#I actually committed to something this time and did it! hooray!

[bonkalore]

I finally got out my first rough draft done for the Bleeding Magic AU outline at 151 pages!!

And I did it before the year ended!!

[p0orbaby]

Capitana

summary: alexia gets sick of your moaning. she shows you who’s boss

warnings: no actual smut but suggestive

a/n: there’s spanish in this, i am not spanish, do with that what you will

word count: 1.2k

-

Dating a footballer is strange.

Not strange bad, but strange different.

Their working days don’t follow your typical nine to five. Time off is sparse and sporadic. Traveling for work is just another Tuesday for them. And not to mention the time that isn’t taken up by playing or training or flying is filled with interviews or photoshoots or, nutritional cooking videos?

It tracks. Just about.

Regardless, all of it means that Alexia is a very busy woman. So busy in fact that when she actually does have days off you’d think they’d be filled with, you don’t know, non football related activities.

Meals out. Trips to the beach. Sleep even!

Though let’s not forget who we’re talking about here. Alexia. Alexia Putellas. La Reína.

A day without football? Not a chance in hell.

Hooray for you!

You’re laying on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling going slowly insane as the same clip is played over and over and over again.

It’s your own fault really. With almost three years of being together under your belt, how dare you presume that she’d want to spend time with you on her scheduled free day.

You silly goose!

Sorry no, that’s rude. Of course she wants to spend time with you on her days off. She’s told you as much when she gets home tired and achy from training. Or when your hand traces soothing patterns on her thigh as you drive her home from games.

The thing is, Alexia is football and football is Alexia. It’s not just about being on the pitch for her, and you admire her so much for her commitments.

Though as you’ve said, she’s a very busy woman, but you have needs. Extremely desperate, latent needs that only a certain occupied number eleven can alleviate.

It’s your day off too, after all.

You turn your head to find your girlfriend engrossed in her iPad at the dining table. And gosh isn’t she beautiful, even as she frowns in concentration. Intimidating? A little. Sexy as hell? You pray someone shoots you if you ever say no.

You clear your throat to try and get her attention, and not so much as a flinch. You try to not get offended, but what if you were choking? Would she be too busy ogling her own performance to notice?

You try again a little louder just to make sure.

Luckily for you and your safety she acknowledges the noise this time. You’ll live to see another day.

“Do you need water?”

You turn your lip up slightly at the mild irritation in her voice.

“No, nope, all good.” You say as you sit up properly now to face her fully. She’s not even looking at you. “How about you? Do you want me to get you anything?”

She shakes her head, rewinds the video again and locks in her concentration once more.

Jesus this is like Chinese water torture.

“Ale, you’ve watched that same clip for the past fifteen minutes. Why don’t you take a break?”

Finally she looks over at you, and you almost melt when her eyes meet yours.

“No puedo,” she says as she lifts her glass and eyes you over the rim of it. “I need to know what we did wrong so we can work on it in training tomorrow”

You sigh and roll onto your back again.

“But it’s your day off. Our day off” you explain with a huff. “I thought we could spend some time together”

“We are spending time together, no? We’re in the same room, and we’re having a conversation”

“That’s not what I mean and you know it”

There’s silence for a brief moment before you hear her chair scrape and she starts talking again. “Why don’t we plan something for next week? Antes del campamento?”

An olive branch, you suppose. But you’re in it now, you might as well double down.

“I don’t want your attention next week, Alexia. I want it now. ¿Consíguelo?”

Alexia sets down her iPad, her expression hardening. “You know what? I’ve had enough of this attitude, vale?” she says, her tone firm. “You’re acting like a spoiled brat, expecting me to drop everything for you whenever you want. Well, newsflash, that’s not how relationships work”

Your eyebrows shoot up in surprise at her sharp words. “Excuse me? I’m not the one glued to a screen all day,” you retort, a hint of defensiveness in your voice. “Solo quiero pasar tiempo contigo”

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Please, spare me the melodrama,” she replies, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “If you wanted to spend time with me, you wouldn’t be making me feel guilty for wanting to improve my game”

You shake your head in frustration. “Improving your game? You’ve been watching the same clip for the past hour,” you argue, feeling the tension rising between you. A storm on the horizon.

“At least I’m trying to get better,” she fires back, her voice rising in frustration. “What are you doing besides sulking on the couch?”

“I’m not sulking, I’m just tired of being ignored,” you shoot back, your temper flaring. “Is it too much to ask for a little attention from my girlfriend?”

Alexia’s eyes narrow as she reaches her breaking point. “Sabes que? I’ve had it,” she says, her voice low, dangerous even. “If you want my attention so badly, then I’ll give it to you”

Before you can react, she strides over to where you’re sitting, her gaze intense, her eyes dark. Without a word, she grabs your hand and pulls you to your feet, her touch sending electric shocks through your body.

From fear or something else, you’re not quite sure.

“What are you doing?” you manage to stammer out, your heart racing with anticipation.

Without a word, she leads you out of the living room and through the house, her grip firm and commanding around your wrist as you’re dragged behind her.

Your pulse races as she pushes open the bedroom door and shoves you inside. The air crackles with tension as she closes the door behind her, locking it with a decisive click.

“Strip,” she orders, her voice leaving no room for argument. Her eyes bore into yours, daring you to defy her. “Ahora”

You swallow hard, your body tingling as if covered in static. Silently, you begin to undress, feeling her stare burning into your skin as each piece of clothing falls to the floor.

Once you’re completely naked, she steps forward, her presence dominating the room. “On the bed,” she commands, pointing to the mattress with a stern gesture.

You obey, this time without hesitation, feeling a thrill shoot through you at her tone. One you only really hear snippets of when you’re watching her from the stands. Authoritative. Demanding. Sexy as fuck.

As you settle onto the bed, she moves to stand over you, her eyes dark with desire. “Hands above your head,” she orders, her voice a low growl. You comply, raising your hands and intertwining your fingers as she watches you from underneath her lashes.

She moves to straddle you, her touch firm and possessive as she runs her hands over your exposed skin. “You belong to me,” she murmurs, her breath hot against your ear. “And tonight, I’m going to remind you of that”

[xenia12]

Here’s a bunch of 3+ year old incorrect TOH quotes from my notes app because I’m bored

News reporter: There are rumors that you recently went undercover at Hexside under the name “Caleb”. Is this true?

The Golden Guard: Pfft, TITAN no. Caleb’s just a pathetic wannabe who can’t stand his own incompetence. Like, seriously, he can’t do anything right. I feel bad for anyone who has to suffer the embarrassment of being within 20 feet of him. He’s such a loser.

Hunter, watching the clip on his scroll a few hours later: Say that to my face, you fucking tool. Stop being such a royal ass-kisser and get a real job.

The Emerald Entrails, sitting together after practice:

Willow: Are you okay?

Luz: No problemo!

Luz, internally: But it was all problemo.

Gus: What's your biggest fear?

Hunter: Being replaced.

Gus: Damn that's deep.

Gus: My new one is the Kool-Aid man but I feel kinda stupid about it now.

Hunter, lying in the woods, depressed: I'll never be a cop again. I'm gonna have to be a robber.

Lilith: You know, I really wish you’d just admit you made a mistake sometimes.

The Golden Guard, stirring his coffee: I prefer it with salt.

Willow: What are you two arguing about this time?

Hunter: He’s always using human phrases incorrectly!

Gus: Cry me a table, Hunter.

Luz: I'm very disappointed in you, Vee.

Hunter: C'mon, don't get mad at Vee!

Luz: Hunter, stop telling Vee it's okay for her to punch you! She needs to learn not to punch people!

Hunter: But I'm not a person!

Vee: Which is why I punched him!

Lilith: *Turns on the breakroom light*

The Golden Guard: *Sitting at the table, eating bread*

Lilith: It’s four in the morning.

The Golden Guard: Turn the light back off.

Hunter: The joy of hanging out with Luz. You look away for 5 seconds to make sure something is set up correctly, and she bites the tip of a marker off.

Camila: Can you come out?

Luz: Yeah gimme a minute…

Luz: Mom, I’m bi.

Camila: I know that. Come out to the car.

Luz: Okay.

Luz: Car, I’m bi.

Camila, a tired mother:

Willow: *lifting weights*

Hunter: Wow… She’s so intense!

Luz: I wonder what drives her.

Willow, internally: Oh I am going to be SO good at giving hugs.

Hunter, protecting a palistrom forest: I am Hunter, I speak for the trees. Chop them down and I snap your knees.

Luz: I wanna be a knight!

Hunter, basically a knight: What the fuck do you want this shit for? I kill people, all right? Their blood is on my hands! Every night, when I go to sleep, I see their FUCKING faces staring at me! Their families weep, and I FEEL NOTHING! I’M DEAD INSIDE!

Luz: Man, I want some of that in my life!

Luz: I want a trip down memory lane.

Vee: *proceeds to grab every warrior cats book they have and sets them in Luz’s lap*

Vee: I heard you needed these?

Luz: YES! ALL OF THEM!

Hunter: Due to personal reasons, I will be fucking sinking to the bottom of the ocean in a large metal box.

Luz: Did Willow say “I love you” and you said “Thanks”?

Hunter: THE REASONS ARE PERSONAL–

The Golden Guard, on live news: I can't imagine what the Owl Lady is planning, but I can tell you two things: we won't like it and it won't be legal.

Gus: Did you win? Or just not die?

Gus: Either way, hooray.

Hunter: ... Is "no" a valid answer?

Gus: The hooray is redacted and you frighten me.

The Golden Guard: Hey, do you know anyone who can teach me to play the trumpet?

Darius: Why?

The Golden Guard: I want to wander around playing it to annoy Lilith.

Darius: Technically, you don’t actually need to know how to play the trumpet well for that.

The Golden Guard: Darius, you have opened my eyes.

Lilith: Can we talk about that mass message you sent?

The Golden Guard: Why? It was important.

Lilith: All it says is, "I'm back on my shit".

Steve, shrugging: The people need to know.

Gus: How long do you think it’ll be until Willow finally snaps and commits murder?

Hunter: I’ve been operating under the assumption that it’s already happened at some point and it’s just that no one was ever able to trace it back to her.

Hunter: It was difficult, so you’ve just given up. You might fail, so why bother trying?

Luz: Exactly.

Luz, to Amity: I told you he’d understand.

Willow: Remember, when burying a body, make sure to cover it with endangered plants so it’s illegal to dig up!

Willow: Make sure to follow me for more gardening tips!

Hunter: There's something I have to ask about you-know-who.

Luz: Voldemort?

Hunter: No.

Luz: Is it Voldemort?

Hunter: It's not Voldemort.

Luz: You haven’t mentioned wizards once this conversation, so I’m gonna have to assume it’s Voldemort.

[trevs-chalobah]

chelsea men started well enough. high pressing, winning the ball high up the pitch, creating good chances, working well enough defensively, everyone was switched on right from the start. in my opinion i wouldn’t have started koulibaly, rlc, and ziyech. losing thiago early on and with that a substitution slot was certainly far from ideal. hopefully thiago‘s injury isn‘t too bad. ziyech did prove me wrong in the first half with a decent performance and not actually being lazy for once. the first half ends in chaos and true derby vibes with ziyech sent off at first and var overturning the decision. var doing something right for once hooray!

second half starts and we concede. game‘s basically gone after that. blaming kepa for that goal is simply not fair since he did get a hand on it. sometimes a strike is simply too powerful and you don‘t save that. the problem at chelsea is the mentality. after conceding they seem to fold into themselves and simply give up. i don‘t think we‘ve come back once from being behind and actually won the game (maybe we did once but i can‘t remember). potter makes some subs, we concede another goal from a set piece and the game ends. subpar refereeing. Tottenham 2 - Chelsea 0.

over 70 shots in the last games and only one goal. there‘s no question that that is not good enough by far. and potter can‘t walk on the pitch and score those goals himself you can‘t fault him for that. however, i do have to ask myself how the attack is meant to click if he changes the starting xi every week. obviously you have to take recent injury and match fitness into account but these many changes are not helping the team.

another problem is potter‘s in-game management and choosing who to name on the bench. stating that aubameyang is an important player and then leaving him out of the matchday squad for the following three or four matches is raising many questions. kovacic, mendy and pulisic were omissed thanks to illness and injuries respectively. he offered no explanation why chalobah, d.d. fofana and chukwuemeka were omitted. why leave them out? why not name some of the youngsters like vale, hall or webster on the bench? he is robbing himself of options in advance. you never know how a game might turn out and their player profile might be the ideal solution in that moment. then his in-game management. bringing on zakaria was good. i would have preferred him to start, especially over rlc who lost the ball more times than i can count, but given the fact that he is returning from injury i can understand giving him fewer minutes.

however, bringing on mason is a lost cause right now. potter needs to use his emotional intelligence degree and see that playing mason is the last thing he needs at the moment, even if he doesn‘t want to hear it. he misplaces a simple pass and naturally gets frustrated which in turn causes him to be even sloppier and making wrong decisions. he gets angry, fouls and gets carded. mason needs time away from the pitch. simple as that. no starting, not being subbed on. maybe not even being named on the bench. similarly to jadon sancho he would benefit from being away and focus on clearing his head and finding joy in playing football again. he was chelsea’s player of the year two years in a row for a reason and i’m certain he hasn‘t lost that ability. the contract talks and constant abuse from so-called fans are not helping either. in my opinion family members should never be your agent or manager. his father is doing more harm than good right now.

