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#Man i love how religious warrior cats is
millimononym · 1 year
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I am deeply concerned that a mspaint warrior cats gijinka comic meant to be purposefully shitty by emulating early 2010s cringe is the most I'll probably ever get on this hellsite. I should make another one
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nahnothinginmind · 4 months
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Debating if I should restrain myself or let myself go apeshit here and unironically start to write essay and essay about all my special interests. Mask completely off
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crazylittlejester · 9 days
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I return with a short list of headcannons
Twilight has anemia. He is so pale despite being a farm boy and the only farm boy I knew who was as pale as him also had anemia. Give this boy some iron supplements pls.
You may think Wild and Hyrule are the problem children when together, but if you added Four it's as if you sent three overly hyper children into a candy store. Zero brain cells are to be found.
Every bird loves Sky. Every. Single. One. He has Disney princess vibes.
Warriors cannot sing for the life of him. You know Scuttle from the Little Mermaid? Thats what he sounds like.
Fairies love Hyrule and Time so much that it isn't uncommon to see the small balls of light attempt to "kidnap" them. (Which in reality is just them repeatedly hitting themselves against the two since they can't push them, and it's adorable.)
Time, in his youth, would starve himself since he was so used to eating very little. Malon threatened to throw a cow at him if he didn't start eating. Time hasn't starved himself since.
Wind believes babies come from storks and I will die on that hill.
Legend, despite what many others headcannon for him, is religious. I like to think that he doesn't worship Hylia, but Farore.
Twilight is also religious, but for the light spirits. I like to think that Ordon's religion is simular to our paganism.
All the Links (minus Legend and Wind) experienced horrible sea sickness when they first got on Tetra's boat.
Twilight has a prosthetic arm after his arm was cut off during his adventure. You know the "need a hand" joke? That's how he revealed his prosthetic to the chain. He threw his arm to Sky, causing the man to pass out out of shock and horror (since Skyloft hasn't made the medical advancements for prosthetics!)
Cats love the Links, even if Four is deathly afraid of them. It's because the remlets loved Sky back when they existed.
Thanks for sharing these I had fun reading them!! I’m sorry it took me so long to respond to ur ask, I wanted to make sure I had enough time to read through all of them and respond :)
- Oooh Twilight with anemia is interesting. I personally headcanon that Twilight has one of the darkest skin tones of the bunch, along with Sky and Hyrule, while Legend and Time are the two palest
- Four to me gives off incredibly responsible energy, but when you pair him with someone else, he goes nuts and gets real silly real quick
- SKY DISNEY PRINCESS REAL. That boy has sung and held out his hand and a bird has landed in it, I just know it.
- I actually have a fic series I wrote where Wars was just completely tone deaf but did not let that stop him from screaming along to the radio. I think normal Wars would secretly be a decent singer but be bad on purpose because its a skill he’s anxious about
- I headcanon that fairies will just it in Time’s hair and let him walk around and carry them, and that they also do this to Hyrule and Wild as well
- I have a similar headcanon that Time used to only live off of nuts and fruits and cried the first time he saw Malon kill a cow for food. He’s over it now, but he’s still upset if he has to see it happen and will not kill an animal himself
- WIND ABSOLUTELY BELIEVES THAT AND I THINK HE’D CRY IF SOMEONE TOLD HIM OTHERWISE
- As far as the Links and religion go, I don’t think any of the hate Hylia, I think some are a bit bitter but I think at the end of the day they all know its not her fault. And yes to Legend worshipping Farore and Twilight the light spirits!
- I would like to add that I don’t think Wild would get sea sick. But all the others? Dead. Gone actually. One boat ride and they’re on the floor. Sky’s been in boats before but he hates them
- Twilight with a prosthetic arm would be an absolute menace to society oh good god 😭😭😭 (I’m obsessed with this headcanon btw, i love it)
- CATS LOVING LINKS BECAUSE REMLITS LOVED SKY IS SO CUTE. TEARS IN MY EYES RN THAT’S ADORABLE.
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trans-luis-serra · 5 months
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TELL ME ABOUT TRANS LUIS!!! I WANT HIM TO BE TRANS SO BAD! (Also he has a giant neon sign over his head that says gay, this man reeks of homosexual)
HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHE OMG HEYYYYY HIIIIIII HELLOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! I’m SOOOOOO sorry this took so long I had SO MANY THOUGHTS!!!!! I plan on SOMEDAY Doing Like. A properly credited and researched document on why I think Luis is trans so this post is more or less kind of a tl;dr rather than a super proper read?????????? And ofc obligatory ‘this is just my own reading and personal interpretation if you disagree please just keep your opinion to yourself!!!!!’
Also this isn’t proofread like. At ALL so please ignore any sentences that seem wonky or weird HDBEHENDUDJX
ALSO also I do NOT give permission for this post to be screenshotted or reposted ANYWHERE!!!!!!!!!!! No part of this!! Don’t steal!!
Trigger warning for just general mentions of transphobia, religious transphobia and also I talk the death statistics for trans people near the end, so please keep that in mind when reading!!
Ok so, I’m gonna try and put this as chronologically as possible BXBSHDNSHDND but starting at the beginning from when Luis was little there’s already a few things we can pick up on
Luis has a pretty unorthodox family; his mum died when he was little and his dad left so he had to be raised by his Grandfather, and, ask any Trans person around you and they’ll tell you it’s oftentimes the people in their lives who weren’t their direct parents who decided to pick them up and raise them and accept them as they truly are- I feel like you could probably read this with Luis’ grandfather if you really wanted to, too. From what we can TEEEEEEELLL Luis held his grandfather and the memory of him very near and dear to his heart (ie referencing him in conversation, saying ‘not again’ when the medicine burns in seperate ways etc) so you could probably guess that maybe Luis’ grandfather was a surprisingly accepting figure in Luis’ life!!!!!
Which would also line up with the little we know about him- their house was somewhat far away from the rest of the village and from what the notes about him read, his grandfather was a bit of an outcast????? It seemed like the only person who checked in on him regularly was Bitorez- once again, another positive male figure in Luis’ life that he could theoretically look up to and admire.
AND we know that Luis’ grandfather encouraged his love for science and biology- something that prooooobably would’ve been frowned upon in a super conservative catholic glorified cult. So already, Luis and his Grandfather are a bit unorthodox in the setting they live in.
Then we cut to Don Quixote; obviously there’s a LOT to dissect about Luis and his love for that book, and it’s pretty common knowledge how,,,,,,,,, g a y that book is HXNEHENEUDIX like MAAAAAANY-a historians have already pointed that out I don’t need to beat a dead horse but ask literally any trans person around you and they’ll tell you about how they had a fascination with like,, Warrior Cats or Animorphs or Percy Jackson or Peter Pan growing up only to find out they were trans later. Trans kids are pretty drawn to books with unlikely protagonists who don’t fit the usual stereotypes and go on adventures with a whacky misfit family they formed by themselves- and Don Quixote kiiiiiiiiiiiinda falls under that pattern????? It’s a REALLY weird book and I wanna get into why later but it wouldn’t be shocking to assume that Luis probably grasped onto that idea of finding love and acceptance even though he was weird and unusual and he too could go on chivalrous adventures and do good in the world and be loved for who he is (I’ve kinda gone into this before and I plan on going into it again I’ll tag you in that post!!!!)
There’s also something to note about the fact that none of the village notes reference Luis by his first name. Luis is apparently a very “strong and masculine” name so if we ARE going off of the assumption that Luis is trans (which like,,. Duh HDNEHENDHS) then we can probably assume he picked that name for himself
It’s also pretty notable to note (hah) that like,,,,,, just in general, a lot of kids who grow up in a super religious environment just. Turn out gay and trans. I dunno why. I dunno what’s the exact statistic for that but like. Cmon. We’ve all seen it. We all know it right
Then huzzah! Luis’ Grabdfather dies!!! How sweet of him!!!!! /s obviously but Luis takes his death as an opportunity to run from home- again, something that’s sadly quite common amongst younger trans people it seems. When you loose your only support at home, and suddenly that home becomes unsafe, oftentimes the only solution is to run.
Now I’ve talked MUUUUUUCH more in depth about it in this post but considering the fact that Luis was probably a young teenager, an immigrant from the middle of nowhere, and had zero family or support- there’s a less than zero chance that he probably would have stumbled across the queer community one way or another. See, all throughout the 20th century, the queer and poc/immigrant communities were VERY intertwined- now I am WHITE AS ALL HELL so their history isn’t something I’m able to speak on with any amount of grace as actual people of colour could, so I’ll keep this breif and also if I’ve misrepresented anything PLEEEEAAASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME
Basically, like I said- the communities were very intertwined. They’d help each other and were sometimes seen as like the same circle of people when it came to what they were fighting for. All throughout history, this comes up time and time again- which is why I can only assume that Luis, a young person of colour having come from basically the middle of nowhere, would most likely find solace and a place in both communities- and would ABSOLUTELY have explored his gender and sexuality because of it. Even if he WAS cis there’s no way he wouldn’t have at least dabbled in a bit of the ol gender exploration every now and then
((Also, VEEEERY important to note that yes although trans and poc history are very intertwined they are still very seperate histories. It’s VERY IMPORTANT to not erase poc voices from this discussion when talking about this aspect of history- listen to your poc friends first and foremost before all else))
It’s also probably good to note that a few universities around that time were pretty notoriously open about being queer-friendly but we have no clue what exact university in Europe Luis would have gone to but idk we can probably guess he fooled around with some men and women HANSYWNEYENDUCJX
Then we cut to umbrella. I and a few other people have gone into how umbrella would have most likely groomed a young Luis into being excited to work with them and willing via offering him a place to stay, a college degree, a stable life etc etc but there’s also a sense of horror there when you take into account they could’ve offered him the ability to medically transition. Something that was NOT easy or very safe to do at the time. And plus this is resident evil so we can only guess what magical hoodicky they would’ve gotten to do that GDBEYWNDYDJ
From what we can tell, luis honestly enjoyed his time with umbrella!!!! He seemed to be friends with his coworkers and he was proud of the work he was doing (Yknow, before he would have found out it was all a lie and was going to kill millions HXBEHENEH) and honestly isn’t that every trans persons dream????? To have a job where you’re accepted and can feel safe at??????? To have friends who can accept you???????? It just makes what all went down all the more heartbreaking to me if we DO view him in the lens of being a trans character!!!!!!!!!
And then, of course, for the second time in his life; everything comes crumbling down. I’ve done seperate analysis on this and I plan on doing another cuz what I’m about to mention just hits,,,,,,,, S O O O O close to home to me, but when everything in his life gets destroyed AGAIN;
Luis chooses to go back to Valdelobos.
And isn’t that just so devastating?????? Because we as humans ALL do that- when life gets so bad and so intense we have no clue what to do, we all wanna turn to our parents or our childhood homes and get a hug and that feeling of nostalgia and safety from when we were kids that we missed.
But ask any other trans person and they’ll tell you that a lot of the time, that’s not what you’re gonna get; and that’s what happened to Luis. He went home, hoping- BEGGING- for some kind of support from the nightmares he just went through, only to be thrown straight into another one. Los Illuminados had been taken over and reverted his childhood home into something totally unrecognisable and forced him to work for them or else he’d literally be tortured. And isn’t that just,,,,, made all the more depressing when you look at it from a trans angle????
In this case scenario, when a lot of Trans people are forced to return to unsafe homes- they’re forced to push down their identity for their own safety. And reading that in Luis is just all the more devastating
And then there’s the whole thing where Luis literally SELF SURGICALLY REMOVED THE LAS PLAGAS FROM HIMSELF????????? WHY DONT MORE PEOPLE TALK ABT HOW TRAUMATISING THAT MUSTVE BEEN????????????? I know @/katabay made an INCREDIBLE post going into a religious reading on this and how I’m Don Quixote Alonso himself preforms an excorsism on himself and it’s weirdly erotic?????? And how that translates to Luis’ Plagas removal- they also made INCREDIBLE art go check it out- but throughout history there are a LOT of poems made by “”””women who want to be men”””” (aka trans men) who were religious at some point and describe the sensation of binding or getting top surgery to that of having an exorcism (this was mostly done to convince local churches that Hey no it was totally cool actually just let us get gender affirming care pretty pretty please) so, y’know,,,, maybe that meme that Luis showing Leon is scar was actually him coming out as trans wasn’t that far off HEBWYENXUXJXJDNC
And there’s also just the whole fact that he was a scientist that plays into this, too- Catholicism, specifically the hardcore Catholicism that Luis grew up with, absolutely HATES science. And the fact that Valdelobos seemed to be permanantly stuck in this 18th century cult-like state only confirms that they probably would have been anti-medicine, too; not only adding onto Luis’ guilt but also making him a prestigious scientist all the more impressive. Imagery that Luis is shown with (like that lil casket he carried around in seperate ways filled with the suppressants Ada needed) is often used by people in cults similar to Valdelobos to prove that ‘oh science is the devil!!!’ Etc, and y’know what else is related to science????
Medically transitioning babey!!!!!! A lot of the times hardcore religious people, again in similar cults to Valdelobos, use terms like ‘mutulating’ to describe medically transitioning and use already devil-associated imagery like science and modern medicine to hammer home that hatred of trans people (also obligatory not all religious people are like this in fact MOST religious people aren’t like this I’m talking specifically situations like the Gloriavale cult etc etc)
So like,,,,, again, that whole meme that Luis made his own testosterone wouldn’t be too far off BXNSHENDHDNX
But then we get some light at the end of this very depressing tunnel HXNSHENDUJ;
Leon, Ada and Ashley
Now from here on out I’m gonna get into some more like,,, CHARACTER dissection so I figured here would be the best place to put this HDBEYENEUS; Luis fits ALL the stereotypes of a stealth queer person during his time period. Like,, you know the song Gay or European????? Yeah that isn’t a joke that’s a real rhing European queer and trans men did to basically hide the fact that they were queer. It’s like. The oldest trick in the book. Which is why it’s SOOOOOO funny to me when I see Reddit dudebros going “errrrrmm actually Luis isn’t gay it’s just his Spanish charm!!” LIKE DUDE. YOUVE FALLEN FOR T H E TRICK. THIS IS THE EQUIVALENT OF A BIRD USING THEIR TAIL FEATHERS TO DISTRACT A PREDATOR.
