#allowing them to make decisions for everyone else definitely seems like a good way to run a country 👍

[marvelsmostwanted]

The Supreme Court really said we’re going to put you at a structural disadvantage for getting into college, but if you do get in you will need to take out loans that will also put you at a structural disadvantage when you get out of college. Happy 4th

[astrobydalia]

more observations (lost count)✨

Hello guys! Life's been crazy lately and I barely have time to make any of the master posts I wanted to, so you'll be getting lost of observation posts that I've been collecting in my drafts for the past months. As always, enjoy!

❗️long post

work by astrobydalia

✨ Sagittarius and Aquarius are so fucking similar. Both of them are chaotic af, love their freedom and think they're smarter than everyone else. People who have both of these in their big 6 have the most unhinged

✨ Libra is WAY more obsessed with perfection than Virgo

✨ Whenever I had Libra or Taurus ASC on my Solar return chart I was lazy AS FUCK. I had no motivation to work whatsoever during those years, all I wanted to do was vibe and enjoy life. I also felt very relaxed and stress-free, when difficulties came I just went with the flow

✨ What is up with Gemini risings and always feeling intellectually insecure all the time? Literally their #1 insecurity is feeling like they are dumb or like they’re not good enough for highly abstract and intellectual tasks/professions. They come across as someone immature who lacks wisdom or has a superficial/simplistic view of things. I feel like this is because they attract people who are a bit of know-it-alls (Sagittarius DSC) and they have a reputation for being scattered-brained (Pisces 10th house) so people tent to infantilize them a lot.

^^^But let me tell you this not true at all, Gemini risings are some of the most brilliant people I’ve met with so much potential. Their problem is that they allow overthinking to get the best of them and end up doubting themselves 24/7. These are the type of people who have amazing ideas but they never pursue any them. They really struggle making decisions for themselves, they always need to ask for opinions first which is not a bad thing but this makes them come across as incapable or as someone who lacks self-sufficiency

✨ Mercurial signs (Virgo and Gemini) like to focus on concrete things and immediate reality, they process life by connecting one thing at a time and taking info as it comes, they focus on what's going on around them cause Mercury is all about multiplicity and details. With Jupiter signs on the other hand (Sag and Pisces) one thing about them is they don't care about details as long as things make sense as a whole, they see life from a more broad and general perspective, they prefer having a birds eye view of things because Jupiter is all about expansion and therefore it likes to encompass many things at once. This is why Virgo and Gemini rule mundane life themes and immediate reality while Sag and Pisces are more about general life lessons and higher knowledge

✨ Scorpio moons/8th house moons are the definition of an energy vampire fr. They just have a really poor understanding of healthy emotional boundaries, they expect you to give your all but aren't willing to reciprocate and always turn everything into a manipulation or mind game somehow which makes it pretty exhausting to be around them in the long run. Don't get me wrong, most of the ones I’ve met were very and good people but they always end up taking my energy away and make me feel emotionally burnt out

✨ Mercury-Mars aspects have this "it is what it is" mentality and really dislike over complicating things by reading too deep into them. They tend to think things exactly as they seem. This does not mean they're simplistic, on the contrary this makes them surprisingly insightful fast thinkers and are not the type to be easily fooled

✨ I've seen people saying that hard aspects between Mercury-Pluto makes people misunderstand your words. This is not true, this happens with Neptune cause Neptune rules delusion, but Pluto is a very blunt and straightforward planet cause it's all about revealing the dark truths. Mercury-Pluto aspects makes someone very deliberate with their words and they know exactly what to say to make their message stick. You will understand their words exactly how they want you to understand them. What happens with hard aspects is that the native tends to have a more provocative approach in the things they say, they don't care if you're offended by what they say as long as what they say makes an impact. People can misunderstand their intentions because of this, but not their words

✨ The ironic thing about Aquarius placements is that they are very good when it comes to connecting with the masses, the public usually feels very drawn to them because they're very good at appealing to collective values which makes them come across as relatable to many people as a result. However, when you actually try to relate to them or connect one-on-one, you will find yourself with someone that is surprisingly elusive, distant and more distrustful than Scorpio placements which is a huge contrast from the welcoming vibe they give off to the public. I've found that the only way you will get close to an Aquarius placements is on THEIR terms lmao, if they've decided they like you, it'll be them who will approach you and/or make the effort to engage with you

✨ A reocurring thing I've seen with Virgo placements is that they really dislike big changes and prefer to stay in control. I think this is not mentioned often cause it's kinda weird to say that about a mutable sign, but Virgos being mercury+earth ruled they feel comfortable relying on facts, data, observations, etc and they use all this tangible info to navigate reality, that's why they rule daily life and routines because they invest a lot of their energy on factually understanding and categorizing their reality (earth signs in general are very attached to the tangible). Their mutable nature shows in that they easily use their knowledge to adapt, find solutions and fix what’s wrong but when they are in situations where these "categories" prove to be useless (aka Pisces themes), they get very triggered cause that means they no longer have control of their reality

✨ That being said another reoccurring thing I’ve noticed with Virgo placements is that they love to predict things. But not in a mystical sense it’s more like they enjoy understanding things in such way that they’re able to easily put a label on them and easily predict what’s going on or how something works

✨ I have not seen a single Taurus placement who didn’t have the most insanely sexy and pleasant voice ever. Doesn’t matter if they sing of not, just hearing their voice is so delightful

✨ Aquarius Mercury really believe their opinions are the most ultimate and correct opinions out there. They are certain that their judgment is always 100% objective (aka always true) so in their mind if you slightly disagree with them that means you’re mediocre, dumb or narrow-minded.

✨ There's always a duality in all mutable signs. Sagittarius can be very humorous and optimistic but also very dark and profound. Gemini can be curious and chaotic but also very analytical and logical. Virgo can be picky and perfectionistic but also very permissive and conformist. Pisces can be very compassionate and wise but also very detached and clueless

✨ Neptune does not do well in air houses/signs at all simply because air energy rules (different types of) information and connections, while Neptune is all delusion and confusion. Also air energy is purely cerebral and rational while Neptune appeals to the unconscious

✨ I have not fact-checked this but I feel like it's safe to say that Mars rules testosterone. Testosterone is a hormone associated to violence or impulsive behavior, sex drive, red blood cells (blood), masculinity, etc That's literally all mars

✨ People always talk about how Capricorn moons have had a rough life but I've noticed this is also very true for Sagittarius Moons?? Responsibilities are not imposed on them like Capricorn, in their case they have to build up wisdom about life through pure and raw experience without anyone giving them a heads up or any pointers first, that's why they grow up feeling like they're fully on their own. Things work out for them at the end but they always have most MESSY life experience it's really crazy

✨ Both domicile and afflicted Mars are ambitious and determined but the main difference is that Libra/Taurus/Cancer Mars need to find some type of enjoyment or fulfillment in their goals in order to get motivated while Capricorn/Aries/Scorpio Mars find motivation in the challenge and endure through stuff they don't find pleasant

✨ From what I've seen males with Scorpio placements are very superficial and will gaslight as a lifestyle. They are the type of people who look the other way or brush things off or never takes anything seriously and I've noticed they do this so they never have to take accountability.

✨ Neptune/Pisces energy either gives “glamorous and ethereal” vibes or “weird in an extremely cringe way” vibes, there’s no in-between

✨ A reoccurring thing I've noticed with those who have Chiron in Taurus/2nd house or Chiron-Venus is that they often have dubious morality or double standards because they don't have a solid values

✨ Every single Libra Moon/rising female I’ve met embodied the material girl stereotype. They really have this “instagram girl” vibes to them if that makes sense

✨ Those with Sagittarius in the 5th house can actually find a lot of joy and happiness in becoming parents or they have a lot of fun with children

✨ Scorpio Mars can't stand not knowing what's going on around them and at first I thought this was bc they were suspicious/paranoid but then I realized it’s because they’re just controlling as shit. They come across as very chill and care fee but they’re actually SUPER controlling dude. Even when they know for sure that they can trust you and you’re doing nothing wrong they still want to keep taps on you and won’t leave you alone. They won't bluntly violate your privacy but will still find ways to always know what you're up to

✨ The resentful and spiteful stereotype associated to Scorpio actually belongs to Leo placements imo. They can be very reactive and childish when you insult their ego and will make it very known that they won't let it go

✨ Cancer North Node people always have some sort of issue or inner conflict with of having kids. They feel drawn to the idea of becoming a parent but deep down they low-key don't? I've also seen many women with this placement who had fertility issues

I have the theory that these natives are conflicted in this topic because they see family as an achievement or a societal expectation (Capricorn south node) so in this life time they have to know what it's like to desire a family for the right reasons and not because they feel like they 'should'

✨ Capricorn risings really are hyper-aware of their public image and how others perceive them. That's why they always end up becoming very popular and respected, cause they know very well where they "stand" publicly so they know how to successfully curate their own reputation. It's not surprising to see this placement a lot in celebrities

✨ Pluto in the 12th house are genuinely unsure of who they can trust which leads to a lot of paranoia and projection. The type to ignore the most obvious red flags but then automatically doubt your loyalty cus you spoke in a suspicious tone

✨ Pisces/12th house placements 🤝 disappearing. Y’all shit on Gemini for ghosting but have you ever met a pisces/12th houser?

✨ Saturn in 5th house people had parents (namely father) who were overly critical of them and their self-expression. Doesn’t necessarily mean they were unsupportive of the native but they were quite hard on the native’s creativity

✨ I've seen a lot of bullies/mean girls have Aquarius placements. Honorable mentions: virgo, Leo, libra

✨ Neptune-ASC people are really good at making themselves invisible when they want and/or making parts of themselves go completely unnoticed even if they're bluntly obvious. I've noticed they actually get away with a lot cause they have this tendency to not be accurately seen by others if that makes sense

✨ Neurodivergent individuals usually have Mercury harshly aspecting (conjunction, square, opposition and inconjuction) Uranus and Saturn. Said Mercury is more often than not in a water house/sign/degree or in Aries. Of course not everyone with these aspects will be neurodivergent, but it's just a pattern I've seen

✨ Pluto-ASC people most of the times fail to have a lighthearted view towards life. They always want to look beyond the surface of things which doesn't really allow them to enjoy life as it is. They often get a reputation for looking too deep into everything and in turn the Pluto-asc native often sees others as superficial

✨ Virgo risings are huge conformist and won’t go after anything that’s outside their immediate boundaries. They only make an effort towards things that are accessible and will quickly lose interest in anything that has difficult availability or requires them to go way out of their comfort zone. They're overall pretty self-serving.

✨ I know several people diagnosed with OCD. All of them have Virgo AND 6th house placements, 22º in their big 3, Scorpio Mercury/Moon and Mercury dominance

work by astrobydalia

[fadetouchedsilk]

I think when it comes to Veilguard critique there’s a bit of a disconnect between what I see most people complaining about vs. What a lot of the rebuttals to these opinions seem to be.

I can’t speak for everyone else but at this point when I come at this game it’s almost purely Doylist. I think it’s kind of ridiculous for my experience as a player to seem lacking when compared to the narrative experience of the NPCs. The setting isn’t real; it’s a product that was marketed as being ‘the most romantic Dragon Age yet,’ which implies a level of wish-fulfilment that we were supposed to expect. Which is fine! But it’s not what was delivered.

If I’m criticizing a romance & comparing the Rook version of it to the NPC/NPC version of it, it’s not because I’m violently jealous of the version that doesn’t include my character. It’s because I can make a direct comparison to things the writers come across as caring more about. Never mind the fact that we get statements in the AMA like ‘Yeah, we really wanted to include the Lords even if we knew they weren’t going to get the content the other factions had.’ You’re allowed to like that faction, you’re not stupid for doing so. It’s not a deliberate shot at you if someone points out how ridiculous the decision to keep the Lords in was when the devs were aware that they weren’t going to be able to develop them properly, especially when compared to other factions.

It doesn’t do anyone any favours to take criticism of the game personally. “This is good on a technical level” and “I personally liked this thing” are separate statements that need to coexist.

I don’t want to say it’s a waste of time to examine things from a Watsonian perspective, but I’m having a harder time doing that here because the shortcomings of the writers are so apparent, particularly when you hold it against the other Dragon Age games.

Maybe some people are being malicious in their criticism, idk. If that’s the case, then it’s definitely not worth engaging with on any level. But don’t automatically assume that someone who says ‘I didn’t care for the way this aspect was written’ is an automatic dog whistle for ‘I think you’re dumb if you disagree with me’ either.

The game has been out for a few months now. Take opinions with a grain of salt & form your own. If we shouldn’t be expected to place several disclaimers at the start of every opinion we post on this website, then we also shouldn’t be automatically assigning bad faith interpretations to every opinion that isn’t worded with perfect thoughtfulness either.

