#such is the plight of being human i guess

[veilofvliens]

Chapter 1

The world was far too big and all too small for the girl in the car.

The trees went by so fast they began to blur, but the moon stayed steady and stationary, not moving at all.

Oh how she wished to live like the moon; changing, day by day, in small, barely noticeable ways, never the same for long, but always constant in the way it's always there in the sky, even if you don't see it.

Alas, fate's humor is dark and her longing wish seems farther each day.

And today is the day it seems the farthest.

58 kilometers far to be exact.

58 kilometers behind her is the home she lived in for more than 10 years.

And 8 kilometers in front of her is the "Welcome to Seattle" signboard that seemed fatalistic in it's bright but faded colors.

Seattle had done nothing to her, yet she hated all that it stood for.

Hated the schools it boasted about where she knew no one and would be all alone. Hated the streets that she has never walked before and held none of her favorite shops. Hated the vast number of stores that she had to explore, on a quest to find comfort she couldn't in her home. She hated that everything was new and she couldn't find an ounce of familiarity in any inch of this new city.

A little girl with pigtails stomped her glitter covered shoe in her ribcage; again and again, saying the same thing again and again in a pitiful tantrum; *i hate it, i hate it, i hate hate hate hate hate hate hate it*

*i want to go home* she whined.

*oh little one, it doesn't exist anymore* her jaded older self thought.

*the home you were born into is now an empty apartment that will be filled with another's life soon*

*you have to build a new home for the first time in your life*

*i don't want to, that's not how it's supposed to be* the little girl stomped

*and to that i reply with grief's words "oh, but that's how it is"*

tears swam in the little girls eyes, and dribbled down in thick drops, as big as the pearls her dad says they are

the older girl blinks her own dry eyes quickly

the little girl, safe in her chest, can cry all she wants without a second thought

but the older one that sat unguarded in the car had her parents to worry about

parents that would dive in with their recorded positivity that couldn't drown out their wails of regret no matter how loud they turned up the volume

she didn't rebuke her parents for their decision

she knew that they didn't have a choice

but at some point in her past years, when she was that little girl in pigtails, they had a choice

they had the choice that they didn't have now

but perhaps they never did

they never stood a chance against their own disposition

they were a crooked slave to themselves

they resented their actions and performed some more

you can't change who a person is, she had learnt

but if she could only have one wish for her entire life

it would be to make it so that she could

no

people are a product of their place

the place they grew up in, their place in the arbitrary societal hierarchy

no

if she could only have one wish for her entire life

one wish that all the gods, all big and small, had to grant

she'd wish she had the power to change

change her fate

change her parent's past

change the world

she wish the world was as malleable as the dirt it was meant to be

and her hands, so slick with tears, could create people and places and pasts and presents

all with a twist of her wrist

the power, the security that no matter what happens she had the means to change would save her from so much heartache, so much regret, so much pain

*but that would make you god, and you are but a mere mortal, it is mortal fate to feel regret and pain and feel a heart break*

*then let me be god* she thought *i am made in his image am i not? let me be god, i do not want to be human*

*this humanity that was spoken of, that was gifted at the price of Prometheus's liver, this humanity that is innate and humane, is not as kind as my teacher taught me it was*

*the way most humans are, you would think humanity is a synonym of tyranny, of cruelty and needless violence, humanity is wars and wins, humanity is dynasty's that fall beneath pride, humanity is stolen pleasures and unpaid debts, humanity is greed and hunger, humanity is fear for an after where our consequences finally affect us,*

*humanity is hubris with a soul*

*the soul makes it salvageable, does it not?*

she dismissed the voice with a shake of her head

*does the fact that a human, no matter how cruel, still has a soul, not leave a chance for redemption?* the voice persisted

*their idea of redemption is a 5 minute prayer and a disregard for religion outside of their benefit*

*they seek shelter in the arms of their protector in times of danger, is that so wrong?*

*they seek shelter but do not follow the rules of the shelter, every religion has only common rule; be kind to all, and yet the one thing that one is, regardless of religion, is unkind*

*unkindliness prevails more than death*

*do you presume you can avoid death if you are kind?*

*i assume less people would be afraid of death if they were kind*

*most of the fear stems from the judgement they'll face, if they're kind, make the effort to be unfalteringly kind, they wouldn't be afraid of judgment*

*do you think most are purposefully unkind?*

*that's what i see*

*so it is your presumption, you're set of traits that you compare them against, that yields the result that they are unkind*

*...i guess*

*are you not being unkind here then?*

*such is the plight of being human i guess*

*cop out*

*you aren't even real, shut up*

*you're the one who listens, no?*

*shut up*

[ckret2]

Chapter 41 of human Bill Cipher being really sick of being the Mystery Shack's prisoner: after absolutely terrorizing Gideon for projecting used car ads into Bill's dreams, tries to blackmail Gideon into working for him again.

But not before showing some unexpected sympathy for the plight of a child psychic on whose shoulders the family's financial future rests.

####

Dipper and Mabel were in the middle of a race on a roller coaster track when Bill wandered back downstairs. He sat on the couch armrest next to Mabel and precariously balanced as he crossed his legs. "So I've been thinking over this whole thing," Bill said. "I think I should apologize to Gideon."

"Work that out all by yourself?" Dipper glanced at the clock. "Wow. And it only took you half an hour."

Mabel finished a lap. While the roller coaster track slowly lifted her car to the top of the hill to start the next lap, she turned to give Bill an appraising look, ready to assess his work. "Apologize for what?"

"For terrorizing him! Is this a trick question?"

She nodded slowly—a little skeptical, but so far so good—but had to look away as she regained control of her car. "What's your angle?"

"I'm equilateral, work it out."

"Shut uuup, I'm serious."

"Why do I need to have an angle? Maybe I want to practice some of the apology lessons they're teaching on Color Critters! Aren't you the one who wanted me to be a decent person? You should be thrilled. You are thrilled."

"Bill."

"Okay fine, I want you to stop looking at me like I'm evil incarnate over a silly little prank letter." He nudged Mabel's head with his elbow. She smacked his arm away. "Isn't that the only reason anyone apologizes? To stop people from getting mad at them?" He lifted his eyepatch and squinted at the screen. "Goose in the left barrel."

Mabel swerved left. "Yes! Eat tail feathers, Dipper!"

"No no no no—!" His anguished groan mingled with angry honks. He tossed down his controller as Mabel sailed past his disabled car. "I'm not playing with Bill in the room."

Mabel laughed. "You're a sore loser!"

"I'll be out of your matted hair in a few minutes," Bill said. "You're cranky, go get a juice."

Dipper stomped from the room, grumbling. "Whatever, I'm getting a snack." He pointed at Bill, "Not because you told me to! I'm just hungry! It's got nothing to do with you!"

"Sure." Bill nudged Mabel again. "C'mon, let me use my training. Don't think I haven't noticed you're trying to mold me into a model citizen. Why bother if I never get a chance to act like one?"

Mabel looked at him thoughtfully. "You know what? Okay. I guess not wanting people to be mad at you is a good enough reason to apologize." She'd been hoping he'd land on genuine remorse, but she'd take what she could get.

"Great! Fisherman's out, Questiony's working, Sixer's gonna be in his cave til dinner, Dolores doesn't care—" Bill gestured toward the door, "so let's get the bracelets and get to the kid's house while the adults are distracted."

Mabel grimaced. "Oough. Right. We have to actually visit him."

"Unless you want me to mail an apology letter—"

"Definitely not." She sighed. "Well, if it's for the greater good... put on something other than a hoodie and let's go."

"You got it." Bill hopped off the couch and swung with one hand around the doorframe as he headed to the stairs.

####

Dipper tried to protest, but he'd missed his window to talk Mabel out of it; and so Bill and Mabel headed out, with Bill in a loose smiley face-covered Hawaiian shirt—Mabel approved of the friendly message—an undershirt, the leggings that looked like jeans, and his dress shoes. In other words, about as disarmingly unthreateningly un-Bill-like as he could get. He seemed to get bouncier and more energetic the longer they walked outside, until by the time they were turning onto Gideon's street he was cartwheeling up the sidewalk.

Bill waited for Mabel to open the gate in front of Gideon's house; but while Bill blithely passed through, Mabel lingered behind a few steps. Bill paused and glanced back. "Hey. All good, star girl?"

"Yeah." Mabel laughed nervously and caught up. "Just... haven't been to his house since before he got weird. Kinda gives me the willies now."

"Can't blame you. This is the guy who agreed to be my sheriff in exchange for custody of your bubble key."

Mabel cringed. "Did he really?"

"Oh yeah. Think he was planning to visit you in there until he wooed you? I never asked him. I didn't want the details."

"Ugh." Mabel shuddered.

Bill paused. "Maybe I shouldn't have mentioned that ten feet from his front door."

"It's... it's fine." She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. "Greater good. Right?"

He didn't answer immediately, tapping a foot as he thought. "Listen. Once we're in there, do you want me to go somewhere private to talk with him? So you don't have to worry about him leering at you the whole time?"

"Would you?" Mabel's shoulders slumped as a little tension eased up, relief obvious on her face. "But how will I know if you've apologized properly?"

"That little tattle will tell you if I do an awful job." Bill laughed. "Come on! I don't need you grading me on a rubric! Gimme a chance to prove I can say 'I'm sorry' without my life coach telling me how to behave."

"Thanks, Bill." She gave him a quick hug.

"Sure, any time kid. I'm not about to let any creeps get to you on my watch." Bill stretched his arms out, fingers laced together. "Ready?" When Mabel nodded, Bill knocked on the door.

After a long moment, a worried-looking, gray-haired woman opened the door. "Hello?"

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Gleeful!" Bill offered a partial bow. "We're here to visit Gideon, he should be expecting us. Would you let him know we're here?"

"Oh. Yes, of course." Her voice was a hushed murmur, as though she were talking to herself—or perpetually concerned about being overheard. She didn't raise her voice much as she called into the house, "Gideon? You have visitors."

Voice muffled, Gideon shouted from upstairs, "Who is it!"

Joy glanced over Bill and Mabel, but her gaze lingered on Mabel's face. "Oh. Aren't you that girl he...?"

"It's Mabel."

Joy said, "It's Mabel, and—"

Gideon let out an alarmed squawk. "Ohmygoodness. JUST A MINUUUTE! Where did I leave my cologne—"

Joy watched the ceiling nervously, listening to the subtle thuds.

