#also special effects probably? i love learning about them and making my own

[cherrieflavouredheadcanons]

I've fallen in love with Fontaine and especially Neuvillete so I had to write my thoughts about him down. I hope you all enjoy my Neuvillette ramblings

CW: None GN Reader

Romantic/ Cute Neuvillette headcanons

Awkward. Neuvillete was so awkward when he first fell for you. He may be a very old dragon but human emotions still often confuse him so suddenly having this warm feeling in his chest whenever he looked at you confused him on what to do.

At first he thinks he is getting sick, not connecting the fact that this weird feeling in his chest and stomach only appears when either you are around or he is thinking about you.

Though Neuvillette finally makes the connection and understands his feeling, when one day you laugh at something he said and he wishes to preserve that laugh, to have it always replaying in his head. It is the most beautiful sound to him and he is willing to do anything just so he can hear it again. You of course laughed around him before but somehow the moment he understood his feelings your laugh became even more special to him.

Furina teases him that it took long enough to realise his feelings for you, and that if he had taken any longer she’d probably have intervened, so let's all be glad Neuvillete realised it on his own. 

Once you two are finally an official couple he is so gentle with you. It's almost as if he is afraid that any touch that may be a bit rougher would hurt you. 

Also he is such a gentleman. He holds the doors open for you, he always makes sure to walk on the outer side of the sidewalk, pulls out your chair for you. He is just the perfect man.

Though if you think his awkwardness stopped once you two became an official couple I have to disappoint you. While he sees many couples near the Fountain of Lucine and sees how they interact with each other he is rather clueless himself on what to do in a Relationship.

He may be over 100 years old but he had never been in a relationship with anyone, yet alone a human so you have to be patient and show him what humans in relationships do.

This is how he learned that he loves cuddling and being physically close to you. Neuvillette enjoys the feeling of having you in his arms and holding you close. If you lay your head on his chest when he holds you close you will be able to hear that his heart is beating faster than normal. This happens regardless of how long you have been dating each other. It’s honestly adorable that even after months and years of dating you still have that effect on him.

Now we all know he is the hydro dragon, and we also all know that it rains when he cries, even if he does try to hide his tears around others, the rain speaks for him.

It almost seems as if he is inconsolable when he cries, seeing as it takes a while for the rain to let up. That is until you are there with Neuvillette when he cries. You hug him and hold him close to you, running your hand through his hair and let him cry it out. Sometimes you repeat one of the many rhymes Fontaines kids speak whenever it rains since it has the ability to make him smile.

“Rain, Rain Go away. Come again another day. Lonely dragon it will be okay. So rain, rain go away.” It may sound childish but he believes it when you say it will be okay, because he knows that as long as he has you close to him, he can get through anything.

Ever since you are there for Neuvillette, the skies appear to be even brighter after it rains, the people of Fontaine joking that the hydro dragon must have found someone who is able to brighten his mood, even after the stormiest days. Oh if they knew how right they are.

Neuvillette was unsure at first how the Melusines would react to you, he was basically their father so what if they for some reason didn't like you? Would he have to choose between you and them? 

Luckily for him (and you) the Melusines love you, and have basically now adopted you as their second parental figure, so congratulations you are now a parent to a bunch of Melusines!

[hogwartshotel]

putting on my trauma therapist hat

Full Moon spoilers under the cut.

Okay so if people are mad at Blitzø after that episode, send them here!

I am, in real life, a licensed therapist who works with PTSD, so I feel like I have some hopefully helpful perspective to offer here.

I've started to see a some "I get it, Blitzø has issues, but he fucked that whole thing up", and I want to talk a bit more about how PTSD works. If any of this resonates with you personally, I recommend seeking a therapist who specializes in trauma!

There are five categories in which we expect trauma to effect people's beliefs about themselves, others and the world, long-term: trust, safety, power and control, intimacy, and self-esteem. So let's take a look at those in this scene. They do overlap.

Trust. That heartbreaking line where Stolas says "I didn't realize you thought so lowly of me" is a result of Blitzø expressing that he's never had complete trust in Stolas's intentions. Hard to blame him -- trust is something we first learn in early childhood. Imagine trying to learn trust from someone like Blitzø's dad. People often have difficulty trusting not only others, but also themselves and their own judgment.

Safety. This really ties into power and control below. Imagine that Blitzø's whole personality has come from a desire to keep himself safe -- he's good with guns, he's his own boss, he doesn't have close relationships so he can't be rejected, he puts on an air of over confidence. Having any of that challenged can shake his whole set of beliefs about himself and the world.

Power and control. When something traumatic happens to us, we can often feel ourselves. We often try to limit our experiences to ones we feel we have control over, because our brains convince ourselves this will keep us safe. We've seen Stolas come to realize that their arrangement gives him more power over Blitzø than he's comfortable with. We've also seen Blitzø attempting to exert his own power -- by keeping Stolas at arm's length, by being the one to direct their sexual encounters (not saying that you need to have trauma in order to be dominant), by doing everything he can to keep the sex interesting so that Stolas won't end the deal. Stolas is doing the right thing by giving Blitzø the crystal, but it freaks him the fuck out. He's already figured out how to have power in the situation, and he's been operating under the assumption that Stolas also likes having this power over him (that part is more theoretical, but I see Blitzø as someone who assumes that everyone thinks the way he does about this shit). So having that dynamic suddenly changed makes him panic. It triggers a fear response. He reacts in a way that assumes it's a game or a trick. The idea that someone would willingly give up power sets of alarm bells in his mind.

Intimacy. Obviously, this is a big one in their dynamic, and it's going to tie in a lot to esteem. It is very common for folks with trauma histories to have difficulties forming intimate connections -- if you've read the above stuff about trust, it's probably easy to see why. In his part of the duet, we hear Blitzø acknowledging that the situation is feeling a little complicated, but that he's going to avoid that by focusing on the sex aspect. The idea of emotional intimacy is terrifying to him.

Esteem. Blitzø does not believe that he is capable of being loved, or that anyone who gets to know him will want to stay with him. We see a lot of that in the "bad trip" scene back in season 1. Hearing Stolas express feelings for him is terrifying. I'm not sure exactly what goes through his head, but it might be something like "I'm going to fuck this up," "he's lying," or "he doesn't know what he's talking about."

So. Imagine all of that getting triggered at once. I'm not saying that Blitzø handled it well or that he isn't responsible for his actions, I'm just saying it's really understandable that he didn't handle it perfectly. Quite frankly, I thought it was going to go a lot worse -- he does get angry and say hurtful things, but we immediately see him regret it and reach out to Stolas, and I was expecting him to need a lot longer to stop being angry. I am curious to see if he's going to go to a self-destructive spiral ("I always do this, I fucked it up again, why bother even trying") or if he's going to break the pattern and figure out a way to make it right. Seeing as the next episode is called "apology tour," I'm guessing we're going to see the latter -- but that is honestly huge character growth.

[waitineedaname]

Do u have any transfemme Jiang Cheng headcanons you’re willing to share 🥺 every time you bring it up it makes me unreasonably happy so I would love to hear more about it 🫶🫶

AHHHH no really major headcanons, it's just something I like to rotate in my mind a lot! transfemme jiang cheng is. so special to me. I guess I have a few thoughts

I think a big part of Jiang Cheng's relationship to gender comes from Jiang Fengmian and Yu Ziyuan being the models of masculinity and femininity growing up. Jiang Cheng already relates a Lot to Yu Ziyuan, and I think if JC is transfemme, it's a big deal to her that Yu Ziyuan wields so much power. She's an incredible cultivator, a fierce fighter, and generally is a force to be reckoned with. At the same time, she's still a woman living in a misogynistic society. YZY would probably make a better sect leader than JFM, but she's a woman and his wife, and therefore he gets the final say in things

This in turn I think affects Jiang Cheng's feelings about gender and being sect leader. Jiang Cheng has a tendency to prioritize sect concerns > personal desires, and I think in this situation, masculinity is seen as a tool. Even if she knows privately that she is a woman, she would not be public about it because she's already in a precarious position being such a young sect leader. She needs all the respect she can get when rebuilding the Jiang sect, so she stays in the closet by choice. She might eventually come out years and years later, once the Jiang sect is stable and she knows she's not going to get fucked over, but that's really not her first priority

I do think she tells her siblings, though. Jiang Yanli is probably the first person she tells, and she's endlessly supportive. Wei Wuxian is kind of clueless about this sort of thing (see: not realizing he liked men until he got resurrected into the body of a gay man) but he loves Jiang Cheng so he'd be supportive, especially if he learned when they were both still kids. Of course, this makes the tragedy of Jiang Cheng losing everyone even worse. After her siblings died, there was no one who knew who she really was. Thank god for resurrections, huh? fucking hell

in a modern au, I think being a woman would fix her. She would be able to come out without all the other bullshit to worry about, and I think it would be very healing for her. I've known a number of people to go on estrogen who said the effects were more emotional than physical, and I think HRT would be so good for her. I just need Jiang Cheng to be happy goddammit. has she not been through enough

that got long. I guess I had more thoughts than I expected lsdkjflksdjf I also have a snippet from a modern au wip that I don't know if I'll ever continue/finish, but I'll put it under a read more bc I find it funny. I think Wen Qing should crack Jiang Cheng's egg, as a treat <3

Wen Qing knew Jiang Cheng too well. It was something he both loved and hated. There were very few people outside his family that could see through his blustering and read him for who he was, and Wen Qing was one of them. Hell, she was better at it than his own brother.