[magical-glimpse]

Happy New Year: Pick a Month to get a clue about your 2025 !

The clue isn’t necessarily about the month you picked.

January:

The Lovers, The Emperor, Nine of Pentacles You are in for a very balanced year. You will grow into your potential and your inner authority, while nurturing your opportunities and what you already started growing in 2024 and 2023. Expect being in a place of authority, of power, where people look up to you.

February:

Five of Pentacles, Five of Wands, Eight of Wands Expect trouble this year, you may get into financial or interpersonal issues and disagreements. Do not fear, because it will all be opportunities for you to blast through obstacles and grow exponentially. It may be the opportunity for you to deal with inner wounds linked to productivity, effort, work and rewards etc.

March:

The World, Seven of Wands, The High Priestess

You will accomplish a lot this year. You will finish projects, complete phases and requirements and overall will put a happy close to a lot of currently open-ended projects. You may have to fight a little to get through them, but as you follow your intuition you will realize you are capable of much more than you thought you were in January.

April: The High Priestess, Judgement, Six of Cups

This will be a year for connecting to yourself, especially your childhood self and your family, chosen or otherwise. This year may be decisive, as many of your choices will have a high impact on your close and far-away future. This may be a pile for late high school or college students who are making big decisions this year ! In all the trials, do not forget to give and care for yourself.

May:

Queen of Pentacles, Strength, FIve of Cups

You will manage this year like a Queen, goddamn. I see you in the middle of all these flows and just dealing with everything brilliantly, in a connected manner. A very aligned year for you. There is this underlying feel of disappointment, it seems like it is quite there, so you may currently be dealing with some sort of sadness, heartbreak or disappointment which may hold on for a while in 2025, but you are still incredibly capable of having a good year for yourself

June:

Ace of Cups, Eight of Pentacles, The Hermit

This gives balanced hustle energy. Definitely a year where you put your head down and work hard, especially on your own. It doesn’t seem like there will be much going out or many new connections, more of a focus on yourself and existing close friendships, especially on pouring ENERGY INTO YOUR OWN CUP. It seems to be a very strong theme for you. It does seem to be my single pile lmao. Just focusing on yourself, your skills, your craft, your inner heart and bringing peace into your own home in your own space.

July:

The High Priestess, Four of Pentacles, Knight of Swords

Hm, it may be a year where you are forced to stand still for a while. Maybe you asked about a specific project or aspect of your life where you really really really wanted to see growth, fast. Well it will happen, but only when you will get the intuitive hint to do so. It’s this kind of thing that the universe really really wants to happen in a certain way and they don't let you or anyone else mess it or its timeline up, so they will block it until everyone/everything is ready for you to take this action. This will unlock everything and allow you to grow your idea just as you planned it, while it going much further than you thought it would. Let’s say for example that you have a business that you planned X number of sales in a month, and 10X in a year.  You will get the exact rhythm you expected in a month, however your social media will reach much higher height than you expected, so you’ll get 12X orders in a year with twice the numbers of followers/subscribers you expected that allow you to get ahead on your 2026 sales objectives. Kind of a long example, but I hope you get it.

August:

Nine of Pentacles, Four of Wands, The Hierophant Not gonna lie, this is giving big wedding energy haha. If you are already engaged or planning on it soon this is definitely your pile haha. Not only wedding, but also career growth. This doesn’t exactly feel like a promotion, maybe a good augmentation, or someone in freelance having a really really good year with a growing number of loyal clients. There is also this feeling of tradition, respect, honor. You may get cultural rituals or events this year to help you, bless you, support and protect you, that is what causes or supports the wedding and career growth. Congratulations haha

September:

Page of Wands, Ten of Cups, The Star

WOAW HAHA. INCREDIBLE year for you, my September pile. You may get an unbelievable offer, something you are meant for, that you built the skills and mind for. That you are burning to do and are finally getting the opportunity to do simply because you are meant for it and everything is ready for you to do so. You are getting a nearly perfect year, pile September. Start the 2025 Bingo now because this will go MUCH further than your eyes could ever believe it goes, and that’s thanks to you holding onto hope for years before 2025, slowing building up and making progress towards your dreams whatever life was throwing at you, taking every single lemon and turning it into the tastiest lemonade AND candied lemon AND compost AND lemon tree. Insanely good year waiting for you, dear pile.

October:

The Lovers, Page of Wands, Ten of Cups

It feels like a love-oriented year is in store for you, October pile ! It does seem to be with someone you already know, someone who is already on your mind, where you get a spark to light. It could be a long-distance relationship, someone you are friends with, but not like a situationship or something you are unsure of. The two of you are already aware of your bond, there just seems to be a bit of a distance here, emotional or physical. An opportunity will come to light up a spark and for the two of you to come closer and start something, build something really beautiful together.

November:

King of Pentacles, Knight of Wands, Nine of Swords This is the pile of people who will get blessings they don't feel ready for just yet. This is honestly giving the vibe of you getting a promotion at work that you expected but like, you get it in three days when you expected it in 3 years. You get thrusted into this new position, with better pay, more interesting missions, people working under you and reporting to you, but there’s still a strong underlying fear that you are not ready. Well, you are, on the skills level, on the power level, on the mindset level… You just don’t feel emotionally ready for it yet, and it’s okay. You deserve the best, you deserve this position, you just may have some insecurities or wounds to heal before you are full ready to embrace all this position asks of you, but you are on the right path, have faith in yourself, as much as I, you guides and the Universe have in you.

December:

The Magician, the Chariot, Temperance

HOT DAMN PILE. This will be a very, very powerful year for you. You will learn and apply your knowledge, have all your skills at your disposal to make moves forward in a very balanced, very healthy way. I don’t even know what to say haha, it’s like you already know you’re awesome and how awesome you’ll be in 2025. Congratulations and great work.

[lemotmo]

I'm so tired for all of you who get questions like this everyday. But this is a good response to a question this person probably didn't want the actual answer to if I'm being honest. You all have to be so tired.

Q. I just think it's odd that you, and lots of other people, seem to be so sure of what is happening when we don't really have any indication from Ryan, Oliver, Tim or anyone really that it's going that way at all. Eddie is planning to move to Texas. Moving away is the big change that Ryan is talking about for Eddie. And Ryan flat out said he's not going to encourage people to believe something that's not happening. I'm not making that up??

A. I have a question for you that I think I already know the answer to but I'm going to ask it anyway. Were you around while the show was on Fox? Because Tim and the others involved in the decision making, mainly Kristen, had zero problem telling everyone that both Buck and Eddie were just straight and that people should stick to fanfiction if they wanted to see them as anything else. Kristen said Buck and Taylor were endgame as often as she could. These are not people who have ever been afraid to tell us it's not happening. Tim would, as politely as possible, tell us in interview after interview that they knew the audience shipped them but there weren't any plans to go down that road. And now these people are doing everything they can to avoid giving a direct answer to those very same questions. Also Buck is bisexual now therefore not in fact straight. The shooting arc was originally supposed to end with Buddie canon before Fox axed that storyline. Fox said no and they followed orders. If this wasn't true Tim would have corrected that narrative by now. Too many people, some supposedly involved with the show, have made the claim repeatedly now. Tim has defunct plenty of things. He reads and sees all of it. He would have corrected that narrative if it was false. Moving to ABC completely changed the landscape. It gave him the freedom to tell the story his way. They went from a network that really wouldn't allow Oliver and Ryan to even talk about them, basically wouldn't allow Ryan to talk at all (I'm not exaggerating Fox gave us absolutely nothing), to a network that appears to have fully embraced the idea of them. We're not making that up.

Do we have definitive proof? No. We do have the show though. We have the very clear narrative that the show has been telling since 7x4. The show making a point of having Buck and and Eddie's storylines run concurrently with one another, in the same episodes even, was intentional and very much the point. Their storylines are connected. The show has not made that difficult to see. People on Twitter distorting the point of those episodes doesn't change the point of those episodes. People on Twitter allowing people to rage bait them into believing the most ridiculous nonsense doesn't make that nonsense true. We also have the PR campaign that ABC is running for the show, and it's entirely centered around Buddie. No one else on the show is getting the focus they're getting, and you can't argue that is false because where is the stuff for literally anyone else? Even if you remove the Family Feud episode because it involved other actors, that still leaves all season 7 episodes being promoted and teased using Buddie content, the Instagram posts, Oliver playing in the NBA celebrity all star game, all the interviews that Oliver and Ryan have had, the Ryan photoshoots, the pop culture jeopardy question (this was legitimately a very big deal), even the very intentional New Year's Instagram post. These are not things that happen by accident. Angela and Peter are technically the leads, normally they would be getting this attention. Jennifer is a bigger name, it would make sense for ABC to learn into that but they're not. Their focus is on Buddie. You cannot pretend that's not happening.

Yes Eddie planning to move to Texas is absolutely part of the 'big changes' Ryan was talking about. And I'm not going to break down that interview with you because it's readily available for everyone to read, but if you read that interview in its entirety, especially the stuff he said about Eddie, and all you came away with was 'Eddie's moving to Texas and Ryan said he's not going to encourage people to believe something that's not happening' then you didn't read the interview at all, or you're Intentionally misunderstanding, because that's not at all what he said. Interviews are meant to tease upcoming storylines. They're not meant to act as spoilers. This isn't revolutionary news. Why do people act like they've never seen or read an interview before every time a new one comes out? They cannot tell us where it's going. His Buddie answer was all over the place. He didn't answer the question at all. It was not a hard to just say 'I see them as life long best friends. I see them as always being a part of each other's lives, they will always be family and they absolutely love one another but I don't see it as romantic love'. That's literally all he had to say. That was the question he was asked. And he wouldn't be forbidden from saying that. There's a reason why he and Oliver and Tim all dance around the question. They can't tell us the answer yet. I'm tired of trying to talk people out of being miserable doomers. If you want to hate everything all the time regardless of what the context surrounding it is then that's your problem. I frankly don't have the emotional bandwidth or patience to play the mental gymnastics you people have to perform every single day to force a negative narrative onto absolutely everything related to them. How are you not exhausted by yourselves? So many of us have answered ask after ask, made post after post offering up example after example, CANON EXAMPLES, to back up what we're saying and every single time you all come back to re argue the very same things we just took the time to explain. You're clearly not interested in actually having anything explained to you. You're clearly not interested in acknowledging what the show is actually very clearly telling us. You very clearly don't want anything other than to be negative. So go be negative together and leave the rest of us alone. We cannot help you see and acknowledge what you're intentionally making yourselves miss.

Thanks Nonny! Much appreciated.

Pffff, so immensely tired of these kinds of questions. I've had my fair share of them and I did answer a few the last couple of days, but I can't do it anymore. I won't.

The FOX era was tough y'all. I need all of you to fully grasp this. We had these insane scenes that were so incredibly romantically coded, but that never lead to anything concrete. We lived from Buddie scene to Buddie scene and in some seasons those were few and far between.

They went from relationship to relationship, but they still had more chemistry between each other than they ever had with their love interests. It was fun shipping them. The fanfics and fanart were stunning and the loooong meta was amazing. But I never really truly believed they would ever happen. I hoped of course, but only 1% of me believed it could ever happen. By the end of season 6 I had lost all hope.

But then they moved to ABC and season 7 pulled out all the Buddie stops. Look at us now. Today I'm 100% a believer. We are close now. Stop trying to kill our buzz. We are happy. We deserve this. Leave us be.

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[epickiya722]

As much as I disliked the ending, it pains me SO MUCH to see the amount of hate Izuku is getting. From Bkdks nonetheless, which I'm not actually surprised cause I always knew a majority of them only saw him as an accessory for bakugou.

The worst part of this is seeing the people who were the most passionate Bkdk fans switching up, saying things like bakugou deserves to move on and start dating todoroki, kirishima etc and Izuku should grovel. And bakugou should turn him down in a cruel way or hate him again. Like Izuku fucking spat on him or something.

"Bakugou is a victim, ochako is a victim" MOFO IZUKU IS ALSO A VICTIM HE WAS FORCED INTO THAT SHONEN PROTAGONIST MOLD BY HIS AUTHOR!!!

We know the real Bakugou wouldn't regret his decisions to love Izuku and care for him, he didn't go through all that character development to turn back to what he used be for your revenge headcannons.

I am so with you on that, Anon. This year definitely has shown me that some BakuDeku shippers truly are no different than other shippers and others in the fandom who hate on Midoriya.

The hate on my guy isn't anything new and frankly, I find it more irritating and overplayed than hate on any other character in the series.

They act as if Midoriya isn't the first known victim within the story!

