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#take it from a single person
lamemaster · 9 months
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Cannot Not Love (Maglor x Reader)
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Pairing: Maglor x Reader
AN: Just wanted to feel that angst before I go slep slep. Really no plot but just angst to appease the mellow gods of Tumblr. This is inspired by a show that I have binged the entire day today :)) So now it's your problem :))))
Summary: "You cannot do this. You cannot continue loving him at this cost. At your cost. You cannot force him to love you."
Warning: Two very depresso people.
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"You all claim that this is a scheme," you turn around to face your sisters. Who stare at you with pity in their eyes. "That the Feanorian aims to use me to gain access to a world he left ages ago, but there is nothing there. You claim that he wants to regain his lost status through me." You pause, you try to reign your bubblings frustration, your traitorous thoughts that you would not dare say out loud but all fails.
Your heart has burst open from all the pain that has accumulated for so long."It was me," you tell your sisters. "I sought him, he did not seek me. I did not care for my injured feet, for my family, for my dignity, for my duties when I heard his song. I wandered, looking for him like a crazed elleth. But he…he did not even look at me. He did not care enough to acknowledge my presence," the pain of Maglor's indifference blooms in front of your eyes.
"Even after all this time he did not...he did not look," your hands tangle into your messed up hair. You crouch into yourself. Trying to escape from the thrumming ache in your every pore. You try to escape it to no avail.
"He left. He considers me nothing, not a friend, nor an enemy. I am nothing to him," you support yourself on the chaise. "How could one taking advantage be so uncaring? If he wanted my father's wealth, our status, or even his past he could have used my appreciation for him." You would have let him. You would have given him everything.
But he does not need you. You are not good enough. "It's me. I am the one living in a dream where he cares for me."
You reminisce about the past where you loved him. Hidden deep in your heart, there has always been love. A secret affection for the one whose eyes never met yours. You should stop loving him. You should not care for his songs, his harp, his music, his reserved laughter, his pain but you can't help it. He is a part of you that you cannot abandon.
"Y/N, father would never approve of it. Not with a kin-slayer…" your sister shakes your shoulders as if waking you from a nightmare. "Maglor made a choice similar to the one he made back then. He does not love you, Y/N," her words pierce your heart, and it leaves you gasping for air.
"Think about our parents, us siblings, about yourself. Does our love fall short of his?" Your sister cups your face as she seats you on the chaise. Her hands untangle your fingers from your hair. "You cannot do this. You cannot continue loving him at this cost. At your cost. You cannot force him to love you."
"And what about forcing someone to not love?" Your sisters look ready to argue, but you continue. "Fine, then. I will not leave this room. I will live burning in this prison-like confinement, but neither you, father, nor Maglor can stop me from loving him." You have tried so hard but nothing has stopped you or your heart. The tears in your eyes make it harder to see the world. The noise of your own heartbeat drowns every other sound.
Your aggrieved hiccups and your sobs leave your throat tight and aching. I am not capable of not loving him." It is a confession laid bare in your broken voice. "I...I love him. That's all I can do."
In the end, you are left with a heart that still beats for him, even though you know it may never be reciprocated. You are a captive of your own emotions, bound by a love that refuses to release its hold on you.
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In the deep, unfrequented paths of the forest, Maglor finds himself with a harp and a song on his lips. His words blend into lyrics of a creation he does not seek yet he cannot stop. He sings with his eyes closed and rests his back against the grating bark of a tree.
Prancing deers, preening peacocks, nimble squirrels surround him with their own contributions to his song. It is peaceful, and for a fleeting moment, the pull of his oath, the call of the Silmarils, and the weight of guilt from his crimes dissipate into the embrace of nature's harmonies.
Yet, even in his music, there is a secret waiting to be revealed, a temptation lurking within his grasp. An incomplete scenery waiting to be completed by its painter. And when he finally opens his eyes, he finds you.
