#I need to draw and write eu

[vampstel]

Yippee :D

[deusa-astaroth666]

English:

I did a traditional drawing of our desired Countess Phantomhive, Sieglinde Phantomhive Sullivan and her daughter Charlotte Phantomhive. I wanted to make Sullivan completely outside the Victorian beauty standard, I have the impression that Ciel is more attracted to scary girls who deviate from this standard, he doesn't seem to be interested in cute girls who are always crying and pretending to be weak to be saved. Sullivan has dead and scary eyes that make any small child cry, she has big, full lips next to an elongated face, thick, dark eyebrows, she always wears black and green and has a bored smile on her face, she is called of a witch by other children and they say that she can curse you with just one look, stories made by the youngest.

I already made a post talking a little about this universe in which I created her relationship with Ciel, but I said little about Charlotte.

Charlotte has heterochromia and is excluded by other children because of it, but she doesn't care, in her perception everyone is too stupid to have a long conversation, the person she most likes to talk to is Sebastian, she sees him as a false prince charming from children's books, he always says what she wants and needs to hear and they both have the same opinion about people. This is no coincidence, as Sebastian educated her and took advantage of molding her personality so that he would like to communicate with her.

As not everything is rosy, she has a normal obsession with stalking the butler around the mansion, always keeping him in sight, which Sebastian deeply hates as he finds it uncomfortable and this prevents him from using his demonic powers to finish tasks quickly.

Charlotte also lives close to her mother, Sullivan teaches her science and witchcraft during the girl's studies. In relation to Ciel, she feels a little fear and admiration for her father, since he is a very serious and busy man, difficult to impress, which makes her see him as a challenge to overcome.

Info:

Charlotte Phantomhive Sullivan, she is 11 years old, she was born on October 1st, international bat day, her favorite animal, she writes everything in cursive as few people can read texts like that (I was shocked when I discovered that many foreigners don't know it and don't know read words in cursive). She doesn't know it yet, but she is an intersex person (hermaphrodite), which also makes her have a voice and appearance of both genders.

Português:

Fiz um desenho tradicional da nossa desejada Condessa Phantomhive, Sieglinde Phantomhive Sullivan e sua filha Charlotte Phantomhive. Eu quis fazer a Sullivan totalmente fora do padrão de beleza Vitoriano, tenho impressão de que o Ciel se atrai mais por garotas assustadoras que fogem desse padrão, ele não parece ter interesse em garotas fofas que vivem chorando e se fingindo de fracas para serem salvas. Sullivan tem olhos mortos e assustadores que fazem qualquer criança pequena chorar, ela tem lábios grandes e carnudos junto de um rosto alongado, sobrancelhas grossas e escuras, ela sempre usa preto e verde e tem um sorriso pleno de tédio no rosto, a mesma é chamada de bruxa pelas outras crianças e dizem que ela pode te amaldiçoar apenas com um olhar, histórias feitas pelos mais novos.

Já fiz uma postagem falando um pouco desse universo que eu criei a relação dela com o Ciel, mas disse pouco sobre a Charlotte.

A Charlotte possui heterocromia e é excluída por outras crianças devido a isso, mas ela não liga, na percepção dela todos são muito burros para se manter uma longa conversa, a pessoa que ela mais gosta de conversar é o Sebastian, ela o vê como um falso príncipe encantado dos livros infantis, ele sempre fala aquilo que ela quer e precisa ouvir e os dois possuem a mesma opinião sobre as pessoas. Isso não é por acaso, já que o Sebastian a educou e tirou proveito para moldar a personalidade dela para que fosse do agrado dele se comunicar.

Como nem tudo são flores ela tem uma obsseção nem um como normal de stalkear o mordomo pela mansão sempre o mantendo em vista, o que o Sebastian odeia profundamente já que acha desconfortável e isso impede ele de usar os poderes demoníacos para terminar os afazeres rápido.

Charlotte também vive grudada na mãe, Sullivan a ensina ciência e bruxaria durante os estudos da garota. Em relação ao Ciel ela sente um pouco de medo e admiração pelo pai, já que ele é um homem muito sério e ocupado, difícil de se impressionar o que a deixa ver como um desafio a se superar.

Info:

Charlotte Phantomhive Sullivan, ela tem 11 anos, nasceu dia 1 de Outubro dia internacional do morcego o animal favorito dela, ela escreve tudo em letra cursiva já que poucas pessoas conseguem ler textos assim (fiquei chocada quando descobri que muitos gringos não conhecem e não sabem ler palavras em letra cursiva). Ela não sabe ainda, mas é uma pessoa intersexo (hermafrodita) o que também a faz ter uma voz e aparência de ambos os sexos.

[aviradasa]

Eu Hi, I saw that you were open to requests. I really need to satisfy my desire for Juuzou headcanons.... I need to read something about my husband.....(well, it could be random headcanons)🍰🤍

no, thank you for enabling my ideas, lol. I am so happy to write to him. This is my first time, and I had absolutely no idea what to do, but I'll get better. i promise. This is a little short and late so I apologize in advance!!

Juuzou x reader Hc

Ok, starting off. A lot of people think he wouldn't like to be touched. But i think it's the opposite.

He is extremely touchy. Not it that kinda way he just likes to give you lots of hugs and stuff along those lines

Hand holding,slinging an arm over your shoulder, linking his pinkie with yours-

He just really loves stuff like that.

But he does it a lot in public, and he doesn't understand the concept of PDA being frowned upon.

Well actually your not sure it he's actually confused or just doesn't care.

But that's the fun part you never know with him.

Another thing he adores is doing your hair. And he's surprisingly good at it.

He knows how to do a bunch of intricate hairstyles, and it's one of the few times you get to see him truly focused besides when he's touching us his stitches or trying to draw.

Speaking of stitches.

He would probably want to give you some to match his. And if you agree, he gets really excited.

If not, he will drop it for a little bit . I will probably ask you again every once in a while.

You just gotta hold your ground.

Switching gears a bit tho.

People alot of the time do forget juuzo is really smart

Just cause he acts a bit childish does not mean he's clueless.

And he really likes to make you remember this. It's his favorite thing to watch you look at him in a bit of shock when he says something smart as hell.

You could be confused about something, and he will just pop up behind you, give you an answer, and run off with a laugh and a smile.

On the other hand, though, he gets more confused when it comes to social interactions.

You do a lot of the talking.

If you didn't, there would be a lot more drama surrounding yall cause juuzou has zero filter.

And this can be an issue cause..

Yall gossip to damn much

Come home from a long day at work, and either he's waiting for you to tell him the tea, or he's got the most jaw-dropping shit to tell you.

Apparently, they are messy as hell at the CCG 😭.

And it's perfect because people tend to get the impression that he's not listening to what's going on around him when he spaces out.

Yeah he is listening to EVERYTHING.

You two are like that couple who are just best friends, honestly.

Always together, always on the same page. It's lowkey adorable. Sometimes a little creepy. But it's whatever.

I will say this

Personality wise, if you are a calmer person it's really nice cause you balance him out a bit, and your personality mix together a little so he might chill a bit more and you might gain some of his energy, which makes life a bit easier for everyone including you guys.

But if your just as hyper it's a whole thing. You guys are crazy together. Lowkey be enabling each other into doing dumb shit on the daily, and that can get a bit dangerous as juuzou has a high pain tolerance, so 1. If you dare him to do something stupid and he gets really hurt, he might not notice right away, and it could cause issues. Or 2. He dares you to do something, not aware of how painful it should be, and you end up getting hurt.

Either way, somebody is injured.

It's ok though at least yall are happy together. 😭

Being dead serious, yall surprisingly have a pretty stable relationship.

Like it's lowkey healthy and it surprises people. Like nobody expects someone like him to be able to even find someone let alone keep a partner around. So when he does and you don't go anywhere people are kinda like

🤔🤔🤔

Scratching their chins like "if they can do it why the hell can't i." You know.

But yeah that's about it. I hope you enjoyed again this was my first time writing for him so I'm trying to get a feel for the character. Have faith i will get better 😭 i love you all have a lovely day/night

[howtofightwrite]

Speaking of martial competence, do you have any examples of characters that are actually written with this in mind?

Loads. Some actually even make good on that.

So, there's different kinds of martial competence. There are characters who are proficient in combat directly, there are well written strategists, there are characters who excel at military leadership, and when they're written well, you can actuallylearn some things from them.

I'm going to give some examples, and at least one cautionary example.

For, just, raw combat prowess, I still go back to Robert E. Howard's Conan short stories. It's easy to meme on the character, especially 90 years after the fact, with the cultural persona that's grown around him, but Howard's original writing is excellent. The character would not have survived Howard's early (and, frankly, tragic) death if it was just the one note gag you might expect, if your only exposure to the character was through cultural osmosis and the films.

Howard's fight scenes were shockingly well written. To the point that it is still absolutely worth reading if you want to write a fantasy fighter.

For strategists, three characters come to mind, but only two are literary, and all are Science Fiction.

Grand Admiral Thrawn is probably one of the best villains Star Wars has ever produced, it's part of why he's one of the few characters that's migrated from the original EU to the Disney era. My personal take is, as a character, he's lost a lot over the years, but the original incarnation from the early 90s novels is a very solid model for a strategist. Particularly in how he takes time to understand his opponents while looking for potential weak points to exploit.

His practice of studying a culture's art to understand their psychology might sound a bit goofy, but the concept does have a real basis. (At least, until it metastasized into a superpower, in later adaptations of the character.) Being able to psychologically assess your foe is an incredibly valuable element of strategy, and one that you probably want to consider when you're writing a character who is supposed to be a “strategic genius.”

When writing fiction, you want to consider all of your characters as if they were people, rather than as hollow, plastic toys. And, yes, the obnoxious villain who knows exactly what your heroes will do because of authorial fiat is going to be a more compelling character than the ambulatory goldfish villain who exists as a prelude for your heroes showing off how badass you think they are.

Granted, even in Heir to the EmpireThrawn was already drawing strategic insights that strained credibility, but understanding your foe is an element of strategic thinking that is often forgotten in literature. So, even as a villain in a tie-in novel (we're not done with tie-in fiction yet), he is worth looking at. At least when written by Timothy Zhan, Thrawn was a well written character, and even if he bordered on a Mary Sue at times, he escaped a lot of that stigma by justifying his competence.

It's also probably worth mentioning in passing that he's one of the few Imperial leaders in Star Wars who isn't also criminally incompetent.

The non-literary example of a strategist would be John Sheridan from Babylon 5. Unlike Thrawn, Sheridan's main strategic focus is on situational exploitation. A little of that comes from his knowledge of enemy procedures and psychology, but at lot of it comes from a rather ruthless approach to technical limitations. An alien race is using technology that blocks human targeting systems? Set up a nuclear mine and then send out a fake distress single to lure them in. Need to deal with a significantly larger, more dangerous ship? Lure them into a gas giant and and let the planet's gravity well drag them past crush depth. Bruce Boxleitner's performance helped sell the character, but Sheridan is a really solid science fiction strategist, who really exemplifies how technical limitations can have enormous strategic considerations.

I'm not citing Sheridan as an excellent example of a leader per se,it's certainly there, but it is harder to unpack from Boxleitner's performance. It does have some good payoffs much later in the series when he starts making some orders that cause his subordinates to sit up and stop what they're doing. And that is a consistent theme even back to his introduction, but, it's a tangible consequence to an intangible cause.

The last example is a negative example, both for strategy and leadership. And, as much as it pains me to say this, at least Orson Scott Card understood that Ender was a bad leader. At least in the original novel. To be blunt, Ender is a mediocre strategist at best. His highlights in the book involve, “inventing armor,” and creative movement in micrograv. That's setting the bar exceptionally low, and while it is reasonably within the range of what you could expect from a pre-teen, that's not much of a justification.

Again, I'm not a fan of Card, and I'm reallynot recommending Ender's Gameto anyone. However, if I didn't mention it, you know there'd be a reblog going for twelve hundred words about how Andrew Wiggin is the best strategist in literature, which, yeah, no.

Do you want a goofy, tie-in fiction, literary suggestion for the best leader in sci-fi? Too bad, because I'm pretty sure Ciaphas Cain is not that person. The Ciaphas Cain novels by Sandy Mitchell are unusual as leadership recommendations, because of how much Cain internally processes the social manipulation involved in military leadership. He's not a great leader, but he is exceptionallygood at explaining to the reader how he's creating that illusion to motivate the soldiers around him. In fairness, some of that is an intrinsic character flaw, he is incredibly insecure, and desperately trying to hide that fact. And the difference between being a great leader, and effectively creating a comprehensive illusion of a great leader is: There is no difference. As a serious complement, it is one of the few times I've seen an author treat leadership as an actual skill, and not simply an extension of a character's charisma. Which is why I'm singling this one out. It might sound like a joke inclusion initially, and the books are quite funny in a Warhammer 40k kind of way, but there is quite a bit of  value to be had.

-Starke

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[bcacstuff]

The ™ Files

Already a bit ago I was checking for some updates in the trademark files, I just didn't get to write about it. So let's see what's going on at the trademarks.

Some updates

Of course The Sassenach in the class for alcoholic beverages was already filed and registered years back. But there are some updates on it. Not all that exciting though it might depend on the country you live in and how much you're eager to get it.

Since October 2024 the trademark is approved and the brand protected in Australia. So, I don't know if they already found a distributor other than the 'smuggler'. But the smuggler most likely can retire soon, and perhaps some 'sassy' events are in the works in the (near) future for the Aussie fans... 🤷‍♀️

Brazil has been filed as well, but is awaiting decision,

No changes for the European Market (EM). Germany as we know has filed opposition succesfully, which means the brand is not protected in the EM as a whole. For the other EU countries protection of the brand is individually granted though. (which means technically they can sell it in other EU countries but need to protect their brand in every country separately as it can not be protected under the flag of the EUIPO).

Something New

Remember his story after Beyonce launched her ow whisky brand?

