#IT'S LITERALLY SO DEAD IN THE WATER THAT IT'S REPEATING ITSELF | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

comradekatara · 13 days

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The Awakening is one of the most underrated episodes in the series.. this episode was such a turning point for aang

Aang first ran away in a storm to avoid his duty, and now he’s running away in a storm to do his duty. Poetic!

Love also Roku and Yue in this episode

yes! the way this episode establishes so many of the central tensions for the final season and parallels basically every character so deftly is perfect. the chiastic storm symbolism, the storm inside aang of crushing responsibility and guilt and grief and rage…. and in both cases, whether it’s to run away or to attempt to face his problems head on, leaving behind his loved ones (like he tried to do in the crystal catacombs) is always the wrong choice, he needs to rely on his friends. and his friends need him too. katara’s speech about how aang thinks he has to do everything alone kind of seems out of left field considering aang has always valued and cherished forming deep bonds, especially with katara. but then you remember that katara’s last memory of aang, that has been haunting her for the past however many weeks she’s been on that boat desperately trying to save him, was aang (unintentionally) martyring himself. and that would be traumatizing for anyone to witness, their best friend literally dying in their arms, but it’s especially triggering for katara because it’s happened before. kya died for her. hakoda left her. sokka emotionally abandoned her in his promise to die for her.

being a waterbender, the last waterbender, is such a complicated role for katara, because on hand she must feel immense guilt over the way her entire family and tribe prioritizes her life, and is especially motivated to become the world’s greatest waterbender specifically to prove that her mother’s sacrifice was not in vain. but it’s also that drive to be the best that awarded her the spirit water, that gave her the ability to heal aang when history repeated itself. katara couldn’t save kya, she couldn’t make hakoda stay, she couldn’t heal jet, but she can with aang. she literally brings the avatar, struck by lightning while in the avatar state (thus effectively ending the line of avatars were he truly dead) back to life. katara revived him as the inciting incident of the entire narrative, and then she revived him again in their darkest moment. because katara will continue to bring back hope to the world, resoundingly, through sheer force of will, with nothing but her bare hands and overflowing heart.

i do love aang’s arc in this episode, the narrative parallelism, the tragedy of him burning his glider, his last physical relic of his past and his people. i love the way he is so determined to perform the duty he has shied away from for so long due to the shame and humiliation of actually trying, and failing. of course aang was already motivated to perform his duties to the world, because guilt is a hell of a motivator, but the existential terror of actually being killed adds tenfold motivation. instead of running away from his problems, aang is now running towards them, equally as thoughtlessly and hastily. because he is too ashamed to care about tact, he just wants to rectify his devastating mistake. and that’s why he says that he needs to regain his honor. scarred and humiliated and lost, he finally understands how zuko feels.

zuko acts as the third side of a prism through which he, aang, and katara, are all refracted and reflected in one another. this episode makes use of that parallelism both in the contrast between zuko “finally regaining his honor” (illusory, of course, but he gets to come home and see his father again, and that’s all he’s wanted all along) while aang has lost it, and zuko confronting his father for the first time in three years, just like katara does. katara is angry at hakoda, her anger exacerbated by her grief over aang. she’s angry that hakoda left them, even if logically she doesn’t blame him for it. and she doesn’t mask her anger (i don’t think she’s even capable), and hakoda, for his part, receives it, listens to her, treats her with love and affection, holds her, acknowledges his own pain. it’s an incredibly beautiful scene; the episode is excellent if only for that scene.

it’s also immediately followed up with its opposite. zuko walks into ozai’s chamber, no anger only fear, kneels before his throne while ozai circles him like a predator (a move that both zuko and azula picked up from him). even a few episodes later, in “the beach” when azula asks, “are you angry at dad?” zuko’s face falls open and vulnerable, almost afraid at the accusation, and goes, “what?? no!!” even though it’s a perfectly fair question. ozai banished zuko for three years when he was still a child, whereas hakoda left katara for three years when she was still a child. katara resents hakoda for leaving against his will whereas zuko doesn’t even feel like he’s allowed to resent ozai for anything. ozai never once actually touches zuko, but zuko still flinches. zuko kneeling on the ground while ozai circles him like a hawk. hakoda and katara holding each other, both in tears, both open and vulnerable. zuko katara parallels always make me go crazy, of course, but this is one of the most insane juxtapositions in the entire show to me. i just love the katara hakoda reconciliation scene, and all the more for its narrative impact as it precedes zuko and ozai’s.

the ozai face reveal is also pretty incredible imo. for the past two seasons, ozai’s face as been obscured by shadow, framed only at angles that made him unknowable to the viewer. he is a larger than life villain, to both aang and zuko, not simply a man but something far greater and more terrifying. except no. he is just a man. zuko returns home, and immediately sees that. the ozai of looming shadow from zuko’s faulty memory is in fact just some guy. a uniquely powerful guy, of course, but he’s not gargantuan, too great to be comprehended by mortal eyes. zuko was just a child when he left, but he has since grown, in many ways. and while ozai still terrifies him to his core, because how could he not, we see, as zuko sees, that he is just a man.

as the image of aang’s goals becomes clearer in his eyes, he too, learns to see ozai as just a man. in the following episode he even crafts his likeness out of noodles (“impressive, i admit”). ozai is not some fantastical godlike being. no, aang is the fantastical godlike being in question, and it’s his literal god-given right to humble that man playing god who claims that aang has no place in his world. to obscure ozai’s face is to illustrate the sheer magnitude and terror of the power he wields. and to show ozai’s face, and then over the course of a season, continually undermine him and mock that face and depict it as noodles, or pantsless, is to take away some of his power, his cultivated, dictated, arbitrary power.

the awakening is a fantastic episode as it sets up the central internal conflicts for book 3, especially for aang and zuko, but also for katara, acknowledging the weight of her grief as it culminates in “the southern raiders.” (also her waterbending progress as it’s demonstrated in that one scene is incredible, i guess being at sea helps in one’s waterbending, who’d have thunk!) it’s basically a microcosmic encapsulation of the entire season, appropriately ending on a loving gaang hug as they promise to help one another through this. the heart of the show lies in that hug. it’s a fantastic episode.

#lilith-91 #asks #analysis #aang #katara #zuko #ozai #hakoda #aang&katara #aang&zuko #katara&zuko #ozai&zuko #hakoda&katara #aang&ozai #i let this ask sit in my inbox for a while bc i knew i was gonna write a whole fucking spiel #but yeah. good episode i agree 👍🏼#also i love how say ‘every’ character but then proceed to only talk about aang katara and zuko #wym that’s not every character???

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milk5 · 6 months

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THE MILK5 COFFEE GUIDE VOL. 1

REMOVE #BADBEANS FROM YOUR LIFE FOREVER

If you are a #TrueBlueCoffeeHead and subsisting on supermarket beans and/or frequent visits to big chains like Starbucks, PLEASE help yourself (and your local community, the environment, coffee workers, etc) and buy a pour over filter and freshly roasted, quality beans from a local roaster. Explicitly seek out Fairtrade Organic/Smithsonian Bird Friendly certified beans if possible. The taste of shade-grown coffee is incredibly flavorful AND you can be certain that your beans aren't the product of yucky pesticides, actual slave labor, and the annihilation of millions of acres of rainforest.

To start with what you need, a goose-neck kettle and pour over carafe are good purchases, but a suitably sized mason jar and regular kettle still work on a budget. Learning how to make a great pour over will raise your home coffee game to professional standards without needing to spend literal thousands of dollars on a real grinder/steamer/espresso machine setup -- if you're able to buy all of these items new for less than a thousand dollars, you're going to be down a few hundos in exchange for some pretty shitty machines. Regardless, a pour over setup with good beans will pay for itself VERY rapidly, assuming it replaces frequent Starbucks visits or whatever other chain you were going to. If you frequent a LOCALLY OWNED coffee shop that you like, keep going! You're an important part of the ecosystem.

What about grinding the beans? Should I get pre-ground beans? Would a cheapo blender-like blade grinder work?

NEVER touch a blade grinder again. It doesn't matter as much if you have #BadBeans, but if you have good beans, ALWAYS use a grinder with a burr; blade grinders just chop up your beans randomly into particles of massively varying sizes, leading to simultaneous over-extraction and under-extraction, generally leading to wildly inconsistent flavors and low repeatability. Burrs will always grind the beans into uniform particles and ensure that you're always (more or less, every cup is different to an extent) getting a consistent flavor. Don't buy a burr grinder -- just bring your beans to a local coffee shop, buy a drink, tip well, and ask the barista if they could grind the beans for you when you can clearly tell that they aren't busy. I have NEVER been refused, just go to a place with less sour employees if they won't help you out. Specify the coarseness that you'd like; smaller grounds have a greater surface area, so they're extracted to a greater extent, resulting in a more intense flavor; coarse grounds are the inverse. Lots of people recommend medium-coarse for pour overs (about 80% coarse 20% fine), but I prefer the stronger flavor of medium/drip (dead middle, 50% coarse 50% fine). It's also better to grind your beans periodically, as freshly-ground beans will taste better, but it's fine to have it pre-ground or ground all at once if you aren't able to easily make coffee shop trips every week or two. As far as roasts go, there's an entire gradient for you to explore -- not just the few that I list here; light roasts have a more sour, fruitier flavor, medium roasts are well rounded, and dark roasts are rich and smokey. Medium-dark is my personal favorite.

Experiment!!! It's all about your own taste, after all.

How do I make a good pour over?

Again, it depends on your taste. My go-to is a vigorous fourth-cup of grounds to 300ml of water; this is easily on the stronger end, but it's what works for me. More common ratios are usually weighed out on a kitchen scale, so consider picking one up if you don't already have one. Document your process until you get to your favorite! I always stop the kettle a little before it gets to its terminal temperature, then pour just enough water onto the grounds to let it bloom -- wait for one minute, and then start pouring a small-ish portion of the water onto the grounds every 20 seconds (this is where my own technique varies the most, it usually takes between 3-4 minutes to finish since I'm not pouring standard amounts; some people DO measure their pours for even greater consistency). Use the stopwatch on your phone, it's much better than keeping track in your head. Make sure to distribute the water evenly over the grounds, particularly making sure to wash the grounds off the sides every pour. When I'm finished, I like to immediately take a sip to see if a splash of milk or half-and-half would help or hurt the cup -- I think a very good cup of coffee can easily stand on its own without anything else, but additives can absolutely help depending on your personal preferences. Just be sure to taste the black coffee before you add anything.