Anyone who has followed me long enough knows I don't hate Bakugou. That's my boom boom gremlin, always.

I do agree that Bakugou is a good character, his development is awesome, yes. I knew his Pom-Pom looking ass was going to get hit with the character development stick hard when I first got into the manga and anime and I waited for that development. Like, yes, give me that. I don't hate BakuDeku, you folks know I don't.

But Bakugou is also not a golden boy to me. He has flaws that he is even aware of, but as of late, it seems that the fandom has forgotten that. I know he has blond hair but he doesn't bleed gold.

Yes, it sucks to see Izuku reject his offer to work at his agency. And I know that, so far, it looks like Bakugou got his heart broken to push Midoriya to Uraraka, but uh... give me a break.

At most, Midoriya and Uraraka are just having a talk. That is not illegal. Bakugou didn't ask Izuku out on a date and then got rejected.

From the looks of it, Midoriya and him are on better terms than they were years before. So much so that Midoriya is able to talk to him. Years before, Midoriya couldn't do that! It's clear to me that they do see each other, so Midoriya is allowed to spend 5 minutes talking to Uraraka and tell her "we should hang out more". Like, um, they were friends, too!

Midoriya is his own character, his development dating back to even before Bakugou was made.

Bakugou doesn't own Midoriya. He's not entitled to have him. Midoriya is free to make his own decisions just like Bakugou can.

I don't see the rejection as Bakugou's punishment, but I darn sure don't see this is something Midoriya should be punished for either.

The fandom is acting like Midoriya is ungrateful or something. He may be rabbit-coded, but Bakugou doesn't own him like he can be a pet like a rabbit.

You know what, Bakugou should go date someone else since apparently Bakugou is also a character that must have romance in his life. The fandom seems to think so!!

"Bakugou should take back the suit." The fuck he is? Maybe I read 430 wrong I'm sure Bakugou was not the only one who put into that suit for Midoriya. I'm sure Bakugou didn't make the suit either.

That suit isn't just a gift from Bakugou, that's right a gift. It's a gift from everyone that cares about Midoriya. Midoriya didn't ask for the suit. He was happy being a teacher and he has every right to still want to be a teacher and it's not up to Bakugou to decide that. He isn't writing Midoriya's paycheck.

Mad that Izuku rejected working at the agency... WHEN HAVE MIDORIYA OR BAKUGOU EXPLICITLY STATED THEY WANTED TO PARTNER UP TO HAVE AN AGENCY?! WHEN?!

So they must work at the same agency to be heroes together? Is that a must with people now?

They don't need an agency to be heroes together. Not working at the same agency isn't going to stop Midoriya and Bakugou from always being intertwined.

Frankly, I feel that these switching ass BakuDeku traitors didn't just not care about Midoriya. I don't even think they care about Bakugou given they want to fanonize him as being Midoriya's keeper and overly possessive pining lover who seeks to punish him. I don't even think they care about the ship truly to not treat the characters as equals and see that no matter what, they have grown to have one of the deepest bonds in the story.

Whether the writing sucks or not, Midoriya and Bakugou are equals. They're individuals but still are intertwined. They have a deeper connection than any other characters. Saying that BakuDeku is "ruined" tells me these people don't have faith in that bond or appreciate it.

They're letting a couple of pages that don't really matter to the main story actually influence them into acting like fucking donkeys and hate on Midoriya who didn't even do anything really wrong.

He has his flaws, but he isn't the worst person! There are a lot more candidates in that regard.

Rejecting working at an agency didn't make Bakugou physically explode. He died once before, but he didn't this time. Chill the fuck out. The rejection just saddened him, but Bakugou did spring that up on Midoriya who just started as a Pro Hero again. Bakugou is not that good at his words now. Sometimes, he communicates Midoriya is always reading his mind. That kind of behavior is part of what drive them apart, by the way.

You know what, last year I wrote a post that Midoriya should be a solo hero (like how Miruko is) and now I actually want it to be canon with how I'm feeling right now.

I feel like these kind of reactions that some people are having would have Bakugou hating them.

[nikethestatue]

The First Flight

Azriel flies Elain from House of Wind to the townhouse. Another lil fic for my Elain Archeron Week. Enjoy!

“I’ll get Nes,” Cassian announced loudly and proudly. “You get Lucien,” he told Rhys. “And you can get Elain,” that was directed at Azriel.

“We’ll see if Nes will allow you to carry her,” Azriel noted dryly.

“Of course she will!” Cassian assured him with enviable confidence. “I am the biggest and the strongest and she’ll feel safest with me.”

At ‘biggest and strongest’ Azriel raised his brow. 

“Cass, don’t get upset if Nesta doesn’t want to fly with you,” Feyre warned cautiously.

They landed in the House of Wind and Azriel fell back, preferring not to deal with the drama that was about to ensue. His only objective right now was to have Elain agree to have him carry her and fly her to the townhome. If he was stuck with Lucien–again–he’d just hurl himself off the wall. He did not need to carry Lucien as well.

Things went as well as he predicted between Nesta and Cassian. She was ready to hurl herself off the wall at the suggestion of Cass flying her. She and Feyre proceeded to bicker between the two of them, with Cassian definitely not helping, and Rhysand attempting to play some kind of referee, which was the worst idea possible. 

Azriel left them to their own devices and slipped out of the room, quickly making his way to where Elain was housed. He bypassed the small library and entered the sitting room, quietly opening the door and stepping inside.

He didn’t want to spook her, so instead, he sent out a shadow, hoping that she knew that it was him in the room with her. The shadow raced towards the sombre, sad figure that sat in front of the window. She was wearing a plain, but well-tailored cream-colour dress, and her hair was tied into a loose braid on her back. The shadow slithered over Elain’s leg and then landed on her hands, wrapping itself around her fingers. She looked down and smiled softly. There was no fear and no alarm in her expression. The shadow caressed Elain’s hand, twirling around her fingers and darting back and forth. 

Azriel approached quietly and carefully, not wanting to startle her. But Elain turned her head to him and looked him up and down. He was dressed in full armour, black and gleaming, and it occurred to him that maybe this was not the best idea. He knew that he looked menacing when he was dressed like this–and the armour was designed to instil fear and trepidation. Standing here now, with this shy, traumatised girl, looming over her was probably a terrifying sight. Shit. He should’ve thought about it before he came here. 

To Azriel’s utter surprise, Elain did not shy away and only said ‘hello’.

“Hello,” he offered, trying to make his deep, hoarse voice sound as gentle and unthreatening as possible. As he would typically do with a scared animal, he lowered himself onto his hunches in front of her and smiled. “Am I disturbing you?” he asked.

She shook her head no.

“How are you feeling?”

She thought for a moment, really considering his question, and then answered ‘I am sad’.

“I understand,” he nodded.

She looked at him, her eyes clear for once, her expression thoughtful and then whispered, “You probably do”.

He wanted to tuck a loose strand of her golden brown hair behind her ear, but he didn’t permit himself to be so bold with her. 

“Here is the deal,” he told her instead. “We’d like to move you and Nesta to the townhome where Rhys and Feyre live. In the city. Would that be alright with you?”

She seemed almost surprised when he’d asked for her opinion, and he dawned on him that most decisions about her life were probably made by someone else. She wasn’t used to being consulted. 

She nodded.

“Good. So we will need to fly down there,” he explained. “Do you think you can do that for me?”

She nodded again, her huge brown eyes drinking him in. He didn’t mind it at all. Unlike almost everyone else, it seemed that Elain wasn’t scared of him whatsoever. In fact, she seemed quite comfortable in his presence, which was very unusual. He didn’t quite know what to do with this–someone like her not being frightened of him.

“You can fly with me. Or, if you are not keen on that, you can fly with Cassian or with Rhys. How does that sound?” 

“With you,” she told him immediately, without hesitation. 

He smiled at her and whispered, “that’s my good girl”.

At these words, she seemed to perk up and then slowly licked her lower lip, before biting it softly.

He’d have to keep this in mind for later. Looked like she wanted to be his good girl.

“Do you want to take anything with you?” he offered, as she got up from the chair. He wasn’t sure if he should be touching her, but it’s like his hands had a mind of their own, and he reached and put his hand on her back, supporting her.

“No. I don’t have anything. Only my ribbons,” she said flatly. He walked beside her, still holding his palm to her back, and she didn’t ask him to remove it. In her bedroom, she grabbed a handful of ribbons and then looked around, searching to put them somewhere.

He extended his hand and said, “I’ll keep them.”

She dropped them in his open palm and he stuck the bundle in his pocket.

“Are you afraid of heights?” he thought to ask her then. 

She thought about it, “I am not sure. I’ve never been anywhere very high. This place is quite high up in the air and I don’t mind it.”

Azriel sought to reassure her, saying, “if you don’t feel well at any point, let me know. We can always take breaks.”

“I trust you,” Elain said simply. 

“Alright then, come,” he beckoned her and she followed him to the balcony. There, he stooped and opened his arms, “ready?”

She nodded, “ready” and then he carefully scooped her up and held her tightly to his chest.

She was light and small, very thin, almost sickly, and it angered him. The whole thing angered him. The fact that Nesta didn’t allow anyone to see Elain in the past seven weeks, and kept her isolated, was probably not the best idea. If he were Rhys, Azriel didn’t think he would’ve listened to Nesta and would’ve done everything to help Elain. But then, he wasn’t Rhys and Elain wasn’t his. But if she were his, things would’ve been different.

He kept his touch respectful, but he felt her next to him, the shape of her body, and having touched many a female in his lifetime, he ascertained that she would be soft and plumper if she actually ate. She wasn’t shaped like her sisters, and for whatever reason, it pleased him. He wasn’t sure why, because she was mated to another. The thought made his teeth clench and he stepped off the railing and plunged down.

“Ahhh,” she sucked in a breath in fright, throwing her arms around his neck and pressing her face into his chest.

He smiled and stroked her head, as they flew at a smooth, unhurried pace. He was glad that he just snatched her and didn’t give the others a chance to carry her instead of him. This was his time. 

Cassian was rather obvious in his attraction to Nesta. He was the least subtle male in existence, so it wasn’t exactly surprising that everyone, including Nesta, were aware of Cassian’s interest. Azriel, however…he kept his interests to himself. And from the moment Elain was Made, he couldn’t stifle his interest in her. He couldn’t stop the desire that coursed through his veins. It wasn’t a lustful need, but it wasn’t brotherly or paternal either. 

“Am I heavy?” she asked after a few moments.

“No,” he laughed. “No you aren’t.”

Her finger traced the scales of his armour, around the bicep and she murmured, “you are very strong…”

“Well, I am an Illyrian warrior.”

It sounded stupid even to his own ears, but he was too distracted by how she felt in his arms, by how her hair fluttered in the wind and swept over his face. He was too distracted by how she reached for his arm and how she shifted against his chest, her soft thighs moving until he could touch the curve of her bottom. 

Mother’s tits!

He didn’t think that this would affect him quite so strongly, but here he was, hot within his leathers, filling his lungs with the jasmine and honey scent of her, counting every pale freckle on her nose and cheeks. He moved his fingers just so, brushing over her bottom, pretending like he needed to readjust her position. He did. Only he did it for his own benefit. She didn’t seem to mind though. She leaned into his embrace, pliant and soft, and watched the city below them.

“It’s beautiful,” she murmured, awed by the sights beneath his wings. “I can’t believe that I am flying! It’s…it’s incredible!”

“I am glad you are enjoying it,” he answered. While she was looking down, he carefully dragged his nose over the top of her head, scenting her. It was neutral, but two things he could immediately tell–she wasn’t scared of him and she was very subtly aroused. Very subtly. But there was a tiny shift in her scent, a slight warming of her skin, a new spark to her eyes and cheeks. Her lips weren’t as pale as before. Whatever she was feeling, she liked it. And he wondered if it was the first thing that she liked about her new life, about this new world? Was he the first, and so far, only thing that she enjoyed in her new form?

At that thought, Azriel felt a certain smugness. 

Did he actually make her happy?

She moved again, comfortable and at ease in his arms. Her small little tit pushed into his breast plate and he hated that he was wearing it, because he couldn’t feel the softness of her breasts at his chest. 

“That’s Sidra,” he began explaining, “and that’s the sea and the port. Over there,” he jerked his head to the north, “is Illyria. On a clear day, you can see Ramiel, a holy mountain.”

“That’s where you are from,” she said. It wasn’t a question. 

“It is.”

“I’d like to visit one day,” she surprised him.

“Illyria?”

“Yes. Why not? I am sure there is beauty to your land. Both you and Cassian are good men.”

He wasn’t sure about her assessment but he didn’t argue.

