#I'm still here muddling away with my stuff

[tswwwit]

Hi, I really love your eye for writing. The way you structure your stories and the flow of dialogue and story line is so smooth its a level I want to get to, so i just wanted to ask a couple of questions:

How did u get into writing and how did you get to the skill you have right now? even when reading your older fics youre descriptions and characters’ personalities are really well done!!

lots of love from a fan of yours ❤️

I've always liked books and writing has always been an interest! And there's only one way to get good at it.

Practice.

I know, I know, that's what literally everyone says. But it's true! Becoming an artist means drawing a ton of pictures, learning to dance involves moving your body to music, playing music you gotta toot on the horn or tickle the keys. Writing's no different. You gotta Do The Work.

The good news is the longer you do it, the more it becomes second nature! You get into the flow. You pick up the rythms. You develop the reflexes, the instinct for when something's working right and when it's off key.

The other important step checking out how others in your craft are doin' their thing! Read a lot! Read books or listen to audiobooks and think about how it makes you feel. How did they make you feel that way? Why did that line resonate so hard? Word choice? Did they build up to it in a certain way? How did the flow of the prose make you feel in the moment? Even bad writing can teach you something - why did that flop? Why did that bother you? What would you have done differently?

So do it! Write! Pick a funny idea, or a sad one, or a scene you've been daydreaming about and put it on the page. And keep doing it every time you have a concept. Learn from other writers and read a whole ton. In time you'll look back at where you started and go 'holy shit! I've come so far!'

[subbmissivesuccubus]

I will get on all fours and bark for you to make the “oh my god you were going to die” thing but with the upper moons and muzan 😭🙏(IT SUCKS THAT WE CANT ADD LINKS)

Thank you guys for 3K followers! I'm glad so many of you enjoy my stuff and I can't wait to keep providing more smut to feed <3

By popular demand, here's part 2 of this! Enjoy~

Disclaimer : Fem Reader X Muzan | Kokushibo | Akaza | Douma | Hantengu clones

As a demon living an immortal life, you knew that death and hell wasn't something you were going to experience anytime soon.

But unfortunately for you, your husband seems insistent on giving you a preview.

You tried to take in deep breaths, having never felt this exhausted even when fighting against demon slayers who were actively trying to kill you. You don't even remember why your partner was mad at you! Sure, you didn't manage to kill the Hashira you recently fought but you came back alive! Isn't that a thing worthy of celebration?

Instead, he took you to the bedroom to really teach your the consequences of failure.

Which is how you found yourself naked, sweaty and exhausted, lying flat on your back as your brain started to work again- just to realize your husband was sliding between your legs to start another round, jerking his cock as he got ready to slip inside you once more.

You gasped and on instinct started to move away, your elbows digging into the mattress as you pathetically dragged yourself towards the headboard to try and get some distance but-

Muzan suddenly shifted positions, your brain so muddled by the pleasure and over stimulation that you didn't realize you were now straddling him until he slapped your tits harshly. He was angry- his eyes glowing that dangerous red that usually got you hot and bothered but now- sent a shiver of fear down your spine. Not only did you let a Hashira escape- but now you're trying to run from him?

He won't have it.

"Ride me. Now." he said, hands on your hips as his cock stood erect underneath you, throbbing in anticipation, covered in your sticky juices.

"M-My Lord-" you babbled, tears filling your eyes and you didn't dare to try and escape again, "I-I can't. Too s-sensitive-"

"Ride my cock or you won't live to see tomorrow."

With a broken sob, you quickly placed one hand on Muzan's chest, your body crying for a break as the other one slid underneath you to grab his cock and keep it steady, your poor thighs trembling as you lifted yourself up before sinking down on his member. You knew his threat was empty but...it was always best to not risk it.

Kokushibo noticed you were about to crawl away but instead of grabbing your hips and pulling you back like you expected he would, his hand instead shot out to clamp around your neck. You gasped, air caught in your throat as his many eyes narrowed at you, giving you a look of disappointment as you writhed against his choking. Did you necessarily need air to live? No. Was it uncomfortable? Yes.

Was it sexy? Also yes-

"What do you say?"

Your face was turning red, tears prickling your eyes as his fingers seem to tighten. "S-Sorry- m' s-sorry-" you managed to choke out despite his best attempts.

"Good girl. Now present yourself to me."

With his hand still on your neck, your spread your legs wide, even bringing your hands down to push apart your pussy lips, baring you every inch of your cum stuffed cunt. With a grunt of approval, Kokushibo slipped inside you, giving you a break as he let go of your neck just as he started his intense pace.

"D-Darling- oh fuck- please-" you babbled between gasps and pants, tits bouncing as your poor cunt was once again pounded within an inch of her life, not even given a minute to rest and recover.

"Cease your pointless crying." he simply stated, his abs flexing as he rutted into you, "If you find it so unpleasant, don't fail next time."

Akaza is usually so sweet when you two have sex. But when he's frustrated with you- he will let. you. know.

The second he saw you trying to move away from him, he grabbed you by the knees before flipping you onto you stomach like you weighed nothing. The next moment, he was lying on top of you, his body weight keeping you pinned down as he slipped his cock back inside you in a classic prone bone. You squealed, unable to move as he started rolling his hips into you, the position making his cock reach deep- deep- deep inside you.

"A-Akazaaaa-" you squeal, your cries a bit muffled by the mattress, "S-slow down- please-c-can't take it-"

"You can't take it?" Akaza growled into your ear, rolling his hips in circles so his fat tip can bully your g-spot mercilessly, "No wonder you couldn't kill that Hashira. If you can't handle- hah- this, then you can't handle a battle. So consider this your training, my love."

"P-Please- I just need a break- I can't- ah fuck- you're so deep!"

"You can take it. Be my good girl. Besides, our Lord wants to know if you can get pregnant, remember? You're not getting away from me until you're knocked up."

Douma simply laughed as he watched you try and escape him, his kaleidoscopic eyes twinkling even more beautifully than usual as his sadistic tendencies got satiated seeing your fear and exhaustion. But of course, he wasn't going to let you go. With a flick of the wrist, you gasped as your ankles were suddenly encased in ice that trailed down to the floor, keeping you in place. You could try to break out of it, but your husbands hand on your cunt rid you of all thoughts except for pleas.

"D-Douma- honey- please-"

"Shhhh, sweet thing." He purred, giving your kitty gentle pets, "I'm just going to teach you a lesson before I breed you again~ Let's make this pretty pussy as red as your ass is, hmm?"

"No please- i'll be good- I promise!"

"Why are you so scared honey?" Douma asked in mock concern, his bottom lip jutting out in a pout as he cooed at you, "Oh, you really don't like it when I spank your cunt, do you? It hurts so badly, doesn't it?"

"Yes- it hurts so much!" you complained, your eyes welling up with tears at the threat. You loved it when he punished you but fuck- it hurt!

"Poor sweet thing! I have an idea then." you watched as an ice cube materialized in his hand, clutched between his fingers as he said:

"How about we make her numb first then?"

It was difficult enough to take on the Hantengu clones even when they were being nice, but when they were punishing you? It was downright impossible. But they didn't care.

"And where do you think you're going, missy?" Urogi asked, a grin on his face as he slid in to sit behind you, quickly stopping your attempt at getting away. He grabbed your arms and pulled them above your head, catching your wrists with one hand and restraining you.

"Is it too much for you?" Karaku teased on your right, holding your knee and pushing it open to expose your sex. His hand slid between your legs and his fingers glided between your pussy lips, cooing as he made contact with your slick and cum, "Your poor, sweet cunny is all fucking and stuffed huh? Must be so difficult to take more~"

Aizetsu whined even as he bent down to take your left nipple into his mouth, whining even more as you squealed at the sensation of his tongue against your raw, sensitive nipple. "M-Maybe we should give her a break..." he suggested after giving your bud a few sucks, still laying his head against the fat of your breast as he pulled at your left knee, "We've made her cum...and cum inside her so many times...i'm sure she's learned her lesson."

Before you could latch onto Aizetsu's words and beg for mercy, Sekido slid between your legs, his frown even angrier if that was even possible. He glared at you as he tugged at his cock, clicking his tongue as you tried to wiggle your hips away when he pressed his tip against your entrance.

"Don't you dare try to fucking run away." he snarled as he pushed into you, his cock sliding back into your poor, fucked out cunt. You gasped, tossing your head back against Urogi's shoulder as you were filled up once more, instantly knowing that you had pissed off Sekido by your anticts by his instant break-neck pace.

"You're only done when we say you're done." Karaku purred against your ear, licking said ear as Sekido pounded your pussy, making you babble stupidly as his cock slammed against your cervix, "And you're not going to be done for a long time~"

[cannibal-wings]

I try not to get too sappy about stuff, but I will for a moment. So let's go back in time to New Year's Day...

When I made this tweet I hadn't even started writing You Pay the Cost yet. In fact, I didn't really have any large fic projects planned. I was sorta muddling around with a Trigun fic, but that was it.

Fast forward like, literally, two weeks later and I had already started work on chapter one of the fic that would become You Pay the Cost. (Fun fact the word document was and still is titled "RE fic I won't write".) I had no idea just how strongly I would get pulled into writing that story. Then, before I even had the first chapter done Shy drew fanart. New Year's resolution done in month two. But this is more than just finishing a resolution. I just want to say thank you, genuinely, to all my readers. The response to this story has done more for my motivation and overall mood than I could have ever imagined. I truly cherish every single comment, each reply, the couple of asks, and the DM's either here or on discord. It all means so much to me. Especially everyone who has taken time out of their day to draw my horrible bug man. To me, it is the highest honor you can get, to receive fanart for a fic you wrote. It's truly an incredible feeling. And I'm so thankful to everyone who did. The reason I share stories is to well, share. So getting interaction back, knowing that it's reaching people, inspiring them, making them happy, that's the best feeling.

I'm not sure what this next year will bring, but I know I'll keep plugging away at this fic. I did 148K words this year, here's to another 150k more! I couldn't have done this all without your support. Thank you so much, and Happy New Year.

[m0nost4tic]

"hey mono, are you ever gonna finish or work on your long-term projects that you started months ag-" no. ... maybe someday. not today tho

anyway. here's a short clip for a magluck scene idea. it's set in a modern au my friends and i have been discussing. there are small references to au-specific stuff, so heads up for that

idrk how people tag fanfic works on this site so uhh..

913 words (wow just under a thousand, go me), ~5,200 characters, magna having thoughts on dumbfuck luck voltia, read post tags for more input ig

ps, because of my tendency to crank out short works but never finish anything long-term quickly, i've been thinking of doing a like.. magluck oneshot book for ao3. lmk if that's something anyone wants to see from me🙏🙏

continue reading for gay fic --

Luck's head swayed to the side, larimar eyes glimmering with something more beneath them, wild golden locks obscuring parts of his face. He let his knees inch away from his chest and loosely unfold the perfect cocoon he was wrapped in, elbows and forearms resting against his legs, hands playing with the white drawstrings of his baggy teal hoodie.