Jokingly? Hmm or maybe not so jokingly! Clearly someone got the task consulting the attorney about it. Now you can not trademark a bottle (of course) and we all know how 'his' design wasn't that original to begin with. But the smart attorney came up with a satisfying solution by filing a Logo Mark for the bottle.... 🤭

Filed just a couple of weeks after his sarcastic story and awaiting to be assigned to an examiner.

Beyonce's attorneys wont lose a second sleep over it though, it's only a logo and not the bottle design itself that has been filed for a trademark. Now if they were to print T-shirts or caps with that drawing...

Although the logo has been filed in class 33 (alcoholic beverages, except beer) so not even in the class for clothing!^^

More Brewing

Talking about beer! That was actually the trademark I was more curious about and made me look up what was going on.... and that one made me scratch my head a couple of times (and chuckle as well)

Remember this post where I informed you about the filing of the SS trademark in the class 'Beer', while the trademark they already had in that class (but combined with the class for travelguides) was abandoned.

Also note the Serial Number: 88244818 (read on to learn why)

Now the status for the new trademark filed on 20 Feb 2024 (this date is important) in the class beer... see for yourself:

The trademark has the status 'On hold'. Which means there is an issue that ceases further actions by the office and needs to be resolved first.

So time to investigate the issue at hand! Which can be found in the suspension letter received by the owner (and listed in the documents of the USPTO). It told me that:

USPTO database searched; prior-filed potentially conflicting pending application(s) found. The trademark examining attorney searched the USPTO database of registered and pending marks and found no conflicting registered marks that would bar registration under Trademark Act Section 2(d). 15 U.S.C. §1052(d); TMEP §704.02. However, a mark(s) in a prior-filed pending application(s) may bar registration of applicant's mark.

And the mark that was filed prior that may bar registration is:

Right a registration filed by the Angry Scotsman Brewing on 29 May 2020 - 3 months after GGC filed their registration for the mark in the class Beer (serial number 88244818) and therefor the status for the Angry Scotsman's mark got rightfully on hold! Even though the Angry Scotsman opposed the decision (there has been correspondence going on between this applicant and the examiner) at the end the Angry Scotsman's application was put on hold and checked periodically.

Reason for their suspension was the 'prior filing by the application with serial No. 88244818. But as we now know, that application was abandoned since March 18, 2024. GGC filed a new mark in the class beer.... which is now on hold because.... right, the Angry Scotsman's application was filed prior than the new application of GGC....

Do you see why it made me scratch my head? If GGC had not abandoned their mark, there would have been no issue. But as they already reached the maximum extensions for submitting the Statement of Use, I figure they had no other option here.

What makes me wonder now is how this will end, as both applications seems to be stuck in an impasse. The last suspension check for the Angry Scotsman's mark is listed on February 1, 2024, a month before the trademark of GGC was abandoned. So theoretically it should be not be in the way for their mark anymore, though I think there might still be an issue of likelihood of confusion even though the original trademark The Sassenach owned by GGC now isn't filed in the class for beer, only the new one that is filed after the Angry Scotsman's mark.

Note that a mark with the status 'On Hold' is not a refusal for the mark. It means the mark is pending as the office will not proceed until the issue at hand is resolved. In fact it is even recommended to use the trademark while it is pending, as this helps trademark owners demonstrate commercial use of the mark and helps solidify their rights to it.

Which is exactly what the Angry Scotsman Brewing did, and demonstrated to the USTPO as evidence.

source

Though visiting their website I don't see the Sassenach Beer listed anymore nor does it come up in a search on their website.

To be continued I guess? I will keep an eye on it.

Anyway, to be complete, the mark was filed in Europe and Australia as well in the beer class. In Europe all countries except Germany protection is granted. Germany (and with that the EM) is 'Provisionally Refused'. Which means, there is still time to oppose the decision, but imo it will go the same way as the mark registered in the alcoholic beverages class. Australia granted protection though.

To top it all off, while searching things you always stumble on other things, right! Did you know there is already a Sassenach Beer?

Yes, there is. It's a company from Argentina selling this. Even have an IG (since June 2020) and FB account advertising frequently

Not very expensive though, according to their website 🤭

I'll leave it here, I think you got enough for the weekend! 😂

[runabout-river]

It has happened now, a JJK artist on Twitter is in critical condition after being shelled by the Israeli Army in Gaza while sheltering inside a school. Reportedly, she lost an eye.

The screenshot is from a friend who barely manages to keep in contact with Noury with a family member's phone. This of course is Israel's tactic to cut communication from Gaza. The world isn't supposed to see the genocide and at least the amount of reports and eye witness accounts have dropped since because most people simply can't communicate their suffering to the world anymore.

This is the picture Noury drew before Israel decided to finally cleanse the Gaza Strip like it always wanted thanks to an exaggerated death count of a provoked military response, undisclosed shelling by the IOF of their own citizens and lies of 40 beheaded babies.

The caption of this piece of art reads "Please don't take my sunshine away," a response to chapter 236 and Gojo Satoru's apparent death.

Think back to that time. A favorite character of yours dies in a manga and you either draw or look at drawings of him to deal with that. Then a war starts that had been brewing for 75 years because Jewish Extremists and Supremacist with the backing from the war hungry US want you dead.

You know what I thought this entire time? That it's statistically unlikely that the one JJK artist from Gaza that I follow will be a victim in this war. There are 2.2 million people in Gaza but there's only one Noury, so what's the chance that something is going to happen to her?

What an absurd thought that turned out to be. I've been writing and raging on Tumblr about the genocide again and again and I know the severity of it, I know the numbers. I've seen the pictures and videos of dead children with their faces, not their heads, turned over like the pages of a book.

But most of that, the sheer enormity and the scale of it, was still abstract in my mind. Now, outside of the dry and clinical fact of it, the human element made me realize in my heart and mind that this is a genocide.

1 person among 2.2 million getting harmed isn't a statistical probability of 0.00001 percent. It's 100% because everyone is the target. Every Palestinian in Gaza is targeted with deprivation, hunger, thirst, illnesses and bombs. That is ethnic cleansing. That is the threat of genocide.

And the US, the UK and the EU, they're all complicit in this genocide and because I'm from Germany I'm also explicitly saying that Olaf Scholz, Marco Buschmann and Nancy Faeser are also complicit in this new holocaust.

Hopefully Noury will recover and hopefully she and her family and everyone else in Gaza will be able to go back to their homes. Homes btw, that per international law, Israel is supposed to replace or compensate for after destroying them.

Of course you don't need to compensate for anything if no one is there anymore, either because they're dead or they moved to another country involuntaryily.

[fishyvamp]

Consider: Horrible monster Talbot x horrible monster Y/N

Talbot: I don't want that 😺 unless it makes my Geiger counter sounds like it's in the middle of Chernobyl

Y/N: ☢️☢️☢️

I can't believe there's at least two different anons who want him. Maybe more. This is beautiful and nature is healing

The fact that after writing all those blight posts I had vivid dreams of the man trying to seduce me. I think he officially has me in choke hold also immediately after you sent this an entirely different anon from previous sent me a delicious ask that I will be responding to.

Just picturing reader dripping in green ooze, extra arms and eyes littering your body, a smile too wide and sharp. You see him, the killer you had been stalking for weeks from the fog. You so eager to feel him under you, you don't even hesitate tackling him to floor. Your long slimy tongue licking a stripe up his jaw. A pur building in your chest; you wanted him to know that you needed him.

It doesn't take much more before you're pinned against wall, his tentacle cock slamming into your puffy hole over and over again as he has you in a choke hold. "Rud beag eu-dòchasach, Nasty wee thing," his words dripping with Malice as he reduces you to nothing but a toy your combined ooze staining the wall and floor as you spread your legs wider whining for more.

"Cho eu-dòchasach ri cum?" Talbot laughs, "Oh so desperate to cum." The words just falling from his broken jaw. His hips angling upwards as he hits that delicious spot inside over and over again tentacles getting more and more aggressive as the twist and curl inside you drawing out moans and gasps. "Cum for me, cum for me like the desperate Fraochag you are."

If he could smile he would feeling the was you finished around him seeing your mixed fluids drip to the ground and erotic mix of glowing orange and green. He felt so satisfied, but he was far from finished eager to give you everything you had asked for and more. Such a desperate monster letting another monster use you like the cock sleeve you deserved to be.

[spicybleach]

ℰ𝓂𝑜𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃𝒶𝓁𝓁𝓎 𝒰𝓃𝒶𝓋𝒶𝒾𝓁𝒶𝒷𝓁𝑒: ℳ𝑒𝓁𝒾𝓈𝓈𝒶 𝒮𝒸𝒽𝑒𝓂𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉𝒾 𝓍 𝒦𝒶𝓈𝓈𝒶𝓃𝒹𝓇𝒶

As promised,I’m writing this short angst one shot based off my experience with being called EU in a past relationship. Finally got around to writing this and posting about this. Bear with me, I still struggle with this statement and the affects of what my ex gf/fiancée did at the time. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

TW: Angst, Insecurities, Crying, lots of reassurance. Mel comforts me 🥹, YOU WILL BE CRYING by the end of this, sorry 🫶🏾 VERY SMALL SMUT,Quotes directly from the source so this is really real and I want it to be authentic as possible.

Word count: ummm idk.

- 𝘔𝘢𝘺 𝘴𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺 𝘵𝘸𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘺 ~𝘈 𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘩 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬~

𝘒: Honestly since you called me “emotionally unavailable” idk something in me changed. I’ve been trying to fix whatever has/ is happening with me but you’re still frustrated and upset and I understand that I’d be upset too

𝘌𝘹: of course it changed something in you. it would do that to anyone & that’s understandable. it wasn’t to hurt you, more so to enlighten you but i wasn’t sure you understood still. you shouldn’t be trying to fix it alone, it’s a feeling, built up feelings and a lifestyle, you can’t just change it overnight & that’s something i’ve got to understand

𝘌𝘹: it’s very upsetting to see something affect you so much but it happens, i went through it & there’s no difference with you, you’re human & we all process things differently

𝘌𝘹: but lately i’ve been thinking, a lot. i’ve had a lot of time to think about what i want & what i need. i won’t continue to do just to please others around me, and the same will apply to you, i don’t want you feeling the need to just do to please me or anyone else.

𝘒: It doesn’t seem like you understand, you want me to move and be on the same level you are and I’m over here beating myself up for it because I’m not there and because I know how upset you are and how long it’s taken me to shake whatever is happening to me.

𝘌𝘹: it’s hard for me to give so much of myself, just to receive a portion of it back, & that’s how it’s always been. it’s frustrating, but you told me not to give up on you & i’ve been holding out on it because walking away doesn’t solve anything but if it always resolves to me being frustrated and you being overwhelmed and beating yourself up, then maybe we should take a few steps back.

𝘒: I know you didn’t want to hurt me but it did hurt. Because I did realize I wasn’t as emotionally available. Ever since then that’s all I thought about when I wasn’t around you.

𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘦 𝘥𝘪𝘥. 𝘐 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘳𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘺𝘰𝘶. 𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘮𝘺 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘦𝘧𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩. 𝘕𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘮 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥, 𝘪𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘯𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘵, 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘧𝘳𝘦𝘦 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘮 𝘯𝘰𝘵. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘪 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥, 𝘣𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘭𝘥.

𝒫𝓇𝑒𝓈𝑒𝓃𝓉 𝒹𝒶𝓎...

Melissa and Kassandra just got done having the most sweaty, hot, sticky, messy, things that are probably not even legal sex of their lives. Not even Sunday church could wash these sins away.

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *As I reach my peak, my fingers bite down your shoulder, a loud moan escaping my lips as your fingers continue to draw out my high.*

Darling… darling… you’re so…. I feel…. oh…. oh god……

*My body continues to tremble for you, unable to get myself to calm down as I feel your fingers against me still*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Shhh.. it’s okay baby.. I got you *I kiss your lips*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I practically melt against your kiss, my body still quivering and shaking and completely overwhelmed with you. My breath begins to slow as you soothe me with kisses*

Darling….. I…. oh, darling……. that was more than… i.. I can’t.. think…

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: *I chuckle at the sound of you being speechless* * I push you down on the bed so you can catch your breath. I collapse beside you on my back*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I collapse onto my back beside you, my hand instantly reaching out for you as the only thing I can feel is the overwhelming urge to be close to you. I pull you closer to me, my still trembling body pressed up against you as I try to calm down*

Darling…. that was…. I can’t even…..

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: *I look up at your glowing face, I smile. I reach up and caress your face.* yeah?? It was magical..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I press in closer against your touch, my eyes closing as I relish in the way your fingers feel on my skin*

Darling… yes…. it was magical…. it was perfect…. and I… I can’t get enough…..

*I pull you even closer to me, my own breath slowly evening out against your skin as I try to get my breathing back to normal*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: You were amazing.. ugh I can’t get enough of you.. work is going to be so hard tomorrow.. okay *i whine* new rule.. while we’re on school grounds no pda.. I mean hand holding and the occasional kiss is okay but beyond that we have to be professional…

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I pull you into my arms again with a pout at your words, my body flushing again as you describe me as ‘amazing’*

Darling please… don’t talk about work…..

*I bite my lip as I think about the rule for a moment, my grip on you slightly tightening*

Darling….. fine, no pda in school…… but I can’t go that long without touching you, darling…

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I know I don’t like that rule either but to keep us from getting in trouble or loosing our jobs we’re gonna have too baby okay? *I kiss your nose. Gently caressing your hair*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I sigh at your words, knowing that you are right but still not wanting to have any time where I can’t touch you when I need you*

Darling…. Darling I don’t like it…. but you are right…. we can’t risk it…. just…. just promise you won’t make me go too long….

*I gently nuzzle your neck, my body relaxing at the feel of your fingers running though my hair*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I know..but If I were the reason for you loosing your job I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself but if it came to that I’d quit before anything.. I know how much you love being a teacher Mel.