Slowly, he began descending, making sure that he didn’t cause her any discomfort and watching for any signs of dizziness. But she was a trooper and seemed just fine. It pleased him, for whatever reason. Elain being comfortable with flying, not being afraid of heights, enjoying herself–it mattered to him. 

He landed on the front lawn of the townhouse, and walked down the four marble steps, before pushing the door open with his foot.

He crossed the threshold with Elain still in his arms, carrying her as if she was his bride. She wasn’t. But it didn’t stop him.

Her hair had loosened from the braid, and long strands tugged on the scales of his uniform, connecting them like golden threads. She lay in his embrace like a pale golden mass and he loved it. He was still holding her, when he finally noticed Feyre, who apparently had winnowed back home. She was watching them, wide eyed, and with a stupid little smile on her lips.  

Sighing, Azriel set Elain on her feet, making sure that she was steady on her feet. 

He didn’t plan on it, but he also couldn’t bring himself to part with her. He couldn’t end this peaceful lovely interlude just like that. He simply wasn’t ready. So, he beat Feyre to whatever she was about to say, and turned to Elain, who stood there, looking a little lost.

“Would you like me to show you the garden?” he offered. 

Elain looked up at him, looking relieved, and then nodded once. 

It seemed like she wasn’t ready to part with him either. 

[lia404]

(tl;dr: this is just a long ramble, me trying to convince myself that I need to stop feeling so shy and inaccurate about my bookbinding and that sharing my photos and talking about my projects is valid.)

As I'm preparing Binderary, I've contacted authors of my favourite fanfics to make sure they didn't mind me adding their stories to my bookshelf, posting photos And, if they're interested, to send them a copy (if funds allow; being on the verge of becoming a redundancy does put a question mark to it. It's still something I very much want to make a part of my ethics.)

I tried to build a script for when I contact said authors (and maybe you noticed already, if I've contacted you): a comment in which I desperately try to explain my approach and show I'm a reliable and passionate fanbinder. I swear I'm a writer, but I cringe every time I try to put words on this. I have this huge feeling of illegitimacy, of someone who needs to apologise before I even started the process of binding. I feel like I have to justify everything, in a "don't be afraid, this is a nice project I swear, look here are a billion references that make my message all the more overwhelming" kind of way. I also feel like I'm getting everyone's hopes up, because so many fanbinded books I've seen are gorgeous, while mine are terrible. There's glue everywhere; the pages are printed sideways; the ink bled; the hinges and squares are uneven. Everything is a "prototype" because I don't dare call it a book.

I am immensely grateful for the kindness of the authors I contacted, who were all so accepting, encouraging, and even enthusiastic (although this last one makes me nervous, because as mentioned above: expectations, oh no.)

Now that I have completed some personal projects, I know from experience that photos should not always be trusted, that gorgeous projects have their flaws too, and as such, that mine have a right to be wonky and uneven.

An example: the very first notebook I binded.

I took an old notebook I didn't like the cover of, destroyed it, re-sewed the signatures, added these "Flower Power" pages from a decorated pad I bought for something else completely, and then fought for my life against glue and the paper I picked for the cover.

It does not look awful, if you see the photo from afar. I know multiple people around me said it was nice.

The truth of it:

My cover tore, and I had to add a ribbon to vaguely hide it. Except I didn't have a ribbon that fit. So I added a torn ribbon over a torn cover, adding glue everywhere.

It's even worse on the other side, where you also see that my book case is completely crooked and the squares are so uneven it's almost funny. There's one centimeter of difference here.

As the case would not stick, I added glue and ended up wrapping the endpages INSIDE the cover, rather than glueing them above. The paper tore. Beginner's mistakes.

But hey, the glue makes it shiny, and wrapping looks like I wrapped a present! How fancy.

And yet, when you don't know about it, with the right light and the right untrained eye, it actually looks somewhat nice.

I'm not exactly proud of the result of this first attempt, although I'm really proud I managed to complete the first attempt itself. But I didn't learn from these first mistakes, no. I kept making them again and again, so much so that I gave up doing it by myself only and ended up attending a short bookbinding workshop. (Possibly my best decision of 2024.)

Having access to actually good material with a trained teacher definitely helped. The results look better—and yet.

Look, this one I did last year is so pretty:

The paper cover is gorgeous, and so are the endpapers.

And it's a rounded spine, too, so that's quite fancy. I've had so many people compliment it, and yet...

...yeah. Even with my teacher supervising me in the workshop, it seems like squares are not my friends. It's a good half centimeter here, which on such a small format of notebook actually makes a noticeable difference—that no one notices when they stick to the first photos, the ones that made people go "oooh" and "aaah" and received compliments.

Bottom line: I am an amateur, I am legitimate and not inaccurate as such, and I need to stop feeling shy about sharing my bookbinding photos here. (I do need to learn to take photos, though.)

I've been binding more and more notebooks lately, and made "prototypes", and learnt a lot. And now, I have received the approval of many writers who are eager to see their stories turned into physical books (and I'm eager too) so I know I can proceed with my experiments. Maybe they even won't feel (too) robbed when they see the result.

I'm still looking for a nice/funny/fitting name for my press. Once I have it, I'll likely do a separate blog specifically for my experiments and actual bindings. I am hopeful that having a blog serving as a portfolio will help in feeling more legitimate when I end up contacting more creators, because there are TONS of stories I want on my bookshelves. I've been trying to handmake books since I was five (there was a lot of adhesive tape involved back then), experimenting a lot along the way, until over 25 years later when I stumbled upon Renegade Bindery and reached the "anyone can make books!" mindset.

A few years later, let's be real: NOT anyone can make books. Why is this hobby so expensive in money, time, energy and room? My apartment is small, my bank account will likely not enjoy the job redundancy, and god knows my time and energy were already quite scarce before this.

But I proved myself that I can make books, and people don't seem to hate it? And maybe I can give back to authors who spent hours and hours and hours writing story that kept me going through all these years. Even if my squares are uneven, my pages are cut sideways and my my glue stains are impossible to hide.

So here we are. This was my first post about bookbinding, and most of all fanbinding. Now, onto finding a nice name for my press, before I can finally share photos of my lovely mess.

[getvalentined]

i want to ask you all of them is that allowed? ALL OF THEM

exercising great restraint, i limited myself to most of them

❤: Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

💛: What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

🤍: Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

🖤: Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

💖: What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

💔: If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

💕: What is an unpopular ship that you like?

[ Unpopular Opinion Ask Game ]

I will be putting most of these behind a cut so as not to stretch anyone's dash, but I'll take 'em all!

❤️ · Which character do you think is the most egregiously mischaracterized by the fandom?

Honestly there are so many characters who are grossly mischaracterized by fandom that this is hard to say. I'm going to go with the most popular and most mischaracterized, which is Sephiroth.

This man all but asks permission to have opinions in CC:

Sephiroth: I would prefer not to believe it, but… Zack: Then don't believe it. Sephiroth: Very well, I won't.

He also seeks permission to leave the company:

Sephiroth: […] Depending on what happens, I may abandon Shinra. Zack: [says nothing, but looks at Sephiroth with obvious trepidation, clearly uncomfortable with the option] Sephiroth: …Until then, I'll remain loyal to SOLDIER.

When Zack doesn't respond affirmatively, Sephiroth drops the prospect of leaving and never brings it up again.

This man is not socially confident, nor is he remotely dominant in his behavior. He's not eloquent or debonair, he's quiet and awkward and has been brought up in such a way that he's all but incapable of making decisions for himself. We can very easily blame Hojo for this, controlling and demanding as he is, but for some reason the fandom portrays pre-Nibelheim Sephiroth as some sort of Daddy Dom sex god in spite of the fact that he almost certainly died a virgin.

🧡 · What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

Where do I even start? President Shinra is not Cloud's father. Glenn is also not Cloud's father. The identity of Cloud's father doesn't matter at all, actually! Hojo did not sexually assault Lucrecia to produce Sephiroth. Vincent did not "abandon Sephiroth" to Hojo. Gast was not a good person. Just because the Cetra may actually have been self-important pieces of shit as a culture does not mean Jenova is secretly good. Sephiroth was not born in 1984. This is all extremely stupid.

💛 · What is a popular ship you just can't get behind, and why?

Censored to keep it out of searches, the two that I avoid like the plague are Va|enwind and AG$ZC.

The first because it really bothers me that C!d is canonically abusive toward Shera for half a decade, still manages to get his act together enough that they get married post-Meteorfall, and then Va|enwind shippers straight up act like she either doesn't exist or like she somehow deserved the way he treated her. I've literally discussed this with people and had them assert that nobody likes Shera anyway so it doesn't matter how he treated her, she's "barely relevant to his character" and "easy to ignore." Multiple people have told me that she'll probably be removed from the FF7R series altogether because she just doesn't matter.

I mean, Shera is in the OG, in OTWTAS, and it's revealed that C!d named his new airship after her in AC, and she's mentioned multiple times in Dirge, but sure! Not important at all! The dev team didn't even cut Johnny but they'll absolutely cut C!D'S FUCKING WIFE because she makes him look bad and gets in the way of a popular noncanon ship! That's definitely how this works!

I don't like the Big Polycule because I don't think the character dynamics actually work all together, and most people who write it do so in such a way that everyone seems to be in high school for some reason. Like working for Shinra is the same as high school? As someone who has worked in a corporate setting as an adult, and has family who have been in the military and law enforcement, I find this whole trope to be really strange and it puts me right off.

Further, even if we ignore the canon that Cloud wasn't even on active duty until after both Genesis and Angeal had defected, hadn't even seen either of them in person until Modeoheim (where Zack held Genesis back so Cloud could pursue Hollander and then Angeal beat the shit out of the poor kid to stop said pursuit), and didn't meet Sephiroth until the Nibelheim mission, there's still a lot about it that grinds my gears. This is not shade toward people who don't care about this kind of thing, but I'm personally uncomfortable with the concept of two teenagers (Cloud is 14-16 and Zack is 16-18 prior to Nibelheim) being in a sexual relationship with three adult men who are up to 10 years older and in positions of power over them, particularly how this is always treated in-story like a great thing that is no big deal. If that power dynamic were ever played with or discussed in any way it might be different—I can appreciate some dangerous or unhealthy relationship dynamics in fiction—but I've literally never seen a Big Polycule shipper address it at all. Between that and the characterization mismatch, it just rankles me really bad. (Also, while I'm not particularly squicked out by the fact that Genesis and Angeal are canonically related, I feel like they had some issues with that, and it would definitely fuck up the sexual dynamic there.)

💚 · What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

You already talked about how Vincent is fucking hilarious, and I've talked about it myself in the past, so I won't soapbox about that. Honestly I think that's secondary to the thing that I feel everyone gets the most wrong about Vincent, which is that he's no longer in love with Lucrecia postcanon.

His entire character arc over the course of the series, from BC to Dirge, is him learning that he was wrong about her, she made mistakes, it's her fault he's so fucked up to begin with, and then forgiving her for it. It's him setting aside his idea of her and seeing who she really was, looking past the brilliance of which he speaks so fondly to see the mistakes that only he is still "alive" to pay for—and in doing so, reaching an understanding so deep that he's willing to give her the absolution and release that no force on Gaia can offer to him.

He thanks her for saving him, because he understands that's what she was trying to do, and he is grateful that even if she was never in love with him (which she wasn't) she did love him enough to do that. He's grateful that she loved him enough to throw away years of her life in the attempt to save him, just like he lost his entire life in his attempt to save her. They're foils of each other, but they're over. At the end of Dirge, he thanks her and he leaves, walking into the light for the first time in decades, free of the self-loathing he'd been burdened with by his misunderstanding of Lucrecia.

I think it's a beautiful, bittersweet story, but Vincent's ability to move forward afterward makes it more sweet than bitter. By portraying Vincent as still every bit as obsessive and love-blind as he was up until the events of Dirge, folks do a huge disservice to his character arc. I don't think it's impossible for him to fall for her again postcanon, if she somehow returned to the world of the living (which she won't, she's very clear that the majority of her spirit has been eroded by that point and there's no way she could come back), but it wouldn't be the same relationship. He still loves her, I have no doubt of that, but he's not in love with her anymore. That's the whole point of his character arc. It's only way he can be free, and he deserves it.

🤍 · Which character is not as morally bad as everyone else seems to think?

Genesis. Genesis Genesis Genesis. I'm not gonna wax on too much here because I already have a fucking manifesto so I won't go into too much here, but Genesis is only the antagonist of CC because Zack is with Shinra, he's not the looming, manipulative liar that people portray him as in the slightest. He doesn't actually lie, like, at all. That's the problem. He is so brutally honest it ruins his relationships with literally everyone he's ever loved, because he can't fathom someone not wanting to know the truth. That's not a moral failing, that's a misunderstanding of emotional processing—because he's autistic as hell and nobody ever wants to talk about it.