Bill glanced her up and down, as though sizing up what he had to work with; and then he smiled brightly and said, "Well, I'm sure the little star's preparing a big entrance! Shall we wait inside?"

Joy started a little. "Oh—yes, of course. Please, come in." She pulled the door open wider and gestured to the sitting area.

Bill and Mabel took a seat on the couch. Bill crossed one ankle over his knee in a casual figure 4, and gestured to the armchair as though he were the host giving his guest permission to sit. Joy hesitated, but took the seat, sitting straight up without touching the back of the seat, feet together and hands laced over her knees.

"And how has Gideon been lately?" Bill asked. "We haven't had a chance to catch up since last summer!"

"Oh—I'm sure he's probably fine," Joy said, eyes darting around—to the clean carpet, to the framed pictures hanging straight on the wall, to the doorway into the kitchen.

"'Probably'?" Bill echoed.

"Well. He's really closer to his father, you see..."

"Nonsense." Bill lowered his voice conspiratorially. "I trust a woman's intuition on this sort of thing." He paused. "I'd wink here, but uh..." He gestured at his eye patch and shrugged with a helpless grin.

Joy curled her lips into her mouth and, for the first time since she'd opened the door, for a fraction of a second, nearly almost smiled. But it faded quickly; and when she spoke, her voice was low enough that Mabel had to lean halfway across the coffee table to hear her. (Bill didn't even move.) "You should probably know before you see him: he... has seemed a little bit cranky, recently."

"Oh?" Bill prompted.

(Mabel mumbled, "'Recently'?" and Bill nudged her.)

"Nothing like he was when he—" Joy faltered and quickly course corrected, "before his arrest. But, a bit. But then he's going through so much—reintegrating into life on the outside, trying to make friends at school..."

"Say, that's nice to hear! Has he made many?"

Joy hesitated. "He's always been... such a precocious child. It makes it hard for him to relate to other... And honestly, I think most of the children are jealous of his talents."

Bill nodded sympathetically. "I'm sure they are. Kids can be so cruel when they notice someone special. The nail that sticks out gets hammered down."

Joy nodded. "Yes—exactly. And he's so... sensitive."

Bill gave Mabel a warning glance. She pursed her lips tightly and puffed out her cheeks. Satisfied she wasn't about to weigh in on why Gideon wasn't making friends, Bill turned back to Joy. "Do you think that's what's been bothering him lately?"

"Well, yes, there's that."

Voice a tad lower, Bill prompted, "And...?"

Joy paused. She twisted her hands together. "And—I think he might be concerned about his father's business."

"Oh, the auto dealership?" Bill sat up a little. "I hope it hasn't been struggling lately?"

"It's... been a slow few months," Joy said. "It must be weighing on him—"

"He doesn't feel responsible, does he?"

Joy quickly shook her head. "Of course not. It isn't his fault. But he's just a little boy, there's not much he can do to help. Besides perform in a commercial, maybe—and he doesn't like that, we don't make him do that anymore—or..." She trailed off. "Well. Not knowing how to help or what to do... I can imagine he must feel... guilty." She stared down at her hands as she spoke.

Bill's gaze never wavered from her face. He nodded slowly. "I'm sure the business must be weighing on the whole family. It can't be easy for you, Joy—keeping a household running during such a difficult time." He gave her a reassuring smile. "I'll see what I can do to help you all."

Joy stared at his face, eyes shining. "I'm, sorry—did I catch your name?"

"Mr. Locke is fine, thanks. I was in business talks with your son before his incarceration."

Mabel leaned against Bill and whispered, "You mean he hired you to invade my grunkle's brain—"

Bill elbowed her.

Footsteps scurried down the stairs. "I'm coming!" Gideon rushed into the room, tugging his sleeves down his wrists, all gussied up and reeking of three separate hair products. "Hi Mabel my honey pie! What a pleasant surprise, what brings you by so s—" His gaze fixed on Bill, and his sweet smile twisted into fury. "You!"

Joy quickly stood up. "I should be—vacuuming the dining room." She hurried from the room, giving Gideon a wide berth as she went. The sound of vacuuming quickly filled the house.

Gideon never looked away from Bill. "Just what do you think y—"

Bill was on his feet and sweeping across the room before Gideon could get more out. "Hello again! I don't think we were properly introduced. The name's Goldie Locke." He blinked. "Wink."

Gideon grimaced. "You serious? Goldilocks? That's the best you could do?"

"I thought it was funny!"

Mabel scooted up onto the arm of the sofa, took a leap off, and landed next to Bill. "I came up with it!"

Gideon smiled uncomfortably. "Oh—sure, sure. Real cute."

"We came by so Goldie here," Mabel poked Bill's arm with both hands, "could give you a proper apology for his... 'prank.'" She got behind Bill and poked him in the back, directing him toward the stairs. "So you two go off somewhere private and do that! Go! Go on!"

"Wh— private?" Gideon leaned around Bill to give Mabel a pleading look. "M-Mabel, aren't you coming too?"

Mabel laughed nervously. "No, definitely not. I'm staying right here."

"But—but—"

"It's fine! If he tries any—" her voice dropped to a whisper, "—weird space demon magic—you can just scream. But he's basically harmless! I promise."

"But... I don't wanna be alone with..."

Bill put a hand on Gideon's back, turned him around, and practically dragged him toward the stairs. "And she doesn't want to be alone with you, and I'm going to respect her wishes."

Gideon hissed at Bill. He wasn't quite sure what to do when Bill hissed back. No one had ever done that before.

"You've got nothing to worry about," Bill said, giving Gideon a very worrying smile. "I just want an opportunity to show you the sincerity of my remorse. A little heart-to-heart! And anyway, you and I have a lot of catching up to do."

####

The moment Gideon's bedroom door shut, Bill said, in an exaggeratedly innocent golly-gee-whiz voice, "'Well, Mabel, the thing is, I was just cranky because I haven't gotten a decent night's sleep in days, because Gideon's been broadcasting mind control dreams to the town multiple times a week! Yeah, you know how you've been waking up feeling hypnotically compelled to buy a car? Good ol' Gideon! But you're right, bullying isn't the solution! I should have just asked him to cast his brainwashing spell a little further from the Mystery Shack—'" Bill cut off with a laugh. "I take it you get the picture! Your flesh is as white as your hair! It's—it's creepy. Stop it."

Gideon was already on the far side of the room, holding a floating arm desk lamp toward Bill like a sword. Voice shaking, he asked, "How do you know about that spell? H-how are you even alive? And here like... like this?"

"Does it matter?" Bill meandered around the room, looking at Gideon's matching nightstands, his TV, the floppy teddy bear on his bed. "Here's the only important question: what's it worth to you for me not to spill the beans to your sweetheart?"

Gideon swallowed hard.

As Bill rounded the bed, Gideon backed away from him until his back was pressed against the wall between his vanity and his dresser. Bill leaned over to look under the bed and nudged a rolled-up tarp with his foot. It unrolled across the floor, revealing Gideon's magic circle. "Uh-huh."

"Please stop looking around my room."

"Relax, I just want to see what's changed! This is hardly the first time I've seen your room." He glanced down at the subtle depiction of his face woven into the pattern on Gideon's carpet. "I've had eyes in here since you were a baby." 

He leaned over Gideon's bed, studying his knit zodiac blanket. "Although this eye is new. You went with red, white, and blue? How patriotic." He tugged at the blanket's edges, straightening it out. "Lots of pilling on the yarn, this thing's been very well loved. Does it still smell like Shooting Star, you cretin?"

"You keep your hands off of Mabel's blanket, you—!" Gideon swung his lamp toward Bill. It missed by a foot.

Bill didn't even flinch. "You're very lucky that you missed." For a moment, his voice was inhumanly low.

Gideon's blood ran cold. He clutched the lamp against his chest. "W-what do you want from me? I'm sorry I disturbed your sleep, all right? Is that what you want to hear?!"

"It's a good start!" Bill sat on Gideon's bed and made himself comfortable, propping himself up on his elbows, ankles crossed casually, resting in the center of his own zodiac. "Now, promise you'll stop advertising in people's dreams, and everything's forgiven!"

"I..." Gideon bit his lip.

Bill grinned a little wider. "What's the problem, kid? It's not like your daddy needs you running his advertising campaign! The family finances aren't resting on your shoulders!" He laughed.

Gideon just bit his lip harder. 

"Oh wait. Maybe they are. Are they?"

He looked down at the tarp. "Mrrng."

Bill sat up, leaning forward until he caught Gideon's gaze again. "So sorry, Star Boy! I didn't realize how serious your situation is!" His wicked smile said otherwise. "Wow, that must be so hard for you—the family breadwinner, at such a young age. Knowing your family needs you to keep them afloat. And it's not like you can just go out and get a job! So what can you do, except... well, whatever it is you already know how to do? Putting on a good show, right?"

"It's not like that," Gideon snapped, ignoring the weight in the pit of his stomach. He looked down at his lamp weapon and tugged anxiously at one of his sleeves. "It—it's not as though we're broke! We just... might have to tighten our belts a little bit, that's all. It's normal, most businesses have their ups and downs."

"Of course. Just no big shopping trips for a while! Pity you're about to need a whole new wardrobe, though."  Bill casually pushed himself off Gideon's bed, taking a step closer. "Hey, wanna know when your next growth spurt starts?"

Gideon shrank down. "No."

"It costs a lot to keep a growing kid clothed. And fed, and stocked with school supplies... If father asks for a little help, how can you refuse? If you don't, you could lose the business, lose your house, lose everything... all that, plus knowing it'd be your fault for not doing what you can? It's heartbreaking."

Bill leaned over Gideon, propping himself up with a hand on his dresser, trapping him in his shadow. Gideon cringed; but Bill asked, voice unexpectedly low and almost gentle, "You're so important. There's a helplessness that comes from wielding that kind of power, isn't there?"

The weight in Gideon's stomach grew heavier. Bill must have been watching his life ever since last fall; that was the only way he could have understood what Gideon was feeling so well. And yet—hearing someone else put it into words was a strange relief. He'd cut to the bleeding core of the issue. Gideon was the only one with the power to do anything, so he had to do something. It was a helplessness.

"Yeah." Gideon put his lamp back on his dresser, defeated. "Yeah, there is."

