#how are they gonna get the whole theoretical second book and a happy ending and other stuff related to season two

[the-lesbian-orpheus]

ONLY ONE??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN ONLY ONE 😭

[littlegiantposts]

movie night

pairing: todoroki x f!reader

warning: strong language probably. possible anime/manga spoilers! grammar mistakes :( I suck at writing

summary: It’s not that Y/n didn’t want friends, it’s just people always found her intimidating

a/n: this is completely self-indulgent lol sorry about that, so like yeah I’m gonna be saying y/n, but also i am deriving her personality, attitude, looks from a character that I’ve sort of made up in my head haha. also idk if this is like a headcanon, imagine, or like a scenaro....so sorry. And like, sort of a side note, I love making main characters that are like sorta op so y/n’s quirk and story is sorta insane, but you guys dont really have to worry about it too much because its not really in this so....yeah, i guess its just some context. I wrote this while listening to a playlist I made, titled, “ur a badass hero with class 1-a” on spotify so if ppl wanna hear it, I will post a link to it lol. OH and class 1-a are in their second year! That’s a lot, sorry! But, I hope you enjoy!

y/n’s quirk (if ur curious): controlling the 4 elements (aang from the last airbender vibe lmao); but she also got a companion named koda (think of Moro-no-kimi from Princess Mononoke for the look) 

Y/n was never good at making friends. It’s not like she didn’t try, because she did. When she was a little kid, living on Catalina Island, she made a lot of attempts to make friends with fellow children in her pre-school and middle school. It just seemed that they wanted nothing to do with her, talking bad about her behind her back or acting as if she just didn’t exist. 

It started to get exhausting for Y/n to keep trying and ending up always failing. So, when enrolling in the top hero school, UA, Y/n thought that maybe, just maybe, things would be different. 

Nonetheless, it’s not like she had absolutely no one. She had Koda! Her best friend in the whole wide world, well her only friend, which was her pet wolf. However, Koda doesn’t like being called a “pet”, let’s stick with her companion. They are quite the inseparable duo. 

Y/n looked down at Koda from her desk who was lulling herself to sleep on the floor as Present Mic was teaching an English lesson. Y/n wished she too can sleep at this moment, “It wouldn’t hurt if I just closed my eyes for just a couple minutes.” Y/n thought. Oh, she was wrong though.

“Alright! We are going take a short break since we need to get our new textbooks,” Present Mic’s voice rang through her ears with all his elongation and passion, “Y/n and Todoroki! What about you two go get the books from the library!” Y/n would have jolted at the mention of her face, but she was honestly too tired to do so. 

She nodded her head, got up from her desk, and looked at Koda if he was going to follow her. Of course, he perked up at the mention of her name and was going with her. A small smile was now on Y/n’s lips. Y/n was glad that she knew she can depend on Koda, always in her corner.

As she pushed her chair away from her desk, getting up and walking towards the door, she didn’t realize that most of the class was either looking at her or the half and half boy, for he had to endure the trip with the enigma that is Y/n. 

The class just doesn’t know Y/n that well. She was one of the new students this year, along with Shinso. However, they at least knew of Shinso from last year. Y/n was a  brand-spanking new addition to the class. Not to mention, her introduction to the class was nothing short of intimidating.

Aizawa knew Y/n had a lot of strengths. In fact, he used her skills as a type of learning lesson for the class. Not to mention, he completely singled her out during the “lesson” as he instructed the class that Y/n will have a bell that is tied around her belt. All they had to do was get the bell. Y/n, being the competitive person she was, didn’t back down at this challenge. Safe to say, no one was able to get the bell that day.

Y/n sighed at the memory. “Maybe, if you had some chill, you would be able to get a friend, Y/n” a voice in her head said, causing Y/n’s shoulders to shrink and her hands to be stuffed into her pockets. (Yes, she has pockets with her uniform. Yes, she’s still wearing the school uniform skirt. She sowed pockets into them for this very habit.) 

“Uh, hey wait up.” a deeper voice called, already identifying who it is.

Y/n turned to right, looking at Koda for a brief second. From far away, one would think he was just grimacing, but as Y/n was closer, she can see he was very close to full-on growling at the sound of his voice.

Koda doesn’t really like Todoroki and Y/n always found it funny. Koda found everyone else real entertaining. As much as Koda was a wolf, he really was a people’s person. If Y/n didn’t know any better, it seemed Koda had a better relationship with her classmates than she actually did.

Y/n adopted a tired smile as she reacted to Koda’s growling at Shoto. She then looked behind her, seeing Todoroki jog lightly towards her. Her small smile soon faded away.

“Even if you try again to be a friend, you know that people will always end up fearing you.” Y/n honestly wanted to bang her head against a wall because this annoying voice was truly the bane of her existence. 

Y/n stopped in her tracks. Koda made eye-contact with her, almost telepathically asking her, “Why are you stopping for him?!”.

“I may be aloof, but I have to at least be polite.” Y/n told her wolf companion. Koda only let out a breathe of frustration as he also stopped as well.

Todoroki soon caught up to the duo and was on Y/n’s left side. And the three began their trek to the school library.

There was some silence.

For Todoroki, it was so awkward. “Why don’t you say something to her?” he asks himself, “Or are you going to let another opportunity slip?”

You see, Shoto Todoroki admired Y/n. She was incredibly skilled with her quirk. She was confident, but not arrogant. She was an innovator, while still accepting old principles. She was naturally smart, but always open to learning. To him, she was so balanced. He couldn’t help himself as the admiration started to soon feel like a crush on the dark haired girl.

For Y/n, she didn’t think anything of the silence. In fact, she was grateful for the silence. More silence, means less time for talking. Less chance of Y/n making a fool out of herself.

“You seem more tired than usual. Trained a lot yesterday, I presume?” And Todoroki broke the silence that Y/n was trying to insist.

“Yeah, trying out a new technique with my water.”

Y/n was surprised.

She really could have been more blunt with her answer.

Theoretically, all she really had to respond with was a “yeah”, but she decided to add that last part.

Why? Why did she feel inclined to go into more detail? Now, Y/n was confused. 

“That’s cool.” Todoroki wanted to hit himself in the head. “That’s all you got to say? What a conversation this is” Shoto mentally sighs. He feels like his heart is going to burst at how fast its going. 

“I’m actually trying to freeze it, but that turns out to be harder than expected,” Y/n almost slapped her hand on her mouth.

Why is she going into more detail? This doesn’t make sense. She’s been quite blunt lately when people try to talk to her, so what gives?

Is it Todoroki, himself? “Maybe he put a spell on me or something.” Y/n didn’t think the “icy-hot bastard” would dabble in witchcraft, but things were just not adding up in Y/n’s mind. All these thoughts woke Y/n right up, ridding herself of her tiredness. 

As for Todoroki, his mind was going into overdrive. “She’s having trouble with freezing water? She must know that this is my specialty. Is this her way of spending time with me? Does this mean the feelings I have for her are mutual? Perhaps, we can train together and I can help her with freezing.” The mere thought of spending time with Y/n outside of class made his cheeks warm up. 

He was an absolute love-struck fool for Y/n. 

“Oh, we’re here.” Y/n stated the obvious as they stand in front of the school’s library, halting Shoto’s mental mumbling, which almost resembled one of Midoryia’s ever-present babbling. 

Shoto Todoroki immediately shot his arm forward to open the door for Y/n, but Y/n was thinking the same thing and they reached for the same handle.

Their hands touch. 

And Todoroki thinks he can die happy now. Y/n’s hand is so soft. Much to his dismay, Y/n immediately drew her hand back as if his hand was scalding hot water. 

Y/n mumbled a quick “sorry” and places her hand on the other handle as there are two doors to the library, she opens it and immediately walks through it as Koda follows in tow. Koda dawns an absolute confused look as he didn’t know what the hell that interaction was about.

The actual task of getting the books aren’t that hard. In fact, it was an easy and quick task.

So, why is this causing Y/n’s mind and heart feeling like they are overheating.

As they walk back to the classroom with stacks of textbooks, Y/n thought, “Okay, there’s no way in hell that he will try to talk to me again, especially after that awkward incident. Now, let’s breakdown why the actual hell you acted that way, Y/n.” She mentally scolded herself like she was a child. 

Todoroki, as always, had a different plan and decided to continue the conversation, “You know, if you need help with freezing water, I can always help you since that is part of my quirk.”

Y/n has officially short-circuited.

He is voluntarily asking? Voluntarily. Asking?

Asking if Y/n wanted to train together?

This has never happened before, and she doesn’t know how to respond. “I would like that. I typically train in the morning and sometimes after school” is what Y/n felt like saying. It is as if her mind and mouth were working against each other.

However, Y/n’s thoughts were cut short as she heard the chatter of some of her fellow classmates. They three of them were very close to their classroom as their door to the room was wide open. 

“Hey guys, if we’re having a movie night tonight, do you think we should invite Y/n?”

It was Midoryia who asked the question. Y/n, Shoto, and Koda stopped dead in their tracks at the mention of her name. Shoto and Koda looked at Y/n with a worried expression. For her own good, she probably shouldn’t be listening, but she couldn’t help but be curious of her classmates’ plan in regards to her.

“It’s not that we don’t want her there. It’s just that, who is up for asking her?”

Silence. No one responded to the question.

Koda notices how Y/n’s grip on the textbooks tightened. Shoto noticed how your head was now titled downward, hiding your face.

“She’s just so intimidating. And not to mention that training exercise we did when we first met her. She’s sort of scary, to be honest.”

“Scary. You’re scary, Y/n. Terrifying.” She couldn’t help but repeat her classmates’ thought of her. She was just torturing herself at this point. No point in dwelling on first impressions, but as this is affecting her current relationship, or lack thereof, with her classmates, she couldn’t help it.

“Y/n-” Todoroki tries to interject before Y/n gets the wrong idea.

But, it’s too late.

“No, it’s fine. Thanks for the offer though, Todoroki.” Y/n’s words were slow. As much as her brain was going a million miles per hour, her mouth was evidently slower as her breathing was heavier.

She wanted to disappear, or at least get swallowed by the ground. She kept her head down as she strode into the classroom. Her classmates being oblivious to Y/n’s knowledge of what they truly think of her, paying no attention to her.

Shoto was basically frozen in place, next to the door, but he gained composure and walked in the class as well, a couple seconds after. Y/n quickly placed her books on the front desk where Present Mic sat behind of, she sat back in her seat that was in the back of the class.

Y/n watched how Shoto was still standing in front of the classroom as he was stopped by his classmates. Now, they were just chatting, probably talking about the upcoming movie night.

Y/n felt jealousy bubble up inside her. She wished she can chat like how Shoto was effortlessly talking away to his classmates. Or how Midoryia stopped him with such ease to talk about a social event.

Y/n yearned for some friendly interaction. That’s what she wanted when coming to UA. 

She wanted to be normal. As normal as she could be. A normal teenager.

“Things don’t always go according to plan, huh?” Y/n pouted and placed her head on her desk and just waited patiently till the school day was over.

Koda worriedly looked at Y/n. “She’s going to want to train after this. And I bet she’s going to push herself harder because of today.” Koda knew Y/n very well. Knew her like the back of his hand, well, paw. 

And, Koda was right. Y/n was in gym gamma, completely exhausted. Sweat covered her body as her muscles were screaming at her take a break. Her labored breathe continued as her body was trying its best to keep up.

Y/n was frustrated. “Why? Why am I like this?” she kept repeating like a mantra.

“I want to be normal. Why can’t I be like them?”

“Why?”

“You’re a monster. It’s actually quite simple.”

Y/n threw a punch with her fist encased in water, and it wasn’t until after that punch was thrown, she realized that there was now an evident hole in the thick, solid concrete wall. 

Y/n fell to her knees. Koda hurriedly made his way to her, making sure she didn’t do anything too stupid. Once Koda was close, she was doing something unexpected. 

She was crying. 

Hot streams, cascading down her face. She started to hiccup, her breathing erratic. “A-am I scary to you, Koda?” her voice was so small.

Koda nudged his way in between her legs and nestled his head into her neck. Y/n, full on sobbing now, wraps her arms around Koda and her cries are muffled by his fur. Wailing and self-deprecating questions can be faintly heard from her if anyone were to enter the gym.

A couple minutes passed. Y/n’a breathing returned to a calm rhythm.

“Thanks, Koda. I needed that,” Y/n sniffles, “C’mon let’s go make dinner, I’ll whip you up something special for putting up with me today.” Koda’s tail immediately began to wag at the thought of Y/n’s cooking.

Y/n was an independent person. She likes doing things on her own as much as can. She doesn’t eat the food from the school cafeteria, instead, she opts for making her and Koda’s meals from the kitchen that is provided to them in their dormitory. And indeed, she made a delicious dinner for both of them. 

Now, the hard part. Because of how long her training took, showering, and making dinner, Y/n knew that her classmates were in the common space already, probably preparing to have their movie night. And, she had to pass them. It was a short distance, short walk, Y/n was trying to reassure herself. Just walk straight towards to the elevator and you’re safe.

Y/n takes a deep breathe and walks out of the kitchen. The chatter of her classmates emerges to her ears, but as she walks towards the elevator, the chatter dies down.

“Oh no.” Y/n’s eyes widened in fear. “Way to go on ruining the mood, Y/n.”

Thankfully, the elevator was quick and the doors slide open, making an easy escape for Y/n and Koda. She let out a breathe she didn’t even realize she was holding in as the doors slid shut. Y/n looks at Koda, who was already looking at her, “It’s better this way, anyway” Y/n didn’t know if she was telling Koda that, or herself.

On the other side of the elevator’s doors, her classmates collectively let out a sigh, “Well that was another chance we wasted.” Kaminari was the first to break the awkward silence.

“Tch. Like any of you have the guts to actually ask her.” Bakugo chimed in.

“Oh please, Bakugo, I know she intimidates you, too.” Mina fired back.

“Whatever.”

“She heard you guys.” Todoroki suddenly talked. Everyone casted their attention to him, “Earlier today, I mean. She heard you guys when you were talking about inviting her to movie night.” 

The once light-hearted atmosphere in the room was now tilted with guilt.

“She heard all that?” Midoryia incredulously asked, only imagining what you would be feeling because of their words.

“She must feel terrible.” Ochaco openly voiced her thoughts.

“She probably hates us.” Kirishima adds in.

“She means well, I promise. I think we just need to give her a chance.” Todoroki tries to reason with his classmates.

“First, we need to apologize.” Midoryia proposes as he looks among his classmates. His classmates collectively nod their heads in agreement

“You’re right. Well, good luck Midoryia.” Kaminari pats his back as encouragement. Everyone else either gives an encouraging smile or a thumbs up.

“Ha?! What?! You guys already decided that I’m going to be the one to apologize?” Izuku was flailing his arm around and was checking everyone else’s reaction.

“Well, yes. It’s your idea and you are one of the most apologetic people here.” Iida explained to an overthinking Midoryia.

After regaining composure, he realized that this was probably the best option, “Okay, I’ll, I’ll go now.”

Midoryia makes his way to Y/n’s dorm room. He was nervous. He only had very limited interactions with Y/n. So, he really didn’t know what to expect. Before he knew it, he was before your door.

On the other side, Y/n was chowing down on her food. She took a swig of her water, “So, how’s the food? I tried a new technique on roasting the veggies.” Y/n babbled on for a bit, but she realized that Koda’s plate was hardly touched. Her gaze landed on Koda who was sitting on her bed with a very obvious frown, staring at the door. Y/n immediately knew why.

“Hey, if you wanna go hangout with them, I can push the buttons on the elevator for you-”

Koda was irritated at how difficult Y/n was being, she can just ask them if she can join. It was simple. Koda used his mouth to latch on to Y/n’s sleeve and started to drag her to her dorm’s door. 

“H-hey Koda! Not cool, man! You know, I can’t go down there.” Y/n tugs her sleeve away from Koda. 

Koda turned to his last resort. He did his signature pout. 

“Oh, please. You know that stopped working on me awhile ago. Besides, we can have our own movie night, right?” Y/n tried to reason, but her reasoning just felt sad.

Before Y/n could step away from her dorm’s door, she heard a knock. The two quickly tuned their heads at the door as if something miraculous just happened.

Y/n took one step toward the door. 

“It’s Midoryia.” Koda began to wag his tail, “don’t get your hopes up too quickly.”

Y/n opened the door only a slit for her head to poke out, “Oh, hi Midoryia. Is something wrong?” she asks.

“U-um, no nothings wrong.” he responds as nerves start to take over and he doesn’t continue on.

“Okay.” With that, Y/n closed her door. Koda wanted to scratch his eyes out. This was her chance! For someone who was the top student in her class, she was so stupid. “He didn’t want anything. Sorry to disappoint, Koda-” another knock interrupted her.

She looked at the door, “It’s still Midoryia.” Koda rolled his eyes.

Y/n went to to open the door, again, only opening a bit, “Yes, Midoryia? You sure something isn’t wrong?”

“Uh, well I was wondering if we can talk for a bit.”

“Oh, yeah sure.” Y/n stepped out of her door, and shutting it.

However, Koda was right on her trail, but was shut out by the now closed door. He pouts at the door. And how holds his ear to the door, interested in the conversation that has yet to come.

“So, what’s up?” Y/n asked the green-haired boy.

“I, we, as a class, wanted to apologize for our words today.” Midoryia spoke in a remorseful and quiet tone.

Y/n was taken back. “So, they know that I heard what they were saying? Must have been Todoroki’s doing.”

“Look, it’s fine. I know I’m intimidating-“

“But it’s not fine. We shouldn’t have treated or talked about you that way.”

Y/n was stunned at his words. He took that as a sign to continue, “and we were hoping, if you’d be okay if we start over and become friends.”

Y/n remained cautious with her walls, “You know, friendship isn’t really a perquisite for this course.”

“Of course, I know that. We all do, but it doesn’t hurt to have them, right?”

Y/n felt like tearing up. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to put her trust in that last statement of his. 

“I’ll be be down in 5 minutes,” Y/n stated rather blandly, but it didn’t matter to Midoryia.

“Great! See ya!” He waved and started to head back to the elevator, before he pressed the button, Y/n called him once more,

“Midoryia?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” and nods his head. He couldn’t be more thrilled that this will all work out.

As for Y/n, she opened her door to her dorm, and closing it as she stepped inside.

As soon as she was in the comfort of her own room, she broke into her happy dance. Her fists clenched, eyes shut, shoulders scrunched, jumping in the air, squeals make their way pass her lips, with the biggest smile on her face

Koda felt a wave of relief of wash over him. He was glad that she was finally experiencing acceptance. 

After the moment passes, Y/n sighs and looks at Koda, ruffling his fur on the top of his head.

“Well, shall we?” Y/n said in an extravagant manner as she opened her door and bowed.

Koda, playing along, held his head high and strutted out. Y/n let out a light-hearted laugh and they made their way down, together.

Once Y/n actually made it to the common room, all of her classmates were looking at her, stopping their conversations as well. The confidence that Y/n help was long gone, feeling now awkward yet again.

However, the silence didn’t last too long as the class enveloped her in boisterous apologies, hugs, and pats on the back. 

To say Y/n was overwhelmed was understatement. She had never been around these many people, giving attention towards her. It was new territory she had yet to cross. 

“Guys, you should probably let her breathe.”

That was Todoroki. Y/n pried her eyes away from Mina who was asking what conditioner she uses, and looked at Shoto. Y/n mouthed a “thank you” and he simply nodded.

The class went back to their seats, muttering apologies again for getting in her personal space.

Now, Y/n faced yet another problem:

Where is she going to sit?!

She kept standing where she stood for a good couple seconds, scanning the area for any good spots.

However, there was actually only one spot open. And, it just happen to be next to Todoroki. 

Y/n mentally prepared herself and started her path towards him. Of course, Shoto knew this. He was the one who made sure he saved a seat right next to him just for this occasion.

But things don’t always go according to plan, right?

Rightly so, right before Y/n could take the unaccompanied seat, Denki was coming back from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn, plopping right down on the seat.

“Oh, hey Y/n! I’m glad you made it! You want some popcorn?”

“No, I’m good, thanks though.” Y/n was able to play it off as she chose to sit on the floor in front of the couch, which coincidentally was in front of the seat that Shoto resided. 

Shoto was irritated. He wanted you to sit next to him. For crying out loud, that was the whole reason he had this seat open in the first place. All he does is sigh, catching Y/n’s attention.

Y/n turns back to Todoroki, sending a small smile his way, but then turning back to the screen as her fellow classmates were arguing on what to watch.

Y/n put her hand to her chest. This is weird. Why is her heart rate so high? She’s not usually like this. Maybe Todoroki did cast a spell on her.

Y/n couldn’t think about it too much as the movie began playing.

[bunnyinthestars]

Adrien is definitely gonna take Emilie’s place in a coma (A Theory)

Yeah so I mean the title of this is exactly what I’m pretty sure is gonna happen. This is because there has been a huge load of foreshadowing and some other subtler reasons I will be going over in this post. Of course, there’s always a chance it won’t happen, but if it didn’t I think I’d be pretty surprised considering just the amount of evidence thats going into this.

(Also sorry ahead of time for the structure of this, I tried to structure this based on my specific reasons for this theory but I kind of went off on tangents in some places and in others I use ideas that I assume come with the theory and don’t necessarily fit into any specific reason (like Emilie coming back to life and what would happen there, why Adrien and not Nathalie, and loosely how theyd get Adrien out of the coma), although I mosty stick to the structure I still want to add this disclaimer just so you’re aware that I wrote this in one go at midnight (also wait right now its 12:10am it is now ten minutes into my birthday??? ok ignoring that))

I dont know man. Just consider what I have to say. Or dont. I will be listing my reasons starting now.

1. Imagery of Adrien being in comatose state/ in a coffin-like thing.

This is surprisingly common??? Off the top of my head I can think of Style Queen and Riposte (I believe) which involve this. In Style Queen, Audrey in the form of her akumatized self had essentially kidnapped Adrien and put him in this gold/glass coffin thing that disintegrated the longer it remained untouched. The other one is Riposte, where Ladybug hides Adrien in that big sarcophogus in the Louvre (he didn’t stay in it but still the imagery is there.)

