#thank Descarte for that one

[grim-has-issues]

This some Harlan Ellison "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" shit, but it's happier and more optimistic.

[bengiyo]

I Hear the Sunspot Ep 5 Stray Thoughts

Last week, Taichi started working at the restaurant where Miho met him during the break. He and Kohei didn't have much time to see each other, and Kohei's mom encouraged him to invite Taichi to the festival. They got rained out and Kohei confessed his feelings to Taichi, who didn't seem to fully understand them. Taichi has also decided not to explain the situation with Miho to Kohei, who thinks Taichi is pursuing her romantically. Kohei has decided to get a different note taker instead.

Descartes! I have been enjoying the philosophy class as a frame for digging into some of the themes. I wonder what existentialism will bring out of Taichi.

OOF. He took notes, but Kohei isn't there.

I totally get Taichi's friends. After a week of him whining about Kohei I would make him go talk to him, too. Taichi didn't tell Kohei everything, and so here's where we are.

I like the intro song for this show.

I'm glad Mama Sugihara got to see Taichi eat.

Wow, they're just leaving all this cream on his face.

Oh, I'm getting emotional already about Mama Sugihara asking Taichi to not give up on her son.

Thank you, restaurant boss, for spelling it out for Taichi.

I love the shifting of a shadow to tease that someone is overhearing. It's gotta be Kohei coming with the phone.

Good job, show. I like Kohei pretending he didn't hear Taichi gushing about him. It's a specific kind of mean, given their dynamic, but I understand.

Oh, this is a good fight. Kohei is mad that Taichi doesn't seem to understand all the feelings he's leaking, and what he already confessed. Taichi is mad that Kohei constantly bottles up his feelings and distances them.

Hm, this is definitely a manga panel marching camera angle kiss. However, I kinda like it since it's a one-sided kiss. I hope they kiss properly when they earn it.

Feels like a breakthrough for Kohei to admit he was more afraid of Taichi hating him than losing his hearing.

You know Taichi is thinking hard if he's not eating.

That's right! Send him off with two bento boxes.

Aww, that was so touching. I felt Kohei's emotional surge there.

I like the way Taichi says Kohei's name.

"And what if I don't hate it?" I'LL SEE YOU ALL NEXT WEEK!!

I really do love a slow burn romance. I like seeing characters getting to know each other better before things turn romantic. I like knowing that they've built a real connection that will grow and mature. I like seeing these two take each other seriously. I like that Taichi was able to continue to protect Kohei from what he didn't like in Miho, because I think that part still needs to be resolved separately from this communication block between them. This show has been so good. I'm glad we adapted it again.

[anjels001]

Secrets of Devildom: Pride Demons (Part 1)

Those who have read the theory of the 7 Og and the cycle of life (thank you @sparkbeast20 for the cooperation) know that there are many gaps in the annon, and many of the events that occurred in the annon are not explained, and/or left implicit without any context.

For those following these moments of theory, you may notice that I have been talking a lot about the demonic classes, their "history," and culture before, during, and after the fall of the brothers, focusing most of these moments on philosophical/mythological debates, pointing out plot points that few would see and understand.

Well, we have already talked about 6 of the seven sin classes, namely Greed, Lust, Sloth, Gluttony, Wrath, and Envy.

In the shadowy corridors of Devildom, where envy boils and desire twists, there exists a sin that transcends all others—a sin that has spawned legends and shattered them equally. Sit back in your chairs and fasten your seatbelts because today...

….(insert supernatural intro)…

...we will talk about Pride

But before starting this moment of theory, I ask you, dear reader, to keep an open mind for this moment, and if you want to point out any flaws, or if I am forgetting something, remember that this is just a theoretical post. I won't be upset if you want to add something to this conversation; I just ask that you reblog and tag me so that we can exchange theories on the subject. As with all theories about demonic classes, I will start with the famous question: what do we know about Pride? Pride is a concept widely explored by philosophers throughout history and analyzed from different perspectives.

One of these perspectives describes pride as an excessive love for oneself, characterized by an individual who considers themselves self-sufficient and admires their works, wishing for others to share this same elevated view. Descartes, in his book “The Passions of the Soul,” considered pride a vice, arguing that those with an unjustified high opinion of themselves do not possess true generosity.

The views of famous philosophers on pride offer valuable insights. Socrates, for example, focused on human relationships and reflection on one's thinking. Cicero, on the other hand, warned about the dangers of excessive pride leading to arrogance, considering it one of the most unpleasant forms of human behavior.

Nietzsche, a 19th-century German philosopher, saw arrogance as a manifestation of resentment and weakness, questioning traditional morality and exploring human nature profoundly and provocatively. Therefore, these different philosophical perspectives enrich our understanding of pride and its impact on human life. In philosophy, the concept of arrogance is often addressed in the context of ethics and morality. Arrogance is associated with a morally reprehensible attitude of excessive pride, arrogance, and disrespect for others. This idea is frequently explored in philosophical and religious traditions.

Moral philosophy also examines how this attitude can influence human behavior, interpersonal relationships, and the pursuit of virtue. In many philosophical traditions, overcoming arrogance is seen as a path to moral and spiritual development. In the Christian tradition, arrogance is considered a cardinal sin and is associated with excessive presumption and elevated self-esteem that goes beyond the limits of humility. Psychology identifies two definitions of the types of pride: positive, known as self-esteem and self-confidence, and negative, called arrogance.

Proud people often face internal conflicts resulting from traumatic experiences or parental neglect. These experiences can lead to a desperate search for compensation for failures or negative behaviors, revealing the significant influence of the family environment on the formation of pride and its psychological repercussions. They exhibit signs of control and resistance to external help, demonstrating a reluctance to acknowledge their weaknesses or seek support from others, which evidences a tendency towards excessive control and self-imposed independence.

In the annals of demonology, Lucifer remains the quintessential embodiment of arrogance. His wings, once resplendent, now bear the weight of his disobedience. His eyes, once aflame with celestial fire, now burn with the remnants of rebellion. His fall from grace was not just a descent—it was a seismic rupture that shook the very foundations of existence. Pride is a valuable currency in Devildom. We observe that this emotion is a powerful engine for narrative and character development. Lucifer, as the Avatar of Pride, embodies the constant struggle between self-confidence and arrogance, between self-acceptance and self-alienation. This duality is visible not only in his actions but also in his interactions with other demons and with the humans who cross his path.

Lucifer’s psychology is marked by profound internal conflict. His celestial fall, resulting from his pride, created not only a physical separation from the divine but also an emotional and spiritual fracture. This traumatic event shaped his view of himself and the world around him, creating a cycle of self-affirmation and self-destruction. Pride, in this context, is not just a characteristic but an armor he uses to protect himself from his vulnerability.

Lucifer’s relationship with wrath is particularly intriguing. Pride, as the father of wrath, manifests whenever he feels his authority questioned or his dignity threatened. This exacerbated emotion reveals his deepest insecurities and his struggle to maintain control. Lucifer’s wrath is not just a reaction to frustration but a defense against the fear of being seen as weak or fallible. This dynamic between pride and wrath is a constant dance that defines his complex personality.

The concept of the "virus of pride," as mentioned by Pope Francis, is an apt metaphor to describe how this emotion can spread and infect all aspects of a person’s life. The mind and heart of someone "infected" end up being consumed by this emotion, distorting their perception of reality and leading them to make decisions with catastrophic consequences. Pride, in this sense, is both a destructive force and a reflection of the human desire to transcend one’s limits.

The exploration of pride in the canon of the game “Obey Me!” offers a unique view of how this emotion can be both a source of greatness and a trap. Lucifer, in his quest for redemption, represents the eternal struggle to balance self-confidence with humility. His journey is a reflection of what it means to be human, with all its weaknesses and strengths. Pride, ultimately, is a lens through which we can better understand the motivations and dilemmas that define our existence.

The relationship between pride and other sins, such as envy and lust, also deserves attention. In Devildom, these sins do not exist in isolation but interact in complex ways to create an intricate fabric of emotions and actions. Pride can fuel envy, leading to competition and conflict. Similarly, lust can be an expression of excessive pride, a search for validation through conquest. Understanding these interactions is essential to decipher the characters’ motivations and the power dynamics in Devildom.

It is no surprise that the circle of pride is considered the penultimate level, the first and last line of the tomb of kings, which I will explain in the next post. Comparing it with the other circles of hell, we will see that although it has less "territory," the circle of pride is considered the most luxurious and densely packed with magic than the others. The circle of pride is one of the main pillars, if not the main one, that keeps the structure of the whole kingdom intact. This realm has multiple space-time pockets that contain small kingdoms and fiefs that constantly conflict with each other due to their pride and instinct of superiority. It is there that much of the Devildom nobility lives and where the original Castle of the Demon King was founded before the prince decided to place an imitation on the surface to 'play with the lower castes.'

From the perspective of demonic history and tradition, including the brothers is quite controversial. These brothers lacked any ancestral lineage or demonic pedigree. To the noble demons, the brothers were seen as mere mongrels that their prince had picked up on a whim and would soon tire of and discard. Despite being named the Avatar of Pride and possessing the keys to the castle of the Lord of Pride, Lucifer's predecessor had not removed all the traps or imbued the castle with Lucifer's essence as the new lord. On paper, Lucifer was recognized as the Lord of Pride, but in practical terms, he lacked access to the deepest secrets held by the former lord. It took him thousands of years of struggle and hard work to achieve what he did, and even then, he did not possess all the necessary information. This also explains why the brothers lived in a haunted mansion on what was known as the "ground floor" of the demonic realm instead of a castle at its pinnacle.

Lucifer’s story is a warning about the dangers of excessive pride, like the myth of Icarus where Daedalus warns his son not to fly too close to the sun or too close to the waves of the sea, but also a celebration of resilience and the capacity to seek redemption. His fall is not just a punishment but an opportunity for reflection and growth. In “Obey Me!” we see how Lucifer navigates these turbulent waters, facing his demons while trying to guide and protect his brothers. His leadership, despite his flaws, is a testament to his strength and determination.

In the end, Lucifer’s journey leads us to question our attitudes towards pride. To what extent are we driven by healthy self-confidence, and when do we cross the line into arrogance? How can we balance our desire for personal achievement with the need to maintain humility and respect for others? These are questions we all face, and Lucifer’s story offers a powerful lens through which to examine them.

For those who want to know more about this specific series in this theoretical series, just search my page #Secrets of Devildom or go to Obey-me masterlist

[pyromaniacldrt]

Damn, just realized I forgot Jimmy in my headcannon list.

Which is embarrasing, since he´s one of my faves.

He is a csi-fi movies nerd, specially of Pixel and Back in the Future.

He has defeated Tertis once, and to this day that´s the achievement he´s most proud of.

He is a Harry Potter fan thanks to the influence of his weird, on the run and probably a mafia memeber uncle, who has enough debts to sink Mark Zucchenberg in poverty. He has a boat tho:)

Jimmy comes from a HUGE family full of Gingers™, and at some point the Wild Kratts theorized he could be a Weasley, but it was descarted because JZ is VERY rich.

His wardrobe is full of the Adam Sandler´ aesthetic. That, and a sinlge Gala Suit that no one is sure how it got there.

When looking where to apply for a job after graduating, at first he had thought on joining the air force ,since he didn´t want to go to a local airport to get experience; but then Chris (a dude he met playing minecraft online and later on became friends) offered him to work as a pilot in his older brother´s proyect for an academy.

He couldn´t belive it when he met Koki again, and they pretty much tackled eachother into a hug.

He has a power suit, but Jimmy never uses it (plus, it has malfunctioned so many times that Aviva is impressed its still working)

bro is great at social events, but he has to be dragged in to participate.

Jimmy thinks very little of Gourmand to a professional perspective, if not as a decent human being, and finds his recipes disastrous, and not only because they are made with endangered species.

Back when his grandma wasn´t in the nursing home, she had a five star restaurant that she later on lost to a bet, in which she would teach enterprising chefs her recipes and different cooking skills, including a teen Jimmy, who wanted to be just like her if his dream of becoming a pilot didn´t work out. Between those enterprising chefs was Gourmand, the so called "prodigy", who even got to become the main cheff when Grandma Jimmelda retired. He also won the restaurant when betting with the old woman (he probably cheated, but there´s no evidence)

Jimmy went there regulary and even worked there because his parents wanted him to be hardworking (didn´t exaclty work, but ok)...