What if I like the syrupy sweet drinks? What about iced coffee?

From my experience working at/visiting coffee shops, Monin is the most common syrup brand I see at local places. As far as iced coffee goes, coldbrew would be probably be the superior option -- it's also pretty easy to make at your home. I'm not going to be writing a guide for coldbrew any time soon, so you're out of luck there. I also never steam my milk if I'm doing a pour over, so I can't really point you to an inexpensive way to do that. Just know that the cheap handheld stick-frothers do not do the same thing as an actual steamer.

What was that about certifications?

Fairtrade is a pretty notable certification for food items produced in areas that have a history for being exploited (so pretty much the bulk of the global south), it can get very complex -- read more about it here. The goal is to ensure that the workers and communities involved in the production of the product receive fair, livable wages, that labor conditions are safe and reasonable, and that the decisions around the production of the product are made by those directly involved in the labor. FTO refers to Fairtrade Organic, which just means that it meets the standards of both Fairtrade AND organic production -- I'm not exactly sure if the organic standards are based on where the coffee is sold, produced, or both, but regardless, it's still a bonus; organic coffee will almost ALWAYS be shade-grown, which is the way that coffee grows naturally. Since coffee is an understory tree in nature, shade-grown coffee is produced more slowly and under a canopy and thus does not require the forest to be damaged or destroyed to grow; however, not all organic coffee will necessarily take place in a completely natural, untouched rain forest setting. Industrial non-organic coffee is most often produced under direct sun in gigantic clear-cut monocrop rows and usually with massive usage of potentially harmful inputs like, such as various pesticides and fertilizers. Direct sun coffee grows faster, but it has a distinctly different taste and is easily the most damaging method of coffee production to both the environment and the local communities. Smithsonian Bird-Friendly is the most rigorous certification for coffee in particular; FTO is more or less a pre-requisite to achieve SBF. Coffee likes to grow in tropical, equatorial environments -- these environments are also the areas of the greatest bird diversity in the world (and, really, biodiversity in general) and the destination for most migratory birds during the winter. The coffee industry has destroyed literal millions of acres of rain forest across the world, which has resulted in the death of billions of birds worldwide over the past 50 years. SBF guarantees the FTO criteria PLUS the additional criteria that the coffee must be produced in forests that are more-or-less in their natural state with thriving diversity of endemic species of flora and fauna. It's harder to find SBF-certified coffee than FT(O)-certified coffee, but the Smithsonian website has a handy vendor locator here. I'm not confident that it works beyond U.S. vendors, so I apologize to anyone interested abroad. Note that some of these certifications may be exclusive to particular continents; I need to do more research on the subject, but the tropical forests around the world vary wildly -- this adds a level of complexity to the goals and criteria of a particular certification. I am confident that all of the certifications that I have mentioned apply to South and Central America (and most likely the Caribbean), so keep that in mind. Also, watch out for phony certifications; big corporations frequently buy out existing certification organizations and/or create new green-sounding organizations to fool well-meaning consumers.

Where should my brand new beans come from?

Like wine, the exact qualities of a bean depend on its terroir, or the specific methods and geographic factors involved in its growth. However, some countries have trends in how the coffee is generally grown; some counties will practice shade-growing more than others and some countries will practice direct-sun industrial methods more than others. As a rule of thumb, Arabica beans are mostly grown in shade or partial shade, while Robusta is generally grown in direct sun. Defer to certifications if applicable.

The following areas primarily practice shade-growing:

Mexico

El Salvador

Peru

Panama

Nicaragua

Guatemala

Cuba

Timor

New Guinea

Ethiopia

Burundi

Rwanda

Tanzania

Zambia (*)

Zimbabwe (*)

Papua New Guinea

Sulawesi

Timor + East Timor

India

The following areas primarily practice direct-sun growing:

Colombia

Brazil

Costa Rica

Hawaii

Yemen

Kenya

Angola

Benin

Central African Republic

Congo

Gabon

Ghana

Guinea

Equatorial Guinea

Ivory Coast

Liberia

Nigeria

Sierra Leone

Togo

Cameroon

Madagascar

Malawi (**)

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Sumatra (***)

Java

Vietnam

China

Jamaica

Again, this is just a rule of thumb; there are exceptions to both and I'm sure that I've left out several production areas. Most of this information comes from the blog Coffee and Conservation, written by ornithologist Julie Craves. I've only tried a very small percentage of these origins; so far, my favorites are Sumatran (Arabica, of course) and Peruvian.

*The source that I got this information from mentioned that some avoid Zambian and Zimbabwean coffee due to concerns of it helping fund violent conflict in the area; this particular article, however, is from 2006 and may be wildly out of date. I couldn't find much more info on this topic when I searched elsewhere.

**They primarily produce Arabica with organic methods, despite the sunny conditions.

***Sumatra is likely the most notable coffee-growing island in Asia; while the majority is Robusta grown on plantations that have deforested a horrifyingly large percentage of the island, the Arabica grown in the north is well-known for its far healthier growing conditions (shade + organic, usually) and extremely distinct flavor.

Volume 2?

I may eventually add on to this post, most likely with a Turkish coffee guide coming next. I used to make Turkish coffee quite frequently, but I would need to dig up my old favorite recipe and cezve first. French press and coldbrew stuff will be in the more distant future if at all.

If any of this info looks wrong, let me know and I'll edit the post :-)

Enjoy your cup!!!!

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slashingdisneypasta · 1 year

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Hades x Indentured!Fem!Reader || Oneshot

Plot: Where Meg failed, you succeeded. Or, Nessus isn’t good for aftercare, but Hades is. Do you see where I’m going with this? Maybe not? Well you’ll have to read on! XD

Warnings: Soft aftercare, references to centaur fucking, non-sexual nudity (Though genitalia is not specified), non-sexual body worship, if you're touch starved then you are going to love this-

After Nessus left you in the shallowest part of the river, near to the bank but still a few centimetres deep, your knees digging into the slimy mud beneath the water, you weren’t quite sure how you were going to get home. There was no way you could walk all the way across the forest to your cottage, the aching between your legs would be too much to bear. Maybe you would just ease yourself over to some grass and have a snooze, there- your body would hate you in the morning, but it was already going to from the beating you just received so it wouldn’t really have mattered.

But then, on a soft plain of grass right before your eyes as if he knew exactly where you would be looking, where you were, smoke started to form out of nothing and transformed into the lord of the dead that you know so well. He stands there, intimidating with a curiously unfamiliar look on his face; Eyes flicking quickly over you kneeling in the water, and raises a brow; An unsaid question all-too-obvious on his long face.

Did you do it?

“Ugh… “You just want this whole ordeal to be over. “Yes?... yes- “That’s right, yeah. With more certainty you repeat the word one more time under Hades gaze, nodding- though it is difficult to remember what Nessus had said- “Yes, it’s done. He said tharlt he would join you. He um, just… first he needs you to com- to go see him, tomorrow? Talk details… “You’re finding it difficult to even speak, the thoughts in your head whirring around in what you could only describe as tornado-like- crazy and entirely unhelpful. You just want to sleep… “Now, uh, could you help me up? I- Oh!”

Hades does help you up, tendrils of smoke bleeding out from underneath him and carrying you up into his arms, your muddy knees hung over one of his arms and your arms over his shoulders, but you’re too tired to comment on it. If Hades wants to carry you home then you’re okay with that- you certainly cant walk.

In the pseudo-safety of the arms of this god, which do not actually have a reputation for being safe to consort with, this one in particular having tricked you into selling you soul to him then sent you to that centaur today and had a literally explosive temper, you relax. As odious as you might find Hades, you know he won’t hurt you more. He’s a lot of terrible things but sadist, thankfully isn’t one of them. So, as if your body itself actually knows that too, you let go of his shoulders and cross your arms over uour chest instead, and feel your head drift off to the side, against his chest softly. “… Thank you… “ You say carefully, eyed drifting shut.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” The tone in Hades’ voice is half annoyed, but also unconcerned- like he’s trying to find something to be frustrated about here but really he doesn’t mind this. “Let’s get ya home.”

“Mhm… “

When you open your eyes again, minutes later when Hades is setting you down on something unbelievably comfortable- you are not at home. Not your home, at least. Its dark, and stony, and theirs a strong damp smell. This must be the Underworld. Peering about, you cant help but wonder, lord- Did Nessus' enormous dick kill you???

… If it did then you might be better off, you decide after a moment, turning over onto your hip and feeling the silk-like sheets on your cheek. Ahh… the sheets underneath you are cool and smooth, and the mattress somehow moulds quite nicely to your body- offering pressure in all the places that you need it right now; Worn and beaten as it is. A sigh slips out of you that ordinarily you would’ve hidden from Hades at all costs, but right now you can’t seem to mind about.

“Liking that, huh?” Hades asks, as if on cue- but you still don’t mind. In fact his presence may be offering some… comfort… Forcing your eyes open again only slightly, you peak at him standing there above you with an amused look on his face and give a tired huph as you close your eyes once again, the lids far far too heavy to keep open.

“Its nice… “

“Uhuh, right. Now don’t go wondering around- technically you breathers aren’t supposed to be down here. I’ll be right back.”

You barely notice that he’s gone, with your eyes closed and the cloud-like bed comforting you; Only vaguely do you even acknowledge that Nessus did not in fact kill you and you're still alive. With the bed filling in the places you feel lacking and pressing into knots and aches, though, you find you're terribly distracted. How Hades gets up every morning, you have no idea.

When he comes back its with yoghurt and water, which to your surprise doesn’t make you feel sick to look at. In fact, it looks really good, with some little blueberries and oats on top. “Alright babe, sit up.” His hand is on your back, helping you to do so, before lifting the bowl with smoke tendrils to a space in your lap. You run a hand through your messy hair, before taking up the spoon. “Eat up - all of it, - and then we’ll get you cleaned up, eh?"