Standing in front of him, your hands stretched in an elegant posture, your feet moving to the rhythm of his song, your hair flying in the air like a cascade of silk. You dance, not for an audience, but for the pure joy of the moment, and it captivates him.
You pause gracefully when his song comes to an end, your eyes meeting his with an intensity that sends a shiver down his spine. There is something in your gaze that both draws him in and scares him the most.
An emotion so profound that Maglor cannot bring himself to bear it. He has always seen it in your eyes, ever-present, and it lingers even after all that has come to pass. Maybe that is why he cannot bring himself to confront it. He cannot fathom accepting a gift given so selflessly, for he believes he is unworthy of such pure affection.
As the echoes of his music fade, the forest seems to hold its breath, as if anticipating the moment that follows. You step closer to him, the distance between you narrowing with every heartbeat.
There is an unspoken understanding between you, a connection that transcends words. For a moment, time seems to stand still, and the world around you fades away, leaving only the two of you.
He knows just the way your dance completes his song, the way his notes complete your steps. You both complete the incomplete in each other. He has known it for the longest time. And you have too.
There is not a single accusation in your eyes. No complaints about his actions, just him. He sees himself. Your delicate gown trails on the forest floor behind you, while your feet bleed onto the soil of Aman.
Blood has followed him here. Into your life. A reminder of his fate. A fate that would follow you. He cannot...the stage of your union with him remains untouched.
Maglor flees from the love that has knocked on his door. As he has done for all of your confessions. Unworthy, he is not worthy of accepting it as he was in the past.
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orchid-n-petals · 8 months
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So I've already shared parts of this on a discord server, but I have to scream about Ketheric Thorm on here as well. Obviously spoilers about the character under the cut! It's a long one.
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The entirety of act 2 is about him, right? Jaheira, Shadowheart and numerous other NPCs shit on him for his fickle faith. First Selune, then Shar, then, as we meet him, Myrkul. You hear about his changes of faith on a whim, you hear that he's the person responsible for the shadow curse, he is painted as a villain, plain and simple.
You can figure it out pretty early on that Isobel was resurrected and that she is his daughter; the detail as well that he wants Isobel alive is so on the nose, it gives him away completely but there are still a few questions that remain unanswered, mainly about his faith.
And then you get to the mausoleum and the picture assembles; this entire tragedy, the death of hundreds if not thousands and the complete ruination of a landscape was all, ALL because you had this absolutely wrenched, heartbroken father who had lost everything and nobody answered his grief. He was left woefully alone, the Goddess whose daughter his daughter was involved with did nothing to save Isobel.
Imagine outliving your wife and your daughter. Imagine dedicating your life to fight the Lady of Loss, your Lady of Silver's enemy, and then be left so completely alone and in silence with your grief, with your loss. It's so, so poetic how and why he turned from Selune, and it's so understandable as well; he broke. His spirit completely broke. He couldn't deal with that void of having lost the only two important people in his life, seemingly undeservedly so. He was going mad with this and a lot of his ire was likely targeted at Aylin who, in his eye, represented Selune; she's literally her daughter, after all, and it was implied that even before the deaths of his family, he sort of saw Aylin courting Isobel as Selune taking his daughter from him, despite his service. This relationship was clearly not seen by him as a boon of "giving his daughter to the Moon-maiden".
His ways in the past clearly didn't spare him from tragedy and having to cope with it (which he clearly didn't, he snapped under the weight of his grief). He was clearly angry and unable to do anything, furious and helpless, which is a dangerous combination. A good part of his first change of heart must have been fuelled by a sense of revenge.
But then Shar didn't provide any balm to his aching heart either. If you read his letters in Grymforge and in act 2, he is so focused on enacting the will of Shar because he believes that healing lies in oblivion. Everything would be easier if he could just forget, if the damn world could just forget, if nothing was remembered because without Melodia and Isobel, nothing was worth remembering.