She didn't hesitate to call him on it either. He wouldn't be forgetting the way she'd looked at him after he introduced her to his parents and told him this explains a lot about you. Rude. Correct, but rude.

Because she knew him so well, she knew the best times to drop these bombs on him. Exposing him when he was in the wrong mood might make his temper flare, or it might make him curl into an insecure ball. Neither were reactions he liked having around her.

Wen Qing knew the best time to drop revelations on him was when he was happy and as close to relaxed as he could get, which is of course why she apparently decided the best time to bring up this particular bombshell was when he was floating in postcoital bliss.

“I'm going to tell you something,” Wen Qing said, her ankle still hooked gently around his calf. “You can't freak out about it.”

Jiang Cheng paused in the middle of pressing lazy kisses to her temple, heart rate immediately spiking. “Now?” he said, incredulous and a little whiny. 

“It's not a bad thing,” she reassured him, gently scratching his scalp. It relaxed him like a charm, though he was still suspicious. “Do you promise to listen?”

“Do I have much of a choice?” he asked, propping himself up on her chest. Her lips quirked in a smile as she looked down at him.

“I think you're a woman,” she said, direct and matter-of-fact.

Jiang Cheng jolted upright so hard he slammed his head into the headboard. Wen Qing frowned and sat up as he rolled off her. “You're going to give yourself a concussion,” she said, accusatory.

“You're insane!” Jiang Cheng said, attempting to sit upright without making his head swim. Wen Qing huffed and pushed him down with a firm hand to his chest. He could throw her off if he wanted to, but, well, he didn't want to. He rather liked it when she pushed him around and climbed on top of him like she was right now, pinning him in place and preventing him from running away from the conversation.

[mdhwrites]

Why Can I Say So Much About The Owl House?

I effectively got asked this on Twitter and A: If not for all of yours asks, I probably would not even half of the blogs I do about TOH, if not closer to a tenth. B: I’m an analytical person, like talking about things like this and writing is my passion. Above all else is C though. The writers of TOH obviously know what a good story looks like... But they don’t know WHY it looks that way. They understand that character arcs are good so the more character arcs, the better. They understand that rivals to lovers is a great archtype ripe with storytelling possibilities but also that people complain about couples only getting together at the end. It understands that fantasy tropes are mocked so it’s good to mock them or lampshade our own use of them instead of asking if that mocking is in good faith. This one especially rings true for this concept to me because of how many times the show will try to claim they’re not using a fantasy trope before going “OH! We actually NEED to use the trope to make our story function, almost like the thing we’re mocking is actually just a part of fantasy storytelling as much as it’s a trope.” It’s very much so a “What do idiots on Twitter complain about” method of learning writing. You learn it by what people criticize as much as you learn by what is praised. The Cinema Sins approach effectively where there’s no nuance. The point is to attack every ‘problem’ you can claim in a product mixed with the question of “What do people praise the most about Avatar?” And for a simple story... That can work. It’s part of why S1 works. In general, S1′s storytelling is very much so nothing special but it’s done with charm and confidence. The only problem is that the show is setting itself up for larger topics, themes, concepts, etc. that it also isn’t prepared to tackle at the same time because there’s not enough thought put into each element so that they don’t contradict each other. Or, for that matter, function as a whole instead of disparate parts. From a narrative standpoint, this is a NIGHTMARE. You’re in effectively a narrative uncanny valley where all the elements for a good story are there but the skill of the writers, their priorities, etc. like that are NOT equipped to cash the checks their pencils are writing. It’s effectively a mindset that will ALWAYS have a crash happen narratively where things just fall apart and you’re going to divide audience the second that happens depending on where they land on the twin sides of the Uncanny Valley. And while ruinous for a story... It’s amazing from the standpoint of a teaching perspective. Most bad works after all have a core rot to them. Their main character is bad, the concept from go is flawed, the writing is just atrocious, etc. like that. Most have works one or two glaring flaws that tank the rest of the work, or that rot is purely in the form of lack of effort and it’s just boring with little to even care enough about to analyze. TOH IS different in that way. There is obviously a lot of love put into it. A lot of passion and a lot of confidence. It understands ALL of the tropes that work well for the type of story it’s trying to tell. On paper, TOH actually has a really good story and the different elements have a lot of potential for different ways for that story to go. But you need to know WHY those elements are useful for the story being told. If you don’t... You’re making a stew without the meat. There is no core flavor because you’ve shoved everything into it regardless of if it clashes, if it needs to be prepared in a certain way to work, if it needs to be cooked in an entirely different way before being added, etc. like that. It can’t even really have any real inventiveness to it like using bread as a scoop because it’s checking boxes. It’s saying “X is liked so we do X.” You need to know the why before you can give a unique answer to the problem that X solves or the like. This is probably why things most praised about TOH are titles. Swap Luz for a guy and how much changes, especially since Luz is bi? But because Luz is female, she’s heralded as part of a new wave of female protagonists that she is nowhere near the start of. Amity could have been an asshole dude and not much changes with her either but making her female as well gets you titled as the first openly gay, Disney TV cartoon (which god if that’s not a lot of caveats). It’s stuff that is frankly more easily answered in a panel than ever on screen because they’re elements that don’t matter to the show, as much I appreciate it for inclusive. It’s not an LGBTQIA+ story though. It only happens to have those characters. It’s not a story about race and ethnicity and being an outcast, Luz just happens to be Afro-Latina and no one rejects her simply for who she is. It’s not a story about gender because the show steadfastly refused to say racism and bigotry exist outside of just being a part of how we know the bad guys are bad people. It wants to be praised for these elements, it wants to appear smart about and unique for having them... But it’s a basic fantasy story at the end of the day. It’s none of these other things and it hardly wants to be any of them, even as it also won’t commit to just being another fantasy story. And... I guess that is kind of the personal motivation behind this. I LIKE basic fantasy stories. I LOVE fantasy as a genre in general. I think it gets WAY too much shit and that people try way too hard to claim to not be like other fantasy stories, either with gratuitous sex and nudity (Hi Game of Thrones) or constant subversion like The Owl House. TOH giving a middle finger to its genre though, while also not being willing to actually commit the proper care and attention to be something more complex is INFURIATING to me as a writer. I mean... I’m still angry just from a conceptual standpoint that Reaching Out has this setup:

Character A is normally brash and impulsive and energetic. Due to issues with their father, they are acting more reserved, scared and cautious, specifically because he DIED. Character B is normally more reserved, cautious and thinks things through. Due to issues with their father, they are acting more brash, impulsive and putting themselves in danger to prove themselves. And they’re dating. And Reaching Out does NOTHING with what is narrative GOLD. What is usually so hard to setup in a story because you want to show these sorts of contrasts, you want these sorts of changes of pace, you want this sort of reasonable, unreasonable conflict sources because they are such perfect ways to show how characters interact with their own problems, with others, what other sides of them can look like, etc. like that, LET ALONE WHEN THE TWO ARE IN A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP! And the whole episode the two aren’t actually different from their normal behaviors, including Luz lying since that’s not new behavior for her, outside of Luz showing that despite death and loss being on her mind, she doesn’t give a fuck about that Amity is actively putting her life potentially at risk in this tournament. She literally gets BORED watching Amity fight and so joins herself for the sake of a distraction. Which... Different blog. I’ve made my point on how misguided these writers are but GOD there’s so many reasons why Reaching Out is one of the worst episodes of the series in my opinion. But that is also an example of what I’m talking about. They are trying a LOT. And failing a LOT. And instead of being really basic failures, figuring out what went wrong is an interesting puzzle and it’s understandable why some may not see the flaws, unlike with a more blatantly bad work like The Room or Teen Titans Go. Talking about either of those would be boring and almost pointless because... Look at them. Their flaws are so obvious and blunt and simple that you could teach with them but it’s not exciting and you’re going to run dry pretty quickly because neither ambitious enough not to be making the same mistakes over and over and over again. And for someone who’s brain NEVER turns off... I find ambition that obliterates itself far more compelling than something that is just straightforwardly bad. So I want to talk about it. Talk about the whys that the writers didn’t get. ======== I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead, If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[rouf-4]

Selena Gomez and Hailey Bieber Synastry

By: Rouf

These women have a long story and I actually think this fascinating and complex dynamic is because they are both really insecure women (unfortunately) and this strong recognition and fascination between both of them turned sour and bitter after the incredible among of especulation and attention this had gotten through out the years. I honestly think they definitely don't know how similar their motives are, but their charts shows an incredible list of synchronicities.

