#I actually was curious about getting to know more; the internal politics; the potential of making even more social commentary

[oldmanlusting]

Watched Queen Charlotte. Sad about the ending :'<

[loriache]

"I've been waiting for ages for somebody to unmask them."

This moment tends to elicit negative reactions in a first read through, and I've got some opinions about why where Kabru is coming from here actually makes a lot of logical sense. So I thought I'd elaborate on that.

I think people hear this and go, "He thinks they must be hiding something because they gave money to someone? What a cynic." Or "he dislikes them because they did charity?? What's wrong with this guy!". And obviously, a lot, a lot is wrong with him. But I think this makes more sense than it seems at first glance! What people evaluating this judgement miss is why Kabru is paying attention to Laios and co to begin with.

Kabru knows of the Touden siblings because (he's a little bit of a stalker-) he is keeping an eye on all the relevant parties in events developing on the island, in order to be able to guide them to his preferred outcome. This includes adventurers because they are the ones actually exploring the dungeon! He's well aware that something as minor as internal tensions between party members could be key to the historical events that are developing. (He would love the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.)

His desired outcome is that whatever the rewards are of breaking the dungeon's curse, whether that's kingship or the ancient elven secrets of dungeons, are claimed by:

A) a short lived person

B) Someone who will be a good, effective leader and/or use those secrets and the power they carry wisely, with foresight, and to establish a political bloc for short lived people.

The person he can best trust to do this is, of course, himself. But due to his PTSD regarding dungeons and monsters, he's not able to develop the necessary skills to conquer the dungeon. Once he realises this, he starts looking for someone else who he can support to that end.

But most of the adventurers don't have any intentions of conquering the dungeon, don't have the skills, or are unsuitable in other ways. In fact, it seems like some potentially suitable people are the Toudens. There are a lot of good rumours about them going around - they actually seem to have a very positive reputation! That's what Kabru means when he says "unmask".

So when Kabru is observing something like them giving money to an old comrade from their gold-peeling days, he doesn't consider it a problem because "they're giving money to this person who doesn't actually need it" or because they must have some dark secret if they act superficially nice. I think he actually understands this situation and what it implies about Laios (in particular) perfectly well.

Laios and Falin gave money to an old comrade who got injured and couldn't work. That person then healed up but kept taking their money. Then he used the money to start smuggling illicit goods to the island.

The key is that for Kabru, the problem here is the same as with the corpse retrievers - people using the dungeon's resources to fuel dangerous, selfish, or violent pursuits cause problems for the island, attract more criminals and people with motives other than breaking the curse, and increase the chances of the whole situation ending in tragedy.

Kabru is willing to work with the Shadow Lord of the island if it gets him to his goal - he isn't scrupulous - but the criminal element of the island increasing is something he sees as a major issue.

Also, when you're evaluating someone as a candidate for power, riches, secrets, potentially kingship - then being curious about how the money you give to people is going to be used is kind of a relevant trait!

Interpersonally, Kabru's actually very easygoing - I mean, Mickbell isn't exactly an upstanding guy, is he! But Kabru likes him and they get along well. These traits wouldn't be a problem at all in a friend, or a comrade, or someone Kabru was confident he could use. But he can't get a handle on Laios, and Laios is someone who has the potential to be a major player!

On Laios' end, this is the same as with the marriage seeker who joined their party. She kept asking for things and he gave them to her, because he tries to be nice to others. He even gives her money! It's the exact same thing.

That's fine, but it became a problem because he basically wasn't interested in her motives, didn't notice she was trying to manipulate him, and it also didn't occur to him that the other party members would notice or be affected. We can assume the situation with the gold peeler is the same. When Kabru says that "It's not that they're bad people, they just aren't interested in humans," he isn't wrong.

The extent to which this is true of Laios is linked to his autism imo, (because it isn't just disinterest - he genuinely isn't able to notice nonverbal cues that people are lying to him or have ulterior motives) but to a greater or lesser extent I think it's a very common trait. Most people aren't actually that interested in other people who aren't close to them. Kabru is the weird one here. It isn't an issue except as a leader - which is why we see an immediate comparison to the Island's Lord, because that's how Kabru is evaluating them.

And disinterest in/lack of ability with people to the extent Laios exhibits it, it does, actually, make him a worse leader... it's just that as we see in the story, people can help him out. The rest of the party tell him the marriage seeker is taking advantage of him so he tells her he can't give her special treatment anymore. They're pissed and it's a crisis point - he couldn't have recovered their trust without Marcille and Falin - but that's exactly the point. With Marcille and Falin, he was able to recover their trust.

And he has other good traits that make up for it, such as his intelligence, strategic knowledge, open-mindedness and sense of fairplay.

Kabru doesn't disqualify Laios as a candidate based on what he sees about him from afar, though - he still tries very hard to get close to him, obviously hoping that if he manages he can steer Laios to defeat the dungeon and make up for his lack of people-skills in the aftermath. (Which... he does eventually achieve that goal!) He completely fails until the events of the story, so... definitely I think "They just aren't interested in humans" could also partially be a stung reaction to Laios' complete disinterest in him.

Anyway, that's my read on what exactly Kabru's "issue" with Laios is. Obviously, once he does find out what Laios' true nature is like - about his love for monsters - he develops an entirely new set of fears about Laios' priorities. But since Laios kept that a secret until the start of the story, he has no idea of that yet.

Given all that, I think it's interesting that he says that he doesn't think that the Toudens are suitable to defeat the dungeon, and that he's hoping they'll turn out to be the thieves. As some of his few potential candidates, people who he thinks may play a big role in the island's future, you'd think he'd hope they would be good people!

I suppose it's better, in his eyes, because it means that he's involved in something "interesting". They haven't just had their stuff stolen by regular criminals (boring, puts them further away from his goal) - they've been caught up in the beginning stages of "a historic event". The desperate and dwindling group forgetting morals in their quest to retrieve their lost comrade probably appeals to his sense of melodrama. Because he also just... loves drama.

Despite it being "uglier than anything he was expecting", he still pursues Laios as the person he wants to conquer the dungeon pretty much as soon as it becomes clear that he won't be able to do it himself and they are out of time. That's because... well, to be fair, there aren't any other options. And he fits standard A: he's short-lived!

and Kabru still hopes he can fit standard B, too, and be persuaded to use the power he wins for good. No matter how many nightmares he has about Laios, or whether he thinks about killing him. He doubts him, but ultimately he puts his faith in him and seems happy after the manga's ending that he made the right decision.

[tunashei]

First impressions of Animorphs!

I'm listening to the Animorphs series while I work, through Animorphs Aloud - a fan made reading of the series. Here are my first impressions/random thoughts about them! Spoilers below if you haven't read them.

Book 5: The Predator

Alright we've got Marco POV. I was dreading this one cause I find him a bit whiny and annoying, but I'm actually quite into it! I think seeing his internal thoughts and worries really helps deepen the character.

My suspension of belief is being tested by the idea of punks dumb enough to try and fight a gorilla.

Ok so if you get hurt and then morph, you lose the damage. But what if you have something stuck in you? Like a bullet.

<I am well. And each of you?> Idk why but I love this line. Polite boy. <3

Ax u fucking numpty where the hell are you going. I was not expecting him to be this...air-headed. And of all the foods for him to try first he got COFFEE?! Not gonna end well. Though is an interesting thought, if you could introduce food to someone who'd never eaten before, what would you pick?

---------

“Must I carry this?” he asked, indicating his empty coffee cup.

“No, you can just throw it away.”

Bad choice of words. Ax threw the coffee cup. He threw it hard.

---------

^ This made me laugh out loud at work

Ok so I guess staying undercover is just straight out of the equation now. How are you going to cover up Ax morphing from human to Andalite when he did it in a crowded mall? And then this poor lady watching her lobsters turn into humans/ an alien.

Confirmed can't morph from one animal to another. I thought Jake had done it in book 2 from flea to tiger but turns out I misheard and he did go back to human in between..

The ants lacking the idea of self leading to the group forgetting themselves is legitimately creepy. Imagine if they hadn't regained control, and Tobias watches his friends turn into ants and walk off and they're gone forever...

Put being ripped apart by ants on my list of ways I do not wanna die

Being that this is book 5/54 somehow I doubt this will be Marco's last mission, but considering how against it he's been and the recent traumatising I'm curious what will pull him back. Hoping it will be something that puts the 'should we/shouldn't we' plot point to bed.

You know I really want to know HOW Visser Three got the Andalite body, hope we get to learn that backstory sometime.

AAAAAAAAAAAA Visser One reveal holy shiiit. I KNEW Marco's mom would come back up, but I didn't put the pieces together with Visser One. Haha. Brilliant. I guess this is how we'll be keeping Marco on board.

Oh man the thoughtspeak between Marco and Jake, the only other one to realise. It makes Marcos comments on Tom being a controller in the first books so much juicer. Now you guys have this in common.

Not really sure why Visser Three didn't just kill them then and there

They're in a hurry so can't really blame em but man it would have been good if they could have acquired a Hork-Bajir from the unconscious ones

One thing I appreciate in animorphs is how so far, most of their missions have been failures. This book is probably the biggest failure, they potentially blew their cover with Ax in the mall, got almost killed twice, failed to capture a spaceship and got saved by a Yeerk. I really enjoyed it though, I like Marco a lot more now, I think the big reveal is gonna be great for his character.