Until he found out about the cooked endangered animals and reported Gourmand, making him loose the restaurant and his cooking liscense. Yeah. They don´t get along.

He has a shark stuffed plushie that Martin gave him on christmas. (Jimmy gave him a new pair of socks. He needed those.)

He likes to make pastries a lot, specially if it´s one of his gandma´s recipes.

Grandma Jimmelda has some very deep lore stories from her youth, including marrying at 14 and going to war twice (don´t ask which one though, not even she knows).

Jimmy has had thought of letting his hair grow long, and I personaly belive he would have it very long to try to make the Rapunzel fight moves(he can´t).

Still, he has to go and have a haircut every time he visits his parents and Zach.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that: Grandma Jimmelda has a niece, Aunt Jaminet, who is the cousin of the mother of Zach´s grandma. Somehow (I don´t want to know how), they´re almost the same age.

The family meetings are just something else, specially when there´s a whole bunch of gingers on the table and a singe black haired guy that only comes once every two christmas because he lives across the state and no one likes (Jimmy also rarely shows up, but he´s the cool cousin/uncle, so he´s been forgiven by the little ones, unlike Zach)

Tbh, nor Zach or Jimmy know they are related. I mean, they are distant second cousins(?), but they are still family. Somehow.

He has played World War Z and finished it in three days.

He has also bested with full stars Cooking Mama, ofc at the extent of his emotional stability, but pshh Who needs it?

Martin´s - Chris´- Aviva´s - Koki´s

[astralaffairs]

voltaire to versace 04 | thomas jefferson

title: voltaire to versace 04

pairing: professor!thomas jefferson x reader

words: 7.4k

warnings: this one is chill just like sexual tension. sorry ive been gone for two years lol

desc: from francis bacon to foucault, descartes to dante, your political philosophy seminar doesn’t promise to be a blowout — and yet, one mysterious stranger and a risqué evening later, your burberry-clad professor gives you the feeling it won’t be quite the snoozefest you’d expected.

tags: @lunariasilver @tinywhim @nyxie75 @wreakhavoconmacroissantdiggs @checkurwindow @katierpblogg @cubedtriangle @lunariasilver @lexylovesfandoms @fanfic-addict-98 @stephyra17 @notebookgirl30 @exorcisms-with-elmo @kmsmedine @itshaileyn @honeyand-roses @laic2299 @id-do-it-for-free-babe @luckyfriesss @golddiggs-x @drreamhugs @sillyteecup @notebookgirl30 @marvelouslyemily @checkurwindow— let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future parts!

SHE STILL FINISHED grading the first round of essays for Thomas, but she dropped them off at the faculty mailboxes that Sunday afternoon — she couldn't face him at that point. On Monday, she gravitated back to her seat at the rear of his lecture hall. She did the same on Wednesday.

Her responses to his emails and his texts were short and to-the-point. He needed her to grade the recent papers from his International Security class? Sure, but she was busy during his office hours; any chance he could leave them in his mailbox so she could pick them up the next morning? Thanks, that'd be great. He wanted her to work with him on laying out the rubric for an essay? No problem. She'd set up a shared Google Doc right away.

It was a week after Y/N had last spoken to Thomas that Dolley was over his apartment that weekend with James. She was smug when she came home to Y/N.

"Thomas is looking for you," she said mildly, and Y/N glanced up from her laptop on the couch with a skeptical gaze.

"And what, exactly, makes you say that?"

"He asked me to tell you."

Y/N's eyebrows shot up. "Wait, seriously?"

"Mhm." Dolley's smile was self-pleased. "He was home when I was over, and he said he needed to talk to you."

"Thanks for letting me know." Y/N's voice was tense as she looked back to the paper she was writing, and Dolley took a seat beside her with a glass of water.

"Can I ask why that might be?"

"No clue."

"So are you going to talk to him?"

"I have class with him Monday. I'll see him then."

"Y/N." She gave her a deadpanned look, and Y/N looked tired when she met her eyes. "Did something happen? You haven't mentioned his name even once all this week."

"No, everything's fine," Y/N assured her, but Dolley looked less than convinced.

"Then why do you look so unhappy right now, dear?"

"What? I don't," she replied defensively, and Dolley raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"How daft do you think I am?" she asked, folding her arms after she put her glass on their coffee table. "You can deny wanting to sleep with him all you'd like, but I know how much you like Thomas. It isn't exactly subtle. So what happened with you two?"

Y/N sighed, rubbing the side of her nose. "It's not really that big of a deal. I'm probably blowing it out of proportion, but he drove me home from the party at their apartment last weekend, and..."

"And?"

"And I came onto him." She was wincing at even the memory. "I was drunk, though, and he knew that, but it was so stupid. I'm still kind of mortified, so I've been dodging his attempts to talk to me. I don't know how I'm supposed to face him."

Dolley took a deep breath, eyeing Y/N where she sat with her head in her hands, her laptop closed on her lap. "Well, he clearly wants you to talk to him, so I'm sure he didn't think it was quite so bad."

"But I'm gonna be an anxious wreck the next time I have to talk to him," she groaned.

"You're his TA and his student," Dolley pointed out. "You can't avoid him forever."

"I'm not trying to," Y/N said. "But… y'know. I can still put it off for a little while. Midterms are only a week away, and then it's spring break. If I can make it that far, I don't have to talk to him until fourth quarter."

"You're being ridiculous."

“I’m being practical,” she replied, “besides, it’s only two weeks till break. The only time I’m gonna need to talk to him is when I turn in my midterm.”

Dolley snorted. “I’d wish you luck, but this one’s a lost cause, dear.”

————————————

IN THE END, Dolley was right. He hardly let her get away with it for more than a week.

"Y/N, can I have a word?"

She cringed.

It was 6 PM on Wednesday; the rest of her class was filing out of the lecture hall, but she paused where she stood in the row second to last. She'd already turned to leave. She shifted on her feet as she turned to Thomas, pulled her bag further up her shoulder, but when she saw him standing at the front of the room, arms folded and brow creased as he watched her, she couldn't meet his eyes.

Her classmates shot her curious looks as they left — Thomas never asked students to stay after class. If something was wrong, he sent them emails, he asked them to come to his office hours, he’d even used Twitter messages to reach people before, but he never publicly asked someone to hang back. She’d learned that it was against his ethos as a professor; he’d told her a story or two of his college days that made her understand why.

However, as much attention as this anomaly in his behavior drew, she had a feeling she knew why he wanted a word with her. She slumped back into her chair beside the aisle until everyone else was gone, and finally, the door fell shut, echoed through the hall, and she approached Thomas's desk with a looming sense of dread. He glanced up from packing his bag.

"Hey."

"Hey." Her voice was hesitant. "You couldn't have just approached me after the class got out?"

"In my defense," he started, "you haven't been makin' yourself all that easy to find. Everything okay lately?"

He was watching her expectantly, an eyebrow raised, and she folded her arms. "Yeah. Just fine."

"Then lemme rephrase that." Then, he turned fully toward her, his bag pulled shut and pushed aside. He frowned. "Why've you been avoiding me?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "What? I'm not."

"Yes, you are." The words left no room for negotiation, and she sighed. "And I mean, 's your prerogative. You've still been comin' through as a TA, so I'm not about to try and criticize you, but can I at least get an explanation?"

He looked pretty frustrated for someone who wasn't about to try and criticize her.

"You're not that oblivious," she said. "I have a feeling you know why."

Several moments passed in a tense silence. He was eyeing her tentatively, unmoving, and she couldn't meet his scrutinizing gaze, shifting on her feet. Finally, he sighed.

"The party?"

"Got it in one."

To her surprise, he let out a dry huff of laughter. "To be honest, I'm surprised you even remember that."

"I kinda wish I didn't."

Thomas offered her a reluctant smile. "I hear that. But..." He hesitated. "Which part of that night’s still bothering you?”

Y/N furrowed her brow, looking back up toward him. "Seriously?”

She figured it was obvious. Trying to seduce your professor while well-past drunk seemed like a clear, egregious issue, and she wasn’t quite sure why he was playing dumb.

"After all that time you spent avoidin’ me, you've gotta know what I'm talkin' about. C'mon." She stared at him blankly for another moment, and finally, he sighed. "Nevermind. I'm sorry about what happened then. We don't have to keep discussin' it if you don't wanna."

"No, hang on, what are you sorry for?" she asked, disbelief clear in her voice, and he raised an eyebrow. She hesitated before she went on, "I... I'm sorry for coming onto you like that. It was really stupid, and I know I crossed a line, but that's all my own fault; I don't—"

"You were drunk. Don't feel bad about it," he said reasonably. She was searching his apologetic expression as he spoke; she couldn't fathom why he looked guilty. Had something happened that she didn't remember?

"But why are you apologizing?" she asked softly, creasing her forehead. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I got real close to doin' something I shouldn't, though," he said, carding a hand through his curls. "I shouldn't have let it get that far. 'Specially not when you were drunk. I got too close to crossing that line."

"Too close to..." Y/N repeated, trailing off with her brow furrowed, but that was when it hit her. Had she not been so mortified by her own actions, she realized, she'd have been dwelling instead on the way his hands had tightened around her waist, how he'd pulled her into himself with a bruising grip when she tugged at his hair. That evening, she'd convinced herself he was going to spend the night. "Oh."

"Yeah." He swallowed hard, hands tucked into his pockets. "So, 'm sorry. I should've shut that down, and I get why you've been keepin' your distance."

"No, no, relax." She dismissed his apology with a flippant wave of her hand. "I was in the wrong. You were trying to be considerate."

"You're givin' me too much credit," he sighed, and a flicker of a smile graced her lips.

"I wouldn't say that," she argued, and she hesitated, cocked a brow before adding, "Unless, of course, you had an ulterior motive for insisting on taking me home in the middle of the night?"

His eyes widened. "Oh! Jesus, no, I swear, I didn't— I wouldn't..." As an amused grin split Y/N's controlled expression, though, he trailed off, squinting at her. "You're just messin' with me, aren't you?"

“Maybe,” she answered mildly, giving an innocent shrug. He scowled. “But, really, Thomas, it’s fine. We can forget it ever happened, okay?”

He watched her warily as she offered him a tense smile. He wasn't sure it was fine, and quite frankly, he knew he'd have a hard time forgetting it ever happened — he felt like there was more left to say.

But as his pause stretched on, as she raised her eyebrows at his uncharacteristic silence, he didn't have the words.

"You sure?" was all he finally said.

"Yeah."

“Alright.” He eyed her for another moment, wary, before he pulled his bag up onto his shoulder. "That’s good. I… guess I'll see you around. Good luck with midterms, Y/N."

She didn't miss the final, unreadable once-over he gave her before starting up the stairs out of the lecture hall. She didn't go after him.

————————————————

WHAT FOLLOWED WAS midterms week, which came and went without much pomp or circumstance. She didn't see much of Thomas that week after finishing with his test, which was more intentional than she’d like to have admitted. On Friday night, she finished grading the papers he'd delegated to her, but she just left them in his mailbox.

When Saturday afternoon rolled around, she was perched on the couch in her apartment flipping through the same Netflix suggestions she'd been seeing for the past hour. She'd had an incredibly relaxed day, and she assumed it would stay as such until Dolley came bursting in with a wide grin.

Y/N raised an eyebrow. "Where are you coming from looking so excited?"

"James's."

"Ah." No further questions were necessary, but when Dolley circled around to stand right between Y/N and the television, it was clear something more was up — something Y/N had no interest in finding out about. "Do you mind? I was watching that."

"Oh, please. No, you weren't," Dolley scoffed, but her eyes were alight despite her contrived annoyance.

"Well, I was going to," Y/N grumbled, and Dolley could only smile.

"You're going to want to hear what I have to say."

"Am I?"

"Certainly." Y/N raised an expectant brow when Dolley took a step closer to her. "Spring break just started."

"What else is new?"

"James's family has a home in the Outer Banks."

