#and it doesn't even make sense it doesn't even look great

[shadykazama]

Hello! Your headcanons on Wukong/Destined One had me giggling so much 😊 they're so great, couldn't stop rereading.

Um, if it's alright, can I ask for some Wukong/Destined One x Reader with their baby? Feral daddy monkey in his nesting phase with his mate and baby is so— 🤭

Absolutely! I have a lot of thoughts and the people demand more monkey business- so let's get down to it.

❤ Wukong

Starting with the pregnancy~

He is ELATED.

The idea of a proper heir had never crossed his mind because well- he's immortal. He doesn't need one. But that doesn't mean the idea of his own flesh and blood isn't positively exciting.

There's a chance he knows you're pregnant before you do. What with all of his special powers and heightened senses.

Celebrates privately with you of course but it becomes a mountain-wide event very quickly.

You are showered with praise and blessings by all the monkeys.

He will never miss a chance to brag that he's going to have a baby. And he's definitely smug about it too, thinks your child is going to surpass even his power.

When you start showing he gets more smothering.

Don't forget our king's fatal flaw! He thinks he knows what's best.

Will limit how much you travel and makes sure you always have at least two attendants by your side while he's gone.

Which, once you get further along, isn't often. There were plenty of superstitions about pregnancy in ancient China, as well as a high infant mortality rate- and that's not even counting what complications could happen due to the magical nature of your child. So he'd be stressed.

He expresses stress through aggression (canon), though it's never pointed at you. He'd be fiercely protective over the mountain, but especially any of the areas you regularly stay in. He'd be very snappy at everyone for the entire second half of the pregnancy, except you of course, who he'd be showering with praise and reverence.

Likes holding your stomach while you rest and tells your baby about the great lineage they're being born into, recounting his titles and strength and promising them they'd be greater.

He's hoping for a boy, but he's assured his child will be spectacular regardless of the gender.

When you give birth he will be extremely focused. He can't afford to be weak in a moment when you need him most. (Though your cries of pain and effort will certainly make his heart ache.)

As you're holding your baby for the first time, his teasing, smug attitude is nowhere to be seen. He just looks at you as if you'd given him the universe itself.

Cutest baby ever might I add 👆.

It's a Chinese tradition that only immediate family is allowed to meet the baby for the first 100 days after it's born, so it'd just be you and him for a majority of three months unless you invite your family to meet them.

In traditional fashion, on the 100th day a banquet is held to officially introduce the baby to everyone. And MY GOD would it be an event...

Besides all of the monkeys on the mountain who want to celebrate their new prince/princess, I can't even imagine how many celestials and demons would come to pay their respects and blessings- be it out of fear or respect.

Either way, expect a very long day and a LOT of gifts.

^ Wukong doesn't leave your side for the entire day. I dare someone to try and pull something.

You'd expect with his trickster personality that he'd be a very lenient dad, but Wukong is surprisingly dutiful in making sure your child doesn't turn out lazy or ignorant.

That by no means is to say he wouldn't be a wonderfully playful father. He'd have a wonderful connection with his child, and his most important lesson to them would be to respect their mother ;)

More of a one kid kind of guy, so he'd probably stop after the first, unless you had twins or triplets.

As protective as he was with you when you were pregnant, he's pretty chill with the actual kid. He knows they're durable and will let them get roughed up doing dumb stuff.

Carries them around hanging off his tail and will pretend like he doesn't know where they went.

It's like how cats will let their babies 'sneak up on them' to encourage them to keep trying. He does the same thing with your kid when they try to trick him.

Your baby would be the most respectful little shit ever. A little shit nonetheless, but would do anything for you or their father.

All the monkeys on the mountain help keep an eye on the little sage so you'll never feel lost or alone in parenting. It's very much a joined effort and your baby will see the other monkeys as their family as well!

This wonderful piece of Sun Wukong was done by @kanade-howl here on tumblr! They post their work on Twitter as well at @kanaade_ and @_liehuzuo please support them!

💙 The Destined One

Give him a bunch of babies I beg you.

He'd get addicted, he wants a big family for SURE.

When you first tell him you're pregnant he'll probably take some time to fully soak it in.

You'll be used to being patient with him at this point, but I imagine something like this is really nerve wracking so don't feel bad if you rush him for a response.

He'll put a hand on your stomach as if he's checking for himself before picking you up and smothering you with love.

He's not a chatty guy but he'll let you know how happy he is!

^ That being said, during your pregnancies is the most talkative he'll ever be.

He doesn't want you to stress about communicating and knows your body is going through a lot so he pushes himself to talk more to make sure you get everything you need.

That doesn't mean he'll be a chatterbox by any means. More than nothing is still very slim :')

Expect a lot of one word questions.

Trusts you more than he trusts his own instincts. His instincts tell him you shouldn't be climbing or moving around much- but if you want to, who's he to tell you what to do? He's not the one pregnant 🤷‍♀️

Follows you around like a guard dog when you do though, doesn't matter what you're doing.

Somehow even more physically affectionate than normal. Will insist on holding your hand when you walk so you can lean your weight on him.

When you start showing he'll be amazed. It's not that he's never seen a pregnant person before but like... That's his baby in there and he can't believe it.

His favorite thing to do is lay his head against your stomach while you're resting. Will kiss your skin and adore the life you're making.

You can catch him whispering things to your baby while he's resting his head on your stomach.

Your body is going to ache and he is more than happy to massage it for you. He doesn't even need an excuse to touch you, but he'll find them anyway.

Once you get further along and it gets harder for you to get around, he'll pick you up and take your wherever you want to go- within reasonable distance from your home of course. Not because he can't take you further, he just doesn't want to in case something happens.

But he wants to make sure you get fresh air and still see the beauty outside of your bed.

Doesn't trust anyone to watch you. It's him or nothing.

Makes offerings and prays to the goddess of childbirth. He does this a few times before you catch him and start helping.

He's a bundle of nerves when you're giving birth. If you weren't preoccupied, it'd probably be painfully obvious how nervous he was.

Holds you while you hold your baby and will not stop telling you how much he loves you and how perfect the baby is.

Gets baby fever bad.

Baby will be spoiled, and so will any other baby after that.

Huge advocate for carrying the baby. If you're not opposed to it, he probably carries them more than you.

Has the most deadpan look on his face as he looks at this baby but he has so much adoration for his little miracle.

Stressing over your baby crying in the middle of the night? Not with him! He's at that babies beck and call.

Watching a nearly mute man deal with a curious child is definitely amusing and you get a front row seat.

Your children kind of just accept that their dad doesn't talk much, but he'll always tell them he loves them if they say it to him.

Takes them everywhere with him so he can teach them. Is SO proud when the oldest starts helping teach the younger ones.

He's proud of them in general honestly.

Your kids are going to be super loving and curious. I think he'd foster really healthy relationships between all of them.

You'd have a whole team taking care of you if you ever got sick.

[northopalshore]

Rising signs in the Groom Persona Chart: Their features

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The rising sign in your GPC tells you about your future spouse's appearance, physical attributes and how they present themselves. Picture it like reading their birth chart lol.

In the signs & degrees:

♰ Aries (1°, 13°, 25°):

Your future spouse could have very angular features, perhaps their eyes could be sharp or very striking. They could have an eager look to them, or they could look like a kid in a way. You could think that they're impatient or they may like to rush things a lot. They could have a great physique or look very hot. They could wear a lot of gym clothes, tight fitting outfits or just athletic wear in general. Either a dork (Maximilian Goof aka Goofy's son lol) or a gym rat.

♰ Taurus (2°, 14°, 26°):

They will dress very comfortably, while still looking extravagant. They could look sophisticated and very, very attractive i.e perfect smile, perfect teeth. They could be taller or heavier than you. They will be very calm, down to earth and put together. They could have a well built physique, and tough body.

♰ Gemini (3°, 15°, 27°):

They could have a slender face, pale skin and a narrow stature. They will look very expressive when they start talking, but have a rather dull resting face lol. They could look rather breezy if that makes sense. Not one to wear anything too fitted. They could have great facial symmetry. Something about their teeth will be very prominent i.e straight or very white.

♰ Cancer (4°, 16°, 28°):

They could have very soft, rounded features. Doe eyes. They could have a slight glow to their face and their eyes. Curvy body, soft lips. They could wear a lot of baggy or vintage looking clothes. They could gain weight quite easily. They will look kind and mellow. They could have a very inviting smile.

♰ Leo (5°, 17°, 29°):

Gorgeous hair, and that face card doesn't decline. They will love dressing in old Hollywood vintage clothing, old money or loud and expensive. They could have very wavy or curly hair that will catch anyone's attention. The alao have a slight cocky look to them. They are attractive, and god do they know it.

♰ Virgo (6°, 18°):

They are usually very petite/short and frail looking. They could look compacted but not aggressively so. They will look very clean and polished. There will not be a single speck of dust on them nor will you spot an unironed spot on their clothing. They will love wearing comfortable yet elegant looking clothes. You'll notice they tend to lean on a specific silhouette or colour that they like.

