#juvenile scholars

[omnybus]

Elden Ring + Homestar Runner Quotes, Pt. 2

“Gonna have a good time tonight! Gonna have a good time tonight!”

“I can’t remember my legs.”

“Oh, yeah? Well maybe you look like some type of enormous... alien... cow!”

“What the-? Why do these keep coming out as nasty blob things?”

“...and the Stick would be this big ol’ tree / that’d try to eat everyone except the Cheat and me”

“Well, I am the exact same.”

"That's what I used to defeat the Dark Fungus From Downungus!"

"Warm me with your enriched, bleached bosom."

"C'mon, you guys! Let's all go jump in somebody's pants!"

"Kristen, you look burnt. Or Dead."

"What the luscious ladies really want is a guy that still has a face and head."

"The Cheat is one fine-looking young man. That is an ugly bird."

"And this little weirdo / would be a modestly hot girl to help me through the hard times / You know, the kind that are only sorta hot / so they don't mess around with other guuuuuuyyyys..."

"a-jibblie jibblie jibblie jibblie jibblie jibblie jibblie jibblie jibblie"

Elden Ring + Homestar Runner Quotes Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

[hazaelis]

Some random Soulsbourne doodles

[lealhounds]

If I think about Ranni and Rennala for too long I start wailing

[augustinewrites]

just alhaitham realizing he wants a baby with you... cw: pregnancy, children

alhaitham is in the middle of reading, spending his lunch hour tucked away in a quiet corner puspa cafe when he feels a poke at his arm.

he slides his headphones off, looking over to see a child standing next to him, clutching something to her chest. 

“excuse me– mister scribe sir?”  

the scribe sighs, tucking his book away. “just alhaitham is fine.”

the child blushes furiously. “oh, um, mister alhaitham sir, my teacher says that your job is reading. could you read this for me please?” 

that was an incredibly juvenile description of his job, but he doesn't correct her. the girl slides what alhaitham recognizes as the children’s book that tighnari had written (and collei had illustrated) to teach the basics of forest safety. the storytelling was mediocre and the illustrations were average, but he supposed they were sufficient enough for children who had no higher education.

alhaitham glances at the clock. he still has a half hour left of his break, and he was nothing if not an advocate for educating young minds.

—

“the lesson is to always be prepared when traveling through the rainforest,” alhaitham explains, closing the book. “there’s always a high probability that you’ll run into fungi, especially if you're on foot like little cyno was. you’d do well to add a variety of antitoxins to your first aid kit.”

the girl considers this, brows pulled into a furrow as she sips at the sunsettia juice he’d ordered for her. 

“why didn’t little cyno just go around the fungi when he saw them? then he wouldn't have gotten the sports.”

“the spores,” alhaitham corrects. “but your point stands. common sense is perhaps the most effective survival tool.” 

children, with their inquisitive and imaginative minds, were adequate problem solvers. they didn't overthink things, instead utilizing a simple, pragmatic way of thinking. 

he wouldn't mind raising a little scholar of his own with you. 

he’d thought a normal amount about having a child before. typical musings, like when he would have one (after school, after securing a decent job). or what their names would be (esfir for a boy, laila for a girl). who would bear his children (the only person he’d ever considered was you).

but these aren’t idle musings anymore. this time, the idea hits him full force, quickly spiraling into a hope. a dream for the future. 

a boy with his eyes and your smile. a girl with your hair colour and his nose. how you’d raise them together, how they’d grow to be intelligent, inquisitive, creative, and endlessly compassionate.  

“sweetheart, there you are!” a relieved voice exclaims. 

the girl sitting across from him perks up as her mother runs up to the table, her smile widening. “mama! mister alhaitham read me a book!”

“i'm so sorry she interrupted your lunch, sir,” the frantic mother looks sheepish as she apologizes, but alhaitham dismisses it with a wave of his hand. 

“it’s alright. if anything, this experience has been rather enlightening.” 

_____

“that's quite the stack,” you comment mildly when your husband enters the bedroom with an armful of textbooks. “which new topic have you been intrigued with this week?”

alhaitham sets the books down on the nightstand and answers, “conception.”

his answer is spoken simply, casually, like he’s talking about the weather and not one of the most life-altering decisions you could make as a couple. 

“conception,” you repeat slowly. “like…”

“you’re a doctor. you’re aware of the biological process behind it.” 

“of course i am,” you say, suddenly feeling flustered. “i just– we’ve never talked about this before, haitham.”

your husband sighs, walking around to your side of the bed and sitting by your legs. “well…i want to talk about it.” 

seconds pass. seconds that almost feel like a lifetime as you watch each other, looking for any unspoken signs of hesitation.

“it’s up to you,” he finally says, gently placing a hand on your ankle. “it’s your body, you’re the one who would be carrying our baby for nine months. if you’re not ready–”

you don't need to hear the rest, crawling over to cup his face in your hands and press a soft kiss to his lips. “i'm ready. we’re ready.” 

his eyes immediately brighten, and he momentarily leaves your grasp to reach across the bed to grab the topmost book from his stack. “there are certain positions that we can try to increase our chances of conceiving. according to studies conducted in fontaine, this one has an effectiveness of 89.5%. it’s called a mating press…”

you wish you could say it’s the first time he’s propositioned you with educational literature. 

“wait, you didn’t ask me,” you giggle, threading your fingers through his hair and tugging lightly. 

he pauses. “will you try this position with me?”

“no, smartass. ask me to have a baby with you.”

your husband grins, hooking his hands under your ass to pull you into his lap. you gasp as he does so, his head dipping down to the crook of your neck. he says your name, lips brushing the shell of your ear.

“will you let me put a baby in you, dearest?”

[communistkenobi]

Would you be willing to dunk on speak more on mainstream feminist theory you're reading? And/or share some of the non-juvenile feminist theory you've read?

