#and talking about how 'people need to pull quotes and sources before talking about him i swear'

[icharchivist]

some of my tags criticizing da4 were added to a post without my url on it (which is all chill, no problem on that) and so the post is turning around and someone in the tags commented on it "it's like manfred vs cole" which..... is also a topic on which i replied to a post about and my addition circulated around.... while those are two very different topics that started both posts....

this is so funny to me because you wouldn't guess at first sight that i wrote on both of those so i'm like aayyyy.

anyway of course it was especially good work on the OPs part and it gave me an opportunity to put words onto something. I just find it so funny. i'm here on both scenes of the crime.

[mulligans-tavern]

https://www.tumblr.com/doomed-to-wanda/747617028751474688?source=share

Inspiration above

TW death, grief

---

Five Funerals

They lose Fig first.

Comes with the territory when you're an archdevil - somebody's always looking to take your spot. "Don't worry about it," she says, opening a Planeshift to the recording studio. "It's just the usual rebellious fiends. Icythorz and Bolhondrus and the rest. I'll be back before you know it." She looks resplendent in black leather, the Unfaithable Bass slung across her back, riding the fiery Daymare surrounded in jagged red shards.

Adaine knows before everyone else, but can't believe the vision to be true until she learns that Ayda is gone, too. She scratched every memory of Fig out of her notes before starting over - it was too much pain to bear. The five of them know how it feels.

---5---

It's a few years before they take another hit. Another mission to the Mountains of Chaos, another world-ending calamity to be stopped because Who Else Is Going To Save The World? A small misstep, a miscalculation (six where there should be five, they're only five now) and suddenly the routine becomes deadly.

Riz takes the fall. "It's easier this way," he says, in his last moments. "I'll still see you." And he does. Agent Gukgak Jr., now, with some extra responsibility. But he still comes by. Sometimes. Every so often. Often enough.

---4---

Kristen is next. Only one thing could bring down the most gifted cleric of the age - sacrificing herself for her friends. Third time's the charm when it comes to death, it turns out.

Gorgug is the most hopeful that she'll come back, that she'll find a way again, like in the Nightmare Forest. But Adaine knows this is the end. Even Arthur Aguefort agrees. He quotes Alanis Morissette at her funeral. The followers of Cassandra pull out all the stops.

Adaine, Fabian, and Gorgug have their own ceremony at Ashgrove, next to the Gukgak family plot. It's quiet. Bucky cries into Ragh's shoulder. Aelwyn, Jawbone, and Gertie collect flowers. Tracker stays for a few minutes to say goodbye.

---3---

They quit adventuring after Kristen's funeral. And they don't lose anyone else for a long time. Riz still visits, every few years. They talk about the good old days, how silly it was that Baron was so terrifying when at the end of the day it was an honest conversation that finally did him in. There's rumours that Kristen has ascended to goddesshood herself - Adaine doesn't buy it. She's not the type to be revered.

They come out of retirement for the only reason they would - to bring back one of their own. They finally found Fig's soul, trapped in a ruby in the darkest levels of the Abyss. They can't ask anyone to come with them - it's too dangerous, it's too personal. It's missions like this that kill people.

And when it's all over, when Adaine carries Fabian's burnt, unconscious body back to Morded Manor, they have another funeral to plan.

Gorbag and Roz have already passed, and Wilma and Digby are too old to make preparations, so it falls to Jawbone to organize it. He knows they don't want a lot of fanfare. It's at Ashgrove again, just Adaine and Fabian and the Thistlesprings, and Aelwyn and Ragh. Sandra-Lynn is back in Solace - she sends Adaine a heartfelt text saying she appreciates the invitation, but she can't bring herself to come.

Riz doesn't show for the ceremony - he's desperately scouring the heavenly realms, trying to make sure Gorgug ended up somewhere he wasn't afraid of. Orcish heaven doesn't have him, he reports, and neither does Cassandra.

If he's trapped in the Abyss with Fig, at least they have each other.

---2---

Adaine sees Fabian's death the night of Gorgug's funeral. She needs to prepare, she tells herself. She knows it's going to be hard. She needs all the time she can get, and she needs to know which goodbye will be their last.

They grow old together. Not romantically, although some speculate. Fabian becomes a multiclass advisor at the Aguefort Adventuring Academy. Adaine works in Bastion City as an archivist, with occasional trips to Fallinel for Oracle services. They go for vacations sometimes, but never for too long. The memories find them no matter where they go. Sometimes Adaine wishes she could be Ayda, scrape off the old wounds and start fresh. Arthur talks about her sometimes. She's never had the same spark as that one lifetime, he says.

Adaine watches the wrinkles grow beside Fabian's eye, watches his hair turn grey, watches the Future of Dance become its Mentor. He trades his Battlesheet for a cane-sword, then a regular cane. He takes to wearing the Gregorian necktie to classes, no matter how much it clashes with his outfit. They both wonder how many of their own teachers lost party members.

Adaine holds Fabian's wrinkled hand on his deathbed, in his old room at Seacaster Manor. He grins, flashes the same perfect teeth as on the first day of Freshman Year. "Bet you didn't see this one coming, did you?"

"I did," she whispers, tears streaming down her young elven face. "I knew it would end like this. But I always hoped it would last forever."

They're the last words he hears.

It's not the first funeral Adaine organizes. All the Bad Kids held one for Buddy Dawn, back in high school. She and Fabian worked together on the services for Jawbone, Ragh, and Chungledown Bim - who finally caught up to Fabian in both of their old ages. It is the first funeral she has to organize alone.

Some of Fabian's students attend. Arthur Aguefort gives a short speech, and a few students hear the story of Kalvaxus' return for the first time. Adaine sits with Aelwyn in the front row, a few seats down from Hallariel. Gilear records the service to show Telemaine later. Riz is somewhere deep undercover - he maybe hasn't even heard yet.

She always knew she'd be the last. She didn't expect it to hurt so much.

---1---

Adaine stumbles through a few years before she finds herself again. They pass so fast without a mortal lifespan to hold up against them. She drifts between Fallinel and Bastion City for the most part, with occasional return trips to Elmville. Aelwyn always has a place for her to stay. Seacaster Manor was turned into a dormitory for Aguefort students who needed a place to study, or sleep, or stay away from home for a while. Tracker converted Morded Manor into a temple/bed-and-breakfast for worshipers of Galicaea. Strongtower Luxury Apartments was demolished soon after Fabian started teaching at Aguefort. It seems like everything is different now.

Adaine visits Leviathan once, on a whim. The Compass Points hasn't changed a bit. On a chance meeting in the stacks, Ayda looks at her with a spark of familiarity.

"Adaine Abernant?"

"Yes... you remember me?"

Ayda shakes her head. "There are mentions of you in my journals. I leave journals for when I regenerate-"

"I know. I remember."

Ayda looks intrigued. "I wrote that you were a great wizard, and a good friend. I hear from other sources that you are the Elven Oracle. Perhaps you can shed some light on why the pages around yours are torn to shreds or redacted to the point of unreadability?"

Adaine places a gentle hand on Ayda's shoulder. "I don't know if you'd want that. You lost someone you cared about, so much that you thought it was better to forget her than to bear the pain of losing her."

Ayda considers this. "Is it better to forget?" she asks. "Would you give up the memories of those you lost, in order to keep a logical mind?"

"No. Not for anything."

"Then we should talk."

Adaine smiles. "I'd like that."

---2---

*end

Thanks for reading all the way through! I wrote most of this at 2am and the conclusion the next morning. Please take a reblog to share with your friends or drop a like to let me know you enjoyed - or hated - the story!

Ask me anything about it, please, I love discussing these kinds of theories!!!

[insomniacirl]

As someone who has just (as in literally like five minutes ago) finished the entirety of Supernatural for the first time ever and is currently completely emotionally wrecked and ruined-

I need to talk about The Love Confession in episode 18.

Because holy shit.

I mean holy shit.

You see the Destiel meme trending on Tumblr you think haha I can't wait to see this scene and cry over losing him and be upset over him saying his infamous 'I love you.'

But no.

No one readies you for the fact that if you DIDN'T watch the show as a Destiel fan.. you could not POSSIBLY escape this love confession scene either.

That shit swallows you whole like the Empty swallows Cas.

(FROM THE TRANSCRIPT, AND I QUOTE)

CASTIEL I know. I know how you see yourself, Dean. You see yourself the same way our enemies see you. You're destructive, and you're angry, and you're broken. You're "daddy's blunt instrument." And you think that hate and anger, that's... That's what drives you, that's who you are. It's not. And everyone who knows you see it. Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. You raised your little brother for love. You fought for this whole world for love. That is who you are. You're the most caring man on Earth. You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know. (he smiles, crying now) You know, ever since we met, ever since I pulled you out of Hell... Knowing you has changed me. Because you cared, I cared. I cared about you. I cared about Sam, I cared about Jack... I cared about the whole world because of you. (sad laugh as a tear rolls down his cheek) You changed me, Dean.

DEAN (quiet, resigned) Why does this sound like a goodbye?

CASTIEL Because it is.

Dean inhales, ready to argue, but Castiel confesses before he can.

CASTIEL I love you. (he smiles)

DEAN Don't do this, Cas.

"I know."

He knows Dean better than anyone else in the world. Sam knows his brother, but he can't see him the same way Cas can. He can't bring himself to.

Dean wants that agony. Needs anyone who loves him to see all of his fucked up, rotten self.

Castiel has seen his soul. Castiel saw him dark and bloodied in Hell and still, he raised him and marked his muddied soul with his pure touch.

"You're destructive, and you're angry, and you're broken."

He admits Dean's faults to him.

I see you for all of your darkness and I love you despite.

"And you think that hate and anger, that's... That's what drives you, that's who you are. It's not."

Dean's prayer to Cas in Purgatory.

Dean's greatest source of pain, the reason he hates himself so much.

'Daddy's blunt little instrument.' It's his father's anger. The anger that was taken out on children. On him and his little brother. The anger that he fought to protect his brother from all those years as they grew up.

"And everyone who knows you see it. Everything you have ever done, the good and the bad, you have done for love. You raised your little brother for love. You fought for this whole world for love."

Cas sees him.

Cas knows him.

Cas understands him.

Every time Dean defended Sam against Heaven, Hell, Lucifer and God and Death and every other being that wanted to hurt his little brother.

Every time he'd tell them 'No. That is not the boy I raised. I raised my little brother to help people. To love people. Not to destroy them. Never to destroy them.'

And every time Sam looked him in the eyes and proved him right, time and time again.

Fuck God, fuck Death- if they want his little brother? If they want the world he's lived to help? They'll have to go through him.

"That is who you are. You're the most caring man on Earth. You are the most selfless, loving human being I will ever know."

Cas looks at Dean and he sees the most caring man on Earth.

He sees all that sadness and all that fury, and all that grief and all that heartbreak- because Dean never stops caring. Not once. For every single person on Earth. In Heaven. In Hell. In Purgatory. Deserving or not, Dean will not stand by and feel nothing.

And Cas loves him for it.

Cas will die a happy man, just knowing he was loved by Dean Winchester.

Cas will die happy just knowing that he made Dean feel something, and that he has saved him. That he has changed him. He dies happy only after he makes Dean hear that he is loved. That all of it, everything he has ever done, has meant something to someone. To Cas.

And then...

"Why does this sound like a goodbye?"

Don't let this be a goodbye.

Why are you letting me go like this?

Why are you letting go?

If you feel all of that, why are you still leaving?

And finally;

"I love you."