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I sigh softly as I lay my head against your shoulder, my arm wrapping around you tightly as my breathing begins to even out, my body feeling completely relaxed against you*

Darling… if…. if it ever came to that then you would come with me. We’d find new jobs together. You do understand that there is no one else I will allow to touch me like this, right, honey? I can’t and will never give this up…

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I know baby but no, you’d keep your job and I’d find another.. you wouldn’t lose me ever, never.

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I lift my head from your shoulder to look at you in the eyes, a frown on my face at even the thought of you leaving me*

Darling…. Darling I can’t work with any of these idiots without you. I love them.. but I can’t do it without you, I’m not putting up with Gregory and him not liking pizza and Ava and her antics for longer than I have to. I will come with you.

*I kiss you gently on the lips, my frown melting instantly at the feel of your lips*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Barbara is your best friend… absolutely not baby. You two are inseparable.

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My frown turns into a pout as you dismiss my words, my head shaking slightly as I look at you in the eyes*

Darling…. my friendship with her is nothing compared to what we share. Darling…. I don’t care who it is… I can’t do this job without you.

*I pull you even closer, my body completely pressed to yours as I try to make you understand* Please… you gotta understand, sweetheart.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: You won’t have to worry. I’m not gonna be leaving anytime soon or ever okay? Don’t worry about it * I pull you into a tight hug*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I bury my face into your neck tightly in your hug, my body clinging to you as you reassure me, your words causing me to shiver slightly, the thought of losing you sending my heartbeat into a panic*

Darling… I want to believe you…. but…. but never say never….. but I’ll hold onto you for as long as you promise to hold on to me, okay?

*I pull back from your neck to look at you with seriousness in my eyes, needing complete reassurance*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I promise. Oh believe me.. I’ve never broken any promises right?? Why would I start now hm? * I look you in the eyes with a sense of worry*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I look at you with a frown at your question, my face breaking into a mischievous grin as I think of our past. My head starts to shake softly at your question, my fingers trailing down your neck, my tone completely teasing*

Darling…. are you sure you want to ask that question? *I bite back a smirk at you, my eyebrows raising at you*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Oh I’m sure.. have I broken any promises on purpose?? * I look at you with a confused look on my face.*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I hum against your neck playfully at your words, my teeth biting gently as you try to convince me, my body squirming on top of you in happiness*

Darling, you have broken a few promises…. but I suppose it isn’t your fault that you aren’t able to keep them from me… I’m just too good at convincing you…. are you sure you aren’t getting too old to withstand me?

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: You’re right I can’t keep anything from you. I’m positive.. I’ll never get too old for you. I love you too much

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I smile gently at your words, the way you sound so sure makes my heart flutter and my body relax against you, knowing that your words are true. My fingers continue to trace up and down your body softly as I think about you, my face breaking out into a wide smile as I look at you*

Darling you’ve been with me for so long… you know I’m not leaving…. I mean…. I put up with you…

*I smile softly as I kiss you, my hand coming to your face softly*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: How can you not put up with me? *i smile*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *A smirk breaks out onto my face, my fingers trailing down to your chest to playfully poke you, my eyes narrowing in on you*

I have no idea…. I can’t imagine how I’ve dealt with you this long…. your voice, your attitude, your ego….. I don’t know why I do it….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Because??? You.. say it..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I smirk at your words, my voice growing soft as I look down at you. My hand softly strokes across your cheek as my eyes connect with yours*

Because…. Because I love you, darling… now what are you going to do with that information?

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Say I love you back… I love you

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My smile grows wider as I keep looking into your eyes, gently pulling you closer against me. My voice is as gentle as I look into your eyes and whisper to you*

I love you… I love you so much. You are my one…. The only one for me….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I smile resting my head on your chest *

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I wrap my arms around you as you lay against my chest, my fingers threading through your hair tenderly. I lay there for a moment, holding you close and just enjoying the feel of you on top of me. My eyes stare up at the ceiling as I lay against you, your scent surrounding me. My head turns to yours gently, my lips finding the top of your head to press a tender kiss to it*

My love….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Yes baby??

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I sigh softly, my arms tightening around you slightly as the thoughts run though my mind. I gently press another kiss to your temple, my hand gently squeezing your thigh*

Darling…. you’re the only one in this world made for me, you know that?

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I am?.. really? * my eyes light up *

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My breath stutters as joy fills my body at the soft look of surprise on your face at my words, my body pulling yours even closer at your happiness*

Yes, really, my love. You are the only one I want forever, the only one who makes me feel complete. Forever my love, my darling….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Aw… I- I don’t know what to say baby.. * I pout my lip.*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I giggle at your pout, my fingers gently caressing the bottom of your lip, lightly tugging down as I look at you*

Darling, you’re so cute…. why are you pouting? You are just so cute, my love….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Keeping myself from.. crying..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My brows raise at your words, my eyes narrowing in on you, my fingers tracing down your chin, tilting your head up towards me as I look into your eyes*

Darling… why are you trying to hold back tears? Please tell me what’s wrong….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * A single tear escapes from my eyes* you’re- you’re… mmm.. sorry…

I’m not use to having any type of emotional regularity. The last time I even said anything about my feelings, my emotions I was in the wrong. I was made to feel guilty about them.

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My face softens instantly at the feeling of your tear on my thumb, my heart beating faster at the sight of your tears.*

Darling…. my love…. what is wrong? Please… please tell me, don’t hold it in, darling, please….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I close my eyes and take a deep breath in..* okay… um.. you’re just so incredibly amazing to me.. and I’ve never been able to experience a love like this before and it’s all so overwhelming sometimes because.. I can’t even express how I feel into words and… *I start sobbing*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I immediately pull you close against my chest as I hear you start to cry, my arms wrapping tightly around you and holding you to my body. I hold you as tightly as I can in an attempt to comfort you, my fingers soothingly stroking the back of your head*

Oh my love…. my sweet, sweet love….

*My voice is as gentle and soft as possible as I hold you close, not sure what else to say to help soothe you, my body relaxing as you lay against me*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Why do I keep crying like this? This is the second time today! * I laughed a little before I continue to cry in your arms*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I smile softly at the sound of your little laugh as you cry, my hand gently stroking up and down the back of your head in reassurance. I can’t help but laugh with you, a chuckle escaping me before I respond*

Darling, crying is good for the soul! It’s a good way to release emotions. And what did I tell you about apologizing for your emotions? Never apologize when you are expressing your feelings to me…. I want to know how you feel, even… if it brings you to tears.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Do you really?? Or do you think I’m just a big baby?… * I sniff wiping the tears off your chest.*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My head cocks at your words, a small scowl forming on my face at your thought that I wouldn’t want to know how you truly feel. My hand cups your face softly, my thumb gently wiping a stray tear away*

Darling, I don’t think you’re being a big baby…. Why would you even ask that? What could have ever made you think that I wouldn’t want to know how you feel?

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I cry* because people in the past have said I’m too emotional or not emotional enough, I’m quote; ‘ Emotionally Unavailable’. Because I’m afraid you are going to be just like everyone else who promised who wouldn’t leave me and then surprise surprise, you leave! *I pull away from you a bit*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My heart clenches as you speak about the past, a frown covering my face at the thought of those idiots that broke your heart so easily. My hands find your face again, gently pulling you back so you look me in the eyes*

Darling… you are not emotional unavailable… how could you think that? You’re not too emotional… darling you’re perfect. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted, my love. And I would never… ever… leave you. You hear me?

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: No… this is my insecurities getting the best of me and when I let my guard down… * I wipe my eyes.* that’s when shit falls apart! Then I get hurt and then the cycle just continues!!! I’m sorry for yelling at you baby.. I’m sorry

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I shake my head violently at your words, my eyes pleading for you to hear me as my thumb brushes more tears off your cheeks*

Darling, don’t you dare apologize for crying. Don’t you ever apologize for your feelings. I meant what I said, there is nothing to be apologized for. And I would much rather you be open and emotional with me then hold it all in, okay? I want to know how you are feeling my love.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: *I shake my head* it’s not okay baby.. I’m not use to someone being so emotionally responsible like you and then there’s me..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My heart clenches at your words, my breath catching in my throat at the look in your eyes. My lips twitch slightly as you look down, my fingers tracing along your jaw for a moment as I gather my thoughts. When my eyes look back up into yours, they are full of nothing but sincerity and love as I talk*

Darling, please listen to me…. You are emotional, yes, but that is not a bad thing. I don’t mind emotional… in fact… I love emotional.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I don’t know if I can.. * I start sobbing again*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I immediately pull you back into my arms, holding you tightly against you. My chin rests on your shoulder as my arms wrap around you, not saying a word, just holding the trembling form of the woman I love so tightly that I am almost worried I’m squeezing the life from you*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: It’s okay if you don’t want to do this anymore.. I-

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My eyes squeeze shut at your words, my heart practically beating out of my chest as fear floods my body at the thought. My own breath stutters as my grip immediately tightens around you, my head shaking furiously in your neck as I cling to you*

NO. Never…. Never say that to me. You hear me? There is not a place on this planet that will take me from you. I am never leaving you…. Never

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Baby.. you’re just going to.. get tired of me like everyone does. And.. I’m okay with that. *I kiss your cheek lightly *

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My body pulls away at your words, my hands moving to grip your shoulders as I look at you as seriously as I can*

Don’t you EVER say I’m going to get tired of you. You don’t know how wrong you are. All I’ve ever wanted was to find someone like you. So no, I will not get sick of you because I love you. And I will never stop.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I look into it your eyes. I caress your face.* oh.. darling.. tell me how wrong I am then hm?

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My breath catches at the sensation of your hand on my face, my heart swelling at the sweet gesture. I take your hand and raise it up to my lips to press a gentle kiss to your palm, my eyes never leaving yours as I speak*

Darling, you’re so very wrong. I am so in love with you that I will never ever be able to have enough. I don’t care how many years it’s been, one year or twenty….. I will never get tired of you.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I sigh quietly* we’ve been dating all of a couple hours now.. I know you love me and I love you- tell me more on how wrong I am..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My eyebrows raise at your words for a fleeting second before I realize what you are doing, the warmth of my love for you spreading through my body as I gently rest my forehead against yours, my eyes looking into yours seriously as I speak my words with a love and passion that I’ve never held for anyone else*

Darling, we’ve been together as a couple for just a couple of hours, sure… but we’ve been dancing around these feelings for a very… very…. very long time, haven’t we?

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘴𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I open my eyes again and tears weld into them again.* I-

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My heart practically stops at the sight of the tears forming in your eyes again, my arms looping around you in an attempt to soothe you. My thumbs stroke lightly at your cheeks, wiping away any tears before they can trail down your face*

Oh… no… no sobbing… stop crying…. please…

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Please… stop-

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I pull your body close against mine, my fingers gently stroking at the back of your head as I try to hold you as tightly as I can. My head gently rests on top of yours as I whisper to you, my voice soft and gentle*

Darling…. look at me…

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I don’t know- I- If I can..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My voice grows just a little firmer as I speak to you, my eyes pleading with yours as I gently move your head so you can look at me*

Darling, please…. you have to look at me. We will never get anywhere if you just keep your eyes closed. Please… open your eyes and look at me, my love….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I look into your eyes.* what?? They’re open now.. now what?

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My heart calms down as i see your eyes open again, the love and adoration in my own eyes on full display as I look at you*

Darling… the reason I asked you to open your eyes was because I wanted to get to look at you. You’re gorgeous… so beautiful…

*My thumb lightly glides over your now tear stained cheek, before I continue to speak to you, my voice practically a whisper in your ear*

And you’re mine.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I’m- I’m none of those things.. that is all you..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I can’t help the way my heart begins to shatter at your words, my brow furrowing just slightly as I hold back the urge to tell you how wrong you are. A small sigh escapes me, my hand gently tucking a loose piece of your hair behind your ear*

Darling, if you don’t think you’re beautiful then you need to get a new pair of glasses. You’re perfect, darling. No, in fact…. You’re more than perfect. You’re extraordinary and you’re all mine

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: *I scoff a little* I’m not the one who wears glasses.. you are.. I-you- mmm- I

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I can’t help the small smile that starts to form on my face at your small joke, a breathy chuckle escaping me as I look at you, my gaze still so full of love and adoration for you*

Yes, you’re right…. I did forget that I wear glasses, didn’t I? But that’s not what matters right now. Right now what you need to do is listen to me…

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Mmm- * I groan* listening…

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My smile grows wider at your groan, my hand on your chin lifting your face so you’re looking me straight on again, my fingers gently cupping your cheek as I gaze into your eyes*

Darling…. Repeat after me. “I, [insert name] am beautiful and perfect.”

*I smile softly at you, knowing how difficult this will probably be for you*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Mmm I- hmmm… I don’t even compare to how beautiful you are to me…

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I can’t help but shake my head at your comment, a small groan escaping me as i look at your stubborness*

Darling, that is not what I asked. I asked you to repeat what I said. Go on. “I, [insert name] am beautiful and perfect.” We’ll worry about me in a minute. But please, for me, repeat what I said. Do it for me.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I- * I roll my eyes* you know Jesus doesn’t like liars.. how can I say something I don’t find myself as.. how am I suppose to get into heaven with you?

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I can’t help but smile softly at the groan I hear from you, my thumb stroking your soft cheek as I continue to look into your eyes with love and adoration. A small chuckle escapes me as you joke at the thought*

Darling, there is nothing about you that would get you kicked out of Heaven. In fact, just look at you…. You’re an ANGEL. So let me tell you once again, look at me….

*My gaze never leaves your eyes as I wait patiently for you to repeat my words*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: *I grown a little louder again.* Melissa Schemmenti… fine… ugh… I… Kassandra am beautiful and perfect.. happy??