[fondcrimes]

hii u posted about poetry recently and mentioned the difficulty in finding a good poem, and specifically that you think the issue is pedagogical—i’d be so curious to hear more of your thoughts about where current(?) pedagogy might be insufficient and/or just your thoughts about contemporary poetry more broadly! no worries if you’d prefer not to though! ���

helloooo I would love to elaborate abt my post! thanks for asking (apologies if it gets super long though) I'm gonna break my response down into separate parts so I can better explain my perspective

I will preface this by saying I know I'm usually being haterish when I criticize the writing world in general. I understand I won't like everyone's writing and that doesn't take away from the value of a piece, but my somewhat uncharitable POV stems from my ongoing observation of writing trends and marketability (which is why we have colloquialisms like ig poetry, tumblr poetry, booktok etc). writing trends are not inherently shallow or reductive, however, we as both creators and consumers can observe how trying to sell writing produces specific "brands" of writers. the categorization of contemporary writing, to some extent, will always about marketability and branding, and then we know that digestible and palatable writing sells. it sells a whole lot! and that's not inherently bad either because that's entertainment, sometimes you just wanna read some bullshit. additionally, I don't see the value of discouraging people from reading when it's something I'm very passionate about and more people need to be reading anyway. I could talk about this in great length too but my main beef is with the over-saturation of "palatable" writing, writing that is marketed in a specific way that caters to the consumer rather than engaging an audience and provoking our curiosity and wonder. my main beef is that it creates a type of reader/consumer who is stagnant and not intellectually engaged. I think we're all too familiar with the sort of people who are more concerned with the marketable aesthetics of reading/intellectualism rather than actually using their brain *cough* booktok *cough* but the scope is much wider. I would say that neoliberal politics necessitate this mindset/level of literacy in order to function but that's such a loaded statement kgfkgjf anyway moving on~

in order to understand why people like shitty poetry, I have to understand why people like shitty writing and also why shitty writing exists in such great amounts. I kept going back to elementary school, where we made first contact with writing and reading interpretatively. underpaid overworked teachers already have it hard enough, I don't blame them for not being able to spark the joy of reading in every child they encounter. literacy is unbelievably complex and capitalism is like blood in the water. it’s also bad enough that kids are actively learning how to put themselves into like social boxes while their developing skills are placed into boxes of their own like gifted, advanced, remedial, etc. all that shit gets internalized too. when I refer to the "intellectual", I am speaking from the belief that each person has the potential to embody intellect, rather than adhere to a deluded elitist view of gatekeeping intelligence. I want readers to engage their intellectual selves because we're living in a cultural moment where it seems like nobody is using their brains anymore, nobody is thinking critically, and that's bc it's easy to shut your brain off. it dawned on me that if a child could be dissuaded from reading entirely due to bad experiences/treatment, a child could also be dissuaded from building analytical or evaluative skills of what they're reading. there are so many college students who can read but want to use chatgpt to write their essays... so many (voting-aged) adults who can read but consistently make bad-faith interpretations of tweets, articles, books, etc. I won't get into the marxism of it all but it goes back to the capitalist state, we need to be literate enough to work and participate in bureaucracy and get married and raise more workers but that's it, it's okay if our literacy stops there and I would argue politicians actually prefer that. but I'm not saying the alternative isn't difficult though... because it's meant to be!

ok so the pedagogy of it all. poetry is notorious for being kind of inaccessible to the common person for a variety of reasons but I'll focus on the fact that we're conditioned to prioritize convenience or become "lazy" readers. I didn't really know how pervasive this notion was until I was listening to ada limón talk about how people will straight up say they don't like poetry. she was talking about how really has more to do with how it's taught rather than what it is. I also reconsidered my own relationship with poetry as a form. I have the typical writer predisposition: my favorite book growing up was the giving tree, I wrote sad gay poems in high school and obviously I was a teenaged fangirl during the peak tumblr web weaving era. but I didn't think about poetry too deeply until a few years ago (during quarantine-ish) I decided I wanted to start writing seriously again after a series of depressive episodes and found my way back to contemporary poetry. I should say I'm veryyy biased and prefer studying modern poetry but I know a few things about that old greek shit too lol. I read poems I instantly really loved, but some poems even by the same poets fell flat or I straight up disliked, but I didn't know why I had those opinions. so I kind of became really obsessed with studying my favorite poems on my own, going line by line and figuring out the writing techniques and measuring their effectiveness. (I read a lotttt of writing criticism too)

now that I'm thinking about it, it was very adhd of me to obsessively read and reread short-form writing bc sometimes I simply don't have the attention span for a 20k-word creative nonfiction piece unfortunately lolll.... this was noticeably much more fun, esp compared to reading poetry in school elementary/middle/high school (even though I had enjoyed those classes too). as a teenager of the subversive aesthetic age, I still carried the notion that most poetry was about obfuscating meaning, or like purposefully being vague out of pretentiousness and exclusion. like I get why somebody would find poetry annoying, there's plenty of annoying poetry out there even in the literary world. all of this is to say that reciting poems in school or trying to teach poetry to students in absolutes (like this poem means this, this poem means that) is not conducive to comprehending the form/genre. you can’t achieve poetic understanding or connection to a poem through objectivity or removing yourself and your emotions. a poem is not just static, it’s meant to interact quite intimately with a reader. ada limón describes how transformative it can be leave a poem and come back to it. sometimes, the intimacy has more to do with the state of receptiveness than the text itself. poems are constantly concerned with emotional/somatic information whether you’re reading or writing them. I always explain it to myself in relationship terms, which is why it might feel impossible to build that relationship with something that seems doubly foreign

this doesn’t really stop at elementary school students. as you get older and read more poetry, you start to catch on and see that poets within a movement are effectively doing similar things, and I fear a good amount of poets are doing the same BORING or PREDICTABLE thing. (I will be nice and not name names)

it wasn't until I read a lot of poems that I noticed my favorite poems did the exact opposite.

this is one of my favorite poems everrrrr it made me write poetry bc I just wanted to do everything he did. it has also drastically shaped and informed my taste. so I will try to briefly explain how it has influenced my writing:

Let me begin this time knowing the drumming in my dreams is me inheriting the earth, is morning lighting up the rivers.

there have been weeks in my life where this line "inheriting the earth" played in my head over and over again like a mantra. "inherit" is such a loaded word, culturally and politically. I think I had been enamored by the sheer power of it, esp as a black person who has spent the majority of my life feeling unworthy of existing:

a brown child on a beach at dawn straining to see their future.

I had to sit with that feeling and characterize its meaning. for me, "inheriting the earth" immediately looked like a stampede of horses fearlessly galloping across the plains:

Let me run at break-neck speeds toward sceneries of doubt.

I could say a lot more about this poem, but moving on~

some valuable lessons I learned from being inspired by poetry: kill my pride and obliterate my quest for originality. at this point, I've embraced being a copycat:

because in my noble solitude, I have inherited nothing.

Our heads turned alongside the window, chasing a breakneck road.

I read jackson's poem up and down, left to right, tried to solve it like a rubik's cube. I wanted to turn my love for this poem into data points I could use in my own writing, but I kept hitting a wall. I couldn't shake the feeling I was stalling something inevitable, circling the truth embedded in my writing like an eagle stalking its prey. I considered the strain of the futureless brown child:

objects of my brutal childhood fascination

an instinctive deserter at the finale of my girlhood

one day I stumbled upon this article, the pieces suddenly started to come together:

as a society, we do entirely too much about youth and maintaining youth, so much to the point where the cultural obsession is perverse and the child is neglected. I only say this to offer an alternative, wherein we consider the childhood self not as a means to regain lost "purity" and powerlessness, but to take our power back. I love this article so much; I think it perfectly captures why writers are constantly fighting themselves and their words. it's evident one's learned self-consciousness and uncertainty cause someone to over-explain and impede on the poem. this makes it a matter of emotional fidelity and trust, rather than technical skill or knowledge. if poetry is inaccessible, I think it's only because we have become inaccessible to ourselves. this is what I mean when I say a good poem is "distilled", it has more to do with the clarity of the feeling you're trying to evoke or convey. it requires self-knowledge and making space for yourself to maintain emotional fidelity if that's what you want (ofc you can also evoke vagueness or uncertainty through the clarity of the form). I wondered, how can a creative know what they're doing if they don't know themselves? soon I realized at its core, the writer struggling with words was an issue of trust, on some mary oliver wild geese shit. there is a great deal of trust involved when you let yourself wonder. and sorry it's hard for me not to get all writer-brained and idealistic about this subject so please bear with me when I say I have good news, we can always find the way back to ourselves.

I think poetry should be about trusting the self and others, trust that they won't shatter the fragility of you in their closed hand. good poetry is deep intimacy and touchy-feely shit. learning how to write hurts because you’re also learning how to unlearn. it's extremely hard to teach that in a society that is more concerned with making sure you learn how to become wholly alienated from yourself (I've written extensively about how this damages the creative spirit, I'll save you the rant). in the midst of my poetry renaissance, I developed a schema around poetry in my attempts to write poems that were intimate and personal and powerful. I wanted to read stunning poetry, so I approached every poem like its intent was to pierce my heart. ofc that doesn't have to be your approach, but as someone who somewhat struggled with subtext and implicit messaging as a child, I am super into patterns that help me reach meaning. but I could only develop taste or preference through knowing myself and listening to my creative impulses, letting art and words alter my heart and my mind. it's about all that mushy gushy woo woo therapy shit. it had to be about me regifting myself a sort of agency. the resting state of a poet is precarious and sometimes contradictory. I believe in trust but I still feel the urge to over-explain myself or my thoughts for manyyy reasons. sometimes I don't even fight that urge, but the point remains. in order to teach and understand poetry, you have to know yourself (your intentions, your haunts, your beliefs, etc). in order to trust the reader, we have to trust they know themselves, or at least are willing to learn how to do it.

Reader, I should have married you sooner.

[ulircursed]

♡ ok but I'm actually genuinely curious as to what Andrei himself would think of how his situation would change in this situation KSHDKDB

from this picrew!

a new child in jugdral-verse? yup, but hold tight, this au is my wildest one yet. there's another child too, but i'll talk about the other kid when it comes up

cw for rape

unlike the other jugdral asks where i just went crazy on my own, a few sensitive details were discussed a little with erica bc of the topic at hand. so deirdre and andrei have a precanon thread currently going on, where the two of them meet and have a meal and it's their first time hanging out just the two of them. in it, deirdre thanks andrei for, and i quote, 'dealing with one of the men who killed [her] father'. that's ring! andrei freaks out internally, of course, though he is able to salvage the situation to an extent

now, what if that meeting went well enough (in deirdre's mind) that they had more meetings? andrei is on one hand extremely uncomfortable with her, but on the other hand, this is exactly what he wants!! think about what it does for yngvi's reputation if the duke has a direct and personal friendship with the princess and future queen of grannvale!!! this is excellent and great and he cannot possibly refuse this. so he agrees to every single meeting, and talks to her, and they form some sort of friendship thing. at this point andrei's mental health is a mere thread away from utterly insane by the way. surely this will end well, right?