I want you to know that these are my personal observations, the placements I'll be describing doesn't necessarily have to work the same for everyone, depending of other aspects you may have in your chart the description of the following aspects may change. Also I'm not a professional astrologer, I just love astrology and got to learn it with my own means, so whatever I found out about certain placements may not be the same for everyone else.

Let's start

Selena's moon conjunct Hailey's moon both in Aries

This happen in Selena's 9th house conjunct her MC, and in Hailey's 4-5th house, there's a natural emotional understanding in the way each other response to situations, also they both resonate with the passionate and enthusiastic energy of their Aries moon, in Selena's case her moon in Aries is the ruler of her 12th house where her Sun in cancer is, so probably she express her emotional side in a more agressive way than she show the public (Moon ruling her 12th house)

Selena's Bilk conjunct hers and Hailey's moon

Selena knows how to control her emotional response to make situations run smoothly and make a public and economic gain out of it, also she understands Hailey's emotional mechanism and how to turn whatever Hailey has said in her favor. I think she's really aware that public is really important to her business and public image. I don't think she's a bad person, but bilk conjunct her moon makes this a natural trait of her.

Hailey's Lilith conjunct Selena's mercury

Mercury represent communication and intellectual capacities, so probably Hailey's wild side feels a strongly connection to Selena's mind and her speech, therefore is not rare to think she's been caught copying Selena's speeches, she could try to break free from impose limitations and act her instinct imitating someone she feels deeply connected, this could had turned sour after she's been bullying and ridiculed by the public (also Hailey's Lilith is in 8th house, house of revenge).

Selena's Sun, Mercury, Venus, Chiron and rising in Hailey's 8th house

This explains Hailey's obsessive behavior when she was not famous, she would run after Justin and Selena in every event, even copy her outfits and declare herself "team jelena"(Justin and Selena), she clearly feel a strong attachment to Selena's life, she acted like she wanted to be her, she got the same tattoo that Selena and change her Gym for Selena's; Justin just makes everything worst cause he makes Hailey deeply insecure always chosing Selena over her, so she tried even harder cause she was too obsess; this also hurt Selena cause her Chiron in Leo should feel deeply ashamed to always compete for Justin attention, Selena says in one of their songs "In two months you replacement this", and it was obvious in her album Rare that this whole situation makes her feel not special nor appreciated. Ultimately this overlays explain these two women long affair cause they both feel extremely hurt and jealous of the other, when it's been media and a guy who actually put this horrendous narrative in their story.

Both of them have Chiron conjunct Venus

This show how deeply wounded they'd been by females in their life, there's also a wound in their own femininity by being rejected by most important female figures in their lives, Selena's also have this conjunct her rising and this just intensifies Chiron effect, making her feel not pretty enough, she's indeed really insecure about her looks; Hailey's have this in her 10th house, she could feel excluded in her professional setting (modeling), and was making fun of for not being feminine enough, actually I notice how she's always acting like one of the "buddies", just trying to look cool and bold by some behaviors, like when she opened a beer with her tooth.

Hailey's Mars conjunct Selena's Jupiter

This happen in Hailey's 9th house, so she could find Selena's philosophy inspiring and motivating, she could find support and help during dark times in Selena's life, also this fall in Selena's 2nd house, she could see how determine and assertive Hailey is, also she could feel kind of jealous of Hailey's body (specially her stomach and her contexture), she could find Hailey's figure sexy.

Hailey's Mercury conjunct nessus squaring Selena's Jupiter

Hailey is really smart and cunning, she could fake sympathy for other opinions and circumstances but lack true empathy, she's kinda unconscious about that (it's in her 12th house) but people who get close to her notice that (this conjunction is really close to her ascendent); there was a fan girl of Justin who she manipulated into be "friends" to get information about where Justin would stay in. Selena's Jupiter is debilitated in Virgo and this over rational and down to earth quality in Selena, triggers Hailey's superiority complex, she might found Selena's character fake, while wishing she could figure out how to trick everyone to see her as good and humble as Selena. She thinks Selena is fake and cunning as her or everyone, but somehow Selena has a trick to appear better than Hailey thinks she is. Honestly I think Hailey could've been bullied or she could be a bully herself, probably people around her could feel her comments way too mean and she didn't notice (12th house influence), and that's why she feel rejected (she has Chiron in her 10th house), any way this is just a theory.

Hailey's bilk conjunct Selena's prey

This falls in Hailey's 7th house, and Hailey became famous and gain economy rewards after she started hanging out with Justin when he still with Selena (she preys their relationship and gain money and fame after that), also Selena's prey is in her 11th house and if you check her timeline with Justin, you would find out how most of her friends were doing sh*t behind her back, also Kendall, Kylie and Gigi who pretended to be her friends, setted everything up to get Justin with Hailey.

Hailey's Mercury and nessus conjunct Selena's Persephone and Narcissus

Hailey said pretty nasty things about Selena, she did make up that Selena never have supported her when she was receiving hate, when in fact Selena did say to her fans to stop the hate several times, actually Hailey was commenting and giving like, retweet etc, to posts where Selena was making fun of, and people where sending hate, her camping to laugh of Selena and her friends was promoted by the Kardashians-jenners.

Selena's nessus conjunct Hailey's Persephone

Selena wrote songs comparing herself to Hailey, and also indirectly shading Hailey for getting in the middle of her relationship with Justin, this make her massive fandom attack Hailey (Nessus in Libra, using your power in an unbalanced way to abuse others), also Hailey Persephone in Libra, getting through hell because she was dating someone who is not her equal in the public eye, Selena is being quite aware about this whole narrative that painted her as a victim (she kinda is, but she's responsable for other things too) and use it as a way to get revenge through others (her fans).

Hailey's Jupiter cunj Narcissus conjunct Selena's Uranus and Neptune

Jupiter expand everything it touch, Hailey is quite proud of her status (Narcissus in Capricorn in 1st house) and she's amazed about how Selena change and grow through her work and how innovative and enchanted is Selena (Uranus and Neptune in Capricorn in her 6th house), this shows again Hailey's passion for Selena's life, she feels moved by Selena's originality and glamour.

Selena's nessus conjunct Hailey's lie

Hailey has lied many times about how Selena was not supported to her, and also lied about not being involved with Justin when he was with Selena, she denied being a Justin's "fan" (stalker).

Hailey's Neptune conjunct Selena's mental

Hailey is untrustful, she claim to be a feminist and try to deny being a mean girl, but she did shade Selena with her friends many times, she's always talking about supporting other women but she's been caught bullying other girls several times. She creates a whole new persona and try to erase how mean and creepy she was when younger, she never acknowledge the damage she made, she's just always victimizing herself. Also Justin and Hailey fans shade Selena for being fake, spread hate and not getting over Justin, when in fact most hate they get is because their past mistakes (rac*st behavior and other stuff).

Selena's Paine conjunct Hailey's MC

Much people see Hailey as the responsable for Justin and Selena break up, and also blame her for Selena's harassment in media, and we've seen Hailey constantly obsession with Selena even after her marriage with Justin, she just still following Selena fan page and copying things about her life, Hailey has been exposed multiple times for this stalker behavior. Selena is Hailey major mistake (pain) in her career and in the public eye, cause she's never as good as Selena.

Hailey's mental conjunct her IC

This show struggles with mental health since quite young, she could even deal with family members with some mental issues, although this is kinda unknown cause Hailey has always portrait herself as a perfect girl next door, and hardly we see her speaking about her mental health issues (not that she has to).

Selena's nemesis in her 1st house

Selena can suffer from self sabotage due to her insecurity and this could make her unable to move from past scars (Chiron in the 1st house)

Selena's Destin conjunct Hailey's Pinocchio

Selena was meant to uncover Hailey's lies, she being perceptived of this dark and mean side of Hailey since the beginning and now truth has came out, we all can see it (this falls in Hailey's 8th house and in Selena's 12th house, both mysterious and intuitive houses).

Selena's karma conjunct Hailey's Mars

This fall in Hailey's 9th house, the morals Hailey hardly defended crash down with the news of her being a completely different person than she claimed to be, also she suffer from a small (Virgo) clot in her head (mars) a few months ago.

Hailey's Chiron conjunct Karma conjunct Selena's Grieve

This falls in Hailey's 10th house and she's paying every single action she has done, facing a lot of hate and humiliation in the public eye, she's constantly reminded that she doesn't deserve anything she has and the she has no talent more than being Justin's wife. Selena freud with her and her friends has just make it worst, cause now she's receiving more hate than ever. What she did to Selena is hunting her.

Hailey's chaos conjunct Selena's Mars

There's definitely being a really ugly and agressive confrontation through the years and both of then have keep the fire sparkling by sending shady massage to the other.

Hailey's grieve conjunct her Sun and her Pluto

Hailey's been going through a tough pain that transform her self many times throughout life, she's probably used to being in pain or feeling empty regularly.

Selena's Pinocchio conjunct her moon

She's probably a bad lier, her emotional frustration can make her vulnerable when trying to be calm while lying. Also could make up impulsive and unbelievable stories when emotional stress.

