#the rainbow can be two things at once asshole

[virginwithasthma]

Nothing pisses me off more than the fact that homophobic people who complain that LGBTQIA+ people claimed the rainbow are the ones who refuse to see the rainbow as anything but an LGBTQIA+ symbol

[puckinghischier]

okay so…not that anyone asked but i have some…thoughts about this discourse surrounding jack’s signing last night

and honestly….i’m sad. i’m so insanely sad that so many people who claim to love this team are so quick to assume jack is a lost cause asshole. i think so much of it is entitlement. and yeah, as people, everyone deserve kindness and overall base level social behaviors. but where is that for jack right now?

where’s the grace and understanding that he’s tired. they likely had a day full of practice and drills and workouts before this signing. i mean, did he even get to go home before he was expected to sit and sign autographs for hours? why was he alone? why didn’t they put him with someone else? i know the answer is likely because he was the most sought after signature there and they didn’t want to make his line even longer, but still. i feel like jack has been very open and intentional with the fact he doesn’t like to do media. he wants to play hockey and go home.

and yeah, he also knew it came with the territory, but it doesn’t matter. if you sign up to be a teacher, you know there’s going to be early mornings, but that doesn’t mean you have to like getting up early. if you agree to work in healthcare, you know there’s going to aspects of the job that are gross and unfortunate, but it doesn’t mean you have to like cleaning up bodily fluids. the same can be said for these guys. they signed up to be professional hockey players, they knew media and signings and events were going to be expected of them, but it doesn’t mean they have to like it.

but back to entitlement thing. i think it has become so normalized to create personas for real people in our heads that people are quite literally unable to separate the fantasy from reality. and i mean, i’ll even say i contribute to the problem. all fanfic writers do. we create these idealized and fictional versions of these men, but the ability to differentiate between the two cannot be lost in the process. but i think it has been. i think there’s this unrealistic expectation thrust upon all of them, but especially jack.

he’s popular, he’s cutie, and he’s good at hockey. of course he’s going to have a mass following. but…he’s just a guy, y’all. he’s a guy that has bad days, good days, who gets tired, who has a social battery. and last night, i think that social battery had just run out. do you know how long he’s been watched and in the media? do you know how long he’s been the most watched hughes, the expectations he’s carried on him for years?

i just think there needs to be some compassion and grace here. going back to the whole “people pay to watch me play” incident is a little excessive, imo. i mean, are we going to hold every single player to everything they’ve ever said in the box? does it define who they are and their character? i have not once seen anyone berate and question quinn’s character when he told someone they were “fucking nothing”. which, if you really want to get down to it, is worse than what jack said.

but no, jack is expected to be this guy with rainbows coming out of his ass all the time, apparently. i think the concept of social cues and situational awareness has been so lost because of the screen culture right now. people do so much communication through screens and phones that they forget, people aren’t always enthusiastic and bright, even if they add an exclamation point to their text. last night was not something jack chose to do of his own accord. he was told to do it, and he did it. he made sure the kids had a good time and felt cared for. he signed everything that came across his table. could he have been a little more chatty? yeah. could he have maybe smiled a bit more? yeah.

but seriously, he knew he was going to have to sign a million different items and see a million different people. the whole point of a signing is just that. if he was even remotely going to get out of there on time, there’s no way he could have had any meaningful conversation with every single person. and i feel like he’s said before he prioritizes/likes kids? i could be wrong, so don’t hold me to that.

but the point is, this whole situation is so sad and such a good example of how gossip blogs only care about getting likes and reblogs and attention. they don’t care about these players, no matter how much they claim to. and people are so quick to take everything they read for fact. personally, i think jack is just…antisocial.

i think he has a persona on the ice because he’s in his element, he’s comfortable, and he’s excited to be there. when he’s with his family and around his friends, he seems to be an overall happy guy. but around strangers? strangers that want to talk about his stats, how he played in this game or that game, that are shoving their items in his face to sign, people that he’ll likely never see again? he doesn’t give too much away.

and before people mention the being snippy and short with the workers, i wasn’t there so i didn’t see what happened. if he was, i’m not defending that behavior, but i don’t think it’s because he thinks he’s above them or thinks he’s “god’s gift to hockey” like i’ve seen thrown around so much today. we have all been snappy with people we shouldn’t have before. it doesn’t mean someone is this terrible person with a high horse attitude. i think it’s a combination of fatigue, stress, and maybe even some anxious energy that had been built up and made its way out.

anyways, i’ve said enough i think, and this will be the first and only time i talk about this, but i had too many thoughts swirling in my brain to just keep them there. be nice. show grace. you’re allowed to be disappointed if you attended last night and felt like he was maybe dry and dismissive, but please step back and put yourself in his shoes. not every person has a social and yappy personality. some people don’t speak unless they have something to say. and that’s okay!!!

and for the love of god, quit giving gossip blogs what they so desperately crave

[cranberry-writes]

hii i love ur writing!!! ik youve just answered a hughie ask but i love him and how u write him sm, could i please rq sorta general hcs w him having a lil crush on someone whose sweet and confident, if a little vain? if possible, id love it to specifically be a male reader whose significantly taller than him. thank you!

Hughie Headcannons

Ahhhh love this rq!!! There are almost no male reader stories or headcannons so it’s nice to do them.

REQUESTS ARE OPEN FEEL FREE TO SEND IN ANY REQUEST! (If you aren’t sure look at my pinned!”

Also i’m like 5’ 5” so my writing about a tall person is definitely not correct 😞

Warnings; (Very) Mild Spoilers for season 2&3 and cannon typical language

- Hughies already a tall guy, 6’ 1” (185 centimeters) so being taller than him is something he didn’t really expect

- Tbh he thinks you’re standing on something when he first sees you, but he does a double take and is like ‘Oh shit’

- The second thing he thinks when he meets you is ‘..how?’

- You’re not sunshine and rainbows vomiting kittens or anything, but your a lot more upbeat and kinder than the others there

- “Cool Billy Joel shirt, you got a favorite song?” “Yeah actually, (i know nothing about billy joel) is my favorite.”

- He really assumed that everyone was going to be dickish off the batt but apparently not

- He’s happy he don’t feel like his life is in danger with everyone when he first gets introduced

- He’s also happy someone *cough* isn’t calling him a cunt every 5 minutes

- When he first notices the the vaguely vain behavior, it annoys him a bit (in reality it’s more of jealousy, he wishes he could have faith in himself like you do) but once he sees you in action he understands, working with The Boys is hard, dealing with supes is hard.

- It also kinda scared him a bit, he really didn’t want to think you where an asshole

- Honestly the fact that your alive after everything gives you a pretty decent reason to be a tad vain in his mind

- With your confidence+sweetness he’s not sure if he wants to be you or be with you

- He soon realizes it’s mostly attraction a bit admiration

- I headcannon that he is so insanely bisexual it’s crazy, so being with a dude isn’t something he has to really work through or convince himself of

- Like he just grew up knowing and never really questioned or cared about it

- But he doesn’t realize he actually has a crush on you untill later in the series, maybe around late season two after LampLighter happens. (i feel like that kinda made him realize some stuff about himself)

- But he takes WAY longer to actually try and make a move on you

- like start of season four is when he even starts to make a move

- But he’s got that nerdy white boy thing and chances are you ask him out first

- You totally break out all the stocks, flowers, candy, stuff like that

- He is flattered, flustered, and scared

- Unlike Starlight you don’t have powers, and while you are amazing at your job he’s still scared that you’ll become a bigger target because of his affiliation with Homelander and Newman.

- But honestly we all saw how he literally stood up to Homelander when he insulted Starlight, once yall are in a relationship he ain’t backing down for shit (Unless you ask, he’s very respectful of boundaries)

- okay i’m circling back to the height thing,

- he would enjoy it a LOT

- He’s always been the taller one in relationships, it was nice to switch it up a bit.

- He also enjoys how someone else can share the struggles of being tall with him

- (small stupid thing but if yall move in together you have one hell of a time finding a bed that actually fits)

- Because of how tall you both are it’s easy to find one another in crowds, Hughie really likes that fact (he’s scared that if he can’t find you then something horrible has happened to you)

- Butcher pokes fun at both of you but in the dumbest ways imaginable

- “Ere’ come the fucken’ inflatable tube couple.”