And also Spain in general just has a very long and very beautiful Queer and Trans history- obviously it’d be way too much to fit into this one post but I highly reccomend just,,,, looking it up for yourself. Queer people have always been around :))
Ok ok, back to Leon- I plan on someday taking apart and dissecting EEEEEEEEEVERY interaction between them cuz it’s just. It’s all SO GAY. But in general, Luis treats Leon SO much differently than Ashley and Ada but in a good way!!!!!
Luis isn’t afraid to be open around Leon. He isn’t afraid to be flamboyant and jokey and flirt with him- and hell, he probably did enjoy that chain scene HXNEHENEUDJDJ he isn’t afraid to be more vulnerable and just generally what you wouldn’t consider a stereotypical “manly-man;” he doesn’t conform to western societies of stereotypical masculinity, and he isn’t afraid to show that around Leon.
He’s open with Leon- he’s vulnerable and he very openly CARES about Leon. He truly wears his heart on his sleeve and this is for a MULTITUDE of different reasons but I think a big part of it is not just because he’s genuienly attracted to Leon but because leon is a shining example of a chivalrous knight to him
I and many others have gone into this further; but when Luis first met Leon in that body bag, it probably honestly WAS like he was meeting his very own Don Quixote for the first time. He was probably a shining example of everything he wanted to be; brave, kind, never makes mistakes- and again I’ve gone into this further but this truly does play into his character and his very noble quest for redemption and forgiveness a lot and viewing this from a Trans angle just gives that quest SO much more power
Capcom does their best to make Leon out to be a super strong manly-man and @highball66 has gone into some of Leon’s own queer coding, but I think Luis also sees through this. He sees through his macho dudebro masculinity and he sees a genuine and kind human being underneath; just as Leon had done for him. Leon is everything Luis wants to be in a man- just like his grandfather and probably countless male figures in his life before him. So he’s not afraid to open up to Leon; he isn’t held back by that expectation of toxic masculinity because he wasn’t raised that way.
And he’s the EXACT SAME with Ada and Ashley too!!!!!!!! He CARES about Ada! He’s CONSTANTLY looking out for her and giving her the benefit of the doubt and he’s always so polite and kind around her!!!!!!!! Like yeah he puts on the front of being a ladies-man but again like SOOO many others before me have mentioned that’s probably just a safety front!!!!!! He wears his heart on his sleeve around Ada and Ashley, too- he’s always SO polite around her I feel like not enough people point that out????? He offered his hand out for her to take before inspecting the blood, he’s always asking for permission before he touches her etc he’s so nice people don’t give him enough credit for that!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And theeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnn it aaaaaaaaalll comes crashing down when he diiiiiieeeeeeessss,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
It’s pretty important to note that Luis is killed by Krauser; and again, other people have gone into Leon and Krausers queer relationship coding a lot better than I have, but it’s pretty interesting to note that Luis was killed by the guy who pretty much encapsulates all forms of toxic masculinity (again, that meme that everyone jokes about that Krauser killed Luis cuz he was jealous of Leon’s new boyfriend might not be far off HXHWHDUXHSH)
Luis uses his final breath to save Leon- to save the man who has shown him forgiveness and empathy and love for the first time in god knows how long. He opens his heart up to Leon in his final moments; he does one last ‘such a loss to the ladies of the world eh?’ As a last-ditch effort to try and convince Leon that he tooooooootally isn’t queer you guys and to try and hold onto that sense of normality; but he drops that act immedietly after Leon shows him that he’s taking this seriously
He opens up to Leon and admits that he led a pretty shitty life. He spills his heart out to Leon and asks him if people can change. And I’ve said rhis before and I’ll say it again; this is Luis looking for some kind of confirmation. Some kind of forgiveness and some way of saying that Yes his life DID mean something- that people CAN change and CAN be loved like he loved Leon and Leon loved him. And, hell, if we’re REEEEEAALY tryna stretch here (which I mean this whole post is tbh HXBSHSNEHDNSHD) you could even read this as Luis asking for somebody to accept him as he truly is, and see past the facade of a super flamboyant cis straight man. It’s not a stretch to say this moment is him looking and hoping that Leon can see through his past actions and see the beautiful human being underneath- so it wouldn’t be crazy to view it under a queer light either
Then, of course, Leon says that iconic line; you were a fine knight, Don Quixote. Confirming to Luis that he WAS like the chivalrous knight he always looked up to when he was little. Not just for his bravery and confidence; but also for his exploration of gender and non conformity in his sexuality. Leon confirms that for him in his final moments.
Then of course there’s the nature of his death; the fact that he dies below his childhood village is pretty telling to me.
Now this is where I’m gonna get into some depressing statistics, so readers beware, but unfortunately, there is a good chunk of trans people who will die in their childhood homes for many reasons. There’s been a good chunk of trans people all throughout history who have lived long, full lives but still were buried in their childhood homes and towns under their dead name or under the gender they were assigned to at birth. It’s depressing and there really is no making light of it- which is why Luis dying in the village he grew up in and tried so desperately to escape from hits so hard to me.
• Now HOPEFULLY obviously I am N O T comparing Luis’ death to actual real trans people’s deaths. But as somebody who HAS lost trans friends to suicide, the manner of his death absolutely REMINDS me of that and thus hits home harder for me. Go give your trans friends a hug, basically
But on the bright side, at least he didn’t die alone. He had Leon; he had somebody who could, theoretically, show the world who he truly was and remember him by his true name and nature. Luis won’t be totally forgotten underground; he’ll have Leon and Ashley and Ada ro remember the man he truly was just like how many, many trans people who have passed away will have friends and loved ones who will remember them for who they truly are.
Now I don’t wanna end this whole analysis on such a depressing note so I’ll add this at the end; I genuienly think that even if you DONT headcannon Luis as Trans, adding that element to his character not only enriches his already INCREDIBLY well written story but also just generally means the world to trans people in real life, too
Like,,,,, I’ve mentioned this before but I’ll say it again; seeing a character who is so genuinely confident in themselves, so open about their emotions and their identity and who holds themselves in a way that isn’t stereotypically “masculine”- that honestly hits so much closer to home than any other trans headcannon ever has. I’ve gone into detail about how much Luis as a character means to me, but seriously, reading him from this angle lowkey makes me want to cry with how much it means to me HDBEHENEHDJX
Luis is a Beautifully written character who shows the best and worst in all of us humans- who shows that we all just want to love and be loved and be forgiven and given the opportunity to change. All trans people deserve that, too; we all deserve the opportunity to live our lives to the fullest.
Even if you want to comment ‘ErM weLl CapCoM woUlD nEVeR hAvE a TrAns ChaRaCTeR-“ does it really matter???? Does it matter if a character has a canon label slapped onto them, if people can already analyse that character from their own perspective and find deep meaning in that themselves????? Is a character who is canonically queer any more meaningful than a character who isn’t????? I don’t think so, cuz clearly, myself and many, many others find solace and comfort and relatability in the fine knight that is Luis Serra
And finally; André Peña, Luis Serra’s voice actor, has been VERY vocal about his support for trans people and has even said he absolutely 100% believes that Luis would believe in trans rights- so suck it transphobes!!!!!!!!!!!!! Luis is for US!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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cheesybadgers · 2 months
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Narcos Fic: Old Habits Die Hard (Chap. 22)
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, Chapter 21, Chapter 23, Chapter 24
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Masterlist
Pairing: Javier Peña x Horacio Carrillo
Words: 6,985
Summary: As Horacio's and Javier's stay in Manizales comes to an end, Elena has some words of wisdom and an unexpected offer for their future.
Warnings: 18+ ONLY. Discussions of coming out, grief, parental loss, canon-typical violence, religious themes, brief non-explicit sexual references, smoking, swearing.
Notes: As promised, here's the second half of their Manizales adventures. I'm still wrestling with editing chapter 23 at the moment, plus life has been kind of busy/stressful lately, so not sure when it will be ready to post. But the finish line is definitely within touching distance now ❤️
Thank you once again to anyone still reading/commenting/making moodboards and playlists or drawing, I'm blown away when my fic inspires others to create. I'll be making a proper masterlist once the fic is finished, where I'll link to everything people have made or have suggested playlist songs etc., plus there'll be my own playlist and moodboards.
Feel free to drop me a comment, whether it's about the new chapter or an older one, I'm always happy to chat 😊
I’ve also added to my OHDH trivia post to cover this chapter if anyone is interested.
Chapter 22: Past, Present, Future
The early morning mist transformed into drizzle in the time it took Horacio to run around the farm boundaries, the spray cooling his clammy skin as he worked up a sweat. He left Javier to wake and shower at his own leisurely pace, a routine they had settled into since arriving here. Although two mornings ago, both Javier and Alejandra were suspiciously worse-for-wear, and Horacio didn’t see much of either of them until after lunch.
Today, they planned to join one of Fabián’s tours, which included a coffee-tasting session. So, even if the exercise hadn’t woken Horacio up, the caffeine certainly would.
The rain eased off once back at the finca, sunrays now straining to break through the low clouds as Horacio showered and dressed, somehow still beating Javier.
Tempting aromas from the kitchen let Horacio know his Mamá was already up and about after making the children breakfast before Alejandra dropped them off at school.
As he sat down at the kitchen table and poured himself a glass of orange juice – his usual coffee would wait for later – both cats, Caturra and Bourbon, took turns rubbing themselves against his legs.
“You and Alejandra loved that stray cat when you were young,” said Elena, who had appeared from the larder with her arms full of eggs, chorizo and arepas. “What was her name?”
“Estrella.”
“She was the next best thing to a jaguar, and you were desperate to see one back then.”
“I remember. Never did, though.”
“Not many get the privilege these days.”
“Can’t say I blame them for keeping out of sight.”
Horacio remembered his Abuela Margarita telling him stories of how the jaguar, snake and condor were the original creators of the world and how the jaguar was tricked by man into parting with its power of fire. The feline creature was forced to survive on its cunning and strength alone, prowling around the mountains and jungles of Colombia, waiting patiently to exact revenge.
For too long, Horacio had stalked, clawed and mauled his prey all over Medellín, seeking vengeance on those who betrayed his country and its people. He was an apex predator maintaining balance and order in the food chain, not out of choice but necessity. A reluctant warrior backed into a corner until a palpable sense of duty kicked in when the threat was too real to ignore.
But whatever the unseen truth was, jaguars gained a reputation as ferocious killers, feared by humans until they became the hunted rather than the hunter, gunned down and chased into hiding and a life of solitude. An act of cowardice by the jaguar on the face of it, but these days, Horacio liked to think of it as an evolutionary advantage, the opposite side of the fight-or-flight coin.
“It’s understandable, yes. But a life in the shadows has its drawbacks.”
“True. But there can be a certain kind of freedom in the dark. Especially when those with flares want you dead.”
“Not everyone offering light wants that, Mijo.”
Horacio, who had focused on the floor for most of the conversation, finally looked up, hazel eyes mirrored back at him with extra shades of wisdom. His dour expression softened, and his shoulders sagged in concession. “I know.”
“Whilst I’ve got you here…” Elena trailed off, disappearing upstairs before returning with a small wooden trinket box.
She sat down at the table and extracted a gold chain from the box. “He’d want you to have it.”
Horacio stared at the pendants that swung back and forth like a pendulum clock as Elena held them out towards him. His cheeks hollowed, and his lips formed a sharp pout from how tightly he held his jaw in place. “Mamá, I can’t. Not after everything. Not after I ran away.”
“What are you talking about?”
“After I was injured, I went into hiding...in Laredo, Texas. And I quit.” He grasped his hands together and bowed his head as though in prayer, but he wasn’t sure even God could help him now he had confessed his sins. “I’m sorry I kept it from you. And I know you’re probably wondering why I went –”
“Javier.”
Horacio froze, undecided if he was caught off guard by the mention of Javier’s name or how he could hear his Mamá’s smile as she said it, as though it was the most glaringly obvious response anyone could ever have given.
“It’s okay, Mijo. You don’t have to explain yourself. He told me about the ranch whilst you and Alejandra cleaned up on your first night here.”
“That’s how you knew?”
“Well, not only that. I might be older these days, but I’m not blind.”
Elena chuckled, but Horacio could tell it wasn’t at his expense. So, he allowed his jaw some leeway, unclenching his teeth and facial muscles, almost appreciating the ache left behind. A chain reaction surged through his body, tension unknowingly carried for decades ebbing away now the secret he once believed would follow him to his grave was not only out but wasn’t being held against him.
And so he threw caution to the wind and let the floodgates open. He told his Mamá about Madrid and working on the ranch, about their plans for the future, about life in Laredo and even the crucifix, just in case she had noticed its absence and assumed the worst.
Talk of the crucifix prompted Elena to take one of Horacio’s hands in hers, where she deposited her gift of gold before he could refuse. “Take it. Please.” Her hand formed a dome over Horacio’s, fingers gently squeezing.
Once Elena withdrew, Horacio unfurled his palm and stared down at his very own El Dorado. “After my injury, I’d dream about this sometimes. And the stories you and Abuelita Mirabel told us about Bochica. I wish it’d been as easy as striking a staff to stop Escobar.”
“Bochica might have saved his people from drowning, but he couldn’t save them from the conquistadors and their gold-digging.”