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *As soon as the words leave your mouth the smile blooms wider on my face, my eyes lighting up as you finally say what I wanted to hear and a breathy laugh escapes me. I pull you closer to me, my arms wrapping around your body tightly as I smile at you, my thumbs gently stroking your face again*

Never happier, my love. And if you ever need a reminder of how beautiful and perfect you are, I will be here to tell it to you as many times as you need to hear it.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I bite my lip* mmm.. let me hear it again..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I can’t help the smile that graces my face as I realize what you’re asking me, my heart fluttering with love for you as I stare into your soft, dark eyes. My voice comes out in a whisper, my breath gently tickling your face as I lean in a little closer to you*

You are beautiful. You’re perfect. You’re sweet. You’re kind. You’re smart. And you’re mine.

*My fingers stroke softly at the skin of your cheek again.*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: *I softly smile.* tell me how much you love me?… please…

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I pull you closer and gently nuzzle my nose against yours, my fingers now gently tracing up and down your arm as I look into your eyes and speak to you in a soft whisper*

How much do I love you? I love you from the tips of your messy curls… down to the tips of your perfect toes. In fact, darling, I love you in every fathomable way. And I will not stop loving you. Ever.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Yeah?? Do you now?

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My head moves back a little as I raise an eyebrow at your statement, my eyes widening in disbelief at the possibility that you question my love and devotion to you. A small sigh escapes me as I look at you intensely, my voice practically a whisper as my heart rate begins to speed up.*

You doubt my love for you? How could you question it? I would do anything in the world for you, my love. Anything. And I do mean ANYTHING. That’s how much I care.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: No.. I don’t doubt that.. I just wanna hear you keep saying it..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I can’t help the small grin that forms on my lips as my heart skips a beat at your response. My thumbs gently stroke your cheeks, a shiver coursing through me at the thought of telling you how much I love you over and over again*

In that case, darling, then you will hear it. Again. And again. And again. I love you. I love you more than the moon loves the stars. And I will continue to proclaim my love to you forever and ever, and never get tired.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Mmm.. I love the way you say I love you. The way your.. left eye twitches ever so slightly.. the corner of your lips curling with the words dripping from your voice..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My eyes search your face as you describe the way I say “I love you”, my heart stuttering at the thought of it. I can’t help the small breathy chuckle that escapes me at your comment*

Darling, you’re so observant. I’ve never realized what happens to me when I say “I love you”. My left eye really does twitch like that?

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I nod my head slowly.* yeah… it’s cute actually… it happened this morning when you told me you loved me back..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *A small smile stretches across my lips as you remind me of the first time I said “I love you” back to you. My fingers gently move up to your face, my fingertips gently grazing over the soft skin of your face as my gaze on you grows intense again*

Darling… I’m glad you find it cute because… I’ll be doing it for the rest of our lives.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Oh.. please?

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I can’t help the small breathy chuckle that escapes my throat at your words, my heart swelling when I think about what you’re saying. My thumb gently caresses along your cheek as I look at you*

Darling… I will repeat it until the end of time. I will say “I love you” as often as you want to hear it. Every time you need to hear it. Always and forever, my love… I will love you forever.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Say it a million times more …

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *A wide smile grows on my lips as you speak, my heart practically bursting with love for you as I start to whisper it over and over to you, my hands moving to tangle gently in your hair as I pull you closer to me.*

I love you, darling, I love you… I love you I love you I love you…. I love you.

I love you…. I love you… I will always love you…

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: *I smile big as you tell me how much you love me* Like the Dolly Parton song?!..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *A small breathy chuckle escapes me as I realize the reference you’re making, my smile growing wider as I look up at you and whisper softly once again*

Well… like the Dolly Parton song… but better. Because it’s to you. I will always love you, darling.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘴𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Mmm.. I didn’t know I was better than that iconic song..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *The corner of my mouth quirks up in a small smirk as I let out a small chuckle, my fingers gently running from your hair and down your back, resting on the small of your back*

Oh darling…. of course you’re better than that song. Because instead of some random person saying they’ve loved someone for a hundred lifetimes, you’ve got me, declaring that I will love you for a million lifetimes to come. So yes. You are better than that song.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: *I kiss your nose. I pout my lip* Baby… you mean all that? Really?

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *Your kiss on my nose makes butterflies flutter in my stomach and as you pout at me in question, I can’t help but smile at you once again*

Yes, love…. I mean every single word that comes out of my mouth. I will love you for eternity, for a million lifetimes to come. Nothing will ever change that. You will always, always, always have my love, darling. You will always have me….

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I love you.. so much baby.. I’m sorry.. again * I pull you into a tight hug*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My body fits perfectly against yours in your tight hug and a content sigh escapes me as I bury my face in your hair, the smell of your shampoo filling my nose as I hold you close*

I love you, my darling. I love you…. And you have nothing to be sorry about. Nothing you could ever do would make me love you any less, darling.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I do.. I’m sorry for yelling at you. I’m sorry if I didn’t make it seem like I didn’t love you I’m- sorry

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I pull away slightly from the hug to look at you as you speak, my gaze soft and tender as I listen to you.*

Darling you have absolutely *nothing* to be sorry for. I should be sorry for not showing you that you were perfect. I should’ve done that from the start. *I pull you into me again, nuzzling my nose against you again as I speak softly, my warm breath tickling your neck and ear*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘴𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: You have shown me.. I’m the one who was too blind to see…

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *The sound of your muttered words makes me shake my head softly, my hand gently running up and down your back as I speak*

Darling…. You’ve got to stop blaming yourself. There is absolutely *nothing* wrong in that beautiful little mind of yours. You’re perfect just as you are and you will always be perfect to me.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I can’t help it.. I’m sorry baby.. I’ll do better I promise..

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *The softness in my voice becomes more firm as I stare at you intently, refusing to let you blame yourself for the situation*

No, baby *you’re* the one that doesn’t have to apologize. It’s *me* who needs to apologize for not making sure you felt beautiful and perfect all the time. You’re perfect, darling, don’t ever think you’re anything but.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Baby… you do make me feel all those things and more..it’s my fault

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *The small frown on my face immediately deepens as you continue to blame yourself while refusing to listen to me.*

No, darling, it is not your fault. And I will continue to tell you that it’s *not your fault* until I die. So don’t you worry your pretty little head over it, ok, baby?

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘴𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Mmm… you know I will… I’m stubborn like.. you. * I kiss your face*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *A wide smile appears on my face at your words and as you kiss me, my hand gently tracing along your jawline*

Darling, we are both the same kind of stubborn, aren’t we? *a small chuckle escapes me* I love that about you, though. It’s adorable.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴����𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Mmm.. I think you’re more stubborn but I digress. It is? Maybe I’ll be more stubborn often yeah?

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *I can’t help the small laugh that escapes me at your comment, my eyes twinkling as I stare at you*

Darling, I am not more stubborn than you. I love your stubbornness, but I’ll continue to tell you how perfect and beautiful you are, so try as I might, it will be difficult to get you to be more stubborn.

*I nuzzle my nose against yours affectionately before I gently press my lips against your skin, kissing softly.*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘴𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: And where did you think I learned from?? You. The best there ever was.. * i lightly kiss your jaw*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *A small content sigh escapes me at your soft kiss and as I gently grip the back of your neck in my hand so that I can keep you close, my breath hitches*

Baby…. The best there ever was… *my hand runs softly down your back, lingering on your butt, my eyes sparkling with adoration as my heart bursts with love for you.*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: Mhmmm, that’s you. * I wrap my arms around you tightly*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *The way you cling to me so tightly causes me to pull you even more closely to me, wrapping my arms firmly around your body and holding you close*

You’re right, darling. *I whisper quietly as I softly nuzzle my face against yours, placing soft kisses along it*

That’s me. Because I’d do anything for you, darling. Anything…. *my breath hitches and I can feel my heart beating faster*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: I.. love you so much.. you’re an angel.. * I stare into your eyes*

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: Mmm…. Darling *I can’t help the way my heart skips a beat as you stare at me so intently, my hand moving to gently cup your chin, my thumb gently grazing over your cheek and the corner of your lip*

I would gladly give up heaven if it meant being with you, my love. *I pull you softly into me, my lips gently brushing over yours*

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: * I kiss your nose repeatedly.* I know you’re gonna get there, I’ll make sure of it. But now you’re just my heaven on earth.

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *A small breathy chuckle escapes me as your lips press onto my nose over and over again, my gaze growing soft and tender as I stare lovingly at you*

Darling… I love you so much. You’re the love of my life, darling. And I would spend forever being your heaven on earth, as long as you’d let me be.

𝘒𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘳𝘢: You’re mine forever.

𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢: *My heart practically soars at your words and as I hold you tight, a soft, happy sigh escapes me, a tender smile growing on my lips as I look at you*

I’m yours forever. And don’t you forget it, darling. *I gently brush my lips against yours, before pulling away and burying my face against your neck, pressing soft kisses there*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝘍𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥, 𝘔𝘦𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘭𝘺. 𝘈𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘮𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘦𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰̀ 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

𝘈𝘭𝘳𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘴𝘰 𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘥𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 𝘪𝘴 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥, 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢 𝘭𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘦 𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘩𝘺𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺. 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘭𝘭 ❤️

𝘛𝘢𝘨𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘵: @sasheemo @privatetruths @winters-witch24 @meowmeowhissss @schemmentis @morgana-larkin @sebcheb

𝘓𝘦𝘵 𝘮𝘦 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘣𝘦 𝘵𝘢𝘨𝘨𝘦𝘥!!! 𝘏𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘺 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 ✨

[charmwasjess]

For the ask game - 5, 7, 18 for dooku?

5) Out of all your fanworks that include Dooku, which is your favourite?

If I had to tell people to just read one of my Dooku fics, I think it would be Milk Run.

I think it's my best Jedi Dooku character work, and I loved writing his dynamics with Qui-Gon, Jocasta Nu, and Sifo-Dyas. It's a longer work, but hey, fuck being self-deprecating, I'd vouch for every page of that shit: if someone gets to the end of chapter two, where Dooku very awkwardly and earnestly tries to explain Jedi sex life to Qui-Gon, and doesn't love the fic by then, I'll give the reader a free coupon for… uh, *turns out pockets* I guess an essay on Legends/EU. :D :D ??

7)Is there a piece of clothing you think Dooku is particularly fond of/that you imagine them wearing a lot or like to draw them in?

I go with the characterization from the novels that Dooku is very fastidious about his Jedi uniform, keeping it all neat and perfect, very rarely if ever out of uniform. Like Sifo-Dyas and Jocasta Nu's depictions, he's got those warmer colored tan/gold/cream/warm brown Jedi tunics with the little flourishy gold detail work on the sleeves and hems.

I like this because it's fun to write the rare times when he needs to be out of uniform for a mission or something, and he's completely awkward about it. And it's fun foil with my headcanon that Sifo-Dyas is out of uniform a LOT with his underworld work. I like imagining them side by side looking like they came out of different eras.

Seer of the Cosmic Force, fated to speak with the froth of doom on his lips? No, it's that guy over there in the hoodie and the manbun, trying to convince the barista to take a coupon for a complimentary drip coffee but instead give him a free extra large matcha frappe with a five squirts of coconut syrup and extra whip.

18)Type Dooku's name and tell us what the autocomplete suggests as the next word

You know, I tried this in my SMS to see if it would give me a different answer than my previous, and got "Dooku cleaned"

Hmmmmmmm. *making direct eye contact with Sifo-Dyas*

[peachykoii]

…

I–

All right, y’all, I’ve got some things to say.

Spoilers for ramblings about Dislyte Unknown Collection Story Mode:

First, some positives!

• There were some pretty interesting concepts introduced: Raven having premonition and memory-erasing powers, using her wings + comet/shooting star + all how it influences the EU: the use of stone tablets, giving out only pieces of information to the public, not interfering with the future, etc.

• I liked how the Esper Union felt more gray aligned than straight up black or white considering its origins.

• I enjoyed seeing Triki a bit fleshed out, but let me just say that I'm biased about this because I literally don't have him yet so I don't know too much about him aside from the basics. A little disappointed to not have seen the whole crew. I was also hoping to see Zora and Ren Shi too. 😭😭 I will say, I can appreciate Yamato just coming around to be a menace and have fun, lol

• The silly and cute things like the Draw and Guess game, Tevor’s photo with Hilda??? (When and how even was this/could this happen, lol), commander Xuan Pin post-Immortal Fire and her relationship with Mateo, Alexa and Abigail having their moments together, and Alexa being a Wattpad writer amateur romance novelist on the side, lol.

• Lots of lovely and memorable artwork especially! Sachiko was obviously the devs’ favorite since they drew her so adorably, lol Assassin’s Creed reference?

Negatives.

• Y’all… This felt like an alternate universe rather than an addition to literally everything we’ve ever been introduced to in canon, so I’m just going to treat it as such. I could've avoided this and wouldn’t missed out on anything.

• Also, as interesting as it is, Raven being clairvoyant came out of nowhere, lol There’s no mention, reference, or anything anywhere suggesting this in Dislyte canon, besides the fact that Odin (Norse Mythology) has that ability. I do miss her bike and wolf though, lol The [Player] character gave more Mary Sue isekai’d into the game vibes rather than someone literally not from this world who’s experiencing Grandis and Miracles for the first time. If Markiplier can be canon in the universe but not in a weird way, then they could’ve done something along those lines for him too. Why exactly did Tang Na turn into a “Miramon”? Usually, overdrawing on your powers (could) just kill(s) you like in Gaius’ or Leora’s event. I guess it changed for then humanity/divinity balance. Where’s Discboom? She could’ve been a good lock instead. 😔😔

• What was going on with the writing and pacing? There were lots of typos, weird wording, and kind of a strange flow from chapter to chapter. Maybe localization editing was rushed? Like, I could appreciate trying a new style, but it also felt off-putting a lot of times and not as cohesive or seamless as it could’ve been. The Shackled Collection, the OG story mode, was much better in this regard. And then, there’s…

The ending…

• Honestly, it’s a bit hard to play devil’s advocate with that ending because from the standpoint of a first-time new player, who hasn’t been through Gaius’, Norah’s, or Embla’s event, the OG main story/Shackled Collection, or any other big lore heavy events, it might feel like “whoa, plot twist! That’s interesting!” But it’s still a little lackluster.