[nerves-nebula]

OK im still thinking about if sun wukong actually killed macaque. at first i was like... probably not, right? that seems pretty brutal for lego monkie kid and wukong doesn't really seem to act like it, like i don't recall him saying "you're supposed to be dead" when we're introduced to macaque, and idk if he's ever said anything that implies macaque has ever been deceased. So at first I was like. ok he probably didn't kill this guy there's prolly something else going on.

but then in season 4 wukong off-handedly mentions that he sent azure to the underworld himself in like the finale (i dont remember if he brought it up before then) which implies that he did actually kill Azure and that having done so wasn't so important to him that he felt the need to mention it before then. so ok. maybe he's run into macaque since macaque was revived and has already had his "but you're supposed to be dead!" moment. or maybe he's just not easy to catch off guard in that way since he knows people can be brought back from death, i guess.

HOWEVER the EXACT WORDING Wukong uses when talking to Azure is "I put you in the underworld myself, how did you get out?" which is just vague enough that he could mean that he imprisoned Azure there, but didn't like. KILL him. SO THE JURY IS STILL OUT.

an of course there's also this tweet, which seems to imply that wukong DIDN'T kill macaque

but then you gotta think well, if wukong didn't do it then who tf did? *SOMEONE* had to have done *SOMETHING* because Macaque has the scars to prove he was fuckin, bludgeoned to death through the eye. unless we're supposed to believe that Wukong just scarred him and didn't actually kill him (which would be disappointing to me only because i really like the idea of a guy dying by getting a staff shoved through his eye but makes the most sense for a kids show i guess)

or maybe this tweet is only implying that Macaque wasn't actually resurrected by LBD but maybe some other force working for LBD? that would be a bit confusing but it's a possible reading, considering that Azure also isn't entirely sure who resurrected him. seems unlikely tho since LBD corroborated this part of the story herself, though I guess she could just be playing along with whoever it was that actually raised Macaque.

anyway i don't have a conclusion here other than "probably didn't kill macaque, probably just wounded him" but i did want to mention that while using google to try to find the tweet above this happened

so i guess I'm googles fucking. preeminent Did Lego SWK kill Lego Macaque scholar out there. fantastic. EXCEPT. WHEN YOU CLICK ON THIS LINK? IT'S NOT ACTUALLY QUOTING MY POST. IT'S QUOTING A REPLY SOMEONE MADE TO MY POST. I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW OR WHY GOOGLE WOULD DO THIS? WHAT IS THE AI BEHIND THE SCREENS UP TO THAT IT'S SCOURING THE REPLIES OF A TUMBLR POST AFJSDILFMDSGKASMGD

oh but also when i added "tweet" a the end to try to find the sceenshot in images, this happened.

also the post referenced there is good. i like it. it does less rambling and wishy washy ranting than mine and we basically came to the same conclusions, except they have better photos to prove it sfdfdsf. idk when google started pulling tumblr blogs as sources but i guess we're the only ones talking about damn show.

anyway thank you for coming to my post where i overthink stuff and screenshot google results instead of doing my work

[gnawer-of-table-legs]

THE SEEKER (SOUL VOID) HEADCANONS, THEORIES, AND ANALYSIS

SPOILERS!!!! OI!!!

tw: brief self harm mention, car crashes, death, blood mention, mental health struggles (is that too vague?). Let me know if anything needs to be added.

Demi and pan

The guy ever ❤️

has a fear of failure. It’s pretty intense, but I’m not sure if it’s to the level of Atychiphobia since Atychiphobia will usually result in the individual avoiding situations in which they could fail, and he definitely doesn’t. But. It sure does come close.

if he ever played DND he’d play a neutral good wizard. It’s the research aspect for him.

probably died in the 1960s. Fedoras had begun to fall out of fashion in the 70s, so it would give him a good time period to be wearing those (the fashion died when he did 😔)

ALSO: Car safety regulations began to be a concern in the 1970s. There, manufacturers started offering airbags and anti-lock brakes, better seatbelts, etc.

quote from a source I ain’t citing: “President Johnson signed the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 into law on September 9, 1966”

I’d like to imagine he died right before those car safety regulations. For the Irony.

He canonically uses phrases like “post-haste” so I’m putting him in the humanities field. Maybe history major with a minor in philosophy. (Did they have majors and minors back then? Probably not in the same way we do now)

Because he died trying to get someone out of a car crash, I assume that he had been one of the people in the car when it crashed— otherwise, how would he have lost his life by just approaching the car and trying to pull people out? Sure, Fire/car exploding is possible. But since he’s shown to have glass shards stuck in the same places where his scars are, I assume that he died from the broken glass of the car -> over exerted himself trying to save others and bled out.

The Seeker is completely unaware of how many void residents stan him (we all saw the Husk’s mural of him)

(is it a mural if its on the floor?)

Probably has imposter syndrome.

bitchass motherfucker would cry at sad movie scenes (unless someone else is also crying)

some theories:

It’s been confirmed that a soul’s journey through the SV depends on the soul itself. There was a guy in the Respite Biome that described a starkly different experience than the player’s, and then came to conclusion that the journey was different for everyone. However, I still think souls can cross paths if they share something in common with other souls. So if each biome represents an aspect of the individual’s trauma, then the biomes in which the Seeker has been should give insights on his character, right? Because he talked to the Respite Entity and inspired them to make a change before leaving— and yet the Leech does not seem to have met him (with how lucid she is about her situation, she would definitely have been able to collaborate with the Seeker in some way, and yet he isn’t mentioned). Even though the Leech Biome (guilt, I think— guilt and being toxic/parasitic in relationships) is very close to the Respite in the player’s journey, the Seeker does not come across it because it is not a trauma he shares. His books do not appear there.

He and his books appear in the grasping forest (wanting something always out of reach, implied to be happiness, loss of self*), his books are in the enamel core and the veiny area (idk what these represent), the Sketchyard (feeling of not being good enough despite efforts to improve/bring joy to others), and the respite. *he is shown to be afraid of losing his sense of self, both in his journal entries and when he’s dying on the ground.

The glass shards area (before the Leeches and after the Respite) probably has to do with his death. Idk why the player can access it, unless they also have trauma relating to car crashes/etc— or maybe it’s more generic. Maybe that biome stands for broken glass or sharp things in general (sharp things and allusions to self harm appear throughout the player’s journey, along with a glass bottle that is so pivotal to their character that it is used as one of the three keys to access the Grim).

I think a big theme for his character is how talking with people who share your trauma/experiences or can relate to them can be helpful to both know you aren’t alone, and to share stories/coping methods. The Seeker is able to traverse many biomes (although not all) because he shares their trauma somewhat. This is further cemented by his ability to sense others emotions by touching them.

Not all souls who share experiences form healthy relationships, of course. Some can become unhealthy/manipulative/dependent (ahem ahem, Grim and Leech). The individual needs to take steps to maintain healthy relationships (as is with any relationship, regardless of who is involved).

@captain-will

Now that you’ve finished the game I have released the hcs

[dragonmasterhiccup]

“Hiccup, there are so many people that want to be good, but they just can’t. I’ve seen it. Magnus? The guy who almost killed you? Do you think he’s good? Probably not, but I saw him, I saw him try so hard to be seen as good; he killed dragon after dragon, some people too, because he truly thought he’d be seen as a more admirable and honorable person, but did that work? No.” She sighed, running her hands down her face. What was she trying to say here. “I’m just saying, I can try as hard as I want, fight as hard as I can, but some people just can’t be good, no matter what they do. And I’m probably one of them. So just… don’t be surprised if one day, a switch just flips, and I become the most horrible person you’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting, okay?” Did she want that to happen? No, not at all, but it probably would, eventually. Maybe Spitelout was right, about ‘her father’s violence coursing through her veins’ or whatever.

She let out a breath, shaking her head before looking up at him. “You say that now, but when you find out what actually goes on up here.” She tapped the side of her head. “You’re never going to want me to come to you ever again. I’d even bet on that.”

Biting her nails, she listened intently, nodding along to what he was saying.

She understood it, for the most part, though she found his example a little weird. There were plenty of other ways to explain it-

Nope, that was not what she should be focusing on right now. People do better in packs or whatever, that’s what she should focus on.

But what about the ‘lone wolves;’ the ones that did okay even by themselves, who didn’t need to rely on anyone? Shouldn’t she strive to be like that?

“Yeah, okay, but what about those people— the ‘lone wolves,’” she said, using air quotes. “Those people that are strong by themselves, who don’t need anyone to be there for them, shouldn’t I want to be like that?”

She immediately took note on one sentence; ‘if it’s a threat to you.’ How could she be a threat to herself? Well, she knew how; she’d put herself in harms way more than a few times. But still, was she really an active threat to herself? She felt fine right now, she didn’t feel like she would do anything reckless right this second. Did Hiccup think she would?

“Threat to me? You think I’m a threat to me? That I’m not safe around myself?” Maybe she was misinterpreting the situation? Yeah, yeah, maybe. She hoped so at least.

“You’re always funny looking,” she retorted, a playful smirk on her face.

Letting go of his hand, she nodded, shrugging lightly. “Yeah, I think everything’s okay now… So.. are we cool?” she asked, raising an eyebrow, her voice a little more sincere.

"Well, he thought he was protecting you from me, he thought I was keeping you prisoner...it doesn't fully excuse what he did, but his motivation was in the right place..."

Shaking his head, he insisted, "No, no, no. You are good. I've seen it, I know it. There will be no flipping, just you, being what you want to be."

"Don't talk like that. You're underestimating the situations I've been in, the people I've dealt with. I doubt there's anything that would warrant such a strong reaction.."

"Those lone wolves? Sure, they're okay for a little while, but they don't last too long on their own. Their guard slips, an enemy takes advantage, and...well, you know the rest. I guess being a lone wolf is okay temporarily, but not in the long run. It's a lonely existence, having no one around... Besides, chances are, those people do have others that are there for them, they just hide it well, I suppose."

His eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. "What? Oh, no, it was just an example. I mean, you can be a little reckless at times, but no more than I am. No, when I say 'a threat to you', I mean an outside source, like Spitelout."

"I won't lie, what you said did hurt, but..." Taking a breath, he nodded before pulling her into a hug. "yeah, we're cool."

Pulling away, he held her by her shoulders. "I should apologize, I'm sorry I ever made you feel that way. I was just trying to protect you, to do the right thing, but uh, it doesn't always come across as intended..."

[alice-and-ethel]

I am currently reading And There Was Light: Abraham Lincoln and the American Struggle by John Meacham as a follow-up to the excellent American Rebels by Nina Sankovich (highly recommended btw!) in an attempt NOT to wallow in fear and despair ahead of the November election. I chose it less as a biography and more as an inspirational book about defending America’s ideals despite sociopolitical turmoil.

That said, it’s still written as a biography—though one rather sparse on details despite various primary source quotes so far—and that brings me to…

“Abraham was nine when she [his mother Nancy] died. His recollections of her were sparse, his ambivalence about her deep. Once she was gone she was unable to provide her son with love or with security. In memory, she was a source of insecurity and embarrassment as Lincoln absorbed the stories of her illegitimacy and of the allegations about her, or certainly her family’s, promiscuity. When he needed her as he grew up, he could not have her. Later in life, when he did not want her…he could not avoid stories about her.”

No, really: I went to the end notes and found…nothing for this paragraph.