"Good for him." Y/N's responses were short as she tried to lean around Dolley, scrolling through the 'New to Netflix' category. Dolley groaned, rolled her eyes. Y/N's noises of protest went entirely ignored as Dolley pulled her remote from her hand, and she deadpanned as Dolley rested her hands on her shoulders, sitting down to straddle her lap on the couch. "Seriously?" Y/N whined.

"And we are going to the Outer Banks for spring break."

"I'm sorry, what?" She let out a dry laugh at the conviction in Dolley's voice. "Alright, maybe you're going to the Outer Banks over break, but last I checked, James and I aren't exactly on the level of road trip buddies."

"Please consider it. He told me I could invite you."

Y/N rolled her eyes. "Yeah, because he likes you. Not because he wants me there."

"Oh, what does it matter?" she whined. "An invitation is an invitation. James just doesn't know you yet. I'm sure he'll come to love you."

"I don't care," Y/N groaned, shoving her off, and Dolley rolled off to sit beside her on the couch with a huff. "As much as I love you, I refuse to let your infatuation with James take over my social life."

"What social life?" Dolley scoffed. "I've already taken it over. Now I'm just adding James."

"Hey, I have other friends," Y/N said, but Dolley gave her a disbelieving look.

"Your professors and your study groups don't count."

"There's also the kid I see every day in the library," Y/N defended. "He's the only other one on the sixth floor."

"Do you even know his name?"

She hesitated. "That's not relevant."

"Darling," Dolley groaned, shifting onto her side to face Y/N. "Just come with me. It'll be fun. And I'm sure James is bringing Thomas; after all, they're roommates."

"That doesn't add to the appeal, Doll." Y/N wasn’t sure she trusted herself on a vacation spent with him in the Outer Banks, sleeping in the same house as him, trying not to stare at him shirtless on the beach. "I let you drag me to their apartment for a night, and it ended up sucking. I'm not gonna subject myself to that for a whole week."

"Ten days," Dolley corrected her.

"That's worse." Y/N’s huff was heavy, and as she raked a hand through her hair, Dolley wore a pout. “Besides, I can’t. I have that scholarship dinner thing, remember? I have to wine and dine all the donors.”

Dolley wrinkled her nose. “I forgot about those. I’ve always thought they were exploitative.”

“Oh, they are,” Y/N agreed, “but they’re giving me too much money for me to be able to complain. I can be their little academic Miss America for a night as long as they keep paying my tuition.”

Dolley hummed in acquiescence as Y/N returned to scrolling through her suggested shows on Netflix. “So it’s like a beauty pageant, but instead of hair extensions, you bring your resume.”

“Feels more like a strip club. I had to go to two at my old school, and it’s just putting on a show to get rich, wrinkled old men to throw us a few bucks. May as well wear a g-string and try to find myself a sugar daddy.”

“Mmh, let me know if any of your DILFs have pretty sons, alright?”

Y/N gave Dolley a skeptical look. “You’ve already got James; leave the rich legacy boys for me.”

“Sharing is caring.”

———————————————

ULTIMATELY, DOLLEY WENT to the Outer Banks without her. She left the next morning (but apparently couldn't leave without giving Y/N a serious tongue-lashing). And from there, Y/N was left to fend for herself.

The first couple days were fine. She ate the remainder of the groceries in the apartment. She watched seven seasons of Grey's Anatomy before deciding she hated all the characters. She cleaned out the fridge. She drank Dolley's nice red wine (with no plans to replace it). She organized her sock drawer.

Alright, so maybe she was going a little stir-crazy in Dolley's absence. So much for her having a social life outside of that apartment.

However, she didn't leave until she was clean out of food, bourbon, and episodes of SVU.

She was just around the corner from the nice CVS, though, so when she left, she didn't particularly expect to have any reason to look her best — if any of her classmates saw her in her pajama pants, it was far from her greatest concern.

She emerged with two white plastic bags, both stretching around the edges of the fruits of her pseudo-grocery run; the fact that she hadn't bought anything with nearly the nutritional value of actual fruit was beside the point. Regardless, she was feeling rather self-satisfied as she turned onto the sidewalk headed back to her apartment, arms weighed down with junk food, holding her CVS rewards card in the corner of her mouth, lips pressed into a thin line as she tried to re-organize her wallet — but apparently, she was too preoccupied to realize what was immediately in front of her as she took the next left.

"Woah, there."

She screeched as she ran directly into the man on the other side of the corner. As she stumbled backward, not managing to spare herself from falling on her ass, two of her grocery bags went tumbling to the ground; three split right through the bottom of the plastic, and as her pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream rolled to the feet of her accidental assailant, she let out a defeated groan.

She dropped her shoulders with an angry huff, and when the man before her leaned down to pick up the ice cream she'd spent the past week working up the energy to leave the house for, her gaze followed it up as he rose.

"Mint chip? Really?" When she caught sight of Thomas's amused expression, the exhaustion on her shoulders only compounded. He'd clearly been out running; he ran a hand through his curls, wiped the sweat from his brow as he popped out one of his earbuds. "You've got some awful taste, there."

"Of course, it's you," she grumbled. "Because I couldn't have been bulldozed by some stranger to, at least, spare myself the humiliation."

His smile was entertained as she dusted herself off, sparing what she could of her CVS haul, tucking her rewards card into her wallet and her pack of razor heads into her purse before she stood. "I think this belongs to you?"

"Yeah, yeah." The annoyance was clear in her voice when she looked up to see his outstretched hand, offering her back the ice cream, but (although she took the pint back immediately, as her priorities were still in order) that wasn't where her gaze stopped, instead trailing up his arm to his heaving (bare) chest and the earbuds hanging loosely from one of his ears. Her breath caught in her throat.

Sweat trailed down his torso to his abs, glistening in the mid-morning sunlight and drawing her eyes down to the waist of his sweatpants where they hung low on his hips. Her stare was only broken when he pulled his headphones out, wrapping them around his hand and yanking her gaze back up to his arms. The shift didn't help; instead, she couldn't break her wide-eyed, gawking stare from his biceps.

"Y/N?"

She was jolted back to earth with a start at the sound of his voice as he stuffed his earbuds into his pocket. His grin was broad, and her cheeks were on fire. "Shit, sorry, I, um—"

"Relax, it's fine," he said, tucking his phone in his pocket. "Need a hand with your, uh..." He picked up her extra-large jar of Nutella, "groceries?"

As he watched her expectantly, she swallowed hard, shaking her head with a tense smile. "No, no, that's fine," she assured him. "I wouldn't want to interrupt your run. I can manage."

He quirked a brow. "You sure? You're gonna have a hell of a time carryin' all of these on your own."

"I don't live far."

"I know," he said, and as she did her best to collect all her goods from the pavement around them, he did the same, "but there's no way you can get these all back by hand."

"I'll be alright," she said, her words taking on an undertone of annoyance (although it was ultimately born of her unease). Thomas didn't look so convinced.

"C'mon, just lemme help you out?" he reasoned with her, and as she tried to pull her purse shut around her two bags of mini tacos, balancing a package of laundry detergent pods on her lifted knee, she couldn't put up too much resistance. "You 'n I both know you need it."

Y/N pursed her lips. "Fine. Thank you."

Thomas raised an eyebrow. "Call me crazy, but you don't sound too grateful, now."

"Let's just go."

Though it took them a moment longer, between them, they did manage to balance all of her quasi-groceries in their arms, and Y/N nodded in the direction Thomas had been coming from. "My apartment is back this way."

"Yeah, I remember."

"Still?"

He shrugged. "I'm good with directions. And I've taken you back there twice, now."

"Right.” Against her will, the memories from those two separate nights began to surface in her mind, and she could feel her cheeks heating up. “How could I forget?”

Her tone was dry, uncomfortable, but to her relief, Thomas laughed it off.

"Someone's feelin' hostile today, huh?" he commented. Although she rolled her eyes, her face was burning; his presence had her on edge, reacting to even the smallest of his movements, and she was still trying to shake off how mortified she was from having run into him in the first place.

"Sorry. I'm just tired." He raised an eyebrow. "My sleep schedule's been all over the place without Dolley around to nag me about it."

"Oh, yeah, she's outta town with James, huh?" She hummed in confirmation. “Why didn’t you end up goin’ with ‘em? James told me he invited you.”

She huffed out a dry laugh. “Yeah, he invited me as an extension of Dolley because he wanted her there. I’m much happier alone in my apartment than stuck in the Outer Banks with people I hardly know.”

“Yeah, you ‘n me both.”

Y/N furrowed her brow. “I thought these were your friends that were going.”

He shrugged. “James ended up bringin’ a lotta grad students I’ve never met. Some undergrads in there, too. Would’ve been a shitty ten days, ‘specially once he let me know you weren’t comin’.”

“‘Especially once you knew I wasn’t coming’?” she echoed, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, don’t get ahead of yourself,” he replied. “I stayed behind ‘cause I knew I could pawn more papers off on you to grade.”

“Well, that is part of my charm,” she said frankly, and he couldn’t help but laugh.

“That and the pajamas you’re always wearin’ around campus?”

“Oh, come on, I’ve seen you when I was wearing pajamas once. That’s it.”

He hummed skeptically, and she glanced up at him as they walked. “I know you’re no math major, but addin’ today to the day you stormed into my office makes two days, not one.”

“Today doesn’t count,” she argued. “The plan was to go to CVS, go back home, and interact with nobody. Besides, you’re not even wearing a shirt, so it’s not like you have any room to judge.”

“At least you know that I own shirts, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you only own pajamas, sweetheart. Didn’t think I had to spell it out for you,” he said matter-of-factly, casting her a sidelong glance, and while his expression was playful, she could feel her cheeks flush.

“Oh, shut up; you know that isn’t true,” she defended. “Just because I’m partial to my sweatpants doesn’t mean I can’t dress up when need be. I have nice clothes.”

He eyed her skeptically. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

————————————

IT TOOK THE pair of them just a few minutes to reach Y/N’s apartment building, but it took several more for them to actually make it up to her apartment. Trying to get the door unlocked without dropping anything was a fiasco — it ended in one of her mini Coke cans rolling down the hall, no doubt fated to explode the minute she opened it, and a bag of pizza rolls splitting open at the corner when she dropped it. Thomas had little sympathy for her complaints about them being exposed to carpet germs.

"Thank you for all the help." Y/N turned to Thomas with a sheepish smile when she finally put her groceries down. "Sorry for ruining your workout."

"Don't mention it." He dismissed her apology with a wave of his hand after he put the rest of her things down into the pile she'd started. "After all, you're tiring enough that it doesn't make a difference."

"Shut up." Despite her scowl, he snickered, and she rolled her eyes as she went to open her fridge. "I should put everything away so it doesn't go bad, but is there anything I can get you as a 'thank you'? A drink? Something to eat?"

"This just your way of askin' me to stay longer?" He raised a teasing eyebrow, but when she turned to him, her eyes were wide.

“Oh! No, no, I didn’t mean… I mean, you don’t have to, I just—”

“Woah, relax.” His voice held a trace of a laugh at the panic that was slowly dissipating from her gaze. “I was kiddin’, alright? Didn’t mean to rattle you like that.”

“I’m not rattled,” she defended, closing her fridge, and she could feel her cheeks heating up as he eyed her with disbelief. “I just felt like I owed you something for all the help. I know I kinda derailed your day."

"I told you, it wasn't a problem," he said mildly. “But, y’know, if you wanna pay me back, I’ve got a whole lot more papers that need gradin’.”

Her groan made him laugh. “God, please don’t make me regret becoming your TA. I have better things to do with my spring break.”

“Like what?”

“Like eating all the ice cream I just bought?” she said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, and he rolled his eyes.

“C’mon, if I give you the rubric, you really can’t multitask?”

She sighed. “Yeah, alright, if you really need the help. I’ll come to pick them up sometime this week if that works for you?”

“That’s just fine. I wasn’t plannin’ on going into my office, though, so you’ll have to swing by my apartment.” Her most vivid memories of the last time she’d been at his place flashed in her mind’s eye. “That okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, of course.” She cleared her throat when she realized how long her moment of hesitation had been. He creased his brow. “Just tell me what time you’ll be home. I won’t have any scheduling conflicts.”

