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herebutnothere · 5 days

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When Rick returns to the CRM and receives the Echelon Briefing, he’s presented with a fork in the road that has two clear options:

Path A: Save the people he loves by going along with mass murder.

Path B: Save the people he loves by going home.

We all know how that ends (with a table slide 🥵), but as I was (re)watching, I couldn’t help but wonder—What would have happened if Michonne hadn't found him? What would have happened if Commando Rick was the one hearing the briefing? What would have happened if the E1 version of Rick had to choose?

On its face, what General Beale offers is the solution to Rick’s biggest problems and the salve to his deepest wounds. When Beale callously, manipulatively, rudely says that even Rick’s best efforts (chomp, chomp) weren’t enough to save Carl in the end, he offers the secret army within the CRM as a way to do what Rick couldn’t and can’t—keep people safe.

But…

But.

“The Ones Who Live” is an epic love story. In virtually every single interview they’ve done leading up to the show and every single interview they’ve done since it aired, Danai, Andrew, and Scott have been very clear about the story they wanted to tell. This quote from Danai stands out to me in particular:

“When love is the driving force, when it is the propelling thing, when it is making the plot move, what does that look like?”

In other words, what does it look like when love is both the reason for and the result of our actions and decisions?

Throughout TOWL, we get to explore all types of love: romantic (e.g., Rick and Michonne), platonic (e.g., Michonne and Nat), familial (e.g., the Grimes), community (e.g., the caravan), self-love (e.g., Michonne’s articulation of how she views herself for leaving her Shoto and Little Brave Man to find Rick), as well as all the types of love that Ancient Greek philosophers talked about.

We also get to explore the bastardization of love. We get to see its abuse, its disregard, its minimization, and the consequences therein—

When Beale rejected love, he sacrificed his community.

When Thorne lost faith in love, she devoted herself to Beale’s fascist mission.

When Okafor abandoned love, he killed his wife.

Even when Beale is showing Rick a version of paradise where the people he cares about are safe, he starts to say “a lov-” and cuts himself off with “I don’t give a damn.” For him, a love or lover is inconsequential. This thing that ties us together, that makes us us is something trivial that can be cast aside for the bigger picture…

And while we don’t see the other briefings, we do know that Beale’s done 2,533 of them, so—assuming they all accepted—that means there are 2,531 other people besides Okafor and Thorne who have rejected, minimized, destroyed, forgotten, been hurt by, fear, lost, and/or given up on love, too.

So back to Rick, the fork in the road, and my hypothetical question:

I think that, if Michonne hadn’t had found Rick, if he was still deep in the trenches of the CRM and Okafor’s mission, if he was still walking around dead inside, I think he would have rejected Beale’s offer. Not because he didn’t want to be reunited with his family, but because he wouldn’t have wanted to be reunited with his family like that.

He wouldn’t have wanted to be with Michonne with his disregard for humanity standing between them.

He wouldn’t have wanted to hold Judith—that sweet precious baby he left behind—and taint her innocence with his sins.

Because as Michonne told him, “That’s not how you love.”

(And, needless to say, in this hypothetical scenario of Michonne not finding Rick pre-briefing, he wouldn’t know about RJ so he wouldn’t have been accounted for in this decision-making process.)

If there was no reunion and Rick was left to make this decision without the buoyancy of Michonne and all that she reminded him of, if all he had was the memory of the love and life he left behind, the paths in front of Commando Rick would be bleak af:

Path A1: Go along with the mission to murder millions and be reunited with his family. (Essentially becoming everything he stood against pre-ZA and pre-CRM and never truly being with them again.)

Path A2: Pretend to go along with the mission, but actually try to sabotage it. (Although he might feel trapped because the briefing was the same day as or just before the Portland attack and he might not be able to undo it all on his own in time.)

Path B: Try to escape. Again. (But likely not succeed.)

Path C: End his life. (And at least die knowing that Michonne and Judith might be able to get away and continue living.)

Which path do you think he would take? 😔

This is why I internally chuckle and roll my eyes at the critiques that TOWL focused too much on love. The way the finale—and the show as a whole—unfolded was the only option. Everything about Rick and Michonne and who they are in this particular world led to this moment. Everything they'd been through for nearly a decade (nearly eight of which he was held captive) came together.

An epic love story indeed.

The failure to see that and the desire to disregard the power of love—the power of Richonne’s love—simply means you weren’t having the experience you claim you want to have. Go back and watch from the beginning, babe. Pull up E1 and hit “play.” I promise you’ll like it so much better when you allow yourself to believe.

#twd: the ones who live #richonne #they said it was a love story and love stories (typically) require a HEA so what did you really think would happen #rick grimes towl #rick grimes #michone grimes #michonne x rick #twd towl #the ones who live #twd the ones who live #i know i just got here but it's in the text!!!

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yellow-yarrow · 4 days

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"Now some of you might want to know whether demons still exist in the Elysium world in some way or form, I’m going to leave it hanging)." (x) okay well what is this then

Joyce Messier - "*A Deuill*," she pronounces: "*Who being of great Charme and Guille, sneaketh into the homes of the Godlie*." Conceptualization - That dialect is Ubi Sunt?. You recognize the quote from somewhere. A play, written way back in the Franconigerian century... Electrochemistry - Beneath her waterproof raincoat and silk shirt is a body imbibed in Numb 12 perfume. You are suddenly and intimately aware of it. You - "*And perswades them to addict themselues to his seruice...*" Joyce Messier - "Ah, you know more than you let on..." She gives you a coy little smile. "Philosopher-Detective of Precinct 41." You - (Nod.) "Devil Woman."

Harry is quoting from Daemonologie by King James VI (x)

Daemonologie [..]was first published in 1597[1] by King James VI of Scotland (later also James I of England) as a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic. [..] Daemonologie included a study of demonology and the methods demons used to bother troubled men. The book endorses the practice of witch hunting. This book is believed to be one of the main sources used by William Shakespeare in the production of Macbeth. (x)

the funniest thing is that I couldn't find Joyce's quote in Daemonologie. The sentence before Harry's quote is this:

Their mindes being prepared before hand, as I haue alreadie spoken, they easelie agreed vnto that demande of his: And syne settes an other tryist, where they may meete againe. At which time, before he proceede any further with them, he first perswades them to addict themselues to his seruice:

The only place I found that exact quote, was an article about Tony Blair, (published in 2014) (x), where he is described as some ancient evil demon. (it's pretty funny)

I think it's interesting how "Devil Woman" is mostly mentioned when there is something that reminds Harry of his ex

Joyce's perfume, which is "Sweet like the scent of chewing gum on some letter, long ago..."

Klaasje (blond young woman in disco era clothes, has birthmarks on her face - Dora had freckles)

Man from Hjelmdall and the Devil Woman book

another smell that is related to Dora is cinnamon

Apricot Chewing Gum Wrapper - There it is again -- the scent of apricots, with a touch of cinnamon. Smells like the end of some distant summer. The surface of another planet, or some ancient temple.

From Sacred and Terrible Air:

(..)was whispered into Fakkengaff’s ear by the very soul of debauchery. She had the white wings of an angel, but the breath against the disc jockey’s ear had been hot with passion, smelling of cinnamon and primal evil.

^ again with the evil thing (and aren't demons fallen angels?)

Daemonologie was written to endorse witch hunting and through the game there are times where Harry can say some pretty sexist stuff about women (calling them whores and devil women) so it's fitting

so. don't know where I'm going with this but pretty interesting stuff

#correct me if im wrong. is there a source for the first quote anywhere else #de meta #disco elysium #*taking notes* Shakespeare exists in elyium *goes to my pepe sylvia board* strangely fitting tony blair article. demon women? dolores dei?#I have a really hard time reading old english so there isnt much i can say about it

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oneatlatime · 11 months

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The Boy in the Iceberg

58 seconds in and I can already see why people say this show is gorgeous. Look at those colours! Although the double image around some of the line art is distracting.

Can water do that? Just have random fast currents in an otherwise pretty still ocean? Also, Catara couldn't have grabbed a spare paddle and helped? Actually they seemed screwed anyway. If they were going any faster they probably would have landed harder, or not on ice at all.

Judging by Sokka's lack of reaction to Catara's temper tantrum, I'd say she has that exact rant at least three times a week.

It's a face!

Maybe the giant orb created the current to summon them there?

Catara has no self-preservation instincts at all. Giant glowy orb washed up in front of you, don't poke it!

Tiger seals.

Solitaire. Neat.

That haircut is not good. Also a very unique choice for a voice. Wait this is Zuko? The guy everyone's obsessed with?

I love Appa already.

"this is Catara, my flying sister." A man after my own heart.

They really would have been stuck without Aang to offer a ride. What was their plan to get home?

Zuko is a prince? Hunting the avatar to reclaim his honour. Not sure how those two go together but ok. I guess 100 years ago the avatar stole a time-travelling Zuko's honour.

Appa can swim through the night? Why does he have six legs?

I didn't know this was a dream sequence at first and I was wondering where Sokka and Catara were. For future reference: dreams are brown.

Aang should have frozen to death by now. That's nowhere near enough clothes. And Catara can't be only just noticing the blue lines now.

Seems like the village has hit a rough patch.

If this is how catara reacts to a bald child, she's gonna spontaneously combust the first time she meets a teenage boy who isn't her brother. And how is an air bender going to teach her water bending?

Between the Appa snot and the watchtower gag, I sense Sokka will become the butt of many jokes.

You know, if you want him to actually learn, maybe tell him what he did wrong rather than reciting philosophical stuff and then shooting fire at his face? His presumably scarred face? Scarred presumably by fire? Kudos to Zuko for not flinching.

Is there a stick in Zuko's hair that's supporting it upright or does his hair just do that? Does Zuko have Pippi Longstocking hair? Speaking of hair, why does Catara have her hair like that? Surely that gets in the way of seeing stuff? It does look good when her hood is up though.

Good sneaky exposition dump Zuko. Didn't notice it until I thought about it after.

There's something hilarious yet tragic about Sokka spouting the wartime equivalent of live laugh love quotes and losing the battle with potty breaks. He has no idea what he's talking about but he believes in what he's saying so much.

Did Aang spend an hour in there?!?

So pretty.

Appa has six legs and penguins have four wings. Is the rule in this show that animals have 50% more appendages?

Last airbender smothered by penguins, more at 11.

"I haven't done this since I was a kid!" "You still are a kid!" That line feels like something that's going to come back.

Was the whole 'being a bender is showing no fear' or however that line went actually about bending, or do you really just want to explore the ship, Aang?

Gerbils at the south pole?

Would the fire nation send people back to rig a lost ship or are all fire nation ships rigged at all times and the crews are just used to working around the traps? Actually that would be a great way to catch spies.

I would jump to brain-damage induced amnesia from being trapped in an iceberg for a few hours before I'd ever think of a century long cryo-sleep. "it's the only explanation." Really?

All of these backgrounds are so pretty.

Air bending gets you some serious air. Those hops are stupid big, even accounting for cartoon physics.

I really like the end credits music. And according to the credits, I've been mispelling Katara's name this whole time.

Some final thoughts:

Katara (with a K) is too idealistic and trusting and Sokka is too cynical and suspicious. A perfect sibling pair. Also I love Sokka's sense of humour.

I like Aang's specific flavour of goofiness. He seems secure in himself and genuine. He has attention issues though.

Appa is a sea bison actually. Common misconception.

I like that they introduce the antagonist like 10 minutes into the first episode, but they're going to have to flesh him out way more before I read Zuko as anything other than an asshole. Also the voice is going to take a while to get used to. It's not that it doesn't fit the character design, it's just that I've never heard an actual human talk like that naturally. It's kind of muppet-like. Maybe he damaged his throat when he got that scar?

The voice acting is just superb. Even single lines like Gran Gran have distinct character. I did have to rewind a couple of times to catch what the old man with Zuko was saying.

The shading on the snow, the clouds and the skies, it's all so beautiful. You could watch this episode on mute and still be satisfied.

Katara is the only waterbender in the whole south pole, Sokka is the only man in the whole village, and Aang is the only air bender in the whole world. Gonna be a lot of lonely kids in this show. I sense a theme. I bet Appa is the only sea bison too.

Sokka is my favourite so far, but I think Aang is going to grow on me. Katara is a little bit too much of a Little Sister (TM) and Zuko just feels flat. But that just means more room to grow for both of them as characters. Of course Appa reigns supreme. I hope there's more of him in the next episode.

Even though this was half of a two-part episode, the cut off didn't feel abrupt. Maybe not a full self-contained story, but they left off at a perfect place.

Rereading this before posting, I asked a lot of quetsions. That's good! So many hooks to get me into the show, all in the first episode. I'm looking forward to the next one.