Then came Myrkul. Literally the only god who was not only able, but WILLING to give back his daughter to him. Imagine spending your all, EVERYTHING you have to serve two gods who would not give a single shit about the greatest suffering in your life. You were basically nothing, your loyalty didn't matter for shit, everything that was taken from you amounted to no recognition whatsoever: you should simply cope and seethe. Your grief will not simply go unanswered (which is not inherently antagonising) but ignored.
And then comes this supposedly evil entity who can alleviate your pain just like that, snap of a finger and it's a done deal.
I am so serious when I say that I believe Ketheric's main incentive was to extend Aylin's immortality to Isobel as well. You can read in her diary that she feels a taint after having came back, and there are things not even Selune can cleanse, but at this point, Ketheric doesn't care about Selune, vengeance is secondary if not tertiary, he's done that war during his Shar years and what did it give him? Literally nothing.
He doesn't even care about the fact that Isobel is still her cleric. He cares about the single most important fact: Isobel is back. Life is worth living again, there is something for him, and it was not Selune or Shar who gave it to him but Myrkul, and for this singular gift, he would raze the world for the Lord of Bones. Like people can clown on him for being disloyal but the man has the loyalty of a dog bonded to its owner.
He is powerful and is willing to go to insane lengths for crumbs. What is raising a single life for a god? Nothing. It has happened and it will happen again. But Ketheric will go to the ends of the earth to serve the single god who actually listened to him. The one god who didn't ignore him.
He knows that what he does is not the morally upright thing! He is so insanely self-aware that allying with Orin and Gortash and doing this entire plot with them only to then betray them is morally reprehensible at the best of times, he knows that people hate him, etc-etc. He was a Selunite at one point and he's not stupid. He just doesn't care; it could be literal Asmodeus and he wouldn't care as long as he got what he wanted, no matter the price.
He is probably the only one from the three of the chosen who has complete clarity over his situation, he almost sways (if you pass the check during his confrontation), he is not an inherently evil man blinded by power.
But he is inherently loyal to those deserving, and as of the story's standing, completely broken by his grief. In his eyes, at this point, the only one deserving loyalty is the one who actually listened to him. Isobel lives. It doesn't matter that she hates him, that his entire life has fallen apart, that literally nothing else that is good has come of it, because Isobel lives.
I don't think he regrets a single thing. His consciousness might tear at him at the end, but I believe he would do everything over again, exactly as he did, because in the end, his daughter was brought back. Because what would a grieving, broken parent give to bring back their child? Everything. Absolutely everything. And it's such a simply given answer, no second thoughts, no doubts.
Nobody can tell me that this man is fickle. Nobody. This man was willing to burn the world to the ground, create a Boudica destruction layer all by himself for the one single thing he wanted. For any God that would listen.
I don't know, I just have a lot of thoughts about his character.
#bg3#baldur's gate 3#ketheric thorm#and I also have a lot of thoughts of how Aylin foils him#I fully believe that he was in the right in the capacity that he switched around his gods when he was literally ignored despite his life's#work. despite all that he has given. I think it's reasonable to expect in the world of gods who actively meddle in mortal affairs on their#whims and make shit worse that in just one single case they would. idk. NOT expect one of their devotees to remain blindly loyal to them#after their prayers go unanswered. like yes; go and try your luck elsewhere because this devotion of yours is clearly being taken for#granted. you get NOTHING out of your worship. you can't even sleep well because your loved ones are dead and you are expected to just what?#deal with it on your own? and remain loyal? why?#some sense of 'honour'?#I really like this depiction of faith actually. I really like when clerics and paladins are given agency and critical thought that hey!#this is actually giving me nothing despite me dedicating my entire life to it! and I have only one of it so why not take it somewhere where#it's actually valued. you know. as a treat.#I *personally* much more prefer this depiction of a crisis of faith than what we got with Shadowheart or Lae'zel; their stories are very#interesting on their own but I think throwing yourself from one end to the other not because you actually have a goal that it could serve#but because you are desperate for a purpose#is a slightly less potent character narrative than having an actual goal yourself. not by much but by a little.#again#PERSONALLY
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clownsuu · 11 months
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Holy cow there’re a lot and I really do mean A LOT of Welcome Home AUs, and more coming too. Not saying it’s a bad thing, but it makes sense considering WH doesn’t have a lot to work with so it leaves tons of room for fans to play around with. I just hope it doesn’t get outta hand like what happened to Undertale with its AUs.