Watch me make an actual fic about this

[rodolfoparras]

hello!! apologies for the out-of-nowhere thirst but i do hope you might like it

you know those stories where the dom would say things like "this is mine, all mine" about their subs genitalia, some sort of possessive kink? well, i sort of wonder about it in a backwards type of way

i think about the homophobic misogynistic guy with this. maybe you and him are unexpected fuck buddies, something he definitely never tells anyone. if his friends or neighbors were to hear you two, they wouldn't think of it too much because despite his burly build, he's got really high-pitched whimpers and squeals.

so cue the scene, you're out in a gay bar with friends and a message from your phone pops up. he's asking for you again, and you say no. nothing surprising, he accepts the rejection dejectedly and asks where you are. you're at a gay bar, whether the reason is to flirt or watch your favorite drag queen doesn't particularly matter, because he's immediately spamming the typical hateful stuff, calling out all the slurs like he's running for a world record.

you think nothing of it, not an irritating thing because you've humilitated this man in private, forced him to wear pink lingerie and gaped this man's asshole to call it a pussy. the messages die down and you send a little goodnight messags before hanging around with your friends

20 or 30 minutes later, he's barging through the entrance and notices you. maybe someone in your hands or drinking alone, he doesn't care, he's an angry, angry guy. why the hell would you even end up here? you're too goddamn manly to be in this shithole, you should be satisfied with him, not fuck around with the gays and rainbow people. he sprints up to you and pulls you by the arm. all your friends know him as that homophobic asshole near you so they're slightly worried. you alleviate their worries, say you'll be fine and call if there's an emergency before you follow his lead.

long story short, you and him get into a heated argument on the way to his car. once you two reach the car, he pushes you to the backseat, shuts the door, and starts sucking your cock. he would lick the tip before deepthroating it completelyand he doesn't stop until you cum in his mouth.

then, he's sitting on the car, taking off his pants and behold, he's got a plug. he pulls it out and sits down on your cock completely, easy pickings for the big guy who's gotten used to your cock, but it isn't without his sweet, high-pitched moans.

he rides you and he'd stutter and whine about how "t-this is his cock" and maybe you'd rile him up a little more, then he'll nestle your cock for a bit before mumbling something. you tell him to get closer, whisper in your ear what he was saying, and he murmurs out a soft, "...this is your pussy..." before grinding down to distract you

and then maybe you go ballistic on him and he's gaping while driving back home with you, cum leaking to his seat, plug thrown on the back because "that's my pussy, i can do whatever i want with it, right?" you fuck more back home, alls well, he's still an asshole by the morning

anyways that it, hope you have a good day!

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA GOING TO FUCKING LOSE MY MIND I LOVE TBIS JESUS CHEIST

[hisaribi]

So I've got possessed by the de-ages Dick au, and while I usually go for physically de-aged but still adult mind for angst and research of weakness and the need to rely on others. But this time I needed an angst

So Dick got de-aged both physically and mentally, to the begining of his Robin days, fresh of loosing his parents. He's stuck in the constant performance everything is great I don't trust any of you mode. He's friendly, helpful, only once asked why they all were Robins, but because others didn't have any idea where it came from, he didn't tell a thing (he trusted his adult self judgement in not telling younger ones all the whys). There was no way to reverse him, no memories he could get back, no skills that suddenly would pop up no recognition. Dick Grayson, Nightwing, is basically dead.

Jason though told him that if he wants to get out of all the overbearing protectiveness (Bruce wanted to do everything Right this time, Tim was weirded to see Dick the way he remembered from his parents death and probably experiences cptsd again with need to protect the kid, Damian who suddenly became twice Dick's age and it was the first for him to not be the youngest and also he was going through wanting to leave this life and maybe move towards the medicine, and maybe pull Dick out of it as well, Cass sometimes followed him like a silent shadow out of worry as well, Steph, Duke and others mostly were weirded out and kept away). So Jason who went through everyone around mourning his past Robin self and not accepting his current one, not fully, sort of knew what Dick was going through, and it was even worse, because he didn't even remember what was before, the chunk of twenty years of history he didn't know about, and people who mourned Nightwing. But also to stay asshole-ish Jason told Dick that he can crash his flat only if he could find it (or any other houses)

So Dick got tired of it, especially because he wasn't allowed to go out on the patrols, and while Bruce and Tim left he sneacked out as well. He climbed through the window of Jason's flat, he did find it himself, and heard voices, Jason wasn't alone. Dick kept to the shadows and was light on his feet, he didn't recognize voices, but they werenangry or anything. So he listened in.

It were Jason and two other people he remembered, the ones that came to visit him somewhere after he got aged down. Roy and Kori. And well, he heard them.

How Dick was now younger than Roy's daughter and he still couldn't break it to her, that her favorite uncle Nightwing was gone. How Jason talked about this sort of mourning and how he was still actually stuck to that about Dick despite knowing how it felt. And Kori confessed that she had a child with Dick, a daughter she didn't tell him about, who stayed with Tameranian people. And now they won't ever meet.

They then argued about this whole thing, and Dick left, no way he could get to Jason ever again. He went up to brood on the gargoyle, because well, everyone did treat him as a memo of someone who wasn't there anymore. Who he could grow into, but not really him.

And apparently Damian sat next to him and gave Dick a snack. Because Damian noticed Dick running away, and followed just to make sure he won't get in trouble, and he was actually about to leave him be after he climbed into Jason's kitchen, but then he was glad he didn't. And he then contemplated if he wanted to leave Dick alone and not show himself, or sit down next to him and support. He decided the latest, because well Damian (and most other people) was aware Dick wasn't all sunshine and rainbow, so they sort if expected him to blow up, even Bruce, who was to him just as much of a stranger as others were.

Dick got angry at everyone looking at him like he killed his elder self personally. Like they treat all his mannerisms and wordings as a sign of him getting his memories back and not him actually always having them or taking them from others and it just happened to be the ones they adopted from him. But then sitting with Damian he just plastered his usual smile and went like oh hey yeah decided I needed some air thanks for snack anyway how's school.

And then Damian tried to tell Dick a story, like the one that was in his Robin comics, about a prince and all that, as the middle Dick deadpanned that Damian was awful at disgaising true story behind this tale premise, they bickered a bit, but Damian then told Dick that Dick being his Batman, Dick accepting him was what got him into the family, was the reason he stuck there, and while yes, Damian didn't know about this Robin version of Dick he would try to the best of his abilities to support him. Like no, Dick also wasn't patient, for Dick back then Damian was a burden along with the Batman, and Damian expected it all to be really rough, but at the very least Damian really wanted to help at the very least till Dick could walk on his own and be his safety net and Dick at first laughed at how pretentious it sounded, but it lacked bite to it

Dick silently leant at Damian and they stayed like that for some time

[heygerald]

Falling Without A Harness - Chapter 3

AU where Tom Ryder is still an asshole, just not a psychotic asshole. After their moment at the wrap party, Tom shows up at Parker's bookstore. How is it possible someone can be such an asshole when asking for a favor?

read the story here: prev / next

Two weeks later finds the weather outside shifting with the first hint of autumn; cooler temperatures in the morning greet Parker when she walks to work, and the coffee shop next door has started advertising their new fall drinks of pumpkin spice and cinnamon tea. She's seen her brother every day since the wrap party—partly because he always makes a point of taking some down time after finishing a movie to recover from his stunts, and partly because her and Jody have become fast friends—but she hasn't seen Tom since their moment in the bathroom.

She suspects that's for the best. The internet is flooded with paparazzi photos of him flouncing around town with models every other day, and she's still trying to forget how natural it felt to laugh with him.

But despite her brother's newly open schedule, and Jody's constant pestering to go spend a day at the beach, Parker finds her bookstore just as empty as always.

There are a few stragglers here and there throughout the day. Sometimes she gets lucky when a tour bus stops for gas and snacks, allowing an ensemble of tacky dressed tourists to flood her street for twenty minutes. On unlucky days, Mr. Chamberlain will stop in to peruse her historical section; but he doesn't have any sort of schedule or income, and those visits consist entirely of him describing last night's CSI episode to Parker before trying to set her up with his grandson. Once he bought a book from her dollar bin. He attempted to return it three days later.

On days like today, Parker is visited by a sixteen-year-old named Melissa who hangs out every so often while her mom attends overpriced Pilates in the studio down the block.

"...and then Peter was all 'no, sorry Mandy, I'm not interested". Like, hello! My name is Melissa and we've lived in the same neighborhood since we were four," said teenager was droning on from her spot atop the upcycled reading chair in the corner. She never failed to impress Parker with how much she could talk—the stories quite literally never stopped coming—while at the same time she managed to read about four books a week. Parker suspected that Melissa's brain represented something like the Rainbow Road in Mario Kart, when the music got a little too fast and the turns were a little too hard to keep up with. "Now, I have no idea what I'm going to do. There's no one else for me to ask since it's three weeks away."

Parker, only half-listening to the story, hummed from her spot two rows back. She had won several boxes of books at a local auction about a month ago and had done a pretty good job at pretending they didn't exist.

Ignoring the problem only lasted so long, however, and this morning she had ended up spilling coffee all over herself when her sneaker caught the edge of the box. Pride—and knees—damaged, she decided to tackle the issue first thing in the morning.

It was now four in the afternoon, and the books were mocking her.

"Can't you just go alone?" she asked.

"Go alone? Are you crazy! That's, like, really sad, Park," Melissa explained. She couldn't see her, but Parker could feel the judgmental look the teen girl was giving her. "Only losers go alone to dances."

"Baby did it."

"Who?"

"Baby. You know? You don't put Baby in a corner? That one."

A tut. "You should really update your references."

"Jesus. Since when did Dirty Dancing become an outdated reference?" she muttered while inspecting the spine of a mystery novel from the 70s. It had definitely seen better days, and when she shifted it, three pages fell out. Parker tossed it into the TRASH box with a sigh. "Is going to a dance with your friends considered outdated too?"