(Note: I will try to link to open access versions of articles as much as possible, but some of them are paywalled. if the links dont work just type the titles into google and add pdf at the end, i found them all that way)

If there’s any one singular issue with mainstream feminist thought that can be generalized to "The Problem With Mainstream Feminism" (and by mainstream I mean white, cishet, bourgeois feminism, the “canonical feminism” that is taught in western universities) it’s that gender is treated as something that can stand by itself, by which I mean, “gender” is a complete unit of analysis from which to understand social inequality. You can “add” race, class, ability, national origin, religion, sexuality, and so on to your analysis (each likewise treated as full, discrete categories of the social world), but that gender itself provides a comprehensive (or at the very least “good enough”) view of a given social problem. (RW Connell, who wrote the canonical text Masculinities (1995) and is one of the feminist scholars who coined/popularized the term hegemonic masculinity, is a fantastic example of this.)

Black feminists have for many decades pointed out how fucking ridiculous this is, especially vis a vis race and class, because Black women do not experience misogyny and racism as two discrete forms of oppression in their lives, they are inextricably linked. The separation of gender and race is not merely an analytical error on the part of white feminists - it is a continuation of the long white supremacist tradition of bounding gender in exclusively white terms. Patricia Hill Collins in Black Feminist Thought (2000) engages with this via a speech by Sojourner Truth, the most famous line from her speech being “ain’t I a woman?” as she describes all the aspects of womanhood she experiences but is still denied the position of woman by white women because she is Black. Lugones in Coloniality of Gender (2008) likewise brings up the example of segregationist movements in the USAmerican South, where towns would put up banners saying things like “Protect Southern Women” as a rationale for segregation, making it very clear who they viewed as women. Sylvia Wynter in 1492: A New World View likewise points out that colonized women and men were treated like cattle by Spanish colonizers in South America, often counted in population measures as "heads of Indian men and women," as in heads of cattle. They were treated as colonial resources, not as gendered subjects capable of rational thought.

To treat the category of “woman” as something that stands by itself is a white supremacist understanding of gender, because “woman” always just means white woman - the fact that white is left implied is part of white supremacy, because who is granted subjecthood, the ability to be seen as human and therefore a gendered subject, is a function of race (see Quijano, 2000). Crenshaw (1991) operationalizes this through the term intersectionality, pointing out that law treats gender and race as separate social sites of discrimination, and the practical effect of this is that Black women have limited/no legal recourse when they face discrimination because they experience it as misogynoir, as the multiplicative effect of their position as Black women, not as sexism on the one hand and racism on the other.

Transfeminist theory has further problematized the category of gender by pointing out that "woman" always just means cis woman (and more often than not also means heterosexual woman). The most famous of these critiques comes from Judith Butler - I’m less familiar with their work, but there is a great example in the beginning of Bodies That Matter (1993) where they demonstrate that personhood itself is a gendered social position. They ask (and I’m paraphrasing) “when does a fetus stop becoming an ‘it’? When its gender is declared by a doctor or nurse via ultrasound.” Sex assignment is not merely a social practice of patriarchal division, it is the medium through which the human subject is created (and recall that gender is fundamentally racialized & race is fundamentally gendered, which I will come back to).

And the work of transfeminists demonstrate this by showing transgender people are treated as non-human, non-citizens. Heath Fogg Davis in Sex-Classification Policies as Transgender Discrimination (2014) recounts the story of an African American transgender woman in Pennsylvania being denied use of public transit, because her bus pass had an F gender marker on it (as all buss passes in the state required gender markers until 2013) and the bus driver refused her service because she “didn’t look like a woman.” She was denied access to transit again when she got her marker changed to M, as she “didn’t look like a man.” Transgender people are thus denied access to basic public services by being constructed as “administratively impossible” - gender markers are a component of citizenship because they appear on all citizenship documents, as well as a variety of civil and public documents (such as a bus pass). Gender markers, even when changed by trans people (an arduous, difficult process in most places on earth, if not outright impossible), are seen as fraudulent & used as a basis to deny us citizenship rights. Toby Beauchamp in Going Stealth: Transgender Politics & US Surveillance Practices (2019) talks about anti-trans bathroom bills as a form of citizenship denial to trans people - anti-trans bathroom laws are impossible to actually enforce because nobody is doing genital inspections of everyone who enters bathrooms (and genitals are not proof of transgenderism!), but that’s actually not the point. The point of these bills is to embolden members of the cissexual public to deputize themselves on behalf of the state to police access to public space, directing their cissexual gaze towards anyone who “looks transgender.” Beauchamp points out that transvestigators don’t need to be accurate most of the time, because again, the point is terrorizing transgender people out of public life. He connects this with racial segregation, and argues that we shouldn’t view gender segregation as “a new form of” racial segregation (this is a duplication of white supremacist feminism) but a continuation of it, because public access is a citizenship right and citizenship is fundamentally racially mediated (see Glenn's (2002) Unequal Freedom)

Susan Stryker & Nikki Sullivan further drives this home in The King’s Member, The Queen’s Body, where they explain the history of the crime of mayhem. Originating in feudal Europe (I don’t remember off the dome the exact time/place so forgive the generalization lol), mayhem is the crime of self-mutilation for the purposes of avoiding military conscription, but what is interesting is that its not actually legally treated as “self” mutilation, but a mutilation of the state and its capacity to exercise its own power. They link the concept of mayhem to the contemporary hysteria around transgender people receiving bottom surgery - we are not in fact self mutilating, we are mutilating the state’s ability to reproduce its own population by permanently destroying (in the eyes of the cissexual public) our capacity to form the foundational social unit of the nuclear family. Our bodies are not our own, they are a component of the state. Situating this in the context of reproductive rights makes this even clearer. Abortion access is not actually about the individual, it is the state mediating its own reproductive capacity via the restriction of abortion (premised on the cissexual logic of binary reproductive capacity systematized through sex assignment). Returning to Hill Collins, she points out that in the US, white cis women are restricted access to abortion while Black and Indigenous cis women are routinely forcibly sterilized, their children aborted, and pumped with birth control by the state. This is not a contradiction or point of “hypocrisy” on the part of conservatives, this is a fully comprehensive plan of white supremacist population management.