People are free to have creative liberty on what aus they wanna make- like you said there is very little canon content to munch on so people will pull a “fine I’ll do it myself” JCHFHDHU-
I personally don’t mind it as well, but I do enjoy the aus where they purposely change Wally’s height just to make him more simp-able LMAOO
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snimon · 4 months
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HEY DIGIMON FANS
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Digimon Games released a survey asking about what kind of things we'd like to see in future Digimon video games!
Take the survey here and let 'em know what you want!
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nullafic-ninjago · 3 months
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"I'm sorry I let you down mom..."
Thinking about Cole and Lilly recently, waagghhh love how much of a mommas boy cole is sob sob
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suntails · 11 days
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I’m going to paint you a picture of modern communication, and how it is fundamentally broken.
Let’s look at one friend. You chat pretty much everyday, and mostly talk to this person on twitter and discord, with occasional tumblr DMs. That’s three places you talk. But that’s actually not true, because you also have each other’s priv twitters and talk there as well. That’s four. Now account for, let’s say, one post reply per account per person, in addition to your DMs. That’s eight. But that’s ALSO not true, because not only do you talk in discord DMs with each other, but you’re in a friend group server as well! And you talk in those channels together! That’s nine.
This is one friend.
Now look around you. How many friends, how many mutuals are you in contact with. A few, a handful, a dozen, more? How many accounts per person do you have, how many places can you send each other posts, devolve into separate topics and conversations? How many people text you as well. Friends, family, coworkers? What do you do day to day around catching up, what IRL commitments will rip you away long enough to let the pile build again?
I can’t do it. I cannot live an actual life in the real world and balance this much interaction, it’s crushing. I reply to a friend’s post because I’m interested in the subject, I want to have a discussion! I WANT to talk about it with them, but I immediately kick myself for adding another conversation to the pile. Day by day, I ignore messages for hours on end and watch mountains pile around me, to reply en masse at the end of the night to let the cycle repeat. I wake up to six discord DMs and as I clear the third, the first replies back again.
We weren’t meant to have thirty simultaneous conversations. We weren’t. And you know in your bones that the number isn’t an exaggeration.
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Hi, I hope you don't mind this message, and idk if anyone else has told you, but there's this troll going around on Tumblr named @/freethepuppet. They claim to be “fighting for justice in the puppet industry”, but really they're just sending hateful and threatening messages to Welcome Home and My Friendly Neighborhood artists/fans.
I myself have receive multiple death threats from this person, and they have sent threats to many of my friends over the matter, some of which are minors.
Because of this issue, I have decided to keep myself and my friends anonymous, especially considering the fact that @/freethepuppet intends to send threats to PartyCoffin himself, along with the creator behind My Friendly Neighborhood.
I just wanted to warn you about this person, so that you can block and report them, as well has tell others in the community about the troll. If you decide to ignore this, then that's fair and I respect your decision.
In any case, I hope you and your friends stay safe. Best of luck!!
blocked! thanks for letting me know! to add on to this, a little advice for everyone:
Don't Engage With This Person At All!
Don't Look At Their Stuff, Don't Respond To Messages, Don't @ Them Or Give Them The Time Of Day. Just Go Block Them And Let Them Exhaust Their Own Hate
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canisalbus · 10 months
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i like think about machete's death as a culmination of his paranoia and eventual cruelty and vasco as the single ray of light loving him up through the end. even through as terrible as he becomes, the thought of vasco's heart being with him even as he chokes on his own blood as the one thing that he could hold on to. what is it to love something you know is vile, and to mourn their loss regardless. i could drink the tragedy like wine
.