“Mrs. Lincoln was...affectionate... [She] always taught Abe goodness, kindness...taught him sweetness and benevolence as well.” Dennis Hanks (Nancy’s nephew)

“She was beyond all doubts an intellectual woman, rather extraordinary if anything. Abraham was like his mother very much.” John Hanks (Nancy’s cousin)

“She was a brilliant woman—a woman of great good sense and Modesty.” Nathaniel Grigsby (a neighbor, brother of Aaron Grigsby, Nancy’s son-in-law)

You have no idea how badly I wish I still had a copy of David Reynolds’ Abe handy right now. I would pull out Burlingame’s Volume I, which I do own…but I couldn’t get very far into that one, either (despite the fact that it’s acclaimed) because it’s full of this same kind of gossipy, and frankly sexist, speculation about Lincoln’s parents, specifically about his mother and the Hanks family. (It goes on for way too long in that book.) Meacham repeats a contemporary-ish rumor that Lincoln was illegitimate because his mother slept with another man before her marriage to his father…but even if that story was true, Abraham was the Lincolns’ second child, born two and a half years after their marriage.

More to the point, though: until now, I’ve never seen a biographer suggest that Lincoln—despite being rather closed-mouthed about his childhood—was “insecure” about his mother, much less that he felt “ambivalent” towards her memory or that he barely remembered her. (By this author’s own admission, Lincoln had a remarkable memory from childhood. I know nine is young, but it’s not that young, particularly when discussing a child who could recite entire sermons verbatim after hearing them just once!) Nancy’s death deeply affected him. She may have taught him to read and was definitely the more affectionate and gentle of his two parents. Far from slandering her as a “loose” woman, people who actually knew her remembered her for her intelligence and her kindness—and for the similarities between her and her son.

Lincoln loved his stepmother Sarah like another mother, and he might have been embarrassed by Nancy’s illegitimacy (though he attributed his own intellect to her Virginia planter father). He may or may not have ever said “all that I am or ever hope to be I owe to my [angel] mother,” either. But I’m willing to put money on him not being ambivalent about her or ashamed of her. He was devastated by the loss of her, and her death was followed by a period of extreme hardship for Sarah and Abraham before Thomas Lincoln remarried—so it’s really no wonder he was reluctant to talk about that time later in life.

[almightyelectro]

eternal grief.

an introspection on ei from genshin impact, focusing on her concept of grief, life and human emotions.

sadly because reading old stories on genshin is hell, a lot of my information has to be pulled from the wiki, my own memory and some videos (i usually love to back up my thoughts with quotes but...genshin is way too tiring to dig up info for, i'm sorry)

will go into spoilers involving the inazuma archon quest and the sumeru archon quest (particularly involving wanderer/scaramouche).

everything mentioned is about ei's feelings on the matter, as i cannot speak for others and their characters!

the creation of the raiden shogun (who will be shortened to the shogun) and kunikuzushi (who will be shortened to kuni) and her treatment of them is something that gives us great insight on how ei processes her grief. for one, we need to talk about why ei is grieving-- and though i'm sure we do all know, i'm going to talk about it in detail anyway.

ei's source of grief is pretty well known: she lost her twin sister during the cataclysm. anyone losing a family member, especially one so close to them, would be torn... but there's a bit more to it than that. for one, ei and makoto have been together since the very beginning, and as far as we know they're the only family they had. second, the death of a god in this universe isn't really as simple as a mortal's death. while they're aware gods can die (based on the archon war, though we don't know exactly what went on during it), ei and makoto lived in relative peace for a very long time before the cataclysm occurred. i think it's safe to say that before this event they likely considered the possibility of the other dying.

i personally believe that makoto realized just how dangerous it was and this was why she went to khaenri'ah all on her own-- or perhaps she believed she could handle it on her own without involving her sister. either way, makoto's care for ei is why she went all by herself, eventually leading to her death and ei taking up the role of the raiden shogun.

so, what does this have to do with the shogun and kuni's creation? well, the biggest thing is what happened when she first created kuni in order to host the gnosis. once kuni was created he shed a tear, and ei deemed him unsuitable for his purpose. i think a lot of people misunderstand ei's motives when it comes to kuni, especially because the two of them have different views of what happened.

while it can be read that she saw him as weak, something to pity, i think there's a bit more to it than that. as mentioned before, makoto went into battle on her own, likely due to wanting to spare her sister's life. makoto's own emotions are what caused her death-- or at least, that's how ei views it. yes, she did pity him, but deep down i believe she was afraid that his emotions would get in the way...that they would put him in danger, just like makoto.

i think it's also important to note that...ei didn't create kuni with the intentions of him being a son, or a family member. if she met kuni (now our beloved wanderer) now and learned that was how he viewed her, i think she would be genuinely shocked. it probably never crossed her mind that to her creation she was more than just that-- a creator. she was a mother, gave him life and sentience, but in her eyes...she is simply a god crafting a puppet. i dont think she would even be against accepting him as family (especially since she gave him the golden feather so that he may return to her), but...can a god like herself really understand what it means to be a mother? it's a foreign concept to someone like her. all she knows is she is his creator, and she truly believed she would give him a better life by stripping him of his duties and allowing him to choose his own fate.

the shogun, meanwhile, was her final product. a (seemingly) emotionless puppet that would follow her ideals. but...the shogun and ei aren't even 1:1. i think this especially hammers home the idea that ei was not only afraid of erosion, but worried that her own emotions would result in her death. she spared them from knowing of her sister's fate, from having to mourn, but if she died there would be no way to shield them from it.

it's pretty common for people to see ei as just the shogun 2.0, but there are pretty noticeable differences. for one, the shogun is very matter of fact, capable of making decisions without hesitation if it means furthering her ideals...while ei's voice is much more soft, and she has a tendency to ask questions. even when it comes to apologizing for the shogun's actions ei hesitates. she believes the shogun should do so-- and though this could be read as her not wanting to take responsibility for her creation, i think it has more to do with the fact that ei is just...not used to being a leader. for most of her life she was an unseen shadow, makoto did all of the talking. even now she stands behind the shogun, acting as a shadow (until post sq2)

tldr: i dont thinkwe should be expecting gods to fit our morals when it comes to how they process things. nya

[ashton-ryder]

// open. int. atrium - morning. 8th april. @ruthellry adjacent

Ashton was usually one of the early risers for breakfast and had already avoided the crowd peaking an hour later and he and Ruth had decided to take their tea up to the roof, quoting her wanting to visit the chicks again and just talk rubbish about their lives and happenings as they used to do at least once a week. He forgot how much it pulls him out of his head to have these again with Ruth, even if just a moment. And lo and behold a moment was too quick, from the rooftop open air they could hear a wide range of noises escalating - a loud grotesque oof thud, a scream, familiar shouts, more screams, gun shots-- the two of them shared a gaze and immediately sprinted down to the source of the chaos. A quick stop by their places, Ruth picking up emergency supplies and Ashton grabbing his handgun and combat knife, he refused to relive the helplessness with Courtney's death all over again.

By the time they made it down the threats had seemingly been quelled but it was still chaos, panic, sobs, blood- everywhere. "Where's.." Ash murmurs as his eyes widened, a panicked second that overwhelmed and consumed him eyes darting across the entire scene trying to figure out who needed help, what happened, were there still threats, where were the people he was instinctive wanting to reach out for. Where was Jeremiah? His own panic rising not finding his face at all amongst the blurred chaos. Ashton pulled himself back together hearing Ruth get to work, following to whatever she needed, nodding to her, people needed help. He had to do what he could right now. Tucking his gun behind his pants waistband, He grabbed a spare medical kit from Ruth before reaching out to the next person, eyes still darting around to access the situation and search for his people, "you okay? what happened, who's hurt? Who needs help?"

[ellowynthenotking]

Feb 5

Dear Dad,

So, the most important thing for you to know is that I'm okay. We survived. I did go on a dragon heist that night because I was very, very, very mad about the situation and what they did to the dragon. I'm very sure that I could have handled it better, but I didn't.

I went there to free him, which is precisely what I did. 

Because I was absolutely sure it would be fine because the dragon promised he wouldn't act too vengefully. 

I knew it was not going to be fine, really. I knew that with almost all of my being. 

But slavery is bad, and he's a living, breathing, obviously very intelligent being who they were using as a power source, which, again, is very cool, but only if the power source was consenting. The dragon wasn't consenting, and it wasn't very cool of them to keep him there just to power the city for who knows how long. 

So I told my friends, even though the dragon wanted me to keep completely quiet about it, which, I think, was just so no one would stop me, but now I'm not so sure. But he wanted me to keep quiet, and I didn't so my friends could help me plan.

I was right. they thought it was a terrible idea, but the others reluctantly agreed to help to make sure that I didn't, I don't know, die or something. Which was very likely, I'm sure. 

Do you know what that quote that goes, "Make a plan, love the plan, follow the plan, the plan goes out the window, make a new plan?" Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what happened. 

I told them the dragon's plan and everything he told me. they told me it wasn't the best plan, but they could help. It turns out that the lever I was supposed to pull to get to where the binding magic was kept was literally twice the size of me. I'm really lucky that I had help there with me to pull it. 

And, of course, some of the dragon's information was out of date, luckily not about the wards or bindings or any of that. Still, the stuff around it was newish, probably newer than he thought. So I, we, had to figure out quickly how to get around some of it. Riley got to knock out a guard. She was very excited about that, and I think she's not as mad at me for everything cause she got to knock out a guard. 

So, I had that going for me. 

But anyway, our first plan, the early plan the dragon told me. 

We go in, we go to the under sewers where there's a room of sorts near the dragon, we find the room they're keeping the wards in, we break in, we trash the wards, we break most of the binding magic, we get the "keys" to open the locks, we're careful to not cut the power until next to the dragon, and opening the locks around him immediately so no one's suspicious. Then he flew away, and we could sneak away in the chaos the next day. We were going to leave town right after, just to be even less suspicious. So we didn't have to explain to anyone why we were leaving so suddenly. Perfect plan, right? Nothing can go wrong. 

But Riley and Will said that we needed a better plan because even if I could manage that on my own, it wasn't like I was going to be able to watch for guards, pick locks, or any of the stuff that might come up if part of the plan failed. 

I knew the layout and not much else, which, well, not so great for the plan. 

So Reese went out to investigate as much of the area we were supposed to go to as he could. I was supposed to tell them all I knew, which wasn't much, and Grace was going to see if she could also talk to the dragon. In her defense, she hadn't gotten close to him before, so she hadn't even tried to. 

We pretty much spent the whole time planning. All afternoon, we planned, got more information, and looked for others out. I spent a lot of the time arguing that if we were good people, we had to help the dragon, even though the others really, really didn't want to. 

The dragon heist went so much worse than we thought, though. I mean, there was mostly the stuff we knew about and planned for. Zunair kept watch so we could sneak around and alerted us when people came around so we could hide without looking like he was too suspicious. (I guess being a bard has other perks.) 

The aforementioned lever that needed three people turned out to move, so Reese, Riley, and I moved it, but I basically just sat on it cause I wasn't really strong enough to force it on my own. 

We got the keys to get the dragon out and then went to where he was. He wasn't pleased that I told the others but seemed to accept that I needed to tell them to be able to get this done, so at least there's that.

The keys weren't really keys. they didn't look like any ones I've seen before. They were more like bricks that we had to put in a specific order around the dragon to unlock the thing. 

But he knew what the order was and where to put them. 

Watching him climb out of the hole in the ground was insane, for lack of a better word. I had no idea just how BIG he really was until I watched him move, and felt the earthquake as he stood up and up. And up. 