Horacio rolled his eyes and sighed. “I know you don’t approve of Madrid, Mamá. And I know I’m no Bolívar, but –”
“Mijo, what are you talking about? I know you had your reasons for Madrid – even the second time. That’s not what I meant. And no one’s asking you to be Bolívar.”
A salient monument dedicated to Simón Bolívar stood in the centre of Manizales. The statue was half-man, half-condor, each entity synonymous with the other as national symbols of freedom and sovereignty. It still stung for Horacio to be reminded he had worn the Colombian coat of arms on his uniform sleeve every day, the proud condor flying above the motto Libertad y Orden (Freedom and Order) with Dios y Patria (God and Country) sworn beneath. But unlike Bolívar and Bochica, Horacio was unable to liberate his people.
Instead, he had sought refuge in two countries that had interfered the most with Colombia's autonomy. He had made a home on the land of the former Empire and used the gringos to his advantage when it suited him, never mind allowing one of them into his heart and bed.
Elena pressed her hand tenderly to Horacio’s cheek, the conflict in his mind apparently written all over his face. It was an action he had been on the receiving end of throughout childhood, but one that still had the power to soothe him as though no time had passed since.
“You’re also forgetting Chibchacum’s role in Bochica’s story,” she continued. “He was the one punished to carry the world on his back for creating the flood in the first place. Bochica did the best he could in terrible circumstances, and that’s all anyone could ask for.”
Memories re-surfaced of Abuelita Mirabel sitting between Horacio and Alejandra on the sofa, a blanket spread across the three of them, where she told of how every time there was an earthquake in Colombia, it was the weight of the world shifting on Chibchacum’s back. Little did Horacio know that would become a feeling he was all too familiar with when he was older.
But his Mamá was right; he wasn’t Chibchacum or Bochica. And he certainly wasn't Bolívar. But neither was his Papá.
So, he took a deep breath and raised the chain to unclip the fastening. From there, he attached it behind his neck, letting the deity and the angel finally rest against his skin.
“Beautiful,” Elena said, her eyes suddenly glossy and the corner of her lips twitching.
“Thank you.” Horacio held his Mamá’s gaze until it was necessary to look away and clear his throat. “What else is in there, anyway?” He swiftly motioned towards the box.
Elena passed it over to Horacio so he could look for himself. Nestled inside were his Papá’s wedding ring and lapel pins, his Abuelo Ignacio’s St. Michael’s cross, rosary beads, an old pack of Deportivo Independiente Medellín trading cards, a postcard of an orange grove with handwriting Horacio recognised as his Mamá’s on the back, and a black and white photograph of a young boy draped in a police jacket that was far too big for him. Behind him stood his father in the rest of the uniform the jacket belonged to.
“Is that Papá and Abuelo Ignacio?”
Elena laughed. “Of course!” She got up again without explanation, re-appearing with a photo album this time.
She flicked through it until she found what she was looking for. “Where do you think we got the idea for this from?”
She was pointing at an almost identical picture. The two boys in the photos had the same thick dark hair and charcoal eyes, a resemblance that would carry through into adulthood – although Horacio built up more muscle than his father ever did.
Horacio smiled. “I remember that being taken. It was my first day at school.”
“It was his idea before you set off for school, and he set off for work. He made sure I was ready with the camera when you came downstairs in your uniform.”
“I never knew it was his idea.” The dejection was evident in Horacio’s voice, even if he tried to hide it.
“He might not have said it much, but he was so proud of you, you know. And so am I.”
Horacio swallowed hard with his eyes shut, anything to hold himself together. “I used to take this when you weren’t looking,” he managed to get out, gesturing towards the photo album. “Same with some of the other old albums we had. Well, I kept a couple of them, actually.” He chuckled at the thought of the albums currently residing on a shelf in Madrid. “I always went back to the photos and his uniform for some reason.”
“You didn’t have to hide it from me.”
“Neither did you with us.”
“I know. But you were both so young. You didn’t need that burden on top of everything else.”
“You could never be a burden, Mamá.”
“You and Alejandra were busy forging your careers. I had to stay strong at work, helping people worse off than me. So, I saved most of it for my prayers and Día de Todos los Santos.”
Horacio remembered attending Mass and his Papá’s grave every Día de Todos los Santos. But it was different to Día de Muertos. They weren’t welcoming his Papá home; they were praying for those in purgatory and heaven. And as much as he liked to think his Papá was a saint, there was always a part of him terrified that if he didn’t pray hard enough, his Papá would never be cleansed of his sins.
“I was in Laredo for Día de Muertos. Javier’s father – Chucho – had a box like this for Javier’s mother – Mariana. He used it to make an ofrenda for her.”
Another piece of the puzzle seemed to click into place for Elena in a look that combined realisation with sympathy. Another loss, another parallel, another explanation.
“A beautiful tradition,” she concluded.
“Yeah, it is. One that remembers the people we’ve lost as we knew them and welcomes them back home.”
“A bit like this, you mean?”
“Something like that.”
“Whilst we’re here…there’s something else I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”
“Go on.”
“Money from the house sale in Medellín has been sitting in a bank account since I moved here, along with some left over from your Papá. The plan was to split it between you and Alejandra when I’m gone, but…why wait?”
“What? But Mamá, that’s your money.”
“Technically, half of it is your Papá’s. But he’s not here. And who better to put that money to good use than his children?”
“Even though I wouldn’t have children of my own to return the favour one day?”
It was a question that had lingered on the tip of Horacio’s tongue since arriving here. A question he had tried to ignore for a long time before that, if he was honest. He learned of Juliana’s first pregnancy from his Mamá, who had heard the news from a friend of a friend. That was all she said on the matter, but Horacio was never sure whether he imagined the traces of disappointment in her voice that it wasn’t his child.
“Horacio, do you really think that matters to me?”
There was no disappointment in Elena’s tone now, just incredulous confusion that made Horacio regret his words.
“Even if I wasn’t surrounded by my amorcitos every single day, I would want you and Alejandra to make your own choices. Live your own lives. If that doesn’t involve children for you, then so be it.”
Horacio nodded, his lungs expelling a freeing breath he hadn't been aware was trapped in the depths of his rib cage. “Have you spoken to Alejandra about the money?”
“Not yet. But I know the farm needs repairs, and they’ve always got plans for this place. Same as the ranch.”
“I don’t own the ranch, though, Mamá.”
“No. But from everything you’ve told me about Chucho, he obviously trusts you with his business. And I don’t imagine you and Javier will want to live in a guesthouse for the rest of your lives. Visas don’t come cheap, either.”
Of course, she was right on all three counts. Horacio had a lot of on-the-job training ahead of him. He would effectively be starting from scratch again. But Chucho had welcomed him with open arms into his home and livelihood. It wasn’t implausible that if Horacio had ideas for the ranch, Chucho would take them on board.
They hadn't discussed living arrangements yet, but Horacio was confident neither he nor Javier had envisaged the guesthouse as a permanent solution. And then there was the small matter of Horacio’s visa. The paperwork upon which their future in Laredo hinged. He tried not to think about all the different ways it could go wrong or what they would do if it did. But that was a problem for another day. A problem that would no doubt be made easier with extra money in tow.
So, he ignored the whispering ghosts of his ancestors because his Mamá was right; he wasn’t doing this for his Papá. And he certainly wasn’t doing it for the people of Colombia, past or present.
“Okay,” he said in the end. “But only if Alejandra agrees to it, too.”
The sound of a throat being cleared caught them off guard and drew a temporary line under the conversation.
“Morning,” Javier greeted as he hovered by the kitchen door. “Hope I’m not interrupting.” Of course, he knew he was and an apology with his eyes was all he could offer Horacio for the time being.
“Good morning, Javier. And on the contrary! How do you feel about calentado?”
Whatever Javier had been expecting Elena’s response to be, for some reason, it wasn’t that. He looked towards Horacio for the slightest hint about what he had walked in on.
Horacio wanted to explain everything – and later he would – but for now, he ushered Javier to sit down.
“Er, sounds perfect, thanks,” Javier told Elena as his foot found Horacio’s under the table.
And as the three of them chatted and helped prepare breakfast, Horacio had to admit Javier was right.
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The coffee tour took up the rest of the morning. It was no wonder Horacio had always been particular on the subject when he knew which were the best beans and blends to be found in Colombia. He still had occasional pangs for his former life, but the weak instant shit the gringos brought with them to Carlos Holguín wasn’t one of them.
Naturally, the heavens opened before the end of the tour – bad for the tourists but good for the soil – and by the time they had returned to the finca, another shower was required.
They showered together, the finca empty for a change. Plus, they had nothing to hide anymore – at least not with the people that mattered the most. That hadn’t quite sunk in for Horacio even after he told Javier everything. Even when his last defences buckled, and he broke down in Javier's arms, letting himself be held. Even when he was kissing Javier, slow and deep, in his family’s bathroom, their breaths heavy and desperate in such a confined space.
One thing could easily have led to another as Horacio pinned Javier against the cold tiles, bare skin seeking out bare skin, emotions running high. There was no doubt they wanted it to, and in almost any other circumstance, it would have.
“Not here,” Horacio whispered, his voice shaking and his forehead falling against Javier’s as he was hit by a sudden clarity of thought. “I’m sorry.”
Javier hushed lightly, cradling Horacio against his shoulder. “Hey, it’s okay.” He kissed across damp hair, running his fingers through thick strands that always became curlier when wet. “We don’t have to do anything.”
Light strokes soon morphed into lathered hands as Javier washed and rinsed Horacio’s hair, massaging the shampoo into his scalp and soothing away stubborn remnants of tension.
Although a niggling knot remained, an unspoken question and an uninitiated conversation. “When I was talking with my mother earlier…” Horacio began, closing his eyes and tilting his head back to let the hot jets cascade down his neck and shoulders.
Javier hummed in encouragement, his lips following the water droplets, enveloping Horacio in a blanket of warmth from all angles.
“She reassured me she wouldn’t be disappointed if I never had children.” Horacio let his words hang in the white noise of the shower, giving Javier time to adjust to the change of subject.
“Did you think she would be?”
“It crossed my mind. So much has been passed down through the Carrillo side of my family. From my Abuelo to my Papá. From my Papá to me.”
“Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but four of your nieces and nephews are around here somewhere.”
Horacio let out a light huff. “Like I could forget. But…they’re Alejandra’s, not mine.”
“I know. But I think you’re forgetting the real question here. Would you be disappointed?”
“Back when I was younger, when I was with Juliana, I might’ve said yes. More out of expectation than anything else. But with you…I think we ripped up and threw away the rule book a long time ago.”
“Thank fuck for that. We’ve never been very good at following rules anyway.”
It didn't take long for them both to laugh at such a flagrant understatement.
“So, you do feel the same then?” Horacio asked in earnest.
“I was less than an hour away from getting my very own white fucking picket fence. If I’d wanted it, I could’ve had it. But that wasn’t my idea of the American Dream.”
Horacio turned in Javier’s arms, and the last seed of doubt was finally plucked from his mind. His lips captured Javier’s again, a statement of intent for their future. A future they no longer had to hide from their families. 
------------------------------------------------------
Javier seated himself in the large wooden gazebo at the end of the garden, which doubled as a viewing platform over the steep valley below. For once, sunlight had won the battle against the mist, and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue. It made it possible to see for miles, giving the illusion of being high amongst the surrounding trees alongside the raucous birdlife living in their branches.
It was their penultimate morning in Manizales, upon which Javier had changed a habit of a lifetime by getting up with Horacio. They had penned in some sightseeing of the city later. But for now, Horacio had gone for his usual run, and Javier started the day with possibly the best coffee he had ever drunk.
“May I join you?”
Javier looked up from his cup and cleared his throat. “Oh, er, of course.”
As Elena sat down, the sun glinted off the silver jewellery bonded to Javier’s chest, making them squint at its reflection. He instinctively brought a hand to his neck in a fumbled effort to shove the crucifix beneath the open collar of his shirt.
“You don’t need to do that, you know.”
Fuck. He'd been busted.
However, Elena's voice contained no traces of judgment, and it quickly put Javier at ease. He lowered his hand to his knee, giving a brief bob of the head before taking another sip of coffee.
“I still wear these.” Elena raised her left hand, showing off a sparkling diamond ring above a plain gold band. “The amount of awkward questions about the whereabouts of my husband these have caused over the years. Yet I still can’t bring myself to take them off. Although…”
With her right hand, she took hold of the top ring and wiggled it off her finger, then did the same with the second ring, with more force required this time.
Javier wasn’t sure what was happening until the dappled morning light fell on the inside of the ring he held up to his face.
Suerte que encontré a mi media naranja
(Lucky that I found my soulmate)
“It’s beautiful.”
“Eduardo wasn’t a man of many words, but he had his moments.” Elena’s smile took on a wistful appearance as Javier passed the ring back.
“My Pops is the same with his wedding ring. He insists on wearing it every day, which isn’t really compatible with the day job.”
“I can imagine. I hear it became Horacio’s day job, too?”
“Yeah,” Javier said with an involuntary grin. “I know it might be hard to believe, and I know it’s not what he expected, but it suits him.” Literally as well figuratively, he managed to stop himself from blurting out.
“I can’t remember him ever saying he wanted to be anything other than a police officer. My parents ran a textile business, and Eduardo’s mother was a nurse. But Horacio followed his father, who followed his father like it was their birthright. I always worried about Eduardo, especially if he was running late or was called to an emergency. Then it was the same with Horacio, too. So much blood spilt on our doorsteps, on our streets, in our churches.”
Elena promptly picked up her cup, the balm of hot fruit tea required before she could continue.