He curled the snowy thread around his finger, flipped it over, pulled it up and down, methodically twisted it - he ran his hand through a million-and-one different motions all within seconds. The air grew heavy with his quietness, a stark, uncomfortable contrast to the strings of words and teases that usually slipped nonstop from the live wire.

To the other, the silence was nothing short of unbearable and nigh deafening. But he waited. He waited, and watched as Luck's lips scrunched to the side - the rare indicator of him biting the inside of his cheek, deep in thought or consideration. An infrequent habit Luck had formed back when words were all too much, all too-consuming and demanding; somedays, it still felt that way.

Then, after what felt like hours but couldn't have been longer than a minute, it came. A quiet, hesitant word, a knife that cut through the thickened space between them;

"Why?"

And, well, that was a loaded question.

It was one word. Simple, short, and plain--except nothing really, truthfully was simple or plain with Luck. It just liked to appear that way on the surface; a wolf dressed in sheep's clothing. Presented problems and looming shadows hidden behind tied ribbons and drawn curtains - a thousand spiraling thoughts dismissed with the same old intricate smile.

But behind it came all the possibilities. All the individual branches of why, all muddled by past experience or an assumption of what was inevitably to happen. And Magna had some solid guesses for most of them.

Why don't you hate me? Why do you keep staying? Why haven't you left already? Why are you here? Why haven't you given up on me? Why aren't you like everybody else?

If there were ever a time and a place for it, Magna would fire back some of his own - why do you always think I'm going to leave your ass? Why is it like you can't believe I give a shit about you? Why do you always act like I'm going to disappear the second you take your eyes off me?

Though if there was one, it certainly wasn't now. Not when Luck was hunched up like this, curled in as if he had to hold himself together by force, a thread dangerously close to snapping; not when Magna was sitting quietly on the end of his bed, hands stationary and sunglasses idly placed upon the bedpost; not when the world was abandoned outside the boarded window, friends and adventures temporarily forgotten to dwell in the pit of a barren self-perceived internal wasteland.

So, instead, he sighed and ran a hand through his hair, shoulders rising and falling to expel the weight of the situation from him. He let the words of what to say bubble up in his chest, head desperately reeling to find the right ones. Damn you, he'd curse in his head.

Honestly, yeah, damn Luck. Damn him and his ability to make Magna think of all these things, to make his world more than just a stage play-by-play that he wasn't even the protagonist of. Damn Luck and the way he gave everything he did and said some kind of meaning; gave his life a meaning beyond the repetitive simplicity of school, baseball, video games, and friends. Damn Luck and his addictive smiles that lit up a room, that made Magna's own chest overfill with puddy-like euphoria, that made Magna crave the sound of his laughter and the sight of his joy more than anything else. Damn Luck for making him want to be something more than what he simply was born as, to be something to Luck, like a backboard one could lean on.

Damn Luck for making him a better man. Completely fuck that guy, really.

But, as much as he loathed to admit, he'd go through this routine. Again, and again, and again; the disc tirelessly on loop, never-ending repetition that, unlike all else, unlike every other boring monotonous humdrum aspect of the day or week, never seemed to grow dull. Maybe that was Luck's fault. Maybe there were scratches on the CD, or maybe there was a malfunction on the player--but it was their own special tune, expertly crafted by whatever this hell of a life had in store.

He'd commit to this, for however many times Luck needed him; needed the gentle (or not-so-gentle) reminder that he was loved, cared for, worried about, whatever else. Even if his own brain refused to believe it, partly refused to even dare to let himself have it, Magna wasn't about to back down and let him win this one. He'd done enough of letting things go unseen, unspoken, and left stowed beneath poorly painted-over cracks when they were kids. And now he'd spend a lifetime trying to unravel all of this mess; trying to understand his problems, rather than demand them to be fixed. If that meant soggy shoulders, empty pudding containers, and conveniently misplaced jackets, then Magna could cope with that.

Because that's what you do for someone you love, no matter how big a pain in the ass they are.

[becauseimanicequeen]

Ming and Joe's Colors in My Stand-In, Part 5: Brown

Part 1: Overview

Part 2: Black and Blue

Part 3: Red and Green

Part 4: Yellow/Gold

Part 6: Random Color Moments

I received an ask a couple of days ago asking me about Joe and Ming's colors (which is something I've been thinking about for a while) and decided to answer that question in a separate post (which turned into a series). So, here I am.

I previously stated in my overview in part 1 of this series of posts that:

Ming is black and red.

Joe is blue and green.

Yellow/gold is significant to both.

Brown also has some significance.

As you can tell by the title of this post, I'll focus on the brown in this one. And as I mentioned in the overview in part 1 of this series, brown has significance to both Ming and Joe.

To be honest, brown is the color out of the ones I've written about that I'm most unsure of, but I'll give it a go anyway.

First of all, let's look at the symbolism before I dive into some color theory and then the fun stuff.

Brown is often associated with earth/soil, which is where its solid and grounding symbolism comes from. Brown is also associated with safety, security, resilience, sadness, loneliness, and isolation.

Several of those can be seen in the way they've used brown in My Stand-In so far.

The interesting thing I've noticed with the brown in the series is that it has two opposite roles. It either shows up when Ming and Joe feel the most grounded and relaxed or when things become "too much", too muddled, too stagnant between them.

Now, let's dive into some color theory. I wrote some brief color theory about the two ways in which I usually mix brown hues in the overview. This matters to my reasoning around the use of brown in My Stand-In, but I will only summarize it here since I've already written about it in the overview.

The first (and simplest) way I usually mix brown when painting is to mix orange and black.

I've previously established that one of Ming's colors is black (which I did in part 2). That's his contribution to the brown. I also mentioned in part 4 of this series that (even though they share the yellow/gold color, Ming is gold while Joe is yellow) Joe's yellow sometimes verges towards orange, which is why I call it yellow-ish. That's his contribution to the brown. (I'll get to the other way I usually mix brown in a moment.)

Often when Ming's moodiness or brooding and Joe's youth-like innocence mix together, the brown becomes too much.

An example is in this sequence where Joe has to stand in for Tong and work closely with a woman, whom Joe is really nice to and supportive of (since he's a kind person). Ming is on the set and watches it from behind the camera and becomes visibly moody. Then, he turns petty and tries to pay back with the sting Joe gave him (unintentionally, of course) by feeding Tong in a place where Joe can clearly see them. And this happens when they're both wearing brown (Joe's jacket and the pattern on Ming's clothes).

Another moment when Ming's black and Joe's yellow-ish mix to create brown is in this scene at the bar:

Joe is using some spontaneous deceit as he's trying to get Ming drunk at the bar (which was an unplanned excursion) so he can go back and destroy the evidence he left at his apartment. Ming, on the other hand, is still mourning his loss of Joe (even though he doesn't believe Joe is dead, he's mourning the void Joe left behind), to the point where Ming lets this man who is so similar to Joe 1.0 get him hopelessly drunk.

This scene is not as spiteful and moody as the previous scene, but the brown is still there, surrounding them. Even though Joe has an ulterior motive, and even though Ming shows his jealousy by pulling Joe away from the dude who hit on Joe, this scene is pretty chill compared to the previous one.

The second way I usually mix brown hues is by mixing the primary colors: yellow, red, and blue. Yellow is the color Ming and Joe share, red is Ming, and blue is Joe.

Just like Ming's shirt which includes Joe's blue, Ming's red, and their combined yellow/gold: (Btw, those gold lines being on either side of the blue stripes, which is Joe's color, made me pause the episode because all I could see was the image of their mugs, which were basically Ming's declaration of his love for Joe, mended by gold.)

They're also surrounded by those brown-ish/neutral hues as Ming is being more grounded than he's been in a long time, asking to give Joe a ride, and taking that opportunity to meet Joe's mom and learn new things about Joe 2.0. He's as resilient as he can be in finding Joe (though he wavered there for a while with the blind wise man).

Now let's look at some other scenes.

The brown is grounding when Joe's care, Ming's joy (which he only shows around Joe), and their combined warmth are mixed. Just look at how domestic they are as Joe is making food and Ming is making coffee. They feel as solid as they can at this point.

The brown is also grounding when Joe's loyalty to Ming (as he rejects Sol), Ming's love for Joe (that's slowly growing as he realizes Joe is talking about him), and the light they both share (the light they are in each other's lives) are mixed together.

This scene also leads into the next one where the brown is equally (if not more) grounding. This is when Joe's serenity (finding his peace in Ming), Ming's spontaneity (agreeing to move in with Joe), and their combined happiness mix together.

On the other hand, the brown becomes too much when Joe's loyalty (in particular, from Ming's perspective, Joe's loyalty to Sol, which Ming sees as a contributing factor to why Joe wants him to move out), Ming's anxiety (of losing Joe), and the deception they share (mostly on Ming's side with how he used Joe) are mixed together.

Or when Joe's way of communicating (in getting Ming to blindly trust him), Ming's love and desire for Joe (which turns him blind), and the deception they share (mostly on Joe's side as he's manipulating Ming in this particular scene) mix together.

Or when Joe's perseverance (in getting Ming to realize he didn't do anything with Tharn and that Tong is the problem), Ming's anger (in wondering why someone he "bought" is biting back), and the dishonesty they share (mostly on Joe's side who is hiding who he really is) is mixed together.

In other words, brown is present in some of their more explosive scenes, especially when their individual traits become too much and too unbalanced for them to handle. All it brings is sadness and loneliness for both.

One bonus scene with brown is this one:

Which leads Ming to erupt. He leaves Joe to sleep on the floor out of spite and jealousy. And, in the morning after, he snaps at Joe before ghosting him for some time, isolating himself from Joe.

Another bonus scene with brown is this one:

Where Ming is begging Joe to come back. He wants his safety back but, instead, his actions results in sadness and loneliness for both.

In other words, brown is a very emotional and explosive color for them that leaves them sad and lonely, but can also be the grounding color in their relationship.

Like with so many of the other colors I've written about, balance is key.