He thanked us for helping him and said he would help us in the future if he could, but that he had something to do at the moment, so he'd give us a little time to steal some horses and get out of the city. 

We got out pretty quickly. Grace and Willow had grabbed our stuff earlier. I guess they were right that it was going to go down very quickly. 

I didn't think it was going to go wrong so fast. 

So very, very, very wrong.

We were so wrong. 

I WAS SO WRONG.

So, one thing that I hadn't thought about.

Hadn't accounted for, really. Was the small, itty bitty, tiny problem, the Slightest problem of the dragon out for blood. I mean, we'd just saved him. He was offering us safe passage out of the town.

He was nice enough to even wait for us to grab our things.

But not much longer. 

He waited until we were outside the small city to enact his revenge, which was like watching Godzilla. He didn't even use his flames, which I know he had cause we watched him do it. 

No, he mostly just squished buildings with his immense size and apparently a lot of rage. 

We watched, what else would we do? 

I mean. I did it. I didn't cause it, but he wouldn't have been loose if it hadn't been for me. If I hadn't let him out, then he wouldn't have been able to cause all that damage. To kill that many people. 

To make sure that town wasn't just destroyed, that it was just about leveled in revenge. 

He'd been there for so long that I'm not even mad about it, but I should have known. 

I should known. 

He was always going to do this, and there's no promise I could have extracted, nothing I could have said or done that would have stopped or prevented this. 

I couldn't. his rage was too much for me to stop. 

I could have chosen not to free him. But, then, I would have just prolonged all of this, not actually stopped it. 

There would have been another dumb kid down the line who let him out or died trying. 

God, it could have been anyone. But the others were right. I was too close to it. it would always happen, and I, unfortunately, had a hand in it. 

I made all of my friends have a hand in it. 

I should have listened when they told me it was probably a bad idea to talk to him in the first place.

But no, I thought I'd made a new friend, so I didn't listen to my old friends.

I'm glad he at least let us live, that he didn't kill us, too. But he could have so easily. we were part of the problem, too. A small part, sure, but still part of it. 

And now people are dead, and the dragon is free to probably do even more unimaginable harm across, well, wherever, how much of wherever he feels he needs to until his anger's sated or, more likely until he's killed by someone or something else. 

Dad, what do I do? Nothing I can say will help fix this or even take my mind off it. It's been days, and I can't stop thinking about it. 

What do I do? What did I do? How do I-

I don't know what to say or who to say it to. I don't know what I need to hear.

Everyone's been so quiet. I feel like I can still hear the screams. I feel like if there's no one talking, I can still hear them, but no one knows what to say. I don't really think there is anything to say, but it's just so quiet. 

I don't know what to do.

People are dead, and I can't make this right. There's nothing to make right, I know. But I don't know what to do.

The others aren't talking. They've barely said anything other than to figure out when to stop for the day or when to keep moving. 

We’re going to have to keep moving. We don't really have an option otherwise. 

I don't know how I'm going to look you in the eyes, though, after all of this. 

After everything I've said and done. 

You've spent your whole career saving people, and I probably just released a monster that killed more people than you've ever saved in one day, in one hour. 

They're gone, Dad, and it's all my fault.

I don't know what to do. 

I don't know what to do.

There's no going back from this.

Read the rest of the series here: 

Or read more by this author here: 

[hantalyte]

Oh, the Wikipedia definition. That settles it.

I was being lazy and just pulled up a random definition. I felt like it was probably slightly better than just a dictionary. I was just making a quick point. It doesn't matter which I use. Here is the definition from Encyclopedia Britannica: "behaviour genetics, the study of the influence of an organism’s genetic composition on its behaviour and the interaction of heredity and environment insofar as they affect behaviour."

Yes, environmental factors include social and cultural factors, but the point is that biological factors can be environmental, too.

I seriously do not understand how you cannot comprehend this. As I've said before, environmental factors in utero are primarily physical and chemical.

In literally every single scientific article you linked, they simply say environmental. They do NOT say "social" or "cultural." Why? Because there are no direct social or cultural influences in that period! Fetuses aren't exactly walking around town while debating the existence of God. Those studies are referring to maternal health, toxins, exposure to substances, nutrition, hormones, and much more.

Repeat after me: "Many environmental influences are biological."

And where is the witty dictionary definition supposedly debunking pre-language environmental influence on infant brain development?

It's not! It was simply showing that biological and physical factors are environmental. All those studies you linked, they were talking about environment.

I am not arguing that gender dysphoria is hereditary, so you really need to stop and actually learn what these terms mean.

[Including the rest of the quote] Doesn't change the conclusion.

Yes it does. It shows that the BSTc is sexually dimorphic in humans. The BSTc is still sized differently for males and females, and transsexual women still have a female-sized BSTc.

From a tumor, and it was not specified for how long this occurred. A lot was not specified.

How does the source matter? Estrogen is estrogen. Presumably it was not a short period of time, given that doctors need to identify it and schedule an operation to remove it.

He was experimented on. He was psychologically and physically tortured. His genitals were mutilated. He was lied to and coerced by all the adults in his life.

If you think all his pain solely comes from having incorrect genitals, then you are SEVERELY underestimating his pain, even dismissing it to an extent. He also experienced gender dysphoria BEFORE he knew it was a lie.

You pathological, egocentric psycho. It's all about you. It cannot possibly not be about you, ever.

You are making severely incorrect claims about gender dysphoria, and I have simply been citing my subjective experiences to prove them wrong. As it turns out, dysphoric people have a better understanding of gender dysphoria than non-dysphoric people do. It's not about me, it's about how trans people actually experience gender dysphoria, contrary to your ignorant beliefs.

The reason I brought up David Reimer was because he did, objectively, experience gender dysphoria. If you deny this fact, you are denying his pain. I was once again using experiences of gender dysphoria to debunk your claims. It doesn't matter if their mine or belong to someone else.

It is almost humorous how erroneously you used those terms.

Given how much the trans movement owes to John Money, it's understandable you're all scurrying to distance yourselves from him. And yet, despite the valiant efforts of a handful of you, the trans movement at large has embraced not only his ethos that gender identity is malleable and mutable, but also his methods for transitioning. Sucks to be you, truly.

What? The exact thing I've been arguing is that gender identity is immutable. The concept of gender identity was invented and used before Money, and his belief that it is malleable was never adopted by the trans movement. The only people who adopted it were people like you.

The person who actually revolutionized trans healthcare was Harry Bengamin, especially with his book The Transsexual Phenomenon. He helped develop the concept that we transsexuals are born in the wrong body. He helped provide the methods of transitioning.

Your hyperbolic, banalising use of references to Naziism to respond to a black woman is expected and underwhelming.

Really? I feel like it was a reasonable response to your snarl that me and other transsexuals are "so beneath me on a human normalcy scale it's hard to believe we're the same fucking species." Dehumanization is a pretty common Nazi thing, isn't it?

I didn't know you were Black, but does it really matter? Both Kanye West and Mark Robinson called themselves Nazis. Obviously, they would be murdered by the Nazi Party, but the agreement in beliefs on most topics is the basis for calling themselves Nazis. I think there were even some Jews in Nazi Germany that were pro-Nazi. It's a very strange phenomenon for sure.

There were several meta-reviews, each with dozens of studies analysed and cited. You didn't read shit. Certainly not in a 22 hour window.

You cited a blog post about a specific person, a BBC article about a specific person, "the Swedish study" which I have already addressed, a retroactive cohort study which I have already addressed, some article regarding minor risk complications regarding hysterectomy, and a VICE article about a specific person. There were no meta-reviews.

The reason I took a while to respond is because, unsurprisingly, I cannot devote my life to Tumblr.

Anecdotal meta-reviews of several repositories of scientific literature. Does this concept contradict itself? Well, then it contradicts itself, it contains multitudes.

Firstly, it was a literature review. There's nothing weird about it. But if you still don't like it, I have many more studies at my disposal:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10256377/

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024086814364

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20461468/

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0092623X.2017.1326190

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/fullarticle/2779429

I cited over 20 studies. You post a blog from a nobody. If you mean the Vice article I posted, I can replace that with another news source for the same information. Information on deaths directly caused by transition you conspicuously glossed over.

Firstly, no you didn't. Unless you mean those studies at the beginning that were "supportive but recognized lack of efficacy" or whatever, which I have already addressed.

The blog that you cited was MassInformedParents.

She's not a "nobody," she's an actual journalist, that's just her personal blog. Many journalists have personal blogs.

"None of this [saying exactly the opposite] changes the fact that [the opposite of it's being proven]." K.

That "study" you cited proved nothing. I have already explained what was wrong with it. Meanwhile, the study I cited actually was grounded on the scientific method.

The only criticism they manage against SEGM in this paper is precisely this one study (Steensma) [...]

That is objectively false. They also critiqued SEGM for propagating the pseudoscientific theory of "rapid-onset gender dysphoria," and importantly, a scathing critique in pages 28-29. Here it is:

"Despite SEGM’s statement, the group appears to be nothing more than a website; it does not appear to hold meetings, screen its members, or publish a journal. The original content on the website includes statements unsupported by any citations. When the content does provide citations, they are often unreliable or misleading. The SEGM website includes a list of citations to more than 100 articles as evidence for the medical risks of gender-affirming care, but we reviewed each article and found the vast majority to be of low quality. The site’s content omits mention of the standards of care published by mainstream scientific organizations, and it falsely claims that the standard protocols permit gender-affirming surgery before the age of majority. The long list of citations omits mainstream scientific articles that do not support the SEGM agenda, and the list includes a large number of letters to the editor, which are not peer-reviewed or fact-checked, as well as other sources of little scientific value, including opinion pieces and case studies.

"Although the SEGM site claims 'over 100 clinicians and researchers' as members, it lists as 'clinical and academic advisors' a group of only 14 people, many of whom have limited (or no) scientific qualifications related to the study of medical treatment for transgender people. Of the 14, only eight claim academic credentials above the master’s degree level (and, of these, two of the PhD’s are in sociology and evolutionary biology). None have academic appointments in pediatric medicine or child psychology; none have published original empirical research on the medical treatment of transgender people in a peer-reviewed publication; and none currently treat patients in a recognized gender clinic.

"A contextual examination reveals that SEGM is an ideological organization without apparent ties to mainstream scientific or professional organizations. Its 14 core members are a small group of repeat players in anti-trans activities – a fact that the SEGM website does not disclose. These 14 often write letters to the editor of mainstream scientific publications; these letters appear in the list of publications on the website (even though letters to the editor typically are not peer-reviewed or fact-checked). (Our review shows that the group of 14 has a total of 39 relevant publications and that 75% of these are letters to the editor.)

"The core members of SEGM frequently serve together on the boards of other organizations that oppose gender-affirming treatment and, like SEGM, feature biased and unscientific content. These include Genspect, Gender Identity Challenge (GENID), Gender Health Query, Rethink Identity Medicine Ethics, Sex Matters, Gender Exploratory Therapy Team, Gender Dysphoria Working Group, and the Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research."

So you must constantly mention and object to the funding of the Pritzker family, the Buffets, the Rothblatts, the multi-billion medical companies dropping millions into trans orgs? You're very principled like that.

I could not find anything that suggests that the Pritzker family or Warren Buffett directly support trans people. Martine Rothblatt maybe, but I don't think much of these studies are actively funded by United Therapeutics.

The truth is that because the Koch brothers made their fortune in the oil industry, they actively benefit from Conservative politicians winning. Any since Conservatives are fear mongering about trans people, they might as well join that action!

Dysphoria is caused by complex environmental variables. "Internal sex" isn't a thing.