As a long time player whose way too DEEP and invested in Dislyte lore, characters, and world building, I was very disappointed.

I mean, he didn’t even have a hinted-at “I want” moment or off-putting conversation with the [Player] to help build it up. All the Anesidora moments literally could’ve been her talking to Embla or Hyde for all I know. I think that I needed better breadcrumbs not because I didn’t see the twist coming, but because it didn't really pay off. As if they chose him to be the villain for the sake of shock value instead of any substance. Why does he want the power? Gaius. Union Hub Director and Researcher Gaius? He was just like, “Good job, Mayor Abigail. Pot, kettle. Yes, I’m bad. AND I want a new world order. 😈😈 What'd you wish for, Sachiko!???” And was anti-climatically blasted away.

The Shadow Decree is more than just “bwahaha evil villainy because evil” kind of people and we’ve seen that several times now so there was a lot to work with. Personally, I’m anti-evil Gaius, but if they wanted to make it a bit more believable, here’s three different scenarios off the top of my head that fits Gaius’ personality and the whole fate theme going on.

1. Desperate Gaius “It’s been more than a decade of fighting and failure and bloodshed. I’m tired of seeing Raven hurt because of her [powers™] and witnessing both the Esper Union and SD fail at achieving what for mere humans and Espers is impossible. But then, I remembered Hannah’s private research from long ago all this time about [insert gate of promotion info to explain how that even cropped up]. And it was all true. Yamato finding [Player], Raven’s vision, and Abigail’s intel confirmed that even further. Hyde, not believing in [insert gate and wish stuff], had tried to counter it with his artificial esper project, but it devolved into something entirely different [insert Sieg]. But I knew if I wanted to prove it, I needed to take measures beyond just the Union’s resources. So, I reached out to Yamato and Hyde and the rest was history. Hannah told me that I could use my powers for good. With the full power of the Starlight’s Miracle Nexus, I can save this world from the havoc and turmoil the Miracles created — by making a new one.”

Or like, 2. Slightly Ominous Positivity™ Derails into Deluded Gaius, “Don’t worry, Raven and [Player]. Just as I trust you, trust me. Even if that was her final premonition, I trust that all will play out according to fate. If fate brought us [Esper Seven] together, if it brought Hannah into my life, then I know that it will lead me to where I need to be to help everyone that I can.” Slowly turns into obsessive, corrupted selfishness as he stresses over of Raven’s prophecy, learning about the Gate of Promotion does through Yamato and the Shadow Decree, corrupted with thoughts of its unlimited potential and what it can do for him; “Can you believe it? Fate brought us to the Starlight Miracle’s Nexus that can grant me the power to do anything. Raven was wrong. This is true destiny [taking all the divine power for himself]. Hannah, give me the strength to best this fate like you did for me to save everyone. I will succeed no matter who’s against me!”

Heck, even a 3. Turned His Back on the Light to Save His Friends Gaius “They’re my friends. Us Seven have been through more than you [Player] can ever imagine. So, when Hyde and Embla came to us [Raven and Gaius] with a truce and told me that we could use this power for actual good for the world... I had to make a decision. One that could change the fate of everything Raven knew, regardless of what she saw, but be our only chance at saving everything. I know Raven would never forgive me after what I did… especially to her… but as the Esper Union Hub Director, I will do anything and sacrifice everything I have to save as many people as I can, even if it means colluding and sinking to the darkest places. Even breaking bread with the dark forces I once knew as my comrades. I promised Hannah that I would help others. You need to understand that the ends will always justify the means.”

Or something like that since we know he can be incredibly selfless/borderline sacrificial when it comes to saving people close to him and up keeping this position. Also, is Leora’s backstory still the same bc I feel like she would’ve already tried to tell everyone about Gaius being a shadow councilor when she defected since she was mentored by Embla, a shadow councilor. They hold annual end of year All-Hands, for crying out loud, lmfaooo Ain’t no way she didn’t know.

I don’t know, y’all. I’m just rambling at this point.

I really needed the seasoning Gaius was missing in his life if they’re going to make him bad. He wasn’t a very compelling bad guy. 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

Furthermore, it felt like they potentially retrofitted the general Dislyte lore/world building for a lot of stuff?

For me, one of the biggest things was everything around the Gate of Promotion in the Nexus. “The Miracle Nexus, the source of all Miracles,” Mkay, but how did they learn about the Gates? How did Narmer and Cang Ji, dudes who LOVE researching and exploring Miracles, not find it or learn about it years before? It’s been about 10+ years since the whole Miracle-Miramon situation began when the Esper Seven explored Miracle Prime and you’re telling me that supposedly somehow only now Yamato, Gaius, Raven, Abigail and the SD know about the Gates? And if Raven’s premonition gave that info, that still doesn’t explain why everyone else knew about it before then like Xuan Pin, Abigail, and Yamato. And about the lock too. Who gave everyone this knowledge? Like, Did the [Player] character come with a manual that Yamato’s been making leaks of or something, lol? He’s supposed to be a whole ‘Miracle destroyer’ and no one else is interested in that?

All in all, all I can say is that it was a choice and I had fun if I just think of it as an OVA or Isekai AU or something.

Bonus pics bc Hall’s censored for some reason lol AND my bby girl, Jiang Man, is looking cute here.

[david-talks-sw]

any new Star Wars essays in the making, or are you moving on?

I don't know, honestly.

Part of it is "life gets in the way," I'm working a lot and so whatever time I have left is spent just messing around or meeting with my loved ones.

I've got a bunch of stuff in my drafts. I don't mind sharing it here, most recent to oldest:

Sort of a joke post of me pointing out how stressful being George Lucas' producer must've been, like this guy really DIDN'T WANT to write his fucking scripts, did he? Poor Rick McCallum. Abandoned because who gives a crap.

'Ask' reply on how EU-fueled fandom perception of the Jedi was flipped by the prequels.

'Ask' reply about the themes in Ahsoka and why the show doesn't know what it's about. Problem is, I go about it starting from the basics, so nobody's gonna sit through reading a tematic breakdown of the first Pirates of the Carribean movie, The Batman and the original six Star Wars films before I even get to the show at hand.

"Part II" post about what Ahsoka, Rebels and TCW get right about lightsaber duels, which the Prequels never did.

Quote collection & analysis on just how complex the Prequels were meant to be (in the late 80s, Lucas intimated that the Sequels were the story that was supposed to have gray morality, not the Prequels)

Quote collection on how the themes and principles of Star Wars align with Lucas' own opinions and philosophies.

Quote collection on Lucas defining Anakin's flaws.

Quote collection on Lucas talking about the fact that we need to be more proactive, which aligns with what Lumi points out sometimes about the Jedi: they should've been more politically engaged because we all should be.

Why I approach Lucas as "word of god".

Personal life/joke-y post dating from the time of the WGA strike about how Jack Black's School of Rock lyrics "In his heart he knew, the artist must be true, but the legend of the rent was way past due!" applied to me. Abandoned because I didn't wanna bum everyone out.

Correcting the notion that Dark Times-era Jedi such as Kanan or Ezra or Ahsoka represent what Jedi were supposed to be.

A comprehensive end-all outlook on how Anakin's flaws all tie together. I've written this one twice and I don't know how to differentiate it from my other posts.

A secret "Part 3" to my TLJ Luke post, in which I point out that RJ's being too "indie", while being a strong point for a big chunk of the film, hampers the film's ability to make Luke feel as badass as he does on paper. I want to illustrate a storyboard for this one, but that takes time.

The evolution of Star Wars' approach to transmedia.

Debunking Star Wars myths: a (very) comprehensive outlook on children in the Jedi Order.

Problem is that only like 2/3rds of these are fully-written... and I still need to find the relevant clips, turn them into GIFs, etc etc.

There's many other interesting Asks in my inbox btw. But I'm already behind on all these, so I haven't begun to touch them.

Then there's the drawings.

I wanna draw a comic of the meeting between Yoda and Dooku in Dark Rendezvous. I wanna finish the comic fight between Maul and Ben. I wanna draw Mace, Shaak Ti, I've got a Luminara fan-art that was supposed to be ready for Jedi June 2022 and an Anakin drawing that looks weird. No time, nor am I skilled enough. (Like, I trace, that's what I do, it's not a secret I've said so before... but it takes me a long while to do so. I'm not fast at drawing, let alone coloring.) I could commission some of these, but there are obvious obstacles there.

There's fun tidbits I've discovered here and there but nobody will care about them and I usually try to not drown my blog with bs posts.

Then there's the bigger problem.

All the things I've listed above? I'm not 100% motivated to finish. But a lot of the new stuff I wanna write about is hella negative.

I had a lot of stuff I wanted to say about Ahsoka. But it wasn't all good. It was mostly me bitching, be it about the show or the fandom's reactions to it.

I've also got more stuff to say about Filoni's take on Star Wars, but I've talked about why it's inaccurate like 8 times already, and I don't actually dislike the guy, like there's plenty of things he knows and does that I think are awesome but also people won't stop putting him and his takes on a pedestal and--

oh shit, there's Acolyte too, I forgot about that, gray morality galore, here we come. But here too, like... I've talked a couple of times about why this entire gray morality thing is actually just the gen X-ers trying to make the prequels "cool" and "complex". but I've never explored properly, with quotes and research and shit. but i've talked about it so many times that at this point it'd end up like the Filoni rants, redundant. "we get it already." as if this show didn't have haters lined round the block for absolutely sexist reasons.

Don't get me started on the mountain of lies and/or idiocy that is the YouTuber Star Wars Theory.

And yet he said one thing a few months ago which struck a chord within me and it's the fact that Andor is awesome, excels on all levels because it's treated seriously, like a proper show, not a Disney Plus one... why wasn't Obi-Wan Kenobi? Why wasn't Book of Boba Fett? And I've already established multiple times that I enjoyed Kenobi (yes, including the Reva parts) and I've established that I know what they were going for in Fett and I've established that this is mainly a "Disney Plus didn't know how to structure a fucking show pre-WGA strike" issue more than anything else... but when I think about how these could've been treated instead? When I look at the characterizations and emotional stakes of like Fargo Season 5? It's infuriating. Because it's not bad (talking about Kenobi, BOBF is awful)... but it could've been EXCELLENT and instead it was just "okay" to "good".

I just miss live action lightsaber duels, man. Like, good ones.

and i dunno. maybe I should just let it rip on all this. "go off, king!"

but I think there's so much negativity re: Star Wars that adding my thoughts on these subjects, no matter how structured and reason, will just blend into a wave of needless, un-constructive hate.

maybe I should finish the writings in the drafts and just post them with no gifs, maybe just still images?

but doing any of that feels like a step back.

So that's where I'm at right now.

[queer-and-nerdy]

this has been tumbling around in my mind for the last week so now i have to expose all of you to it. shoutout to @wellgoslowly for listening to this in person

lockwood LOVES listening to classic rock and metal (as well as a few older pop-punk but he'll never admit to it). anything from the seventies and eighties (he pretends that no other era of metal exists and if you even say the phrase "nu metal" around him he WILL see red and draw his rapier). it doesn't matter who the band is or what subgenre they are, as long as the song was released pre-nineties he loves it, although he tends to prefer more mainstream bands and artists (respect) like ozzy osbourne, judas priest, kiss, etc. the only band he will break this rule for is metallica - they are his all-time favorite band and i will die on that hill. and when i say he WORSHIPS james hetfield... that is an UNDERSTATEMENT. james is like a pseudo-father to him. he doesn't want to put posters on his walls so he keeps a scrapbook of pictures cut out of old magazines of james, lars, kirk, cliff, even jason and rob. he is a number one dave mustaine hater and will defend lars's drumming skills until he's blue in the face. lucy got him a signed copy of ride the lightning for his birthday one year and george didn't see either of them leave lockwood's room for a week. there are only three things he loves in this world: his family, his friends, and james hetfield.

lucy, i feel like, has the most whiplash taste in music. like, yes, we can all agree lucy is your average indie pop listener and i am a major supporter of that hc (i know what linnie’s playlists sound like) but i guarantee you when she shuffles her most-listened-to playlist it goes from crane wives immediately to cannibal corpse. she loves death metal, deathcore, goregrind; the nastier the better (except for black metal - iykyk). the era doesn’t matter to her either although she tends to gravitate toward the older stuff. think opeth, cryptosy, morbid angel, deicide, obituary, venom, slayer, even xavlegimaofffassssitimiwoanindutroabcwapwaeiippohfffx - she loves playing the “can i figure out the name of the band given the logo” game and if she loses she listens to them. she finds it a great way to unleash her stress and anger without hurting herself or others or even taking it out on a case. she doesn't like to mosh (autism) but she loves watching people in the pit at concerts. she drags lockwood and george to the store to help her pick out plushies to give to corpsegrinder. one night she goes to a taylor swift concert and rushes out at the end to make it to sanguisugabogg in time. she's also a big female-rage/female-led fan (fem supporting fem yk how it is). if there is even a single fem-presenting band member she is instantly ride-or-die (within reason, of course). any time conquer divide/castrator/cyrpta do an eu tour she essentially becomes a roadie.

george. oh, george. my beloved kin. the only one who understands me and i him. his taste in rock and metal is... i don't know a better way to describe it other than neurodivergent fruity. it needs to have some kind of element to it that he can latch onto other than just the music - costumes, over-the-top production, detailed lore, etc. like lockwood, he doesn't really care about the subgenre; as long as he likes the sound he'll listen. he tends to frequent more of the nu/prog/melodic/symphonic side of metal, though. he's your average autistic ghost fan and makes it everyone else's problem. he knows all the lore and has dedicated his life to every incarnation of papa (primo is his favorite but he loves them all). he can tell the ghouls in every era apart in an instant and is a consistent quintessence ghoul kinnie. he will not hesitate to get into twitter beef to defend his opinions (bro's in the trenches of toxic ghostwt). he's one of the most well-known ghost accounts on every social media platform and actively writes fanfiction (about the characters, NOT the real people), character analyses, and essays. he's also a HUGE sleep token fan (he understands their lore better than vessel himself and has created a youtube commentary channel just to break down each of their songs) and ice nine kills fan (he's a number one ricky armellino lover and has forced lockwood and lucy to watch all of the horror movies that the silver scream one and two are based off of). he loves avatar and made his own ringmaster costume (lucy walked in on him trying to recreate johannes's makeup and slowly backed out of the room; the situation was never mentioned again) and when chris motionless unveiled his new hair he screamed so loud that the others thought someone had broken into portland row (lockwood had to restrain him while lucy hid his laptop to prevent him from ordering purple hair dye). he has a ziplock bag of (definitely expired) marshmallows that he calls his “rammstein concert care package.” he pretends to be a gatekeeper but the instant someone mentions even a passing interest in any of his favorite bands he will burst into tears.

skull enjoys smooth jazz.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

As promised here, I'm continuing a series of posts on NewJeans and why I think the group holds real potential. What I want to briefly talk about this time, is the quality of their music.