#atla #avatar: the last airbender #the boy in the iceberg #avatar the last airbender

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froggywaffles · 9 months

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𝙰𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚊

𝙰𝚕𝚎𝚌𝚝𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚊; 𝙶𝚘𝚍𝚍𝚎𝚜𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚜𝚞𝚗 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚗𝚒𝚗𝚐

How can you move forward when you keep regretting the past?

(Y/N) Mustang travels with the Elric brothers to find the philosophers stone to restore their bodies. And the discovery that her alchemy is more different than she originally believed

A/N: Lets ignore that this took me nearly a year to write ;-; lolzz i had to split this chapter in half because i lost half when my laptop broke so ill post the second half once i rewrite it :)) ANYWAY there is a playlist that goes with this which doesn't really go with this chapter but oh well https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0FApCCn34li62l168Sfk9w?si=441729291d964073 (if link doesn't work just search 'FROGGY' into spotify and click profiles u should find it) hope you enjoy

-Froggie :)

Masterlist

Word Count: 4,314

Summary: For the past four years, Ed, Al with the addition of (y/n) have combed the country for a rumored stone that could amplify the boys' alchemy and bring the Elric's bodies back to normal. A battle breaks out against the false prophet Cornello, who is using the science of alchemy and parading it as acts of God.

01 - The Sun God's Prophet Part One

The sun is shining brightly, the sand is scorching, and the air is thick. Sparrows flew toward the large fountain out front of the castle-like building that stood tall in the centre of Liore. The three teens sat not far from the large building at a small cafe bar, and the sound of mindless chatter from other cafe goers could be heard. An unknown voice plays over the radio sitting above Alphonse's head.

“Children of God who live upon this earth, have faith, and thou shalt be saved. The god of the sun, Leto, enlightens thy path. Behold, having descended from his throne, the lord shall save thee from thy sins. As the messenger of the sun God, I am your father”

“A radio broadcast of a sermon?” Al wondered aloud.

“A messenger of god?” Edward questioned as he ate another fry. “What’s that?”

“I think I ought to be the one saying ‘what’s that?’ about you.” The cafe owner asked the three while drying a cup with a towel. He had a thick moustache and wore a dark cap and a light-coloured apron. “So, what are you guys supposed to be? Street performers?”

Dropping his fork annoyed and with an eyebrow twitching, Ed spoke, “Okay pops, what part of us looks like street performers?”

“Well I don’t know ed, we’ve got a 6’3 suit of armour and shorty mcshortison-”

“I’m not short!” Edward retorted, saying it wouldn’t be a surprise if you could see steam coming out of his ears.

“My bad ‘fun-sized’” (y/n) laughed, making air quotes with her finger; Ed rolled his eyes and sighed, and Al giggled.

“If you're not street performers, what are you guys doing in these parts?” The cafe owner asked.

“Yeah, we’re just looking for something,” Ed said, placing his fork on the empty plate, “What’s with this broadcast anyway?"

“You haven’t heard of Father Cornello?” he answered, sounding almost offended.

"Father, who now?” (y/n) asked.

“Father Cornello! The messenger of the sun God! He’s the founder of Letoism. the one with

the ‘power of miracles. He’s this wonderful man who came to this city a couple of years ago

and showed us the way of God!” The man stood tall, hands on his hips. Other cafe goers

interjected about what a great man Father Cornello was.

“It’s incredible!”

“Definitely the power of God!”

Alphonse and (y/n) sat listening intently; Ed, on the other hand, was sitting and messing with

the straw in his cup, completely uninterested.

“You ain't listening, kid.” the cafe owner deadpanned.

“Nope. "I'm not interested in religion.” Ed said, looking the cafe owner straight in the eyes.

"Well, I'm stuffed; let’s beat it.” He said they were beginning to stand Al and (y/n) following

his lead.

“Thanks for the food-” (y/n) was cut off by a loud bang, caused by Al hitting the roof of the

cafe stand and knocking off their radio.

Al and (y/n) following his lead.

“AH!!- HEY!! Don’t cause any problems here! It’s all because you’re walking ‘round in that oversized tin can!” The man shouted leaning over the bar to see his broken radio.

“Sorry, sorry, we’ll fix it right up, don’t worry,” Ed said, waving his hand in apology.

Alphonse leaned over the assessing the damage, as (y/n) reached in her pocket for a stick

of chalk.

“Here,” she said, handing Al the chalk.

“Fix how?” the cafe owner asked, scratching his head.

“Just watch,” Edward answered, as Al finished drawing the transmutation around the broken

radio.

Alphonse went onto his knees, as a crowd of cafe goers surrounded the teens, he clapped

his hands together and pushed them onto the ground. Strikes of blue lightning grew from the

circle, engulfing the radio in blue hues. Looks of shock and amazement plastered the

cafe goers' faces. The blue light soon ceased, and Al rose to his feet.

The cafe owner stood in shock and said, “I’m stunned,” making Ed visibly smirk. “You can use the power of miracles too!” Ed’s smirk dropped almost immediately.

“You what?” "No, we are alchemists; my brother and I are kind of famous, you know?" Ed retorted angrily. "We are the Elric brothers!” Edward stood proudly as cafegoers realised who they were.

“The Elric brothers?!”

“I’ve heard of them before!”

"He's one of those national alchemists!" says the older one.

"Edward Elric, the full-metal alchemist!";

A crowd began to form around Alphonse, (y/n) noticed before Ed did, she tried to hold her laugh as the cafegoers began to praise Al. “So you’re that rumoured genius alchemist!”

"I see why you're called the Fullmetal Alchemist. You wear that suit of armour!"

Ed's proud expression faded, revealing a visible vein on his brow.

“Um, I'm not him,” Al said, waving his hands frantically.

“Huh?”.

“The shorty over there?”

That was it. Edward blew up. “WHO ARE YOU CALLING A SUPER SMALL SPECK”

“PFFFFFFT—a small speck” (y/n), she laughed, almost falling over. He turned toward the crowd of people, angrily ignoring (y/n), who was still giggling at his meltdown. “I am the Fullmetal Alchemist, Edward Elric!” He overemphasised the "I."

“And I’m his little brother, Alphonse,” Al added, rubbing his metal neck nervously. The crowd was taken aback by the revolution that Edward, a child, had started. (y/n) was kneeling to grab the now-fixed radio off the ground when a younger child from the crowd pointed at her and asked, “Who’s she then?”

“Me?” she questioned, pointing to herself now standing up with the radio in hand.

"Oh, that’s just (y/n)” Ed brushed it off.

“What do you mean by just (y/n)?” "You get to use your snazzy title, and I get "just" (y/n)," she chuckled. Before he could speak again, she shoved the radio in Ed’s face and

introduced herself. “I’m the carbon steel alchemist, (y/n) Mustang!” Edward was still

bewildered by how he ended up with the radio. Just as the three were about to leave and headed toward the massive building in the centre of Liore, an unknown girl running toward the cafe shouted to the owner, “Hello! It's a little bit lively today.” She wore a white dress and black sandals. She had tanned skin and dark eyes. She had two-toned hair; the front of her hair was pink and the back was dark brown. "Oh, hello, Rose," the moustached man said cheerfully. “Going to the church again?” He asked.

"Yeah, I need to make some offerings," she said, smiling as she held some items in her hands and turned to face the young alchemists.

“I don’t think I’ve met you before.” All three of them just stared at her.

“They say they’re alchemists; it seems they are looking for something.” The man spoke not

looking up from the glass he was polishing.

She smiled at the three of them, her hair floating in the breeze, and she had a tight hold on the bag she was holding. “I hope you find what you are looking for,” Rose began to walk away, but before going too far, she turned her head to look at them a final time and said, “May Leto protect you!”

“Huh?” Edward said this in confusion, turning towards the cafe owner again.

“That girl, she ain’t got no relatives, and top of that, her boyfriend died in a car accident earlier this year,” he said, putting down his now-polished glass.

“Yeah, you’d think she’d be sad, but she didn’t seem down.” A cafe patron butted in. “What saved her were the teachings of Cornello, the prophet of the sun god Leto! "He who gives everlasting life to the living and rebirth to the dead—the power of miracles proves that.”

Rebirth of the Dead (y/n) turned to face the Elrics, knowing it was too much of a coincidence to be anything else.

“Rebirth of the dead, huh?” Edward said sceptically, chewing on his straw, “Smells fishy.”

The three teens stood before the massive Cathedral like structure, the white paint covering the bricks cracked towards the ground. Pink Azalea flowers grew on the grass, many squashed from previously gathered crowds. They walked through the massive arches, onto pristine white quartz floors, in contrast to the large dark oak doors along the corridor; the further they walked the more white pristine statues and sculptures they came across; they reached another arch that led to the chapel of the building. The chapel's ceilings were high, beautiful quartz columns, and a biblical scene painted onto the ceiling in between the gorgeous stone supports. The room had rows upon rows of dark oak pews, a catwalk in the middle separated them. In the middle of the room was a statue of who they believed to be The Sun God Leto, the statue was kneeling on one knee with a staff firmly in its grip, on its left side was another statue of an angel holding a ring facing The Sun God Leto. And on its right was another angel holding a book. Behind the statues was a stained glass window made up of beautiful shades of yellow creating a sun. Near the statues were two doors, one on the right wall and one on the left. Edward, Alphonse and (y/n) stood before the statues, admiring the craftsmanship that went into creating such masterpieces, when a familiar face entered the chapel from the right side door. “Oh, You three again!” Rose said cheerfully as she walked into the chapel, all three of them turning to face her. “Are you guys going to join the church of Leto?”.

“Nah, religion isn’t our type a’ thing.” (y/n) spoke, waving off the idea, sitting down on one of the pews.

Rose sucked in a breath, like she was offended before she spoke again, “That’s not a real answer! If you can believe in God, you can live with hope and gratitude everyday. It’s wonderful!”. She pointed at Ed and shouted “If you have faith you’ll grow taller for sure!”.

Alphonse grabbed his brother before he attempted to launch himself at the poor girl, a vein popping on his forehead, “Brother! She’s not saying it to be mean.”. With a huff Edward sat on the pew next to (y/n), leaned his head back to look up at the ceiling. His arms resting upon the pew, one arm resting behind (y/n)’s head.

“Do you really believe that if you pray to God the dead will come back to life?”. The question hung heavy in the air, the silence was almost deafening. Rose seemed like someone had just asked her if fish can fly.

“Yes, yes I do.”

The tension in the air was suffocating, the difference in knowledge between the three teens and the young woman was obvious. (y/n) she may never know the full truth of what happened to the brothers but she had learnt one thing from the snippets they trusted her with, the dead should stay dead regardless of how much you long for them.

Edward tilted his head toward the ground releasing an understanding breath, “sheesh…How can you honestly believe these things?”.

He dug around in his pants’ pocket and pulled out a small leather book. His gloved hands flicked through his previously childish handwriting until he found the page he was looking for, and began to read from it.

“Water: 35 litres, Carbon: 20 kg, Ammonia: 4 litres, Lime:1.5 kg, Phosphorus: 800 g, Salt: 250 g, Saltpetre: 100 g, Sulphur 80 g, Fluoride 7.5 g, Iron 5 g, Silicon 3 g, and 15 other elements in small quantities…”.

Rose stood still as stone, the sun shining through the stained glass behind painting her in beautiful hues of amber, similar to an Ursinia, further highlighting her confused features.

“Huh?” she wondered aloud.

Still looking at the small book Ed spoke, “That’s the total chemical makeup of an average adult human body, modern science knows all of this, yet there has never been a single example of a successful human transmutation.” His gaze hardened, eyebrows pinching, the grip on his book tightening. A sight too common for a 14 year old boy. “It’s like there’s a missing ingredient..” Edward momentarily stopped, gazing at his brother, sadness laid between the gold and tangerine of his eyes, before turning back to the book in hand “Scientists have been trying to find it for hundreds of years, pouring tons of money into research and to this day they don’t even have a theory.” Rose stood still intently listening but clearly confused.

“Huh?”

“Come on Ed, she hasn’t got the slightest clue of what you’re talking about, speak human.” (y/n) face-palmed.

“What do you mean ‘speak human’?” He said frustratingly, eyebrows furrowed.

“Less science-y”

Edward rolled his eyes and turned his body to face Rose, “Basically, they say science is a lost cause, But I think It’s better than sitting around praying for something to happen.” Edward sat forward clasping his hands together, leaning his arms on his knees. Looking up at the statue of Leto, thinking to himself before speaking again, “It’s ironic that we scientists, who don’t believe in god, are in a sense the closest thing to him.”

There was a heavy silence, (y/n) sighed, leaning further back into the pew knowing where this might go. A look of anger and disgust covered Rose’s face as she walked in front of Ed, blocking the view of the statues, venom lacing her voice. “What pride, are you saying you’re god’s equal?”.