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minty364 · 5 months
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DPXDC Prompt #91
Danny was dimension hopping, his original dimension was still there but after his parents disowned him when they found out it wasn’t safe anymore especially with the GIW stepping up their game. Danny just wanted to find a dimension where he could live peacefully after all he was part human and while he loves the infinite realms it wasn’t sustainable in the long run to his human half. He finally finds one where the GIW doesn’t exist at all, but the weird part is there are actual superheroes here. The weirder part is his counterpart in this dimension is part of the Justice League! The bad part is it seems in this dimension the portal fully killed him so how was he supposed to explain to his counterpart that he was half dead.
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twilight-deviant · 9 days
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Telling content creators it's wrong to explore artistic freedom and be independently funded by fans, and they should instead continue taking advertisement revenue from google* is
NOT
the anti-capitalism stance actually.
*(Yes, google owns youtube.)
#Watcher#This post is specifically and exclusively about the people who seem to have the capitalism bit wrong#It's almost fascinating how no one is hearing themselves speak#I feel like some of you don't understand WHY we support small businesses and are anti-monopoly#I've seen multiple posts saying “Shane is so anti-capitalism there's no way this was his idea.”#So... you think it's pro-capitalism to start your own business instead of relying on pennies from the exploitative mega-corporation?#Guys... we support small businesses KNOWING it will cost the consumer more#Stop thinking you're entitled to someone's product#That's what got us in this mess#I understand $6 is a lot for many many people but that is what makes certain things a luxury#Nothing used to be this way#Nothing used to be “free” so you can be monitored for your viewing habits and sold to advertisers#If you see a little guy trying to leave youtube/google and you paint them as the capitalist??? You. have. taken. a. wrong. turn.#I don't know how many more ways I can say it#It is better to support someone (if you can) than to pressure them into taking money from the trillion-dollar corporation#so that you can have what they put all their blood/sweat/tears into for free#If you want something badly enough you're going to have to pay for it#Them's the breaks#If you don't want it that badly then maybe it didn't mean enough to you personally#Thinking otherwise is how corporations like youtube take over and squeeze out small competitors#btw on monopolies: having almost every single video content creator (outside of tiktoks and video game streams) on youtube is BAD#You understand that's bad yes?#How tf are we going to diversify unless SOME CREATORS leave youtube???#It's almost the responsibility of larger creators to do so#Ironically what I said is backwards#In its ideal state‚ capitalism is supposed to inspire innovation and new business‚ giving every person a chance to succeed#But I think we all know that's not the reality we're experiencing#I just went with what everyone means when they say it
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ferretwhomst · 9 months
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alright guys. poll time
just wanted to ask because from what i can tell the gf fandom doesn't really seem to have a general fandom-wide consensus on this ship. rbs would be appreciated!!! also feel free to elaborate in the tags which option you chose and why! i'd love to hear people's reasoning :-)
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ssaalexblake · 1 month
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dw is a mid kid's sci-fi tv show and it's quality level has been mostly entirely consistent (mid, basically, with the occasional very good episode to balance out with crimes against humanity it sometimes produces) the whole reboot, and anybody acting like the Only thing going into peoples opinions of the characters are writing preferences are either Deeply naive or are trying to hide something they know people will not take kindly to.
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marclef · 6 months
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figured i should post an announcement for this here, seeing as a lot of people follow me for my Pizza Tower stuff heh
just pushed a big update for my Terraria texture pack Pizza Towerria, so if you're looking for a dumb texture pack that just injects as much Pizza Tower content into the game as i'm physically capable of, then feel free to check it out.
there's lots of little friends in there.
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(additional friends included within.)
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childrenofthesun77 · 2 months
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I know mahiru is often seen as not smart (his official stats from the guidebook give him a 2 out of 10 for tactics and I think the mental stat is more about mental stability?) and sure he's not a tactical genius like mikuni or touma (both have 10/10 in tactics) but mahiru is extremely socially/emotionally intelligent, which is an intelligence often overlooked in favour of "classic" intelligence (like being good at math or things like chess).