Bill crouched in front of Gideon, meeting him at eye level. "It just so happens that I'm sympathetic to your situation, kid. I get it." It was hard to read the mood in Bill's alien gaze; but for a moment, Gideon was sure he really did see a glimmer of sympathy in his slit pupil. "So how about this: I could help you out. Make some calls, pull some strings... give the family business a little boost," he said. "If you do me a couple small favors first."

Outraged, Gideon shouted, "You're blackmailing me into working for you again?! You—!" With a furious grunt, Gideon shoved Bill away from him.

To his surprise (and immediate horror), Bill lost balance, toppling onto his back with a yelp. But he just rolled onto his side and hopped back to his feet, laughing. "No no no! I'm blackmailing you into knocking off the annoying dream spell. That's all! Cut it out, or I'm telling Mabel. And—heck, how about the police while I'm at it?"

"You wouldn't—"

"I am pals with the sheriff and the mayor. Mind control happens to already be illegal in Gravity Falls, you can thank Quentin Trembley for that—such a forward thinker! I don't think there are any state-level laws yet, but I bet they'll wriiite ooone just for yoo-oou." The last sentence came out as a singsong taunt. "Anyway: drop the mind control. That's all I'm asking for. Okay?"

Gideon had circled around Bill to his bed, where he pulled off his zodiac blanket and bundled it against his chest. He wasn't sure which sounded worse. Prison probably should, but the thought of giving Mabel a fresh reason to hate him... He looked down at the blanket, and heaved a shaky sigh. "Okay."

"So? We're agreed? No more dream advertisements?"

"No more dream advertisements. You win."

"Great!" Bill beamed at Gideon. "But then, completely separately, if you want help saving the family business... well, offer's on the table! In fact, I'd happily offer to help without asking anything in return—"

"—you should, it's mostly your fault—"

"—except that, with my own situation being like it is, what with the limited access to my usual resources... I need you to help me help you." He spread his hands apologetically. "Nothing I can do about it."

Gideon pressed his lips together, looking down at his zodiac blanket. A fold in the fabric displayed part of the ripped heart. Gideon plucked out the blanket until he could glimpse the top of the shooting star.

He swallowed hard. "No. Absolutely not."

Bill blinked. "'Scuse me?"

"I can't accept your help," Gideon said. "I lead a support group of ex-cons—the very same ones I stupidly led into battle for you—and what would they say if they heard I was working for you again?"

The indulgent smile on Bill's face vanished. Rage flashed in his eye. "What would they say if they learned you're the first among them to reoffend?" He pointed at Gideon's magic circle. "Wouldn't they be disappointed. Aren't they your followers these days?"

Gideon squirmed under Bill's glare, backing away until he bumped into one of his nightstands. "F... 'followers'?"

"Your devotees—now that your Tent of Telepathy audience has abandoned you." The new smile that twisted across Bill's face now was hard and cruel, and his eye fixed like a prison searchlight on Gideon made Bill seem much closer than he was. "Isn't being worshiped sublime, Star Boy? That unconditional love? A worshiper will always be more reliable than some girl's fickle heart. But even the most 'unconditional' love always comes with fine print. How far are you willing to go to remain worthy of their love?"

Bill pulled a folded piece of paper out of his back pocket and waved it in the air. "We both know you'll help your daddy's business. The only question is if you'll do it your way, or mine." He placed the paper on Gideon's dresser and tapped it with his finger. "My way doesn't even involve breaking the law."

Gideon shook his head. "I won't..."

"I'll leave it with you anyway."

Bill strolled around the bed. "Well! I think we're finished here, how about you?" He stopped in front of the door.

He turned back. "Gideon, you're gonna have to get the door, I can't..."

"What?" Gideon asked. "Y'can't what?"

Bill huffed. "I'm sort of under this curse? So. If you could just—"

Gideon burst out laughing in disbelief. "The Amnesia Limina curse? You can't open doors?! Are you kidding me!"

"I can still ruin the rest of your embarrassingly short mortal life, you twit. Just—just get over here—"

Still laughing, Gideon crossed the room and got the door.

"Yeah. Thanks. Great."

As they came downstairs, Mabel hopped off the sofa. "Sooo? How'd the apology go?"

"Great!" Bill got in front before Gideon had a chance to speak. "I think we really understand each other better. Isn't that right, Gideon?"

Gideon grumped, "I think it's the worst 'apology' I've ever heard."

Bill gave him a dirty look powerful enough to kill a skittish horse; but he flinched under the weight of Mabel's disappointed frown. He laughed nervously, "Okay, so I still need some practice with my delivery! Human tones are finicky." He stared at Gideon. "But you accept the overall content of it, right?"

Bill was giving Gideon the creepiest smile he'd ever seen. But Mabel, on the other hand, was giving him this hopeful look—like she wanted this to go well so badly, and only Gideon could make or ruin her day. There's a helplessness that comes with wielding that kind of power.

In the world Gideon had been raised in, if someone who has transgressed against you apologizes, you don't have the right to withhold their forgiveness—it makes you as bad as the transgressor. The only way he could refuse was if he told Mabel he hadn't even gotten any apology; but there was no way to say that without admitting what they'd really discussed. "Yeah," Gideon muttered at his shoes. "I s'pose I accept it."

"Yes!" Mabel pumped a fist in the air so enthusiastically she lifted a few inches off the floor. "Great work! Happy face stickers for everybody!" She smacked a sticker on Bill's shirt and Gideon's lapel.

They tugged out their clothes to inspect their stickers. Bill's had a giant yellow smiley face over the words "Good job!" Gideon's had a smiling whale surrounded by the words "WHALE DONE". They were both disproportionately elated by their prizes.

"So can we go now?" Mabel whispered, "I feel like Mr. Gleeful's new clown painting is staring at me."

"Just one second. I should have a word with the missus of the house." Bill waved back at the kids as he trotted from the room. "Be right back!"

Mabel eyed Gideon warily.

Gideon smiled winningly. "So, Mabel. As long as you're already over here, would you like to stay for dinner—?"

"Nuh-uh." She turned and headed for the door. "Goodbye forever!"

"Aw."

Bill followed the sound of vacuuming through the kitchen into the dining room, and rapped on the doorframe. "Knock knock."

Joy flinched and spun around. "Oh." She turned off her vacuum. "Yes, Mr. Locke?"

"Just wanted to thank you for your hospitality before we leave!"

"Oh—yes, of course. You're welcome."

He lowered his voice, "And I also wanted to tell you not to worry about a thing. I'm sure everything will turn out fine for your family—and for you." He flashed her a winning smile.

She hesitantly nodded. "Thank you."

####

As they walked to the gate around the Gleeful property, Mabel said, "You weren't just all talk with Gideon's mom, were you? You actually are planning to help her."

Bill gave her a surprised look. "Something like that. How'd you know?"

"You told her to call you Mister. That means you mean business!"

A crooked smile stretched across his face. "Hey! No fair, you know too much. You're figuring out all my secrets."

Out on the sidewalk, Bill did a cartwheel, attempted to turn it into a handstand, and fell on the sidewalk. He brushed off a scraped elbow with a grumble and got back up. Well, it matched his burn on the other side.

"4 out of 10."

"I didn't ask."

Mabel snickered. "You know—your conversation with Gideon might not have gone perfectly. But you realized you did something wrong, you apologized for it, and you're gonna do better." She patted his arm. "I'm really proud of you, Bill. That's some serious growth."

"Really?"

"Really."

He beamed. He couldn't remember the last time anyone had been proud of him. (Granted, he didn't generally tolerate relationships in which somebody felt like they had enough superiority over him to feel "pride" toward his actions. Generally "awe" or "admiration" were more common.) He was basking in the praise. He was over the moon. He was euphoric. He was the best person to ever exist.

The fact that the praise was horribly misplaced didn't faze him in the least.

####

Gideon had spent the past minute picking peas out of his pot pie and scooting them to the edge of his plate.

Bud cleared his throat. "Son, you really ought to eat your vegetables. And they'll taste better mixed in with the rest of your food than all by themselves."

"I don't want my peas."

"But they're good for you! Don't you want to grow up big and strong—?"

Gideon flinched. He pounded the table. "I said I don't WANT my peas!"

"All right, okay, that's fine! Just thought I'd suggest it."

Gideon grumpily scooped up a forkful of chicken, carrots, and corn, eyed the carrots skeptically, and took a bite. It was fine. "So, father. How was work?"

Bud sighed. "Oh, it would've made more sense just to close for the day. At least then I wouldn't be wasting money on air conditioning the office."

"Oh." Gideon stabbed at a lone piece of corn with his fork. "Maybe we oughta... stop with the nighttime ads. It doesn't sound like they're helping."

"Ahh, you might be right."

Gideon heaved a sigh of relief.

"I just don't know what else to try." Bud shook his head. "I've tried newspaper ads, TV ads, radio ads, billboards, fliers, sales, cutting brake lines..." He settled his hand near Gideon's spot at the table. "Son, you know I know you're doing the best you can to help our family, and it means more to me than I can say. But, if there's anything else you can think of...?"

Gideon tried to avoid his father's gaze—and instead, spotted his mother. She usually kept to herself during dinner, wholly focused on her own plate when she wasn't setting out dishes or cleaning them up. But tonight, she was looking right at Gideon. Like she expected something out of him, too.

He shrank into his seat. "Well. I've got one other idea I could try."

####

Gideon shut the door to his room—and, just to be safe, stuck his chair under the doorknob. Then he gingerly picked up the paper on the dresser and unfolded it.

The same tall, thin handwriting as on the letter he'd received—but even more cramped, cramming as much text on one torn-out book page as possible. A terse paragraph of instructions, a phone number, a numbered list of questions, a prepared statement.

Gideon got his mobile phone and a notebook, set up to take notes at his vanity, took a deep breath, let it out, and dialed the number. As the phone rang, he looked at himself in the mirror and muttered, "Heaven help me if I'm facilitating the start of Armageddon."

Then someone picked up, and he held the phone up to his ear. "Hello? Oh, right, er—" He read off the paper Bill had given him, "'But rises gold over the pyramid.' ... Yes. Mhm, I'm calling on behalf of... of Bill Cipher. ... My name's not important, I'm just the messenger—oh, oh you recognize my voice! Haha!" He mopped his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "A-always nice to meet a fan! Yeah, we know each other. Small world. N... no, he didn't give me my... I was—was psychic before I met him, actually. Sorry, I didn't catch your name—who'm I speaking to?"

Gideon looked at Bill's list of questions, wrote a 1. in his notebook, and beside it wrote "Sue Blime." One question down. "I have a message to pass on."