That was it, I actually enjoy and learn a lot about their relationship, also I'm not taking any side, I just commented what I see in their charts, I hope they both choose their happiness about everything and can manage better their emotions.

Asteroids: bilk (4425), Persephone (399), nessus (7066), Prey (6157), Narcissus (37117), Nemesis (128), lie (26955), mental (7116), Paine (5188), Destinn (6583), karma (3811), Grieve (4451), Pinocchio (12927), chaos (19521).

[randomkposts]

I remember the starfish

I love Fire Emblem Fates. My favorite is Awakening, but Fates has a special place in my heart for all of its flaws, and plotholes I love to poke at. No malice meant, if I didn't care, I'd probably just leave it alone. Instead it takes up so much brainspace.

So I think I might want to write something a bit more themed another time, but for now I want to write some scattered thoughts.

First, If I were going to change just one thing, I would give Azura ,Kaze as a retainer. And Shura.

Why? It bugs me that she didn't have any retainers, and Corrin has 3 household staff, their teacher, a childhood best friend, and a Ninja, most of whom are willing to follow them even if they defect. That's pretty excessive, that they just have a small- personally loyal fighting force. And Kaze's just hanging around, a trained retainer not assinged to anyone. And really Mikoto, Azura is your niece, you can give her one retainer at least.

Kaze defecting to Nohr to protect his charge makes arguably more sense then his reasons for defecting to Nohr on Corrins behalf.

Azura recruiting Shura as a retainer, fits with the older of the Nohrian sibilings having a criminal retainer. They also have a personal history between them that would be intresting to explore in a support. A support with Ryoma would also be intresting, as Shura states his family used to serve the royal family until his principality was taken over by Mokushu, so learning more about that would be neat.

Speaking of retainers, Despite three Nobrian Siblings havinging a criminal as a retainer, the person with the weirdest retainers is Hinoka, for having the least retainer-like retainers in the game. And Ryoma has 2 ninjas as retainers, which perhaps says some odd things about his diplomatic choices.

Hinoka does her own chores, protects her retainers, and seems to barely know anything about Azama beforehand. Until we learn from her support with Niles in Revelations that Hinoka hired Setsuna for her skill in archery, I was almost convinced she was hired to annoy Takumi.

And yet they are the last retainers sticking around the Hoshidan royals when they are recruited in Revelations.

Hillarious. Baffling. Lends a diffrent weight to Hinokas support with Saizo in this route, not that it wasn't already weird, but there was more cause for suspicion.

Speaking of supports, Sakura takes Corrin's amnesia as a sign that Silas is cursed. Meanwhile, in Birthright Takumi gets mindwhammied and dragon posessed, and Sakura does nothing to try to help. Which to be fair, nither instance lasted long. Who knows if she could have done anything effective, but in the Conquest one she doesn't seem to take note of his dirastically changed attitude as something to worry about, yet was far quicker to diagnose Silas as "something was off. Maybe its cause Silas a stranger, and she doesn't want to see anything wrong with her closest brother, but I wonder what got her attention in the first place to draw that conclusion.

I haven't played Engage, but even without that I am pretty sure Corrin is the most watched avatar we have ever played. Their big sister Camilia and her retainers makes it 3 in a lifetime, as said by Selena/Severa.

"Selena: Lady Camilla! Sorry we got ahead of you. But you should have heard the horrible things Lord/Lady Corrin said to us. Even though we used to watch over them, they don't remember us at all. Sure, we always stuck to the shadows and never introduced ourselves... but still! I could cry right now. Really! I really could!

Beruka: All that time hovering... caring... watching... it was all for naught. They has no heart.

Camilla: Now, now, you two. I'm sure they didn't mean to hurt your feelings. I'm certain they would remember, given more time. You simply must forgive them."

No wonder Corrin is so chill with Ryoma's Ninjas and other people following them around.

A headcanon, Odin/Owain can use dragon Veins. Anankos can hide his brand, but he can't undo that he is decended from the Exalted line of Ylisse, a heritige who also formed a pact which presumably involved drinking dragons blood. (That does seem to be a series consistant for how one gets a stats edge, with consent of the dragon being pretty important in how well they control it. )

He uses it once by accident. Leo did see it, but never confronts him on it. Maybe they might be siblings, but if this is what kept him alive and he's happy with living his life, then Leo isn't going to be the one to tell anyone. One of them may as well be happy.

If I were going to change something about the Fates Kids, I would mess with Shiro. Ryoma never told him until recruitment that he was royalty. So what if Shiro, figuring Ryoma is impotant, but not connecting the dots (as in cannon) comes to the (incorrect) conclusion that he is the next Saizo. And so comes with the Ninja class, alomg with some family drama, lol.

I would also tone down Soleil's supports, and add some depths to the other kids, but ninja Shiro creating some family drama with the retainers is a concept that amuzes me

I'll end it here for now. Might write a second at some point.

[demokratieundfreiheit]

//cont// The Bandwagon

Theory 1: I view Verstappen's achievement as more valuable than Norris'.

This one, for me, is most preferable, because it allows me to cling onto neutrality, while making peace with the fact that I may have explicit bias. The bias is not, naturally, for a want of reason.

I started this season fully expecting a repeat of 2023, at least at the front of the grid, and over the first roughly 9 races, that expectation held up. I felt it was genuinely an achievement for Verstappen to keep his dominance going even after such a monstrous season; after all, after both of his truly dominant years, Seb faced great difficulty in trying to replicate them. That, and the fact that this happens to be his 4th consecutive year in title contention, means I have a greater appreciation for his achievement.

As for Norris, I am sure he will get his day in the sun. Like Seb in '09, he has made too many mistakes, and has simply not shown the grit needed for a world champion. A title now, though a special achievement in its own right, would not feel as deserved as if he had beat Verstappen in a fair, competitive fight. Piastri will not be able to beat him until 2026, as far as raw pace goes, so 2025 should be his as things stand.

Theory 2: I simply don't like Norris.

This does fit into my bubble, but barely. It is *probably* fine to both claim neutrality and dislike certain drivers, but that's more contentious when they're involved in a championship fight. After all, I felt the same way about 2021, and I can do what I want.

Norris just does not feel relatable. He is a rich kid with a bratty attitude, and there is not much going on upstairs either. The other rich kids on the grid, including Verstappen, can at least come across as genuinely good guys with some personality. I was personally peeved when he made a jab at Seb in the Grill the Grid 2021 finale, and I am sure many felt the same way.

Is there a valid case for Norris fans? Sure. He's probably /the/ underdog in this ground effect era, who now finally has the car underneath him to really make the most of his undoubted talent. Is that valid enough for me? Not really. I feel his underdog status is a bit overblown. He has been assigned the nickname LanDOTD for a reason. Norris would probably be more palatable for me if he were not so hyped as he is now, but it is what it is.

Theory 3: I am delusional and denying the reality that Norris can challenge for the title

This theory, were it to be true, would also prove theory 1, but its ramifications are more significant. I have insisted on public forums of all forms that Norris simply cannot do it. It has metastasized, just from an argument, into a fundamental part of my beliefs; which is to say that insofar as I want myself to be true, I want that argument to be true. What value do I get out of being right? Barely anything. I just want to be right.

As a consequence, Norris' success is my antithesis. The more he wins, the more my worldview collapses, and therefore, the more I collapse. This opposition, then, has nothing to do with my neutrality, my implicit or explicit biases, or F1 in general. It might just be my gigantic ego preventing me from learning to love that bomb.

[liprairian]

So You Want To Be A Librarian

Five and a Half Things You Should Know Going In

This is a post, first and foremost, about burnout. Being a public librarian presents a certain category of problems and attracts a certain type of people - namely, the problems of social aid professions and the compassionate people who go into them. The advice in this post comes from my own experiences as well as wisdom distilled from my parents’ combined 60 years of being in the sister passion profession of teaching.

Here goes:

1) Libraries are not your life. Not your patrons, not your programs, not your advocacy efforts. None of it. Repeat this to yourself, over and over, as many  times as it takes. If you want to survive - or even just be effective - in this line of work, you cannot reduce your identity down to just ‘librarian’. All the advice on work-life balance and establishing boundaries applies here, but don’t forget to think about the ‘identity’ part specifically, too.

1a) It’s going to be really easy to forget 1) when you’re in the warm, righteous, determined rush of feeling needed.

That’s a heady feeling and it’s going to make you want to ignore your boundaries. Sometimes, you will; that can’t always be helped, and breaking your own boundaries isn’t something to beat yourself up over when it happens. It’s a neutral fact that we’re wired to love the feeling of being needed, or we wouldn’t have lasted this long as a social species. When you come down from it a bit, ask yourself what parts of that experience were rewarding to you. Was it the type of social interaction - teaching, caring, giving? Was it a feeling that you had power over your portion of the situation, power to enact what you thought was right? Where else could you get those things if you needed, so that your job doesn’t have to be the only place you experience those feelings?