♰ Libra (7°, 19°):

" They have the face of an angel and the body of a greek god" Beautiful. Elegant and gentle. Looking at them will leave you at a daze. They look good and know exactly how to dress for their body. All of their facial features blend in harmoniously, could have a symmetrical face too. Oval faces, bright eyes, pretty smile.

♰ Scorpio (8°, 20):

Usually, they will have very striking eyes. They could have eye bags or just darkened eyes in general. Like virgo, they could love to stare at you lol. Every feature they have will accentuate their eyes. They are very attractive ( s*xually) , everything about them will be sensual and seductive.

♰ Sagittarius (9°, 21°):

There could be a significant size difference between you. They could have very long legs, curly or fluffy hair, and animated facial features. They will look very charming, but goofy in a way. One look at them and you know they're somebody fun to be around. They could laugh a lot and look stoic (contemplating) at times.

♰ Capricorn (10°, 22°):

They could look very cold or uninviting. He could have a very relaxed yet also somewhat stern look on their face even with neutral emotions. They could look very mature, their eyebrows could often be furrowed lol. They could have very prominent bone structures i.e nose, hollow or defined cheek bones. They could look very "boney" in general lol. Very masculine.

♰ Aquarius (11°, 23°):

They could be very tall or slender. Their heads and arms could be quite prominent something about them will catch a lot of stray eyes. They likely have features that are rebellious in nature. They could have odd hairstyles/ colours (especially) or tattoos or piercings. They could dress very.. exotically? Strange? Their fashion style could be quite questionable to say the least but never are they boring to look at.

♰ Pisces (12°, 24°):

They will have very sad, sultry looking eyes that look almost sympathetic 24/7. They will seem like they're not really "there" with you i.e lost in thought or deep contemplation. They will have very rounded features. Their cheeks could look very puffy or rounded when they smile. You could think that they're too good to be true. Their skin could have a greyish undertone, almost like the moon is beneath their skin.

Note: If there are conflicting signs of their appearance for example you have Virgo rising (small, petite) in 2° Taurus (bigger, heavier) then it means your fs is considered large for a virgo i.e.gains weight easily, and are very well built or muscular while still not being overly built (lean).

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*** entertainment only, reader discretion is advised***

Thank you for reading ♡

@northopalshore

@northopalshore 2024 all rights reserved.

[copperbadge]

i was thinking of you the other day and your discussions of your ability or lack thereof to visualize things in your mind, because someone asked me who all had been at a gathering, and i answered them by calling up the room in my memory and looking around it to see who was there. and it occurred to me after the fact that i suppose probably not everyone can do that? but i could even tell you at least approximately what everyone was wearing (color, cut, maybe not precise pattern, but the general style, sure). and while i can’t swear to you that it’s 100% accurate because i don’t have a picture to compare it to, i think it’s pretty close.

but now i’m curious - what would your thought process be if you were asked the same question? if you can’t just look around the room in your mind, is the memory interaction-based? or like… voices you remember hearing? or something else?

Well, bear in mind that I haven't got a great memory to begin with -- possibly the ADHD at work, but also there's a condition that's frequently comorbid with aphantasia called Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory -- people with SDAM have trouble recalling huge chunks of their lives and when they do have recall they often remember it as if they'd been told it, they have no emotional sense attached. For example, I remember a trip I took where I had to do some hard shit and it was really scary, but I don't remember the feeling of being scared, I just remember that I was. I have no idea how long the trip was, no memory of the hotel room, very little memory of doing the scary thing. I know I did it, but there's not a lot of attachment there.

This is not ALWAYS the case -- for example I have extremely fond memories of certain other trips -- but I don't really seem to be able to switch it on or off. Like when I was in Europe, I stayed in an AirBNB in London, but by the time I got to Rome like, five days later, I couldn't remember what it was like. I ended up spending a little time one evening kind of calling up memories of where I stayed in London and in Paris to try and hard-code them into my memory, and that worked, but I also needed the help of photos and tumblr posts I'd made to achieve it. ("What did it even look like? Well -- wait, I cooked some pizzas in the microwave while I was there. The microwave was on the counter, opposite the bed, and -- oh, okay, I remember now.")

So like, I would have no goddamn idea of the majority of people at any given gathering where I attended, but is that SDAM, ADHD, a function of my anxiety in social situations, or the aphantasia? Difficult to say.

I hosted a get-together on Sunday and because I was host and there weren't that many people in attendance I could name them off, but I couldn't tell you what they wore. The last party I attended, a week or two previously, was at a friend's house and it was mostly folks I was at least passingly familiar with, but I am bad with names and so couldn't NAME a lot of the people there -- but for example I could say "Well, the hosts were there, and I spoke with X, Y, and Z, so they were definitely there, but I also spoke with like four other people whose names I didn't get. I dunno what any of them were wearing even though it was a costume party." But yeah to even come up with that I would have to think about when I arrived, walk myself through whatever I remember of the event in linear order, and just note down who I spoke with. If I didn't speak with them, or if I didn't know them well, they didn't exist for me.

So I guess the answer is that my memory isn't visual and also just kinda...isn't there a lot of the time. It's not like amnesia, or the profound brain damage you read about where the person only remembers the last ten minutes or doesn't remember anything past a certain date in their life, but I just haven't got much memory for things. It's why I use a lot of lists and spreadsheets and make yearly photobooks.

My photo archive on my computer goes back to about 1998, and it's sorted by year, but the top level folder all the years are stored in is simply titled "Where I've Been" 'cause I probably wouldn't remember, otherwise.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Nejiron

Debut: The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Yesterday I learned that this thing exists. And I realized I had never seen it in my life! I have not played Majora's Mask, but I still feel like it's weird that there is a weird guy in an old entry of one of the biggest game franchises, and I don't think I have EVER seen it. But now I get to see it! And so do you! Yahoo! Behold this lump!

Nejiron looks pretty pathetic (affectionate). It default pose is sitting while curled into a ball, and its body is already a ball! It would be funny to see it waltz around with its legs, but I don't think it wants to, because it rolls around everywhere. Also, please observe its eyes. They are such eyes. I feel like these are the sort of eyes that would make a noticeable, wet sound when they blink. This thing has not slept in days.

Nejiron doesn't have to be so sad, though, because its game got a remake! This forced game developers to once again occupy their minds with Nejiron, updating its model and design slightly, making it a bit more detailed. Someone had to draw Nejiron some more detailed eye bags. Isn't that great? Someone also decided that it has human-like fingers and toes. Maybe in a Majora's Mask HD, it would get fingernails! It would have to take some time every few days to clip them. Now that would be relatable! Representation!

If you were dissapointed that Nejiron would be one of those fictional monsters that you can only experience with one sense, do not worry! We are told that it smells like gunpowder. I have never smelled gunpowder, but if you know what it smells like, then yeah! You know what this beast smells like, and your immersion deepens. When one is hit, it will, of course, explode! It will then be replaced by another one that emerges from the ground. I guess they are disposable soldiers... but what is their purpose?

We actually know, miraculously! Nejirons hunt Gorons, the big, strong rocky people who eat rocks themselves, and also roll around in ball form. Nejiron evolved specifically to mimic and deceive them! In fact, "neji" means "twisted" or "warped", in reference to this! I can't imagine they can kill their prey by just ramming into them, so maybe that is where the exploding comes in, and then other workers bring the food to nourish a reproductive "queen" underground? I also can't imagine these basic Nejirons eating. No mouth, you see. So maybe there is an even more monstrous queen lurking beneath, eating Goron meat and popping out explosive babies... hooray! I hope she has a funny abdomen!

[abigail-pent]

Thoughts on HTN Act Four on my ??th reread:

- Harrow says "You cannot build in the River. It is a dimension of perpetual flux. Defined space is nonsense here. You might as well try to wall off Time with bricks and mortar." Which hits VERY DIFFERENT after Nona when we physically see a Tower rising from the River - this is way more like bricks and mortar than Pal's bubble even! IS THIS A CHEEKY LITTLE FORESHADOW OF WHAT THE TOWER IS???

- I think it's so fucking funny that Harrow tells her lobotomized self to silence Judith, like she knew Judith was going to speak her inconvenient mind no matter what

- There are 24 total letters. One for Harrow, one for Ianthe, one for Ianthe to give to Gideon Nav if met, one for Cam, one in case Harrow met Judith, one in case Harrow met Corona .... so like most of the letters went unopened. What happened to them? They went into the River but did anyone pick them up?

- Teacher says: "When the work was done, when I was finished and so were they, and the new Lyctors found out the price, they bade him kill the saltwater creature before she could do them harm." This still makes no sense.

We know (from Chapter 37) that "the price" is one of a set of John's lies - that the RBs would chase them and destroy them for the indelible sin of Lyctorhood. But that only explains why they thought Alecto would harm them if they knew Alecto was an RB (truth), and they thought RBs hunt Lyctors (lie). Throughout HTN, Augustine and Mercy both appear to know a lot more about John's motives than John tells Harrow, but we don't actually know if they learned this, or the history of the ten billion, from John or from BoE. When they had Alecto locked into the Tomb, they certainly didn't know that Alecto is John's cavalier, or else the big reveal about Alecto's and John's eyes would not have been such a big deal ten thousand years later. What did John tell them at the time? "Oh hey RBs kill Lyctors and we've been hanging out with one this whole time?" I don't think so! Did they just randomly guess there was an RB in their midst? Seems unlikely! So why did they suddenly turn on Alecto?

