#next up is a cat exercise wheel!

[never-not-ever]

I just bought the boys a new 72″ cat tree and I’m so excited!!! Picture below is from the Chewy website lol, those aren’t my cats. 

I’ll post their old tree below. That picture is mine haha, hence my two black cats, well one is sort of hiding in the box. I think their old cat tree was like 78″. It was a little too tall, but the boys loved sitting way up high. I think the new one will be the perfect height and it has 3 seats perfect for all 3 cats. I’ll definitely post pictures once it’s all set up and the boys are on it!

[tinakibed]

had my first ever dteam dream. i should start watching their videos every night before i sleep now

[noroi1000]

Nah i just saw the first episode of jjk season 2, then stumbled upon your cat imagine of gojo and geto as well and omg i LOVE IT <3

It git me thinking and if you have time to write, just imagine this:

Geto x reader, where he likes the reader and low-key flirts with her, but she is kinda ignoring it??? And he's just really trying his best to get her to notice him in a more romantic way, but bc of Gojos constant flirty nature (he knows of getos crush and likes to make him jealous, he finds it hilarious how getos face scrunches up like he has diarrhea) she just assumes that Geto is like that as well and that he is just teasing her (HE IS NOT).

So one day geto and gojo had to go on a mission and for some reason gojo was hit by a curse, causing him so morph into a smug little shitty cat, still very self-aware.

So geto trudges back to school (gojo on his shoulder bc he refused to walk even a centimeter and just obnoxiously clawed himself into getos pants and so geto put him on his shoulder), and the reader sees them and runs up to greet geto and ask about the mission and gojos whereabouts, when she sees this cute ass cat perched on his shoulder and picks him up and smootches all over his dumb little face (i mean omg a cute cat, and we all know gojo would be the cutest cat ever) , leaving pink glossy lipstick marks all over his white fur.

She holds him up like simba before turning him around and holding him to her chest, giving one last kiss between his ears, and that little asshole just looks at geto with the smuggest look a cat could have while snuggling backwards in between her boobs 💀.

Geto just looses it and grabs gojo by the nape and throws him away cuz bro??? That's my girl??? And he explains to reader what happened and then at the end confesses when she asks about his anger at gojo and it's just fluffy and they kiss and everything... <3

PS: Shoko and Gojo are now wheeling along, and they hate it. Like?? Stop cuddle-napping underneath the trees like a cute couple??

PSS: At night, Gojo regrets ever being born. Those..... noises from his best buddy's room just won't stop.. please someone help his poor soul, God knows he needs his beauty sleep.

~♡

This is my girl, f*cking cat!!

Summary: For months, Geto has wanted to tell you that he loves you. To show you that he cares about you. But there was always Gojo trying to piss him off, and he made you believe that they both liked playing flirty jokes on you. If Gojo was smaller, Geto would gladly throw him away to be left alone with you. And suddenly he turned into a cat. He is smaller. So...

Warnings: Mentions of sex at the end

"You changed your uniform skirt, right? You look lovely in this."

You turned to look at the dark-haired man in the bun who was sitting in a chair at his table in the classroom. Your eyes met his purple ones. There was a soft and kind smile on his lips that made you smile too.

You don't want to have a winter uniform in the summer. You will sweat more than you will walk or run. Even the amount of exercise you do won't matter if you wear winter clothes in the summer!

"Thanks, Suguru-kun." you gave him a small grateful smile for that little compliment.

"(y/n)." He called out as you moved forward to sit in your seat which was behind Gojo's.

You turned to look at him.

He saw how your eyes looked at him curiously. You waited for him to contact you.

Maybe this is finally the moment when he will be able to ask you out on a date and Satoru won't bother him?

It got boring and very irritating when every time he started being next to you, his friend had to interrupt him. He knew exactly that he liked you. And that's why he kept coming out of nowhere and interrupting his time alone with you.

It wasn't because Satoru was jealous of him having you. He just liked seeing his friend get angry at his innocent jokes. Or when he was jealous.

They all knew it when Gojo Satoru comes up to you and makes very flirty jokes.

Flirting with you to see the big grimace on the dark-haired man's face. Because he knew exactly that the white-haired man was doing it on purpose.

And that made you think that they both have very flirtatious personalities and like such jokes. That's why you never took his compliments very seriously. Which were actually sincere. And it's all the fault of a white man named Gojo Satoru who showed you everything that made you think that they, as best friends, joke about such things..

But that wasn't true! Suguru likes you. All compliments and invitations are sincere.

But...

Whenever he wants to show you this sincerity, Satoru shows up and always ruins everything!

He has terrible timing as always!

It appears out of nowhere and steals your attention! All to piss him off!

Because he loved seeing the jealousy of his usually more serious friend at school!

Of course, Gojo wished him the best. Love in life and happiness.

But the sight of his face when you look at him as he holds his hands on you or makes you smile is just priceless. As if he was about to jump on him and bite his throat out.

You could never choose between them because you like them both. They are both your friends. But you take Satoru's advances less seriously, as I'm sure he likes closeness, but it's playful.

Besides, you see how Suguru reacts. And you also see Satoru looking at him as if victorious as he wins a friendly hug from you.

You don't know if they have a profession in getting your attention or what... But given their nature, you can't take their flirting seriously, right?

"Would you like to go out this evening?" The dark-haired man asked as he got up from his chair and stood in front of you.

You looked up at his nice looking face.

"...Cinema? Shoko wanted to see one movie you can watch today!" you said.

"No, I rather meant something else..." his eyes briefly turned to the door, searching for the white danger.

It's a bit difficult to date a girl you like... He was a little nervous and excited that he could finally ask you out and confess his feelings!

"Something else? "Suguru?"

"I wanted us to go. Together. The two of us. Just us–" as he began to explain slightly nervously, the door opened.