"That's the same thing as going alone," Melissa groaned.

"How? You're literally not alone."

"Because if I go with my friends, that means that I couldn't get anyone that wasn't a friend to agree to go with me. I don't need the whole school thinking that I'm a total loser."

"I went with my friends and had a blast. And I'm not a loser."

There was no response other than silence, and after a few moments Parker realized that if Melissa had nothing to say about the subject, she likely had nothing nice to say.

She cleared her throat before moving onto the next, and final, box hoping that there would be better books in it. So far, her KEEP pile was looking pathetically small compared to what was about to be binned. With a forced change of conversation, she asked, "hey, you grew up here, right?"

"Sure."

"Did you know the Sawyers?"

"Like, Miss Sawyer? Down on Oakcrest?"

"The fancy old house with the bushes shaped like dogs. I bought a bunch of books at her estate sale, and so far, they all suck. I thought she was supposed to be a big collector or something."

The sound of Melissa humming echoed throughout the empty store, and Parker peeked around the bookshelves to spot the girl lying upside down on the chair; Doc Martens stuck up in the air, long ponytail hanging to the ground as she played on her phone.

Parker rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, totally. But she collected those kid's books. Original copies or whatever. Mom said she paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for some rabbit book."

"...Peter Rabbit?"

"I guess," Melissa shrugged. There was a loud smack of gum popping before her voice rang out, "she did a bunch of donations to local art musuems and galleries and stuff. A phila-something—"

"Philanthropist?"

"—and there was some big deal about her donating everything to some charity. Mom was talking about it. Which, like, good for them or whatever but I don't understand how donating an old book is helping solve world hunger."

Parker let her head drop against the beat-up cardboard box in front of her, something despondent and miserable sitting on her chest at the realization that she had wasted time and money on nothing but crap. "Well, I wish I knew that before I went into a bidding war over this garbage. Are the Hardy Boys still cool or is that dated too?"

A judgmental laugh floated back. "Um, their name is pronounced Hemsworth, Park."

"I meant—" she started, before realizing that this was a battle she was never going to win, and even if she wanted to try the musty smell resonating from these boxes of crap had burned through her daily allowance of braincells. Something Melissa didn't seem to worry about as she puffed from her vape pen. "Forget it."

Not so shockingly, Melissa did not, in fact, forget it. Instead, she spent the next ten minutes describing in scary detail each Hemsworth brother, their looks on a scale of one to ten, their best movies, and why Chris was the dreamiest of them all. His hair and eyes were a big selling point, apparently, and as Parker listened to the teenager drone on, she couldn't help but wonder if Chris Hemsworth used box dye too.

So wrapped up in her own world of book sorting, Parker didn't notice when the front door opened with a tinkle of the bell until the shop went eerily quiet. Melissa, it seemed, had finally found a reason to shut up.

"I never liked Chris all that much," Parker said as she slowly gathered the KEEP bin and hefted it off the floor. Her lower back ached at the strain. Jesus, maybe I am old. Moving towards the front counter, she continued musing, "There's something about him in the first Thor movie, when his eyebrows were all bleached, that kind of turned me off. I think there's a word for that, right? The ew or something...."

She spots Melissa first.

The girl is sitting upright in the chair now, face flushed a deep scarlet red with a book held tightly in her lap as she pretends to read through it. Her phone and vape are nowhere to be seen, and she doesn't so much as glance up when Parker strides by.

"What happened to you?" she asks with an amused quirk of the brow. Melissa doesn't respond, and Parker turns to set the heavy box of books on the front counter when she spots the other person in the room. "Oh, sorry. I was in the back. Can I help—?"

It shouldn't surprise her as much as it does, but Parker blinks to find Tom Ryder standing on the other side of the counter staring at her with raised brows.

Tom fucking Ryder.

He looks better than the last time she ran into him. He has a nice tan going underneath a funky pair of yellow sunglasses that are, in her opinion, too big for his face. They look a little absurd with the whitewashed denim jacket he's wearing, but the yellow matches the bedazzled t-shirt he has on underneath, so she suspects it's some sort of fashion statement. Paired with an expensive pair of well-polished boots, it all looks quite absurd standing in the middle of her dilapidated bookstore.

Even more so when Parker realizes she's wearing nothing but a pair of cheap cargo shorts and an oversized Twilight sweatshirt that was covering the coffee-stained shirt underneath. (Team Jacob, always).

"Tom. Um... are you looking for Colt or something?"

In typical Ryder fashion, he ignores her question entirely to do a slow spin; blue eyes tinted by his glasses trailing over everything in sight. She can feel the judgement from across the counter, and when he finally fixes his sights back on her, his smirk is rage inducing. "This is your store. Seriously?"

Parker promptly plants her hands onto her hips with a scathing glare.

"Ok, what do you want?"

"Jesus, no wonder this place is empty," he drawls, a pointed smile tossed towards Melissa's prone form as he leans an elbow onto the counter. At being noticed, the teenager ducks her head behind the spine of her book as if she had just been caught doing something she wasn't supposed to. "Do you talk to all your customers like that?"

"Just the assholes," she retorts. Over Tom's shoulder she catches Melissa's book dropping down two inches, and the girl's face is completely aghast.

What are you doing! she mouths, that's Tom Ryder!

Parker rolls her eyes. As if she didn't know who the blinged-out asshole standing in her store was. Speaking of—he's still standing there smirking at her. "That's you, if I wasn't clear. Don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Tom snorts. "I think I got that after the fifth time you said it."

"And yet..." she gestures vaguely to him, then to her store.

Because he's never behaved like a normal person, however, Tom doesn't seem to mind the insult or the offhand comment that she didn't want to deal with him. Instead, he smiles while his gaze drifts from judging the bookstore to judging Parker. He gives her a glance over—up, down, lingering on her oversized sweatshirt, before going back up—and finishes with a snort. "If the door hits me, I'm suing for damages, and I doubt you could afford the lawsuit. Let alone a lawyer."

God! What. a. fucking. asshole!

Parker bites back the insult knowing that it won't do any good. They've played this game before, and clearly being called an asshole seemed to have lost some of its bite over the weeks. So instead, she forcefully returns her attention to the cardboard box and slowly starts sorting the books into categories. "Fine. Can you just tell me what you want so I can get back to my life?"

He shifts against the counter and over the mustiness she catches a waft of his cologne when he grabs a book at random from her pile. "Why else do people come to a bookstore? I want a book."

Parker snorts. "Yeah, sure. Whatever. Seriously, what do you want?"

There's a moment of silence. She glances up to find him pointedly ignoring her as he flips through the book at random.

"You're... serious?"

He shrugs. "You said you have a bunch of sci-fi books."

"I'm surprised you even remember that given the whole," she sticks a finger into her mouth and mimes throwing up. He doesn't find it funny or cute and responds with a disgusted glare. Parker rolls her eyes with a shake of the head. "It was a—never mind. Why not order off of Amazon? I thought you said you've never even been to a bookstore before?"

This time, it's his turn to roll his eyes. He drops the book with a thwack before turning his attention to the overstuffed bookshelves at her left. At random, he starts ambling towards one. "You should be flattered that I picked your little store to start. Most people would kill to say that you know. Tom Ryder explores rundown bookstore in the shitty side of LA. If you had a picture, the paps would run it in every paper by tomorrow morning," he huffs.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to document this monumental occasion forever," she snarks, but follows after him anyway. His pattern is half-hearted; poking books here and there, glancing for hardly a second, before moving on. "And my store isn't rundown. It just has some... character."

He snorts over his shoulder. "That's what a Mom says when her daughter is ugly."

"Don't you go through PR training or something?" she scoffs as he diverts to a different aisle. "I can't imagine Gail would like to hear that particular opinion if I sold it to TMZ."

"Gail would sue you for everything you own," he laughed while flipping through an old copy of Gone with the Wind. Parker crosses her arms at him with a glare, and in response Tom flashes a too-white smile at her. "She freaked out about the mink rug, by the way. Was screaming and everything. It was hilarious."

Parker's heart stopped in her chest, but when there was no continuation of the joke—haha I can't wait to see you served with papers!—she furrowed her brows at him. "You didn't tell her it was my fault?"

A shrug as he shoved the book against her chest.

She huffed, turning the book over to check for damages, but when he turned his back... well, a part of her did wonder why he would keep that a secret if it was such a big deal. Was it to be nice? Or so he could hold it over her head indefinitely? Then again, if this was his attempt at blackmail, letting it go for two weeks seemed like the wrong way to go about it.

Deciding not to linger on unsolvable riddles, Parker returned the book to the end cap he had found it on and asked, "so, does this mean you've decided to audition for that sci-fi part after all?"

Her question went unanswered as Tom paused in front of the SEX & SEXUALITY section. He pulled a wrinkled copy of Fifty Shades of Grey off the shelf and waggled his brows at her pointedly. "Keeping the good stuff for yourself, huh?"

Parker responded by snagging the book out of his hand and stuffing it back into place. "You break it, you buy it applies here too, Ryder."

"Half this place is broken," he said with a pointed glance at the flickering overhead light. "I still can't believe you own this shithole."