He's described by Gackt himself as being "a sweetheart," the way he dresses indicates that he's used to fighting in very close-quarters while everyone else aims to keep as much distance as possible, he constantly puts himself down while elevating his loved ones, and he's not the one responsible for the accident that ruined everything.

And yet. Somehow. Bad guy forever. Okay.

🖤 · Which character is not as morally good as everyone else seems to think?

Angeal. I have a tag for this. 'Nough said.

💖 · What is your biggest unpopular opinion about the series?

The "official timeline" provided by the multiple contradictory Ultimanias is wrong. This is proven by the actual source material, but god forbid you try to make people do basic fucking math.

Oh also Rebirth's ending was phenomenal and I'm sorry that it didn't go how people wanted it to go, but it's still exactly what it should have been for this point in the story. Sorry.

💔 · If you had to remove one major character from the series, who would you choose?

This is...difficult. Almost all the major characters in the series are integral to the story in some capacity, so removing any of them would make it something else altogether. Yuffie could be removed from the OG without affecting the plot, but she couldn't be scrapped from later titles, so that's out. The main party member I'd be most personally invested in removing would be C!d because his backstory is very triggering to me as a survivor of domestic abuse, but that would break the story. I dunno how to answer this one—just because the character isn't integral in every title or I don't like them doesn't mean they should be removed. The series I love wouldn't be the same without them. I think they can all stay.

💕 · What is an unpopular ship that you like?

I am a load-bearing pylon in the Tseeve tag, which I think is a travesty, but folks wanna pair Tseng with his shitty boss instead so it is what it is.

[v41entine]

***EDIT: organization + added screenshots I've finished my first avowed playthrough. I wanna talk about it.

[⚠️Major Spoiler Warning‼️]

( mid-game predictions: first / second )

First, things I was right about:

Woedica "burned" Sapadal aka The Voice and will make a cameo. (i was wrong about their imprisonment, but i should have stuck with my gut on this one bc otherwise i was right orz)

Sapadal learns from our decisions and it will change them throughout the story (the final convo with them was sooooo. it was everything 😭😭😭 the things i expected them to say about certain choices and how they INTERPRETED it thru THEIR lens was fascinating!!!!)

Sapadal is actually causing the plague to defend against the spread of the Engwithan God's influence. (OKAY i think it was actually the manifestation of their fear/loneliness BUT they are AFRAID of Aedyr and Woedica, so i was at least half right)

Now, i must confess, as seems to be my pattern with Obsidian games, I COMPLETELY MISSED OUT on a whooole chunk of the game. I missed everything in Fior, I recruited the Spy and still didn't put anything together and didn't realize what might happen. So that one's on me -_-

(towards endgame the companions are like. reminiscing about everything we've gone thru, and Yatzli straight up says "I thought you could have been more helpful" AND SHE WAS RIGHT IM SO SORRY BESTIE I COLLECTED UR VASE AND COMPLETELY FORGOT TO GIVE IT TO YOU 😭😭😭)

NEwayy I'm excited for my second playthru but first i want to go back and see the different endings with this envoy just for funsies :3

My endgame experience:

I should have known that it would end with a "Choose Aedyr or Sapadal/the Living Lands" thing; the culture you grew up with vs your "birthright"/patron. I was rly trying to stay neutral, like at first i was like, oh we're just following orders "stop the dreamscourge" and nothing else matters, but as a person with power and authority, ofc u aren't allowed to remain neutral in times of conflict 😔😔 i chose the gref (?) option, but i wanna focus on the other ending.

So when it came down to the decision on what to do with Sapadal, Free them or Destroy them, I was torn!! I did NOT trust them! but I think Marius made the point that maybe killing a God is not a good idea? So I tried for a different option and when they mentioned becoming "one", I looked at it this way:

I chose Ryngrim's offer. The same lesson in her fucked up little parable about pragmatism over sentimentality and "one for the many," I applied to this situation. I was afraid of both the ramifications of killing the god of the living lands, and also what a freed Sapadal might do, because they were, surprise! Vengeful.

My favorite line in particular was about my choices in handling the assassin/rebels.

So. "Sacrificing" the envoy to appease Sapadal and (hopefully) keep them in check, seemed like a worthy compromise! And yes, I did have the suspicion that Sapadal would replace our sentience with their own, but they didn't and everything was fine! until...

BTW the.. merging? was appropriately creepy and it definitely felt like you were giving away more than you intended. IMO. I hated it!

The final confrontation with Lödwyn was a blast, that little moment where Lödwyn realizes what's happened, and then your companions realize what's happening is, again, appropriately terrifying!

Except, that's it. You save the day and the credits roll, Sapadal has one last message for you and the epilogue plays.

And honestly, that was disappointing!!! like. No follow up whatsoever about being possessed, no longer being yourself, Kai expressed concern and then once Lödwyn died, he was back to normal???

It just seemed rly odd and anticlimactic idk! It felt like the results of this choice should have been more. ominous? permanent?? But, no! U just get a shot of your buddies havin a picnic together! It just doesn't add up for me :/

(↑ like those 2 shots happen in that exact order, did everyone else forget?? TT_TT)

I'm definitely going to play as this envoy again to make more intentional choices, but first, I feel like I need a fresh playthru altogether, so I'm excited to see how Sapadal will learn next time!🙂‍↕️ (ty obsidian i luv u obsidian ! 💖)

Overall

🌟 I loved the setting and I loved the story, tho tbh im very easy to please, so long as a game is fun, that's enough for meee :) but this one also has the fun moral quandaries common in obsidian story telling :3

💞 I really do feel like the typical "companion romance" we see in other RPGs would have detracted from this game. Sorry, not rly tho. The plot is very linear and pressing, and frankly, everyone's got bigger fish to fry!! I do like that they left the door open for an epilogue romance with Kai, I haven't heard/discovered if it's ONLY with Kai??? But I like that there is that little something for folks who prioritize romance in video games. (I stand by my personal take that romance is not, and has never really been, one of Obsidian's strengths! and i rly don't mind them leaving it out <3)

😔 I'm pretty sure I missed out on Giatta and Yatzli's personal quests :((( but I really enjoyed Kai and Marius'!! I actually just rly loved learning about the Living Lands in general!! Prior to rly knowing anything about it I played a Watcher from the Living Lands and now it feels like a whole new world actually being able to like. Conceptualize what their history/background was actually like yk?? V FUN. I enjoyed the camp banter, but I do wish there was at least a little regular banter when traveling, things could get quiet when exploring the same areas lmao.

👙 I LOVED BEING ABLE TO TAKE ON THE APPEARANCE OF OTHER ARMORS!!! sometimes the good armor is UGLY 🙂‍↕️ What i didn't love was being MICROMANAGED DURING FIGHTS "time for some new armor" the second i take 2 damage, "did that even hurt them?" when i don't 1-shot someone like WYM 😭😭 LEAVE ME ALONE worry abt urselves orz orz orz

😡 Speaking of armor, I just wanna express my ABSOLUTE disappointment in Obsidian completely erasing Pillars depiction of Aedyr/Aedyran fashion:

It's like they just used Aloth's armor ALONE as a reference, and not taking into account that Aloth dressed the way he did because he traveled!!! (esp since in deadfire his outfit still held the silhouette of aedyran clothing and in poe1 he didn't have his sash at all !! >:((() It felt like a downgrade :( instead of using the rich lore they already had they just overwrote it with some bland GOT shit :(((

🥰 All that aside, im excited for other playthroughs, the second playthru is always my fav bc i get to notice all the little details and foreshadowing i missed the first time around <333

🍄🍄 mushroom divider 🍄🍄 | 🌳🌲 branch divider 🌲🌳

[bt-tarot]

✨Welcome✨

My name is Ozzy (yes, like Ozzy Osbourne 🦇)

I am a card reader and astrologer. I’ve been studying for a few years now and I made this blog ages ago but I never used it (until now).

⋆˚✿˖°M a s t e r l i s t⋆˚✿˖°

Paid readings ཐི⋆ཋྀ Ko-fi

What can I ask about?

Anything related to tarot, oracle and astrology for educational purposes. How to learn, meaning of cards, current planetary positions, my personal thoughts on astrological aspects and so on.

Celebrities. Individual tarot readings, group tarot readings, group dynamics (both with tarot or astrology). I think I connect better with the ones I listen/see the most: kpop idols.

Pick a card ideas

Collective readings

Collective astrological analysis and observations

Personal opinions on x or y subject.

What can't I ask about?

Any questions that might be offensive or come from a place of personal hate or dislike for a group, band, artist or community.

Any questions that insult (even in a subtle way) a group, band, artist or community. Have empathy, especially for female and queer artists, istg. I’ve received questions that make me want to throw some punches but this is a place of peace and respect and I have to BREATHE DEEPLY.

Questions regarding underage idols or underage celebrities.

Questions about legal procedures. I was thinking about doing them but I got the spiritual advice to not do it. I don’t think it would be good to read that kind of energy, especially since anything could change during the investigation process. That’s a job that is not mine to do.

Any questions I feel uncomfortable answering in the moment. If the energy is not right, I’m not pushing. I might try to answer it later (hours, days), but ultimately if I don’t have a good feeling I won’t answer and I’ll let you know.

Any questions the energy won’t like to answer. If I shuffle and shuffle and shuffle and nothing comes out, if the cards don’t show a clear answer, if I write something and it gets erased, if I feel a weird energy from the reading, if the spirit guides/energies/forces/God tell me not to post, then I won’t answer. And again, I’ll let you know if that happens.

Repeating questions. Unless a fair amount of time happened between them, but otherwise I don’t think I would get a different answer. If you’re curious about the questions I’m working on to avoid repeating, there’s a in the making (queue) section in the masterlist.

Questions I find inappropriate or too personal. It’s not my place as a fan, neither as a tarot reader, to feed rumors, speculations or any kind of conspiracy. It’s never my intention to create gossip or conflict and every reading I do comes from a place of respect for the spirits, the people involved, the consultant and the craft. Remember I’m reading energies and that can be tricky. Take everything with a grain of salt.

+18 questions

‼️IMPORTANT NOTE‼️

I want to clarify that this blog is intended to be a SAFE SPACE for everyone. All fandoms allowed. Because of this, I will take the right to not answer any questions that might be offensive to any group, fandom, artist, person or community.

I want to keep working with a kind energy and build a respectful community. If this is an inconvenience to you, then I’m not the tarot reader you’re looking for. Be nice.

🦇Disclaimer🦇

I intend to practice tarot readings and astrology in this account for entertainment purposes. If I take a little time to answer a question it’s because I want to make the readings with the best energy as possible and I have to take breaks. But you’re definitely getting an answer, don’t worry.

Remember nothing is written on stone.

If something doesn’t resonate or seems inaccurate, remember the energy shifts with every decision we make and depends on many external variables. Sometimes the message could be intended for someone else or could fit in another moment of your life that our conscious mind don’t have access to, and it’s totally fine.

If you want any private readings, I can offer, but readings never substitutes professional help. I can give advice from what I see in the cards and planets and channel messages, but I always recommend consulting a professional.

Let’s live our lives to the fullest and take breaks from this kind of readings from time to time, don’t forget to take care of yourself and stay aware of your surroundings♥️

[brujitaadinbo]

This image does not belong to me… it is from Sopita Pog and you can follow it on Instagram.

If there is something that as humans identifies us as such; It is the fact that thanks to our emotions and feelings we can recognize our own humanity. A person in constant growth must know that this is elementary. This and the fact that being sociable beings and living in a community (it's not my thing, look for related information and you'll have to agree with me) we have that tendency and need to live in groups, live with others, relate technically.

All this forms that inevitable process; growing up And although this is palpable, it has been part of many stories, part of the narrative from reading, cinema, series, etc… I explain this so that you understand my point. If we live it, it is nothing out of the ordinary, it is not wrong, nor is it bad, that growth is experienced by the characters that we like so much. A growth that allows them to improve or worsen. In the case of Din, Grogu and Bo, it's a blessing that this growth goes straight to something positive.

It irritates me that they want to deny that possibility to these characters and continue pigeonholing them into "I'm the tough one, the tough one, the one who's never going to get better and that's fine."

It is definitely throwing away the entire process experienced in the seasons or the content. It is not understanding that "being someone powerful" does not only consist of an important position, having a lot of money, causing fear in others, etc etc… the true intention of having power, of being powerful, of feeling fulfilled is to be happy, to live a change, having friends or a partner or family, not always ending up alone, having others who contribute to you, and that you know that empowers you, enriches you, not only materially.