plus bringing on auba and mudryk in the 83rd minute is way too late. It is rarely enough time to really have an impact. potter‘s tactics are one thing but his in-game management has not been convincing either.

stating „the boys gave everything“ in his post-match interview once again is frankly ridiculous. yes they showed fight and commitment in the first half but he is not doing himself any favours pulling that for the god knows how many time in the past weeks. i believe him when he says that his relationship with the players is good but you have to ask yourself if that is enough.

the boys need one moment of success where they can gain some confidence and catch an upward momentum.

i don‘t think that potter is the right man for managing chelsea. but given the fact that there is a severe lack of options (zidane apparently doesn‘t speak english, pochettino is pochettino and the owners‘ ego might be too big to ask tuchel to return) and the owners don‘t seem to want to admit they made a mistake in hiring potter we are stuck with him for the moment. that might change if/when we go out of the champions league or go further down the table. i do sincerely hope the players and management start to click properly and they start turning it around. one more thing is that the owners should have started the clear out in january instead of waiting until the summer. players like ziyech who don‘t want to be here and players who are simply not good enough should not be here anymore. now potter has an overflowing squad and has to focus more on man management and keeping everyone happy. with this many new players I hope they‘ll organise some more team bonding activities and give them the opportunity to really click off the pitch so hopefully that connection translates to the pitch. that includes not going to another army base, especially with a ukrainian player who is currently suffering directly from war. yes team bonding and team trust is important in the army but there are better ways.

first and foremost i want chelsea to succeed. if that‘s with potter great! it‘s hard but i still believe in the players because who will if we don‘t? they‘re already beating themselves up about it every week and they need the support. the atmosphere in the next game will be incredibly toxic because of the loss to spurs and it‘s already always a bloodbath against leeds given the history.

this season is a write-off already. the focus needs to be on staying up and maybe start scoring some goals and gain some confidence. it will be beneficial to us when we‘re not in a european competition next season since it eases the workload. we had so many games last season and with the interrupted schedule this season, a lighter workload will help with player regeneration and i truly think we‘ll be back next season just like manchester united.

Up the Chels always!

[asexual-means-no-attraction]

sorry if this is a random question but I think I need some advice (ramblings ahead)

I've been thinking hard about trying to go to college this year, mainly for social interaction since I'm very deprived of that. but at the same time, I'm pre-t, have no idea when I'll be able to start t and pass about 5% of the time.

I'd rather have my arms and legs cut off than girlmode, and I'm not sure if it's a good idea to lie about having some chromosome disorder or being intersex. I don't care about passing as the manliest macho man ever I just prefer not to have people think I'm just a "tr*nny", a lesbian or a delusional chick or whatever. my country is also not... the biggest fan of trans people (we have the leading numbers in lgbt people murdered, hooray!!) so safety is also a concern.

did you have a similar experience of trying to be stealth pre t, and how was it? is lying a bit about yourself/your past okay if it is for your safety? I really want to go to college because social isolation is killing me, but at the same time I hate the thought of interacting with other people because so many of them will just think of me as a girl pretending to be a guy and i've had shitty experiences with people from school/work knowing I was trans in the past. but being a social recluse probably doesn't help, does it.

(sorry for this being so long and rambly and thank you in advance for taking time to read this)

Oof. That sounds very stressful. I definitely understand the worry. I'm going to try and make sure I tackle everything but feel free to follow up if I miss anything.

College is a great place for social interaction. Classes give you something talk about and let you see people regularly. It also gives you something to focus on besides just talking to people. But it's also not the only place. I don't know if you have them, but there are clubs and meetups for adults that might also be helpful. I'm in a hiking group for example.

Many community centers and libraries will have activities and classes you can take for free or cheap. Nice thing about these is they are short term. I always found myself worried a lot less about passing if I'm not going to see the people around me again. A club would be long term, but you'd see the people less which might be helpful for stress/safety/anxiety. All of them have low commitments too so you can quit or leave easily.

I have a post here that has times lower on for passing when you are pre everything. It's not perfect, but it might be useful for you. I swore I had another but I can't find it.

I'd be careful lying about being intersex. The last thing you want is to be caught up in it and run into issues. If safety is an issue, as unfortunately and terrible as it is, your best bet would be to stay in the closet. I know how much it sucks, trust me I do. But it's safer to let people think you're a women than trans when push comes to shove. I did that a few times before I really started passing. You do what you have to.

That said, lying is always ok for your safety. You need to be careful with it. But it's better to lie then to die.

If possible, it's always good to find a college that's more accepting. People there will be more likely to see you as you are. Not sure if going abroad or anything is possible. But definitely don't throw out your options right away. Research and see what you can actually do and what you're willing to do. Cuz I totally get not wanting to go far from home.

Are there any LGBT centers or communities around you?? Those are a great place to go and actually feel like yourself. If it's not safe to do that, then definitely prioritize what's best for you.

The hardest part is just putting yourself out there and going for it. It's ok to fail. There's always other chances and other people to befriend. It's scary and there will always be that worry. But putting it off just makes things harder in the long run. Sometimes you really do just have to try and hope it goes ok. I really do think a library or community club would help better though. It's less commitment and often cheaper. You'll also meet more varied age ranges. I find groups with lots of different ages are often more accepting because of all the different experiences and people being more willing to sit and explain/listen to things.

Good luck 🤞🤞🤞

[newagesispage]

                                                               SEPTEMBER  2024 

THE RIB PAGE 

In Japan we have the phrase Shoshin which means beginner’s mind... this does not mean a closed mind, but actually an empty mind and a ready mind. If your mind is empty it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything. In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s mind there are few. - Shunryu Suzuki 

***** 

Tim Walz is the man of the month. What is there not to like? The 60 year old grew up in Nebraska, taught in China, was a football coach, speaks mandarin, Gov. of the Viking state, retired from Army Guard after 24 years, U.S. Rep., made abortion safe, legal and protected and brought universal background checks to Minnesota, on the agriculture committee, gave free meals to school children, raised taxes on business’s and the wealthy, banned conversion therapy, made it illegal to ban books because of LGBTQ+ characters and helped with the gay/ straight alliance. Those who know him say he is smart, fearless, happy and nice. He is great at complex issues and making them palatable to the rest of us. Sometimes things just fall into place!! ** about Trump Vance: They’re running for the man’s woman haters club or something. - Tim Walz ** If Walz wins, his Lt. Gov. Will be the first woman Gov. Of Minnesota. Peggy Flanagan, of the White Earth band of Ojibwe, would also be the first Native American to govern a state. She is already the highest ranking Native American elected to office. ** Hooray for the good vibe ticket!! 

***** 

I just learned that Tim Walz wants to go on the road with Marty Short. - Steve Martin ** People are thrilled that Maya Rudolph seems to be coming back to play Kamala Harris on SNL. ** Violent crime was up when Trump was President, and that’s not even counting the crimes he committed. - Tim Walz/ There is truth in that because the crime rate has plummeted under Biden. ** The right likes to call him Tampon Tim because he gave free hygiene products away. Ok, that is a good thing. They also like to say he mishandled the George Floyd murder. There is audio footage of Trump telling him he did a great job. Which is it? ** Re: Walz as Gov. “I fully agree with the way he handled it. He’s an excellent guy.” - Trump ** Vance and Walz both drink diet Dew?? Really?? 

***** 

Scott McCreery stopped his show because he saw a guy hit a woman. They dragged the  culprit out. 

***** 

Billy Porter and Alan Cumming will produce Super Daddy. 

***** 

The rug mine looks like a wonderful way to get handmade Afghan rugs and help families. 

***** 

Mae Whitman had a baby. 

***** 

Carl Weathers was given a posthumous star on the Walk of Fame. Tim Burton is next on Sept. 3. 

***** 

Peoria, Il mayor Rita Ali presented the key to the city to the Peoria tribe of Indians of Oklahoma Chief Craig Harper. 

***** 

A British man climbed the Eiffel tower at the end of the Olympics in Paris. 

***** 

Days alert: So glad to see Paul and Andrew, two of the best characters. I wish they would flesh them out a bit. ** Emily O’Brien is out. ** Oh, don’t kill off Melinda Trask and thanks for a real storyline for her!!!!! More!!!! ** One of the best scenes I have seen in a while is EJ enjoying Gabby and Stefan fighting. Delicious!! ** I thought Melissa reeves was coming back?? ** Little Thomas gets better and better!! ** Gabi and EJ? Yuck!! ** Nicole and Daniel or Arianne Zucker and Shawn Christian have finally tied the knot. The August 17 wedding was rustic and elegant. 

***** 

A Texas middle school has banned all black outfits. I think I would have quit school. 

***** 

Gov. Pritzker asked Sangamon Co. Sheriff Jack Campbell to resign after the death of Sonya Massey. 

***** 

Actual headline I saw: JoJo Siwa would ‘not say hi’ to Candace Cameron Bure after feud. Why the fuck is this a headline?? I know I can get in the weeds sometime about stupid Hollywood gossip but who cares anything about this? 

***** 

It’s Turkel Time. 

***** 

Kroger has admitted to price gauging. 

***** 

Ridley Scott has put out a 3.5 hour director’s cut of Napoleon. 

***** 

A Thai court found chef Daniel Bronchalo has been guilty of the premeditated murder of Edwin Arteaga. 

***** 

The PRRI has released statistics that about 27% of the U.S. has no religion. 

***** 

JD Vance put a big ‘Kamala Chaos’ sign behind him at a rally. People stood in front of the sign so it just read: Kamala. It looked like he was endorsing her for President. ** Here’s why you should hire union stagehands and stage designers. - The International alliance of theatrical stage employees. ** Why won’t Trump and Vance talk about the future? It is all about the past grievances of the rich white man. Please!!** At least the press if finally getting bolder about calling out their lies. ** I can’t help but wonder why I never hear Trump kvetching about his assassination attempt. The man bitches about everything and nothing about this. Why? ** Also.. Why do they want so much government in their business? The right wants government in every part of our life except when it comes to guns then hands off. ** Trump’s website was full of an AI generated Taylor Swift which he claims to know nothing about. For a ‘brilliant businessman’ he never seems to know much of anything. He never seems to know anything when asked about business dealings, his campaign or his Presidency. ** Harris can go to Hell. - JD Vance 

***** 

Some in the media think that there is a certain unfairness against the right sometime. Bull!! They do not bend over backward for the left like I feel the mainstream media always has for them. I really hate us and them but to make this point, I will use that. I can remember back with Reagan and the Bush’s getting to say any damn thing and it was often just accepted by interviewers (weapons of mass destruction/ Iran Cantra anyone? ). Yes, some called them out but look what Trump has gotten by with for far too long and how much air time he gets. ** It is disconcerting to me that there is always a certain desperation in the right. I do not see much empathy or sympathy in the right- wing media, it seems robotic. 

***** 

Mind your own damn business. - Tim Walz 

***** 

Former NFL player Gosder Cherilus was on a flight from Boston to Dublin when the plane had to turn back when he urinated on another passenger. 

***** 

Venezuela had a blackout that hit most of their land. Was it electrical sabotage or a poor power structure. 

***** 

Was there really a 6- hour bidding war for Babe Roth’s jersey? 

***** 

World famous Big Al’s was shuttered after the liquor license was suspended. 

***** 

Trump media lost $60 mil in recent postings. ** Trump played the Titanic theme at a rally. ** In no way is this use authorized. And really, THAT song? - Celine Dion **Abba is ticked about their own songs that he has used. ** Jack White is also unhappy and has threatened to sue. Don’t even think about using my music you fascists. - Jack White ** Trump also used a Foo Fighters song, My Hero. Their response: Any royalties received as a result of this usage will be donated to the Harris’ Walz campaign. Yes, As much as the Republicans steal music, this should become a regular occurrence. Telling them to stop does not work and they just do what they want. Legal battles just bring him more publicity. ** Trump feels like he isn’t getting enough attention so he keeps scheduling press conferences where he tells us more grievances. He stood in front of groceries in what looked like a grade school demo. * * Where can I buy those cute little tiny tic tacs?? ** We couldn’t help but notice a giant Israeli flag at one showing. ** And why are there always those dudes who lose their mind over religion and power to the exclusion of everyone else like Ryan Walter and Josh Hawley? And when they don’t get their way, they get apoplectic? What is this nonsense   with ‘required to incorporate the Bible as part of the curriculum in grades 5-12' ?? I am incapable of understanding why many on the right seem to want to live in 1850. ** Trump seems to be coming to the end of his idolatry. In the beginning, everything bounces off him, he can do no wrong. Now everything sticks and he can do no right. Go away pet rock. 

***** 

Isn’t it weird that as children we watched cartoons that often had a representation of a loud, rich buffoon type? Now we see that walking talking cartoon every day. 