(oh yeah, at this point, andrei does already marry antares and have scipio. scipio is not involved in this mess and is the exact same as he is in canon)

it all comes to a head at one meeting, where deirdre confesses to him that she is ready to have children with lord arvis. she thinks she's ready, finally, thanks to the support and friendship of those around her, including andrei! she mentions something about ring again, and andrei snaps. i've mentioned it before, but andrei resents arvis for (as far as he knows) heading the conspiracy plot, because without it none of this would've had to happen. and so, upon hearing that arvis is about to get what he wants with the woman he loves, andrei forces himself upon deirdre

he comes to his senses after the deed is done, and apologizes profusely, begging her for his life essentially. he says that he will die if word of this ever gets out, and deirdre agrees to keep it a secret. and she does! until. she gets pregnant. i won't go into detail about when/whether she and arvis would've consummated their marriage at this point, but as erica points out, deirdre is not good at hiding her emotions and will eventually tell arvis about it as soon as he asks, so even if being pregnant was potentially expected, the secret would've gotten out at some point during the pregnancy

for his crimes, andrei is publicly executed and yngvi falls into disgrace. antares, already not a noble (this is purely my hc but andrei married a non-noble claiming to have minor ullr blood to have scipio), gets kicked out of yngvi along with scipio, and they go live their non-noble lives somewhere else

anyway, deirdre is pregnant! with twins! manfroy is kinda frustrated, bc he wanted her to have kids with arvis, dammit. but she's of course gonna keep the babies, so they are born. julia is still julia, just with major naga and minor ullr instead of fjalar blood. but her older brother, get this—

name: julio

gender: male (he/him)

class: prince > master knight minus bows and sword

minor ullr, minor loptous

tiptoes around his 'father', whom he's aware isn't really his father. has developed some chronic people-pleaser tendencies because on some level, he feels like his and his sister's existence broke something in this household and that he's not meant to exist. good at charming the staff! very polite for a noble scion

protective of his sister, mostly because of the above reason. the twins grow up really close! julia is the only one that julio feels he can show his true feelings around

they stay in the velthomer household as part of the family upon deirdre's insistence, which isn't terrible because they get a loving mother growing up, but also isn't great because they have to interact with arvis. arvis isn't abusive or anything, but everything about these kids brings back his trauma re: victor so his mental health is just not great in general. they try to avoid each other wherever possible

he's set up to become the duke of yngvi, or whatever that territory is gonna be called if that whole house ends up being dissolved. he works really hard in his youth, but doesn't pick up the bow because he can sense that his 'father' is really really not ok with that. forgoes the sword too, while he's at it, because his 'father' doesn't seem too pleased with that either. he knows how to fence and stuff, but not horseback sword usage. he learns magic though, magic is a-ok in this household

deirdre isn't blamed for this incident, because andrei was the one who initiated the whole thing, and the twins are... yeah, they're bastards, but they're the blood of the legitimate royal family, so it's not like they can be killed or anything. anyway, at this point, sigurd gets to belhalla and arvis cooks him twice as hard as in canon because at this point he's pissed off at anyone who's ever had kids with deirdre, but it's not like anyone can tell because no one knows how hard he cooked sigurd in canon so they just think wow his meteor spell is that strong

manfroy urges them to try again, and tbh azmur wants fully legitimate grandkids too, so according to erica, they do! because deirdre loves arvis and everything. but you know, holy blood weirdness and all that, their kid (let's call him julius) is born with fjalar blood and naga blood but not loptous blood. manfroy, extremely frustrated now, tells them to try AGAIN, and this time, uh, deirdre dies in childbirth and the child doesn't survive. listen, this is kid #5 ok i don't think health care was that good at that time. as an extra screw u to manfroy, maybe this kid would've had major loptous had they survived. but they didn't

manfroy's plans fail! julio becomes the new duke of yngvi and arvis just tries to avoid looking at him. julia is married off to one of the neighboring countries (i had to google what happened to illegitimate children of nobility/royalty and the answers were... this basically). julius becomes duke of velthomer and the heir to the throne. seliph can come in and fix some things about this, but loptous isn't one of his problems for once. everyone is either happy or dead! if julio ends up fighting febail, he will die to febail and his cousin will become the new duke of yngvi, but he doesn't have special dialogue with any of them because who tf are these people. the end.

bonus: thank u to erica for suggesting this route btw

[mistystarshine]

Hello! Just want to say I'm intrigued about the internalized transphobia tag in Vile and Blasphemous. It's obviously refering to "Eve", but it's a subject that hasn't been touched yet.

The first thing I thought is that maybe even with the memory loss, she feels like her body is wrong and has gender dysphoria. But the more I read, the more I think this may not be the case.

I have come up with another theory. So far, Eve hasn't expressed feeling any issues with her appearance. She actually seems pretty confident about it and likes to show off. Her clothing style is an example of this. The last chapter when Lute pointed out she was a faggot, she quickly corrected her and told her she was actually a dyke. My point is, Eve seems to feel fine and even proud about being a woman.

So my theory is, what if the internalized transphobia comes after she finds out about the truth? Once she knows that she is actually Adam? For thousands of years she lived as a man, the first man! But she doesn't remember anything. That kind of information would surely confuse her and fuck her up. It's just unbeliavable.

And...what if she realizes that, even if there was a way to go back to normal, she doesn't want to be Adam again? She wants to stay as a girl? So much angst potential.

I know this is probably not what it's going to happen, but I thought it would be fun to share this theory.

(To the curious, this ask is about this fic)

Aaaaah, this was such a sweet, thoughtful ask to receive, thank you so much!

Now, obviously I can't confirm or deny any of your theories. I'm so close to done with Vile and Blasphemous - I finished chapter 6 and will be starting chapter 7 soon - and don't want to give anything away. But I will say that I have put a lot of thought into the matter of Adeve and gender identity, as well as just... personal identity. Like, a L O T, and I've gone back and forth and shifted several times over the course of writing the fic. Then on top of that, I also had to consider how educated Lute and Eve would be about LGBT matters, between their personalities, what we saw in canon, and Eve having been in Hell for a total of three months, and...

They aren't educated. I thought about it long and hard and concluded that there is just no way that I can have them know all the correct terminologies, let alone care to speak non-offensively, without being OOC. Eve knows all the slurs, but that's about it. Lute has never had any reason to learn shit about the LGBT community before. Eve has kinda had the homophobia surgically removed from her... but not totally, and that doesn't make her totally accepted about everything. There's no way in hell that Lute will be 100% open-minded immediately, although her love for Adeve will keep her from being as bad as she otherwise would have been.

What I'm saying is. When we finally start digging into this stuff (hello chapter seven), it is going to be so fucking messy. I am going to PLASTER the beginning of chapter seven and further with apologies and reminders to read the tags. (Which... okay, it's not going to be as bad as I'm probably making it sound, I just get nervous about not having the characters be especially politically correct because I very much am.) And we honestly might not even get a 100% clear answer on Adeve's gender identity, because she herself doesn't have the vocabulary to express it and Lute doesn't know enough to immediately understand. So honestly, a fair amount may be left up for interpretation in the end.

But! We WILL be getting dysmorphia eventually, you'll just have to wait and see how. And I really hope that you like the direction the story takes!

Thank you again for the ask <3 Never hesitate to hit up my inbox!

[princessprowls]

i have a sneaking suspicion that i was not informed accurately of the nature of my birth and i accidentally discovered that fact last year as a result of some exploration in the further reaches of self-pleasure. as my body was estrogenized over time, my uh, taintage, as they call it developed more into a labia than i have seen in a number of circumstances. and believe me ive seen my fair share of estrogenized taintage in my day.

i've been doing kegels. i've been doing lots of kegels. and i can make myself cum hands free with them to some extent. in fact, i can feel my vaginal floor muscles contracting more and more each time.

there is a possibility my nerves just rearranged, rebuilt themselves into the software of a pussy in the hardware of a cock and balls. this is a documented phenomema. doo doo doodoodoo.

but the skin is... hanging like the folds of a labia.

and again, i can feel the space of a vagina on the interior each time i do a kegel.

i have been expressing the muscles, dilating, learning how to pleasure myself with it for a year or so now. not only does its use.... greatly enhance my experience. (i can't help but moan and quiver like the little princess slut i am.) but each use builds it further into a proper organ. its atrophy from years of only being clenched up for expression to cum, used a few minutes at a time unknowingly to achieve pleasure i never could with just stroking my shit like joe biden off a blue chew. it was the only way i could cum most of the time during sex. through internal self stimulation.

this is one of the reasons i became a service top to most. my pleasure was in succeeding at doing sex well, but not physical pleasure. i dissociated through most of the sex i had when i was working on getting my body count to at least 36? a lot of those instances were incredibly uncomfortable but i don't think i include the ones that i don't feel like i reasonably consented to in that number. there are probably things i'm repressing around quite a few.

.i think some of them would qualify as some sort of john to me as well. i have exchanged sex for goods and services a number of times, some of them in the know of the situation, some misled to believe that buying me cigarettes would mean they get to fuck me like i'm stuffed animal.

that's neither here nor there. it's some of the only work i've ever been good at that has a level of possible success to be worthwhile pursuing. i'm a bohemian type. (disabled) everything i'm doing but whoring myself out that i can actually accomplish is purely artisinal, creative, and political. and not artisinal in a way that makes me money, and not creative in a way that brings me limelight, and not political in a way the state agrees with.

i'm probably going to do something with that here soon. if i have to.

anyways. i was told that i had a "botched circurmcision" growing up. and i wonder if that's something my parents were being honest with me on.

were my foreskin also my clitoral hood, my clitoral hood was removed. were my vagina open, it must have had been sewn shut. if not that, born unexpressed but still developed on the interior. it sure looks like it could be scarred down there.

i try not to grieve the potential to have my condition respected. i have never known anything else. at this point, it's a new spring of gender euphoria. i think it will haunt me more later on once i've settled into a rhythm with my truer sexual expression.

moving on.

i want to get into some of the strangest fun discoveries-

the hitachi wand ripoff i have- it's controlled by a spin wheel to freely adjust the speed, and plugs into a wall. i can rev it like an engine. when placed up between where the part in my vaginal floor is located, it's like i'm stuffing myself with a vibrating dildo, essentially. i would Highly reccomend it, for anyone curious. maybe if you do it enough you'll discover something new about yourself.

for clitoral stimulation- honestly, i think my favorite thing in the fucking world might be fribbing (frotting-tribbing). i had a hookup come over once to film a sex tape and he just jumped into the rubbing after i sucked him off for a bit. and holy shit dude. i've been obsessed ever since. i also think that's the most fun i've had getting fucked in the ass. he was like 37 or something.

i also remember that night i had a dude over and drained him completely in like, a minute or something. like, he barely had time to set down hit hat if yknow what i mean.

i punctured a can of fruit juice the other day with a knife to freeze and eat chilly, and through the little puncture i sucked half the can's worth of juice out in a single breath. not to brag.

manic impulsive actions aside.

one of my favorite facts about my newly discovered condition- no matter what the genitals are in porn, i can always easily project onto any submissive. not that i'm *excluuuuusively* submissive, and not that i'm so easily told what to do, but at the end of the day- yknow. and ive found out that any video of cunnilingus whatsoever just Really gets me fucking going.

one of the reasons i dated this person earlier this year that i met on grindr is that he absolutely loved eating me out. couldnt get enough.

they sucked a tear off of my face when i coughed on his weed. idk if it was laced but his shit made me cough harder than even L's weed. like dabs level coughing from joints. they supplied me a constant stream of medicine and used it to...

anyways. i don't know anything for sure. i barely even remember the time, honestly. my intrusive thoughts could be filling in worst case scenarios again.

his car door on my side wouldn't unlock on its own from the inside. he told me it was broken. i made a game of figuring out ways to open it myself to maintain independence.

i ended up needing that skill quite a bit.

[azureflight]

So, I have just binged the first season of The Remarried Empress

And I have some thoughts:

First of all, I am really curious as to how Navier will react when she learns that her new husband has been preparing for a war of conquest against the country empire of her ex-husband, which also happens to be her home country. That war, is gonna be doozy.