Well, it is appreciated that Din and Grogu are together because that was always the purpose, denying Grogu or wanting to throw him away is ruining the series, it is wanting to spoil Din and his new path. Now to say that Bo Katan, they only want to pigeonhole her into being Din's girlfriend or just being Grogu's mom… it seems ridiculous to me and a pathetic and meaningless argument.

If you know Bo's story, everything she has experienced and that she has always been surrounded by war, you will understand her point when she said it in "Clone Wars" "I would like to be good at something else, not just fighting."

I said it before, I say it now and I will continue to say it; If by her own decision she wanted to continue as Mandalore, retire, be alone, or be with Din, her right is and she has it and has earned it. Taking care of Grogu, being his friend and betting on the role of mother does not make her weaker or less important; on the contrary, the desired motherhood is a blessing, a right that many people like to minimize. A very important act of love and responsibility, a high position that not everyone fulfills and the fact that she decides and applies it does not make her any less and it is very wrong that people take it that way, interpret it that way and want to impose it. as such. Mothers have an important role in our lives, in our environment, obviously in this content, if you don't believe me, just go check out this great character from Hera Syndulla. I applaud the fact that this line of growth is visible.

I applaud you for bringing Din and Bo closer and making the possibility of them being together, walking and continuing to grow together visible and palpable. Because growing is an internal process but there is always the option of not experiencing this process alone. And with Grogu by the hand, what better

[askauradonprep]

got any founding of Auradon and the rescuing of Lampwick, Alexander and the other stupid little boys hc?

no one EVER talks about the founding of Auradon!

Ohhhhhh this has opened a flood gate. This might go long.

Okay, so, initially the realms merging was slow? A couple places connected like Hercules and Aladdin's. Bits and pieces from different worlds and timeframes. It was not a big all at once thing until towards the end. That was a matter of fate and was not caused by any one individual. This DID however help with things like communication barriers and adjusting to differing circumstances.

There was something odd going on though. Several people who, by varying belief systems, should have ended up in other afterlives that were ending up in the Greek underworld. This WAS caused by an individual - the Evil Fairy Godfather. He thought that getting certain villain together would make things more 'fun'. Maleficent didn't disappoint. She, using her own creativity for magic and some 'visit the land of the living' assists from Hades, convinced a group of villains to form an alliance (temporarily! Villains don't share well, she knows that) to take their revenge on those who had defeated them. Hades thought this was HOT AS HELL by the way.

The heroes, however, teamed up to stop them because....yes? Duh? They were gonna do that? And unlike villains and their giant egos and selfish, cruel natures, they actually are pretty good at teamwork. So the alliance was defeated and in order to establish some...well, order, in the chaos of a merge, different kings/queens/heads of state ran for a sort of 'high king' position to make final executive decisions for this new giant landmass. Adam won, because he had some strong ideas for leading Auradon into a golden age.

So. First they had to deal with the villains. Now, Adam wasn't totally happy with how things went with Gaston. Yes, he was happy things worked out and he and Belle had their happy ending, but it stuck with him that Gaston wormed out of facing any kind of justice because he died. He tried to put it out of his mind because, well, he was DEAD, he couldn't hurt anyone anymore. The alliance blew that out of the water. Suddenly they weren't safe even WITH their villains dead. They'd proven that they could and WOULD keep coming back to haunt them. So he decided the safest thing to do would be to put them on an Isle. It would be surrounded by a barrier, breakable only by the most powerful magical objects. No evil magic would be able to work there and they wouldn't be allowed any technology at the level of wi-fi or more advanced than that. That way, they could just...live their lives and be each other's problem instead of everyone else's.

I truly feel that the sheer and utter awfulness of the Isle was born more out of apathy than any strong intent to make the Isle as miserable as possible - at least on Adam's part. I mean, he's angry with them for sure and he maaaaay have learned that sometimes being harsh gets the job done for convincing people to try to be better (worked for him), but I don't think either is what he's thinking of. I think he just didn't care. Supplying the Isle with items that don't sell in Auradon just seemed like a practical way to get rid of stuff that people didn't want. And frankly, Adam doesn't care enough about the villains to make sure that the Bureau is conducting proper inspections to make sure that the stuff they send isn't spoiled or broken to the point of being unusable. The kids are a mix of the same apathy, a sort of 'they surely wouldn't be so awful to their own flesh and blood kids, right?' and just generally not wanting to keep dealing with these people who've tried to ruin his life twice now because just thinking about them makes him angry and contrary to popular belief he does not ENJOY losing his temper (even though it's definitely still there sometimes). Is that an excuse? Of course not. Adam SHOULD have cared. He SHOULD have made sure the Isle wasn't being turned into a dump. He SHOULD have made sure the Bureau cared. He SHOULD have been making sure the Isle's conditions were humane. He SHOULD have taken these kids away because WE DON'T LET KIDS GROW UP IN JAILS. That's not so much an excuse for Adam as it is a clarifying of motives.

Back to the founding though - so uh. There were a LOT of trials. Some of the ones about more controversial people on the Isle are below. Adam was not the judge in all of these. There were other judges who oversaw different cases. The judge who did the majority of the convictions for abuse of anthropomorphized animals was noted as being PARTICULARLY strict. - Aunt Sarah: Aunt Sarah was never actually convicted of anything. She's LEGALLY speaking free to go and can leave the Isle whenever she wants. She CHOSE to go to the Isle to take care of her cats, who WERE to be sent to the Isle because they were part of the villains alliance (which isn't surprising because they love destroying things and causing general mayhem). - Anastasia: Got suckered into helping with Lady Tremaine's part in all this (plus Drizella). So she got convicted with them. She is INCREDIBLY bitter about it and Cinderella wasn't happy about this. - Iago: Iago...never really stopped stealing stuff. He was doing a lot of that during the chaos of the battle and so well. Yeah. Aladdin ain't happy either. - The Ringmaster: According to some of the comics and games (which Descendants has used for material before) he IS significantly more abusive to his animals than in the movie. Which makes it easier to understand why he is on the Isle. - Amos Slade: Amos Slade's trial is mostly noteworthy for establishing an early precedent in crimes against anthropomorphized animals (which Auradon now knows is a thing). He tried to appeal his sentence on the grounds that he couldn't possibly have known Tod was anthropomorphized at the time he committed his crimes. The judge applied a new variant of something called the thin skull rule - basically if you are legally at fault for something, you can't avoid the penalty because the harm done was unexpectedly and unforeseeably severe. In this case, the judge ruled that while Amos couldn't have known Tod was anthropomorphized, he DID know he had NO business being illegally on that nature preserve and he most CERTAINLY knew he was not to hunt there. Therefore, he had to 'take his victim as they came' and the fact Tod happened to be anthropomorphized meant he was still guilty. And therefore still to be sent to the Isle of the Lost. - Hades: Zeus had Hades (and other greek gods and monsters involved in this alliance like the fates, Hecate, Circe, the Titans) tried in god court. This was the second time that they had tried to destroy Olympus and Hades particularly had done so to try to take the world for himself. So he sentenced them to be given a partial dose of the potion Hades gave Hercules to make them more mortal. Their magic could now be affected by the barrier, and they were a lot more vulnerable. Hades was HUMILIATED and was known to vacillate between 'I am a god, you can't do this to me' and 'I used to be a god, leave me alone'. Zeus had them stored in the Isle for safekeeping. As long as the mortals don't mess with them, he doesn't really care who the High King for mortal politics is.

The resurrected villains have no memory of dying, though they remember the battle.

The idea of the Isle of the Lost was controversial in some circles (Aladdin has never liked it, the Court of Miracles have never trusted it), while others had varying levels of trust in the idea (as presented. I don't think any would approve of how it turned out).

Since you brought up the Coachman - yeah, there was a LOT of testimony in bringing him in. Pinocchio, Jiminy Cricket, and the Blue Fairy (who'd been keeping an eye on him) all testified. So did Honest John and Gideon, because they were afraid of the GRIZZLY death that awaited anyone involved in Pleasure Island. Adam reduced their sentence from death to being placed on the Isle of the Lost - BEFORE the Coachman. Therefore, he wouldn't be able to retaliate without his magic.

The Coachman himself was totally unrepentant. He stood there grinning that horrible grin when Adam was going over his crimes. He wasn't at all afraid of the Isle or the possibility of death. And he flat out refused to help Adam find any of the kids. Adam just about lost his mind. He managed to deep breathe though and then told the Coachman, very firmly, that if he didn't help find the kids within a year or if god forbid one had died, then he would have Fairy Godmother turn him into a donkey. And then he'd be sold to one of the places he sold the kids to, where he would be worked to death. And then he'd be brought back and sold to the next place, and over and over again. And finally, when he'd worked on every place he'd sold a kid to, he'd be sent to the Isle of the Lost to live the rest of his life there as a donkey. While getting angrier, louder and more bestial the longer he went on. Wiped the grin right off the Coachman's face. He agreed to find the kids.

The boys being rescued was done in a variety of places. A LOT of owners were HORRIFIED - they had no clue what they'd bought. Adam sent busses and ordered they be promptly returned home to their parents, who were notified of the good news. Adam had the Coachman accompanied by a hero at all times (often someone like Hercules who could literally turn him into a smear in an instant) and he went to a handful of places personally to make sure the kids were turned back. He also sent the Blue Fairy or Fairy Godmother to ensure there was no funny business in him turning the boys back. Although I think the Coachman knew he was in deep at that point and knew better than to play games.

The boys stopped a couple places on their way back. One of them was the encanto, where the Madrigals let them stay a couple days while they resupplied and planned the rest of the trip (because like hell were the Madrigals gonna look at these little boys who've gone through a nightmare and kicked them out). Mostly though, I think they were glad to go home. Their parents basically threw a big block party when they got home. There were lots of happy tears.

Blue Fairy PERSONALLY dropped off the Coachman on the Isle. Which was...dangerous since she didn't bring her wand (she didn't want it stolen) but she insisted.

After everything that happened with the battle, it was clear that, while magic is a very powerful resource, it also has serious issues. It can be abused against people who have no real way to fight back. So Adam has 1) STRICTLY forbidden the use of evil magic. 2) While good or neutral magic isn't illegal, his government officially encourages people to try other means to solve their problems, like knowledge. 3) Use of magic by members of the council (like Fairy Godmother) must be APPROVED by the Council, for that reason. Hence why FG needs council permission to use her wand, even though nobody else seems all that troubled by the magic ban.

Most of the rest of the first year was focused on building infrastructure, opening Auradon Prep, and establishing the new government. As for the sidekicks? While Adam didn't force people to pay them, he has also created infrastructure that means there's large swathes of time they're not working, among other things. I guess he thought that'd balance out. It does not. "Not working" is not the same as PTO, benefits or wages. But well.

Overall? It was a pretty good start to a reign that DID create a golden age, but it also planted the seeds for rotten fruit, namely the Isle and the sidekicks issue. It added up to a complicated legacy where he did do genuinely impressive things - but also awful and flat out monstrous things.

I know that was more about the founding than the Coachman and co. but I tried to include that story here!

[thatthoughtatthebackofyourmind]

In Defence of Albus Dumbledore:

Look. I know this is an unpopular opinion, so I’m going to write this here because putting it anywhere else (like at the bottom of the fics which have inspired this frustration) would seem mean, and it would probably end up coming off as unintentional flaming, which I would never do to anyone ever. Also, as I’m less frustrated with individual works than I am with an entire situation, it wouldn’t really be fair to direct it at one specific person.

Get ready. This is going to be very ranty and long and I can't promise not to get off topic and onto a tangent a few times.

I understand that we all have grown up a lot since first reading Harry Potter. I get that once we realized how grey a few of Dumbledore’s decisions actually and the ways in which they affected the characters we love we all felt rightfully upset.

But can we please stop being so narrowminded about it?

There are plenty of redemption fics out there. A lot of them are works that redeem characters like Severus Snape, Draco Malfoy, Draco’s parents, various Dursleys and loads of other people. I’ve seen fics that have Sirius confronting the realities of his juvenal behaviours and having to atone for past wrongs. I’ve even seen (but admittedly never read) fics that redeem Voldemort himself.

But the least popular person for a redemption story in fanfiction by far seems to be Albus Dumbledore.

I get it.

He was supposed to be an infallible genius who did no wrong and he let us down. But please.

Can we all please just admit that we’re using Dumbledore as a stand in?

The hatred we as a fan community levy at Dumbledore is influenced by so much more than his actions in cannon.

It’s the dissolution we feel at growing up. The need as young people to bite back at overbearing authority. It’s the conviction that leaders should never be allowed to fail if failure means the death of innocent people. Even though we can all recognize on a personal level that our failures are typically unintentional and are definitely what make us human.