“What, you don’t have any big parties on the calendar?” he asked, cracking a lopsided grin, and she let out the lightest of laughs, the sound quiet and forced. “You aren’t gonna find yourself gettin’ arrested when a professor calls the cops on your rager?”

“Nah, not this time,” she said. Her smile was stiff, and he pursed his lips as he watched her continue unpacking her groceries, bending down to tuck various packages into different cupboards.

“Good to know,” he replied. In the pause that followed, Y/N was aware of every twitch of every muscle in her body; she could feel his eyes on her as she moved through her space. “I’ll text you when I sort ‘em out, then.”

“Cool.” Her mouth was dry. She didn’t look his way.

“Alright.” The hum of the fridge had never sounded louder. They could hear footsteps on an adjacent floor of the building and the soft buzz of their AC unit. Y/N swallowed. His next words were cautious. “So, should I, uh, head on out, then?”

Her eyebrows jumped. When she turned her head to look at him, she realized he hadn’t moved from his spot. She shrugged hesitantly.

“I mean, it’s your call.” His gaze flitted away from her when she met his eyes. “If you have somewhere to be, I don’t wanna keep you. I can finish putting my food away.”

“Wouldn't wanna overstay my welcome is all. I dunno if I should be spendin’ any more time in your apartment than I need to.” His expression was nonchalant, uncaring, but his shoulders were tense. She could see the tendons in his upper arms twitching, and it was only then that she was reminded that he was, in fact, very shirtless in her kitchen.

He glanced back at her with tentative eyes.

“That might be smart.” She stood up to her full height, looking down at the counter before her. “It’s getting kinda late anyway. You should probably head back before it gets dark.”

It was nowhere near sundown, but the message was certainly received, and Thomas nodded. “‘Course. I’ll see myself out.”

“Thanks for the help with the groceries,” Y/N said softly, and he smiled.

“Anytime,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”

———————————————

“WHAT CLASS GOT a multiple choice midterm?” The indignance in Y/N’s voice made Thomas laugh.

“The freshmen.”

They were at Thomas’s apartment. Dolley and James would still be gone on their road trip for five more days, though, and that left them living alone about a block away from each other. Y/N wasn’t sure she knew where they stood, but when she went to pick up the midterms Thomas needed her to grade, he first had to walk her through the rubric. Then she started asking questions, and they both ended up sitting; then Thomas returned to sipping his coffee, and Y/N started leafing through one of the papers with a pen, and it only made sense for her to stay.

At least, that was how she justified it to herself as she reached the end of her second hour parked on his couch.

“I swear to god, you coddle those freshmen,” she said, twirling her pen absentmindedly as she went through the answer key. She scowled. “And they’re still getting, like, 25% off.”

“See? I’ve gotta coddle ‘em,” he defended. “If I make that class any harder, I’m gonna have a full class of Fs on my record. Won’t be gettin’ tenure, that’s for sure.”

“If you treated them like they were competent, maybe they’d be forced to learn,” she suggested, and he rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. When you finish grading ‘em, d’you mind calculating the curve for me?”

“This is curved?” Her tone bordered on genuine annoyance, but her dramatic reaction was only entertaining Thomas. “I’m gonna need another cup of coffee to get through this.”

“Now, this feels exploitive.”

“You don’t even pay me to TA,” she pointed out. “With the bullshit I put up with, you owe me a drink from that fancy espresso machine you have tucked away.”

“Aw, c’mon, is workin’ with me really so bad, sweetheart?” He plastered on a pout, but the casual term of endearment made her pulse jump. It didn’t feel so natural to hear him call her that anymore.

"Don't get me started," she said, but she knew how shaky she sounded. Thankfully, he didn't seem to notice (and if he did, he didn't mention it).

“Alright, alright. I was just headed to get myself another, anyway.” He acquiesced easily, and she was all but relieved when he left the room, taking both their mugs with him.

She wanted there to be a way for her to shake off any of the nerves he always seemed to leave her with. It wasn’t right; it wasn’t fair — he was her professor. He used terms of endearment without a second thought. She needed to stop overthinking it, especially given that she’d heard him call both Maria and Angelica “darling” and “honey” on more than one occasion. “Sweetheart” seemed to be reserved for her, though.

Stop thinking like that.

She cringed as the observation surfaced. She knew she was reading into it, and her mind was running a mile a minute to try and replace the idea with something else, any kind of distraction. She decided to chalk it all up to the caffeine she’d been consuming en masse.

So maybe another latte wasn’t the greatest idea. She pushed herself off of his couch with a grunt.

All she wanted was a glass of water, so she didn't expect that there'd be any problem with her just barging into his kitchen since she was already at his place.

But she'd just turned into the kitchen's doorway, and Thomas wouldn't have minded it if she hadn't turned with the worst timing imaginable.

"Oh, fuck." She felt the coffee scalding her skin before she processed what'd happened. Her grimace was involuntary and pronounced as she stumbled away from him, pulling the back of her shirt as far away from her body as she could. "Shit, shit, shit, that's hot."

"Jesus, are you alright?" It wasn't until a split second later that she turned to see Thomas standing behind her, mortified and frantically going to set down his mugs so he could go to check on her.

But she only shook her head, doing her best to regulate her breathing, control her expression despite the searing pain across her upper back. “Shit, I—” Her voice broke off as she swallowed hard, far from concerned with being a considerate guest when she pushed past him into his kitchen. Thomas was frozen to the spot, watching her rush to the sink and frantically yanking off the nozzle of his sink to run cold water over her shoulder blade (she’d never been more grateful for his bougie interior design). Her focus was nowhere near him.

She had no clue how to treat a burn. However, she didn’t think twice before tearing her shirt off — it was searing her skin.

Her tunnel vision may have blinded her to the larger context of her panic (and for good reason, all things considered), but Thomas was stunned as he watched her strip off her button-down in the middle of his kitchen, run it under water to use it as a rag. She tucked it under her left bra strap so that she could press the cold cloth directly against the burn.

Thomas was gawking. When Y/N caught her breath, turning to him, she met his eyes, and— well, actually, she didn’t meet his eyes. His gaze was focused a good ten inches below her eyes, and she chose to conclude that he was staring at her chest because he was concerned about having burnt her with coffee. The fact that not even a drop of the scalding coffee had touched her chest was a nonissue.

“Do you know anything about treating burns?”

“Not…” He cleared his throat, redirecting his stare up to where her eyes actually were. “Not much. I— Holy shit, are you alright? God… lemme Google it. Hang on.” She tried to catch her breath as Thomas pulled out his phone, and the first thing he said was, “Alright, says you’ve gotta get rid of any clothes over the burn.” He glanced back up at her. “Looks like you’ve got that covered, though.”

“Yeah, I figured that one out for myself. Thanks.” Her tone was dry.

“Right.” Thomas cleared his throat. “You wanna use my shower to run it under cold water, then?”

She nodded frantically, grimacing as she pulled her damp shirt out from under her bra strap, holding that as far from her skin as she could without her bra coming off. “Please.”

It took just about all of Thomas’s willpower to keep his gaze north of her collarbones as he showed her where the bathroom was and told her how to work the shower. If any god happened to be real, he was fairly sure he was being tested that afternoon — and all because he didn’t feel like calculating the curve on his midterms. He could safely say that this was far more difficult.

He gave her a towel and some of his spare clothes to change into, but when she dug the Neosporin out of his medicine cabinet, he heard her call his name.

He knocked on the bathroom door. “Everything alright in there?”

“Yeah, I just…” Her voice was muffled as she trailed off. “I can’t reach the burn.”

“Oh.” He swallowed audibly, although Y/N was far enough that she couldn’t hear it. “D’you… need help?”

“Please.” Her voice was hesitant and nervous.

“Can… can I come in?”

“Yeah, just hang on a second.” There was a pause. Y/N didn't meet his eyes when she came to open the door; she held a towel over her bra-clad chest, one of the straps having slipped off the side of her left shoulder. "I, er… can't reach my back to bandage it. Can you… ?"

Thomas's eyes widened. "Oh, um, yeah. Yeah, I've got it."

"Thanks," she said quietly, and when she turned to the sink, passing him the ointment and gauze as she faced the mirror, she kept her hand towel held over her front. "Sorry about… all this."

"Why're you sorry?" The amusement in his voice eased the tension in her shoulders. "Sorry for gettin' coffee spilled on you? Sorry for havin' skin on your back?"

"Sorry for having burnable skin on my back," she corrected him, and he laughed.

"Yeah, alright, good point. If you weren't so damn flammable we wouldn't have this issue," he teased, but he pursed his lips. "In all seriousness, this one's on me. Wasn't watching where I was goin'; I was the one that ran right into you, not the other way around."

"Yeah, but I was in the way," Y/N pushed back, and Thomas raised a skeptical eyebrow, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

"You've gotta stop apologizing for things, sweetheart. Especially things that I think we both know weren't your fault." How frankly he spoke made her sigh, and in that moment, it felt as if she was back in the entrance of her apartment, clinging to him as he tried to keep himself from pulling her closer. She swallowed her pang of guilt. “Lemme know if this hurts, yeah?”

“Okay.” Her voice was small.

Neither of them spoke as he dabbed ointment onto her wound, and his gentle touch had a warmth filling her skin that had nothing to do with the burn. He stood within inches behind her. The air in his bathroom was tense; both of them were aware of every movement the other made, every brush of their skin against one another, and it took every ounce of her willpower to keep her eyes down, to keep from staring at him in the mirror. She glanced up to see him knitting his brow, concern in his gaze. 

He placed the ointment back onto his sink, instead unraveling the gauze he held in his other hand.

"Pass me the medical tape?" The sound of his voice made her look up, meeting his eyes in the mirror. It took her a moment to process his words, but when she did, she broke his gaze immediately, clearing her throat and nodding as she reached for it and handed it back to him.

Her skin tingled as he laid the gauze softly over her wound, doing his best to give her skin room to breathe. She shivered as he taped it down by the sides. "Alright."

"You're done?"

He nodded and although his touch was tentative as he pressed the tape down to her back, it was firm. "Yeah, that should hold. Looks good."

"Okay," she said quietly, giving him a small smile. "Thank you."

When he finished, she expected him to take a step back, to let himself out of the bathroom so she could get dressed, and so she turned to him, anticipating that he'd move out of the way and she could retrieve her clothes from the bathroom floor. However, it was at the same time that she turned that he leaned forward to put the gauze back on the edge of the sink behind the ointment. They moved in synchrony, but it wasn't the synchrony either expected.

They were both far, far too afraid to move, then.

Thomas's hand was on the side of the sink, now to her right as she faced him, and with him leaning into her, between his arm beside her and the rest of his body in front of her, Y/N didn't have much of anywhere to go. Thomas, however, could've moved. He should've moved, too, and he knew that well. But when she turned to him, he found his face mere inches from hers. His nose brushed against her cheek, and with her having used his shower, with her wearing his spare clothes, he could smell the traces of his woody cologne mixing with a sugared scent he couldn't describe as anything other than her. She swallowed hard.

This felt familiar to both of them, by then. The proximity between them was all but second nature with how much time they spent together, with all the late hours in his office or her apartment. But this atmosphere was charged.

Every interaction between them had been measured and meticulous for months — while they had both been pushing boundaries, neither dared to cross them. But this? Neither of them had meant for this to happen. Neither had meant to make it so easy for them to simply fall into each other, but something about it seemed so natural, almost fateful.

Thomas was exercising every last drop of his willpower as he looked down at Y/N's wide eyes, her wet hair, her (his) pajama pants that were far too long for her. He tucked one of her damp locks behind her ear.

"We can't do this." Y/N's words were cautionary as Thomas's eyes wandered to her lips, but there was no feeling behind them. She didn't want him to stop.

"I know." His thumb traced her jaw, and he made no move to step away. He did know that what he was doing was wrong, but with how caught up he was in everything that was her, he was having trouble remembering why. "So stop me before I do something stupid."

She couldn't take a breath. Her voice was trembling.

"I don't think I want to."