Beyond that, however, their reputation is at an all time low and their have their work cut out for them in the Western Kingdom.

There was some merit to the argument that marrying an experienced, well respected lady who knows state craft would help with Heinrey’s image to become more serious, however, the circumstances of their affair did the exact opposite.

For now, it looks like their playboy king went and involved himself with an international scandal, having an illicit affair with the empress of the neighboring kingdom and getting himself in trouble.

Far from looking mature, he looks like a fool who almost got himself killed and a war started over his dick.

Navier, on the hand, looks like a cold and calculating seductress. It looks like as soon as her husband brought a mistress she immediately began to work on an out, seduced the obviously foolish prince and then jumped ship. It makes her look greedy, power hungry and potentially vindictive.

Not to mention, I won’t be surprised if people start to assume the real reason for the divorce was partially the affair between Navier and Heinrey and that Sovieshu didn’t like being cheated on.

Being a foreigner with an image of too reserved and “shrewd” was enough for the people of Western Kingdom to demonize Naiver, but with all the surrounding scandals, it is almost a given. This is some Helen of Troy level shit show, The Diplomatic Edition. 

And I don’t think her simply being a good queen will be enough. Yes, Navier is pretty great in the affairs of the state, understands how actual ruling works and is a highly qualified bureaucrat. Unfortunately, none of that matter to common folk, they don’t see it. They can tell when their own life gets better/worse, but it takes time for those effects to cascade, and the credit can easily be stolen, blame easily shfited, her normal queenly work, along with charities won’t be enough.

Not to mention, any future tensions with Eastern Empire will be blamed on her. People will either think she is the one doing it as revenge, or it is happening because of her. Either way, future war can easily be blamed on her, which would rapidly erode whatever goodwill or sway the crown has over their subjects.

They need to find a way to quickly ingratiate both of them with the public.

Looking at the way the relations were perceived in the Eastern Empire before the whole divorce shit show, it doesn’t look like actual politics of war has been initiated by the Western Kingdom. Heinrey and his crew were getting prepared, yes. But it doesn’t look like they had started to sell the idea of a war to the public. Before any action can be taken, the population and the army, nobility, merchant class and various other key holders need to be convinced that the war is righteous, just and necessary.

On that regard, I think Heinrey’s plant o declare himself emperor and rename his realm an empire can work, if done right.

People like bold young kings who try to grow the power of the realm. His declaration is sure to take over the news and scandals of his marriage, as that would be a major diplomatic shift involving all other realms. 

Symbolic as it may seem, titles and names actually hold a lot of weight. A peer suddenly starting to call themselves with a higher and more prestigious title, is sure to not only irk potential rivals, but also make them feel agitated and threatened. After all, why would you start calling yourself emperor, if you aren’t gonna try to exert dominion over fellow kings, or try to directly challenge the other emperor?

This move has the potential to be seen arrogant and foolish, but done right, it could be a moment of national pride for Western Kingdom’s folk. I might be reading too much into this, however, from Heinrey’s inner dialogue as well as his brief conversations with comrades, it looks like the people (or at least some people) in the Western Kingdom feel like they are being looked down upon by the East, and have immense pride in their own military might.

So this declaration could be their moment of standing up for themselves and their own worth, refusing to be content with a lesser position. If done right, if sold right, this could immensely chance the current dynamic. Then Navier being a well known and skillful empress would actually come into play.

People may not care about it by default, but once conversation shifts to whether Western Kingdom deserves to be an empire or not, having a “real” empress, a highly regarded lady with exceptional breeding, would actually work to legitimize them. While Eastern Empire will have a lowborn, tactless, potentially fugitive slave, as their empress.

This could help rebrand any tensions between Western Kingdom and Eastern Empire. Instead of being about or caused by Navier, it would be about the west calling themselves an empire and the east trying to stop them. That could galvanize the public, the army, and would work well with the pride and ambitions of the nobility.

Another thing that could work, is a trade deal with Luipt to expand reach to another continent. It certainly fits the image of wanting to elevate the status and power of the Western Kingdom. In this case, Navier and Kaufman already being familiar, having a relatively close relationship and having already done the bureaucratic aspect of it once, helps. They could quickly arrange the deal and it would be a move that helps them not only domestically, but internationally.

The empress of the east gets divorced and the diplomat of the Luipt immediately goes to her new kingdom and gets a deal there? That makes it look like the actual power and potential of the east was the empress. It sends the signal that Western Kingdom’s imperial ambitions have merit and international support. That would shift the other kingdoms from hostile to adaptable, willing to change to whom they give more regard.

Another kingdom so readily and swiftly accepting their deal would also makes westerners feel validated. And again, an ambitious trade project to another continent would quickly make the whole imperial deal legitimate act of national growth, instead of it seeming like a foolish playboy’s attempt to appease his manipulative lover.

There shouldn’t bee too much of a time gap between those two however, and it shouldn’t take too long to declare the whole empire thing either. Otherwise their impact on correcting the images of Navier and Heinrey as well as justifying their new titles would be lessened to the point of being irrelevant.

Beyond those, I wonder how the dynamic between east and west will playout. Sovieshu is a fool who is way in over his head. Can Heinrey use it?

We have seen both courtiers and loyal aides, as well as other nobles make loud and quite indignant objections to the whole divorce. They won’t all just change their loyalty, obviously. However, this could be a sticking point for many years to come, a wedge that can be exploited.

If Sovieshu antagonizes Navier’s family, that could greatly alarm and upset the other high ranking nobles. Surely, there will be those who will enjoy it as they would be rivals with Trovis, however, no noble, especially no duke, will like how quickly the emperor discarded and sabotaged such an elevated family. It goes against all of their senses of safety and specialty.

In these type of societies, most of the loyalty is owned to individuals, not to “people” or to the land. There are exceptions, obviously, however, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that with Navier’s marriage to Heinrey, several nobles who may be displeased with Sovieshu could start looking to the Western Kingdom as a better patron. If the west can start stripping nobles from the eastern empire, that whole war would not only be an easier sell, but way easier to win. Remember, all those nobles have their own armies.

Overall, I am quite excited for the second season, let’s see how it all goes. Maybe all of my guesses and prediction are wrong, maybe the story will go in an entirely irrelevant direction. I’m just here for the right and speculating is fun while waiting :D

[arhvste]

❝ GREEDY! ❞

— oikawa tooru x reader

— an: loosely based off of ‘i’ll kill you’ - summer walker ft jhenè aiko and the verse ‘fuck that my baby you all mine, greatest of all time, you better tell them hoes fall in line, i do not play about mine etc’

— dt: @seijohlogy jae bby i’m sorry this is a day late, or two when you wake up ahah,, i love you so much and i’m so glad we met, you’re one of my fav people i’ve met and you never fail to make me smile with your visits to my inbox,, atsumu and oikawa are the luckiest men to have someone like you as theirs,, they’re so proud of you and so am i,, i hope you had a really good birthday and myself, atsumu and oikawa love you endlessly <3

smiling to himself, oikawa watched as you chatted amongst other players and sponsors at the international event the two of you were currently attending.

you spared him a glance every so often, his favourite smile from you sent his way. the type of smile where a slight crinkle was drawn at the end of your lips, eyes holding a familiar twinkle in them that you only held reserved his eyes alone.

his favourite smile sent from his favourite person; you.

surrounded by players on his own team, oikawa occupied himself laughing and bantering with them, roaring laughter and excited chatter erupted between the men. oikawa could have almost forgotten about your lack of presence, but alas, he was never one to lose track of what was rightfully his; that being your attention.

he’d never once consider himself a greedy man. modest? perhaps just a little, but not at all greedy. oikawa liked to consider himself prideful more than anything, his good traits most certainly outweighing his bad. perception was everything to him and having a cool demeanor while being forced to watch other men get a little too touchy for his personal preference with you was fitting for his personal image. he refused to cause a scene, throw a tantrum and throw his rattle out the pram over something so minor, after all, it was his bed you’d always find yourself waking up in the next morning anyway.

that didn’t mean he liked it though. in fact, he didn’t like it one bit.

to have none other than the likes of miya atsumu resting a friendly hand on your arm made him twitch more than he’d care to admit. such an innocent action, yet it bothered him to no ends. the smiles you shared with him felt wasted in oikawa’s opinion.

oikawa tooru is not a greedy man; modest, but never greedy.

until it came to you of course.

your attention, rightfully his, your headspace, taken up by him of course, your body, tainted by him and only him over and over again. when it came to the likes of you, oikawa tooru became the greediest man to walk to earth. everything about you enamored him to no ends, he wanted you; needed you.

he had ensured clear claim over you despite insisting to never refer to you as a trophy to him. but, sometimes the thoughts he’d shove down would be so adamant on crawling back up though.

there was nobody like you, you were captivating, peculiar and his. he just had to make sure everyone else knew the obvious too.

excusing himself from his teammates, oikawa stood from his chair, the polished metal scraping against the hard floor suddenly. his expression contrasting his actions, the setter smiled politely as his fists clenched while approaching you. his heart sped up at the sound of your laughter, bitter feelings towards the blond too close to you in his opinion brewing inside of him.

approaching you from behind, he slipped a slender, but calloused hand over your shoulder, well built form towering over you as he forced his presence to be known to yourself and the others. a perfectly executed smile on his face, oikawa brought his other arm to wrap around waist from behind as you instinctively leaned back into his touch. satisfaction and pride already flooding his system as he sent a sly smirk towards japan’s setter.

“it’s getting a little late don’t you think?” his voice friendly with a crisp cut as he demanded the attention of those around him.

“yeah, i’m somewhat tired anyway.” you confessed as atsumu took a slight step back much to the brunette’s delight.

“didn’t know ya were datin’ the rivals setter.” atsumu joked as he assessed the internally scoffing oikawa, eyes raking over his supposed competition.

“yeah we-”

“-for 3 years now actually.” oikawa cut in, smile tightly knitted across his face as you felt his grip tighten slightly.

“ah.” the blonde clicked his tongue before getting the message. you sent an apologetic smile his way as he nodded, boastful act beginning to disintegrate as oikawa staked his claim right in atsumu’s face for everyone who could’ve been potentially watching to see.

“well, it’s been nice chattin’ to ya, i best get going back to my own team for sponsors and what not.” the setter sent one last look your way before retreating back to his own teammates where a curious bokuto and hinata were waiting to hear about what had just gone down, while ushijima and kageyama kept their respective comments to themselves, already having been through the ‘oikawa experience’ in the past and not wishing to hear more.

“that wasn’t very nice tooru.” you spoke as oikawa’s eyes flashed slightly. “hm?” he innocently whined, head tilting down to press soft kisses along your neck and shoulders for atsumu and his teammates to have a full view of.