“Whenever the phone rang – or I heard a knock at the door – I prepared for the worst. It happened to so many friends and neighbours. So why not my husband or son? Of course, it was Eduardo’s heart in the end. But once Search Bloc made Horacio a walking target, it was only a matter of time. I’d spent years expecting it, but what I hadn’t accounted for in all of my fretting, pacing, and prayers…was you.”
“Me?”
“He told me what you did. How much trouble you and your partner got in for it. How you got injured yourself. How…you saved my son and his men.”
“We couldn’t save them all,” was Javier’s sole response to the lashings of praise he still wasn’t convinced he truly deserved in light of how the ambush came about in the first place.
“You saved more than your superiors were willing to, by the sounds of it.”
Javier scoffed. “Well, I can’t argue with that.”
“Good. And as for the ranch…he’s always liked to keep busy. Just like his father, he could never sit still and relax for long. I can see it. I bet he looks the part.”
“He does, actually.” That was allowed, Javier told himself.
“I thought something had changed after his injury, even if he wouldn’t tell us much. I hoped he’d seen sense, but I knew he was prepared to die for that mission of his – that obsession. I’d almost accepted it, to be honest, especially without Eduardo around to stop him. So, when he told me he’d quit, you were the only reason that made sense.”
“Ever since my Mamá passed, I tried to change things – or control them, at least. Anything to not feel that…helpless again. But it didn’t work like that. Walking away was the only choice left.”
“But it was a choice you both made. That can’t have been easy. I may not have known you very long, but it’s already clear to me you’re good for each other.”
“Even though I’m a gringo?”
“We all have our flaws.” Not only did Elena catch the humour in Javier’s eyes, but she matched and surpassed it with her own. “But to answer your question properly…I would say the complicated histories of our homelands have more in common than meets the eye.”
Javier hummed as he had flashbacks to high school of learning about Laredo starting life as a Spanish colonial settlement before a bloody tug-of-war between Mexico and America – and independence from both – had broken out. There was no denying he had benefited from certain privileges of owning an American passport, and he’d always accepted the gringo label without much pushback. But deep down, he knew it was only half the story.
“You’ve shown each other new paths,” Elena continued. “Safer and happier ones. And that’s what counts.”
“Not quite sure what my new path is yet, to be honest. I’ve spent so long running away from Laredo. I’ve forgotten what it means to live there.”
“It took me a long time to accept my place was here now rather than Medellín. Whenever there was a bombing, or a shooting, or a kidnapping, I had to stop myself from getting on a plane. But Horacio worried I’d be a target because of him. He didn’t want me there. And what could I have done anyway?” Elena let out a self-deprecating huff at the mere thought.
“You wanted to protect your son.”
“Yes. But it wasn’t just that. Medellín was my home and my work. And many of Eduardo’s friends and colleagues were killed. Their wives were sisters to me after his death. But I couldn’t return the favour from down here. Not in the same way, at least. I sent cards, flowers, food parcels, even money sometimes. But it never felt enough.”
“It never does.”
“No. It doesn’t. But I did what I could. And being there for Alejandra and the kids made me feel useful. I got involved with the church again. Worked for a small charity. Even though we’ve been protected from the violence here, the repercussions of it spread far and wide. So many displaced families in need. At least I was making a difference somewhere.”
“I thought I was making a difference. And maybe sometimes I was. But I don’t think it was ever really my fight.”
“Perhaps not. But maybe it helped lead you to the right one.”
“Maybe.”
Javier’s mind drifted back to the family history his Pops told him over the phone in Madrid, not just about his Mamá but his grandparents too. Not to mention all his Pops had done for the local community over the years. He thought of the stories Señora Romero had shared and the kindness she had shown him and Horacio. They had all made a difference in their own ways. And they had done it without leaving their cities, let alone their countries.
As Elena excused herself to ensure Mateo and Sofía weren’t starting another civil war in the kitchen, Javier nursed his coffee cup and surveyed the meandering scenery below. For the first time since he told Stechner to go fuck himself, he could see the outline of a path emerging in front of him. He wasn’t exactly sure where it was leading yet, but at least it was something. Something closer to home.
------------------------------------------------------
Their last day in Manizales came faster than Horacio had expected, presumably a side effect of waiting for the other shoe to drop any minute. Miraculously, it never did.
“Knock knock.”
Horacio looked up from the bed where he was wrestling with the zip of his suitcase – and currently losing. “Morning.” Another tug, but it wouldn’t shift. “You just gonna watch me?”
“Because you’re usually so good at accepting help.” With a dry smile and shake of the head, Alejandra came to the rescue with less heavy-handedness than her brother, unjamming the zip in seconds.
“I’m better than I was.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
“And thank you, by the way.” Horacio stood up, lifting the case from the bed and bringing himself face-to-face with his sister. “For everything.”
Alejandra nodded, maintaining eye contact with Horacio long enough to be distracted by the sunlight dancing across the gold chain around his neck. “It suits you.”
“Thanks. Better than it collecting dust in a box.”
“I don’t just mean the necklace.”
The subtle glow of Horacio's pupils mirrored Alejandra's before he stepped forward, pulling her into a tight embrace. “Take care of yourself, okay?” He leaned down and kissed her on the top of her head.
“You too. And don’t leave it so long next time.”
“We won’t. I promise.”
“If it helps, I can sweeten the deal with a stay at one of the hot springs around here. They’re always giving me freebies for supplying their coffee. One of them has private thermal pools and everything.”
“You don’t have to bribe me to visit.” However, the thought of it being him, Javier, and a jacuzzi was enough for him to re-think his position on taking bribes. “Plus, I wanna see what you do with the place.”
“So you can take inspiration?”
Horacio rolled his eyes. “You wish. If you think you can handle the Texan climate, you know where we’ll be.”
“Don’t worry, I can and I will.”
“We about ready?” Javier appeared in the doorway with the rest of their luggage, pausing at the threshold. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.” Again.
“It’s okay; your boyfriend was just inviting us all to the ranch.”
It had only been an innocuous comment, but Alejandra managed to stop both men in their tracks with one word, a bashful look passing between them at the novelty of it.
“Oh, er, that’s great. The more the merrier.” Javier recovered just in time, although the flush in his cheeks showed no sign of abating. “My Pops always makes enough food for the population of Texas, so you’d be more than welcome.”
“Likewise here, Javier. As long as you bring more aguardiente next time.” She winked and drew him in for a hug.
“I think that can be arranged.” Javier broke away first so he could look at Alejandra properly. “And thank you…for everything this week.”
Alejandra gave a bob of the head once more, her smile widening as she glanced from Javier to Horacio, the depth of their gratitude beyond words but written all over their faces. “It’s what big sisters are for.”
------------------------------------------------------
After eating enough breakfast to last them for most of their journey to Medellín – the rest supplemented by Elena’s homemade empanadas and cocadas – they were stood back on the front porch again.
There was a chorus of goodbyes this time, ones that didn’t have the foreboding air of finality about them as they had done in the past.
Horacio allowed his Mamá to clutch him with all her strength, the scent of her perfume transporting him straight back to childhood.
“You take care of each other, you hear? And keep me updated on your visa. You know where I am if you need anything.”
“Don’t worry, Mamá. I will.”
“Y no olvide su español.” (And don’t forget your Spanish)
“No lo haré, Mamá.” (I won’t, Mamá) Horacio barely managed to suppress a tone of amused exasperation, given that he had been surrounded by almost as many Spanish voices in Laredo as in Colombia.
“Javier, you heard all of that. So, don’t let him forget.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Javier received the same treatment as Horacio with a bracing hug.
“Don’t be a stranger, Mijo. And don’t fret about finding that path. Just remember to follow your heart.” 
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The light was fading fast, leaving behind a watercolour blend of ambers, yellows and reds that blazed against a backdrop of purple haze and the ethereal silhouette of ancient mountains. The glimmer of city life below felt distant, as though they had left this world altogether and now lived above the clouds.
Which was fine by them as they caught their breath; Horacio draped over Javier’s lap in the passenger’s seat, the culmination of their release glistening across their stomachs.
“Just like old times,” Horacio panted as trails of kisses became interspersed with heady laughter.
“Well, not exactly.” Javier’s thumb and forefinger delicately held the silver and gold pendants at their chests before untangling the chains that had become knotted during their tryst.
“No.” Horacio brought his forehead to meet Javier’s, an instant tonic to the painful twinge gripping their hearts as memories of their last visit to this spot resurfaced. “I told you we’d make up for lost time this past week, though.”
“Yeah, I figured you meant in the hotel. Or even back in Madrid. Not the minute you parked up in Medellín.”
“Like you were complaining.”
“Fuck, no, I wasn’t. Less likely to be overheard up here than in the hotel anyway.”
Once Horacio had regained enough feeling in his limbs to dismount and sit back in the driver’s seat, Javier reached for the glove box. He took out their emergency stash of cigarettes and lit up.
Horacio attempted to clean himself up as best he could and did the same for Javier. “So, this is why you brought those with us.” He nodded towards the cigarettes.
“Obviously.” Javier took a long drag and exhaled with a deep sigh, his body latching on quickly to the nicotine, his mind still blitzed.
They passed their shared smoke back and forth in comfortable silence, basking in their afterglows and the aftermath of the last few days.
“You still like it up here then?” Horacio asked after stubbing out the butt in the ashtray between them.
“Yeah, I do. Don’t think I’ve ever seen it looking so beautiful.”
“Me neither. Funny how the same view can look completely different in a new light.”
Javier hummed in agreement, their gaze now fixed on each other rather than the windshield, the irony not lost that they were back in the same spot where it could easily all have ended.
"I can think of a way to make it even better, though.”
“Go on.”
In a flurry of movement, Javier zipped up his jeans, pulled on his shirt and got out of the car. He rustled around in the trunk until he retrieved a couple of spare towels they had packed for emergencies, along with their jackets. It wasn’t quite the thick blanket from the ranch, but at least it was a mild night.
They sprawled out on the grass behind the car, lying atop the towels and wrapped in their jackets. Javier propped his head on a folded sweater with Horacio resting against his chest at an angle that allowed them both to take in the cityscape below.
“How about we just stay here forever?” Javier rasped between slow, sensual kisses.
Horacio moaned against Javier’s lips as he went back for more. “Don’t tempt me. At least we didn’t book an early flight tomorrow.”
“Good point.” Another string of kisses, each more addictive than the last.
“Although,” Horacio began once they had calmed down, his fingers tracing patterns across Javier’s torso, "we’ve got a lot to sort out once we’re back in Madrid.”
“I know. But at least we ripped off the band-aid.” One of Javier’s hands found Horacio’s and slotted their fingers together.
“I spent so much energy worrying about this trip; I was almost expecting something bad to happen.”
Javier raised their linked hands to his mouth and brushed his lips over Horacio’s knuckles. “But it didn’t.”
“No. In fact…I think I know what I want to do with the money.”
“Oh yeah?”
“If you and your father agree to it, that is. And I can find a good lawyer.”
Javier lifted his head slightly and turned in Horacio's direction, urging him to continue.
“I was thinking….what if we bought the corn farm? The three of us, I mean.”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Yeah. I think I am.” Horacio couldn’t help but laugh now he’d said it out loud. “Like I said, I’d need to check everything with a lawyer about my visa first. But there is an option for investors. And you still have some of your money from the ranch, right?”
“Yeah, I do. And obviously, you can count me in. But…shit, Horacio. Are you sure? I mean, it’s your inheritance.”
“It's nothing Alejandra isn't doing with her share. And well, if your father bought it outright, an empty cottage would go to waste on our doorstep. Last I looked, it needed a bit of maintenance, but it wasn’t in bad shape.”
Now, it was Javier’s turn to laugh. “Got it all figured out, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“It’s funny, ‘cos, er...I’ve been thinking, too. About something your Mamá said.”
“About what?”
“About looking closer to home for a new path. And I think I might have found it.”
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They only meant to stay until they got too cold, but their shared body heat let them doze until sunrise. The watercolour skyline re-emerged from behind the mountain tops, gradually bathing Medellín in a heavenly half-light, stirring them awake as it reached their hideaway.
The plan was to freshen up and have breakfast at the hotel before dropping off the hire car and heading to the airport after lunch. But there was something Horacio needed to do whilst the city wasn’t fully awake, whilst the low sun felt like a gift from God Himself.
As they pulled up a stone’s throw away from Horacio’s old family church – a few blocks down from his childhood home and former apartment that Trujillo had cleared after his hasty exit from Carlos Holguín – Javier hesitated, unsure if this was something Horacio needed to do alone.
“Come with me,” Horacio said after stepping out of the car as though he had read Javier’s mind. “Please.”
That was all the confirmation Javier needed to follow.
They walked silently along a well-kept pathway that forked off in multiple directions. It was maze-like and disorientating, but Horacio took purposeful strides despite how long it had been since his last visit.
He halted at a large marble slate engraved with a crucifix and the CNP emblem. There were some dried old flowers in a vase at the base of it, where Horacio knelt down and swapped them for the fresh bunch of marigolds he’d carried from the car.
“A gift from Mamá,” he whispered. “She’ll be back again soon.”
Horacio remained on the grass and brought his hands up to the back of his neck, where he unhooked the gold chain. He studied it between his fingers, then clasped it in his palm and bowed his head.
The cemetery was empty at this time in the morning, the loud rustling in the trees drowning out the murmur of traffic beginning to burst into life.
Javier watched wordlessly a few feet behind Horacio, almost beginning to feel like he was intruding.
“Pray with me.”
“Are you sure? What if someone –”
“I’m sure. No one’s here but us.”
Javier checked around them once, then twice, just in case. Even if someone did happen to come by, two men praying over a grave wasn’t exactly the most compromising position they could be found in. But it was better to be safe than sorry.
Once satisfied, Javier joined Horacio on the grass. They couldn’t get away with how they had done this in private, but Horacio dropped his right hand to the floor beside him, palm outstretched.