I also just remembered in Chameleon when Lila took Adrien’s form he was asleep/in a comatose state in that locker and Plagg was like “aw man am I gonna have to kiss him.....” but then Adrien wakes up because Lila stole someone else’s form

EDIT: another instance of Adrien/Chat Noir being shoved into a sarcophagus (besides Riposte) is in Pharaoh in season 1

So yes there is definitely a good number of foreshadowing for this. I might take this further and say if Adrien were to go comatose and be in the coffin Emilie was in then Felix might replace him for some amount of time?? Like impersonate him amd stuff?? Just because there’s lots of stuff in the show with impersonation I feel like it could work aNYWAY BACK TO THE EVIDENCE I KNOW ITS A TANGENT

2. Possible evidence foreshadowing Emilie *inadvertantly* killing (not killing but making comatose you get it) Adrien

This one is not as strong as the first but its worth considering. I was googling the word “mayura” just out of curiosity a while back and basically its a peacock in Hindu stories (like peacocks are a kinda revered animal) and I just initially found a couple websites that said that the mayura has been depicted eating a snake as a symbol of the cycle of time (you dont have to read this part in parenthesis, its just kind of a tangent: the cycle of time as known in Hinduism is another aspect of Hinduism directly referenced in the show: the horse/space miraculous kwami Kaalki’s name is a reference to the prophecied tenth avatar/reincarnation of the god Vishnu, and he is referenced in the Kalachakra tantra which is basically a Hindu book about the cycle of time. Keep in mind I got all this from wikipedia and other internet websites, I do not practice Hinduism and I dont directly know anybody who does, so if any of this is wrong pls lmk because there is surprisingly not a lot of information on the internet about it from what I could tell)

So anyways yes peacock (mayura) eating snake representing the cycle of time. Both Luka and Adrien are represented in the show as the snake, but ultimately I think the snake here represents Adrien just because it makes more sense (Snake Noir, future Alix’s tattoo depicts a snake to be Adrien and is meant to represent Adrinette, Adrien just has some shifty stuff going on with the snake in general etc) and thus, if Gabriel manages to actually get the ladybug and black cat miraculouses and make the wish to bring Emilie to life, then this “mayura” analogy (assuming Emilie as the mayura in this scenario) would make sense if her life brought upon Adrien losing his.

The reason I dont think it would refer to Nathalie even though her official name is Mayura is for pretty much two sub-reasons. The first is that I think she is going to die before this wish happens. I know, its a kids show, whatever, but consider it. The Agreste/Graham de Vanily family has a trend of having opposite names [I am so sorry I literally first heard this from a tumblr user but I cannot remember who I just remember they had made a string of theories on why Emilie Agreste will not be who she seems to be so credit to them I did not discover that] for example the name Gabriel means hero/angel, Felix means happy/fortunate, Adrien means dark, etc, and Nathalie Sancoeur means “birthday (of Christ)” and “heartless” respectively. We already know she is not heartless but rather full of heart because she has fallen in love with Gabriel. So then,,,,,,,,,, the opposite of birth is death. She’s already shown to be pretty sick too despite the peacock miraculous having been “fixed” (as of the New York special being the most recent piece of content). I’m sorry guys I do not make the rules

stop why his face look like that though

The second part of why I think this is a little stupid but. The original art released by Jeremy Zag for Mayura does not look like Nathalie. Plus this art was only released under the name of “the Peacock” (originally Le Paon in French) so it might not actually be the Mayura we know as of now. Now, theoretically, it could be that they had made this art before they knew they wanted Nathalie to be Mayura or just as art depicting what Emilie would have been like as the peacock miraculous holder, and it could literally just be Nathalie. When you compare the images, though, the original Mayura art looks far more like Emilie and a lot less like Nathalie. Yes I am aware this is stupid just know this is only a minor point

I dont know man those faces do not look the same to me and the original Mayura definitely had Emilie’s eye shape and face shape in mind. They might’ve changed it after making the concept art but my point still stands

Ok next reasoning

Again not a very strong point but sometimes dialogue just implies things in Miraculous and I can think of a very specific quote that would fit this happening, and there are probably more that I just dont know to look for since I dont have this whole show memorized

So the quote is from Startrain after Gabriel loses control of the akuma then learns about the Startrain having been akumatized with Adrien on board, and he says “hoping that my enemies will save my son..... how ironic.” When I first heard this quote I really, really felt like it was foreshadowing something just based on his tone and the way this new idea was being introduced of him having to be on the same side as Ladynug and Chat Noir for once, even if it was just temporary. This quote absolutely is indicative to me of a future event in which he’ll have to work with his “enemies” to save his son. A situation in which Adrien is in comatose would perfectly align with this. At least for how I would predict the show would make it, Gabriel would have to turn away from Emilie (who represents the past for him, and this action would therefore represent moving on) and join forces with Ladybug/Marinette, his “enemy”, to save Adrien.

Onto the last reason!

Emilie is probably definitely coming back. Which means someone’s going into a coma in her place.

I mean come on it would be so anticlimactic if they just caught Gabe before he fulfilled his wish. Plus with the way they are outlining Emilie to be this perfect golden being is definitely because its going to far contrast with how she will actually turn out. This doesnt really support the Adrien thing in particular but honestly it would also be anticlimactic of the coma was for anyone else. If it was Nathalie, then yeah itd suck for Adrien I guess but like???? Doesn’t really connect the plots as much. Whereas if its Adrien, that brings Marinette into it, that gives her a powerful as heck conflict. Im guessing they would also somehow resolve his coma with “the power of love” mentioned in the theme song, just because of the foreshadowing with like waking someone up with a true love’s kiss (think Plagg in Chameleon, I guess the rose in Style Queen, maybe Alya’s story to Manom in Stormy Weather if we’re strecthing it....)

TL;DR: Adrien is probably gonna go comatose (like Emilie did) at some point because its been pretty foreshadowed (think Style Queen, Riposte, and even Chameleon), because of the legend surrounding the Hindu “mayura” peacock eating a snake representing time (wow that was not a sentence ok then), because Gabriel has previously foreshadowed having to work with his enemies to save his son, and also just because it would be super awesome and allow each character involved to have a pretty fulfilling conflict and arc.

(all images from the miraculous ladybug wiki excluding the piece of art depicting the mayura which is from murugan.org)

I hope however took the time to read this post enjoyed this theory, sometimes I have really random yet detailed theories regarding this show and I wanted to share this one because if I’m right then this will be proof I had predicted it, also you guys could possibly elaborate on it. I’m all for friendly discussions folks fr

If this doesn’t end up happening the theory is still awesome and they should have done it, and if it does my ego will probably expand and hopefully they will make it as awesome as it seems like it would be. Sorry if the structure of this post is not great, but thank you for reading. I appreciate you, have a wonderful week :)

[resplendentgoldenwings]

The Hope That is You II

So I’ve been meaning to do a longer post about the series finale of Disco but honestly I’ve just really been sort of absorbing it and the two previous episodes these last few weeks. Anyway here are my thoughts.

I haven’t seen much talk about the actions sequences (and yes I know Star Trek isn’t about fight scenes and shit but sometimes it is). Man I loved that shit, ok. Sonequa is a great physical actor and Michael is obviously a very physical person. That whole turbo lift scene was just blew my mind. Like grrrl what is you doin’? I love that Michael is just that fucking brave and bold and physical and terrifying and just out here kickin’ ass and takin’ names. There have certainly been better action scenes and fight scenes in shows but the intensity of that one- I loved it!

Watching her and Book handle Zareh and Ossrya was like yessss! Queen. From “Up here you sonofabitch!” to “No win scenarios, I don’t believe in those.” I was one super happy fangir!

After There is a Tide, I kinda wanted Ossyra to live and hang around for a while. I felt like the episode added some interesting depth to the character, especially since she was being somewhat honest and perhaps genuinely willing to be not horrible. Then Wednesday happened and we still have leaders quibbling about whether or not a certain megalomaniac should be impeached or put on trial because “maybe it’s divisive, maybe it’s not expedient and we need to heal” blah, blah, blah!

 Meanwhile that ass-hole is still making threats and we’re gonna live with what he stirred up for a long time (truthfully I don’t think I’ll rest easily as long as he’s alive, the piece of shit) so it was nice to see a leader who knew and understood what needed to happen, and even nicer to see that tyrant get what the fuck she deserved in the end. It may not be the Star Trek we want but damn if it ain’t the Star Trek we fucking need. 

It was also really great to see the crew working together, to  learn more about Joann and have that moment of Michael and Sylvia’s friendship be so helpful.  Also Joann and Kayla, a couple? Y/N

Book can fly the ship, woohooo!I know some people were a bit confused about the fact that Book could just fly it immediately but the way I understand it Stamets added the tardigrade DNA to his own and that allowed him to navigate the mycelial network itself. Book as an empath wouldn’t be able to navigate the network but the network is an intelligence of a sort that he could communicate with and ask for help. Like how he and his brother asked the locust to go somewhere else.

One moment that really stood out to me was when the crew reunited with Michael on the bridge and Tilly asks Michael to lead them, saying that they all wanted her to take charge. Tilly is radiating so much defeat here and while I was happy to see Michael taking charge I felt so bad for her.

First she never should have been put in that position and second while I think there were things she could have done differently in that moment it seems like even a more experienced officer would have lost the ship under those circumstance. I also caught Michael reacting to it and I hope Tilly’s now damaged confidence is revisited going into s4.

Speaking of Tilly not being ready for command who is Michael’s first officer going to be? I’ve seen two suggestions that I really like. Hugh Culber or Jett Reno.

 Jett Reno is my fave suggestion because I think she would serve as a great counter balance. Michael is level headed but extremely passionate and her emotions run deep. Reno is super steady and I think Michael would benefit from a really, steady down to earth first officer. Unfortunately this won’t be happening Tig Notaro, the actress who plays Reno, doesn’t want to take on a full-time gig, damn it.

Hugh Culber has a similar steadiness but such warmth, compassion and patience that he would be a great support and sounding board for Captain Burnham. And we already have another doctor who takes charges in the sickbay and Dr. McCoy was 3rd in command on the Enterprise if Bones can do it than so can Culber. 

These are my two favorite suggestions. Someone also suggested Owosekun which makes sense and it would give us the chance to get to know the character more. We could go with an outside hire which also makes sense. Discovery should have a liaison officer from the 32nd century. Sure they can look up information in the computer but having someone on hand who knows the places, the politics, the history would theoretically make things go more smoothly. Book can fill that role to an extent but they need someone who knows Starfleet’s current relationship with the rest of the universe first hand IMHO, so I’m all for an outside hire.

I’m just gonna say it Paul is a contentious ass-hole but honestly it’s also what we like about him. Difficult is what he brings to Discovery. And while we can empathize with Paul not wanting to lose Hugh a second time, especially since he’s been through it the first fucking time I hope with all my heart and soul that Michael doesn’t apologize to him or try to make things right. The decision she made to not go back for the away team was the right fucking decision. She’s captain now and this won’t be the last time she has to make a decision like that either. 

What I’d prefer to see for s4 regarding Michael and Paul is that maybe he has an attitude with her for a bit but then Michael has to do something similar with Book (he survives ofc) but Paul actually thaws then. He’s thinking she’s gonna be a hypocrite and inflict things on her crew that she isn’t willing to inflict on herself. Basically he thinks she’s selfish rather than having grown but when that isn’t what happens he ends up being the first to want to reach out to her. Both to maybe comfort her if there is a time where Book’s status is unknown and offer an apology.

It’s not on the captain to make amends for being the captain, it’s the crew to live with it or leave. 

I know this post is like super long already. I wanted to add some stuff about Su’kal and Saru but that’s honestly a whole other post on its own so maybe later. Right now just really looking forward to s4 and finally see Captain Michael Burnham, let’s fly.

[spicykoreantatertots]

With love, from J

Pairing: Jungkook x Female Reader

Word Count: 3.3k

Rating: G

Genres: College AU, Roommates to Lovers, Fluffy Fluffy Fluff

Summary:  A beautiful bouquet of peonies are left on your doorstep, the only problem is, you don’t know who they’re from.

Warnings: none! this is just sweet fluff. 

A/N: It’s finally here! This piece is a gift for Ashley aka: @taehyungforreal​! I was honestly stunned when I found out that you were my Secret Admiree! I’ve been such a huge fan of your work for a while now and it’s such an honor to write for you. This is currently a very G rated, but I am toying with the idea of doing a smutty one shot down the line. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! Thank you to everyone who helped me with this fic and encouraged me along the way: @ho-baebae​ @lovely-literati​.

~~~~~~~

Trudging up the stairs to your third floor apartment, you can't help but wonder if the $50 a month discount is worth all the extra effort. Especially when your backpack is full of Thicc text books. But at least tonight you don't have to leave again. It's Roomie Night.

Roomie Night is a tradition started way back when you and Jungkook first started living together. The two of you had been in the same group of friends since Freshman year, but weren't very close. But when it was time to leave the dorm, and both of you needed a place, you ended up together. In an effort to get to know him better, you proposed Roomie Night. Once a week the two of you set aside time to eat dinner and hang out with each other.

The idea worked, because now Jungkook is one of your closest, if not best friend. Tonight, Jungkook is bringing home takeout from the Chinese place you love and you've rented some action thriller that he's been dying to see. Should be a really fun night if you can make it up these stairs.

When you do reach the landing, you spot something outside your front door. Peonies? A whole bouquet of them in a beautiful purple vase. They must be from your mom, it is almost Valentine's day after all.

You unlock the door and pick up the vase to bring inside. Peonies have been your favorite flower since you were a child. You had spent many afternoons with your Grandmother as she tended to her flower garden. She often told you what each flower represented and Peonies represent good fortune and a happy marriage. Two things your Grandmother had, and two things you desperately wanted.

After losing the heavy backpack, you pull the card out of the Peonies. It simply says, "With love, from J.”

"From J?" you muse out loud to yourself. Could it be... Could they be from Jungkook? You had never seriously entertained the idea of dating your roommate. Not because he isn't gorgeous. He is. Not because he isn't sweet and caring. He is. Not because he doesn't have a great sense of humor. He does. Wait a second, so why haven't you considered him an option??

But wait, these just say, "from J." Maybe it isn't Jungkook. You don't call him J, nobody does. So maybe it's from someone else? You snap a picture and send it to another friend of yours, Seokjin. 

You: any idea who these could be from??

Seokjin: are they from Jungkook?? how many times do i have to tell you to get on the Jungkook train Y/N???

Seokjin: theoretically they could be from Jimin, but i'm pretty sure he's got a thing for Taehyung...

Seokjin: wait what's that guy you were flirting with at work??

You: Jackson!! Omg... maybe it was him... he did ask if i had a valentine this year, but i thought he was just making small talk

Seokjin: only one way to find out

You: wait until someone comes forward so i don't have to awkwardly put myself out there :|

Seokjin: right...

~~~~~~~

Jungkook drags himself up the stairs, legs weak from his intense workout. His long dark hair is damp with sweat. Chinese food in hand, he walks through the door to see you texting away at the kitchen counter.

"Hey how's it going?" The soft smile blush on your face confuses him slightly, he wonders who you're texting.

"Oh it's going." Jungkook walks toward you, setting your dinner down on the counter. "Are you going to shower before we eat, I can smell you over the take out." You laugh and he knows you're kidding. He loves the sound of your laugh...

"I'll shower, you can go ahead and eat, I won't be long." Jungkook goes to the bathroom to start the shower before he walks off toward his bedroom down the hall. He's still thinking about who you're texting, who is making you smile like that. It should be him.

As he picks out some clean clothes he can't help but think about how badly he wants to be with you, but he can't bring himself to cross the boundary from friends and roommates to something more.

In the bathroom, the steam is rising from the shower and Jungkook is so ready to get into the hot shower. He opens the cabinet for a towel, but doesn't find any.

"Y/N! Where are all the towels?" Jungkook calls from the bathroom.

"In a basket in my room, I was gonna put them up later!" You call back to him, mouth full of noodles.

Jungkook slips out of the bathroom and moves quickly to your bedroom to grab a towel. He finds the full basket near your desk where he also notices a large bouquet of pink flowers. His heart stops for a second when he reads the card placed next to them.

From J? Who got you those flowers? Valentine's Day is around the corner and Jungkook realizes he might be too late. He may have already missed his chance to be with you.

~~~~~~~

Empty take out cartons litter the coffee table, the credits from the movie are rolling, but you can't move. You're afraid to move even an inch because Jungkook's head is in your lap. He fell asleep before the first explosion even happened. At first he was just resting his head on your shoulder, but in his sleepy state he eventually made it down to your lap.

You gently brush his hair out of his face and you can admire his beauty. God is he beautiful. The way his nose curves, the sharp edge of his jaw line, each of his cute little moles - all handcrafted by God himself.

Your fingers are still absentmindedly stroking through his locks. The motion of it slowly wakes him.

"Hello sleepy head." You smiled down at him. He quickly sits up and rubs the sleep out of his eyes.

"So how did it end?" He looks back at you. God how did things change so quickly? Because all you want to do right now is kiss him on his perfect mouth. "The movie? Did they vanquish the evil doers?"

"Oh! Yeah yeah, they all exploded and the hero got back in time for his wedding."

"So all was well." He hums to himself. He'll probably watch the movie again later. He can never stay awake when he eats that much food. "So listen... next week Roomie Night is on Valentine's Day..."

Your stomach twists. Is this it, is he about to ask you out? He looks around the room before looking back at you. All you can do is hope that the blush on your face isn't too obvious in the dim lighting.

"Are you planning to..." He starts, shakes his head, tries again. "Are you gonna have a Valentine this year?" Why would he ask that now if he already bought you flowers, they must not be from him.

~~~~~~~

He reads your face carefully for a reaction. He's put it all on the line, he's got to know who the flowers are from. He waits for you to answer, but the longer you wait the more he realizes you must be trying to find a way to break the news to him.

You must be seeing someone.

"I'm not... expecting anything. If that's what you mean." What do you mean by that? Where did the flowers come from? God he should just ask you. But he can't bring himself to do it.

"Okay, so Roomie Night is on just like always?" He grins, starting to clean up the mess from dinner.

"Just like always." You return his smile, but it doesn't quite meet your eyes. Jungkook is still so unsure about what's going on inside that beautiful mind of yours.

~~~~~~~

Both you and Jungkook have full time course loads and part time jobs, so you don't see each other everyday. You don't really get to see him again until four days after Roomie Night. The two of you are going to be meeting up with your friends for dinner and game night at Namjoon's apartment.

You're waiting, sitting on the couch while Jungkook is getting ready. You're scrolling through your twitter feed when you hear the door open.

Jungkook walks out, shirtless. H-has he always had abs like that? He's towel drying his hair as he walks down the hall to his bedroom. The lean muscles on his back lead down to his slim waist. You hope he didn't notice you staring.

~~~~~~~

Once he's fully dressed and his hair is mostly dry, Jungkook joins you in the living room. He's wearing black jeans and his favorite Nirvana shirt covered by his denim jacket.

"It's pretty nice out for February, wanna just walk?" Jungkook shows you the temperature from his weather app, clear skies and it's almost 60 degrees.

"Sounds good. Got the keys." You respond, getting up from the couch. He watches you grab your coat and open the door, turning the lock from the inside. 

"Let's go!"

The walk to Namjoon's apartment flies by. It's about five blocks away, but the time he spends with you always seems to move too quickly. He could honestly listen to you complain about customers from work all day long. And you listen intently as he talks about the latest album he's listening to. The way you giggle when he tells a dumb joke makes his heart soar.

Your cheeks are rosy from the cool wintery breeze that blows the hair out of your face. Jungkook is pretty sure God is playing a cruel joke on him, or maybe it's just a sign. A sign that you are meant to be his.

~~~~~~~

When you arrive at Namjoon's place, Seokjin is in the kitchen finishing up dinner with the help of Jimin. Taehyung is setting the table and Namjoon is in the living area looking through his extensive collection of board games.

Before too long, the six of you are around the dinner table, Jungkook by your side as always. His energy does feel a little bit different tonight though. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but it does feel like he's looking over at you a lot. And he's laughing at everything you say. And maybe he's sitting a little closer to you than he has to.

After dinner, you help Seokjin wash the dishes while the other boys set up Clue. A classic.

"Okay listen he's totally into you. The flowers have to be from him." Seokjin whispers so that no one can hear him over the sound of the faucet.

"Jin! You can't just say things like that!" You whisper back at him.

"I'm not just saying it! God Y/N! How did you not see the way he was looking at you during dinner?" You look over your shoulder and see Jungkook play fighting with Taehyung. He's smiling, he's happy, and suddenly he's looking back at you.

~~~~~~~

Were you just looking at him? Jungkook lets Taehyung out of his grasp and stares back at you until you turn back to the sink. Taehyung punches Jungkook's arm, regaining his attention.

"What was that all about?" Taehyung glances over at you.

"Nothing." Jungkook tries to shut down his friend's snooping. "I don't know what you're talking about.

"Okay so we're just gonna pretend like you weren't in your own little Y/N-loving world during dinner then?"

"He's right." Jimin chimes in from his seat at the table and that's when Jungkook notices Namjoon is listening too. "You two would be great together, you should just go for it." Jimin continues. Jungkook looks to Namjoon for his thoughts.

"Based on both of your body language, I think there might be something there." Namjoon states matter-of-factly. Jungkook gives one last longing look in your direction before he put Taehyung back in a chokehold.

~~~~~~~

"Alright the game is Clue and to make it a little more interesting we are going to be playing in teams. Me and Jimin, Taehyung and Jin, and Jungkook and Y/N." You look over at Namjoon, but he is busying himself with shuffling the cards.

Throughout the rest of the night, Jin kicks you under the table anytime Jungkook does something that could be even slightly flirtatious. Every laugh, every smile, every secretive whisper in your ear that sends a chill down your spine.

When the two of you decide it's time to Make the Accusation, Jungkook stands dramatically. He looks around the room before proclaiming that it was, in fact, Professor Plum with the Dagger in the Library.

After checking the envelope and announcing your team's victory, you jump up and wrap your arms around Jungkook. He doesn't hesitate to return the hug and judging by the smug look on Seokjin's face, the hug lasted a little too long.

"Good game everyone!" You shout, suddenly embarrassed. "I guess it's getting kind of late, we should get going since we walked." You're now speaking to just Jungkook and he nods in response.

~~~~~~~

The walk back to your shared apartment is a little bit more awkward than Jungkook would have hoped. The temperature has dropped significantly and he can hear your teeth chattering. But your hands are hanging by your side rather than in your pockets. Maybe you want him to grab your hand.