He was hesitant to lean in toward her, but when he shifted forward, she met him halfway with every bit as much trepidation, and this kiss was nothing like the night they met. His touch was careful. His lips were slow, savoring the taste of her on his tongue. He held her as if his gentle touch would negate all the implications of their actions, all the damage this might cause.

Because this didn't feel like the illicit affair that Y/N knew it to be. This was Thomas, her friend, her coworker, her fleeting one-night stand, and she held him against her in an embrace like that of a lover, her arms looped around his neck as the side of her nose brushed against his. This was easy. This was natural.

But this was her professor.

"Stop." She pulled away from him, a hand on his chest as she struggled to catch her breath, and Thomas's gaze didn't read as dejection or hurt, but instead it came with an air of concern. The silence that followed her single word was excruciating.

"Y/N?" His voice was hoarse, but it was heavy with guilt. She didn't meet his eyes.

"I… I'm sorry, Thomas. I really…" She trailed off as he took a wary step back; she let out a breath of relief when he was no longer boxing her in against the counter, his hips no longer pinning hers back. "I need to go. I'm sorry."

She left the bathroom in a rush, grabbing her shirt from the floor and pulling it back over her head without a second thought. When she took off, he didn’t try to stop her.

[my0vershareworld]

𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕤𝕙𝕠𝕦𝕝𝕕 𝕡𝕦𝕥 𝕪𝕠𝕦𝕣 𝕡𝕙𝕠𝕟𝕖 𝕒𝕨𝕒𝕪 𝕤𝕠𝕞𝕖𝕥𝕚𝕞𝕖𝕤

Pairing: Espadas (Excluding Barragan and Yammy) x GN!Human reader

Genre: Fluff, Crack, Headcanons.

CW: None

Requested by anon: Hiii can you do a small scenario or Headcanons which ever is fine!,For the espadas excluding Yammy and Barragan being rizzed up by there S/O please 😋

Coyote Starrk

"are you a vape, because I'll never use you"

was the random ass sentence that came outta yer mouth. he's too tired to even react

the only thing he react was just

"thanks..? but you don't have to call me a vape.."

and he would sigh while Lilynette is laughing her ass off in the back

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tier Harribel

"you're a 3 because you need 2 know I'm the 1 made 4 you"

you text this on her phone. SHE IS CONFUSED.

"why did you randomly say that? I don't understand what are you trying to say"

she does not understand shit

she'll have to ended up asking her fracciones which, they did not help her at all

all of her fracciones gonna started thinking so hard of what do you mean by that

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ulquiorra Cifer

"math is so confusing, it's always talking about x and y and never u and I"

is the damn question you ask, while he's teaching you math

"I don't know what you're saying but the reason x and y is used in mathematics is because is there to represent unknowns is due to René Descartes, in his La géometrie. Without comment, he introduces the use of the first letters of the alphabet to signify known quantities and the use of the last letters to signify unknown quantities"

yes he did explain why is x and y are used. sorry not sorry

"Ulqui you don't have t-"

"stop your rambling, I don't know what you intention was with the 'u' and 'i' but you need to do better, now look you got one answer wrong"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nnoitra Gilga

"are you fortnite because I would never play you"

he would look at you so confused

"fuck yer mean by that?"

he does not understand a thing

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez

"what's your favorite planet, cause mines Uranus"

you fucker question that while stargazing with him

"I don't know much about planets, fuck you were expecting from me?"

he does not understand really

he'll just look at you confused before he looked back at the sky

he's confused but he could give less a shit

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zommari Rureaux

"are you makeup? because I'd spend hours doing you"

"I'm not your makeup [Name]"

that was his reaction

that's it

he won't even question what does 'doing you' mean in your human language

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Szayelaporro Granz

"are you John? because I never cena boy as fine as you"

he'll chuckles and rizz you back

"got 206 bones in me but when I see you I get 207"

he's a fucking creep forgive him please

pervert

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aaroniero Arruruerie

"are you a test, because all I do is stare at you"

you said that randomly while you're staring at him without his mask on

he'll actually be flustered. he thought no one would like looking at him

"t-thanks?" -high pitched voice

"SHUT UP LIAR!-" -deep voice

but even if they answers are different they're pretty flustered so have fun >:3

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[acorpsecalledcorva]

It's actually harder to find a psychologist or philosopher that views the self as a singular completely unified and cohesive being than all the ones who recognise and acknowledge that the human Psyche is inherently multiple in nature. In fact we likely couldn't develop DID if it wasn't.

Whether it's the ID ego and super ego, the conscious unconscious and the archetypes of the collective unconscious, bundle theory of the self, internal family systems, transactional analysis, all these concepts and ideas explore the fractal nature of the human brain to compartmentalise differentiated (and often conflicting) aspects of ourselves and call upon them when needed. Fuck, if you wanna get all Descartes about it then the fact that you can have conflicting thoughts and feelings about something demonstrates that it's actually "we think therefore we are and we're gonna have a fight about it".

What makes a CDD brain different is Dissociative barriers. It's like having a room full of people all screaming "I'm Spartacus!", they've all been working together and communicated together to agree that they're all Spartacus. If you start putting walls up between them so they can't coordinate their efforts then some aren't going to know that they're Spartacus, they might start yelling that they're actually Caesar, or Brutus. It's these walls in the way that lead to disorder and dysfunction because consensus can never be reached, they can't even argue about it they just know what they have available to them. That's why communication is such an important early step in recovery. Eventually you bring down the walls, get everyone working in sync, and if they want to they can start calling themselves Spartacus again. They're still separate people but now they fight under a single banner.

Even for someone without those walls though it's very common to have factions and groupings and teams to emerge leading to internal conflict. There's nothing stopping those factions from choosing another identity for themselves. In fact it's incredibly common for them to do so. The characters you meet in dreams are you, they're part of you, they're just temporarily taking up a different identity and personality to act out a training simulation to help you process information and at the end those parts are reintegrated back into being you and calling themselves Spartacus again. Well what if they decide not to? What if they do it while you're awake? What's actually stopping them? The lack of walls between them doesn't force them to be a single identity, the presence of walls just prevents CDD parts from becoming a single identity due to a lack of access to the rest of the brain.

It really is just a societal thing that puts far too much significance on external appearance as being indicative in any way on the inner experience. Just because I look like one person on the outside doesn't mean I'm one person on the inside. Just because I look like a guy on the outside doesn't mean I'm a guy on the inside. Just because I look like a 20(ish) person on the outside doesn't mean I'm 20(ish) on the inside (or actually 20(ish) thank you estrogen)

P.S. obviously this isn't a comprehensive or universal understanding of the selves in the plural community, if anyone perceives themselves as working differently to this then that's totally valid and I'd love to hear how you experience yourself as I just think this is all really interesting

[graythegreyt]

Thank you thank you for the tag @bbutterflies I was so happy see it!!!!!!

Get to know you game! Answer the questions and tag 9 people you want to know better.

Last song listened to: The Suburbs by Arcade Fire. I've just recently heard it and I'm Obsessed

Currently watching: My Hero Academia and also One Piece live action with @cowcowwow

Currently reading: SO MUCH FANFICTION MAN. Physical book-wise I've just finished Descartes' Meditations (awesome), and also several journal articles on Civic Trust and Engagement yayyy

Currently obsessed with: Miraculous as always, but specifically takes where the magical powers make the heroes more creature-like. Like grrrr bark bark CREATURES.... MAGICAL CONSEQUENCES....

Tagging!! @cowcowwow @alullinchaos @aspiringwriter1111 @owlfacenightkit @strawberry-seal77 @spyret-the-shitposter @chaton-et-buguinette @muzzable @eeveearoace No pressure and sorry if you've already been tagged!!!

[xruiningth3sh0wx]

We’re told that animals and plants have no spirit. Have no soul. They can’t feel, or think. All they are is an animated body. You always hear about how they’re not sentient, or aware, or conscious. Not only that, but we’re reminded that they’re unimportant. That they don’t mean anything. And if you think they do, you’re vilified for it. Hated. Scorned. Ridiculed as some sort of “flower power” scumbag who has no guts, even though the same people who say this preach metaphysical communism and live happy, comfortable, bourgeois lives.

 

“They’re mere beasts, they’re mere vegetables! Why should you feel for them, in any way? What about the humans? The poor, poor humans?”

 

Better their company, by millions of measures more, than the company of the masses of men. Who cares about what some proletariat windbag or bourgeois jackass thinks? I wouldn’t miss them for a second. I mourn a lot more intensely when a dog, or a cat, or a pig, or a cow, or a bird, or a tree, or a bush, or what have you, dies. Especially at the hands of the many-too-many. Sacrificed by them, for them.  

 

Humanity can go shove it.

 

Descartes, if I were able to get a hold of him, would’ve had to face a sound beating. Thanks to his bullshit, we think animals are on par with mechanical inventions. Although, the real trouble lies within the Abrahamic trio, and its mountain lies. Descartes was just reshaping the dominant philosophy of his time. I can’t blame him too much, given what he had to work with. I’d still kick his ass, however.

 

I take the opposite stance. Humanity’s sense of being “alive” is muted. Gutted. Destroyed. Grotesque philosophies have stripped away our affinity for a real home, the woods and forests, fields and deserts, jungles and plains, and replaced them with…innumerable dwellings that we have little-to-no connection to. A direct contradiction to the pagan ways. The wisdom that asserted, through Nature, the higher powers were experienced. We have no connection to these new “homes” because they’re not rooted in anything upon this Earth, within Nature. They’re divorced from Nature, in fact. Have the gall to reject it, and then say that, no, this plane where everything blends together into one great melting pot, at the behest of some desert walker, and his ill-tempered father, is the real abode of mankind. The land, that which made your miserable existence possible in the first place, is only “temporary”. The further you get from it, the more divine you are.

 

As a result, we were led astray. Over a period of two thousand years, or possibly even more than that, we were torn away from Gaia. Now, look at us. Trying to reconcile the theory of us not being natural, with our clearly “natural” behaviors. Separating flesh from spirit (even though they need each other; the spirit animates the flesh and illuminates the otherwise dark corridors of the body, and the flesh protects and houses the spirit). We neglect ourselves, and we neglect our habitat. Why care for native place of residence, when everything tell us that, according to some tomes written long ago by dead men, with dead thoughts, and vapid words, we don’t even really live here?

 

By contrast, animals and plants…they value the Earth, in their own way. It might not be in the form of sophisticated rituals or poetic pontifications or overblown and needlessly sacred cathedrals, but I think do. For them, Earth is everything. They recognize that, without the Earth, they are nothing. They’d all be dead. In fact, it’s all they need. More? What more? It’s all right here. Nature provides abundance, plenty, contrary to the ruminations of dumbass humans. Nature gives us them all they need, all they could ever want. Animals don’t live in poverty, not in my eyes. They’re rich, materially and spiritually. We’re poisoned materially, and totally lacking, spiritually. Exploitation? Endless plundering? Raping and pillaging? Using up the bountiful resources an area is totally dead? Out of the question. Totally, totally out of the question. For what good is the blood, without the soil?

 

Now, of course, both plant and animal alter the environment. They can’t help it. Otherwise, shelter would be out of the question for them. And even growing into and settling into soil, or walking around, looking for prey, setting up shop wherever is most convenient for the time being, minute little activities that are so simple that they are innate and not worthy of thought, have an impact. Yet, it’s nowhere near an egregious one. Not like the impact we, as humans, have. Nature always manages to recover. Because Nature, our Mother, she’s all about balance. There’s a rhyme and reason for everything. One action has an equal, and opposite, reaction. She has her moments of occasional fury or depression, but it’s never so severe that she, or those who live on her, can’t ever recover. It’s reciprocal. There’s a respect. Not parasitic, but symbiotic.

 

They give their lives back to her (all must depart the plane of existence at some point; the old and sick must perish, making way for the young and healthy, those that managed to survive the struggle and hardship), nourishing her, and, using what they gave, she nourishes the living, allowing the dead to, in a way, live on. Sure, the long-lived are swept away, put to rest. Yes, many must perish in finding their way through life. Hear this: “everlasting” is a nice word, sure. Unrealistic as shit, however. The scythe swings upon everyone and everything’s heads at some point. A passing means a renewal. Nature’s not stale. It hates what’s stale, actually. Indolence and stagnation, as Nature has shown, leads to decay. Neither can there be too many. Obviously, too little is not ideal. Death will come when that happens. Think about this, though. Too much, eventually turns into too little. Sounds like a paradox? Well, it’s very true. The beams that support too many will eventually give out, and it’ll collapse in on itself. Too little is now in effect.