- When Augustine says Harrow's call sign is H, just H - is that him taking pity on her (knowing what her cavalier's name should be and choosing not to use the initial G), or him condescending to her because she is not a complete Lyctor?

- When Alecto learns that Varun is coming and she's astonished that it's happening... this is very interesting. She shouldn't be surprised if she already knows the RBs are chasing her and trying to get to her, but her astonishment makes it seem like she doesn't actually know this.

- the way Harrow prays that Ianthe isn't the traitor.... hmmmmmmm

- Cytherea tried to bodily go to the surface of an RB and failed, having gone "mad for weeks"

- Cyrus died before Ulysses and Cassiopeia. When he drove the corpus into a black hole, Ulysses drove the brain through the stoma and Cassy dropped the body into the River alongside the brain; which means Cyrus was the first to go. (Though obviously Cassy's death was faked.)

- The way Mercy describes the RBs: #2 sounds like Mercury (quicksilver), #6 sounds like Uranus (sphincters), #4 sounds like Venus (a humanoid creature with a beautiful face) #1 sounds like ... I don't know, maybe Mars (looked to Mercy like a great and incoherent machine, with a great tail and a thousand broken pillars on its back; looked to Cassy like a mechanical monster with swords for wings and great horns, tesselated over with graves; both of these say "war machine" to me), #8 sounds like either Jupiter or Neptune (a giant head, finned like a fish, teeth protruding from its own skull - fish suggests ocean/Neptune; red with a big green eye - eye suggests Jupiter), #7 looks like Neptune because it's blue but I think it's actually Saturn (who is classed as a Varunian god, who ate his children, and of course we know from NTN that #7 is named Varun the Eater), whatever number Alecto is is Earth, and that leaves Pluto and either Jupiter or Neptune unnumbered and undescribed. I'd guess Alecto is #9, which leaves #3 and #5.

- Augustine says Mercy's House "suckles at the stoma like a damned teat." We know the Second House drains thanergy to turn it into thalergy and the Eighth House is the opposite of the Second in that way; so it drains - or sucks - thalergy. Which is hella fucking curious because it suggests that the power on the other side of the stoma may actually be **thalergy**. But when you think about it, that actually starts to make sense. John says that the other side of the stoma is "a genuinely chaotic space," "a portal to the place I cannot touch, somewhere I don't fully comprehend, where my power and my authority are utterly meaningless," and that "no ghosts venture deeper than the bathyrhoic layer." What could be more chaotic than a fount of pure life energy - afterlife energy, even? What could take the wind out of John's sails more, or contradict his power more, than a source of actual, eternal life? We know from GTN that death has to connect to life, and life to death; death can't be linked up to death like that, the opposites call to one another. And we know for certain that the force on the other side of the stoma calls to John, who is a great conduit of thanergy, and the Resurrection Beasts, who are massive, planet sized pools of thanergy. I think the stoma opens for them because they're Big Thanergy and the stoma is the gate to Big Thalergy.

Also: we don't actually know that no ghosts get all the way down to the bottom of the River except if they're like really evil, which is what John posits. We know we do not see ghosts at the bottom of the River. It doesn't follow that ghosts just choose not to go there. This fact could also be explained if the Big Thalergy on the other side of the stoma is pulling all the nearby ghosts through. Classic causal inference fail - John has the direction of the causal relationship backwards.

- John can't project his soul into the River and enter the "senseless state" because then Alecto would come to the fore and take over his body.

- Harrowhark has never had a father figure - or a figure who wanted to be her father - except he tried to kill her.

- Harrow saying she's not a person because she's a chimera or a war crime... ohh... 😭😭😭

- John says he designed the Tomb *with* Anastasia and never wanted it opened from either end, yet at the end of NTN we find Anastasia's body in there with Alecto... so either the Tomb was always openable by Anastasia or John knew she would die in there.

[fae-morrigan]

Someone put a post (where they admit they straight up dont know these characters lol, and also spell damian as 'damien' so like. yknow.) in the tags saying that if you're a fan of Jon & Jay, you shouldn't buy super son. Well, as the crowned CEO of Jay & Jon, I'm here to tell you guys that you absolutely should.

Super Son did the amazing thing of hitting several marks that I predicted while still managing to surprise me in how they hit them. Which is high praise for any story: A great narrative should be able to both meet reasonable audience expectations (i.e, staying in character, setup payoff) WHILE STILL throwing in curveballs that tell you something new.

There's a lot I want to analyze and get into, namely how I think the rooftop conversation between Jon & Nia is really brilliantly done in what it says about both characters, but mainly I've been thinking a lot about how great those last few pages were and how I think Sina absolutely nails how Jon & Jay's specific issues interact with each other.

Jay's always been a blunt person. From their first meeting back in SOKE 2, hes said what he thinks, and rarely does he try and soften himself. More than that, his bluntness is often a shield from vulnerability, which Jay struggles with the whole scene. It makes total sense, after what hes experienced (re-traumatization at the hands of a friend) that he's displaying that trait again.

Jon, however, is immediately vulnerable. This is the most poignant confession of the issue: Not even in the amazing sequence of Nia helping him make a place in the darkness (look, its back, thanks isabel!) do we get this admission of fear.

And Jay, like always, embraces him. Sidenote, LOVE how they got in the thing Jon does where he's constantly tucking his face in people's shoulders during hugs.

But the moment ends, and we get here. First of all, cold af. I could feel the aura before I turned the page.

Second of all: Jay is totally valid in feeling this way. And it makes perfect sense that he would.

Sara was his everything. Getting her back was one of his main motivations in SOKE. Because of Nia's actions, she died horribly (do you know what happens to a person when they fall from that sort of height? I do. Its AWFUL.) for an unjust cause. Of course he's glad she can't hurt anyone else!

And that's when we get to my FAVORITE PART! Oh how I love this bit. Because like. You understand why Jon's angry- Its a harsh thing for Jay to say! Nia was the one who kept him sane while he was trapped in his own mind! But Jay, like always, is RIGHT: Jon DOESN'T get it. How could he?

Jon Kent will NEVER, ever, be put in this position. Out of universe, his parents are Clark Kent and Lois Lane. They'll ALWAYS come back. Hell, the fact they'll always come back is something Ma LITERALLY says to Jon in SOKE. He will never, ever have to know this pain.

In universe, Jon's a white american. Despite being queer, despite being an alien, he'll never know what its like to be this kind of collateral, delegated as pawns in a greater war for 'freedom'. That is what killed Sara at the end of the day: imperialism.

This next bit hurts my heart. Great job, guys!

For one: Jon claims he's not excusing the mistakes Nia made, but by downplaying it like this... yes he is. But did you catch that part? Right at the start of that bubble?

"I'm going to fight every day to make up for my own part in this."

That's where it clicked for me. Something I had been hoping for since Nicole first called them twin flames.

He's projecting.

Of COURSE he's defending Nia. Of COURSE he wants Jay to forgive her. It isn't just about the fact that she gave him support, it isn't just the dreams, its the fact that... well. If Jay can't forgive her... how could he EVER forgive HIM?

THIS is where the fact that Jon and Nia are so similar as character SINGS. They become mirrors to each other, evaluating their own self worth through the other, at the unintentional expense of the people they've hurt.

Jay's right, though. Again. Its almost like he's the embodiment of the truth or something. He doesn't HAVE to do anything.

When he starts crying though, I immediately was RUINED. This is the first time we have EVER seen him cry before during his entire existence of a character. And its not really even because his mom is dead (though yes, that) and its not even because of the argument. Its because Jay fundamentally wants to be understood, and he's not getting that.

Which is important for the next bit:

I want to first backtrack a bit to Son of Kal El again, specifically, issue fourteen, right here.

Hello, two-panel sequence that succinctly describes these two as characters. How convenient you are for me, a guy analyzing a work that isn't written prose.

Jon isn't good at letting go, for better or for worse. The things he cares about stay with him, and when something or someone tries to exit his life, he clings to them with all his might.

Jay however, both selflessly and selfishly, is willing to let go first if he thinks its better for the other person. To me this line so effortlessly summarizes who Jay is- he's a person who's accustomed to not having things, and will leave before it hurts and he gets too attached.

And that thought is ALL over this scene. Jay, who begins to let go, Jon, who both literally and physically CLINGS to jay, practically begging him to stay.

(Sidenote. This is like, the third time Jay mentions breaking up when Jon starts acting up. Good for you king, keep that white boy on his toes, let him know he ain't all that.)

Every little detail of this four panel sequence is killing me. "My worst nightmare is not having a home with you in it." His greatest desire. The thing that kept tipping him off in every fake reality Nia constructed for him- Jay's absence. Him wiping the tear of Jay's cheek. Jay walking away from him.

But what really gets me is how on this page, Jon talks about them as 'we', while Jay is firmly stuck in 'I.'