To treat "gender" as its own category, as much of mainstream feminism does (see Acker (1990) and England (2010) for two hilarious examples of this, both widely cited feminists), is to forward a white supremacist notion of gender. That white supremacy is fundamentally cissexual and heterosexual is not an accident - it is a central organizing logic that allows for the systematization of the fear of declining white birthrates (the conspiracy of "white genocide" is illegible without the base belief that there are two kinds of bodies, one that gets pregnant and one that does the impregnating, and that these two types of bodies are universal sources of evidence of the superiority of men over women - and im using those terms in the most loaded possible sense).

I realize that most of these readings are US centric, which is an unfortunate limitation of my own education. I have been really trying to branch into literature outside the Global North, but doctoral degree constraints + time constraints + my own research requires continual engagement with it. I also realize that most of the transfeminist readings I've cited are by white scholars! This is a continual systemic problem in academic literature and I'm not exempt from it, even as I sit here and lay out the problem. Which is to say, this is nowhere near the final word on this subject, and having to devote so much time to reading mainstream feminist theory as someone who is in western academia is part of my own limited education + perspective on this topic

[orcusnoir]

*Four and Vaati fighting once again*

Vaati: The world of Elden Ring is rotten.

Four: What?

Vaati: the Outer God of Rot had infected one of the twins of King-Consort Radagon and Queen Marika.

Four: Who-Who the fuck is that?

Vaati: King-Consort Radagon had gifted the Rennala an amber egg, which she uses to "rebirth" the juvenile scholars. It also allows us, the Tarnished, to respec our stats.

Four: WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?

Vaati: The Three Fingers embrace us, and gift us the Flame of Frenzy.

Four: F-fingers???

Vaati: In truth, we're actually feeding her the inflamed eyes of those infected with Frenzy.

Four: EYES? YOU'RE FEEDING SOMEONE EYES??

Vaati: Though Hyetta seems disgusted at first, she goes right back to eating them.

Four, getting frustrated: WHAT? WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING?

Vaati: Morgott and Mohg, both born royal Omens, were locked in the sewers under Leyndell by their own mother, Queen Marika.

Four, in tears now: WHO IS LOCKING PEOPLE IN THE SEWERS?

Vaati: Stick around, because next week I have a new Prepare to Cry video coming out, so be sure to check that out

Four, sobbing in utter confusion: WHY WAIT? I'M ALREADY CRYING! WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? WHY ARE YOU SAYING IT? WHAT IS GOING ON?!

[yanderes-galore]

Could I request a romantic yandere alphabet for Rennala (Elden Ring), please?

🕊️ anon

I researched her and Elden Ring lore the best I could. Sorry if she seems OOC. I sort of see her as a platonic yandere and I couldn't find much personality-wise. However, I hope the wait was worth it. I had to end up changing the pairing to general due to her :( I'm so sorry... girl is messed up in the head, she probably can't see the difference at this point.

Yandere Alphabet - Rennala

Pairing: Platonic/Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Isolation, Kidnapping, Manipulation, Regression, Delusional behavior, Dark themes, Forced "relationship"/companionship.

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Rennala is a tragic character in Elden Ring. After her husband leaving her (That portion gets complicated) and her being locked away in the Grand Library at the academy... she's lost her mind. Rennala appears as a calm individual, but her studies into Reincarnation magic and her isolation have rot her mind.

She's reincarnated many of the Juvenile Scholars who used to attend the academy to the point they have no memories. The way she treats others seems to be that of a mother. She struggles with attachment as when her husband left, so did her heart.

Rennala seems like she'd isolate her obsession. You'd either be a Scholar or Tarnished. Her affection would be soft... but smothering.

The Full Moon Queen is determined to not lose another. She's already lost her husband, perhaps even some of her "Sweetings". Which means she'd keep you locked away and smothered like a mother's love.

She clings to you like she does her amber egg. You are never far from the royal queen. Her affection and touch is soft... but oppressive.

Even if her feelings are romantic towards you, you're often coddled. It's as though that's the only way she can cope with her losses. You'll be kept right by her side...

Even if magic must be used to keep things that way.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

Rennala is strong but she seems more defensive and reclusive. She's capable of getting her hands dirty. However, she chooses not to, instead preferring to isolate you.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

You'd probably be treated like one of her "Sweetings". She clearly has a stronger connection with you... but treats you the same. Even if you were a Tarnished, she'd probably have you locked away in her library (Maybe with Ranni's help-).

She would never mock you. You are her beloved, the one that fills the void where her heart once was. She'd never want to hurt you.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

Rennala is mostly passive. She isn't too forceful, just clingy and smothering. The only thing against your will is your inability to leave the library.

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

I imagine quite a lot. Rennala is a vulnerable woman after her husband left. Once she finds someone to fill the void, I highly doubt she's letting them go. She's very vulnerable with you when she holds you.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

I have a feeling Rennala is delusional in a way. She probably wouldn't view you fighting back as, well, fighting back unless you were heavily armed. She wouldn't understand it and would instead try to soothe you with soft words.

When in reality... you just want to leave... you don't want to be soothed... it really makes you feel like some petulant child. Even if you're so much more than that to her.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

Not a game and she does not enjoy escape.

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

It's definitely either the isolation... or the regression that would come eventually. I would not doubt Rennala would reincarnate her obsession to keep them beside her. Subconsciously, she wants you reliant on her.

If you're reliant... You'll never leave her... You'll be hers forever.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Considering her mental state, it's most likely her wanting to cling to you for all of eternity through consistent cycles of reincarnation to keep you hers.