Father Cornello stood upon a stage, a statue of Leto stood tall behind him. The crowd in front of him roared in faith and hope. Petals of Violet and Magnolia rained from the sky, He grabbed a hold of a fallen magnolia, clapped it between his hands, a blue hue consuming them before he revealed it had now been turned into a sunflower. The three stood at the back of the crowd, Edward stood upon his suitcase to get a better look. (y/n) seemed less than bothered with the sight, too busy gazing into the faces in the crowd, studying their emotions. Not a single face in that crowd had a brow furrowed, a look of anguish, they all seemed so joyful and at peace with themselves. She felt almost bad for them, she told herself it was because they were believing a lie, or was it just plain old envy. Too caught up in her own thoughts she hadn’t noticed Rose had come over and had begun talking to the boys.

“I’d love to talk to his holiness! You think you could take us to him?” Ed said weirdly cheerful, leaving a very confused (y/n).

“I’ll explain on the way, don’t worry” Alphonse whispered in her ear.

They returned to the beautiful white walls of the church, the same dark oak doors welcoming them in as the guards led the group into an almost empty room. As soon as they entered something was off, the two guards by the door seemed to stiffen as they walked past, a cold look in their eyes before one spoke, “His holiness is very busy, so it's not easy to get an audience with him. You three are very lucky.”

“Don’t worry I won’t talk for too long.” Ed piped up, Alphonse turning back to listen to his brother, the four not registering the slam of the doors behind them. The guard who led them in suddenly stopped, a dark look flooded the man’s face as he reached into his jacket, “Yes, let’s end this quickly.” pulling a revolver from a concealed pocket, pointing it to the eye hole of Al’s armour, “Like this!”. The clang of the metal of the gun hitting the armoured boy was heard before a shot rang out, causing the head of the boy to hit the ground several feet way, horrified looks from the three others in the room as (y/n) and edward attempted to lunge forward to attack the man, fear rushed through their veins, as the two other guards restrained the two with their flagged staffs.

“Brother Cray! What are you doing?!” Rose exclaimed thinking he had just killed alphonse.

“Rose, these are heathens that are trying to entrap his holiness, they are evil.” The man retorted.

“What?! But his holiness would never allow you to do this…you.”

“But he did allow it!” Cray turned his attention to the two teens blocked by the staffs, “The words of his holiness are the words of god!”. He aimed the gun at Edward’s head, his stare unwavering, (y/n) was left shaking like a leaf. “This is the will of god!!”.

“Guess there are some really bad Gods out there” Alphonse spoke, his voice more echoey than usual. He grabbed the revolver out of Cray’s hand as he shrieked in fear and confusion “Wha-!?!?!”.

Edward quickly grabbed one of the staffed guards’ arm and shirt and began to shove him into the ground before (y/n) swiftly followed grunting out “a warning would’ve been nice Ed.” Both men landed onto the ground as Al’s metal fist collided with Cray’s face, all three men rendered unconscious.

“Wha…Wha…What is this!?” Rose shakily shrieked from behind the three, Ed knocked on Al’s armour revealing he was holo. “Nothing special,” he spoke.

“It’s exactly what it looks like” Alphonse said non shaltantly.

“Th… there’s nothing inside it’s empty!”

Al snapped his head back on before speaking again, “You might say, this is what happens when you commit the world’s greatest sin, when you trespass on God's domain… My big brother and I both.” Melancholy seeped in the room, it felt like every crack in the walls was just allowing it in.

“Well let’s just save that story for another time, heh.” Ed scratched his head, trying to relieve some tension in the room.

“Anyways, it seems Cornello is 100% ready to kill us.” (y/n) said, looking down at Cray’s unconscious body.

“Understatement.” Ed retorted.

Edward, (y/n) and Alphonse stood in front of a dark oak door, which supposedly led to Father Cornello’s ‘room’; there were two wax candles attached to the wall either side of the door. The wax was beginning to melt down the metal brace keeping them in place. A curved window sat above the door frame, the warm light from the room leaking through it. “Is this Cornello’s room? The one Rose told us about?” (y/n) questioned looking up at the door that was towering over them.

“Well there’s only one way to find out.” Edward said confidently, his hands cemented in his pockets. Then, the door slowly opened as if it was its own person, beckoning them into the room.

“Hmph. I guess that means ‘come in’”.

The room was quiet, the only sound that could be heard was footsteps and the flickering of the dim candles that sat on the columns that were laid out like a hallway to the stairs. The light was not bright enough to see the corners of the large room. There was a copper-like odour along with rotten eggs and burnt animal fat, flooding their sinuses. Cornello stood upon a staircase, a sinister smile painted on his wrinkled face. The large door slammed behind them, the echo bouncing off the tall walls.

“Did you come here to hear me preach?” Cornello asked the teens, trying to feign innocence, gripping the bannister and his cane tighter.

“Yeah, by all means teach us...” Ed scoffed, cockily staring him down, Alphonse and (y/n) stood either side of him also looking up at the older man.

“Like about how you use your lame alchemy to lie to your followers!”

“Please don’t confuse my miracles with alchemy.” His face still remained neutral but they could feel anger start to build up within the man. The teens looked completely unconvinced. “I have no reason to lie to you children, I do not use alchemy.”.

“It’s in the ring right?” Cornello seemed to freeze at Edward’s words.

“What’s in the ring?” The older man asked cautiously, not wanting to reveal his nerves.

“The philosopher's stone.”. The air was thick, words were hanging like chandeliers, every breath crystallising.

“Heh, the government gets their money out of you, don’t they?” his gaze was unwavering “I guess you saw through it all” He took a breath before exclaiming “Correct!” Cornello raised his hand as if he was cupping the air, showing off his ring, the red stone glistening in the warm light. “The philosopher's stone, the legendary amplifier of all alchemical processes!”

A look of determination and desperation seeped its way onto Edward’s features, “How long I’ve searched for that.”

“Ha, what’s with that jealous look in your eyes! What do you need the stone for? Money? Honour?” He stepped further towards the bannister. “What I really need is followers to give their lives for me, soon I’ll have enough people to take over the whole nation! Think about it, a frantic army with no fear of death!” Cornello stood cackling and the three teens looked between each other awkwardly.

“Yeah we don’t really care.” Edward said nonchalantly, “I’ll be blunt, just give us the stone and we’ll be quiet about the scam you're pulling.”

“Ha! Are you trying to bargain with me? My followers would never believe a word from the likes of you!”

“Well we didn’t expect anything less from your holiness, thank you, really for letting us hear that speech” (y/n) spoke sweetly, smiling hands clasped looking up toward Cornello. Alphonse was undoing his chest plate before she began again. “Yeah, they probably wouldn't give us the time of day, but! They’ll most likely listen to her.” Al’s chestplate fell to the floor with a thud and the chainmail hanging in the young boy's chest was moved to reveal a very disgusted Rose.

“What! Rose what are you-!?” Both of father Cornello’s hands gripped the bannister as he leaned forward.

Rose climbed out of Al, she was livid. She was screaming up at him, feeling betrayed “You weren’t going to bring him back!”

“Perhaps being a messenger of god was a lie, but there’s still a way to bring him back. This stone can do wonderful things, we can resurrect your lover.”

“Rose, don't listen!” Alphonse shouted, taking a step toward the girl.

“Be a good child and come here.” Cornello beckoned Rose

“If you go you won’t be able to come back!” Ed said loudly, anger lacing his words.

“Am I not the only one who can grant your wishes? Remember your beloved!”

His words were circling her head like murder of crows, though the light was dim it was hurting Rose’s eyes, this was too much pressure she knew what father Cornello had done was wrong, she knew it for a fact, he had lied to everyone. It felt as if poppy flowers were blooming in her head, she knew deep in her heart that she would give up her morals to see him again, even if it was just once. It’s not like the truth will do any good anyway, everyone looks up to Cornello, he is the light in their dark days and she knew that. Rose turned to look at the three once again, Edward looked angry, his brows furrowed, hands tightened into fists, lips sown into a line almost frowning, his shoulders loose and ready to fight when or if it come to it, his head is facing Rose yet his body was not, Ed’s back faced his brother and his chest faced his friend. Alphonse, though he had no facial expressions, was clearly tense, ready to attack at a moment's notice. And there was (y/n), her guard completely down, shoulders slumped, her gloved hands hanging by her sides and eyes full of worry. Her heart hurt for Rose, she was clearly in distress and there was nothing the teen girl could do to ease her pain, and it killed her, (y/n) took Rose’s pain as her own all she wanted was to help her.

“I’m sorry, you three.” Rose said not even turning to face them, her voice saddened. She walked towards Father Cornello with a heavy heart, as Rose reached the bottom of the stairs Cornello reached for a metal hatch on the wall.

The hatch swung open, banging against the wall, it revealed a lever. “Now I have to purge these terrorists that threaten the future of my religion!” Father Cornello shouted as he yanked the lever down, nearly pulling it out of the hatch, a menacing grin decorating his face. A wall on the left of the group crashes up, all three of them turn towards the noise in shock, to be met with a pitch black void, with nothing but two piercing yellow eyes staring back at them. The creature emerged, almost like it was stalking its prey, slowly coming into the dim light revealing itself.

“The philosopher’s stone is really amazing, it can create things like this.”

The creature fully stepped into the light, it was a grotesque mix of animals, the front half of it was a lion, it's mane matted, the bottom of the mane covered in saliva, it's backend legs were that of an enlarged eagle and the rest of its body was that of a crocodile scales coming forth from the fur of the lion.

Edward sighed, rolling his eyes he placed his hands together and slapped them against the ground. Blue lighting grew from the ground, his red jacket flowing in the breeze as he stood up straight, his bladed staff following him up. Father Cornello gripped the bannister in anger “Transmutation without an alchemy circle! I guess state alchemist isn't just a fancy name, but that won't be enough!”.

#fanfic #edward elric #edward elric x reader #fma edward #fmab edward #fullmetal alchemist #fullmetal alchemist x reader #fullmetal alchemist brotherhood #riza hawkeye #roy mustang #alphonse fmab #alphonse fma #alphonse elric #alphonse elric x reader #fma royai

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metacrisisdoctor · 1 year

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so i wasn't sure if i was imagining rtd having had planned tentoorose from the beginning so i reread rtd's book and:

aaand... he sure did!

it's interesting because rtd did do a lot of second guessing in the weeks actually leading up to filming this because he felt like he couldn't get it right. he had chicken pox and had to deliver the script the day they started filming. the script was too long so he kept having to take things out, and the budget wasn't big enough.

he rewrote it a few times and i understand why it wasn't working originally - originally he had written that rose would die if she went back to the original universe so she had to stay with tentoo - and why he was so worried it wouldn't resonate, but in the end he was very happy with the outcome!

(also, sorry to immortal rose truthers.)

after je aired:

i love that last email because that is always what i understood from the episode. the ten/tentoo thing is really about how different your life can be based on the CHOICES you make and the opportunities that you have. whether tentoo is a clone or second best or whatever is not the point because SYMBOLICALLY it's about how different your life could be had you had a different chance, had you done something differently. and that's why it works. i'm glad we got there in the end.

also, very interesting bonus quote from david:

god. i love how philosophical (even unintentionally) this ending ended up being and really the fact that is was somewhat divisive proves that it was good imo.

#lmfao why can't he be naked 😭😂#rambles #sorry the screenshots look crunchy tumblr is allergic to resizing

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bookishthoughst · 10 months

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My favourite Ari & Dante quotes:

The problem with my life was that it was someone else's idea.

As far as I was concerned, the sun could have melted the blue right off the sky. Then the sky would be as miserable as I was.

I decided to go swimming at the Memorial Park pool. It was a small idea. But at least the idea was mine.

It was better to be alone and miserable. It was better to drown.

We laughed. We always laughed.

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn't get--and never would get.

I didn't care about what they meant. I didn't care because what mattered is that Dante's voice felt real. And I felt real.

Words were different when they lived inside of you.

"You said don't drown--so I found someone to help me keep my promise."

Dante. I really liked him. I really, really liked him.

And I wondered what my dad looked like when he was my age. My mother had told me he was beautiful. I wonder if he'd been as beautiful as Dante. And I wondered why I thought that.

I wanted to tell her that happy was hard for me. But I think she already knew that. "Well," I said, "I'm at that phase where I'm supposed to be miserable."

I didn't care for Aristotle either. And even though I knew I was named after my grandfather, I also knew I had inherited the name of the world's most famous philosopher. I hated that. Everyone expected something from me. Something I just couldn't give. So I renamed myself Ari. If I switched the letter, my name was Air. I thought it might be a great thing to be air. I could be something and nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me.

But Mr. Quintana was brave. He didn't care if the whole world knew he was kind.