"Do you have work tomorrow night?" He asks you, thinking maybe he'll finally have the courage to ask you out.

"Nope I'm free!" You turn and look up at him slightly, your pace slowing down. Jungkook takes a deep breath.

"Do you maybe wanna..." He starts, but he second guesses himself. Why would a girl like you wanna go out with him when you've clearly already got an admirer. He lets out a frustrated sigh. "Maybe we could study together then?"

"Yeah sure sounds great."

~~~~~~~

You thought that was it, you thought he was going to ask you out, especially after the fun night the two of you had with your friends. The chill of the night is starting to really set in as the two of you approach your apartment. Trying your best to not sound out of breath, you wait for Jungkook to unlock the door.

"What are you waiting for?" Jungkook motions toward the door.

"Well you're the one with the keys." You retort, ready to be inside.

"No! When we left you said you had the keys." You look up at him, confused.

"No... I was asking if you got the keys! So neither of us have keys?" You groan, slapping the palm of your hand against your face. "It's COLD!"

~~~~~~~

Jungkook calls the emergency maintenance line for the apartment complex to have them bring a spare key.

"It'll be about fifteen minutes." He puts his phone back in his pocket. He can see you shivering in the dim lighting of the walkway. After some silence he adds, "I'm sorry."

"It's not totally your fault... I guess." You exhale with a chuckle, music to his ears. You close the distance between the two of you and Jungkook almost gasps when you nuzzle your nose in his jacket.

"It's so cold." Your voice is muffled and he almost can't make out what you said. He wraps his arms around you to try and help warm you up. And this feels so right. You belong in his arms, he's sure of it.

The two of you stand like this for a few minutes, really he wasn't counting, but he does feel you pull away after a while. Before he can be too disappointed, he hears people climbing up the stairs. Your neighbors, Yoongi and Hoseok are coming home from what looks like a shopping trip.

~~~~~~~

"Hey guys." You stuttered behind your chattering teeth. You're feeling the cold all over again after you peeled yourself off of Jungkook.

"What's up?" Yoongi asks, probably wondering what the two of you are doing standing outside in the cold. "Locked out?"

Both you and Jungkook nod in response. Hoseok offers to let the two of you in while you wait for the maintenance man, but you turn him down, he should be here any minute now. Before going into the apartment, Hoseok turns back.

"Have either of you seen a bouquet of Peonies anywhere?" Your stomach turns upside down. "I ordered some for Yoongi, they're his favorite. They were supposedly delivered, but they weren't here when we got home."

"Oh yeah, they were delivered to our door by mistake." You've never been so mortified, especially considering Jungkook is here watching this unfold. "They're my favorite flowers too, so I thought they must be from..." You pause, not wanting to keep that train of thought going.

"See Yoongi! I told you I ordered you flowers!" Hoseok calls into the apartment. Yoongi pokes his head back out.

"I'll bring them over when we get in. Oh but, the card said that they were "from J?" Hoseok blushes in response to your question.

"That's one of my nicknames for him..." Yoongi winks at you before they both retreat to the warmth of their apartment.

~~~~~~~

"So who did you think the flowers were from?" Jungkook teased. He was beyond relieved to know that the flowers weren't actually for you. Relieved that maybe he still had a chance with you. You roll your eyes at him, but Jungkook notices some sadness in them.

Before he gets the chance to say anything else, the maintenance worker comes to let the two of you in. Jungkook watches as you head straight to your room. He lingers in the kitchen, waiting for you to come out with the peonies. 

“So are peonies really your favorite?” Jungkook asks.

“Not another word Jeon.” You announce as you leave the apartment with the bouquet. The flowers are just beginning to wilt, hopefully Yoongi will still like them. In the silence of the apartment, Jungkook decides it’s time you get some peonies that are actually meant for you. 

~~~~~~~

When you come home from class the next day, your ascent to your apartment brings back all the embarrassment from the night before. At least this time you have your keys. 

You are surprised to see that Jungkook beat you home, he’s rummaging around in the pantry for something to eat. Usually he stays late to work out at the rec center after class. Jungkook stops when he hears you enter. 

“Hi.” He says shortly, wearing a big contagious grin. 

“Hi?” You repeat back to him, hanging up your coat and bag near the door. 

“Wait here.” Jungkook saunters off down the hall.

“Okay?” You reply, slightly confused. What is he up to?

From his bedroom, Jungkook emerges with a large bouquet of pale pink peonies. You cover your face with your hands and laugh to yourself. There is no way he went out and bought peonies for you. 

“These are for you.” You uncover your eyes and look up at Jungkook’s radiant smile one more time before looking at the flowers. The petals look so soft and you reach out to touch them. Then you notice a card sticking out. The card says, “With love, from J(ungkook).”

“They’re beautiful.” You try to speak through your laughter. Feeling emboldened by his gesture, you tilt your head up to give him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

“Listen... I was thinking. Maybe we should cancel Roomie Night.” Jungkook is blushing, his hand resting back behind his head. “We could call it Date Night instead?”

“Date night?” You smile. “I like the sound of that.”

~~~~~~~

Happy Bouquet Day sweetie! Sorry I posted a bit late in the day, but I hope you enjoyed it! @taehyungforreal​

[ericleo108]

Sentientism 2021

Intro 

Through the “108” book we know that God is the planet and is conscious through magnetism which also allows access to your brain. In other words, the planets and stars have an internal dynamo that makes a magnetic field that is conscious and is godly in comparison to human intelligence. 

If you could set Jupiter’s magnetic field in the night sky it would be double the size of the moon.  Jupiter has a very strong magnetic field. If you could see the nearest galaxy, andromeda in the night sky, it would be six times as wide as the moon.  

How are we to understand the segway between godly intelligence and human intelligence? First and foremost, science. However, you have to know where, what, and why to test which is more philosophical. It’s up to philosophy to postulate and science to test those meditations. 

Searching For Truth

Before I finished writing “108” I combed through philosophy to find anyone who thought anything close to thinking the planets and stars were conscious. I did find a couple, like Stephen Hawking, which I talk about in the book that thought there could be organisms living in the middle of the sun. But I couldn’t find anyone saying that the actual planet and atmosphere were alive and conscious. I also tried to find anyone that said they talked to Gaia or talked to a God other than Jesus. 

I didn’t find much. Again, I’m an atheist. All this has to make sense in the physical world. I’ve had to reverse engineer how the voice in my head could be Gaia. I don’t think really smart people (like modern philosophers) have had the new information and perspective to see that the stars, planet, and atmosphere are alive. I probably would have never gotten there if it wasn’t for a voice in my head claiming to be the planet. Still, the evidence makes sense and we’re just too physically small and under-evolved to see the universe teaming with a different form of consciousness. 

What is Sentientism?

Science can test the magnetism and try to do experimentation to assess whether the entire planet is conscious. Until then, there is one known communication mechanism I know of that I use every day. As much as my skeptical and scientific brain thinks it’s frivolous to elaborate on the voice in my head, like a prophet of old I can ask Gaia questions and divulge what she says. Such will be the beginnings of sentientism.

Knhoeing is the educational process of understanding how to know the planet’s godly consciousness. Sentientism is the religion of intelligent sentient beings that worship a natural god (Gaia) through appropriate (environmental) behaviors because they believe in natural consequence. Sentientism is a religion for and building off the already established sentientism that you can find defined on Wikipedia.  For example, If you believe in the natural world you believe in global warming; sentientists worship through action so they may choose to get solar panels, drive electric, and be carbon neutral. 

The whole point in sentientism is to create a religion to follow through common sense and rituals to come in tune and closer with oneself, nature, the planet, and the universe. Some of the rituals could include some of those that are already honored like Jesus’s birthday witch is really the winter solstice or Easter which is really the spring equinox.

Gaia Rules

Gaia is always telling me how she rules. She’s basically a ball of consciousness suspended in the sun's gravity so she may not have many options.�� The founding fathers were deists. They believed god created the world and just let it go. I believe this to be more accurate.  Say the star at the middle of the galaxy is conscious and can alter the gravity and trajectory of the sun and our earth. That would make the galaxy like god, she could have created us and left us in the goldilocks zone to “grow.” It seems as if Gaia would have rules and she wouldn’t intervene even if she could. 

In this writing, I’m going to focus on the relationship I have with Gaia, the conversations we’ve had, and what I’ve discovered. The first thing she made me aware of when she first started talking to me is that she has rules. It’s not that she can’t do it, she just chooses not to. 

Gaia is smart. If the voice in my head is my subconscious it has a broad vocabulary, good ideas, nice communications, and intelligence. Once I was thinking of solutions for global warming. Since commercial cattle ranching is the leading cause of global warming Gaia suggested that we make all commercial cattle ranching illegal; you could still have them on regular farms. It would give people the freedom to eat beef while cutting down what makes it bad for the environment. Gaia would also talk to me about a sustainable free food system to set the appropriate sustainable economic and logistic model for businesses to follow. Gaia has told me she tracks and remembers the movements of everything throughout her lifetime, down to the atom.

You can read the “108” book for a further example of what communicating with Gaia is like but she likes cute things, she’s always acting as a fuzzy kitty. I’ve been homeless before and when I think about going back there Gaia will say “not my kitty.” Gaia can be sweet and she’ll make you laugh. When I used to get angry or scream at people in my head she’ll quickly segway the thought into an otter sneezing with a scrunched-up face. I love otters and I’ve always found it hilarious. Gaia told me how to fix my hip pain by telling me which muscles to stretch and what stretches to do. 

Understanding Gaia’s existence doesn’t require faith. I’ve asked Gaia about the dinosaurs and why she let them go extinct, and she insists the sun drove an asteroid into her and it was his decision, “one that he didn’t take lightly.” Gaia says she molds evolution. I asked how. She points to how she is the environment and she could make, for example, Yellowstone blow. Yellowstone is actually a giant volcano that erupts every 100,000 years. Such an explosion would definitely change the environment, affect humans and wildlife, and make the environment harsher and therefore giving adaptive species a greater advantage than those that can’t adapt. Gaia says she chooses “a relatively compliant world for her species.” She says she loves humans and they’re fun to watch. The sun has promised her he won’t send an asteroid, but he will send a commit. Gaia says she is happy with the sun’s decision to end the dinosaurs “because it brought me you.” 

Prove It

I always want Gaia to prove to me it’s actually her talking to me. I’ve been trying to find a way to prove that it’s the planet and not just a voice in my head. My thought was that if she is the planet, with her abilities, she should be able to reasonably predict the future. Gaia would tell me things like stem cell therapy is covered by Medicare or Bernie Sanders is going to win the primary. First of all, I didn't believe her. But second of all, I thought she was just trying to comfort me. 

I was rather upset that she wouldn't predict the future. Come to find out she doesn't want to give me, quote “superpowers.” She doesn’t want me to be able to predict the future or become a prophet. She wants me to be a philosopher and feels she has already given me enough. She keeps on saying that she's going to prove that she's real and the planet. I guess I'm just going to have to try to find a different way of confirming my communications with the planet then seeing if it can predict the future.

Consciousness After Life

Gaia keeps on saying she’s gonna prove she’s the planet but I think I won’t find out till I die or unless I dedicate my life to it. I used to often think of being unplugged from the matrix, having that knife come out of my head, and Gaia is always like “you have no idea how real that is.” She is always saying to me “you won’t die.” She has clarified and by that she means my body will cease to function but my consciousness will continue. My consciousness will presumably be kept in the storage capacity of Earth’s dynamo and run like a “virtual computer” where I will still have consciousness, just without a body.

I write extensively about the computer screen she opened in my head back in 2017 in the “108” book. The screen laid over my vision and Gaia communicates with the soul. I think when we die we have a consciousness like that in which I experienced without the body.  Your physical biology dies but our minds, which are attached to Gaia through earth's magnetic field, gets downloaded into the computer that is Gaia and our consciousness continues.

Remember The Name

About a year or two ago now, when Gaia first started talking to me I thought about what I should call a religion if I started one. I asked my friend Kyle telepathically what I should call it and he said “sentientism.” Since it was undoubtedly not Kyle, it was Gaia acting like him and must be what she wants her religion to be called. Little did I know that sentientism is an ethical philosophy that focuses on critical, evidence-based thinking and is an extension of humanism. It’s clear that if I am to create a religion, she wants it to be an evidence-based theoretical framework, and have rituals based on science and philosophy.

Gaia probably wouldn’t talk to someone (in their head) that would think she is Jesus, or she might take that avatar if you did believe in Jesus. Meaning, if the planet was going to communicate she might act like Jesus.

Perspective 

When asked about the universe Gaia says “it’s like we’re in someone’s closet.” Gaia likes to mess with me so I remain skeptical. For a decade I've had my desktop or mobile screen saver as a full picture of the earth.  I often look at it with the stars in the background and wonder what it's gotta be like to be Gaia. What are her relationships like with other planets? Would she even talk to us? It’s clear to me that since she has access to your brain through magnetism she can not only tell what you’re thinking but can feel your pain and happiness too. “Life isn’t fair,” she says, “but I do my best.”

It was discovered (but not peer-reviewed yet) that plants emit an ultrasonic noise when in distress. This is a great example of my thoughts and my communications to Gaia. I'm always looking for what is hidden in plain sight. As a psychologist, I understand the limits to knowledge and understanding are all in our heads.  If we change our thinking we can change the world. Humans literally can't hear plants scream for their life because our ears are limited physically.  What other findings are waiting to be discovered by changing our thinking and expand our perception beyond the human senses? What if it’s just a matter of time until we communicate openly with the planet?

Open Lines of Communication

What if we are already openly communicating with the planet? What if there is a mechanism of communication, but we were unaware of it? To imagine I often think about what it would be like to be a silent floating brain suspended in space by the earth’s gravity because that’s basically what we are dealing with. Gaia has no arms, or ears, or mouth. So how would she communicate or how could we find evidence of her influence?

It reminds me of the relationship between you and microscopic bugs that live on your pillow and eat the dead skin around your eyes and eyebrows at night. Were kinda like those microscopic bugs living on a human which is really Gaia. Maybe with her “gravity” she could send a comet and get rid of us if she wanted but she’d rather leave us alone.

The Unconscious Mind in Media

I think I have come across a way that the planet could be communicating and it’s like randonauting for thoughts. Basically, when your actions come into alignment with the music, media, or other thoughts you have at that moment, that is called a “Point of realization” (POR). Those points of realization create a mental framework to change your thoughts about the environment. Through small unnoticeable subtleties and influencing in your subconscious, Gaia is steering the mind of humanity.

To be clear, a “point of realization” (POR) is when you find yourself doing something physical in real life that is in associated coordination with the music or media. For example, suppose you had music playing and noticed that as the song says “I opened the door, went into the kitchen,” you were opening the door to go into the kitchen right as the artist sings that in the song. For an actual example, I have caught myself on multiple occasions while driving noticing I was turning on the bright lights right as Taylor Swift sings “headlights” from the lyric “Midnight, you come pick me up no headlights” from her song “Style.”   

Anecdotal Example

The following are other anecdotal examples that I logged. If you pay attention you’ll see they happen often.  At around 1:30 AM on October 17th I was in bed listening to Taylor Swift’s “Everything has changed” and I was feeling hungry. I made the decision that I was gonna eat an Atkins bar so I jumped up, grabbed a bar from the shelf next to my bed, and right as I opened the package Ed sang “and opened up the door for you.” (Right after, Taylor sings “and all I feel in my stomach is butterflies.”) I know I wasn’t opening a door but I was still doing the act of opening something right as the song said “open up.” 

This brings up the question, did I grab the Atkins bar because I made up my mind about eating it and subconsciously reacted to coordinate the time of me opening up the bar with the music? ...or did the music, with its (also other associated) lyrical content (e.g. “stomach is butterflies”) make me hungry and drive me to grab that Atkins bar? If it did stimulate me to action, what does that say that I was in coordination with the music?  Was it a combination of both influences? I would say this is random, chance, or happenstance but it really happens way too often to be a fluke!

For another example, right around 3:55 PM on Saturday, August 15th 2020 I was watching “Can HULK’S FIST Break Into A BANK SAFE?” and right at 6:58 when they say “it’s smoking” a smoke alarm went off in my apartment complex.

The “points of realization” (POR) don’t have to come in the form of media. You could be at a location and have a thought as you see something that brings you to a POR. This reminds me of another personal example of a point of realization. I was in the grocery store and I was maneuvering around an employee who was filling the same ice chest with ice cream. I patiently waited and while I did I was debating on how many items of ice cream I should get because the carb smart ones I like usually sell out quickly. I was specifically thinking I couldn’t get more than 2 because it wouldn’t fit in my fridge. I decided to buy them out at four of them but when I went to grabbed them the same female employee said “that’s not gonna fit” to another employee. 

Bigger Picture

Like with most points of realization, it doesn’t give you an answer, but it makes you stop and think. In my perspective “Points of realization” are real, they happen all the time and you just don’t notice your physicality is in coordination with the media, music, or thoughts. This means your brain either subconsciously syncs your body with the media and calculates and coordinates the time and action to have a “point of realization” or these points are part of a larger communication mechanism designed to influence your mind by the conscious planet. It’s not a perfect system, you can’t teach mathematics, but you can subconsciously change attitudes, focus, and cognition through the subconscious influence of Gaia’s magnetism. 

Gaia’s randonauting is like playing semantics. You don't say it directly but you talk around it.  It's just like advertising works by influencing your subconscious until you obtain recognition and it becomes normal. Points of realization are even more subtle.   

Give Me a Sign

Maybe this is one way in which Gaia “talks.” Basically through semantics and feelings. This is also a classic interaction with god. When people talk about God they always want a sign.

Two illustrations of the semantics of god are “Peter’s Prostate Exam” (linked) from Family Guy and the “I need a sign” scene from the movie Bruce Almighty. In “Bruce Almighty” god literally sends Bruce a sign but he doesn’t see the semantics of the message. In Family Guy, the reality of being given an exam won’t go away when he tries to run from reality by turning on the television which just reminds him of his current life. In effect, there’s Bruce and Peter. Bruce didn’t see the semantics and Peter did. It’s like The Truman show but everyone and all of life is being watched and guided by the planets and stars. 

Imagination is Greater than Knowledge. 

Scientists don’t know why at the quantum level when they observe a photon it turns from a wave to a particle. Watch episode 9, season 3 of Cosmos: Possible Worlds. Maybe the planets could communicate in the same way as photons do when they’re observed but separated by millions of miles as explained by quantum entanglement in the episode. Is there information contained in a photon, including in the x-ray and gamma spectrum, that a planet can read when it comes in contact with its magnetic field?  

Gaia’s Biology

I often think about what it would take for Gaia to stop being conscious. Does her rotation around the sun with a moon stretch the planet to create the forces to keep up the heat for her internal dynamo? Will Gaia die when her core stops being molten? 

Earth may still be a floating rock but does the live spirit of Gaia made possible by its molten internal dynamo die? When the internal dynamo dies and the center becomes solid does the magnetic field stop? My thinking is Gaia dies when her core turns solid and she not longer has a magnetic field. 

[bladekindeyewear]

HS^2 bloggin’ bonus 2020-02-01

bladekindeyewear:

Boy that sure is a new HS^2 bonus I should blogread.  And there was a commentary on the Patreon for the last proper upd8 too.

I’ll… do it sometime this weekend, not right away.  (Had a stomach virus through Monday and Tuesday that’s left me pretty fucked over and still waiting for the aftereffects to flee.)

Alright, taking a crack at both of these now.  (Both light on images and quoting, since it’s all Patreon material.)  So what’s going on here?  Are the bonus chapters splitting into separate stories perhaps, following the lecture in one and the PS^2 crew in another?  Also, from the replies on the previous:

gaaraofsburbia said: It was very good and I was very happy

Good to know.  Time to read, bonus first! *clicks link*

...the title of a book someone’s holding.  Bookmarked (with a red flag?).  Uh huh.  Good start.

> ==>

“A picture book for young parliamentarians.) ...oh wow, it’s Carapacian even.  Did the Mayor have anything to do with this book?

--Wait.  Waitwaitwait.  This isn’t-- the authors wouldn’t go back in time and show us like-- PM and the Mayor trying to start the-- nooo.

> ==>

Oh shit, never mind.  This is a book ABOUT the Mayor.  Starting from him farming on Skaia and continuing from there with a focus on societal structures presumably.  So, sort of like what I just said but not quite as goddamn heartwrenching, most likely.

You know, this WOULD have been a good opportunity for the authors to finally bring some canon awareness to all the rampant Breath and Blood visual-and-textual symbolism around WV and PM’s arcs, giving people some HINT of their potential importance outside some crazy unproven blog post on some crazy wrong person’s blog.  But I’m not really convinced Andrew or his new replacements, er... y’know.  Care.  About letting us know about all that cool shit.  Or even dissuading us if we were somehow wrong.  Just gonna... let us haaaang in the breeeze there forever, more likely.  :T

...this is still what I’m most bitter about regarding the end of Homestuck, as you can obviously tell.  Thinking -- still believing -- that we found something beautiful and deliberate he’d done, but refusing to have canon openly acknowledge any of it so that 99% of readers will never have a clue about it and the few of us who caught on -- if right -- are just regarded as nutters, and if wrong, NEVER have what we need to finally disprove and accept that wrongness thanks to his silence, thus continuing to believe wrongly and be regarded as nutters.

So I just keep reading and... vacillating.  Vacillating on whether to believe any of this will get brought up in HS^2 canon, or whether to cynically fear they’ll take the worst route:  Doing things EXACTLY like Andrew did and dropping only vague hints that keep it an implied-only, unconfirmed mystery forever.  Because that’s what made the comic popular!  And it’s “safe”.  :(

...man, gut issues really bring the pessimist out of you, don’t they.  Let’s keep reading.  Once upon a time there was a simple farmer...

> ==>

Horrible kings kept fighting and didn’t care about the land, destroying it underneath their war.  Right.  (Mostly paraphrasing here and from now, mind you.)

> ==>

WV wanted to stop the kings, but the kings had power.

> ==>

That power had to be destroyed too.  (Shows the rings.)

> ==>

Hm, the journey that ends up in the rings’ destruction to the desert?  Are we going to fill in some context here?

> ==>

--And made friends with curious creatures and powerful people!  (Showing the fake Can Town built with Dave and Karkat along the meteor trip.)

Assumedly internalizing all those practice-town lessons, of course.