Dark, isn't it?

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Not really, she's too delusional to experience jealousy with you since you both are isolated. Even if she was, she seems like she'd quietly cope.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

Calm and quiet, often talking to you in a hushed tone. Due to her past she has trouble showing love properly. Which means she's usually clinging to you tightly and pressing soft kisses to your head like you're her precious egg. You're never outside of the library, yet allowed to read within it.

She's always watching you...

Ready to love her Sweeting with all of her heart (or what she has left of it....).

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

There isn't really any courting unless you two met before she lost her mind. Even then, she doesn't cling until she loses her husband. After that... "courting" is just "isolation".

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Not really except she clings to you more than others. She's usually calm and soft-spoken all the time.

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

The only thing that comes to mind for me is forced reincarnation. All in an attempt to weed out any fight or disobedience. Love with her gets complicated.

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

I would assume all of them, even if she doesn't realize it.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Extremely patient. Isolation does that to people.

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

Honestly? Is it possible for her to be worse mentally than she already is? She probably either couldn't lose you due to her hold on you... or would be too delusional to notice.

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

No and she could never let you go.

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

Definitely the mass amount of trauma her story has (Husband abandoning her, academy betraying her...). That's what caused her attachment issues... among other things.

Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream, cry, and/or isolate themselves?

She'd soothe you like she usually does, even if it makes you cry harder. She doesn't understand your pain. She just sees you crying and thinks soft touches and kisses will fix it.

Soon you may just forget why you're crying.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

SKIPPED.

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

I can't really... think of one. Honestly, even if you tried to exploit a weakness of hers, would Ranni let you?

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Not intentionally.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

I suppose in a way you could consider her nature worshipping. She'd do anything to keep the one she loves beside her. Even if it means giving them the magic equivalent of a lobotomy.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

There's no pining. She just... latches on the moment she sees you.

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

Unintentionally.

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

"If the freshmen can handle learning it- surely Swift could also be able to learn and improve the thing she does as a job? Right? No?"

Yup!!!! That perfectly sums up the past 15 years!

It's so mind boggling to me that her work is still so juvenile and disjointed after years of being spoon fed every resource she could possibly need. Her learning curve is a flat line despite everybody and their mother trying to prop it up, goddamn.

Yes exactly! - This is something I find particularly interesting about Taylor Swift.

How is it possible that nearly twenty years into her career there is no marked improvement in her writing style?

She has had every possible resource on Earth available to her- and yet she does not bother to learn anything.

I really believe that she thinks herself infallible- and therefore in no need of a teacher. I mean- let's be honest, she thinks herself so amazing that people should pay her money just to hear her first drafts and voice memo notes on songs. Everything she touches turns to gold- apparently.

It's plain arrogance to my mind. As I have had nearly a decade worth of college education under my belt, I have been working in my field for years now; however, I live always with the implicit understanding that I am yet at the base of a mountain.

Every book I read- Every new thing I learn, and I am struck again and again that, as a scholar, I am a mere student struggling up the mountain of knowledge from those who lived and died before I ever was a breath of life.

The more knowledgeable I become the more aware I am of how much I have yet to learn.

Why is this not the case with Taylor Swift? I blame arrogance- self-righteous assurance that you are the best of the best will only ever lead people to believe they have nothing to learn from others- and they no longer need to have the self-discipline to continue evolving their craft.

If you really think about it, most of the people who are told that they are a young prodigy suffer this particular delusion. Then they wonder why they never improve, and feel like they are stuck in immaturity, while others- who have had to work harder for the same level of adulation always seem to continue to grow, evolve, and become better.

It's sad- in a way.

[dballzposting]

The Gohan Goes To Highschool Saga is so unbelievably perfect and delectable and every time I see any bit of it I lose it

First of all I like the art style. The profiles are cute and I love how the clothes are drawn.

Gohan looks goofy as hell.

Gohan has been living Isolated Away from all of The World just Living in the sticks in the mountain in the woods just he and his mom and his brother

And Then he goes to SCHOOL and is thrust into a SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT for the first time and the FIRST thing that happens to him is that a GIRL, who happens to be MR SATAN'S DAUGHTER, DRILLS her EYES into him and STARES and STALKS and THINKS and she is going to see his guts god damnit.

And she herself runs the city. Mr Satan is King Lion Showpony Figurehead While Videl is actually out sniffing the streets. She knows her territory and she navigates it with clarity and confidence

And when new strange "Superheros" enter the environment she is going to get to the bottom of it.

Because some things about the world have never seemed right to her. The mysterious strangers during the Cell Games, the way that she has never seen her father do anything that impressive since- the Golden Warrior, The Great Saiyaman ... is there a common thread of one singularly strong warrior?

Gohan discovers the euphoria of a mask. He has always had to be the hero and it was a record of failure and stress to him. Now he gets to PLAY hero. It's fun, and juvenile, which would be healing, but- how far should we let this go? His silly Ginyu poses. The glory of being seen but unseen. He can control what people think of him. He's sensitive when people badmouth his alter ego, snapping into anger and then recovering with the blaséness of a child. What is this? I can't explain it but it seems like a slippery spiral.

Hes never had a mask before. Hes never been safe to have eyes land and melt on his body before.

And the FIRST THING that Happens to Him is that a Girl who is SUSPICIOUS and INTENSE and ADROIT sets her ICY Stare On Him and wont Relent. She is going to GET Under that Mask. Hes never had this sort of attention before, hes barely had peers before - hes never been studied like this, hes never been WANTED like this.

She stares and he sweats.