"I heard something about cinema! (y/n)-chan, you like movies, right? We go? Shoko wanted to watch a horror movie, if you get scared, don't worry, you can catch me!” Satoru said loudly and placed his hand on your head, pulling you slightly towards him.

When you looked at his hand on your head, they looked into each other's eyes.

And when their pupils connected, it meant war.

A pleased, playful smile with a twinkle in his eye. And on the other side, an angry, irritated, jealous grimace.

The dark-haired man's hand reached for yours and he pulled you towards him.

"I can be the one to let her hold my hand when I'm scared!" He said firmly.

Your cheeks warmed slightly as his right hand pressed your head against his chest as he spoke to his friend.

"Oh yes? She has two strong and quite handsome friends who can protect her from the monsters on the screen. Maybe she will choose the one she wants?"

"Satoru you little–"

"Suguru..." You said, slightly pushing yourself away from his warm chest.

His eyes widened and his cheeks turned red.

He let go of you quickly, and you didn't expect this reaction.

You were more thinking that he would push you away from him and smile because you were slightly shy.

Because they both liked to flirt with you for fun, right?

You saw the vein on Geto's forehead throb as his hand reached for Gojo's collar as he glared at him with murderous eyes.

You were more or less: what's going on here now?

Your views were shared by the second person who entered here.

Yaga, seeing this farce with an angry Geto and a laughing Gojo, also got angry and had to separate the two by force.

Even though it was Geto who wanted to kill him this time and Gojo just stood there.

If only he were smaller, he would gladly throw him far. So that he can be alone with you for at least an hour!

"Enough of that! I don't know what you're talking about again! It's time to calm down or you'll get extra duties!" Their teacher shouted, pulling the dark-haired boy away from Gojo, who was sticking out his tongue at him.

And then the older man looked at you.

Exactly... He didn't know what it was about. About the same as always...

Why does everyone know that Geto has real feelings for you, but you only think that he has a funny flirty nature just like Gojo?? Everyone knows Geto loves you! Only you think this is for fun!

"For what you're doing here again, I have a mission for you!" He pushed them away.

You placed a hand on Suguru's shoulder, checking if he was okay after the chokehold your teacher gave them.

Suguru was closer to you than Satoru.

"... Why, even if it's him, do I have to get punished like him?!" Gojo screamed even though he knew it was his fault.

"Because for what you do, you deserve something like this..." the teacher muttered.

"Huh?" he groaned when he couldn't hear.

He wasn't supposed to hear it.

"You are in this together! Just as guilty! You're leaving soon! I don't want to see you in the dorms until 5pm!"

If only Gojo were smaller, he would throw him so far that he would be calm for at least an hour...

Their dream came true.

It was supposed to be a short mission. You were waiting for them on a bench near the courtyard between the buildings. The trees allowed you to avoid the sun, and the slight breeze made it pleasant to wait for them.

When you saw a figure walking on the sidewalk between the trees, you smiled.

And when the trees showed you your dark-haired friend, you saw that Gojo was not there. Have they argued again?

You saw a cat standing on his shoulder!

You couldn't help but notice it because it was a white cat sitting on a dark uniform and leaning against Suguru's black hair!

You stood up and walked over to him, smiling when you saw him.

"Suguru! How was the mission? Where did you get this adorable cat?" she asked quickly and you reached out your hands to the white furball on his shoulder.

"You don't want to know what happened there. (y/n) this is–." before he could say, he saw you pet his head, smiling as you felt the very soft fur.

"Where's Satoru?" you asked before you picked up the rather heavy and large cat in your arms, hugging it.

Geto didn't speak and looked with a grimace at the smug, shit-eating smile of the cat that was sitting politely in your arms.

As soon as he heard you asking about Satoru, he remembered that the cat with the stupid smile was his friend. He wasn't sharpened enough and the curse turned him into a cat... The fucking furry didn't even want to walk on his own! Such a cheeky, lazy and self-satisfied cat!

And he smiled because now he will have to be with him all the time because they don't know when he will be human again! And because of this, he can't confess his feelings to you again!

Gojo Satoru, the stupid but sweet cat!

And also, he knew you would be pleased with his soft fur! And he had the plan from the very beginning to be that soft, sweet kitten who likes you very much!

"Suguru?" you called out when he didn't answer.

His eyes turned to you as you lifted the cat like Simba into the air, showing him its pink and extremely clean paws.

"Can we keep him? Does he have an owner?" You looked at him with puppy dog ​​eyes.

You brought the fluffy animal to your chest, placing a kiss on its snow-white fur. The slight pink from your lips lingered there.

Purple eyes turned to your lips which were shiny thanks to the pink lip gloss you were wearing.

He wanted to kiss you...

"What's wrong, Suguru?" you asked, slightly worried that he was so quiet.

Holding the cat with its back to your chest, you moved closer.

The white cat purred in your arms. And when he looked at him, he saw the most contented look Gojo could have as a cat as his head moved, cuddling against your breasts.

A vein on the dark-haired man's forehead popped out and he reached for the cat, grabbing it by its fur.

He glared at him.

And his dream came true. If Gojo were smaller, he would love to throw him far enough that he would have time for both of you.

"This is my girl, fucking cat!" He thought and showed it to him with his eyes before swinging and throwing the cat into the sky and into the forest.

The only thing left of the white cat is the long meowing sound it made while flying in the sky.

"Suguru!" You screamed, terrified and surprised by his behavior. "It's just a cat! Why did you do that?!"

You tightened your grip on his jacket, unable to understand why he threw the cat like that.

"This cat is Satoru! Some fucking curse has hit him and he's going to be a cat for a while!" He said, somehow calming you down.

"But why did you throw him so hard? And why... If it was Satoru, then–." He crossed his arms over your chest, remembering how the cat cuddled against your breasts. Your face is hot.