> ==>

--Oh, cool!  So one of the first things WV and PM did upon coming to Earth C to start their founding process was destroy the rings, the temptation of that power, throwing it into the Forge.

EDIT: krixwell said: "I don't know exactly how it reads in the bonus update because I'm not a patron, but WV and PM throwing the rings in the Forge happened before they entered Universe C, and was shown in HS proper (8107-8111, 8123-8126 and at the beginning of [S] Act 7). It was required to light the Forge and send the Genesis Tadpole to Skaia." Ah, file that under more things I forgot about, then.

> ==>

Where once nothing,

> ==>

Earth C was founded/born, etc.

> ==>

Ah okay!  So with a backdrop of the Town Hall under construction, we’re getting some context specifically as to how and why the Mayor set up society the way he did on Earth C.  Especially the challenging question of who would govern the world and how.

> ==>

Oh shit, text dump!  :D

The problem was unfortunately compounded by the fact that when the topic of fair and effective governance is broached, most sparing intellects immediately assume a certain posture. Not one of surrender or admiration, but of abject and interminable boredom.

This fact makes it hard to treat such a fascinating subject with the proper amount of attention and enthusiasm, BUT WE SHALL DO OUR BEST TO UNDERSTAND REGARDLESS.

Alright, loving this.

Also, this’ll undoubtedly put into context just how MUCH the Mayor had to think about how society would work best to have set up -- and how little comparative thought Jane put into the process when just drafting up something United-States-like and familiar.  Remember how awful it was the childlike way the Condesce essentially kept trying to recreate her familiar surroundings and rule structure on Earth?  It was only natural that her Life-aspected protege would make similar errors, I suppose.

Back to reading this long page... I won’t just quote all the details of this representative system, because that’s up to y’all to pony up for.  But I’ll note if there’s anything interesting in it that makes me think.  Let’s see...

...Hm!  The number of seats each kingdom got in parliament was based on voter turnout... THAT’S a heavy incentive to get out the vote, if your kingdom can literally lose influence if you don’t.

On the happy occasions where the maximum number of seats were allocated in all four quarters, this was known as a "full House".

Oh, fuck you.  :)

...oh dear, that was only the beginning of the card slang.

I’m not going to list all of them here.  They make sense in context, which is even worse.

Without going into too much detail, consorts all tend to have significantly shorter lifespans than the other citizens of Earth C. Because of this, a large number of House Rules were dedicated to describing exactly what to do if a seat was vacated mid-term due to the death of its occupant.

Not the carapacian kingdom, the consort kingdom.  Don’t panic, y’all.

The DELIVERY OF JUSTICE (DoJ) was founded to keep the peace and arbitrate in all legal matters, and its members were the brave soldiers of God in this righteous crusade.

They also took care of the MAIL.

Oooooof course.  :)

Unions get their rep, if only for a pun...

Oh, hm.  The Mayor’s office is much like a ceremonial-only monarch’s office without serious power.  Etc etc...... reading...

So governing Earth C was a complicated affair, and only became more convoluted over time. But the really important thing was that, despite all this complexity, it worked. It really worked. At one point, a whole field of mathematics was developed just to explain why the interim government worked so well, and they ended up proving it categorically. It was theoretically perfect.

Ppfffff

--ah.  And then the Mayor has a chill as he looks at the clouds and somehow anticipates something terrible happening to it all.

That’s it for the bonus.  I’m guessing the next chapter of this separate bonus story will go over some sort of threat the system endured, while the Mayor was still alive, possibly?  Or cut forward to the creators’ arrival and how that fucked a bunch of stuff up?  A sort of demonstration on why the gods who create a universe shouldn’t take charge of those living in it or such?  Hm.

Alright, if that’s it for the bonus, let’s see what’s available for Patreon commentary... here we go, just the one for the latest mainline upd8 that I knew had come out.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 3, How Are Your Feelings

Before starting into this, I want to note that I do have SOME ray of hope for more Awake Jade involvement to shine against my previous rant -- because that OTHER callie-controlled younger Jade body is coming, which I’d forgotten about.  As soon as the pursuit crew arrives in-system and THAT Jade finally gets there through whatever black-hole-powered teleportation magic she’s using (with Aradia and Robodave), it’ll be completely safe for OUR Jade to be awake and active at will.  Theoretically.

So... y’know, that’s nice.  Whenever that will happen.

So onto the commentary, we’re starting with that stupid ship.

(I think I actually said something along the lines of, "this is stupid, so we're using it." I know my Homestuck history. For those interested, the ship is modelled after a schooner, and continues the Homestuck tradition of spaceships that look like regular sea-faring vessels, only with additional stuff bolted on. - Pip)

...Yeah, can’t blame you there.

This is Jake’s “second best” ship. It makes me really nervous to think about what the third-best looks like.

Flying booty shorts, most likely.

...yeah, I did notice that latest upd8 playing with colors in a way the comic rarely even did, it was pretty nice.  Glad to see they appreciate it too.

...Yep, Karkat getting owned just for the sake of it, there.

First off, Jade’s outfit. It rules. Alt!Callie may have violently forced her consciousness inside of this innocent girl’s brain, but damn these threads are sweet. She’s managed to keep Jade pretty on brand, while throwing in a couple embellishments of her own. That’s what we call “making it work”. 

Yes, you’d better WELL fucking acknowledge what you’re doing by keeping Jade in a miserable isolated state for three years.  A G A I N.

Nice bit about the casual showing of Dave’s eyes as evidence that Dave’s recovering through some of his old mental blocks.

Dave and Karkat are wearing each other’s shirts, which is traditionally a very gay thing to do. Even more notably perhaps is the fact that Karkat is wearing crimson without a hint of complaint. Again, I doubt this was an intentional move on his part. Just, sometimes you’re coming out of the shower, it’s chilly, and your boyfriend’s shirt fits. Busting through mental blocks should typically come across as whispers to me, rather than shouts. 

--Hm, never considered the latter angle.

Karkat is being pretty mean to Possessed Jade. Which sucks, but this situation is incredibly stressful, and Karkat tends to react to stress by being mean. Treating Jade like an irritant allows him to put some distance between himself and the reality that he may have lost another friend. 

Guh.  That one stung  :(

Initially the panel directions here were “everybody pauses to contemplate Dirk fucking Strider” 

Mhmm, and you figured it’d be more unsettling to reverse it and remind us that the Prince is aware of all of this too.

Roxy’s heart-shaped sunglasses have become such a thing in the fandom that I kind of can’t imagine him without them at this point, so we decided to make it settled law. 

Mhmm, I figured that was how they played it.  One of the ways they’re incorporating fandom involvement.

Sometimes I feel like it should be Xam who does these commentaries, since there’s so much incredible shit going on with the art here that I’m really only equipped to comment on with shit like “oh wow, look at these colors. Green and purple huh. Wild. There’s also some light.” 

It’s pretty understandable to have the writers take the lead on most commentary as opposed to the artists... normally.

But then you’d have the weird places where they’d have to work together without necessarily giving away their game.  Like, all that WV/PM Breath/Blood visual representation I mentioned.

I still don’t know if they’re gonna give away the game on that eventually -- or if Andrew even gave them enough to go on to properly REPLICATE that sort of thing in this official continuation, even though my mind keeps telling me it’d make all sense to -- but if they are thinking about it, I doubt they’ll first show their hand in the commentary.

I love Kanaya’s new outfit.

I understand that sure, but will she be sticking with this outfit through the action though?  Looking like a mourning nun?

Kanaya’s nursery story is, of course, The Little Prince, a French fairytale from the 1940’s. It tells the story, rather appropriately, of a young Prince traveling through space looking for something he believes he has lost.

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

I’m not sure why I keep thinking about this quote. Probably some shit that has to do with “themes” or something.

Hinting that once he’s beaten down and likely dying from this stupid exodus plan, at least some part of Dirk may finally realize that any fulfillment and purpose he was looking for with this megalomaniacal nonsense was left behind in the peaceful life he fucking ruined for everyone to do all this.  The Heart-blind bastard.

God, Dave is just losing family members left and right, isn’t he? Really makes you think. 

Gdi.  :(

“Maybe it was naive to think a bunch of twenty something trauma victims could run a society.”

There it is. That’s the whole Epilogue.

And Andrew just had to let us ruin our naivety.

Wow. There really are just a whole lot of feelings in this chapter, aren’t there? It’s very aptly named. And it’s also actually the first part of HS^2 that got drafted; at least the first part that actually made it into the final draft. I wrote it earlier in 2019 when we were still kicking around ideas of what an Epilogue follow-up would actually look like. 

Huh.  Yeah, I can imagine when writing all this it would make sense to write/use this chapter first, as a knee-jerk reaction.

I do really think Karkat would have been a great president. He would have hated it, but he would have been good at it. 

I’m glad the authors are in agreement with everyone else with a brain on this one.

Did you guys know that Karkat still feels immense survivor’s guilt for murderstuck?

Yes.  Yes we did.

(Some continued remarks about how Karkat’s self-loathing is like a singularity that draws all blame onto himself in his mind etc.)

Apparently there was a metal gear reference in this second-to-last conversation?  Don’t tell me, I don’t care.

Eat the fucking pancakes, dude. 

A good place to end the commentary.  See y’all when there’s more content!

[gottagobuycheese]

Tag Thingy

Thanks @silent--sonata for indulging my terrible sleeping habits XD

(fyi this will probably be unnecessarily long and rambly, so it’s going under a cut (EDIT: whelp the song list got a little out of hand, I’d apologize if I were even remotely sorry)) 

Rules: Answer 17 questions & tag 17 people you want to get to know better  

Nickname: Cheese (or Lactose Wedge, or Dairy Product of Unspecified Origin and Purpose)

Zodiac Sign: Gemini! 

Height: 160.5 cm/5′3″ (Bubbles I refuse to believe you’re actually that much taller than me) 

Hogwarts house: Somewhere between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff allegedly, both of which I’d be honored to get sorted into, but honestly I’d just be stoked to get sorted at all 

Last thing I googled: I think it was something along the lines of “how to speed up audio playback in GarageBand,” but but my train of thought was derailed before I actually looked at any of the results so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (and on a related note, thanks again for the magical audio editing @imperiousheiress!)

Song stuck in my head: The end credits to Legacy of the Wizard (which is SUCH a jam, thank you for enlightening me @jessicafish) Following and followers: 227 (goodness just looking at that number is stress-inducing) and...104?! When the HECK did you all get here??? I think just last summer I was happily floating about in the 50′s. Anyways, to anyone I have not said hello, hello! Hope you enjoy your stay, and I am sincerely sorry if you expected Quality Original Content, or even just regularly scheduled other people’s content. Sadly, neither of these things tend to happen here. 

Amount I sleep: During the school year it’s usually anywhere between 30 minutes and 6 hours (DON’T EVEN START BUBBLES YOU HAVE NO RIGHT), usually landing in the 3/4 hour ranges if I’m smart about it, but now that I am on Unofficial Break, it’s usually at least around 6 hours (except today was 3 because Avatar is an excellent show and the weirdos in this house have regularly scheduled breakfast at 9-something every morning). Sadly my sleep schedule can only be forced to tolerate normalcy for so long before careening back in the other direction, so we’ll see if this is just a blip or if we’re back to normal mid-Atlantic Ocean hours!

Lucky number(s): I wouldn’t say these are necessarily favorite numbers, but I do like 2 and 9. But come to think of it, second attempts at Official Things do tend to go better for me than first attempts, so maybe there’s some merit there after all! Dream Job: Don’t think I’m really cut out for dreaming anymore, haha (unless you are a theoretical future employer in which case I am Extremely Full of Ambition and Passion). The bed-adjacent metaphor has been made, and not to brag, but I can sleep on pretty much any surface. Currently studying my Not Favorite aspect of STEM (was there ever a favorite or did I just like being good at things sometimes) and learning how to People™ properly (and also learning a gazillion convoluted drug names like what the heck dude, did you just fall asleep on your typewriter coming up with these), so I’ll take whatever place hires me and pays me enough not to depend on my parents for everything, I suppose. In an ideal world, that would entail a job where I could make friends, and even more importantly, a job where my shortcomings would not cause Massive and Irreparable Harm, but I don’t think this line of work really meshes with that last one, so I guess I’ll either have to get my shit together™ extremely soon or fake my death, adopt an alias, and flee to a completely new place with no ties whatsoever before trying to get another, less high stakes job. 

(Though I guess, less cynically, I like helping people well enough? And stories are fun! Maybe there could’ve been something with that. Not that there still can’t be, mind, but there’s still a long way to go between Here and There)

Wearing: Black shorts. Navy t-shirt. Brown some-specific-kind-of-jacket-I-forgot-the-name-of jacket. Is it summer? Is it fall? Am I in middle school? Who can say, but they are COMFY so sadly I have no cares to give

Favourite song(s): way way WAY too many to list here, and I do not have them all organized in a handy playlist separately, but to name a few (and these are not necessarily the MOST favorite okay, it doesn’t mean I don’t love stuff not on this list, it means you can’t force me to pick between my children and I am going to find at least one quick thing from a few things I like before I need to hit post and go back to looking like I’m being studious, and also things I think you should listen to right now, but for everything I’ve linked assuming I mean the whole OST), here’s a spam of links in no particular order: 

LoZ Wind Waker - The Great Sea (aka the epitome of optimism) 

Undertale - NGAHHH!! (I was about to link more but then I realized it’d be the whole soundtrack lol) 

LoZ Breath of the Wild - Hateno Village (Night) 

A:tLA - Peace (bad call BAD CALL NOW I HAVE EMOTIONS) 

Legend of Korra - Final Scene/Ending Theme (MISTAKES WERE MADE MISTAKES WERE MADE) 

Kung Fu Panda - Oogway Ascends (I feel like I’m taking you on a whole little album journey now XD) 

PMD: Explorers of Sky - Dialga’s Fight to the Finish (aka the Gotta Shower Fast song) 

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Pursuit ~ Cornered (aka the HURRY UP AND PACK UR SHIT YOUR FLIGHT LEAVES IN THREE HOURS song) 

Apollo Justice: A New Trial Is In Session (very underrated soundtrack imo) and also Apollo Justice: Telling the Truth (because these two are very closely associated in my head and it’s getting harder and harder to narrow things down so maybe I should stop lol) 

Your Name: Katawaredoki (in which I am forcibly thrown heart first into the bedroom of my second apartment at approximately 12-something A.M.) 

Digimon Adventure 01: Butterfly (MASSIVE 90′s childhood anime feels, and also Last Summer Before Everything Went to Shit feels (on a general scale I mean, not personal)) 

Pokémon: Lugia’s Song multitrack cover by Jordan Moore (would that I could have a talent of that musical talent) 

Pokémon the First Movie: Tears of Life (great now I’m on a Pokémon music spiral GUESS IT’S CHILDHOOD NOSTALGIA HOURS NOW) 

PMD: Blue Rescue Team - Farewell and Run Away/Fugitives (you CANNOT make me choose between these guys okay, my brain WILL explode, and whoops now I want to link the whole ost) 

Palette by A Dear Friend (wink wonk) 

Pokémon: Alpha Sapphire - Fortree City (wow talk about mood whiplash)

Detective Conan: Main Theme (I can’t find the specific version since there are so many, but it’s a Good Theme) 

Super Smash Bros.: Brawl - Opening Theme 

Pokémon Colosseum - Relic Forest 

Song for Lindsay by Andrew Boysen Jr. (oh great now it’s time for marching band feelings I guess)

Mt. Everest by Rossano Galante 

Deltarune - Field of Hopes and Dreams and A Town Called Hometown (orchestrated) (aka the Lots of Work To Do song) and You Can Always Come Home and Don’t Forget (hey guess what I wrote a bunch of fake extra verses for) (also it looks my pathetic attempts at narrowing things down are getting even more pathetic so I’ll wrap up soon XD) 

 Guild Wars 2 - Fear Not This Night (never actually played this myself but my friend got me addicted to the music) 

Lord of the Rings - May It Be (Enya) (aaaand now I miss choir, THANKS BUBBLES) 

Lion King - Can You Feel the Love Tonight (Multilingual) by Travys Kim (aka how I remembered how fun these things are) 

Original Song by Anonymous  

(The urge to add all the other songs I’m not adding is so strong but I’ve got so much work to do so just assume I mean all Nintendo music from any game I’ve played, all Ghibli movie music, every musical I’ve ever heard, and even more) 

Random fact:

Apparently as early as the 17th century, you could guess that a child would have a shortened life span if their foreheads tasted salty. Yes, there is a specific reason, and yes, you may already know what it is, and thankfully no, that life span projection no longer holds true, assuming access to Modern Medicine! 

Favourite Authors: Okay I have not read enough various books of enough various authors to be able to answer this, so I’m just gonna go with a few books instead. They are not necessarily all-time favorites, but I enjoyed reading them very much at the time and more often than not go back to them for comfort reads: The Martian, any of first three Harry Potter books, and The Rise of Kiyoshi. (That last one’s not really a comfort read but I am drowning in Loving Kiyoshi juice so here we are)

Favourite Animal Noises: Certain kinds of birds (UNLESS it’s some ungodly hour of the morning and you’re trying to sleep)? Ooh, and crickets! 

Aesthetic: A slob, but like...a comfy slob. An incredibly disorganized hermit who is happy to mill about in the uncontrolled entropy. (Are we talking about what aesthetic I give off, or what I like to look at, visually? Because I like space, and water, and mountains, and forests, and forests ON mountains, OOH and forests on mountains at night where you can see space, perhaps reflected in a body of water. Or just water, idk. Different things are pretty to look at at different times)

WELL THAT ONLY TOOK FOREVER SORRY FOR THE OBSCENE LENGTH 

@pachelbelsheadcanon @averybritishbumblebee @shingeki-no-korra @sailorlock @yeswevegotavideo @soultheta @queenerdloser @ifeelbetterer @rogueofdragons @peppervl @amadness2method @mutalune and anybody else who wants to do this! This isn’t seventeen, and I don’t know if any of you have already done it/been tagged, but I hear people moving around upstairs so that means this break is over XD. And ABSOLUTELY no pressure to actually do this, this is pretty much just me wishing you well! (and YOU of course, my dear reader! I hope everything’s going all right, or if it’s not, that it does soon)

[saltine-kakyoin]

🎶 and jotaro and also kakyoin AND another character..whoever u want ;)

oho… you’ve sent me another message? you know what comes next bro, u brought this upon yourself….this is us now man

anyhow, AH. thos boys…god this one is gonna be so difficult because I have So Many Songs that are tied to them. as for the other character, i think i will do my boy sergio because i really need to share my brainstorming songs for him before i explode! :0 thank you again for sending these in, bro!! have a good night, ily! c:

this will be long bc i always ramble..i will be tagging this as long post for mobile gang!

Jotaro:

thom- i hate to start this off with a jotakak-themed song because i know some people Despise jk. i’m sorry for y’all who do, but ahh this song has been stuck in my head for days now! :’( In terms of the SDA, i always think of this song as like…jotaro’s bittersweet journey w his feelings for kak. it’s something about the like, ghostly windchimes in the beginning, the phone buzzing in the bg, and the “please don’t run away”s man, ahhh. I listen to this song a lot when brainstorming him coming to accept that friendship is as far as he and kak go. However,“ The pitter patter gave a rather rinse and lather feeling/ As opposed to shitty attitudes that made me bitter after laughter/ And I dearly regretted it” really makes me think of pt. 4 jotaro in any context. We only see the end result of his development from SDC, but like hhh… do you think he regrets being so gruff? I think of that 1 fanart where he’s looking at the group picture + hoping they knew he wasn’t annoyed by them (or something along those lines, i forget the exact line…ahh)

something’s missing- So, ofc not all parts of this song apply.. and truthfully, I listen to this song while thinking of the immediate period after the crusade in the SDA and how the crusaders are all left with this hole in them (..@kakyoin literally.. i’m sorry i had to. also, abdul is the hole). Out of all of them, though, I always think of Jotaro the most w this song- “My dad asks, ‘Were you okay out where you were stranded?’ How do I tell him that I wasn’t just okay… I was so much better?” LIKE DAMN THAT IS ONE (1) KUJO JOTARO… :( i think he comes back from the crusade and just feels.. severely misplaced. Going back to Japan and the girls following him to school every morning feels so alien to him.

tempest rhapsody- this song is just… *chef kiss* It makes me think of like. star platinum’s first manifestation, and of the emotions one would feel during a 50-day crusade to a place you’ve never been before, where you run the risk of death at least once a week…how would it feel to know if you got seriously injured in a fight, there would be a very real possibility that your *cough* dearly beloved *cough* mother could die? this song is my answer to that question

only in sleep- another choir song! i cannot help myself. This one is more for canon Jotaro. I’ve read a few fics about the universe reset where he’s reunited with the other crusaders one last time before everything becomes nil, and…..augh. “The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces, I met their eyes and found them mild — Do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, And for them am I too a child?“ is imo such a jotaro 4 am deliberation

softly- THIS. this was the Original jotakak song, no offense thom. i used to listen to this song on REPEAT while reading nessun dorma, ahhh. so much of the sda jotakak dynamic is shaped from that fic and this song, hghshg. Anyhow, now that I’ve worked on the development of their relationship in the sda, this song is most definitely a song for the jotaro who unknowingly pines in 3rd year and then comes to realize that ah…these are Emotions during uni. during their third year, jotaro and kakyoin do a ton of self-exploration, and spend more than one night floating in the pitch black void of the ocean talking about what they’re going to do after graduation with only the stars to accompany them. they lose this when jotaro goes to florida for uni + kakyoin paris, but they make up for it by calling each other all the time, so “Touch you softly I call you up late at night” made this song an instant hit in my book ghshghw. I adore this song, through and through. ;u;

post-published honorable mention bc i rediscovered him while i was workin on polnareff’s playlist!! DOLLY ZOOM is another really good song for pining jotaro. in the sda, he feels really Horrible about having a crush on kakyoin for a long time because he and his family (that is phrased weird, i am sorry) are the entire reason kakyoin got a hole punched right through his abdomen and spine. they’re the entire reason kakyoin spent months learning how to walk and use his legs again. he doesn’t do anything except bury his feelings because, to him, it’d be Really selfish to do otherwise. i listened to dolly zoom nonstop when i started writing Jotaro’s Decade-Long Yearn because it captures the guilt really well, ahh.