Before she left, Mrs. Quintana took my face between her two hands, looked right into my eyes, and whispered, "Aristotle Mendoza, I will love you forever."

My mother and father held hands. I wondered what that was like, to hold someone's hand. I bet you could sometimes find all the mysteries of the universe in someone's hand.

"I went swimming today," he said. "How was it?" "I love swimming." "I know," I said. "I love swimming," he said again. He was quiet for a little while. And then he said, "I love swimming--and you." I didn't say anything. "Swimming and you, Ari. Those are the things I love the most."

"I love the rain," my mother whispered. I love it too. I love it too. I felt like I was the saddest boy in the universe. Summer had come and gone. Summer had come and gone. And the world was ending.

I learned how to swim this summer. No, that's not true. Someone taught me. Dante. I tore out the page.

I'd figured something out about myself: on the inside, I wasn't like my dad at all. On the inside I was more like Dante. That really scared me.

"That's a very Dante question," I said. "That's a very Ari answer," he said. And then we started laughing and couldn't stop. And I missed him so much.

"What about your party?" "Watching you loosen up, Ari. That's a party. We'll even score the beer for you," she said. "To celebrate the end of school."

When I stopped the truck, I got out, slamming the door . "Shit! I forgot about the beer." "We don't need the beer," Dante whispered. "We need the beer! We need the fucking beer, Dante!" I don't know why I was yelling. The yelling turned into sobs. I fell into Dante's arms and cried. He held me and didn't say a word. Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere. The clearest summer morning could end in a downpour. Could end in lightning and thunder.

The summer sun was not meant for boys like me. Boys like me belonged to the rain.

Dante laughed. "I wasn't really kissing Daniel. In my head, I was kissing you." I shrugged. "You got to get yourself a new head, Dante."

what do you love, Ari? What do you really love?" "I love the desert. God, I love the desert." "It's so lonely." "Is it?" Dante didn't understand. I was unknowable.

my father nodded. "Ari, the problem isn't just that Dante's in love with you. The real problem--for you, anyway--is that you're in love with him."

"Try it again," I said. "Kiss me." "No," he said. "Kiss me." "No." And then he smiled. "You kiss me."

How could I have ever been ashamed of loving Dante Quintana?

#aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe #aristotle mendoza #dante quintana #ari and dante #benjamin alire sáenz #literature #books #book quotes #bookmark #sam quintana #favorite quotes #I know it's a lot #please bear with me #queer pride #queer story #queer artwork #june #pride month

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year

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By: Mark Goldblatt

Published: Feb 7, 2023

Several years ago, in the pre-pandemic world of in-person meetings, a newly hired colleague at Fashion Institute of Technology proposed an LGBT-themed sociology course before the School of Liberal Arts. This is a necessary step in getting the course approved by the college-wide curriculum committee. It’s a time for constructive feedback and occasional tweaking before the final committee vote.

It was a good course. The proposal was clear and concise, indicating not only a command of the relevant literature but a sensitivity to students’ interests, expectations, and ability to handle the workload. But I noticed an apparently minor, easily correctable issue. Among the learning outcomes listed was a requirement that students develop a greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ perspectives and rights. That struck me as problematic. I happen to think that such acceptance is a good thing, but to stipulate it as a learning outcome raises a knotty question. If a student masters the course material, turns in the required work, and passes the exams, but doesn’t exhibit that acceptance, is he going to fail?

After expressing my general admiration for the course, I raised my misgiving in the following way (and this is nearly an exact quote): “We need to keep in mind that we’re a state university. Our mission is to pursue, ascertain, and disseminate objective truth, and to equip our students to do the same. Given that mission, I don’t think we can list a learning outcome that requires students’ assent on a matter of personal morality. The other learning outcomes are fine. You don’t need that one, so I’d just cut it.” My colleague was fresh out of graduate school and not yet tenured, which (theoretically) put her in a vulnerable position. Nevertheless, she became apoplectic; so angry, in fact, that she had difficulty getting out her first sentence. “I can’t believe people still think that way!” she spluttered. “Queer Theory has deconstructed objectivity!”

Her words hung in the air as I glanced around the room. Not a single faculty member, not even those in math or sciences, seemed fazed by her categorical statement. Since I was a tenured professor, I was reluctant to debate an untenured colleague during a school meeting. So, I let the matter drop. The course was approved without revision by the School of Liberal Arts, and went on to gain approval by the curriculum committee. And that is how my college got into the business of winning converts.

That moment haunts me as I begin my final semester before retirement—not only because faculty on the state payroll have deliberately crossed the critical line from pursuing the truth to professing The Way, but also because the Enlightenment sensibility that finds such mission creep objectionable seems to be passing from the scene. The “deconstructive turn”—as the critic Christopher Norris once called it—is nothing more than a verbal sleight-of-hand. It invites us to tease out secondary and tertiary senses of words to show how a text contradicts what it seems to be saying, free-associate our way to philosophical banalities or outright non-sequiturs, and finally glaze the mishmash with a layer of impenetrable jargon. If a reader is foolish enough to attempt to make sense of what is being said, he’ll get bogged down before he can figure out nothing is being said at all.

When Jacques Derrida, the renowned “father of deconstruction,” was awarded an honorary degree by Cambridge University in 1992, 20 of the world’s preeminent philosophers—including W.V. Quine and Ruth Barcan Marcus—signed a letter of protest, in which they argued:

M. Derrida describes himself as a philosopher, and his writings do indeed bear some marks of writings in that discipline. … In the eyes of philosophers, and certainly those working in leading departments of philosophy throughout the world, M. Derrida’s work does not meet accepted standards of clarity and rigor. … M. Derrida seems to us to have come close to making a career out of what we regard as translating into the academic sphere tricks and gimmicks similar to those of the Dadaists. … Many French philosophers see in M. Derrida only cause for embarrassment, his antics having contributed significantly to the widespread impression that contemporary French philosophy is little more than an object of ridicule.

The claim that Queer Theory has “deconstructed objectivity” means only that a certain number of academic performance artists have doodled with a cluster of words related to the concept of objectivity in order to gain university employment, win friends, and influence a distressingly large number of gullible fans. But no epistemological breakthrough has come of their efforts: if it had, it would be self-refuting since it would consist of an objective truth about the impossibility of objectivity. (At a lecture I attended 40 years ago, a debonair British postmodernist stated that Derrida had shown us how it was possible to formulate a consistent argument with a contradiction in it. When I inquired how, in that case, we could recognize an inconsistent argument, the question was met with actual hisses from his acolytes. I’m still waiting for an answer.)

Objectively true statements are still made on a regular basis. The statement “Objectively true statements are still made on a regular basis” is itself objectively true. And Queer Theorists make objective truth claims all the time—as when they cite statistical evidence of harms visited upon the LGBT community or proving the reality of climate change. One of the silent faculty members at the meeting I mentioned, also near retirement, had devoted his entire distinguished career to combatting the effects of global warming. You’d think he’d be miffed at the suggestion that such effects were not objectively real. But no, he just sat in silence like everyone else.

Either he didn’t understand or didn’t take seriously the implications of what our new colleague was saying. The latter possibility seems the far likelier one. My sense, based on hundreds of informal conversations I’ve had with STEM faculty, is that people working in the hard sciences tend to roll their eyes at the alleged insights of postmodernism. They inhabit a world in which truth is still gauged by correspondence between belief and reality, and in which reality exists independently of our beliefs about it. Generally speaking, they don’t give a rat’s ass about discourse communities and meta-narratives. They want to know if the equations balance, if the instruments work, and if their hypotheses match empirical outcomes. In other words, they are interested in discovering if what they believe to be true is objectively true. They are certainly not interested in the ethnicity, sexuality, or gender identity of the people making truth claims.

Put all of that together, and you’ve got the makings of a schism. The humanities and social sciences are undergoing a mission reversion—they’re returning to a pre-Enlightenment view of the purpose of higher education. Prior to the Enlightenment, universities were sites of religious instruction that trained clergy. Harvard was founded in 1636, a mere six years after the settlement of Massachusetts Bay, to ensure that future generations of New England Puritans would be served by learned ministers. That goal is found among Harvard’s original “Rules and Precepts”:

Let every Student be plainly instructed, and earnestly pressed to consider well, the maine end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ which is eternal life (John 17:3) and therefore to lay Christ in the bottome [i.e., at the base of the boat, to keep it steady in the water], as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and Learning.

That’s a version of what we’re seeing with the rise of the subjectivist movement in the humanities and social sciences. It is a new secular faith, a version of The Way. Instruction in radical progressive curricula is baptism by accreditation. It’s witness and testing. You gather for three hours a week to dwell in the spirit, commit yourself to individual rituals and collective causes, despair the fallen state of humanity, call out and cast out demons, immerse yourself in sacred texts and memorize venerable chants, then venture forth to spread the gospel. The end is performative, sacramental. Let me tell you the many ways you’re oppressed so that you may be a river to the masses.

Increasingly, that is the state of the humanities and social sciences at public universities in the US. Whatever you think of that development, it signals an existential crisis for higher education because instruction in the STEM fields at American universities remains traditional, objectively focused, and globally competitive. The reversion of the humanities and social sciences to religious preparation cannot coexist indefinitely with the Enlightenment mission of STEM instruction. Something has to give.

What, for example, becomes of science textbooks that report that only female mammals give birth? (Pity the poor seahorse, hitherto famous as the only species in which the male gives birth. But for how long?) You cannot be told in your morning sociology seminar that the pursuit of objectivity is an instrument of white supremacist culture, which must therefore be deconstructed, and then be told in your afternoon biology class that identical twins are objectively always the same sex.

It’s natural to expect the demand for severing ties to come from the professoriate on the STEM side, from a desire not to be sidetracked in their pursuit of objective truth. More likely, though, as evidenced by that liberal arts meeting at FIT, the demand will come from the humanities and social science side, caused by the unbearable adjacency of reality-based standards and scholarship to the postmodern insistence that the demand for objectivity is oppressive.

Entrance into STEM fields requires rigorous standards of assessment, as does progression and graduation. Rigorous standards of assessment, however, don’t produce equity or (objectively!) diverse student populations. Asian students are currently overrepresented in STEM, black students underrepresented; male students are overrepresented, female students underrepresented. According to the tenets of progressive activism, demographic imbalances of that nature constitute de facto proof of racial and gender bias since in an unbiased system every demographic would be proportionally represented. How long will student activists, encouraged by humanities and social science faculty, tolerate this alleged injustice on their campuses?

The disintegration of academia is coming. Whichever side precipitates the break, it will be a necessary development. Higher education is a serious intellectual endeavor, and nothing is less intellectually serious in contemporary academia than the suggestion that the pursuit of objectivity has been discredited. Empirical observation, mathematical inquiry, inductive and deductive reasoning, and falsifiability are the sine qua nons of higher education. As courses of study in the humanities and social sciences depart from such things, they cease to be higher education in the Enlightenment sense.

[ Via: https://archive.is/vQvgg ]

It's pivotal moments like this that inform what comes next. That realization something was really wrong here, with that hesitation, that second-guessing, that telling the truth might upset them, that it would just be easier to let this one slide, that instinct to just go along to get along, and the creeping recognition a group delusion was going on.

Who would have thought that the downfall of western academia could be powered by the worst, most pretentious and puerile French philosophy which can be encapulated as an academic formalization of the Equivocation Fallacy, and language games worthy of a 7 year old who just discovered a book of knock-knock jokes?

It was a mistake to think that nobody would take this seriously. It was a mistake to think that it wouldn't leak out of the bogus Fantasy Studies domains within Humanities which they'd invented and credentialed themselves in. And it was damn sure a mistake to give them a seat at the grown-ups table as far as knowledge claims and knowledge production.

To paraphrase Sam Harris, those who reject objective reality belong at the margins of our societies, not in our halls of knowledge.

Denying objective reality should be regarded as an announcement they do not live in it. This is a definition of delusional, not a definition of intellectual.

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tiftaf-the-world-jumper · 8 months

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As above, so below

@luckycavy117 @mothnem @ghost-mantis @kanohivolitakk

“The stars say that in creation, there is destruction. In destruction, there is rebirth. There is no such thing as void; all things are in flux. As above, so below…” Nuju murmured as he gently examined the words that were carved into the walls of the cell with is fingertips. “What ever could that mean?”

“Who cares! It’s not getting us out of here.” Toa Onewa grumbled at his icy cellmate while crossing his arms.

“It’s essentially a message from the past. Whoever was held here before us and carved it felt it was important enough to document while being imprisoned here!” Toa Whenua said excitedly.

“An unknown piece of documentation, almost lost to time. And we are the first to see it in who-even-knows how long!”

“I care.” Nuju said with an exasperated sigh.

Nuju turned to look at Whenua, a look of mild confusion on his face.

