese app if you're that interested to play the game. But whatever. This was bound to happen someday.

When I saw the introduction of Rikka, I had hope that this game would at least go on until Rikka's story is released but I guess it did not and that makes me even more sad. Rikka is such an interesting character and I'm still dying to know more about him. I wish, if they are not going to release a main story, they at least release an event of something or give out free stories about Rikka just so that the fans could learn more about him. The fact that everything about this character is now going to disappear in fucking space.....I'm sad. I'm really really sad.

I wish that this Management Team really gets the praise that they truly deserve. I hope this same Management Team, comes together again and create new game which could be even better than Ikemen Genjiden. This Management Team has the potential to create stories that truly touches one's heart and soul. A MC like Yoshino who is so beautiful and lovable than any MC I have ever seen in my life. Eccentric but lovable suitors with very unique and some of which have never-before-seen personalities. Hilarious brain-dead nonsensical humor. Amazing and heart-touching dialogues. Beautiful music. Beautiful art style. Best cast of VAs ever. Everything about this game is so positive that I'm dying from the inside when I see my child slowly dying.

I love you, Ikemen Genjiden Management Team. You guys are literally the GOAT!!! I really hope you guys do well in the upcoming years and have more opportunities to shine!!! I'll always pray that upcoming projects get recognition it deserves!

[alice-after-dark]

Hazbin Hotel Characters/Ships as DCOM Songs

Sequel to this post. This is @deeply-unserious-fellow's fault lol

This was actually a lot harder than the Disney one lol

CHARACTERS

Charlie - We Can't Back Down (Camp Rock 2)

Vaggie - This is Me (Camp Rock)

Alastor - Rotten to the Core (Descendants)

Angel Dust - She's So Gone (Lemonade Mouth)

Niffty - Nothing's Wrong with Me (Pixel Perfect)

Husk - Scream (HSM 3)

Sir Pentious - The Climb (The Hannah Montana Movie)

Cherri Bomb - BAMM (ZOMBIES)

Lucifer - Ready, Set, Don't Go (FUCK YOU I DON'T CARE IF IT'S NOT ACTUALLY FROM A MOVIE YOU CAN PRY THIS SONG FOR HIM FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS)

(HONORARY VEES GROUP SONG IS WAYS TO BE WICKED FROM DESCENDANTS 2)

Vox - Tell Me Something I Don't Know (Another Cinderella Story)

Velvette - What's My Name? (Descendants 2)

Valenino - Fabulous (HSM 2)

Carmilla - One Girl Revolution (Cadet Kelly)

Rosie - Your Crowning Glory (Princess Diaries 2)

Adam - I Want It All (HSM 3)

Lute - Dance Me If You Can (Cheetah Girls 3)

SHIPS

Charlie/Vaggie - Someday (ZOMBIES...contributed by @deeply-unserious-fellow)

Husk/Angel Dust - Start of Something New (HSM)

Sir Pentious/Cherri Bomb - Supernova Girl (Zenon)

Alastor/Vox - Dance with Me (Cheetah Girls 2...I LIKE DANCE SONGS FOR THEM OKAY LEAVE ME ALONE)

Valentino/Vox - One Kiss (Descendants 3...honestly this would be fun as a duet for them ngl)

[glass-noodle]

Do you have any hankcon fic recs? 👉👈

I DO 👀

(more under the cut because this got super long)

Most of these fics contain nsfw, if that's alright with you. Nsfw marked with an *

IRQ (Interrupt Request)* by rara_avis. Follows canon except that Hank and Connor become intimate just after the bridge scene. Lots of cool formatting and technical language as the story delves into Connor's psyche on his journey to deviation, which I think is so cool and really makes the fic stand out. I always come back to this one🥹

slow down, you're doing fine* by jilliancares. Hank helps Connor navigate various emotions post-revolution. I love the slow burn, and I love how the author writes Connor struggling to identify what he's feeling despite knowing the names for each emotion.

Instructions Not Included* by Vinci. Set directly after the revolution, Connor is experiencing strange Feelings and it all comes to a head when he and Hank are forced to go undercover at the Eden Club. Sexy, sweet, and well-written. What more could you ask for!