"I don't want him to bother me again."

"In what?"

"Listen... For so long, I've wanted to show you something... Say something. But that fucking idiot was always in the way! He made you think what I was saying was just flirting jokes!

"So you don't..."

"No! Absolutely not! I would never joke about something like that! I like you! I like you very much!" he said and turned his head slightly with a little embarrassment.

Did you see that Geto Suguru blush a little?

"You'll be my girlfriend...?"

You looked into his hopeful eyes.

Well... He's just a teenager, just like you...

Feeling your cheeks heat up, you hugged him.

"...Yes...Suguru..." you replied, holding onto him tightly.

A smile appeared on his face that he never thought he would have. Very pleased but also gentle.

"(y/n)." he exclaimed and lifted your chin to look at him.

He leaned down to reach your lips. And he placed his lips on yours, pulling you into the kiss you both wanted.

You didn't pay attention to the cat that was sitting next to the tree with a dissatisfied face.

Ps. Karma comes back. Especially to someone who interferes with love.

A few months after he was a cat, he began to regret being alive at all.

He experienced sleepless nights because he couldn't close his eyes all night long.

Instead of silence, he only heard the bed in the next room hitting the wall or creaking. And your cracking voice and all the moans that came out.

For all the torment Suguru had to go through because of him, he didn't even bother to keep a secret. That's why he wanted you to moan as loudly as possible so that Gojo couldn't sleep.

During classes, when Suguru is glowing after a nice night, you are tired but smiling, Gojo is simply worn out by lack of sleep and starts sleeping during classes.

Just to get punishment for it from your teacher.

[mylifeisjustafeverdream]

A Retelling of My Mind Whilst Reading Shadow Kissed-

Omg it's the Sixth Sense up in this bitch

Bitch when are you ever "just tired" when weird shit starts happening to you, I swear to fuck.

Rose is so me because I too would rather die than spend an extended amount of time with my best friends boyfriend.

Eddie Castile the man that you are.

From the bottom of my heart I hope Jesse gets his shit rocked.

Omg Rose girl do something, ANYTHING. YOU'RE EMBARRASSING US.

Least Favorite Trope: Entire plot would be resolved if this dumbass just like communicated the issues she is having OMFG.

If Rose Hathaway has no haters all her teachers must be dead because wtf is their issue???

Homegirl is unstable at best.

I feel like at this point she should probably go to where Mason the Friendly Ghost is pointing.

Girly-pop that's not a migraine....

I do not fucking trust that bitch Tatianna

*Viktor explains master plan* "Cool motive still murder"

*Law and Order sounds*

HE JUST SAID THAT SHIT IN OPEN COURT IT'S ON THE RECORD

How much of an asshole do you have to be that it's more believable that you're lying than a crime having actually happened lol

Lissa is so clueless it's kinda funny.

You know what I hope Rose fucks Adrienne and gets pregnant just to spite Tatianna.

She wants her nails done omg she's just a girl 🥺

*starts looking at my tarot book to see if this is accurate*

I love when Dimitri starts lore dropping to Rose

Well.... I think they know about the ghosts now.

That doctor is the only rational adult at the school cause literally why tf didn't she talk to a counselor.

Her therapist just clocked her so hard.

Well that's an unfortunate fact about Shadow Kissed Anna

Dimitri took part in that attack exercise specifically so she would hop on it lmao

Can't even celebrate for a moment before Lissa is off doing something dumb I swear to god

Lissa try not to get tortured challenge go

*New power unlocked*

YES ROSE BEAT HIS ASS GIRL......oh shit.....GIRL YOU GOT HIM IT'S GOOD.

She's like a feral cat.... Dimitri should use a spray bottle.

Oh my GOD IT'S HAPPENING EVERYONE REMAIN FUCKING CALM

Girl you gotta give me more details than that PLEASE

"My body ached" that'll happen when your first time is with a 6'7 Russian built like a tank

CAN WE NOT HAVE ONE GOD DAMN MOMENT OF PEACE

Girl I'm gonna throw up he's all alone out there.

CHRISTIAN OZERA THE MAN THAT YOU ARE

HE DIDN'T DIE THANK FUCK

Mason upstaging Dimitri even from the afterlife that's my man right there.

SECRET TUNNELS, SECRET TUNNELS THROUGH THE MOUNTAINS

The uncanny ability that 17 year old female herions have to radicalize societies is amazing

Do y'all think Dimitri came up with that life plan while he was fighting the strigoi?

"You're scared of my mother" um yea girl she's fs going to catch an attempted murder charge once she finds out.

*Clenched my jaw so tight during the cave fight it started to hurt*

Oh my God girl stop internal monologuing about how everything is going to work out THAT ALWAYS GOES POORLY

Oh God it's that blonde bitch from earlier this is going to be so much worse than him being dead.

Rose: *literally tries to throw herself back into a vicious attack just to save Dimitri's body*

Everyone Else: She just respected him as a teacher so much there's no other possible explanation.

Lissa clocking what was happening with Rose and Dimitri just now is like when someone steals the answer on Wheel of Fortune after the other contestant mispronounced the phrase

*Knows it's definitely going to happen* "Dimitri is a strigoi"*gasps*

I'm shocked they didn't grab like a single Guardian teacher to try and talk down Rose like why tf did they think Kirova would have any affect.

I know it's not malicious on Lissa's part but I'm glad Rose is finally speaking about how one sided this relationship is.

"Off to kill the man I love" oh this next book is going to fuck me up.

[shentheauthor]

Torn Tapestries AU snippet

Context: the Lamb is changing. Narinder is worried. How does one defy fate, you ask? Ask the cards.

Clauneck’s voice came before Narinder even came into view. He had known the cat was coming, as always. Narinder hated it. He hated how repetitive his interactions with the duck were, how he knew what the outcome would be no matter what he did to change it.