Javier took the hint and discreetly placed his left hand over the top, encasing the gold necklace between them.
With heads lowered and eyes closed, they prayed. An unspoken acknowledgement of all they had lost and how it had led them here. They honoured memories made, those that would never be, and those they could still make together despite everything.
Horacio’s eyes fluttered open as the sunlight fell on the headstone above him, forcing him to blink away a glassy sheen. His hand stayed connected with Javier’s on the earth, his present and future by his side, giving him strength to finally make peace with his past.
He rose to his feet and made the sign of the cross on his chest before running his fingers along the embossed letters of his father’s name. “Te quiero mucho, Papá.”
Javier gave as much time as was needed until risking a gentle squeeze of Horacio’s shoulder. “You ready?”
Horacio looked from the gravestone to Javier, the charcoal of his irises burning with the fire of conviction. “I’m ready.”
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project-doomsday · 5 months
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how long have you been a fan of invader zim? is there any old art you have of him when you were younger? also you said you wrote fanfics... care to tell us more? >:)))
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eeeheeeegghh do I have to??? It’s sooooo cringe man.
Well, this is the internet and i haven’t been posting as much. Guess this is my punishment haha…. 🥲
Okay, so first things first when I was 10, I was a MAJOR fan of Invader Zim. I would watch it religiously whenever it came on Nicktoons or watch episodes of it on my moms laptop. Heck, I even watched the entire Christmas episode on the Nick Website at my school without getting caught. But I watched it the most when I was at my nana’s since I didn’t have Nicktoons at home. But I loved the hell out of that show. I used to dress up as Zim, wear the merch, I had a necklace. I was borderline obsessed and I guess you could say I had good reason to.
My childhood wasn’t that great; court took me away from my mom, abusive dad, my great-grandma died, other traumatic stuff… my life wasn’t good. I was completely miserable… until I watched that show. Invader Zim saved my life despite that sounding cheesy as fresh mozzarella sticks. If it hadn’t been for that show… hell, who knows where I’d be… but Zim was my everything. I looked up to him when I was younger, how he handled things. I would draw pictures of him blasting my dad or riding his Voot Cruiser or us taking over the world together. It was great.
SO MUCH SO THAT I WROTE ONE BIG FANFIC ABOUT HIM.
Now, for my sake and for yours (trust me), I won’t explain the entire story, it’s just too bad. But, I will say this and this will be the last and only time i will share this.
These were all the things that were in the fanfic:
Warrior Cats
Sgt. Frog
Pokémon
…And love triangles…
….I was 10.
If someone gives me a 100 bucks I will read the story.
…Make that 200.
AHEM! Anyway, before I die of embarrassment here is the earliest drawing I made of Zim that I could find.
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Yes, it’s from the fic okay I’m gonna crawl in a hole now byeeeeeee
- EMatooney
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bonefall · 1 year
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Since you were discussing Outcast, it reminded me of how much I disliked the tribe books as a kid. I always found them so boring because it was the same song and dance every single time. But then I remembered how Sign of the Moon is my least favorite and I've been wanting to complain about the time travel aspect for like a week. It's interesting if not super silly even for Warriors, but what infuriates me the most is Jayfeather, as Jay's Wing, inventing the entirely of the tribe while back in time. It's like an American going back to before people started colonizing America and inventing an indigenous tribe, and it pisses me off.
Ever since I was little, I've always loved sociology. My upbringing was marked by trying to 'reconnect' with culture. Without getting too into it, my primary parent escaped a very destructive cult-like flavor of born-again Christian evangelism. In the aftermath they tried to find meaning they felt had been taken from them by that traumatic generational event.
(what we 'reconnected with' was inaccurate in hindsight and we narrowly avoided getting swept up into ANOTHER cult-like religion but... I don't want to get too into it. I will confirm though that I am not American indigenous.)
I connected heavily to the way that Firestar's Quest introduced SkyClan, this group that was lost and destroyed by the others, my little baby kid hero Firestar declaring that he'd right this ancient wrong. Then with Code of the Clans, it felt like I was discovering the evolution of the culture in hindsight, like I was unearthing a lost history.
And then the Tribe came along, and I felt so excited. It was like, HERE IT IS! Now we're gonna find out what they were like! We get to see a culture that's survived for generations without the Code, and we get to see what the Clans used to be!
(keep in mind I was... 11? 12? and smack in the middle of rejecting the fear that comes with evangelism. i am more nuanced about this topic now, haha. there's no perfect halcyon period to return to in an ancient culture, but hey, at the time it made me feel I could live without something I was taught I couldn't.)
So... just sit with me for a moment and imagine what it felt like when the books started saying, loudly, that the Tribe was useless. Primitive and ineffective. Outcast was particularly painful, because the christian-coded Clan cats sent a mission's worth of guys to proselytize how the Tribe has to abandon what matters to them, just to become a 6th Clan, and the Tribe cats are treated as stagnant and unreasonable for that.
...And how every time the Clan cats lose their (christian) values, they go back to abandoning elders, killing indiscriminately, disconnecting with their culture...
AND THEN, JUST LIKE YOU SAID, it gets WORSE! Because THEN they didn't even allow the Tribe to really be ancestral. Jayfeather is the one who MAKES it what it is.
Not even the ancient clan cats can decide things. Jayfeather's vote makes them leave. Jayfeather teaches Half Moon to be a healer. Jayfeather brings them to the mountains. EVERYTHING just ends up going to a religious authority who decides how they're going to do things from now on.
And... it was painful. It hurt Little Bones a lot; it flew in the face of what I was escaping. Implying I'd be nothing without it. That there was nothing for me to find in my own history.
The Stones, man. The Stones. The Tribe's Stones haunt me.
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thedevilsfamiliar · 19 days
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TikTok truly shows me the most wild videos
I can be watching a video about a man inside a cave that died, and then move to an omegaverse video, to a child that has been missing since idk, to my little pony infection au’s, to bunnies(!), to dogs attacking people, to horses being majestic, to underwater cave exploration, to spa asmr, to soap asmr, to dogs eating asmr, to cats eating asmr, that one random my hero academia edit, to reddit posts, to alphas arguing with omegas, to lesbians, to straight women complaining about men and other women, random flowers, zodiac signs, tarot readers who swear to god that my ex is making a comeback (reject, deny, rebuke), to warrior cats lore.
The warriors cat lore always gets me, wdym they’re doing c-sections and cat surgeries 🧍🏽
The omegaverse discourse is truly funny tho, omega rights, heat suppressant discrimination, alphas talking about how scent blockers should be worn in public by omegas and omegas arguing that alphas should wear them as well— it’s totally satire! (I hope)
The lesbian videos are so good tho, I love seeing women in love and happy
I like asmr
And I actually really do enjoy the MLP infection au’s. There’s this one that’s about the end of the world— that one religious moment. When the good souls are taken? I forgot what it’s called, but death, war, famine, and pestilence are running rampant through equastria, and Rarity was the first one taken. Also Gabriel’s horn? The trumpets? Made the pegasi to fall out of the sky. The art is amaziiiiiing. 20/10.
I like animals, my current obsession are buns. I love bunnies. Trying to decrease the amount of dog and cat videos on my fyp tho, it’s always the same thing. Horses on the other hand 👀 ugh there’s this beautiful blue roan Appaloosa! Literally so gorgeous. There’s also a leopard Appaloosa— beautiful. Strawberry roans are so cute. My favorite breed is always going to be Frisians tho. Fluffy and majestic.
The cave ones are my fault, lol. im nosy 💀 you would never catch me in a cave
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dustkit · 3 years
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why Dustpelt’s life is so fucked
the book opens with his mentor dying
by a cat he IDOLIZES but doesn’t know it was him yet
his new mentor is one of Tigerclaw’s minions
his brother and close friend Ravenpaw is being hunted by Tigerclaw and is sent away to live with Barley for protection
only he doesn’t know that so he thinks Ravenpaw is fucking. DEAD
finds out Ravenpaw isn’t dead by Fireheart announcing it to the clan, meaning that his brother didn’t trust him enough to tell him
Tigerclaw leaves asking him to go with him, but Dustpelt realizes that this cat he has idolized for moons is evil and tried to murder their clan leader and he’s been following basically a dictator
Darkstripe, a cat that half mentored him is currently mentoring the cat that he loves (Fernpaw) betrays the clan by poisoning a kit (Sorrelkit) and gets kicked out
Firestar gives him Squirrelpaw to mentor and it’s like aw cute he trusts him but then Squirrelpaw runs away with Brambleclaw.
Ferncloud isn’t able to eat enough to keep herself alive let alone 3 kits. so his daughter Larchkit fucking DIES bro
His other daughter hollykit died in her sleep :^)
Shrewpaw, his son, gets hit by a car on the road when chasing a pheasant, and his neck breaks.
HIS SON Birchfall the fucking IDIOT HE IS is training w the dark forest.
Ferncloud, his mate, one half of the couple who invented love, died, in the great battle.
He fully disowns Birchfall after he finds out that he was training with the dark forest, wont even let him bury his mother.
He ends up dying in a badger attack defending another clan but was reunited with his wife and dead kids so i guess theres that
theres probably more but this is what i gathered in my warriors reread
i just. i have so many Thought about this okay. He spent his whole ass life dedicated to the warrior code, never did he break it when his mentor and idols were breaking it left and right.
he never fully got along with Firestar but he respected him because he was their leader and when he had an opinion he voiced it but he never went behind his back, he devoted his life to Thunderclan and THIS is how he’s repaid?
His children dying left and right and then his mate dying when he wasn’t around to say goodbye, much less try and save her?? im just UGH about this.
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ticklefits · 2 years
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AO3 LINK! | tickletober 2021 day 1: CHASE.
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voltron: legendary defender | klance | words : 2572
“Oh, don’t let me stop you. Keep singing.” With a tone much too amused and muscular figure leaned against the door frame, Keith’s eyes have locked on his boyfriend who’s settled at the countertop, chopping up onions for their lunch. His ears were previously graced with the melodic & upbeat notes of Lance’s singing before he halted as soon as he noticed Keith’s presence, cheeks dusting over in a soft shade of cherry at having been caught. 
"You snuck up on me! Y'know, all that Blade of Marmora training has made you seriously light on your feet, you're too quiet when you walk up on people--" Lance complains, obviously trying to shift the attention off of his virtuoso vocals, but Keith isn't falling for the trick. He merely grants the other a shrug, stepping further into the kitchen to peer down at the meal he was preparing before the interruption. It was a newer dish, something that Lance had talked about trying to cook before and though Keith rarely indulged in foreign grounds when it came to what he ate, Lance was a decent cook and he's willing to try anything for him. After a once-over of the food, he twists to match his gaze with Lance with Lance again, a small smirk now presented half-cocked upon his lips. 
"Being quiet has its advantages," is his rebuttal, arms crossing along the width of his chest as he gently knocks a shoulder against his love's. "You can keep complaining about it if you do it in song."
A silent curse leaks out with the sensation of heat that strengthens on the surface of Lance's cheeks, half-tempted to run into the next room and half-tempted to actually take Keith up on his offer. Complaining while singing truthfully sounds sort of hilarious and maybe Lance might've considered it had he not been ambushed by the other, but the abashment that's welled up in the center of his stomach has stolen the reigns from his usual confidence and is keeping his vocal chords locked and twisted. At this point, he's temporarily canceled prepping lunch and his new focus lies on a getaway. Sapphire sight slowly inches from where Keith stands to the archway that connects into the living room, calculating the distance to it from his own feet and weighing the risks. Keith, however, is a warrior, and a highly trained one at that, so as soon as he notices Lance's fixed stare towards the living room, his smirk widens and his own stance alters.
"C'mon loverboy, don't make me chase you down. You know I'm faster than you." There it is. A challenge. A challenge to his Leo boyfriend, who's neatly sculpted eyebrows perk and furrow and his lips twitch at the corners. 
"You're funny, Keith. The only one way you'd be faster than me, is if you tap into that cat-like Galran side of you and get on all fours. Stronger than me? Sure, maybe -- but not faster." Lance knows he just spit some fighting words, and judging by the slightly surprised, oh no he did not just say what I think he said look, Keith was about to square up. It was silent for a moment that dragged on like an hour, until Keith cements a stare at Lance and for a split second, Lance could swear he saw his pupils slit just like a feline. 
"You get five seconds."
"Wha--"
"Run."
Lance did not need to be told twice. As soon as he heard that single word practically growled from his boyfriend, he sprang into a nearly full sprint into the living room. Keith kept his words and after 5 seconds, rocketed off after Lance. By the time he had an open view of the room, Lance was nowhere to be seen. He paused, rummaging through his thoughts to figure out where Lance might have escaped to next. He figures their bedroom would be a good place to start, plenty of the places to try and hide in there; try, being the operative word there. He enters the shared sleeping space and, just to tease Lance thoroughly in case he was hiding in there, starts to tap his nails on the walls and other hard surfaces, knowing damn well the clicks and clacks will echo.
"Oh, Laaance.." the swordsman practically coos, feigning an innocent tonality all the while checking under the bed and in their closet for his prey. "You know I'm not gonna hurt you. I wouldn't ever hurt you. But you do need to be punished for what you said."
Lance can hear him. He can hear him and Keith knows that he can. Their apartment isn't very generous with running room and hiding spaces, so he's taken refuge in their master bathroom. He nearly scoffs at Keith's statements; he knows Keith wouldn't hurt him, not intentionally, but that's not what he's worried about. He knows what those clickity clacks mean. The surface of his skin is already tingling and he's biting back a grin, hands smoothing over the goosebumps popping up along his arms. He could speak lies and say he hates when Keith does this, but they both know the truth: Lance thrives on it. Every tap of his nails drives Lance insane and he can feel his body trying to gravitate towards the sound, but he refuses to give in and admit defeat. Keith challenged him, so it's on. 