And it's clearly good for Gohan to be getting out but it's just that well there is CLEARLY Madness in the Woods and he is not out of those woods. Maybe hes the minotaur. He acts all goofy and happy and spontaneous and bright-eyed, but it's masking something I'm telling you. That's why the mask appealed to him so. Hes already wearing one without even realizing it

And again Videl is gonna be the one to cut him open and drag his guts out. And thatll be GOOD FOR HIM TOO becasue hes never HAD the privilege of CONVERSATION. There is so much that he just doesnt have context for. And he's never had the avenue to explore with others the events of the past that may still be living in him.

But until then it's just gonna brew and he thought he was out of the woods but now hes entering the fecund minefield of social revelations and hes learning and re-learning everything subtlety as he also experiences what it's like to see and be seen and he is finding access to a wealth of new feelings made for moving amongst his peers and theres a lot of internal shifting as he leaps out to claim a part of the world for himself and the shadows in his soul are finding thrill and fixation on playing the much-loved hero in a mask who gets to pull goofy poses.

Um Gohan sort of blew ass in the Buu Saga but his outfits were killer. And then he died. Badly. But I dont mind and I really think that it's important for him to get out of his mother's house and to lean into the insight of Videl ASAP. He needs to establish his own presence amongst a normal functioning society so bad.

I swear he only became a scholar becasue he began to associate it with peace and his mother's love, and it gave him something to escape into when he didnt want to experience being himself. But the self still necessarily expresses itself somehow and now he hyperfixates on bugs. So small and humble yet strong and brave. They make the world seem so small yet so big and switching between the two helps him to avoid finding himself in the middle. Also there was that whole Cell thing (he was sort of bug-like...)

[egypt-museum]

Statue of King Horemheb and the God Amun

Horemheb stands beside the god Amun, who is taller to indicate that he is more important than the king himself.

The style of the statue is typical of the period immediately following the religious and artistic revolution of king Akhenaten. The muscles are not emphasized, the contours are soft, the belly and hips rounded, the faces juvenile, the eyes almond-shaped, the cheeks and lips full and sensual.

Some scholars believe that this was a statue of Tutankhamun later usurped by Horemheb. However, distinguishing between the faces of these two kings is especially difficult, and the inscription does not show any trace of erasure and rewriting.

New Kingdom, late 18th Dynasty, reign of Horemheb, ca. 1319-1292 BC. Made of limestone. Dimensions: 209 x 90 x 112 cm. Now in the Egyptian Museum of Turin. Cat. 768 Read more

[wordy-little-witch]

It may not come as a surprise that I am OBSESSED with the paranormal, and thus I posit a silly little thought nugget-

Devil Fruit eaters in general being No Longer Human. Like. Not even just Zoan users, but ALL of them.

The Fruits were created by the Sea Devil, offering odd and incredible powers in exchange for a weakness to water, a tomb of seasalt. The abilities are varied and dynamic, but they are still, by definition, an exchange - a Deal. It is Give and Take, a contract forged with the life-span of the eater as the signature. The Fruit braids itself into their genome, into their Soul, and makes them Other.

More beneath the cut, I just have so many thoughts send help

For some, this is an instinctive change. They Know things, information fed from the magic in their veins and marrow to their brain, all that the Fruit has learned from previous users in an abstract way. For some, the information from their Fruit is Locked, tidbits bleeding through the cracks and grooves of the chest which contains the treasure trove of knowledge which they are not equipped to handle. The Fruits are only truly Conscious when they are Bound, Eaten, Active, after all. To needlessly overwhelm and kill their hosts would be unfortunate.

In that vein, one could argue that the eaters are something of a sacrifice, a symbiotic relationship between our world and the one beyond it.

Some Fruits however simply do not HAVE the knowledge to pass on. Some have not been active in a very long time. Some have not had the experience in thriving with their Host. Some just simply rarely get eaten for whatever reason.

Some simply protect their Host from the Truth.

What all Devil Fruit eaters have in common, loosely though it is, is an innate ability to recognize one another, to identify each other, and to toe the line between the mortal world and the Other. The sharpness of the awareness varies person to person, soul to soul, but all Notice in their own ways, can reach beyond the veil to varying degrees and with varies intentions.

Luffy can See into others, an ability he's had always, but after eating his Fruit, it sharpened. His gaze cut deeper, his sight clearer, and he could read a person as easily as a scholar with a juvenile practice book would read the text therein. His gaze is clearest beneath the skin of others.

Luffy, inhuman as parts are, must feed both aspects:

The body he has, and the form which his Devil Fruit has woven itself into, must eat. He loves meat, a trait often found in Ds, but his appetite is voracious even then, feeding and feeding and feeding. What few realize is that his hunger is both mortal and not, a craving for meat of any variety. He will eat anything. Anything. His natural defaults mesh well with his Fruit, and he simply catalogues it easily within his existing paradigm

The soul he carries is fueled by love, freedom, expression. He is emotional and unhindered by expectations because he chooses not to be. He gives himself the freedom to do so. He wants to be untethered and to feel and experience and BE. He wants for others to have much the same. He finds people who are Chained and he takes their shackles in hand, asks them why they are there, and then he shatters them beneath the force of his Care and Ambition and Temptation. He opens the doors of change and growth and liberation, and then he lays the choices before those he can. It's a subconscious thing, mostly, but he Feeds the carnal, bare bones Drive of his Fruit in the same breath as him feeding his own freedom and thus his own soul.

<>

Buggy on the other hand does not have the same basis to work from. Whereas Luffy's Fruit is Other Than and thus not as impacted by its infrequency in circulation, Buggy's is not so blessed. The Bara Bara no mi is not a common Fruit to be eaten. It has had precious few holders who survived long enough to learn much of anything regarding its properties. As it stands, Buggy himself is the longest survivor of this power. Not only does it initial stage impact the nervous system in unique and bizarre ways but it also changes the musculoskeletal structures and the host's brain. In order to be able to split and still function, your spatial awareness needs to be far higher than average, and the synapses in your brain must be able to handle the strain.