Still, he had to try. Even when the oracle said exactly what he had every other time Narinder visited.

“Oh, Death,” Clauneck hummed. “Shall we continue our exercise of futility?”

Narinder pushed aside the last few branches, revealing the small clearing that temporarily housed Clauneck. The duck was always infuriatingly difficult to locate, moving with unnatural speed. Fitting for one blessed by the First Gods, but endlessly inconvenient for the former god of death.

“How many times have I told you to stop greeting me that way,” Narinder growled, taking his seat across from Clauneck. The well-worn rug smelled of countless creatures, their scents mixing together until they were indistinguishable, except for one. Lamb.

Clauneck’s expression remained neutral as ever. “You know as well as I that this encounter shall be the same as the others that came before it,” he said quietly. “As well as the encounters that will come after.”

Narinder rolled his eyes, gripping the handle of his scythe. The blade dripped with heretic blood. Despite his anger, he still angled it so the blood ran off the tip and onto the grass, rather than the rug. Clauneck smiled.

“Many thanks, Death,” he said. Narinder huffed, placing his hands on his lap, palms up.

“Get on with it,” he demanded. “I do not have all day.” Clauneck said nothing in response to Narinder’s attitude, as usual. He simply nodded, picking up his deck of cards and shuffling them quietly.

He spread the cards across the rug, gesturing for Narinder to choose. As he had dozens of times before, he did. He always chose randomly, pushing certainty away with hope. He knew what he would draw, as it had happened time and time again. Always the same question, to the point where he didn’t need to ask it. Always the same answer.

The Lovers, inverted. The Wheel of Fortune, reversed. Death, upright.

Narinder snarled and threw the cards back down. “I will not accept this,” he demanded. “Their fate is not sealed. I know this, just as mine was not.”

Clauneck’s eyes filled with something akin to sadness. “Dear Death,” he said, “one cannot avoid one’s destiny. It solidifies the more one refuses to accept that they are wrong.”

“You have yet to tell me what that means, soothsayer.” Narinder glared up at the red duck. “I grow tired of your games.”

Clauneck shook his head. “I play no games,” he intoned. “I cannot answer your questions, Reaper. The only ones who can are you, and the Lamb.”

Narinder stood, dragging his scythe behind him, still avoiding the rug. “This was a waste of time,” he spat as he turned around. “You are useless.”

Clauneck hummed. “I shall see you next time, then,” he said. “May the answers be the ones you seek.”

When Narinder turned, Clauneck was already gone.

[milksugarjams]

Sherlock Holmes 3

(part 2 of ?)

Of course Holmes has a big case lined up already. And of course Watson is dutifully ignoring him. He big mad.

"You would benefit from exercise, Watson. Look at Gladstone, lying there like a dying elephant. You two could be related."

"We both get plenty of exercise, Holmes."

"Debatable. Certainly not for the mind."

Watson stares out the window in front of his typewriter like it's a camera on The Office. You just know he wants to go, but he still big mad. "No."

"No?"

"No."

Holmes' eye twitches. He knocks a picture frame off a side table in passing, pretending it was an accident. The glass breaks.

Watson glares at the man, who's starting to look more like a pouting cat. "That is my mother-in-law."

"She's dead, and you never met her."

The kids are sitting in an armchair in Watson's office watching the proceedings. They're making notes. The eldest thinks this will all make up the next book.

Then Mary walks in, "Time for school, come on." The children sigh and say goodbye, following their mother out.

Watson raises an eyebrow at Holmes once they're alone. "Maybe you should go with them," he says, "since you insist on behaving like a child."

Holmes calmly narrows his eyes. The wheels are visibly turning in his head. What's he thinking?

[elminx]

Elminx's Gratitude Ritual for the Aquarius Full Moon, August 1, 2023

This is a simple ritual designed to magnify the things that you are already grateful for in your life and send them out into the universe so that they can be multiplied and returned to you. It does not need any fancy supplies though it can be augmented for further power by any number of objects. Here we are using some basic astrology and numerology to further enhance the already strong energy of the super moon in Aquarius.

The Astrology

Tomorrow's full moon falls at 09° Aquarius, making no significant aspects (other than the assumed Sun-Moon opposition) to other planetary bodies. Additionally, Mercury in Virgo will be opposed to retrograde Saturn in Pisces, adding oomph and a bit of weight to the day, and Mars in Virgo will be trine to Jupiter in Taurus.

We are using the energy of Mars and Jupiter's trine in Earth signs to amplify the energy of our abundance. Both Taurus and Virgo are lush signs that like to enjoy life - Virgo season is harvest season, what are you harvesting this year?

It is worth noting that many Wiccans celebrate 8/1 as Lamas, the first harvest in the Wheel of the Year. If that's a part of your practice, you can bring that energy to this ritual as well.

The Numerology

8/1 carries the energy of the Number 8 which represents the circle of life and having to ride its ups and downs and the Number 1 which is the number of beginnings. What you do on the first sets the tone for the month ahead - we are going to set a tone of gratitude.

I am using the symbol of the ouroboros or infinity sign which is the number 8 laid on its side to symbolize sending out energy that cycles through life and returns to us.

The Breathwork

I am going to add a bit of breathwork to this ritual which will aid in the visualization of the ouroboros - if this is uncomfortable for you, you can absolutely skip it.

The Ritual

You will Need 1 piece of paper A Writing Utensil

Find yourself a quiet space where you will not be deserved. This can be at an altar or other sacred space, but I suggest doing here whatever is most likely to encourage you toward a state of gratitude. You could go out into the forest or find a quiet space by a tree in the park. Maybe this is sitting in the middle of your garden or with headphones on a busy subway. I really encourage you to follow your intuition with this.