Part 1: Overview

Part 2: Black and Blue

Part 3: Red and Green

Part 4: Yellow/Gold

Part 6: Random Color Moments

[nohaijiachi]

I don't think the people saying the apology ballet stuff are genuinely saying that only Aziraphale was wrong, just that the screw up on his part was so massive that while they both have to work stuff out, and they do, for once Aziraphale should apologize to Crowley (he literally never has as far as we've seen I think) and it's gonna have to be like, a big one. Especially because of the never apologizing thing (I seriously can't recall him ever apologizing to Crowley)

However I disagree that the dance should disappear entirely. It seems like a very cute thing to keep around... But only for trivial everyday silly married stuff, once they actually have a functional relationship with proper communication. You know the stuff I mean, things like arguing over the sofa in the new cottage or a restaurant one of them doesn't want to try but ends up liking. Think it'd be hilarious. Imagine them in the middle of a store going "I was wrong you were right" with dance steps over an ugly armchair or something

(I'm putting this under a read more cuz it go long lol)

There's certainly this very unbalanced dynamic that has taken root between them, when it comes to admitting fault, isn't there? It's true we never see Aziraphale apologize, but on the other hand, all of Crowley's apologies to me always felt less about the act and more about Crowley saying what he thinks he needs to say in order to have Aziraphale stop being mad at him. As smartly pointed out by a reply I got on that post, the apology dance wasn't really an apology, it was just a way to sweep their little row under the rug and continue on as if it never happened in the first place. Another blatant example of this is in season one, when, after their fight at the bandstand, Crowley tries one last time to convince Aziraphale to run away. Quoting by memory, sorry if it's not entirely accurate, but Crowley says: "I'm sorry, I apologize, whatever I said I didn't meant it! Work with me, I'm apologizing here, yes, good? Get in the car." It's an apology only on the face of it, from the almost dismissive tone to the way Crowley rushes into it; he's 'apologizing' because that's what he does when they have a quarrel, even if he doesn't mean it, even if he still thinks he's right, all just in service of making sure Aziraphale is talking to him again and continue on, one more little chip in the mug that is their disastrous communication.

Pretty much all of the issues between them, in the end, lead back to that single, big point: They don't communicate, because up until the armaggeddon, they couldn't. Their lives literally depended on being able to say what they wanted to say without actually saying it, but of course it's inevitable when, forced to communicate in such a manner with one another, the waters would get muddled. It is an inevitable consequence that at some point the mug would just... Break.

And personally I do not think that Aziraphale owes a bigger apology, in this case. To be clear, I'm not defending his actions blindly, and I think we can all agree that him proposing to Crowley to go back to being an angel was hella hurtful, but Crowley punched back just as much, didn't he? That kiss was 6000 years of hopes and regrets all piled into one, all pushed onto Aziraphale as a last, desperate hail Mary, with all the the consequences that entails, and that hurt him something fierce.

And that's how we get "I forgive you".

I don't believe either of them owes the other a 'bigger' apology. I think they both owe and deserve a sincere one, one that comes from the heart, with the acknowledgement of all the mistakes made on both parts, and what they intend to do to rebuild upon stronger foundations.

That said the idea of the apology dance being used much, much later, when wounds have been healed and issues settled, being used for small, silly everyday things as a way to just make the other laugh... Yes, that is one Big Galaxy Brain take, my friend, I accept it wholeheartedly.

[00ops1e]

Sunshine for Everyone pt.2

Pricefield! Fluff!

Life is Strange - Max Caufield x Chloe Price

After saving Chloe at the expense of Arcadia Bay, our favorite girls are forced to flee their hometown. It soon becomes apparent that while they can run from the storm, running from their desires just isn't plausible.

click here for part one

“I swear I could sleep forever,” Max mutters, cuddling into the blanket further. The motel had proven to be a good idea, using someone else’s hot water and blankets was always nice. The pair were too tired to even notice the television only had four channels, or that the mattress was a little lumpy. Maybe things just weren’t so bad if they had each other.

“We can stay as long as you'd like,” Chloe trails off, “s’cheap enough anyways we deserve a vacation.” she babbles with eyes half closed, no longer sure of her words. The girls lay in bed, inches between. The last room available happened to be a single, and she had managed to haggle the price down, so fucking score again. When the man in the office mentioned the single bed, Chloe felt something flutter deep in her gut. It was a giddy, childlike feeling, but muddled with some sort of anxiety. 

Max shifted in the bed, mind still racing, “Will you hold me?” She heard the words fall from her lips before they even registered in her brain. The question appears to catch both girls off guard. It hung in the air for a moment, Max began to babble, face growing red, “I- 'm sorry I really didn’t mean to… I just, I can't stop it's all too much. I don’t know what's w-wrong with me.”

Without hesitation, she pulls the smaller girl into her arms, as if rehearsed, as if Chloe had been waiting a lifetime. Instantly the tension evicts Max’s body. The sweet musk of her shampoo, perfume, whatever it was completely enveloped Chloe. Holding her tight just felt natural, like all was well with the world. Comforting others has never come easy for Chloe, always awkward, never knowing what to say or do. Not with Max though, she made everything easy. Existing with her felt like hearing an old song and singing along perfectly, yet recalling none of the lyrics. She traces small circles into Max’s back, the smaller girl somewhat buried in her chest.

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Chloe starts, angry at the world for putting her max through all of this, “y-you didn't ask for any of this. You shouldn't have seen even half the shit you did. Max, I swear to you if there was a way I could take it all away, I’d do it.” Max looks up at her, tears in those beautiful blue eyes threatening to spill. A pang of fear hits Chloe right in the gut. Did she say something wrong? Did Chloe cause those tears? 

She begins to ramble, “Shit, I’m not saying I'm not glad I found you again, or that you shouldn’t have saved me or-or anything like that,” a sense of urgency laced her tone, god she was supposed to be helping not making it worse. “I just- I wish I could fix it, seriously Max. I am so so fucking happy you’re with me again. I don’t know, I guess, i-i just feel like it's all my fault” Her voice thickened towards the end, holding back a sob. ‘This is not about you Chloe,’ she thinks, reprimanding herself for being so selfish. But the guilt had been festering, gnawing at her organs like some feral dog with a bone. She was the reason the whole world had turned upside down.

“C-Chloe,” Max mumbled, sitting up to look at her properly. With shaky hands, she took the girl's face in her hands. Forcing Chloe to meet her eyes, hands lingering on her cheeks a bit too long before pushing the messy blue hair behind her ears. Her hands rest languidly on Chloe’s shoulders, reassuring her somehow. Max sat and contemplated her next words before answering, “None of this was you, okay? This is some freak-supernatural stuff okay? I do not blame you. Do you hear me? Please don't ever think that. I’d go through it all again if it meant I had you. Chloe, you're my best friend.”

It was like Max was able to reach inside and undo the knots in Chloe’s stomach. No one had ever done so with such ease, such grace. Not even Rachel, though that hurt to admit. Max just knew her, regardless of the years apart. Deep down, way below the rough punk girl exterior, Chloe was still the same little girl Max had grown up with. A soft smile inched its way to the surface, god how could she not smile looking at her? The way her hair fell, perfectly framed those soft doe eyes. Those fucking freckles and long lashes. The way Max would look up at her, eyelids heavy, how could anyone keep a straight face? Chloe hadn’t realized she was staring until she felt a soft squeeze on her shoulder.

“Thank you,” Chloe mustered up, embarrassment pricking at her cheeks. She shifted in place, yearning for closeness once more. These feelings, they can't be normal. Max’s words reverberate in her skull, ‘my best friend’  they stung a little. Those ten letters formed a lump in her throat, a pit in her chest. The words had some sort of mal effect on her, and she just couldn’t pinpoint the reason. Chloe once again chalked it up to just feeling weird about Arcadia.

The blank look in Chloe’s eyes prompts Max to speak. Whatever had her in such a trance could not possibly be kind. Max used a shaky hand to brush the girl’s cheek, “Do you think we could get some sleep now?” she proposed, pulling Chloe from the complexities that danced in her mind. 

She nods silently and lays her head on the pillow, wriggling slightly to settle in. Max drapes an arm around her shoulders, pulling that mess of blue hair onto her chest. Upon feeling the weight on her chest, Max lets out a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. This was a comfort unknown to her, never before had she felt this light. An absentminded hand travels to Chloe’s hair, despite all the bleach and dye damn it was soft. With her fingers tangled in the blue locks, everything felt right in the world.

“Everything that happened was so terrible,” Max breathes, wanting to offer one final comfort before slumber claimed them both, “It was so terrible, we’re not okay. But we’re gonna be. We can work through it Price, we’re a team and-and we can heal together. I’ll help you, we don't have to face things alone.” max consoled, her voice wavering ever so slightly. 

“It's you and me against the world Caufield, now and forever,” Chloe assured, tightening her grip on the smaller girl, as if afraid she’d get snatched away, “seriously max, what would I do without you?” she let out a small chuckle before closing her eyes and passing out, still entangled with her best friend.

I have yet to begin writing the rest of this (call of duty brainrot is taking over my life) but i promise my google doc has many many ideas. stay tuned ig? lots of love, liz

[borderlinereminders]

Sorry if this is too much. I think I might have bpd partly because I think I maybe have some sort of delusions or skewed perception of my interactions with other people? Like i get told that I overreact or misinterpret interactions negatively a lot. That or my whole family has been manipulating me forever but that seems less likely tbh since it's a consistent issue with me specifically so like, occam's razor suggests i'm the problem. Do you have any advice for dealing with this

Again sorry if this is too much. I am aware i should be in therapy I just don't have access to it right now.

It’s not black and white, but here’s an article I wrote about manipulation. When it comes to figuring out whether someone is being manipulative/you’re misinterpreting is to use a third party. After an encounter, write down word for word the exchange if you can in case it gets muddled later and then try asking a neutral third party.

It is possible it’s not manipulation. I just think people with BPD are extra vulnerable to it and I want to cover that.

That said, if it is you misinterpreting stuff my advice to you is to learn to walk away from a situation to gather your thoughts and figure it out. If you feel yourself getting worked up, or are upset about an interaction, walk away. Use a skill like urge surfing if you need to.

Once you’ve walked away, you can use a couple different skills. The one I recommend the most is “check the facts”. Being able to calm yourself can also sometimes allow us to see things from a different perspective.

Sometimes it still isn’t clear to us, and that’s okay. It’s completely valid to ask for clarification in a non accusatory way. “Hey. Can you clarify what you meant by …”

There are times where we realize the other person did say/do something wrong and in these cases, it’s still best to be calm and non accusatory. Using a skill like DEAR MAN to deal with conflict can be helpful. It’s really easy to get hung up on “who is right” in a conflict but usually that’s not helpful. I try and focus more on how we can resolve the situation instead of trying to prove I’m right.

Remember that your feelings are valid. I wrote a post on “how do I know if I’m overreacting” here. It talks about ways to figure out if your feelings fit a situation, mostly for your own benefit of working through them. But at the end of the day, your feelings are your feelings. “One of the first things I do is remind myself that even if I am overreacting, my emotions are still valid and allowed.”