Skin Deep* by bughnrahk. A canon-universe soulmate AU which I'm admittedly not usually drawn to, but this one is written so well. Hank struggling to come to terms with not only having a soulmate at 53, but an android soulmate, and Connor confronting both the fact that he's alive and the fact that he has a soulmate, is written in such an exciting and captivating way.

the other way to someday* by theslap/bigspoonnoya. Connor is Cole's second grade teacher - his very attractive second grade teacher. You can probably already tell that I'm a sucker for canon fics, but this AU had me crying and laughing and fanning myself the whole way through. A fandom classic

Buried Beneath the Snow* by ConnorRK. MIND THE TAGS, heavy CWs for this fic. Gavin is not a good guy in this. That being said, if you're looking for insanely good writing and characterization, loads of hurt/comfort, Connor whump, and protective Hank, this is your fic. An Eden Club AU set post failed-revolution; Connor is resold as an Eden Club android with no memories of being a deviant hunter, and no memories of Hank. The slow burn and Connor and Hank falling for each other despite Connor having no memories of the time they spent together, and despite the fact that his memory is wiped every 2 hours, has had me crying at 2 am more than once

stargazing by Molias. Honestly, everything by this author is fantastic, so you should definitely check out the rest of their work. But I have a soft spot for this fic and A Secret Singing in Our Fingertips* by the same author. They're both so lovely and sweet and full of emotion; whenever I want to read something that will make me absolutely swoon, I come to these fics.

Seiche by CeilingKiwi. On the other hand, if you're looking to get your feelings hurt this fine MerMay, this is for you. A gorgeous and heartwrenchingly bittersweet merman AU featuring depressed organic!merman Hank and abandoned android!merman Connor, and the ways they try and keep each other from falling apart.

you, the moon. you, the road. by plutoandpersephone. A post-revolution oneshot - Hank is injured on the job, and Connor is forced to confront the emotions that have been steadily, silently building within him since deviating. The writing in this fic leaves me breathless; it's the type of fic you never want to end. While you're at it, check out dieu et mon droit*, a prince Connor/president Hank AU fandom staple ;)

anything by Jolli_Bean. Honestly, I can't decide which fic of theirs I like best, haha. Just know that there's something for everyone - short or long, sweet or dramatic, canon or AU; all of them gorgeously written.

he's making a list; i'm checking him out* by connorsjorts. The mall santa AU we all deserve! This fic is so fun. Sweet, cute, sexy, and full of Christmas shenanigans.

Count the Stars by dbhprincess. Another stargazing fic because I'm a sucker for them apparently. Complete with sharing a sleeping bag, mildly awkward/sexy shenanigans, and first kisses <3 (also check out their Martian AU series, No Longer Alone!)

Whole* by blackeyedblonde. This time it's Connor who's injured at work, and they're both more than a little overcome with emotion. I enjoy any story that explores Connor's android features and his ability to feel pain, and the shaky aftermath of tenderness and desperation that follows a grievous injury is something I will ALWAYS eat up.

For mostly-smut fics (some with more plot, some with very little. Also mostly bottom!Connor, sorry if you're a big fan of bottom!Hank):

Tell Me How to Feel a Thing (I Want it All)* by bibliomaniac

Nightcall* by FAB900

Pulse* by biocomp

concede, comply (contend, deny) by biocomp

Slide On In* by teasoni

Glut* by bigolegay

Pleasure Liberation* by (orphan_account)

Knuckle, Buckle, Kneel* by Synekdokee

Flowers in My Mouth* by Molias

Finally, there are a couple of fics that I'm currently reading: Synthetic Blues* (ongoing) by jaemyun, downloading to paris (ongoing) by sevdrag, A Seraphim Story* (finished) by anonymousEDward, and Electric Indigo* (ongoing; unsure if on hiatus) by taranoire. All worth checking out!!

WHEW. Okay, I think I'm done. There are sooo many good fics out there, and I've only read a few out of a sea of thousands. If anyone has their own recs, feel free to add them! I will definitely be adding more the more I read :)

[night-at-the-musian]

how the natm dnd campaign went

i ran a natm dnd campaign, “Night of the Worms”. a bag of gummi worms got opened and the magic brought them to life. we just wrapped up the story, here’s some highlights:

immediately became a competition between the two characters who were on either side of the american revolution and despised one another. being mean the whole time. endless entertainment

one player adopted a gummi worm and named it after their character’s mom

said character then proceeded to break their fuckgin leg

one got kicked so hard in the balls that he was fired across the diorama hall and landed perfectly on his feet in another diorama

the rogue seduced a worm, proceeded to break its heart, it wiggled sadly and got sugar in their shoes

arguing pair proceeded to teach the heartbroken thing cannibalism. they had been eating their kills

adopted worm made another worm ally by becoming a mated pair with it. player was very proud of their child for finding love

arguing pair adopted the heartbroken worm and named it shrek for its green head.

at almost sunrise the arguing pair admitted that they wanted to be husbands. this is natm, we’re weak for enemies to lovers in this house. in this case, enemies to nemeses. it was wondrous

they all got some vegetable soup from an npc. the worms enjoyed the potato chunks

all in all, fun campaign story. i’ll run Worms again someday, if anyone wants to do it

[baldurspeen69420]

Hot Take Time: Lae'zel Addition

So I've been seeing an interesting take float around about Lae'zel's story arc. Not one I necessarily think is wrong, by the way, just one I personally disagree with somewhat.