####

He pushed harder.

Her skin fractured and peeled off, strand after strand. It filled the spaces between his fingertips, wrapped up his arms. He could shut his eye but he still saw it through his eyelid, still felt it tickling at the corners of his mouth. He let out an angry, hysterical, broken laugh.

And then he laughed louder, and louder—higher, shriller, echoing all the way to the distant stars. "What am I doing?" He opened his eye and looked at his hands, tangled with gold threads and soaked in blood. He laughed again, gleeful. "What am I doing! None of this is real! This is a dream! We're in my dreamscape. None of this matters! I control all of you!"

Bill controlled all of them.

He effortlessly peeled his arm off the plane of his dimension into the third, still tangled in gore, and spun his finger. The golden shreds of skin let go of his hand, rotating around his hand in a loose tornado. Cackling again, he rose up into space, looping like a paper airplane on a breeze, telekinetically twirling the countless golden shreds with him like he was doing a ribbon dance. And wasn't it beautiful? He was changing their color—yellow green blue violet red orange yellow—he was melting them down to floating drops of liquid gold, he was making them vanish into thin air. There was no blood on his hands. There never had been. He had never killed. His mother did not exist.

He glanced toward the stars. "Am I gonna have any meddling from you? Want to sell me any cars tonight?"

The stars didn't answer. Good. He didn't want his show interrupted by a commercial break.

"I control you," Bill announced to the crowd of assembled worshipers below, numb and thoughtless and unmoving while the god of this dream had no use for them to live. "You answer to me!" He jabbed his thumb against his golden face—not the internal organs exposed to the third dimension the rest of the shapes had, but the exoskeleton he wouldn't start wearing until centuries after this memory. "The only life you have is in my head! All of you, all of you have been burned away for a trillion years!" He paused, then flashed two finger guns at a red hexagon in the crowd. "All except you, Hect. Always great to see a long-time fan!"

In the field of frozen shapes, Bill's memory of Hectorgon hesitantly waved.

"But..." Beneath Bill, still as aghast as he'd been so many eons ago, still playing his part to move this dream along, his father said, "But... what are we going to tell your followers?"

"Ugh, you're such a downer. Give it a rest, you old square!" Bill did something no prisoner of the second dimension had ever been capable of doing: he snapped his fingers. His father silently dissolved into origami butterflies and fluttered into space. "You barely even liked her."

He floated back down to the plane, lacing his fingers together to stretch his arms in front of him. "I don't need you," he muttered. "I've got this handled. I've always been the one who had this handled. Now let's end this dream the right way."

Time to sucker his suckers.

He swooped through the open doors to speak to his assembled worshipers as effortlessly as though he'd been doing this a trillion years: "My beautiful, loving believers! I have wonderful news. Your high priestess—my mother—has passed on; but, you should be celebrating! Because she hasn't abandoned us! Her spirit's just ascended—not up, but out of our dimension and into the third, where the spirits of all departed shapes live on! Her spirit's formed a bridge from there to me, and through me to you! She's revealed the true nature of the third dimension—a sublime realm of color and life—and I'll reveal it to you, too!"

The black starry void of the third dimension above Bill mutated as he spoke; now, it was raucous colors, beams of light, and glittery gold. Faraway neon-colored shapes danced deliriously through nebulas and clouds.

"I'll teach you the secrets passed down to us from the enlightened third-dimensional spirits; I'll show you how to see it all for yourself... and if you follow me, if you devote yourself entirely to my teachings, if you trust me blindly—blindly, for I can see what others can't—then I'll guide you INTO the third dimension! I will be your teacher, your divine guide, your muse! So tell me: do you trust me?"

The worshipers cheered.

"Do you worship me?!"

The worshipers screamed.

"Do you love me!"

The worshipers howled, mad with love for Bill, ripping each other apart in a spontaneous outpouring of zealotry.

Bill's shrieking laughter rose up above the roar of his imaginary crowd.

####

For the first time since his death, Bill woke fully rested. Dawn streamed in through the attic window, shining golden on the cloud of curly hair dangling in front of his eyes. And wasn't it beautiful? He ran his fingers through his hair, smoothed it back, and pushed it into the right shape.

He checked to make sure no humans were coming for a while, slid Journal 4 out of its hiding place, and flipped to the page where he'd stuck his "Good Job!" sticker. He'd used his stolen half-dried marker to blacken the sides of the yellow smiley face, turning it from a circle into a triangle, draining the last of its ink in the process. He wasted four pages with every detail he could recollect from this dream, going on and on about how easy it had been to assert his rightful control, how effortless to control time and space. If he ever found the human who wrote that lucid dreaming guide, he was giving 'em a planet.

At the end, he wrote in English, "You'll regret turning me down as your teacher, Stanford. You can't even imagine how many people would have committed murder to get that kind of attention. But I gave it to you."

He tried to remember how that sermon had really gone.

What did he need to remember the truth for? It must have gone something like that. He wouldn't still be here if it hadn't, would he?

####

(Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, I'd appreciate a comment!! Next week we kick off with more of Bill's history—and then start ramping up for the biggest, longest plot arc so far.)

[codenamesazanka]

I would have been perfectly fine with Spinner (or the League) kneeling in front of Deku, literally begging him to save Shigaraki. In fact, I was kinda hoping for it. That Spinner, out of his strong feelings for Shigaraki, would turn to their enemies for help. Because, in the end, more than the horizon, more than destruction or villainy, Spinner was remembering his friend, and he wanted Shigaraki back, he pleaded with Kurogiri to save Shigaraki and the others. So Spinner would go to the Heroes, he would go to Deku.

Because that should've been the point, right? That the League regains faith in Heroes and society. That the League feels a definite change happening enough they would feel comfortable going to the Heroes for help. That Spinner would regain hope in Heroes enough to entrust Shigaraki's well-being to them.

Way I imagined it, Deku would be vocal and upfront about his desire to save Shigaraki. That he will stop Shigaraki without killing or gravely injuring him, and he will both save Shigaraki from AFO and save Shigaraki's heart. He advocates for treating Villains as human, is unashamed and steadfast in doing so, and this is noticed by the Villains, who sees Deku as different. As a ray of hope, as the promise of change.

And meanwhile, Deku would realize that besides an Inner Innocent Crying Child, there was something more to Shigaraki as he is in the present. That Shigaraki was an unforgivable man who had done terrible things and wants to keep destroying things, but he did so for a reason and not because Evil Mwahaha. That there was a reason the League is so loyal to Shigaraki, that they loved him for his fairness and kindness, twisted as it may be. Deku didn't need to put all his faith in an inner child innocence, because the evidence was right there that Shigaraki has some good in him, even now. Spinner begging Deku to save Shigaraki, because Shigaraki was his friend, Shigaraki was one of the very few people to accept Spinner and not treat him like a lizard freak and not consider him impure and gave him a place to belong even tho he was a weak loser. Shigaraki wasn't a person in spite of the destruction and rage; he was a person because of the destruction and rage, because he wanted to help the Villains. Shigaraki saved the outcasts when no Hero did.

Deku would realize this not because Shigaraki declared it, but because he gleaned it from Shigaraki's actions and effect on the League, and it would fuel his desire to save. "I want to save that Crying Child—whose pain made him grow up to become a Villain that dreamed of being a hero for all the others in pain. I want to help him realize that goal. I want both of us to be Heroes."

But of course none of this happened. As of Midoriya Izuku: Rising, a chapter that should be Deku's heroic peak, no Villain is looking to Deku for the promise of change. No villain believes in Heroes in general. Dabi wondered why no one showed up sooner. Toga, as she prepared to die, wistfully thought that if someone had loved and accepted her, maybe things could've been different; she only believed in Ochako, and still wanted the world the League would create. (Deku in fact went and made Toga give up her final attempt for understanding when he told her "I understand admiration but you do it all wrong and weird.") Spinner believed that if Heroes win the day, nothing still change. The Heteromorphs didn't stop because they knew or were promised change would come - they stopped because of their own goodness, second guessing themselves and ready to give up their demands out of fear of hurting the people that ignored their plight. They were ready to go back to enduring hate crimes, if Shoji hadn't rewarded them for stopping... by saying they should keep enduring hate crimes until the perpetrators learn to feel shame.

And most of all, Shigaraki continued to desire being a Hero for the Villains, because he knows that's still necessary (pre-419 reveal, anyway). None of this is regaining trust in the world as a whole, in the Hero System.

None of the League, the main villains, the main targets of being saved, are looking to Heroes for hope. That's insane??? What was all this saving even for???

[wellwhatnowlove]

“He looks down at his feet, searching for words. When he finds them, he looks up at me with the raw emotion of his father, but without the anger or the pain. “Mother, your inheritance was guilt. Father’s was surrender. Because of you, because of Father, mine is struggle. That is better than guilt. It is better than surrender. I do not blame you. I thank you. You never pretended the world wasn’t broken, even when a broken world favored you.”

Light Bringer, pg.144

I GOT TO THINKIN TODAY ABOUT WHAT PAX SAID ABOUT HIS PARENTS’ INHERITANCE AND I HAD A REVELATION. okay sorry VERY LONG WINDED ESSAY BELOW. (Light Bringer spoilers too)

If Darrow’s inheritance has always been surrender and Virginia’s has always been guilt, then Light Bringer is a study in how they’ve swapped those burdens, and both grew immensely because of it. Virginia is forced to face the reality of surrender to keep Mars from falling. She must learn to sacrifice lives on an unimaginable scale. She literally has to surrender Phobos in order to hold Mars and save lives from a bloody battle over pride. She routinely seeks out the injured and dying to confront those she sacrifices. It’s heart breaking and hard to read at times, but not once did she not feel like the character we grew to love. She stays true to herself while mentioning multiple times that she now understands Darrow’s plight more than ever from the last decade.

Then on the flip side, Darrow is forced to reckon with his insurmountable guilt when he is put on trial before the daughters in the rim to answer for betraying them in order to secure a victory for the core rising/republic. He talks about how that guilt put a wedge between him and his family. That guilt made him feel unworthy of love, and, therefore, unable to properly express his love to those he would give everything for. This mirrors Virginia’s past struggle with one particularly potent example being her inability to believe that Darrow could love her after he reveals his true identity as a red in the tunnel under Lykos at the end of Golden Son. She says

“They are my family!” she shouts, face collapsing into grief. “My father hanged your wife. He hanged her. How can you even look at me?”