***** 

A Federal judge threw out felony charges against Louisville officers Jaynes and Meany in regards to the murder of Breonna Taylor. The judge claims the legal cause of her death was her boyfriend, Ken Walker shooting at police. He did not know they were cops when they broke in. Another officer, Kelly Goodlett pled guilty in 2022. A fourth, Brett Hankison had a hung jury. ** Louisville has paid $2 mil to Ken Walker. 

***** 

Justin and Hailey Beiber have had a baby, Jack blues Bieber. 

***** 

A home without books is a boring home. - Hobart NY 

***** 

C’mon.. Labeling for AI or else!! ** Only 20% of adults in the U.S. are on X. Let’s make that more, more, more!!! Boycott X !! Can’t a person with a conscious start a twitter like experience? 

***** 

Mia Farrow and Patti Lupone are on Broadway in the Roommate. 

***** 

Amber Ruffin’s talk show was cancelled so quietly that I did not even know. What the Fuck Peacock?? I have been so waiting for that next season. 

***** 

A judge in Brazil has suspended X. 

***** 

The most popular baby names of 2023 according to the Social Security Administration were Olivia and Liam. Others were Charlotte, Oliver and Noah. Some states stand alone in the names they prefer. Hawaii loves Isla and Wyoming loves Evelyn and Henry. The fastest rising names in popularity are Eiden and Kaeli. Mateo is new to the list. 

***** 

The Hollywood Walk of Fame welcomed Vince Vaugn. 

***** 

Tyrone Wood married Faye Harris. 

***** 

It seems Norah O’Donnell is out of the anchor chair at CBS. John Dickerson and Maurice Dubois are taking over. ** It was more than a little disappointing to read that Ms. O’Donnell would be replaced by 2 men. - Katie Couric 

***** 

I really wish that Musk and Rowling would just be quiet! And stay away from Americapac from Elon. In some states, they do help you register to vote but if you live in say, Georgia, they may take a bunch of personal info and end with a thank you. Some seem to never get registered. Hmmm. ** And what the fuck was with that Scary Clown/ Elon interview?? It started late and it just seemed to be 2 out of touch old white guys bitching. Trump, who loves to fire people was so impressed with Musk and the way he fires strikers. They told us all we need to know. ** Donald Trump is a scab. - Shawn Fain ** The rich think we’re stupid. - Shawn Fain 

***** 

House republicans put out their impeachment report accusing Biden of helping his relatives receive millions. Of course, they released it on the day he was to appear at the DNC. They love to twist the knife. There was no evidence of the things they think he has done. Now they will investigate Harris. 

***** 

We may well come to the conclusion that the only high crime that requires congress to impeach, convict and remove a President from office is that of trying to hold onto office beyond his elected term. - Ted Koppel 

***** 

I scream, you scream, the police come, it’s awkward. 

***** 

The Fugees were set to tour but things were suddenly cancelled. ** Usher postponed his tour due to a neck injury. 

***** 

President Biden has designated the site of the 1908 Springfield race riots a national monument. 

***** 

Nelly was arrested at a casino for drug possession. ** 4 suspects were arrested in the death of Johnny Wactor. 

***** 

Adam Sandler has a Netflix special, Love you. 

***** 

Here the people rule. - Gerald Ford 

***** 

Sexual harassment news: Francis Ford Coppola is in a but if hot water as some say he got a little too friendly with young girls on the set. 

***** 

San Fransisco was a great city 15 years ago. - Scary Clown 45 commenting on the city when Kamala Harris was the DA there. 

***** 

Have we really let one weird dude change this country? 

***** 

Is it me or have there been a lot of stories recently about people falling?? 

***** 

Searchlights ‘A Real Pain’ with Jesse Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin has moved its release date from Oct. 18 to Nov. 1. 

***** 

Montreal now allows 24 - hour drinking!!!!! 

***** 

Is Josh Sutter, an extreme right wing, white supremacist, satanist, who wrote about murder and pedophilia still an FBI informant? ** If Kamala really is black, have her say the N word, let the people decide for themselves. - Kevin Sorbo 

***** 

Check out the Afghan literacy foundation. 

***** 

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed- let it be the great strong land of love where never Kings connive nor tyrants’ scheme that any man be crushed by one above. - Langston Hughes 

***** 

Robby Benson is still so hot! 

***** 

Oasis is heading back toward each other. 

***** 

Can’t wait for Murder in a small town on Sept. 24. The cast includes James Cromwell, Stana Katic and Rossif Sutherland. 

***** 

I haven’t seen Cheerios in a long time. - Scary Clown 45 ** The Presidential medal of Freedom is better than the Medal of Honor because soldiers are in bad shape or dead. - Scary Clown 45 

***** 

Victoria Jackson has an inoperable tumor. 

***** 

Meanwhile, Robert Kennedy brought a dead bear to Central Park about 10 years ago. Kennedy has suspended his campaign but will stay on the ballot where it does not seem to matter. Otherwise, he endorses Trump and many of his relatives are surely rolling in their graves. He’s as bad as Uncle Teddy. Trump now says he will release the JFK assassination files. Yep, start running National Enquirer headlines to get voters. Trump and RFK Jr. Seem the scandal sheet type so that sounds about right. RFK Jr. Seems a lot like Trump, spoiled rich boy who loves to whine. ** Tulsi Gabbard has also slithered up to the Don. ** Over 1000 venture capitalists have endorsed Harris. Over 200 staffers from former Republican campaigns have endorsed Harris. 

***** 

Russia, the U.S. and others had a prisoner exchange. Leaving Russia was Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva, Vladimir Kara- Murza, Andrei Pivovarov, Ilya Yashin, Oleg Orlov, Sasha Skochilenko, Lilia Chanysheva, Ksenia Fadeyeva, Vadim Ostanin, Kevin Lik, Rico Krieger, Demuri Voronin, Patrick Schoebel and   German Moyzhes. 

***** 

The U.S. Capitol will put a statue of Johnny Cash in Statuary Hall. 

***** 

Angelina Jolie will play Maria Callas. 

***** 

Punkie Johnson and Molly Kearney are leaving SNL. 

***** 

Hello militant religious right.. Could you stop whining about everything else in the whole wide world and concentrate on your own house? I don’t want all that bitching in my life. Leave the rest of us alone. Make sure you know what you are talking about and are not jumping to Last Supper conclusions. ** We’re extremely normal people. - Donald Trump 

***** 

Trump turned Christian. - John Oliver ** In 2016, 5 days before the election, an Egyptian National Bank released $10 mil at the same time that Trump added $10 mil to his campaign. Egypt’s President became one of his first guests at the White House. Trump called him one of his favorite dictators. The investigation into this was shut down. Scary Clown gave millions in military aid to Abdel Fattah – el- Sisi. ** Why does he hate the military so much?? Part of the shock of the blue wave is that, yes, we do have liberals in the middle of the country, not just the coast. 

***** 

Arlington cemetery had an incident with Trump and his team on Aug 26. There is a hard rule at Arlington of no photos et al for political purposes but of course they had to. The U.S. Army issued a rebuke to the Trump campaign and told of a physical assault on a cemetery employee. They are not pressing charges. 

***** 

The election interference case against Trump has been revised since the Supreme Court ruling. Jack Smith edited the original indictment and brought 4 charges. 

***** 

The Librarians: The Next Chapter will move from the CW to TNT. 

***** 

Get ready, NFL Pre-season is here. The Vikings are looking good. 

***** 

NASCAR has fined Denny Hamlin 75 points, 10 playoff points and fined his crew chief, Chris Gabehart $100,000. Apparently, Toyota rebuilt his winning engine before NASCAR’s inspection. He drops to 6th in standings. 

***** 

J Lo has filed for divorce. ** Judge Mathis and wife Linda are divorcing after 39 years. 

***** 

Kurt Busch was arrested and charged with DWI and with careless and reckless driving. The incident took place in North Carolina on August 13. 

***** 

5 people have been arrested in connection with Matthew Perry’s death. 

***** 

A county clerk, Tina Peters, was found guilty of 4 felony charges in Colorado. The case involves her giving an unauthorized person access to election equipment. 

***** 

A confederate monument in Georgia has been replaced with a tribute to John Lewis. 

***** 

Kaley Cuoco and Tom Pelphrey are engaged. 

***** 

All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone. - Blaise Pascal 

***** 

Jeff Goldblum saved a fly when he guest -hosted Kimmel. 

***** 

Did Trump violate the Logan act?  

***** 

Fox is still talking about the birther dilemma? What, they see Obama for a few minutes at the convention and it starts right back up? 

***** 

Will the Presidential debate happen? Fingers crossed for Sept. 10. The VP debate should take place on Oct. 1. ** People are talking about Vance and his crossdressing pic from the past. We seem to have another George Santos or Roy Cohn on our hands. Vance is an opponent of LGBTQ+ rights unless it comes to himself. ** The swift boat ads were much like the Vance couch story.. Horseshit! ** Bill Maher called him Andrew Dice Vance. ** Michael Cohen claims that the Trump realm knows his tells. When Trump starts the accordion hands, he’s lying. ** Anti- abortion activist Lila Rose is threatening to pull support for Trump if he don’t get it together on abortion. It’s disappointing today- but perhaps he personally lacks principle on this issue. - Lila Rose 

***** 

Single childhood households now stand at 47%. 

***** 

Nathalie Fay was charged with domestic battery. 

***** 

Puddle of Mudd singer, Wes Scantlin was brought in for a disorderly traffic stop and resisted arrest when it was found there was a warrant. 

***** 

Janet Jackson is headed for a Vegas residency. 

***** 

People showed up in over 100 theatres to watch 73 minutes of cat videos. 

***** 

Stranger Things is coming to Broadway in 2025. 

***** 

CBS news Fin Gomez is great. Who is this guy? 

***** 

Season 2 of Monsters is coming on Sept.19. This season is the Menendez Brothers with Javier Bardem, Chloe Sevigny, Nocholas Alexander Chavez, Cooper Koch, Nathan Lane and Leslie Grossman. 

***** 

Actor Akili McDowell has been charged with murder and theft and will go to court on Oct. 9 

***** 

Hamas leader, Mohammed Deif was killed. ** Sinwar has taken over as leader. That name should catch on. 

***** 

The U.S. Justice Department found that Texas routinely violated the civil rights of juveniles at 5 detention facilities. They routinely used excessive force, failed to protect them from sexual abuse and discrimination against children with disabilities.  

***** 

Bangladesh’ Prime Minister Sheilch Hasina has resigned and left the country. 

***** 

The French pole vaulter, Anthony Ammirati was the talk of the Paris Olympics. ** Antisemitism was on full display at the Olympics. During Israel’s men soccer bout, there were Nazi salutes and Heil Hitler’s. until the hate mongers were taken out of the stadium. 

***** 

A plot was allegedly foiled in Austria. Taylor Swift cancelled those dates. 

***** 

Banksy put animal pics all over London. 

***** 

Ukraine is inside Russia but now Russia has upped their destruction. 

***** 

Picking Tim Walz was Harris’ mistake. - Matt K. Lewis ** I think Shapiro would have been the mistake. She needs that Midwest thing. ** Markets are soaring, inflation is at its lowest since 2021, prices are down and if telling the truth, the right does not have much to bitch about. ** Some folks got upset about a blackface pic of Walz. Turns out it was actor John Slattery. 

***** 

LULAC endorsed Harris/ Walz. It is the first time that the Latino group has endorsed a Presidential candidate. 

***** 

Iran may have hacked the Trump campaign. 

***** 

George Santos pled guilty to fraud. He also lost his lawsuit against Jimmy Kimmel. 

***** 

Michael Madsen was arrested on domestic battery charges. 

***** 

The first in home syphilis test is here. 

***** 

Nancy Pelosi was interrupted by protestors when she was a guest on Colbert. The host let them ask and let her answer. 

***** 

Tim Curry is starring in Stream, his first feature since 2010. Dee Wallace, Daniel Roebuck, Tony Todd, Tim Reid, Terry Kiser and Danielle Harris also star. 

***** 

I liked the Robert Costa interview with Biden. He only really misspoke once with the “If Trump wins” line. Give the old Pres a break!! Of course, age is a factor but I notice Biden gets more confused when speaking about Trump than anything. I think he just gets so worked up about the damage that guy causes as anybody with a brain would. Biden is sort of like Goerge Washington in that he was selfless and did not do things for the glory. ** Speaking of interviews, why is everybody bitching about Harris doing a big interview?? She finally took Walz and had a talk with Dana Bash. Then they bitched that she did not do the interview alone.  Trump and his ilk run their campaign any way they want so leave her alone, she’s doing great!! ** I don’t really get why reporters are jumping on these little things like if he held a weapon and the difference in fertility treatments. It seems so unimportant in the big scheme and compared to Trump’s actions. They are hitting hard on the fracking because it is important to say, western Pennsylvania and that is a critical state. Flip flop or just a change of thought after more research? 

***** 

August is such a bad murder month. 

***** 

It is time for a great nationwide late nite chick show!! ** I miss U Amber Ruffin!! But, I’ll keep watching for you on Seth!! 