"I happen to love this bookstore—"

"Oh, trust me, I can believe that you would own a bookstore," he said, and while there was nothing insulting about owning a bookstore on its own, the way that Tom spoke made it clear that owning a bookstore was not something he held in high regard. Then again, he spent all his time reading shitty scripts, so what would he know? "I just can't believe that you would own this bookstore. Like, you actually paid money for this place?"

"If you have to know, I used to be friends with the owner, and got a good deal on the property," she started to explain. He raised his brows at her while slowly perusing the RELIGION section, and Parker shook herself. She didn't need to explain anything to him of all people. The reminder helped her find some confidence, and she fluttered her hands at him irritably. "You know what—I don't need to explain myself to you. You've never even been to a bookstore before. What would you know about making sacrifices for something you believed in?"

Tom paused in his search. She saw his jaw clench, and eyes droop towards the creaky wooden floor beneath his shiny boots, and his comment from the other day drifted back to mind.

"You can be a real asshole sometimes, too, he had said.

And while guilt did block her throat up a bit—fucking asshole couldn't even let her defend herself without feeling bad about it—this time he didn't make any such reprimands. Instead, he just shrugged, before diving deeper into the store.

He cleared his throat. "I just expected it be nicer coming from you."

"Does something about me secretly scream rich girl to you?"

Tom harrumphed. "Trust me, no one is mistaking you for rich. Uptight, however..."

"Oh, ha, hilarious, Tom. God! You're such an asshole," she laughed, but it was a mean sound, paired with a mean insult. It failed to have the desired effect, however. In fact, Tom seemed to have shifted from hating the insult to owning it and looked far too amused for her liking. Frustrated, Parker decided the best plan of extermination was a straightforward shot. Through gritted teeth, she asked, "...what kind of sci-fi book do you want?"

The rhinestones on his shoulders sparkled as he shrugged. "I don't know. I need to understand what gets nerds so fucking excited about this shit. Not too nerdy, though. Alright? I'm not trying to be a Trekkie or whatever."

There were so many things wrong with that statement that Parker wasn't sure what to pick first. So, she pinched the bridge of her nose to point out, "I have a feeling the so-called nerds making up your potential fanbase aren't going to appreciate being talked about like that."

"Who's gonna tell them—you?" he asked with a derisive glance over.

It was definitely true what they said about Tom Ryder; his effect on women was instantaneous. Parker just doubted the tabloids were talking about migraines.

"The sci-fi section is on the right," she sighed while pushing past him. It was one of the larger sections she had; it hadn't been a lie to say the books weren't selling all that well despite being her favorite. "What have you read before?"

The blank look he gave her was response enough.

"Ah, right, maybe... Altered Carbon?"

"Isn't that a tv show?"

"Well, yeah, but it was a book first."

He glanced at the book in her hand, but clearly wasn't impressed. Leaning on the shelf, he said, "why the hell would I read that if I could just watch it?"

"Sound logic," she tutted with a narrow eyed look. Parker returned the book with an eyeroll. "Fahrenheit 451?"

"Read it in high school. Not impressed."

She trailed the shelf while muttering, listing books in her head before subconsciously crossing them off the list of something he was likely to read and enjoy. "I guess that means you wouldn't like The Illustrated Man or The Martian Chronicles," she said to herself.

His arm brushed her aside to pluck out a familiar novel. "Nerds love this," he said while already flipping through the pages. She was surprised the size didn't scare him off immediately.

"Nu-uh. No way," she shook her head.

"What?"

"Dune is not a starter book."

He furrowed his brows crossly. "You don't think I'm smart enough to read this shit or something?"

You shouldn't ask questions you don't want the answers to, her mother's voice echoed in the back of her head.

"Reading Dune as your first sci-fi book is like jumping straight into the deep end," she told him in a much more diplomatic approach. "If a sixteen year old wants to start drinking, you don't give him scotch, you give him a fruity cocktail."

Tom huffed; first through his nose and then through his mouth but stuffed the book back onto the shelf anyway. To which Parker then had to put it back on the correct shelf with a huff of her own.

"Don't be a baby and just trust me that Dune isn't a starter book. Okay?"

"Well—what is? You're supposed to be the expert here."

"If you weren't so picky it would be a lot easier..." she deadpanned but returned to her search anyway. Tom didn't seem to like waiting, and scowled at her as she shifted past him. She ignored him as best she could while squatting down to the lower shelves. "Arthur C. Clarke is one of the best sci-fi writers. He established a lot of rules that still exist in writing today. And films."

Parker pulled one of his novels, before moving towards Asimov, and then finally to Sagan. They were all slimmer novels than Dune, but no less complicated.

"Contact is my favorite," she said, shoving the books into Tom's arms. His denim was rough on her hands, and she tried not to think about how feverishly warm his skin had been the last time she had been this close to him. Swallowing, Parker remained on task. "But any of these should be good starter books for you to get into sci-fi with."

He glanced at the choices warily. "My audition is next week."

"Then I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to finish these if you're really serious about wanting to get that role," she chirped.

Together, they wound back towards the front counter. The TRASH boxes sat in the middle of the aisle, and she carefully toed them to the side before trailing past. While she was pretty sure he had been joking about suing her, a workplace hazard was the last thing she needed.

"How do you remember all of this?"

"Where stuff is? I spend almost all of my time arranging books. I'm uptight, remember?"

She felt more than saw his eyeroll. "These books, the authors. You, like, know everything about them."

Parker paused. It definitely wasn't a compliment, but it definitely felt like it could have been. Then again, this was Tom Ryder. When she glanced up from the counter, she found that he already has his nose back in his phone, and the conundrum of compliment versus not was thrown out the window. Parker shot him an unimpressed look to say, "please tell me that you're not on SparkNotes right now."

It was his turn to pause. "I'm just... reading the descriptions."

"Maybe that's why you can't understand why nerds like these books," she argued, hands planted firmly on her hips now. "Why would I go to watch one of your movies if I already looked the plot up on Wikipedia?"

He ignored her point entirely to smirk. "So, you do see my movies?"

"Goodbye, Tom."

"Relax. I'm not going to spoil them, alright? What's the fun in that when I could read them instead, and then leave you a bad review when the books end up being awful?"

"You mean have your assistants leave me a bad review."

He didn't seem impressed at the jab but didn't defend himself either. Most likely because they both knew she was right. Parker shot him a smug smile that he promptly rolled his eyes at. "Hilarious. Just tell me how much the books cost so I can leave before stepping on a rusty nail or something."

"Didn't you see the sign out front? Can't come in without a tetanus shot due to liability reasons."

There was a noise that sounded suspiciously like a laugh, but when she glanced up at him, Tom was wiping a hand down his face. "How much for the books, smartass?"

Parker was pretty sure she could upsell him. There was no way that he knew those three books, decades old with ripped pages, were only worth fifteen bucks together. And with all the Gucci name brand bullshit that he wore, she was pretty sure she could get away with telling him the price was a hundred dollars and he wouldn't even blink an eye.

But he was also a customer, a somewhat work acquaintance, and someone she really didn't want to hang around any longer than necessary. Not to mention her brother's pseudo boss, and someone that knew she was guilty of wrecking a far more expensive rug than she could ever pay to fix.

"Just consider them a loan," she said before she could second guess herself. When Tom raised his eyebrows so high they disappeared into his hairline, she waved a hand at him while half-heartedly returning to her job of book sorting. "If you're that put-off by it you can always pay me an agent's fee if you get the part."

He stared at her for a long moment, not necessarily computing, definitely hearing static, before Tom spared her an over-the-top eyeroll that surely had to have hurt to perform.

From his pocket he pulled out a couple of crumpled bills and slapped them onto the counter. He didn't even look at how much money it was. Just shook his head at her, glasses bobbing on his nose, before he was on his way out the door.

"Hey! Don't you want your change—?"

The door shut with a ting.

On the counter sat seventy-three dollars. Parker wasn't sure if she should be offended or complimented.

From outside there was the sound of an obnoxiously loud car engine revving, alongside the thrum of music, before it tore off down the street.

"What a fucking asshole," she grumbled with the shake of her head.

But it wasn't exactly an asshole thing to do, when she thought about it. And she would know; every exchange they had since being introduced had Tom acting like an asshole to her.

Or, well, not every exchange. Not when he had been, almost, nice to her at Gail's party, if only for a few moments when no one else was around.

"OH. MY. GOD!" a shrill voice shrieked across the store, bouncing off of bookshelves, as two boots went crashing towards the window. Parker was reminded in no gentle terms that they had not, in fact, been alone when Melissa smudged her face against the glass to peer out onto the street. "Holy shit! That was Tom Ryder! Tom Ryder! Are you kidding me right now? TOM. RYDER."

"Yeah, Jesus, I know who that was," she winced, pinching her ear when she thought the girl's high pitch yelp may have burst an eardrum. There was definitely a ringing as Melissa tromped around.

"You—he—I can't believe after all of this time you never once mentioned that you're friends with Tom freaking Ryder!" she squeaked.