I think it’s this guilt (and probably some feelings of utter betrayal, panic, and overwhelm) that led her to leave Darrow in that tunnel and indirectly led him into the Jackal’s trap. Which I’m sure she also feels immense guilt for. But I think a large part of her journey off page and into morning star is her coming to terms with that guilt. In confronting it she learns to be vulnerable with Darrow again and comes to accept that he loves her despite the insane complexity of their history. This culminating with her leaning into her understanding of her part in the society and realizing that it puts her in a place to make a true change. All of this accomplished with an education in immense humility, flexibility, and compromise. Which is the lesson Darrow grapples with and I think truly leans into throughout this book. In a way, he is forced to reckon with how his guilt drove him away from Virginia and Pax and even veered him away from Eo’s dream.

I think on a character based level, this will exponentially strengthen their relationship when (please please Pierce) they finally reunite, and will make them a more formidable pair than even before. They now understand each others struggles in such intimate ways that idk if anyone can stop these two.

Then, on a larger plot based level it speaks to the larger themes of resilience, understanding and the fight for humanity. Virginia finds strength in surrender and Darrow finds redemption in humility and compromise. 

Then, add in some struggle, grit and pixie dust (and a cool head tattoo I guess. WE SEE YOU OVER THERE PAX AKA ADEPT AUGUSTUS. HELL YEAH KEEP IT UP BABY WOO) and the rising might just have a true shot. Not only at victory, but at redemption and continued effort in the name of what is just and good.

[greenerteacups]

i have an idea for a fic that i’m absolutely obsessed with, id love it if i were a reader, it’s the perfect plot to highlight parts of the characters that i don’t see emphasized very often but that make me go crazy. here’s the problem: i’ve written in the past, but never completed and posted anything, and it makes me sad to think that this idea being my first will mean that it’s not executed to the quality that it is in my brain’s fantasy. i know the words on the page never quite meet the pictures you paint in your head, and i’ll have other good ideas, but im, like, preemptively mourning how this fic won’t be as good as i want it to be because it’s also serving as a lesson in how to write. do you have any words of encouragement/condolences lol

Oh, I mean, I do have words of encouragement, but they're not necessarily the softest ones! First of all: you've come up with an idea you love. That's the best. That's awesome. My best piece of advice is to be stoked that you get to write this fic, because that's going to be a lot of fun. I have a lot of sympathy for your plight, because there's a particular period in any artist's journey where their taste outpaces their talent, and it sucks. I'm still there, personally. I know a lot of creatives who are. We may live here forever! But it's fine, because it's kind of got to be fine for any of us to keep creating.

My second piece of advice is to ask why you have such radically different levels of confidence in different parts of the writing process. Why are you equally convinced by the brilliance of the idea and the disappointment of your execution? Why separate those two things? It's just the one writer, and it's just the one project. If I have an idea for a story but the idea doesn't tell me how to get from Point A to Point B, that also seems like a problem with the idea. When you really get down to it, practically, we might describe ideas as "seeds" or "babies," but they're not, because they don't in and of themselves represent a predestined genetic blueprint; an idea is just as much or as little as you make of it, and it has no value outside of what you do with it. Saying "what if Draco was a Gryffindor?" without any sort of answer to back it up is just — I mean, I don't think it's "worthless," because it's fandom, and it's still fun to discuss things with your friends! but the more thought you put into your answer, the more worthwhile it is, even if it becomes more flawed as a result. Your thoughts are flawed because they're human thoughts, but they're still worth more than their absence.

I guess the main takeaway here is to not hold the idea as its own immaculate creation, and to instead treat it like what it is: a manifestation of the same writerly skill that will have to be employed to execute it. The idea, by itself, is not good. You can't mourn a fic that doesn't exist; that's like me being sad I didn't write the #1 bestselling sequel to War and Peace. What you'll have at the end of this process is an imperfect execution of an imperfect conceit, which is all that any author has ever been able to say about anything, ever.

[violetlunette]

This a a Prompt from my Disney Song Prompt List.

I'm technically stretching the rules here, but I guess since Disney owns Fox now, I can count on a technicality.

Song: Once Upon a December (Anastasia)

Requested by @singerkillerjaetch

~*~

The winter’s cold stabbed through straight to Silver’s bones, turning pink flesh blue and causing teeth to clatter.

‘I’ll have to find shelter soon,’ he thought. He searched the area, but his vision was hazy due to the thick mist his breath made.

Silver had no idea how long he had been in these icy woods, lost and alone. What he did know was that if he didn’t find warmth soon, Silver would never find it again.

Silver stumbled against a tree, his fingers so numb that he couldn’t even feel the scratchy bark of the tree.

‘I can’t… I can’t…’

“Stand up.” Ah, it was that voice again. “It doesn’t matter what you have to do. As long as you live.”

Silver closed his eyes against the sound. That voice always appeared at times like this, when he was lost.

He just wished he could remember who that voice belonged to.

‘Then again, if I could recall anything, I wouldn’t be here.’ With a shudder, Silver stood and continued to trudge through the thick snow, ripping his leg as the white gripped his knees.

A time ago, the boy had been found wandering with no memory of his past or even who he was. He only had his name due to his hair, and he hated the name “Gray.”

Silver began to worry that he would never find his true identity when fate, or perhaps luck, intervened. 

Silver met a pixie after he rescued her from a band of thieves who were going to sell her in a bottle. 

After the human shared his plight with her, she mysteriously told Silver that he should go to Briar Valley. There, he should seek out “Lilia Vanrouge.” Before Silver could question why, the other vanished.

Having no other leads, the teen made his journey to Briar Valley. 

Once he arrived, he was surprised to find the entire valley coated in snow.

Travelers had told him that this winter had been going on for some time, caused by the sorrow of the Dragon Prince, who had lost something dear to him. Silver, whose heart already twinged at the mention of him, went out to the prince. Whatever he lost must have been precious to create such a storm for so long--

Koff, koff!

Silver’s throat ached and nearly choked him. Silver came to these woods to find his past, but if he didn’t hurry and find protection from the cold, Silver wouldn’t have a future either.

There were many times Silver’s body nearly gave out and fell to the storm, but each time he did, the same voice would appear in his head, begging him to live.

‘I wish I knew... if only I could recall...’ Who that person was.

Silver pressed his lips tight, and his brow furrowed deeply.

It was faint, glowing as dim as an ember, but he could recall someone holding him as a child. In their arms, Silver felt safe and warm. He hadn’t felt that way for a long time.

If the human thought harder, he could hear a faint lullaby being sung. He couldn’t recall the song itself or the words—just the tune.

♬♪♬...♪♪♬...

Silver placed a hand over his chest as the muscle inside it ached. 

It hurt, but it was that pain that kept him going. For his heart to ache and yearn so strongly for something his mind could not recall, Silver must have loved it deeply and dearly. And, surely, those feelings had to have been returned...

Right?

Hope could only move a body for so long, and it seemed that it was going to fade when Silver's aurora-colored eyes spotted something.

In the distance, settled between one of the many large trees and a stream, frozen completely by the cold, was a cottage. 

The sight brought tears to the teen’s eyes as warmth slowly spread to his icy bones.

He knew this place better than he knew anything else. This...this was home. His home.

He was home.

Whoosh!

The door opened so fast that it was nearly pulled from the house. Light came pooling out. The only light in the dark, icy world. Framed by this heavenly glow was a figure that made Silver’s heart cry out, though his lips remained silent in shock. He held his breath until the other spoke.

“Silver?” That voice—he recognized it! It was the same voice that kept him alive all this time. This person was his...

“Father?”

~*~

Lilia stood, shaking not from the cold but from the emotions that filled him upon seeing the sight before him.

“Silver?” Was it a dream? Or perhaps he was seeing a ghost. Could this be his son? The child he had lost what felt like ages ago?

Crack!

His grip broke the wood of the entryway. He didn’t dare hope. He didn’t dare dream. Not after all this time.

And yet--

“Father?” Lilia’s heart, numb from grief for so long, began to beat once more.

Only to break as the lad fell.

“Silver!” Lilia bolted from the doorway to his son’s side, pulling him from the snow as he called the other’s name again and again. Sadly, there was no response.

“Silver!” Surely fate didn’t deliver his boy to his doorstep just to have him die before the father. Such a thing would be far too cruel.

“Silver, please! Please…”

Once upon a December, Silver vanished from his life.

Lilia would not let that happen again.

[fuck-you-upmusicbracket]

Willard! (Will Wood)

You know I couldn't hurt a fly, my friend/I'm not the type to step on ants/I've nearly cried for moths that die in porchlight lamps/More for the plights of mice than men/See, I myself have been stepped on so many times/It's started to feel like my place/I've failed to fit into those nests that scrape the sky/Is there room for me in your cage?

"First off: super relatable lyrics about being incapable of comprehending humans and finding better company in animals, I can't listen to them without crying. Second: the musical vibe to it makes it feel grand but at the same time private and personal like we're listening to someone's deepest inner thoughts. Third: the context. In the song, the singer is talking to his pet rat, Socrates. Will wrote this song after his pet rat Mr. Algernon Socrates Boy passed away."

Swan Song (Set it Off)

Promises are broken/Tell me are you happy now/Drowning in the hourglass/I guess our time ran out/I hope you're listening/You don't even bother anymore

"If i could list every time just the acoustic version has made me start crying and why we would be here for far far too long. like i know its probably about a romantic relationship thats how most set it off songs are but like. you know."

Poll Runner: Set it Off fucks so hard. This is legit one of my favourite songs of theirs. The screaming vocals just... *chef's kiss*

[needle-noggins]

Gay little mass murderers cuddling like the most deadly kitty cats.

what have you done to me, Fly??