This is what made me LOSE MY MARBLES at three in the morning. Just utterly fucking off my rocker in a straightjacket talking to myself.

Because this is what JON wants. But is it what JAY wants?

Jon never asks.

What about what Jay fears? What about the life that HE wants? What if he doesn't want San Francisco? What if the life he wants is the life he HAD before everything went wrong? Jon outright says he wants a fresh start. But Jay, Jay's someone with such deep connections to what he just lost, what he likely WANTS to get back. His country. His mother. His sense of self. But. He says yes.

(Sidenote. FIRST I LOVE YOU WOOOOOOOOOO) To quote my buddy Dami: Oh, the drama of needing a future with someone who can't get over the past.

It is left unclear, by the end, whether or not Jay is saying yes to this because he genuinely wants to, or if he's only saying yes because he doesn't want to lose Jon, too. Jon doesn't stop to question whether or not Jay's only reaching after him because Jon's walking away. We, the audience, are left to ponder that for ourselves.

How much of Jay saying yes is him just accepting that this is the best he's going to get? That he's never going to be understood because nobody wants to understand?

He's an afterthought to Nia, an obstacle at best, and to Jon he's a particularly handsome prop in this little fantasy he has of running away and starting new. He's either not thought of at all, or when he is thought about, it's in the context of how he can emotionally fulfill the other person And you get why Jon did this. He's desperate, he's hurting, he just got tangible evidence that the time he has with the people he loves isn't ever guaranteed. He's been needing space from Clark and Lois for MONTHS because god knows they haven't been fulfilling his emotional needs. In a very real sense, Jay is who he has.

But wanting someone to stay with you so much that you'll... Not even ignore, but just not ever consider what they may want. The intentional isolation, moving halfway across the country away from all support systems. The need to cling to someone.

It reminds me of... something. Someone.

Don't tell Jon I made this comparison. He'll kill himself. Jon and Ultraman ARE similar. They're both such deeply lonely people who cling very tightly and even though it manifests in different ways and even though they have different core thoughts about it. The effect at the end of the day is the same, isn't it?

Is loving Jay not a brutal act of destruction?

There's so many more details about this story I love. Jon & Nia's conversation being vague enough that you have no idea how Jon meant what he told her but you KNOW how NIA took it (girl you can do better hes literally ugly!). Jon breaking a pillar by bonking his head against it (LMFAO). The pretty lies vs ugly truth dichotomy of Jay vs Nia here.

But this one scene, man. This one fucking scene takes the cake. STELLAR work all around. Every panel counts.

This better lead into a full Superman & Gossamer run or SOMETHING or I'm going to have WORDS with DC's editorial staff.

[seaofreverie]

Sparkstember Day 18: Balls (Bullet Train)

Sometimes (oftentimes) it's true that all you need are Balls. I personally absolutely love Balls. I'm a big fan! Ekhem. Today I'm using the help of (I mean, copying most of the passages from it) my earlier Balls rant that I have written down after my first listen of it back in January. I really love this album and I don't want to completely skip over saying a couple words on it at least but I really don't think I have the headspace to write anything very good for it today. I'll still try though!

So yeah, Balls. It's a great album, fun and chill (in my sense of what I call and consider chill anyway), consistent, as Sparks albums tend to be, and as I suspected / hoped it does fit this specific vibe of driving around at night somewhere city-like and illuminated. Or being on a train deep at night and looking at the world zooming by (if you'd even see much of it on a train at night anyway.....). And I do think that it's not so dissimilar to Gratsax (I'd say now that it's definitely darker and moodier than its predecessor...). So it's interesting to think about how it's considered to be one of the "weak" ones (by music reviewers at least) while Gratsax is so beloved in comparision.

I will admit, I don't really know what the big problem with this album could be. As I said, it's fun, it has the melodies, it has the energy, it has the theatricality (I like seeing how more and more orchestral instruments such as strings are being incorporated into the music, in a way the jump into Lil' Beethoven two years later doesn't come of as THAT much of a shock because of this. The evolution of sound here is fascinating!) I really like the intense beats, just as much as the more laid-back and moodier pieces. And there's lots of gold to be found in the lyrics department as always.

One more thing I wanna say is that at some point I wondered if this music sounds older than it is. Maybe it does? But then I remembered that this was 2000 and honestly when I think about it, there just IS something about this album that fits so well with the Y2K image and vibe and all. Sparks 2000 and all that.

Favourite songs (and other highlights):

Balls: I mean. It's Balls.

Scheherazade: absolutely LOVE this one and I had the strangest impression of it sounding very familiar when I first heard it. Months later I found out that it was just briefly featured in TSB so I think that explains it (I will talk more about my TSB viewings on TSB day. EVERYTHING has to be explained in excruciating detail, lmao)

The Calm Before The Storm: bugsonas 4ever. Song itself is amazing too

How To Get Your Ass Kicked: how can a song about getting your ass kicked be so pleasant and relaxing, it always keeps cracking me up, how perfect that is actually

Bullet Train: I love it how introducing the topic of the song with a "It's the [topic of the song]" is a reoccurring theme on this album. Thank you Sparks for this ode to technology and art (these lyrics always have me giggling). And also it just goes hard as heck

It's Educational: a perfect fusion of / sequel to I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car and Progress (it's mostly the vocal delivery that reminds me of the latter)

The Angels: such an odd one here but I still like it a lot, I apparently said that it sounds "surprisingly mainstream for Sparks but somehow in a positive way". It's very sweet and I absolutely love how Russell sings here, it's so different from what we're used to but that only makes it hit you even more in the feels, lol. And I actually prefer the alternative version of this song that's featured as a bonus track, and I do think that's in big part because you can hear Russell better on it (or that was my first impression of it at least and it kind of stuck)

[v-h-lupin]

Maurauders Era Characters if they were Demigods (with explanations)

ive been listening to Epic and rereadng my harry potter writing (really trying to work on my fanfic, im just stretched kinda thin)

anyway

this is pt. 1 because I will be doing more, and golden trio era characters too

Remus Lupin:

This boy is the most Son of Athena kid i have ever seen in my entire life look at him He is so smart in so many different ways I just he's so quick witted and brave, and he was so ready to throw himself into battle. strategizing to use his unique attributes even when his superiors (who had political leanings) told him otherwise. But his intellect doesn't mean he has a lack of empathy he's also really crafty but not in the "hot gluing pieces of felt in the basement" type of crafty he's just got such a good mind

James Potter:

Ok ok so hear me out Hermes. Hermes Hermes Hermes. Hermes is the god of so many things-- Jack of all trades, really, and James is just so damn good at everything he does. He's also incredibly fast on a broom. He makes friends wherever he goes (pretty fitting if your father is the god of travellers) and is mischevious without dipping into the villain area (most of the time).

Sirius Black:

Aphrodite. Hands down. Did not have to think when I said this. Everyone at school is fully aware that he is attractive and he can charm almost anyone. he is very charismatic. He can speak French and I BELIEVE Italian... ok it just... makes sense to me... (btw regulus will be in pt. 2)

Peter Pettigrew:

Also Hermes. Let me explain-- Beyond the fact that it would justify him feeling closer to James, we can use the other side of the Hermes coin for this. Hermes is the god of pretty much anything you encounter on the road. Hermes is not evil or anything-- but he does technically protect thieves and liars. Peter and James have parallels that make me believe both of them would be sons of Hermes, but their hearts were different.

Lily Evans:

This one was hard. I was thinking Demeter- then Apollo- then Athena- Hestia isnt an option but like, it might fit if it was-- I'm gonna say Athena because while YES, she does learn healing magic, she's also just incredibly bright in general. She and Remus are both brainchildren ok She's also very witty in her comebacks and stubborn-- im referring to her behavior in general, not just when it comes to james. For example, even though Petunia hated her, she still was so determined to have a good relationship with her sister.

Mary MacDonald:

OO, oo, i want to say Aphrodite, but then I remember that sirius is aphrodite and that would be WEIRD but if sirius was anyone elses kid, mary would be an aphrodite kid, i just, like? look at her. she celebrates her femininity, she's so confident in herself, i love her

other than aphrodite, I might say... Hebe. Seems like a deep reach, but she's the goddess of youth.

Marlene McKinnon:

APOLLO. Apollo. Apollo. Marlene has always wanted to be a healer. She's also a great flyer. I don't know what else to say about it but like- Apollo? yes, yes

[cocogum]

Count Harebourg is alive. Here’s why.

Believe me, this claim sounds laughable, but trust me on this.

Harebourg, the count of Frigost, the xelor demigod, Xelor's son, the crazy narcissistic punk from the Ogrest manga, and a complete weirdo stalking a 13-year-old royal in her adventures, is alive.

Many people would understandably believe that he was gone for good when the eliabomb completely destroyed Oropo's pocket dimension.

But what if he was never there to begin with? What if he wasn't there with Oropo and Echo during that time?

Before I explain my theory, though, I'd like to show you some very odd proof that our lovable, crazed demigod xelor is alive in the sequel of the Wakfu mmorpg. Which would be Waven.