And these environmental variables are biological :)

"Internal sex," as in gender identity, or the inner sense of being male or female. It also has to do with transsexual brains being shifted toward the sex of their gender identity.

Threats of suicide are an abusive manipulation tactic. Which the trans movement makes abundant use of not only to get whatever they want, as much as to groom youths. It's easy for an abuser to convince a vulnerable teenager they only have the two choices: what the trans movement offers, or death. Absolutely nothing else.

It isn't an "abusive manipulation tactic," it's just the truth. If you take away my treatment for gender dysphoria, I'll die. It's not a threat, it's just a fact. If a diabetic says, "If you take away my insulin, I'll die," is that an abusive manipulation tactic? No, it is just the truth. It isn't a threat.

I was "convinced" by anyone that I was inherently going to die. I just knew that, had I not received HRT, I certainly would have died. I wasn't "groomed" by the trans movement. It isn't "grooming" to save a person's life. Stop with that hyperbolic nonsense.

We were talking about much more, including surgeries. And HRT "only" affects children, as I said, plenty enough.

You know what I meant: we're talking about medical treatment for gender dysphoria.

I have no clue what you mean by "HRT 'only affects children." HRT affects everyone. Don't believe me? Go take some testosterone and see for yourself.

It affects me directly.

It affects women as a group directly, not you specifically. You aren't the only person that predatory men would go after. But what's that about making everything about you?

They aren't, and you don't. Suggesting anybody, regardless of dysphoria, can get to call themselves women when they're not, undermines our rights.

Well, then, I guess gender dysphoria is the only medical condition whose treatment necessarily entails oppressing women!

Also, you do realize that at a certain point, it is outright dangerous for trans women to be in men's spaces? Google "V-coding."

realizing that trans is not a real thing is so healing. you can breath now. you don't have to do this.

[indomitablekushite]

“Speak, Garvey, Speak!” Queen Mother Moore Recalls a Garvey Rally “They didn’t want Garvey to speak in New Orleans. We had a delegation to go to the mayor, and the next night, they allowed him to come. And we all was armed. Everybody had bags of ammunition, too. So when Garvey came in, we applauded, and the police were lined man to man along the line of each bench. So Mr. Garvey said, “My friends, I want to apologize for not speaking to you last night. But the reason I didn’t was because the mayor of the city of New Orleans committed himself to act as a stooge for the police department to prevent me from speaking.” And the police jumped up and said, “I’ll run you in.”When he did this, everybody jumped up on the benches and pulled out their guns and just held the guns up in the air and said, “Speak, Garvey, speak.”And Garvey said, “As I was saying,” and he went on and repeated what he had said before, and the police filed out the hall like little puppy dogs with their tails behind them. So that was radical enough. I had two guns with me, one in my bosom and one in my pocketbook, little 38 specials.”

Source: Interview done by the Oral History of the American Left, Tamiment Library, NYU for the public radio program Grandma Was An Activist, producers Charlie Potter and Beth Friend. Some of my favorite Marcus Garvey quotes:

"YOU HAVE AFRICA, you are in other continents and islands of the sea, you are millions upon millions strong, I appeal to you stop being the under-dog and footstools of others, stop complaining, whining and talking about bad luck and misfortune - Shake yourself - get up- start over, overcome the ills around you, you are responsible for what you are, what you want to be, blame no one but yourself, you have the chance, what you want is the will to do, and to dare others to stop you. Thats is why they watch you so carefully -that you may not get away with any progressive ideas which would be a surprise to the world of theirs." -Marcus Garvey “It is so hard, so difficult to find men who will stick to a purpose, who will maintain a principle for the worth of that principle, for the good of that purpose, and if there is a race that needs such men in the world today, God Almighty knows it is the race of which I am a member” -Marcus Garvey "The men of the highest morals, highest character and noblest pride are to be found among the masses of the Negro race who love their women with as much devotion as white men love theirs." -Marcus Garvey “Mind is your only ruler, sovereign. The man who is not able to develop and use his mind is bound to be the slave of the other man who uses his mind, because man is related to man under all circumstances for good or ill."

-Marcus Garvey “How dare anyone tell us that Africa cannot be redeemed, when we have 400,000,000 men and women with warm blood coursing through their veins? The power that holds Africa is not divine. The power that holds Africa is human, and it is recognized that whatsoever man has done, man can do.” -Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey “The only protection against INJUSTICE in man is POWER, Physical, financial and scientific.” -Marcus Garvey, The Philosophy and Opinions of Marcus Garvey " If We Want To Truly Honour Garvey, Then We Must Honour Him Through What We Do, If We Want to Keep Him Alive Then We Must Do it Through ORGANIZING FOR AFRIKAN POWER. Garvey was Hard on Us as I've said before He Loved Us, He wanted Us to be the Best We can be, He Always Confronted the ENEMIES Of Afrika, and He Always Confronted and Fought against White Supremacy and European World Domination, He Fought against Anyone who wanted to COLONIZE Our People and Even When He fought Our ENEMIES, He Focused His Attention on Us, Afrikan People, His People, His Race that he Loved. He Put his Energy into Organizing Us because his Objective was AFRIKAN SOVEREIGNITY and We Must be very familiar with that Concept, because that is the Concept of Afrikan  people: AFRIKAN SOVEREIGNITY." -Mama Marimba Ani

[blueathens]

What He Loves About You

Summary: A collection of some of the things Jack loves about you.

Song: Little Things by One Direction Quote: ‘Jack Grealish loves you the most.’

Masterlist//Dusk Till Dawn Masterlist//Agape Masterlist

Jack Grealish loves your eyes. He loves how they shine brighter when a source of light shines into them, making them look as if they have glittering diamonds inside them. He loves how mesmerising they are. How they pull him in. How they make him get lost every time he stares at them, but he needs no map as he knows every detail of them. He loves how they get wider when you see something you love, and he loves how your pupils dilate when you look at him. He loves how he can always see love in your eyes, even if it just a sparkle. He loves how gorgeous the colour of them are and he loves how they always seem to be shining with life, no matter the pain you’re in. He loves your eyes the most because it was the first thing he saw when he first met you.

Jack Grealish loves your lips. He loves the small pout you make, and he loves the massive grins you wear. He loves the sweet sounds that leaves them. He loves the sound of your voice; he loves how it brings him comfort. He loves how it makes him safe. He loves how it makes him feel at home, where he belongs. He loves how perfect your lips are against his, and how it makes him feel like they were only meant to kiss his. Like his for yours. He loves the different types of lip balm you use, but he loved the sweet strawberry the most. He loves your lips the most because it was the first thing that got him hooked, whether it was the way you laughed, smiled, talked or tasted.

Jack Grealish loves you hands. He loves how small they are against his. He loves how they fit perfectly into his, like they were made just for him. He loves how soft they are even after all the work you do. He loves the way you trace patterns onto his skin with your fingers. He loves interlocking your fingers together, whether it’s holding hands or linking pinkys. He loves when you hold onto his arm, and he loves when you hold his hands in his hoodie pockets. He loves to kiss your ring finger, promising one day a ring will be there. He loves your hands the most because it’s the first thing he held that made him feel complete.

Jack Grealish loves your humour. He loves how mischievous you are. He loves how you’re full of jokes and always making people’s day a little brighter. He loves how you always make him laugh even on his bad days. He loves how you cheer him up. He loves that you can have fun but can quickly become serious if you have to. He loves to think about how much your own children will love you because you will always make them happy. He loves your humour the most because it makes him smile the biggest.

Jack Grealish loves your comfort. He loves the way you hold him, reassuring him you’re still there, that you wasn’t going anywhere. He loves the words of comfort you speak to him; he loves how it makes him feel braver. He loves how you make him feel invincible and he loves how you make him a better man. He loves how safe you make him, and he loves how you make him feel at home. He loves how you support him, and always asking him about his thoughts. He loves how you put him before yourself because you think men should be shown more love. He loves how you give him flowers and he loves how you spoil him just as much as he does for you. He loves how your small touches makes him feel special. He loves how you make him feel like he’s always on top of the world. He loves how you always stand up for him and protect him from anything you can. He loves how you look after him and how much love you have for him. He loves your comfort the most because it makes him feel like he finally belongs somewhere.

Jack Grealish loves the little things about you. He loves the fact that you don’t like coffee but will drink lattes. He loves the way you wear his football shirts or any of his clothes. He loves to kiss your nose and he loves your squishing your cheeks. He loves the ‘Jack’ necklace you wear around your neck, and he loves the bracelets around your wrists. He loves your loving behaviour, and he loves how you do anything to make the world a better place. He loves how you will play small games of football in your garden and make it feel like the best game in the world. He loves your hair, he loves how it falls into your face, he loves pushing it back, he loves feeling the soft strands of it between his fingers. He loves every scar, mole, freckle or mark that litters your body. He loves the things you hate, and he loves to show extra love to them. He loves all your imperfections as they’re perfect to him. He loves how you treat him like Jack Grealish and not the ‘famous footballer Jack Grealish.’ He loves how your bring normality into his life. He loves how you love his family as your own, and he loves how you get along with his friends. He loves the little things the most because it was what made him fall for you more.

But most importantly Jack Grealish loves you the most. All of you. He loves the fact that he can’t pinpoint the exact thing he loves the most about you, as he loves it all. He loves it all because it’s yours. But if he truly had to choose it would be how you make him feel at home. How he feels safe with you because you have everything he loves. Your just you, and that’s enough for him.

[snackleggg]

Loud music and hard of hearing conspiracy

~~~

An Unidentified Flying Ship one shot

~~~

The music was blaring loudly but from the hallway at least it was a little muffled. Not entirely, Wes could still pick out the words to whatever awful pop song was playing if he focused but it was muted enough that he could at least ignore it.

How did I end up here?

A week ago everything had been fine, normal. Then everything went downhill.

It started when everyone was getting hyped about prom because it was only a week away. What was once an occasional subject that was mentioned once or twice in conversation quickly dominated the forefront of everyone's minds.

Of course with it came everyone talking about dates and Wes had rolled his eyes at the relationship drama that would proceed the school dance.

"What about you Wes?" His twin brother Kyle had asked.

Wes at the time was glaring at Fenton from across the cafeteria, totally zoned out from the world around him and whatever conversation was going on at the table but his brother's question had reeled him back in.

He blinked, turning his attention to Kyle who sat beside him "What about what?"

"Are you going with someone to prom?" One of the others at the table asked. Oh so the conversation had drifted there.

Before Wes could answer no, he was going to be too busy trying to gather evidence to expose Fenton someone else at the table went "I'm pretty sure he wants to ask Fenton to prom"

Wes' brain blue screened for a moment but when he saw everyone at the table nodding he was immediately snapped out of his stupor "wha- NO! Of course not! Why would you even think!?" Wes fumbled but then Kyle put his hand on Wes' shoulder.

"Bro, no offence but we all know you have a crush on Fenton and that you're just using your conspiracy theories as an excuse" Kyle said while looking at Wes sympathetically.

"I don't- I'm not using anything as an excuse, Fenton is Phantom! How can you guys not see it!?" Wes said, he was pointedly ignoring the heat he felt rush to his cheeks.

Another person at their table just shook their head in pity "Oh you poor thing, still in denial about your feelings. You know well still accept you no matter your sexuality right Wes?" They said and Wes heard his brother mumble something about how sad it was Wes thought ghosts were real.

At this point Wes was left completely speechless at the way all his friends seemed to agree with the outrageous notion that he had a crush on Danny Fenton. A crush.