(CW for blood - and drinking it I guess?, millionsummers-typical manipulation, knives-typical genocidal tendencies and weirdness about Vash)

Utterly spent, Millions Knives collapses onto a bench. The smell of iron floods the town, the last of its inhabitants slain. His chest heaves. He's never exterminated a town so quickly, so furiously. A single, red-coated blade remains, protruding from the smooth, pale skin of his knuckles. Legato runs to his side and kneels at the feet of his master. "Lord Knives, you're exhausted. Please," he reaches up to take Knives' hands in his, "You''ll need your full strength if Vash is to appear." Knives tsks at him, peering down over half-lidded eyes. In disdain or pure fatigue, he can't be sure. Or maybe something deeper, he desperately wishes. Legato wants his devotion to be known, to be admired. He would break the world, he would annihilate thousands, if only for a sliver of hope that perhaps his master would see him too. "What you did was incredible," Legato breathes more than speaks, running his calloused thumb over Knives' slender fingers, just under the blade. "I have never seen so many people filled with terror in their last moments-" "It's not about fear," Knives cuts him off. "It's about extinction. I don't care for their silly little emotions." "No," Legato pulls the bladed hand to himself, "But it brings me great joy." He takes the blade and licks along the edge, acrid metallic blood stinging his taste buds and making his mouth water. He watches his master's face intently, searching for a hint of admiration or adoration, anything to let him know he's valued, even in just the slightest amount, and perhaps then Legato Bluesummers could die happy. Perhaps then his miserable little life would end knowing he was valued by the only being who didn't see him as a thing to be used and discarded. A smile ghosts across Knives' face, his eyes crinkling in the slightest, "You understand better than anyone else on this wretch of a planet," he says, wresting his hand out of Legato's grasp, "that our freedom cannot be achieved while our oppressors still live. We are the same in that way, you and I." He rests his palm against his servant's cheek, smudging dark red across his skin. "And perhaps," Legato's voice quivers with his very soul, "perhaps you could find a place for me by your side, once this is finished." Knives hums with amusement. "Perhaps." He turns his hand and strokes Legato's chin with the blade. "Or perhaps you will die for me. You'd like that too, wouldn't you? Knowing your final breaths were an act of devotion." He presses the sharp edge to Legato's throat, just enough to break the skin. Enough to wet the blade anew. He brings the knife to his own lips and laps at it, his eyes never leaving the golden gaze of his servant. Legato shudders. Knives smirks. He stands and walks around Legato still kneeling, but not before grasping the top of his head. Knives tangles his fingers in dark blue hair and twists, forcing Legato's gaze up and around. "Ever the faithful servant with an understanding for the plight of plants. Such a shame that Vash can't be more like you," Knives croons, releasing his servant's hair and patting it down smooth. He crouches over a nearby citizen, dips his blade into the pool of blood gathering underneath, and approaches the town square's centerpiece. He paints his name onto the rock. "Let us show him that we were here. That his efforts to save humanity is no match for us."

[rosehippiefield]

Reasons why I hope Shin won't try to enact revenge in 3.2 at least in one ending:

He did cooperate with the group, no matter how unwillingly. Shin wasn't major obstacle this time around, his "troublemaker" theme didn't play in third chapter;

After traumatizing Sara with Joe AI he didn't even once mention Joe (like he did in previous chapter). Yes, he acted rude and callous, but no more attempts to truly break her with this;

Even if it was in his best interest, Shin tried to help save Keiji, giving Sara hope that latter might be alive;

He didn't blame Sara (at least audibly) for Yabusame death even though she was indirectly responsible;

Not only did he allow Sara to look at his memories (which was to defeat Midori), he opened up a lot about his feelings on the matter. Or in some extra dialogues Shin began rambling passionately about computers in front of his sworn enemy. Maybe he doesn't hate Sara as much anymore;

Obligatory mention that he really didn't want Gin to die. He sounded desperate in his plight to spare little kid. Plus, he wasn't glad when Keiji could die (which may be his desire to kill Keiji himself or simply exhaustion from anyone dying);

He met Midori, the one whom he copied. Shin saw how both horrible (wanting to kill a child purely for his amusement) and utterly pathetic (being afraid of death to the point of becoming a robot and changing coffins and so on...) Midori was. He wasn't anything like Sara, who tearfully burnt hands for Keiji and spent her wish for Gin. By the way, Shin "became Sou" to survive, but guess what? Real Sou, who was way worse, didn't even manage that. Time to change strategy;

Also, his own AI was there too, a reminder of who he used to be (even if it's flanderised version). Maybe Shin felt uncomfortable by its existence, however in comparison to Midori, what's better model example? Or he can just decide to not fully return to his old self (it's impossible after all he went through and done), but to grow as Shin and not as Sou;

He spends time with group, witnessing behaviour of others. Before he was almost alone, interacting with fellow participants only when needed (attractions and main games). But now he sees how Keiji's trauma is unwound by Midori, how Q-taro is stabbed by Mai and unites the group nevertheless, not to mention banquet sacrifice of the latter. It can help humanise them (not Midori of course) in his eyes and grow attached despite his promises to avenge Kanna;

Finally, his desire to kill everyone who voted for Kanna, while is deadly serious, was based on his emotions. He already traumatised Sara, he saw how vulnerable Keiji is, he never truly wished any harm to Gin. Maybe this time his emotions are going to be different? Not to mention how revenge isn't what Kanna wanted.

All in all, I think Shin might unite with group or at least not try anything harmful. Yes, he likes to constantly remind Sara how they're enemies etc, but it might be his "Sou" mask hiding his vulnerability, guilt of all numerous past deeds and grief for Kanna's death. He's notorious liar, you know.

Of course, he can go crazy and try to kill everyone. Even more so if he gets to know about his biological sister. But I'll believe in his humanity and that at least in one ending Shin won't go insane

[repurpose-yourself]

Draining Will

This is a request for help. I am screaming it as far and wide as possible. May it be heard from all corners of the earth and attract the help I need to escape this hell.

I realize my actions led to this situation. Vandalizing a highway rest stop countless times seemed like a good pass time. But I would have never done it knowing the kind of punishment that awaited me.

It's disgusting and humiliating. Devoid of humanity, I see many appendages that remind me of what I lost. So basic, yet incredibly effective. I didn't know transformation was even possible, to remove a man's humanity and replace it with the most mundane of objects. Yet, here I am, a shell of a living being, simply conceived to secure something in place.

The janitor saw a need and I fit the role, despite it being against my wishes. Again, it's my fault. But I didn't deserve something as drastic as this. No one should have to live the life of a screw holding down a drain cover at the bottom of the urinal.

No matter how clean the urinal is, I reek of weary travelers' much needed relief. Sometimes the stream is spot on. Others it hits the edge of the white porcelain and rains down. No matter how the man aims, I can't escape the onslaught of the contents of their bladders. My plight goes undetected.

But I can't blame them for not knowing. Looking up at the many truckers' faces, I can see how this stop is immensely beneficial. Their eyes meet with me but not because they can see the life confined to a silver screw. Rather, it was a confirmation of their success, of avoiding a nasty accident on the road.

As it's probably clear by now, my cries for help go no further than my existence. Metal doesn't talk. And no sane man would listen to the bottom of a urinal even if I could mutter something.

My selfish actions landed me here and there is nothing I can do to change it. The rest stop no longer suffers vandalism and visitors enjoy a comfortable go. I guess in the end, the natural order has been returned.

But a word of advice for the next time you go... think about that screw at the bottom of the urinal. It could be me.

[musings-of-an-infp]

Random INFP Thing: Melancholic and Wanting to Change the World

Ever since I was young, I have been drawn to some things that I suppose could be construed as sad or melancholic. For instance, I enjoy the overcast skies and somewhat rainy days. They make me want to stay inside and bundle, and write like I am doing here now. With that, there is also the side of being able to display emotions. My best friend in the world once told me that he admired me for my ability to display emotion so well because it was something he couldn't do. Whether it was to a song that touched me or a core value I had. And let's face it, in media INFPs are often portrayed as Emo or Goth or big cry babies. Not that I want to fit the stereotype of a crybaby, but when I have time and think, I think and have internal realizations and sometimes those realizations make me realize how overwhelming things can be. Not my situation perse, but rather I tend to take on the plight of what feels like all humanity. The sadness and sorrow and injustice that goes on. Things seen and unseen. It all seems to fall onto my shoulders and burden me in that moment and it's a bit hard to bear. So instead of talking about it, I bottle it up and cry quietly by myself. I've had feelings like this since I was young and still, to this day I am powerless to stop the things that happen. I know I couldn't stop everything because no one imperfect human can do this, but it weighs on me at times and makes me wish I could. I guess that is something that INFPs try to do too. Try to stop the bad things, so no one else has to endure them. Though we can't do too much by way of fixing things, we do what we can on a small scale. Making those we love to feel loved and cared for. Making a stranger smile, small things. Because in the grand scheme of things we are small. But here I am rambling about how I feel, perhaps someone else feels the same? Some things are hard to put into words. But I try because, maybe, just maybe something somehow will strike a chord and make you feel like you aren't alone, like so many have done for me. And countless times I have been grateful.

I hope all of you have a great day or night wherever you are.

-Best, Admin Luna

[fierceawakening]

Huh.

“Emotional empathy consists of three separate components, Hodges and Myers say. “The first is feeling the same emotion as another person … The second component, personal distress, refers to one’s own feelings of distress in response to perceiving another’s plight … The third emotional component, feeling compassion for another person, is the one most frequently associated with the study of empathy in psychology,” they explain.”

And yet I keep seeing here on tumblr that compassion is distinct so empathy is unnecessary. Hmm.

“Hodges and Myers note that, while empathetic people feel distress when someone falls, they aren’t in the same physical pain. This type of empathy is especially relevant when it comes to discussions of compassionate human behavior. There is a positive correlation between feeling empathic concern and being willing to help others. “Many of the most noble examples of human behavior, including aiding strangers and stigmatized people, are thought to have empathic roots,” according to Hodges and Myers. Debate remains concerning whether the impulse to help is based in altruism or self-interest.”

Again, people here kept saying that compassion is what makes you help and compassion is distinct. But here’s a claim that it’s not.

Also a claim that people only empathize with their in group, where this seems to imply that we feel it for out group members as well. (I always thought so, like… I was like hell yeah get Israel until I watched family members of hostages weeping. That distressed me so much I did more research, and I now see the attack like I see 9/11 here: a legitimately terrible event that should be understood as a tragedy but that was then used by a corrupt government as an excuse to slaughter masses of innocents.

If empathy is only for the in group, I should’ve shrugged and reblogged “people can do anything to resist settler colonialism” memes, right?

So I’ve never bough that empathy is only for the in group. To me, I always thought it’s when you’re so affected by seeing distress that someone being a member of the out group stops mattering—they need your help and you feel weird about turning away.

Like it’s cruel. Like you can’t do it. So you help. Or change your mind about the Bad Group, or whatever.)

“Experts in the field of social neuroscience have developed two theories in an attempt to gain a better understanding of empathy. The first, Simulation Theory, “proposes that empathy is possible because when we see another person experiencing an emotion, we ‘simulate’ or represent that same emotion in ourselves so we can know firsthand what it feels like,” according to Psychology Today.”