[fereldanwench]

just an assortment of unorganized and definitely not fully-developed opinions on the bioware layoffs/presumed 'end' of dragon age

to get the obvious out of the way: fuck ea and bioware for treating their senior staff this way. all of their staff, really, but it's just especially egregious to me to sack people who've dedicated upwards of a quarter of century to this company. i think one veteran said they were there for 26 years? you have to be a really dumb, heartless piece of shit to look at someone with that kind of commitment and think they're expendable in your fancy new more ~*agile*~ team

i wonder how many, if any, vets were offered an opportunity to move into another division of BW/EA, and just decided to jump off the sinking ship instead. everyone's obviously been very careful with their wording on their social media so this is pure speculation, but i guess i just hope some suit out there would at least try to somewhat accommodate their senior staff before just kicking them out the door

i've also been finding myself extra Curious about this part of busche's bsky post (i refuse to call them skeets, figure out something better lmao) back when she announced her departure

and again, all i have is pure speculation on this front--maybe she really didn't know what else was happening, maybe she was "encouraged" by EA/BW to toe the line, who knows--but i will say that i took her at her word on this and assumed that 18 years with bioware + the hellacious dev cycle of veilguard left her wanting something new, which is completely reasonable

now i feel like a straight sucker for taking that at face value lmao

the rest of my thoughts right now are very muddled and conflicted and wavering. none of this should be taken as a hard stance on anything, just various thoughts that have popped into my head as more info comes out

trick was the first layoff post i saw, and while i felt for them on a personal level, on a creative-level, i was honestly never a huge fan of what they brought to DA. I've said it a million times, but I'm not a solas girlie, and i was always a little disappointed at how he overtook the big lore stuff in inquisition; my hype for da4 was probably at its lowest when it was still in the "dreadwolf" phase bc of that

i dont think any of that was worth fucking firing them for, but i did have a blip, if you will, of 'well, maybe the silver lining here is someone else could bring the series away from the solas/big-elvhen-lore-centric stuff and my interest will be piqued again'

but to be very clear, that was immediately overshadowed by seeing the scale of these layoffs

and then there's sheryl chee's post about DA not being dead because it belongs to the fans now

it's a lovely if not bittersweet sentiment, but this also just made me have more questions. do we take that as an official confirmation that there will be no more DA games??? does she have the authority to confirm that??? I'm just still not really clear on DA's future. and not out of some misguided optimism, because it ending seems very plausible, just that i want some proper, official statement from BW/EA if that is the case

plus, i think EA selling the IP also seems like a possibility. it wouldn't be the first time a previously successful series underperforms ("underperforms" if you prefer) and gets picked up by a new studio/pub--i've watched tomb raider change hands like half a dozen times over the decades. larian seems to be the one most people are clamoring for, but there are definitely plenty of studios that also trade in the stuff that made DA Good(tm)

(although if i can have a moment of snark: I've seen a few comments like 'i hope the BW devs get to go to A Good Company now, like larian or cdpr' and like babes. the cdpr one really killed me bc are we just forgetting everything that came out in 2020-2021??? like I'm sure things have improved but company culture doesn't change overnight, and a lot of this shit is systemic to the industry. pls don't put studios on a pedestal just bc they made your favorite game)

and i think the last thing that's been swirling around in my brain is if veilguard is the last DA game, or even if it's the last BW DA game, what that means to me on a personal level

my unfettered passion for DA started waning around 2017 after about 5-6 years, and i think the spell was completely broken when CP77 moved in around mid-2021. to be clear, i still like the series--DA2 especially will always have a grip on me--but i didn't have nearly as much emotional investment in the series when veilguard dropped as i did when inquisition dropped

and i think that kind of protected me from feeling too strongly about veilguard one way or the other, which subsequently allowed me to find stuff to enjoy in it without getting too swept in the stuff i don't like. well, that, and i also had very low expectations between knowing that it was in dev hell and being a solas hater (although i liked him more in veilguard). but i think if i had been in the same headspace that i was in 2014 when inquisition dropped, i would have been incredibly disappointed by veilguard, and felt like the series was ending on a low note

and i think there's a tiny part of my old DA hyperfixation that still kind of feels that way. i don't think veilguard is a bad game, but it definitely isn't the finale i think the series deserves either, and that does make me a little sad

so yeah. idk. the folks who made the games are the most important part of the story, ofc, and i really hope they're able to land on their feet and get some kind of justice for the way they've been treated

[cyberneticlagomorph]

A Goblin Market isn't for the faint of heart, especially not one this big.

Goblins of all shapes and sizes hawks their wares at the tops of their voices to be heard over the constant dull roar of conversations and objects clattering together; in addition to all of the sights and the smells to be had, both good and bad.

Thick and heady steam from the food vendors mixes with the dank animal musk of the livestock traders, the rank stench of leather tanning, and the sour bubbling of fermenting goods. It all swirls together with the perfumes and incense for sale until there is an absolutely snout obliterating miasma that settles over the market like a blanket.

Zeb gagged, clapping his hands over his nose and refusing to take a single step closer to the noisy, filthy menagerie of shops and stalls. His eyes were watering, stomach churning, suddenly dizzy with over stimulation he stumbled back to the entrance tunnel and half collapsed on the floor.

You rubbed his back gently as he took gulps of relatively clean air with all the ferocity of a drowning man fighting to keep his head above water.

"How... how are you not s-sick too?" He says, now lightheaded on top of being dizzy and everything else.

"Do you know how many diapers I've changed? How many number two's have destroyed my nose? How many buckets of animal crap I've had to scoop every day?" Your smile is wry. "You'll get used to it after awhile but here, this should help."

You hand him a wooden mask, grown not carved into the shape of a rabbit's face. It smells like summer days full of warm sun, cut grass, and chlorine choked pools.

"...what is it?" He shies away from the mask, eyes narrowed and suspicious. He can feel the raw magic curling off of it like smoke and he wants no part of it.

"It's a charm my mom made, it should help with the overstim some, it won't hurt you I promise." You rub your thumb over the mask's cheek where the wood has gone smooth and shiny from too much loving, there are tear tracks burnt into it, where acid tears ate away at the still living wood.

"...do I have to wear it?" Zeb takes the mask, gingerly as if afraid it would grow teeth and bite him.

"No, I just thought it might help." You stand up and dust yourself off. "If this place is too much I could just zap us home if you like, I don't wanna stress you out."

"N-no!" Zeb cries out, you flinch at his outburst and watch him flinch back in sympathy. His eyes sweep across the market with the same wonder and joy you've seen a million million times but will never tire of. "I... I'll wear it, we're here to get stuff for Egg and Null right? I wanna get them stuff too, so I can say I'm sorry."

He puts the mask on, and it fits like it was made for him, like a new skin almost. The effect is immediate, everything around him is suddenly sharper, brighter, clearer.

Muddled scents straighten out, becoming singular and defined.

Sounds do too, what was once an unruly chorus has become... not a song, but something similar, each voice rings out on its own in perfect clarity.

Zeb looks you in the eyes and for the first time he Sees what coils there in their depths, he does not flinch, but you can feel his sadness and concern.

"Whatcha standin' around for?" Tigger asks as he bounces up to the pair of you, his arms already full of assorted trinkets. "C'mon c'mon c'mon we're burning presh-ee-us daylight!" He grabs Zeb by the hand and tries to tug the boy to his feet.

"Ok ok!" Zeb giggles, actually giggles, as he stands up.

Tigger grins, bouncing and bounding in circles around you before picking any direction at all and racing off to do more shoppin'

"C'mon," You say, offering Zeb your hand again. "We better catch up before he buys something weird."

The boy still hesitates to touch you, but he holds on so tight like he's afraid you'll just disappear.

[mind-me-n0t]

Like a Dragon: Yakuza - Episode 2

It doesn't hurt like I thought it would?

I don't know whether it was my own effort to temper expectations or the flurry of sucker punches in episode 1, but I'm now comfortable with enjoying this show on its own merits and not just hone in on every single deviation from the games. I rather enjoyed episode 2, as a matter of fact.

I still don't dig the story structure with the parallel time lines and I don't think they will move away from it until the every end, which sucks.

But all in all, I got a good feeling about it now. Or at least a better feeling. More detail and spoilers below.

The episode starts out answering one of my questions from the last epiode: How old are these people? In 1986 they were... 10-ish? I don't know children. But that fits with Kiryu being around 20 years in 1995, give or take. Quite a few years to shave off a character, especially since the series is middle-age-men-punch-each-other-simulator, but you can't have everything, I guess.

A lot of episode 1 felt like a "fuck you" to Yakuza fans - or at least to me personally - with how much fundamental stuff being changed to dramatically. Now in episode 2, I feel like the show is extending an olive branch. That, or maybe I'm just developing Stockholm syndrome. Kiryu is in his suit, hanging out with Date who's helping him find his footing again 10 years later. What I liked about the leaving prison scene in episode 1 is built upon here. And Kiryu making silly comment with that straight face of his, where you can't tell if he's joking or oblivious to what he is saying.

So Haruka's mom is in cahoots with a group of Satanists who runs around killing yakuza? Alrighty then? It is nice that Yumi and Mizuki Aiko are separate people, that plot line wasn't exactly the best part about Yakuza 1. I guess it's also nice that the women are given some agency, although it's never been a real must-have for me. The feminist within me leaves as soon as I find myself in Kamurocho. I'm just here for the crime boys, okay?

And then it's back to 1995. Let's do the time warp agaaaaaaain!

A good chunk of this episode is dedicated to the four of them - Kiryu Nishiki, Yumi and Miho - starting their new lives indebted to Doujima. Getting their living space set up, getting an aniki to mentor them and the girls getting started on hostessing. I kind of understand why they have lightened Kiryu's character so much, since his normal lone wolf shtick would fit rather poorly with this situation. And despite circumstances being pretty iffy, they are having a great time together. Perfect for a downfall later on... We all love found families around here.

And then enter THE EMPTY FUCKING LOT! Alongside American Tachibana and his sister with a pendant worth a million yen or whatever! I don't necessarily mind that the show is just playing the greatest hits of the series, but I fear that it's going to mash ALL of the games' plot lines together (I'm looking at you, Taiga-san. Better check them bullets before you go on your kamikaze mission!).

See, this is where the time jumping gets muddling again! Are we after the seal in 1995 or the Omi's 10 billion yen in 2005? We kind of know that someone finds the seal since Kiryu gets to stare at the Millennium Tower at the start of this episode. Probably Nishiki, since he's up in the ranks in the Tojo now. Can't we just have one mystery at the time, please. Especially since what is happening in mystery #2 spoils what happens in mystery #1.

But a lot can be forgiven because I am a sucker for what I already know and here comes Majima and his kyoudai!