***** 

The DNC put on the party of the year. Talking heads were freaking out about the possible violence and comparisons to 1968. The protests were minimal and the event was a great success. I was riveted. A Kamala rally looks like America. A Trump rally looks terrifying. You know things are going in the right direction when the speeches bring tears to your eyes, in a good way. There is nothing like a great political speech and the Democratic convention this year was loaded with them. Jason Isbelle sounded great. Harris popped in the first night for a few minutes. Tony Goldwyn and Kerry Washington reunited. Love the ‘Not going back’ slogan but they could do better than We fight, we win. We vote, we win is better! ** I could have used a little less razzle dazzle and a little more of the numbers but hey.. Politics as fun? .. We are in serious need of that. I want people to be excited to participate, not angry. Jill Biden, Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama were awesome. Woman Power was showing up on that stage!! It seems so appropriate that the women were the ones to shine. ** Re: all the excitement and enthusiasm of the convention: I think it’s gonna hurt his brain. - Gretchen Whitmer ** Rafael Warnock and Jim Clyburn were great too. ** It is amazing how different crowds can be. They could be a bit too zealous because it seemed to affect timing of the lower rung speakers. The second night lagged because they had to take the panorama picture but otherwise, flawless. ** Yes, the roll call was one of the best times of the year but I must say American Samoa seemed like the most fun!! The states mentioned their prides like Keith Richards and David Letterman. Celebs helped out from Sean Astin and Wendall Pierce to Lil’ Jon and Spike Lee. Sometimes the Governors called out their choice. ** Missouri mentioned they will fire Josh Hawley. Fingers crossed. I did wonder if the music was too loud as some of the states seem confused. Wisconsin wore cheese heads. Tammy Duckworth walked out! Stevie Wonder was awesome. Mindy Kaling seemed to be listing her credits. I hope we see a lot more of the next generation like Jack Schlossberg and Jason Carter. They were fab!! Gasps happened when they announced Oprah! Best lines: The Michigan AG mentioned that the right would have to take her wedding ring off of her, “cold dead gay hand.” also Michelle Obama with, “Who’s gonna tell him the job he’s trying to get might be one of those black jobs.”  and affirmative action of generational wealth.” ** Gus Walz was so adorable and how refreshing to see a kid proud of their parent.  ** There were republicans there too with the message, “If you vote for Harris, you’re not a democrat, you’re a patriot.” ** But I think the best moment was when we heard from the exonerated 5. The heartbreaking speech about what NY and Trump put them thru made quite an impression. 45 wanted us not alive.- Yusef** The only real miss was not letting someone speak just for Palestine. The entire affair was raw yet professional and slick. The ratings were great. The word of the night was freedom. 

***** 

Kamala and Tim: You had me at complete sentences. - Tazewell county Democrats 

***** 

All 100,000 balloons for the DNC were biodegradable. 55 balloon artists volunteered their time. ** And now the bus tour. Awesome!! 

***** 

Tim Walz’s children are nobody’s going nowhere. - Mike Crispi ** Ann Coulter had a similar sentiment with, “talk about weird.” 

***** 

R.I.P. Daniel Selznick, victims of India landslides, Patti Yasutake, Beat King, Connie Chiume, Billy Bean, Susan Wojcicki, Chi Chi Rodriguez, Tsung- Dao Lee, Uganda dump victims, Barbara Hower, June Walker Rogers, Leonard Engelman, Wolfgang Rihm, Francine Pascal, Chino XL, Erica Ash, the war dead, victims of the Brazil air crash, Edna O’Brien, Lynn Massey, Johnny Gaudreau, George Schenk, Mitzi McCall, Wally Amos, Greg Kihn, Dave Armstrong, Jack Russell, Gena Rowlands, John Lansing, Alan Delon, Perry Kurtz, Thai tunnel workers, Rachael Lillis, Black Caviar, Maurice Williams, Wally Amos and Phil Donahue. 

[marriage-and-equality]

marriage-equality

My marriage ended after 20 years this is my vent.

I’m currently on the same street as the old house but she still lives there. I get to see the new relationship every day and it’s killing me. I feel cheated and disrespected every day.

In the recent past we were trying to work it out. Both of us were guilty of similar crimes and no one was innocent. New rules and boundaries were set and agreed to. And I thought we were okay.

on a random day I was called and accused of cheating that second…. Fighting anger loud shitty words etc and again both of us. No innocent people here. Multiple offers to watch the ring camera videos and prove “your mistaken im telling you the truth” verification is refused. No one watched the video��.. but its ok no worries… we just agreed that if we are offended proof of innocence and we refuse to look at it then we are innocent by default. And we both know that is the case….

time passes space is given contact or communication is refused for weeks and weeks.

when communicating starts again it’s been a month. But hey sometimes it’s just hard and like that. We talk regularly for about 3 weeks. And completely by accident only because I said things that were upsetting (but only because I didn’t know what had changed about the situation) i am finally told that my marriage has ended and that in under 2 weeks she had a boyfriend. It took 6 weeks for me to find out. Awesome!!

but why and what happened???? I was told that I wasn’t willing to tell the truth even when I was caught…. Uuuhhhhhh I offered to show you a video and you could see that I was telling the truth. Well I still haven’t seen that video. Um??? I’m confused right now. You set a rule—im innocent by default. You refused and when you were still angry I figured it was knowing that I was innocent and not a big deal. It has a 2 week loop before it’s lost. You knew it was offered why not say anything in the 2 weeks? Call me out watch it yourself and tell me you’re eyes are lying for me… im sorry it’s gone now but you made the rule. I’m innocent by default.

well I told you I was done with this before I hung up that day so you knew…. Uhhh not to be a asshole but you made a rule that if we argue and something is said it’s words of anger and nothing changes for us until we are both calm and have a conversation about it. So we were together until we talked 5 weeks later. Nothing changed for us at all until 3weeks after you had a boyfriend. I really feel like you have been actively committing adultery for the whole time and you don’t care. I am told that she will go to her grave feeling like I am guilty unless I can prove myself innocent with the videos I offered to show and are now gone. OK baby I get it. I understand out of curiosity if I can actually make some phone calls and retrieve this shit from some server and a dark room somewhere and have them emailed directly to you so I don’t even get them before you do and you can watch them or we can watch them together, and you know I’m innocent what happens? Absolutely nothing happens because we’re past that point. I’ve already moved on. I’ve already this I’ve already done. OK I understand. I’m not stupid but if you moved on because you’re wrong and I didn’t do that, and I can prove it a guy that you had never met before the day we got into this fight and you were actively a couple and less than 14 days And is now moving into the house prior to me even knowing I don’t have a marriage. That guy is more important than over 20 years of your life really I’m so worthless. I can be thrown away because someone thought I did something and then wouldn’t look at a video , they refused to be wrong about something I didn’t do and I can go fuck myself I guess….. it took two more days but I did get an apology. It was wrong to not make sure or do what she wanted done herself and move on and start something fresh without even making sure I knew.

Hooray for me. So the point I really felt worthless and down desirable pretty much like a meal ticket like I wasn’t even intelligent enough to know what made me happy or what I wanted or what I found attractive or what was enough for me I am not even intelligent enough to have any idea about what those things are to me, someone has to tell me so that I can know that I’m supposed to be unhappy or want something else or what have you thank God I was told.

and there have been talks since then where I have been told we are toxic for each other and maybe I really am stupid because I don’t understand how we can be completely fine not toxic and actually in a good place and pretty much through it and ready to live together again if we can be there and no shit three minute text message later I can be lying. We can have this fight this blow out get pissed off and be pissed off because you’re completely wrong about something at that point when you’re wrong we toxic for each other. Am I following you????? Well of course we were actually toxic before that fight and again OK how far before were we toxic because two days before we spent the night together we spent the whole next day talking about how great it was and we both missed it and you know like I think we’re gonna be OK and you know I really needed human contact and the closeness back-and-forth all day the next day happy after spending the night together? It didn’t feel very toxic to me. Of course we were toxic on the day of the fight because that fight happened while she was at work and I was home and she knew they lost her job. So she knew we were toxic we had to get away from each other. I mean that’s OK if you feel I can take that I would rather take that day or maybe the day after not the month and after months, but I can take it. I was annoyed and got really loud and obnoxious feeling like you wouldn’t watch the video that prove I was innocent and I got shitty and I own it and I’m sorry I wish I could change it, but I can’t regret it but it is I’ll give you all that you’re right you don’t need to tell me all that I agree But please at least give me it. 50-50 blame no offense but as obnoxious and shitty as I was, you made a decision to call me while you were at work. Yell scream me out. Call me a liar refuse to let me show you you were wrong just pissed off, angry and bitching And after a little while, I got wound up and I got shitty because I felt like I was wrongly accused and you didn’t care 50-50. If you hadn’t called me there’s no fucking way I would’ve gotten shitty and pissy and called you and started bitching at you about something that had not happened , we’re both guilty. And that is pretty much been my life ever since we can talk we can be adults about stuff when we have to, but almost always evolves into how much she wishes. It was different how much she wishes it happened a day later anything she still loves me and she still even wants to be with me Right now she’s far enough along. It would be bad for her. After that we get, he’s really helping me heal. I could be doing that right now. I don’t trust you. You don’t trust me for a bullshit reason and you know I am innocent at least by default. Well, I really felt like you didn’t care and you didn’t want me so I decided to go ahead and move on but again, nobody asked Me! Well, it would just be wrong and cruel and shitty to do that to him. He doesn’t deserve that think about how bad it hurt you. Again days, a couple months nothing timewise over 20 years. It would be wrong to her. A guy who is so invested there is only us no individual fuck him. Some dude has been around for a couple of months. That guy can’t hurt him because it’s been a couple months. He’s not that invested and he will get the fuck over it real quick altering bullshit from 20……

[passed-up-for-peace-of-mind]

12.30.23 10:04pm

Oh no, I didn’t realize how late it was, and I got into bed with the heating pad before brushing. I was caught up in my plotting re: evalgate that I forgot that it’s so much easier to brush first! Dammit! At least I did my duolingo. I also sorted a lot of stuff to add to my hard drive. My computer will be so much faster! Life will be so good! Anyway, I’m going to edit my next post.

Okay, I caught up on every entry except today’s big ones. I actually had a nice day. I cleaned my room; I cleaned my files; we had friends over for dinner and then played Outburst. Our set is from the seventies, so it’s impossible to guess everything on each card which makes it more fun. It’s the first time we played, and mom wants to get rid of it because it doesn’t have the red sleeve that makes the words visible. We had to use the red bulb in a headlamp to read the cards. It was awesome. Eventually lots of people were at our house, and Arawen (childhood friend who’s the same age as Dinky) asked me if [Ex] and I were still together and in front of a room of ten people I had to say no. It wasn’t awesome, and my face was red for the entire rest of the night, but it was okay. Mostly, I’m still just annoyed about the work related exchange I had with [Ex] today. It was lame. I’m also clearly not ready to hear other people say bad things about [Ex] and VERY much not ready for other people to imply that I’m ready to start dating or that I’m better off without him. I feel okay saying it, but I don’t like hearing it from other people. I don’t know why. My first therapy appointment in a month is the Tuesday I get back from school. It will be nice to have something to talk about for the first time in a while. I mean this semester was terrible, and I had a lot to say in the first half, but I’m excited to dive into the implications of this breakup. I’d like to nail down what I feel is so incorrect about what he has done. I think it really boils down to him not wanting to support me emotionally. He did it because he didn’t want to have to care about me when it wasn’t convenient. And he thinks he might just be able to get back together with me when it benefits him more. He made the choice of an opportunistic coward. When he broke up with me the first time, it was similar. He was overwhelmed and felt like he was being a “bad boyfriend” and didn’t like the feeling of guilt, even though I felt fine about the way things were going. He literally just doesn’t enjoy anything about being with me long distance, I guess. He doesn’t get anything out of it. It’s understandable; that’s what happened to me and my last boyfriend, but it was mostly because we were going long distance for an indefinite amount of time. [Ex] has commitment issues, admittedly. He doesn’t want to commit to something so effortful and unpleasant as being there for me if he doesn’t know if he wants to be with me forever. Kind of sucks but makes sense. I would have probably done the same thing. Sorry I just stopped writing to read the Blink-182 wikipedia page. Because I have to be truthful to me, you know? I’m just being the most authentic version of myself. Anyway if that bastard thinks he’s getting back together with me after he gets back he’s going to have a lot of shit to eat before that happens. He is going to have to give me a PhD dissertation on how he’s a piece of shit. Hooray! Anyway. My hands are dry. He was always so dry. I wonder if he’s gonna miss me or how easily he can find someone he gets along with as well as me. Or is the degree to which we are compatible an illusion? We don’t know. There is no way for us to know. Let’s kiss. What? Haha. What? ;) love u pufpom I’m keeping u.