I always thought that was part of it. Oh shit if my grandma got kidnapped for a war I’m not even in I’d feel devastated. Maybe I don’t know all the nuances of how that devastation would manifest but it doesn’t matter, this event I celebrated as a turning point in a war is mostly just awful, sorry.

It’s not that I think I know for sure what they’re feeling, it’s that my guess affects me intensely and pushes me to try to help, or rethink, or something.

“Some experts believe the other scientific explanation of empathy is in complete opposition to Simulation Theory. It’s Theory of Mind, the ability to “understand what another person is thinking and feeling based on rules for how one should think or feel,” Psychology Today says. This theory suggests that humans can use cognitive thought processes to explain the mental state of others. By developing theories about human behavior, individuals can predict or explain others’ actions, according to this theory.”

That’s not opposed though? One is affective and the other is cognitive and they usually go together? AAAAAAA A BIG FEELING fuck let me think.

“Empathy seems to arise over time as part of human development, and it also has roots in evolution. In fact, “Elementary forms of empathy have been observed in our primate relatives, in dogs, and even in rats,” the Greater Good Science Center says. From a developmental perspective, humans begin exhibiting signs of empathy in social interactions during the second and third years of life. According to Jean Decety’s article “The Neurodevelopment of Empathy in Humans,” “There is compelling evidence that prosocial behaviors such as altruistic helping emerge early in childhood. Infants as young as 12 months of age begin to comfort victims of distress, and 14- to 18-month-old children display spontaneous, unrewarded helping behaviors.”

!!!!!!

I said that here on tumblr to the empathy doesn’t matter people and they said it was a just so story! I knew I didn’t make it up.

“And it’s true that we likely feel empathy due to evolutionary advantage: “Empathy probably evolved in the context of the parental care that characterizes all mammals. Signaling their state through smiling and crying, human infants urge their caregiver to take action … females who responded to their offspring’s needs out-reproduced those who were cold and distant,” according to the Greater Good Science Center. This may explain gender differences in human empathy.”

Hmm, I can see that. I always thought it was about being a social animal too though. That if you’re the sort of critter who lays her eggs and leaves once they hatch, you’re unlikely to have the same level of empathy just because you’re solitary. You never needed to develop social bonds so they’re not a thing for you.

Which has the added bonus of explaining why we tend to call humans who prioritize themselves and harm the group “reptilian” or “cold blooded.”

An actual reptile/solitary life form is probably indifferent, not malicious, but humans sometimes respond to one as if it was the other, as both can cause problems.

“In the field of psychology, empathy is a central concept. From a mental health perspective, those who have high levels of empathy are more likely to function well in society, reporting “larger social circles and more satisfying relationships,” according to Good Therapy, an online association of mental health professionals. Empathy is vital in building successful interpersonal relationships of all types, in the family unit, workplace, and beyond. Lack of empathy, therefore, is one indication of conditions like antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder. In addition, for mental health professionals such as therapists, having empathy for clients is an important part of successful treatment. “Therapists who are highly empathetic can help people in treatment face past experiences and obtain a greater understanding of both the experience and feelings surrounding it,” Good Therapy explains.”

Not sure of the source here? But that’s how I always thought it worked, unlike the thing here on Tumblr where people say it’s irrelevant.

(Honestly? Possibly uncharitable but I think the whole “empathy is irrelevant” THING was an effective altruism thing, and now that we’ve all seen the spectacular downfall of some people who believe in it, I hope we start to see more widespread nuanced takes that recognize how empathy is useful and how lacking it limits or stunts a lot of people while also not framing all people with low empathy as actively malicious.

If you’ve read my posts about my mom, I think she rarely engages with others’ feelings and it’s part of what makes her dynamic with me and my dad emotionally draining and even abusive… but I also don’t think this is intentional on her part, or that she’d endorse it if she had more insight.

EA now seems to me like a cult(ish), one that had “act out of reason in all things including morality, not out of emotional response to others’ joy or suffering” as one of its Emotional Control tenets.)

[see-arcane]

Dead Dove Venting below, Do Not Read

I'm aging another decade every time I see any update on the state of things at this point.

Winter as a season is melting into nonexistence. Within a decade we'll likely be past the point of no return. Corporate pollution continues pumping up into the air, boiling away the future and drowning the generations to come.

Devices are being made to slot in people's brains or to lock around a head to filter company training and duties into you as you sleep.

AI is eating people's art and work and faces and shitting them out in corporations' desperation to excise human involvement from creation just to pinch another penny.

American education is sliding down the toilet between book bans, strangled sex ed, and 'history' lessons edited to erase the reality of human atrocity and variety.

Bodily autonomy has became a joke since Roe v Wade was stabbed in the back. A Texan woman--a mother already--a mother-to-be who was heartbroken to discover the guaranteed painful death of her unborn child and whose full term 'birth' would only mean agony for the newborn before its end and a risk to herself and future attempts at carrying a child--who met every possible exception set forth by Texas' abortion ban, jumped through every legal hoop, and finally was told she could go through with the abortion...only to have the state's attorney general declare she couldn't do it. She had to flee--flee--her own home state to get a life-saving procedure because the 'pro-life' movement showed its full colors to her and the country as it wiped its ass with hers (and every other person with a womb's) human rights.

Pro-life is not about preserving life. Not when its supporters are so rabid as to demand a woman risk her life for a fetus destined to die within moments of exiting the womb.

Pro-life is about forced birth and always has been. For the sake of making cattle of women and adding numbers to the population, willingly or otherwise.

And in that vein, of course child labor is making a resurgence. Now your 14-year-old kid can serve in the grease trap or bar of their choice, dishing out food full of microplastics and booze full of bad decisions to grown adults ready to wink at a high schooler and ask what they're doing after work. Heartwarming! 12-year-old is mowing lawns for the chance to save up for college where they'll get into loan debt for a degree that won't get them a job because every position in their field requires ten years' experience! Gets a new mower donated to the cause!!

Artificial inflation, price gouging, and wage stagnation have eaten the promise of independence out from under an entire generation, their little siblings, the next generation to come. We're living in cars, in sardine-packed apartments, under our parents' roofs. Probably until the day we die, ancient and hobbling inside Walmart's sliding doors as greeters and cashiers, at least until the jobs get taken by smiling hotel bots and self checkouts. Retirement no longer exists as a concept.

Genocides on top of genocides, funded by vulture governments, against their citizens' will, using money that has magically appeared to funnel aid and weapons to the mass murderers slaughtering innocent people with a brutality of such scale and evil that it cracks the mind to try and measure. A shame that money wasn't around to help the tax payers or the people in need at home. Guess how many people go hungry in America, the Greatest Nation. Or don't guess! Look.

Nausea and shame and bile.

Bile bile bile at the thought of this country, with its masturbatory obsession with World War II, with its endless marathon of 'war hero' films showing the plights and heroics of our brave soldiers sent to fight for our rights!

(Because they were drafted. Because they were poor. Because they were lied to with myths of glory and valor. Because they would be killing and dying for the Greater Good.)

All this. All this. When we are living through the proof-positive that if Pearl Harbor hadn't happened, kicking the self-absorbed hornet nest of our government into frenzy, the good ol' U.S. of A. would absolutely have jumped on Adolf's dick and applauded the Holocaust start to finish. Hell, we might have handed them every killing tool but the nukes.

Now here comes 2024.

Voting Day looms. And of course, Joe's poll numbers are shitting the bed the way Trump is shitting himself in the various court battles still chewing on him like spray-tanned cud.

In 2020, we had the vigor of the country shouting as one: VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO. Because we were living in a different, far more intense, borderline fascist state. We felt the pressure of the stakes of a second term with the despotic Cheeto.

But now as more blood spills and our blood boils, there are, of course, people clamoring again about how voting is a sham. What kind of sucker is still convinced that voting red or blue, no matter who, is anything but giving candy to a genocidal joke? Both parties have proven they're corrupt. Complicit. Why fucking bother? We need to do more!

And we do.

We absolutely do need to do more.

But for the love of every god I no longer fucking believe in, do it after voting for whoever Is Not the Republican Candidate. You don't want to vote for Joe? For any of the potential Democratic candidates? For whoever is blue, no matter who?

Fine! Fuck it! Stick to your guns! Vote for fucking no one! Play chicken with the top office of the entire country all over again! 2016 the Sequel!

And when every MAGA shithead votes in Trump or one of his sycophants and plunges us into Diet Tyrant Rule 2.0, at least you can wear a little badge of pride--but no actual pride badges, ha ha, DeSantis has already declared rainbows ~too gay~ for Florida schools ha ha ha--that says, 'Well, Both Candidates Were Shit, So I Did the Morally Spotless Thing and Voted for Neither! Surely This Will Earn Me a Good Grade in Martyrdom.'

I hope I'm just making too many assumptions about how literal some people are being about 'why bother' and 'hold your vote hostage' kind of talk. I hope I'm reading too much into hyperbole and not seeing the rise of a new wave of bots, undercover right-wingers, and genuinely self-sabotaging moralists who think not making time to go click a button to Participate in the One (1) Guaranteed Expression of Power We Have as Citizens short of en masse protest and/or outright civil war.

I want there to be a magic switch to flip to unfuck all of this. Half of it. Even a fraction. Every day I wake up and things are worse. Even here, on the one website I regularly dip into to try and escape into silliness and personal passions, there's no avoiding the realities of the world as they get worse and worse and worse and fucking worse.

This is as close to cosmic horror as I think we can get short of Cthulhu finally getting out of bed and wiping us out.

Everything is getting worse.

All the 2024 vote has to offer at this point is a choice between Current Bullshit (Democrat) and Exponentially Worse Bullshit with a Side of THIS CANDIDATE WILL TRY TO BECOME THE FOREVER-KING OF 'MURRICA AND WILL BE EQUALLY MONSTROUS (IF NOT MORESO) IN THE GENOCIDE GAME (Republican).

But I will still drag myself into the booth. I will still vote blue, no matter who. And I will still support Palestine, still protest against evil, still raise my voice. And I'll do so in a country that won't be run by people who want to double down on regressing society to the Dark Ages with a crossover between The Handmaid's Tale and Orwell's nightmares. Who will take dissent as an offense worthy of violence and violation. Who will take every scrap of progress made by the left or by the citizens themselves and set it all on fire.