Carrying a spoonful of the creamy substance up to your mouth, you give Hades a cautious look. What does he mean get you cleaned up??

He gives a sigh and an eyeroll. “There’s a bath down the hall, Pain and Panic hopefully got that covered, and a spare toga. Don’t worry, I won’t go in… “Here, he gives a sudden smirk, bedroom eyes sent your way that you roll your own tired peepers at. “Unless you ya think ya need me.”

.. Instead of snapping at him for that, you just shake your head, avoiding his eyes. “I’ll be okay… “You shrug, eating away at your yoghurt and sipping carefully at the water. Slowly feeling a bit stronger.

Slowly but surely, that smirk on Hades’ face transforms into a frown. “… that old river guardian really took something out of ya today, huh doll?”

After taking in a nice, deep breath- you nod. “Just… tired… “Then, shifting your thighs with a frown, you add; “And achy… “

“Hey,” Wisps made of smoke come up, then, and turn your head so you look at Hades and his concerned frown. “Look," You gaze up to catch Hades rubbing his neck, a look almost like guilt on his face. "… How about we put a clause in our little contract, eh? Lets say... No more pimping you out, eh? Except for when I really need you, that is. I got Meg for stuff like that, anyway. She's always saying she's a big tough girl, or whatever... Pain and Panic make a pretty hot babe, too, ya know?”

Eyes wide and round, you part your lips from the surprised. This teally sounds too good to be true. Why would Hades- “R- Really??”

“No problem. I got you for another 50 years, at least- can’t have you breaking early, right?” ... ah. Well... Right. You're not sure exactly what you were expecting.

You give a sigh, at that, shaking your head free of the smoke. “Well… thank you. That’s… I- I… just- thanks.”

A grin, that’s far more familiar to you then that frown he was wearing, rueful and mischievous, slips across Hades lips. Then he shakes his head. “Sure- sure, whatever. Now finish your snack and c'mon, let's get ya in that bath."

"Yessir," You nod, giving him the little bit of cheek that you can muster, and a tiny salute before returning to your food.

As soon as you stood in the 'bathroom' Pain and Panic already vacated quickly, this expansive marble chamber in shades of soul-green and slate-grey, and lay your eyes on the tub - which is really more of a swimming pool actually,- , you realise you might have written off Hades help too fast.

Your legs are barely holding you up, feeling frail and quivery under you. When you twist around too far then the bruises Nessus' fingertips left on you pang, so there's no way you could reach your own back, or even your hair. And your brain hurts at even the thought of trying to reach and rid yourself of your clothes.

Slowly you turn to Hades, leaning on the doorframe with his arms crossed, waiting expectantly. Because he knows- he knows damn well you're in no state to do this for yourself. When your gaze raises to his, his eyebrows go up- waiting for you to ask him.

You give a sigh. "Hades... I- I- ... " A huff, this time. "Is there any way we could do this without you holding it over my head for the rest of my life??"

Hades gives you a smirk. "We can discuss terms at a later date, babe." As he descends upon you he closes the door behind him, and you take in a deep breath- this is definitely going to change your relationship. No going back from this. Hades is going to see you naked!-

His long, sharp fingers are gentle undressing you, picking the seashell clip out of your hair first, as it was more then askew and badly knotted into the locks- he then passes it off to a tendril of smoke below him which carries it off to a surface nearby. Next he goes to the clasp keeping your toga up, watches you wince, sighs and takes it off.

The material of your toga slips quickly to the ground, and you discover immediately that you're more cold in this dark, open space then you are humiliated because you're naked in front of him. Because- Hades doesn't ogle you. Doesn't grimace at the places you aren't fond of, or comment... he is looking, though. Still, you find that you cross your arms out of desire to lessen the chill, rather then to cut off his view.

You're shivering, gazing towards the tub that you'll need help stepping into, and the idea of spreading your legs in any way is terrifying right now, but even so you're about to turn and ask if you can move on now, when-

"Don't hit me for this, wouldja?"

"... Huh?"

Hades swoops down and kisses you. Not on the lips, not anywhere scandalous. Just... your shoulder. Its one of your very tender areas after what happened, being where Nessus tried to bury his teeth, so you let out a surprised gasp- your fingers flying out immediately to grab at the fabric of Hades' toga in order to not fall from the surprise. The feeling of the lord of the dead's mouth grazing the skin, though, feels... good. Your eyes even fall shut, pleasantly surprised at the odd, lovely feeling. And warm- ahhh, he's so warm.

Quickly you open them back up again, though- wide. "What was- oh, Hades!" You let out an actual yelp, when he spreads the warmth down your arm, disconnects your fingers from his toga, and lays a kiss on your wrist- a place where Nessus had gripped and squeezed and yanked.

Your eyes are blown open as wide as moons at him, surprised and loving this. Surprised that you're enjoying this. He flashes a grin back, straightening up over you again while your big round eyes follow; Glued to him. "... So, you wanna hit me now, princess? Go ahead."

You don't say a word, just give a little head shake. No...

"Oh?"

"That felt... nice."

"Hmm... ya think I could get away with it a third time then?" Giving a nod this time, not trusting yourself with words here, you consent. Hades gets the message, though he's surprised; Raising a brow and letting a dirty smirk stretch across his lips. "... really?~"

"Shhh," You raise a finger. Don't ruin it. Go back go back!-

"Alright alright," Hades shakes his head, silently laughing at you- then he goes back to peppering you with kisses everywhere that it hurts. Over your wrists, your upper arms where Nessus grabbed you, your hips... The warmth he leaves he behind has you feeling comfortable in that big freezing room.

When Hades gets on his knees to soothe your sore points, to... worship you... you're even more surprised then before. A god- on his knees- on the ground- for you??? You smell smoke wafting up from him as his hands, long spindly fingers and hot palms, hold your hips still gently while he drags his mouth over the places Nessus pummelled. Pecks turn into open mouthed ministrations, sucking at delicate, bruised skin and making you moan.

All the way down your thighs he leaves kisses, though he never goes anywhere untoward, before moving all the way up to your neck again- the last one he leaves being on your cheek. All the while your hands stay on his shoulders, staring at him. Wondering... what's changed? Why is he being so gentle with you now? Has he always been so damn handsome??

Hades rubs that last one in with his thumb, hand cupping half of your face as you look up him with something new in your eyes.

"... How bout we getcha in that tub now? Get you nice and clean, then you can get back in that bed ya like so much. Catch some Z's."

You let out a relieved sigh, half-laughing. This whole situation is crazy, and you're exhausted, and you might be falling for a God- but damn that bed was nice. And that sounds good.

#Hades x Reader Oneshot #Disney Hades x Reader Oneshot #Hades x Reader #Disney Hades x Reader #Hades #Disney Hades #Oneshot #Disney Villains #Disney Villains x Reader #Disney Villains x Reader Oneshot

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bunni-v1 · 6 months

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Hi, so I guess I didn’t make this clear in my several posts about palestine. If you don’t stand for the freedom of Palestine and chose to be neutral or stand for Israel, unfollow me immediately.

If you’re neutral you’re okay with mass genocide. You have to understand that this conflict has been building for decades. Israel — Zionists, just to be specific, not all jewish people — has been slowly overtaking the land of Palestine and displacing the people from their land for decades.

Israel is fighting an unequal “war” against citizens. The only military power that the people of Palestine have are in Hamas, and the power Hamas has is small at that.

I do not stand with Hamas, by the way. I stand with the civilians of Palestine that are uninvolved and are being attacked for their ethnicity. What Hamas did was inexcusable, but what Israel is doing in response is a million times worse. They are overreacting, clearly.

They are deliberately attacking civilian areas knowing the cost of human life. They are aware that they are killing more children than Hamas militants and they do not care. They attacked residential areas, hospitals, and REFUGEE CAMPS.

What’s worse? The largest countries in the world (not all, but many, specifically in the west) are backing them. I’m ashamed to call myself American, I’m ashamed of my country and the people who lead it.

They are asking them to evacuate, knowing damn well that they cannot and are making it exceptionally hard to do so. They want them to be displaced so they can take over Gaza. They cut water and power and are actively weakening any support for survivors to get help.

I’m going to say it again, they attacked refugee camps. They attacked refugee camps.

Oh, also, the school year has been canceled because most of the children in Gaza are dead. Yep, you read that right. What children are not dead are seriously injured.

And, I get it. The propaganda that the IDF is using is incredibly successful, especially among those who are zionists or are less educated about this long going conflict. But, let’s look back at where this type of propaganda has been used before.

The dehumanization of an ethnic group to justify the senseless killing and prove that your race is superior or deserves something more. Where have we seen this before? I wonder? Perhaps… Nazi Germany?

Hitler quite literally used the exact same tactics that the IDF is using today. Are we blind? Did we not all learn about the horrific acts of Nazi Germany? That’s the ironic thing, isn’t it? History repeats itself, it’s just crazy that the group that was undergoing the torture is now the one doing it. At a different level, I suppose, but my point stands.

It is NOT that hard to see if you have even a BASIC understanding of war and war crimes. This is genocide. Israel is committing war crimes. On purpose.

Staying neutral on genocide is supporting it. So if you’re neutral, unfollow me. I’m not here to debate this.

I’m sure I missed a million things, there is so much historical context that needs to be explained that I can’t do in one single post. But my point stands.

I will never be okay with genocide, and I stand with Palestine. These people have suffered for far to long, and we are far too late to notice.

#free palestine #i stand with palestine #unfollow me if you want #i don’t need your follow #i would rather have people who don’t support genocide reading my stuff

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mikuni14 · 3 months

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The abbot, who knows the most about the naga and the reincarnation stuff, literally told them what to do to break this cycle and free themselves from karma. This option has been on the table since episode 3, I think. This is their first life in which they both lived to adulthood and have a chance to break free. And yet, Tharn has been actively doing everything to stay in this cycle since episode 6.

Now Phaya took Tharn to his home, under the care of the abbot. All Tharn should do is "endure" doing nothing 😄 for a a few days in the care of the temple, the abbot and Phaya, TRUST THEM, TRUST PHAYA.

You don't even know with how much growing frustration I have been watching Tharn since episode 6, his decisions, his choices. I spent episode 11 watching in disbelief as they ran with one gun in the forest, next to waters, over cliffs, between gangsters, at night, in Naga's domain, when it would have been enough if they had just sat on their asses for a few days and persevered TOGETHER.