“…So does this make you happy?” he asked with a tilt of his head.

“Finding some dusty old writing in a cell?”

“I might be a Toa now, but I will still forever be an archivist at heart.” Whenua chuckled.

“I love this stuff. Graffiti can tell you a lot about a person from a past day and age. Sometimes it could be as simple as ‘remember me, for I was here’ to some ancient helpful piece of advice on how to do a task.”

Nuju nodded, though he didn’t seem nearly as interested as Whenua was.

“…You are weird.” he said with a shake of his head. “So, this writing here, do you actually think it means anything, or is it just nonsense?”

“Well, my theory is that the writer was talking about how a bit of something old can be made into a new object. It might be literal, might be philosophical.” Whenua explained while pointing at the glyphs.

“Maybe musing on their repentance of a past crime?”

“Pfft! Or they were like us and framed by a tyrannical Turaga.” Onewa snickered bitterly. “What a load of good that did them.”

“Hm.” was all Nuju had to say to that.

“But, then why the whole ‘above so below’? Who wrote this, a prophet?”

Nuju shifted around the bars of his cell, trying to get comfortable.

“It all just seems… very philosophical and esoteric for someone who is imprisoned.”

“The phrase ‘as above, so below’ is an ancient quote to describe the idea that what happens in a higher realm or plane of existence either always and or occasionally also happens in a lower realm.“ Whenua answered.

“So they believed in Great Being nonsense.” Onewa sighed. “That poor crazy bastard.”

Nuju listened thoughtfully before shrugging with a slight frown.

“That really doesn’t seem like an important thing to say,” he finally spoke.

After a moment of contemplating the odd writing, Nuju turned to face Whenua.

“So, what about these Great Beings? You don’t actually believe that nonsense, do you?”

“I believe that the ancients believed that they existed. Anything else about the great beings? There’s no documented proof.” Whenua replied while shrugging.

“…And what if Great Beings existed?” Nuju asked, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.

An idea seem to cross Nuju’s mind, but he seemed reluctant to speak, perhaps afraid that Whenua might think him mad.

“Then I owe Nokama 100 widgets.” Whenua chuckled. “She and I got into a debate where I played devils advocate. Then it turned into a bet. In all truth I’m currently undecided on which side to take.”

“I still think the idea of them is stupid. If they were real- why haven’t they bothered to help us?” Onewa snapped.

“Hmph… and here I thought Nokama was a reasonable person.” Nuju muttered with an amused grin.

He then looked at Onewa and sighed.

“If they were real… well, who knows why they haven’t helped us?” Nuju said with an exasperated shrug.

“Maybe they’re simply busy?”

Nuju sat down on the floor and pulled his knees up to his chest.

there was an awkward moment of silence as the Toa of ice let his question hang in the dusty air of the prison they were trapped in.

“Hey, I’m sure we’ll get out of here. It’ll… just take some figuring out.” Whenua softly reassured his fellow Toa brother as he knelt down next to him.

Nuju hummed softly while tracing the carving.

“…I honestly miss being a seer.” he muttered, speaking more to himself than to anyone else in particular.

He raised his head to stare at the carvings on the wall.

“I used to spend so much time studying and interpreting prophecy, and now… look at me.”

Nuju sighed defeatively.

“Uh guys? The Vahki guards are approaching the trapdoor.” Onewa pointed out, gesturing to the ceiling grate.

and just like that, the trapdoor opened-

#tiftaf #bionicle #bonkles #bionicle fanfiction #writing wip #snippet #snippit #will I finish this? who even knows #b10nicle day #bionicle day 2023 #hehehhehe #cliffhanger

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alice-malice-wonderland · 2 years

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hi there.

do you like audio dramas?

are you a fan of hijinks based comedy, with a heavy dose of science, a heaping of anti-capitalism, a deep warmth in every episode, and a dash of Asshole Found Family?

hi. I'm Alice, and I would like to introduce to you....

MIDNIGHT BURGER.

Midnight Burger is a time-traveling, dimension spanning diner, that sets down in a new place everyday somewhere out there in the multiverse.

who are the characters you ask????

ok first off with:

1. GLORIA!!!!

Gloria is a Mexican woman from Arizona sometime in the 2020 pandemic era of humanity. she once owned a taqueria and was very good at it. she is one of the few characters who lets us know who she is from the start and only learns how to grow and fight back against a universe that is against her. she isn't hiding from anything, just living.

2. CASPAR

Ok imagine this: Nick Miller from New Girl, mixed with Oscar the Grouch, and every little nitpicky contemporary philosopher of our age. And make him find people who care about him. That's him. He has been wandering for a long time, and is quite cagey about it. this one IS hiding. Listen to find out.

3. AVA

Direct quote: "Being around you is such a bong rip". Ok, imagine the show Cosmos, based on Carl Sagan's work, was hosted by an asshole theoretical physicist version of Into the SpiderVerse's Olivia Octavius. Genius woman who has won awards on her theories but was cast out for being "crazy". She ends up on the diner as their live-in theoretical physicist. she isn't hiding either, but she's definitely not an open person.

4. LEIF

A man who thinks he is wearing both an air of mystery and simultaneously an air of Being A Normal Buddy of Yours but in all honesty is just the smartest dumbass in the universe. he has dated.... a lot of different species (?). and he's good with technology and shit, wonder why that is. he is hiding from pretty much everything but that's bound to change.

Want the jist on the minor characters without spoilers???? here's some emojis, each line representing one.

🌲🌳🌴🌵🪴🍀☘️🍃🌿🌱🌾🍄🌸💮

💔❤️‍🩹👥🦾🦿👁️🤖🏋️🧑‍🌾🚀

🍃✖️3️⃣☮️🧘

🏴‍☠️🦜🤣👽🛸🔫

listen to this podcast. it's beautiful, hilarious, astounding.

#drugs tw #pls listen to midnight burger #midnight burger podcast #midnight burger #audio drama #audio fiction #podcast

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austen-woolf · 6 months

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08/10/2023

I don't know what I'd do without T. T is my dog, or really, my partner's dog, whom I have been with for 3 years now. This dog has helped me pull myself out of some very dark places. He's there in the morning when you wake up, he knows when I put my trainers on that he's coming along for the ride. He will just sit with you silently wherever you are at any time and just be there and he will never know how much he means to me. I had to work to win over T's love, he is so bonded with my partner that it took a long time for him to be comfortable with me. I know what he likes and doesn't like, I know what he's afraid of or when he's nervous.

When I was young I was attacked by a Great Dane in a park with my grandmother, and for the next 10 years I was terrified of all dogs. My Mum decided to adopt one from a friend of hers who couldn't keep her any longer. She knew I was afraid of her, and she stayed away from me. Skip to 13 years later and this beautiful dog, M, was really the love of my life. She's passed now and I still have a hole in my heart for her.

The lily was given to me by my boss and it's finally looking like it might bloom. I have a lot of plants, pretty ones, weird ones, spiky ones, needy ones and ones that thrive on neglect. I love the idea that we look after them and spend money on them, care for them and don't get too much back, they just sit there. (I'm aware they also produce the air we breathe and the food we eat etc. just getting a bit philosophical).

The last quote I posted is from this book which I'm reading now. I've been writing to a penpal in Canada for over 10 years. We've never met, but we write long letters, send pictures and tea, books and stickers... I've had a few penpels over the years, some I've even met, but I'm still waiting for the day to meet this one, let's call her M. We are so different, she's very articulate and intelligent, she lover her home and has stayed there as an adult, she's religious and has this beautiful relationship with her family. I am none of these things, but it doesn't stop us writing pages and pages to each other every few months.

The book is about the story of a deaf girl in Canada in the early 20th century, I don't really want to say more as I myself hate spoilers, but it's really just the story of someone's life, nobody particularly special, and I like observing how Grania, the main character, sees the world and interprets it. Highly recommended.

Today is Sunday, I did a little run and now, again, I find myself smoking in the garden and putting off doing all the things I should be doing today. Lesson planning, emails, responding to a speeding ticket... This is my daily challenge, why do something productive when I can do absolutely nothing. I WANT to be productive, I WANT to get these things done, how do I get off this seat? Anybody else found a way yet?

#mental health #frances itani #currently reading #lilies #plants #dogs #journal entry #diary entry #deafening #depression #procrastination #penpals #bad habits #personal post

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metaphysicsinwater · 1 year

Quote

My parents meanwhile would have liked to see the intelligence that Bergotte had discerned in me made manifest in some remarkable achievement. When I still did not know the Swanns I thought that I was prevented from working by the state of agitation into which I was thrown by the impossibility of seeing Gilberte when I chose. But, now that their door stood open to me, scarcely had I sat down at my desk than I would rise and run to them. And after I had left them and was at home again, my isolation was only apparent, my mind was powerless to swim against the stream of words on which I had allowed myself mechanically to be borne for hours on end. Sitting alone, I continued to fashion remarks such as might have pleased or amused the Swanns, and to make this pastime more entertaining I myself took the parts of those absent players, I put to myself imagined questions, so chosen that my brilliant epigrams served merely as happy answers to them. Though conducted in silence, this exercise was none the less a conversation and not a meditation, my solitude a mental society in which it was not I myself but other imaginary speakers who controlled my choice of words, and in which I felt as I formulated, in place of the thoughts that I believed to be true, those that came easily to my mind, and involved no introspection from without, that kind of pleasure, entirely passive, which sitting still affords to anyone who is burdened with a sluggish digestion.

Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time 2: In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower

#marcel proust #in search of lost time #in the shadow of young girls in flower #french literature #literature #quoted she with a philosophical air

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drifting-wreckers · 9 months

Text

Kaisarion Chapter 2: It's the Sound of Another Deadline Whistling Past Your Ear

Papa Emeritus IV x OFC: romance, religious fanaticism, drama, NSFW, MDNI, fate/destiny

Copia sighed heavily as he dropped into the back seat of the ministry car followed shortly by Terzo, who gleefully nudged him to move over instead of walking around the car like a normal, decent human being. He didn’t know how he expected to make it to the library to enjoy his research in peace on a rainy day when Secondo was the one in charge of confessional and mass. It was well-known that Terzo could not be left to his own devices for any length of time, and particularly-so since he had stepped back as Papa and the miter passed to him. He had honestly hoped that Terzo would spend the rainy day in bed with either one of his favored Siblings or Omega, but…clearly no such luck. Terzo had pinned him in the kitchens and announced he would be accompanying his “less fortunate” friend, brother, and colleague…

…and then promptly followed it up with something about a dream about a “sexy librarian”.

Aether laughed to himself as he glanced at his boss in the rearview mirror, unsurprised to find Papa IV exasperated by the other, already. The two Papas did chat amicably for a while, at least until Aether parked the car and circled around with the umbrellas.

“Now, see, Copia, many do not believe so, but I think a library is the perfect place for you, in particular, to meet someone special.”

Copia’s eyes rolled. “I am not here to meet anyone. I am here to research for both my sermons and my classes. Our own library doesn’t have much for history not immediately involving the church.”

Terzo gesticulated broadly as the ghoul escorted them to the front of the library. “See, this is where you lack imagination and forethought!”

Aether snickered and Copia shot him a look. “No, this is where you and I differ: I can think without being led around by il mio cazzo.”

The slightly older Papa huffed. “I’m concerned you’re not even using ‘il tuo cazzo’,” he emphasized the phrase with air quotes that had Copia rolling his eyes again.

“Just…please be quiet. This is a real library and the best in the city, so I would very much like to not be kicked out.”

Terzo’s eyes sparkled with unfettered mischief as he brought a hand up to cover his heart. “Sul mio onore di Emeritus.”

Copia didn’t bother gracing that with a response, only ducked into the warm quiet of the library building with a quiet exhalation of relief after thanking Aether who bowed back to the car. He bypassed the front desk and followed a few well-labeled signs to non-fiction and started perusing for a particular book regarding Greek philosophers, specifically one Hypatia.

Mercifully, the library was nearly empty, and nonfiction completely-so. Unfortunately, however, despite Copia being spared of having to keep Terzo on a tight leash, it meant the Emeritus was entirely too bored. And would not, for the life of him…shut up.

“…are you still not done, fratellino?”

A heavy sigh followed as Copia snapped another book shut. “Nobody told you to come with me, stronzo! If anything, I told you not to! For this very reason!”

“And stay and do what? Listen to Sister Imperator and Nihil do all the things I want- ouch!”

“Stai zitto, cazzo! This is a library!”

Terzo whimpered pathetically but finally stayed silent for some time as he lagged further and further behind Copia. He had thought he’d heard something, but disregarded it…at least until he heard a quiet, feminine “ah-hah!” from one of the aisles. He rounded the end of a shelf and there she was: all ponytail, pencil skirt, heels and tight calves and curves. The words left his mouth almost on reflex. “Bella donna, uscita da un sogno… Bibliotecaria cattiva…where have you been all my life?”