I'm tired. I'm afraid. More tired under that.

There's such bliss in the idea of flipping the bird and then flipping the table when it comes to the small important steps we can still make as people in our society. It all feels insignificant. Lackluster compared to the bombastic moves of on-the-ground protest. But you can do the small and the big steps. And we need to.

This is not Mad Max. This isn't a comic book or an action movie. There is no utopia waiting on the other side of dismissing elections as ~not worth the bother~ when it was an election that put Trump in power and another that kicked him out.

If anyone out there has a magic switch to flip that will unfuck this country? That will unfuck the entire planet's degradation? Flip it. Right now. Hammer it until it breaks and all the withheld Grace and Sanity pours over everything like a miracle tide and we can all wake up from this group night terror.

But if that switch doesn't exist?

Inch along. Do what you can. Vote in every election, big and small. Act. Support. Boycott. Scream. Fight. Do not shrug and sink into apathy. Little steps to big steps and all the intermediates in-between.

We're not in Hell, despite the weather. Sweating in December. Another massacre per minute. No, not Hell.

Hell has justice.

All we have is this.

[distastefulsideboob]

This is not to defend the Israeli government at all, because the plight of the Palestinian people is truly one of the worst human rights abuses of all time.

Anyway.

The amount of people I've seen uncritically reblogging takes that Israeli Jews are privileged because they're "White Europeans."

You wanna take a guess why they up and left Europe? In the 1940s? Can anybody take a guess what happened to privileged White European Jews in the 1940s? Yeah. That. The Holocaust.

Which by the way was only the latest attack on Jewish people in a lengthy history of anti Jewish violence. Antisemitism dates back to the middle ages, with records of them blamed for the Black Death and being driven out of towns.

Israel also wasn't picked on a whim. Judaism is an ethnoreligion, meaning it's passed down like race. There is archaeological evidence for Jewish settlements in Israel, in addition to the existence of indigenous Palestinian Jews.

The foundation of Israel is almost entirely of the Western Worlds making, with the stolen land being granted to them in part as reparations for the second World War.

I'm.. not exactly sure how to conclude this. The narratives I've seen are so frustratingly binary. What we have are facts, but not ones that fit neatly into one consistent "good/bad" dichotomy

Facts:

1) Israel was founded after the Holocaust, a genocide that eradicated over 60% of European Jews.

2) Israel is the only Jewish majority country in the world, with them being an extreme minority in every other country.

3) In the United States, there has been a yearly increase in antisemitic violence, with 2022 showing the highest total of incidents since records began-- a 36% increase from the previous year. Of these incidents, 241 involved references to Israel or Zionism.

4) There is historical precedence for the Jewish homeland being founded in Israel

More Facts:

1) The Hamas attack was the largest scale anti Jewish attack since the Holocaust

2) Hamas are an openly antisemitic organization. They've promoted blood libel, which is an antisemitic myth that Jews drink the blood of non-Jewish children

3) Hamas have stated in manifestos that they are committed to the destruction of Israel

Also Facts:

1) The territory that Israel is expanding into far outstrips that which they were granted in the original treaty, a treaty that indigenous Palestinians were not consulted on anyway

2) Hamas does not represent Palestine. In fact, the Palestinians have no military or government. They are entirely comprised of civilians, most of them children

3) Israel launching counter attacks on Palestine as collective punishment for the Hamas attack is defined in the Geneva Convention as a war crime

4) Israel currently has the military support of most of the Western world, and are using that support and firepower to enact ethnic cleansing of a vulnerable indigenous population

Broadly speaking, I'm anti Israel. The actions of their government are indefensible, and their firepower drastically outstrips that of Palestine.

Having said that there's a reason people say this conflict is complicated. They're not being wishy-washy, this is legitimately one of the most multifaceted political situations with super complicated geo-political and historical elements.

Yes Israel is a colonialist settler state, but calls to dissolve it should not ignore that the Jews are still currently and historically one of the worlds most disenfranchised and oppressed populations. Also Hamas are truly an evil organisation, but they're also the only ones who are fighting on Palestine's behalf.

All I can say is that I can't summarise this succinctly enough for an Instagram infographic, and anybody who can is either wildly misinformed or pushing an agenda.

[erinelizabethh]

Time Slip | Chai x Reader (2/?)

Summary: Chai, ambassador of Vandelay Technologies, certainly has his ways of communication. You, living in the suburbs outside the campus, don't even have a cell phone. You know what they say about relationships...

Chapter One: Time Slip

Chapter Two: #E67451

I met a guy the other day. I swore I’d never date some stuck-up guy from the campus, ‘cause I thought they would kind of be like Kale but then I remembered hearing once from the radio that he’s dead so I guess we’re all better for it. They’d probably make fun of me having a pen pal, talking about how I would send it through carrier pigeon… I mean, we literally have mailboxes here. Anyway, his name is Chai and uh, I really really like the tea. It’s my favorite, which makes me think we’re meant to be except he’s the ambassador of Vandelay Technologies and I don’t know shit… sorry.

I kissed him though. He walked with me side-by-side from the cafe in which I got an iced matcha latte, I’m not stupid. With oat milk. He got it, too, and his own matcha that he didn’t drink much of. Anyway, he walked me to my doorstep by ten at night and the streetlights shined over the two of us and his eyes were gleaming. He smiled at me and opened his mouth, but before he said anything I leaped at the chance to press my lips against his just so I could keep him around for a little longer… and I think he liked it too. He wanted more. 

A hop, skip, and seconds away from sniffling your sorrows to a homeless man, you are finally past the threshold of Vandelay Technologies. Human and machine alike throw themselves into your personal space, your tote bag tight against your chest as your shoulders tense with the stimulation. You’re sure the letter is all crumpled in one of the pockets lacking a few strands of fabric, but that was an afterthought in the explosion of activity inside the building. Endless chatter beyond your understanding, you edge forward to find someone, anyone, that can become the solution to your plight. Your footsteps slow, your gaze up at the stars: fluorescent lights and skylights that shine on newcomers hoping to make a change… it blinds your eyes, you admit.

Chai must not mind the crowds; you imagine he must be used to his shoulders being jostled back and forth, greetings thrown at him as if everyone was his friend. He walks around like he’s the main attraction, not like some opening act struggling to go viral. Yesterday, with a hum followed by the curling of his fingers as if strumming a guitar, he was the skip to your walk and the band to your audience. His head bobbed with the beat, his whole body one with the rhythm, energy infectious as you agreed that this song was ‘pretty cool’.

“Hey!” Someone else must like that song. Were you humming it to yourself? “Hello? Down here!” He must think you’re some poser. You probably looked so dumb yesterday… “Earth to Chai’s girlfriend!” Get it together! You cannot let a man get into your head like—

You look down to find a black cat nipping at its paws. With a tint of blue at the end of a tail beginning its leisure wave, the cat nonetheless assumes normalcy by sniffing at your socks. Despite calling you something you’re totally not, its fur brushes up against your legs and holds you captive, leaving you to wonder if you just heard this cat before you speak. When you blink, it returns the favor, but unbeknownst to the cat you actually were more of a dog person.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” the cat seethes, colors now the hue #E67451. “Y’know I’m kinda’ just talking? Seeing where it goes?”

“… ouch.”

This is what happens when you’re a hopeless romantic; you begin to daydream, thoughts of what ifs running through your head, except guys like Chai have to clip your wings before you fly too close to the sun. It is inevitable, really, so inevitable that the process isn’t as easy as you had hoped. However, the man spoke the truth: the two of you were in the so-called ‘talking stage’ and Chai wasn’t yet yours.

… that is Chai in that talking cat, right?

You think of crumbling up the letter to your pen pal on the spot. Surely no one wants to hear the rise and fall of your love life in less than five conversations, especially if it’s because you’re what you fear most: boring. Because that is what all guys think of you in the end, that you are some boring chick that doesn’t have a smart phone. A lot of guys from the campus don’t even look your way again if you mention that in passing. No one cares that you like flowers, or that you know your way around saving money. They want to ogle at you with but a picture to tell a story, swiping right or whatever to make a pass at you that includes the filthiest pick-up line ever heard. Quite clever some of them are, you admit…

You digress. “Speaking of talking, I… um… totally forgot to ask about the concert venue.”

The cat perks up. Still orange. “Oh yeah, my bad! I totally forgot to tell you!”

“Oh it’s totally okay, I just… I don’t have a pho—“ 

The cat blows a raspberry over its shoulder. “Huh? You mind repeating that? Someone doesn’t care that we’re speaking!”

“I don’t have a phone so I didn’t—“

“Sorry, what?”

You raise your voice, your response hurried and lined with fear that you will never be able to finish a sentence again. “I don’t have a phone!”

Campus visitors and employees around you look up from their devices, stopping in their tracks to eye you as their latest distraction. The lot of them look your way as if you are prey, a celebrity to their paparazzi, and you conclude at that moment that dying is a much sweeter deal than this. There is no escaping eyes wide with bewilderment now, not even death. They would simply just watch you die. The thought causes you to claw at your tote, your body tense as it is shrinking; you are an outsider in a world that left you behind decades ago. Now, you just look really stupid.

With the shuffling of gazes, and the spotlight shining on you, Chai beckons you down to his level with a curl of the cat’s paw and whispers, “I think they’re staring at you.”

[stromuprisahat]

If I'm not mistaken, the dragon for Russians, isn't it a negative symbol? Kind symbol of the demon / the devil? Something like that ? No because if so, it's even worse that the people of Ravkan revere Zoya as a saint... I know that Leigh Bardugo doesn't care about the culture she borrows, but still!

As far as I know, connecting dragons with Satan is Christian thing in general.

From what I remember of Russian fairy tales, dragons are powerful creatures, often almost human-like, not necessarily malevolent, but always inhuman. They can serve as guard dogs, or be wise Lords of their own domain to trick for information, but never doubt they're dangerous and other.

Which is hysterical, considering a huge part of Grisha plight is being perceived as something else, therefore wrong and unnatural, and now we learn it's The One True Way™.

If you want a reptile with positive associations in Slavic mythology, we have snakes.

As for LB, she couldn't be arsed to open a book and look up Russian naming customs. I highly doubt she thought about introducing a new mythical creature this far. My guess is she saw how popular dragons became thanks to Game of Thrones, How to Train Your Dragon etc. and thought "What is even cooler, than riding a dragon? Oh! Becoming one!".