On the paper list eight things you are grateful for in your life right now. They don't have to be grand adventures - sometimes the thing that I am the most grateful for is the way that my cat chirped at me in the morning. As you do this, focus your energy on the center of your chest. This is where gratitude lives - gratitude creates a warm fuzzy buzz in that area of the body. We are looking to make that energy grow.

There are a lot of ways to do this, but here I want to focus on breathwork. With your mind's eye, see a ball of glowing light in the center of your chest. Sometimes this light is perceived as being green or pink, but if you see a different color that is okay too. You might not see color at all, you may just begin to feel the energy pulsating from that area of your body. If you don't see or feel anything, that's okay - you can continue this exercise with the assumption that it is working or try something else.

If you can perceive this energy ball in the center of your chest, begin to notice the way that it grows as you take a breath in and contract as you breathe out. Take any number of breaths until you start to feel like you understand this motion. Then, on your next breath out, focus on sending that ball of light - and the gratitude attached to it - out of your body as if you are giving it to the room that you are in. Then, as you breathe in, breathe in new gratitude that is coming from the room that you are in. You can try to visualize this as an ouroboros shape with your breathing in being the high point in the figure eight (faced towards you) and your breathing out being the low point.

Ideally, we would like to repeat this breath eight times: breathing in gratitude from the world and breathing out gratitude as a gift to the world. If you can, breathe from your heart; if you don't understand what that means, that is okay, too. If this is a new technique to you, it may take some time to get it right - focus on learning it more than the number of times you breathe.

You can hold the paper in your hands while you breathe or tuck it into your shirt so that it sits against your heart.

When this feels complete to you, come back to your piece of paper. Draw a large ouroboros symbol across your writing and fold the paper up. You should keep it throughout the month of August - you could tuck it into a notebook, put it on an altar, or sleep with it under your pillow. If you need a reminder of good things, you can come back to the paper and read it and perform the ritual again. Or, better yet, if you find new things to be grateful for, you could add them to the list as the month goes on.

On September 1st, you can perform this ritual again to reinvigorate your gratitude or dispose of the paper in any way that feels right to you.

Extras

There are a lot of ways to add some oomph this spell.

The most obvious one is candle magic. You could choose a single candle to burn while performing this ritual or charge a candle during this ritual that you burn afterward (like - for the next eight days!). You could charge your paper with eight tealight candles around it - this one is a great alternative to the breath method if you weren't comfortable with that. You could burn a birthday candle in the shape of the number 8.

If you're a crafty witch, you could build yourself a gratitude box either by making one yourself or decorating something pre-made with things that you are grateful for. Keep it close and keep adding things that represent what you are grateful for to your box.

Furthering the energy of the number 8, you could perform this ritual every day for 8 days starting on 8/1 and ending on 8/8 which has doubled 8 energy attached to it.

You could boost the energy of the spell by casting it at the peak of the full moon - check your local ephemeris to find out when that would be for your time zone. Or, you could boost it by casting during the Hour of Jupiter. (if you do the latter, I would suggest giving an offering to Jupiter for empowering your work)

To combat some of the poor energy of the Venus retrograde, you could charge a rose quartz necklace with your breath of gratitude and wear it throughout the month ahead. This will work as a reminder to come back to your heart and to the practice of being present for the good things in your life.

I have kept this ritual super simple so that you can add any touches that are personal to you and your practice.

Do you like my work? You can support me by tipping me here or on Kofi, or by purchasing an astrology report.

[knightinink]

Do you have any Gregstophe headcanons?

I do! I may mainly be a Dip blog, but I love me some Gregstophe as well! Dip 🤝 Gregstophe gotta stick together, after all!

-Gregory is an early riser, & is very punctual about always being on time, even for waking up. If his alarm goes off at 5am sharp, he's awake. Christophe not so much, & I like to think he's more of a night person. "All ze interesting things 'appen at night." Gregory's heard many a time, but he still encourages Christophe to wake up & go to bed at the same times he does. This stopped however, after one mission in particular had exhausted the Frenchman (who was also injured pretty badly), & now Gregory lets him have his own schedule that is more accommodating to him.

-As a kid, Christophe dealt with his emotions by digging a hole (or a short tunnel) & would sit down there until he felt better. Not necessarily good, but a bit better. He still does this into adulthood, but now he "digs a hole in his mind", as that's usually more convenient, & retreats into his head until he feels better (not disassociating, just shutting everything out that's going on around him; like he put earplugs in). When he's with Gregory, the other notices this behavior & buys him an iPod with some headphones so he can listen to music rather than the silence of his thoughts.

-I've mentioned this here before on this blog, but I like to think Christophe just has a natural knack for baking, & he's very talented at it! He'll never admit it, but everything he makes & sits out on the counter, plated intricately & purposefully, are things he made for Gregory. The Brit has next to no idea what he's doing in a kitchen, so he's always amazed at what Christophe is able to make. (& he knows that those sweets & confectionaries are made specially for him, as they are always something he enjoys or something he mentioned in passing once, & Christophe isn't a huge fan of sweet things).

-I don't really see either of them as "having a pet" sort of people, but if they ever did I could see them getting a cat (Christophe has put his foot down on a "no dogs ever" policy). Gregory would keep it well-stimulated with maze feeding bowls & toys where you need to figure out how to open it to get treats out of it. Christophe would insist on turning a part of the house into an "exercise space" for the cat, drilling little platforms into the walls for the cat to jump onto, & he would spend a lot of time playing with it, but he calls it "exercise training". The cat's favorite spot to sleep would be on the backrest of Gregory's chair in his study, or in Christophe's rocker in the den. It's name would, of course, be something ridiculously high-class, yet hilarious at the same time.

-If it's Christophe who does the cooking, then it is Gregory who does the driving. Christophe gets road-rage too easily when he's behind the wheel, & has crashed & totaled at least 3 cars. No longer wanting to worry about him (or paying more & more insurance fees & new cars), the Brit is the one who now drives them everywhere, both casually & on missions (the casualness will come later in their lives).