"Well, hang on, we're not—"

"How long have you known him? How do you know him? Do you have his phone number? Ohmygod everyone is going to flip when I tell them that you know him. Tom Ryder!" Melissa shouted, phone already in hand as she started typing. "My friend, my dear friend and favorite bookstore owner, is best friends with Tom Ryder! Did you see his latest movie, Good Cop, Bad Dog? Ugh! He's so hot!"

"We're not friends," she said immediately, not even bothering to dispute the fact that Good Cop, Bad Dog was a puff piece in an attempt to market him for younger fans. "He's actually kind of an asshole."

The teenager shot Parker a scandalized look, mouth popped open into an O as her brows lifted to her hairline. "What? Are you kidding me right now? He just drove all the way out here to ask for your recommendation for a sci-fi book! His house is, like, fifty minutes from here with traffic. Don't call him that when you just became so cool."

Parker frowned. "How do you know where he lives?" she asked, before adding with much more intensity, "hang on a second, am I not cool?"

But Melissa was already moving on, the sound of facetime dialing on her phone as she darted back outside in hopes of catching another glimpse of the celebrity. Parker, in response, caught her head between her hands with a low groan.

And yet, she couldn't help but think about what Melissa said.

Tom Ryder was a total, grade-A asshole... right?

She cast a despondant glance towards the crumpled bills on the counter, then the box of books at her side, before fishing her phone out of her back pocket, and pressing the second number on speed dial.

"Hey," she said, "do you want to get, like, really drunk tonight?"

Colt didn't bother to ask why before he was checking what ingredients he had in his fridge and offering to invite Jody and Dan over for dinner. Sometimes, she really loved her brother.

[right-there-ride-on]

Gyro Zeppeli and the True Man’s World

Chapter 35: True Man’s World (Part 3)

Gyro’s consistent struggle is finding a path for himself outside of his family’s shadow. His father is a constant specter in his life, even an ocean away. The Zeppeli family teachings are undeniably miraculous, yet Gregorio encourages using the spin only when it will be for an undeniably good cause. He doesn’t like uncertainty (that moment when ‘the ball hits the net’) because he feels the Spin is not something for the Zeppeli family (I.e. the spin is not to be used selfishly), but should always be used in service of something greater (e.g. the king, bringing dignity to executions).

Even when first introduced, Gyro is full of contradictions. He’s traditional, yet a trail-blazer. He’s an asshole with a heart of gold. His character arc, really, is about him learning how to be selfish. How to, as Johnny puts it, “hunger”. He needs to want things for himself, to not just be, as Ringo calls him, “a conformist”. That’s why True Man’s World is Gyro’s arc. It’s him really truly embracing the spirit of the cowboy, of individuality, of using what he has ‘inherited’ to find his own path. It’s reconciling these different parts of himself that defines the rest of his character arc.

This journey is also mirrored in Johnny. Johnny states, “That’s what I want to learn from you.” (Chapter 32: Third Stage Goal). Johnny is someone who has ‘inherited’, but he’s also someone who’s lost everything, and hence, knows how to ‘hunger’. Johnny’s position in the third stage is both figuratively and literally caught between Diego (pure hunger) and Gyro (inheritance). Gyro’s growth informs Johnny’s. Gyro’s journey is about growing past what one has inherited to become his own person, just as Johnny states the Steel Ball Run is his own journey to adulthood.

The third stage is mostly an introduction for what we can expect from the rest of Gyro’s arc. Gyro’s arc continues well into the end of the part, as he and Johnny inform one another’s development. I would argue Sugar Mountain is the key turning point in their relationship. Once Gyro realizes how much Johnny is willing to give up for him, he too realizes what he is willing to give up for Johnny.

Johnny bluntly told Gyro in the third stage that the only thing he was lacking was having his own hunger to win. True Man’s World is Gyro shedding his father’s traditionalist views due to the ‘sentimentality’ (care / love) he has for Johnny. The decision to go back for Johnny is the first time Gyro has been able to freely express his own feelings as an individual and sets him on the path to continue exploring that side of himself further into the part.

In Catch the Rainbow, we see him starting to find that ‘golden path’ (a path of his very own) and using what he’s learned he’s able to overtake both Diego and Johnny, because he has found that individualistic ‘hunger’ for victory. Yet his perfect victory is interrupted. But Gyro loses for a reason. In order to gain that ‘perfect victory’ (the golden path), he had to cast aside everything. “Even Johnny disappears.” (Catch the Rainbow (Part 2)). Gyro failed to reconcile the two paths (hunger and inheritance), choosing one over the other, and that is why he didn’t get a perfect victory. But, as previously stated, that’s not what he (or Johnny) needs to learn.

Sugar Mountain is Johnny recognizing that he’s actually not willing to sacrifice everything to satiate his ‘hunger’. Seeing this, something in Gyro also changes. He thinks about ‘the ball that hit the net’; the moment where only ‘luck’ (or, similarly, fate) can decide how things turn out. Gregorio says something along the lines of, ‘Where the ball lands, only god can decide.’ But that’s not entirely true. Johnny had a choice to make: the corpse parts (the thing he wanted most in the world), or Gyro. For Gyro, that was the moment the ball hit the net, and it was a very human decision - one born of ‘sentimentality’ - that led to his life being saved.

This idea is followed up in Wrecking Ball. Here, finally, Gyro is able to reconcile the two sides of himself. He’s quite literally faced with his mirror image in Wekapipo - a man who also knows the spin, but who has lost connection to his homeland and his roots. Gyro remembers another moment the ball hit the net - when he botched a surgery on Wekapipo’s sister. It was a moment of bad luck to Gyro, but one that saved another’s life. Gyro defeats Wekapipo through the reconciliation of his hunger and his inheritance. He’s fully committed to the corpse hunt with Johnny (even willing to give up the race and his original goal, as seen shortly after in Philadelphia (Chapter 72; Ticket to Ride)), yet it is only because of what he learned from his family - the Zeppeli faith in miracles - that he is able to move past Wekapipo as an obstacle to continue the hunt. This reconciliation finally brings to a close the conflict from the third stage, and at last gives Gyro the insight needed to be at peace with himself and his decisions, wherever they may lead.

This, I think, is what gives greater meaning to his final words. There’s Lesson 5, of course, but there’s also his parting words: “If that’s how it is, I’m fine with it.” (Chapter 89: Break My Heart, Break Your Heart (Part 2)) Gyro maintained his morals until the end, refusing to send his ‘bad luck’ somewhere else. He refused to artificially manipulate luck / fate (through Love Train) to decide the outcome of his injury. He, very humanly, accepted his death. Lady Luck had not been at his side. It was because of his relationship with Johnny (the source of his ‘sentimentality’) and all that he learned throughout the race, about himself, and what he really values, that he was at peace with himself in the end. Gyro finally found the path that felt right to him, concluding the arc started in True Man’s World.

Gyro was both an inheritor (the Spin) and an individual who learned to hunger through the pursuit of goals that would improve him as a person - partially because he knew the corpse hunt could help him grow, but also seen in his refusing to back out at the end due to his affection for Johnny. In Lesson 5, his parting words to Johnny, Gyro thanks him for teaching him how to hunger and grow into himself, just as Johnny thanks him for teaching him how to inherit and once again see value and beauty in the world around him.

Sometimes I see takes that say Johnny and Gyro switched protagonist roles halfway through (the arc I would point to being A Silent Way). I would argue that’s not an accurate description. They informed each other’s development throughout the part and even well into the climax. It’s because of Gyro that Johnny too learned how to reconcile inheritance and hunger, allowing him to fight against alt!Diego on his own (the very embodiment of the corruption of ‘hunger’). They taught each other how to ‘hunger nobly’ and find the best of both worlds. They really do have a beautiful relationship and I’m disappointed when I see it mischaracterized.

Ultimately, Gregorio was half-wrong. Sentimentality was the downfall of Gyro Zeppeli, but it was also the cause of his greatest triumph, allowing him to find peace with himself in the end. The art of the spin was passed to Johnny, and everything Gyro embodied lives on through him.

Thank you for reading, I would love to hear your thoughts as well :)

[strangeswift]

Will had assumed —reasonably so, he thought— that a year into the actual apocalypse, birthdays wouldn't be a very big deal. Maybe a passing acknowledgement, if that. Really, it felt a little selfish to expect anything at all. 

Like, People are dead, and your friend is still in a coma. She might not wake up. Congratulations on being alive, asshole. 

Though admittedly, for Will specifically, being alive was sort of an accomplishment in itself at this point, given everything. And Will was happy to be alive. Most of the time, at least. 

He just didn't expect anyone to throw a party about it. 

It wasn’t until Will groggily descended the Wheeler's stairs and spotted the notebook paper sign strung up in the kitchen, Happy Birthday Will, distinctly in Mike’s handwriting, that Will realized they were indeed doing the birthday thing. It still felt weird, but he couldn’t help the embarrassed smile that spread across his face as everyone in the kitchen sang Happy Birthday to him. Nor could he help the hammering in his chest when Mike made his way over to him and slung his arm across his shoulders midway through the song.

All in all, the day was fairly uneventful after that. They let him have the last can of SpaghettiOs for lunch while everyone else had watery vegetable soup, which was nice. 