But unlike other characters mahiru knows when to stand his ground and when to lay low and change a person's view slowly over time.
Misono wasn't on his side in the beginning, even saying mahiru could be his servant when mahiru agreed to work with him, but mahiru quickly picked up on the fact that misono was lonely and offered to be his friend. Now misono trusts him completely and recognizes that mahiru's strength lies in gaining allies.
Shuhei openly hated vampires and treated them as things and mahiru responded by humanizing them, listing examples of vampires acting just like normal people, laying the first stone for shuhei to stop wanting to kill all vampires.
He was the one who proposed the idea that tsubaki would come to rescue lilac because tsubaki sees his subclass as family and he was right.
Neither lawless nor licht were overly impressed by him when they first met him, but by the time he asks them to rescue tsurugi especially lawless is one of his biggest supporters.
In C3 he understood that he wasn't going to be able to move if he opposed them and joined them instead, allowing him and the other eves to meet. He also correctly concluded that getting tsurugi on their side was key because he was central to C3's/touma's plans and in the end it saved his life and allowed him to stop touma.
Mahiru consistently trying to protect tsubaki's subclass might also come in handy soon. They might not like C3, but both lilac and sakuya can vouch for mahiru as a person they can trust not to kill them and to aid them in stopping tsubaki from destroying himself.
And stopping tsubaki by convincing him to stop is perfectly logical. A servamp can't be killed as far as we know. Combat only gets you so far. If C3 want to create a lasting co-existence between vampires and humans getting both sides to stop killing each other and to learn to forgive is the only way.
Trying to solve this conflict through conversation and not violence is neither shortsighted nor childish, it's the only reasonable solution.
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tsukihimeyfan · 9 months
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Just finished watching Wendigoon's video about Hisashi Ouchi and had a terrible, awful, no-good DP prompt idea come into my head. Come suffer with me.
So the Fentons constantly threaten to tear ghosts apart "molecule by molecule" right? What if they managed to make an anti-ghost weapon that made good on that threat? One that tore apart ghostly DNA or ectoplasm, and just straight-up turned any ghost hit by it into green goop, melted within seconds like Danny's clones?
So I imagine that at some point after destroying a couple of ghosts with this new weapon, Jack and Maddie finally manage to corner Phantom somehow. Terrified, Danny is left with no choice but to try to explain who and what he is, hoping to all the Ancients that it will be enough to stop them from hurting him.
Unfortunately for him, the Fentons don't really listen at first and shoot him point blank.
Danny puts his arms up to protect himself and closes his eyes, trembling in abject fear, imagining himself melting away into a pile of goop right in front of his parents. He desperately hopes it's quick and painless. He waits for the end.
...and waits
... and waits
The Fentons and Danny both feel shocked, but Danny eventually laughs (a bit hysterically) and continues explaining his accident, intensely relieved that his half-human nature had protected him from this weapon.
Once he explains everything, the Fentons apologize with tears in their eyes for how they had treated him. They accept him for who he is, and promise to do their best to learn more about ghosts' true natures. They decide to use their inventions in an actually scientific, ethical way, to learn more about this culture and people. Danny and Jazz are both ecstatic. Everything seems perfect. Sure, Danny might have thrown up and passed out the minute they got home from that little talk, and sure, his skin turned a bit red and painful where he got hit, but that was the extent of it, right? His human half purged the effects of the weapon from his body, no harm no foul.
But they all forget that while Danny's DNA is half human, it is also half ghostly in nature, and the weapon just tore through those parts of him like bullets through paper.