Thanks to Waven, we learned that the world now divided itself into four clans:

The Order Clan

The Nature Clan

The Science Clan

The Trade Clan

Each twelvian has a purpose to fill, contribute, and is a member of one of those four clans.

So far, the only people who you get to receive quests from those clans are the following: Dally, Eva, Ruel, Alibert, Arpagone, Coqueline, Ogrest, Otomai, Dathura, Goultard, Kali, Black Bump, Joris, Jerubim, Atcham, Moumoune, Sipho, Maskemane, Justice Knight, Renata, Miranda, Kabrok, and Yrehn.

That makes 23 canon people in total who survived the great wave. We know that those are canonical survivals because some of those quests contain little pieces of lore and information that already hint at some things that happened during the beginning of the Waven era.

Things like the fact that Coqueline has become Sipho's new master now that Echo is no longer alive. Not only that, but Sipho and Kali, residents of Coqueline's animal sanctuary island, now listen to and obey her for anything.

We can also see that Kali and Sipho joined the Nature Clan with Coqueline. Unlike Coqueline, however, They have no reason to be in a clan that doesn't correspond to their ideals and passions, yet they joined it to stay with her and follow her orders.

Joris became the king of Bonta and joined the Science Clan.

Kerubim, as always, manages his bazaar store and yet surprisingly joined the Science Clan instead of the Trade Clan.

As for Atcham, he joined the Trade Clan, most likely just so he could find a good excuse to beat the shit out of anyone who'd give him fake goods.

Meanwhile, you have Kabrok and Miranda, who never stopped their selling tactics and joined the Trade Clan together. (I wonder what happened to their daughter, though, since we don't see her in their shop. There's literally no sign of her anywhere, but let's not jump to conclusions yet.)

And then, we have Yrehn, who some may know her from the upcoming Bestiale show. She'll be playing a major role in it as the main character soon.

So her being a part of Waven by making her first appearance in this way is huge proof that the people giving you quests in Waven ARE, IN FACT, alive and well in this new era.

Now that we have enough evidence that the quest-givers are canon to Waven, this only begs one question.

If Harebourg is dead, why is he in Waven?

Not only is he here, but he is also a quest-giver and has joined one of the four cardinal clans in the world. Even his choice for joining the Science Clan makes sense, given his mindset and xelor nature.

Of all the people the Waven team could've given the responsibility to give quests to, they chose the one with the least reasons to be there. Literally, if you take a look at all the other characters that give you quests so far, they all pretty much have legitimate reasons to have survived the great wave: Joris became king of Bonta, Atcham and Kerubim were with Joris because they always tag along with him, Miranda and Kabrok survived because you can buy things from their island shop in Waven, Yrehn is alive because she's the next main character in the upcoming show Bestiale that happens during Waven, Kali and Sipho are alive because you can tell by their dialogues when they give you quests that they joined Coqueline in the Nature clan which also confirms Coqueline is alive. Dally, Eva, Goultard, Ruel, and Alibert are alive because you can participate in missions with Dally, Eva, and Goultard in Waven's story mode. You can see Ruel at Astrub, and Alibert has real dialogues when he gives you quests about how he still works at his inn, which means Yugo's home also survived. Maskemane is here because the last time we saw him was in the Ecaflip Dimension, so he somehow succeeded in coming back and missing the great wave. Ogrest and Otomai are also here because you can see them in Waven's story mode. Arpagone and Moumoune are enutrofs and well...well they're enutrofs they somehow survived the Dofus era and the Wakfu one so it wouldn't be surprising if they're still here. Dathura and Black Bump are demigods and have gone to their own corners, Renata may not have explainable reasons why he's here, but I believe that since there are still sadidas in Waven, so can Renata be there. As for Justice Knight, it would simply be too weird for him not to have survived the great wave.

So again, why is Harebourg here?

All the other quest-givers not only have canon dialogues on what they could be doing in Waven, but they also have genuine reasons to have survived the great wave.

Harebourg doesn't have either of these.

(He doesn't have canon dialogues because all of his quests are about experimentations and nothing about himself)

Unless something did happen in Season 3, and we didn't see it.

Hear me out. I have a theory that could solve all of this.

It took me a couple of months to think about it, but I FULLY believe that even though his place in Waven is off-putting, THERE IS ACTUALLY A REASON WHY HE'S HERE.

This is where we come to my theory:

Harebourg’s ice magic should have been able to get destroyed during Pin’s birth back in Season 3.

When you’ve got a copy paste version of a DEMIGOD (Oropo) telling a DRAGON (Adamaï) that Pin’s birth is stronger than him AND managed to destroy his tower, you know Harebourg’s own ice magic just HAD to have been demolished.

Oropo wasn’t just carelessly saying that he couldn't withstand Pin's power. The guy literally had trouble reconstructing his own tower every time Eva was pushing! He had the Eliacube, an artifact stronger than the gods combined together! An eliacube is a mechasm's heart, and we can see how even the mother of the Krosmoz, Eliatrope, had trouble being accepted by it. And since it was said that Harebourg’s ice couldn’t get destroyed by a mortal, guess who did manage to break it.

The Iop god.

So if Oropo said that Pin was able to overpower him while he had one of the most powerful artifacts that the World of Twelve and the krosmoz has ever known, Harebourg should DEFINITELY have been freed by now.

Yes, he may have not been saved by Echo’s feathers during the final fight, but he must’ve had a few recall potions to bring him back to the World of Twelve. Given from what we’ve seen with Poo, every member of the brotherhood has one or more potions that can lead them back to the tower or to the World of Twelve.

For Harebourg, his recall potions strictly only redirected him back to Frigost. And that's exactly what happened in this scenario. As soon as Pin's birth ended, Harebourg's ice prison broke, leaving him understandably confused and disoriented by the change of location and situation he was in. So, knowing that he had no business in whatever was going on at that time, he decided to drink one of his potions and go back to Frigost.

His absence in the political meeting with the royals and counts from Season 4 makes sense since it's been a few years that Frigost hasn't had him.

(The only reason why he wasn't in the meeting of Season 2 was because it was only reserved for all the race leaders to learn more about the new race on their planet. That would also explain why Lance Dur, being a count, and the king of Amakna weren't there. The Queen of Sufokia wasn't there despite representing a race, but she had a reason not to be there since she was busy finding a location for her people at that time. Astra, the main queen of Bonta wasn't there either because the king of Brakmar was there. Although even if Harebourg was allowed to participate in that Season 2 meeting, he wouldn't have come since he couldn't give two shits about any other nation or race except caring for his dear Frigost lol)

Due to his major absence from Frigost, he was too busy catching up to his lands' problems to care about what was going on to the rest of the world.

To conclude, Harebourg may have survived, but he was the only member of the Brotherhood of the Forgotten to have missed so much.

So what do you think?

This all makes perfect sense, right?

Right?

No joke, I fully believe that this is exactly how it happened because you cannot tell me that Pin managed to destroy Oropo's tower REPEATEDLY but did not break Harebourg's ice.

It also makes perfect sense that Ankama would've seen that big detail from Season 3 and retcon the whole thing by making him appear on Waven, which is why he'd even be there in the first place.

On another note, there might have been an actual reason why Harebourg had been forgotten by his brotherhood.

@doc-acher once summarized the explanation here. It's basically a conspiracy theory that explains why Harebourg might have been forgotten, a petty reason which made Tot retract his statement about saying Harebourg died years ago in some of his past tweets 👇

Btw that last tweet says:

Zexion: Thank you for this amazing season! I gotta ask: what happened with Harebourg at the end?

Tot: Uh...I think he ended up with Echo and Oro

IRGL: Or it's another way to say "oops, I zapped him" :p

Tot: I zapped him :)

[nogenderbee]

♡˗ˏ✎*ೃ˚ ℕ𝕠𝕓𝕝𝕖 𝕡𝕒𝕣𝕥𝕟𝕖𝕣 ₊˚ˑ༄

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ anon request: Could I request Akito, Shizuku, and Toya finding out their s/o is from a noble family?

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ Ofc!! I was thinking about making it fantasy at first buuuut it wouldn't make much sense then because I'd literally choose their status there... So yeah! I settled for modern in the end! Hope you still like it!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ fluff

✧ despite Shizuku bring a bit surprised and worried at first... she actually fits in great

✧ surprisingly though she gets used to it rather quickly... She loves you and nothing will change that so maybe that's just it~?

✧ she's quite an elegant person by nature... and so is your family! So she definitely made quite good impression on them just by being herself

✧ it also made her calmer when she saw your family wasn't too obsessed with rules and likes her for being herself

✧ she doesn't really care about money status! Tho she will react if she sees you gave her something fancy...

"Oh my! This necklace is lovely! But... it doesn't look cheap... I hope you're not straining your budget for me, sweetheart..."

✧ now status isn't that important... but even if the news spread around school about you being from noble family, she'll make sure to spoil you in compliments and always assure she truly loves you!

✧ honestly... the only thing that may bother and pain her the most is when people assume she's with you for status or money... she's really not! She honestly just loves you!