He didn't have to go on the supply run they had planned for the day. Actually, he would rather have gone, especially since Mike went, but Mike was oddly insistent that Will stay behind, so he did. It wasn't until after Mike returned that Will found out why he had to stay behind. 

"Can you just trust me?” Mike asked.

“I do trust you,” Will said, “It’s just that letting the clumsiest person I know lead me down stairs blindfolded is a little nerve-racking.”

“I’m not gonna let you fall. Jesus,” Mike said, exasperated, as he slowly led Will down the basement stairs, “Just three more steps.”

Once they reached the bottom, Will asked, “Can I take this off now?” gesturing to the bandana that was tied over his eyes.

Mike answered by taking it off for him, and Will blinked as his eyes adjusted to the light. Mike looked incredibly pleased with himself, and Will soon saw why.

On the coffee table, set out on a plate, were two perfectly square brownies with chocolate frosting and rainbow sprinkles on top. A lit candle was sticking out of one of them.

"Where did you get these?" Will asked in disbelief. None of them had tasted anything sweet in months. "I know damn well you didn’t get this shit at the grocery store. Or Melvald's."

Mike grinned sheepishly. "Don't worry about it."

Will frowned "You– Where did you go for this?"

“Doesn’t matter,” Mike said, “just blow out your candle!”

“Mike,” Will said, crossing his arms.

Mike sighed, "You're relentless, you know that?"

Will looked at him expectantly. 

"The gas station on the other side of town, but it’s not a big–"

"Mike!" Will scolded, "What the hell is wrong with you? You went all the way across town? That is so not safe!"

Mike shrugged. "I didn’t go alone. I had Nancy and her big ass gun to keep me company,” he said, “Besides, it was for a good cause?” he tried.

“You’re an idiot,” Will said, grinning in spite of himself.

Mike grabbed his hand, and Will tried to ignore the fluttering in his stomach as Mike led him to sit on the couch in front of the coffee table.

Once they were sitting, Mike dropped his hand, but he stayed close. He knocked their knees together. “Go on. Make a wish,” he said quietly.

Will shook his head, searching Mike’s eyes. “I don’t have one,” he said.

Mike cocked his head. “There’s nothing you want?” he asked, a teasing smirk on his face.

Oh. Well, Will could think of one thing.

“I mean, maybe,” Will said, averting his eyes, “It’s stupid, though.”

“If it’s what you want, it’s not stupid,” Mike said firmly.

“Well, it’s embarrassing,” Will amended, flicking his eyes back to Mike, who leaned in, ever so slightly.

“I’m sure it’s not,” Mike said, “But you don’t have to tell me, anyway. Actually, you can’t tell me. If you do then it won’t come true.”

Will huffed a laugh. “I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”

"Fine," Mike said, "blow out your candle, make your secret wish."

Will laughed and leaned forward, blowing carefully on the candle and watching the small flame flicker and fade into a wisp of smoke.

"Think it'll come true?" Mike asked.

"I don't– I mean, probably not," Will said, "I'm still not telling you, though."

“Really?” Mike asked, pouting. “Can I guess? I think if I guess it, the wish is still valid.”

“I think you’re just making up wish rules now,” Will teased.

“Maybe,” Mike conceded. “Can I guess anyway?” he asked, leaning even closer – and god, he had no idea what he was doing to Will, did he?

Will raised his eyebrows. “You have guesses?”

“I have one,” Mike said.

It was a bad idea, Will thought, to let Mike guess. A very bad idea.

“Please, share,” Will said.

"Okay..." Mike said nervously, "Yeah, okay." His cheeks went a little pink, and he flicked his gaze down to Will’s lips. Or– No, that was probably… Wishful thinking. 

“God, I hope I’m right about this,” Mike breathed, and he leaned in even closer, so close their noses were almost touching. Will watched with wide eyes as Mike brought shaky hands up to cup his jaw.

Mike let out a breath, and Will could feel it on his lips. 

Mike closed his eyes, pressed forward, and kissed him.

Kissing Mike was nothing like Will expected it to be. It was soft and slow, and Will wanted to melt into it. He wanted to stay in the moment forever. If Vecna did come for him, that was the happy thought he would run to. He wouldn't even need music, just the memory of Mike's lips against his – that would be enough. 

Mike pulled back, and Will resisted the urge to chase him.

"Did I guess right?" Mike asked breathlessly, letting his hands slide down to rest gently on the sides of Will's neck.

"What?" Will asked, dazed. 

"Your wish," Mike said.

"Oh," Will said. "Yeah. That was– Yeah."

Mike beamed. "Cool," he said.

"Cool," Will repeated, a smirk playing at his lips.

Mike leaned back. "Now eat your birthday cake," he instructed. 

Will picked up one of the brownies. "These are gas station brownies," he pointed out.

"Birthday cake," Mike insisted. 

Will took a bite. It was heavenly. 

"Oh my god," he groaned, "I've missed sugar."

Mike picked up the other brownie, taking a bite. "Oh. Wow, yeah. Holy shit," he said, taking another bite. 

"It's so good," Will said, laughing giddily. He popped the last bite in his mouth.

Mike smiled warmly. "Happy birthday, Will."

"Thanks," Will said, "but if you ever risk your life for brownies again–"

"Oh come on," Mike said, "Cut me some slack. I was romancing you."

Will's eyes went wide. "You– What?" he squeaked. 

Mike flushed. "I mean– Whatever."

Will burst out laughing, and Mike couldn't help but join him. Somehow, Will felt years worth of tension dissolving as he laughed so hard tears began to form.

After a couple of minutes, they settled into comfortable silence, grinning at each other. "I want to kiss you again," Mike announced.

"Well, if that’s what you want," Will said, leaning in.

And for a little while, nothing else mattered. Just Mike, who was warm and tasted like chocolate, who was romancing him with stolen brownies and kissing him like he needed it.

It was a good birthday. 

[doddsmountain]

hi Dodd I'm in the mood to learn some fish things what are your top 5 favorite fish?

OMG!!!!!!!!

SO! Number 1 is OBVIOUSLY Oncorhynchus mykiss... AKA the rainbow trout

These guys are amazing. They are the most farmed fish in the world by weight (not numbers). And they're not a trout! They are a true pacific salmon, like chinooks, cohos, sockeye, etc etc.

These dudes are different than the other pacific salmon though as they can spawn multiple times! That's why they don't undergo quite such extreme transformations during spawning season.

Rainbows are typically landlocked. Steelhead trout (which are Oncorhynchus mykiss mykiss) are the rainbows you see out at sea.

NUMBER 2: Acipenser transmontanus.... WHITE STURGEON!

This photo is a poor image I took of the baby white sturgeon I got to take care of for a year during my fisheries and aquaculture tech program.

White sturgeon are the largest sturgeon species. The largest ever recorded was 20 feet long and roughly 120 years old. The oldest sturgeon I worked with, Tyra, was about 9 feet long and was only 65. They reside along the pacific coast of North America and they are pure muscle. A two year old is about a foot long and the scutes (modified scales) are sharp as hell. You can't wear gloves when you handle them either so your hands get cut up real bad. I loved taking care of them. They're like giant, muscly, slimy dogs.

Females will lay roughly 3 million eggs per spawn and the eggs will hatch after about 6 days. A newly hatched white sturgeon is a few millimeters long. Crazy to think about.

This is my jar of dead babies.

NUMBER 3: Frog fish!

Wish I could remember who took this photo!

Frog fish have specially adapted pectoral fins that they use almost like legs! They're bottom dwellers and "walk" along the sea floor.

I don't know much about them I'm afraid. My brain was almost entirely consumed by rainbow trout and white sturgeon.

These guys look so grumpy! (I like to say my 'fursona' is just a regular ol' frog fish lol)

NUMBER 4: A fish my family had for about 15 years... A bloodred parrot cichlid named Sir Rupert Finklebottom III, Esq. (We learned she was female when she was about 9 years old)

These fish are man made abominations and I do not recommend owning them. They have horrible health issues and they have nasty personalities. We had two of them. Rupert and Regina. Because they're crossbreeds they're essentially infertile. Rupert and Regina both laid thousands of unfertilized eggs when they were roughly 9 years old. They only did this once. They ate all of their eggs within a week.

People say they're good community tank fish. They are not. They're aggressive little assholes. Ours had to live in their own tank and they'd try to bite you if you put your fingers in their tank (it didn't hurt because they can't close their mouths and have no teeth.)

They have malformed swim bladders and are just generally awful fish. But boy do I miss my Rupert and Regina.

And finally

NUMBER 5: All manner of eels. For the purposes of this I'm going to say Rock Gunnels.

These slippery little dudes are sharp as hell. When I did a practicum at an oyster farm these dudes kept getting pulled up in the oyster beds and I ran around scooping them up and tossing them back into the sea. They come in a variety of vibrant colours too!

BONUS FISH:

This abomination. It's a lamprey of some sort. And if I gotta look at this thing so does everyone else.

[tobiasdrake]

Back to work. There are ingredients to gather.

Something about this place has a very Trials of the Elder Mist vibe to it. I wonder if the Ovates created him too?