Poor Copia had thought he had finally found a book of use to him, flipping through its pages after consulting the index and only vaguely aware that Terzo had spoken. “Che cosa, Terzo?” he asked absently…and then, as he became disappointed again by the book’s contents and set it back in its rightful place, his mind seemed to catch up with Terzo’s words as he heard more talking.

“Bibliotecaria cattiva…?” Copia’s eyes widened frantically. “Merda!” he exclaimed and scrambled around the corner to find Terzo very much on the prowl. He didn’t even give himself much of a chance to take in the full scene, only enough time to smack Terzo’s shoulder and interrupt his train of thought. “Lasciala in pace, stronzo!” He hissed before turning his eyes to the librarian at last. “I’m so sorry, signora bibliotecaria, my friend, here, is, eh…an idiot, who doesn’t know any better most of the time.”

When his gaze met crisp blue, he felt his chest tighten and his eyes widen. A stunning flush of color dusted her high cheek bones, loose tendrils of raven hair just touched her neck and he suddenly felt as if she was the reason he was in the library, after all.

There was a prolonged silence as the two stared at one another, and Terzo found himself glancing at Copia curiously with quirked brow. Copia had always been slightly more awkward and shy than himself, but to be rendered entirely speechless by a woman? That was certainly new…

Rosalyn cleared her throat, finally breaking the enchantment she found herself caught in, though her hot cheeks told her it would take her some time to fully recover. “Um…right…it’s, um…i-it’s fine.” Her heart fluttered in her chest and she took a slow breath to quiet it. Since when did anyone affect her so quickly? Or at all? She returned to what she knew best to ground herself. “…is there a book I can help you two find?”

When Copia still seemed to need a moment, Terzo grinned wickedly and opened his mouth, only for the younger Papa to grip his shoulder tightly and cut him off. “Um, s-si, actually. I am looking for a book on Hypatia, Greek philosopher and mathematician?”

The shift in conversation did what she had hoped it would, and her eyes glittered curiously. “Hypatia? The one killed by the Christians for being too secular?”

Copia nodded enthusiastically. “Si! The very one. Persecuted for her faith – or lack there-of.” He pulled a rather crumpled piece of paper out of his jeans pocket, gloved hand extending it to her. “I had done some research and was wondering if you had this book?”

She reached for it, their fingers brushing as she took it from his hand and he had to fight the sudden urge to steal her hand. He watched as she unfolded the paper and scanned his scribble, suddenly self-conscious about the hurried way it was written. If she had any trouble deciphering it, she gave no indication. Her brow furrowed slightly, head tilted and that thick ponytail followed. “I think I’ve seen this book before, though it might be in the archives,” she mused aloud. Those blue eyes met his again and he didn’t want her to look away. “Come with me to the front so I can check in the system.” With that, she turned on her heels and both sets of heterochromatic eyes dropped to the sway of her hips in that pencil skirt.

Terzo cast a smug glance at Copia as they trailed behind her, the fourth looking very much the lovesick puppy.

“Pensavo non stessi cercando di incontrare persone, fratellino?” His eyes shifted again to that damned pencil skirt. “Soprattutto non bibliotecari cattivi...”

Copia could feel himself blushing beneath his paints. “Non sono! È solo che non mi aspettavo...lei.”

Terzo snickered and patted him on the back; as much as he had a number of fantasies the sweet little librarian could certainly help him fulfill, he did not consider himself a cock block. “Ricorda: la condivisione è premurosa, fratellino.”

Copia cursed a few choice things at him before they came upon the circular desk that was the main focal point of the entrance of the library. A young blonde seeming entirely disinterested in the day as a whole was already sat there, and the librarian greeted her in passing as she took a seat at her own computer. The two brothers leaned against the counter, Terzo far more casually than Copia. Despite the librarian’s focus on her computer screen, her gaze repeatedly flickered back to his, her typing stuttering when it did.

If this encounter had shown her anything, it was that Rosalyn had never been well and truly flustered by a man before. Despite the rather eerie face paint, she could see the younger of the two had a strong chin and defined cheekbones, those mismatched eyes warm. He was not classically handsome, but she couldn’t deny how drawn to him she was in his monochromatic black: black boots, black jeans that were tight enough she questioned how he moved in them, a black button-down shirt and distressed black blazer. Whatever church he was a part of clearly did not have any rules regarding modesty…

“Ah, yes: I was right, it’s down in the archives,” she confirmed aloud at last, scribbling a note on a post-it before she reached into a drawer behind the desk. “The archive is in the basement, and you can’t check those books out, unfortunately, but you’re welcome to research from them and take notes.”

Copia’s grin was genuine. “Eccellente! I would very much appreciate the help, signora bibliotecaria.”

The accent and foreign language had finally snagged Jessica’s attention, and she stared, wide-eyed, at her blushing boss as she ducked back out from under the counter. “You both can follow me, then.”

Terzo took the opportunity to wave a hand dismissively. “Ah, cara mia, I think I’m going to sit this one out and try my, uh…luck here, si? Basements are not too good for my…sensitivities.”

Rosalyn shrugged. “As you wish. Just, um…please don’t harass my other patrons.” Copia laughed, the sound drawing her eyes back to his to find them glittering with amusement. Her chest tightened, cheeks flushing darker as Terzo graciously dismissed her concern. She cleared her throat again. “Right, so, um…just…follow me this way, please.”

Rosalyn tried to ignore Jessica as she had the decency to not openly gape at the normally poised and never-flustered librarian who led one of the two strange men back towards the door that led to the basement stairs…very decidedly flustered. The stairwell down to the basement was dark, but shortly illuminated as she flipped a switch on the side wall, the narrow path brightly lit by the shockingly modern LEDs. The silence between them was only broken by the creak of the wooden stairs beneath their shoes, and Copia found himself with a hand always free as he rather nervously watched her heel-clad feet cautiously pick their steps.

“I wanted to apologize again for my, uh…brother. He’s…he’s sort of always like that,” he finally spoke into the otherwise empty room.

She laughed slightly. “It’s alright…he wouldn’t be the first, and probably won’t be the last.”

The thought made his gut churn with jealousy he tried to ignore. “My name is Copia, by the way,” he introduced as they reached the bottom of the stairs. She turned to face him, warm smile on those full red lips that made him immediately want to lean forward and kiss her.

“Nice to meet you, Copia. I’m Rosalyn, head librarian here.” On reflex, she extended a free hand into the space between them, and this time he did take the opportunity to take it in his and first shake and then turn to bring her knuckles to his lips for a chaste, polite kiss.

“Rosalyn…Bel nome. Thank you, in advance, for all your help today despite my brother’s stupidity.”

Her fingers tingled as she tried to ignore their proximity in the otherwise barren and silent archives, the hum of the plumbing and HVAC systems the only accompaniment. She bit the inside of her lip.

“Wouldn’t be fair of me to judge you by the actions of your brother, now would it…?” He smiled warmly and nodded.

“Si…”

Reluctantly, he dropped her hand and she used it to nervously tuck an errant strand of hair behind her ear. “Should be just this way…” she finally said before turning to lead him through the dusty shelves. Unable to stand the silence and stave off her curiosity, she continued to speak. “You and your brother are…members of the Satanic Church I take it?”

Copia chuckled rather nervously. People took their presence at varying levels of acceptance, and while she had certainly given no inkling to minding it, he couldn’t help but be cautious. “Si, indeed…what gave us away?” he joked.

She smiled lightly, eyes expertly tracing spine after spine of the books. “Well, if the face paint didn’t cut it, the inverted cross kinda was a big clue.” He laughed again and she decided she would like to hear that a lot more, and the sudden tension in his shoulders suggested she would have to work to do that. “Doesn’t bother me, for the record. We get members in here quite a lot, everyone has always been respectful. As long as nothing is shoved down my throat or in my face or affecting anyone else, I don’t really care what you believe in or do.”

He tilted his head as he watched her with some relief. “You proclaim no faith, then?”

She smiled lightly as she came to a halt in front of some shelves and lifted a neatly manicured finger to more closely trace the labeled spines. “A musician said it better than I ever could: You can call me faithless, but I still cling to hope, and I believe in love, and that’s faith enough for me.”

His smile changed, softening further as she carefully withdrew an old tome from its place. “Ah…that is…Neil Peart, no? Rush?”

Her eyes widened in surprise as she whipped to face him with an incredulous nod. “Yeah…yeah it is. I think you’re the first person to ever get that reference on the first go.”

Their eyes met again, and he felt himself grow sheepish. “I…I have a, eh, eclectic taste in music.”

“I think you mean a good one,” she grinned before gesturing down the aisle as she jostled the book. “I have your book here, desks are down this way. I’ll show you.” With that she turned and continued down the path until the aisles gave way to a more open space littered with various desks, legal pads and even a stray pen or two. She gently set the old volume on a desk and pulled out the chair for him, hands resting on the back with a welcoming smile. “Have a seat, take the time you need and feel free to use any of the pens or paper. And if you need anything, I’ll be around.”

He swallowed as he stared at her for a moment, the warmth in her blue eyes stirring something deep in his chest. “Ah…eh…g-grazie mille, Rosalyn.” Her own stomach lurched at the way her name rolled off his tongue.

“Of course…there’s a computer just around the corner I’ll be working at, just holler if you need me.”

He blinked, a bit confused and flustered that she was staying in the archives…alone…with him. His cheeks warmed and he felt his palms start to sweat beneath his gloves. “I hope I am not, eh…disrupting your work, no? You do not need to stay down here for me, I can find you upstairs if I need y-…anything.”

She shrugged as her eyes darted to the floor. “It’s no trouble…It’s actually library policy that we have to stay down here anytime someone is using the archive books.” Their eyes met again and her heart stuttered in her chest. Some part of her felt like she shouldn’t stay there with him, policy be damned; she really shouldn’t when she was damn near blinded by the way his ass and thighs looked in those painted-on jeans and her mind kept wandering to what it would feel like to have his gloved hands pushing up her skirt as she bent over one of the desks…

He cleared his throat awkwardly as if he could read her mind. “Ah, si…of course…okie…okeydokey, then. I will…I will just get to it!”

Rosalyn pulled herself away from the chair and turned away to break whatever spell she was under and duck for the employee computer, somehow aware of the uncanny white eye that followed her until she disappeared from sight.

AO3 Link

#my writing #my fanfiction #the band ghost #the band ghost fanfiction #papa emeritus iv #papa emeritus iv fanfiction #papa emeritus iv x ofc

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beneaththebrim · 2 years

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Thoughts on Priory of the Orange Tree (no big spoilers)

(so backstory is my friend is a huge SFF buff and recommended/gifted this book to me a year and a half ago (it’s gay! you like gay things!) but I’d only gotten around to reading physical books again recently, and finally dove into this one. And, when I mentioned I was reading it, a few fandom friends asked me to tell them what I thought about it. So. Here ya go.)

Over all, it's a very solid high fantasy novel and I enjoyed reading it. The story follows four protagonists as they weave paths around the known world while a humanity-threatening crisis (giant fire-breathing dragons) looms on the horizon.

Warning: I have a tendency to be like ‘I love this novel! Here are all the things wrong with it...’ so I will point out some of my gripes along with what I liked.

Worldbuilding

The worldbuilding is pretty strong, in that the author knew to highlight the portions of history she already knew well, while also doing a sufficient amount of research on areas she didn't, and moreover choosing points of view that wouldn't get into the nitty gritty in those latter cases.

It is a bit funny, though, how one of the opening pages says (direct quote), 'The fictional lands of The Priory of the Orange Tree are inspired by events and legends from various parts of the world. None is intended as a faithful representation of any one country or culture at any point in history,' and then, within three pages of the first chapter, being like 'ah yes, Edo Japan' xD

(Key going forward: Inys=England, Hróth=Scandinavia, Yscalin=Spain Mentendon=Netherlands, Lasia=Kongo (this was one I didn’t automatically know but saw while browsing the author’s tumblr), Ersyr=Persia, Seiiki=Japan, Empire of Twelve Lakes=China)

As for the magical system, I have to admit, it's a bit simplistic at core, and doesn't get delved into in a great amount of philosophical detail. It's basically just, there's earth magic (fire) and star magic (water/air), boom, that's it. What's infinitely more interesting is how the novel depicts different cultures in the world not fully understanding the entirety of the magical system and passing down myths and tales based on the fraction of it they experience, and moreover rejecting the entirety of the magical system's truth due to dogma built up over time. That's the real juicy aspect of the worldbuilding.

At core, the novel is about rejecting tribalism and breaking down such dogmas in order to work toward the survival and betterment of humanity. Imo the most interesting aspects of the novel involve characters with entrenched beliefs intersecting with characters possessing incompatible beliefs, or having their beliefs otherwise challenged.