 

This is all best expressed in the wolfsangel, the ouroborous, and the sunwheel.

 

Humans have trouble grasping concepts as basic as this.

 

Animals and plants, however, thanks to being uncorrupted by machinery and the thoughts of ignorant goons who deserve nooses instead of pedestals, are not hindered at all in reaching these conclusions. They didn’t have to be taught, or have to meditate day in and day out. It’s in them from the very start, from birth. Wisdom wasn’t something out of reach, hidden, on the periphery, requiring one to cast off everything in order to even begin to glimpse a portion of it. Demiurgic gibberish didn’t even touch them, so there was little need to plumb the depths in search of the truth. Truth lived inside them from the get-go, and their existences, their lives, were expressions of it. Artificialities hadn’t destroyed their being, cut it up and vivisected what they were, physically or otherwise. Reason and logic, toxins that do enormous damage on every level to the living (reason and logic render everything dead, I think), with its modernity and notions of “progress”, linear thinking driving towards some imagined, fictional, insane end, are unheard of in this realm, in this world.

 

No mammoth creation forces itself upon them, and they don’t desire, need, want, some titanic institution, or collection of institutions, to regulate and rule them. In all actuality, something of this nature would only demolish and devastate their way of life, instead of improve it, or what have you. Written laws would crystallize and petrify into sacred dogmas, disrupting the flow of something fluid and organic, stifling it and choking it. Plants and animals have their place, they know it. Anyone with a brain knows that organisms don’t exist in isolation. Entities are a part of a whole. Their diversity (I know, I hate to use this insufferable word, but bear with me), it adds to the whole, by virtue of the inequality that is present. Being leveled flat, it’s something they avoid like the plague. Desire it, they do not. Either by their own hand, or foreign influence. It’s resisted, bravely, even as we try our hardest to achieve it. Chaos is present in Nature, we know that. To the observant eye, however, there’s also a sense of order, even if there’s also some (or a lot, a whole lot of) discord and rambunctiousness. Enforcement, more than likely born from inscriptions on paper, parroted by men in positions that aren’t tangible, let alone valid, I can only imagine, in my mind, would serve no other purpose than to impede upon the fluid traditions they have established over the course of centuries and millennia, wrecking a delicate, divine heritage. Hell, that’s all it does today, in this day and age. As far as a figurehead bossing them around, you’ll notice a distinct lack of that as well. Because they all know, once the beast grows, the more it’ll eat. And in its gullet, the totality will become nothing else but a sloshing, indistinguishable mass of digested bits, before dissolving into it completely. Which is completely contrary to how it should be.

 

Nature is like…a painting, or a novel. Every line, every curve, every color, every stroke, every contour, every design, or, in the novel’s case, every word, every paragraph, every sentence, every simile and metaphor, every image and symbol buried in the text…it’s different. Serves a purpose. That doesn’t mean it loses itself in it, though. Not by a long shot. The discerning eye notices the small details, and appreciates them. Makes it all the sweeter when one stands back, able to appreciate the piece in its full glory.

 

A governing body would squash all of that. It knows it. It’s well aware of it. The fake…hates the real.

 

Governing bodies loathe the arts, and works of art.

 

Expression, genuine expression, is always met with derision and scorn.

 

To me, all of this, it is sacred. Divine. It is experienced through Nature. Understanding of the gods, it comes through this. Books and churches? The rushing of the wind, the flowing of the waters, the calls of birds and mammals, the sounds of falling rain, these are the sacred languages, and they speak the sacred words. Mountains, fields, beaches, hills, plains, caves, lakes, oceans, ponds, shores, these are the churches. My churches. Only through these, do we understand what is holy.

 

Hardly any of us do. Or even want to

 

They, on the other hand…

 

Therefore, I postulate animals and plants are closer to the divine, than we can ever hope to be.

 

Declarations are often made that humans are superior to animals. Really? Is that so? Throw a human into…any environment, undisturbed, to a great extent, by civilization, by human presences. We have no fur. Our teeth are unfit to chew cooked steak, let alone raw animal hide. The skin we possess, the flesh we have, it’s delicate, and requires thick layers for protection. Bones and muscles that are frail as can be. Anxiety-ridden wrecks we tend to be, out in the wilderness. Distracted easily. Don’t even get me started on most people’s eyesight and hearing. Collectively, the cardio of the human race is so bad a mere couple miles of walking will drive most to irritation and frustration.

 

Sure, ok, we’ve developed ways to compensate for our many flaws. And how many times has technology proven to be fickle, unreliable to the point where you might as well not have it? Only throughout our entire existence. Thanks to our heavy reliance on it, we’re practically useless. Our intellect will provide little comfort when we’re thrown out of the residences we’ve built for ourselves, and all we have is our body, along with whatever covering it. Especially since all we’re taught is meant to dull the mind, not stimulate it. Not in the goddamned slightest.

 

Without thought, the majority of us assume them to be. “Uncultured filth”, the uncultured filth decree. “They have no thought”, cry those whose brains are empty of any thoughts, beyond what to eat, where to live, what to buy, and who to fuck (maybe). Let me tell you, there’s a plethora of those.

 

You mean to tell me, that there’s no thought being had, when a predator stalks its prey, trying to work out the tactics it needs to proceed with in order to make short work of its prey, having to consider distance, strength, size, speed, energy contained within it, and a multitude of other factors? What about when a herbivore is desperately attempting to outwit and outmaneuver the literal jaws of death, ready to gladly take it into its mouth, ducking and dodging and occasionally even fighting off its attacker, using every survival mechanism gifted to it by the Mother herself? I’m supposed to believe migration, or the ability to sense changes in the environment, and then react accordingly, doesn’t have shit to do with the firing of neurons? Rudimentary tools, though rudimentary they may be, even using the body as a tool, for various purpose, anything ranging from gathering food to warding off would-be offenders of its life to simply making everyday life a little less tedious, is, what, a genetic fluke built-in, and nothing else? Is shelter made automatically, without any brainpower being utilized? The art of raising young, there’s no rhyme or reason to that? You’re a real dumbass if you think any of this to be so.

 

By them, much more thought, I think, is put into the processes of life, in comparison to us. Their circumstances demand it. Otherwise, they would perish. In short, nasty fashion. Since we’ve bred like cockroaches and live in excessive comfort, extinction isn’t something we have to fear. Global catastrophe could strike tomorrow, and there’d still be too many of us. As a result, we don’t think.

 

Uncultured isn’t an apt description of them. Among their ranks lie numerous traditions, of all kinds, all varying methods of meeting the demands of life, and answering its many questions. Languages, social conventions, philosophies, modes of expression that aren’t verbal, an in-tune-ness to their land, and the species, the extended family/community, that bore them, making their life possible. Perennial wisdom flows in their blood, from ancestor to child. Art isn’t created by them; it is them. They themselves are works of art, because Nature is an artist, and the Earth is a living canvas, an evolving, breathing, feeling, animated being upon which the divine is expressed. Bearer to offspring. It’s buried in their bones, their flesh, their thinking apparatuses. Separation from the knowledge passed down through generation after generation, showing to be the way, the carrier of the spark of life, nestling the fate of the organism in it, is not something that can take place. Not really. And it isn’t static. It’s dynamic. Ever-evolving, as life demands of anything that wishes to not be sucked into it. That doesn’t mean, however, that they lose sight of it, casting it away. Tradition is their source of renewal. The fountain from which they always return to take a drink from, refreshing body and spirit. Yet, they keep it organic. Prevent it from crystallizing and turning into mere stifling dogma.

 

Humans, both today and yesterday, and for the rest of tomorrow, largely, are born soulless. Tabula rasa. Blank slates. Easily swayed, easily molded pieces of clay, the wretched sons of Adam, subject to the whims of silver-tongued swine who know how to sooth and assuage them one minute, and rile them up the next. Dead flesh walking. Zombie-esque, stupefied schmucks who stumble about, muttering incoherently with far-away looks in their eyes, only concerned with how hot she is, or what’s on the plate tonight. Culture? What culture? They possess no higher thought. In fact, I’d argue that they’re incapable of it. Their culture is brands, their heroes are celebrities. These are the supposedly “cultured” ones. At best, they merely consume the culture. They have no hand in shaping it. They have no thoughts about it, no desire to engage in it, an intent towards dialogue with or critique of it. Just an outfit to put on, tailor-made. All the more apparent in the world of the eternal philistine, the Anglo-Saxon filth. Any culture has had its throat slit, left to bleed out on the shop floor. Murdered by the hands of a jealous god who hates anything spiritual. It takes many, many forms. But we all know what it is. And we all know who started it. I can pinpoint the blame to the year, nay, the day, and point out those responsible, who led us to that point.

 

Whatever is left of our culture, it’s a pale shadow of what it once was. A cheap imitation, a hollow puppet, a corpse draped over a chair. Greatness? More like vapidity, and unoriginality. We’re looking at a senile, crippled old man, not a youthful, strapping young lad, full of vigor. There’s nothing worth salvaging from it. Vast majority of it deserved to be dead anyway. Killed at the start. Prevented from being born. It’s running on fumes. Our traditions, many of them already despicable, are now not even alive. Nihilism is the reigning champ. It won. And it sure as hell is not a graceful victor. Certainly not a handsome face, either.

 

So don’t lecture me on who’s cultured, and who isn’t. Because where I’m standing, they, the animals and plants, have vastly more to offer, than any of our kind does. Scream and yell all you want. You know it’s damned true.

 

Animals and plants, you say, cannot feel emotions, and if they can, then it is expressed so poorly, that, well, they might as well be nonexistent. A poorly devised justification used to sadistically, psychopathically butcher creatures by the thousands, in giant concrete squares that resemble our prisons, spraying blood from throats like fountains, all to feed overweight beasts of burden, so heavy, that they’ll collapse the world as we struggle under their weight. Or slash-and-burn forests, razing them to the ground, hacking away at everything, from blades of grass, to sturdy evergreens. From adorable little bushes and fungi, to multitudes of conifers.

 

Here’s a little experiment: go to any animal. Either one you’re close to, or one that is a total stranger. Shout at it, threaten it, terrorize it, try to emotionally instill the fear of God in it “Show it who’s boss”, as the alcoholic dross may say. See if it does not react in anger, worry, or a mixture of both. Beat an animal. Do try and tell me it does not feel pain, and it is not hurt. Not just physically, but also mentally. Perhaps traumatized. Living with the non-human equivalent of PTSD. Give an animal affection, and it shall feel joy, pleasure, warmth. A sense of attachment to you. Holding you in high regard. Betray its trust, and it shall always gaze upon you with uncertainty and disdain.

 

Plants, although very limited in their range of expressive capabilities, will not grow as well if you berate them and belligerently remind them they’re worth jack shit. Give them uplifting words of encouragement, however, and praise them, and they shall grow better, in addition to you taking care of them. They even respond to gentle, light, affectionate touch. And I would imagine, to some degree, they can feel pain.

 

“But we show them more love than they could ever show us!”

 

Bullshit, is my reply. Most of you do not love them. You view them as novelties, something to add to your nihilistic pursuit of endless amusement, because the abyss stole your soul before birth, and will never give it back.

 

Don’t give me that nonsense. You, yourself, know it is a hollow lie. A bad one.

 

Most of you barely feel. Your sadness, your happiness, your pain, your love, your fear, it’s all fake and artificial. You function about as well, emotionally, as fleshy automatons. All that you “express” is so transparent, so see-through, that I’m struggling to maintain the façade of being interested in our interaction. It’d be less troublesome to talk to a goddamned robot, and a lot more honest. At least I wouldn’t be in the process of being lied to.

 

Depression, apathy, it’s gripped whatever soul you may have so tight, that it’s rendered you vainly seeking some sort of burst of something, all so you can procure an answer to that lingering, incessant question: “how are you today?”