I said back on Watcher Island that I love light puzzles.

I stand by that. Light puzzles, block puzzles, I'm a sucker for the classics.

Looks like this will be our key to shattering those blue crystals. I'll need to make a note to go back to the Moorlands with it. Betcha there's a Rainbow Conch behind that wall.

Huh, Coral Hammer got an upgrade. Now it can do more than make squishy paps against giant bells! It can also shatter gemstones.

Not from its hardness but because of its frequency.

It kinda looks like those heart cores that Dwellers leave behind when they die. Garl said we're supposed to put it in a bottle?

Oh. Right. Of course the alchemist knows how to bottle wind.

...but that's not the method Garl had in mind, because he wasn't expecting TIA to help us. I genuinely wonder what he expected Zale to do.

Meanwhile, on Team Serai:

I shouldn't be surprised that Hortence also knows how to conjure the Ruler of Tides. She knew Stormcaller for centuries.

It does not look happy to see us again. You think it's mad that we killed its undead bestie?

Its beak looks like a fountain pen. I wonder if it can write with that? Does its body produce ink that it can then press into surfaces to form its own Hydralion language?

I dunno. What i do know is that Bird > Seahorse

There's something very familiar about the concept of an eagle carpet-bombing an enemy target over a grudge that's really just a pretense for seizing control of a valuable resource. Something... recognizable in terms of symbolism. I can't quite place my finger on it though.

YEAH HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT ASSHOLE

My charred flesh has been avenged. Thank you, Serai. That was incredibly cathartic.

Fucker will think twice before he starts shit again. ...I mean, we started this shit. But that's how it goes. You and your bros jump the asshole in the parking lot to teach him to not start other shit.

Honestly, I don't know what crawled up his ass and died. We gave him an immaculate pearl and he wanted to fight about it? Seems to me that the Hydralion's just a prick.

Serai got the most manually intensive job of the lot. Hers has a second step attached to it, plus transporting all of those crops.

Things are going well with Garl and Malkomud. It's a huge ask, but someone of Malkomud's talents is perfect for the job.

I thought Malkomud was the person whose heart Garl would heal but it turns out it's the Sleeper. But, in a way, it's still also Malkomud. Kind of a one-two punch of healing there, giving Malkomud an incredible project to make him feel valuable by solving his people's greatest ordeal.

Aww, he has so much faith in me. ^_^

Even after I cost him his eye. ._.

...and got him mortally wounded. T-T

But I suppose it doesn't matter because the task I've been given has nothing to do with my questionable judgment skills! Garl has asked me to do violence. If there is one thing I'm confident in my ability to do, it's violence.

Who built these staircases? Because their presence here implies sentient civilization once occupied this volcano. Did the lava monster take this place from the Ovates? Is it an Ovate elemental experiment gone wrong?

I wonder if Teaks knows anything about the lava monster?

Resh'an is probably fine because he's an immortal undead being. No idea how I'm handling the intense convection. Maybe my lunar powers give me super-cooling.

That is a rock. I'm gonna be so mad if the oh-so-hyped-up lava monster is just a mini-volcano rock spewing magma. I was promised a fight against a living creature, not a geographic feature.

I mean, now that I say it like that, I would be willing to fight the volcano itself if--

Oh. No. There we go. That's much more of a "lava monster".

But not by much. Don't know what those Cloud Giants were worried about because this guy didn't have shit. Though, admittedly, it would have been a lot harder without Resh'an having my back.

There you go, Garl. One last spontaneous outburst of overwhelming violence for the road, to see you on your way.

Apparently Teaks's part of the plan was telling the story of everything that's transpired to the people of Mirth. Garl didn't mention that, but it's correct nonetheless.

For Garl.

[iheartfinalgirls]

Hello

My Outsiders oc’s are here

Enjoy

Or don’t

Circe Winston

- Circe’s real name is Valerie but she started going by ‘Circe’ from a young age. She started reading about Greek Mythology and was mostly drawn to Circe’s story and started developing a special interest for witchcraft (Circe btw is known as the first witch in Greek Mythology. She’s the daughter of Helios and Perse and she was banished to the island Aiaia because Zeus found her threatening. Also because Zeus is just. an asshole.)

- Ngl it was kinda hard writing her backstory because we don’t know much about Dally’s backstory. But I personally headcanon that he was born in Tulsa and, when he was ten years old, his family moved to New York. But he ran back to Tulsa three years later. Circe, of course, went with him. She didn’t really like her brother but she had no other choice. Their parents were very neglectful and their father was sometimes physically abusive.

- Dallas and Circe’s relationship is…complicated. If I’m being honest, Dally isn’t the best brother. Now I’m not saying he’s a horrible brother. But he just wouldn’t be the best, I’m not gonna sugarcoat his character. He is very protective, yes, but he isn’t the most caring. Also they’re BOTH very closed off when it comes to emotions. Dallas became hardened and cold while Circe hides everything behind a stoic personality. Dally also kinda just fails to understand her. He thinks she’s just weird, she hardly ever shows emotion. The only reason that she stuck with him was for protection, she knew how dangerous it was to be a girl, especially on the streets.

- Circe was unhappy with her life. Dallas was the only one she had left. But she resented him. When she was 12, she ran away the same night that Dally was once again arrested.

- Circe wandered around Oklahoma and found a forest not too far from a small town. It’s perfect. She loves the forest. She loves the silence and solitude. Plus she can use everything around her for witchcraft. Whether witchcraft is real or not, it helps her, mentally at least. She only goes into town when she runs out of supplies, she usually shoplifts.

- After 2 years, Circe starts to feel that she should at least attempt at making amends with Dallas. So she makes her way back to Tulsa. The first place she checks is Buck’s place, but there’s some kind of party going on. And she does not want to deal with that. So she checks the Curtis’ house.

- Darry had to tell her that her older brother was dead. (Honestly could make a whole separate post abt her grief. If somebody asks for it.)

Cassidy ‘Dice’ Matthews

- (I made this oc fairly recently so her section may not be as long or lore-heavy, bear with me.) Dice is a just a sweet lil gal with a southern belle accent (who also steals and wants to make money off of rich people with gambling problems. But more on that later.)

- Dice may hate socs, but she still envies their lifestyle. But mostly the materialistic things like clothes, cars, and cash, not jumping the lower class. She also likes the idea of popularity, of being admired, of receiving so much attention.

- Dice dresses like a soc. That’s because she shoplifts nice clothes. She’s great at shoplifting. Plus she’s very charming so the store owners will think she’s an absolute doll and will never suspect her for anything. Two-Bit taught her many tricks, it’s pretty much a sibling bonding activity for them.

- Dice’s known for heart-shaped sunglasses. She has a pair for every color of the rainbow (+ pink). She also has outfits that match each pair’s color. It adds to her charm. She’s just a girl, your honor.

- Dice has a dream. And that dream is a high class casino. You can only get in if you’re loaded, this may seem classist at first glance, but she keeps poor people out for their own sake. They shouldn’t waste their money on gambling when they could be using that money to support themself and/or their family. Wealthy adults have plenty of money to give to her. And she WILL track down anyone who left her casino while balls deep in a gambling debt.

- Now, internalized homophobia. She is a deeply deeply closeted lesbian. She pretends to be boy crazy just to protect herself. What’s sad is that, if it weren’t the 60’s, she would be a very open lesbian. Now she’s stuck saying “Ohhhhhh, what a handsome fella!” while stifling what she actually feels.

Okay so that’s kinda just. basic information on these too. I do have more to them but I feel like this post is already long enough. If anyone wants headcanons, I will provide.

As for Circe and Dice’s relationship: They’re…friends. Just gal-pals! They’re besties! They’re so Pink in the Night by Mitski coded! What! Who said that! 😁😁😁

Anyways goodbye

[stormcrow513]

Tw for death and suicidal thoughts

Even more sure now that Bailey isn't going to make it much longer and I'm very very fucking familiar with dogs deaths, the youngest I was 4 and brother dog knocked up his sister, there were puppies most were born dead but two lived at first I was there when the one Raccoon died, his brother Socks died much later when I was a teenager and I was there for that death as well,

I've walked the death road so many times with all sorts of animals but none so much as dogs,

I know dogs so well I could probably make one,

One thing some people who've had dogs die mostly around 7,8,9 when dogs get into their teens they are basically a human in their 90s,

Their tough son of a bitches but any little thing they could once shurg off their so old now it's easier for it to kill em, they are running out of heads in a coin toss,

My last dog to go was in 2020 or 2021 can't think right now to fucking high and hurting to think dates,

So where we're at that February got a horrid cold, while it was warm inside it was cold outside below 0 we would have gladly let him pee on the floor, but he wouldn't he would strain and cry to hold it and go outside what else could we do? we let him out, then he started going down we had to carry him, then the night I knew he was going I sat on the floor with him til he took his last wheezing breaths,

And no we didn't take him to be put down the stress of the car ride he hated cars would have killed him rather he end wheezing at home with me loved the scared out of his mind,

Two options only and only you can decide

I don't need the trolley question because I've lived it enough to know you can only make the decision in the moment and you'll never be sure you were right after wheather anyone agrees with you or not,