[smireyac]

hey hey hey it's that time of year again 🎇

oh look an emoji in the title... nature is healing

so it's 9:30... 2023's been... alright, ig? like it feels like things are finally getting back to "normal", whatever that looks like right now... i stopped wearing a mask this year, long after most people ik already did (though considering SOMEONE in this house has covid right now, maybe it's time to buy more kn95s...) and i didn't feel debilitating anxiety being in a crowded indoor space so that means something, right?

once again, these last couple months haven't been so great, personally or globally, and with 2024 being an election year, the state of things feels... uncertain to say the least...

but we're here to look back, not forward (not yet anyway)! SO according to my goal list last year, did i accomplish much?

read 12 books? ✅ i read 20 actually! and not one of them was a graphic novel! ok i lied, ONE of them was a graphic novel but the rest were novel-novels! sure most of them were romance novels but that doesn't take away from the fact that i surpassed my initial goal so!! hooray 4 me 😁

write more? ✅ well, not more than last year but i think keeping up with writing anything still counts !! and i published another fic so!! hooray 4 me 😁

apply to transfer to university? ✅ hell yeah i did !!! and because I'm poor i got 4 free apps to UC and CSU schools!! i applied to UCSD, UCI, UCLA, UCSB, SDSU, CSUSM, and CSULB! i'll get responses back in mid-march/april... i don't wanna get my hopes up for anything... but i am excited to go to actual university, even if it won't be like my peers/the movies... yk bc im a transfer and i'll be 26 by the time i'm actually attending classes instead of a bright-eyed 18 year old, ready to take on the world... we'll see... i'll make this my extremely goofy movie moment if i have to lmao so!! hooray 4 me 😁

do stuff with friends? ✅ while i didn't do all the things i mentioned, most significant things i did this year were with friends!! i went to NYC with remi, and went back to little tokyo with annie and gnat so!! hooray 4 me 😁

make new friends? ✅ i did!! make at least one new friend 😊😊😊 and im very glad for it so!! hooray 4 me 😁

all major goals accomplished!!! ✅✅✅✅✅

hooray 4 me!!! 😁😁😁😁

also of the movies i mentioned that i was excited for, the only one i still haven't seen is the transformers movie lmao 😆 i will eventually

speaking of movies,,, i want to be more into movies this year 🤔 like i watched a number of awards season contenders this year and i kinda wanna be able to make my own oscar predictions this year? I'm also toying with the idea of defending my "movies of all time" list on letterboxd 🤔 (i say toying bc i literally just came up with the idea yesterday lmao) im putting this in writing bc if i don't then it makes it easier for me to not follow through on them, yk? also i have no idea what that "secret writing project" i talked about last time even was lmao

this is all related to my latest existential crisis re: what i wanna do with my life lmaoooo (when aren't i tho frfr) like going to university is the next big step in my life right? and when i tell people that i'm getting an English degree (tho i should rlly start saying literature now) the first thing they all ask is "oh do you want to be a teacher?" which is a HUGE pet peeve of mine because no!! i don't wanna be a teacher!!! that's not the only reason someone would get an English degree!! not that there's anything wrong with teaching, i just don't feel like i... have the right temperament? (tho if i'm being honest, i do have a fantasy of taking over as the film strand teacher when pike retires [but i think that's happening this coming year so that fantasy will remain a fantasy lol]) most recently, i've started saying i want to be an editor but even that feels like a commitment to something idek if I'll be able to achieve (am i commitmentphobic? more at 11) so like !! then what ??? i could try to go further up in the library ? go for a leadership position ??? its stable it has health insurance and a pension... smart things to keep, things i shouldn't disregard frfr i could have a CAREER with the library... but at the same time, i'm like... do i wanna get stuck here? like me and brenden were talking once about how long some of the people working at the library has been there and how most of them are tired and burnt out and

like what if i want to do something else?

my initial plan was to stick with the city for 10 years so i could qualify for the pension and they i might be able to do smthg else with my life while having that pension for later on and who knows? maybe i'd feel like coming back to library when i'm older and wiser??? since i've been here 5 years i thought i just needed 5 more TURNS OUT the 10 years only counts when you became BENEFITED and it only COUNTS YOUR WORKING TIME so even tho i've been here 5 years, im only like 8 months into this pension bullshit bc i got benefits a year and a halfish ago and IM ONLY HALF TIME!!!!!!

[sigh]

so idk!! shit's weird and idk what im doing!! i'm gonna go to school for literature and see what happens while i'm there; i hope i won't have to quit my job but i also wonder what it would be like to go to school full-time, like god intended... i've also considered master's and doctorates but like i feel like i shouldn't worry about that until i at least get through the bachelor's lmao 😆

i could go on (and i might tmrw tbh) but it's also 2am and i haven't even gotten to my goals this year

SO GOALS:

🎇 so first things first: we're keeping up the reading goal! we'll raise the stakes to 20 books since i know i can do that now

🎇 other goal related to reading: i want to read some non-fiction books this year; specific items include kitchen confidential, what we don't talk about when we talk about fat, and any/all of the miami history books i've checked out from the library b4

🎇 ik that my life will get very busy when i get to university so I'm hesitant to have a lot of stuff "to do" but i thought about trying to learn a new skill, specifically blender? bc im obsessed with bigtop burger lmao bc idk i still love animation and it just sounds fun!!

🎇 watch more movies? to do the awards szn thing? like im gonna try for the golden globes in fIVE DAYS? SHIT... well if not the globes then the oscars for sure but man... here's a secret career dream hidden in a goal: film critic? i think that's cool but like what does that even mean for me lmao ANYWAY WATCH MOVIES

i just wanna see where life takes me this year

maybe i'll figure some shit out along the way lol

happy new year babes 💖🍾🥂🎆

EDIT: I HAVE MORE GOALS I MIGHT WANT TO SET

🎇 make a content ? oooo scary ik we hate the word content but i feel like im finally confident enough in myself that i don't feel the excuse "im not good enough" is valid anymore? And sien has been asking to for forever and i think i was supposed to help her do it for her birthday ?? So ive been LACKING lmao

🎇 DM a DnD sesh frfr you've been wanting to for years but u always chicken out bc ur scared well ur reblog all those posts do it scared right? DO IT

🎇 go out to events ? like the poetry reading u were invited to and like u see those posts on insta so like maybe go to them? andMAYBEtrythatspeeddatingtypething???MAYBE.....

[hanekdrawsmoomins]

cracks knuckles Let me tell you about Snufkin’s family in my au. This will be a little longer so get yourself some tea or something 😁

I apologize in advance, I don’t think there will be a time when I draw the whole family in one picture, that’s like, a 9 character illustration XDD also, also, English is not my first language so please forgive my clumsy writing. Okay enough apologizing, time for some lore 😁

One is less likely to forget their child in a basket and have it grow up on it’s own in the wilderness in the modern world, I figured. That is why in this universe, Snufkin gets to have a mommy, hooray!

Mymble’s life long dream is a big family and a good man by her side. Problem is, she’s not the luckiest nor the smartest when it comes to romance.

She has her first child, Mymble Jr, at age 18 and actually marries the father. They get along well enough to have a second baby four years later, Little My, but not well enough to stay together for too long after that. Freshly divorced Mymble moves cities with her children, meets the Joxter and manages to ignore each and every red flag about the undoubtedly fun but also undoubtedly noncommittal guy. Long story short, they make an oopsie during their little affair, the oopsie is Snufkin. Aaand Joxter books it the moment he hears about the baby, never to be seen again.

Wondering what his father is like, where he may be, and why did the jerk abandon him in the first place, takes way more of Snufkin’s time than he would like to admit.

After the second heartbreak, Mymble restrains herself from making more children for 8 years, so in Snufkin’s early childhood it’s just him, his momma and two older sisters. That probably explains the stronger bond with Mymble Jr and Little My, who by the way have not stopped teaming up to (lovingly) bully their weirdo brother after all this time.

So, a few years pass and another man appears in Mymble’s life. They get together, a fourth baby is born, they break up, then another.. You know the jazz. That continues to happen until she has her last child at age 40 leaving her with a total of 8 kids from 6 different baby daddies and having moved places a significant amount of times.

For a total introvert, living in such a mess of a house can be.. tiring, to say the least. Snufkin’s calm and gentle nature is what keeps him from being a little prick about it though. He loves his family and can be a surprisingly good babysitter when needed, but he will take every chance to have some alone time he can get. Getting out of the house for some peace and quiet everyday is actually how he developed his deep love for the outdoors and nature. Snufkin’s high need for alone time is no secret to his family and so he is the only one that gets to have his own room. (They just know he would rather go live on the streets than share a room 24/7 with the siblings)

In a home that lacks any stability whatsoever you can only guess how each child will come out. Mymble Jr grows into a hopeless romantic like their mom. Little My is a fiery lesbian who low-key hates all men except her baby brothers. And Snufkin, poor Snufkin is terrified of any sort of romance and commitment. 

Luckily he’s never been attracted to anyone in his life so far and is very comfortable with the thought that he will spend the rest of his days having never formed a romantic relationship. ..right??

[twobigears]

Post-training walk. We were gonna go hiking this morning but when I got up it looked like it was already raining there so I wimped out. We’re actually getting a monsoon season this year, so hooray because ~we need the moisture~.

So we popped over to a nearby park for an obedience training sesh and walk before it started raining here. The training was good and we did good stuff but oh boy did it remind me that we have become too hermitized. Between my natural lazy tendencies, covid reinforcing “stay at home”, summer heat/seasonal depression, and training on my own instead of taking classes...we really don’t get out enough for training. 😳

Chandra managed to successfully maintain a focused heel towards a dog park (just a few steps but hey it’s something) and we worked her down-stay while an unauthorized off-leash golden chased a frisbee on the same field.  So that’s big because strange off-leash dogs are The Enemy to her. And now we just need to do that about a thousand more times...

Blizzard mostly worked some basic engagement and commitment to the lure hand for 1-2 steps of lured heeling. She had a great peppy attitude, which was good for her. She’s at the halfway point between heat cycles which means she’s hunger-striking and more blah than usual. And we’ve started over with the Heeler’s Toolbox stuff to focus on building more pep and enthusiasm for heeling with the since we’ve done so much slower/precision work up until now. So I was happy with how happy she was.

[sohotthateveryonedied]

Hiii!! I really love your tumblr posts and I'm pretty new to the Batfam (meaning I have only read fics and textposts about them, no comics) and I wanted to ask about the year Bruce/Batman gets "lost in time". I know general things of what the kids have been doing–Dick became batman and fired Tim from robin, giving it to Damian, everyone thinking Tim was crazy for believing Bruce was alive, (don't really know what Jason was up to though, was he still murderous towards Tim? Does the pit still affect him? Also I have no idea about Cass and Duke, were they introduced at this point??) Anyways, my real question was why was Bruce lost in time, what villain put him there? And how did he get out? And how long was he "dead"? Was Bruce in another reality or like just asleep the whole time? Oh! And how soon did this happen after Damian got introduced to the family–a couple months?

I'm so sorry this is so long, but I hope you answer and thank you!!

(I’m going to try and cover all my bases here by going into how exactly Bruce “died,” what went down during the Battle For the Cowl, what the Batkids did while Bruce was gone, and how Bruce came back. Hopefully it all makes sense?? We’ll see how it goes lmao.)

Part 1 - What Happened to Bruce:

So there was this event called Final Crisis (which I won’t go completely into since it would make this post a million times longer than it already is), but the bottom line is that Darkseid wants to overthrow reality and release his Anti-Life Equation, which would overthrow the whole planet and turn everyone into slaves. (If you’re interested in knowing more about the storyline, here’s a Reddit thread that explains it WAY better than I could.) 

What I CAN tell you is that during his final confrontation with Darkseid, Bruce is hit by an Omega Beam and turned into a burnt chicken nugget killed. Poor guy.

Final Crisis #6

Clark and Diana bring the body back to the Batcave and break the news to the Batfamily. Batman #687 covers a good portion of the aftermath such as Bruce’s funeral, the Batfamily grieving, and Dick coming to terms with his new responsibility of becoming Batman.

Batman #687

Part 2 - Battle For the Cowl: 

Musical chairs time, fellas! After word gets out that Batman is gone, Gotham erupts into chaos. Dick doesn’t want to take over the mantle, Tim needs Dick to take over the mantle, and Jason says “fuck it” and takes over the mantle himself because somebody around here has to. He becomes this murderous psychopathic Batman and starts taking out criminals with deadly force because someone’s gotta do the job, so it might as well be him.

Batman: Battle For the Cowl #1

(Okay honestly, this series had some pretty bad characterization overall, which sucks since it’s such an important storyline. Jason is portrayed as this violent psychopath, which...okay, he was kind of insane after the Pit and all, but not to this degree. Personally, I choose to owe the bad characterization to Bruce’s death because as much as Jason resents Bruce for all he’s done, he does still love him and losing him would be devastating, which would exacerbate his already fragile mental health. As for Damian, this happens roughly three years after his first appearance, so we can assume it’s been a few months since he first joined the family. He’s still relatively new at this point, so nobody knows how to write him yet. He ends up being depicted as if his main two personality traits are Bratty and Assassin-Child and that’s it. It’s all just a mess.)

Anyway, Tim tells Dick to become Batman and stop Jason’s reign of terror. Dick says no, so Tim follows Jason’s lead by saying “fuck it” and putting on the cowl himself. He goes to confront Jason, which ends in Jason beating the crap out of him (again) and leaving him for dead after Tim declines his offer to become Jason’s Robin. Dick goes to save Tim and ends up fighting Jason. 

Battle For the Cowl #3

Dick wins, Jason disappears, Tim is fine, and Dick finally gets his head out of his ass and becomes Batman. 