(Did they change Saejima's family name to Taiga since it is a little silly to have them be the "-jimas"? Or is he just getting addressed informally? Rude!)

I wish their entrance had been a little more bombastic, but I guess Majima needs to have his breakdown somewhere in the time skip in order for the fun to get proper started. It's all good, my boys are finally getting to know each other.

And while I'm still riding on that high, who else enters the scene but the sunshine of my life. And now we have Kiryu in babysitter mode as he is destined to be! I love it... please don't drop the ball on this, episode 3!

[theadventurerslog]

Quest For Glory II: Trial by Fire | Part 3

The Adventurer's Log

Day 3 in Shapeir here we come! It was a bright new day full of possibility. Except I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do next as I loaded up.

After eating breakfast I set out only to be paused by Shameen to let me know the Poet Omar will be performing this evening. Always a reason to return at night.

I decided to set out into the desert and find the Dervish to get the beard bit for Keapon. So I also got to ride my saurus.

Keapon's directions were to keep going south and a bit east. I'm glad I had a compass because the perspective flips part way.

I continued south until finding a stone dragon head pointing east and started going east.

I also got attacked by a bandit and my saurus ran away. I won the fight and had to leave the screen and come back to him having returned shamelessly. He wiggled his eyebrows at me. Weirdo.

But shortly after I found the oasis and the Dervish.

I asked him about the saurus and hmm...

"Seem" to be real, huh?

I tried to be polite and ask him for a piece of whirling beard, but nothing came of it, so I just took a bit. I tried asking him about some other stuff too, but not much came of it.

It was time to head back and I forgot I could have just told my saurus to go home and saved a trip. However, it was a slightly eventful one.

I forgot to mention the silly clowns function. Turn it on and get silly things. I encountered one of those silly things.

Persian golf session!

And then my peaceful Persian Golfer watching got interrupted by another brigand. I fought him off, but of course my saurus ran away again... I tried leaving and coming back and he was still nowhere to be seen. Turns out I was close to the city gate though so I returned and was told they find their back to the stable. I was still a bit worried though, so I left and came back, and sure enough, he had returned. Silly thing.

In that muddling I think I also saw a plane go by in the sky. Those silly clowns.

I sold my whirl of Dervish beard for 15 dinars. I also tried casting magic to see what would happen.

It was only a Detect Magic spell, but I suppose trying to cast one in a magic shop might be considered rude...

And in quite a contrast from QFG I have lots of money I don't know what to do with. But, I realized I should probably buy some healing pills. So, apothecary next. Pills come in sets of 3 which is nice. I got healing, magic and poison cure.

...I forgot to bargain for them :/

By this point it was midday. I decided to go back out into the desert to explore more and get in some magic practice.

I found a tree.

A tree woman.

I couldn't do anything and detect magic didn't detect anything. You'd think it would. But, no, nothing strange here at all. Nothing.

So I practiced some magic, went back to town, and did a practice round against Uhura with my remaining stamina. Rakeesh and Uhura's baby, Simba, were outside hanging out. It was cute. Nice of Rakeesh to give Uhura a break. Then I took an hour nap.

I still had some day left and I realized I'd never checked out the palace plaza on the map. There was a blanket seller and a jewelry seller but nothing I could buy, although the jewelry seller tried to sell me a 500 dinar pin. That did not go anywhere.

Then evening fell and it was Poet time back at the inn.

Prophecy time of all to come? He continued:

Comes a hero from the North, riding on the very air, And this is sign the first to then beware, For Darkness soon shall fall and shadow cover all, The city and the ones now living there. The first Doom shall be Fire, which shall burn the very stone, The next is Air, and rocks are overthrown, Earth shall be the third, then the final Doom is heard, The Water is gone, the city parched like bone. Unless the one called Hero is a Hero true indeed, Who comes to help the city in its need, Then will face the depths of Doom in the darkness of the Tomb, From the Elemental's Master, we are freed.

Trouble comes!

But in the meantime, I chatted with Omar and his translator Ja'Afar, who puts all of Omar's poetry into plain speak such as:

I tried asking about a bunch of different stuff but didn't really learn anything I haven't already though it was fun to see how Omar would respond and Ja'Afar translate. Waxing poetical - one liner.

It was bedtime and onto day 4. I was greeted by Shameen informing me there was a strange fire outside. So Omar spoke, so trouble has come.

But a hero's gotta eat, so I ordered breakfast before going out to investigate and was further informed by Shema that the Katta merchants couldn't set up due to the fire.

And yep... Only Alichica remained and his stand got burnt, but his spirit still smoulders!

No sign of the fire elemental itself though. I asked Keapon about it. It has a weakness for water. I'd have to get him 'restrained if you want to make him remain, so that you can get him contained.' But how, ask another. Not terribly helpful, but that's okay, because there was always my next stop: Aziza. Aziza help!

Basically her advice amounted to: drive or lure it away from the plazas where there's lots to burn to a more confined area where water could be used to capture it and then it can be contained with an appropriate container where it will behave as a magical flame. She also gave an example of a waterskin for a water elemental. Brass lamp for fire elemental?

I had one last stop for help: the apothecary. He was quite taken with the fire elemental, imagining the pills he could make if he could harness its power. Not for you, my dude, but the conversation gave me the information that incense would lure it as fire is attracted to things it burns because it is very vain.

I bargained for the incense (70 centimes) which he then just gave to me for free because it was for the good of the city. More merchants in games could stand to learn from that...

Time to go elemental hunting.

Well, that was the plan... It didn't seem to be around. Caused some trouble and swooshed off.

I then remembered I wanted to ask Aziza about the tree that looked like a woman. So I did that instead.

Aziza help!

Aziza, of course, had information about the tree too.

Long ago there was a woman who wanted to be a healer and continually asked her father to be allowed to do so.

It wasn't easy. Many men distrusted her or would only try to take advantage of her. Then one day a man came to ask for help for his brother dying in the desert. She didn't trust him, but couldn't refuse to give her aid and so followed. It was a trap, and he'd led to her a brigand camp where Aziza refused to elaborate further which says more than enough on its own... She managed to escape but they chased after her. When they almost caught she called for help and a Djinni heard her and transformed her into a tree.

There are three things to give her to save her soul: a gift of Kindness, a gift of Magic, and a gift of Love.

Kindness: What you would give to someone who has been in the desert far too long. Tell her about yourself. Remind her of what it is to be human.

Magic: a gift of sacrifice. It has to be something gained through hardship and from aiding others. It also has to be something from which a plant can gain strength. She straight up told me I don't have a suitable gift for this yet.

She didn't tell me about the gift of love.

I tried to go to the tree and tell her about myself, but it didn't work, so I'm not sure what I'm missing. Maybe I need more deeds to discuss. Maybe I've missed a step. Aziza seemed to think I could do it now though...

But I went back to town after some magic practice and slept to day 5.

And theeere's my fire elemental.

But first. Of course. Breakfast. As I said, a Hero's gotta eat. Shema seemed think to so too; she was worried for me. Aw.

Oh, yes, there it is. One roasty toasty fire elemental.

But pretty easy to handle. I lured it with the incense into the alley.

Then doused it with water from my waterskin.

Then put down my brass lamp for it to flee into.

And I got myself a magic lamp. Rub it to make a small flame appear. Rub it again to make the flame go away.

Everything returned to normal. Except, sadly, our dear pal Alichica is gone.

No more getting advertised at every time I walk out the door.

All in an early morning's work. What I'll do with the rest of the day I do not know. Perhaps try the wizard exam at WIT again. And maybe attempt the tree one more time.

Next time...

[balanceoflightanddark]

Alright. A while back, I answered a question regarding Claude.

The post was not good. I'll be the first to admit that I have problems with replaying games on multiple routes because I'm the kind of person that gets overwhelmed easily by so much stuff being thrown at me at once. Couple that with my issues in regards to playing games and actively making things worse (I mean I'll be the first to admit that I doom search stuff when I feel awful) AND my assuming I could just wing it without any regards to proper research, which led to a really badly worded and misrepresentation of the character. Regardless of my feelings towards Claude, nobody should get the shaft like I gave him.

For that, I apologize and I'm releasing this...I guess you could say an updated continuation of the post. I also rereleased the original and included a link so you know where I'm coming from so you can judge it in full. Here I'm just going to go through some of the big sticking points and screw-ups I made one by one.

A big thanks in advance for my friends on discord for pointing them out.

Not well-liked in either country due to his mixed heritage, he was raised in the Leicester Alliance and basically is representative of their policies.

Claude was actually raised in Almyra, not in the Alliance. He only made the transition till he was old enough to understand the situation between Fodlan and Almyra in greater detail. The two countries were political enemies, so the idea of somebody of Fodlan descent because of their parents (King of Almyra and a Duchess of Leicester) becoming king didn't win him any favors back home. Neither did his being from Almyra make him popular with the Alliance. Really part of the reason he made the transition between countries was that he wanted to open up borders and ease tensions between Almyra and Fodlan from within Fodlan's system. Which is an admirable goal, obviously.

Sadly, I screwed up since I inadvertently downplayed his childhood with Almyra by implying he was raised in the Alliance. While he definitely picked up a few habits from the Alliance, he also got a lot of his habits of secrecy since he likely wasn't all that well-liked back home. I mean he did have allies, obviously. Nader served as his combat instructor and was willing to lend his forces when called upon. But it wasn't universal. As such, I apologize for muddling up his motivations and downplaying his heritage.

Speaking of Nader...

Which comes to a head in the war. When Edelgard declares war on the Church, Claude effectively decides to stay out of it. Mainly, he essentially locks the nobility of Leicester in a bit of a stalemate for 5 years to keep themselves out of the war. His long-term strategy is to get reinforcements from Almyra so they could effectively steamroll the Kingdom and Empire who bloodied themselves from all the fighting.

And his focus on relying on his Almyran reinforcements isn't even foolproof in of itself since...well, he's relying on foreign troops arriving in a country that hates their guts. Even if the war goes in his favor, that's a bit of a hill to climb.

Yeah. I really screwed up here. While it is true that Claude probably would've used the chaos created by the war in order to restructure Fodlan similar to Edelgard and probably wouldn't have wanted to get involved in the war right away, I was wrong about the nature of his reinforcements from Almyra. Again, in Verdant Wind, he called upon Nader in order to take the strategically important Fort Merceus in his campaign against the Empire. In Crimson Flower, he only called them when Edelgard invaded Leicester. There was no indication that he would use his forces to steamroll Fodlan in a colonialist matter, which I implied. He was fit to rely mostly on Alliance forces until the need demanded help from Almyra.