 

And yet they, are met with hate.

[forabeatofadrum]

Happy Out of Touch Thursday and remember the 21st of September yada yada. Thank you @artsyunderstudy, @larkral and @wellbelesbian for the tags yesterday. I didn't have time yesterday to post since I am super busy with my new degree and it's Not Going Well, but I do have something to say (partially regarding my degree, but more on that later.)

Remember my myosotis plant? The one who was thriving, but suddenly started dying? Well, a while ago I got rid of the dead parts so that the plant could focus on the new ones and this is her now:

It's nowhere as grandiose as before (the plants don't even grow that high so I had to make a photo from a bird's perspective), but she's alive and that's all that matters!

NOW. FIC STUFF. MY DEGREE. WHAT DO THEY HAVE IN COMMON? Time After Time, my MCD Snowbaz fic where Simon dies in the White Chapel and where an immortal Baz only sees him every 20 years when the Veil is lifted. I started a new philosophy master and again if we ignore the fact that I am terrible at it (so far), I actually have something that's on my mind and I have a question for people who've read it.

Spoilers for the ENDING of Time After Time under the cut. Do not read it if you haven't read Time After Time.

So first, the weather: @quizasvivamos @blurglesmurfklaine @coffeegleek @esperantoauthor @otherworldsivelivedin @caramelcoffeeaddict @sillyunicorn @bazzybelle @dragoneggos @raenestee @tectonicduck @nightimedreamersworld @urban-sith @thnxforknowingme @captain-aralias @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @justgleekout @cerriddwenluna @tea-brigade @ivelovedhimthroughworse @moodandmist @whogaveyoupermission @bookish-bogwitch @confused-bi-queer @aroace-genderfluid-sheep @ionlydrinkhotwater @1908jmd @special-bc-ur-part-of-it @chen-chen-chen-again-chen​ @cutestkilla ​ ​ @martsonmars​ @facewithoutheart ​ @shrekgogurt @boyinjeans @rockitmans @bitbybitwrites @blackberrysummerblog @whatevertheweather

Okay, I am not sure how many people will read this, but if you're here, hi! And if you're here, you know that Time After Time ends with the end of the universe.

Or maybe you didn't know that and you're just here for the philosophical ride, which is fine.

So, Baz is immortal, but again, without an universe to exist in, he perishes as well. But OH? What is this? The chapter continues with Baz... being somewhere.

I wrote all of this with only a very basic idea of Descartes' cogito (which is the fancy word for the "I think, therefore I am" quote). In fact, I mostly knew it from a Klaine fic, which isn't surprising, and this was a very, very obscure homage to a fic that has nothing to do with this one. But now that I am actually delving into Descartes' philosophy on substance dualism, I am looking at this passage in a complete new way.

A basic bitch explanation of (substance) dualism is that it's the philosophical belief that there's a separation between body and mind. Descartes questions everything, including the existence of reality, which includes his own existence. He realises that he has, in his opinion, reasons to doubt whether his physical body exists, but the fact that he doubts means that he has a mind, and therefore, he cannot doubt that his mind exists. Get it? Hence, "I think, therefore I am" refers to him being able to rationalise his thoughts about existence, whatever they might be.

The relation between his body and mind is causal. If he has a mind, he can imagine having a body. They are separate entities, hence the whole dualism thing, but they co-exist. But since it's causal, you can say that you need to be able to understand the existence of your body by thinking about it. After all, your body moves according to what you mentally want it to do. Or that is what Descartes says. Full disclosure, dualism no longer holds up due to neuroscience, but whatever. The idea still stands and philosophy is all about ideas!

If you wish, you can reread the passage I just added above. Freaky, right?

Given that Descartes was trying to rationalise existence in general, and I wrote into the fic that Baz thinks of the existence of his body... my question for readers is this: Do you think Baz and Simon still exist?

I have thought a lot about this second ending, and I asked a previous question. I didn't mean to write some philosophical shit, but here we are. Descartes would argue that Baz exists, since he thinks. Because what is existence? After all, Baz is very well aware of the fact that there's nothing.

If this is non-existence, then what does non-existence even entail? He and Simon can spend the rest of whatever this is wherever they are, but what are they?

But then again, isn't his awareness of nothing proof that there is something? Isn't his perception of non-existence the proof of existence? Or is this the perfect "proof" that dualism is real in the Carry On universe, namely that the mind can continue to exist as a separate entity? But then how does that relate to Baz "feeling" corporeal? He has shoulders, because he wants to have them? Or does he even have shoulders? Maybe he's just under the impression that he has them.

(For the story's sake, let's say that he does have them. Otherwise we can argue that Simon actually doesn't show up at the end, since nothing is real, and that makes me upsetti spaghetti. I mean, Baz says it at the end. He doesn't have time to ponder whether this is real.) (But for philosophy's sake: is Simon even real???? And if nothing is real, then how can Baz no have time???? PHILOSOPHY!)

I am aware I am going all over the place and I am also aware there might not be a clear cut answer. That is how philosophy works. I admit, I don't even know if Simon and Baz exist at that point. I purposefully left it up in the air. The idea of them reuniting is cathartic, but it is indeed just an idea. But all this dualism shit did make me appreciate this chapter more and I think I am free to appreciate my own stuff, so I am asking the question.

So: do you think Simon and Baz exist at the end of the fic? And follow-up question: does it even matter?

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As an extra, this is Simon's POV from the last three chapters of Time After Time. I did come up with that while writing the fic, but I never found space to add it: basically, as Simon said before, time passes weirdly. So for him, no time has passed. He moved on. He disappeared from Baz's flat, where they danced and said goodbye, and the next thing he knows, he's at the spot where the second epilogue takes place. He's a bit confused, because "is this the next step?" and stuff, but then he sees Baz. Baz is there with him, so he reaches out and smiles when Baz turns towards him. The implication here is that whatever is next after the Veil is supposed to be paradise or whatever you want to call it. It's supposed to be the thing you want. And what Simon ultimately wants is to be with Baz. Awwww!

[daffodil--lament]

reading correspondence between René Descartes and Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and it's sooo cute she's like "I was really really shy about writing to you but I had some questions about your latest writing and M. Pollet had to convince me to write because I am so shy but he promised you'd be so nice about it so here's my questions" and then Descartes is like "thank you so so much for writing and sorry that I was super awkward last time we met. it was because you were so beautiful and intelligent and clever that I couldn't think straight. all of your questions are ingenious ones" so cute little friends from the 17th century

[motownfiction]

study group

After about a month, no one remembers it, but Sadie was Rocky Sullivan’s first choice for Cogito, not Will.

She wasn’t particularly thrilled by the concept. Rocky Sullivan always has out-of-this-world ideas to get ahead, to forge networks, to make himself excellent. Out of everyone who’s ever been valedictorian at St. Catherine’s, he’s the one people from all kinds of cliques and backgrounds fear. Sadie once made the mistake of asking Rocky why he settled for Michigan instead of going someplace like Harvard or Yale or even Stanford. Rocky just gave her a stern look and said, “There’s too much at stake in the Blue.”

That’s another thing about Rocky Sullivan. He speaks in riddles.

So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when Sadie discovered that the person sending her photocopied images of Descartes was Rocky Sullivan. It was, however, a surprise that Sadie agreed to meet him for coffee in the student union. Well, Rocky drank coffee. More like guzzled it. He’s been drinking coffee since he was in the sixth grade. He says he’ll sleep when he’s dead.

“And if you keep that up, you could be dead before law school,” Sadie says.

Rocky gives her another famous stern look.

“Medical school?”

Another stern look.

“Rocky, you’re not seriously going to tell me you’re uninterested in any type of professional education. I’ve known you since I was three. You make Alex P. Keaton look like Tom Hayden.”

“I admire Hayden. Man knew how to get ahead. Plus, he’s married to Barbarella, which we all wish we could be.”

“We all?”

“Doyle, if you could let me get to the point, please.”

“Proceed.”

“Thank you. I have every intention of attending business school when I’m through here. As a fall semester junior, I’m already doing preliminary work on applications. Scouting recommenders, saving up for the application fee, working on essay prompts. Did you know the essays for a business school application only have to be 100 words? Amateurs. Most of them don’t even understand the value of a liberal arts education. They’re not like us.”

Sadie chews on her straw to keep from laughing. She knows all this from Rocky’s reputation, but also from Carrie, who’s sort of really her friend these days. Carrie says that her big brother thinks he’s hot shit because he’s majoring in economics instead of general business. Maybe he’s a little bit right.

“Regardless,” Rocky says, probably oblivious to the fact that he’s interrupting no one but himself, “we need people from every major. That’s where you come in, if you’d like.”

He launches into his whole spiel. He’s starting this slightly secret society of highly intelligent and highly motivated students from every major in every college. It’s not going to be like a weird fraternity, he says, because that would be a waste of everyone’s time. It’s going to be a place where the brightest and the best can talk about their achievements, get assistance if they need it, meet each other. It sounds like a study group, or like Rocky just wants friends. By all accounts, he’s never really had those.

Sadie, by contrast, has always had friends. She’s comfortable with the small number she’s fortunate enough to keep. When she tries to explain that to Rocky, he won’t hear it.

“This isn’t a social club,” he says. “This has every advantage to your career. You might be the only delegate from the psychology major, but that means something. As soon as I heard you’d declared that way, I didn’t hesitate. I have friends in your psychology class from last winter. They said you had more original ideas than a poet on his first acid trip. I heard you pulled a perfect score on almost every paper. It’s obvious. You’re the one that I want.”

“Oh, yes, indeed?” Sadie asks.

“Yes.”

“No, I was … you’ve seen Grease, right?”

“I caught your reference. It’s just of little import to me right now. What I need to know is if you’re interested in joining Cogito or if I should move onto someone else who doesn’t deserve it as much.”

“Deserve it? Rocky, do you hear yourself? This isn’t an official fraternity or society. This is a study group that you made up.”

“It’s not a study group!”

“It’s something.”

“Yes, and it’s something important. If you’re worried about your friends, you don’t have to be. I already asked Callaghan. She jumped at the chance.”

Sadie sighs.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” she says. “If you told Lucy they were planning to carve her face into Mount Rushmore, and all they needed was her signature, she’d sign in her own blood.”

“Really?”

“Maybe. Doesn’t matter. I just … I don’t think I’m actually the right person. I don’t have that cutthroat thing that you and Lucy have. I’m … God, I don’t know how else to say it, but I think I’m just different.”

Rocky tries and fails not to roll his eyes. Sadie doesn’t blame him. It’s almost funny.

“I guess I’ll have to accept your decision,” he says. “If you’re not going to join, can you think of someone else? Someone who might be as talented as you one of these days?”

Sadie looks around the union as though that will help. But it does. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots Will with an order of fries in one hand and Elenore’s diaper bag in the other. She grins. Will is a double major – psychology and political science, just to prove he can do it. He is always looking for a leg up, a reason to feel important. And who is Sadie if not the one who gives people what they want, what will make them happy?

She fixes her eyes back on Rocky Sullivan and smiles with all her teeth.

“Yes.”

(part of @nosebleedclub september challenge -- day xviii! no, i did not intend for this scene to be this long. holy holy. but when i write for rocky sullivan, who is hilarious, things always get out of hand!)

[lowlymusicscenarios]

"I swear on my life that I've been a good girl, but tonight I don't wanna be her."

Scenario contains: Romance with f!reader x m!character, "good girl, bad/play boy" dynamic.

--------------------------------------------

In a party, there he was.

His eyes caught mine without a warning. His stare up and down my body and the sly smirk afterwards gave me shivers.

He seemed older, rocking a black leather jacket with his good looks.

As I was unaware of my surroundings, a friend of mine caught my attention, asking me about my behavior. When she looked around and noticed where my stare was at, she looked at me, almost horrified.

"Oh, hell no. Come on, you can do better than that."

"What?" I asked, confused. Some other friends that were around us were also caught in the conversation.

Some of them knowing the guy, others only heard rumors about his bad reputation.

"I heard he likes a good time, if you know what I mean."

"My mom has met him, she doesn't really trust him that much. And you know how she is with people."