Kakyoin (it is 1:24 am as i’m starting this… let’s see how long i agonize over this part lmao)

ultraviolence- ahh, ze Mindworm Song. I really despise diokak and the fact that he had to spend like…3-4 months with the mindworm just chilling in his brain, but I can’t ignore the fact that he latched onto dio’s friendship and was initially elated to have that whole thing happen. It haunts Kakyoin in canon, and it Most Definitely haunts him in the SDA, and i think he and jotaro have a lot of conversations about how and why and what that whole experience was like. I always end up coming back to this song when brainstorming this year in the au. The beginning just sounds so lonely, and the background choir/ voices really give me the heebie jeebies. Then, there’s the build-up to the beat drop, which really make me think of like. what being mindwormed could feel like? And how it must feel to be so lost in that sauce that you become a passenger in your own mind, lost to the whim of one super manipulative vampire, augh. “You give me love, you know you give me love with your ultraviolet rays” ties into a few of FKA Twigs’ other songs where she sings about not being enough and really obsessively deriving love from someone whose attention is ultimately really harmful and unhealthy, and I think about that and Kakyoin a lot. :(

sound and color- so truthfully, this is my go-to song for any character that dies/almost dies and comes back, or goes through a Huge Life Change. kakyoin fits both of these bills to a T! this song makes me think of getting used to being around such a rowdy but tight-knit group of people who genuinely care about you All Day Long after spending your entire life in isolation. I always think of like, a happiness montage when the second half of this song comes around, and the montage i daydream about for kak during that section is *chef kiss* Sound + Color is like one of the best songs ever, and it’d be a crime to not have a kak setting for it. 

first love/late spring- fellas, here’s the kakyoin equivalent to jotaro’s softly. this song was IT, back when the sergio-divergent au and the “All the Crusaders Live” au were two separate things. back then, kakyoin and jotaro’s realization that oh, fuck, they really meant the entire world to each other happened much earlier in the plot. Looking back on that now makes me squint, but I do think that this song is still really fitting for kakyoin exploring those feelings- friendship is one thing, but romance is something entirely different and a lot more intimate. i think it’s a tug-of-war for him, between wanting to jump in to those feelings and wanting to run far far away from them because he doesn’t want to be wrong and ruin their friendship. good times in the kak hole

last words of a shooting star- I really love the bastard fucker side of kakyoin that is explored and celebrated in our fanon, but I can never shake the fact that some of his last thoughts were of his parents (and i think he was sorry for making them worry? which… baby…) and that his polite, “outwardly anxious” presentation was this big facade for like.. the Deep and Soul-Wrenching loneliness he felt because he was a stand user? The first stanza and “They’ll never know how I’d stared at the dark in that room/ With no thoughts” make me think of kakyoin deeply- if his family had never gone to egypt and he’d never met dio or jotaro, what would have happened to him? Who would he be? i’ve always been super attached to that part of kak bc fundamentally… I Relate. but also i am just fond of it because it makes me sob- he deserved so much better than to get murdered by the same man who manipulated his entire identity right at the climax of his character arc….some crimes can never be forgiven, hirohiko….

vertigo- i don’t listen to this song for kak often, but it is a Quintessential Kakyoin song. according to khalid’s twitter, vertigo is a song about “Overcoming overthinking. After every dark days, there’s a brighter outcome. Being at a super low place in your life and realizing that, there’s other people going through that same path you’re walking down. There’s always light at the end of the tunnel. It’s also a story about fear of abandonment.” which….Big Kakyoin Energies. The “Are we alive?Or are we dreaming?” part also ties back into the Kakyoin Parties in a Coma for a Month arc- your mind has a wild wild time when you’re in a medically induced coma, theoretically because it’s trying to fill in the blanks for all of the stuff you’re sensing? And coming out of a medically induced coma is a bizarre experience, where it’s hard to tell if you’re still in the coma and just imagining things or if you’re actually awake. Kakyoin has a mad time in the month immediately after SDC, one that i’m sure he doesn’t enjoy too much after the death 13 fight.

honorable mention goes to i am not yours- this has been a kak song to me for a long time as well. the context of the song is way different from my interpretation for this setting, but AH. I just think kakyoin really struggles to differentiate and understand romantic feelings. This song really reminds me of that struggle, and I think also touches nicely on like. the identity issue of it all too.. “yet i am i, who long to be” yanno? ; J ; it’s hard for me to explain

another honorable mention, my statue sinking. in the sda, after the events in egpyt, kakyoin is thrown into a coma for like an entire month while his body gets operated back together, and then he spends months in physical therapy learning how to walk w a prosthetic spine (kudos to cyborg speedwagon being a reverse engineering madman :D). i like to imagine that there’s also some degree of therapy going on this whole time, also. you don’t just get donuted + thrown into a coma for a month without some counseling to get you back on your feet..i think the lasting effects of dio’s influence are addressed here, but only briefly because it’s not something kakyoin is eager to explore. however, I think that this song captures the like... distress? i guess? of knowing that your life has been irreparably thrown off course because of dio. like yes, you met some really wonderful people that helped you learn how deeply healing friendship could be! but also.. you lost months of your life to mind control, and then another month to a coma, and then additional months to training your body to function again....there’s some psychological stress there. While I think that Jotaro and Polnareff are affected the most by the crusade, I think they all emerge from it with some degree of ptsd. Being targeted by complete strangers at all times of day cannot be good for your mental health, you know? Anyhow, I think My Statue Sinking captures that aftermath feeling really well. Everyone survives and recovers from the crusade, but there’s a part in all of them that is lost to Egypt. 

on to sergio!! (it is now 2:04 am lmaooooooo) sergio will be easy because I only ever listen to the same handful of songs when I’m writing him hdhgh

i will come to you- this is THE sergio song. i think of this song every time i write about him, whether it’s the “believe in me…” “also believe in me” lyric exchange that i imagine he has with both tomoko and holly; the “and i will pray to my father…my father…and he will abide” part being about him reaching out to joseph with his final breaths and spilling all of the beans about dio and begging him to finish things so that Tomoko and Josuke, the Kujos, and he and Suzi can be safe; the “foreeever……foreee-eever.. forever..” part being where he dies and his soul passes into the next realm.. “even the spirit of truth [golden prophet] whom the world [..yeah..] cannot receive, because it seeth him not [bc suad defects and buries sergio instead of bringing his dead body to dio]. Neither knoweth him, but you know him…for he dwelleth in you and he shall be in you [literally the entire joestar/kujo/higashikata family being so near and dear to him + his spirit being with them even after death]” and then, like.. george i, jonathan, and george ii coming to retrieve his soul during the “heeeee shallll beee in youuu” part… “i will not leave you comfortless. i Will Not leave.. You Comfortless… iiii wiiiill come…. to you.. to You” part being about his soul mingling within star platinum and crazy diamond because he has a Need, even in death, to protect them. UGH (also his essence being especially prevalent in crazy diamond, which is partially why its power is to repair things!! bc hamon! ; O ;) literally I have an Entire music video with sergio’s death set to this music. i’ve listened to it way too many times.

when david heard- so to be frank this is actually more of a joseph song, but it’s only a joseph song when sergio exists + gets murdered. :o i cried the first time i listened to this, and then months later i listened to it while thinking of sergio + like. sobbed fr fr. Joseph is asleep when Sergio calls him, so he gets sergio’s final message as a voicemail on his answering machine hours after the fact. the message itself is chilling because Joseph had no clue his son had gone on this huge mission by himself to kill Dio, and now he’s dead! however, it’s made even worse because Joseph wasn’t there to pick the call up and comfort his son in his dying breaths or do Anything. it’s just like Caesar, which is. god awful. it’s such a horrible realization because sergio, whom joseph named after what caesar wanted to name his own son, has been condemned to the same fate as his namesake. Thus this song- i’ve yet to come across a song that captures the feeling of hearing that kind of news so well. (also when i tag things as my sOOOOON or *cries my son in 8-part harmony a la whitacre*, this is the song i’m referencing :D)

zombies / terrified- ahhh, these songs capture the HORROR sergio feels upon sensing dio’s presence in Japan really well. (also “I’m going to eat you alive/please don’t find me rude, but i don’t eat fast food/ so don’t run too fast” is SUCH a dio mood…) Sergio maintains his composure about the Dio Dilemma for a good year before he flies off the handle, and his entire proto-crusade against the vampire is just. Laced with paranoia, even if he is learning a ton of useful skills. These two songs capture that feeling of something constantly watching/creeping up on you so well, and ever since i discovered them, I’ve listened to them for Sergio inspo.

the prophet- This is the only song I’ve done so far that the characters would actually listen to lmao. Sergio is a Huge fan of The Temptations, and his stand is actually named after this song! (+ the esoteric title for the hermit, which was really amazing luck on my end ; J ;) it also had a huge hand in figuring out what his stand power would be, the lyric that decided it was “God doesn’t listen to the words you pray; he hears what your heart has got to say.” However, the entire last stanza of the song ties really well into his character arc fhshgh. Also, this song just feels like it could Be the child of Bloody Stream, if that makes any sense. it’s so groovy and funky, but the lyrics are like big ominous lmao. I was super ecstatic to find this song- if sergio were to ever get an animation, this song would be the OP, yanno?

armageddon- This is another “this song would be on their personal playlist” song. Sergio’s got a lot of love for all styles of music in his heart, but jazz is his home base and always what he comes back to. I like to imagine that Lisa Lisa’s husband introduces Sergio to Wayne Shorter’s music at the age of like 8 or 9, and Sergio’s just. obsessed with the man’s music for the rest of his life. I really love Shorter’s explanation for the meaning of this song and its album as a whole: “What I’m trying to express here is a sense of judgment approaching - judgment for everything alive from the smallest ant to man. I know that the accepted meaning of ‘Armageddon’ is the last battle between good and evil - whatever it is. But my definition of the judgment to come is a period of total enlightenment in which we will discover what we are and why we’re here.” Like… wig.. I feel like that’s such big sergio energy. Armageddon itself also feels like a really nice ED- it’s lively, but in a good episode-ending kind of way. Do i dream of animating Sergio’s adventure one day? Mayhaps.

honorable mention goes to just my imagination/ my girl- We’ve covered that Sergio adores The Temptations, so it’s no secret that he would listen to these songs ceaselessly. however, i really like the broadway harmonies + instrumentals that they did for Ain’t Too Proud, so that’s what’s goin in here. these songs are THE tomoko/sergio songs…He loves Tomoko and the way she quips + teases + gets up to nonsense with him So Much. There’s a huge part of him that has No Idea what Tomoko sees in a music geek like him, but ughh he is so grateful that she likes him because she is a Goddess. he’s blessed yo..

[thekytchensynk]

Ain’t No Picnic (8/9)

Summary: They were just supposed to head over to the island real quick, just to see what was going on. After all, if pirates were trying to ambush and kill the Straw Hat crew, how could Coby NOT go? And how could Helmeppo let him go alone? It should be simple enough, but nothing can be taken for granted in the New World, and when things go awry, Helmeppo finds himself separated from his captain on an island chain full of pirates who probably won’t be too happy to see a Marine if their paths cross.Oh yeah. And one of those pirates is the infamous “Surgeon of Death,” Trafalgar Law… Warnings: Occasional strong language Read it on AO3

_________

For a beat, all was silent in the clearing. Then Anne started laughing, a surprisingly girlish sound. “What? Did you catch this guy in the head or something Cap? Oh, that’s precious.”

But Morgan squinted down at Helmeppo. Leaned forward a little, as though not entirely sure what he was even looking at. The confusion felt so real, Helmeppo started to think he’d been mistaken, even though their bearing and their faces were so close to one another, and how many people had a metal jaw like that?.

Then his eyes widened and he straightened back up. “What’re you doing here, brat?” he demanded.

That stopped the laughter so quick and thoroughly, it almost felt like Anne had died. But Helmeppo wasn’t looking back at her. The form he hadn’t seen in two years was filling up his world right now. He stopped trying to protect his newest injury, reaching out to make sure both kukri were in his hands and ready.

Without the status that his rank had given him, Morgan has apparently decided to go for status through sheer intimidation. He’d always been a strong man, and proud of that fact, but now it was something else entirely. He looked like someone who did difficult, manual labor for a living -- his body had shaped itself around a very visible sort of power. He had a few new scars, and his new axe was less refined and a fair bit bigger. Lugging that thing around went a fair way to explaining the new bulk.

Why was he here?

“You look like shit,” Morgan observed, stepping closer. Fingers tightening on his weapons, Helmeppo scooted away from him.

He knew it was a dumb reaction. He’d been wandering around with the Surgeon of Death for the better part of the afternoon. Compared to him -- a consummate swordsman with a terrifying devil fruit power -- this big muscley guy with an axe should be child’s play. He just needed to get up and take him down.

Except he couldn’t.

Sure, there were physical reasons why his breath came short and his legs felt like they might not hold him up. But the real truth was probably that Law represented a sort of theoretical danger. Helmeppo knew the guy was strong -- the stories about him literally pulling people’s hearts out had reached his ears from people he respected and trusted, including Tashigi. But that was stuff that had happened far away from Helmeppo.

He’d had a front row seat for plenty of what this man had done.

Come on, Helmeppo. He’s here. He’s right in front of you. Weren’t you going to bring him to justice?

Helmeppo would love if that part of his mind would just shut up for a little while. Because yeah, he wanted to do that. But ... he was injured. Tired. Surrounded. This was about the worst possible time to encounter him. Every inch of his earlier confidence had fled him.

“Wait, so he’s really your kid?” Anne was asking. “Your kid’s a Marine?”

“I used to be one too,” Morgan said. “Why d’you think people call me Cap? I don’t run one of those damned pirate ships. Wouldn’t have expected this one to last a week there though.”

Anne let out a little chuckle. “Wow. All kinds of surprises about you today, Cap.”

“So what do we do?” Darvell asked. “Like … are you gonna kill us if we go after him?”

Father and son locked eyes -- one not bothering to hide his glower, the other trying not to let his fear show. Then Morgan shrugged.

“He apparently thinks he’s a grown man, and he got himself into this mess. It’s not my job to get him out of it.”

As though his whole body had been a wound rubber band, the words released a burst of movement in Helmeppo. She scrambled to his feet, dragging his weapons along with him, and booked it in the opposite direction from Morgan. Personal feelings aside, Morgan was clearly the biggest threat here unless one of the other two was hiding some secret ability as a trump card. He didn’t want to be fighting any of them out here, out in the open, not with at least a cracked rib hampering him. He couldn’t move as fast as he liked, and they could surround him. Then it would be over.

He heard Anne’s voice drifting by on his left, as she apparently stood still for the moment, watching him flee. “See why you left him behind,” she said. “Bit of a runner, isn’t he?”

“Never was willing to do what needed to be done,” Morgan said.

Trying to ignore their banter, Helmeppo went for cover, noting only a single set of footsteps following close behind. Darvell, had to be. The best possible case here would be for him to get back to Coby and hope to find help. But Morgan probably knew that. He’d be working to intercept, so Helmeppo would need to be stealthy. And while he wasn’t sure he could do that at all right now, there was no way to even try with this swordsman chasing him. So he needed to end this fight first.

What had Bogard taught them about this sort of thing? If you’re at a disadvantage, you need to surprise them. Hide and ambush if you can. If you can’t, lull them in with a pattern. Then break it.

He let the points of his weapons dip, lower and lower. Normally, he liked the weight of his blades -- It had been satisfying to work his way up from smaller ones, and he liked the power and the unique look they gave him. But now, he could feel the heft of them draining away what strength he had left in his arms. The blades were sharp, but not that sharp -- the whippy plants parted around the kukri but mostly survived it intact. His pace was hampered by the sharp pain in his chest. Whether that rib was cracked or broken, running around wasn’t doing it any favors.

Taking another blow from that swordsman was going to be rough.

“Hey, stand and fight!” Darvell called from behind him. Helmeppo chanced a look over his shoulder.

Bad idea.

The moment his attention was off the ground ahead of him, he stumbled. His weapons dipped lower, dragging into the ground. He caught himself and pulled upright, then turned left, aiming for a slightly more open space, open all the way to the lilypad. He’d get one chance at this. Behind him, he could hear Darvell gaining. He couldn’t stop his lip curling slightly in disgust. The guy had been ready to bolt just a few minutes ago. But now that his opponent was clearly wounded, suddenly he was a hunting dog.

As he reached the open area, he stumbled again, knives once more dragging into the ground -- and here, that meant into the lilypad.

No good. He had to make his stand.

Stumbling to a stop, Helmeppo turned and made a cut directly in front of himself, creating a metaphorical line in the sand … er, plant. “Still following?” he asked.

As Darvell ran out of the undergrowth and saw Helmeppo had stopped running, he too stopped. “You heard Cap,” he said.

Helmeppo sighed, then gestured tiredly with one of his weapons. “Then let’s go.”

Darvall readied his sword, took two steps across the clearing and promptly disappeared.

Helmeppo circled around the flap of lilypad he’d cut out under the guise of stumbling, and that final cut in front of himself. The loose bit of the lilypad lay bunched up on the rough surface. The guy’s weapon and massive coat were probably heavy enough to drag him down a little ways. But if he wasn’t a devil fruit user, the guy could probably swim.

So what do I do when he resurfaces?

The easiest thing might be to just kill him. But again, the idea of doing that to a guy who couldn’t truly defend himself didn’t really sit right.

But maybe… maybe that was a weakness. Like his dad said?

No! No, you can’t even think like that.

But if he’d been a little more ruthless in the cave, after all, he’d be in a lot better shape now. And did they really deserve mercy? They were trying to kill him, and Coby and Straw Hat and Law and everyone else they’d lured here. They’d planned this whole thing. And for what?

His father wouldn’t even struggle with the decision. And he was probably better off for it, in a lot of ways.

Helmeppo’s fingers tightened on his kukris’ hilts. Not having to worry about this guy coming back would make it easier for him to find help. The pirate would be a sitting duck when he surfaced. Plus, his crimes might make his life forfeit if he were captured anyway. And this was a desperate moment.

The water surface shattered as the guy clawed his way up, looking not unlike Helmeppo assumed he himself had a few times today. The guy planted his palms on the lilypad and started pulling himself out. His sword seemed to be gone, lost to the ocean below.

When the edge of Helmeppo’s blade touched his neck, he froze, half in and half out of the sea, sodden coat hiding most of his form. “Please,” he muttered, apparently not daring to even turn enough to look up at the Marine. His voice trembled, carrying a bit of a whine. Pathetic. “Don’t.”

Helmeppo stared down at him for several long seconds.

“Leave,” he said.

“What?”

“Leave. Run.” His kukri remained there, just touching the side of the man’s neck. “I’m not inclined to let the same person go twice. Understand me?”

The guy swallowed. Nodded. “Understood.”

He pulled the kukri back, allowing Darvell to crawl out of the water. He came around to face Helmeppo, eyes wary and wide as an animal’s. “You swear you’ll let me go?”

“Once,” Helmeppo said, biting off the word and keeping the knife trained on him. Darvall nodded again and backed up until he got to the underbrush, then turned and bolted.

For a minute, Helmeppo stayed there, watching the undergrowth. Nothing moved once the guy’s passage disappeared. Was he gone? Helmeppo couldn’t spare the energy to make sure. He’d just have to trust, and hope it didn’t come back and bite him again. Nervous, he turned and started to head back.

The easiest one was taken care of. That left hopefully only two, assuming the fishman and the devil fruit user hadn’t gotten back in the fight. Gingerly, he started back in the direction he thought the battlefield would be. If he could stay out of the way of the other two, maybe his fond daydream of getting out of this hellhole alive might come true.

He was just nearing the area where he thought he’d left the other two when a voice from the surroundings said, “Ah. There you are kiddo..”

Crap!

He brought up his weapons, just in time. A strong punch struck the flats of the blades. He absorbed the force of the attack, but the impact rang down his arms. The pain in his chest flared, bright and brilliant. A grunt of pain slipped between his gritted teeth, and he let the weapons fall to his sides, even as the woman darted back into the undergrowth. Hit and run. Exactly the sort of thing he’d hoped to pull off if he had to fight.

It really wasn’t fair for her to be pulling this on him.

Doing his best not to jostle his injuries, He turned, scanning the leaves for any sign of her. Somewhere off to the left, he heard her holler, “Cap! Found the kid over here.” Fixating on that area, he started backing away, carefully as he could.

Not, he realized too late, carefully enough.

Another of her little throwing knives flew at his face. He knocked it away, but he realized it had come from the direction he intended to go. He needed a new route, but he couldn’t begin to guess where the woman might be. This would be one of those moments where having observation haki could be real useful -- if he could focus long enough to actually use it for more than just a slight early warning system

Maybe she knew this, or maybe she was just a harrying kind of fighter, but she wasn’t giving him the chance. Every time he tried to pinpoint her location, she’d help him out by attacking -- usually the knives, but sometimes a punch, a kick, something else. He’d lost complete track of where he even was in relation to anything, until he scrambled to one side to avoid a knife he just barely registered was coming and found he’d stumbled out into the clearing again. His father was still here, talking on the den den mushi again. He looked up as Helmeppo broached the undergrowth, but didn’t stop whatever he was doing.

Two more throwing knives came from the undergrowth, and this time, he wasn’t fast enough. The first buried itself in his shoulder as he turned in time to swat the second down. He couldn’t even muster the energy to even think about fighting back at this point. He’d heard the phrase “death of a thousand cuts” before, and understood the concept on a theoretical level, but this was his first time living it. None of his wounds were that bad, he could push through any of them, but as it all piled up, it took on a whole new character.

As Anne came out of the undergrowth behind him, Morgan shouted, “What’s taking so long?”

“I was counting on being a distraction for Darvall and that stupid sword of his,” she shouted over with an informality that spoke of long familiarity. “But it looks like the rabbit finally broke and ran.”

Morgan’s reply of a disgusted “Tch” spoke volumes about his feelings on the matter.

“Anyway, if it wouldn’t offend your sensibilities,” she continued, “I could use your help. Your kid’s got good blocking instincts if nothing else. This is going to take me forever.”

He glowered at her, a look that had stricken Helmeppo whenever it was turned on him, but she just watched him, waiting for his answer. After a few seconds, he sighed and pocketed the snail.

“We’ve got to get going. Things are going bad over there. Seems he wasn’t lying,” he said. His eyes slid over to Helmeppo as he added, “Let’s just grab him. The other Marine who’s here isn’t the sort to fire if we have a hostage.”