Basically it goes along the lines of "When Lae'zel learns of the Gith prince, she just trades one blind devotion for another. She needs to be able to forge her own path and stay in Faerun."

Which I think can be a valid reading of her character and the story! It's just an interpretation I feel isn't taking into account all the context around this shift.

Lae'zel is so fucking proud of being a Githyanki. Her people are so important to her, not to mention her culture and the astral plane itself. It's a brutal world but one she's very much into. When she realizes Vlaakith's lies and tyranny over her race and discovers Orpheus, she says a line (paraphrasing heavily) about him being a leader to free the Gith and respect their skills and bodies. Autonomy, freedom for not just herself, but everything she loves.

And there's a time where Lae'zel believes she'll have to abandon her dream of holding a silver sword and riding a red dragon, that she'll never see her home plane again. It's something she's ready to leave behind but not without a lot of sadness. Something she feels Vlaakith took from her. But Orpheus gives her a chance to have this back, Voss grants her the sword she dreamed of wielding since she was a child, but for a greater cause than living and dying as Vlaakith's blade/sacrifice. She gets her chance back and I think there's something kind of beautiful about that.

In my file, Orpheus decided to become a Mindflayer and take on the ultimate sacrifice. At the end, he convinced my character of his misery in this new form and I helped him end his life. It was something he earnestly begged for, he didn't want to be condemned to a life in the shadows as the thing he hated most. I respected his wishes, and in turn, Orpheus gave Lae'zel his dragons and asked her to lead the revolution in his stead.

With this sacrifice in mind, with everything at stake, it just didn't feel right to persuade Lae'zel to stay on Faerun. I just don't see her character being content to leave that dream behind, to be able to live as a truly free person while her people suffer under Vlaakith AND hunted by Vlaakith's forces. How could Lae'zel ever be free when her people aren't?

So I guess ultimately the ending I got was kind of a best of both worlds situation. Lae'zel did get to forge her own path without just switching out figures of worship, in a way. She got to lead this incredible battle for the fate of her kind, and I just can't see her wanting it any other way. She got to rise up as a warrior and leader and I thought that was a really fitting end for her arc personally. Better than just being Orpheus' right hand or whatever would have happened had I become the Mindflayer in his place.

I just like to think she's having a blast in space right now, I dunno. She grew to love our lil patch of dirt, but it wasn't her true home. Maybe it can be someday when the fight is done, but the timing wasn't right.

[ashesandhackles]

Happy Birthday @thecat-isblogging-blog <3

Here is my little present for you:

Rabbit Moon

Written with @remadoramicrofics prompt, "Rabbit" in mind.

How can you be sure of him, Nymphadora? 

The bed is cold on the night of the full moon. It sits forlorn, bathing in the silvery light that invades through the open window. From the window, Tonks takes turns to watch the distant horizon - to the lining of trees, a gateway to her husband - and the spots on the moon, making the shape of a rabbit.  Tonks closes her eyes and tries to breathe.

“My Patronus is a rabbit,” she said, disgruntled to her father. “Charlie Weasley gets a dragon. This isn’t fair.”

“You want to hear a cool story about a rabbit?”

“Dad, I’m not a child anymore-”

"One night, the Man on the Moon came down to earth disguised as a beggar."  

“A man on the moon?”

A tear slips. She wishes she could still complain to her father, have a good whinge - about stupid things like how she wore the same socks for a week and Remus had never noticed. Her father would say reasonably that Remus can’t be blamed - the monotony of living in a safehouse through war muddles memory. 

"He chanced upon a Fox, a Monkey, and a Rabbit and asked for some food." 

“A monkey?”

“A monkey. This is a Japanese folk tale.”

“You read Japanese folk tales?”

“I read all sorts of things, Dora. How else will I keep you entertained?”