“i know what you were doing, you don’t have to be so petty all the time. you know i love you and only you.” you sighed, hand reaching up to overlap one of oikawa’s hands that had made home on your shoulder.

“you’re all mine, they need to know that.” he scoffed, petty scowl painted across his handsome features. you laughed, sending soft flutters of butterfly wings to patter against his heart sending him into an instant ease of security.

“all yours.” you confirmed looking up at him slightly. satisfied with your answer, oikawa grinned before spinning you around to face him. pressing a quick kiss to your soft smiling lips, oikawa straightened up before guiding you over to his teammates to show you off just one more time and then bid them a goodnight.

oikawa tooru is not a greedy man, he knows you’re always going to end up in his arms, his bed, his world anyway so he wasted no energy on such unnecessary emotions.

it was just sometimes he allowed these emotions to crawl their way up and who was he to deny them access after all, he knew you were his, he just had a tendency to enjoy letting others know what should be clear too.

general taglist → @atsumuwoah @bloody-bella @bbymilkbread @miracleboy420 @doggonudezz @tsumue @peteunderoos @tsukkisbean @saturnfarie @dear-kozume @zumisace @boosyboo9206 @totorosleaff @27kei @dai-tsukki-desu @crescenttooru @dearestmegumi @kuxredere @warakou @iss6s @lovinnoya @sophiashortcake @wompwomphq @waitforitillwritemywayout @webworld @brokeasshoee @sunasbabie @rowley-with-ackerman @mjoork @trifliz @curiouslilbeast @ineedsomefoodpls @hp-hogwartsexpress @ghostexhibit @kenmacorps @vhskenma @lollypop-lam @cultsumu

[separatist-apologist]

I hope you are doing well! I was curious what drew you into Elain’s character? Were there any moments in particular that stood out to you?

I really enjoyed how you described what scenes defined Lucien’s character. I had completely forgot about his whole table of weapons in ACOTAR!

Sure! Idk if you remember but I got in "trouble" with a certain part of the fandom for saying she was an extrovert LOL but I stand by that. In ACOTAR Elain is very much bubbly, outgoing with her group of friends. She's good at making people feel seen, she's good at getting her way without having to resort to threats. And like. Those are also my qualities.

We all pick one archeron sister to project onto. When Elain is telling Feyre that shes not interested in finishing the season and is like, let's go traveling instead. We can afford it, let's get out of here, I liked that. It's why I bristle when people are like, her personality is marriage and babies. Is it??? I disagree. I think Elains personality is a little more complex than that. I think Graysen was outside the norm. He's a love match for her, and I wonder if it wasn't accidental love like I'm not interested in another season but my friends are here and I like parties, and then whoops this man is actually really amazing.

ACOMAF Elain is the same. Willing to help though it might mess up her marriage, still outgoing and polite even when she's nervous. She's not loud like Nesta or Feyre which is why I think people got mad when I called her outgoing, but Elain makes friends everywhere she goes and people want to do things for her because she's nice. She takes the time to get to know people.

Right now she's traumatized and she's also a background character. I firmly believe Elain wears her own masks to suit her, and she's decided to internalize her feelings and pretend everything is absolutely fine. It's not as of the IC is super nice to anyone who can't keep it together. She's taken on a very background role but I don't believe for a second she just woke up one day and was like, whelp I'm over that violation of my body, time to bake bread. I think she's testing things out and acting out in small ways that aren't necessarily noticable

Idk if you boiled it down, Elain is still someone who would smile to your face to get what she needed, and if you forced her into it, would 100% stab you in the neck. I think a character that can motivate people to do things through a little eye contact and smiling is compelling and has the potential for comedy. I can't wait to read Elain as well-dressed and sassy. She already has her moments.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What if animals in twilight universe could be vampyrized. How would it occur? Like would there be bald shimmering cats hanging around? Would the animals gain more and more sentience as time went on? Would it change the political landscape at all? What do you think? :)

And then Aro said to Carlisle, “We don’t talk about what happened to the unicorns.” Then, patting Carlisle on the back, he strong advised him not to pursue this animal diet.

But before we get to that point, let’s break your ask down.

How Would It Occur

I imagine the actual transaction would be much like anything else. If humans are the original carrier of venom then they bite an animal and pass it onto them who then do the same. 

As for why, there could be a few reasons. Perhaps someone got curious and see what this tasted like only to spit it out immediately (leaving the animal in question alive), perhaps someone had a beloved pet who they wanted to share their immortality, who knows.

Venom to me seems very symbiotic, it works suspiciously well with the human system to be something that could translate easily over to another species. So for this to work I imagine there’s multiple strains of venom and if you get the cat!venom in your system you’re not going to turn into a vampire (though you probably do get very sick and die). 

What Would They Look Like?

Again, who knows? Venom seems to change the host to best suit the venom’s needs. This is by making the skin into more of an exoskeleton, increasing senses, pulvarizing internal organs, etc.

In other species a similar transformation might occur. You might get the same, invulnerable, skin and the same change in digestive system. Honestly though, who knows, who knows what this stuff would do to another species.

I think it’s safer to say that vampirized animals will likely not resemble their human counterparts.

Would the Animals Gain Sentience

No.

This one I’m very certain of because we see this in canon.

Immortal children’s brain development is frozen. Despite having the potential, as humans, to become fully functioning human adults capable of rationalization and more, they cannot reach this as immortal children.

They never grow up, their brain never develops further, and they can never learn control even if you give then hundreds of years.

What venom seems to do is increase your senses and vastly improve your memory. It doesn’t actually make you more intelligent. Edward can tell us how smart he is all he likes, the fact that he fits very well into that high school setting and Bella Swan keeps up with him in Biology is very telling.

Given that immortal children, who biologically under ordinary conditions would reach adult human intelligence, cannot I have 0 hope for any other species.

Which brings us to the damning conclusion.

What Would Change?

Mass extinction.

Presuming that vampirized animals are cannibalistic (they’re not going after human blood but that of their own species), you’re talking about a species with presumably no restraint, no moral hangups, and little ability to plan ahead.

If there are vampire cats then within ten years there aren’t going to be cats period because these guys will devour or turn their entire species. More, without access to fire, presumably they can’t thin out their own numbers or population.

So, every time this happens, I imagine the Volturi has to go and clean up what remains of the vampirized species. Aro hates this part of his job and there is a law as soon as the Volturi is formed “thou shalt not bite animals”. 

Which means that when Carlisle comes to Volterra, so happy with his diet where he can preserve human life, Aro has to break the news to him and tell him all about the hundreds of species now gone because some vampire thought it’d be a great idea to turn their cat. Carlisle dies inside, probably tries to get Aro to assist his suicide (which Aro adamantly refuses to do), and....

Well, I don’t think even now Aro could convince him to eat people like a normal person, Carlisle would choose death.

So I imagine Carlisle would go to Plan Z (he’s been through the other plans already). He travels to the North Pole, dunks himself in the water, freezes himself, and prays nobody finds him.

Somebody probably finds him a thousand years later. Carlisle accidentally blows the secret, sort of, and is likely thought of as the missing link in human evolution. Or some crazy offshoot of the human species, Carlisle can’t correct them.

Carlisle volunteers to be shot into space and far far away from any people. Knowing him, he probably ends up on a ship that’s destined to be a part of the Alien franchise, and continues to have a terrible time.

...

That got very tangential, point being, I don’t think we’d have sentient cats.

[auddityy]

i am curious, my mother had an aneurysm while pregnant with me and i had to be delivered a few days early (when the aneurysm happened). she spent the first month or so of my life in the ICU (obviously unable to breastfeed me). my father did skin to skin but i was fed formula (afaik no raw milk was given to me at that age). what kind of development have i missed out on? this isn't a gotcha or anything, i am genuinely curious, i've been enjoying your posts on the matter and i've always thought the circumstances of my birth might have affected how i developed/who i am today etc. thank you!

neurotransmitters such as cortisol, melatonin, serotonin etc and the intestinal flora which facilitate their production are contained in breastmilk. it was shown through chemical analysis that breast milk pumped in the morning contained high levels of cortisol to stimulate wakefulness, and high levels of melatonin at night to induce sleep. this shows that, hour-by-hour, mother's milk is actually communicating information about the world to the infant, and i believe the body has levels of sensitivity which we cannot measure. i think this information can easily be as specific as "we are at home, it's morning" "we are at grandpa's house, it's lunch" "we are out and about, it's evening" and so on, due to the different mental state the mother would be experiencing in these environments effecting her biology and therefore her milk. that aside, just going off of what we know, the melatonin-cortisol function causes a proper sleep cycle to develop, and it's obviously known that the sleep cycles are necessary for overall development. the bacterial function has implications for digestion and mental health, namely that during breastfeeding the infant's digestive tract is populated with the appropriate bacteria which not only digest food but also serve to create a large amount of the neurotransmitter hormones in the body. without breastfeeding, you're looking at childhood/lifelong digestive disorder, bacterial infections, and potentially a higher likelihood of mental illness associated with neurotransmitter dysfunction. vaginal birth and skin-to-skin also play a similar role in developing the infant's internal and external microbiome. this sounds severe, but the manifestations in children are pretty normalized. insomnia, ear infections, environmental and food allergies, dental decay, crooked teeth, pickiness with food, social or object phobia, malattachment, excessive crying as an infant, and more. children are not supposed to be as difficult and annoying as they commonly are now. if you want more on the microbiome check natasha campbell mcbride on youtube.

when mom's milk isn't available, you're really looking at trying to get as close as possible to the nutrient, bacterial and enzyme content, which is why you would go with raw donor milk first, then raw animal's milk. raw over pasteurized is important because it preserves the original bacteria+enzymes and leaves the nutrients intact and easiest to break down and absorb. some vitamins, namely b and c vitamins, are completely destroyed by pasteurization and must be supplemented in synthetic form, which i don't believe are equally utilizable by the body, and the substances they're made from are questionable.

all this being said, i was born at home, breast fed, and never recieved antibiotics or vaccinations and i still developed chronic insomnia as a child and severe mental illness as a teen. it's not a catch all. both healing and injury are always possible in the "worst" and "best" scenarios. it's about knowing what you're looking for when aiming at the best you can do. it's also political, because raw milk is still illegal and erroneously warned against by the government. this all affects working women who don't have partners, can't afford to quit their job to care for their infants, can't afford and don't have access to donor or raw milk the most. there is a huge amount of empirical and scientific evidence for everything i just said. the government/medical complex making reccommendations in ignorance of that evidence is a crime, and it happens to make them a lot of money. if they had an interest in the wellbeing of their patients, each pediatrician would have an index of local farms to obtain high quality foods and raw dairy from, and state government aid programs would fund and distribute food from these farms to families in need. but... here we are.