At this point, as a viewer, I'm starting to wonder if they deserve to be together at all, that maybe this karma is repeating itself because they, or rather Tharn, are doing nothing, LITERALLY NOTHING, to stop this cycle of death. I just don't feel a real, driving NEED to be with Phaya from Tharn at this point, since he ALWAYS has something else, more important to do, other places to be, other more important people to care about, even dead people like his father. He simply MUST solve the mystery of his father's murder, who was killed years ago, and the junkie workers RIGHT NOW, at the most important moment FOR HIM AND PHAYA. So… this love, Phaya… are not the most important, right?

The show is trying to sell me a soulmate love, but how can I believe it at this point? I mean, Lan Wangji risked EVERYTHING without hesitation to keep Wei Wuxian , he fought for him with everyone, with the world, even with his own family, Wei Wuxian was his number 1 priority. THIS is how soul mate love is done, my dears, and that's why I believed in this love without doubt and hesitation 😤

THEY WRONGED MY BOY THARN.

#i'm sorry guys #I still can't get over it #it's just #it's so fucking stupid #what are they doing with my beloved series #the sign the series

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battleangel · 7 months

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This Barbie Is Pro-Abortion!

The Barbie in the Barbie movie is pro-abortion and finds herself by realizing that Barbie Land is a fake reality, discovering the real world, rejecting the programming and conditioning she received all her life in Barbie Land and scheduling an appointment with a gynecologist at the end of the movie for an abortion.

So, whats the Barbie movie really about?

I am sure thats not the ending Mattel wanted but Greta Gerwig fought for it.

Before we talk about the ending, we need to talk about the movie itself.

What does Barbie Land represent?

Barbie Land is our current virtual reality simulation, what we refer to as "the real world". Where I am typing this and where you are reading this.

Where we are now is a virtual reality simulation, just like Barbie Land is.

We all originated from an eternal dreamscape.

We are all limitless eternal energetic beings.

When our parents had sex, and procreation occurred, our limitless eternal energetic being selves temporarily manifested as physical human beings in this virtual reality.

Where we are now is a simulated virtual reality of the actual dreamscape that we all originated from.

When you dream at night, when you enter REM sleep, your consciousness shifts and you re-enter the dreamscape temporarily.

Its why dreams are so lucid, vivid and surreal. They are the dreamscape. 10 dimensions all existing simultaneously at once vs the 3 dimension virtual reality we currently inhabit.

Its why in a dream you can fall through the sky without dying, walk through walls, walk on water.

Its why in your dreams, you can do anything. Its why we all dream, even if we dont remember our dreams.

Then we wake up, and we are back to our virtual reality.

Wash, rinse, repeat for our entire human existence until our physical bodies perish and we return to our eternal energetic selves in the dreamscape.

Figuring out that you are actually a limitless energetic being, not the temporary human being you are currently physically manifested as, is the entire point to our existence.

Barbie had the same journey in the Barbie movie.

She had to figure out that Barbie Land wasn't real, it was just a simulated reality made to appear real, but it wasn't.

In the film, she then found out about our current reality (which represented the dreamscape) then she ascended beyond her Barbie doll self at the end of the film and self-actualized into who she actually was by asserting her bodily autonomy and personal freedom and scheduled an appointment with a gynecologist for an abortion.

Barbie rejected the myth and demands of feminity, the societal demands to martyr oneself on the altar of motherhood, rejected the feminine ideals of self-abnegation, self sublimation, subservience, submissiveness, putting the self last, sacrifice to the point of obliterating the self, sacrificing career, dreams & freedom.

Barbie rejected all of this societal conditioning and programming and fully accepted her actualized self, completed her self ascension and self awakening journey.

Barbie the doll was dead, Barbie the actual self had finally been realized and self-actualized.

Through an abortion appointment with a gynecologist.

In most films, Barbie would have found herself and completed herself at the end of the movie through love for a man, Ken.

They would have lived happily ever after in Barbie Land together forever in their perfect Barbie mansion.

The end.

Except she left his ass and got with America Ferrara and her daughter to take her to a gynecologist appointment for a motherfucking abortion.

Theres your happy ending.

I am in my 40s so I lived for all of those cheesy late 90's & early 00's romance comedies -- How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, The Wedding Planner, Shes All That, What A Girl Wants, 10 Things I Hate About You -- the list goes on and on.

If Jennifer Garner, Amanda Bynes, JLo and Kate Hudson were in it and it was a romance comedy, bet I watched it. And missed literally all of the societal grooming, messaging and conditioning inherent in all of the above movies (Julia Stiles consistent takedown of the patriarchy in 10 Things I Hate About You is a notable & rare exception which went totally over my head at the time as I was 17 and a lot more focused on how cute and endearing Heath Ledger was).

At the end of the Barbie movie, Barbie is dressed professionally in a stylish and chic business suit, so one assumed she was going to a job interview, to find her "true identity" in the hallowed halls of corporate America.

Barbie doesnt need a man, she has her career!

That she then sublimates her entire identity for, replacing who she is with a job title, stock options, clout, prestige and a 401k account instead of pursuing true knowledge of the self.

Remember the LinkedIn posts after 250k people got their asses unceremoniously brushed out the door of big tech last fall?

Who are they if not an Amazonian, Googler or Metamate?

They dont know as their big tech career became their entire identity.

Thats the point of capitalism.

You are a worker first and foremost. Your job defines you. Your work is who you are. Your work is your worth.

You're nobody without Amazon, Google or Meta.

At Amazon, on top of the world, impressive, six figure salary, unrestricted stock, envy of your LinkedIn network, impeccable credentials, career that speaks for itself, untouchable.

Laid off from Amazon, unemployed & jobless loser who scrambles to type "Ex-Amazon" in your LinkedIn headline befofe you're even walked out of the building.

Exchanging one false identify -- Barbie the perfect living doll -- for another -- Barbie the corporate executive -- and still never finding and pursuing the true self.

Who are you and why are you here?

What were you made for?

Had the movie ended with Barbie going to a job interview, ostensibly to ascend the ranks of corporate America in her stilettos, her newfound corporate identity would be nothing but another superficial Barbie outfit.

Barbie, the corporate ballbreaker! Pantsuit sold separately.

Still with no knowledge of who she is, just another false persona to put on.

But the last line of the movie reveals that Barbie actually isnt there for a job interview, she is there for a scheduled appointment with a gynecologist.

Presumably to have fetal tissue scraped out of her uterus.

Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice hits.

The end.

So, what was the Barbie movie really about?

When you figure out our reality is actually a virtual reality simulation, and its not real, you will actually start to experience the same glitches Margot Robbie did during the "Hey Barbie!" musical number.

Her realization that Barbie Land wasnt real and that there was a real reality outside of Barbie Land and her slowly waking up to the patriarchy, paternalism, myth of femininity, toxic feminine idelas, toxic masculinity, society's dystopian obsession with beauty, unrealistic beauty standards nearly impossible to attain, obsession with image and appearing perfect, obsession with impressing people and keeping up with the joneses, hypercompetitiveness, constant comparisons, emptiness within, shallowness and superficialty, lack of substance and introspection, not knowing who she is as a person outside of "Barbie", suppression of "negative" emotions like sadness, existentialism, questioning why she is here, why she was born, what she was made for, hopelessness, malaise, boredom, always having to appear happy, always smiling, subservient submissive pliant obedient attractive sexy willing feminine ideal -- and her becoming her actual self after meeting her maker (Rhea Perlman) and leaving the virtual reality (Barbie Land) and ascending to the actual reality (our current world in the movie which actually is an allegorical stand-in for the dreamscape) and then becoming her true self and shedding her Barbie persona by scheduling the appointment with the gyencologist at the end of the movie for an abortion.

So, what was the actual message of the end of the Barbie movie?

By freely choosing to have an abortion, Barbie chose bodily autonomy, rejection of the feminine myth & feminine ideal, rejection of the societal mandate that all women martyr themselves for motherhood, rejection of societal programming that children complete womens identity by turning them into that enigmatic mystical all-consuming figure of "mother" and that a womans highest calling is to be a mother.

Barbie chose to be her complete self as a woman by choosing not to be a mother and she chose not to fulfill her identity and personhood through procreation as society dictates and demands all women to do.

Being pregnant doesnt mean -- at least it should never mean -- that you have to give birth.

A lotttt can happen where youre pregnant and you dont want to be.

Barbie refused societys demands that she now sacrifice herself on the altar of motherhood -- her dreams, her life, her sexuality, her body, her appearance, her career, her freedom, her income, her lifestyle, her independence -- all to become a sacrificial mother lamb to be put on a false pedestal like all the mothers who came before her to be endlessly used and abused for free labor.

Cooking, cleaning, laundry, rides to school, sports practices, games, dance recitals, dance rehearsals, doctors appointments, school plays, birthday parties, parent teacher conferences, sleepovers, grocery shopping, meal planning, vacuuming, sweeping, mopping, car rides, car pools, help with homework & school projects, advice, discipline, punishments, teaching them, educating them, raising them, reading to them, bathing them, dressing them, teaching them manners, socializing them, singing to them, brushing their teeth, blowing their nose, changing their diapers, potty training them, putting them to bed every night, giving them medicine when theyre sick, bandaids when theyre hurt, staying up when they have a fever, picking them up when they cry, burping them, sterilizing bottles, washing dishes, emptying the dishwasher, finding recipes, placating picky eaters, fixing childrens broken hearts, dealing with toddler tantrums, making them eat their vegetables, picking up legos, limitless endless patience of a saint, never complaining, never being tired, limtless boundless energy, putting away toys, slavery, drudgery, scrubbing stains on carpets, unpaid labor, no benefits no time off, cleaning up spills, messes, urine on the floor, vomit in the hallway, blowout diaperas, diarrhea everywhere, buying decorations, responsible for creating holiday cheer, planning the 1st birthday, organizing the family calendar tracking all games, practices, parent teacher meetings and conferences, dance recitals and rehearsals, school plays, boy scout and girl scout meetings, registration for summer camps, taking them to the library, coming up with and planning all fun family activities, ensuring good grades, good behavior, good performance in sports, dance, gymnastics, cheer, teaching and instilling teamwork, friendship, generosity, kindness, sincerity, genuineness, honesty, defending the vulnerable, empathy, creativity, imagination, fostering an open mind, band camp, music lessons, playing the piano, private tutoring...