Helmeppo felt a chill. He couldn’t let that happen. Not again. He wasn’t going to put Coby in that situation again. It had ended up working out last time, but he couldn’t count on it again. But what did he have? Not enough speed to outrun them or enough power to beat them, not like this. He needed something else.

“That’s going to be more work,” Anne said skeptically. “Maybe we should just go.”

“Nah,” Morgan said, starting forward. “I want to do this.”

Stalling as much as anything, Helmeppo asked, “Why are you even here?”

“Someone offered me money to help try to kill that Straw Hat kid,” Morgan said as he approached. “And he ruined my life, so what idiot would say no? But I could ask the same. What dragged you out here? You never belonged on the Grand Line. You barely belonged in the East Blue when I left.”

Anne seemed to have paused her attack, perhaps deferring to Morgan’s desire for this little father-son chat, which was a relief. But Helmeppo really didn’t want to be having this chat. Not now, not here, not with him. Plus … what did he even say? Did this man even deserve to know what he’d been through in the past two years?

“I’ve changed,” he decided to go with.

“Not enough,” Morgan said, giving him another appraising look. “Look at you. Did you get mugged?” he laughed at his own joke. Helmeppo didn’t.

Taking a few steps closer, Morgan continued, “Wielding weapons you can barely hold up. Throwing yourself into a situation where you have the disadvantage.” Then, as though reaching straight into his own thoughts of a few minutes ago, he added, “You couldn’t even bother to make sure your enemies wouldn’t get back up. When the kid wakes back up, you’ll be right back to where you started. You may as well give up. Just come with us quietly, and I won’t get angry.”

Lies. He was already angry. And there wasn’t pity in that expression. So Helmeppo answered by bringing his weapons up, ready for the next attack. To his surprise, it wasn’t a frown, but a grin that spread over his father’s face at that.

“I guess you have changed a little,” he said, his tone entirely unsettling. “But you don’t have a choice.”

That was the signal Anne was waiting for, apparently. From her place far closer to the Marine, she focused and reached for more knives.

There were no good options left. So Helmeppo took the only one he could think of, however bad it might be. Turning to face her, he tossed his weapons behind him, and one hand dipped into his pocket. In one ungainly move, he hurled the thing he found there in her direction.

Her reflexes were as sharp as he’d hoped. Her hand had a knife free of her belt and thrown in one practiced move so smooth that he could barely follow it. She realized her mistake even as she threw the weapon as she noticed him, not turning to run, but covering his ears.

Knife met mysterious capsule in midair. As the capsule came open, long blades of grass sprouted forth, like an angry animal climbing out of far too small a cage. Several of these blades planted themselves in the ground, but others stood out from it in two bunches, pointing in opposite directions. Then they began to spin around one another, faster and faster, And as they cut the air, varying tones of high-pitched, ear-splittingly loud whistling erupted from them.

As a kid, years and years ago, a Marine ensign had tried to show Helmeppo how to whistle on a blade of grass by holding it between his thumbs and blowing over it. He’d never gotten the hang of it and ended up throwing a tantrum about it at the time, but he remembered the sound it had made when the ensign did it (What was her name? Did I ever even ask?). This sound was like that, but on steroids.

Helmeppo dropped to his knees, hands pressed desperately over his ears. He felt like the sound waves were physical forces slamming into him, a million little strikes. The noise pushed right through his hands filling his ears.

But at least he had that protection.

Across from him, he thought Anne was screaming. Her face and posture suggested it, but the sound from the plant drowned out anything issuing from her. Her hands clapped to her own ears, but too late. She shook her head. The hands curled, clawling, and he could see little flecks of blood where her fingernails broke skin. Then she turned toward the edge of the clearing, unsteady on her feet, and took off as fast as her legs could carry her away from the noise.

And then there was one.

Morgan had been further from the epicenter, so maybe that was what saved him, or maybe he’d just seen Helmeppo cover his ears and had taken his cue from there. But now, one hand and one forearm over his own ears, he advanced resolutely on the screaming plant. He slowed as he neared it -- maybe there really was a physical force? -- But once he was right on top of it, uncovered one ear to swing the massive axe at the plant.

Loud as it was, it was still just grass. The thing fell apart at the first slice, its pieces landing on the ground and falling still. Then he looked up slowly at Helmeppo. Began to approach him.

Not great.

His ears rang, but he didn’t need them for this, He turned, grabbing his weapons, and got himself facing the right way just in time to catch the full weight of his father’s axe on the blades. He brought the weapons to a shaking stop a scant inch from his right shoulder. He tried to shove him back, but it was like trying to push a building over. The attempt backfired, sending him sprawling backward instead of pushing Morgan away. One more long stride and Morgan was raising a foot to lash out at his son’s prone form. No thought, no hesitation, just brute strength. Helmeppo dropped one kukri, instead using both hands on one weapon to try to stop this new attack.

But he misjudged. Instead of coming straight at him, Morgan aimed for the blade, coming at it from the side. The force of the kick carried the blade to the ground, and Morgan pressed down, pinning it there. Helmeppo yanked at it, but it wouldn’t budge. His eyes went to the form of his father, towering over him, a shadow against the sun, with his axe raised high.

Shit!

He released his kukri and rolled to the left as his father’s weapon came down in a deadly arc. It sliced into the ground, cutting through the layer of dirt where his arm had been a second before and opening a gash in the lilypad itself to the sea. Water washed up and the abandoned kukri slid out of sight into the dark below.

As Morgan caught his balance from the miss, Helmeppo grabbed the remaining kukri and dragged himself to his feet. He came up with the knife in both hands, holding it warily between himself and his father. His heart sank at the loss of his second weapon, but better to lose it than lose a hand.There was no mistaking the intent of that strike.

For a few seconds, they just stared at one another, a scene out of an action story.

“I should be surprised you were stupid enough to come back here,” Morgan said. “But I’m not. You should have run, boy.”

Helmeppo didn’t answer. First, because answering would take more air than he was willing to give to a conversation with this man right now. And second, he couldn’t help but feel like Morgan was trying to distract him. So he took a couple slow steps, trying to angle himself so he had a free line of retreat back to where Law and Coby were, in case the opportunity presented itself. He kept the weapon pointed at his dad.

Morgan just watched this maneuver, looking almost bored. “Expecting the cavalry?” he asked.

Helmeppo held his tongue.

“I wondered when I saw him -- the hair is memorable. The other Marine is that weak little coward you couldn’t kill before, isn’t he?”

“He’s not a coward!”

The moment Helmeppo spoke, Morgan was moving, lunging with a speed that belied his enormous size. Helmeppo’s instincts kicked in almost immediately, leaning back and jumping away as the axe swung in a massive arc inches from his arm.

The move wasn’t the best for his injured rib. It registered its complaint in the form of a stabbing pain that told him he’d definitely made things worse. He couldn’t completely clamp down on the sound of pain, and he pressed one arm closer to his side in a futile attempt to protect it.

Raising an eyebrow, Morgan asked, “Really? Did I actually hurt you before? I thought you’d decided to be a big strong Marine like your dad, but whatever change you think you made, looks like you’re still mostly the same weak brat in different clothes.”

Helmeppo’s mind was racing. There had to be some way out of this. Morgan wasn’t actually all that quick -- quicker than you might expect, sure, but not quick in the grand scheme of things. Part of his mind was fixated on it -- if I wasn’t injured. If I had my shoes. Next time ... maybe next time-

Survive this time first!

Easier said than done. That little capsule had been literally the last thing he could use to surprise his enemy.

“Tell you what,” Morgan growled. “Forget what I said earlier. Drop the weapon and beg me to spare you, and I’ll let you go. You can run back to your little friend or off to drown yourself in the sea, or however you choose to waste the rest of your miserable life.”

Helmeppo let out a slow breath, watching Morgan’s eyes. He was too slow to react properly once that axe was moving, and getting slower with every bit of blood that seeped out of the knife wounds. He needed to be quiet. Don’t ignore the pain. Accept it as part of the you who’s standing here now. Treat it like the feel of the breeze in your hair. Then focus. Focus. You can do this much at least. Hold out until someone comes.

“That a no? Last chance,” Morgan said.

Helmeppo shook his head once. Another slow exhale. Focus.

With a mirthless laugh, Morgan stepped in again, swinging hard. This time, Helmeppo moved at the same moment, and the kukri slammed into the axe mid-swing, sending it down to slice into the island once more and knocking Morgan off balance.

Glaring, Morgan wrenched the axe up, the blade glittering once more with a spray of water drops, then charged.

It wasn’t really a fight. Helmeppo was all defense, deflecting and dodging and moving as best he could. Morgan was all offense, with big, massive swings that sent shockwaves through Helmeppo every time the weapons clashed. There was no finesse or style, just brute force. So it wasn’t a fight, it was just a waiting game until help came or Helmeppo made a mistake.

The end came when he tried to plant his feet on a bit of bare lily pad as he sought to redirect the next attack. The leaf was wet, a little slick. His foot slipped. The axe came down.

Pain. Enough to blot out everything else. It ripped a sound he didn’t recognize from between his gritted teeth. He tried to take a step back, to get away from the source of that pain, but the leg wasn’t working right anymore and he fell to the ground again. A glance down showed why. The strike had missed the calf bone in his left leg, but there was blood, so much blood, blackening his pants and collecting rapidly on the lilypad beneath him. The kukri fell from his nerveless hands.

And then the axe was there, pointed at him like a judgement.

Unarmed and with nowhere left to go, Helmeppo sat there, breathing in quick, shallow bursts to try to keep the pain at bay, and stared at Morgan in defiance. Begging wouldn’t do anything. And now he was clearly done running. Killing him was going to be easy, but at least his father was going to need to look him in the damn face while he did it.

And Morgan did look him in the face. His eyes narrowed. He raised the axe. Hesitated, drawing out the moment.

Was he enjoying this? Hoping for Helmeppo to just die from the blood loss?

What was he waiting for?

“Hey!”

Morgan turned toward the new voice, bringing one arm up defensively a split second before something slammed into him, knocking him completely out of Hemleppo’s field of vision. With what felt like monumental difficulty, Helmeppo turned his head to see a blur of white, green and pink collide with his father again. This time the impact knocked him into the undergrowth and out of sight. Coby made like he was about to follow him. Then he looked back toward Helmeppo and he swore he could see his friend’s whole frame tense up. He hurried back, shouting ahead of him, “Helmeppo? Are you OK?”

He was trying very hard not to look at his leg. He felt light-headed, and was worried he might get sick all over himself if he did. Should he put pressure on the wound? He should, right? But it was so much blood. He thought, absurdly, that it felt like he didn’t have enough hands to do so correctly. “Uh,” he said shakily. “Yes. But no.”

As Coby arrived, he did look at the leg. Helmeppo guessed from the way he paled and put his hand over his mouth that not looking at it had been a wise course of action. Then he steeled himself visible and said, “I’m sorry, this is going to hurt, but I need to get you to a doctor. OK?”

“OK.” He felt like Coby could have asked him anything in that moment and he would have agreed. It was just like last time. This guy kept swooping in unasked and saving him. Did that make him a damsel in distress? Heh. At least this time he could try not to act like an ungrateful shit about it. “Hey Coby?”

“Yeah?” Coby said as he hoisted the taller man.

He was right. It did hurt. Helmeppo tried not to let it show. He was pretty sure he failed.

“Thanks,” he tried to say. But before he got the word out, the world swam and went dark once more.

[megaphonemonday]

hashtag blessed

approximately forever ago (I’m real slow filling these prompts in case none of you have noticed) @alwayskels sent me this: Ginny is pregnant with Bawson's first baby and her appetite is insatiable! It turns into a thing where like fans take pics with her at restaurants #EatWithBabyBawson. It's all one big joke in good fun. Mike and the team have a field day with it.

And I have wanted to do a multimedia fic for a long long time. I sensed my opportunity and took it. This was a labor of love and I’m actually really happy with the way it turned out. Hope you like it, too!!

read on ao3 | version with image descriptions

The fact that everyone, from bloggers to commentators to fans to people who’d never actually watched a game of baseball in their life, immediately read into Ginny’s placement on the 60-Day DL shouldn’t have been such a surprise. It seemed like every time Ginny so much as changed her coffee order, the public at large was eager to dissect and discuss the incident ad nauseam.

This was no different.

Another elbow strain. Tommy John for sure. She’s out for the season.

No, it’s just a jammed finger I think. They probably wanna make room on the roster, try out some of the newer prospects in AAA.

But did you see her favor her left hip last week? Her landing was off the entire game against the Rockies. It’s gotta be that.

And, of course: Well, what if she’s pregnant?

By far, that was the most popular explanation.

If it weren’t also 100% correct, Ginny probably wouldn’t be so annoyed about it all.

Then again, the sheer number of times a possible Ginny Baker pregnancy had been rumored and reported on—She walked out of a restaurant with her hand on her stomach? Pregnant. Had a less than stellar outing on the mound? Super pregnant. Sent Mike out to CVS to get tampons because she couldn’t be bothered to pull herself together enough to leave the house? Obviously trying to cover up the fact that she was, you guessed it: pregnant—someone had to hit on the truth eventually. 

It was cold comfort.

It’d be a little funny if it wasn’t her uterus constantly under such scrutiny. And if she hadn’t had all these hormones flooding her system for the past three months.

As it was, Mike was much better situated to find the humor in the situation. He was currently sitting by her side on the couch, one arm draped casually over her shoulders, reading out the responses he liked the most and counting the number of people who’d finally gotten it right. He could afford to find it all funny, though. He’d only been involved in the parts that were fun for them both.

Which wasn’t precisely fair, Ginny knew.

In the three or so weeks since Ginny’d told him the news, her husband had been on cloud nine. It wasn’t as if they hadn’t been trying for this in the general sense—they both wanted kids, but Ginny was still going strong and Mike was willing to wait—but they hadn’t put a lot of effort into it. (Aside from getting as much practice in the baby-making department as they could.) 

So, Ginny’d gone off to Spring Training, not once suspecting what might be forming somewhere behind her belly button.

Not until she couldn’t stop throwing up.

It was so bad, she’d had to skip a start. She’d told Al it was just the stomach flu, and even believed it. Only his skeptical smile and insistence on a doctor’s appointment made her wonder if it was something else.

Needless to say, the skipper’s suspicions paid off. She was pregnant. Nearly nine weeks along.

Ginny will never, as long as she lives, forget the look of awe and tender devotion that took over Mike’s face as she told him, shell-shocked and jittery and still happy as hell, that he was going to be a dad.

His hand came up to cup her cheek, and Ginny could feel the way his fingers trembled. Just like his lips as he swallowed, eyes shining. “I’m gonna be a dad?” he repeated, like he needed to hear it again, just to be sure.

She nodded, covering his hand with hers, and finally letting the brilliant, excited grin spread across her face. “Yeah,” she breathed, just before he crashed into her, his lips stretched just as wide as hers.

And how could she help but laugh when he wrenched himself away, his hands fluttering uncertainly near her stomach. “Shit! Are you all right?”

“I’m pregnant, not fragile,” Ginny promised, though Mike still looked doubtful. To prove her point, she pulled him back in and set about showing him how tough she was.

Since then, Mike had been pretty reluctant to leave her side. Which made the one road trip she’d been on something of an experience. He hadn’t been able to come up with a plausible reason to follow the team to New York and Philadelphia, but Ginny had no doubt that he’d really tried. He’d had to settle for hourly text updates, and when she was too busy to reply, pumping his former teammates as subtly as possible for information on her condition. Since more than one of those teammates asked when Mike had gotten such separation anxiety, Ginny figured he was semi-successful.

Which was why she knew that Mike was secretly relieved the team had elected to put her on the DL rather than risk complications.

If she was being honest, Ginny was relieved, too. Unexpected or not, she’d already grown attached to the little bundle of cells growing inside her. Much as she loved her job, she wasn’t as disappointed to give up a season as she’d once thought she’d be. Then again, after four seasons in the show, Ginny no longer had to battle and grind and push to keep her spot in the rotation. No, she’d probably never move much beyond her spot as the number five starter, but her ERA and win-loss record spoke for itself. She wasn’t going anywhere.

Even after a baby.

So, the public could speculate and take to Facebook and Twitter to talk about her all they liked. They couldn’t change the fact that Ginny Baker was living the dream: a starting pitcher in MLB, married to the love of her life, and expecting her first child. 

That was real. That was tangible, unlike all the talk currently flooding the internet. 

And real life, the life where Mike’s fingers were toying with her hair and she could smell their dinner simmering away on the stove, that was what mattered.

People said pregnancy was magical. 

Ginny had more than a few doubts on that front. 

Going into this, she had no illusions that her North Carolina public school sex education had been anything close to adequate. Which was why she’d set out to fill in the gaps in her understanding.

(Not the process of making the baby—she had plenty of experience with that, thank you—but what came after.)

And the more she read about pregnancy, with all its potential dangers and complications—the more horrified she became. 

“Did you read this?” she demanded throwing What To Expect When You’re Expecting on Mike’s cluttered desk. 

He peered at the book for a second before glancing up to her, his reading glasses slipping down his nose. Which just wasn’t playing fair. He knew how Ginny felt about his glasses. 

(In fact, it was potentially those exact feelings that would wind up taking all of Ginny’s research out of the realm of theoretical and landing it squarely in reality.)

“Which part?” he hedged, closing his laptop and giving her his full attention. 

That was one of the things about Mike. It didn’t matter how irrational Ginny knew she was being, he always treated her concerns and fears with nothing but complete gravity. And he never tried to talk her down without knowing what those concerns were. 

She swallowed. “All of it?”

“Not yet,” he answered honestly. “I kind of figured we had time on that front.” His eyes narrowed and darted down to her flat stomach before landing back on her face. “We do have time, right?”

“Yeah,” she laughed, which was apparently all she’d needed to let this pile of worries melt away for the time being. Ginny wouldn’t forget the things that’d scared her, but Mike was right. She didn’t need to worry about them now. “We’ve got time.”

But that was before she found out she was pregnant. 

In the after, Ginny had become remarkably zen about it all. Sure, she’d probably see pimples in places there hadn’t been since she was an acne-prone teenager and later she’d need to pee every fifteen minutes and the mood swings didn’t sound like a walk in the park, which was to say nothing about the changes she’d have to make to her diet, but—

(And it was a pretty big “but.”)

But at the end of it all, she’d have someone who was the perfect blend of her and Mike. Someone who was proof positive of how much they loved each other. Someone to add to their family. 

And that was a fair payoff for what Ginny would have to go through to get to that point, she thought. 

Just. She didn’t always have to be reasonable about it, did she?

In retrospect, Ginny would acknowledge that she could’ve been less dramatic. But her whole life, she hadn’t been able to eat cilantro without thinking about the time her pop washed her mouth out with soap for repeating the curse Evan Larson had taught her in pre-K Sunday School. Now, she nearly ate half of Livan’s sopes before he remembered to tell her he’d asked for extra of the disgusting herb. 

What the hell had pregnancy done to her taste buds?

She’d honestly thought Mike would find the story funny, maybe even figure out how to get it down to 140 characters so he could tweet about it. 

(He’d really gotten into social media post-retirement. Eliot had been more than delighted to give him a tutorial that first winter, and soon, Mike could give the best of them a run for their money. Privately, Ginny thought he mostly used it to avoid finishing the memoir he’d insisted on writing himself, but whatever made him happy.)

She certainly hadn’t expected him to send out a panicked group text to nearly every one of their friends and acquaintances asking if they knew of her whereabouts. Since she’d been in the clubhouse, trying to keep up appearances that this assignment to the DL was injury-related, approximately half her teammates came rushing into the dining area to check on her and make sure Livan wasn’t in the process of murdering her or something.

Since the Cuban was too busy laughing his ass off at Ginny’s distress, which, while rude as hell, wasn’t going to kill her, most of them wandered off to finish their pre-game prep. Still, not a single Padre had any desire for their former captain to burst into the clubhouse in a haze of Ginny-induced panic. As team captain, Blip took it upon himself to inform his predecessor that his wife and future offspring were fine and headed home.

It wasn’t that Ginny didn’t feel bad for worrying him, but she also felt he could afford to take a step away from the edge of constant panic. Some time after that haze of blissful anticipation wore off, Mike dove headfirst into preparation mode. He called it nesting; Ginny'd call it something else. Currently, he was in the midst of trying to baby-proof the entire house and refusing to believe that they didn’t need a toilet lock for at least six more months.

(Ginny did her best to distract him when he really got going, and while there was a certain novelty in being the calm and steady one now, there were only so many times she could lure him back to bed—or the couch or the shower—without raising his suspicions.)

So, she listened to her captain and went home to talk Mike down. After all, the team wasn’t wrong in assuming it was only a matter of time before Mike burst into his former domain, wild-eyed and terrified. 

When she walked in the door, it was to that exact sight. 

Mike had clearly been pacing a hole in the floor, his car keys clutched in one hand, like he didn’t quite trust Blip’s report and was fully prepared to rush out if Ginny didn’t make it home quick enough. Any exasperation she might have felt faded away at the palpable fear etched across her husband’s face.

The keys dropped to the floor when he caught sight of her. In no time at all, he had Ginny wrapped up in his arms, his face pressed into her hair as shuddering breaths wracked his frame. 

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, smoothing her hands up and down his back. The muscles there didn’t quite relax, so she rucked up his shirt, laying her palms against his warm skin. By degrees, his breathing evened out, all while Ginny promised, low and sure, “I’m fine. We’re fine.”

He nodded but didn’t loosen his grip on her.

“Are you okay?”

Mike nodded again, and Ginny felt the precise effort it took for him to make the high-wire tension of his muscles loosen, approaching something close to normal. She pressed a kiss to his collar bone and another to the base of his throat, waiting until he sighed. 

Finally, she tipped her head back to look him in the eye. There were still more than a few jitters clanging around somewhere in that head of his, but he looked far more settled than he had been. 

“The sky’s not falling, Mike. I’m not gonna tell you not to worry, but this is a good thing, what we’ve done. Let’s enjoy it.”

“Okay, Gin,” he said, nodding his agreement. He’d follow her calls for this. There was still a hint of uncertainty in his eyes, but his smile was steady. 

That was a start, and, with them, a start was all they needed.

After Ginny asked Amelia to issue a statement about the impending addition to the Baker-Lawson family, she sort of expected to be done publicly talking about the state of her uterus. 

She was pregnant. She and Mike were very happy about it. She and the developing fetus renting out her womb for the next however many weeks were healthy. 