[ectogeo-art]

omg i want to hear about romulan embassy siskarak

WIP ask meme

Omg, yes, thank you for asking, I’m so excited about this one!!!! :D The fic idea appeared to me fully formed as soon as I saw this post by @the-last-dillards about how in a scene cut from “The Wire”, Sisko mentions that he and Curzon were at an embassy on Romulus when Sisko was about Julian's age, and dillards speculated that it would be funny if Sisko and Curzon happened to be there at the same time as Garak was on Romulus posing as a gardener. Most everyone else who saw that post was like "lmao Curzon/Garak <3" and while that is extremely funny too, the Sisko/Garak implications are soooo much more interesting to me personally.

I think Sisko would be an interesting parallel-but-not-quite to Julian. I feel like young Sisko would be similarly bright and passionate and idealistic, which we KNOW is a type Garak is attracted to, but unlike Julian, Sisko would NOT put up with Garak’s bullshit mindgames, he would NOT find Garak inherently charming.

And then there’s Garak, still young, on top of his game, feeling confident and powerful and indestructible (but ultimately just Tain’s pawn... he’s been indoctrinated to love Cardassia unconditionally and hasn’t really had that challenged in any way yet).

They would both find each other extremely grating. Sisko embodies everything Garak hates about the Federation, so Garak would want to take him down a peg, make him sink to Garak’s level. Sisko would be infuriated by Garak’s duplicitous and condescending nature, but maybe Garak also keeps saying things that are juuuust provocative enough that Sisko can’t seem to help arguing back against his points (and Sisko really doesn’t get how that’s somehow turning both of them on...).

So that’s the gist why I’m obsessed with the potential for this pairing during pre-canon in general. Now onto the fic itself! Juuuust in case I never get around to actually writing this, here’s my detailed plan for the romulan embassy siskarak fic:

Sisko and Curzon are on assignment at the Federation embassy on Romulus. The Federation embassy is holding an open house next week. Sisko offers to help cook the food for the event, because he has an idea to incorporate ingredients from other cultures into his jambalaya recipe to Symbolize how cultural exchange can lead to amazing new technological advances and/or art and/or political alliances (or idk, whatever overwrought metaphor an excited young Sisko decides is galaxy brain levels of diplomacy). Curzon's just like “hell yeah, sounds great, kid! go for it!”

So Ensign Sisko (or whatever his rank is at that point idk) asks around at the other embassies nearby for ingredients native to their homeworlds. They give him some recommendations, but he’d have to replicate or import the ingredients. But then he gets to the Cardassian embassy and they have this beeeeautiful garden, overflowing with native Cardassian produce. Sisko asks the gardener there (Garak) if he can possibly use some of the vegetables for his jambalaya of interplanetary diplomacy.

Garak is instantly annoyed by how performative and insipid Sisko’s project is... but Garak knows he has to play nice and hand over the vegetables. He also knows how much he doesn't want sisko rendering these vegetables he's been diligently tending into tasteless inedible garbage that an unrefined Federation or Romulan palate couldn’t possibly even appreciate... So he smiles politely, and offers to show him the proper way to cook it. Tonight. In Sisko’s quarters.

Garak internally justifies this unnecessary dinner date by deciding that it will be a good opportunity to scope out the inside of the Federation embassy. And so what if he’s also getting a little riled up thinking about all the delicious arguments he might have with this headstrong and attractive Starfleet officer? So what if he kind of wants to figure out what he has to say in order break Sisko’s composure? What he can say that would make Sisko, despite his self-satisfied demeanor of peace and acceptance and understanding, angrily slam Garak into the wall hard enough to trigger the pleasurable rush of the implant...?

Meanwhile back in sisko POV... Sisko gladly accepts, actually quite eager to learn more about cooking, and a little curious about this strange Cardassian gardener who seems a little bit interested in him. (He’s not annoyed by Garak yet, because all he’s seen is his mask, his poker face.) Curzon’s taught Sisko everything about diplomacy and how to be a Starfleet officer and how to be a person, and sisko looks up to him in a bit of an unhealthy way. Sisko knows that the easiest way to impress Curzon is to score with an alien. Sisko’s maybe a little curious to see if that’s what Garak is interested in, so that Sisko will have something to brag about with Curzon.

[sidenote: idk where Jennifer is in this timeline (but also the canon timeline of when Curzon and Sisko were off on adventures that included banging twin alien chicks and getting falling-down-drunk together seems inconsistent with the canon timeline of when Sisko and Jennifer met lolll)... anyway, maybe bennifer are on a break bc of the long-distance while he’s on Romulus, and/or bc she maybe doesn’t particularly like the influence Curzon has had on him and they very recently got in a fight about it.]

Okay, so now it’s that night in Sisko’s quarters. For now let’s just gloss right over the (presumably horny as hell) scene about the chopping and stewing and seasoning of the vegetables—during which the arguments (and resulting tensions) between them build and build, from little things like vegetable chopping techniques to the fundamental paradigms of their worldviews and senses of morality—and let’s fast forward directly into the middle of their fight about whether the federation sucks more than the cardassian empire: Garak out of nowhere just starts undoing his shirt while saying something inflammatory questioning the federation’s true commitment to cultural exchange... Garak basically implies that Sisko is a hypocrite who has been arguing for ideals he doesn’t believe in if he doesn’t want to bang Garak RIGHT NOW...

And then they bang, And it’s a mess, and they HATE each other, and it’s really hot. Or at least, that’s the idea. ( @delicatetrashstranger volunteered to help write the E-rated part, for which I am very grateful, lol.) In the end, the weird space jambalaya burns while they are going at it, and everything is ruined and smells terrible, and Sisko doesn’t even WANT to brag about this one to Curzon, because he is not proud of how he let Garak get under his skin. Garak maybe experiences A Consequence of some kind that makes him realize he can’t recklessly throw himself at Federation hotties (like... maybe something Sisko says makes him question a Truth he was certain of, or maybe this fling has jeopardized his assassination plans somehow, or maybe there is a close call where he almost reveals something personal about himself, or almost accidentally leaves behind his underwear, which is where he keeps some of his sci fi Spy Gadgets, lol idk).

The end!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this summary of my fic... I hope I actually write it one day XD (If anyone feels inspired by any aspect of this and wants to run with it, PLEASE DO! Also, if, like me, you desperately Need this fic to exist, feel free to let me know that you’re excited about it! My brain is all garashir all the time, so any WIP that’s not garashir sometimes needs to be helped along by external motivation lol.)

[captain-yeet]

A Beautiful Way To Die

Pairing: Heidi x Fem!Reader

Summary; When you thought of death or the possibility of you dying, you never seriously considered the possibility of dying at the hands of a gorgeous vampire.

Word count: 1.7k

Warnings: swearing, Heidi accidentally being creepy give her a break she's new to interacting with mortals and NOT eating them

Author's note: I've been wanting to write about Heidi for a while now because her character, even though we got so very little of it is fascinating (again thanks smeyer for making your side characters more interesting than the main ones). Also, am a simple gay.

Arising from your jet-lagged slumber, you'd hoped the beautiful blue, sunny skies you enjoyed yesterday would still be there. Sadly, your luck was out the window along with the welcoming warm weather.

You'd travelled to Italy with the intention of finally getting out into the world and having the freedom to explore and go your own path. Looking online for travel destinations was both a struggle and exciting! "Where should I go?" you wondered while scrolling through all your proposed options. None caught your eye until you landed on one listing;

Enjoy an enriching, quaint experience in the city of Volterra!

Nestled in the country hillsides of Italy, Volterra has a host of activities for you to enjoy, from historical site tours and many shopping locales, bars and more. From the Palazzo di Priori to the Volterra Cathedral... Come, and lose yourself in a city who's architecture is frozen in time.

You wandered the town, taking in the sites of all the old buildings around you. Even with the clouded sky above your head, Volterra was still a breathtaking place.

After an hour of wandering you came to a stop in the Palazzo, plopping down to sit by the large fountain. Hands resting under your chin, you entered a blissful, happy daydream.

Sighing dreamily, you let your eyes close.

You didn't notice the woman watching you attentively.

Heidi had been tasked with finding more humans to feed the guards and the masters themselves, her own hunger growing more ravenous by the day. She'd managed to lure in a few stray helpless tourists, but she still needed just a few more.

Striding through the streets with confidence, she halted as a sudden alluring scent hit her like wave. Mouth pooling with venomous saliva, she held in an instinctive growl. Where is that scent coming from? More so... who?

Following the mouthwatering aroma, she let herself be guided through the cobblestone streets of Volterra, the beast within her growling with glee as she got closer and closer to the human. Heidi had had many victims, many catches that she's reeled in from her "fishing" that have satisfied her, but none that made her yearn for blood more so than whoever it was that smelt like this.

She found herself in the Palazzo, her eyes desperately scanning every face, every scent of anyone who was nearby. She needed to know which it was.

Taking in another deep breath through her nose, the scent hit her again, and she found the poor helpless human.

A woman, who smelt better than anything she'd ever had before. Heidi sunk into the shadows of a nearby alley and studied you. You were plain, simple clothes and your eyes were currently closed as you enjoyed some blissful daydream. Her throat burned with thirst by this point, and as she watched you... something else began to grow.

Curiosity, was it? Heidi couldn't put her finger on it. Letting out an unnecessary huff, she decided to approach. I'll make sure to let Felix and Demetri know that this snack is strictly mine alone. Heidi put on her best smile and sauntered over to the human.

 “Pardon me, Miss?” a smooth voice called your attention away from your daydreaming. 

You jump in surprise as you turn your attention to the source of the voice that startled you. The owner of the voice was equally startling; her beauty blinded you, as she stood directly in front of the faint rays of sunlight you swore she was literally shining. The red dress she wore clung nicely to her body, an off the shoulder piece that only highlighted her best assets. Violet eyes gazed at you curiously, flicking from the art book open in your lap to your face. 

If angels were real, you’d believe this woman was one.

Unbeknownst to you, but the shock went both ways. Now that she was face-to-face with you, Heidi’s painted red lips had parted, an inaudible gasp to your ears escaping them.

A pull she had never experienced before took hold of the vampire. She needed to be near you - not just in the hunger sense, but more of a “If I am separated from this woman for any reason I will rip someone’s arm off” kind of way. At least, that is how Heidi would describe it.

Trying to shake herself out of her jumbled train of thought, she flashed you a quick smile, savouring the way it made your heart stutter. “I couldn’t help but notice you sitting here, are you new to Volterra?”

You nodded, gently smiling at the pretty woman. “I am, just passing through on my way to Venice.”

Heidi giggled. "Venice? That's quite the destination. And what brings you to Volterra?"

"I'm going on a tour here before I leave for Venice," you explained, none the wiser to the sudden shift in Heidi's demeanor. "I needed a place to stay since it was such a long trip, and..."

"What tour, if you don't mind my asking?"

You blinked. The woman was now very serious, the playful almost-flirtatious air about her gone. "In there, actually," you reply, pointing to the castle-like cathedral just behind her.