2) Most people are not going to remember you after they walk out that library door, so don’t do your job to be remembered by them. You’re probably in this job because someone in libraries had a huge impact on you when you were younger, but you need to recognize when and where you’re making your interactions about you and your own self-image rather than your patrons or your role in the community. This can be especially difficult with kids, since kids can be very intense and make you feel like you’re the centre of their universe. When this happens, ask yourself what need you are fulfilling for them and what that actually, concretely requires of you.

3) Suffering is not transactional. We live in a culture that’s built primarily on Christian values, and the biggest Christian story of them all is the success of sacrifice. Jesus, however, was special - that’s kind of the whole point, as I understand the thing. Basically, remember that the amount of blood, sweat, and tears that you put into something does not in any way correlate to the amount of enjoyment or learning or purpose anyone else gets out of it.

4) Understand the system. Where does the money come from? Can you trace it back, not just to grants from the city, but to the kinds of business and property taxes that fund the city? North Americans are brought up with this background noise of ‘infinite growth’ that you have to consciously tone down if you want to be able to assess a situation realistically. I had a boss once who told me, “When you’re presenting to council, always remember that the fire department is fighting for the same pot of money you are.” There might be more than enough money in the world to fund what you want - but is that money in your town? If not, can you bring it into your town? Knowing what your limits are can help you expand them, yes, but it can also save you from throwing yourself after a mirage of glory that simply doesn’t exist.

5) Everything takes more time than you think, even changes away from horrifying practises or towards things that are objectively morally right. Libraries exist suspended in a web of the relationships between multiple bureaucratic organizations, budgets only happen once a year, and most people don’t spend their working days thinking about their community’s library. You’re going to have great ideas for change, they’re going to be realistic and possible and just within reach, and it’s going to feel grindingly slow. Don’t get mad; remember the fire department. Everyone working with you to achieve this change has their own equivalent of the fire department in their life. Make sure things are moving, but make sure you don’t blame people when they’re not moving faster. It’s unlikely that you’re being obstructed out of maliciousness and even on the rare occasions you are, you will get more help from others if you don’t visibly assume it anyway. Make sure you’re using your anger against injustice to motivate you, not other people.

[mediaevalmusereads]

Making Comics. By Lynda Barry. Drawn and Quarterly, 2019.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: self-help, art guide, pedagogy

Series: N/A

Summary: Hello students, meet Professor Skeletor. Be on time, don’t miss class, and turn off your phones. No time for introductions, we start drawing right away. The goal is more rock, less talk, and we communicate only through images.

For more than five years the cartoonist Lynda Barry has been an associate professor in the University of Wisconsin–Madison art department and at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, teaching students from all majors, both graduate and undergraduate, how to make comics, how to be creative, how to not think. There is no academic lecture in this classroom. Doodling is enthusiastically encouraged.

Making Comics is the follow-up to Barry's bestselling Syllabus , and this time she shares all her comics-making exercises. In a new hand-drawn syllabus detailing her creative curriculum, Barry has students drawing themselves as monsters and superheroes, convincing students who think they can’t draw that they can, and, most important, encouraging them to understand that a daily journal can be anything so long as it is hand drawn.

Barry teaches all students and believes everyone and anyone can be creative. At the core of Making Comics is her certainty that creativity is vital to processing the world around us.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: mildly disturbing imagery

This is another one of those books that has been on my TBR list for way too long. I love Lynda Barry's work, and back when I thought I had a shot at being a teacher, I figured this would be a good guide for the classroom.

Turns out this book is a good guide outside of it as well, and it motivated me to take up my pencil and start drawing again.

I love that Barry focuses not on developing artistic skill but in breaking down barriers when it comes to making Comics. Barry doesn't lay out how to draw action poses or how to do speech bubbles effectively; instead, this book is all about finding your own voice and learning to do away with inhibitions. Barry praises the artwork of children and demonstrates the relationship between stories and images, and as someone who struggles with not feeling good enough, I felt like I was invited to throw myself into the process of making comics, skill level be dawned.

I also really loved that this book felt like a composition notebook filled with doodles (which it probably was, at some point). It's not a clean, pristine how-to guide with step-by-step instructions, but it is clear while also not being afraid to be messy, silly, and spontaneous. Most of the images are taken from student drawings, and there's a charm to them that I love more than professional pieces.

And lastly, I love that this book uses basic, inexpensive materials for its exercises. Barry does not insist that students buy special paper or pens - composition notebooks and felt tips will do. This also helps lower the barrier to entry so that readers don't feel like they need fancy equipment in order to draw.

All that being said, I do think this book will be harder to use if you're on your own or don't necessarily have any interest in comics within a classroom setting. Barry's book is designed to outline what her comics courses look like, and though you can probably do most of the exercises at home, a lot of them will need partners or groups of people. So just be aware going in that this isn't necessarily a how to draw manual for the lone self-taught student.

TL;DR: Making Comics is a wonderful overview of how to teach comics in a classroom setting using hands-on drawing exercises. Barry is a master at lowering the barrier to entry and encouraging students to find joy and expression in art, regardless of skill level.

[moorishflower]

I got tagged by @softest-punk to talk about BOOKS

Rules: 10 (non-ancient) books for people to get to know you better, or that you just really like.

Idk how we're defining non-ancient but I'm going to assume nothing pre-1400s just because people are listing Shakespeare? Which means I can't include Beowulf :< But know that Beowulf is on here in my heart

The Dark Elf Trilogy by R.A. Salvatore. Hoo boy. Baby's first fantasy novels. I fell in love with Drizzt Do'urden LONG before I knew what being edgy or goth was, and I was absolutely fascinated by the intricate politics of Menzoberranzan, but even MORE fascinated by the Underdark. This terrifying, harsh alien landscape all in darkness, lit only sometimes by phosphorescent fungi, populated by monstrous creatures and inhuman beings with complex cultures...I was actively less interested in the Forgotten Realms books when Drizzt left the Underdark! To this day I'm really fascinated by survival literature and hostile landscapes, and I find things like deserts and cave systems to be extremely beautiful. Also, I had a crush on Jarlaxle, but so did everybody else, so.

Don Quixote (El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha) by Miguel de Cervantes. I originally read Don Quixote in college, and I fell in love with how it played around with the idea of stories, and how we use them to view the world. I wrote an entire paper about how Don Quixote serves as a sort of trickster figure, because we're meant to learn from his mistakes, but there are honestly so many different ways you can read the text! Is he insane? Is he the ONLY person in the world trying to do the right thing, and its only the rigid outline of society that's actively preventing him from doing it? Also, has one of the single most important quotes to ever be put to a page. "There is no book so bad...that it does not have something good in it."

Dragon's Milk by Susan Fletcher. This was the first book about dragons that I read. I think it probably wouldn't hold up well if I read it again? But I remember being in love with it when I was about 9 or 10. It felt VERY gritty to me (there's death! injury! grief!) at the time, lol.

John Dies at the End by David Wong. HERE'S a book that taught me a lot about fucking around with genre conventions. I reread JDatE about three times in the beginning to make sure I was getting everything, and I still reread it like...once a year or two years or so? Horror is a really special genre to me because there's so much you can learn from it and use it to convey. JDatE was one of the first successful horror COMEDY novels I read.

The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. I couldn't possibly choose a single book, so don't ask me to! This is meant to be read as a series anyways, even more so than other series. King is one of my favorite authors, and I've read pretty much his entire body of work, but there's something special about The Dark Tower books. They're so huge, and far-reaching, and they accomplish so MUCH and manage to entwine so many different threads into one (nearly, no one's perfect, lol) cohesive whole. I'm sure there are a lot of fantasy and scifi novels that manage to weave as many threads as King does here, but man, there's something SO satisfying about being able to go through the Tower books, and recognizing all the references to so many other books by him. <3

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett. WORDS IN THE HEART CANNOT BE TAKEN. Fuck, what a good book. About personhood, about self determination, about acceptance. Feet of Clay is definitely THE City Watch book for me, followed very closely by Night Watch.

Inferno by Dante Alighieri. Does this count as ancient? I don't care. Inferno was one of my introductions to translation and how word choice can change the entire effect of a sentence. I read it first in middle school, on my own, and then more in depth in high school and college, and I used to keep my annotated copy by my bed in my dorm, so I could go through it whenever I was stressed. I got really into etymology because of Inferno, an interest I still have today!

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. When I read this in high school, the teacher for the class warned us that it was going to be a difficult read and that we would probably need a timeline she had made in order to follow along. But I didn't need the timeline. The leaps in time and space and narration all made perfect sense to me! It wasn't actually that hard to follow along, and the story being told between the words by Benjy was horrifying and fascinating and terribly sad! And then you got to the other parts and it was CONFIRMED to be horrifying and sad! Anyways The Sound and the Fury is a really cool example of nonlinear, unreliable, stream of consciousness narration and I like it a lot.

The Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. Just a really cool magic system. Really interesting worldbuilding. But it's the magic system that gets me.