Many holders of the Chop Chop Fruit were driven mad by this. Be it the influx of information or the psychosomatic pain of a limb loss or worse, it would often lad to death - and not always by the hands of another.

Buggy was always more cerebral than his crewmates, than Shanks and the others. He was a thinker, and his specialty was operating outside of normal conventions - it was how his weapons making skills improved leaps and bounds. Chemistry, physics and mechanics were his biggest passions, followed closely by some dabbling in medicine and botany. There were no limits in his mind, on questions and redirected pathways. Where one path did not lead to an expected result, another would open, would branch off, and the yield of these actions would be cataloged and coveted.

The Bara Bara no mi was not much different in this. That Devil Fruit was perfect for Buggy, for his natural processes and his demeanor. Buggy already toed the line of fragmented, puzzle thinking, and his Fruit simply exacerbated this.

He feeds his mind with the options and dynamicism he exhibits with his body.

He does not however feed his BODY with the same. Oh, he eats when he remembers or someone reminds him. He has noticed some things taste better, make him FEEL better than others. But he doesn't seek them out.

This is partly due to mental health issues, and an unidentified food aversion which began in his childhood. Food was often used as a punishment/reward system, and things, unattended to, spiraled from there. Buggy doesn't even realize it.

Another problem is that his tastes in foods he has had the best responses with remind him of things he would rather not think on. Specifically, they remind him of his late captain. Roger always preferred his steaks rare and juicy. Buggy adores his much the same.

And a final issue is that the few times Buggy DID act on the Hunger, the Drive for something, he was punished for it, told it was bad and not okay. In their defense, he was a child, and raw meat is not safe for consumption, especially in one who has such a problematic immune system as Buggy. He always draws the short end of the stick in things.

He subsides loosely on intimidation tactics, licking the blood from his knives, a habit which began after the loss of his family. He does not acknowledge the baying hunger in his chest when he does this. He has buried it along with so many other things.

Buggy is good with his Devil Fruit, but he is good with it while starved and unwell.

It truly would be beneficial for another Devil Fruit User with long term experience to ask him what he Feeds on, wouldn't it?

[heliads]

platonic!aragorn x reader? i requested a bunch of these a while ago and i just adore how you write him. perhaps something in rivendell where the reader is overworking themselves because their productivity is really low so they work longer (bonus points if reader is a writer) and aragorn gets them to relax. ooh and sibling-style banter pls!!!

bonus points?? i didn't realize i was getting points at all this is fantastic

masterlist

Spring is a soothing time, it always has been. Winter is dark and dangerous; the sun sets early and tempers snap quickly, even amongst the elves. Those who claim to only proffer peace can lose it faster than you think. Grey skies spell trouble, early frost kills each and every bloom that thinks itself tenacious enough to come out before its time.

Every winter you think the cold will never end, that warmth and light will stay dead forever. Every spring, you are reminded of the one truth in this world that everyone seems to forget:  it will get better from here on out. There will, at some point, be a surrender of darkness, and you will heal. We all will, and we will do it together.

You are remembering that now as you walk through the gardens of Rivendell. Stormy nights made the stone and wood structures look cold with gloom, but with the way the sun shines upon them now, you would think yourself in a wholly different place. This is your home, it has been for the last ten years. You were not an elf born, but you came to their city and they welcomed you anyway. Swords can only do so much good. Sometimes poets and scholars are more necessary than guards.

So you found a place tucked away in glen thickets and stone walkways, so you learned to pursue your craft of words and thoughts until a foreign place felt like home and accepted you as one of its own. No life is easy, not while monsters like orcs and trolls still roam the uncharted territories in between cities, but Rivendell is a peaceful life, and it does good by you.

If you cannot find strife in the danger of fighting for your life, however, you will make it yourself. Resting is a difficult thing, even though it shouldn’t be that way. If you rest too long, you start to think, and if you think, you start to realize that you are technically an outsider here, not born within the stone spirals of Rivendell but of some other place, and that means you must prove that you deserve to stay here for longer. Those who stay must have meaning. What, then, could possibly be yours?

You’re a writer, then. Fine. Could your writing compare to those around you? Even the least of the elves still have centuries on you, so much time to hone their craft. By comparison, your scribblings must look juvenile at best. You’re trying, sure, but effort can only get you so far.

You’ll have to catch up on time, then. That’s doable. It should be, at least. You pour hours into the study of manuscripts and texts in the library, force your quill to paper so many times you think you might as well never lift it up. You may not have time as your virtue, but you can force it to work for you anyway.

The problem is getting your brain to cooperate half as well as your hands. Your pattern of frantic writing starts to wear away from you as you attempt to keep up the pattern from dawn until dusk day after day after day. It is exhausting work, but it shouldn’t be– isn’t this writing, what you decided you wanted to do forever? If you were truly gifted at it, this wouldn’t take so much effort, and it certainly wouldn’t drain you the way that it does. Maybe that is another failing, one more thing that separates you from the elves.

You hadn’t realized others were aware of your inner strife until you got a visitor one month after winter ended. He comes with bloodied hands washed clean, armor placed in an unlocked box for quick access, sword still within reach. Peace does not come easily to him either, son of the North, but it does not come easily to anyone. Aragorn might disguise his torment better than you, though. Or so he pretends.

You were not aware that he was stopping by. Perhaps you should have known, if you had spent more time outside of your study instead of unsuccessfully trying to burn through the latest chapter in your work. Regardless of what you could have learned, the result is the same:  your old friend stands in the doorway, shaking his head with mock solemnity even as he fails to hide a grin.

“Y/N, friend, have you ever been able to let yourself enjoy your time here, or must you always suffer yourself to your pages?”

You stand up with a smile and walk over to greet him. “Aragorn, how lovely to see you. What brings you this way?”