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@bleachtheidiot @ravenmoon903 @qwnelisa @miya-akane @miguelito-maruti-blog - come get your beautiful model~

✧ if you said it randomly during conversation, Akito'd be stunned. If you'd make a fuss about it, he'd act as if it's nothing. You can't possibly fit to his reaction...

✧ if you randomly drop it tho, you'll see the IS-THAT-HATSUNE-MIKU the OoO face just for a second because he tries to regain composure quickly and act as if it's nothing

"You're WHA- EHEM- I mean... Yeah, that's cool. Totally."

✧ he doesn't want to make you think it'll change anything in your relationship... because it won't! He may try to impress you by being extra elegant but that's it!

✧ he knows how to act like gentleman so he's not that afraid if meeting your parents... more annoyed... He's afraid they'll turn out to be just hunch of snobs...

✧ but don't worry! Because once he's been proved wrong, he actually changes his mind about certain group of people!

✧ if you or someone ever says he's with you for money, he'll immidietly get defensive and call them a dumbass. If it's you, he'll give you additional kiss as he does that though~

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@bleachtheidiot @akitosheart @yulikesminori @toyaswif3y @miya-akane @hayillaaaaaaa @stellas-starry-stories13 @hakulivesformusic @luhvashh @akiritoz @sucodelaranja86 - come get your pancakes lover~

✧ Toya is also from quite a rich family! So he certainly knows how to behave, which isn't hard to notice in the first place~

✧ so he actually takes news about you being from noble family quite well! He only assumed you that nothing between you will change and... that's all about it he said!

✧ though he is worried you may have... parents that are hard to deal with... so when first meeting comes up, he's VERY nervous

✧ but when he sees that your parents aren't actually bad at all, he quickly softens up and from just gentleman, he makes opinion of a soft boy~

✧ in the end, family meeting was definitely successfully! Though he still thinks his dad should stay unknown to your parents... and you too if possible...

"You... want to meet my dad? Well uh... how do I phrase it... I think we should leave this meeting for... another time in the future..."

✧ he most likely forgets about the fact you're actually from noble family most of the time... Not because he doesn't care but because he doesn't find it like information important to your relationship!

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@bleachtheidiot @akitosheart @yulikesminori @toyaswif3y @miya-akane @toyaslove @stellas-starry-stories13 @sucodelaranja86 - come get your cookie lover~

[666writingcafe]

Greed (Part One)

Author's Note: Welcome to season two of Nightbringer. Things are about to get real interesting around here.

MC

Barbatos has prepared a bunch of fortune cookies for us as thanks for helping with the final touches of RAD before the opening ceremony. One of them has a coin inside that he swears is lucky, so inevitably Mammon's tearing through them at a pace nearly rivaling Beel's.

Amidst the chaos, I manage to grab a couple cookies and crack them open. The first was empty, but the second...

The glint of the coin catches Mammon's eye, and before I can put it in one of the uniform pockets, he snatches it from my hand. Once the others catch on to what just happen, they begin berating Mammon for stealing from me. He then protests, claiming that the coin is his and that he's not going to give it to anyone else, not even to me.

But the sound of everyone's voices gets drowned out by the one inside my head. Yes, it's irritating that Mammon yanked the coin right out of my hand instead of asking if he could have it or, at the very least, take a closer look at it before giving it back to me. In that regard, it makes sense that I feel upset.

But not this upset. At the end of the day, it's just a coin. I'm sure Barbatos could find another one if I asked him to. There's no need to fight Mammon over it, and yet the urge to do so grows exponentially greater with each passing second. It's my coin, not his.

I quietly excuse myself and walk out of the castle's parlor to a spot in the less noisy hallway. Once I've sat down on the ground, I close my eyes and try one of the meditation exercises I was taught so long ago in order to clear my mind. As the brother's attendant, it would be highly improper for me to cause or add onto a scene, and I'm not about to embarrass myself in front of everybody by exploding at Mammon.

"MC?" Satan's voice cuts through the relative silence. "Is everything okay?" Keeping my eyes closed, I shake my head.

"Do you want to talk about it, or do you need to be left alone?" He probably felt my anger drastically spike and decided to check in on me, which I do appreciate. It shows that he's taking some of our lessons to heart and wanting to help others navigate through their wrath. Even if it's just me he's doing this with, it's a start.

"I'll be okay in a few minutes," I respond. "I just needed to get away from--"

"As long as I have this coin, the money's gonna come rolling in. Piles and piles of sweet, sweet money!" Great. Just great. "C'mon world, bring on the good luck! Hit me with that cold hard cash! Gobs and gobs of moolah, rainin' down on the Great Mammon!"

Whatever anger I'd managed to dissipate comes back ten-fold, and I can't decide whether to bang my head against a wall or to lunge at Mammon, demanding he give me back my coin.

Or worse.

"Give me your hand." Lucifer's stern enough that I'm able to follow his simple command. I find myself squeezing his hand as soon as I'm back on my feet, and the momentarily pained look in his eyes suggests that I'm causing him some discomfort. However, he seems to take it in stride, for he doesn't say anything about it as we begin walking.

At first, we're keeping up with the other brothers as we leave the castle behind, but then we approach a fork in the road. They go one way, and we go the other.

"They'll be fine," he explains once we've put some distance between us and them. He must have caught the confused look on my face but didn't want to tip off the others. "At least for a little bit. Satan's in charge until I return from dropping you off at the cabin. Consider this a mandatory vacation from work."

"But--"

"I will ensure that your duties are covered in your absence, but this is not up for debate." Abruptly stopping, he lets go of my hand, only to turn around and put both of his hands on my shoulders so that he's looking directly at me.

"Please understand that I'm not doing this to punish you, MC." His voice has gotten softer. "I know you were trying your best to maintain control, and I appreciate you resisting the urge to attack my brother. However, you were very close to snapping, and I don't know what would have happened if I didn't step in when I did." He sighs, briefly glancing down at the ground.

"I care about you and want to keep you safe. I don't know why this is happening to you, but I can at least ensure some amount of protection if you're staying with Solomon. That won't be the case at the House, especially if these outbursts keep happening."

I don't remember where or when I read this, but freshly-born demons go through something similar to a human's puberty, except most of it occurs on a magical level. So, Lucifer's concern is valid, because if this is them going through their puberty, it's going to be very difficult for them given their status as Avatars of Sin. The last thing anyone needs is for me to get caught in the crossfires of that.

After all, I can't return to my timeline if I wind up dead in this one.

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch, @budbuddnbuddy

[zee-the-zebra]

Being "Gifted" and the Standards for Oneself: A Personal Analysis of Veritas Ratio

So this really isn’t a traditional analysis of a character. This is more just my extended thoughts on the character through a personal lens and through my personal experiences.

So I love Dr. Ratio. Not just because his design is wonderful, and I think he's funny. But I also relate to him on a deeply personal level. Which may seem strange at first, but when it comes to the subtext of his character it makes sense to me.

To start, everything about him screams former gifted kid. Which usually translates to "Neurodivergent child who wasn't diagnosed until years later". And like most former gifted kids, he was probably told he was going to great things. In his case, he was probably told he would be recognized by Nous and welcomed into the Genius Society. He had already proven himself to be a brilliant individual, so he believed it would only be a matter of time before he was invited.

But he never was.

Look at every single "genius". They are all selfishly motivated in some form or fashion. That's why he is never considered a genius. That is why he never gain the gaze of the Erudition. Because he wasn't willing to be selfish for the pursuit of knowledge.

And the thing is, he really doesn't need to be a genius. He's already completing his goals of trying to eliminate ignorance from the universe as is. He's already a brilliant man. He's already done so many amazing things already. Even with his somewhat pompous attitude, he genuinely desires to help everyone around him. He's a genuinely selfless person.

But it's not enough. It's not enough because he's selfless. To him, it's never enough. Because he doesn't, or rather can't follow the same path as the geniuses, he feels he isn't enough. That even with all his achievements and work, he's not enough. Because he isn't what he's supposed to be, what people expected him to be, he isn't enough.

That is what really resonates with me. It's that belief that you have to be "normal" or something else to be worth something. It's that belief in a standard set by a different version of you that makes you believe you're not enough. That you've only gotten worse as time goes on. That despite your best efforts you're never going to improve. That the only way to go is down. That because those standards aren't met, you're worthless.

And that's what makes him resonate so much with me as a character. Because I've been there. I had that spiral. I've felt like that I've only gotten stupider as the years go on because I couldn't reach those standards set by being "gifted". When in reality I simply just couldn't deal with my ADHD or Depression without help anymore. I wasn't getting worse, I just needed some help.

And it seems Veritas is already heading in that direction as well. He constantly speaks of following his own path, but perhaps he thinks it doesn't apply to him because of those standards. Perhaps he still believes he isn't enough.

After all, it takes a lot of time to unlearn that.

If you got this far thanks for reading. <3

[thezombieprostitute]

Unwanted - Part 4

Summary: Your life is no longer yours. You've been forced into becoming a different species of human. Bought and paid for, what can you do but follow orders and obey your Alpha?

Warnings: Allusions to surgery, human trafficking, kidnapping; Angst; Depression; Suicidal thoughts. Let me know if I missed any!