Credit: @/haerin1sta

*

Not exactly sure how this is going to come across, but the truth is very few groups in k-pop give me a quality sonic experience. I mean, for a lot of groups, I get no joy from playing them out loud in my space. BTS is one group where the music is so dynamic, textured and layered... I know this probably sounds pretentious, but BTS's music is the perfect blend of cohesive + complex + simple to suit my taste. I enjoy sitting back in my living room, dimming the lights and drawing the blinds, to hear Dis-ease play over my Bowers & Wilkins 800 D4 speakers. It feels like an actual pleasure. I get this with BTS, nearly every time. There's a handful of other groups whose songs I sometimes feel this way about, but there's been no other group that consistently gets me this way lately more than NewJeans.

At least I'm pretty sure there's no other group that gets me to break out a subwoofer more than NewJeans, after BTS.

All their songs have such a deep and rich bass.

It's almost sickening. Listen, k-pop has done R&B for years. The sound isn't new to the industry by any means, but the way NewJeans does R&B you can tell whoever makes their shit, cette personne a eu le cœur brisé par une personne noire.

Take for example a song like ASAP. That moment the bass comes in at 0:40, during the chorus - it sounds heavenly on my speakers. The whole song feels kinda magical and odd, like Christmas in July, and I suspect one reason why is the chord progression which I recognize to follow that of many Christmas hymns... and the deep heavy bass.

You might not hear it right in this clip because of how Youtube compresses their sound, but I think one can still tell the pitch shifts slightly. The tweaky game-beat percussion that fills up the rest of the song feels disorienting but that's also the point. By the time the second chorus comes in, the contrast it creates feels like you're diving into a pool of cool water on a hot day. It's so good. It's like that weird genre-mix thing SM likes to do in their songs, but with NewJeans it's so much more effortless, weirder, and cooler.

*

This is Minji.

*

This is Danielle.

*

This is Haerin.

*

This is Hyein.

*

This is Hanni.

*

All five girls have clean, clear vocals and very distinct vocal colours. One reason their music is so good, is because all their songs put an emphasis on their vocals. For example, listen to the pulled stems for Hurt.

The first 2 minutes and 50 seconds is pure acappella heaven, and then you realize it's placed in the center. The mix is so full and centered, it's perfect. The other stems in the video from 2:50 too are such a delight to listen to.

The sense of easy excellence is everywhere in NewJeans' sound and concept. They don't need to force anything, they don't need crazy ornamental riffs, or ridiculous beat switches to capture and hold attention. All the harmonizing that needs to be done is already in the music. It's simple and for that reason, good. Hurt for example is just a well made song.

It's so fun to play in the car. It sounds like a joint Andre 3000 would produce.

Another song that absolutely blows me away when I play it, is Cookie. Can you even try to imagine what the intro on Cookie sounds like with subwoofers?

It's mad.

*

Ador encourages the girls to fully participate in several aspects, from songwriting (the members have been writing their songs since debut and 4 out of 5 members are credited on their songs so far), to making their choreography, to applying their ideas towards their marketing. It's really remarkable for a rookie group, but I also feel this is a culture HYBE has been trying to create at all their sub-labels.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to more music from NewJeans. Get Up was a solid treat - my ranking of the songs on it so far:

New Jeans

Cool with You & Get Up

ASAP

ETA

Super Shy

*

(Haerin - dancer and vocalist)

*

(Danielle - dancer and vocalist)

*

(Hyein - dancer, vocalist, and maknae)

*

(Hanni - dancer and vocalist)

*

(Minji - dancer and vocalist)

*

(I don't have a bias in NewJeans. And that's the first sign for me that this is a solid group.)

[rabiscosdagodoy]

[Pt-Br 🇧🇷 BELLOW↓] Hello D&D people on tumblr! So I've made a D&D poster for a thing of the place that I take drawing classes that we should do a game poster. And I created 3 character for the poster (that I haven't posted yet, 'cause I might polish a little more so I get more satified with the final look before putting it on my portifolio, since due to some college stuff that happend on the same time, the best I could do at the time was definitely not my best in general) and this is a sketch of one of the character (I tried to make the pic look as good as possible my camera is not very good and I'm sketching with a light colour). And I want to give her a name but I don't have ANY ideas.

So what name do you thing that machts with her or that you thing that would be her name?

Things about her that might help: she is a tiefiling bard, autistic and high abilities on bard magic (althoug I don't realy know if this last 2 are realy helpful but they seamed important, also I'm acceptin tips for writing autistic characters from people who have already played autistic character and ESPECIALY from autistic players, I'm ADHD so I can't realy use my own esperience on this case), she has pink skin and lilac/light purple hair, she was adopted and raised by a druid halfling family (so she also speaks halfling, has some habits that tiefilings don't have but halflings do, halfling last name), have a lot of floral elements on her clothes (not realy visible since it is a sketch) and her intruments are a 12 string guitar, a lira da braccio and a wind instrument that i didn't decided wet.

Also I have never played D&D so I did my best to undertand the players book parts that needed in a short amount of time, so somethings are not rules accurate. (and i kinda wanna play now lol)

[Pt-Br 🇧🇷→] E aí galerinhas de D&D! Então, eu meio q fiz um pôster de D&D pra um negócio do lugar onde faço aulas de desenho de pôster de jogos. E criei 3 personagens para o pôster (q ainda não postei, pq quero polir um pouco mais para ficar mais satisfeita com o resultado final antes de colocar no meu portfólio, pq por causa de umas coisas de faculdade q rolaram ao mesmo tempo, o melhor que pude fazer na época definitivamente não foi o meu melhor no geral) e este é um skech de uma das personagens (tentei deixar a foto o melhor possível, minha câmera não é muito boa e eu estou usando uma cor clara). E eu quero dar um nome a ela, mas não tenho NENHUMA ideia.

Então, que nome você acha que combina com ela ou que seria o nome dela?

Coisas que podem ajudar: ela é uma barda tiefiling, autista e com altas habilidades em magia de bardo (eu não sei se essas duas últimas coisas são mt úteis, mas pareceu importante), tem pele rosa cabelo lilás/roxo claro, ela foi adotada e criada por uma família hafiling de duidas, então ela também fala halfling, tem alguns hábitos que os tiefilings não têm, mas os halflings têm, tem um sobrenome halfling, tem muitas coisas florais nas roupas (não da pra ver direito, pq é um rascunho) e os instrumentos dela são um violão de 12 cordas, uma lira da braccio e um instrumento de sopro que eu não decidi ainda.

E eu nunca joguei D&D, então tentei entender as partes do livro dos jogadores que eu precisava em um pouco tempo, ent algumas coisas não devem estar certas de acordo com as regras. (e eu meio que quero jogar d&d agora rs)

[arthurs-notes]

Linguistic Identity: Existential Crisis of Polylingual People

I remmener the day I've written my first article for the syg.ma project. It was a rainy day, I was sad and to overcome this blue mood I've pushed myself towards writing. I would like to share my work with you. I think that I gonna continue to share my texts like that with you guys, just let me know what do you think about it.

In nowadays reality linguistic questions appear more seldom than usual. I observed that my Instagram feed was submerged with different posts concerning linguistic identity. The era of globalization, mass migration, provoked by the War in Ukraine, economic crisis all these factors increase drastically the level of migration, according to the EU’s migration poll. [1] 

Subsequently, I was touched by this trend. I have a lot of friends from different countries and some of them use several language codes in their daily life. The least numerous group of my friends is polylingual. One week ago, we discussed what we think about the sociolinguistic point of the actual conflict. The situation is particularly interesting: the most frequently recalled question was “who am I and what is my mother tongue?”. On one hand, the answer is simple “a mother tongue is the language that you use in your everyday life” or “a mother tongue is a language that you use to think”. But what should you conceive if a person uses several languages to think and to communicate if this very person lives in two, three, or even four different linguistic realities? Who is he/she/they? 

To answer this tricky eternal question, I will enlighten several concepts that I consider to be abstract and they need several levels of determination to be analyzed. Firstly, I am going to talk about linguistic identity itself and how it affects our lives, then, I would like to be precise about what is it like to be a polylingual person, after we are going to look at how migration changes the context of existence and the perception of reality. Finally, we are going to clash all these three parts of your cognition in the conflict of identity crises, we will see how the pluralism of assimilation could change each static universals into always changeable substance.

2. Linguistic identity

When I heard the expression of “Linguistic identity” for the first time I was really surprised. Primo, this term comprises ‘identity”, something that we have already heard about. Putting it simply, that’s the way we see the world, our relation to life, and the way to live it. Second, the linguistic part pushes us to suppose that it specifies the given concept by adding the image of language. However, this is not as simple as it could seem. 

First of all, we need to understand that “identity” in language learning research is not a concept but a construct that is way more complex than an object because it takes part in social interaction, not only in perceiving reality. The language constructs a meta-person’s relationships across time, and space and changes the vision of a person’s identity and its vision of the future. The identity, at the same time, influences the language of a meta-person, by modifying lexical preferences, grammar, and syntax. They are linked and cannot exist one without another. [2]

To imagine this in a better way, try to draw a picture in your mind where the identity sphere has a language part inside and the language one has an identity part inside. Depending on a starting point of analysis, we can consider “identity” or “language” as a nucleus or a periphery, or form and content 

This language duality was firstly described in “Cours de Linguistique Généralé” by Ferdinand de Saussure. Using the introspective approach, we can observe that “identity” and “language” do possess the nucleus and periphery sides. [3]

People generally tend to associate themselves with one or more social groups to perceive reality, and the way it works, and to make decisions. [4] The question of language identity was always crucial not only for linguists but also for politicians as a really strong construct that can form some sort of ideology based on different levels of culture, where the language itself makes a part. Depending on your language, your vocabulary in some spheres will differ drastically from others. For instance, In Japanese-speaking reality, there would be more words to describe senses, tastes, and colors. The reason for that is hidden in Japanese education, where the empiric and observational approaches are deeply integrated into the school system. [5] 

The most cited example is the word umami which means a taste that describes as savory and is characterized by broths and cooked meats. Even if we could imagine this concept, several languages do not possess such a word for umami, which leads people to loan this word in their languages. That was a strict nucleus, the heart of a language, something that describes the reality of the world where a meta-person lives. As for the periphery, a language, forms to some extent, your vocabulary. If a language is fusional, or a language that uses a single morpheme to form new grammatical or semantic features, it is possible, that your language would be more open to new cultural codes, and terms and assimilate them in a faster way, comparing it with the analytic one.

As for the nucleus of the identity part, it helps you to choose the linguistic reality. If you consider yourself French, you could speak French, so you don’t have a dissonance in your world’s perception, you acquire the inherent logic of the language, e.g. tenses, word structure, phonetics, etc. The periphery part links to the culture. I have already mentioned that language is a part of a culture. It goes with the history of people speaking this language. We cannot forget about songs, movies, books, ideologies, and other important parts consisting of the cultural iceberg.

One identity differs from another, and by choosing one of them, several individuals could even change some physical features such as mimics, facial expressions, and furthermore. These two parts create the Linguistic identity, a strong social construct that leads people, it can be used as a manipulation instrument or even a weapon. Hence, I have explained the reality of a monolingual person which is a rare phenomenon in the world. Taking into consideration the fact, that the vast majority of people live in multiple linguistic realities, we should turn to bilingual people or even polylingual ones.

3. Who is a polylingual

The definition of this term was always problematic through the ages. Several specialists in different domains gave so many descriptions of this term that is it impossible to pick one that is suitable for each situation. I consider that we need to determine the limits of this notion before speaking about polylingual people. [6]

The vast majority of definitions differ depending on the “donor” of language. Here, I am talking about the person who transmits the language to the child. Even the motivation of the word “mother tongue” means that, in general, a child takes the language from its mother, and less frequently, from its father. Taking into the consideration increasing level of immigration and globalization, the situation, where each parent represents different language communities has become usual. This reality pushes language specialists to consider this fact, so the number of definitions concerning the ability to speak multiple languages is always increasing. [6]

In the aim to understand all the complexity of terminology in this field, I propose you imagine that there are several families: Family A, Family B, and Family C. We are going to study their cases, and after that, I propose you talk about the definition itself. 

For each situation, we can enumerate external and internal factors that could be named as context. The external context is the language environment of the majority of the population placed in a given territory, while external ones are mostly conventional and depend on the parents. I have omitted several factors such as language status, like the situation with the Tatar language in Russia, to shorten my essay, which is slightly becoming a novel. Here, we are going to imagine the situation by putting it through some level of generalization. The way people perceive a language is way too complex to put into several words. 

For instance, In Family A, parent 1 speaks French, while parent 2 speaks English, both of them are living in France, where the official language is French. Taking into consideration the internal factor, parent 1 and parent 2 can decide which strategy should they choose to communicate with. their child. There are three possibilities. 