[veliseraptor]

February Reading Recap

Getting to this one real late but it's fine because I only read three books in February anyway.

Episode Thirteen by Craig DiLouie. I'm a sucker for books that are doing something interesting with format, and this one caught me with the "ghost hunting TV show episode" format and then surprised me a little by being both better and scarier than I expected. I don't think I'd say that it's among the best horror I've read, but it was a good time, and spooky, and left enough of the "what's going on" vague and undefined for me to appreciate it.

There's at least one interesting thing that the author did with the format that I completely missed, though (having to do with time stamps, so that's on me for never paying a lot of attention to time stamps). Makes me wonder a little what else I might've missed. This author wrote another horror novel I've seen floating around (The Children of Red Peak), and I enjoyed this one enough that I'll probably give it a read.

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun: vol. 2 by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat. I'm still in very familiar territory with this one so far based on what I remember from the first time I read it, but it is (as with most cnovels) definitely rewarding reread with the benefit of hindsight. I am very much enjoying it, still, and finishing this volume kicked me into trawling AO3 for fanfiction, so I feel like that speaks well of the experience.

The drawback (one of the drawbacks) to this novel being so damn long is that we're not really in a part of it that I have particularly strong feelings about, and because of the novel's length it's also going to be a minute before we get to the parts that I do remember having strong feelings about. me @ Ye Wangxi though: 👀

The Glory of the Empire by Jean d'Ormesson. This book is both fascinating and very hard for me to figure out how to talk about. The conceit is quite possibly my favorite thing about it - this book is written as a narrative history of a completely fictional empire, in the style of (classically) Herodotus or Suetonius, but in more modern terms I think was meant to evoke Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which I haven't read. I wonder what would be different (or not) about my experience reading this book if I had that background, since I do feel like this is a text that is very much existing in deliberate conversation with those it is playing off.

I imagine I do not have to explain to the Goncharov website why this is a fascinating exercise. It's a history! Of an entirely made up empire! Including citations of articles and books and asides about different interpretations/the relevance of new "discoveries" to the author's argument. It's conceptually fascinating. It also reads as (not to put too fine a point on it) orientalist and bordering on racist in the way it talks about real cultures external to the one being imagined. It is possible that is on purpose as part of the author's project, since it does very much feel in keeping with the texture of the genre d'Ormesson is pastiching here, but also it is possible that it's just an artifact of this being a book written in French in the 1970s, and it's hard for me to say how much it is one or the other. Certainly for some people it might not matter at all; for me it would make a substantial difference.

Anyway, fascinating book, still not sure what to make of it, kind of want to shove it at other people I know and go "here read this and talk to me about it."

Presently I am reading Eyes of the Void by Adrian Tchaikvosky which I am (unsurprisingly) really enjoying (I can probably call him one of my favorite authors at this point); I have a whole bunch of scattered things I'm looking at reading next and no clear idea where I'm going to land, though I do think I might try to get into finishing my Wheel of Time reread soon.

[myrsinemezzo]

I Feel You, Restless Spirits, and Dreamwaker! Reveal what you can! 😍👀😘

Dreamwaker is a sci-fi story about a woman who can conjure and talk to the dead in her dreams based on my own dream I had and immediately jotted down when I woke up.

The old man looked just as he had when he’d been alive and well. He fumbled a little with the plastic while he bagged up my book and smiled as if to thank me for my patience. The orange cat who had once haunted the bookstore’s aisles lay on the counter next to the register.

“Where have you been, William?” I asked him. “I haven’t see you in forever.”

His laugh was rusty and good-natured as he handed over my package. The expression raised his white mustache a few inches, making him look like a solicitous Mark Twain. “I’ve been here waiting the whole time,” he said. The cat blinked its large green eyes and purred as if in agreement.

For some reason that made me laugh, too. I opened my mouth to say more, but a piercing noise rang through the air. The sound shattered and blurred the landscape like a wash of turpentine hitting a wet canvas.

Restless Spirits - a YA historical fiction bootlegging supernatural romance I was really enjoying until I ran into a research roadblock and still mean to get back to it.

October, 1920

If Nell Kelly had one complaint, it was that Fate had handed a complicated life to a relatively simple girl. In reality, there was nobody else to blame for her problems besides her extended family, but complaining about her obligations to them was always an exercise in futility. At least her situation wasn’t all bad, she thought with more than a hint of sarcasm. Few people would be up late enough to enjoy the sights and sounds of the Detroit docks in the middle of the night.

The waves lapping against the dock’s pilings and the way the clear full moon and the cold stars wheeled above her made her feel drunk on the night’s beauty. She would luxuriate in it if she could, but these precious early-morning hours meant money. When it came down to it, the Kellys frowned on wasting time and money as much as society frowned on the crimes she was about to commit.

Thanks for asking and for tagging me! Can’t wait to ask about your own works!! ❤️

[quiveringdeer]

Reiner's cat going from a frail sack of bones to a solid unit because of Rei's love and care. He probably saves up for an exercise wheel so they can stay in shape, which is good because Reiner gives in very easily with treat begging.

Daaaaaaaw. okay but tell me why I have this vision of Rei's apartment complex having a gym on site and he literally carries this big cat sized hamster wheel down there, with his lil buddy ridding on his shoulder and yowling while Rei tries to shhh them so they don't get in trouble--cause Sir pets aren't allowed in the complex' gym

Rei: "But they're my emotional support buddy." (feel like Rei is the type that doesn't refer to them as a "pet")

Apartment security person or somethin I dunno: "....ya know what. I don't get paid enough for this, don't let them mess anything up."

Reiner sets up the wheel next to his favorite treadmill so they can both do cardio together!