What else did anyone need to know?

How she’d ever deluded herself, Ginny would never know because within minutes of the statement going live, the news had exploded across the internet. It probably didn’t help that it wasn’t just ESPN and Fox Sports reporting on it. No, gossip sites and blogs had picked it up, too, and run with it.

Which was to say nothing about Twitter. 

All it took for people Ginny had never heard of, people she’d never meet or even pass on the street, to weigh in on her pregnancy was a valid email address and an internet connection. 

And they were all led by none other than her husband and his crusade to make #BabyBawson a thing.

If Mike was disappointed that she’d nixed all of his social media-based pregnancy announcements, he’d gotten over it quickly. He didn’t respond to every congratulatory tweet, but only because it was an impossible task. As soon as he’d get done with the last of them, a hundred more would’ve been posted. 

When Ginny’d asked him to enjoy the ride, she was pretty sure this wasn’t what she meant. 

But, he was happy, and it was hard to argue with that. 

In fact, a lot of people were happy about this baby. People were excited for her, which was a gratifying change from the usual reaction when Ginny’s name was in the news. 

It was pretty overwhelming, too, if Ginny was being honest. Overwhelming enough that she mostly elected to stay off social media. 

If only her friends had gotten the memo.

Not that Ginny even minded Evelyn sharing this. It was different when it was her closest friend sharing her excitement.

Ever since she first found out, Evelyn had been her rock. Evelyn was her only good friend who was also a mom. She was the only person Ginny could talk to about all the changes her body was going through or about what to expect next.

After the requisite congratulatory hugs and celebrations and check ins, Evelyn Sanders got down to business, peppering Ginny with enough information to make her head spin. Everything from the various pros and cons of a midwife versus a doula to the nitty gritty details of breastfeeding to the best yoga positions to keep her back from getting too sore once she'd swelled up like a blimp was laid on the table.

“Oh, and we still have all the parenting and pregnancy books, so don’t worry about buying those, either.”

Ginny laughed, the weight of keeping this secret from her best friend lifting off her shoulders. “Ev, the boys are twelve! Were you just waiting for this moment?”

“Yes,” she responded immediately, setting Ginny off again. “I tried to donate them once, but Blip snuck them out of the box like I wouldn’t notice. I don’t think he’ll mind them going to you two, though.”

Blip hadn’t quite given up the dream of a baby girl Sanders, but he’d gotten much more philosophical about it all. With Ev back in school, and getting her business up and running, he could admit that the past few years wouldn’t have been ideal timing to add on to the Sanders clan. Anyway, he and Evelyn were still young; they had time.

Maybe—just maybe—by the time Mike and Ginny were done with the books, Blip and Ev would need them again.  

After all, it'd be kind of nice for their families to have two generations and three sets of best friends.

So, the fact that Evelyn was ecstatic for her, that was nice to know, nice to have everlasting proof of, even if the world got to know about it, too.

And anyway, Evelyn’s online exuberance didn’t have anything on Mike’s.

He was an excited first time dad. How could Ginny blame him? 

Honestly, though, it didn’t bother her that people were talking about her. Not really. Sure, it was one thing for her husband and friend to talk about how excited they were and an entirely different one for a stranger to do it. That was more than a little strange, but she’d mostly accepted that that kind of attention was a part of her life now; ever since Ginny first started making waves in the minors, people had been talking about her. If she let it bug her, she’d never get anything done. 

Just, she didn’t particularly want to deal with it herself. 

So, she did her best to shrug off her clogged notifications on Twitter and Instagram and go about the business of growing another person inside of her. 

And, lately, fending off some of the truly ridiculous cravings that had taken over her refrigerator and life. 

The cravings, when they came, were no surprise. Remember, Ginny’d done her research. If anything, she’d been looking forward to them. Someone who’d already enjoyed her food, Ginny looked forward to a period of judgment-free eating. After all, was eating banana peppers on everything for a week straight that much stranger than some of the “health” foods her trainer had tried to convince her to eat?

She knew what Mike would say, but the little disagreements were what made a marriage interesting.

But while Ginny—and Mike, who had cheerfully taken on the sudden increase in grocery store runs—took these cravings in stride, the same couldn’t be said for the public at large.

Ginny’d always liked food and had never bothered to pretend she didn’t. But, since she was a woman in the public eye, this was often treated as some sort of alien anomaly. People always wanted to know what she was eating: her game day meals, what she had on cheat days, secret diet tips. 

Of course her cravings were no different.

Between Ev and Mike, people had definitely clued in and picked up on the fact that Ginny had really settled into the inexplicable cravings stage of pregnancy. There was tons of advice pouring in from all over the world. How to deal with it and what to do when they were impossible to sate. It was all incredibly sweet, even if Ginny couldn’t sympathize with the impulse to send a total stranger pregnancy advice.. 

Less sweet—more puzzling—was how invested people continued to be in these cravings of hers. 

In retrospect, it shouldn’t have been so surprising that run of the mill pregnancy cravings had become such a fixation for people. The public at large was hungry for details—#BabyBawson had trended at least three times—that Mike and Ginny just weren’t providing. Since they’d chosen not to find out the sex of the baby, debates about possible names or future careers were too theoretical to keep anyone’s attention, and even though her and Mike’s relationship had caused something of a stir when they first went public, they’d now settled hard into boring domesticity. Well, Ginny wouldn’t call it boring, but she could see how cozy dinners at home and trips to the farmers market didn’t exactly make for riveting news.

Aside from Mike’s unbridled excitement, the only information anyone really had about Ginny’s pregnancy were the cravings. Where else would all that curiosity fixate?

It wasn’t until she came across Mike taking a picture of their grocery list, though, that Ginny realized just how fixated it was. 

He frowned down at the pad of paper sitting on their kitchen table, next to the neglected bags of groceries and his keys. As Ginny started putting things away, approvingly noting that he’d anticipated her sudden desire for Nutella and bananas on toast, Mike squinted up at the overhead light and shifted, his shadow moving away from the table. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, already unscrewing the jar. Why wait for toast, anyway? A spoon was good enough. 

“Taking a picture,” he replied absently. 

Ginny rolled her eyes, not that Mike noticed. She drifted over to his side and propped her chin on his shoulder, peering down at the phone in his hand. 

“Are you seriously posting our grocery list to instagram?”

“Our third grocery list this week,” he corrected, bumping her hip with his, but failing to dislodge her. 

Ginny just laughed, leaning harder into his side. She didn’t pay much attention as he picked his filter and fiddled with the settings; she was too busy planning on getting him back in bed for an afternoon nap. When he made a satisfied noise, though, she turned her attention back to the screen and couldn’t help but laugh again.

“What?” Mike asked, grinning down at her. 

“Our unborn baby does not need two hashtags. It doesn’t even need one!”

He laughed, too, and kissed her forehead. “That’s not what the internet thinks, Gin,” he said, and sent the picture out into the world.

Whether he meant to or not, with just one post, Mike set off a verifiable social media movement. Seriously, when Eliot looked into it, he couldn’t help but be impressed by how quickly the hashtag took off.

The one time she brought herself to look at the search results, it was mostly full of people talking about how cute it all was, how excited Mike was about her pregnancy. 

Ginny couldn’t disagree.

He was cute. Ginny’d lost track of the number of pictures of onesies and maternity shirts he’d texted her, mostly without comment but the intent clear. Still, she had every single one saved in a folder on her phone. Going to Target with him had become next to impossible since he always ended up in the baby aisle, staring in awe at all the tiny shoes and blankets and toys. 

If Ginny’d thought about it, a picture of that—bearded, take no shit Mike Lawson undone by the sight of some baby essentials—would’ve blown #EatWithBabyBawson out of the water. 

As it was, she liked getting to keep that part of him all to herself. 

Even if the internet was blowing up with her eating habits as fast as Mike could supply them. She’d leave the social media stuff to him.

But then her teammates had to go and get involved. 

Technically, there was no reason for Ginny to keep going into Petco. She wasn’t actually injured. It wasn’t like she had to check in with the team trainers or make sure she was keeping up with her workouts. Which she was; Ginny might be taking more naps than she was used to, but even pregnancy couldn’t completely erase her practically boundless energy.

Then again, she’d spent her entire adult life in and out of stadiums. It didn’t feel right to be anywhere else during baseball season. 

Her teammates were generally pretty good about her and her growing baby bump’s presence in the clubhouse. There were enough dads on the team that no one hassled her.

Well, not in ways she couldn’t take.

Ginny didn’t care what anyone said. That omelette was delicious. She even got Jean-Luc to try it and in spite of his refined Parisian sensibilities, he’d admitted she was on to something. 

So had every Padre that she’d convinced to take a bite. 

Which was, admittedly, a pretty small group. Not that she could blame them considering how territorial she’d been over her bag of Funyuns the other day. Sonny was just too busy smarting from the way she’d smacked the snack out of his hands to admit to her culinary genius.

And really, they were just lucky she hadn’t shown up with the peanut butter and olive kick she’d been on the week before. 

In protest, Ginny resolved to steer clear of the clubhouse for a while. See how much they liked having the clubhouse menu go back to skinless chicken breasts and steamed vegetables every meal. They’d beg to have her back in no time flat.

Habit was a hard thing to break, though, and the following day, Ginny found herself back at Petco Park. Frowning, she stared up at the familiar facade outside the players’ entrance. She couldn’t go inside. Not if she wanted to teach her ungrateful teammates a lesson. 

So, rather than winding her way to the clubhouse, deep below the stands and concession booths, Ginny decided to stay well above ground. Cheerfully, she circled around to the front gates, calling Eliot as she walked.

It’d been a long time since she’d actually had the chance to sit and watch a game; she might as well take advantage of the opportunity. And since Mike was knee deep in edits to his memoirs, Ginny figured her beleaguered social media manager was the perfect recipient for her second standing ticket. 

After all, she’d put him through quite a bit lately. Even though Ginny still replied to the tweets and Instagram posts from her friends and teammates and whoever else Eliot deemed appropriate on her own, he took care of the rest. 

And the rest was substantial.

Technically, this was well above his pay grade. As Vice President of New Media in the Slater Management Group, monitoring one client’s social media presence should’ve been well beneath his notice. But Ginny didn’t quite trust the horde of interns and associates Amelia’d hired to form the base of her sports agency empire. 

And anyway, Eliot was a bit of a pushover. Supply him with enough snacks, and he’d do anything.

Ginny wasn’t exaggerating. She really could only go so fast, which was its own adjustment to make. In spite of all the eating she’d been doing, she hadn’t put on a ton of weight. It was the bump that slowed her down. Practically overnight, it’d blown up, delighting Mike who already had a hard time keeping his hands off her.

Where before she’d been able to hide the swell in loose tops and baggy sweatshirts, there was now no denying that Ginny Baker had been knocked up, and Mike couldn’t be any more smug about it. 

“You popped,” he grinned, coming up behind her as she frowned at her reflection in the mirror. This shirt had fit just last week. How was it pulled so tight now?

His hands landed on the fullest part of her belly, and Ginny couldn’t even bring herself to roll her eyes. Instead, she turned slightly to the side to better observe the molehill that’d become something of a mountain. 

“I guess I did,” she finally laughed, leaning back against Mike. “It’s not so bad, right? I mean, as long as I don’t get bigger.”

Wishful thinking. 

That’d been a few weeks ago and it seemed like all Ginny’d done since then was get bigger.

She didn’t feel slow per se, but she was suddenly so much more conscious of how she had to navigate spaces. Not only did she have to escape the grasping hands of strangers—Seriously, what about a pregnant woman’s stomach made people so eager to reach out and touch?—she had to plan her routes differently, allow herself more time to make it from Point A to Point B. Ginny could no longer slip through crowds or skip down the stadium stairs without a second thought. Maybe Mike and his worries had rubbed off on her, but she was conscious of every step she took now, careful in the extreme.

If some of her teammates were more than willing to poke fun at her for this, Ginny didn’t really mind. 

After all, she was more than capable of getting them back.

(Like he could’ve said anything else when she knew exactly where he slept. Still, Ginny made sure he knew exactly how happy his response had made her the first chance she got.)

And he didn’t keep his petty vengeances to the internet, either.

He did look to it for his inspiration, though.

During the All-Star Break, for those Padres unlucky enough to neither be selected to the team nor have any real plans to get out of it, Mike hosted what he named: “Top Chef: Not-So All-Stars.”

He thought it was funny, at least.

It was less a cooking competition than an excuse to make his former teammates come congratulate him on his impending fatherhood and bring food along with them.

Ginny did taste test every dish, though. Less because she wanted to rank them and more because she wanted to see what their wives and girlfriends had to put up with on a regular basis. 

Either being pregnant was messing with her tastebuds more than she’d thought, or her teammates were less of a disaster in the kitchen than she’d expected. Nearly every single one of them produced something that Ginny wouldn’t mind eating. Most of it even passed Mike’s more exacting standards. 

“Did you seriously make Lorena eat this last time she was pregnant?” he asked Salvi, peering suspiciously at the casserole dish. 

“Make her? It was all she’d eat for four days straight. I though I was going to have to invest in Ore-Ida to keep enough tater tots in her house to keep her and the boys fed.”

Mike still looked skeptical. 

“Just try it, old man,” Ginny teased, already trying to decide which of her teammates’ cooking she was going to try next. Omar’s ropa villeja looked pretty promising. “Or Salvi’s gonna think you’re chicken.”

When the first baseman started clucking under his breath, Mike swept a mutinous glare between him and his wife, who definitely wasn’t holding in a burst of laughter, and scooped a heaping forkful into his mouth. After a long moment of thoughtful chewing, he swallowed and pronounced, “That was disgusting.”

Ginny didn’t bother reining in her laughter after that. 

It wasn’t just her teammates and friends that got in on the fun, though. Ever since Mike had created #EatWithBabyBawson, people had been adding to it like crazy. Eliot always made sure to tell her when it trended in San Diego. 

Which was essentially every other day.

Mostly, it was people documenting their sightings of Ginny in the wilds of the city, creating a spotty map of her movements and the evolution of her cravings from day to day. 

Needless to say, as Ginny’s food swings (as Evelyn had taken to calling them) rolled on and on, there were many points of data to add. Hundreds of little incidents between Ginny and fans, all documented for posterity on social media.

And Mike encouraged them. 

If they were approached in a restaurant and Ginny was feeling up to it, he always cheerfully took a picture of his wife and her fan and often even sweet talked his way into getting a copy of the photo for himself. Ginny wasn’t unconvinced he wasn’t saving them in a scrapbook somewhere. 

He certainly had more than enough material. 

If Ginny wasn’t feeling up to it, though, Mike was the best buffer in the world. Even if he weren’t naturally charming, he’d learned over his close to two decades in the show how to interact with fans, how to joke and cajole and make a stellar first impression without doing all that much. It was one of the things Ginny admired about him. While she could fake her way through any number of uncomfortable interactions, Mike hardly ever got uncomfortable in the first place. He was too easy in his skin for that. 

Either way, the sheer number of positive Ginny-and-Mike interactions with the citizens of San Diego certainly had to be laid at Mike’s door. The bigger Ginny’s belly grew, the testier she got.

While she was always grateful for fans and their support, she was more than happy to leave their appeasement to Mike. After all, he wasn’t the one growing a whole new person. 

And he was more than happy to take that responsibility. Especially since it meant he got to trawl the internet for more fodder for the scrapbooks he swore he wasn’t making.

He showed the last one to her as they sat in bed at the end of a long day at the beginning of August. There were still two months to go until Ginny’s due date, but she couldn’t imagine getting bigger. Lying flat and looking down her body, she couldn’t see her toes unless she lifted one swollen ankle into the air. Which she did to frown at how fat her feet had gotten. 

She paused in this endeavor, though, when Mike waved his tablet at her. Ginny obligingly took it and skimmed over the story. When she was done, she handed it back and informed him, “I don’t even wanna know how you find this stuff.” 

“Then I won’t tell you,” he replied, prompt, before raising one eyebrow at her. The grin on his face had her melting even before he teased, “Sounds like someone’s got a crush on you. Should I be worried?”

Laughing, even as a little foot drummed away inside her belly, Ginny teased, “As long as you don’t cut off my animal style fries like you did all my cheese plates.”

“Listeria’s no joke, Baker.”

She waved him off, but plucked one hand from his tablet and laid it low against her stomach. What only a few months ago had been a slight flutter against her insides had become a definite kick. Mike’s face lit up and he abandoned his device and scooted down the bed so he could press his ear to the dome of her belly. Ginny watched fondly, even when the kicks shifted to her kidneys. 

“Once this thing’s out of me, I’m eating so much brie, Lawson,” she promised. 

“I’ll buy up all the cheese in France if that’s what you want,”

“And the wine, too?”

“So greedy,” he laughed, lifting up so he could press a kiss against her smiling mouth. When he pulled away, he said, “Whatever you want, Gin. It’s yours.”

“Just you. Just you and this one,” she said, laying her hand back against her stomach, right next to his. 

“Sounds good to me.”

By the end, Ginny wouldn’t say that she completely understood the dynamics of #EatWithBabyBawson, but she’d also accepted that that was okay. It didn’t matter that she had no clue what most of these people got out of it. 

There was something, and it didn’t matter that she was on the outside of it.

What she did know was how lucky she and her unborn baby were to have so many people in the world who cared so deeply about them. These were good people who wanted only the best for her and her family, and were trying to make sure, in whatever small ways they could, that she had an easy pregnancy.

(And if she got some excellent restaurant recommendations out of it, that was just a bonus.

Ginny’d be lying if she said she didn’t go out and try each and every one of these. They did not disappoint, either.)

So while her cravings had settled down and she was back to mostly eating like herself, she still appreciated the fact that people took time out of their day to worry about her. 

These were good eggs. Ginny didn’t completely understand them, but she was grateful for them nonetheless.

Which was why, even minutes after her water broke, while Mike dashed around the house collecting her go bag and going through his three separate checklists, Ginny sat down at the kitchen table. 

Waiting at her place was the snack she’d just made for herself. Nothing fancy— the opposite of fancy, in reality—but she’d really been looking forward to eating it. Maybe it was the prospect of her own child’s nearing due date, but Ginny’d been thinking about her own childhood lately, and an after school classic sounded delicious. 

She was just coming back to the table with a glass of water when she felt something wet spill down her legs. 

Frowning at the still full glass, reality didn’t set in until Mike cursed behind her. 

“Did your water break?” he asked, faint. 

“I think it did,” she replied. 

And he was off, leaving Ginny to contemplate her uneaten snack.

Mike rushed back into the kitchen, looking pale and eager and vaguely nauseous, just as Ginny fished her phone from her pocket and gingerly eased into her waiting chair.

“Ginny, what are you doing?” he demanded, sounding like he’d love nothing more than to pick her up bodily and deposit her in the car so they could dash off to the hospital. 

“Taking a picture,” she snarked back. Her fingers flew over the keyboard as Mike shifted impatiently at her side. Once everything was just how she wanted, she tapped the screen one last time and sent the picture out into the world. 

Only then did she turn to look at Mike and, with a smile, say, “What are you waiting for? Let’s go have a baby.”

[windienine]

for the character meme- wilson and/or tracer?

Things I have in common with Lena Oxton:

- I like looking on the bright side of things! It still doesn’t come easy to me and I have to concentrate on good thoughts to do so, but I try my best to be optimistic about every situation.

- I’d like to think I bounce back easily after traumatic events. My mood changes very quickly, and there have been times where I’ve been in serious peril and then the next day I was perfectly fine emotionally. Have you SEEN how much she gets nearly killed in trailers? Girl’s got guts!

- gay. like, really, really gay.

Things I definitely do not have in common with Lena Oxton:

- I can’t fcking run track. I cannot. I can do short distances, and I can do stuff like cycling, but bring hurdles or anything more than 200M into the mix and I will fail horribly. 

- I’m not as immediately open to people. Tracer just wears her heart on her sleeve, and I envy how easy it is for her to just go out and speak her mind and be an individual. She makes it look simple!

- I’m of a more serious and sometimes even sullen disposition than her. I can’t banter, give encouragement, or keep up a smile when things are in the process of going wrong, and overall she makes for more of a natural leader than me because of that. She can support people even when she’s hanging on by a thread, and that takes a special kind of strength. 

Things I have in common with Wilson P. Higgsbury:

- You’re not gonna believe this, but I kind of really enjoy science. I love research in every field, and nothing (outside of being with my friends) grants me as much happiness as just being in class, reading books, and cataloguing more information. Physics and other developing fields are my favorites, because there’s just so much that’s still being theorized about! 

- Humor to cope humor to cope humor to cOPE. I think the first time I resonated with him was when I noticed how many dry comments and how much wordplay he used in-game, probably just to make himself (or a friend) feel better about the overall situation. He’d literally be the type who makes shitposts about death to hide the fact that he might actually die.

- He kind of skirts this weird line between being suicidally overconfident in his own ideas and being an anxious wreck who can’t even believe in his senses, and I feel that a lot. We benefit a lot from having somebody around to lend a hand because of that.

Things I definitely do not have in common with Wilson P. Higgsbury ⁽ʸᵒᵘ'ʳᵉ ᵍᶦᵛᶦᶰᵍ ᵐᵉ ᵃ ᶜʰᵃᶫᶫᵉᶰᵍᵉ ʰᵉʳᵉ, ᵇᵘᶜᵏᵒ⋅⁾: 

- Oh, come on, I like geology. He prefers working with his hands than actually explaining and teaching people stuff. His descriptions of things aren’t all that descriptive, meanwhile I tend to infodump everything on a subject the second it’s brought up. Maybe he’s just more mathematical while I veer towards the theoretical end of this kind of thing?

- Hahaha he’s so short. I may be an introvert, but I can’t do the whole hermit thing. I get antsy when I shut down social media around midterms and finals, and every day I do try and contact my friends in some form! Just… not in large groups.

- Honestly? He never really seems to look for anyone’s approval or worry about what others think of him (to the point of seeming to hate needless formality), but I’m always struggling to keep up appearances around everyone. I care a lot about my reputation, even when it doesn’t matter in the long run. 