The French domination. Both parents speak French, but parent 2 does not speak English and a child would not be able to learn it, in the condition of both of them do not speak English. In the opposite situation, the child would be able to analyze the language, decorticate it, subconsciously, and learn English. 

The English domination. Both parents speak English to the child, parent 1 does not speak French and the child would not be able to learn it with the same conditions. 

The bilingual environment. Both parents use two languages in their communication, mixing them, or switching them with the child. The final result would give a certain level of fluency. 

As for external factors, you remember, that all of them are living in France, so the child would be exposed, sooner or later to the French language outside of its household. In the case of French domination, the child would be a monolingual person, because she was not exposed to several language systems. In the case of English domination, the child would become a monolingual person too, however, its situation will be different. As the child lives in France, sooner or later, he would be exposed to French, and he would learn it at school with his friends and relatives. Furthermore, everything depends on a symbiosis of external and internal factors, we do not know if a child is going to pass more time with his parents or with his friends at school. In general, children tend to distance themselves from their parents, from the age of 10, and then, progressively, they would gain their fluency till the beginning of puberty. 

And finally, the most interesting case, the bilingual domination, where a child would speak both French and English, hens, without a strict distinction between the two of them. However, with the age, the child would use more French in his life. If we imagine that it would use the same strategy as a child, raised in an English-dominated environment, it would be more fluent in French as well. 

The situation with Family A shows us that a person cannot physically know two languages at the same level, because we cannot control their usage. One of them is going to be dominant. 

If we switch the language in Family B, of Parent 1 into Russian, and would keep the language of Parent 2 as French by default, for example, there would be the same situation, however with little differences, as the language itself is far more distant from French on the level of structure, grammar, lexis, morphology, etc. The more the difference is significant, the more the situation changes. 

To illustrate this, imagine child B is risen in a Russian-dominated environment, where Parent 1 and Parent 2 tend to speak Russian only, supposing that Parent 2 is fluent in Russian and possesses a C2 level certificate. In that case, while in Family A, English would not influence the French language of Child A on the level of pronunciation, because there is a native reference (a slite difference could be remarked on the level of prosody), in Family B, Russian would influence several lexical and their semantic structures because of a big number of loan words and expressions. For example, let us look at the expressions that are semantically close in both languages. They mean “Speak of the Devil”:

• “Вспомнишь Солнце — Вот и лучик/Vspomnish solntse vot i luchik”. 

• «En parlant du loup».

These two expressions can mix and several parts of them could be mutated. In this situation, the child C could transform these sentences into:

• «Вспомнишь волка вот и он/Vspomnish volka vot I on», transposition and interference;

• «Кстати о волке/Kstati o volkie», a literate translation from French.;

• «En voyant une lueur», literate translation from French. 

This situation changes with the begging of the academic experience. Child B would use more French expressions and would probably loan them in Russian. 

In the French-dominated situation, there will not be any drastic differences from Family A. To be fair, according to my personal experience, I could tell, that several Russian expressions were loaned into my French language vocabulary. 

In the bilingual situation, the level of modifications and linguistic experimentations in a child’s B brain is constantly growing with age till the end of puberty. The further situation depends on the symbiosis of factors that would help child B choose a dominant language. 

Since the Economic crisis of 2008, there is another interesting tendency that could be illustrated by Family C. In this case, we use the same parameters as for Family A, P1 speaks French and P2 speaks English, one parameter that is changed is the external factor. Family C lives in Germany. In this case, child C enters into the three-dimensional linguistic reality, where the result would not be the same as for Families A and B. [1]

As was already told, there could be three possible scenarios, based on conventional relations between the P1 and P2 in Family C. In this situation, the external factor gives three additional scenarios: German dominated environment, Bilingual dominated environment with French and German, and three lingual-dominated environments. So, just to be precise and to better understand the situation, Family C could be: 

• French-speaking;

• English speaking;

• Bilingual (Fr-En); 

• German-speaking; 

• Bilingual (Fr-De);

• Three lingual (Fr-En-De).

In all of the cases mentioned, child C would speak German, because of the German-speaking environment, especially with age, however, we need to take into consideration multiple varieties of socioeconomic factors such as the city’s population, its region, municipality area, scholar establishment, etc. 

These factors are too numerous to illustrate each situation, however, it gives a perfect example of the complexity of the studying subject. As we have already seen, in several situations, a child could become a bilingual person and even in this, it would not be able to speak languages at the same level. Even if the difference is not drastically evident, one of the languages, one of the language would be dominant. [7]

The next important question, a bilingual person is complex and constructed, living in two linguistic dimensions, and different cultures, and sometimes, the child is exposed to more than two cultures. This tendency created a dilemma in the determination of a bilingual person. 

I will not bother you with some further examples on this topic, but, an individual has an identity, the essence that is closely connected with his language and culture. Not all bilinguals in the world become bilinguals from the very beginning. They could be born into a monolingual family and then change their country of residence. In that case, they would not be able to stay nontransitional and they would become a bilingual person, taking into consideration the age of the person. 

This occurs because a child will be integrated into the society of the majority’s language. His friends, teachers, neighbors everybody speaks another language. However, what should we call a person that starts to speak another language after puberty starts? The teenager’s new language would become its mother tongue in the condition it would acquire it by the age of 14-15 years old, till the end of the puberty period, because the way of perceiving the world will change. [8]

There are too many questions and particularities that are used to understand bilinguals. I must inform you that I need to use the generalizing approach to facilitate the comprehension of this interesting and never dying subject. 

So, who Is polylingual? I gave you examples of people speaking two or three languages, and society calls them bilingual and trilingual people, however, there is a more general way to call this — multilingual or polylingual, or just polyglots. 

According to the Oxford dictionary, the definition of the term multilingual is the following: “speaking or using several different languages”. It is considered that it is more than one language. It is important to understand that in Europe the fact to speak several languages is no longer surprising. It highly depends on the economic center of the country and in rural areas, it is not considered a norm. If we are talking about enormous, large business centers such as Paris, Rome, Milano, London, Berlin, etc, globalization, international trade, and cultural openness has created an advantageous situation for the people living there.

In general, the vast majority of Europeans, more than half of its total population claim to speak several languages, hence, in practice their level is not homogeneous. Some individuals can write, some of them read, and third ones can read, write and understand several languages but they use only one of them. 

It is understandable, taking into consideration the level of information we need to deal with in our life. People need to filter this information, and multiple languages' knowledge ability does not help it. Thanks to our brain, a fantastic machine that decides to optimize our way of thinking to economize power, it redirects the placement of these languages from the active area to the passive one. 

Some children were able to acquire two languages natively from an early age, and they are called simultaneous bilinguals. 

Knowing the constantly increasing number of terms describing bilingualism, I am going to use the term polylingual in my article. My choice is motivated by the will to call a situation of people that are the subject of my work. When I say a polylingual person, I mean a meta-person that was born in a multicultural context and speaks more than one language, from a very young age, on a daily bases. So this meta-person is living in a two-dimensional world. 

When I say a multicultural context, I mean a meta-family, speaking two languages, and at least one of them is not the language of the majority living on the given territory. 

We have discussed the linguistic identity of a person that comprises the cultural iceberg and world perception globally. In the case of polylingual people, they see the world divided by two, three, or more linguistic realities. 

So, as you can see, multilingualism is a highly complex subject that is studied by multiple domains, however, because of its complexity, we can not consider a single situation suitable for all multilingual people. The generalization is necessary in that case. 

4. Migration and linguistic identity

This ability could be seen as advantageous for polylingual as they are opened to new ways of seeing the world. Hence, we are speaking about the situation where they are living on a given territory and when a person leaves the territory, all the factors change. 

I propose you talk about people that moved in their post-puberty age for humanitarian, economic, or political reasons. 

In this situation, polylingual people enter a new linguistic reality. In general, bilingual and polylingual people tend to choose a country of one of their Level 1 languages e.g. if person A speaks both French and English, he or she lived in the USA, this person A could choose several French-speaking countries. The cultural descendants of one of the relatives help to determine the final choice. Let us suppose that this person’s mother was born in France or has a French heritage. In this case, person A would choose France for the settlement. [9]

We can also think that the assimilation process would be easier in this condition because the mother of person A transmitted not only the language but the French culture. That is true but to some extent. We do not know the exact amount of culture transmitted to the child if it could be possibly measured, and we do not know what were the conventional principles of his or her education, so I propose to you imagine that this person was raised in some kind of a mix of French and English culture. I am going to describe his or her life briefly, to analyze it better. 

Paul Lapain is 32 years old, he was born in the city of New York, New York state in the mid-nineties, he lived with his French mother Monique et his American dad Peter in a small apartment in the Bronx where he went to a simple school and lived a simple double-culture life. At home, they used to speak both French and English. French was a lingua franca in their family, because Monique was a little bit ashamed of her accent, even if her husband, Peter, tried to persuade her that her pronunciation was good. They used English to talk about concepts that are purely American and related to the administrative sphere of life, migration lexis, etc. 

Paul watched movies both in French and in English. Monique tried to choose the newest cartoons that were available, however, in the majority of cases, she preferred those she watched when she was little. She read books by French authors to Paul, so he could conserve her part of the culture. Do not think that Monique was open to different cultures, no, she was not as progressive as it might seem, she was not a cosmopolite and even if she lived in the USA she dreamed to move back to France. 

When Paul graduated from school, Monique proposed to him to apply to a French university, because it was free and the higher education system is considered to be one of the most performant in the world. He did not hesitate for a lot of time and, after being accepted, he moved to France. 

The first two weeks were full of joy and new experiences for Paul. He rediscovered the country of his mother. However, after these two weeks passed, he started to realize that he imagined things to be in another way. He tried to make some French friends, but the way they spoke was a bit different from that of his mother. There were more closed and distant. Small talks were not his strong part too. His new acquaintance from the university was choosing topics he was not so performant in, such as cuisine, and medieval culture.

Time passed. One year later, he made a great friendships with some of his university mates, he find an internship and everything seemed to be perfect for him, but, unfortunately, he felt lonely, and was not understanding much. New jokes, memes, and song artists, there was too much information to digest, and everything he learned differed from his mother’s perspective. 

Do you see the problem? Exactly, Paul moved to France, bringing the culture of his mother’s youth, of the France of the 1980s. His brain is shocked by the number of changes and he started to feel the cultural choice. These two visions of the same country co-exist in his brain creating a dichotomy in the world’s perception. 

His education plays a big role too, but the fact of being conserved in some kind of a time capsule perturbates him. In this very particular case we can see, that even if a language identity was already formed, we cannot say it was a universals, something that is not changeable. Arriving in France, he was forced by the will of integration into society to learn some new cultural and linguistic codes. This forms a new linguistic identity. 

It could seem evident that in this case, we are talking about a new linguistics identity, what if it is not new, but a changeable one? 

This kind of identity is a social construct that is considered externally as a stable, consistent thing, comprising a lot of different branches of our life. Even Paul considers himself as a strict point, a substance that is not changed. We could agree with his point of view, but there is a thing, he does not analyzes his status, he prefers to confront a conflict and to stay with what he already has. 

We observe him, as a human being, and we see that he uses terms, and definitions, he tried to understand who he is and what or whom he would like to become. But who is he? Is he American? Is he French? Maybe both? 

On one hand, there is a simple answer to that. He has an American passport, so he is American. But he speaks French, his mother is French and he decided to move to France. So who is he? What is that being American or being French? 

According to Napoleon Bonaparte’s law on immigration, being French means speaking French, sharing the Republic’s values, and being catholic. This concept has changed with time, and Catholicism was replaced by laïcité or secularism, to put it simply. But is it enough to be conformed to these three simple rules to become, or to be French? 

This principle was and is today debatable. The jus soli and jus sanguinis are the main points of all political discussions on TV, on the radio, and in the newspapers. France is a multicultural country with a long history of immigration and this social construct of being French is also changing to something more open and inclusive. 

It was the administrative part, something that we could place into the brackets, something that is describable. But what about Paul? Does he need a passport to be considered French? Can he become French? And what is it “becoming French”? 

In his had there are two worlds, two perspectives to understand and to make decisions, he tries to choose the variant that he considers to be more “right”, and “socially acceptable”. He lives in a society, where everyone speaks French and thinks French. I would like to emphasize this part. Everybody thinks French. It means that a language is a code that we use to give labels to things of non-linguistic reality. So, people who speak several languages can understand the world in different ways. That is the dilemma. He is both American and French, but too American to be called French, and too French to be called American. 

He is called like this by society, by his friends and family, and, as you have certainly remarked, they use adjectives. I adore this part of the discourse because adjectives are subjective, they describe things that we see, based on our experience, taste, and mother tongue. 

For instance, think of a noise. There are a lot of cars, and business people walking, they speak loudly, and everything is loud. That’s it! They speak loudly. That is how an English speaker would say it. But would a French say it like this? No, a French would say “ce bruit il est trop fort”, “le bruit est fort”. In the French language, a noise could be strong and not loud. But we see the same thing, we understand the same thing. Is it so the same? We code it differently and you can see the difference in the world’s perception.

The substantives “American” and “French” could be easily transformed into adjectives, if we transpose them into another grammatical class, they will be still the same words with the same characteristics, but the semantics would change. They are not objective anymore. They passed from the static substance to the non-static one. 

Now we can choose the level of Frenchness that we would like or Americanness. So, these two non-constant characteristics need to be applied, to see, if could they be changeable or not, helping our poor Paul to find his identity. To do that, let us do the permutation. 

• Paul is (American) and he is (French).

• Paul is X and he is X.

You can put every adjective that you would like to, starting with good, bad, nice, sportive, and beautiful, try it by yourself. The more you permutate the X, the more you feel the subjectiveness of these terms. for example:

• Paul is (good) and he is (nice). 

To what extent is Paul good? Is he the best person that you have ever met? Or on the planet. Or he is better than your friend, or your teacher. We do not know. We need a certain point to compare it with the actual Paul at this moment in time. I emphasize this moment because he could become better or worst, or something could become better than Paul or visa-versa. Some concepts could go away from the discourse, and we need to fix all the parameters to make a decision.