A/N: Reader is described as big & tall, is female. No other descriptors used.

A/N2: This chapter is a bit longer because it's got a fair amount of exposition. Hope it isn't too boring!

Part 3

True to her word, Nat let you stay held as long as you needed. You hadn't realized how touch starved you'd been. You were never much for physical contact before but Dr. Kemp had said that, part of being an Omega was an increased need for it. The yelling between Ari and Steve had either died down or moved elsewhere and you were feeling the need to get up and walk around.

Nat kept hold of your hand as she walked you out of the debriefing area. For someone so much smaller than you, she really had an air of strength that made you feel you could lean on her if you really needed to. Her status as being in charge of the Omegas really made sense.

"We're going to go for a gradual introduction into our community," she tells you when you enter a kitchen area. "You're an unmarked Omega who's hurting and our people are going to be compelled to help you, take care of you. It's a consequence of being a communal species; if you had a personal pack, there'd be less push because you have a trusted circle to take care of you. But since you're unmarked, if you're in trouble, everyone is going to want to help, much like when a child is crying or scared. A gradual introduction will be good so that you don't get overwhelmed and they can remember to restrain themselves. That said, you might still get a lot of unwanted attention. If you tell them 'no' and they still bother you, let me know. You could probably take care of yourself, but your scent indicates you're more the gentle, non-confrontational type."

"That could be the training they put me through," you counter.

She smiles, "your scent is a reflection of yourself, your core personality. It's currently mixed with others that indicate trauma, pain. But the underlying scent stays true."

"What is my scent? No one's ever told me."

"The underlying scent from you is a warm cinnamon, vanilla and brown sugar mixture," she smiles. "You're a real cinnamon roll."

"Huh, no wonder he didn't like it." Nat gives you a confused look. "Ari, when...when he bought me. He said he didn't want me because he didn't like my scent. He really seems the type to prefer spicy over sweet." You say that last part with a half smile, hoping she'll find it funny instead of sad.

She looks angry. "Give me a moment to add this to the list of Ari's bullshit." You nod and she pulls out her phone, typing up a message before putting it away. "He can be such an ass. But, good news, he's not your problem. If you never want to see him again, you won't. I'll make sure of it."

"That's...thank you," is all you can say as you lower your head.

"In the meantime, we've got a small apartment ready for you," she leads you onward. "It's not the nicest, but it's good for transitioning until we can find you a spot in our community. And no," she looks at you pointedly, "that doesn't mean get you a mate. If you find one, that's great. If you don't want one, that's great, too. I genuinely mean a role, a job, or something like that."

You breathe a sigh of relief and nod your understanding. Several hours ago you were resigned to a life as a sex slave, maybe even forced pregnancy. But the more time you spend with Natasha, the more you let yourself be hopeful for something better. No wonder her scent is like a river, providing life giving water while refusing to be stopped.

Stepping outside you look up and freeze. The stars, what few you can see past the lights of the building, are gorgeous. More importantly, they're another reminder of your freedom. And a reminder of all that you lost. You want to break down and cry again, but then Nat gets your attention.

"Hey, hey, look at me," she coos. "There's no way you'll get over this quickly. No one would ever expect you to. But I need you to keep walking with me to your apartment, okay? I don't want you out here too long and getting sick or attracting unwanted attention." You nod and continue walking. "Good news, I made sure your apartment has a skylight so you can keep looking at the stars, the moon, the clouds, even if you don't have the energy to go outside."

"Thank you," you whisper. Right now you can't imagine not wanting to be outside but you find yourself trusting her. Especially her kindness.

She takes you to what looks like a well kept motel. These must be the apartments. Sure enough, some of them have skylights while others don't.

Natasha walks up to one of the doors and hands you a key. "This apartment is meant to be a safe space for you so there's only one key and it will always belong to you."

"What about in case of emergency?"

"We break down the door or crash through a window."

"Fair." You grip the key tightly before turning to the door. You haven't had a space for yourself in so long but you're also worried this is going to be another cell. A much nicer cell, but a cell nonetheless. Taking a deep breath to steady your nerves, you unlock the door and take a few steps inside. It's plain, but not unwelcoming. There's even a small vase with flowers on the table in the living/dining area. It's a decent size for a temporary apartment. It certainly looks nicer than your last one. The one you'll never see again.

As you're turning and looking at things you realize Nat has stayed at the door. "What are you doing?" you ask her.

"You haven't given me permission to enter your space," she says, matter-of-factly.

The hope you've been struggling with grows a little stronger with that.

Part 3

Tagging: @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @lokislady82; @peyton-warren;

@ronearoundblindly; @startcarvingdarling

[do-you-know-this-baby]

any particular reason you are skipping around the queue now?

Because it's less effort me currently

edit: in the comments is jack explaining it less politely than me

edit 2: i'll explain my process more.

To preface, I have several conditions that affect my energy levels and how the reward system works in my brain.

Some submissions have images attached which helps with fandoms i'm not in (most of them) and speeds up the process

Some submissions have fun comments/reasons on them that I prioritize

The queue system for the baby blog is a mess currently and sometimes it takes too much effort to even look at. When this happens, I think of characters that it's unlikely someone has submitted and put them in the queue. Yes, this is less effort.

I think my brain would kill me if I forced myself to do everything in order

If that makes sense then great, if it doesn't then oh well. My tumblr blogs not exactly my highest priority so I don't want them to cause burnout either. I'm not looking for advice on this right now, I think my system works fine.

[vidavalor]

Does Aziraphale drink coffee, do you think? I keep seeing people who think he doesn't because they think he doesn't know what espresso does but he also has a regular order? Do you think there's a word thing happening here? Thanks!

Hi there. 💕 Thanks for the ask. I hope you're having a great day. There are eccles cakes for snacks tonight as it felt appropriate for this one. 😊 We've actually seen Aziraphale drink coffee back in 1.01 in the scene at The Ritz in 2008 so I'm also frequently confused by people saying that they think he doesn't know what coffee is. Seems a bit of a stretch... Yeah, I think there's a wordplay thing happening in the Six Shots of Espresso scene that might be at the root of the coffee confusion.

Let's look at what coffee is in Good Omens and Aziraphale's joke around the word calm.

When we use calm today, we mean a sense of peace and relaxation. The word comes from the Greek kauma, though, which originally meant heat, as well as the Latin calere, which meant to feel hot.

To that end? Something that is calm in Ineffable Husbands Speak is something that brings about a sense of peace and relaxation through heat, which is a way to describe not just a hot cup of coffee but, also, well... sex. But why is Aziraphale describing sex when they're ordering coffee?

Let's back up and look at Crowley's very laced-with-their-vocabulary coffee order:

Take a big cup. Put six shots of espresso into it. Nothing else.

Big: Original definitions: generous; powerful, strong; a great man.

Cup: For a such little word, it has an unexpectedly fun history. A cup is a drinking vessel, yes. It also meant a ship's hull at one point. These two and their fish-and-the-sea stuff... Even more amusing, it also once meant a beehive. Later on in S2, we get Crowley explaining the angels = bees analogy to Muriel that holds up within Crowley & Aziraphale's speak in different scenes as well. Additionally, there's cup as a verb-- to cup, as in to take something in hand with the hand in a curved, cup-like shape. Crowley cupping a cup as visual innuendo in the pub scene in S2:

The word cup also contains the word up.

Up = Heaven/angels/Aziraphale.

Contrast with Aziraphale then replying with "does it calm you down?"

Big Cup = Aziraphale.

So, what does Crowley feeling like doing with the big cup he'd like to take this morning? Putting six shots of espresso into it.

Six shots: Six, from the Latin verb sex. Aziraphale as The Great Beast joke from the Odegra scene. 666 aka The Mark of the Beast in S1 was the literal numbers and part of Adam's phone number. In S2, it's the Latin verb root of the word six-- so, it's sex, sex, sex... 😂

Shots -- form of measurement for two euphemistic beverages in Good Omens: alcohol and coffee.

Shots contains hot (self-explanatory) and hots, the slang for peppers, which Aziraphale also uses to describe Crowley in a couple of different ways in Demon's Guide to Angelic Beings. It was also part of Aziraphale's "sitting on it" sword joke to Crowley in S1 where the handle looked like a pepper grinder.

[On the story's overall wordplay level, as opposed to within Crowley and Aziraphale's speak, there is also that Crowley's paralleling character in The Them is Pepper.]

Espresso: Coffee. Literally translated: fast coffee. Also contains press, a word that overlaps food and seamstress euphemistic speak-- so, a little nod towards Mrs. Sandwich. You press clothes with an iron. You make a hot sandwich with a panini press. Something that is urgent-- like a very in-the-mood demon who knows something is irritatingly wrong and would rather they be meeting for breakfast as a date without any problems and so is ordering sexually euphemistic coffee-- is a pressing matter. 😉

Nothing else: You can leave it at nothing else alone and it works but it's also: know thin elks. To know in the old, religious sense is to know someone "biblically"-- to be sleeping with someone-- which is how Crowley uses it still in the context of their speak: "Just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing."/"He's just an angel I know."/"We've known each other a long time."/what he says to Aziraphale when he thinks they're going to die in S1: "It was nice knowing you."