Part 3 - What Happens to Each Batkid While Bruce is “Dead”?:

Dick: 

As I said, Dick becomes the new Batman a month after Bruce’s death. He’s got big shoes to fill, and it takes some time for him to get used to his new role. He and Damian end up flipping around the classic Batman and Robin dynamic, with Batman now as the fun counterpart to Robin’s edginess. Dick, Damian, and Alfred relocate to the penthouse above the Wayne Foundation building, operating out of a secret Bat-Bunker in the basement.

Batman #688

Jason: 

After Battle For the Cowl, Jason is still batshit insane and determined to make Dick’s already stressful life even harder by becoming a supervillain with an ugly costume and an even uglier hairstyle. (I know it’s just because the artist sucked, but still. Jason is horrifying to look at during this time.) He mostly just gets on Dick’s nerves by running around Gotham with his new sidekick Scarlet and killing criminals as Batman and Robin wannabes. Eventually, Dick has Jason committed to Arkham Asylum and he hangs out there until Bruce returns.

Batman and Robin (2009) #5

Tim: 

Tim...doesn’t do great after Bruce’s death, mentally. Dick makes Damian Robin, his reasoning being that Robin is more of a sidekick and he sees Tim as his equal. By making Damian Robin, Dick hopes that it will give him the stability he needs to keep him from straying back toward the “bad” side. (It’s the right move ultimately, although his execution was pretty messed up since he didn’t discuss it with Tim beforehand, but he’s allowed to make mistakes. Dick’s father just died and now he’s in charge of picking up the pieces of their broken family. It’s a lot to handle.) 

Long story short, Tim has a breakdown, realizes that Bruce is alive, dons the Red Robin identity, and cuts ties with his family to travel the world in search of proof. It’s a rough time. 

Red Robin #1

Damian: 

Our little guy becomes Robin! So proud of him! As I explained earlier, Dick makes Damian his Robin with the assumption that it will keep him out of trouble, and he’s right on that account. He mentors Damian, teaching him how to channel his violent instincts into something productive, and it works! Slowly but surely, Damian makes the transition from bratty assassin to actual hero!

Batman and Robin (2009) #22

Cass:

Duke sadly was not introduced at this point in time, so he missed out on all the pandemonium. Cass, however, has been Batgirl for years by now, but she got kind of pushed aside by the writers after Bruce’s death. Bruce disappears shortly after adopting Cass, but once he was “dead,” the writers sort of moved Cass around for a while, not quite knowing what to do with her. First she was with the Outsiders. Then they got disbanded and Cass tried forming a new network of heroes to take over for Batman if needed. Then she helped out in said network during Battle for the Cowl, taking care of a newly ravaged Gotham. Then Cass gave the Batgirl mantle to Stephanie Brown after she became disillusioned with the role, thanks to the loss of her father and mentor. Then Cass picked up and moved to Hong Kong to “follow Bruce’s plans” by continuing whatever work he had set up for her there. It was all very vague and confusing, and Cass more or less got swept under the rug during this time. Thanks, writers.

Batgirl (2009) #1

Part 4 - How Bruce Came Back: 

When the Blackest Night storyline happens, the Justice League realizes that the corpse buried under Bruce’s grave is apparently not the real one and that he’s actually alive out there somewhere! How wild is that! This is further proven by Dick after he places Bruce’s body in a Lazarus Pit to revive, which has the same result because it’s very clearly Not Bruce and they should have listened to Tim from the start.

Batman and Robin (2009) #9

Anyway, what actually happened is that the Omega Beams that Darkseid shot at Bruce didn’t kill him, but rather blasted him back through time to the prehistoric era with his memories wiped. The Omega Energy inside of Bruce ends up catapulting him through various time periods, which is all part of Darkseid’s plan. With each time-hop, Bruce builds up more Omega Energy in his body which, when he gets back to his original time period, will be unleashed and destroy everything.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5

It’s been a little under two years since Final Crisis, though in-universe it’s uncertain exactly how long Bruce has been “dead.” We can assume it’s been a year, give or take. The way he comes back is too scientific and complicated for me to understand, so uhhhh the bottom line is that Tim and a few Leaguers save Bruce at the Vanishing Point and the day is saved! Hooray! 

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6

(If you want to read about how it actually goes down, then I seriously recommend reading Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne. It’s only six issues, so it’s a quick read and it explains the situation far better than I ever could.)

Bruce eventually reunites with his family after spying on them for a period of time as Insider to see what has changed in his absence:

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home

After that, things quickly settle back into their new normal. Dick and Damian stay on as Batman and Robin. Bruce goes back to being Batman as well, with him handling Batman Incorporated business and Dick continuing as Gotham’s defender. Tim keeps the Red Robin outfit, Steph stays on as Batgirl, and Cass becomes Black Bat. Jason stays in Arkham for a while before filing an appeal to be moved to a regular prison. He kills 82 inmates in less than a week and gets transferred back to Arkham, which he promptly escapes from. It’s a ride, I tell ya.

Aaaaand that’s about it! I hope this answered all of your questions!

[anbu-legacy]

In canon Kakashi is too unstable and morally sound for anbu. He cannot live with what is being asked of him in anbu even though he completes his missions with extreme diligence. When he is kicked out it is for his own good. legacy Kakashi has absolutely 0 problems killing even innocent civilian children and babies. I can think of few things worse than that and yet he does it almost blithely and sleeps like a rock after. I'm curious to know if you went with this diverging take as a logical consequence of the things Kakashi would be okay doing had he been doing them for Minato and not hiruzen? Or was it something else which made you deviate from his canon characterisation in this regard? (Hope i'm not overstepping by asking I'm really fascinated with the legacy universe and love the world you've built so I'm curious about the process of it all)

The simplest answer to this is that the section of canon you're talking about came out after Fallen Leaves and ANBU Legacy began.

The less simple answer is... oi, canon.

So, in canon, Kakashi's journey is thus:

Rin is kidnapped by Kirigakure at the end of the Third War, who implants the Three-Tails into her (how??) as part of a Cunning Plan to have it unleashed on Konoha when she inevitably loses control. Kakashi 'rescues' her. Rin begs Kakashi to kill her, because that is clearly the only solution to this issue, it's not like there are MULTIPLE SEAL-MASTERS at home who could unimplant the Three Tails, death is the only option. Kakashi refuses. Convenient Kiri-nin attack. Rin commits suicide-via-Raikiri by jumping in front of Kakashi. Kakashi gains the Mangekyo and we fridge yet another female character, hooray.

Kakashi becomes depressed. (In the anime, people start calling him Friend-Killer Kakashi. Wow, Konoha.)

Minato decides the fix for this is to toss Kakashi into ANBU. Because what 14-year-old wouldn't be cured of survivor's guilt by committing more murder? It's the perfect plan!

The plan does not work. Kakashi does splendidly in ANBU, becoming a captain and taking command of Team Ro, but -- and I'm quoting from Naruto wiki here -- 'his successes were owed to his cold behavior and his ruthlessness in combat, signs that he was still upset by Rin's death'.

(A little aside here: Kakashi is effectively becoming god's perfect killing machine, the blade of Konoha, the tiny angel of death; everything you want in, you know, your elite special forces, and I'm still trying to figure out what Minato's actual goal was here. Did he tell Kakashi that the point of ANBU was to make Kakashi get over Obito and Rin, or did he just say something like 'Konoha needs your services', and has been moving the secret goal posts ever since? Because it's very hard for someone to participate in their active recovery if they don't actually know they're in therapy.)

Anyway. ANBU isn't working to make Kakashi get over his death wish, so Minato decides, hey, why don't you look after my pregnant wife instead? Except that he assigns it as a mission, so Kakashi treats it like a mission, which means he stalks Kushina from the shadows like a feral cat for several months.

Which brings us to the Nine-Tails. So, Minato dies. Kushina dies (failed your mission AGAIN, Kakashi!). The Third apparently imprisons most of Kakashi's generation in a bubble of protection to stop them from helping, for which there isn't enough "what???" in the world, so we're gonna skip right on past that.

Next is a whole series of events where Danzou tries to corrupt Kakashi, Tenzou is introduced, we find out about Root, Orochimaru does his various war crime experiments and escapes, Root is destroyed (or is it??), Tenzou joins ANBU, we meet Itachi, Itachi massacres the Uchiha, and so on. This all takes place over several years. After the Uchiha massacre, the Third feels like "individuals with kind hearts" don't belong in ANBU, so he pulls Kakashi out, and instead charges him with teaching teenagers how to commit murder.

And that's canon.

So, Legacy. Here are the key differences:

Rin doesn't die

Minato doesn't die

Kakashi's mother doesn't die

The Third does die

Kakashi doesn't join ANBU until he's eighteen

The Uchiha massacre hasn't occurred

Instead of getting knocked from pillar to post and punted into ANBU, Kakashi spends the ages of 14 - 18 on (mostly solo) Jounin missions, building up his skillset. He has support from Minato and Rin, an entirely new, anchoring, and happy relationship with Naruto, and more time to grow into himself. His ties to Konoha are much, much stronger. In Legacy, Danzou would have no chance of tempting Kakashi (and knows it).

When Kakashi joins ANBU, it's a choice. He goes into it knowing exactly what's going to be asked of him, and if he wasn't sure before, Minato removes all doubt:

“The Special Assassination and Tactical Squad is neither Konoha’s oldest division nor its noblest,” Minato said, with a conversational air, and Kakashi realized this wasn’t a prepared speech. This was just Minato laying out the facts like he always did, grounding the extraordinary in regular context. “Even inside the village, ANBU are feared more than they’re respected. Citizens of our own village still call them baby-killers. Some ANBU have earned that title, under my command. You may.” He paused. “I have given those orders personally. Every order the ANBU receive comes through me. Sometimes the command is to protect the village, or to conduct a high-risk mission into enemy territory, or to assassinate an exceptionally strong ninja. Sometimes it’s to sustain the village’s lifeblood—to accept a mission so foul I can’t offer it to the regular forces, to work for a client whose motives and methods are reprehensible but whose coin will feed and protect our children. You’ve accepted that first kind of mission, and excelled. Can you accept the second?”

“Yes,” said Kakashi, without hesitation.

(From Take the Mask)

The oath Kakashi swore was this:

I am Hatake Kakashi, ANBU. I have no face but this face.

I have no heart, but the heart of Konohagakure.

I have no will, but the will of my Hokage.

Which is a little worryingly vague, when you think about it.

Kakashi knows he will be asked to kill. He knows he may be asked to commit much worse actions for Konoha. As much as he can, he's made his peace with that. There are orders he would struggle with, but ultimately his moral compass points to home.

He's a shinobi first. Personhood comes second.

-- DK

[mittensmorgul]

As Above, So Below

I’m still trying to pinpoint exactly why the focus on “heaven is fixed and actually a paradise now!” is just so deeply unsatisfying to me. And I think I need to preface this with a bit of backstory about me, because I think that gives the rest of this essay some relevant context.

I know this isn’t relevant to my main point here, but this is a metatextual and thematically identical example of the exact thing I’m gonna lay out, because context is always helpful. So please forgive this seemingly irrelevant detour, because I promise it will be relevant by the end.

(plus, would it really be an Essay By Mittens™ without at least one baffling tangent? no, it would not!)

Tangent time!

I think everyone that follows me knows how skeptical I was... or should I say how WARY I was of the way Eileen was returned to the narrative this season. We were warned in the PREVIOUS EPISODE how much Chuck was attempting to interfere in their lives. I was accused of some very nasty things, of hating the ship, or hating the character of Eileen, or of hating Sam and not wanting them to be happy. No amount of pointing at obvious warning signs in the text, no amount of yelling about Sam’s God Wound or the absolute klaxon warning that the wound had become “quiet” and his Chuck-O-Vision Nightmares had apparently stopped seemed to matter. I was declared “wrong” and told to shut up.

And then 15.09 happened, and basically everything I’d been wary of was shown to be what actually happened, but there were still unresolved issues. Eileen doubted her own feelings and walked away. She doubted what was actually real. And at the time, I said many times that I would be thrilled to see those issues resolved by the end of the season, and for her to truly know that what she’d felt growing between her and Sam was real. And by the end of the season, despite my personal horror at her previous situation (and having that personal horror compounded by the fandom literally gaslighting me and attempting to bully me into ignoring this basic actual plot detail of this specific growth process which... in the context of what my personal objection was to accepting her return at face value in the first place having been personal trauma associated with gaslighting and manipulation...) by the time 15.18 aired, I was 100% convinced that Sam and Eileen had fully chosen each other, and felt the traumatic pain Sam suffered during that text conversation with her during the snap. She NEEDED to come back, because she had been set up to be part of Sam’s Win. They were clearly each other’s future.

The show literally put in all the work to make even *me* feel this to be True and Right and Good. And then after that point we never even hear Eileen’s name again. We never were told that she was even returned at the end of 15.19. Sam, who had been so entirely devastated by her disappearance in the previous episode that he couldn’t even process it was apparently hit with an amnesia hammer and just... never even thought about her again through a long greyscale life with a blurry baby Dean factory vaguely in the background of a single scene of his life. I can’t credit or justify how after an entire year invested in making us all truly care about Sam and Eileen and the happiness they found in each other if only the cosmos would allow them to choose each other in the end would just... erase all of that in the series finale.