"Plus, we all know he's only here for one thing." She rolled her eyes.

It got me thinking, so am I. My previous plans were solely to hang out and have fun with my friends, althought I hesitated on pushing through my real intentions, since that version of myself wasn't really me.

I swear on my life that I've been a good girl, always on a low profile, trying to avoid conflict. But tonight... I don't think I want to be her. My reality started to sharpen at the thought of my previous plan that I descarted for my friends.

As I tried to get away from my girls, I was suddenly tucked to someone's chest. It was him. One look at his eyes and I couldn't breathe. I think the world stopped for a moment. It felt unreal.

"Excuse me, miss. It seems I might've tripped on you." The longer I looked at him, the more I melted.

"Doesn't seem like you fell, though." I responded with a smile, gaining a smirk.

"It seems like you wanted me to do so, though." He was onto me. He knew what we both wanted without much talk.

My heart was racing, the alcohol in my system jamming my logical thoughts. All I could think about were unholy thoughts that weren't going away, and my oh my were they intense.

"Did you come here just to talk with me? Or for something else, as the rumors would say." My vision trailed down to his lips, making my heart skip a beat or two at the thought of them touching mine.

"Well, I wouldn't like to disrespect such a good girl like the rumors say infront of so many people." He admitted, putting his hand on my chin and leading my head up for me to see his eyes. "But if you ask, I might as well be yours for the night."

I looked at his lustful eyes, preparing myself mentally for my answers. "If I ask?"

"Of course, or let me steal a kiss, I'd love to memorize that taste of yours." He got closer, enough to mix his breath with mine. "What would happen if I did steal one from you?"

"If you kiss me..." I began, trying as much as I could to keep my composure, but smiling at the thought of my next words. "I might let it happen."

He chuckled. "I knew you weren't that much of a good girl." He didn't hesitate as he got closer and put our lips together in a passionate, deep kiss.

Holding my waist with his hands, he got me closer to him as the music was loud enough to muffle my sighs.

My thoughts getting blurry as I try to remember what happened that night, the night I met him.

The one desition I'd never regret.

--------------------------------------------

it isn't as great as i would've liked, but it's the first story/scenario based on a song that i write, so slowly but surely i'll get better at this :>

it might seem a bit vague, it's on purpose, to make it match any scenario with any character really.

thanks for reading! <3

-nikkõ

[hyprunivers]

The Adventures of Ashleigh the Living Skeleton

Chapter 3: There is a bird on my head.

I sit hugging my legs up to me for

a while. I don't know how long. I guess it doesn't matter. A ponderable amount of time. An amount of time for pondering.

I sit, my old hoodie draped over me, and ponder.

I don't mean to belabor this point, but I'm a living skeleton, and I'm still a little unsure what to do with this knowledge. How to move forward. What does a living skeleton do? What was I before? Was I before? I mean, was I was? No, I mean, did I exist? Was I a person?

I think hard. I think so hard. I don't remember being a person, I'm sure of that. Other than my bones and my hoodie, I don't have any other person-ness. But I've been thinking a lot of thoughts here, so obviously I am a thinking thing, right Descartes?

Is it scary that I'm a skeleton? Am I scared? Am I scary? I don't feel scared.

There is a sudden tug! a the top of my head, and a slight pull to the side as a starling lands suddenly and sloppily on top of my hood as only a starling would. Hopping and poking with the enthusiasm of a freshman high school football player that hasn't quite come to understand the size of their growing body.

I guess I'm not that scary then. At least not to the bird on my head.

I let me new friend investigate for a moment, careful not to

I was going to say breathe, but again, I think I need to move past that idea. I'm not a person. Maybe I was before, but I'm not now. I'm a skeleton. Not the scary kind though, the kind that is friends with birds.

"Thanks for checking on me, new friend," I whisper, and I can hear a little sadness in my voice.

"S'OK!" he answers in return, quite to my surprise. He pokes down on my hood a few more times with his thin beak, breaking up some of the small dirt clumps stuck to me as he probes for snacks.

"Bye!" he chirps as his short quest ends fruitlessly and he zips back up into the trees to join the rest of his football team friends, about a dozen of them, that have taken up a short residence in a tree to my left. They talk things over for a few seconds although I can't understand this time, and then take wing, off for more exciting things to come. I watch their iridescent speckles dance through the drab trees, and I'm happy seeing their strong little wings at work. Making magic, zipping and diving between branches and trunks.

"There was a bird on my head," I say to myself, with a little satisfied smile in my voice. "Can't be all that bad!"

I look down at where my body had been laying. I can tell that my bones had been here for a while. There are indents in all the right places. Bone indents though, not body indents. I really don't understand this. Which changes nothing of course. The world isn't going to stop and flip open the manual to the living skeleton FAQ suddenly just because I'm having a mild existential crisis in the woods. Hell with this, I'm done sitting. A new adventure: can we stand?

I lean back and put my hands behind me in the dirt and push my boney ass off the ground, lean forward and piston my legs up under me. SUCCESS! I raise my arms high in celebration of my achievement, my sweatshirt sleeves loose at the wrists, falling toward my elbows. I stand there like that for a moment, scanning my surroundings a bit again, now that I have a slightly higher vantage point. Still just in the woods. Just me in my little not-quite clearing. Ahem. I put my arms down.

I look down and take stock one last time. Skeleton body, slightly dirty. Sweatshirt, slightly dirty. I pat myself off as best I can, brushing loose little bits of lightly hardened clay and debris, knocking the bigger bits off my butt and the back of my legs. I give myself a little pat-down, my phalanges clacking lightly as they make their way down my tallish frame. I think I'm about 6 feet tall. I have literally no basis for that whatsoever, but I feel about 6 feet-ish. 6'1"? What's a half inch? Is that a good height for a skeleton? Am I slouching? Should I slouch? Maybe a slouch would make me more approachable.

"Yeahhhhh," I say as I slouch slightly, letting my arms dangle at my sides, "Just a cool skeleton guy, doing cool skeleton guy stuff.

"Wait, am I a guy?"

It feels like a big question, but a nothing question at the same time. I mean, who the hell am I in general? I feel guy-ish I guess? How do you tell with absolutely no context? I feel like... one'a the guys? That feels more like it?

"Like a duuuuuude," I apparently decide to say out loud. I swivel my hips side to side as I look around again and then give a little shrug.

I feel ok with being a dude. Dude-ish. Not man-ish. I'm definitely not a man.

"Just me, man. Just me. Just lil' old Ashleigh."

YO, WHAT?

That one shocks me. Way more than a lot of the other thoughts I've had in the past half hour or whatever since I've begun existing. I think my name is Ashleigh, and I'm about 6 feet tall, and I'm kind of a guy but not super a guy. I cross my arms. That's so much. Is that too much? Too much to take on in my head right now?

No, it's ok. It was just sudden, but it's right. I'm absolutely right about those things. Those things feel me, deep in whatever there is of me.

"Hi, I'm Ashleigh," I say quietly, a little to myself, a little to the starlings if they're still around. I can hear a squirrel or maybe a chipmunk rustling through leaves nearby, so maybe to them too. "Hi."

I wish I had thought to say this to my bird friend earlier. I hope I meet him again.

[xochaithoughts]

for kalliope

Happy belated birthday, Kalliope! A thousand thanks for participating in my tarot ask game! This feels random but the question I chose for you is sort of Halloween inspired, sort myth inspired since your name is greek inspired. I thought it was fun so I really hope you enjoy it!

(fluid: he/him, she/her, they/them | libra sun, cancer moon, gemini rising | dealer’s choice: “If Kalliope were a mythological creature, what sort of figure would they be?”)

©️2023. cancersstellium

Bottom of the deck: King of Coins. From left to right: Seven of Cups, Page of Wands, Ten of Wands. For you, Kalliope, short story: You would be a genie. Not like Genie from Aladdin. Yes, you’d be blue, but you’d have free will— no lamp or anything like that— for the most post. You travel where you want, when you want. You had hobbies, interests. It’s just that you do have to grant wishes. It’s part of the whole “genie” thing. Ridiculous, I know. For a while, you tried not granting wishes, but it quickly became apparent as to why you had to. It was a dark time. So you make it work. You have fun with it. Mostly, you can be found need on shores, near bodies of water. And living forever has its perks. In ancient Greece, you stumped Hermes—though, he wasn’t that bright anyways— literally. After a bad wish, you turned him into a tree for bit after you saw him chasing dryads. In 16th century France, Descartes almost bested you (but not quite). And in today’s time? It’s a bit less fun, because everyone usually wishes for the same thing. But on occasions, you’ll wander into a random town— usually a small one— and ask the first person you see what they would wish for if they could have anything. Even predictability can be fun sometimes. The guy wishing he had a fast car to impress his friends? Granted. He is now one of the fastest cars on the market. You changed him back after a year. No harm, no foul. The woman who wished to win the lottery? Clearly she’d never read of The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. But you had. And so on. However, it was this, surprisingly that made you appeal to modern mortals. They began to seek you out as a way to “test their wits” against you. So for years you offered a deal. Three guileless wishes to the first mortal that could best you. You became a sort of legend, which was hard in 21st century. And in truth, it was good fun. Of course, no one ever did best you, but you never expected them to. After a millennia or so, you have up your corporeal form, something genies rarely did, opting to become myth and legend. The other option I got from this is a sort of dark genie. You have no name, no one form. Or, at least, if you had either of these things, the mortals didn’t know. In the early days, you dwelled in a cave, made of lapis lazuli and clear quartz. There was a town nearby and as small towns do, a rumor began. Apparently one that encouraged thrill seekers and those seeking wealth to ransack your dwellings. It was widely known that no one ever made it back. Illusions were your specialty. Once someone crossed the threshold of the cave, they found themselves ensconced in an illusion depicting their greatest desires. And the illusions you cast depended entirely on the character of the one who had ventured in. If they were pure of heart, they saw their desires and dreams exactly as they had always imagined them. But if not… And in truth, they rarely were good at heart. Not many “pure of heart” go wandering into caves that promise riches at the cost of “never returning”. Actually, sometimes you returned them to their town, though usually a decade or two had slipped by before you realised they had been there. (After all, you had better things to do then pay attention to dazed mortals.) Other times, they grew old there, trapped in illusion. please let me know how or if this resonates, as much as your comfortable with. i value all feedback, long or short.

🚪 from the land of kings and monsters, eden

@venusiankalliope

[a-lil-bi-furious]

Ask game

tagged by @scribeoffate 💞🥰 thank you!

Last movie: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Last show: My Demon (Netflix)

Last song: "Traitor" by Olivia Rodrigo

Song stuck in my head: "Horns of Plenty" from The Hunger Games score (it's what plays when they're in the chariots)

Favorite color: I really love deep reds (like wine), blue-greys, and also deep greens (especially with blue undertones)

Currently reading: way too many things. Technically The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (for fun), René Descartes' Meditations on First Philosophy (for a philosophy course I've been putting off), the collection of poems From Sand Creek by Simon Ortiz (for a Native American literature course), and several articles for other classes.

Currently watching: My Demon and sporadic episodes from The Vampire Diaries season 2

Next on your to watchlist: Might try the Kdrama Goblin if I can find it to stream

Currently consuming: shockingly ✨water✨ (please hold your applause until the end of the post)

Currently craving: REST 😭 I need a whole break from existence. coma could be nice.

Sweet/spicy/savory: like them all, but I'm definitely a sweets person. gimme the baked goods and no one gets hurt.

Relationship status: forcibly engaged to my studies

Current obsession: I mean the true answer is my silly little OC's that live in my head, but I suppose Alice in Borderland is still in obsessive territory

3 favorite foods: pie, soup, coffee things

Last thing you googled: something like "slithery snake guy" to find this video to show my friends

Dream trip: I don't have anything specific in mind atm, but going somewhere warmer with cool waterfalls and lakes and pretty greenery everywhere and good food with some people I care about sounds nice. Does that count?

Anything I want right now: to take my brain out of my head, thoroughly scrub every little crevice, put it in the fridge for a while, then put it back in. I think that would fix me.

tagging with no pressure at all to play: @welldressedllama @blairwaldcrf @heslikefireandiceandrage @rhyslahey 😊