Across the Acheron by Monique Wittig. Baby's first feminist lesbian book. I got Across the Acheron because I was intrigued by another version of Inferno. Instead, I figured out I wasn't straight! Like all feminist literature there's a lot of ways to read this and it probably hasn't held up as well as I would like, but I am indebted to it for like, letting 14 y/o me realize that not just liking boys was okay, so!

[zorphie]

🖊 tell me about koda please [stares at you with big eyes]

ty for the ask I GOTCHU!! 🤭 stuff is below!!

hes from darkmoor ("lovely place" dworgyn's words) and his family has beef with the von shanes. i haven't figured out all the precise details yet but the conflict ends up with him on his own unfortunately wandering around darkmoor trying his best to fend for himself. sometimes he sneaks into the manor to steal things from them out of spite(good for him he's allowed) eventuallyyyy he's given hospitality by amari's mom which gives him the opportunity to take classes in ravenwood

he has a ghost friend he met shortly after enrolling, he's actually super familiar with ghosts since they kept him company in darkmoor. they'd chat , teach him things, and tell him stories!

everyone just sees a ghost floating around and following koda , freaked out. and he's just like "oh! yeah !that's my buddy don't worry about it" he's completely forgotten the fact it's probably not normal and looks weird to everyone else

his enrollment was super messy and rushed so he and amari didn't even have dorms for awhile and just stayed at her mom's house. he had to make his own spellbook because they ran out... they also were there while malistaire and sylvia were still teaching and they were very close (you can see where this is going😭)

okay so um! pain all around because this guy is really determined to achieve his goals yet he ends up going about them the wrong way. and it's still something im tweaking since I'm planning arc 1 atm and koda's actions are of huge importance but he does get some form of closure in the end and learns from his mistakes (which honestly he wasn't at complete fault for in the first place)

when death students were forced into independent studies, amari would drag koda along into balance school as a secondary. when you leave people to their own devices one day they will sneak into the forbidden section of the library(yes he did this... something happened )

it led him to try to learn shadow magic in secret while at ravenwood and have his morals manipulated by some random lady🤦‍♂️ ? He didn't become"evil" he just wanted to good things . bwahhh. he thought if he represented a hero then it would get rid of a lot of troubles death students face. he tries really hard to be a good role model when their teacher is gone. he wants to give them hope. EXPLODES

after malistaire's defeat, he's learned a lot of things. hehas so many mixed feelings, but now he knows he doesn't need to be "special" or "stand out"just to do the right thing or have an impact. (cough explanation for this is he was tryint to be the scion since he believed if a necromancer was the scion itd be the most effective way of being a role model)

he works overtime to help rebuild the death school and actually have dworgyn on campus. he helps out malorn with his teacher assistant job and even offers to be one himself. he hopes he's made his classmates lives a little bit better

he has that mysterious vibe about him which is hilarious because he's the complete opposite.. he is an open book. he /tries/ to come off as the calm cool collected guy and fails miserably. he is The cringefail. he's very laid back though

his pet is an iron ram who makes it impossible for him to start gardening because his pet will always eat the plants. and i swear to god i did not give it to him because of the egg name that was just a weird coincidence (the egg is "chimerical egg" iirc? my antagonists are called the chimera and he puts up with them the most out of everyone else. it's very awkward) anyways his pet gets stuck in trees all the time. it flies up but never back down for some reason. it can also travel through dimensions because that's funny i don't have full details on it, it just can

[felixcloud6288]

Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 27

I can't believe I've actually reached the first quarter of the series.

Last chapter, Dorchet was the butt of the joke in the goon squad. This chapter, it's Martel.

Tons of big reveals and answers to questions this chapter.

Starting off, we learn the goons are all human-based chimeras created by military researchers. I'm surprised this never comes up, but there already being successful creations of this kind makes the Shou Tucker incident even worse. Not only did Tucker use his wife and daughter for his experiments, but actual research had advanced far past that point making his atrocities pointless.

If anything, I'd guess he only got his license so the military could hide how far they've advanced in their chimera research. Tucker's incapability would paint chimera research as novel, impractical, and pointless; while hiding how far the military has gone into researching human-chimera weapons.

Greed shows up and pretty much reveals everything about himself and the others. He's a homunculus and while he's able to regenerate, he's not actually immortal. He also mentions being 200 years old. He knows the other people with the Ouroboros tattoo, but his motives and actions imply that he is not with them.

One thing I find interesting in this scene is how Greed's body collapsed after Loa smashed his dead off, but then he got back up before his head regenerated. So while Greed does have a brain which is used to control his body, his brain doesn't actually need to be intact for him to operate. It's always possible he slumped over dead for dramatic effect as well, but it would make sense if destroying the brain might make him need a second to start regenerating.

Moving onto Ed, a day has passed at this point and he's in South HQ. He meets Alex Louis Armstrong who is escorting Fuhrer President King Bradley on an inspection. Bradley immediately passes Ed's assessment and then learns about Ed's teacher.

I absolutely adore Armstrong's expression when he sees Ed. He's making the same face one might make in the presence of a cute kitten or puppy.

Back in Dublith, Izumi learns about what happened to Al and she and Sig go after him. I feel like giving a special shoutout to Ulchi for being the only minor goon with a name.

I wish we got this guy's name cause he was my favorite goon.

Izumi is not mad that Al got kidnapped. She's mad Al let himself get kidnapped. And she declares herself to be a housewife. It's a joke, but to her, being in a loving married relation is more important than flaunting her skill in a highly technical field.

back

Spoiler Discussion

I wonder how much of a coincidence it is that Wrath is in South HQ. The villains likely knew Ed was traveling south, but maybe not what city or for what reason. As far as we know, Gluttony is still in the east, while Lust and Envy are at Central.

We learn later that Lust is dating Havoc to try getting information about Mustang, meanwhile Envy is probably too much of a loose cannon to be trusted for a long-term tailing mission, despite having powers that make them perfectly suited to the task. So Wrath is the only one who'd have the ability to track Ed inconspicuously.

Whether or not it's a coincidence Wrath is there, I'd argue Armstrong also being there is not a coincidence. He is privy to some of the details of the grand conspiracy, so Wrath is keeping him on a short leash. Armstrong would probably try to investigate it on his own if he could and wouldn't involve others. Plus, he's a capable alchemist and his family has served the military for generations, so he could still be a potential asset who just needs to be kept busy so he can't snoop around where he shouldn't.

How lucky for Father that Ed happened to bump into Bradley and mentioned his teacher. Now they'll have a new Sacrifice candidate.

And of course Bradley passed Ed immediately. Ed's a human sacrifice. They need to keep tabs on him.

Also, the guy standing behind Bradley is the guy who will give Hawkeye her transfer orders to be Bradley's secretary.

[noelledeltarune]

raises hand. i'd like to hear about your miscellaneous headcanons :]

YAYYY ok :-] all of these are unrelated 🔥💯

i know that everyone has their own specific headcanons for who their starters are but i have always liked the idea of them having been given their haxorus as an axew as their first pokemon. i totally understand why people think of it as being ingo's with the whole mold breaker earthquake thing but especially with the whole heroes of legend and original dragon thing i think it's customary / traditional for people in unova to give children who are setting off on their journeys together a dragon to raise together. like as a reminder not to be too consumed with your goals that you lose the people who matter to you. or something. works out because i imagine dragons are typically prideful and kind of finicky to raise by nature. so making it a 2 person job is easier on all parties LMAO (their haxorus is jolly by nature so maybe less so but. yknow)

i also personally think that emmet really likes to cook. completely unrelated and i don't know why i think so but to me his love of battling translates a little as him being a guy who cares about his health LOL. he wants his team to be in good shape, so he should put in that effort too! because it's something he's very passionate about. and this applies to exercise but also food to me. it's an easy way to take care of yourself and it's nice to share food with people (<- necessary intervention to avoid ingo's 7th fast food chain burger in 4 days). + i imagine that pokemon who do a lot of battling like his do would need to eat a lot anyways, it's probably cheaper to make your own pokemon food than to buy as much as he'd need in bulk. maybe he got into making it for his team when he was younger and that translated into him learning to cook because he's already making something edible anyways LMAO, might as well do the same for himself

i think ingo likes to draw. no real reason for this one either he just strikes me as The Absentminded Doodler. never really considered himself to be super passionate about art but he is a dedicated hobbyist. in my head when they were kids ingo and emmet's parents tried to get emmet into journaling because he wasn't much of a talker and they figured it'd be an easier way to express himself. he did not really care for it and ingo took it up instead. lots of paper for writing and doodling. i imagine he sort of got out of journaling as an adult/older teen but got back into both writing and drawing more when he was in hisui. we know he's a man who appreciates physical reminders of things. less ephemeral than memories 🔥💯

i also like the headcanon that uxie is the one who stole his memories rather than it just being a result of The Dreaded SpaceTime Travel. like i know it doesn't actually make sense because how would he have possibly met uxie given the requirement of having god's blessing in your cell phone. but. OH MY GOD! IN COMES CANALAVE LIBRARY'S "A HORRIFIC MYTH" WITH THE STEEL CHAIR!!!!!!!!