Which brings me to the second tangent, which is specifically about *me,* and how I feel about the cosmic order in the television show Supernatural. Because I feel a lot about it. Probably more than most people ever did. And this is also important to understanding the main underlying point I need to make here.

Something I’ve been most looking forward to, for YEARS, about Supernatural eventually ending someday was writing a book, or a thesis, or even just organizing and compiling all my observations into a cohesive narrative specifically about the cosmology of the Supernatural universe. I’ve been cobbling together my observations and realizations about the nature of heaven, hell, purgatory, the empty, the alternate universes we’ve seen, and yes, even the cosmic function of the mundane level of the story as told by events that transpired on Earth. So of everyone watching this dumb show for the last 15 years, I don’t actually know anyone who cared more that I did about finding a satisfactory resolution and transformation of every plane of existence-- the mortal world AND the “afterlife realms” we’ve experienced on this show. And in the wake of the finale, I feel cheated out of that. Because in the end, it wasn’t about the triumph of free will and a flip of the script, it was just more of the same.

And now that I have those two preliminaries out of the way, I’ll finally get to the point. :’D

(hooray, it didn’t even take 1k words to get there for once!)

The “main stage” of Supernatural has always been Earth. It’s always been “Humanity.” At the very start, we meet two men whose lives had always been dictated to them by higher powers. At first, that “higher power” was their father who raised them in his vengeance mission, who trained them to hunt the supernatural. It was the inciting incident of the entire series, after all, their realization that forces outside of their control had irrevocably altered the course of their lives. It had forever torn down what they’d trusted in family, in personal safety, and would become something they couldn’t outrun or fight back against for long before another wave of cosmic discord would settle over them once more.

We watched this story play out in ever increasing spheres of cosmic significance, until Gabriel laid it out on the table for them in the simplest possible terms (in 5.08).

GABRIEL: You do not know my family. What you guys call the apocalypse, I used to call Sunday dinner. That's why there's no stopping this, because this isn't about a war. It's about two brothers that loved each other and betrayed each other. You'd think you'd be able to relate. SAM: What are you talking about? GABRIEL: You sorry sons of bitches. Why do you think you two are the vessels? Think about it. Michael, the big brother, loyal to an absent father, and Lucifer, the little brother, rebellious of Daddy's plan. You were born to this, boys. It's your destiny! It was always you! As it is in heaven, so it must be on earth. One brother has to kill the other. DEAN: What the hell are you saying? GABRIEL: Why do you think I've always taken such an interest in you? Because from the moment Dad flipped on the lights around here, we knew it was all gonna end with you. Always. A long pause. SAM and DEAN look down, then at each other. DEAN: No. That's not gonna happen. GABRIEL: I'm sorry. But it is. GABRIEL sighs. GABRIEL: Guys. I wish this were a TV show. Easy answers, endings wrapped up in a bow...but this is real, and it's gonna end bloody for all of us. That's just how it's gotta be. ***

And isn’t that all even 1000x more painfully ironic that it all still happened even 10 years later? It was always going to end with them. And lol, “I wish this were a TV show” because if it was then it wouldn’t have to end bloody.

But this… was a Major Acknowledgement that the meta level of this story was consistent, and was telling us something important. It demonstrated that the Cosmic Structure Itself was the cause for Sam and Dean’s “destiny” in this story. But that’s not what the point of this story has ever been.

Nobody (including me, who is literally obsessed with this aspect of the story) has ever invested themselves in the narrative of Supernatural because they cared about the fate of the cosmic order over and above the fate of the characters who had committed to overthrowing it all, to “tearing up the pages” and writing their own destinies. I mean, we became invested because Sam, Dean, and Cas as characters took us by the hand and invited us to come along with them as they battled against fate for the good of EARTH and HUMANITY.

And certainly, Heaven being a horrific sort of eternal replay of the “highlights” of individual souls greatest hits, where free will didn’t apply as everyone was just boxed away into their individual holodecks to serve as some sort of giant Heaven Battery powering the furtherance of this narrative, this “cosmic order” that had become so powerful it dictated the events and manipulated the lives of people who still existed in the ostensible realm of free will and human life on Earth… that couldn’t stand in the end. But what the narrative (and people I’ve seen attempting to justify the finale as narratively sensible) seems to have forgotten was that all of that was Chuck’s construct to begin with. That without Chuck holding his kingdom in Heaven together, the walls of all those soul cubicles ceased to even be relevant.

After spending their entire lives to this point constantly fighting their way to the absolute pinnacle of the As Above, So Below narrative and pulling the plug on the original creator himself, Humanity should’ve triumphed. And I’d argue that it DID, through Jack restoring the missing essential “humanity” to the divine condition. And, silly me, I thought they’d achieved the promise of “paradise” heralded by Jack’s birth at last, and truly “flipped the entire script of the narrative.”

Ever since they thwarted the original apocalypse, I had hope that they would continue to achieve the same result right up the ladder. Metatron trying to fill the role of Chuck Junior hit his own narrative wall in TFW, while Dean’s battle with the Mark of Cain, and Cain telling him he was “living my life in reverse” and would succumb to destiny by killing his loved ones in the “reverse order” to Cain’s own path to downfall cemented this for me. Dean not only failed to kill any of his loved ones (you didn’t kill your own brother. why?), he SAVED them. He didn’t fulfil the prophecy in reverse, he subverted it. He UNMADE it.

Perhaps I was thinking on too grand a scale, that the ultimate inversion wouldn’t be “God is overthrown and replaced by more of the same,” but “God is overthrown and the entire order of the universe is restructured from the bottom up rather than the top down.

I’d hoped against hope that the conclusion of the narrative would be “As below, so above,” with the fundamental power of human love becoming the new foundation of the cosmic order. It never even occurred to me that “taking back the narrative to rewrite it for ourselves” was not the ultimate goal of Team Free Will, or the ultimate expression of their biggest win.

This whole “well heaven really needed to be rebuilt, there was still work to be done!” seems… irrelevant to me if they’d truly won free of the cosmic narrative. The entire structure of the universe-- including Heaven and Hell-- should’ve defaulted to the paradise state that Jack was literally born to bring to fruition. Wasn’t that the point of his entire role in the story, ultimately?

And if that wasn’t the case in the end, why did we never learn the fate of Hell? Was it just… irrelevant and unchanged after this? Or just… abandoned as a concept entirely? It’s just strange to me to put such a focus on heaven being the sole sphere of import in the end that it undercuts the essential humanity of the narrative for me.

The story itself had kept Heaven on a back burner for years, only occasionally mentioning that the structure of the place was falling further and further into disrepair with a dwindling force of angels struggling to keep the walls in place at all, that it seems like it could’ve been an afterthought at the end of the series rather than a focus so large it required the death of both main characters to make sure we all understood that Heaven Had Changed Now. Because TFW had never been fighting to make Heaven right. They’d been fighting to save the world itself, for humanity to all have a chance to live their lives as their own.

And we didn’t need to see that in the final hope they might get their own lives on Earth to explore. In the end, the fundamental narrative that Life On Earth was dictated by the cosmic structure of creation was never fully subverted. And for me, that’s the main reason I just… can’t accept the finale. It wasn’t a victory of free will and humanity, in the end it was just more of the same.

I appreciate the attempts to take the essential bones of the story we did get and apply a different polish to the surface of the skeleton, but to me it still feels like we’re looking at completely different beasts in the end. Like… to me this was as jarring a revelation as those drawing of modern animals reimagined as dinosaurs entirely based on their skeletons. Like, all along the narrative told me I was looking at a swan. They told me this skeleton they’re building out from is definitely a swan, without a doubt.  I know what a swan looks like-- a graceful feather-covered bird with magnificent wings. I trusted that in the end it would be at least remotely swan-looking. And then the finale ended up looking like this

and I just don’t even know where everything went so wrong. Or maybe all along I just assumed they actually knew what a swan looked like, but weren’t sure they could actually pull it off and settled for whatever the heck this is instead. Either way, I’m actually kinda grateful to the finale for being so entirely disappointing on every level, because otherwise I probably would’ve tried to adopt the monstrosity of it anyway. And I’m really, really glad I don’t have to.

[athena-is-a-chaotic-lil-shit]

Getting back at writing, is, well, hard. My grammar and vocabulary and basically everything is messed up so I apologize in advance for that. It's been, almost a year ever since my last written fic. That time I was still crazy with Kimetsu no Yaiba and the KyoTan ship. I'll post it some other time ^^.

Anyways, I present to you my attempt in making a plotted work from a random thought that came over me this morning.

Pairing: Tai'chi Kashharzol (Orc) x Pearl Blackbell (Human OC/Reader)

Warnings: Basically none. Except for some curse words.

UD 01/10/21: Cleaned and revised some parts! Tried my best, hope it was enough.

•

Of Ice and Blood

Part 1

Quick backstory and some details I left out in the main work.

It was in summer, 28th of July, when Pearl Blackbell turned 19. She left her home and moved closer to the university she’ll be going to. She rented an apartment about five blocks from the school. Albeit small, it was cozy and proper, having what she needed: a kitchen, a decent-sized bedroom, a small living area with a worn but comfy couch, and a bathroom.

When she was younger, her parents started training her in martial arts and the use self-defense weapons. They needed to make sure she knew how to protect herself against assaulters and dangerous people, she was after all, their only child and baby girl . They want their daughter to be strong, both inside and outside, by the time she sets out on her own and leaves home.

Her favorite self-defense weapon was brass knuckles, despite her parents’ protests. She enjoys punching nasty people and feel the crunch of their bones beneath her fists, especially racists, sexists, bullies, and the lot. The main reason why she got into detention multiple times.

Painting it with a ruddy color, she keeps it in her person, no matter where she goes. She has two, one is for extreme situations, while the other has only two knuckles. It stills maximizes the damage dealt but it is relatively less dangerous than the full dusters. The second one is usually a spare, though she rarely uses it.

She also occasionally carries a pair of retractable nunchucks, which she designed to be hidden within her regular baggy clothes. Her father had trained her vigorously with them and she even bested him in a match before she left for the city.

Selkoth, the city of marvels.

Distant sounds of buzzing cars reached my ears as I opened my eyes and blinked away the sleepiness, the light shining from the spaces in my curtains rather helping, together with the warmth it brought to my chilled tawny skin.

[Start of the actual work]

I fully woke up as I registered the sound of my phone alarm, shortly getting up to prepare when I realized what day it was.

Monday, the first day of my college life.

I stepped into the bathroom and took a quick shower, knowing I bathed thoroughly last night to save some time today.

Time management is key.

I dried myself down, turned to my closet and started putting on the outfit I picked out the night before.

Prioritizing comfortability over appearance, I wore my favorite orange cotton shirt, my blackish-blue hoodie (that had been stained with blood some time ago, but don’t worry, I know how to clean out blood. Mama raised no fool.) over it, together with a pair of black skinny jeans. And of course, tight black sports bra and boxers, even mentioning my underwear yes?

I looked over to my mirror and it was—

Simple. And I loved it. The more simple it is the better.

'“Keep a low profile over there, sweetie. Don’t get into fights when you can help it okay??? We already taught you and prepared you to the best of our abilities. Promise to us that you’ll stay safe, and healthy. Okay? And don’t forget to call sometime.”' I sighed, remembering my mother’s words.

"Yes mama, I will.”

With a smile, I did my hair and went for a tight Dutch braid, it going down between my shoulder blades and ending a little above my waist. I ran to my kitchen to eat breakfast, satisfied with my look.

I eat fast okay

Backpack, check. White sneakers, check. Phone and keys, check. Airpods on, playlist shuffled, I bolted out of my apartment and jogged all 50 blocks to school.

Exercise is always important, and what other way to utilize time for exercising than to do it while heading to your destination, right?

I snickered.

As I made my way to the university, I saw bizarre creatures and monsters of different sizes, coexisting, and interacting with humans. Even so, I noticed other people’s disdain and bitterness towards them when I passed by. My nose is awfully sensitive to scents that sometimes the ones their body releases tells me what they feel at the moment. It’s all science, I guess. I was made extra susceptible to these, so I wear a mask everywhere and every time I go out just to partly block most of the smells.

My first day at a university open to everyone across the country gets my blood pumping with excitement. To think that I’m going to study at Ernestine State University, the Ernestine State University!

I first heard about the uni back when I was a child. News broke out about Victor Ernestine, committing suicide by driving his car off a cliff because he couldn’t accept that his daughter was one of the major leaders who made the unity of all people, of all races, possible.

Dramatic.

Months after Mr. Ernestine died, all his properties and riches were passed down to her daughter, who took over as the new founder of the university and rebuilt it to accommodate everyone, no matter the size and shape.

The strictly all-human school, renovated, reshaped, and repurposed, was now the first university to open its gates to everyone in the country of Yundomia.

I’ve always yearned to get to know other species in this world. I didn’t get the chance previously because my parents sent me to an all-human, local high school. Which sucks. I hated how everyone had a certain hatred for the other races, especially orcs. They keep talking about how they are wild beasts and savages that aren’t meant to be in society.

They treated them like animals that are void of emotions and intelligence.