He lifts a shoulder. “Tracking business. There are rumors I don’t like about goings-on near Mount Doom, but that’s neither here nor there. Also, I heard that you weren’t doing as well as I would care to imagine.”

You stifle a groan. “You’ve been in contact with Arwen, haven’t you? Tell her she has nothing to worry about.”

“I would if I believed I wasn’t telling her lies,” Aragorn muses, “you seem too tired, my friend. Your brow is lined, your eyes are weary. What is the meaning of this?”

He does not say it angrily, or in any demand for information, just a concern for his friend. It is this and this alone that finally convinces you to open up.

“I need to do it,” you tell him at last, “I need results. I need pages of writing to make up for the fact that I lack the experience of the elves. I may be tired, but I feel like I have to prove that I deserve to be here.”

Aragorn shakes his head, looking surprised. “That cannot be. Who has told you that a person cannot merely live and have that be enough? Not every task must be proven right or proven useful, Y/N. You do not have to outwrite the elves, that truly is impossible. You are here to follow your own path, not theirs.”

You sigh. “It is difficult to not compare my writing with theirs when we live in the same place.”

“I remember that,” Aragorn says thoughtfully, “growing up and learning the way of the sword from elves with many decades already more than me was challenging, but it teaches you things that you would not know from mankind. Do not let them affect you, Y/N, intentionally or not. Only do what you wish to do. That is why you are here, not to do what they can but what you can. That way, they can learn from you as well.”

You run a tired hand across your face. “So you really came all this way to tell me to relax?”

His face splits in a familiar grin. “I figured you would need some advice. Besides, it truly is good to see you. It has been too long since we last spoke.”

You agree with that. “That means you could visit more often, you know, instead of tracking random animals through the wilderness.”

He frowns with pretend indignation. “My tasks are more important than that.”

“I wouldn’t know,” you tease, “you never visit long enough to tell me. And when you are here, you spend all your time following a certain Elf-maiden around. It makes for difficult conversation.”

He laughs. “You’re impossible.”

“Of course I am,” you say gleefully, “that’s why we’re friends. Thank you, though, for your words. I do appreciate them.”

“They are true,” he reminds you, “it is okay to rest. It always will be.”

It is a good message, this. Hard to remember and even harder to practice, but still good. You will try to apply its power in the days to come.

lotr tag list: @rogueanschel, @retvenkos, @gods-fools-heroes

[ash-and-books]

Rating: 3.5/5

Book Blurb: Bestselling author Ava Reid makes her YA debut in this dark academic fantasy perfect for fans of Melissa Albert and Elana K. Arnold.

Effy Sayre has always believed in fairy tales. Haunted by visions of the Fairy King since childhood, she’s had no choice. Her tattered copy of Angharad—Emrys Myrddin’s epic about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King, then destroys him—is the only thing keeping her afloat. So when Myrddin’s family announces a contest to redesign the late author’s estate, Effy feels certain it’s her destiny.

But musty, decrepit Hiraeth Manor is an impossible task, and its residents are far from welcoming. Including Preston Héloury, a stodgy young literature scholar determined to expose Myrddin as a fraud. As the two rivals piece together clues about Myrddin’s legacy, dark forces, both mortal and magical, conspire against them—and the truth may bring them both to ruin.

Part historical fantasy, part rivals-to-lovers romance, part Gothic mystery, and all haunting, dreamlike atmosphere, Ava Reid's powerful YA debut will lure in readers who loved The Atlas Six, House of Salt and Sorrows, or Girl, Serpent, Thorn.

Review:

A gothic dark academia mystery featuring two rivals-to-lovers who find themselves hunting down the truth about the author of a famous story... only to find themselves fighting against the Fairy King and other dangers as the truth will come at a price. Effy Sayre lives in a world where women aren't afforded the same opportunities as men, and as the only woman in the architecture college (when she wants to be a literature student but it is forbidden for women to be in the literature college), life is hard enough, especially since she is still reeling from the scandal with her advisor... the one in which people think she slept with him to get ahead when the truth is that she didn't want any of it. Effy's only solace from her haunted visions, her terrible childhood, and the assault she faced is her book Angharad, a book that tells the epic story about a mortal girl who falls in love with the Fairy King and destroys him. Effy idolizes the author, Emrys Myrddin and the author himself is shrouded in mystery. Yet when the Myrddin family is offering to let a architecture student redesign the house, Effy knows its her chance to find out more about her author. What she didnt expect was that she would be going with Preston Héloury, a literature scholar who wants to expose Myrddin as a fraud and not the true author of Angharad. Things to also note about this universe is that Effy's home land is at war with its neighbor and one of Preston's parents is from the neighboring war land and he is also faced with prejudices. Effy immediately dislikes Preston because he rented all the books on Myrddin when she wanted them, she is also jealous that he is able to be a literature student. Though they both get off on the wrong foot they both find that they are hunting down the truth of the Fairy King, yet Effy is plagued by visions of the Fairy King and she doesn't know what's real and what's in her head. Yet the more they try to find answers the more danger closes in on them. Will they be able to find the truth before it's too late or will they die trying?

This is Ava Reid's third book and her first young adult novel, it features her gorgeous writing and its definitely an atmospheric read. The story deals with a lot of triggers: sexism/misogyny, a sexually-exploitative power imbalance, grooming, rape and dubcon, ableism, mental illness, an emotionally abusive parent, alcoholism, PTSD and intrusive memories, mentions of drowning, and child abandonment. Effy isn't really a likable character and comes off very very young and the writing feels a bit juvenile at times when it comes to her. I did like the overall mystery but I wish there was some character work on Effy and Preston, I wanted them to be a bit more fleshed out and kind of wished there was a better flow to their romance. I liked the book overall but it's definitely not my favorite of all her books. This is her first young adult novel and it definitely feels young as the characters read a bit more juvenile despite being in college. Overall, it's a beautiful atmospheric gothic read with a dash of mystery, romance, and fantasy!