He's dragging his nails now, goddammit, and he's getting closer. Those silent steps aren't so silent anymore and Keith's doing that on purpose. He wants Lance to hear him coming; it's all part of the chase. Thankfully though, their bathroom contains a door that opens up to the hallway, so if he times it right, he can get past without him hopefully noticing. Slowly, nearly holding his breath, Lance scoots to the second door and ever so gently turns the handle to minimize any sound and opens the door. A quick peek tells him that it's safe, but as soon as he fully exits the bathroom and begins his quiet tread through the hall, Keith appears behind him from their bathroom, running towards him. Lance yelps and his reaction is immediate, making a break for the living room once again. He jumps onto the couch and grabs a pillow, deciding to fend off his hunter with a weapon instead of continuing to run.
"En guard!" Comes his battle cry as Keith reaches him and narrowly misses the swing of a cushion at his head.
"That's a dirty play, McClain!" He manages to say before he gets uppercut with a cushion and it's as if the world goes into absolute silence. Lance hadn't really meant to smack him like that, but the damage has already transpired, so all he can do is gently place the couch cushions back to their proper home, all the while observing with fright behind his eyes as Keith's visage lowers back down to look at him. He says nothing, amethyst sight blank, but he does start to move towards Lance, which has the taller scooting backwards on the couch, palm outstretched as if that were to quell Keith's wrath any. 
"Keith -- Keith, babe, baby, look at me -- you know I didn't mean to do that, I swear--!" But Keith still doesn't utter a single syllable, even as he climbs atop and straddles Lance's hips. He then moves to grab some of the mini pillow cushions nearest Lance's head, one in each hand, and Lance's eyes widen, remembering a time when Pidge pulled this on him herself, except she used vinyl, elbow - length gloves. Keith's method is unorthodox, but Lance is sure it's gonna tire him out all the same. 
"Keith! No! No, no, no, no--!" But his pleas are no use. Raising the small pillows into the air, it isn't a second later that Keith starts to rapidly smack Lance's upper body with them. It's a furious barrage, one arm raining down a strike right after it's counterpart. If this was an action movie, and pillows were bullets shot out of a gun, this would be absolutely brutal. Fortunately for Lance, these soft, fluffy pillows don't hurt anywhere near a bullet wound. In fact, he's grinning all the while, limbs held askew above his head as a shield. 
"Now this is a dirty play, Kogane! Fight me like a real man!" And Lance is about to regret those words, because as soon as Keith hears him, he halts his assault and tosses the pillows to the side, eyes glinting dangerously. 
"Oh, I'm just getting started." Now unoccupied hands shift to settle on Lance's sides and instantaneously, Lance knew he was fucked. 
"Woahwoahwoah, no! No, now this is really foul--!"
"Sucks to suck."
"FIRST of all, I'm the one who taught you that saAAhahah--!" Keith's heard enough prattling out of Lance, it's time to hear some of that sweet, hilarious laughter now. Fingers scribble over the clothed flesh of his sides and waist and that already gets him into giggling hysterics. Keith will always be pleasantly surprised at just how ticklish Lance is. Nearly every inch of him is sensitive to something and it never fails to gift him with serotonin when he's got Lance beneath him, rosy cheeked, squirming around, and laughing his heart out - much like he is now. 
"Nohohohoho! Keh--Keheheheith! Stahahahahap!" His pleas are broken apart by giggles that are only raising in volume the more his sides are attacked and he's only growing further sensitive by the second. Lance knows his religiously vigorous skin care routine is partly to blame for how ticklish he is, but can you blame him for wanting soft, youthful skin? And it isn't like Keith's complaining about it either. 
"Nah, I don't think I can. My fingers are under some sort of spell." Such a blatant lie from the older pilot and the grin he dons is unmistakably teasing. 
"Yo--you're suhuhuch a lihahahahahar!" 
"What? I'm offended. I'm not lying at all. In fact, I'll tell you an easy way to break the spell and get me to the stop." 
"Gohohohohohod! Fiiiiihihihine, OKAY, okahahahy!" Lance is really beginning to struggle, squeals forcing themselves free as Keith migrates from waist, to stomach, and then to his ribs, poking & scritching between each one in an agonizing manner. "Aaahahahahaha! Tell---tell mehehehehe alreadyyyy!"
"You really wanna know?"
Lance's strength is sapping quicker than he'd like it to, but he still possesses enough of it to gently smack at Keith's arm, his giggles evolving into full blown laughter once those dastardly fingers begin reaching towards his armpits in retaliation. 
"All you gotta do is sing. Like, that one red-headed princess, to break a spell that was on her, or whatever." The fact that Keith really provided a Disney comparison to Lance's current predicament is hilarious all on its own, but Lance wasn't about to give into this torture, and deliver what Keith desired so easily. 
"Hohohohow is -- i-is ticklihihihing me suhuhpposed to make me wahahahant to SING?? B-Besides, a kihihihihiss broke Ahahariel's spell, not -- not singihihihihihing!" Poor Lance, with his cracking voice and breathy, hollow words that could scarcely be understood through all of his laughter. Keith understood the gist of it though and contemplated his conditions. He still wanted Lance to sing to him, but a kiss sounded pretty nice too. However, he isn’t quite finished with his boyfriend’s torture; there’s still one last area he very much wants to explore before he allows Lance free. Spidering digits cease their actions, smoothing up and then down the expanse of Lance’s toned torso, granting him a desperately needed, albeit quick rest. Lance doesn’t speak, merely taking this opportunity in stride to gulp down as much air as he can, because a minute part of him knows Keith isn’t done and that something wicked this way comes.
Something wicked indeed. After some very short-lived moments of repose, without skipping a beat, Keith breaks into full force tickling all over the surface of Lance’s soft thighs. The first and last thing to run through Lance’s mind is a sharp curse to himself for deciding that today was a good day to wear shorts. Keith has an all access pass to one of his death spots and he is allowing no mercy. They’re certainly going to get a noise complaint from their neighbors ( not that Keith cares ), because the inhumane screech that burst from the tunnel of Lance’s throat could probably be heard blocks away. 
“K---KEEEHEHEHEHEHITH!! NO! NOHOHO, NOT RIGHT THEHEHEHEHRE! PLEHEHEHEASE, AHAAAHAHAHAHNYTHING BUT THERRRRE--!” the couch has been shaved of all of its cushions by flailing, lengthy limbs and even Keith is having trouble keeping atop of Lance, what with all of his wriggling and buckling. 
“Geez, Lance, you almost sound like I’m killin’ you.” Keith’s grin is now from ear to ear, more than enjoying himself, the view, and his love’s ridiculously adorable laughter. 
“YOU AHAHAHAHARRRRE!! PLEEEEHEHEHEHASE!” But it’s only when Lance deflates into silent laughter, arms going limp against the couch underneath him, that Keith finally concludes his torture. Calloused hands remove themselves from the slender frame and he completely slides off of Lance, disappearing into the kitchen. Unbothered by Keith’s abrupt departure, Lance soaks up every single second of relaxation he can, until he glances up once he hears footsteps, and sees the water bottle Keith’s offering. Smiling a little weakly, Lance sits up, releasing a few lingering giggles as the movement of his still hyper - sensitive upper body brings forth some ghost touches. 
“Alright, time to break your spell.” Keith’s statement is oh so cheeky and as he leans forward, waiting for Lance to close the distance, he half expects Lance to do anything but kiss him. A pleasant surprise is given to him when he feels those familiar, supple lips intertwining with his own, and he smiles into it. The kiss lasts for a couple of seconds before Lance pulls away and eyes Keith, brow rising along his temple. 
“Guess whose job it is to prepare lunch now?”
A roll of lavender eyes, but he holds out his hand nonetheless. “Yeah, yeah. I tired you out, so I guess it’s mine. I don’t know how to make what you were making though.”
Lance takes the hand that’s offered and ascends from the couch, bending to start picking up the collapsed couch cushions. “Go on into the kitchen, I’ll be right behind you to boss you around.” Keith snorts a quickle chuckle, but does as instructed, making his way back into the kitchen. He nearly stops as something catches his ears, a heavy warmth blooming in his chest. Lance sings more than loud enough for Keith to hear him, even as he’s waiting in the kitchen. He continues singing, once all of the cushions are placed back in their proper place, and as he finally enters the kitchen. He saunters up to Keith, sight locked with sight, a hand on his chest, happiness brimming in the way he sings. 
“♪ Maybe this love is mad, you're filling every thought I have. Now I've stayed too long, and there's no turning back. Might as well dance.~ ♪” As if on cue, Keith takes his hand and spins him, earning an even more brilliant smile from Lance, and he lands softly against Keith, arms coiling around his neck to bring him back in for another kiss. Suddenly, lunch doesn’t matter so much anymore.
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starlightervarda · 3 years
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I think this fandom should address the erasure of characters’ cultures. What makes The Old Guard so important to many of us is representation, we all love that the main characters are from all over the world and yet in most of AUs Joe is turned into american. What’s wrong with Joe being from North Africa? That silly post abouth Christmas is just another example of erasing Nicky’s and Booker’s cultures.I don’t want to fandom police, but I swear sometimes I dont get this fandom.
Hi nonny <3
Oh, man. I feel this deeply. A few weeks back I complained about how people refused to learn or remember what Joe was, but had no trouble making the distinction between Nicky being Italian and Booker being French.
I have a lot to say about this so...
                                             INCOMING RANT
Media and even historically always erases the backgrounds of MENA people. It’s very exhausting, having someone use ‘Muslim’ like it’s an ethnicity, when you can very much be a Russian Muslim, Indian Muslim, Nigerian Muslim, etc. It’s not a synonym for ‘Middle Eastern’ like people insist it is.
You shouldn’t even assume all MENA people are Muslim, plenty are Christian and even Jewish, and many are irreligious/atheists.
Basically, every time I see ‘a Muslim scientist’ or ‘Muslim poet’ I get hives. Yes, thank you, where was he from? Andalus? Baghdad? Damascus? Tehran? Cairo? Fez? Baalbak? Hejaz? Where was he from, what ethnicity is he?? Do you care that little???
You don’t call Copernicus a Christian scientist or Dante a Christian poet, do you?
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It’s worse when they make it a synonym for ‘Arab’.  Like, no, Ibn Battuta was Moroccan, Omar Khayyam and Avicenna were Persian, Salah ad-Din was Kurdish, etc., etc.I’m pretty sure if someone called Alexander Graham Bell or Oscar Wilde ‘English’ there’d be hell to pay.
Even the official Old Guard Wiki page calls Nicky ‘an Italian Crusader’ but Joe is a ‘Muslim warrior’. Interesting how Nicky isn’t a ‘Christian warrior’ and Nile isn’t a ‘Christian soldier’. Joe has his own very rich background, is from a part of the world that his been so important historically, and he is allowed to exist beyond the parameters of religion.
He doesn’t seem religious. What he clearly is is North African. Unmistakably so.
It plays a part in many of the worst discourses in this fandom where people act like Joe is indistinguishable from others from Muslim-majority countries like Iran or Pakistan. Yes, that’s racist. No excuses. I’ve gotten vicious messages from people who refuse to get that through their heads that the people they know are nothing like North Africans, culturally, historically, or even linguistically. If you don’t speak Arabic you interpret things much, much differently. If you’re not from a MENA country your experience does not apply in this discussion.
It bugs me the most because I’m used to being represented in fiction by people who are not remotely like me. They’re always characters played by mixed Americans, Sub-Saharan Africans, White people in spray tans, Turks, Latinos of various backgrounds, Indians or half-Indians. This perpetuates the idea that we’re interchangeable, that we have no lands or cultures.
As much as I love the Mummy movies, not a single Egyptian or even North African person was in those movies. Evie and Jonathan were meant to be half-Egyptian, and Ardeth Bey was played by an Israeli...which is a whole other can of worms.
Last I heard, Leonardo DiCaprio was going to play Rumi...a Persian poet. The only Persian thing he can play is a Shirazi cat.
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...Want to hear a sad story? When I was a child, I was already aware of this. We were watching Night at the Museum and I was expecting the mummy to be A) White B) Black C) Indian. But out came Rami Malek! I got so excited, I couldn’t explain it at the time, but seeing his face made me so happy! I knew him by his features, skin tone and hair texture! I was sad that he disappeared until Mr. Robot became a big deal...only for people to keep calling him an Arab.
A fucking Ben Stiller kid’s movie could cast accurately, but all these epic movies and TV productions could not and still refuse to? Interesting!
That’s why I was so excited for the live-action Aladdin, Marwan Kenzari and Mena Massoud are both North African. That’s why i came running into the Old Guard fandom, because Joe is North African played by a North African! I’m sure many of the Italians came for the same reason, Luca is actually Italian, not some American called Pete.
But in general, it really wouldn’t kill them to remember that Joe is North African, both he and Nicky are Mediterranean, Nicky and Booker were raised Catholic, and Andy is probably Eastern European. Neither Andy or Booker are like Nicky and vice versa, nor are they anything like Merrick, who is the embodiment of British imperialism, stop trying to equate them. These distinctions matter.
As for Modern AUs, those are up to your story. It’s only a problem if you change their ethnicities.
I don’t mind them set in America, it makes it easier for many to justify the characters meeting in the same city. I’m writing a Modern AU where Nicky is second-generation Italian, Booker immigrated from France, and Joe was born in the US to an Egyptian/Tunisian couple, because it hand-waves explaining what they’re all doing in the same place Nile and Andy are.
TL;DR Representation matters!
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themollyjay · 3 years
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The Myths of Forced Diversity and Virtue Signaling.