"I see."

Shit. Shit, shit, fuck! A string of curse words swam in Heidi's head in multiple languages. She can't go in there! But she's booked already, they'll be expecting her and we don't often get cancellations and if we do -

"I'm sorry, is there a problem?" You ask, growing more confused by the pretty lady as the seconds went by.

"Ah, hello Heidi."

You both turn your head to the rather tall man who had appeared at Heidi's side. He was quite the looker - very tall, heavy build and looked like he could break you in half with one hand.

"Felix, what are you doing here?" The woman - Heidi - says to her companion with an airy smile.

You didn't fail to notice the sharp look she had in her eyes.

"Just roaming about the city is all," the man replied coolly, a grin on his face that faltered into a curious smile when his gaze shifted to you. “And who might this lovely lady be? Perhaps a tour guest of the castle?”

With a laugh, Heidi linked her arm into Felix’s bicep, her fingernails digging deep into his arm. Under his breath Felix hissed and looked at Heidi with wide, confused eyes but she kept her airy exterior up perfectly.

 “Our tour bookings are full, Felix,” she said pointedly.

You looked on at the exchange feeling lost. There seemed to be some animosity between the two but why? You didn’t know. Maybe they were exes.

 “I see.” A thin, curt smile replaced his cocky grin from just moments ago. “Well then, I’ll meet up with you later. We’ll talk more then.” 

As the man left, Heidi left out a small huff and then turned back toward you, her brilliant smile bewitching you again. "Forgive him, he's always prowling during the tours for pretty young women to bore to death with his rants about his hobbies."

You giggled, grinning back at her. "I'll be sure to try and stay off his radar when tomorrow's tour begins."

Tomorrow's tour, Heidi's thoughts echoed your words. So she's coming in on that tour. Keeping her composure cool, she tilted her head down and gazed at you from beneath her eyelashes. Seduction tactics, only this time she was trying to steer her prey away. "Please beautiful, I want you to listen to me very closely."

Frowning at her sudden serious nature, you began to stand up from where you were perched, listening intently.

"Volterra has a lot to offer tourists, many fascinating sites to see. Our cathedral however... don't come. Please," she pleaded, her voice low and silky, "find somewhere else to go sight seeing."

You froze mid-way through putting away your art book. Her serious tone and the look in her eyes... something about the look in her eyes sent a chill down your spine. "I - I'll consider it."

The corner of Heidi's mouth twitched. She then straightened herself up and the deadly serious disposition left as quickly as it had appeared, the friendly seductress returning once more. "Well, I suppose all I can do is steer you away," she chuckled, more to herself.

You smiled politely back, your eyes flickering to your surroundings briefly. As you took in how the sky had gone much darker than it was before, you gasped. "Oh damn, it looks like its going to rain!"

Sure enough, as soon as the word "rain" left your lips, Heidi felt a droplet from the sky land on her cheek.

"I had better get going, it was really nice meeting you!" You began saying your farewells to the beautiful lady, pulling your backpack hastily up onto your back. You didn't want to get potentially drenched in the downpour.

"Wait!"

Ice gripped your wrist abruptly, sending a shock up your arm and making a surprised gasp escape your lips. The fuck?

Oh.

Heidi had grabbed your wrist. She must have some bad circulation, you vaguely thought to yourself.

"I never got your name." The word were desperate, to Heidi pitiful even.

"It's Y/N," you breathed, taken back by Heidi's behavior.

She let go of your wrist, a half smile appearing. "Y/N," she repeated, your name leaving her mouth - in your mind anyway - almost reverently. "Beautiful name, cara mia... anyway, we should head our separate ways! The rain is sure to stat pouring any moment now."

You hummed in agreement, internally trying to shake yourself out of the stupor you now found yourself in. God damn, this woman... help. She's pretty. So pretty. I am very gay.

"It was nice meeting you, Heidi. Maybe I'll see you around?" You offered with a hopeful smile, trying to shut out your internal screaming.

As you quickly walked away, Heidi carefully breathed in after holding her breath. The air stung her throat, your scent, your blood, making her moan wantonly.

She only hoped for two things; one, that she would get the pleasure of seeing your exquisite face again, and secondly and most importantly, that you would heed her warning not to come to the Volterra Cathedral tour tomorrow.

[arcticdementor]

The University of California system is getting rid of its SAT/ACT requirement. More will follow.

There’s a lot to say. First, we must distinguish between two types of tests, or really two types of testing. When people say “standardized tests,” they think of the SAT, but they also think of state-mandated exams (usually bought, at great taxpayer expense, from Pearson and other for-profit companies) that are designed to serve as assessments of public K-12 schools, of aggregates and averages of students. The SAT, ACT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT, MCAT, and similar tests are oriented towards individual ability or aptitude; they exist to show prerequisite skills to admissions officers. (And, in one of the most essential purposes of college admissions, to employers, who are restricted in the types of testing they can perform thanks to Griggs v Duke Power Co.) Sure, sometimes researchers will use SAT data to reflect on, for example, the fact that there’s no underlying educational justification for higher graduation rates1, but SATs are really about the individual. State K-12 testing is about cities and districts, and exists to provide (typically dubious) justification for changes to education policy2. SATs and similar help admissions officers sort students for spots in undergraduate and graduate programs. This post is about those predictive entrance tests like the SAT.

Liberals repeat several types of myths about the SAT/ACT with such utter confidence and repetition that they’ve become a kind of holy writ. But myths they are.

1. SATs/ACTs don’t predict college success. They do, indeed. This one is clung to so desperately by liberals that you’d think there was some sort of compelling empirical basis to believe this. There isn’t. There never has been. They’re making it up. They want it to be true, and so they believe it to be true.

…

2. The SATs only tell you how well a student takes the SAT. This is perhaps a corollary to 1., and is equally wrong. They tell us what they were designed to tell us: how well students are likely to perform in college. But the SATs tell us about much more than college success. Let me run this graphic again.

…

3. SATs just replicate the income distribution. No. Again, asserted with utter confidence by liberals despite overwhelming evidence that this is not true. I believe that this research represents the largest publicly-available sample of SAT scores and income information, with an n of almost 150,000, and the observed correlation between family income and SAT score is .25. This is not nothing. It is a meaningful predictor. But it means that the large majority of the variance in SAT scores is not explainable by income information. A correlation of .25 means that there are vast numbers of lower-income students outperforming higher-income students. Other analyses find similar correlations. If SAT critics wanted to say that “there is a relatively small but meaningful correlation between family income and SAT scores and we should talk about that,” fair game. But that’s not how they talk. The routinely make far stronger claims than that in an effort to dismiss these tests all together, such as here by Yale’s Paul Bloom. (Whose work I generally like.) It’s just not that hard to correlate two variables together, guys. I don’t know why you wouldn’t ever ask yourselves “is this thing I constantly assert as absolute fact actually true?” Well, maybe I do.

In general, progressive and left types routinely overstate the power of the relationship between family wealth and academic performance on all manner of educational outcomes. The political logic is obvious: if you generally want to redistribute money (as I do) then the claim that educational problems are really economic problems provides ammo for your position. But the fact that there is a generic socioeconomic effect does not mean that giving people money will improve their educational outcomes very much, particularly if richer people are actually mildly but consistently better at school than poorer for sorting reasons that are not the direct product of differences in income. That is, what correlation does exist between SES and academic indicators might simply be the metrics accurately measuring the constructs they were designed to measure.

And throwing money at our educational problems, while noble in intent, hasn’t worked. (People react violently to this, but for example poorer and Blacker public schools receive significantly higher per-pupil funding than richer and whiter schools, which should not be a surprise given that the policy apparatus has been shoveling money at the racial performance gap for 40 years.) All manner of major interventions in student socioeconomic status, including adoption into dramatically different home and family conditions, have failed to produce the benefits you’d expect if academic outcomes were a simple function of money. I believe in redistribution as a way to ameliorate the consequences of poor academic performance. There is no reason to think that redistribution will ameliorate poor academic performance itself.

5. SATs are easily gamed with expensive tutoring. They are not. This one is perhaps less empirically certain than the prior two and on which I’m most amenable to counterargument, but the preponderance of the evidence seems clear to me in saying that the benefits of tutoring/coaching for these tests are vastly overstated. Again, a simplistic proffered explanation for a troublesome set of facts that then implies simplistic solutions that would not work.

6. Going test optional increases racial diversity. This one, I think, must be called scientifically unsettled. However both Sweitzer, Blalock, and Sharma and Belasco, Rosinger, and Hearn find no appreciable increase in racial diversity after universities go test-optional. “Holistic” application criteria like admissions essays almost certainly benefit richer students anyway. What’s more, we have to ask ourselves what “diversity” really means in this context. Private colleges and universities keep the relevant data close to the vest, for obvious reasons, but it’s widely believed that many elite schools satisfy their internal diversity goals for Black students by aggressively pursuing wealthy Kenyan and Nigerian international students, whose parents have the means to be the kind of reliable donors that such schools rely on so heavily. I’m not aware of a really comprehensive study that examines this issue, and it would be hard to pull off, but the relevant question is “do various policies intended to improve diversity on campus actually increase the enrollment of American-born descendants of African slaves?” I can’t say, but you can guess where my suspicions lie.

…

All of that is prologue to the bigger point: the controversy over college entrance examinations stems not from the examinations themselves, but from the fact that they reveal profound differences in human capital that make progressives uncomfortable. The SATs don’t create inequality. They reveal inequality.

…

The racial achievement/performance gap is a curious thing even in the context of an American political discourse that seems to get more bizarre by the day. That the gap exists is, on balance, not controversial. Gaps in performance are observed on essentially every measured academic metric, though the size of the effects vary from context to context, and the general distribution is Asian American students at the top, white students next, then Hispanic, then Black. The Black-white gap in particular has shrunk from the era of (explicitly) segregated schools but progress has not been consistent or linear. Most people in academia and politics admit it exists: prominent Black politicians like Barack Obama and Kamala Harris reference it, every major think tank and foundation operating in the educational space identifies it as a major priority, and the NAACP used to address if often, though their Education and Education Strategy pages have recently disappeared so it’s hard to know where they stand now. These things are faddish but once upon a time every other dissertation written by someone getting a PhD in Education was about the gap. We can observe it even outside of reference to controversial tests, such as noting that the white high school graduation rate is 10% higher than that for Black students. The achievement gap is a thing.

And yet I also find a rapidly-congealing social prohibition against talking about these gaps in progressive spaces. If you refer to a racial achievement gap in a lot of liberal or left contexts now, you’ll find that people clam up fast and get visibly uncomfortable, even if you take pains to point out that an academic achievement gap does not imply an academic potential gap. People just don’t want to acknowledge that gaps exist at all; our racial discourse appears to have become such a blunt instrument that the acknowledgement of racial difference is controversial even when you preface discussion with the belief (that I hold) that the gap is the product of innumerable environmental and sociocultural factors rather than genetics or other inherent differences. Simply saying “Black students consistently score lower on tests like the SATs, have lower average GPAs, and have worse metrics on ancillary concerns like truancy” - again, Barack Obama’s position, Kamala Harris’s position, Cory Booker’s position - is enough for people to start launching into harangues about the inherent violence of those comparisons. People just do not want to talk about this stuff.