The mother is primarily responsible for all of that, and if the father deigns to help, he is lauded for "helping to babysit" and take care of his own fucking children!

Just because a condom broke or the bitch refused to wear one, just because he coerced her to have sex, pressured her, forced her, just because she had an amazing meaningless fuck and enjoyed every second, just because she had sex with her soulmate and she loved every moment, just because she didnt know how to say no because she was never taught how to, just because she was intimidated, just because she didnt want to piss him off, just because she wanted him to like her, just because shes proudly promiscuous, just because she likes to fuck, just because she forgot to take her birth control, just because she was on prescription medication that rendered her birth control ineffective, just because she couldnt get to the pharmacy on time to buy Plan B -- that should never ever ever mean that any woman should have to submit to the tyranny and sublimation of motherhood if she doesnt want to.

In rejecting the ultimate societal programming of all females which mandates that all women were meant to be mothers, you arent a woman if youre not a mother, motherhood is femininity, being a mother is a womans highest calling, only selfish women choose not to have kids, you complete & finalize your identity as a woman only by becoming a mother -- nothing else you ever do or accomplish will ever compare in any way to expelling a fetus from your uterus, she became Barbie, herself, her self, because now she knew her self, and not the Barbie she always was in Barbie Land.

This Barbie is pro-abortion.

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tea-plantz · 1 year

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~Marcy Wu x fem!reader~

Just straight up fluff (and maybe a little bit of angst), in which Marcy moves after the whole Amphibia incident, and has trouble settling in at her new school… until she meets you that is.

!spoilers!

Marcy hated this.

She tried so hard to find a loophole, but even after going to another world it was still no use.

She was moving away, leaving everything she knew and loved behind.

The raven haired girl was currently standing outside of a huge schoolhouse with a lump in her throat, hands shaking and a nauseous feeling in her stomach.

Marcy had always been bad in social situations and on top of that she didn’t know ANYONE here at all, so this was literally hell for her.

With shaky steps, the nervous girl made her way to the principal’s office, which she had gotten some instructions on the day before as to where it was. She just hoped she didn’t accidentally take a wrong turn or something.

At last the ravenette finally stood in front of a big black door with the words “principal” printed on it.

She took one last shaky breath before knocking and entering the room…

“Aah, Miss Wu! Welcome”

Marcy just looked down and nodded.

“Please, take a seat” said the man behind the desk in a brownish suit.

She did as she was instructed and took a seat at the wooden chair in the middle of the room.

The principal told her a bit about the school policy, classes, dress code and blah blah blah. You know, the usual.

“Oh, and you will get a guide for your first week here at (your school)”

Marcy looked up at this. A guide? I mean that would definitely make things easier, but Marcy was internally panic at this. I’ll have to make a good first impression! I can’t screw this up! Ugh why is being social so hard sometimes! Ok ok calm down Mars don’t panic, it’s going to be ok, just like mom said. Don’t overthink it!

“Miss L/n, please come to the principals office, I repeat, miss L/n to the principals office”

The door creaked open as a h/c girl peeked in, “yes?”

Marcy looked up as she saw a beautiful girl standing before her. Her breath caught in her throat as she frantically started darting her eyes around the room, focusing anywhere else then directly at that gorgeous girl. She couldn’t help it, you just made her so nervous! The brown eyed female settled on her feet, as she could feel a weird tingling sensation in her stomach. She looks so cute! Now I’m just gonna stress even more! She thought as her hart rapidly threw itself around in her chest.

“Miss L/n, this is miss Wu, our new student. I would like you too be her guide for the week.”

The girls e/c eyes moved over to Marcy, who was nervously looking at the ground while messing with her hands.

“Of course I will, it’ll be my pleasure!” The h/c girl said with a smile, as she walked over to the black haired girl.

“Come on! I’ll show you around!”

—————————————————————————

“So, you’re the new student huh? What’s your name?” You asked as you and Marcy walked down the hall, you in the lead and Marcy close behind.

The olive skinned girl squeaked at your sudden question, before looking away with her face flushing bright red with embarrassment .

“I-it’s Marcy” she stammered quietly in a shy manner.

“Marcy Wu! That’s a really pretty name! It suits you” Marcy stopped dead in her tracks for a second. She could feel her face heating up before mumbling a ‘thanks’ with a small smile.

For the rest of the tour, you continued to talk and point, while Marcy mostly listed with a few ‘okeys’ and ‘yeses’ here and there, when suddenly a loud bell echoed through the hall.

“Yes! It’s finally lunch time! Augh I’m staaaarving!” You semi-shouted with a groan, before walking in the direction of the cafeteria.

Oh no. She’s leaving now! I guess I should have seen it coming, she’s done with the tour after all and there’s no way she would wanna hang out with me! She’s just so cool! Must be popular too…but I don’t wanna be alone. Marcy thought while her heart sank. She could feel her eyes watering a little as thoughts of Anne and Sasha crawled their way into her mind.

She misses them so much.. why did she have to move! She’s scared, she’s alone.. wh-

“Hey! You coming?”

A voice interrupted her thoughts. Huh? Marcy looked up to see you standing a few feet away from her with your head tilted slightly to the left.

You wanted to eat with her? Even though you guys only just met, and she had barely spoken to you?

Marcy looked behind her too see if you were asking another student, but no one was in sight. She thought for a moment before questioning quietly “me?”

“Yes you silly! You seem really fun to be around, plus, you’re really cute! I wanna get to know you better!”

The ravenhead could’ve just passed out at that point. She couldn’t believe you were interested in being friends with her! And you called her cute…

Marcy’s face was now at the redness scale of a tomato as her mouth slightly fell open. The girls mind could only muster up one sentence …wow.. she’s amazing.

—————————————————————————

-about a week later-

“So, Mar-mar, how’s it going so far?”

Marcy was facetiming with Anne and Sasha, talking about how things are going in her new home.

“It’s actually been really great you guys! At first I was so afraid that everything would just turn out really bad, but honestly it’s been pretty fun! And well, I have y/n to thank for that, she’s been a real life saver heh…”

Anne and Sasha glanced at each other with a questioning look on their faces, as Marcy looked a bit lost in thought with a slight blush on her features.

Why was Marcy acting so strange when she talked about you? Could it be….*gasp* :0

The two girls looked at each other with a slight smirk, both thinking the exact same thing before returning their attention back to the black haired girl.

“Marcy, tell us more about this y/n person!” Anne squealed, startling Marcy a bit, while Sasha was watching with an amused expression. “Yeah loser, tell us!”

“Oh, um well” Marcy begun as her blush returned. “She’s the first friend I made here and she’s really nice! Her eyes are e/c, along with h/c hair and s/c skin. Honestly, she’s really pretty. Oh! And she even eats lunch with me and her other friends. They’re nice too, but not as much as y/n though hehe” The ravenette got more and more enthusiastic as she continued talking, much like how she is when she’s rambling about an interest of hers.

“They also have a great music taste and style! I love her clothes, and oh my, don’t even get me started on her art! (selfinsert much👀) We share a lot of the same interests as well, and the best part is that she cares about what I care about! She even lets me rant about it, and she doesn’t think I’m a wierdo! She just really gets me y’know? Aah she’s so cool.” Marcy finished with a dreamy expression.

“Yup, she’s totally in love”

“WHAT!?”

—————————————————————————

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another-clive-blog · 4 months

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Back with more angst <3

Throw Clive in a river!! He can’t swim :(

The first thing anyone sees from him is his hat floating in the river. Then the rest of him comes along!!

Introducing : the kidnapping scene from Unwound Future, but with a twist.

TW are mention of death and drowning, boat crash (yep). This takes place between the Canon Flora kidnapping scene and the ride to the lighthouse. Without further ado- the fic !!!

"Professor, what do we do ?!" Luke was trying not to panic, he really was, but it was hard not to right now. "He took Flora and-"

"Luke, look," Layton muttered, a frown on his face. Weird- the professor was sometimes pensive, but he wasn't usually perplexed. What could possibly catch the professor of all people off guard ?

Luke narrowed his eyes, looking in the direction of the lighthouse. "He... turned around ?"

...What ?

But but- Clive had this whole plan ! He'd kidnapped Flora ! He had hit him with a plant and it still hurt by the way, even though this wasn't the right time it really did hurt-

"I don't understand..." Layton admitted, which was a revolution in itself. Luke would probably make a big deal out of it if he wasn't so confused and worried : he really hoped Flora was okay. He would never forgive himself if she wasn't...

"Professor !!"

Ah, well. She seemed just fine.

Flora, as it turned out, had become the boat's self appointed driver. A good thing, except that she was supposed to be kidnapped- and, oh yeah, she didn't actually know how to drive a boat. Or stop one.

Everyone threw themselves to the ground as Flora ran the boat into the soft dirt of the shore, going fully out of the water. Luke was actually pretty sure this was quite dangerous but then again, when he turned around, Flora was well and smiling, standing expectantly in front of them with the wreckage of a boat half-embedded into the inn.

"Flora," Layton slowly stood up, readjusting his top hat on his head, "Are you alright my dear ?"

"I am fine !" She happily replied, letting Celeste check her for any injuries.

Luke was completely lost at this point. He couldn't understand how the professor just went along with any of this after a boat literally crashed in a house, couldn't understand why Flora looked so serene and content after getting kidnapped. And where was Clive anyway ? Somewhere between the boat and the inn ? "Where- where is Clive ?" He asked, eyes wide and tone hesitant.

Clive- Clive didn't look like the type of man to so easily change his mind. He also didn't look like someone who would let Flora go right after kidnapping her. What was going on ?

Celeste was done now, having miraculously found nothing of concern- which was a bit concerning in itself actually ! Luke was glad she was okay, but she very much shouldn't be, right ? At least a bit shaken, something like that- right ?

Flora did stop smiling. She raised a hand to her cheek, suddenly looking pretty distraught and sorrowful. "Oh, I don't want to talk about it. It was terrible, really scary..."