[wifiwulf04]

Hemlo Wulf!! :D

list 5 things that make you happy then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you, learn to know your mutals and followers <3

Oh man, bold of you to assume that 10 people have reblogged my stuff Lauren /hj

Maybe kind of sad that I've had to think this hard about it, but also a sign of progress I think that I haven't had to stop and scrape at happiness just to cling to the edge recently

That being said, I'd have to go with:

1. Art in all its forms, writing, sculpting, painting, traditional and digital, whether I'm creating or experiencing, it always makes me happy (and sometimes more than a little jealous, I will admit)

2. Learning extensively about things that interest me, whether it's research for writing or looking stuff up to learn from my mistakes or prepare for the next project

3. Rollerblading, because there's something about being on wheels that makes me feel both graceful in a way I didn't get to be for a lot of my life and gives me the next best thing to flight. I'm always trying to go faster and I'll admit that I'm a speed demon, but whether or not that means I'll end up getting a motorcycle in future remains to be seen 👀 (Instagram reels are tempting, as are vehicle ownership certificate prices here. Motorcycles are so much cheaper than cars)

4. Fandoms! Getting to interact with people who share my interests and learning about things that I never would have found on my own, like comic-specific Transformers canon (comic stores, not really a thing here sadly. Maybe a good thing because we really don't have anywhere to put them and I would hoard them)

5. Just as, if not more important than the others, seeing my system mates be happy, doing what they want and helping them achieve that in any way I can. Whether it's taking Sunstreaker out to get art supplies, signing up for boxing classes for the protectors, cooking with Pyre, fashion with Hizashi, exercise with Katsuki, going to cat cafés with Hitoshi or even just scheduling Lupine a safe space and a friend to chase balls until she's exhausted, I'll do it if I can, even if sometimes it almost kills me (ahem, Katsuki).

[reasoningdaily]

Cat Yu for HBR

When I was in my late twenties, I was diagnosed with stomach cancer. Doctors operated and told me to hope for the best. I returned to Japan, where I was working, and tried to forget about it. The tumors returned a year later, this time in my liver. After a long search, the surgeons found a new procedure to remove them, but I knew this was, again, perhaps only a temporary fix. I was a mess for the next six months. The hardest part of my illness was my constant anxiety about it coming back.

Then I met a man who changed my outlook. Dr. Derek Roger had spent 30 years researching why some people in difficult situations become overwhelmed, while others persevere. He taught me everything he’d learned, and as I started applying it, my anxiety subsided, even though my situation didn’t change. In fact, the cancer came back about five years ago and remains relatively stable in my liver. But I no longer worry about it. Derek became my mentor, and over the past 10 years we have trained thousands of leaders to overcome their stress.

The process starts with understanding that stress is caused not by other people or external events, but by your reactions to them. In the workplace, many people blame their high anxiety levels on a boss, job, deadlines, or competing commitments for their time. But peers who face the same challenges do so without stress. Derek and I often meet executives who have high levels of pressure but low levels of stress, and vice versa.

Pressure is not stress. But the former is converted to the latter when you add one ingredient: rumination, the tendency to keep rethinking past or future events, while attaching negative emotion to those thoughts. Of course, leaders must practice reflection — planning for the future or reviewing past lessons — but this is an analytical, short-term process, with positive fallout. Rumination is ongoing and destructive, diminishing your health, productivity, and well-being. Chronic worriers show increased incidence of coronary problems and suppressed immune functioning. Dwelling on the past or the future also takes us away from the present, rendering us unable to complete the work currently on our plates. If you ask ruminators how they are feeling, none will say “happy.” Most feel miserable.

To break this stress-inducing habit, Derek and I recommend four steps:

Wake up. People spend most of their day in a state called “waking sleep.” This is when you pull into the office parking lot but can’t remember the drive there, or when someone in a meeting asks for your opinion but you’ve missed the last few minutes of conversation. Since all rumination happens during this state, the first step is to break out of it. You can do this physically: Stand or sit up, clap your hands, and move your body. Or you can do it mentally: Connect with your senses by noticing what you can hear, see, smell, taste, and feel. The idea is to reconnect with the world.

Control your attention. When you ruminate, your attention gets caught in an unproductive loop, like a hamster on a wheel. You need to redirect yourself to areas in which you can take useful action. Here’s one exercise we encourage executives to use: Draw a circle on a page, and write down all of the things you can control or influence inside of it and all of the things you cannot outside of it. Remind yourself that you can care about externalities — your work, your team, your family — without worrying about them.

Put things in perspective. Ruminators tend to catastrophize, but resilient leaders keep things in perspective for themselves and their teams. We tell people to try three techniques: contrasting (comparing a past stress to the current one, i.e., a major illness versus a missed sale), questioning (asking yourself “How much will this matter in three years’ time?” and “What’s the worst that could happen?” and “How would I survive it?”) and reframing (looking at your challenge from a new angle: “What’s an opportunity in this situation I haven’t yet seen?” or even “What’s funny about this situation?”)

Let go. The final step is often the hardest. If it was easy to let it go, we would have done it already. We find that three techniques help. The first is acceptance: Acknowledge that whether you like the situation or not, it is the way it is. The second is learning the lesson. Your brain will review events until it feels you’ve gained something from them, so ask yourself, “What have I learned from this experience?” The third is action. Sometimes the real solution is not to relax, but to do something about your situation. Ask yourself, “What action is required here?

While struggling with cancer, it took me a couple of years to train myself to follow these steps. But ultimately it worked. My stress levels went down, my health improved, and my career took off. More heartening, I discovered that everything Derek had taught me could be taught to others, with similar results.

[bnjmin]

@strnza:     five  times  kissed.     selectively accepting.

1.  she  tastes  like  coffee  and  chocolate.  it  mixes  a  little  with  the  toothpaste  and  mouthwash  that's  still  lingering  from  his  time  in  the  bathroom  just  now,  but  it's  not  that  big  of  a  deal.  when  he  pulls  away  she  tries  to  feed  him  a  slice  of  fruit.