^ i just like it. it's also the one way i will excuse the trope of zoroark transforming into emmet because the pokemon guarding uxie's cave is. an alpha zoroark. so maybe that thing has some special powers relating to the memories it steals like it can look into them to more effectively scare people away from it or whatever. because like. hisuian zoroark can't actually read minds. LMAO. but i'll accept it specifically for ingo through this

i am known to be an enjoyer of the headcanon that emmet is a pokemon breeder as a hobby. but specifically NOT just with joltik. i think he met lenora when he was younger when she helped him revive his archen from a fossil and he works with her sometimes now as a breeder aiding in pokemon restoration. i also like to ignore the fact this would likely require a lot of dedicated training and education and time on top of his job because i can do whatever i want forever. i think that elesa's tynamo is the anime was a gift from him :-]

on a slightly related note i also think that emmet and burgh are underrated "characters who have never interacted but i think they'd be friends" guys. in my head even ingo likes to draw he's not really much of an art nerd. but i think emmet kind of is LOL. (<- queen of taking that one line where he talks about wanting to go to galar to see the sirfetch'd vs escavalier painting too far). i think they'd be bug buddies. they're both a little silly in a way that i think would be very compatible and i like imagining them as friends. 2 guys who love looking at pictures of bugs and also are professional pokemon battlers. match made in heaven 🔥💯 slightly related because burgh is the one character i think emmet actually would give a joltik to. gave him a shiny baby spider at one of his art shows and their friendship was cemented when a couple of weeks later he showed up on the doubles line with a professionally trained shiny galvantula :-]

i flip flop 100000x per day over their pokemon but specifically when it comes to the haxorus mold breaker thing i want to bring up how abilities on the battle subway are randomized. meaning that, to me specifically, it is not actually an act of malice 100% of the time. i KNOW that it was introduced in gen 6 but i think that mold breaker earthquake is more often a FUCK I FORGOT TO USE THE ABILITY CAPSULE AGAIN AFTER THE SINGLES LINE than a HA HA HA. FUCK YOU, TEAMMATE! ingo is also a guy who likes a thrilling battle and likes to win. if i wasn't as fond of the idea that their starter was axew i'd say it's a brought the wrong haxorus to work accident

i think that's everything that comes to mind for now. THANK YOU :-]

[emeritus-fuckers]

For the Ministry Role Event:

1. Would you say you're more likely to be a Sibling of Sin or a Ghoul? Why?

I think I am more likely to be a Ghoul than a Sibling of Sin. I love music and am very interested in taking vocal lessons, learning how to play the drums, and learning how to play bass. The aesthetic of the Ghouls has always interested me. The masks are gorgeous, and I love the idea of having different appearances or abilities based on your “element.” On the other hand, being a Sibling of Sin and participating in rituals / ministry magic sounds cool.

2. Which Papa would you prefer to work with? Why? (Sister Imperator is included)

This is a tough one. Papa Emeritus III is my favorite, he seems funny, flirty and a little eccentric without being too overwhelming. On the other hand, Papa Emeritus IV is very friendly and kind of awkward, like me! Between the two of them I would most likely work with III. I would not like to work with Imperator.

3. Are you an introvert, ambivert or an extrovert? Tell us a bit more about it.

I consider myself an ambivert. I like hanging out with my friends, whether it’s irl or online. I also like having my alone time, and enjoy chilling in my room with my cats. I’ve noticed that sometimes hanging out refills my energy, and sometimes being around people drains it a lot.

4. What chore do you like the most/hate the least?

My favorite chore is probably picking up the trash. It’s one of the easiest things to do, although sometimes you find some nasty stuff. After you pick it up you just throw it out, unlike doing the dishes where you gotta clean it and your hands feel blegh. My least favorite chore is cleaning the litterbox. It doesn’t take long, but it stinks and it makes me feel gross.

5. Do you like to travel, or maybe you prefer to stay at home?

If I had the funds, I would travel so much! There are so many cool things to see in this world, but traveling takes time and money. I have time but not money lol. I do like staying at home, but that’s mainly so I can play games and be with my cats.

6. Freebie. You've got five sentences to tell us anything you want about you.

I am a very quiet person at first, but when you actually get to know me I am kinda chaotic! Somehow I always end up being the Mom friend of the group, even though I am a tiny feral goblin. I have ADHD, anxiety, depression, and some undiagnosed disorder causing chronic pain. My first Ghost song was Square Hammer, and Papa III was the first Papa I ever knew, but I became a Ghost fan during Papa IV’s era. I would love to work in the film industry, especially if I got to work with practical SFX. 

This post is part of the 1000 followers Role in ministry event. Entries for the event are now closed.

Your role in the ministry is…Special effects manager for Ghost

You work for Papa Emeritus III and then for Papa Emeritus IV.

You do special effects for both the stage shows and music videos. So you have stuff to work on both tour and at the Ministry.

You have a really nice room at the Ministry, Terzo made sure there was also room for your cats there.

You get to travel all over the world and get paid at the same time! If you ever want to work in film inidustry then either Copia or Terzo would happily write you a glowing reference. You also get to help with all the music videos and chapter vidoes. Copia often says "maybe soon you can help with a concert film sì?"

The Ghouls ask for you to get a mask too, Terzo agrees, he knows you've always wanted one and there is a chance the crowd could see you. He gives it to you wrapped up with a purple ribbon around it.

You have your own space on tour where you can hang out, if Swiss sees you missing your cats he'll curl up next to you and purr when you stroke his head. Swiss and the rest of the Ghouls love hanging out with you, you are one of the pack.

Swiss has also declared you an apprentice Ghoul. He enjoys your chaotic energy and your enthusiasm for learning different instruments. So Swiss teaches you stuff about vocals and Mountain also sees you as an apprentice so is teaching you drums. The two of them are very proud of your progress.

~

Written by Nyx

[emptymanuscript]

No Nazis After 5pm

My friend who is a historian told me once about, when she was in grad school, her advisor was a WWII military historian who had a fairly soul destroying specialization. Something like humanitarian atrocities committed in war or that kind of thing. So one of her earliest pieces of advice to my friend, essentially right at the point of moving from MA to PhD student, was that, if you are looking at terrible things all the time, which you probably will be with the sort of things we're studying, you will burn out. It's not a matter of if. It is only a matter of when.

The advisor had made a specific rule for herself which she encouraged my friend to develop an equivalent of that met her own needs: "No Nazis after 5pm." Because this is work. And it is going to be for the rest of your life. So you need to compartmentalize work from the other parts of your life so it doesn't eat you alive. To a degree, this is true of all work. But it is especially true of looking at humanity at its worst because if you don't compartmentalize it then it will become all you see of humanity very quickly. You will learn to think of humanity in general as its worst possibilities. And as you get ever more enraged, disgusted, and frightened of the worst of humanity, you are going to start reacting to people in that vein, which will cause them to become uncomfortable with you, causing them to behave in ways that will exacerbate the disconnect and isolation because it will excite your alarm system even more. It's a vicious circle. Until you crash. And you don't get back up.

So if you want to do this work, if you want to look at and study how bad people can get, part of that work is being firm and organized in that way. After 5pm, or whatever your safe cut off point is, you have to let it go and immerse yourself in the immediacy of your own real life, ideally in a way that will nurture your soul as opposed to suck it out of you.

Occasionally, when I start on a tear, my friend will look at the time and say, 'ok, it's after 5.'

I absolutely get the wisdom of that. It's smart. It's wise. It's good self care.

AND

I think 5pm rolled around in my own personal time zone somewhere around late 2013, early 2014, while I still simply haven't learned the skill of integrating the elements of:

It is after 5

There need to be no Nazis after 5 because that sucks your soul

After 5 means your energies need to shift toward self care and soul nourishment

because the Nazis don't care about the time. They will ALWAYS be there. The work will not suddenly vanish after you go home. Neither will Nazis suddenly resurrect, expand to full strength, and break out of the pages overnight without you watching them like a hawk. Whether you take a break or not will not have any meaningful effect on them. Because their existence is independent of your lived time. Working on them is LONG term work

contrariwise, your timing will matter in the extreme to you. Not taking the time you need to do what you need for yourself can cause you to crash in a matter of hours. You can suddenly lose all strength, find yourself unable to work anymore, and become unable to get out of bed simply because you weren't watching your own needs closely enough

at least drink water. You need to consume enough water. Or it will get capital B BAD.

This is a principle that will need to be translated to fit an individual so that each part does what it needs to in order to make sure that the individual is able to keep doing what they're doing

This isn't the whole mystical secret of life or anything, this is the bare minimum to simply survive the work of dealing with Nazis before 5

You either do this or you can't do the work, this is part of the requirements of that work. If you can't do it, you need to quit or your body/mind/spirit/system/whatever will start failing you to the point where you will be unable to continue no matter what you want

this is also means that if this is work you love, you need to find self care that is very different 'work' that you also love so that you will keep to these limits. Otherwise you're just extending things into a boom-bust cycle because you aren't nourishing yourself as much as you are draining yourself, so you'll end up with lots of little failure points, that will still accumulate over the long run and will take even more to repair when you're finally forced to do so

This pretty much is life balance. Not work/life balance, just - hey, you can only do Z amount of anything, after that, it is beyond your capabilities. Much better to do some X amount that doesn't burn you out so you can pick up that activity again right away. It's just a more explicit version of the Tortoise v the Hare. You want to succeed in a LONG activity, you have to do what it takes to engage in that activity for that long. That isn't doable as a single chunk simply because our biology doesn't work that way.