"Scary ??" Luke repeated despite himself.

"Yes," Flora closed her sad eyes. "A tragedy."

The professor took a few steps forward, expression sympathetic. "I am sorry you had to endure this, Flora. If you want, you can-"

"He drowned."

"He did what !" Luke quite ungentlemanly yelled while Layton stopped dead in his tracks. "How did that even happen ?!"

Don Paolo, Dimitri and Celeste all turned as one to stare at the river, squinting to try and see what they were looking for. The professor also sent a glance behind him before focusing back on Flora. "Flora, my dear, please explain what you mean by that."

"He didn't know how to swim."

"How he came to drown, I mean."

"Well, he didn't swim upon falling into the water."

"How did he fall !!" Luke threw his tiny hands up. "Why did he go for a bath if he can't swim !!"

"Oh !" Flora looked at him in understanding, and Luke sighed in relief. They really were bad at communicating precisely and without any misunderstanding, weren't they ?

Flora smiled. "I pushed him overboard."

"You did what ?!" Luke cried out at the same time as the professor did, which- wow. He had never seen the professor so demonstrative of his emotions and thoughts. But also- homicide !! Probably !!

Flora gripped the fabric of her dress, lowering her head. "Well, he did kidnap me. He was talking about making sure I wouldn't escape and luring you two out there, and- and-" She clenched her fists, a pout on her face. "And he wouldn't apologize ! Not even when I asked nicely !!"

"So you killed him ?" Luke stated incredulously.

"Oh, no, I didn't kill him !" Flora looked away as if the very thought of murder was unbearable : Luke sighed in relief. He had no idea what he would've done if she actually had murdered Clive : bring her to justice ? Protect her from it ?

He was so glad he didn't have to deal with this.

Flora smiled warmly. "I didn't kill him. He drowned on his own."

#I had a drawing planned but guess what.#Yep you got it right it's on my computer and I don't have it right now <3 #Too bad but also I'm not limiting myself for these lol #It's quite alright =)#hershel layton #luke triton #clive dove #My writing #Ask #(A bit sleepy right now so I'll let you know tonight alright)

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bestworstcase · 1 year

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question: do you think Salem's immortality having an end condition is true? that is, when she was made immortal, it was so that she would 'understand the balance of life and death.' some people are treating it like a typical fairy tale virtue curse- i.e, she will die when she fulfills the condition of "understanding the balance of life and death." i personally believe that it's bullshit. she's just going to be alive, forever, and that's that. your interpretation of things seems to lend itself to this conclusion, cuz I'm pretty sure you've said something about how the gods made her immortal in a way they couldn't take back. as always, sending this just to hear your thoughts! (p.s - do you think she's capable of Ascension? I think she might be, but whether she would do it or not is another question entirely)

yeah i don’t think it’s really a curse in the typical sense. light threw her into the fountain of creation, she drowned, the water’s power revived her and bound to her forever. and then he got sanctimonious about how she needed to learn a lesson.

these two things are connected emotionally but not, i think, mechanically; if light ever intended to make her mortal again i’m certain that the end condition he has in mind was “salem learns her lesson and comes to him to grovel for forgiveness so he can judge whether she deserves to finally die.” look at the way he sets up the ultimatum for humankind! light very much sees himself as an adjudicator. he wants his judgment to be sought and obeyed.

likewise i don’t think “as long as this world turns, you shall walk its face” is a literally true statement (in the sense that salem cannot leave remnant)—first because if this were a truly literal curse then she wouldn’t be able to fly, and second because the verbiage is repeated later when light says that humankind will rise to “walk [the world’s] face” once more, so narratively this is tying salem to the resurrection of humanity itself and tying the ultimatum to salem because it’s ultimately about punishing her continued defiance. “as long as this world turns, you shall walk its face” is a poetic description meant to emphasize the weight of “you cannot die.”

it’s “you will outlive this planet and there is nothing you can do to escape that fate.”

and yeah i have major doubts that the brothers can take it back. like i said, it’s not a curse per se—the fountain of life and creation transformed her just as the pool of grimm did—and the god of light does it to her in a fit of pique. the god of darkness vaporizes her along with everyone else in the end and she just reconstitutes. at this point the god of light is either inventing whole new levels of sunk cost fallacy (it has been MILLIONS OF YEARS and she’s sworn to her defiance!) or he just can’t remove this thorn from his side.

pre-v9 my only real reservation about this line of thinking was that i’m quite sure that part of the narrative resolution will involve salem becoming mortal again, and if not the brothers then…? but as v9 delivered a cosmic force of change deeper and older than the brothers, the brothers being unable to undo it no longer poses a mechanical problem whatsoever.

which is to say that yes, i think if salem found the tree she would be just as capable of ascension as anyone else, and the more salient question is if she would choose to change and how.

as long as the ultimatum is in place, salem has a pressing reason to STAY IMMORTAL, because her immortality is what prevents ozma from immanentizing the eschaton (in which the best case scenario for her realistically is “everybody else is dead and the gods leave again”) and being immortal is the best—really, the only—weapon she has against the brothers. ozma projects his own suicidality onto her; whether salem actually IS suicidal is an open question.

though tbh i think, given the option of ascending, the real dilemma for salem would turn on her isolation and exile rather than her immortality. i’ve touched on this before but one of the main reasons i think she isn’t going to (and shouldn’t) be ‘purified’ as part of her villain -> hero arc is it’s been established pretty overtly that being grimm isn’t what made her evil, rejection and isolation made her desperate enough to embrace being the evil witch in the wilderness. so she needs to be treated like a person before she can be good, and if she has to be ‘purified’ before she can be treated like a person then it means her humanity is contingent on her looking a certain way.

(there’s uhm. a reason the story keeps using the grimm as a symbol for faunus persecution!)

and salem is old enough—and undoubtedly experienced enough persecution when she lived on the fringes of civilization—to grasp that as long as she looks grimm, people are going to see her as a grimm no matter what she does, and if she wants to be treated like a person she’s going to have to bend over backwards to prove her humanity and even that might not be enough. ozma—OZMA, who knew her and loved her before any of this nightmare began, who came back for her and chose to be with her and had children with her—even ozma would not see her as a person; he lied to her and manipulated her throughout their entire marriage and has since decided to pin the blame for all the evils in the world solely on her. is it any wonder that she’s given up?

but, like, the tree could fix that. the tree could take that away. she could be only human again. wouldn’t that be so much easier? to look like a person so she can be treated like one.

only that also really, really sucks for her, because if the only way to get even the possibility of being treated like a person is to ascend, then salem—who she is now, what she is now—fundamentally never had a chance at all and the best she can hope for is that the essence of her will find a new form that other people will judge to be deserving of kindness.

like this is what sets salem (& to an only slightly lesser extent, cinder) apart from most of the villainous cast; to a certain extent her monstrosity is socially enforced by the way other people perceive her, reinforced by thousands of years of ozma’s shadow campaign against her very existence. it’s not that she won’t change—it’s that she can’t change. she can’t make people believe that she’s a person. she can’t make them listen to her. she can’t make anyone care about her. and when she tried she was manipulated into serving the god who did this to her.

it’s blake’s “you could just be a human, or just a cat” trial with the volume dialed up to eleven. it’s “maybe you could be accepted as a person if you shed who you are now to become someone else.” is that an idea salem would ever accept? that she needs to sacrifice who she is in order to mold herself into something other people wouldn’t hate and fear on sight?

(and is that really an idea the tree, universally and unconditionally kind as it is, would let her accept?)

#i’m kind of hoping the heroes will like #try to offer ascension to her #from the mindset that grimm is the problem #bc either she goes OFF #or she does it but pulls a ruby and comes back as herself #( and then goes off )#and i think both options are very fun

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mah-o-daryaa · 5 months

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The Cycle Repeats: Part III

One of the key themes of the ATLA franchise is the concept of the Avatar; master of all 4 elements, the fusion of humanity and Raava, the spirit of light and order, whose sole duty is to bring balance to the world, and be the bridge between both the physical and spiritual realms. Along with this comes the idea of reincarnation, which is the premise of the Avatar Cycle, the idea that the Avatar reincarnates in a cyclic order in any of the four nations (fire, air, water, earth). Another concept related to the Avatar Cycle (although originating from the fandom) is the idea of the Avatar fixing the mistakes of their past life, which is often indicated in differences in both habitual circumstances and personalities between both predecessor and successor, and therefore differences in morality.

But what if I were to tell you that the saying "history repeats itself" is also true among Avatar incarnations? Not exactly going the same way, but rather parallels between the lives, personalities, and accomplishments (and failures) of past lives?

In this series of metas, I will be going over parallels (or in some cases, foils) between certain pairs of Avatars that lived decades, or even centuries apart, and yet could not have ever been more similar.

Elemental Foils II: Avatars Kuruk and Roku

"Kuruk was the Water Tribe Avatar immediately succeeding Avatar Yangchen and preceding Avatar Kyoshi. Native to the Northern Water Tribe, he was a powerful and gifted bender who dreamed of changing the mortal world for the better by uniting the people and acting upon the foundations laid by Yangchen."

"Roku was the Fire Nation-born Avatar immediately succeeding Avatar Kyoshi and preceding Avatar Aang. Roku's memory served as a guiding force for Aang throughout his quest to end the Hundred Year War."

This post will be a little different, because instead of analyzing the similarities between Kuruk and Roku, I'm going to examine the differences between them. I once again showed part of their respective Avatar Wiki to test whether there are any similarites between them; however most might say "Mone, they may technically be the same person, but aside from Raava, they're completely different people!"

And you'd be dead right.

Before we begin, we must define the word "foil". This word has many meanings, but we're going to define it with a literature standpoint (no, I don't mean the one made from aluminium). Britannica defines the word "foil" as follows:

Foil, in literature, a character who is presented as a contrast to a second character so as to point to or show to advantage some aspect of the second character. An obvious example is the character of Dr. Watson in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. Watson is a perfect foil for Holmes because his relative obtuseness makes Holmes’s deductions seem more brilliant.