…

Those concerns with group differences, at least, have some sort of basic political logic and are amenable to complaints that they are the product of systemic inequality. (They are, but not the inequalities that people think, and again the SAT gap is a result of systemic inequality, not a cause of systemic inequality.) More disturbing to me is the rise of resistance within academia to the notion of inequalities between individuals. When I was in grad school more than a half-decade ago, I observed with some considerable unhappiness that it had become increasingly socially unacceptable to speak of some students as simply better students than others, as being more talented, harder working, or more prepared. All of this was seen as inegalitarian and, eventually, as “white supremacist” even if every student being compared in a given context was white. There were many instructors back then who bragged about giving all students As, etc., and I must assume this practice has only grown over time. In the humanities and social sciences especially there is a growing movement to reject assessment, including grading - the means through which we sort better students from worse - as the hand of illegitimate power that “does violence” to the students who voluntarily attend college.

…

Of course, that complicity in the neoliberal machine is not some recent injustice; it is the very reason that colleges and universities are funded by our society at all. If this trend continues, not just eliminating SAT requirements or increasingly refusing to hierarchize students with grades but in rejecting the entire sorting function of the university, academia will collapse. Wealthy parents aren’t paying Harvard to enrich their children in the humanistic sense. They’re paying Harvard to act as a marker of their child’s superiority in the labor market and the social hierarchy. Employers value college because it provides at least some meaningful information about who will succeed as a worker; remove that function and the financial justification for a hideously expensive system dies. I would love if education dropped its association with meritocracy, but that cannot occur within our current system. The professors who self-aggrandize through their rejection of their hierarchizing function, if successful, would cause the doom of the modern university. (These tenured radicals, of course, never are so moved by the inherent inequities of academia that they quit the profession.)

Today, it is somehow controversial to say “some people are smarter than others,” a reflection of one of the simple brute realities of human life and something that has been accepted as true for thousands of years.

Here is the essence of it: hierarchies of relative academic performance are remarkably stable throughout life, due to differences in inherent or intrinsic academic ability of whatever origin, and the SATs and similar mechanisms reveal those differences in a way that liberal America is increasingly unable to accept. This is the source of all of this angst, not the technical details of whether a test is fair or valid or just, but a liberal intelligentsia that is incapable of honestly confronting the fact that different human beings have fundamentally different intrinsic abilities. I believe in political equality, social equality, equality of rights, equality of dignity, equality of protection under the law. But the notion that all people are equally talented, in academics or anything else, is an absurdity, and as much as people will rush to deny intrinsic difference, I suspect that pretty much everybody knows that they are real. When you were a child you casually assumed that some of your classmates were naturally better at school than others, and you did because it was true.

This is the conversation that I tried, and failed, to force with my book: left-of-center political movements, from center-left to radically socialist, cannot achieve the goal of the greater good for everyone, including greater political and economic equality, while pretending that we believe in equality of human ability. The only way to intelligently address various social, economic, and political equalities related to differences in human potential is to acknowledge that those differences exist. The current rending of garments regarding inequalities within our education system has led to certifiably bizarre situations like the movement, currently gathering steam, to teach math as if it is as subjective as literature or art. But this won’t make Black kids or poor kids or girls or anyone else actually better at math. And if the universities really give up their function of creating an academic hierarchy for political reasons, employers will find new systems that do that, or a lot of people will get hired and quickly fired for not being competent. This is not an intelligent policy approach. Getting rid of the SATs won’t make unprepared kids prepared. It won’t make naturally untalented students naturally talented. It won’t make kids who aren’t smart into smart kids. All it will do is hide the reality of those unpleasant inequalities.

[saki-chan16]

Empty Bottles Ch. 2

First parts are here and here.

Let me know what ya think <3

Chapter 2

Kakashi Hatake takes pride in his intellect.

Being hailed a genius from a young age, he never felt the need to question his intelligence. His instincts are sharp, his awareness keen, and his deduction skills impeccable – those are musts when being a tracker and assassin. He trusts his instincts.

So when he meets his Genin team and feels an instant off-ness to one of them, his senses are on high alert.

The first two are predictable. His old sensei’s son has always wanted to become Hokage, and anyone who knows the boy (or can hear) knows how much he loves Iruka. And Sasuke, well, Kakashi working with his older brother gives him better insight into what the boy is and isn’t saying. Itachi and Shisui are aware of the torch he holds for them; they train with him when they can and, even if they won’t admit it, have a soft spot for the youngest Uchiha.

His last one though…Kakashi picks up on the other twos curiosity and wonders why they are looking at her as though they’ve never heard her speak before. Once he hears her speak – it sounds as though she doesn’t use her voice often. Her answers concern him too. As she answered, he sniffed at the air and had a hard time pinpointing what he was sensing.

When she got to her dream, he knew she lied. Her tells weren’t blatant – surprising, considering her age – but it was easier for him to nail it down when he finally understood what he was smelling: fear.

His little pink haired student was scared.

He wants to know why.

After they had introduced themselves, he told them to meet at a training ground the next day so they could come up with a training plan for them. He asked them to show up to training with an idea of their strengths and weaknesses, where they want to improve, and a few short term goals.

The bell test will have to wait. I need to figure out why she was so scared today.

Kakashi is on his way to the Jounin lounge – he knows just who to talk to.

It doesn’t take long to reach his destination. A quick walk through the door and down the hall, and he steps through the doors of the place he usually avoids.

“MY YOUTHFUL RIVAL, YOU’RE HERE!”

And there is the main reason he tends to avoid this place.

Kakashi looks over to his loud friend and sees he’s sitting with a small group of Jounin – one of which is the one he’s looking for. He walks towards them.

“Yo,” he greets, usual eye crinkle in place, “it’s nice to see you too, Guy.”

He stops at the table and takes the empty seat. He looks around and greets the others, “Asuma, Kurenai, Iruka, Genma – it’s nice to see you guys too.”

All of them nod at him, but they’re giving him a look. Kakashi can feel the eyes on him and sighs internally.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; I don’t usually come to them. They always seem to be chasing me around the village.

Guy, ever the best of friends and keen observer of all things Kakashi, breaks the silence.

“Kakashi,” he says in a normal tone, “what brings you here? It must be important for you to come and search us out.”

Kakashi could kiss the man.

He’s too good to me.

Kakashi looks at all of the people around the table and makes eye contact with each of them. He weighs what he wants to say before breaching the subject. What he’s asking could be nothing, or it could mean the start of a very ugly process; he doesn’t want to do this lightly.

Genma and Iruka share a look but wait to see what Kakashi wants. They’re silently hoping he brings up the topic of his female student – something he noticed or even a question to show that he saw something. If he did, then there’s a greater chance their thoughts aren’t unfounded.

“I have a…potential issue,” is what he settles on.

Iruka turns fully towards Kakashi and asks levelly, “A potential issue with what, Kakashi-san?”

An outward sigh leaves his lips before he answers, “The girl on my team, Haruno, Sakura, do you know anything about her?”

Kurenai, Asuma, and Guy look on the conversation with interest. They pick up on Iruka and Genma’s sudden interest and gather that they know something about the girl. Their interests piqued, they lean in slightly closer.

“I get the feeling you don’t mean academically, Kakashi,” Iruka responds. He can’t help the note of resignation in his voice. His fears being confirmed doesn’t feel pleasant, it means there might actually be something happening with the girl. And if he’s right, something that has been going on for way too long.

A slight narrowing of his eye, Kakashi looks to the academy teacher and says, “No, not academically speaking. I had the three of my students introduce themselves to me as an ice breaker – to feel them out. Sakura-chan…when we got to the roof her presence seemed odd.”

He pauses to think about how he wants to word the next part but decides bluntness might be best

“The boys went first; nothing surprising. When it was her turn, the first odd thing was that the boys were very curious to hear her answers. Not in the ‘she’s-cute-I-want-to-learn-more’ way, but in a ‘I’ve-never-heard-her-talk-before’ way.”

“Sakura-chan didn’t speak much during the academy,” Iruka confirms, “she preferred non-verbal forms of communication. The only person she ever spoke to was me.”

That’s a red flag.

Asuma speaks up, “She only spoke to you? That’s a little odd.”

Iruka nods and follows it up with, “She was always formal in her speech too – she always seemed tense. Most kids avoided her because of it and she never tried to reach out to anyone.”

Kurenai takes in these things and feels her gut start to drop. She doesn’t want to jump the gun, but her gut is screaming at her to say something.

“What about her other teachers?” she asks. “What did they have to say about her speaking?”

A wave of anger and irritation floods the table. Genma and Iruka can’t hold their emotions back, old wounds being ripped open after so long.

“Her other teachers,” Iruka hisses – hisses, “said that I was crazy. That they saw nothing wrong with her not speaking because her exams and homework were exemplary; they thought I was being paranoid for bringing it up.”

Genma adds, “They found her silence, and I quote, ‘endearing because it means she’s listening and making for a very obedient student’ as though she’s a dog.”

The wave of emotion intensified as the other Jounin listens to their colleagues' words. Varying degrees of rage and disbelief sweep the group at this revelation.

“Anyway,” Kakashi continues, “she introduced herself, but it felt off. I was trying to figure out the emotion she was oozing as she did so, and it didn’t click until I heard her blatantly lie about her dream.”

Kakashi looks down at his hands as he pauses.

“Sakura-chan was terrified,” he says softly. “I don’t know why, or of what, but as she was talking I could smell her fear increasing.”

The group of Jounin feels Kakashi’s confusion as they experience the same thing. What could the girl be so afraid of? Why doesn’t she like to talk? What could be going on? They know it’s serious too because Kakashi actually came to find them in a place he usually doesn’t frequent.

Said man looks up from his hands and meets Iruka’s eyes before asking, “What can I do to find out the reason?”

A heavy silence falls on the group. Each individual takes in the facts and knowledge at their disposal. Thinking through possible outcomes, possible courses of action to take. Delicate matters require delicate hands.

“I have an idea,” Kurenai pipes up, “I assume because you’ve told all of us about this, you’re okay with us helping, Kakashi-san?”

She asks to be polite. Inside, she’s already decided to help this little girl and get to the bottom of her situation. Her mother hen side is starting to poke through, but she couldn’t care less – a child needs help, she’ll get the child help. It doesn’t matter to her if she has to do it alone or not.

“Ah, you would be correct Kurenai-san.”

“Alright, so here’s what I’m thinking…”

. . & . .