The monotony of the safehouse makes intimacy hang unfinished in air, a static charge only she can feel.  Once, he had put her hand away from his trousers when the cat who stalked their perimeter came by for food. "He is a shy one," Remus  explained. "He won't eat at all if we don't give him anything.”

Her hand had stayed limp in the air, still reaching for him as he walked out of the house. He tried to make it up to her later, stroking her breast as she faced away from him, staring at the wall. When she nuzzled closer, he would suddenly remember that the sun was out and they hadn’t put the laundry out to dry. 

"The Fox brought him fish from a stream, and the Monkey brought fruit from the trees, but the Rabbit could only offer grass.'"

“Grass is good.”

“Not funny, Dora.”

“It is a little bit funny, Dad. C’mon, smile for me!”

Her mother won’t ever understand - she would judge Remus.  Who could she talk to about the memory of the night before Remus walked out? The inconstant passion, the simultaneous need for closeness and distance in his touch. Fleur? Fleur can wrap her legs around her husband, ask him to entwine closer to her and not feel alone when she looks into his eyes. 

She wonders how she looked to Remus that night. Did she look distant? Resentful?

“So the rabbit told the beggar to build a fire, and when it was built, threw himself onto the flames to offer himself to the Man.”

“Dad, you are supposed to make me feel better about having a rabbit Patronus!”

“But isn’t this a nice story? It’s about the rabbit’s generosity.”

“The rabbit is dumb.”

When - if -  he comes back in the morning, she decides to tease him about not taking a shower often. "Someday I will," she knows he will say, with the wry smile she loves so much. She smiles as she thinks of it, looking at the clump of trees in the horizon again.  Someday, they will be fighters of the Order of Phoenix. Someday, in a foggy future. Today, and in a collection of subsequent todays that merge into one another like one long film strip, they are hiding in a safehouse– cut off from the world, the war, the talks of revolution. She is waiting for her husband to come back home.

"Amazed by the Rabbit's generosity, the beggar transformed back into the Man on the Moon and pulled the Rabbit from the fire."

“Dad, I don’t want to hear about the dumb rabbit. He is too sad.” 

“But this is the best part!”

The only way she knows time is moving in the safehouse is because of her body - her growing stomach, the new aches and pains in her bones. A tentative kick, a series of hiccups reverberating inside her.  It terrifies her, to feel time moving under her skin, out of her reach. 

Sometimes, she is afraid she will die in her sleep. Afraid that a pinch under her ribcage or discomfort in her throat is more than gas issues. When she had said as much to Remus, he laughed. She understood later that Remus knew time was passing because of the moon. 

She had never known what it was like to live in a body that caused her discomfort, that changed without her willing it to. To think, she had felt annoyed at her hair changing colour when she was angry. To think, Remus dealt with it all and worse with nary a complaint. She wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him, to hold him and shake him like she had at the hospital in front of everyone until he finally, finally got the message that she would never leave him, even if death itself tried to separate them. 

“To honour the Rabbit's kindness, the Man on the Moon carried the Rabbit back to the moon to live with him. So if you look carefully at the moon, you can see the outline of the rabbit on it.”

“But did the rabbit want to go to the moon? What is so special about the moon anyway?”

When daylight breaks, Tonks moves to the door.  She waits for him to appear on the horizon, haggard and exhausted. The more her pregnancy advances, the more he insists that she waits at the door . She resents it with each hour of sunlight warming their garden.

When he limps into view, she lets out an inaudible breath, and her hands shake over her belly. Now, she can wait with him. They can look forward to new moon nights, when the sky is the darkest,  and no light falls through their window.Remus will sleep beside her peacefully, one arm snaked around her waist, and one arm pillowing her neck. 

I'm never sure of him, Mum. Never will be, not anymore. But I am sure of me.  

Read on A03 here

[to-revolutionize-my-world]

Tragic:

I checked my recorded footage to realize that I had only done Juri, Miki, Saionji, and Utena’s routes, and not only that for some reason the Saionji route has to be redone because it had only recorded audio and not video 😭

[elusivemellifluence]

I saw someone recommend Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution by R.F. Kuang as an example of a fantasy story with no romance in it, and tilted my head curiously, thinking about what radically different things a story can mean to different readers. Because when I read it, I saw a significant subplot devoted to deliciously subtle, tragically unrealised queer love story between Robin and Ramy.