Come to think of it, I mostly fought with humans who were either racist, bullies, bastards trying to hit on me, or a mix of all of them together.

I chuckled, remembering how many times I got counseled on not punching people in the face.

High school was pure torture, being a human-exclusive campus making it worse, considering how everybody smells so horrible and the principal was an egoistic dumbass I was a hair away from gutting him. My poor nose.

But now I’m done with that! I’m starting anew in this school, in this city. Perhaps make some friends along the way.

Which is kinda problematic.

I’m not the social type. I tend to keep things to myself and hardly open up to anybody. I wanna make at least one friend that isn’t human! Or just, one good friend. I didn’t have or made any friends in the past since people tend to shun me out just because I can tell how they are feeling and find it creepy.

Or they’re afraid to get punched in the face.

Entering the campus gates was like stepping into another world. I was met with the sight of humans and monsters walking together and conversing! It was nice, and I don’t get to see this much often.

I walked around and took in the landscape of the campus. It was huge! And beautifully designed to have a great number of trees and plants, while also having space more than enough to accommodate every student going to their respective classrooms.

I was minding my own business and it was all serene, until some bastards pushed past through me and knocking me to the side. I stumbled but didn’t fall. I was gonna say something, but I shut my mouth. I didn’t want to cause any trouble on the first day for goodness’ sake. So I brushed it off and went straight to the gym for the orientation.

*************************************

The orientation was, intriguing. The dean seems nice, though I couldn't smell him from where I sat. There's also a student council made up of both humans and monsters which is a good sign. The student council president was a Minotaur with a dark brown coat and horns curving front and pointing up. The vice-president was a male student who looked decent enough. The secretary was an elf. The treasurer, a dwarf. And the rest were humans. I couldn't scent any of them to tell me what they were feeling at the moment, but the Minotaur looked uncomfortable, his hands behind his back, body going stiff when they were introduced to the freshmen. There was a larger numbr of humans than monsters, which was expected. I also noticed how both were grouped, a white line in the middle of the gym separating us from them.

Maybe to avoid any misunderstandings?

We were informed that today will be for introductions to your classmates and subject teachers so there will be no lessons at all. Hooray!

I was walking to my first classroom when a damned familiar smell attacked my nose. I stopped to stand for a moment and adjusted my mask. I looked around to spot the one emitting it and of course, saw a human. He looked, well, the typical playboy cool boy who used too much body spray on himself.

Not wanting to stand there like an idiot and prolong my suffering, I speed walk to my classroom and planned to sit at the back hoping no one would notice or ask why I’m wearing a mask.

That's always what they ask first. Not my name or how I was doing.

I expected to find no one inside since it was still early, but I was startled to see a massive orc sitting at the back looking out at the window. He was wearing a dark gray knitted sweater that was hugging his hulking frame very…well. Along with what looked like thick cargo pants and black boots.

He turned to look at me when I let out a small yelp, greeting me with his piercing, blue eyes.

Beautiful.

The orc had long, braided, jet-black locks. Two of them had distinct beads that trailed down from the side of his face and down to his chest, the rest of his hair behind him braided with intricacy and tied and ended halfway down his back.

I was pushed out of my trance when a person entered and crashed into me, swearing under my breath that it was intentional, nearly making me plant face-first on the trash bins if I hadn’t changed my footing at the last moment.

“Watch it, bitch, you’re gonna ruin my make-up,” she snapped.

Wow. She dared to call me that and not apologize like I’m the one who shoved her. Just wow. Usually at this point, I would have planted her face on the floor, but I stopped myself.

Low profile! Low profile Pearl! You’re in college now! You definitely don’t want to get suspended on the first fucking day of class now do you?? Keep it together.

Straightening up, I walked towards the back and sat beside the orc. Whose gaze fell on me, curious, when I wasn’t looking.

I made myself settled in my seat before the professor came in.

There were other races in my class. A blue tiefling sat three rows in front, wearing a casual outfit. A black-haired elf who looked and dressed clever, a row away. A cute pink pixie on my far right. A satyr wearing glasses, two seats in front of me, and a female lizardfolk a seat from of the pixie.

"Are you...alright?"

I almost jumped from my seat when the orc beside me spoke. I couldn’t help but admire how deep his voice was. I tried not to appear flustered, my mask helped with that.

“Uh…yes?”

The orc regarded me for a second before continuing.

“You were pushed earlier.”

Oh. He saw that?

“Oh, yeah, I’m okay.” I smiled at him. Then I remembered he can’t see my face. But I hoped the crinkling of my eyes gave it away.

“I’m Pearl, by the way.” I reached out my hand to him, socializing not my best suit but at least I tried.

He paused for a second before taking it into his bigger one, engulfing mine and shook it slowly. I was again, surprised by how gentle he was.

“Tai'chi.”

Interesting.

“Nice to meet you, Tai'chi.”

He lets go of my hand when the professor started talking up front.

“Nice to meet you too, Pearl."

***************************************

Thoughts? I am wide open for constructive criticism :D

Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

Check pinned post for latest chapter updates💕

[xchibikai]

SV99 Recap

Spoilers and pics below the cut

Yotaro drives through the rural countryside with everyone in the car.  Gear says they won’t be followed anymore, now that the daylight has dispersed the fog.  While they talk, Mahiru watches the scenery outside the window, surprised at how big the fields are (I thought this was such a cute scene lol.)

While Yotaro scolds Gear for losing his temper, Gear makes a comment about “CCC” getting involved.  Seeing Mahiru’s confusion, Gear rephrases to use their current name, C3.  Mahiru is surprised that C3 is also in England, and Gear explains that C3 actually started out in England.  Meaning “Conjurer Control Convention,” C3 was a group of magicians that all started with the “Count” who created the Servamps.

They start talking to Mahiru in English, but then realize he won’t understand, and they start again in Japanese (LMAO this poor kid, people really need to stop with the English already.)  Gear explains that C3 wasn’t always the kind of group that was committed to coexistence.  He says that lately they’ve been trying to butt in to control other magical groups and species.  Yotaro remarks that Gear was already handling things fine without C3.

Yotaro says that they’re heading to a safe house out in the country, and when Kuro starts to make a comment about this particular direction they’re traveling, Gear grabs him and threatens to throw him from the car while Yotaro orders Gear to focus on finding a gas station on the map instead (lmao love it)

As Yotaro reaches into the bag he packed, he pulls out the rose and shows it to Kuro and Mahiru, who immediately are like why would you bring this thing?!, confusing Yotaro who was like, I don’t know I thought this was important to you guys?!

Yotaro assures them that the safe house should be relatively clean, since he had been there at the beginning of the month.  As they go inside, Gear heads upstairs and tells Yotaro he’s going to sleep.  When Yotaro tells Gear it’s already noon and they should eat lunch instead, Gear tells him to bring food up when it’s done and he’ll eat by himself in his room.  Yotaro sighs and apologizes to Mahiru, insisting that Gear just needed more time because he’s shy.  (I love Mahiru’s reaction, he’s just like, ??? okay, if you say so)

Cooking scene!  Mahiru and Yotaro are finally getting to make that breakfast together.  While they prepare the food, Mahiru asks Yotaro if he and Gear made a contract.  Yotaro seems confused, and Mahiru explains that back in the city, Yotaro called out to Gear, and his voice made Gear become human again.  That was what made him think that Yotaro and Gear made some kind of contract, just like he and Kuro had done.

Yotaro starts laughing, and as he apologizes to Mahiru for laughing at him, he tells him that he and Gear don’t have a contract.  He insists that Gear is his friend, and it’s a strange idea to think he had to make a contract in order for them to be friends.

Mahiru is shocked as he asks why Yotaro was the only one whose voice could reach Gear that morning.  Yotaro casually tells him that he has no idea, but even when you can’t hear anything else, you’ll always be able to hear the voice of a friend calling to you.  Yotaro says it’s the same for Mahiru and Kuro as Mahiru blushes.  He says their “contract” is more like a “promise” to always back each other up.

Yotaro samples the food they’re making, and as he offers for Mahiru to try some too, Kuro is passing by the kitchen window.  He thinks back to when he and Gear shared a meal together, and Gear told Kuro that only someone he’s close with can bring him back to reality when he became a werewolf.  He says that the problem with humans is that their lifespan is so short, and it’s always sad to lose a friend.

As Kuro shifts to another flashback, he tells Gear that he’s going to Japan.  Gear notes that Japan is very far away, and he asks Kuro if he decided to kill the “Count” after all.  (This is back when all 7 Servamps got together to decide what to do about killing their creator.  Apparently, this flashback takes place immediately after that meeting.)  Kuro confirms that all seven of his brothers and sisters voted on the matter.  Gear tells Kuro that just because CCC wanted it done, that doesn’t mean that Kuro has to do it, since he’s not really affiliated with CCC to begin with.  Kuro tells Gear that this was his own idea.  Gear doesn’t look convinced, and after asking Kuro how long he’ll be away, he tells him to come right back to England once he finishes his task.  There’s a hole in their roof, and Gear tells Kuro that they’re going to fix it once Kuro returns.

As present-day Kuro sees the hole in the roof of the safe house, he realizes where they are.  He also realizes that the whole reason Gear went to Japan was because Kuro never returned to England, and Gear went looking for him.

When Yotaro goes to bring Gear his lunch, it’s missing from the countertop.  Upstairs, Gear answers the door and is irritated, demanding to know why it’s Kuro bringing the food instead of Yotaro.  Before he can start arguing, Kuro tells Gear that what he did was wrong, back when he said he would return from Japan and then never did.  Gear gets annoyed and insists he never said he needed an apology, but Kuro goes on and insists that back then, he didn’t understand yet.  He went through with his task and killed his creator, but he was still supposed to be a friend to Gear.  As Kuro starts to apologize, Gear takes the sandwich Kuro has brought and tastes it, smiling a bit as he says he can tell Yotaro made this food.

Gear and Kuro sit together on the balcony.  As they eat, Gear tells Kuro the same thing he said in the past -- that human lives are short.  But this time, he adds that they’re also too long to spend it alone.  He says that being by yourself is definitely easier, but it’s also too boring.  As he asks if Kuro thinks so too, Kuro hears Mahiru calling to him in the distance and agrees with what Gear has said.

Yotaro and Mahiru decide to eat outside when they finally find Gear and Kuro out there.  As they set up their picnic, Gear tells Kuro that having friends is important, and he’s glad that Kuro finally realizes that as well.  The chapter ends with Gear insisting that Kuro made a promise to him before he left England, and he should finally fulfill that promise and fix the broken roof.

Servamp takes a break next month and returns in October for the 100th chapter!

__________

I thought this was an interesting chapter in quite a few ways!  I love the way Tanaka draws colorful scenery.  It reminded me of the artwork she did for the Servamp Quest.

Now that C3 has been brought up again by Gear (and possibly brought into the picture after his werewolf rampage,) I really would be curious to see the London headquarters.  The fact that C3 originated in England makes me want to see some of their heritage and the places where they first became an organization, kind of like going on a history tour lol.  It’s not surprising that C3 tries to dip its hands into everyone else’s business -- and it’s also not surprising that the other species/groups don’t seem to be happy with it.  I imagine there’s some kind of agreement/pact between C3 and other magical alliances, but it’s probably strained.

Every time someone starts to speak in English, you can see the light in Mahiru’s eyes die out.  He’s gonna go back to Japan and never want to visit an English-speaking country ever again, after this.

And on the matter of Yotaro being a normal human, props to tiny child Yotaro who met a werewolf and was just like, I know what I wanna do with the rest of my life.  He’s just living his best life with his buddy in England.  No contract or obligations, just good times.  A true champion.

Had a genuine laugh when Yotaro tells Mahiru that Gear is just shy and Mahiru has no idea how to respond to that.

Having Yotaro talk about being Gear’s friend made me wonder about something.  Assuming there was a legitimate way to sever a Servamp’s contract without killing the Eve, would Mahiru be willing to do that so that Kuro could take back his powers?  Hearing Yotaro talking, he pretty much points out the fact that Kuro and Mahiru stay together because they want to, not necessarily because they made a contract.  I think they both would choose to remain partners at this point, but if Mahiru found out that this other option could save his friends, you know he would be forced to consider it.  Of course, that’s just a wandering thought of mine, I don’t really see Tanaka being like “oh guess what, you can actually sever the contract safely, hooray.”

I think the fact that Kuro apologizes to Gear is another way of showing his growth, but also, it’s probably something he has wanted to do for a long time.  When they were first sent to London, it was clear that Kuro was afraid of seeing Gear again, because he knew he had messed up.  I feel like Kuro still wants to be Gear’s friend, and I honestly hope that Gear and Yotaro end up sticking around, maybe even moving back to Japan.

Honestly, I have no idea what to expect for the next chapter.  We still haven’t figured out how they’re going to face off against Tsubaki, and now that we know Mikuni (I’m assuming) is trying to track down Mahiru and Kuro before someone else does, that’s another situation we will probably see play out.  We know that it’s getting closer to the full moon, and as far as Tsubaki holding a bunch of people’s spirits hostage, I wonder if Gear will have some kind of answer for it when they finally find out about it.  No matter what the next chapter focuses on, I hope it’s juicy!