In my novel Mail Order Bride, the three main characters are a lesbian and two agendered aliens.  In my novel Scatter, the main character is a lesbian, the love interest is a pansexual alien, and the major side characters include a half Cuban, half black Dominican lesbian, a Chinese Dragon, a New York born Jewish Dragon, and a Transgender Welsh Dragon.  In my novel The Master of Puppets, the Main Characters are a lesbian shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborg and a half black, half Japanese lesbian.  The major side characters include three gender fluid shapeshifting reptilian alien cyborgs, and a pansexual human.  In my novel Transistor, the main character is a Trans Lesbian, the love interest is a Half human/Half Angel non-observant Ethiopian Jew, and the major side characters include a Transgender Welsh Dragon (the same one from Scatter), a Transgender woman, a Latino Lesbian, an autistic man, three Middle Eastern Arch Angels, and a hive mind AI with literally hundreds of genders.  In my novel The Inevitable singularity, one of the main characters is a lesbian, another has a less clearly defined sexuality but she is definitely in love with the lesbian, and the third is functionally asexual due to a vow of chastity she takes very seriously.  The major side characters include a straight guy from a social class similar to the Dalit (commonly known as untouchables) in India, a bisexual woman, a man who is from a race of genetically modified human/frog hybrids, and a woman from a race of genetically modified humans who are bred and sold as indentured sex workers.
Why am I bringing all of this up?  Well, first, because it’s kind of cool to look at the list of different characters I’ve created, but mostly because it connects to what I want to talk about today, which should be obvious from the title of the essay.  The concepts of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’.
For those who aren’t familiar with these terms, they’re very closely related concepts.  ‘Forced Diversity’ is the idea that characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are only ever included in a story because of outside pressure from some group (usually called Social Justice Warriors, or The Woke Brigade or something similar) to meet some nebulous political agenda.  The caveat to this is, of course, that you can have a women/women present as long as they are hot, don’t make any major contributions to the resolution of the plot, and the hero/heroes get to fuck them before the end of the story. ‘Virtue Signaling’, according to Wikipedia, is a pejorative neologism for the expression of a disingenuous moral viewpoint with the intent of communicating good character.
The basic argument is that Forced Diversity is a form of virtue signaling.  That no one would ever write characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males because they want to.  They only do it to please the evil SJW’s who are somehow both so powerful that they force everybody to conform to their desires, yet so irrelevant that catering to them dooms any creative project to financial failure via the infamous ‘go woke, go broke’ rule.
What the people who push this idea of Forced Diversity tend to forget is that we exist at a point in time when creators actually have more creative freedom than are any other people in history.  Comic writers can throw up a website and publish their work as a webcomic without having to go through Marvel, DC or one of the other big names, or get a place in the dying realm of the news paper comics page.  Novelists can self-publish with fairly little upfront costs, musicians can use places like YouTube and Soundcloud to get their work out without having to worry about music publishers.  Artists can hock their work on twitter and tumblr and a dozen other places. Podcasts are relatively cheap to make, which has opened up a resurgence in audio dramas.  Even the barrier to entry for live action drama is ridiculously low.
So, in a world where creators have more freedom than ever before, why would they choose to people their stories with characters they don’t want there?  The answer, of course, is that they wouldn’t.  Authors, comic creators, indie film creators and so on aren’t putting diverse characters into their stories because they are being forced to. They’re putting diverse characters into their stories because they want to.  Creators want to tell stories about someone other than the generically handsome hypermasculine cisgendered heterosexual white males that have been the protagonists of so many stories over the years that we’ve choking on it. A lot of times, creators want to tell stories about people like themselves.  Black creators want to tell stories about the black experience. Queer creators want to tell stories about the queer experience.
I’m an autistic, mentally ill trans feminine abuse survivor.  Every day, I get up and I struggle with PTSD, with an eating disorder, with severe body dysmorphia, with anxiety and depression and just the reality of being autistic and transgender.  I deal with the fact that the religious community I grew up in views me as an abomination, and genuinely believes I’m going to spend eternity burning in hell.  I deal with the fact that people I’ve known for decades, even members of my own family, regularly vote for politician who publicly state that they want to strip me of my civil rights because I’m queer.  I’m part of a community that experiences a disproportionately high murder and suicide rate.  I’ve spent multiple years of my life deep in suicidal depression, and to this day, I still don’t trust myself around guns.
As a creator, I want to talk about those issues.  I want to deal with my life experiences.  I want to create characters that embody and express aspects of my lived experience and my day-to-day reality.  No one is forcing me to put diversity into my books.  I try to include Jewish characters as often as I can because there have been a number of important Jewish people in my life.  I include queer people because I’m queer and the vast majority of friends I interact with on a regular basis are queer.  I include people with mental illnesses and trauma because I am mentally ill and have trauma, and I know a lot of people with mental illnesses and trauma.  My work may be full of fantastical elements, aliens and dragons and angels and superheroes and magic and ultra-high technology and AI’s and talking cats and robot dogs and shape shifters and telepaths and all sorts of other things, but at the core of the stories is my own lived experience, and neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males are vanishingly rare in that experience.
Now, I can hear the comments already.  The ‘okay, maybe that’s true for individual creators, but what about corporate artwork?’.   Maybe not in those exact words, but you get the idea.
The thought here is that corporations are bowing to social pressure to include characters who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males, and that is somehow bad. But here’s the thing. Corporations are going to chase the dollars.  They aren’t bowing to social pressure.  There’s no one holding a gun to some executive’s head saying, “You must have this many diversity tokens in every script.”  What is happening is that corporations are starting to clue into the fact that people who aren’t neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white males have money.  They are putting black characters in their shows and movies because black people watch shows and spend money on movies.  They are putting queer people in shows and movies because queer people watch shows and spend money on movies.  They are putting women in shows and movies because women watch shows and spend money on movies.
No one is forcing these companies to do this.  They are choosing to do it, the same way individual creators are choosing to do it.  In the companies’ cases the choices are made for different reasons.  It’s not because they are necessarily passionate about telling stories about a particular experience, but because they want to create art to be consumed by the largest audience possible, which means that they have to expand their audience beyond the neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white male by including characters from outside of that demographic.
And the reality is, the cries of ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ almost always come from within that demographic.  Note the almost.  There are a scattering of individuals from outside that demographic which do subscribe to the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ myths, but that is a whole other essay.  However, within that demographic, lot of the people who cry about ‘forced diversity’ see media and content as a Zero-Sum game.  The more that’s created for other people, the less that is created for them.
In a way, they’re right. There are only so many slots for TV shows each week, there are only so many theaters, only so much space on comic bookshelves and so on.  But at the end of the day, its literally impossible for them to consume all the content that’s being produced anyway.  So, while there is, theoretically less content for them to consume, as a practical matter it’s a bit like someone who is a meat eater going to a buffet with two hundred items, and then throwing a tantrum because five of the items happen to be vegan.
The worst part is, if they could let go of how wound up they are about the ‘forced diversity’ and ‘virtue signaling’ they could probably enjoy the content that’s produced for people other than them.  I mean, I’m a pasty ass white girl, and I loved Black Panther.
So, to wrap out, creators, make what you want to make, and ignore anyone who cries about forced diversity or virtue signaling.  And to people who are complaining about forced diversity and virtue signaling, I want to go back to the buffet metaphor.  You need to relax.  Even if there are a few vegan options on the buffet, you can still get your medium rare steak, or your chicken teriyaki or whatever it is you want.  Or, maybe, just maybe, you could give the falafel a try. That shit is delicious.
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wolfsneedles · 3 years
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when cersei says, "she had a warrior heart, but the gods in their blind malice had given her the feeble body of a woman"
i actually felt it. no not the way she does ofc since she is essentially an antagonistic character but more like, the comparisons she makes the way she hates her own sex and wants power how she assumes herself as tywins daughter and how jaime thinks she call herself tywin lannister with teats, all point to her major disgusting internal conflict. ofc when we later see walk of shame it was worse the comments thrown on her body. in first books when we never had her pov i thought she too would admire herself her beauty, however cersei, in all her honestly hates her female traits and doesn't flaunt her beauty like i always thought or got idea from in first books. she is very mean and dehumanising to women and sees them inferiorly, not to say she herself was treated with a lot of hatred and sexism and then sold to marry a man she doesn't desire who himself was brutal on her, however i think she would have never been personally happy with anyone. cersei sees the entire point of being woman to please men with what she tells sansa, and then to be used as woman too . she doesn't like or meets appreciates strong women she hasn't seen or met dany obv neither would she ever have pleasant thoughts about brienne and arya even, she comments sometimes how woman is pretty but she herself always reduces her worth and others to just a girl to be sold and mounted. ofc her internal conflict i find is v interesting and confusing at times. she hates women but also wants other to accept her everything her every cruel practices even perhaps as woman. she doesn't like being woman to please people at all, yet its so sad and helpless to see her try to tempt jaime or osney even later just so they could listen to her. she hates the rampant sexism and misogyny in westeros even exhibited by her brothers and father but she doesn't realise she is using the same notion and definitions of sexism people have about women to demean and hate woman around her. its like she hates men definitely but she hates doing effort herself too to be a same female figure or woman we see other asoiaf women exhibit or do.
i was wondering if her behaviour towards women themselves, how she sees them inferior even when the men around her aren't seeing them like this, but she sees women with sexist approach too she mentions about rape or septa being or longing for rape, she ridicules and discusses margaerys virginity so much, she talks about uncensored stuff to sansa lol, when she is young girl literally, points to the fact how blunt and hateful cersei is of herself but also of female definition. i think this has a lot to do with her maybe not having to experience a mothers love??? i never liked how she was always surrounded ironically by men around her. we never see major strong female lannister representation i just realised. we only see or hear about tywin who had brutal approach to westeros the, holier-than-thou approach. we see jaime who is prob not worse like tywin at all but he also constantly tries to berate and pass quite nauseating remarks for women and ill hold this opinion about him until i see him say sorry to brienne lol (not to mention he does not hate women as whole even as being a man), we see tyrion also not really ideal partner and excessively morally grey character although i have never or maybe remember sexist or extremely insensitive remarks about women by tyrion until we see him in adwd only blurting out pretty worse sentences and maybe acting same like his father, and then we just know kevan who always well * saw cersei as not so perfect person and is kind of weird to her or idk maybe i never liked that lad because he also kind of sexualised her in childhood as cersei says maybe that men never looked at her like they do at others and she was seen with different eyes, all this time i wonder kind of where was tywin though he could have given or taught her good wholehearted valuable values anyway my anti tywin agenda not here today*, and then we see lancel, well for all we know he slept with her too but its just weird again that she slept with him to get rid of her obnoxious husband and well, lancel doesn't really hurt her though or ever saw her like her brothers do, considering his religious changes. but all this time im wondering cersei kind of missed having any wholesome woman in her life as, friend or companion which contributes to her internalised misogyny even more (its like she is opposite of catelyn hundred percent but cat also has internalised misogyny and i realised she never had loving sister cousin friend or companion) maybe im not thinking right but doesn't it click to u all that they both esp cersei of course see women in diff colours and not like how arya dany sansa brienne see women, because they lacked any stronger female character to look upto too. cats treatment of jon which is separate thing was quite questionable and so how she feels weird too when she sees mya stone! but cat or cersei never both, confronted their husbands or told them anything or even discussed any issues with them (this is for cat esp when she should have been angry over ned for jon :/ but she changed her energy to jon) . and it makes me wonder its also because they both were raised in a v male dominated society with diff kinds of fathers, uncles and brothers, that cersei especially has diff notion to what a random woman outside castle would even look like or act like and that all of them aren't really linked to their virginity or marriages and babies. i dont think ofc she would have been different if she had wholesome female friend but she did or should have had someone as girl who had her back when she was growing up???
(btw this isn't pro cersei thing at all - i was kind of horrified by her analysis of women we get to see in affc and then the melara thing at her young age was well fked up also pinching tyrion when he was baby "until he cried" or calling him "little monster" or whatever shows infact how she is quite disdainful of men like tyrion too and not just women. i was wondering maybe her losing joanna maybe played significant role only that being said, she is biggest antiparallel to dany and catelyn! )
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esther-dot · 3 years
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Apparently Rhaegar, Tyrion, Ned and Robert are victims in their marriages. According to fandom problems are in Elia for weak and frail, Sansa for being cold, Cat for being Tully and Cersei for being mean. Also for them Stannis is hero while Selyse is crazy bitch. For them these women are responsible for their faves manpain.
Well, to be fair, Cersei was involved in Robert's death so he technically was her victim. But, he was an abusive ass, so no, I don't really care.
I don't understand at all how they could claim Ned suffered as a result of his marriage. I think we're meant to admire Cat, Ned trusts her to handle the North for him/advise Robb, and if anything, it seems like he has a lot of shame surrounding not feeling worthy of getting what was meant for Brandon ie he would probably say he’s undeserving of Cat.
As for Tyrion and Sansa, there's no saving the people who think a child needs to have sex with a grown man to make him feel better about himself. Everyone who thinks that has far more serious issues than their bad ASOIAF takes.
That brings us to Rhaegar, and I personally loathe the bastard because of Rhaenys (I’m not kidding, I will never be over that line), but I am not confident that I know what Martin is doing with him. What Martin has written about him is so bizarre to me that I can’t make heads or tails of it.
He’s a nerd, gets inspired by reading about the prophecy and decides to become something of a warrior in addition to believing he needs three kids, he has concerns about his dad and knows he needs to do something about him, and yet, he goes to the tourney, sees a young teenage girl, is (allegedly) so totally infatuated with her that he does something that insults her honor, his wife’s honor, multiple great houses, and ya know, Dorne? And, then, even though he totally changed who he was because he believed he needed to for the greater good, even though he knew his dad was a problem, he throws Westeros into chaos by running away with or kidnapping Lyanna?? I really don’t think Martin will leave it at kidnapping/rape because he likes to evolve our understanding of characters, but if he truly wants us to think “fool in love” (something he said about Rhaegar) he shouldn’t have made Rhaegar’s actions lead to the brutal murder of his wife and children. It’s unforgivable, his choices precluded any peaceful outcome, and for a guy who previously basically changed his identity for the greater good/the future, it just makes no sense to me.