Wes just stood up and walked away with his tray of half eaten slop. He could hear his friends sighing over how hopeless and oblivious he was.

It didn't stop there though.

Later that day at home Kyle, Wes and their older brother Easton were in the living room together quietly doing their own things. Kyle doing some homework, Easton texting someone and Wes looking over all the pictures he had gotten of Phantom after the fight earlier that day, unfortunately all were too blurry to make out anything Wes could actually use as evidence.

Then Kyle broke the comfortable silence.

"Hey Easton, you think you can give Wes some advice for asking his crush to prom?" Kyle asked, not even looking up from the algebra equation he was doing.

If Wes had been drinking anything he would've done a spit take, instead he settled for just staring at his brother in growing horror.

"Hmm? Crush? Oh you mean Jazz's younger brother?" Easton asked as he looked up from his phone. Wes already knew that Easton was good friends with Jazz Fenton but he became even more horrified by the fact that he had immediately connect the 'crush' Kyle had mentioned to Danny Fenton.

Kyle just nodded and Wes was still too shocked to say anything as he looked between his brothers.

"Well, you can never go wrong with chocolates and just straight up asking" Easton said with a shrug before looking back down at his phone.

Finally Wes regained he ability to speak "NO! I don't have a crush on Fenton!" Wes exclaimed.

"Wes you shouldn't be embarrassed to ask for help. I'm your brother, you can't really hide the fact that you have a huge crush on Fenton from me" Easton said simply and some part of Wes was thankful that neither of his brothers are currently looking at him because he knew his face was probably almost as red as his hair.

The larger part of Wes though was shocked and horrified by what his brother had just said.

Not for the first time that day Wes just got up and left without another word.

The rest of the week didn't fair any better.

Anytime Wes inforned his brothers or friends that he was going to tail Fenton to finally expose that he was Phantom they just rolled their eyes before going "Are you finally going to ask him to prom?" And everytime without fail Wes would turn bright red before stomping off in whatever direction Fenton had ran off to, muttering under his breath about how he did NOT have a crush on Fenton.

Finally, Friday he snapped.

"WHY!? Why does everyone think I have a crush on Fenton!? I thought it was obvious that I hate him!" Wes yelled after Kyle had off handedly asked if he had asked Fenton to prom yet.

"Duh, it's because you're pretty much infatuated with him" Kyle stated like it was obvious.

"I'm NOT infatuated!" Wes said.

"Then what do you have to say about all those pictures you take of him? Or following him and his friends around? The fact that you have an entire notebook filled with little facts about him that no one else would care to notice?" Kyle pointed out.

"That's all evidence! It's me trying to expose that he is really Phantom!" Wes argued.

"Uh huh. Keep telling yourself that but you can't live in denial forever bro. I mean why would you need to keep a catalogue of his interests or have so many photos of him just being normal and not at all 'ghostly' " Kyle said while making air quotes "that stuff can't be used as evidence so why still keep it?"

"Because! Be... because..." Wes stopped. Why did he keep all of those things? They weren't particularly helpful in exposing Fenton so why?

"It's cause you like-like him. Prom is tomorrow so I'm sorry to say your denial made you miss your chance to ask him out" Kyle said while patting Wes on the back.

Wes once again stood from the couch and walk away, up to his room and slammed the door behind him.

He spent the whole rest of the day just laying on his bed, staring at his ceiling. He went to prom the next day because some of his friends insisted he couldn't miss it.

For most of the night he had felt numb, especially as he watched people dance and talk and laugh together while he practically glued himself to the wall.

Then he spotted Fenton and Wes was hit again with his brothers words 'it's because you're pretty much infatuated with him'.

Wes hated to admit it but Fenton actually looked good. He wore a white dress shirt with a dark green bow tie and black slacks. It was simple but he pulled it off quite well and Wes couldn't help but notice how the flashing lights of the gym reflected off of Danny's ice blue eyes. How the constantly changing angle of the light highlighted his face a hundred different ways and none of them looked unflattering, at least not to Wes.

The music was loud, he could barely hear people standing right next to him so of course Wes couldn't hear what Danny and Sam were talking about on the other side of gym but Danny seemed to laugh at something she said and Wes couldn't tear his eyes away. He could almost imagine the laugh in his head, light and easy becoming a soft chuckle towards the end.

Wes looked down at the plastic cup full of punch he held in his hand. He could practically smell that someone had spiked it.

He soon found himself stumbling out of the gym because everything was so bright and loud and he needed more space between himself and Danny, definitely more than just a gymnasium's length at least until he figured out why the heck he felt his face flush when he thought about Danny's laugh.

So that's how Wes ended up sitting on the cool tile floors of the school's empty hallway. The lights were off so it was dark but the smallest bit of light poured in through the high up windows front the street lamps outside so it wasnt pitch black, even if it was hard to make out any details of his surroundings.

He didn't know how long he sat there staring at the swirling cup of liquid in his hands.

Eventually he noticed movement out of the corner of his eye and he didn't need to lift his head to know it was Danny.

"Hey Wes" Danny's familiar voice echoed a little in the empty hallway, it wasn't the same kind of echo that his voice gained when he was Phantom Wes absentmindedly noted. He heard Danny sit down next to him on the cool tile floor.

"What brings you out here? Would've thought you'd be in the gym with your friends" Danny said.

Wes jostled the cup a little with his hand before gesturing to it "I think someone spiked the punch" Wes said instead of giving a straight answer to Danny's question.

"Oh? Good thing I was never a fan of punch. You good?" Wes could've sworn he heard actual concern leak into Danny's voice.

"Yeah, I only took a few sips" Wes shrugged and he leaned backwards against the metal lockers that lined the walls.

"What about you? Why're you out here?" Wes could now see Danny in his peripheral vision quite well. His legs were spread out straight infront of him unlike how Wes had his knees tucked against his chest. He also seemed to be leaning against the lockers behind them, looking relaxed against the cool metal.

"Technus decided to try and take over the DJ booth. I managed to stop him pretty quickly but I needed a breather so I came out here" Danny said, making a vague gesture with his hand.

"Hmm" Was Wes' only reply. The source of all his troubles, both old and new was sitting right next to him and they were holding a proper conversation like real people. No threats of exposing identities, no witty banter or mocking remarks.

To someone who didn't know any better it would almost seem like they were on civil terms with eachother.

What kind of terms are we on?

They weren't friends, not by a long shot. But enemies seemed too strong a word now that Wes thought about it. It wasn't like they were physically hurting eachother like Danny's other enemies. It was less literal battling and more metaphorical and figurative battling.

But after tonight would I even be able to do that anymore?

Wes couldn't just ignore the revelation forced upon him. He wasn't one for ignoring the obvious and when Kyle presented the evidence he had to admit his feelings were a tad obvious.

A comfortable silence was now between the two and Wes turned his head to look at Danny directly. His breath caught in his throat.

Danny was completely relaxed leaning against the lockers behind him. His hair was slightly disheveled, more so than usual. His eyes were closed and he had a faint smile on his face. The dim light shining in made his pale skin look like it was glowing, giving him an ethereal look. Wes was pretty sure that he could only glow in ghost form but that didn't stop the way the light reflected to make it seem otherwise. Wes also became hyper aware of the fact that they were sitting very close to eachother, if he leaned to the side a bit they would be brushing shoulders.

'Yeah, super obvious' Wes thought as he felt a blush find it's way onto his cheeks.

Wes managed to pry his eyes away and looked back down at his cup of spiked punch.

"Screw it" he mumbled before downing the whole thing.

"Hmm? What was that?" Danny asked as he peeked an eye open.

"Screw it" Wes said louder as he grabbed Danny by his collar and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Danny froze in place as Wes pulled back. The blush stood out against Danny's pale skin and Wes knew he was probably as red as tomato as he spoke "Wanna go dance? With me?" Wes asked cautiously.

Danny blinked before a doppy smile found it's way onto his face "Yeah, sure" he said.

Wes pushed himself up and held out a hand which Danny took without a moment's hesitation.

[masterjedilenawrites]

I’m not good at making requests, so forgive me if anything come out wrong.

But, could you do something were reader and Tech are fixing some eletronics and listening to cientific things, and start talking about a wrong thing people said there, so they get distracted and when realize, they’re in to a awkward position (like him btween her legs or sth like that)

I love your writing and thanks (: <3

Omg I've been so soft for Tech lately and this prompt is perfect 💚 I hope this is what you were looking for, I really enjoyed writing it!

Tech x reader | 2k words

...making bacta the most important scientific achievement in history...

"Dank farrik," Tech huffed beside you.

You came out of your daze at the sudden exclamation and looked at your friend with concern, trying to quickly figure out what had gone wrong. You were helping him with a project, though what it was exactly you weren't completely certain of. All you knew was it involved digging into the walls of the ship and untangling a lot of wires. You'd been instructed to hold onto several of them, keeping them pulled taught out of the wall so Tech could fiddle with the other ends, and the dullness of the task had caused your mind to wander.

"What's wrong?" you asked, doubtful you'd understand any explanation, but wanting to be sure you hadn't done anything to mess up his progress.

He waved a hand at you dismissively, not pulling his attention away from the work in front of him. "Just the radio," he mumbled.

You hadn't been paying attention; it had only been turned on as background noise to keep you from going insane with boredom. And since it was tuned into some kind of scientific news frequency, you didn't really understand much of what was being said anyway.

...with the most influential application simply being in the field of medicine, providing us higher life forms with a versatile tool in maintaining our quality of life, and potentially even prolonging it...

Tech huffed again. Scoffed. Your mouth quirked at how upset he was getting. It was kind of cute.

But, you had to debate whether engaging with his frustration would be worth it. He had only recently calmed down from his outburst earlier that day, the only time you had ever seen him genuinely upset. Wrecker had accidentally knocked over a piece of machinery that was... well, something very important, apparently. No one was too sure. But Tech had spent most of the week carefully arranging its parts just-so, so that when all his hard work went crashing onto the floor, his breathing had suddenly resembled that of a charging Nexu. He'd drawn himself up, trying to match his brother's height, and ordered the poor guy to never step foot in this part of the ship again. The other Batchers had tried to defend him and were subsequently banned as well.

That left you as the only option for help.

Maybe that meant he wouldn't kick you out for debating him....

"Sounds like they're saying some pretty reasonable things. Am I missing something?"

Tech's fingers, which had been deftly working through the wires before him, clipping some and splicing others, finally froze. The clone's face tilted over to you, his eyes looking a little too judgmental through those glasses for your liking.

"You think bacta is the most important scientific achievement?" he asked. You didn't like his tone, either.

You scrunched your mouth in thought, actually giving the question serious consideration. While you mulled it over, Tech stood up from his hunched position in the wall and started pulling on some of the wires, unraveling them from their tangled mess.

"Yeah," you finally decided. "I think medicine in general is pretty important. And bacta specifically is the strongest known substance to deliver fast and effective healing."

Tech was mostly focused on the wires, but he spared you a glance.

"And treating symptoms is the most important thing for humanity? Here, hold this." He added another wire for you to hold in your hands.

You knew it was a loaded question so you chose to answer it with one of your own. "Well if it's not bacta or medicine, then what would it be?"

"Electricity," he said quickly and assertively, as if it was the most obvious thing in the galaxy. He continued to focus more on his work and you were annoyed he didn't seem to want to offer up an explanation to his opinion, despite having made you give one. He'd finally untangled the wires and was back to leaning into the cavern in the wall and setting them into their proper places.