2.  he  can  get  possessive  sometimes,  sure.  he's  late  meeting  her  at  the  restaurant  -  she  had  a  thing  earlier  and  was  closer  by  and  he  had  to  pick  something  up  that  his  dad  had  kept  reminding  him  about,  whatever  -  and  he  finds  her  at  the  table  they  usually  sit  at  with  a  waiter  that's  entirely  unfamiliar  and  utterly  enamored  (he  can't  blame  them.  but  still).  she's  ordered  for  him  because  she  knows  what  he  likes  and  he's  confident  in  that,  but  he  scrapes  his  chair  across  the  ground  a  little  harshly  when  he  pulls  it  around  the  curve  of  the  table  and  sits,  close  enough  to  her  that  their  legs  are  touching.  he  catches  her  hand  before  it  drifts  to  his  thigh  and  raises  her  knuckles  to  his  lips.

3.  ben's  watching  her  watch  cannoli  as  he  putts  around  the  house  and  he  decides  to  bargain.  she's  brought  up  the  idea  before,  and  he  knows  it's  a  matter  of  time  before  she  follows  through,  so.  the  least  he  can  do  is  try  and  exercise  some  control  over  the  situation  (even  if,  largely,  this  is  her  rodeo.)  they're  facing  each  other,  ben  leaning  into  the  counter  with  his  hip,  and  he  prefaces  the  conversation  with  his  mouth,  still  cold  from  the  ice  cream  they'd  been  sharing.  "you  ...  can  get  him  a  friend.  a  cat.  old  and  mean  so  it  leaves  me  alone."  he's  half  joking,  but  doesn't  bother  to  point  it  out  before  he  connects  them  again.  "so.  you  owe  me  like  five  hundred  more  of  those."

4.  they  put  a  decent  dent  into  the  five  hundred.  mostly  on  the  couch  with  the  tv  in  the  background,  like  now.  she's  between  him  and  the  cushions,  and  he's  cozy  with  his  hips  between  hers.

5.  "gimme  some."  he  fits  himself  next  to  her  on  the  floor,  shoulders  touching.  the  wheel  is  out,  balanced  in  her  lap,  and  there  are  times  he'd  be  worried  that  he's  cutting  into  some  of  her  alone  time  if  it  weren't  for  the  smile  she  flashes  him,  the  excited  way  she  offers  him  parmesan.  her  fingertips  stay  close  enough  to  his  mouth  for  him  to  catch  them  with  the  pressure  of  his  lips  before  he  scoots  a  little  closer  to  her.

[tracksterman]

Yeah, I'm still alive. I've had worse colds, to be quite honest - but I've heard enough anecdotes about fit people suffering a mild dose of Covid, going back to their usual level of exercise then suffering a big relapse/collapse. I don't want to be one of them.

So, aside from work, I've taken it easy this week. For the next few days I'm cat sitting at my sister's place, taking advantage of her garage to build up the 'new' mountain bike, i.e swapping over bits onto a 29er Scandal frame, Ridefarr bikepacking forks (AC 483mm) and Mavic wheels that I've accumulated in sales over the last couple of years.

I thought it might be instructive to compare this new 'long, low and slack' rolling chassis with the 26er setup I've been riding for the last three years, based on a 2011 XL Rockhopper frame (bought for £25) plugged into a set of P2 forks with an AC of 470mm. The results have surprised me...

I positioned the two bikes with the bottom bracket shells side by side. There are parallax issues with these pictures but you'll get the drift. In these two pics you can see the headset and forks, while not much slacker in angle, sit further forward on the Scandal than they do on the Rockhopper - but then so does the seat tube, due to its curvature as it exits the BB.

So, maybe not that long after all, just with a different centre of gravity. I'd boshed on a cheap, fashionably short 45mm stem just to hold the forks in place, but suspect I may be going significantly longer than that on the final build.

[noesheen--buksh]

Week 2 - In Class Exercise

During class today we first learnt a bit about Infrared photography and Ultraviolet photography.

Infrared photography was created for government surveillance use; this type of photography is in a way a manipulated image. It takes green tones within the images and transforms them into different tones of reds and pinks. The reason why the colour changes so drastically is because this type of photography captures a spectrum of light that is unseen by the human eye. Infrared photography was typically used to photograph through fog and haze because the infrared radiate has a longer wavelength than visible light. Because of that, infrared photography can often show hidden details that can be missed, it also brings different things to the foreground for the viewer's attention.

UV photography was often used for scientific and/or medical purposes. It captures images that are on the Ultraviolet spectrum; this particular part of the spectrum is invisible to the human eyes (humans can only see colour and light on a specific spectrum known as “visible light”).  UV photography often reveals deteriorating structures that can’t be visible through normal light. This form of photography much like the previous one, shows hidden details that are unseen by the human eye. 

Articles that I read based on Infrared and Ultraviolet photography

After that, we travelled to the computer lab to learn some Photoshop techniques. The first task we did, was cleanly remove the cat images from the background through masking. The next task we did was cleanly select the skyline (and the water) from those images and remove the sky. We then had to add the cat from the previous image behind the skyline and re-add the background sky. The third task was using the pen tool to carefully cut out the images of the car from its background as well as brighten the overall image using the curve in Photoshop. For the last task, we had to remove the background sky and replace it with a different sky background.  (A really summed-up version of what happened in the class).

Then for fun, I did this in Photoshop. I photoshopped the cat to look as if it were driving the car, I even put the steering wheel in front of the cat to make it look more "realistic". For the windshield, I lowered the fill on the duplicate of it so it truly appeared tinted. For the other image, I blended all the different elements together - the cat in the clouds with a building overlooking the water.