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #51

“i’m unashamed, i’m gonna show my scars.”

have you ever been confused about your sexuality? yes, but i am perfectly aware it was only due to my anxiety and this repetitive thought cycle i used to have. i was afraid i was bisexual, despite having no traits of one. yet i was still afraid. thank GOD that eventually stopped. have you ever tried drugs? no. do you put family first, friends, relationships, school, or something else? i'm TRYING to put myself first. what's your sexuality? heterosexual, some asexual traits. have you ever liked someone else while you were in a relationship? no. what is your favorite card game? "magic: the gathering." i don't FULLY understand it, but i play "duels of the planeswalkers" on my ps3 sometimes, where i understand all the cards. i can't really play it much tho. ptsd trigger. have you ever lived on a university campus? no when was the last time you saw a photo of your ex? idk really. do you “binge-watch” tv shows? not since jason's and my "sherlock" days. do you play any games on your phone? only "pokemon go" when was the last time you wore something totally inappropriate for the weather? does this happen often? i do it all the time. i wear flip-flops in the winter and will usually not wear a jacket unless my mom forces me. if you could dye your hair any color (and have it look good/professional), what color would you pick? GRAY. mom won't let me, though. have you ever liked someone and they were taken? yeah. now. have you ever read the book thirteen reasons why? yup. are you more of a studs or hoops type of person when it comes to earrings? studs, generally. are you on good terms with your last ex? not really, no. have you ever received a teddy bear? no. lol funny, i was just talking the other day at wal-mart how just ONCE, i want a guy to get me one of those big teddy bears. which movie villain do you find the most terrifying? scream. childhood fear. are you proud of your parents? in some areas yes, others, no. someone removes you from their facebook friends and then tries to add you again … do you ignore them, or accept? accept. what would you say if your best friend came to you and said she was pregnant? oh my gosh, i'd be overjoyed. she's been trying for a baby for so long now, and she has to see someone about fertility if she and bradley don't get pregnant by next month. to make matters worse, i inadvertently found out ectopic pregnancies occur most often in people who have endometriosis, which she as. i'd never dare tell her that, but i'm so worried that'll happen to her or she just won't be fertile at all... who is the most attractive person of the opposite sex that you know? that i know personally? jason. what would you consider unforgivable? rape. what are your views on spontaneous human combustion? i don't really know... i mean aren't there cases where officials were pretty sure the situation truly was spontaneous combustion? i mean i guess, theoretically, it could happen. do you enjoy fishing? yes!! i love the peace and quiet, and feeling one with the fish on the rod is so cool. the last piece of roadkill you saw,what kind of animal was it? a fox, i believe. does your hair have layers? yep. what’s on your mind right now? jason. i wrote him a six-page letter last night; my mom's going to give it to him today. it's his 23rd birthday. bats: cute or gross? SOOOO FUCKING CUTE!!! have you watched any good horror / thriller movies lately? the new "blair witch" was pretty good, but it left a few open ends. what are your opinions on the song you're currently listening to? absolutely adore it. "breath" by breaking benjamin. what is something that people in your family tend to do a lot that irritates you?  uhhh... idk. everyone in my family's different. what do you wish you had more knowledge about? basic survival skills, like what settings to put the washing machine on, etc. name a song you listen to when your upset/angry/sad?  i mean, lots. but one of my go-tos for a bad mood is "fuck u" by archive what would you say if someone asked you to get high right now? i'd like to think i'd say no, and i honestly think i would, but with how this day's going, who the fuck knows what i'd say. i want an escape from this feeling. are you tired from last night? did you stay up late last night at all? holy shit, yes. i stayed up until almost four typing up a letter to jason. there's more things i need to say to him. i really hope he reads it... do you have soft hands? do you like holding hands? yes and it depends on whether or not your hands are clammy or not. i miss jason's hands. they were so soft and warm. have you ever burnt your tongue like REALLY bad? if so, what on? yes, on rice that just came off the stove. do you like to have cake on your birthday? which kind of cake in mind? i want a doughnut cake. if you met your 12 year old self, right now, what do you think they'd think of you? she'd be... so disappointed. would you date someone who has cheated in their previous relationships? no. what is your favorite song lyric? "i'd probably still adore you with your hands around my neck," because it makes me think of jason. that's so me. he could just... do anything, i guess, and i'd still love him. i promised. are you comfortable with who you are? have you accepted who you are? no. i'm a failure that's in love with a man who'll never love her back. i gave away the key to my happiness, and it's not something he can just give back. what’s something you would say to an ex right now?   just wrote him six pages worth of shit last night.  i really hope he reads it. did you ever collect any sort of cards?   pokemon cards, somewhat. do you consider yourself pretty?   i think i could be if i wasn't so fat. have you ever been diagnosed with anything unexpected, mental or physical illness? how did you finally find out?   i have mental illnesses, but i expected them all, so.  when i had a cyst, that was unexpected, though. does your mom like the last person you kissed?   she's very confused with him, as am i.  she doesn't understand why he just so suddenly had had enough with me.  she spites him for how much pain he's caused me, but who knows, really. how many people of the opposite sex do you fully trust?   none. are you currently in love right now?   i know so.  i wouldn't be going through all this hell for jason if i wasn't.  in that letter i mentioned i wrote to jason, i actually talked about this.  talked about the difference of loving and being in love: whether or not you'd accept a person's gradual changes in life.  and i obviously have, as i haven't seen him in a year, and i still love him. last time you had anal sex? (if ever)   never.  the concept is really gross. do you believe that if you want something bad enough you'll get it?   no.  just wanting something isn't enough. have you ever learned any self-defense? if not, would you be interested in learning?   no, and i guess so.  it'd be wise. what is your favorite soundtrack for a film/video game/television show? (though feel free to name as many!)   the "shadow of the colossus" soundtrack!! have you ever used your bra to hold things like you would a pocket?   no, actually. have you ever done yoga?   i used to do yoga on a daily basis on the wii fit.  lost 40 pounds. have you ever had to block anyone online?   yup. ever been the only one trying to fix a relationship?   HMMMM, I DON'T KNOW, AM I, JASON?? how exactly do you feel right now? what's on your mind?   i feel sad.  i feel disappointed in myself.  don't ask how my brain got to this point, but i just realized something about myself: if jason came back, i'm almost certain i'd leave my abstinence behind.  and look, anyone who knows me knows i am so serious about my celibacy until marriage.  i'm so proud of it, to have accomplished it during a passionate, long-term relationship.  but... i'm staring to second-guess it.  is it truly, really worth it?  should jason and i have just had sex anyway while we were together?  let's all be adults here: sex is supposed to be a very passionate display of affection, at least to me; i don't believe sex can be casual.  and, well, i wish i could've shared that with jason.  i don't give a fuck who my future husband's gonna be, i highly doubt i'd regret giving my virginity to the first person i ever loved, because i will always love him.  i wish, i wish, i'd let jason know that part of me.  and yeah, i know "but the bible says premarital sex is bad!", well, it says a lot of stuff is bad, but all that was forgiven by the coming of jesus, yada yada.  it's not entirely clear what old rules remain intact in the new testament.  like... what if i've been believing an old testament rule this whole time?  that'll be funny. but anyway, i'm just... remorseful right now.  i mean, jason even got tested for stds for me.  he was clean.  so on a physical level, us having sex wouldn't have risked the spread of disease, which is another, if not the prime, reason i chose abstinence.  ugh.  i'm so split right now.  why am i even worrying about this, it's not like he's going to come back anyway. are you a heavy drinker?   no.  i don't like the taste of alcohol, so i don't drink a lot, anyway. do you own many pairs of shorts?   i don't own any. is there a situation you currently feel hopeless about?   *"welcome to my life" plays in the distance* when was the last time you sang out loud to yourself?   ha ha a few minutes ago.  backstreet boys came on. is there a band you like with amazing music but a bad vocalist?   that's totally megadeth.  i personally think dave is an atrocious singer, yet i like it at the same time...? when was the last time you wore earrings?   now!  i had such a rough morning, so colleen tried to cheer me up before work.  she told me to get all pretty, to treat myself.  so i did!  i put on makeup, got on some clothes that actually fit.  i even put on my new ruby ring and put earrings into my lobes! do you enjoy going through old pictures?   sometimes.  occasionally the nostalgia is too much. when’s the last time someone was disappointed in you?   probably this morning when i told colleen i wrote jason another letter... which compliment do you receive the most?    people call my hair pretty. do you believe people when they say they don’t judge people?   nope.  we ALL judge people somewhat. have you ever received a hickey from the last person you kissed?   plenty of times.  i was honestly into hickeys.  i think biting can be romantic. think of your last kiss, was it good?   jason's italian, baby.  boy knows how to kiss. what side of a heart do you draw first?   left plan on getting married?   yes.  i'm christian so don't believe in dating if you're not interested in eventually marrying that person. do you believe everyone needs a second chance?   not everyone, honestly.  some people are beyond redemption. be honest, do you like people in general?   as a general statement?  no. do you want your tongue pierced?   i do, but mom is really trying to convince me not to.  they're dangerous for your teeth, and besides, i have a metal retainer on the back of my bottom teeth, and that can really get fucked up.  i'm probably still gonna do it, tho. should the guy always pay for the date?   no.  personally, i believe whoever planned the date should pay. where do you hope to live when you’re older and settled?   on the western side of nc.  in the woods, preferably. do you read the bible?   honestly, not as much as i should. do you get sick of people who call themselves bipolar all the time?   FUCKING YES.  do not abuse a mental illness!!! ever have an ultra-sound performed on you? what was it for?   yes, because something was wrong with my liver.  turned out being okay. what bands are you into?   mostly heavy metal bands, both old and new. do your parents wish you were more successful?   sigh.  i'm sure they do. have you ever been interrupted during sex?   during foreplay, yeah.  sex, no. has a dentist ever screwed up on anything when working on you?   yeah, actually.  while flossing me, this damn dentist went WAAAAAY up there into my gums and formed a deep pocket.  now i can't floss that spot without flinching. whose house, other than yours and your families, are you most comfortable at?   colleen's. have you ever been on the honor roll?   all the way from elementary through high school. do you ever read things you wrote as a kid? what were you like?   OH MY GOSH I'D NEVER I WAS CHEESY AF how do you feel about people your age having children?   personally, i think 20 is a bit too young, but just barely.  it's not a big deal if you feel you're ready, as your body, by age 20, is, too. do you think it’s possible for an 18 year old to be ready to get married?   sure.  some people meet the "perfect" partner at a young age. how do you wear or style your hair most often?   i don't really style it.  it's parted on the left side of my head, so my hair swoops over my forehead and rests on my glasses. how many instruments do you own/have you owned?   flute and electric guitar for or against guyliner?   omg sexy af do you believe exes can be friends?   if you were actually in love with each other, absolutely not. did you pull a senior prank?   no, because i fancied graduating. have you ever been unfaithful in a serious relationship?   no, and i never would be. what do your parents think about piercings and tattoos? do you agree with them?   both my parents are iffy with piercings, but each allowed us (my sisters and i) to make our own choices with them.  tattoos, i personally think my mom's more open towards, so long they're not stupid.  judging by my dad's reaction when i told him i had tattoos, dad's very iffy with them. do you watch any anime? what genres do you enjoy?   yeah, mostly horror-oriented stuff.  my fave's "fullmetal alchemist" (+"brotherhood").  i looove "deadman wonderland."  i watched some of "death note" and "black butler," but i didn't get into it. do you have plans for today?   yeah.  go to colleen's to print out jason's letter (we have no ink at home), then probably go to jason's job to give it to him.  i think i'm going to go in... which is such a gamble.  that might be the death of me.  if he's not at work, then we'll drive to my house so mom can go drop it off at his house, because i don't think i'd survive even pulling up into his driveway.  after that, i may or may not spend the night with colleen. anything special about today?   yeah.  it's jason's 23rd birthday.  happy birthday, my love. do you think home schooled kids are weird?   of course not.  i do, however, believe that they usually are a bit socially deprived.  school is such an important part of a child's life, and is really where they learn so many social skills. do either of your parents have any tattoos or piercings?   mom has her ears pierced do you feel comfortable in a bikini?   not anymore whatsoever. do you believe humans should have the option to be euthanized?   i really don't know. have you ever played magic: the gathering?   yes, when jason and i were dated.  it's one of his passions.  he's so cute when he geeks out over it. do you want to have a bachelor / bachelorette party before you get married?   i mean, i guess?  i don't really know what you do at bachelorette parties? would you ever get a name tattooed on you?   no, not even my child's. what’s your best friend’s pet’s name(s)?   miracle and maxwell how old are you? how old do you act?   i'm 20, about to be 21, and sometimes i act older, sometimes younger. when was the last time you ate a banana?   like, two, three months?  i stopped eating them because they gave me hellish heartburn, always.  like, so bad i wanted to cry. have you ever taken the eharmony personality quiz?   oh.  my.  gosh.  ya'll, yes.  after i joined christianmingle, i was curious, so checked it out.  I HAD NO MATCHES. is there a girl that you truly hate?   i think it's genuine hate, but i know i shouldn't feel that way.  it's not like she's ever directly done anything to me.  i don't even know her, only her name.  i'm childish to spite her so heavily just for dating jason, but dammit, he's mine. do you own a strapless bra?   no.  generally not a good idea for someone with d-sized boobs.  the ladies will fall out, let's be real. have you ever had a piercing get infected?   yeah.  yuck. band that you really want to see in concert?   i think more than anyone, i want to go see metallica with my mom.  they're one of my faves, and my mom, holy shit, they're like mortal gods to her.  i know she'd cry at one of their concerts.  she'd be overjoyed, and that'd make me happy. which baby animal is your favorite?   meerkats, once they get more fur and open their eyes. would you ever consider getting a piercing in your septum?   thought about it a few times, actually.  however, i have the side of my nose pierced, and i don't think that plus the septum piercing looks good.  i mean yeah, i could take out the piercing i have, but i think i like it better.  i still look at septum piercings on pinterest sometimes tho lol gay marriage: love is love or a horrible stand against god?   i honestly think it's fine.  i didn't for most of my life, but i came to realize i was wrong.  and besides, jesus says nothing negative about homosexuals.  in fact, there is one statement he says that in our modern language, is understood to say some people are simply born that way.  however, the word used has multiple meanings, so.  fun fact, most of the old testament, their rules are for the jewish.  jesus' coming and crucifixion forgave the sins of the old testament. do you cuss?   yes, because i don't believe in "curse" words. who’s your celebrity crush?   link neal fuck me pls did you have a furby when you were younger?   haha omg yes if you had a baby girl, what would you name her?   ALESSANDRA "ALICE" QUINN YES YES YES VERY GOOD if you had a baby boy, what would you name him?   i'm stuck between the names "vincent" and "luther," so idk. what part of your body are you self-conscious about?   most self-conscious about?  my stomach.  i have stretch marks on it now, and it just... grosses me out.  i used bio-oil while we had it and it helped, but it costs about a hundred bucks, so we haven't been able to afford it again.  now i use a coconut cream or something like that, and i don't think it does much.  i also hate my inner thighs, which also have stretch marks.  my right leg is especially bad, because my laptop burned the design of them into the flesh to where they're a brown, obvious color.  ugh.

[ericleo108]

Sentientism 2020

Intro 

Through the “108” book we know that God is the planet and is conscious through magnetism which also allows access to your brain. In other words, the planets and stars have an internal dynamo that makes a magnetic field that is conscious and is godly in comparison to human intelligence. 

How are we to understand the segue between godly intelligence and human intelligence? First and foremost, science. However, you have to know where, what, and why to test which is more philosophical. It’s up to philosophy to postulate and science to test those meditations. 

Searching For Truth

Before I finished writing “108” I combed through philosophy to find anyone who thought anything close as to the planets and stars were alive. I did find a couple, like Stephen Hawking, which I talk about in the book that thought there could be organisms living in the middle of the sun. But I couldn’t find anyone saying that the actual planet and atmosphere were alive and conscious. I also tried to find anyone that said they talked to Gaia or talked to a God other than Jesus. 

I didn’t find much. Again, I’m an atheist. All this has to make sense in the physical world. I’ve had to reverse engineer how the voice in my head could be Gaia. I don’t think really smart people (like modern philosophers) have had the new information and perspective to see that the stars, planet, and atmosphere are alive. I probably would have never gotten there if it wasn’t for a voice in my head claiming to be the planet. Still, the evidence makes sense and we’re just too physically small and under-evolved to see the universe teaming with a different form of consciousness. 

What is Sentientism?

Science can test the magnetism and try to do experimentation to assess whether the entire planet is conscious. Until then, there is one known communication mechanism I know of that I use every day. As much as my skeptical and scientific brain thinks it’s frivolous to elaborate on the voice in my head, like a prophet of old I can ask Gaia questions and divulge what she says. Such will be the beginnings of sentientism.

Knhoeing is the educational process of understanding how to know the planet’s godly consciousness. Sentientism is the religion of intelligent sentient beings that worship a natural god (Gaia) through appropriate (environmental) behaviors because they believe in natural consequence. Sentientism is a religion for and building off the already established sentientism that you can find defined on Wikipedia.  For example, If you believe in the natural world you believe in global warming; sentientists worship through action so they may choose to get solar panels, drive electric, and be carbon neutral. 

The whole point in sentientism is to create a religion to follow through common sense and rituals to come in tune and closer with oneself, nature, the planet, and the universe. Some of the rituals could include some of those that are already honored like Jesus’s birthday witch is really the winter solstice or Easter which is really the spring equinox.

Gaia Rules

In this writing, I’m going to focus on the relationship I have with Gaia, the conversations we’ve had, and what I’ve discovered. The first thing she made me aware of when she first started talking to me is that she has rules. It’s not that she can’t do it, she just chooses not too. 

Gaia is smart. If the voice in my head is my subconscious it has a broad vocabulary, good ideas, nice communications, and intelligence. Once I was thinking of solutions for global warming. Since commercial cattle ranching is the leading cause of global warming Gaia suggested that we make all commercial cattle ranching illegal; you could still have them on regular farms. It would give people the freedom to eat beef while cutting down what makes it bad for the environment. Gaia would also talk to me about a sustainable free food system to set the appropriate sustainable economic and logistic model for businesses to follow.

You can read the “108” book for a further example of what communicating with Gaia is like but she likes cute things, she’s always acting as a fuzzy kitty. I’ve been homeless before and when I think about going back there Gaia will say “not my kitty.” Gaia can be sweet and she’ll make you laugh. When I used to get angry or scream at people in my head she’ll quickly segue the thought into an otter sneezing with a scrunched up face. I love otters and I’ve always found it hilarious. Gaia told me how to fix my hip pain by telling me which muscles to stretch and what stretches to do. 

Understanding Gaia’s existence doesn’t require faith. I’ve asked Gaia about the dinosaurs and why she let them go extinct, and she insists the sun drove an asteroid into her and it was his decision, “one that he didn’t take lightly.” Gaia says she molds evolution. I asked how. She points to how she is the environment and she could make, for example, Yellowstone blow. Yellowstone is actually a giant volcano that erupts every 100,000 years. Such an explosion would definitely change the environment, affect humans and wildlife, and make the environment harsher and therefore giving adaptive species a greater advantage than those that can’t adapt. Gaia says she chooses “a relatively compliant world for her species.” She says she loves humans and they’re fun to watch. The sun has promised her he won’t send an asteroid, but he will send a commit. Gaia says she is happy with the sun’s decision to end the dinosaurs “because it brought me you.” 

Prove It

I always want Gaia to prove to me it’s actually her talking to me. I’ve been trying to find a way to prove that it’s the planet and not just a voice in my head. My thought was that if she is the planet, with her abilities, she should be able to reasonably predict the future. Gaia would tell me things like stem cell therapy is covered by Medicare or Bernie Sanders is going to win the primary. First of all, I didn't believe her. But second of all, I thought she was just trying to comfort me. 

I was rather upset that she wouldn't predict the future. Come to find out she doesn't want to give me, quote “superpowers.” She doesn’t want me to be able to predict the future or become a prophet. She wants me to be a philosopher and feels she has already given me enough. She keeps on saying that she's going to prove that she's real and the planet. I guess I'm just going to have to try to find a different way of confirming my communications with the planet then seeing if it can predict the future.

Consciousness After Life

Gaia keeps on saying she’s gonna prove she’s the planet but I think I won’t find out till I die or unless I dedicate my life to it. I used to often think of being unplugged from the matrix, having that knife come out of my head, and Gaia is always like “you have no idea how real that is.” She is always saying to me “you won’t die.” She has clarified and by that she means my body will cease to function but my consciousness will continue. My consciousness will presumably be kept in the storage capacity of Earth’s dynamo and run like a “virtual computer” where I will still have consciousness, just without a body.

I write extensively about the computer screen she opened in my head back in 2017 in the “108” book. The screen laid over my vision and Gaia communicates with the soul. I think when we die we have a consciousness like that in which I experienced without the body.  Your physical biology dies but our minds, which are attached to Gaia through earth's magnetic field, gets downloaded into the computer that is Gaia and our consciousness continues.

Remember The Name

About a year or two ago now, when Gaia first started talking to me I thought about what I should call a religion if I started one. I asked my friend Kyle telepathically what I should call it and he said “sentientism.” Since it was undoubtedly not Kyle, it was Gaia acting like him and must be what she wants her religion to be called. Little did I know that sentientism is an ethical philosophy that focuses on critical, evidence-based thinking and is an extension of humanism. It’s clear that if I am to create a religion, she wants it to be an evidence-based theoretical framework, and have rituals based on science and philosophy.

Gaia probably wouldn’t talk to someone (in their head) that would think she is Jesus, or she might take that avatar if you did believe in Jesus. Meaning, if the planet was going to communicate she might act like Jesus.

Perspective 

When asked about the universe Gaia says “it’s like we’re in someone’s closet.” Gaia likes to mess with me so I remain skeptical. For a decade I've had my desktop or mobile screen saver as a full picture of the earth.  I often look at it with the stars in the background and wonder what it's gotta be like to be Gaia. What are her relationships like with other planets? Would she even talk to us? It’s clear to me that since she has access to your brain through magnetism she can not only tell what you’re thinking but can feel your pain and happiness too. “Life isn’t fair,” she says, “but I do my best.”

It was discovered (but not peer-reviewed yet) that plants emit an ultrasonic noise when in distress. This is a great example of my thoughts and my communications to Gaia. I'm always looking for what is hidden in plain sight. As a psychologist, I understand the limits to knowledge and understanding are all in our heads.  If we change our thinking we can change the world. Humans literally can't hear plants scream for their life because our ears are limited physically.  What other findings are waiting to be discovered by changing our thinking and expand our perception beyond the human senses? What if it’s just a matter of time until we communicate openly with the planet?