I’ve seen people claim R/L is a Romeo and Juliet situation/forbidden love, and I think the issue is, even in the most Rhaegar friendly interpretation, it is undeniable that he initiated their relationship in the worst way possible and then escalated it in a way that was certainly going to lead to bad things, that left his wife/children and the realm as a whole vulnerable. It isn’t romantic or beautiful, it’s shameful. Lyanna and Elia are his victims.
Oh, Stannis. Since we now know where the people burning is leading, we’re meant to realize, oh, none of this is ok. The man doesn’t have to purpose to do evil to do evil. Martin confirmed he will burn his daughter alive. Men sacrificing their children for their own ends is horrific even when it’s just a marriage and not a literal burnt offering. All of his decisions are on him, and his wife being unattractive/religious etc doesn’t change that.
Fans should learn how to enjoy the characters without trying to scrub them clean of all their guilt. It isn’t hard to do. I love Ned, and yet I recognize his failures. 🤷🏻‍♀️
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askhindumyths · 3 years
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To the moderators. I asked this question to three people but no one answered. Comparison between asoiaf characters and mahabharata characters. Jaime karna. Draupadhi dany. Arjun rhagar. Quentyn abhimanyu. Duryudhan Robert. Oberyn ashwathama. Yudhishthir ned. Cat kunti. Eklavya jon. Krishna Tyrion. Bheem clegane. Also I love the blog.
This has been in the askboox forever.
It will be a very long answer.
Well I was a but hesitant to compare characters since mahabharat is an ancient mythological/religious text and asoiaf is a modern novel written by a white man about medieval age with dher sara racism and usse bhi zyada sexism.
Jaime and karna is an apt comparison. Both are grey characters. They are very similar and perhaps the most interesting character in their stories. neither of them are bad or irredeemable like some people think. They are not evil.Both have done some bad things.Jaime pushing a child and karna asking for draupadhi to be disrobed. Both have fans who will defend and ignore every wrong thing they have ever done. Both have haters who will accuse them or blame them for things they haven't done. Both have abandonment tissues. And issues with parents. Tywin and Kunti. Both have toxic relationship with one of their siblings. Both have one man(brother) whom they love a lot.They both are big time dicks. They both ate great warriors. Have golden armour and great hair. Both didn't get what they deserved as first sons.
Also.i love them both. Both have bi aesthetics.
But I feel jaime is more darker version of karna.
Draupadhi dany? Draupadhi dany? Seriously? How can you. One is the epitome of kindness other has a tendency of being cruel especially to teens while being a teen herself. Dany wannt power. Draupadhi demands respect. I think Arianne matches draupadhi in a way they both are kind and sweet and dark and very beautiful but also wants what's their by right. But closest comparison to draupadhi will be Elia. Both beautiful dark skinned princess. Both knows to be witty and sweet at same time. Both have two brothers who love them very much. The elder brother being calm and composed and seeks revenge(for himself and for his sister respectively). The one same age as very is attractive, fierce, a great warrior and will fo anything for their sister. So you have another similarities. Oberyn and Drishtdyum.
Now similarities in their tragedy. Both married to prince charming. Both of their husband cheated on them.(yes I would call arjun going on a self imposed bramcharya because he interrupted dra and yudi and then bringing two wives with him cheating. And I am fully aware one of those marriages was forced on him so I won't blame him for that one).one is Insulted in front of the whole kingdom because of her husband other is insulted and humiliated by her husband. Almost sexually harassed and brutally raped.Innocent children were killed by an evil man. Draupadhi's consent is not clear when she was married of to other four pandavas and Elia's concent is dubious during aegon's conception. Both are hated for no reasons at all part from sexism and racism respectively. Both are bright women who deserved so much better but didn't get because men cant give their best character happiness.
Well the only similarities between dany and draupadhi is that bothered the women are strong willed and do not hesitate to speak their mind.
Dany herself isn't evil but her character arch is mixture of white saviour/colonist and invader even though she is projected as an conqueror.
Oh. So you are the one who compared arjun with that peice of shit. I guess a certain person gave you a very befitting reply. But I will add my two cents. Both of them are shy prince . Those dreamy boys. One to some extent matches the description while the other is a black blot on the whole men community. Both of them cheated on their wife( yeah I would call arjun going on a brahmcharya yatra because he interrupted drapu and yudi and then bringing back two wives with him without her consent cheating. I am fully aware one of the marriage was forced into him so atleast one). The last similarities between them is that pos is a good instrument player and arjun a great dancer. Similarly ends here.
I think arjun and jon are more similar. They both are the so called protagonists, great at their arsenal skills and have a tendency to brood. Girls are mad after them. Anxiety prone. Constantly needs Krishna's/ aemon's guidance. Calm and hyper at the same time. Have good hair. Mommy issues and brother issues. Often becomes gay with Krishna and satin who are supposed to be their brother. I guess they both are a bit overhyped.dont get me wrong but neither of them are the best character or the most interesting character. Here best does not mean good people. Also they are often excused of everything wrong they have ever done because "heroes". They both were forced by a woman to sleep with them.
Eklavya and jon ? Definitely not. More like eklavya and theon. Both deserve better. Both wanted to prove themselves. Both were not acknowledged by the men they admired. Both were mutilated.
Oberyn and Ashwathama? Hell no. I know both are angry,hot warriors and desire revenge but they are polls apart. Ashwathama killed innocent teenagers in middle of night. Oberyn desired revenge for brutal rape and murder.of her sister and her children. He literally died fighting for justice for murdered children.
Duryudhan and Robert? Good men turned bad. Stupid and angry. Big muscular men who love to drink and don't respect women. Maybe that comparison is apt.
Bheem and clegane? My eyes are bleeding. The only similarity between them is that they both are gigantic and physically very powerful men. I agree bheem has massive anger issues but ugh.
Jr clegane is okay but creepy. His big brother is a monster who killed a baby by smashing his head and raped her mother on his corpse. And now he is a cruel zombie. Bheem has killed many people in war but the only time he got violent or cruel was with men who almost harrassed his wife in public.
Yudhishthir and ned.
Well yeah. Both extremely boring characters. Have false sense of moral. They are all about morals except when it comes to them. They took their families for granted and jeopardised their lives.
Tbh I am not a big fan of either women. Dont get me wrong. I don't
Cat and kunti are alike. Mentally strong.
Accepted that their husband had another woman. Love their children fiercely. Will do anything for them. Have shades of grey.
Kunti is guilt driven for abandoning karna and cat to some extent thinks about the fact how she never felt affectionate about Jon. Rhe sixth child.
Abhimanyu was literally bifurcated to make quentynans aegon. Son of a prince charming. Destined to be hero and destined to die young. Fierce,smart, pretty , nice and immensely cute teenager boys. Absolutely adorable. A leader. Taught from a young age/womb about warship skills and politics.
Abhimanyu and quentyn match too. Young shy boy on a mission. Wants to impress his father. The most innocent character in the story. Good hearted. Mission fails. Dies in the most painful way imaginable.
Krishna and Tyrion? Lol. There is nothing similar. One is a pathetic, self loathing drunkard who thinks he is smart the other one is literally a god.
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20 questions, writer's edition
I was tagged by @lambourngb - This was harder to fill out then it first appeared, btw.
1. How many works do you have on AO3?
118
2. What's your total AO3 word count?
516,223.  I never looked that much at my statistics page before so that’s exciting to look at.
3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?
Oh my gosh, so many.  25 different ones on ao3, 9 more that were never cross posted from the pit of voles, and at least 5-10 fandoms from prior to either of those sites.  LJ, Yahoo Groups, BBS boards, etc.    A partial list includes: Roswell New Mexico (2019) (My most prolific with 40 fics on ao3 and more here on tumblr I never cross posted there.), Hetalia, Yuri on Ice, Supernatural, Samurai Warriors, Uta no Prince-sama, Voltron, Shadowhunters, My Hero Academia, Pirates of the Caribbean, Animal Kingdom, The Old Guard, The Walking Dead, Dynasty Warriors, The Witcher, Xyber 9, Shadow Raiders, Mummies Alive, Babylon 5, and Star Trek.
4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes (The Old Guard) (Yeah, I had this one on anonymous for awhile.) 
Until the TIme is Through (Roswell New Mexico) (Part of my Canon Divergent To the Moon and Back Series) 
I Want You (Roswell New Mexico) (NSFW Malex) 
Crash and Burn (Roswell New Mexico) (Part of my Canon Divergent To the Moon and Back Series) 
Snow (Hetalia) (NSWF IvanxAlfred) 
5. What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?
I’m torn between three actually:
Dormant (Hetalia)  I always say I love two endings, happy endings and greek tragedies, but I rarely write the greek tragedies.  Dormant is one of my exceptions.  Hetalia has one character who is hinted at being immortal, and I took that and wrote a fic about an Extinction Level Event and him watching the other characters die around him while he can’t.  I’ve always been really proud of this fic, despite it being one of the saddest things I’ve ever written.
Unclean (Roswell New Mexico)  Which is almost the darkest fic I’ve ever written.  It’s about Michael’s time in the home of the “Fundamentalist Religious Freaks” and the exorcism he mentioned.  It ends after the drifter and is very much hurt, no comfort.
Hell is… (Roswell New Mexico)  This is a ficlet I wrote for a prompt.  And it’s a dark take about what could have happened to the pod squad if they’d been caught after the murders.
6. What's the fic you've written with the happiest ending?
Almost all my fics have happy endings.  So, what is the happiest?  Probably either:
Deck the Halls (Roswell New Mexico)  An Echo & Malex Christmas fic that is as fluffy as a fic that involves the Pod Squad, Christmas, and being attacked by anti-alien paramilitary groups can be.  (Also, Echo has a cat called Grisabella the Glamour Cat because Max should not be allowed to name anything and nobody can convince me that wouldn’t be absolute canon in a committed Echo relationship.)
Or
In Over Their Heads (Yuri on Ice)  A Seungchuchu with a fake engagement and unrequited feelings that aren’t actually unrequited. (And where Sara is Seung’s best friend because apparently I always write them that way and have no regrets.)
7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you've written?
I don’t write crossovers.  Because I rarely find myself sold on the idea that the two stories exist in the same verse or can think of a way the characters would interact that would inspire me to write a fic.
8. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Yes, and pretty much anything.  M/M, F/F, M/F, and Poly.  Plus a large variety of kinks.  (Yes, I was often on kink memes back in my LJ days.)
9. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?
I try to?  I used to never respond because I didn’t know what to say, and then I tried to respond to every one, but there would be long gaps between when I checked and then I felt bad for responding so late, and sometimes I still don’t know what to say so I just end up not replying.  XD
10. Have you ever received hate on a fic?
Surprisingly very little.  Some harsh criticism - one in particular actually hit young me hard enough to stop writing for a while back in the day.  But I tend to get more hate for my meta than my fics.  Which is odd since my fics are usually very much representative of my meta.
11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not that I’m aware of.
12. Have you ever had a fic translated?
Only one - a Dynasty Warrior fic of mine about the bond between CaoCao and Xiahou Dun was translated into Chinese.  I mean, Dynasty Warriors is a video game literally based on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is based on chinese history, so for someone to want to translate one of my fics about it was incredible to me. Links below.
Honor 
Translation: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4589910
13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?
No.  I would probably drive a co-author nuts, tbh.  I’m so inconsistent.  And at the same time, I have a thousand thoughts.
14. What's your all time favourite ship? to write for?
I don’t actually have one?  RNM has become my top fandom to write for, there’s no doubt.  And while I think Malex is in the most fics among them, I’m not sure if that number surpasses other ships in other fandoms I’ve written for altogether.  In fact, according to ao3, only 15 fics of my 40 RNM even have Malex in them at all, and not all of those are Malex-centric.  In fact in at least 3, they’re a side ship.
I’d say that I probably write almost as many fics that are gen, friendship, family/found family feels, and character introspection as I do shipping fics.  Which doesn’t really leave room for any one ship to be at the forefront.
15. What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?
None, I hope.  LOL.  There’s definitely a few that I have left uncompleted for a long time and feel guilty about but I’m not ready to say I’ve abandoned them yet.  There’s a ton of ideas I have written down that I may never actually write.  But none I have started that I don’t want to finish.
16. What are your writing strengths?
The three consistent compliments I’ve gotten are:  I capture the characters’ voices in my dialogue.  My writing tone is unique.  My smut is super hot.  XD  (I have no explanation for the last one, because to be honest ¾ of my smut is always foreplay.)
17. What are your writing weaknesses?
Action scenes.  I have been told before that my action scenes are very confusing.  Also, I rarely give physical descriptions of people’s appearances because I honestly rarely stop to consider what they’re wearing or how their hair is done.
18. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?
It’s common in a couple of fandoms of mine, and I actually don’t mind it. Depending on the fic, it can be more realistic to me than otherwise.  (I just appreciate it when the translation is also provided.)
19. What was the first fandom you wrote for?
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  But I never posted that one.  Um… I think Ranma ½ was the first one I ever posted for others to read?
20. What's your favourite fic you've written?
Oh, gosh. Um… I know at one point I listed Dormant.  But I think right now if I had to choose I’d say either
School of Hard Knocks (Roswell New Mexico)  Which is my Michael-centric fic set in the lost decade.
Or
Duty First (Shadowhunters)  My Magnus and Raphael “missing scene” from 02x20.
Tagging @manesalex @lovecolibri @islndgurl777 @ninswhimsy 
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