A week later, Danny's skin starts to feel like it's burning
#danny phantom#dp prompt#prompt#basically the Fentons accidentally give Danny extreme radiation poisoning and have to deal with the consequences#maybe Vlad could get a redemption arc in this#finally realizing that Maddie is not as perfect as he imagined her to be#and using everything in his considerable power to help save his Little Badger#could also be#DPxDC#dp x dc#if they end up reaching out to the justice league for their resources and expertise on non-human biology and radiation exposure#and of course every single one of them would end up loving Danny and wanting to take him away from these people who hurt him so bad#or at least help him recover and watch over him after#they wouldn't be fans of the Fentons to say the least#if anyone writes anything on this you can take it anywhere you like#but I'm personally a sucker for Angst with a Happy Ending#so in my imagination Danny manages to make it through the almost 3 months of suffering and eventually recovers#with a ton of new friends (and maybe a lover) for his troubles#but he'd never be the same#and I don't think he'd ever look at Jack and Maddie the same either#don't look up pictures of Hisashi Ouchi btw#only made that mistake once#danny fenton#btw for those who don't know but don't want to watch a 90min video about it#Hishashi Ouchi was a poor man who was exposed to so much radiation that his chromosomes were torn to shreds#**READ THE FOLLOWING SENTENCES AT YOUR DISCRETION CW IT'S NOT PRETTY IF YOU DON'T LIKE THINKING ABOUT NASTY STUFF/BODY HORROR DON'T READ#then his skin started to slough off#then the lining of his lungs. then the one on his intestines. then on almost every one of his organs#He lived for 83 days bc the best doctors in the world were trying to save him#but Yes it was probably as excruciating as it sounds especially bc his mind was intact for most of it
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earthytzipi · 1 month
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as much as Zionism is a colonial project (though I tend to take the view as expressed in "Decolonizing Jewishness" re: Zionism as failed decolonization attempt) I think it's extremely reductive to claim that Ashkenormativity is to blame for the colonial nature of the Zionist reality. as more and more people from outside of Jewish spaces are introduced to the concept of Ashkenormativity, "Ashkenazi" is being used as a synonym for white and for colonizer.
this is not the whole picture. first and foremost, a large percentage of Ashkenazim are not white, though of course many of us are. conflating Ashkenazim with whiteness, both inside and outside of the Jewish community, contributes to the erasure of Jewish People of Color. additonally, the first Jews in the western hemisphere, arriving with conquistadors and colonizers, were, in fact, Sephardi. in the US, almost every Jewish person was Sephardi until the second half of the 19th century. Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews have also historically participated in and currently participate in Zionism, including in the settlements. furthermore, when we're talking about Israel's suppression of diasporic culture, a very real phenomenon, we need to discuss how many Ashkenazi cultural elements were also suppressed - including Yiddish and Ashkenazi Hebrew. in fact, Ashkenazim from Europe who wanted to hang onto their diasporic cultures were considered weak and effeminate. this reality should make sense to everyone who is aware of how Holocaust survivors are treated in Israel. in Israeli society, there is contempt for EVERY Jewish culture that is not Israeli, and of course that is compounded and exacerbated by racism for Mizrahi, Ethiopian, Indian, and other Jewish groups of color.
it's not the same dichotomy as the Black vs white dichotomy set up by US/UK/French/Spanish/etc colonization, and the term "Ashkenormativity" being taken out of Jewish contexts and applied to Zionism just makes Ashkenazim a convenient scapegoat for all the evils of Zionism. the main consequence I'm seeing is the idea that Ashkenazim are "fake European Jews" in contrast to the "real Middle Eastern Jews." this idea hurts us all. Jewish people are from every corner of the globe, and every Jewish person is a real Jewish person. I'm asking those of us who are pro-Palestine to tread very carefully when discussing this issue, and maybe retire the use of "Ashkenormativity" when it comes to discussing the racism of Zionism, which Jewish people from every diasporic background can and do participate in. Ashkenormativity refers to the centering of Ashkenazi history and customs when discussing Jewishness, and I'm really concerned that the way I'm seeing it used does not meet that definition and is not helpful (and maybe ends up centering Ashkenazi "evilness" or "Europeanness" while still not discussing Sephardi, Mizrahi, and other Jewish diasporic group's histories at all outside of their interactions with Ashkenazim in Israel). there's a lot of racism Jewish spaces, in Zionism, and in Israeli society, I just think we should call it racism and white supremacy.
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