So... it's a decade after 5 o'clock. More than ten years and ten days. It is time to learn the skill.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Somehow.

I'm working on it.

:/

I suspect the first step is working on my black out list. AGAIN.

And somehow convincing myself that I really, truly do NOT need to read the news. Nothing unmissable is going to happen when I'm not looking. I know the Nazis are there. The Nazis aren't going to go anywhere. They won't all die by tomorrow. They won't take over by tomorrow. If it was at that point, there is literally nothing I can do about it anyway. The work takes all of your life. If I went to sleep now and woke up the day I was going to die, there would still be work. If I worked non-stop until I dropped dead, there would just be more work to do after my death. You wanna do the work, then the bare minimum requirement is resting and revitalizing so you can. Going and seeking out the news and writing essays on politics and the middle east instead of r&r is making me less effective instead of more effective. I am in the boom-bust cycle.

And I think I heard from my life this week that the next bust is rolling in hard. Yes, I am much better than I was in 2014 and 2016 when I went into the mental hospital. I have much better meds, more skills, more tools, more experience, more capability AND that's not enough.

I gotta do the work.

I gotta figure out what work I need to do to make sure I can do the work.

Because it's that or die. Willingly, unwillingly, by my own hand, by a convenient accident, by my health deteriorating, fast, slow, a piece at a time, or all in one inglorious act of melodrama to appease my inner drama-club-poseur. Those are details that don't particularly matter for the sake of the principle because they won't alter the principle.

What I'm doing isn't cutting it.

I haven't figured out how to both realize when it is after 5 and how to treat myself the way I need to when it is after 5 so I can get up again in the morning. I don't know how and it is too late not to do it. Grrr.

I need it to be after 5.

[ewyband]

MEDIA EWY CONSOOMED IN 2022

alright queers sit down or scroll past because i’m gonna word vomit out my thought on my favourite things i’ve listened to/watched/played this year that i very much liked.

MOOSIC

ants from up there by black country new road: beautiful BEAUTIFUL album, literally 10/10 best album i’ve listened to this year (as like nearly everyone on any music reviewing site has probably also said). if you haven’t listened to it, its about a straining relationship thats painted using the failed aeroplane project ‘concorde’ as a metaphor to represent the sunk loss fallacy. fav song: good will hunting

THE UNRAVELING OF PUP THE BAND by PUP: this was my first introduction to PUP and listening to this album cumulated in me seeing them in Leeds a few months ago! its an amazing, no-skip, punk album. every single song just PUMPS ME UP !!! makes me wanna smash shit, i love it. FAV LYRIC: ‘200 BUCKS A WEEK JUST TO TALK ABOUT MY LACK OF DIRECTION? I GOT A BIT OF A COMPLEX, IN CASE THAT WASN’T CLEAR FROM THE LAST FEW SESSIONS’

The Dream Is Over - PUP: because i loved the latest PUP album so much i literally just had to listen to this. i only listened to this for the first time a few weeks ago and i’d even go as far to say that its better than tuoptp for sure. again, every single song just fucking goes so hard its insane. i just put this shit on when im walking or gaming and i feel like a mad man, i feel like im dancing in a stadium full of people and we’re all feeling a strong sense of melancholy and violence. i love it. fav song: sleep in the heat (editors note: i didnt know what this song was about until i went to learn it on guitar and looked at the lyrics for the first time and it was so fucking sad it nearly made me cry. RIP norman. im sure you were a great friend)

trick - alex g: this album isn’t my introduction to alex g (lincoln’s sandy cover was) but it was my introduction to their wider discography. i first heard sarah on tiktok and just that intro midi flute and guitar strums flung me back into my childhood. i was playing tig in the playground again, i was making up games in the church car park again, i was scraping my knee trying to climb trees way too tall for me again. this album leaves me with a lot of nostalgia from my angsty-nirvana-listening teen years to my young-dumb childhood years. i love it. fav song: sarah (i also have a major love-hate relationship with the song ‘whale’)

God Save The Animals - alex g: the natural step from ‘trick’ was to look at their new album released this year!!! this is SUCH an interesting album. it goes from classic alex g to some crazy hyper pop type stuff and i LOVE it. i super super love the percussion and the way that the vocals are changed and mangled and distorted in so many different ways. it doesn’t necessarily have any earworms per-say but it does have some pretty incredible new sounds that have really inspired me to develop my own style and try some of the effects mr.g has used in this record. fav song: runner

Be The Cowboy - mitski: my first exposure to mitski was from my partner playing their songs on the car and i never really properly understood it until i saw her live. theres just a pure controlled rage about mitski thats hard to describe in words. its a snarl between words. its letting someone know that they fucked you up in an eloquent hand written letter. i love the pumping synths on this album. i love how mitski can push emotion through her voice to tell a story. sometimes she belts, sometimes she sings softly but you can tell when theres rage behind her voice and i love it. fav song: washing machine heart

Hold on Now, Youngster... - Los Campesinos!: theres something about 2000′s indie music that was particularly made in the UK thats so special because growing up there is such an individual experience that it can’t be translated to anywhere else in the world (much like growing up anywhere else!). lc! manages to capture this and put it into song. its about all the boring shitty themes like love and breakup but telling it through the way we interact with each other. through letters, through mixtapes, through inside jokes and superstitions you made yourself. i love love LOVE the horns in this album and how they work with the violin -- its almost poetic at times. every song on this album slaps, i love the outro. fav song: You! Me! Dancing! 

Blues and Roots - Charles Mingus: i got really into jazz due to my uni course having a section on it and i found myself particularly fond of a sub-genre of jazz called ‘hardbop’ and this charles mingus fella is INSANE at it. listening to this whilst walking feels amazing, its like i can see different shapes and colours flashing in my brain, with every bop and sax solo it just hits so hard. fav song: moanin’

GAMES

Hollow Knight: the art in this game is stunning first a foremost, you start in an unknown world and you are given NOTHING in terms of lore. even the community to this day does not fully understand the lore and honestly?? i love it. it gives me a sense of child-like wonder wandering caverns looking for secrets and tiny tinges of lore and it actually gets surprisingly emotional?? it deals with themes of loss, grief and parenthood. its very goth, very melancholic and very fucking difficult. i highly recommend this! i sunk around 60 hours into it

Omori: this game will be super difficult to really talk about because I don’t wanna spoil anything at all but: its a really beautiful portrayal of dissociation and trauma. like a lot of people, i really resonated with sunny and his struggles with fears, basic ones like drowning or heights of course, but also more innate fears like the fear of growing up and losing friends or the grief that comes with losing your childhood. If you’re in your late teens or early 20′s it’ll probably of remind you of a time you forgot and a time that you’ll never have back. very emotional game.

Fortnite: okay mikey deafpony introduced me and the friendgroup to this and it fucks so hard. i never really thought i was into battle royale’s but this game just makes it fun and interesting all the time. yeah, okay, the updates are annoying but it keeps the game constantly fresh and new. i highly recommend playing with friends! was pleasantly surprised with it.

WATCHING THINGS

I didn’t really watch that many tv shows/movies this year so i just put them into one thing okay??

Isle of Dogs: its wes anderson. i love the humour. its not laugh out loud funny but its quick and fast paced and i loved how dark this movie gets sometimes ?? its just a lotta fun and sometimes emotional. i love the stop motion and all the artwork is super pretty. im also a weeb so like, japan yay but it does also suffer from orientalism which sucks.

Moomin (2019): Previously, I could never really get behind this version of Moomin because I didn’t like the voice actors and I didn’t like the animation. However, its really grown on me. It does take a few episodes to find its feet and some episodes do fall flat but it really does stay true to the original source material. After watching the first 2 and a bit seasons, I’d probably say that it stays closer to ‘true’ moomin than any other tv adaptation to date. I also now prefer the voice actors in this version. chris morris is hilarious as moominpappa and i liked the featuring of richard ayoade, making us one step closer to an IT crowd x moomin cross over episode. some of the episodes are actually really emotional ?? i couldn’t get over that this adaptation nearly made me cry a couple times.

Heartstopper: i love how UK schools are shown in this show because it FEELS very accurate. some of the script feels kinda GCSE drama but like, its the representation that really stood out for me. i really appreciated how they didn't just focus on the cis experiences but also trans ones too. its very cute, i liked it.

The Batman: i liked robert pattinson’s makeup (and i STOLE it) and this movie made me hold onto whatever masculinity i had left cuz lets be honest everyone wanted to be batman if u watched this movie.

OKAY THATS IT !!! THANKS IF U READ ALL OF THIS LOL