Of late, it’s very clear that Dumbledore is a stand in for the betrayal we feel at JK Rowling’s anti-trans standing.

We all loved her so much.

She gave us this world.

She promised it to everyone.

And then she said that it was all a lie, and that it was never meant for some of us anyway.

The parallels are clear.

While we were first reading, we loved who Harry loved. Simply because he loved them, and we loved him.

When we grew up, we started acknowledging the ways in which the characters mirrored people in real life, and we chose the people we found the most familiar to love instead. Personally, I understand the reason I read Severitus so often is because I had a largely absent father who I idolized as a child, and that father was a bit of a rockstar like person. Dark, intelligent, and cruel when he wanted to be. Artistic, genius, condescending, and amazing.

As an adult, I still long for his love and approval. Learning that Severus was capable of so much good at the very end of his story, that he was in fact good all along, even when he looked exactly the opposite, gave me hope that my father was too. Even though I now understand that redemption for my father is just a fairy tale it’s still a story I hold close to my heart. A story I long for. It’s a possible happy ending for both a lonely child and a jaded grouchy adult.

Albus Dumbledore was different.

This was a man that we trusted to have everyone’s best intentions at heart. We were told he was safe. We were told he was the smartest man in any room. And then he failed us. And we looked back at all he had done, and rather than seeing the good he had tried to achieve, all we could see were the mistakes he had made.  

I firmly believe that the reason that so many people hate him so strongly now is because we all loved him so much first. Like Harry, we all believe that he was incapable of mistakes. His mistakes in cannon aren’t any more morally condemning than anyone else on the light side.

Keep in mind that I said, “in cannon.” I feel like I need to distinguish that. In cannon, though Harry asked if he could stay at Hogwarts during the summer, he never told Dumbledore about living in a cupboard under the stairs. His letter was addressed to there, but we have no way of knowing whether it was physically or magically written on the envelope. And besides, that letter was signed by Professor McGonagall, not Dumbledore. Harry also never mentioned to him the Dursleys withholding food. Or locking up his trunk so that he couldn’t do his homework. He made it clear that they disliked him, that they thought him a burden, but think. Really think. Dumbledore is the head of a school full of children. How many children misunderstand and exaggerate even in their own minds how much their families dislike them.

Let me be clear; when I say kids exaggerate I don’t mean in terms of abuse. I only mean typical things such as, “My mom’s always grouchy when she gets home from work and she never notices that I’ve tried really hard by cleaning the bathroom if she told me to clean the kitchen before she got home and I decided to do the bathroom because I wanted to clean it instead of doing the dishes and now she’s yelling at me that she just needs me to help her sometimes, and I don’t feel like that’s fair because really I do. Look, I cleaned the whole bathroom by myself! And I straitened up the living room too! The only thing I ‘forgot’ was the kitchen and now she’s acting like I do nothing. This means she hates me and appreciates nothing I do. I am clearly a burden to her, and I should go live under a rock so that she doesn’t have to deal with me anymore.” Really, your mom probably isn’t saying you’re a burden. Your mom is more than likely overworked, over-tired, and almost certainly depressed in a society that doesn’t cater to mental health awareness, and on top of all that she was raised by a generation that was allergic to admitting and self-regulating their true feelings so she can’t articulate that and she’s instead taking her frustrations out on you.

This is wrong, and she shouldn’t do it. But consider. Why didn’t you want to clean the kitchen? Was it because you had a long hard day at school and you’re overworked, over-tired, and definitely depressed in a world that doesn’t cater to mental health awareness, and all you really wanted was a break from the hardest job and you just wanted to compromise by doing the ones you felt emotionally and physically able to do? Because I promise, that’s probably exactly how your mom feels about the damn dirty dishes that she’s going to have to deal with before she can make dinner after being cussed out and yelled at by customers and or bosses all day in between doing her actual work and that’s the real reason she’s yelling.

Because, though a lot of teens believe otherwise, parents are still just people and the feelings that overwhelm kids still overwhelm adults just as badly. And they’re even less likely to know how to help themselves because they didn’t grow up with the internet where everyone shares their feeling and gets back validation and advice, so they mostly just believed those feelings were personal failings that indicated something broken specifically only in them and that they should learn to live with it and never tell anyone ever because complaining is for babies and liberals. Okay, maybe that last bit is a little too specific to my own mother, but you get the idea.

It’s a cycle that’s been going on for years. Hopefully, we can eventually all learn how to communicate peacefully and compromise on chores sometimes so we can end it someday. Or everyone can just switch to paper plates, and then we’ll worry about how we’re killing the planet later and no one will have to do the dishes ever again.

The point is, while that isn’t the best parenting style, and it can cause issue’s with your familial relationship as you age, it isn’t technically abuse. And it especially wouldn’t be considered abuse in the 90’s while Harry Potter was taking place or the early 00’s when it was being published.

Harry was not bruised when he arrived at Hogwarts. He didn’t show obvious outward signs of abuse. He never told any adults what his life was like at the Dursleys at all. He really didn’t even say much about it to Ron or Hermione either. Mrs. Weasley sent him treats for his birthday, which was a sweet motherly gesture. Hermione and Hagrid did as well but think about it. Do you believe for a second that if Molly have-another-serving, can-I-get-you-some-more-bread, try-the-potatoes Weasley honestly thought the Dursley’s were starving Harry that she would first wait until the end of July to send Harry anything, and then only send him sweets? She would scale the Dursleys’ house and stuff a full six course meal through the bars multiple times a day before she let that boy live off stale birthday cake. When she asked if the Dursley had fed him enough she meant it in the same way she always meant it, in the if ‘I can feed the world I can love the world’ way.

 Hagrid sent him rock cakes, but again, think about it. Hagrid had shown up with a cake for Harry’s birthday the day he first delivered the letter when he couldn’t have yet known of the way Harry was treated. He just wanted to show Harry he was loved and missed.

Of the people who sent him food, only Hermione really knew Harry didn’t get to eat his fill at the Dursley’s and she still only sent cake because all she knew was that he was being forced to diet with Dudley. Which is why she sent him the kind of food one would eat if they weren’t on a diet instead of true sustenance. A fourth of a grapefruit as a meal is not a diet, no matter what Petunia called it. And if he had told Hermione specifics, she likely would have told Harry that, but again, he didn’t tell anyone specifics.

 Everyone knew that Harry was unfavoured by the Dursley’s and that they wouldn’t be celebrating his birthday, and he wouldn’t receive cake or presents, but they really didn’t know much else. Ron and Hermione only understood he was being starved in the way most naive well-fed kids from happy families can understand. It sounded cruel, and they did try to tell people, but because they didn’t understand the full gravity of the situation, they couldn’t properly communicate to trusted adults that Harry was actually experiencing abuse. Plus, Harry tended to downplay it even to them.

When Dumbledore speaks about knowing Harry would come from a less than happy home, you can tell he is picturing a world where Harry is liked second best to his cousin. Where he never feels fully at home. Like an overextended visitor in a relative’s house. He thinks they’ll treat him like the weird cousin who came to stay and never left rather than an immediate family member.

He isn’t picturing Petunia Dursley slinging a frying pan at Harry’s head. Or refusing to let him drink his fill of water on a hot summer’s day spent weeding her ridiculous flower garden. Or an overly restrictive diet enforced on an already undernourished body simply to make Harry’s morbidly obese cousin feel better about his doctor changing his eating habits.

I think we’ll all agree that feeling less than welcome by stuck up relatives sucks, but it’s better than whatever Voldemort’s loyal leftover followers will do to him if they manage to track down the person responsible for their dark lord’s downfall.

I understand why a lot of people feel like Dumbledore should have just put Harry under the Fidelius Charm and hid him rather than sending him to the Dursley’s but consider: If Dumbledore trusted Sirius the way he must have done to not betray James and his family, then it makes sense that he felt Fidelius was no longer an option. He fully believed Sirius was the secret keeper. Sirius, the Potters, and Pettigrew were the only ones to know of the change. It’s likely that after learning that the Death Eaters had convinced Sirius to betray the Potters he was jaded enough to take it as a sign that no one could be a trusted Secret Keeper. No matter how much they loved the person under protection.

He also likely would have insisted on a trial for Sirius had Sirius himself not told everyone that he was the one who killed James and Lily while descending into hysterical laughter. We know what Sirius meant, (he felt responsible for them dying because switching to Peter at the last minute had been his idea) because we read the third Harry Potter book, but Dumbledore didn’t have that same advantage. All he had was the word of an apparently mad man. A man who had just tracked down another dear friend and apparently killed him and 12 innocent bystanders in a fit of insanity.

Why, when last he had heard Sirius was the Secret Keeper, would he doubt a verbal confession from a man who did nothing to try and save himself from Azkaban? The Marauders never told anyone of their animagus abilities. No one but Sirius could have understood what Peter had done. Why do we expect Dumbledore to have known better?

So, instead of Fidelius and hiding Harry away for his entire childhood, he gave him the best protection he could think of under the circumstances he had been given. He sought to give Harry a normal life and to keep him safe from the remaining Death Eaters.

Dumbledore understood that fame was power, and that power could corrupt even the best of people with the strongest of minds, so he kept Harry away from the limelight. He also understood how fickle people where about fame. This was the right decision even if the Dursley were a bad choice in guardians. We saw proof of this numerous times while Harry was at school. His fame only ever seemed to bring him more hardships. In book two they said Harry was a dark wizard because he was a Parselmouth and that that’s how he overpowered Voldemort. In book four even some of Harry’s friends refused to believe he wasn’t just a glory hound and that it hadn’t been him who entered his name in the tournament, but rather someone trying to kill him. In book five, almost everyone refused to believe Harry was telling the truth about Voldemort’s return. Every single time Harry’s name entered the limelight, it was in a way that harmed him. Imagine how much earlier it would have started had he grown up in the wizarding world. They would have been debating his kindergarten finger paintings if they could have.  

Why does the entire fandom also assume that Dumbledore thought of himself as the wisest most all-knowing man in any room? The only people who canonically acted like they believed that about him were the Golden Trio, and they were enlightened otherwise multiple times throughout the books as they grew up. Just as everyone learns new truths about trusted adults they thought of as perfect as they grow.

The fact is, Albus Dumbledore has always been just a man.

He was a great and powerful but flawed man who wanted more than anything to make sure that evil could not prevail. He obviously still holds plenty of shame and guilt over his dealings with Gellert Grindelwald in his misspent youth. We have surmised that when he looked in the Mirror of Erised he likely saw his sister Ariana, or something as equally heart-breaking which he recognized as his own fault. He fully understood that he was just a man. He encouraged everyone to understand that fact about Voldemort as well.

He was not a god, and he didn’t pretend to be.

Not in cannon anyway.

Fanon Dumbledore, on the other hand, tends to be anything from a meddling idiot to a full on manipulative dark lord complete with moustache twirling and nefarious intent. Which, I believe, further influences and enforces the fandom’s collective bad opinion of him. Most of us haven’t reread the real books in years. It gets hard to remember at some points what was something he did in canon vs. what was something he did in fanfiction.

 Every other character seems welcomed to grow in the world of fandom.

Severus was canonically a willing Death Eater in his youth, a bully to children in his care in his adulthood, and a petty grudge-holder who couldn’t let go of the past. We accept that we can’t fully know how much of his behaviour towards the students was an act to fool the Death Eater’s children, but we can assume it definitely wasn’t all of it. Still, he gets plenty of redemption fics. He had literal access to Harry’s traumatic childhood memories but still saw no signs of abuse because he was too busy trying to keep a 15-year-old child from gaining any ammunition about his own past.

Looking back, it seems obvious that as very few of Harry’s childhood memories were shown in the Occlumency scenes, he likely wasn’t as bad at clearing his mind as either he or Snape assumed, but it was also possible that Severus didn’t see those memories because that wasn’t what he was looking for. The memory of Harry getting chased up a tree by Marge’s dog as the rest of his family watched and laughed should have triggered at least a couple of red flags, but Severus was typically determined to only see the bad in Harry, so he overlooked it.

James Potter who is often thought of as the better choice for Lily was also a bully. And he spent years relentlessly pursuing a relationship with someone who had never given him any indication that his advances were welcome and had in fact outright told him the exact opposite of that many times until he finally wore her down and convinced her to give him a shot. That’s gross, unacceptable behaviour but I guess it is technically better than dating a budding racist that sees you as the exception to his views on your people, so James is rebranded as a lovable hero who changed after having a slightly misspent youth rather than a mean spirited bully who likely grew bored with his main target once he no longer saw him as competition (there would have been no reason to bully Snape if Lily wasn’t friends with him anymore after 5th year which was conveniently around the time he began to “grow up”) as well as a pushy loser who wouldn’t take no for an answer even though Lily said it multiple times. (There’s also the point that once Snape knew about Lupin being a werewolf, James likely wouldn’t have bullied him anymore so as not to provoke Snape to reveal the secret and get Lupin thrown out of school and possibly killed.)