Feminism & queer content

The feminist message in the novel is a classic sort of feminism ('a woman is more than a womb to be seeded')—all the more relevant nowadays with the current global reactionary trends regarding women's rights eh—and the setting is full of a wide variety of well rounded women in various different roles. Among them there are tenacious warriors, as well as delicate—yet equally tenacious—courtiers. Among them there are heroes, villains, and various shades in between. Women make up the prime movers and shakers of the narrative, but the narrative doesn't fall into the trap of imagining that the world would be a utopia if run by women. There is also a very nice nuanced understanding that the signifiers of liberation differ according to culture and status.

Unfortunately, there are no (visible) trans characters.

There are a couple main queer relationships in the text. The world is one in which homophobia is nonexistent, however many queer themes are still explored through the rigidity of the class structure and pressure for the nobility to bear children, causing certain relationships (including straight ones) to be forbidden. The main relationship is between a queen and her bodyguard, so, very much getting into that ‘forbidden relationship’ territory (oddly not super flavorful here tho, imo)

As someone coming from danmei/baihe fandom, I would not recommend reading this novel for the romance, because it really is quite scant, and although there are some (non explicit) sex scenes, they generally follow that adage of 'sex scenes must justify themselves by advancing the narrative'. Sometimes I felt like the writing was afraid of losing dignity if the romance portions were written with too much passion—it often felt a bit clinical. In the first sex scene I found myself focusing more on the significance of the star imagery than being titillated. But that's fine, after all it's not a romance novel, I’m just used to reading BL/GL novels.

(For those who've read priest, I would also contrast the romance here to what people often talk about in priest's works—in priest's works the plot is very heavy, but because her works are character-based, the focus always comes back to the intertwining of the plot with the main characters' relationship—there's a certain interiority to it. In Priory, we're more zoomed out, and the plot is the main focus.)

Characters & plot

My personal gripe about the romance probably comes from this (perfectly fine, honestly just a difference in style and genre) plot-over-characters design itself. The characters are generally pretty well-rounded, but they often feel more like heroes/pawns/symbols than humans. The novel is very tight, and we don't get much downtime with them, other than maybe a flashback carefully placed in an attempt to make a loss more devastating (I say 'attempt' because all in all the novel never made me cry). This is actually a novel I could see being adapted well to a live action, where the actors might add a bit more of a human touch to the characters (granted, that would be in a perfect world where live adaptations aren't beholden to generic corporate tastes haha).

On the other hand, the thing that does really make the story for me is actually the 'pawn' aspect of the characters. Although I'm not made to feel sad for the characters, I am often invested in their arcs—there are a lot of moments where the tension is slowly, slowly ramped up, and you know something bad is going to happen to them, and you're dreading it a little, but at the same time you know that this loss they're experiencing is going to take them, physically and mentally, to the place the plot will need them to be. It's those movements of the characters about the board that are truly expertly fine-tuned, and kept me wanting to read on. The plot was truly well-crafted.

Is it time to talk about individual characters? It's time to talk about individual characters. Okay, so there are four main narrators:

Ead, a Lasian-Ersyri spy sent by a secret organization of (fire)dragonslayers/mages to protect Queen Sabran of Inys. 26-yo WOC, WLW. She gets the most screen time, and she is very driven and loyal, with a broad-mindedness deepened by her experience working to blend into the Inysh court. She’s pretty OP (in a good way).

Tané, a promising Seiikinese warrior training to become a (water)dragon rider. 19-yo WOC (though given that she's a fantasy!Japanese person in fantasy!Japan, calling her a WOC could be considered projecting a western mindset on race elsewhere in the world), unknown sexuality. She is incredibly ambitious and set in her ways, partially due to having to strive to prove herself all her life, having come from a dirt-poor peasant background. She is also pretty OP (also in a good way).

Loth, an Inysh courtier plotted against to go on a suicide mission to Yscalin, which has recently been taken over by recently-awakened (fire)dragons. 30-yo MOC (in that he's described with dark skin, however he’s essentially written in a colorblind way, he's basically a fantasy!English dude whose noble family goes way back to the founding of fantasy!England, who happens to have dark skin, fwiw), unknown sexuality, but I think probably demi-heteroromantic asexual. Loth is also set in his ways in the beginning, but he is extraordinarily kind, courageous, and noble, which allows him to face new circumstances with aplomb.

Niclays, a Mentish anatomist and alchemist exiled in Seiiki. 64-yo white man, MLM. Niclays begins in a significantly different place from the other characters—he's not young or full of ambition (beyond his fruitless search for an elixir of life). He's been mourning the death of his lover and drowning in drink for many years now, and many of his decisions are clouded in a fog of misery, simply informed by what is there in front of him, if not behind—everything he does is in some way informed by the memory of his dead lover.

—Just a taste of whose eyes we get to see through. In the beginning they're strewn across the known world, but as they begin to intersect more later on in the novel, that's when we really start cooking with gas.

Some other highlights:

Inysh court politics. Look I love me some court politics where you have to keep flipping to the character guide while getting acclimated and by the end you're in it. Also I was proud of myself for being able to predict a couple things correctly (cupbearer, [redacted] ancestry). I was a little surprised that by the time the characters got to the court of the Empire of Twelve Lakes they weren't plunged into a whole other backstabby world, but I guess maybe the court politics there were all happening in the background hehe.

KALYBA. Look. Okay. We all love our milves. Our evil milves. Our evil wicked witch milves who are the terrible root of all our [redacted] trauma and turned into [redacted] because the haters wouldn't give her any oranges. Just #girlboss things right? I wanted more of her. I wanted more from her. I can't say more because spoilers. I love her.

SAMANTHA SHANNON HOW DARE YOU PUT SEQUEL BAIT AT THE END AND NO SEQUEL AGHHHHHHH anyway I hope if there is a sequel and/or prequel there will be more Kalyba/Kalyba flashbacks. And Neporo and the butterflies?? What's up with that??? Tané???? Sweet water?????

(Okay I do know that sweet water was something the pirates picked up at port, so it's not some secret thing. Must have to do with Neporo somehow, or Kalyba's backstory with Neporo) (I assume this is way too vague to count as spoilers)

Okay one spoiler, don’t look if you haven’t read the novel:

I was so sure Kalyba was planning to cozy up to the Nameless One, specifically so she could slay him with Ascalon and supplant him as the dominant dragon and become the ultimate Big Bad. I was so sure of it! I really wanted that for her!! Kalyba you deserved better!!!

#priory of the orange tree #review #samantha shannon if you see this plz know I am but a mere danmei main to whom you need not pay heed; plz don't read my silly little thoughts

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vestaldestroyer · 2 years

Text

A Much-needed Discussion

Sequel to this, based on @musa-gking's Yuri Survives AU

Warning: The flashback on a conversation with Yara might be disturbing. Not sure how to tag it, so just beware and skip if you're uncomfortable.

A little note: I changed Yara's pronouns. I tweaked zir character a little bit and these fit zim better.

---

“It's really noisy up there today,” Sova commented, glancing up at the higher stages of the city.

“There has been a massive breakout of X in the prison apparently,” Kánya mentioned off-handedly, and the others made a sound of acknowledgement.

“Well, the more people break out jail, the more interesting customers we'll get,” Yara shrugged, earning an eye roll from zir friends.

They continued walking down the beach, enjoying the peace and quiet. They tried to go out like this at least once a month, mostly to get some fresh air that wasn't filled with smoke from cigarettes and various other substances. The other reason was Rakun. They would never tell him to his face, but they all agreed that if he stayed holed up in his room all the time, he'd probably go mouldy or something, so they needed to air him out. Even Paloma joined them today, which was a welcome surprise, because they were usually away from home, wandering through nearby forests and mountains whenever they were off the clock.

“What's that?” Róka pointed into the distance suddenly, breaking the silence.

Curious, Vidra ran ahead to take a closer look. As soon as she realised what she was looking at, she gasped.

“No fucking way.” She waved at her friends to come to her, shouting: “Guys! You're not gonna believe this!”

The others hurried closer, intrigued by whatever it was that Vidra just found.

“It's Lunatic,” she announced when her friends were close enough to hear.

“Seriously?”

“He's beautiful,” Yara noted.

“He's not breathing,” Kánya pointed out, worried.

“Even better,” Yara grinned, fully expecting zir friends' response.

“Yara, please shut your mouth.”

Meanwhile, Paloma emerged from behind their friends and knelt next to Lunatic's body. They checked his pulse, the straw they were chewing on falling from their mouth when they felt a faint beat. Their usual absent-minded look vanishes in favour of a concentrated one as they begin checking for injuries, mumbling their findings: “Broken rib, blood loss, drowning, mild hypothermia…”

“Can we help?” Vidra asked as soon as she noticed what they were doing.

“We need to carefully move him into a warm place and get him into dry clothes. The wounds will need treatment and he might need a blood transfusion,” Sova listed.

“Is that all, Paloma?” Kánya turned to their medical expert and received a nod in response. “Alright, Rakun, Vidra, pick him up and bring him home. Paloma, stay with them. The rest of us will run ahead. Sova, you'll find a first aid kit, Róka and Yara will prepare a bed, and Rakun, I'll give him some of your clothes if that's okay.”

“Yeah, no problem.”

“Isn't our only free bed in that old BDSM chamber in the basement?” Róka wondered.

“That's fine by me,” Yara agreed enthusiastically.

—

It took a few days before Yuri felt ready to join his new housemates for their 3pm lunch, which was also their first meal of the day because they worked at night and slept all morning. It didn't matter much to him, since he lived in the basement and couldn't really tell the time.

He'd met some of the other people living in this house in the past few days. He went over recent news with Kánya, Róka's younger sister, who looked and acted like she was older and had some strong opinions on just about any topic. Sometimes they were joined by Sova, a NEXT with the power to memorise books she read, who contributed to the more philosophical and moral debates with meaningful quotes and occasionally her own opinion.

—

“Ugh, this guy,” Kánya grimaced upon seeing a photo of Gregory Sunshine in the newspaper.

“Do you know him?” Yuri wondered.

“More intimately than I'd like to,” she rolled her eyes.

“We served him once,” Sova explained. “He was the type of customer we prefer: drunk, so not fully aware of what he's doing, and very rich. He paid us well.”

“But he was so annoying about it! Usually, these types just chat and grope around, maybe ask for something quick, but this one dragged it out into infinity, babbling on and on about how hot his boss was and how much he'd like to have her instead. I'm all for rich customers, but the ones that say things like that are bad for my self-esteem.”

While Kánya talked, Sova was studying the article, with Yuri looking over her shoulder, listening and skimming the text at the same time.

“Look, there's a picture of his boss as well,” Sova pointed out.

“Hadd lássam,” Kánya grabbed the paper to take a look. “Okay, fair, she's hot, but still! Doesn't mean I need to hear about it while I'm on his lap!”

“Apparently, he's the one behind the whole X ordeal,” Sova continued reading, unbothered by her friend's rant. “Many people got hurt or worse because of or by him.”

“Yes, you really don't need to worry about the opinion of someone like him,” Yuri pulled a face of his own.

“Do I detect a personal grudge?” Kánya prompted him to elaborate.

He never told anyone about the things he's done as Lunatic. Nobody knew his identity, after all. However, these two weren't asking him to talk about himself. They were asking him to slander a criminal.

Yuri has never spoken these feelings out loud, either. The repulsion, the deep disgust, the violent hate, all these venomous feelings he kept hidden behind a mask of professionalism. Here, he could voice them easily and without judgement. This wasn't the courtroom, where he had to be the personification of the law. Here, for the first time in his life, he was his own person.

He was Lunatic, but not really.

“I had the displeasure of meeting him, too. He's the one who gave me these,” Yuri gestured to some of his injuries. “He and Audun...”

—

He didn't get a chance to meet Paloma, the former medical student who had treated his injuries and who came up with a rehabilitation programme for him, because they weren't home often, but Vidra visited him every day after lunch to go through the exercises with him. Conversations with her were jarring, she was very direct and held nothing back, but it was also refreshing in a way, and Yuri found himself looking forward to her visits.

Speaking of refreshing, that also applied to his interactions with Yara, though in a vastly different way. To say zie was completely crazy would be an understatement, but he's come to realise that he isn't much better himself. He'd normally never even consider saying the nonsensical things that popped up in his head from time to time out loud, but when he heard zim speaking nonsense of zir own without worrying about what the others thought of zim, it suddenly wasn't that unthinkable. Their conversations, if it can even be called that, would be either completely incomprehensible or horrifying and deeply traumatising to anyone else, but he was thrilled by them.

—

Yara only came by to care for the instruments stored in the room at first.