"Why electricity?" You hated how dumb your question sounded; obviously you understood the concept and understood its importance. You just really wanted to challenge him to give you some explanations.

"For one, most medicines would not be able to be mass-produced were it not for the electrically-run vats in which they are made." He held his hand out behind him and made a grabbing motion. "Blue, please."

You sorted out the blue wire and passed it over.

"For another," he continued, his voice sounding distant as he leaned further away into the wall, "we must ask what constitutes a quote-unquote important achievement. For example, is an achievement worthy of the title simply because it improves our quality of life? Green, please."

You handed over the corresponding wire. "I'd say it's more about preserving life. Even outside of war, there's enough injury and illness that would end life were it not for medicine to heal them."

"Ah, but in that same reasoning, electricity also sustains life. It powers sources of light and warmth, which can also provide a means of boiling water and cooking food. All keys to survival. Yellow, please."

"So does fire," you shot back. "People survived long before electricity, and there's still plenty of civilizations living fine without it."

Tech finally emerged from the wall and took the last few wires from you, the red and black ones. He met your eyes with an earnestness that let you know how much he was enjoying this conversation. "And people have survived without medicine. At least the manufactured forms that you're arguing for, like bacta. Traditional medicine is as sufficient as fire."

Before you could respond, Tech moved to the side, motioning toward the wall with his head and holding up the remaining wires.

"Now, unfortunately these last ones need to be clipped in down below. I'm not able to fit through the lattice of the floor, but someone of your stature easily could."

You stepped forward and peered down. It was a mess of machinery and pipes and beams, but you could clearly see the port where the wires had been yanked out earlier. You knelt down, resting your stomach on the edge of the wall, but paused before bending over.

"If it wasn't for bacta, you wouldn't have been born." You were confident in your comeback and thus didn't linger for his reaction, turning to bend down into the ship with your wires instead.

You were disappointed to hear his soft chuckle from above you.

"And what do you think powers the bacta tanks that hold the clone embryos?"

You were glad he couldn't see the frustrated frown on your face. While you tried to think of a new point in your debate, you snapped the red wire into the proper port. But then you realized you couldn't quite reach the black one, and started carefully shimmying forward, deeper into the wall.

"It seems we have circled back to the initial question," Tech offered in your silence. You felt his hands hold on to your hips, steadying you as your legs lifted from the floor, most of your body now inside the ship. You didn't think anything of it, though, your focus split between your task and his words. "What makes an achievement the most important? Both medicine and electricity are capable of preserving life, but neither are essential to survival. So, what criteria are we left with?"

You were finally within reach of the last port and pushed the wire into it. "Sounds like you already have the right answer, so why don't you stop teasing me and just say it?" you called up to him.

"I...I didn't mean to sound like I was teasing."

You could hear the apology in his voice, how truly caught off guard he was to hear that you had perceived his attempts at a friendly debate, a conversation, as mocking or disrespectful. Your stomach knotted up in guilt, making your journey to wiggle back out of the wall a little more difficult.

"I'm sorry, Tech," you said through a grunt as you tried to push yourself back. "I didn't mean to sound rude. I just don't know the answer."

You felt his arms snake around your middle, pulling you the last of the way out. You came to rest on your knees, breathing heavily at the sudden increase in air supply. Tech was crouched alongside you, his chest against part of your back, his arms still holding you.

"I honestly don't know the answer, either," he blinked down at you, speaking quietly. "I don't know what criteria would constitute the most important scientific achievement. I thought maybe we could figure it out if we kept discussing it."

You craned your neck around to look at him, unconcerned about the discomfort it took to do so. You needed to face him fully. "Or... maybe we don't need to figure it out? I mean, does there need to be one achievement labeled more important than any other? Can they not all be valued equally?"

"I suppose..." he relented. But only a little. "It is a fun thought exercise, though."

You smiled at that, and it made your heart flutter a little to see him return the expression. There were a few seconds between you where you sat pleasantly in each other's arms... before the realization hit that you were in each other's arms.

"Uh," Tech stuttered first. His eyes looked about frantically as if the more he saw of you practically sitting in his lap, the more he would know what to do about it.

Your face was hot and your heart thumped forcefully in your chest. But you weren't panicking. Even though you'd been around the Bad Batch for a while now, this was the first time you'd gotten physically close to any of them, especially this dorky genius, who made you feel just a little better about life than the others did. You hadn't been sure why, not until this moment, your face being mere inches away from his own. Now it clicked.

His arms had removed themselves from your frame and he was starting to crawl backward on the floor. You quickly grasped his shoulder to stop him.

"Tech, wait."

He froze, looking at you with wide, apprehensive eyes. His shoulder was tense so you relaxed your grasp and simply let your hand rest on it gently. You gave him a small smile. Thankfully these little gestures were enough encouragement for him to lean back to you. He still looked at you timidly, but he wasn't pulling away anymore. It seemed like maybe he had been feeling the same things about you.

"Yes?"

He was waiting for you to make the next move.

"So, this project," you stalled, needing just a little more time to work up the courage. "What is it again? Why did I just crawl into the bowels of the ship?"

Your face was creeping closer to his, breath gently fanning across each other, warm but refreshing.

"I... I..." Tech seemed to be short-circuiting. "I was just, uh, re... redecorating."

Your nose had just brushed his when you suddenly frowned and moved back to look at him questioningly. "Redecorating... wires?"

You were very amused at how flustered he seemed to be in this situation. But then the tables turned as Tech rolled with it.

"Yeah, I didn't like the way they looked in there. Wanted to change things up. You know me."

The smile on our face spread as he talked and you couldn't hold back your laughter any longer. You bent forward, resting your forehead in the crook of his neck while your body convulsed with giggles. Tech laughed along, bringing his arms back around you to hold you in place. When you finally looked up at him and the shit-eating grin he had plastered on his face, you knew you'd finally found your courage.

"Oh, Tech..." you chided, pressing your smiling lips against his own.

[cloveroctobers]

October prompts — 8. EZ REYES ; MAYANS MC

Prompt: i see dead people. ❜

A/N: I’ll catch up with the Mayans someday but a fancam inspired me to write this. It’s disappointing the lack of edits on the Mayans but whatever. It is what it is I guess. We’re in the final stages of October prompts from me and I feel like this man needs one! Also this took a bit of a different direction? Kinda lengthy but…Let’s get into it!

•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•*•**•*•*•

Oh Scorpio season: it was your time to shine, act up, and to simply celebrate to put it into a few words. You were born on the 23rd of October and there wasn’t shit to do in Santo Padre, so if anyone thought you were going to stay here for your 28th birthday they were dumb. So you planned a trip to San Diego and there was no doubt that you wanted your man to attend but…business got in the way—as usual.

Listen, you were the most understanding when it came to Ez’s position at the club, so you kept throwing a fit to a minimum but it was your birthday plans and Ez could tell you were a little disappointed. The both of have been dating for a year and some change now but you were not sick of each other yet. You were both dedicated to your professions and usually knew how to balance your relationship with that. However it seemed like shit was picking up with the club and it was almost like Ez was pushing you to go. He couldn’t talk about club business so you didn’t question it and you were never one to cancel your ideas or plans on the account of someone else.

That’s how you miss out on life.

And you always matched energy, sorry not sorry. It was not Ez’s intentions to make it seem like he wanted you gone, it was more of always wanting you to live your life. He spent years having his on hold so who was he to stop you from enjoying yourself—especially celebrating a life as valuable as yours.

A week before your birthday, you called up your girls and debated on a airbnb or a hotel for a weekend in San Diego. It became a girls trip because of Ez, so you made sure to tell your girls to keep their significant others where they were at—respectfully of course. The day before your birthday, Ez made sure that you knew you were loved and that he didn’t forget about you, you knew he didn’t, it just sucked you wouldn’t be spending this birthday together.

He made up for it the day before and if you don’t know? Ezekiel Reyes was a romantic man, he has a collection of poetry books and literature for crying out loud and often recited poems of loving quotes to you when he thought you were asleep. He also enjoys romance films and watching the sappy lifetime movies with you on lazy sundays but he’ll never let his big bro know all that. He decided to blind fold you (not the first time) and bring you to a birthday dinner on the lake. It was sickeningly sweet with nothing but rose petals, candles, and the stars as your source of light for the night.

You almost thought about proposing your damn self to this man with the way he kept his eyes on you on the mini dock. He looked good but he told you you looked better over some Cabernet. And you both knew what time it was and you didn’t hesitate to give it to him right there on that dock. you had a blanket that helped the both of you not catch any splinters (this time around) so that made your pre-birthday that much more at ease. The both of you passed out for a good while until you felt the fall rain, which woke the both of you up.

You were groggy as Ez quickly got himself dressed and pulled out a processing cap from his back pocket, to place over your head for you. Laughing you wrapped the blanket around your body after slipping your dress on and climbed behind Ez on the jet ski back to his car. He even carried you back to the car, one arm wrapped around your entire body while you clung to him in the rain, him holding your heels and keys in his other hand. Once he got you into the vehicle you curled up in the passenger side, facing the man you obviously loved, sending a lazy smile his way, which he shared, except his was much wider with his signature grin.

Ez soon started the car looking at the clock on the dash to see that it was sixteen minutes into midnight, “Happy birthday, baby.”

“Thank you, baby love.” You replied, puckering your lips for Ez to do the honors.

So your actual birthday? Originally the plan was to roll out of santo padre with two of your home girls by 10am—since the rest were all scattered over California…but that didn’t go as planned. If you asked anyone out of the two of you who was the slowest in the mornings the answer would be you. Ez was used to not getting much sleep in the first place due to his own insomnia or always being on call so he could function whenever. You on the other hand? Could be a literal brat, slumped over when dragged to get up, throwing tantrums, throwing punches, you name it! You did it, if someone dared to bother your sleep, just tell anyone to ask any of your siblings or cousins, they knew what was up. If you did not get at least 7-8 hours then it would be a world war six up in this bitch, best believe.

You and ez didn’t get home until 12:45ish but you also stopped at a gas station to get snacks for the house…which you were most likely leaving behind for the weekend? You were the hungry drunk and ez couldn’t say no to you on your birthday. When you got back home the both of you showered together which included a make out session since you were too exhausted to go round three and stayed up a little longer watching, “Sylvie's Love,” in bed together.

Your god-sister/cousin Eboni and good friend, Israel were the ones to basically drag you from Ez’s arms and push you to get ready. However that was not completed without throwing confetti all around your bedroom and busting out into Stevie Wonder’s edition of, “happy birthday,” to get you into the spirit. Ez took the time to take your things to the car while you got ready, also Eboni could be bossy as shit so she was making orders and Ez didn’t think much of it since he was planning on doing that for you anyways. He silently wished you good luck before you entered the living room where Israel sat on the couch texting and Eboni was getting her interior decorator on as she surveyed your duplex.

Ez followed the three of you to the door, the both of you holding hands as you arrived at Israel’s car full of balloons. There were smiles in your eyes but your lips said otherwise until Eboni shoved your go-to order of a matcha latte in your hands, which made you beam up. Ez leaned through the car window and cradled your face bringing your lips up to his. He wished you a happy birthday again, asked you to text him when you got there, and told Israel to be safe on the road—since she was a bit of a speed demon which she laughed at since Ez drove another dangerous vehicle himself.

And while you were off celebrating your birthday for the weekend, Ez handled his own business with the club but not without checking on you on your Instagram stories when he had little free time. It wasn’t until 3AM that he saw something on one out of your five friends’ page that he was ready to call you up.