Ron told Molly outright that the Dursley’s were starving Harry and had fixed bars on his windows to trap him after weeks of being concerned when he didn’t reply to Ron’s letters, and she still ignored it, assuming instead that Ron was exaggerating and never even tried to check with Harry to learn that he wasn’t.

Remus spent a year teaching Harry individualized lessons to repel Dementors and never once asked him why he was so sad that they affected him in ways that none of the other students experienced. I mean really, he couldn’t have been the only orphan attending that school so Remus couldn’t have thought it was just that. And Neville’s backstory was nearly just as sad (and just as well known to Remus) and even he didn’t faint like Harry. Yet, he didn’t question Harry once.

Sirius (who is also a bully and a petty grudge-holder) never wondered why a child would want to move in with an escaped prisoner who he had never met before that had just mangled his best friend’s leg and tried to commit murder in front of him instead of the relatives he had been with his entire life. Even when until that very night he had believed that prisoner wanted to kill him?

Arthur actually met the Dursley’s and saw Vernon’s rage at magic when he came to collect Harry for the Quidditch World Cup and he still questioned nothing.

Half the Order found Harry locked inside his bedroom with locks affixed to the outside of the door, and all they did was give vague unfulfilled threats to Vernon and send Harry back. You could blame that on Dumbledore, but I think that’s ridiculous. They were not under Imperious. They made their own decisions. Every adult there had a responsibility to that child, and they all failed him individually.

Yet time and time again I see Dumbledore condemned so overwhelmingly in the very fics that redeem and or absolve these other characters of those very actions.

Even McGonagall, who knew from the start that the Dursleys were awful people, never pulled Harry aside as his head of house and asked him anything about his home life. And, as I stated earlier, her name was the one on the letter addressed to the cupboard under the stairs. She also made it very clear that she wasn’t someone for Harry to confide in by constantly dismissing any concerns he presented her. The way she reacted about the Stone was ridiculous. And her non-concern over the amount of detentions Harry received from Umbridge followed by the ‘have a biscuit’ scene rubbed me the wrong way. And yet, of late she seems to be revered in the fandom community as some kind of badass grandmotherly character. All because she protested one time about leaving Harry with the Dursleys and then never brought it up again.

It’s getting a bit ridiculous. I’m exhausted by the way the fan community continues to rewrite cannon to fit their dissatisfaction with our once trusted role-model JK Rowling through Harry Potter’s once trusted mentor Albus Dumbledore.

Just once I would like to read a Harry Potter fic without having to think about the various ways in which JK Rowling let us all down. And with everyone rewriting Dumbledore as the ‘real villain all along’ I can’t help but be taken out of the fic and forced to relate it to reality.

[imaginespazzi]

Nivi, I want to start off by saying that you’re one of my favorite authors, and that I loved In Between Shades of Blue so much! I really didn’t think anything could top it, but you’ve out done yourself once again. I am in love with Golden Hour! Monday night is quickly becoming one of my favorite parts of the week. I just read GH with a big smile on my face 😀, until the angst gets angsting and then my face is usually 🫨. I also want to say that reading the reviews after a new chapter is one of my favorite things. It very much gives we are all part of a book club, but not just any book club, a book club with the author. And I just love those interactions so much. I’ve been wanting to join a book club for a while and this very much is scratching that itch so thank you 😊.

Now onto the review:

I loved the flashback of when they were on Team USA. Fetus Pazzi always makes me smile because how are two people so lucky to have found their person at 15? They make me sick in all the best ways. Did they ever discuss their crushes like maybe a celebrity crush? Azzi didn’t seem shocked that Paige’s date was with a girl. I just wondered if maybe they had previously discussed who they found attractive. Oh and the picnic scene was giving me In Between Shades of Blue. I love that in both universes their first date was a picnic. Paige is such a sap I love it. Soft Paige is my favorite.

Azzi makes me want to both hug and shake her. Girlie Pop is so in her head all the time. Whenever her guilt of having said no pops up, I just want to wrap her up in a warm blanket and hand her a cup of tea. I know we’ll find out the reason later, but I can’t help but feel like it was something as simple as she wasn’t ready at the time Paige had asked, and Paige took it as a never and they both made choices off of that misconception that fractured them both. I know Azzi felt she had a good reason when she said no, so I hate that she is constantly beating herself up about it and simultaneously making decisions based on that fear.

It’s cute that Azzi keeps sending her parents to look after Paige. First with the wedding and then the morning after fortgate. It just shows how much she really cares for Paige even when she wouldn’t allow herself to be the one to do it . Makes me wonder how many times during their breakup Azzi was still looking out for Paige, unbeknownst to blondie. There is something just so sweet and pure in the bond they have with each other. They really are best friends first. Also, just as an aside, I really love how you capture their relationship through their banter. It really does feel like stuff they would say to each other, and it’s definitely one of my favorite aspects of their dynamic.

When Stephie says “I better be” to Tim saying she’ll always be his favorite, it just reminded me of the Lebron live when Azzi threatened with “better not” to someone wanting to take Paige out for breakfast. I dunno if I’m reaching on that one, but it was something that jumped in my head when I read it.

Love love all the interactions and family dynamics with the Fudds. Everyone really is scared of Princess 😭. Not only do you capture the bond between Paige and Azzi that feels true, you’re so good at writing for everyone else’s personality as well. It really does just feel like a full fleshed out universe.

Paige asking Azzi “You won’t - you won’t run away again tomorrow morning will you?” Poor Paige is traumatized 😭. But also Azzi answering “I won’t run away again” feels more like a declaration to herself. Like maybe she is finally willing to allow herself to be happy. But also feels like we might end up getting a switch up between the two where Paige is pulling away and Azzi is hanging on. I really can’t wait to see where you take us next, even if I feel like it’s about to get real angsty soon. Please have mercy on us 😭 🙏🏻

Ok, I feel like this has gotten long enough. I can’t wait to read and review chapter 7!

Can I be 📚 anon?

Awwww babes welcome to the book club and of course you can be 📚 anon. I really like that y'all love reading the reviews as much as I do because genuinely I love hearing y'alls thoughts and it actually really helps me flesh things out sometimes. ALSO I love you for calling the UCLA fic by it's actual name lmao.

I think they probably had a conversation about sexualities before for sure so that's why Azzi's not phased but tbh I just didn't want to write Paige with a man lol and idk. Also I love picnics and idk Pazzi just feel so picnic dates coded? Idk how to explain it but they just seem like the kind of people who would love to sit outside and just talk for hours.

OMG! That was not on purpose but I love that you made that connection. Stephie's just such a mini-Azzi, well she's a mini-Pazzi lol.

AH THIS MEANS SO MUCH! I'm always a little worried that I'm maybe not characterizing everyone else right. I like to think I've gotten Paige and Azzi down okay but I've never really written the Fudds like that so I'm glad it seems to true to their irl personalities!

Paige has been put through it so she's just a little scared, my lil cutie baby! I like that everyone seems to think this is a bait and switch and Paige is gonna run this time. I guess we'll find out tee hee <3

[sororalice]

On The Blessedness Of Love

A homily for this difficult moment.

Dearly Beloved,

It all comes down to choice.

There are moments in time where there are decision points. Moments where one is defined by a choice as the sort of person who makes that sort of choice. We can’t escape it. It’s part of the human condition. We exist in time as beings with will, the sort of creatures who can make choices. Those choices transform us, as we are not only the sort of person who makes that choice, but also someone who has to live with that choice. We reach out and change the world, and then we have to live in the new world our changes created.

Unfortunately, often a lot of other people have to live in that world, too.

Recently, the majority of the USA chose to elect the unequivocally, unashamedly, and cartoonishly evil Donald Trump as president for the second time. This is deeply saddening and frightening, as he has made clear that he plans on using the power of the presidency to persecute people he perceives as enemies and undesirables, which seems to be pretty much everyone except cisgender heterosexual white Christian men. The Republicans also took the Senate and they have a majority on the Supreme Court, which means they now control all three branches of the US government.

Things don’t look good, dear siblings. People are going to suffer. Good people. People who don’t deserve it. And what is almost as bad is the simple fact that the bad guys won. It is deeply disheartening and frightening to me that this not only happens at all, but that it keeps happening. While I, like most pagans, don’t actually have to worry about the theological “Problem Of Evil” because I simply do not believe there is a single supreme, omnipotent, and morally perfect personal deity ruling everything, it is still extremely difficult to cope with staring into the blankly grinning face of evil while still maintaining my normal spiritual and ethical values.

I swore to abide always in love, living out the formulae of Aphrodite in my life as Her priestess. I take that oath deadly seriously. I swear it again and again, every night, in my prayers to my goddess. I also swore, long ago to a teacher now dead, to seek and serve the good. I study ethics and theology/thealogy specifically because I want to live out these values every day. It is the most important thing in my life. Which means I am pretty clearly required, just as much as any Christian, to love my enemies. I don’t have to like them, and I definitely don’t need to maintain some sort of pacifistic stance towards them, but I do have to love them. That’s the job.

Now, I have no qualms about fighting…I am also a devotee of Ares, and even Aphrodite was known as “Aphrodite Areia” (Aphrodite the Warlike”) in one of Her aspects. I am called to love, not pacifism, and I am definitely not called to allow myself or anyone else to be victimized. But the fact remains, I must relate to the Divine, others, and myself in terms of love. That is my calling, my duty, and my privilege.

I am sure you see where this is going.

I have to be able to love Donald Trump and his minions. I have to actually, truly want the best for them. I have to truly wish for them to thrive and grow as the spiritual beings, the stars in the company of stars, that I know them to be. Even while I fight them with everything I have, with every trick and stratagem my grandfather—who also fought to protect those he loved many years ago—taught me, I must love these people. These flawed human beings. These stars among stars. I must abide always in love. Again, that’s the job. That’s the mission, as my grandfather would have said. That’s what I signed up for.

I am not counseling some sort of capitulation or any sort of embracing of the ideals or actions of our enemies. I know that we must be willing to fight for ourselves and each other and that sometimes fighting gets nasty. That’s just the way it is. But I want to remind myself in every moment—and by proxy remind you, dear siblings—that those people who are doing these things, these people who for the moment are our enemies—are people. They have beliefs and desires, families, dreams, and pasts. They have hearts. They hurt, as I hurt. They are scared, as I am scared. They are angry, as I am angry. They are people, as I am a person. And so even as I must fight to stop them from causing harm, I must also love them.

There is no such thing as an absolute enemy. The people who are our enemies now may become our allies tomorrow, next week, or next year. The people who are our most valued allies today may become our fiercest enemies in a decade. Nothing is permanent. Change is an absolute. As my poems say again and again, time is a monster, and that monster is here to eat us all up. In the face of that monster, all I can do is try my best to live by my values moment to moment as change inevitably comes. All I can do is try to fulfill my mission. All I can do is love the world with all my heart while knowing that, again and again, my heart is going to get broken.

I know this is a lot to ask of you, dear siblings. I know that it hurts to be vulnerable like this. Gods, I know. It’s terrifying. And again, I am not saying that anyone should allow themselves or anyone else to be harmed in any way. If you or someone else is in danger, do whatever it takes to secure safety, up to and including the use of violence or magickal warfare. If you find yourself in a situation where you know you can’t win or that the cost of combat will be too high, run away and live to fight another day. Take care of yourselves and each other.

But when it comes time to make choices, to decide what must be done to secure a lasting peace, please, I am begging you all to remember that these people who are your enemies in this moment are also just people. Flawed people who have bad values and who are doing bad things, yes, absolutely, but people nonetheless. Creations of the Divine. Stars in the company of stars.

I am sure many of you will be disappointed in this homily. It is not in my normal style, nor am I going to ask you, as I normally do, to embrace the virtue that I have chosen for my topic, despite the fact that I believe that love is the mother of all possible virtue and the fact that love is my own spiritual calling. Love is just too important for that. It is too precious. It is too terrifying. I can’t ask it of any of you. It is a terrible thing to have to go to war wearing your heart on your sleeve and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I’m not going to ask you to love. I’m not going to ask you to lead with your vulnerability in this aching world. I can hardly bear to ask it of myself. I am just going to tell you what I am going to do. You have to choose whether or not you will join me.

By the grace of the Divine, I am going to love.

Be well, my siblings. And be safe.

In love,

Soror Alice

Art: Peter Paul Reubens, “The Triumph Of Divine Love”, (1625)