It lived in unanswered questions and charged silences*. It was hard to look at, hard to understand, in a world with such rigid expectations and strict social rules. It was a forbidden love on multiple levels, between two boys who were meant to devote their hearts and minds to serving the British empire above all personal concerns, between two boys who were meant to love women if anyone at all. In a story all about the magic of words, it was unspoken, unspeakable, but still not unacknowledged. They knew, or almost knew, and were getting gradually, infinitesimally closer to someday putting words to it, if only between themselves, until Ramy died and all that possibility died with him.**

It's about being closeted. It's about meeting the first other person you've ever known who's like you. It's about inching towards something you have no roadmap for. It's about the long history of tragic homoerotic vibes between British academics. It's about the love that dare not speak its name. It's about yet another thing the Translation Institute took from Robin, that's simultaneously yet another thing the Translation Institute gave him.

It's about another thing Letty's privilege blinded her to. A white woman wanting a brown man, and killing him for rejecting her***, never seeing the reason in the same way that she never saw the racism her friends were subjected to on a daily basis. A love triangle, mirroring the one between Griffin, Sterling and Evie, though Letty didn't know it was a triangle and couldn't even imagine that Ramy might care for Robin instead or that Robin might have his own desires beyond comforting her in her heartbreak. Robin asked Ramy why he didn't dance with her, and he said Don't you know why?*. Later that night Letty wept drunkenly into Robin's shoulder, asking Why doesn't he see me?, and he knew better than to tell her the truth****.

*p. 244:

"She wants you," Robin said. ... "Very badly. So why—" "Don't you know why?" Their eyes met. Robin felt a prickle at the back of his neck. The space between them felt very charged, like the moment between lightning and thunder, and Robin had no idea what was going on or what would happen next, only that it all felt very strange and terrifying, like teetering over the edge of a windy, roaring cliff.

**p. 410

One day Robin would ask himself how his shock had turned so easily to rage; why his first reaction was not disbelief at this betrayal but black, consuming hatred. And the answer would elude and disturb him, for it tiptoed around a complicated tangle of love and jealousy that ensnared them all, for which they had no name or explanation, a truth they'd only been starting to wake up to and now, after this, would never acknowledge.

***p. 503

"I think she wanted him dead," he continued hoarsely. "You could see it on her face – she wasn't scared, she knew what she was doing, she could have aimed at any one of us, and she knew it was Ramy she wanted." "Robin ..." "She loved him, you know," he said. The words came out of him like a torrent now; the floodgates were broken, and the waters could not be stopped. No matter how devastating, how tragic, he had to say it out loud, had to burden someone else with this awful, awful suspicion. "She told me, the night of the commemoration ball – she spent nearly an hour weeping into my shoulder because she wanted to dance with him, and he wouldn't even look at her. He never looked at her, he didn't ..." He had to stop, his tears threatened to choke him.

****p. 249

"I wish he would see me," she kept repeating. "Why won't he see me?" And though Robin could think of any number of reasons – because Ramy was a brown man in England and Letty the daughter of an admiral; because Ramy did not want to be shot in the street; or because Ramy simply did not love her like she loved him, and she'd badly mistaken his general kindness and ostentatious verve for special attention, because Letty was the kind of girl who was used to, and had come to always expect, special attention – he knew better than to tell her the truth. ... He had the oddest feeling of disappearing as he spoke, of fading into the background of a painting depicting a story which must have been as old as history.

(Despite how long this ended up getting, footnotes and all, I'm not trying to argue that my interpretation is right and the 'no romance' interpretation is wrong - I love the ambiguity, and think it's genuinely fascinating how this reading jumped out so clearly to me, a bisexual who spent a significant amount of my late teens pining over my best friend while coming to terms with my sexuality, while another reader with a different perspective saw something else entirely.)

[collapsedsquid]

The Colorado River system, which supplies 35 million people in seven U.S. states and Mexico, nearly collapsed last year. Even after a wet winter, it is dwindling due to overuse and climate change. But no matter how low its reservoirs sink, the historic claims of these families and all of Imperial County place them first in line — ahead of every state and major city — for whatever water remains. How a handful of families and a rural irrigation district came to control so much of the West’s most valuable river is a story of geography and good timing, intermarrying and shrewd strategy, and a rich but sometimes ugly past when racist laws and wartime policies excluded farmers of color. Together, they winnowed the greatest access to these 20 clans, who today use more of the river than all of Wyoming, New Mexico or Nevada. A vast, laser-leveled green quilt of crops covers this naturally bone-dry valley, all of it grown with Colorado River water. The water is held “in trust” by the Imperial Irrigation District and two smaller agencies, meaning they are legally required to deliver the water to any county landowner for use on their property.

Dream someday that Calfornia can have a bourgeoisie revolution and end feudalism