“Yo, who did y/n swing on?” Coco asked around a puff of smoke.

Ez wasn’t sure when he even popped up? Which was normal but Coco wasn’t standing beside him or over him to know what Ez was witnessing. He lifted his head to see Coco looking down at his own phone and raised it in the air to show a picture of you on your own story, nose bleeding while blowing a kiss at the camera.

“Lemme see!” Angel jogged over, picking up on the tea as soon as he came outside, snatching Ez’s phone from his hand.

Ez clenched his jaw, “give me my damn phone back, Angel. I gotta call and check in on her.”

“Nah. You don’t, it’s her birthday! She don’t need you up her ass since you’ve been stalking her since she left the place. Let her call you if she gets locked up or leave her ass there, it’s up to you.” Angel kept pressing on Ez’s screen to witness the story from the beginning.

Ez stepped forward to snatch his phone but Angel only dodged his reach, the speaker blasting so loud that ez was sure Angel was going to break one of them. It took a solid three minutes for ez to get his phone back and it entailed getting the older man into a headlock to drop the phone.

“I could break your ribs but I’m too fuckin’ tired for this shit right now.” Angel muttered, “let go of me with your joe Goldberg actin’ ass.”

Ez plunked his phone from the ground and went through his recents ready to call you up. He suddenly lifted his head to meet Coco and Angel’s eyes, “do you really think I’m doing too much if I call?”

Coco lifted his shoulders, “you could text her.”

“Calling is faster.”

Angel scoffed, “like I said, if you want to continue being glued to her ass for the weekend that’s on you. They already know you’ve been watching their stories, I’m sure, so leave it and let her call you, act like you don’t know shit. That’s how I would play it. Although, I do wanna know who cracked her in the nose.”

“You think somebody hit her?”

Angel tapped Ez’s temple, “either that or she was kissing the floor tonight. We both saw that last video on that other chick’s page, the one i can’t stand?”

Ez didn’t know what he saw. It all happened quick and your friend Ximena was the one behind the camera showing you standing by some strangers, two dudes and one lady. You were in the middle of the two guys smiling while the other lady on the end was giving you the side eye from underneath the flash from the camera. The view then shifted to Israel spinning around a light post before something kicked off in your direction, there was screaming and the camera dropped to ximena’s feet with her yelling herself before the video cut off.

The last update was forty-five minutes ago.

“Screw that, I’m calling my girl.”

“Good for you, Boy Scout.” Coco flicked off the buds of his cigarette before he smirked, “maybe put it on speaker?”

All Ez could do was shake his head at these two idiots.

So your birthday went from loving to exciting to bad bitch energy to reckless to unbothered all in one. In short you were spammed by your man and didn’t return his call until seven that morning? He was aggravated when you facetimed him that Sunday morning in the bathroom while you were on the toilet. You found it cute that Ezekiel was that worried about you, especially when he said he was so tempted to take that hour plus drive to San Diego to get your ass himself.

However ximena sent him a text around five that morning to let him know all was good with a “🥊” emoji. She didn’t reveal much, which you were glad and could always count on her to do for you. Eboni would only tell your business if she gave you the ultimatum to figure your shit out or if you didn’t take her advice, Israel couldn’t lie for shit because she cracked under pressure, Caroline always stayed out of it and usually failed to take sides once the business was out, and Lomasi would sometimes sugarcoat or exaggerate the tea if she felt like sharing that is…she could stingy with information okay?

Ez asked if you had a good celebration and you said you did before he quickly shifted gears pointing out the tissue shoved up your nostril. You shrugged it off and gave a brief summary of: when a drunk girl lets jealousy get the best of her. Your friends met a solid group of people that included the three in the video amongst others, it was a good time full of drinks, laughter, and dancing. The girl felt like you were flirting with the dude she was currently sleeping with but he didn’t want to claim her, and one minute she’s smiling up in your face with a few slick comments thrown in the mix, which Eboni and ximena quickly caught onto. Eboni was so close to saying something but it was your birthday and you were in too good of a mood to let whatever this girl felt so bold to say to you, bother you.

It wasn’t until you got outside the club while the girl, her lover, and their openly gay friend waited for their other group of friends, that things went left very fast. You couldn’t remember what the conversation was even about but she tried to throw a sneak slap your way after throwing a drink over her lover. The bleeding nose? Came from the other friend accidentally elbowing your nose as he got in front of you, trying to block the girl from charging at you. What made it worse was the smile never left your face, blood dripping into your teeth; it was taunting her and you were all drunk.

You were happy and she was pressed on your born day, big yikes!

The girl needed to love herself and you wished her well until she thought it was okay to spit at you. It landed on your heels and that’s when you all got to scrapping to tinashe’s, “link up” playing outside of the club. You were good though, only cuts and bruises from the scuffle but you can’t speak for ‘ol girl, after she got her ass nicely beat, you rolled out to get some gelato before going back to the hotel.

That Sunday afternoon you all had brunch and went your separate ways, agreeing to link up again for the next birthday in December for Caroline.

It was two days later after your very eventful birthday that you treated yourself to your LASIK surgery appointment which EZ took you to and from. You’ve been stuck with glasses since freshman year of high school and then switching between that and contacts since your second year of college…you were what? Twenty-eight now? So enough was really enough in your opinion and you’ve been waiting for this moment since you’ve been confirmed as a great candidate for this procedure.

On October 28th, it was your last day off of work and you would be returning tomorrow. After your procedure you were required to return back the next day and thankfully your doctor said you were healing nicely but to still take your drops. Deciding to stick with the festive season you thought of the perfect idea as you laid out on the floor waiting for Ez to grant you with his presence.

He stepped out about fifteen minutes ago to get the both of you dinner and should be back soon. You got yourself comfortable on the bathroom rug for awhile before you heard the front door open. You pushed yourself away from the rug in front of the tub and laid yourself out on the tile after grabbing your prescribed eye drops.

“baby, I’m back!” You heard Ez call out to you.

Your stomach growled which made you squeeze your belly, “imma feed you just give me five sis.”

It didn’t take long for Ez to come looking for you. He peeked around the bathroom door calling out your name again before he fully kicked it open, seeing you on the floor.

“Y/n?!” Ez softly pressed his fingers into the side of your neck before cupping your face, “oh man, look at you, you’re bleeding.”

He let go of you to eye the blood on the edge of the sink that matched the blood on your forehead. Ez quickly snatched the towel hanging from it and dapped at your forehead before calling your name again.

You took your time answering with ez pulling you up into his lap still tapping your face to get you to wake up.

“Ezekiel,” you greeted opening your eyes into slits to stare up at this beautiful hopeless man before your gaze shifted around the bathroom, “…I see dead people.”

Ez paused as you kept a straight face, your eyes moving around the room. He followed your movements doing the same to look around the bathroom himself. He didn’t see what you were seeing?

“I think you hit your head a little too hard, mi amor.” Ez ran his knuckles against your cheek.

You swallowed thinking to yourself before saying, “there’s someone else in here with us right now. They’re by the window…and i don’t know what he wants. I know he’s been here watching over me since I fell trying to put my drops in.”

“Y/n…I’m gonna get you up now and to the bedroom.” Ez was started to get a little creeped out, since he tried to convince himself that it was just the wind blowing by the window…even though he knew it was closed.

The next thing he needed was you telling him you saw his mom and then he wouldn’t think twice about getting the hell outta here. He was trying to be patient with you and part of him was still hopeful this was just you talking like this because of a minor head injury.

“He doesn’t want us to leave.”

“He who? The man by the window?”

You slowly dipped your head.

Ez took a deep breath looking by the window. The thirty year old did not feel as if he needed to ask some ghost if he could leave his own bathroom but ez knew how to respect the dead. If you said you were currently seeing something in this room with the both of you right now, who was he to question it? He always thought this duplex was a little sketch in the first place.

“Alright,” Ez cradled you to his chest, “mr. ghost…I would very much appreciate it if you would let y/n and I leave so I can provide her with the proper care she desperately needs.”

Bless his heart.

The bathroom fell silent and Ez turned back to you. You quickly shifted your eyes back towards the window and replied with a shaky breath, “he says we can go but he won’t leave for good until…”

“Until what?” Ez asked, a furrow set in his brows.

You suddenly reached out to wipe the blood against Ez’s cheek and onto his lips, “until he takes your soul!”

Ez huffed as he noticed a crooked smile curve out onto your full lips. “That’s not funny.”

“I think I deserve a boscar.”

Ez used the shoulder part of his shirt to wipe off the fake blood you just put on his face, “a what?”

“Oscar award for black people since the those awards seem to be made for only one group.” You sighed as you sat up, feeling your vision adjust.

Ez tilted his head to the side—not arguing with that idea.

“I can’t believe I was starting to fall for that.”

You crossed your legs to sit in front of ez who had his legs pulled upwards. You reached forward to squeeze his knees, “I just had to pull a prank.”

“Why? I don’t play with the dead. You don’t ever have to question if I’m a believer.” Ez replied.

You shrugged, “all in good fun, baby love. It’s my birthday month, so—

“You think you can do whatever you want,” Ez mumbled holding his head back to stare up at the ceiling with a sigh, “I was strongly considering throwing you in the trunk and taking you back to the doctor to let him give you back your original fucked up eyes.”

“Hey!” You slapped his knee and shook out your hand at the stinging sensation, “you’d rather me blind than seeing dead people with clear vision?”

Ez didn’t hesitate, “absolutely.”

“Wow, mom was right when she said men ain’t shit.” You shook your head.

Ez laughed, “I go out to bring you carne asada and I come back to you playing around about ghost and I ain’t shit?”

“Love how we’re always on the same page, honey.” You leaned forward for a kiss.

Ez gave you his hand to kiss lightly shoving your head to the side. You gasped as you fell over to the side while Ez got to his feet.

“How about you stay here with your new ghost man for dinner while i go out there with my new girlfriend, huh?” Ez teased you as you scrambled to get to your feet.

He closed the door behind you, holding onto the doorknob to prevent you from coming out.

“Ez.” You whined, “Have a laugh.”

“I am laughing right about now.” Ez was smug from the other side, “do you still see him?”

You crossed your arms as your belly growled.

“You’re about to see thriller if you don’t let me out of this bathroom to eat.”

“Is that another threat, y/n?”

“Call it what you want. Let me out.”

“Not until you apologize for that weak prank.”

“Weak? You said you were close to believing it!”

“You don’t think I know the difference between real and fake blood?”

He had you there.

“Whatever, fine. Let me eat.”

“That doesn’t sound like sorry.”

“Fine! I’m sorry.”

“Eh…”

“Ezekiel!”

He laughed letting go of the door, grinning at you as you glared at him going to swipe at his head but he caught your wrist, “Uh uh, face it. I win and you lose.”

“Not for long, I have three days left.”

“If you tell me you have other tricks up your sleeve then I’m definitely keeping my guard up.” He tugged you forward to rest an arm around your waist as the both of you went around the house back to the dining room.

You hummed inhaling the food that lingered through the air, “looks like this means a prank war.”

“Just know, I still love you.”

You plopped down at the nook as Ez finished pulling out the remaining items from the bag.

“I’m not really feeling that response, Ezekiel.”

Ez sent his own award winning smile your way leaning forward to press a kiss to your forehead, “good, now you know I’m serious and you have no idea what you just started.”

Maybe you didn’t but did that mean you were shaking in your boots? Hell no, it was your season not Ezekiel Reyes’ and you thought he already knew that.

Guess you’d have to show him what you were really made of.

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Continue along with my October anthology prompts here