*Thanks Netgalley and HarperCollins Children's Books, HarperTeen for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

[blasphemousclaw]

The kids in the Rennala boss fight have 3 different(2 male 1 female) voices and they use gravity+flame magic at a basic level, I don't know if it caught your attention before.

It has indeed caught my attention, and I’ve been wracking my brain over it for a while! Something I’ve talked about before is that reading the spell descriptions, you’ll notice that each Carian sibling is deliberately mentioned in the descriptions of a specific type of sorcery: Gravity sorceries for Radahn, Magma sorceries for Rykard, and Cold sorceries for Ranni.

Naturally, the first thing I think of when I see the spells cast by the “sweetings” is that they’re meant to represent Rennala’s true children; the gravity magic representing Radahn and the fire magic representing Rykard. I also didn’t know about the voices, that’s another point in favor of this theory!

The one thing that bothers me is that there isn’t any cold sorcery present in the fight that might represent Ranni, so the representation of Rennala’s three children doesn’t line up quite neatly enough for me. Of course it’s still possible that the spells are meant to reference Rennala’s sons, but I hesitate to say for sure because it isn’t a perfect metaphor. Still, it’s absolutely worth noting! I’ve always thought that Rennala might be so fixated on the art of rebirth because of how she lost her three children to their grim fates.

Oh, and I also accidentally found out that you pick up the juvenile scholar’s robes as a painting reward at the Caria Manor graveyard, and the ghost guy who has them is pointing towards the Academy… it might be intentionally drawing a connection between Caria Manor (Rennala’s kids’ childhood home) and the juvenile scholars?

[wisteriasymphony]

MLB Death Note -esque AU / Scarlet Messenger AU drabble

It was Night 3 of having Adrien Arsenault handcuffed to her, and this time around the deal was that it would be at Maryam's own apartment. There were juvenile fears cropping up here and there of what exactly her parents were assuming Maryam was doing sleeping directly beside an attractive boy her age who she claimed to be 'dating'... But it was in the pursuit of justice towards her people, so such things didn't truly matter. All of this closeness was simply to throw Adrien off her trail. No feelings but justice.

Maryam was awoken by the faint sound of paws tapping at her window. Assuming it was either her Guardian or that she was just hallucinating from sleeplessness, Maryam ignored it. ...Until the window opened on its own, that is.

"Woof," a familiar voice spoke. "What a dump this place is."

Maryam sat up, the handcuff rubbing up against her wrist. On her windowsill was a pitch-black cat, who seemed apprehensive to actually set foot into the room. It took an embarrassing second for her to figure out just who the cat truly was.

"Eveningstar."

"Right you are!" the cat laughed. "Just wanted to check on my darling little lady~"

On a false instinct, Maryam tugged at her handcuffs to try and pull Adrien awake. ...Only for there to be no resistance. His shackle was unoccupied.

"Hah!' she shouted, albeit perhaps a bit too soon. "My suspicions were right! You are Adrien Arsenault after all!"

The cat fought back the smallest reaction of shock—a pause so small, in fact, that the hand of a clock wouldn't even move the width of a hair before its conclusion.

"Who?" the cat asked. Maryam's eye twitched: That was the most idiotic possible response she could've ever gotten out of Eveningstar. Infuriating, even, since it was so belligerently stupid that it seemed to actively disprove her theory. Adrien Arsenault was by all means a scholar and an absolute nerd, and would've undoubtedly said something closer to "I have no such recollections of a man by that name" before he said something as fucking moronic as "Who?".

"Oh!' the cat added, its small dark face contorted in imbecilic smugness. "The guy I just kidnapped. Your boyfriend."

"He is not my boyfriend."

The cat feigned a dramatic gasp. "Oh, little lady!" it sighed, as if what had just escaped Maryam's lips was a cuss of the highest vulgarity, "And to think he is so infatuated with you. You were all he could talk about, my darling. 'My dearest Maryam' this, 'My lovely Maryam' that." The Eveningstar chuckled self-contentedly. "He thinks your eyes are the most beautiful in the world, you know."

That last part was definitely a lie just to try and make her flustered. Even so, Maryam nearly reached a hand for her pendant, thinking that she should at the very least check to make sure Adrien was okay—

But that would just prove she was Scarlet Messenger. She'd fucking gone three days handcuffed to the opposite sex just to give it all up here? Just on the off chance that The Eveningstar of all people was telling the truth?

"That's nice and all," she said. "But I don't see why you think I can do anything about it."

"I have reason to believe you can."

"....Right," she said. Maryam grabbed her phone off her nightstand. "I can always call the police."

All of Eveningstar's fur stuck up on its end. "Woah woah woah woah, little lady! That's- I find that highly uneccesary—"

"Why is it?" she asked, bringing the phone up to her face. She had dialed in Adrien's number, not like Eveningstar would be able to tell. Unless he could, in which case that would only be more evidence to prove her theory. "Kidnapping is a crime, isn't it?"

The black cat huffed indignantly.

"Hang up and he'll be back by the morning. ...No torture, no nothing."

Maryam lowered the phone from her ear. "...Is that a deal, chaton?"

Eveningstar scoffed at being called such a name, but eventually replied with "It's a deal, little lady."

So Maryam hung up. Overall, the interaction had done absolutely nothing in prove anything in either particular way, which she somewhat considered a waste. ...However, she had held her ground. And if Maryam Zheng-Desrosiers could at least do that... then she'd prove her case in no time at all.

[blaiddfailcam]

Further reason to believe the Great Rune of the Unborn rightfully belongs to Miquella: given that Mohg and Miquella are one big Bloodborne reference, the fact that Raya Lucaria is a reimagining of sorts of the School of Mensis, and that Rennala is essentially a "wet nurse" for the amber egg and the juvenile scholars—*gets backstab viscral'ed*