“I've always been a bit envious of your NEXT power, you know?” zie began one day while lovingly rubbing leather oil into one of the whips.

“Really?” he asked, not really following zim, but when did he ever?

“Don't get me wrong, my power's great. It gets me the freakiest of customers. But I've always wondered what would it be like to burn someone. You know what I mean?”

Oh, he knew. All too well. A shiver ran down his spine and his face split in a maniacal grin, which zie reciprocated.

“It seems fun,” zie continued, “letting a person slowly and painfully evaporate layer by layer.”

“The flames are alive,” he tried to describe, “and ever-hungry. They melt the skin of the bones, swallow the muscles and finally bite into the bone. It's delicious. And the screams of the target are the cherry on top. It doesn't fill your stomach, but your heart.”

“Ahhh, I need to find me someone who is into that,” zie squealed in delight, abandoning the whip and wiping zir hands on a wet towel. “A hot metal rod was fun, but I'd like to actually set someone on fire, just a little. It would be so pretty to watch. And I'm sure the sounds would be as great as you say. I still remember the Lady Killer's, you know? I didn't see it, I was serving someone at the time, but I'll never forget those screams in my life. I bet he's never screamed like that for anyone else, just for you. God, I wish that was me! I just know I could get the most beautiful sounds out of people if they let me burn them.”

“I've always enjoyed burning people only partially, like when I'd stop them from committing a crime. I planned to do that more often — preventing murders from happening by scaring criminals so much that they wouldn't dare. I never actually went through with it because it was too risky, but I've toyed with the thought many times. Just give them a scare, make them sweat and tremble in terror. Burns take ages to heal and they always scar, so they'd carry that mark forever as a reminder of what they've tried to do,” Yuri admitted.

“Oh, that sounds so good!” Yara climbed into his lap with zir back to his chest and pointed at a large wooden instrument made of several thick logs. It seemed well-used and very old, slowly beginning to decay. “Show me, please?” zie pleaded. He chuckled, unable to resist zir puppy eyes.

Lighting his hand on fire, he placed it on top of the instrument, burning a handprint matching the one on his chest deep into the wood.

“More, please. Burn the whole thing,” Yara begged eagerly, unable to tear zir eyes from the impeding destruction. He indulged zim, pulling his hand away slightly and letting his flames loose. Full power, just for the fun of it. And fun it was, Yara's laughter was soon joined by his own.

—

In general, he was slowly getting used to being alive again. He tried not to think too much about the past or the future, but it was time he faced reality. And that starts with going to lunch.

The dining room, living room and kitchen combined meet him as soon as he climbs the stairs from the basement and opens the door, everyone else save for Róka already seated at the table.

It's not every day you meet such a mismatched group of different people only connected by a profession, but Yuri has been working with Sternbild's superheroes for several years now, so it's not too off-putting.

“Good morning!” Kánya notices his presence first. Yuri doesn't point out that morning is long since over. “Do we have an extra chair for Lunatic?”

Lunatic.

They never asked for his real name. Not that he would've told them, but it was so strange to him. These people saw the scar on his face and didn't bat an eye. Despite knowing nothing about him besides the fact that he's killed people, they accepted him and decided to protect him from the law, give him food and shelter and as much time as he needs to recover.

“Got it!” Vidra cheers, holding a chair above her head before placing it at the table. Just like all furniture it their house, it's second (or third, or fifth)-hand, doesn't match any other piece, and creaks dangerously when he sits down. A plate of noodles with what seems to be cream appears in front of him, promptly followed by a fork, a spoon, and finally a glass of water. He manages a smile as he thanks them.

He doesn't ask what it is he's eating, he's learnt first-hand that Róka will only answer with some long word or two in Hungarian, followed by a very vague explanation accompanied by a lot of hand gestures, which told him absolutely nothing. But he also learnt that she is an incredible cook and that nothing she served him was ever short of delicious.

The mood at the table is cheery as they begin to eat, apparently elated to have Yuri finally join them. As it turns out, the noodles are quite challenging to eat in a manner that isn't messy. Everyone seemed used to it and took it with humour, amused by Yuri's obvious cluelessness. When he pulls the ends of his hair away from the sticky cream for the second time, Yara wordlessly offers him a hair tie. It's pink with a sparkly plastic flower, but he gratefully accepts it and ties his hair back. As he runs his hands through his hair to smooth it out, he notices its state. God, he needs a shower. A very, very long, hot shower.

Soon enough, he figures out that he needs to wind the noodles on the fork and then scoop them up with the spoon. Nevertheless, half or the people at the table were ignoring the spoon part and paid no mind to having cream everywhere.

Strangely enough, it reminds him of when his mother used to make pancakes. He would get cream everywhere then as well, because no matter if he ate them with his hands or with knife and fork, there was always just too much cream. It would drip down on the plate, on the tablecloth, and occasionally on his clothes as well. He remembers the one time his father had used the excess cream from his plate to paint a moustache on his face, pretending to be the ridiculous villain he had caught the day prior.

“Hey, Lunatic? You still with us?”

Róka's question pulls him out of his thoughts. He realises that he's been just staring at his food for a few minutes now.

“I miss sweets,” he says, though it explains nothing.

To no one save for Yara.

“Me too, too bad they're so expensive. What kind were you thinking of?”

Yuri smiles as he begins recounting the memory.

“My mother used to make pancakes with cream, though she'd always put in too much and—”

His fork and spoon fall out of his hands and on his plate with a clatter as reality hits him like a freight train. He's avoided thinking about it ever since he woke up, but now, everything came back to him at full force.

He let his face fall into his hands as his brain went into overdrive, catching up to the reality of him going missing for several weeks. Lunatic is dead, but Yuri Petrov isn't.

“What's wrong?” Vidra asks.

“My mother… Her remains are probably still at the crematory. They'll just toss her into some mass grave if I don't pick them up soon… I need to go…”

He attempts to stand up, but Paloma's surprisingly firm hand on his shoulder stops him. They push him back down with a stern shake of their head.

“Paloma's right, you're in no shape to go anywhere,” Kánya agrees. “Can we pick them up for you somehow?”

“No, that wouldn't work. Whoever picks them up has to pay for the cremation… I need to go to my apartment, get my credit card and… Oh no, what if I was declared missing? That would complicate everything. I've never missed a day of work, my coworkers are bound to wonder when I disappear for weeks… Then again, I doubt any of them care enough to report me…”

Yuri needs to do something. He needs to get up, he needs to move, he needs to—

“Hey, hey, calm down. We'll figure it out,” Vidra tries.

“Yeah, let's make a list,” Kánya decides.

Sova fishes a pen and a paper from somewhere.

“No, no, finish your food first. Brain doesn't work on an empty stomach,” Róka reasons.

“Neither does the digestive system when you're panicking,” Paloma points out quietly.

“But—”

“Enough!” Yuri stands abruptly, eyes bursting into flames. A split second later, he realises what he just did. Everyone is looking at him, startled.

Oh, that's right. They just realised they brought a dangerous mass murderer into their house.

His flames vanish as he collapses back into his chair, whispering.

“I'm sorry… I just—”

He exhales slowly, fighting to get his emotions under control, before he's met with another realisation:

“I don't even know if I want my life back…”

The room goes quiet as everyone processes the statement. It makes Yuri a bit nervous, he has no idea what could they possibly have to say to that. To some degree, they had to be aware that he didn't want to be saved. That he tried to take his life for a reason. Yet, they saved him.

To everyone's surprise, it's Paloma who breaks the silence first.

“Do you hate your job?”

That is the last question he expected to be posed. He tries his best to answer.

“No… Yes? I don't know.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. Where did his usual eloquence go? “I wanted to be the voice of justice, that's why I chose it. And it was good at the beginning, but the longer I worked, the more serious cases I got. Complicated ones, too. My colleagues and superiors trusted that I would stay impartial and wouldn't be moved by my personal feelings. That became stifling. I had to let child rapists free on lack of evidence. I had to allow murderers to get out of prison early for good behaviour. I had to give countless criminals reduced sentences for barely any reason. I realised that I was never the voice of justice. I was the voice of the law, which was far from flawless. My colleagues just let it slide. I could not. That's why I became Lunatic — to deliver the punishment I otherwise couldn't.”

“Did you like that better?” Yara asks in a tone that indicates zie's expecting a negative answer, and Yuri confirms zir suspicions with a shake of his head.

“It was incredibly satisfying at first. Criminals disappeared one by one and people were realising that something needs to change. But that was it. No one actually did anything. Nothing changed, nothing at all. HeroTV just made me a part of their play-pretend spectacle of justice and moved on. I refused to take part in their stupid popularity contest, so I pulled back and began working more discreetly. I thought if I couldn't change people's minds, I would just have to do all the work myself. But the more lives I took, the harder it was to escape the voice of Th- …my own conscience. I couldn't help but wonder if I'm really any better than all those criminals.”

“Does it matter?” Vidra interrupts him suddenly. He gives her an inquisitive look. Of course it matters, why would it not— “Fact is, I'd be dead if it wasn't for you. And not just me, that asshole wouldn't've stopped until the cops caught him, and you know better than us how long that would take.”

“People have many facets. You can't just say someone is better or worse in general, you can only be better or worse at something,” Sova pipes up. As usual, Kánya picks up her theoretical argument and puts it into practice.

“She's right. You're worse than, say, us, because you've killed people. But at the same time, you're better than us because we've never saved anybody.”

“You saved me,” Yuri points out, purely on reflex because he's too shocked to reply to anything else.

“Yeah, but I'm sure you have saved much more people than just Vidra and potentially us. I think that cancels out the murders.”

“Outweighs them, even. In my opinion,” Róka joins her sister.

“Killing is wrong, but there's no reason to die for it,” Paloma mumbles from their corner of the table.

That is something Yuri has an answer to.

“I believe that people have to die to atone for killing. That's why I always knew that the last murderer I'll kill will be me.”

“Wait, that's your reasoning?” Vidra frowns. “I thought you killed those fuckers because that was the only surefire way to stop them.”

Everyone at the table agrees vocally, save for Rakun, who seems to be deep in thought. Suddenly, he looks Yuri dead in the eyes.

“Are you telling me that when we found you on the beach, you jumped there yourself? That it wasn't an attack, but suicide?”

The room goes eerily quiet as everyone turns towards him, expressions ranging from surprise to disbelief to outright disapproval.

“Yes,” he confirms. “I miscalculated the amount of time it would take for me to burn, that's how I ended up in the sea.”

“You jumped from a high place and set yourself on fire?” Róka repeats.

“And then you almost drowned? You gotta tell me about that in detail later.” Opposite to Róka, Yara sounds excited.

“That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard,” Rakun concludes. “Why would you do that?”

“I just told you, to atone for the killing,” Yuri argues, feeling a bit insulted.

“Yeah, I got that, but why?”

“I think what Rakun means,” Kánya interjecs, “is that there is a big difference between you and the criminals. Tell me, if all criminals were gone, would you stop killing?”

Yuri opens his mouth to answer, but then he closes it again.

Oh.

They wouldn't. If the Lady Killer wiped out all the prostitutes in Sternbild, he'd just move on to other women. So would that bomber from Justice Tower, the robbers who killed his mother, and all the other criminals he's killed.

The question is, would he stop killing? Could his sense of justice ever be sated? Or would he just move on to other kinds of criminals? Is he really as good of a person as they believe him to be? Or is he just as bad as—

“Cool, now that we all understand each other, would you mind finishing your food? I don't want it to go to waste and if the cream dries on the plates, it will be a massive pain to clean. We'll figure out the rest later.”

Yuri figures he might as well continue his moral crisis while eating and joins the others in mumbling an apology to Róka.

In theory, he knows a suicide attempt survivor do. He's dealt with this topic before, he was trained on it at work. Distract themselves from thinking about what drove them to suicide in the first place, reestablish a routine, and focus on the things they like about living. It's much harder to do in practice, though. He's constantly torn between countless emotions that lead a raging war inside of him. Staying logical and thinking objectively is almost impossible, even though it used to be his strong suit.

But strangely enough, he doesn't feel like dying again, and he suspects that these people are the reason for that. It's still baffling to him how much care they're willing to give to a stranger, and yet scold and argue with him just as easily.

And the strangest thing is that he wants to lend them an ear, that he wants to believe them. He wants them to persuade him to change his mind, to adjust the code of justice he always abode by.

It's a new feeling, but he decides to give it — give them — a chance. Maybe he can allow himself to change his mind just this one time.

---

To be continued! Sorry for the abrupt ending, I just wanted to get this out and leave the conclusion for the next part, which might not come as quickly as this one because I haven't slept in days and I'm Tired. Anyway, thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed!

#tiger & bunny #tiger & bunny 2 #yuri petrov #survival au #vd writes

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