You see, unlike most pairs of Avatars, Kuruk and Roku are the only true "foils", even though they are literally the same person. It's my humble belief that Kuruk is supposed to act as a narrative foil to Roku (compared to the similarities between their successors, Kyoshi and Aang respectively), especially when we take into account Kuruk's extended backstory.

(WARNING: There will be possible spoilers for both The Rise of Kyoshi and The Shadow of Kyoshi, particularly regarding Kuruk's backstory. If you do not wish to be spoiled, I suggest not reading any further and scrolling past this post until you have finished reading both novels. You have been warned.)

The first (and most obvious) difference between Kuruk and Roku is their native element; Kuruk's is water, Roku's is fire. According to the episode The Avatar and the Firelord (Book 3, Episode 6), water has even been established as the element that Roku mostly struggled with mastering (similarly to how Aang struggled to master earthbending), due to it being the opposite of fire, and thus being unable to adapt to change. As a result, it took Roku 12 years to master the four elements.

On the other hand, firebending would be the most obvious choice for the element that Kuruk would most struggle to master. However, Kuruk was stated to be a prodigy in mastering the other three elements, even going so far as to invent a master airbending technique, and being the only Avatar in history confirmed to have participated in an Agni Kai (and apparently won, considering he still has hair), so we could infer even firebending wasn't particularly difficult for him to master. We can infer that it took Kuruk around 4-5 years to master the four elements. Even then, he still asked his Team Avatar to continue teaching him so he could be the best bender of all time, saying that Pai Sho masters never stopped learning and improving their skills. (This man is basically a younger Water Tribe Avatar version of Uncle Iroh, or at least Iroh's role model.)

In The Shadow of Kyoshi, it's revealed that Avatar Yangchen neglected the spiritual world, often siding with humans when making decisions between humans and spirits. As a result, there were many dark spirits ravaging the physical world, and Kuruk hunted down and killed them, harming his own spirit in the process until his early death at 33. At this time, his physical and bending prowess were clearly challenged, especially in his battle against Father Glowworm, and that I already sort-of-talked about here. Short answer: He wasn't a weapon, he was the entire arsenal.

However, by spending so much time in the Spirit World, he accidentally neglected his physical duties (Yangchen, but in reverse), which led to the corruption of the Earth Kingdom (although, in Kuruk's defense, when is the Earth Kingdom ever not corrupt?), as well as an increase in daofei and raids by the Fifth Nation, among many others.

However, it's unknown what sort of conflict Avatar Kyoshi left behind for Roku to solve, at least until Roku's first novel, The Reckoning of Roku, arrives. (Yes, there was the Dai Li, but that was mostly Aang's problem, especially during Azula's invasion of Ba Sing Se.) From what little information we know of Roku's life that is shown in The Avatar and the Firelord, Roku mostly kept his role as the maintainer of the long-lasting peace that Kyoshi worked for. We don't really know what Roku was capable of in terms of bending; however, we can assume he was a pretty competent bender.

The real problems in Roku's time as the Avatar began with his falling out with his childhood friend Sozin. For a long time, Roku was indecisive and couldn't bring himself to kill Sozin and stop his imperialism when he had a chance. As a result, he was indirectly responsible for the Air Nomad Genocide, which resulted in the death of his successor, Avatar Aang's people (and by extension, the Hundred Year War). Roku believed that it was Aang's destiny to end the Hundred Year War and to atone for both of their mistakes, even though the Air Nomad Genocide was not Roku's fault; it was, and still is, Sozin's sole responsibility (looking at you, Avatar blamers).

Even their deaths are similar yet contrary. Kuruk "betrayed" his friends Jianzhu, Kelsang, and Hei-Ran by not communicating with them about his spiritual duties (although, technically they all "betrayed" him first by regarding him as a failure to the world). Roku, on the other hand, was betrayed by Sozin when the latter left the former to die from the volcanic explosion. Kuruk died to protect his friends, while Roku died as a result of his friend's actions.

This also adds an additional tragedy to the fact that in the Spirit World, Roku appears as an old man, while Kuruk appears as a young man. It's a common theory in the ATLA fandom that the Avatars either appear around the age of the greatest defining moment of their lives, or they choose to appear the way they do, since in The Avatar and the Firelord, Aang appeared to be bald and wearing Air Nomad robes in the Spirit World, even though at this point in time, Aang had hair and was wearing his Fire Nation disguise. Either way, it's still an unfair tragedy, since Roku was able to live a long and healthy life, while Kuruk wasn't given the same chance. This parallels their greatest regrets: Kuruk's decisiveness saved the world at the expense of his own life, while Roku's indecisiveness lengthened his own life but ruined the world. @natequarter has talked about this particular detail (in great detail) here.

And yet, their "supposed" legacies and how they are remembered don't do them the appropriate justice they deserved as merely flawed individuals. Their respective successors, Kyoshi and Aang, have contrarian views on their predecessors' achievements. Kyoshi, like the rest of the world, blamed Kuruk for the mess that was left behind for her to solve, while Aang holds Roku in high esteem and regard. I'm pretty sure the Fire Sages also respect him, since in Winter Solstice Part 2: Avatar Roku (Book 1: Episode 8), when the Fire Sages first see Roku after he took over Aang's body, they immediately prostrate before him (which indicates respect and reverence).

Kuruk was forced to sacrifice himself killing dark spirits again and again and again, and he did sort of succeed in bringing balance to the Spirit World, but no one knew the truth, and thus the world mocked Kuruk by calling him a lazy, entitled failure of an Avatar, and this was encouraged by everyone. Roku, on the other hand, had one job and failed miserably, but was never held accountable for his mistakes; rather he was held in high regard among the four nations.

This is exactly the reason why I believe that F. C. Yee made Kuruk a narriative foil to Roku by providing an extended backstory to the former. From their opposing elements, to their journeys as the Avatars of their time, to how they are remembered beyond the grave, one might understand that when you put them together in any context, they only enhance each other and their opposing traits. In the next part, I will explore the parallels between Kuruk's successor, Kyoshi, and the Water Tribe after him, Avatar Korra, along with a very special guest.

<;- Prev / 3 / Next ->

#atla #past avatars #the cycle repeats #kuruk #roku #kyoshi novels #my brain was already halfway fried throughout writing this meta #where is that creativity duck when you need it the most #I should have reblogged it when I had the chance #it reminds me of the Avatar #you know #when the world needed him most #he vanished #anyway #I hope you like this ramble #media analysis #mah rambles #mone's theory #mone digs deep

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wishfulflesh · 6 months

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a small dive into the way i think ego works (as someone who’s barely played lobcorp and knows jack shit)

ive always viewed ego as a sort-of tie(?) between the user’s mind and the suit/weapon/gift. this isn’t particularly any humongous discovery, but i have referenced this sort of thing in some of my roleplay threads. example being, “oh, the ego suits bear many different weights.” (@apocalypticangels ; cessair gillispe) ego suits act like a second pair of eyes to the user. any traumatic events they face, any physical damage they retain, any other damage- significant, or not, will be stored within its protective layers. ego suits are the link between body and soul. even if you die, your ego suit can be cleaned up and gifted to the next employee the manager sees fit to wear it. it’s a tragedy, but what are you going to do? complain? get replaced.

i’ve never really thought in depth about ego weapons linking within the user, but i also haven’t really addressed such a thing in my head. ego corrosion usually happens with ego suits and gifts from my knowledge and what i’ve seen, though, i would also expect it to be a plausible occurrence with ego weapons as well. ego weapons most likely would act more as the catalyst for the mind, rather than a holder of the user’s identity within them- like ego gifts and suits. your deepest fears, insecurities, and traumas must all be put aside to do your job. every single trait you have filters into your ego weapon- you’re kind of using your brain matter to fight. in a literal sense.

ego gifts work similarly to ego suits, though i imagine it has more of a deeper tie to the individual. for example, let’s say someone receives the Solemn Lament (funeral of the dead butterflies) ego gift. they must have gotten gifted the accessory in question for a reason. let’s also say, this person tends to bounce from job to job. the gift in question would symbolize their newly-established death pact with the corporation itself. this being has now become a forever-sown asset into lobotomy corporation’s soil. “Even if they do resign, they are doomed to stay here forever.”

building back on the ego gift point, we’ll go over the same person with their gift. some flavor text for funeral of the dead butterflies reads as such:

- “<name> thinks about the end of one’s life.”

- “Returning to whence one came in one piece is now a miracle that will never happen.”

- “The huge coffin isn’t nearly enough to substitute the hundreds of undug graves.”

- “The employees cannot return from whence they came, and have no choice but to endlessly repeat the day.”

when gifted the solemn lament ego, this is the flavor text that even gets you there in the first place. the employee working with the abnormality (supposedly) observes these qualities and experiences these thoughts, which could very much contribute to ego corrosion with their new gift. merry christmas! ego corrosion! either way, the ego is the keyhole for the soul.

i cut so much content from this out of fear ill probably revise this tomorrow and repost this with the whole rwnt im just testing the waters for now i think. please leave your input in the notes because i have other aspects of lobocrp i have my own way of thinking about

#reading from mine scriptures || writing #lobotomy corporation #lobcorp #lobotomy corporation ego #funeral of the dead butterflies #(mentioned)#this is more of a psychological standpoint on the ego thing but we ball #praying someone takes me seriously with this post instead of killing me #bcywithluv #mysoren

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aria-i-adagio · 11 months

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Apropos of the last reblog on 'animation flex,' I want to share one of the moments from film that has had the most impact on me.

I grew up in the Church of Christ, which is an increasingly variable, but generally fundamentalist denomination, based largely in the South. 'Biblical literalism' is a key tenet, and it is typically unquestioning Biblical literalism. Definitely do not ask questions of the text. (And while technically, each believer is supposed to be entitled to their own reading, in practice it's generally, 'read this the way you were taught and don't ask questions.')

The Prince of Egypt was released in 1998 when I was 12 and immediately became the go to, non-objectionable and perhaps even edifying movie.

They underestimated just how much impact masterful animation has in terms of framing a narrative. The Prince of Egypt is brilliantly empathetic in how it interweaves human emotion into the story and opens it to something which can not be read a single voiced narrative with a easy interpretation.

Try not to cry during the opening sequence.

youtube

Miracle - yes. But it isn't just a glorious celebration; the music and visuals also drive home the excruciating choice Yochaved is forced to make, and Miriam's terror.