Then, change your adjectives to American and French. Do you feel the difference? The same questions. To what extent is Paul American? Is he more American than his friend? What are the criteria to determine the level of Americanness? And so forth. 

The subjectiveness opens Paul to the reality that everything is changeable, everything is moving in time and space, because, new subjects create new terms and new characteristics. They enter the world of perception and their Americanness or Frenchness can be compared with him, or with others. 

Being American or French is an essence, something determined, something objective but the way of living your life to become one is existence, something that you live not only in society but with yourself too, with your thoughts, feelings, and fears. One sort of action will make you more American, and others do not. 

If we return to Paul, at this time and space, he lives with the vision of an American who would like to become French, to connect himself to his mother’s culture. He lives in another country by himself and all alone, so he searches for a social group to be associated with. We remember that his mother is conservative this reflects in her vision of the world, where everything is predetermined. Monique gave to Paul Aristotle’s vision of things — static and predetermined. You are American, or you are French. 

Paul thinks that his essence precedes existence which is the source of the internal conflict. He has a real existential crisis, everything that he loved and cared about so much is falling apart and he does not know what to grab to be saved. But this is a part of assimilation that is also a complex subject that I will cover in the next article. 

Paul’s identity is based on his linguistic identity which comprises culture, history, stereotypes, and a whole world of vision. The problem of polylingual people is that they cannot find their way in the world, because they always have two roads, three, and sometimes even more. Language is not always just a bunch of grammar structures, it is the logic, the way a group of people decided to understand the world we live in. Two identities, two problems, two sufferings. In this case, I could only propose Paul remember Spinoza’s and Simone Weil’s advice: suffering is important to save your dignity.

“Too American to be called French and too French to be called American.”

References

1. « Statistics on Migration to Europe ». European Commission — European Commission, https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/promoting-our-european-way-life/statistics-migration-europe_en. Consulté le 20 octobre 2022.

2. Norton, Bonny. Identity and language learning: extending the conversation. Second Edition, Multilingual Matters, 2013.

3. Saussure, Ferdinand de. Cours de linguistique générale. Payot, 1995.

4. Firth, Alan, et Johannes Wagner. « On Discourse, Communication, and (Some) Fundamental Concepts in SLA Research ». The Modern Language Journal, vol. 81, no3, septembre 1997, p. 285 300. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4781.1997.tb05480.x.

5. Sugimoto, Yoshio, éditeur. The Cambridge companion to modern Japanese culture. Cambridge University Press, 2009.

6. Romanowski, Piotr, et Małgorzata Jedynak, éditeurs. Current Research in Bilingualism and Bilingual Education. Springer International Publishing, 2018. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-92396-3.

7. Anderson, Benedict R. O’G. Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. Rev. and Extended ed, Verso, 1991.

8. Taeschner, Traute. The Sun Is Feminine: A Study on Language Acquisition in Bilingual Children. Springer, 1983.

9. Peirce, Bonny Norton. « Social Identity, Investment, and Language Learning ». TESOL Quarterly, vol. 29, no 1, 1995, p. 9. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.2307/3587803.

[theculturedmarxist]

I’m sure everyone’s a bit Davos’d out, but as I read the WEF and Ukraine news this week, I couldn’t help but connect the WEF ideology to Europe’s self-immolation. It’s also interesting to contrast WEF ideas for societal organization to those laid out in today’s piece from Linda M. Nicholas and Gary M. Feinman who argue what made the ancient city Monte Albán so long-lasting and broadly successful was its relative equality in lifestyle, its collective action, and localized economic production. 

A commonly asked question ever since NATO’s war against Russia in Ukraine really kicked off last February is why on earth would Europe go along with the American neocons in their policies that are driving Europe towards deindustrialization and a long-lasting energy crisis while the US reaps the rewards in LNG exports.? After all, these are some of the same countries that said no to Iraq and watched Washington bungle that job, as well as Afghanistan and its regime change efforts in Syria. From Wolfgang Streeck:

This makes it all the more amazing that European countries should, apparently without any debate, have so completely left the handling of Ukraine to the United States. In effect, this represents a principal turning the management of his vital interests over to an agent with a recent public record of incom­petence and irresponsibility.

Could European leaders not see that the Ukrainian proxy war plan was a shortsighted one that would decimate their economies? Politico reported the following last week:

At their final summit of 2022 in December, EU leaders insisted they had heard the call. The meeting produced an instruction to the European Commission to rapidly draw up proposals “with a view to mobilizing all relevant national and EU tools” to address the dual energy and competitiveness crises hitting European industry. The issue is due to dominate an EU leaders’ summit scheduled for February 9-10.

Did it truly take European leaders 10 months to come to grips with this fact? Or is it possible that they simply not care? Davos is a reminder of these leaders’ vision of the world, which is encapsulated by the WEF and its idea of a trans-national capitalist elite. National industry is an  outdated concept to them, and Russia represents an existential threat to their ideology of oligarchic rule. The WEF essentially acts as a capitalist and war consulting firm and a gigantic lobby. Diana Johnstone, former press secretary of the Green Group in the European Parliament, writes:

[The WEF] is powerful today because it is operating in an environment of State Capitalism, where the role of the State has been largely reduced to responding positively to the demands of such lobbies, especially the financial sector. Immunized by campaign donations from the obscure wishes of ordinary people, most of today’s politicians practically need the guidance of lobbies such as the WEF to tell them what to do.

On top of such guidance, the WEF Young Global Leaders program helps spread this slime throughout the European halls of power. Here’s a list of those I could find who are currently in European government or other notable positions, and there are no doubt many more:

Alexander De Croo, prime minister of Belgium

Emmanuel Macron, president of France

Sanna Marin, the Finnish prime minister

Annika Saarikko, FInland minister of finance

Annalena Baerbock, German foreign minister

Amélie de Montchalin, French minister for the environmental transition and territorial cohesion

Tomas Pojar, Czech foreign minister

Virginijus Sinkevičius, European commissioner for the environment

Eva Maydell, member of the European Parliament from Belgium; her big priority is pushing a digital single market

Leo Varadkar, the Irish Taoiseach

Lea Wermelin, Danish Minister for the Environment

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was only nominated for a WEF global leader of tomorrow spot, but he’s been trying to prove his worth ever since.

Chrystia Freeland, she’s deputy prime minister of Canada, but included here because of her synergy with Victoria Nuland and her fascist goals abroad, especially in Ukraine

Kalin Anev Janse is the Chief Financial Officer and Member of the Management Board of the European Stability Mechanism, which works to force austerity and privatization onto eurozone countries.

Klaus Regling, who was head of the European Stability Mechanism from its inception in 2012 until last year.

Dr. Katarzyna Pisarska, the Founder and Director of the Visegrad School of Political Studies, which brings together young politicians, civil society activists, journalists and civil servants from the countries of the Visegrád Group. You might know the Visegrad Group from its Twitter account Visegrad24 that celebrates certain elements of Ukraine’s military:

And there are hundreds more young global leaders in finance, NGOs, media, academia, and lower levels of government, almost all of them working hand in glove to realize their common beliefs that are generally neoliberal, corporatist, undemocratic, and exhibit a disdain for the working class. Do these “global leaders” really care if what’s left of their countries’ industry needs to be relocated to the US or elsewhere? After all, to them national sovereignty is outdated. As Thomas Fazi writes at Unherd:

Samuel Huntington, who is credited with inventing the term “Davos man”, argued that members of this global elite “have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations”.

The “Davos man” also believes that the working class will soon be replaced by Artificial Intelligence. He has been outsourcing jobs for years, and thinks further deindustrialization will help the green transition. Johnstone describes how the WEF-influenced Greens in Germany want to remake the country’s industry:

The Greens have not forgotten the environment, and see “climate neutrality” as the “great opportunity for Germany as an industrial location.” The development of “climate protection technologies” should “provide impetus for new investments.” Their program calls for creation of a “digital euro,” secure mobile “digital identities” and “digital administrative services.”

Indeed, the Green economic program sounds very much like the Great Reset advocated by the World Economic Forum at Davos, with a new economy centered on climate change, artificial intelligence and digitalization of everything.

Here is Young Global Leader and current German foreign minister from the Green Party Annalena Baebock explaining why she doesn’t listen to Germans’ concerns over job losses or freezing to death:

Vladimir Putin was also a WEF Young Global Leader. Here’s Klaus Schwab, the founder and executive chairman of the WEF and man with the plan to discard rule by the people in favor of rule by corporate interests, bragging that Putin was a member of his Young Global Leaders program:

They don’t advertise that so much anymore, as Putin became a traitor to the WEF cause. Russia was a major topic of discussion at this year’s Davos gathering, which was themed “cooperation in a fragmented world,” by which they mean the world is now fragmented due to Russia and China’s refusal to bend the knee. Both Moscow and Beijing represent an existential threat to the WEF ideology because as Michael Hudson has explained time and again, the true battle being waged is between financial oligarchy on behalf of the Davos crowd and a mixed public-private economy in places like Russia, China, and elsewhere in the global south.

The fragmentation of western societies was not on the agenda, but European polls clearly show a break.

In the EU Key Challenges of Our Times autumn poll, 70 percent of working class respondents believe the war in Ukraine has had serious financial consequences for them personally; only 49 percent of upper class respondents believe the same. Forty-five percent of working class respondents are satisfied with the EU involvement in Ukraine; 71 percent of the upper class is.

These numbers are remarkable when considering the unprecedented propaganda campaign in Europe. As Wolfgang Streeck puts it in New Left Review, in Germany any questioning of the war is silenced even as the threat of nuclear annihilation grows:

Those disposed to undertake a close reading of the public pronouncements of the governing coalition of the willing can recognize traces of debates going on behind the scenes, over how best to prevent the Great Unwashed getting in the way of what may be coming to them. On 21 September, one of the chief editors of FAZ, Berthold Kohler, a hardliner if there ever was one, noted that even among Western governments ‘the unthinkable is no longer considered impossible’. Rather than allowing themselves to be blackmailed, however, Western ‘statesmen’ have to muster ‘more courage… if the Ukrainians insist on liberating their entire country’, an insistence that we have no right to argue with. Any ‘arrangement with Russia at the expense of the Ukrainians’ would amount to ‘appeasement’ and ‘betray the West’s values and interests’, the two happily converging. To reassure those of his readers who would nevertheless rather live for their families than die for Sevastopol – and who had hitherto been told that the entity called ‘Putin’ is a genocidal madman entirely impervious to rational argument – Kohler reports that in Moscow there is sufficient fear of ‘the nuclear Armageddon in which Russia and its leaders would burn as well’ for the West to support to the hilt the Zelensky view of the Ukrainian national interest.

The peoples’ lack of support to “die for Sevastopol” is similar to their unwillingness to go along with plans to destroy their lives and enslave them to a techno-capitalist system of exploitation, which is perhaps why plans like this are being floated:

European polls show major divergence on labor issues, such as 52 percent of the working class rating fair working conditions as the most important to the EU’s social and economic development. Only 30 percent of the upper class feels the same way. And 66 percent of the EU working class feel their quality of life is getting worse; only 38 percent of the upper class feel the same way.

One need look no further for fragmentation between the WEF elite and working stiffs than Young Global Leader and French President Emmanuel Macron who is treated like royalty in Davos while back in France he’s faced nearly four years of gilets jaunes protests against his austerity and neoliberal policies, and some French can’t bear the sight of him:

And another:

They rolled out Henry Kissinger at Davos so he could tell the .001 percent they’ve been right all along about Ukraine, and they should now double down by rushing the country into NATO. The 99-year-old apparently wants to add to his 3-4 million body count before he kicks the bucket. As Spencer Ackerman writes:

The elite of the World Economic Forum consult one of the architects of today’s world to guide them out of the polycrisis he played a role in creating. And he inevitably reinforces the convictions of this same class, who most benefit from the way the world currently is, that they and they alone hold the keys to responsibly guiding the world out of the polycrisis. And if they further extract wealth from the wreckage of a polycrisis-wracked world, who’s to say there’s anything wrong with that? Certainly no one at Davos.

Even if these like-minded leaders lay waste to Europe, they probably think they can follow in the path of one of the WEF Young Leader trailblazers: former British Prime Minister and war criminal Tony Blair. After he left government he began “operating a dizzying, and often overlapping, web of charities, firms, and foundations that have catapulted him to the status of one of Britain’s wealthiest people.”

He travels around giving interviews warning against the dangers of populism and free public services – a task that is no doubt more difficult with Jeffrey Epstein’s “Lolita Express” no longer offering him free rides.

The problem is that before these people can cash in à la Blair, they just might get us all killed first. As Patrick Lawrence wrote at Consortium News after Angela Merkel’s (another WEF Global Leader for Tomorrow) revelations that the Minsk Accords were simply a ruse intended to buy time for Ukraine to prepare for war:

A measure of trust was essential between Washington and Moscow even during the Cold War’s most perilous passages. The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved as it was because U.S. President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, were able sufficiently to trust one another. This trust no longer exists, as Putin and other Russian officials have made clear in responding to publication of the two German interviews.

Moscow and Beijing have said repeatedly since Joe Biden assumed office not quite two years ago that there is no trusting the Americans. The follow-on thought is that there is no point negotiating with them in a diplomatic context. For various Russian officials, from Putin on over and down, Merkel’s revelations seem grimly to have confirmed these conclusions.

It is a major turn that Moscow now includes the Europeans, and especially the Germans, in this assessment. Germany now tells the lies of which the American empire is made — a matter of anxiety and sadness all at once. If scorched-earth diplomacy is a fitting name for what the West has been up to in its dealings with Russia since 2014, as I think it is, the German bridge between West and East has been burnt.

The gravity of these conclusions, the implications as we face forward, are immense for the West and non–West alike. A world replete with hostilities is one we all know. A world devoid of trust and talking will prove another matter.