As a result, I misrepresented his character, and I apologize. While I'm still not a huge fan of Claude and don't think Verdant Wind is the best route for Fodlan (it ends with another leader backed by the Church in charge with Byleth...which is the same structure that led to this whole mess to begin with), I got his character wrong and made him worse for it. I...understand why people weren't happy with the first post and feel free to call me out on that. I promise to do more research in the future on the other routes if I make any more Three Houses posts.

[samueldays]

The Supreme Court and Affirmative Action at Universities

There has been quite a bit of uproar about the recent USA SCOTUS decision in Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard; also v. University of North Carolina, et al. People are sending me links to shitty fourth-hand commentary, "look at this Epic Dunk about what a journalist said about what Biden said about what SCOTUS said about", so I figured I'd read through the decision first-hand, comment, and invite people to follow along.

Here is the SCOTUS decision. Get a drink, it's two hundred pages. But they're more like half-pages with the amount of margin and padding and whitespace.

My summary: the majority opinion flinched and gave Harvard only a slap on the wrist, the minority opinions were still very upset about getting their privilege dented.

The first eight pages of that PDF are someone else's summary (Syllabus). Then comes the full length stuff which I'll quote here. This is a long post, but still shorter than the court opinion. :)

Chief Justice Roberts, writing the majority opinion,

from page 9 spends the next several pages recapping the context of the lawsuit: university history, race as admissions factor, plaintiff's specific charges (violation of 14th Amendment and Civil Rights Act), lower court decisions, the history of the 14th Amendment, et cetera.

Roberts points to Brown.

Since Harvard and universities are admitting students on a racially discriminatory basis, this case should be a slam dunk if you ask me. The opinion could have been shorter. But I'm an internet commenter and Roberts is a Supreme Court Justice, so he has to be professionally Wall-Of-Text. :)

These decisions reflect the “core purpose” of the Equal Protection Clause: “do[ing] away with all governmentally imposed discrimination based on race.” Palmore v. Sidoti, 466 U. S. 429, 432 (1984) (footnote omitted).

He is insistent and repetitive about it.

Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it. And the Equal Protection Clause, we have accordingly held, applies “without regard to any differences of race, of color, or of nationality”—it is “universal in [its] application.” Yick Wo, 118 U. S., at 369.

It still does not convince the minority justices, so I'm left wondering who Roberts is trying to convince. The less than 1% of people who read the opinion in full, and the less than 1% of those who are just enough on the fence to be swayed by the fifth restatement of the same point? Maybe he just likes writing rants. I know I like writing rants sometimes.

Roberts then starts flinching.

For all his insistence on the unconstitutionality of racial discrimination, he starts carving out a (supposedly) very narrow exception where some racial discrimination can be allowed if it passes the strict scrutiny test. Translated from lawyer: 'if this is something that needs to be done, and also racial discrimination is necessary to do it'. You can stretch the loophole in that first clause wide enough to drive a truck through, because who determines what needs to be done? The lawyer term for this is a compelling interest, and it passes the buck to people saying "Such-and-such is a compelling interest".

Roberts gets into the legal history of Bakke, Grutter, and other cases about previous racial discrimination where the court tried to split the baby and allow a little discrimination but only in a good sort of way. Bakke was a muddled mess.

In a hypothetical utopian court reform, I would like to see some kind of "toss it back to the legislature" option where a court gives a one-off stopgap ruling on the case at hand, gives an order not to treat this ruling as precedent because of how much it's exploitable in both directions, and gives the legislature a nudge to rewrite the law with more clarity on this point. But that's not available here.

In the years that followed our “fractured decision in Bakke,” lower courts “struggled to discern whether Justice Powell’s” opinion constituted “binding precedent.” Grutter, 539 U. S., at 325. We accordingly took up the matter again in 2003, in the case Grutter v. Bollinger, which concerned the admissions system used by the University of Michigan law school. Id., at 311. There, in another sharply divided decision, the Court for the first time “endorse[d] Justice Powell’s view that student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions.” Id., at 325.

The muddled mess continues. Here's that compelling interest I mentioned, applied directly to diversity. This touches on another muddled mess: what is a university for? what is a Harvard for? Education is the obvious answer, but also credentialing (in a good sense of recognizing existing knowledge), credentialing (in a bad sense of buying permission slip), signaling, networking, and now "student body diversity", apparently. University is for diversity.

Which gets us into a philosophical sort of mess: the indeterminately recursive nature of law. The definition of a word is written in terms of other words. The 14th Amendment has an exception for strict scrutiny; the strict scrutiny requires a compelling interest; one of the compelling interests is diversity; so - what's a diversity? Well...

(if you were about to write an answer in reply, you have misunderstood.)

Twenty pages in and Roberts is flailing around, trying to draw up a solid rule which explains why this racial discrimination is allowed but that one isn't.

To manage these concerns, Grutter imposed one final limit on race-based admissions programs. At some point, the Court held, they must end. Id., at 342. This requirement was critical, and Grutter emphasized it repeatedly. “[A]ll race-conscious admissions programs [must] have a termination point”; they “must have reasonable durational limits”; they “must be limited in time”; they must have “sunset provisions”; they “must have a logical end point”; their “deviation from the norm of equal treatment” must be “a temporary matter.”

Bluntly, the majority opinion is haggling itself down to saying that the 14th A doesn't apply and racial discrimination is allowed if you promise to end it later. Jam tomorrow.

The importance of an end point was not just a matter of repetition. It was the reason the Court was willing to dispense temporarily with the Constitution’s unambiguous guarantee of equal protection. The Court recognized as much: “[e]nshrining a permanent justification for racial preferences,” the Court explained, “would offend this fundamental equal protection principle.”

Does a century-long justification for racial preferences not offend this fundamental equal protection principle? 🙄

The majority opinion, by my count, has made four exceptions so far to the rules about no racial discrimination: you can racially discriminate if it's to help compensate specific people, or if you have a really good reason, or if it's temporary, or if you're only doing a little of it. But sometimes it has to be at least two of these at once.

This is why I accuse Justice Roberts of flinching and wrist-slapping. He is a vainglorious coward. He likes the image of being a defender of law and constitution against racial discrimination. He had the opportunity to boldly write that the racial discrimination stops now, end of story. He chose instead to write that the racial discrimination must stop eventually and Harvard didn't say when they'll stop so Harvard loses this specific case on narrow procedural grounds.

Twenty years later, no end is in sight. “Harvard’s view about when [race-based admissions will end] doesn’t have a date on it.” Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 20–1199, p. 85; Brief for Respondent in No. 20–1199, p. 52. Neither does UNC’s. 567 F. Supp. 3d, at 612. Yet both insist that the use of race in their admissions programs must continue.

Also, he protests that Harvard didn't do race science in coming up with its race groupings used in the race quotas for admissions.

Some of them are plainly overbroad: by grouping together all Asian students, for instance, respondents are apparently uninterested in whether South Asian or East Asian students are adequately represented, so long as there is enough of one to compensate for a lack of the other. Meanwhile other racial categories, such as “Hispanic,” are arbitrary or undefined.

This strikes me as stolen valor, I am confident Roberts would also be pissed if Harvard did do race science to come up with more precise categories and subgroups and tried to check admissions for this.

It goes back and forth like this for a while.

“One of the principal reasons race is treated as a forbidden classification is that it demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities.” Rice, 528 U. S., at 517. But when a university admits students “on the basis of race, it engages in the offensive and demeaning assumption that [students] of a particular race, because of their race, think alike,” Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 911–912 (1995)

Roberts will brandish a principled rhetorical flourish, then carve out an exception. Instead of saying Harvard must cut this shit out now, he'll say that Harvard has overstepped and done too much too blatant racial discrimination. Implied: you can get away with a little.

On page 39 of the linked PDF, labeled 31 internally, we get some concrete numbers on how Harvard has been maintaining its racial quotas in admissions.

This is a quota system in action, for lengthy reasons. Once again, Roberts gets bombastic about it...

The problem with these approaches is well established. “[O]utright racial balancing” is “patently unconstitutional.” Fisher I, 570 U. S., at 311 (internal quotation marks omitted). That is so, we have repeatedly explained, because “[a]t the heart of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection lies the simple command that the Government must treat citizens as individuals, not as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual or national class.” Miller, 515 U. S., at 911 (internal quotation marks omitted).

...and a little later, Roberts flinches.

At the same time, as all parties agree, nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise. See, e.g., 4 App. in No. 21–707, at 1725–1726, 1741; Tr. of Oral Arg. in No. 20–1199, at 10.

Harvard is small enough that their quasi-quota on blacks can easily be replaced with a quasi-quota on people discussing how they were racially discriminated against (for being black) because Harvard & co can make up shit like "It Means Prejudice Plus Power" to define whites and yellows out of the running.

Thus ends the majority opinion on page 48.

I will pause here to offer a contrary viewpoint from a reactionary friend I discussed this with: Roberts isn't flinching, he's powerless, he writes this because it's the only thing he could write and preserve [the presentation of] the Supreme Court. If he tries to outright strike down AA, the universities ignore him and the media-industrial complex overrides him, and the Court is shown to be illegitimate because powerless. If he tries to outright uphold AA, his black privilege ruling is contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment which even commoners can read and have an interest in, and the Court is shown to be illegitimate because lying. Pretending to strike it down while letting it continue was a forced move.

Justice Thomas, concurring,

starts on page 49. (I'm going by PDF page number, because the printed number restarts from 1 in the concurrence.)

Blah blah Civil War blah blah Fourteenth Amendment blah blah yet another history recap, I'm pretty sure the sort of people who read Supreme Court concurrences don't need to be told this.

In the period closely following the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification, Congress passed several statutes designed to enforce its terms, eliminating government-based Black Codes—systems of government-imposed segregation—and criminalizing racially motivated violence. The marquee legislation was the Civil Rights Act of 1875, ch. 114, 18 Stat. 335–337, and the justifications offered by proponents of that measure are further evidence for the colorblind view of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Blah blah Slaughter-House cases blah blah Plessy, Thomas goes on like this at length. On page 65 he finally starts getting to a point.

Despite the extensive evidence favoring the colorblind view, as detailed above, it appears increasingly in vogue to embrace an “antisubordination” view of the Fourteenth Amendment: that the Amendment forbids only laws that hurt, but not help, blacks. Such a theory lacks any basis in the original meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Thomas is more principled than Roberts. Instead of trying to excuse just a little bit of discrimination for abstract causes like diversity, where the exception is likely to swallow the rule, he argues for a stricter standard of race-aware policy only if they're combating specific racial discrimination where the victims are identified by race.