Then we have this moment.

youtube

Consider the haunted expression in Seti's eyes. There's no excuse here made for genocide (see the horror with which Pharaoh's statement 'oh my son, they were only slaves' moments later is framed), but in allowing him a moment of complexity, it brings in the problem of evil. Father (Pharaoh), tell me you didn't do this? Father (God), tell me you didn't allow this suffering to happen?

The recognition of the problem of evil continues with the framing of the death of the firstborn.

youtube

If the sequence above doesn't make you shiver... well, okay, it doesn't make you shiver. The limited color palette, the way the camera lingers on the outstretched hand of the boy carrying the water jar, and finally, Ramses abject, palpable grief, and Moses's own grief because Ramses is still his brother, still a human man who he loves. His moment of collapse when he leaves is an acknowledge of the cost no matter whose vanity is being served. Ramses's heart is not the only one broken in the sequence. This is not a clean victory.

If you aren't familiar with the Biblical text, during the ten plagues, it is repeated that the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart in order for more and greater wonders to be performed. Is the Biblical text itself more complex? Yes, I would argue that is certainly the case, once one learns to read the text as complex. But that is not the way CofC Sunday School and VBS teach you to read. Pharoah is treated more as a comical villain. Don't ask about the dead children: They were just Egyptians.

And so, this is how I came to learn to read the Biblical text as a complex text which invites questions and interrogations and not blind obedience. Perhaps not even with a fixed answer.

So, yeah, animation flex.

#aria on a tangent #the prince of egypt #religious studies major problems #problem of evil #Youtube

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hepatosaurus · 1 year

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national poetry month, day 21

After My Brother’s Death, I Reflect on the Iliad The water cuts out while shampoo still clogs my hair. The nurse who swabs my nose hopes I don’t have the virus, it’s a bitch. The building across from the cemetery calls itself LIFE STORAGE. My little brother was shot, I tell the barista who asks how things have been, and tip extra for her inconvenience. We speak only to the dead, someone tells me—to comfort, I assume, or inspire, but I take it literally, as I am wont: even my shut up and fuck and let’s cook tonight, those are for you, Stephen. You won’t come to me in my dreams, so I must communicate by other avenues. A friend sends an image from Cy Twombly’s “Fifty Days at Iliam” —a red bloom, the words “like a fire that consumes all before it”— and asks: Have you seen this? It’s at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. If I have, I can’t remember, though I did visit with you, when you were eleven or twelve, when you tripped silent alarm after silent alarm, skating out of each room as guards jostled in, and I—though charged with keeping you from trouble—joined the game, and the whole time we never laughed, not till we were released into the grand air we couldn’t touch and could. You are dead at twenty-two. As I rinse dishes, fumble for my keys, buy kale and radishes, in my ear Priam repeats, I have kissed the hand of the man who killed my son. Would I do that? I ask as I pass the store labelled SIGNS SIGNS. I’ve studied the mug shot of the man who killed you; I can imagine his hands. Of course I would. Each finger, even. To hold your body again. And to resurrect you? Who knows what I am capable of. If I were. Nights, I replay news footage: your blood on asphalt, sheen behind caution tape. Homer’s similes, I’ve been told, are holes cut in the cloth between the world of war and another, more peaceful world. On rereading, I find even there, a man kills his neighbor. “Let Achilles cut me down, / as soon as I have taken my son into my arms and have satisfied my desire for grief”—this, my mind’s new refrain in the pharmacy queue, in the train’s rattling frame. The same friend and I discuss a line by Zbigniew Herbert “where a distant fire is burning / like a page of the Iliad.” It’s nearly an ontological question, my friend says, the instability of reference: The fires in the pages of the poem, the literal page set afire. We see double. You are the boy in the museum. You are the body consumed, ash. Alone in a London museum, I saw a watercolor of twin flames, one black, one a gauzy red, only to learn the title is “Boats at Sea.” It’s like how sometimes I forget you’re gone. But it’s not like that, is it? Not at all. When in this world, similes carry us nowhere. And now I see again the boy pelting through those galleries a boy not you, a flash of red, red, chasing, or being chased— Or did I invent him? Mischief companion. Brother. Listen to me plead for your life though even in the dream I know you’re already dead. How do I insure my desire for grief is never satisfied? Was Priam’s ever? I tell my friend, I want the page itself to burn. —Elisa Gonzalez

#elisa gonzalez #after my brother's death i reflect on the iliad #poetry #national poetry month #npm2023 #grief

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slytherinqueen123 · 9 months

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book rec

ok if your anything like me and are lowkey OBSESSED with henry the eighth, (aka just his wives), i have THE BOOK for you. it’s called the dead queens club by hannah capon and people have described it as mean girls meets the tudor’s. it’s set in high school and it’s the best. it has some hype but i love it and i hope you will too x

here’s the summary for you guys ❤️

What do a future ambassador, an overly ambitious Francophile, a hospital-volunteering Girl Scout, the new girl from Cleveland, the junior cheer captain, and the vice president of the debate club have in common? It sounds like the ridiculously long lead-up to an astoundingly absurd punchline, right? Except it’s not. Well, unless my life is the joke, which is kind of starting to look like a possibility given how beyond soap opera it’s been since I moved to Lancaster. But anyway, here’s your answer: we’ve all had the questionable privilege of going out with Lancaster High School’s de facto king. Otherwise known as my best friend. Otherwise known as the reason I’ve already helped steal a car, a jet ski, and one hundred spray-painted water bottles when it’s not even Christmas break yet. Otherwise known as Henry. Jersey number 8.

Meet Cleves. Girlfriend number four and the narrator of The Dead Queens Club, a young adult retelling of Henry VIII and his six wives. Cleves is the only girlfriend to come out of her relationship with Henry unscathed—but most breakups are messy, right? And sometimes tragic accidents happen…twice…

ok that one’s kinda mid so here’s the blurb…

If your school’s homecoming king had a little too much in common with Henry VIII, would you survive with your head still attached?

You’d think being the new girl in a tiny town would equal one very boring senior year. But if you’re me—Annie Marck, alias Cleves—and you accidentally transform into teenage royalty by entering Lancaster High on the arm of the king himself? Life becomes the exact opposite of boring.

Henry has it all: he’s the jock, the genius and the brooding bad boy all in one. Which sort of explains why he’s on his sixth girlfriend in two years.

What it doesn’t explain is why two of them—two of us—are dead.

My best friend thinks it’s Henry’s fault, which is obviously ridiculous. My nemesis says we shouldn’t talk about it, which is straight-up sketchy. But as the resident nosy new girl, I’m determined to find out what really happened to Lancaster’s dead queens…ideally before history repeats itself

PLEASE GO CHECK IT OUT, ITS LITERALLY THE BEST AND NOTHING LIKE PHILLIPA GREGORYS STUFF. (no hate to queen phillipa) it’s slapstick funny, witty as all hell and there’s girls supporting girls EVERY PAGE!!!

#the dead queens club #book recs #anna boleyn #lina aragon #ugh jane seymour #katie howard my baby #cleves AKA MY ALL TIME ICON #cat parr our queen #PARKER ROCHFORD I LOVE YOU

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realmmaker · 9 months

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Any idea is a potential world. Really. Commonality Part I (the Geography).

While rummaging through a drawer, I came across a scrambled Rubik's Cube. Now like the average person, I can't solve the puzzle but kept fiddling with it regardless. As the blocks continued to shuffle and click, it set off an idea that turned into a whole world.

The name of this post and subsequent follow-ups will be Project Commonality. So stay tuned for regular updates. What is the closest thing to a Rubik's Cube we can relate to? The answer lies right in front of us, rather we live on the answer. A small rock floating in space, neatly divided into quadrangular segments by imaginary lines. Earth is divvied by latitudes and longitudes.

These segments are called Graticules (technical term, I checked). How does this tie into a Rubik's Cube? Well, like how every piece on the cube turns, let's have the graticules turn around, shall we? Imagine Earth where the graticules turn at periodic intervals vertically and horizontally like a Rubik's Cube. Also like a Rubik's cube we have to make the opposite central squares immobile, that is the North and South Poles.

So we have a world in which chunks are moving freely (except immobile ones), now for that to happen in some realistic sense let's make sure each graticule is its own tectonic plate (which slides down all the way into the mantle from the crust) that is capable of moving freely across the mantle.

We have boundaries made, but can they be expanded upon? Let's jump deeper into the scientific aspect itself. There are 4 spheres- atmosphere, lithosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere each representing air, land, water, and life respectively.

Since life (the carbon-based one we are very familiar with) originates within the water, it's very reasonable to merge both spheres onto the same lines. Meanwhile, lines denoting atmosphere and lithosphere will always be apart. Since water and aquatic life are continuously connected across the latitudes there will be continuous oceans along the laterals (East-West) of the world.

What about the atmosphere, lithosphere lines then which represent thematic opposites? How about we create a literal divide (contrasting the literal combination of hydrosphere and biosphere)?

From the image, we can see the world's graticules divided into continuous steps. Each unit has an altitude rise as we move north along the graticule, a common apex height, and then an abrupt drop into a gap where lava erupts from large geysers (these develop rock caps that blow open as the graticule moves and cool down again into caps). Beyond the lava lies the next graticule and its lowest point where this trend is repeated again. This continues throughout the world. The dead space is empty, mostly uninhabitable land that is exposed to lava outbursts as wind is funneled from the top of the graticule downwards, resulting in pushing lava into the dead zone. These lava eruptions also make contact between North-South graticules next to impossible while East-West graticules can easily interact as they are connected primarily by water and don't have the mantle bursting regularly.

From the picture below we can see how the world looks like a giant, spiky ball that constantly shifts. The altitude gradients support the wind flow and how air would result in accumulating lava periodically in the dead zone.

Due to this interesting structure, the people of the world mostly interact only along the East-West direction while never attempting North-South contact due to inherent risk.

This behavior will give rise to many different peoples, ideologies, and cultures which we will be detailed in the following parts with inspirations different from the Rubik's Cube.

Stay tuned for the next part. Releasing soon! Mr. Real Make

#worldbuilding #creative process #creative expression #original fiction

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