I've noticed a few instances of the word thin and/or words containing it referring to Crowley, with this being one of them. Elks are a kind of deer native to North America, a little joke on the fact that they're in the American-themed Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death. Their whole horses thing (and every other animal thing basically lol) is also a deer thing. Deer is homophonic for dear. "My dear" and "My dear fellow" are also "my deer" and "my deer fellow."

Nothing else = Know Thin Elks = Crowley self-proclaiming himself the thin, American deer who'd like to break fast, err, breakfast lol with some biblical knowledge with the angelic big cup.

Shout out to Nina Sosanya (the actress, not the character) for being able to not just laugh through this. The hand gestures are, unintentionally on the part of the character, Crowley's euphemistic order as well: Six aka sex. Being one. Bigggggg cup. 🤭

So, basically, the coffee confusion comes from Aziraphale's response to Crowley's coffee order-- so, let's look at that. Crowley's coffee order with Nina means to her that he wants a literal big cup filled with six shots of literal espresso but, to Aziraphale, it's putting in a request for sex using the coffee euphemistically. Crowley said he wanted to take the big cup and fill it with some shots of espresso mmhmm, to which Aziraphale then replied:

That sounds fun. Does it calm you down?

The big cup is game to know the thin elk 😉 and he has some words for him in return, even if he's joking by pretending that they're really only talking about Crowley's literal coffee order.

Sound is what you hear so Aziraphale's acknowledging that he hears the wordplay and knows that Crowley is pressed for more than espresso at the moment. He heard the Ineffable Husbands Speak happening. A sound is also a body of water and was a word that originally also meant the act of swimming, so we've got some extra of their favorite sexual metaphor-- fish-and-the-sea/bodies-of-water-- in here as well.

We already looked at how calm means relaxing through heat above. Aziraphale asks if it-- both the coffee order and the "coffee order"-- calms Crowley down, responding to Crowley's use of up within cup as descriptive for Aziraphale. Neither of them are actually working for Heaven or Hell anymore, nor do they really see one another as like the other angels and demons, but it's a shorthand.

Up and down are also fun words because of the fact that they often are used in slang kind of interchangeably-- to get on up and to get down can mean the same thing, for example. The tagline for S2 is a joke around that as well: something's going down in The Up. Something going down is something happening but the something that is happening is also that angels are going down. (Might also be something to keep in mind then about the last shot of the season being Aziraphale seeming to go Up and how that really can still very much mean that he's ultimately what's going down.)

You could also, if you're of mind to, take the 'calm you down' to be something Aziraphale has in mind as well, centered around the meaning of going down that doesn't involve an elevator or stairs, if you see where I'm going with this? Given how the scene ends, I think Crowley probably heard that bit as we'll look at in a second...

Aziraphale, knowing Nina does not know the root of the word calm, nor that he and Crowley are speaking their cant vocabulary in front of her and what calm means in that vocabulary, then asks Nina a question:

This is meant to amuse Crowley because calm, to Nina, means something that's relaxing and can help mellow someone out, while calm, in Ineffable Husbands Speak, incorporates the heat-related roots of the word to make it mean something that induces a state of peace and relaxation through heat-- so, something that's sexy.

As a result, Aziraphale has set it up so that almost anything that Nina could say in response to this would be amusing to him and Crowley because, while they know she doesn't understand what they're saying beneath the surface, what she says in response here is, in that speak, as if whatever she's saying is the sexiest thing she sells.

I'm of the opinion that Aziraphale, in mentioning things that are calm, is trying to get Nina to offer him a form of tea that Aziraphale can then turn into an equally sexually euphemistic order of his own. (There are a couple of uses of tea that way in other scenes and Aziraphale had also ordered tea in the date they didn't end up having in the sushi scene in 1.01.) But Nina surprises Aziraphale with her response.

Aziraphale didn't take into account that Nina won't offer him tea because it seems too logical a choice. He's an older Englishman to Nina, so, wouldn't he just ask for tea, if that's what he wants? To her, he must be looking for something calming that is not tea. She has a quick think about it and, both unintentionally and amusingly, comes up with the one thing that she sells that not only calms people down in the way that Nina understands calm to mean-- chills them out and makes them happy-- but is also calm by Crowley and Aziraphale's standards-- chills them out and makes them happy but with an element of sex.

What Nina doesn't realize is the history of eccles cakes, which, ironically, really do meet the definition of calming people down in a sexy way by Crowley and Aziraphale speak standards. They were once banned in England for being thought of as food of the devil because they were so sinfully delicious. This scene will also probably be even funnier after S3 because, historically, eccles cakes tie to 1650-- one of the years mentioned by Aziraphale in the Apology Dance scene. If we get that flashback in S3, eccles cakes could wind up having additional layers of meaning to Crowley and Aziraphale that would add even more to this scene in S2.

Either way, Crowley and Aziraphale lived through that history, so it's already funny then that Aziraphale, in response, looks at Crowley and just says:

So, yeah, Aziraphale does know what espresso is and what caffeine is and was joking with Crowley about how he might have been ordering some calm with Aziraphale but what he ordered from Nina was anxiety in a mug.

We actually saw Aziraphale and Crowley drink coffee at The Ritz in 2008 in S1. Aziraphale's mug indicates that he was drinking a cappuccino or a latte, which are both espresso-based drinks. Crowley was not having six shots of espresso with nothing else at that moment. He was having maybe a third of that, tops, in a dessert coffee that was light enough to have milk or cream of it and may or may not have also contained alcohol. Mr. Six Shots of Espresso in a Big Cup doesn't always take his coffee that way, ah... both literally and euphemistically. 😉

They're visible on the table here:

Aziraphale's large oat milk latte with a dash of almond syrup is his usual order at Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death... which is a creepy thing for Whoever Derek Jacobi is Playing to know, I agree. It's another indication that he drinks coffee regularly. Aziraphale knows Nina not just from The Whickber Street Shopkeepers and Traders Association but because her shop is right across the street from where he lives and works so it's where he goes to get the coffee that he drinks to a point of having an usual order.

Nina doesn't know Crowley at the start of the Six Shots of Espresso scene and is surprised to see an additional twist to the bookseller's suddenly surprisingly interesting and wild sex life being that, in addition to The Naked Man Friend, the bookseller apparently has a fella-- this charming ginger with the bizarrely intense morning coffee order. Nina doesn't know Crowley because Crowley and Aziraphale don't do mornings in an effort to not get caught. Crowley's gone before dawn. Mrs. Sandwich knows about them because she works at night outside the bookshop's side door; Nina does not because she works beginning in the early mornings across the street.

The know thin elks bit-- when elks are wapitis, which means "light-colored deer"-- is then even funnier when Nina unintentionally uses an idiom that goes along with Crowley and Aziraphale's wordplay to describe Aziraphale in this scene: You're a dark horse, Mr. Fell.

Aziraphale as dark (also: d'ark and contains ark, so: of The Ark/The Flood) and Crowley as light (of stars and fire; light in weight; light as truth; lightens burdens and brightens up Aziraphale's world with humor, and so on) are also in the wordplay in 1941, where they are rather adorably inverting their own visuals when flirting with one another:

Aziraphale doesn't just mean he'd miss coffee-the-beverage when he tells Whichever Villain Derek Jacobi Is Playing that he doesn't want to go back to Heaven. Aziraphale is obviously not saying it directly but is thinking about the much more pressing problem:

Where would he get his coffee, ya dig?

Coffee is coffee itself. Coffee is freedom in general, especially the kind that comes from the American-themed Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death. But coffee is also sex-- free, liberated sex, in particular. The choice to live as Aziraphale pleases, for him, is centered around his life on Earth with Crowley and going to Heaven means he would lose that. Coffee is not much different from the use of alcohol in the same way in S1 as Crowley was talking about how Armageddon happening and Aziraphale stuck in Heaven and separated from Crowley and the two of them not having their life on Earth would mean they wouldn't be able to be together:

"Not too big on wine in Heaven, are they? Or single-malt scotch. Or frou frou cocktails with little umbrellas..."

All that then making it funnier that, upon hearing that there's a "not technically" Naked Man Friend in the bookshop, Crowley's literal drink order arrives at the table. Even though Crowley knows that there's some kind of situation happening here that isn't anything worth being jealous over, he's definitely not missing an opportunity to tease Aziraphale a bit over whatever's going on a little.

Turns out that Aziraphale isn't the only one who can make a show of eating and drinking. There's an awful lot of tongue in that big cup...

Connected scene: "A sherry for me, please."

Sherry: A light wine, usually drunk before a meal to stimulate the appetite. Homophone: the French cheri, meaning dear. Aziraphale ordered a Crowley-esque wine to drink it in front of him.

Finally, as if we needed more proof of coffee as figurative language, there's always...

You're both equal parts skinny lattes and large oat milk ones with dashes of almond syrup, ladies, but, yeah, Maggie's your Crowley, Nina. They're both skinny lattes and a whole world of other beverages as well.

You said it, Mags. 😂

[wistfulwatcher]

in a n o t h e r life