Several additional federal laws cited by respondents appear to classify based on race, rather than previous condition of servitude. For example, an 1866 law adopted special rules and procedures for the payment of “colored” servicemen in the Union Army to agents who helped them secure bounties, pensions, and other payments that they were due. 14 Stat. 367–368. At the time, however, Congress believed that many “black servicemen were significantly overpaying for these agents’ services in part because [the servicemen] did not understand how the payment system operated.” Rappaport 110; see also S. Siegel, The Federal Government’s Power To Enact Color-Conscious Laws: An Originalist Inquiry, 92 Nw. U. L. Rev. 477, 561 (1998). Thus, while this legislation appears to have provided a discrete racebased benefit, its aim—to prohibit race-based exploitation—may not have been possible at the time without using a racial screen.

This rule is much harder to stretch to cover a Harvard quota system.

Several of the justices argue in both the main text and the footnotes.

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR argues otherwise, pointing to “a number of race-conscious” federal laws passed around the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s enactment. Post, at 6 (dissenting opinion). She identifies the Freedmen’s Bureau Act of 1865, already discussed above, as one such law, but she admits that the programs did not benefit blacks exclusively. She also does not dispute that legislation targeting the needs of newly freed blacks in 1865 could be understood as directly remedial.

Getting back to the main decision, here's Thomas with his concurrence, mostly with Roberts but stricter as mentioned.

Three aspects of today’s decision warrant comment: First, to satisfy strict scrutiny, universities must be able to establish an actual link between racial discrimination and educational benefits. Second, those engaged in racial discrimination do not deserve deference with respect to their reasons for discriminating. Third, attempts to remedy past governmental discrimination must be closely tailored to address that particular past governmental discrimination.

Bold mine. Harvard quotas are not this.

Thomas notes that there's the legal precedent of a compelling interest in student body diversity, and he is not impressed.

Even in Grutter, the Court failed to clearly define “the educational benefits of a diverse student body.” 539 U. S., at 333. Thus, in the years since Grutter, I have sought to understand exactly how racial diversity yields educational benefits. With nearly 50 years to develop their arguments, neither Harvard nor UNC—two of the foremost research institutions in the world—nor any of their amici can explain that critical link.

Since Harvard hasn't shown their work, they don't get the benefit of the doubt in their racial quotas. Saying "diversity" is not sufficient argument.

Two white students, one from rural Appalachia and one from a wealthy San Francisco suburb, may well have more diverse outlooks on this metric than two students from Manhattan’s Upper East Side attending its most elite schools, one of whom is white and other of whom is black. If Harvard cannot even explain the link between racial diversity and education, then surely its interest in racial diversity cannot be compelling enough to overcome the constitutional limits on race consciousness.

You've probably heard that before, but Harvard wasn't listening, so Thomas says it again. Then he goes on ten more pages of history recap with a side of Racial Discrimination Is Bad, Actually. There is more arguing in the notes.

more broadly, universities’ discriminatory policies burden millions of applicants who are not responsible for the racial discrimination that sullied our Nation’s past.

You get the idea. He goes on like this. His concurrence is long.

Justice Gorsuch, concurring,

starts on page 107.

For many students, an acceptance letter from Harvard or the University of North Carolina is a ticket to a brighter future. Tens of thousands of applicants compete for a small number of coveted spots. For some time, both universities have decided which applicants to admit or reject based in part on race. Today, the Court holds that the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not tolerate this practice. I write to emphasize that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not either.

His concurrence is a bizarre sort of talking-down-to-idiots but scaled up for smart people.

The key phrases in Title VI at issue here are “subjected to discrimination” and “on the ground of.” Begin with the first. To “discriminate” against a person meant in 1964 what it means today: to “trea[t] that individual worse than others who are similarly situated.”

He is very much focused on what the law says, and explaining the meaning of what it says, and telling people not to invent a new meaning and retro-project that into the law. Use the meaning as it was written when it was written. This is sometimes called "originalism" by people who don't like it. I call those people "treacherous" and I don't like them.

Gorsuch notes the race sorting boxes used in applications.

The available choices are American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; Black or African American; Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander; Hispanic or Latino; or White. Applicants can write in further details if they choose.

Like Roberts, he complains that this is unscientific, but I'm quite sure he'd also be unhappy about scientific race sorting. Imagine the African-American group split into something like Berber, Copt, Pygmy, Sudanid, Congolid, Omotic, Bantu, Khoisan. (In rough order of north to south African origin.)

Where do these boxes come from? Bureaucrats. A federal interagency commission devised this scheme of classifications in the 1970s to facilitate data collection. [...] That commission acted “without any input from anthropologists, sociologists, ethnologists, or other experts.” [...] Recognizing the limitations of their work, federal regulators cautioned that their classifications “should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature, nor should they be viewed as determinants of eligibility for participation in any Federal program.” […] Despite that warning, others eventually used this classification system for that very purpose

Still, his extensive knowledgeable citations are good.

Gorsuch recaps a lot more, including admissions stuff that was already recapped. He argues with other justices. He recaps arguments made in the lower courts. It's all very long for a decision, though short if you think of it as trying to summarize the entire legal history that led here.

To be sure, the parties’ debates raise some hard-to-answer questions. Just how many admissions decisions turn on race? And what really motivates the universities’ raceconscious admissions policies and their refusal to modify other preferential practices? Fortunately, Title VI does not require an answer to any of these questions. It does not ask how much a recipient of federal funds discriminates. It does not scrutinize a recipient’s reasons or motives for discriminating. Instead, the law prohibits covered institutions from intentionally treating any individual worse even in part because of race.

Gorsuch argues the interesting point that the majority opinion here of strong and expansive anti-discrimination protections without loophole abuse is of the same sort as majority opinion that he wrote in Bostock, and the dissenters in this opinion concurred with that opinion and vice versa. He doesn't quite say "so if you think about it, I'm the only principled judge here" but that's the impression I get.

Justice Kavanaugh, concurring

from page 132 strikes me as deeply uninteresting.

I join the Court’s opinion in full. I add this concurring opinion to further explain why the Court’s decision today is consistent with and follows from the Court’s equal protection precedents, including the Court’s precedents on race-based affirmative action in higher education.

"the decision I concurred with is right, and here's why" has very little to add that wasn't in the main decision. At least it's relatively short (8 pages) by supreme court opinion standards.

Justice Sotomayor, dissenting

along with Kagan and Jackson, page 140, gets off to a bad start.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment enshrines a guarantee of racial equality.

Bzzzt! Wrong! No, it enshrines a guarantee of equal protection of the laws. She's trying to pull a fast one by shifting to "equality" in the abstract, a frequent sleight of hand by people wanting equal outcomes, or equal incomes, or equal representation, or equal Some Other Thing That Isn't Law.

The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society. Because the Court’s opinion is not grounded in law or fact and contravenes the vision of equality embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment, I dissent.

"the vision of equality" is the first of many rhetorical flourishes. She'll later go on about "equality of opportunity", and "racial equality", and "ability to participate equally", and so on, in very general terms. But even the "equality of opportunity" is at odds with the case matter that some people are being given more opportunity, at the expense of others who are therefore getting less opportunity, because of their race. So she's also conflating "equality of opportunity" with something like (my term) population-proportionality of results.

And what is a "racial equality", anyway? The implication from usage seems to be something like blacks are entitled to a 10-15% share of Harvard degrees.

Today, this Court stands in the way and rolls back decades of precedent and momentous progress. It holds that race can no longer be used in a limited way in college admissions to achieve such critical benefits. In so holding, the Court cements a superficial rule of colorblindness as a constitutional principle in an endemically segregated society where race has always mattered and continues to matter. The Court subverts the constitutional guarantee of equal protection by further entrenching racial inequality in education, the very foundation of our democratic government and pluralistic society.

"endemically segregated" seems a gross exaggeration

"entrenching racial inequality", it's telling Harvard to back off on the racial discrimination in admissions

"the very foundation of our democratic government", cool rhetorical flourish, please get back to the case facts.

Then she does some lengthy historical recap, like several previous justices, about how education helped blacks rise up from slavery. Blah blah slavery, blah blah racism, blah blah Reconstruction, etc.

Simultaneously with the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment, Congress enacted a number of race-conscious laws to fulfill the Amendment’s promise of equality, leaving no doubt that the Equal Protection Clause permits consideration of race to achieve its goal.

This is the part Thomas was disagreeing with above, cf. that section. Sotomayor says the Freedmen's Bureau was created by a racially targeted law for helping blacks, so racial discrimination does not violate the 14th. Thomas counters that the Freedmen's Bureau was helping ex-slaves and refugees from the South, who were overwhelmingly black, but neither defined by blackness in theory nor all black in practice. Then we get a digression on HBCUs, before it's back to Sotomayor's side of the long argument with Thomas.

TLDR: Thomas wants the government to help compensate people who were specifically discriminated against, so the government has to make Harvard stop discriminating. Sotomayor wants the government to help compensate groups that are worse off as a result of being collectively discriminated against, so the government should engage in (positive) discrimination. Repeat for twenty pages.

[...] indifference to race “is not an end in itself ” under that watershed decision. Id., at 440. The ultimate goal is racial equality of opportunity.

Sotomayor, summarized: "humans are equal, so if they had equality of opportunity, they'd be getting equal outcomes. they are not getting equal outcomes, therefore there isn't equal opportunity and we must put a thumb on the scales to fix this problem." Thomas, summarized: "humans are equal before the law, not equal in height. we should encourage indifference to race, because that's what equality of opportunity is. putting a thumb on the scales is discrimination, which is what we are supposed to stop."

Repeat ad nauseam.

Justice Jackson, dissenting

and joined by Kagan and Sotomayor from page 209 is relatively short at only 30 half-pages.

Gulf-sized race-based gaps exist with respect to the health, wealth, and well-being of American citizens. They were created in the distant past, but have indisputably been passed down to the present day through the generations. Every moment these gaps persist is a moment in which this great country falls short of actualizing one of its foundational principles—the “self-evident” truth that all of us are created equal.

I feel like I heard this already in Sotomayor's dissent. Start with some American principle like equal protection of the laws, or equal before the throne of Almighty God, drop the clause to talk about "equal" in some vague sense, sleight again to "equal wealth".

Imagine two college applicants from North Carolina, John and James. Both trace their family’s North Carolina roots to the year of UNC’s founding in 1789. Both love their State and want great things for its people. Both want to honor their family’s legacy by attending the State’s flagship educational institution. John, however, would be the seventh generation to graduate from UNC. He is White. James would be the first; he is Black. Does the race of these applicants properly play a role in UNC’s holistic merits-based admissions process? To answer that question, “a page of history is worth a volume of logic.”

We don't need a volume of logic. The answer is: No.

But Jackson, after having complained of her interlocutor's verbosity, then spends ten pages on the history of slavery, Reconstruction, Dred Scott, Plessy, sharecropping, the Homestead Act, FHA, rhetorically insisting she won't talk about [things she talks about with footnotes], Jim Crow, the wealth gap again, the degree gap, etc, before finally getting back to her fictional applicants,

Most likely, seven generations ago, when John’s family was building its knowledge base and wealth potential on the university’s campus, James’s family was enslaved and laboring in North Carolina’s fields. Six generations ago,

only to recap history yet again.

[itsallsotiresome.jpg]

UNC considers whatever information each applicant submits using a nonexhaustive list of 40 criteria grouped into eight categories: “academic performance, academic program, standardized testing, extracurricular activity, special talent, essay criteria, background, and personal criteria.”

Jackson tries to minimize the role of race at UNC's admissions, which is at odds with the alleged importance of weighing race.

SFFA’s complaint about the “indefinite” use of race-conscious admissions programs, then, is a non sequitur. These programs respond to deep-rooted, objectively measurable problems; their definite end will be when we succeed, together, in solving those problems.

But the objective measurable problems that Jackson has presented here are outcome gaps. again, the "equality" sleight of hand from equal opportunity. she goes on like this at length about "equality" switching between the Equal Protection Of The Laws clause and the "vision of equality" and the "true equality" frequently.

The only way out of this morass—for all of us—is to stare at racial disparity unblinkingly, and then do what evidence and experts tell us is required to level the playing field and march forward together, collectively striving to achieve true equality for all Americans.

I Don't Think You Want To Go There.

[tamrielarchive]

Mehri awakes after a long nights sleep to the sound of warriors bustling around about her. She feels stiff as a log and her joins crack as she pulls herself out of bed. She gets her stuff together and shakes herself awake listening to the conversations of the companions around her. Some of the lazier louts still snore loudly in their cots.

By the light of a hanging candle Mehri takes a moment to write a small letter. Using her journal she scribbles down some notes about where she's been and where she's going before tearing the page out. She folds it up and tucks it away in her pocket and takes her leave from the musty basement.

As Mehri heads upstairs and finds the hall sparsely populated. Most of the warriors seem to be sleeping in. As she takes a turn towards the door she runs into a new face. The man looks remarkably similar to Vilkas, enough to be his twin brother. He approaches her curiously, Farkas: "Hmm, You must be the new blood everyone's yapping about. You're at it early? Where you headed to?" M: "Oh just into town I guess. Gonna look for some work. Are you Vilkas's brother?" F: "Mhm. If you're looking around for something to do we've got word of some trouble. Bandits holed up at Redoran's Retreat to the west. Up for it whelp?" M: "Ah! I'll take care of it then. Some bandits wont be much trouble." F: "Haha, I like your spirit. Hope to see you back here soon then." The young man wanders off towards the dining table leaving Mehri to her own devices. Mehri steps out of Jorrvaskr to find a light morning shower greeting her. The rain is cool and refreshing but it isn't long before she attempts to take cover under the large twisting tree at the center of the plaza. Although slightly under cover the rain still pitters down on Mehris face. She thinks to herself that perhaps it would have been better to take cover under a tree with leaves. For a moment Mehri gets lost in thought, enjoying the smell of the morning air. Her face goes numb from the cold of the rain. Her mind is so muddled by the senses around her she barely notices as a woman in a blue robe approaches. As the priest walks by and up to the tree Mehri shakes herself from her haze.

The woman begins to pray for a moment before turning to Mehri, the two look at each other and back at the tree. Danica: "It's a shame isn't it..." M: "The tree? Yeah it looks.. unhealthy." D: "It's called the Gildergreen. It was planted as a sapling in the early days. Deciples of Kynareth could sense the winds of the goddess in its branches. Many pilgrims would come to see the tree, they built the temple to our lady. Not so much anymore though." M: "Why not? The temple's still here isnt it?" D: "A dead tree isn't so inspiring. The divine of wind and rains is the mother of life and we need a living tree to be our symbol." M: "Oh, yeah I guess that makes sense. Whats wrong with it?" D: "It was wounded. Struck by lightning. I would try to tend to it, but the process would be long, and there are many wounded from the war I have to care for."

M: "How would you go about that? Reviving a dead tree?" D: "The Gildergreen is ancient. It's parent tree, the Eldergreen was but a seedling when the first men came from the north. Its sap is potent, and can revive even barren fields. I'm sure I could revive it if I could get that sap." M: "Ah. I could help with that. My name is Mehri, and I am one of the companions, I suppose it would be my job to aid the citizens of Whiterun." D: "Even if you could get to the tree you wouldn't be able to cut it. Not even skyforge steel can cut the bark of the Eldergleam. You'd need to tap into the old magics to wound it. That means dealing with the hags. Those old crones terrify me, or I'd have already tried." M: "Sounds like a problem I can take care of." D: "Your spirit is strong, Mehri. Thank you. The hags are located at a place called Orphan Rock, just south of Riverwood. You'd be looking for a knife. I hear they call it 'Nettlebane' and use it for sacrificing spriggans. You can find me at the temple if you need anything, My name is Danica Pure-Spring. May Kyne's winds guide your path."

The robed woman gives Mehri a quick bow before heading back towards the temple. Mehri lingers at the tree for a moment waiting for the rain to let up, though she quickly grows impatient. She meanders around town finding her way to the more affluent manors of the city. As the rain continues to pitter on the cobbled streets a large statue of Ysgramor looms over the wind district. There a lone redguard man is patroling the plaza, a familiar face. Mehri approaches sensing an opportunity.

M: "Hey you!" Mehri approaches the man and greets him with a little wave. Amren: "Can I help you?" M: "I saw you around yesterday, arguing with your wife. You need hired help yes?" A: "Ah. Yes, I do. My name is Amren. I lost my family sword, but I've tracked it to a den of thugs nearby. I want to go get it but my wife, Saffir, she wont have it." M: "I would be glad to help then. No use in risking your life over one sword." A: "I know. I'm not an idiot. My father fed my family with the gold he made using that sword. I just cant let it gather dust in some bandits cave." M: "I can take care of it." A: "I'd be in your debt then. You'd be headed just east of the city in a little cave called White River Watch, it's not far. Good luck out there, and stay safe. It'd be nice to have another friendly face around to bring some warmth to this frozen wasteland" Amren chuckles and gives Mehri a soft pat on the shoulder. He takes a deep breath and sighs before continuing his patrol, wandering off towards the cloud district. The morning rain continues to pitter down. Mehri takes shelter under a small roof and pulls out her map. It doesn't take her long to locate the locations of the camps on her map and formulate a route. She sets out with a skip in her step, hopeful she can take care of two jobs in one day.

As Mehri passes by the gates to the city she loiters for a moment, sheltering under the walls waiting for the rain to die down. Eventually the last of the morning trickle fades away and soon after the gates lumber open. Through comes in a small group of travelers, but Mehri only has her eyes on one. She approaches a scrawny nord lad that seems to be in a hurry, wearing a hefty couriers satchel. She retrieves the crumpled note from her pocket. Thrusting her hand out at the boy as she steps in his way she offering him a fistful of septims. M: "Ay boy you can take this to Riverwood yes? Take it to the trader, they will know who to give it to." The boy is startled but quickly nods and snatches the letter from her. After counting the coin the lad gives Mehri a big grin before running off further into the city. Mehri turns and strolls out the gate of Whiterun. The morning sun peaks its head from behind the fading rain clouds. A faint mist begins to form over the plains of the hold. Mehri jogs down the road, excited to finally get out of the city.

[ariendiel]

Hi! I like your headcanons! I hope you can still accept any requests.

Imagine if s2 LIs was actually in love with PLAYER, not MC? You know like Doki Doki Literature Club if you know the game.... what will be their reaction or confession?

Hi! I'm always happy to take requests (sometimes it can take a while to answer though, but I'm doing my best 🤍), so thank you for dropping by my inbox

And I LOVE this idea! I remember Doki Doki Literature Club so well, specifically watching let's plays back in the day... literally so many memories just unlocked... Anywho, I've done my best to answer this for you. As per usual, I'm mainly doing the LIs I feel like I "know"

🕹 If the S2 LIs were in love with Player 🕹

Bobby – I can see Bobby starting to ask directly if you find his jokes funny, not MC but YOU. As the games progresses and after a few replays, he'll start to friendzone MC because he's actually in love with Player, and it's such a mess because MC is an extension of Player but Bobby doesn't get that and it slowly becomes more and more unhinged

Carl – Carl being Carl, he'd totally try to hack the game from the inside to get a message to Player, right? He'd slowly corrupt the game from the inside until he controls it and has to fight fusebox trying to "fix" with Players help, and that's the beginning of a great friendship that turns into romance

Elisa – Absolutely would just start to appear in any scene you're in. You were on a date with [insert LI here]? Not anymore. Elisa is curious about Player, and wants their undivided attention. Maybe she'll start asking their opinion on her, or try to ask Player to hack the game and replace Marisol with her? That way, she can romance Player from the start, which she confesses is what she really wants

Gary – It'd take a few replays, but he'd gradually become more and more self-aware, until he starts complaining about some really bad déjà vu and question the other players if they haven't had these conversations before. When Player says 'yes' he'll start to ask them more and more, eventually having a small break down when he realises the person he's fallen in love with is, well, not who he thought

Henrik – Absolutely baffled to realise he's in a game. To the point where he'll "knock" on your screen, and just think the whole thing is super interesting. He'll ask player if they think he can get away with doing weird stuff to try and "break" the game, and together they'll totally cause the weirdest glitches

Ibrahim – Rahim would totally become self-aware by thinking LITG is just part of multiple game universes (not untrue). His confession of love for Player would be so muddled by the game file trying to force him to kiss Jo etc too, and he'd always apologise for what the game makes him do, begging Player to help him escape into a different game

Lucas – I feel like he'd be super suspicious of player the second he becomes self-aware, and just act that out by asking MC weirder and weirder questions until addressing it directly. Then, he'll realise player is key in him staying in the Villa, and on a replay he'll ask for their help in staying. Once he starts working with player however, I think he'll start to fall in love but only admit to it after a few replays where MC aka player gets with someone else

Marisol – Psychoanalyses incoming! She'll definitely start having philosophical conversations with herself at first, and then start to engage MC aka Player in those once she realises they're playing the game she's part of. These conversations become longer and more heartfelt, with Marisol contemplating her route etc, until she admits to having developed feelings for Player

Noah – I feel like he'd start complimenting the Player's in-game choices. Like imagine if Player is romancing him and he just goes "oh, trying my route are you? I'm sorry it won't be easy, but I love that you're willing to do that for me." He'll lament to Player that he wishes he didn't have to go back to Hope after CA, and maybe try to rewrite some of the game code himself, with the help of Player, to mend. it