So Bae my beautiful girl is 15 and she was absolutely going to make it to the end of the year then this mother fucker basically in my backyard the ONLY place I can let my dogs pee he dumps fucking pesticide all over on weeds he'd just hired someone to mow,

Now my babies dieing cause that shit has made everyone in my house sick,

It's okay for this guy to do this,

He can pour poison into my space as surely as if he were smoking tobacco or vaping in my living room small beings always hot hardest,

But people in some areas can't put a big metal dinosaur statue in their yard (real thing saw it in local Colorado news,

People can dump known acknowledged in court of law poison all over me and mine cause it's his house right in mine,

This is all right cause he's getting rid of weeds cause the fucking slow tape and murder of the land means it's okay to kill my baby girl my family I've had her as a puppy and it was love at first sight,

I kept poison out of this land for two months off six fucking years but some asshole who owned the land behind us that went to his house and was empty land, he didn't like my dad or other people here he bragged how he cut his land in three this guy who bought the house wanted the land with it to store cars which would have been perfect they were good neighbors, they guy refused then sold to Clayton home who at first was going to put one house in middle and then put two house there putting one right next to my fence,

The city council allowed this to happen everyone's sure they got slipped some money,

All this shit is a fucking ok, if I put a rainbow flag up here at my house my gun owning republican neighbors would likely shot me or or as has fucking happened to me throw rat poison into my backyard, hey look how we are right back to the star,

Poison in my yard dieing dog,

I'm so fucking tired right now guys so damned tried and I know myself now I know who I am in this time I am not going to ever kill myself once I thought it meant taking control over my life from my father and sister now I know that I wouldn't be winning I'd be losing,

That's just how I see it now for me not saying suicides have lost maybe for them in that moment they won their fight we can never know what they felt then, just like we can't determine what is winning and what is losing for another person,

But I know what it is for me, I can't go that way,

If this world wants me gone it's going to have to kill me itself,

But now there's no break to think I could rest I could close my eyes and be done I can make that choice,

I don't have that little comfort anymore,

And I no longer can take any breaks now, I am just being hot over an over increasingly so over the years

I can't take a break though every thing keeps telling me to,

I can't the second I stop to float something grabs my ankle and pulls me underneath,

I have to keep swimming or it's going to drown me,

It's why I'll never be able to be anything but a witch my need is so great magic is all I can turn to,

If I don't get myself out and pull ma up with me then it's all over,

I understand stand others experience otherwise but this is my experience

And I came to know it through abilities that came naturally to me,

But I'm just so tired and I feel like it's just pulling me down so hard I can't even try to swim I'm caught in a net right now,

And I'm sorry if some of you get oppset with me for writing this down,

I need it

And once I needed to read others messages like this

So to teenage me you are not alone

No matter what others are out there

Same and different

I love you I'm sorry you hurt cause I've hurt and it sucks and it's never ever fair

Edit also I am not typically the type to punch first I tend to let people hit me or someone I care about before I tap in, and even then I might think thwice before I swing,

So I won't tolerate being punched on this post

Therefore if you are rude to me on this post I will immediately block you unless I've talked to you enough to check you meant it badly, otherwise I'm blocking immediately if treated badly on this post

[darkandlightdance]

I've been avoiding spoilers for expansions I haven't gotten to yet as well as I can. But with whatever unreal/extreme-extreme thing that involves the Eden Raids happening I want to finish them. Especially when the lore apparently helps explain what's going on in Endwalker.

So I'm doing the last 4 raids. So far Ryne is being the typical protagonist where everything is her fault and Gaia is hearing voices again. My assumption is going to be that this is going to be a clusterfuck.

That Gaia doesn't remember the conversation is a warning sign kids. (if it wasn't important to the narrative it wouldn't have been included)

I didn't die once, wow. I got a couple of vuln stacks but no deaths and I went in blind. It was normal mode but the first few raids I normally die at least once learning the mechanics.

Holy shit, rainbow crystals (I see you foreshadowing, the rabbit's crystals make a bit more sense now).

Doing this quest after that one boss in EW is kinda hilarious. Like dude your boss is kinda not available right now? In a more permanent fashion than last time.

Assholes the worlds over blame those they manipulate for what happens in response to those manipulations. It's worse when its kids.

And we're doing what the bad guy wants because he has a hostage. I don't like how obsessed he is with Gaia. He really didn't like that she sided against him.

--got distracted and now no one is doing raids…and I need to sleep…we'll see how that goes--

(Several days later) Distracted but finally did Litany. And holy shit why do Ascians always fucking fuse!? Just, why is that always the go-to.

Another few distracted days: I completed the first half of all the Studium Deliveries, finally got the last of my healers to 80 (Sage, still have no idea how to play it), completed the last of the hunt rewards I want for all levels before Dawntrail, and am only two levels below 100 on my miner&retainer.

Now I will finally finish the the main quest (As the Heavens Burn). (that is a new post because it is its own thought process...hopefully I remember to reblog this with the last few Eden raids and quests)

[enemymine2000]

Eat the rich pt.1

I tried the talking in the tags thing but damn this topic just always makes me so fukcing angry. And you should be angry too.

This right here is why we say "Eat The Rich". It's not about you're measly nest egg or your retirement fund. But the rich want you to believe that, so you are busy fighting with us and not thinking about bringing them down. To actually eat the rich. Folks how are so rich they don't need to work anymore, because the money is already all the work on its own. Investments, exploitation, interest rates - money gets more without them actually having to do anything. Still they do, because they are greedy and never satisfied with what they already amassed. They simply want everything. People who earn millions per second just extisting. No matter how much they spend, they will never feel an impact. (Unless it's like in the case of Musk when the court forced him to buy Twitter for those 45 billions, but not because he suddenly would have been poor, but because all that money was tangled up in investments and stocks - mostly Tesla - so that couldn't be easily untangled - liquidated - which short- and middle-term meant that Musk didn't have as much money physically available to spend for himself. So he actually felt that. Sadly, while he and his stocks have not fully bounced back to pre-Twitter-deal-levels, he, well, his money, has made back enough, so it doesn't impede him anymore. Doesn't help that people still refuse to leave Twitter (I will never not deadname that thing, just like the muskrat is deadnaming his own daughter) even when they don't agree with him and his views. Yet, you're still there making that asshole money!

Which brings us to the true breadwinners for those rich assholes. Those are the workers, the poor, the disenfranchised. The once whose right the rich want to take away, so that they don't have any way not to work and generate wealth for the rich. While at the same time being the ones that are supposed to buy their respective bullshit. You are their market. And you buy their shit, because, yes, it might be the only thing around and you actually need the goods, but mostly because clever advertisments and influencers make you believe that you can't live without it. There is the rainbow washing each pride month, the influencers that sold you all these Stanley Cups last year, the TikTok shop, Amazon prime day and the Amzon rewards program, huge sales discounts on Black Friday, etc. They either sell you a good feeling, a trend, planned obsolensce, the dream that you to can live like those rich people you admire! But why do you want to live like those rich people, apart from that a certain amount of money ion the band makes life easier to handle, if you don't have to worry about rent or how to bring food to your table. But do you really need 365 dresses, one for each day of the year? Do you really need the Stanley Cup in each color available, when other thermos-cups have been proven to be much better because quality went down when the sales went up and you only ever need maybe two, so you have one to use while the other is in the washer.

[ancestorsofjudah]

2 Kings 24: 15-17. Commonwealth.

Nebuchadnezzar, the Constitutional Leader, takes over. He requisitions everything in the kingdom, and makes some changes, including repelling Necho, the enemy of personal freedoms. This is what a wholly constituted government does- it manages all community interactions based on a central theme of human equality, equanimity, and social value and ensures threats do not disrupt the happy patterns of life.

A constituted government is the answer to all of our prayers and responds to all of the requirements made by God of mankind named in the Torah.

The Kings of Israel were primitive and struggled with all of this. Only one or two Jehu and Josiah bloomed in their roles but the population, from whom new kings were chosen did not quite have the sophistication or history for proper governance to draw upon. And they weren't alone, other kingdoms around them struggled for the same reasons, throw in some money, some butts, boots, boobs, and assholes, and few things in the ancient world had a chance of working out for very long.

But Nebuchadnezzar enjoyed one of the longest reigns in ancient times. When he and his army appeared, they took everything and forced them to constitute. He did this many times with many different cultures including Israel and Judah, and history pays him many compliments.

Empire also called Commonwealth is said to be the most successful form of government for the reasons Nebuchadnezzar was successful. The concept of one equanimous state that governs many different cultures, guaranteeing commerce, science, art, literature, and innovation from quarter to quarter is the winner, far beyond Democracy which can at times, falter in these things depending on the weather. Commonwealth in contrast, follows the leader, and if the leader follows the Constitution, then life can turn out to be quite good for a large number of persons.

This shit that is happening to us now because the spooks in America and Russia always use election years to curdle the milk, and in Europe because Charles Mary can't keep his hands off of other people's kids, and Willy confessed to forcing his subjects to have sex with animals and bragged about it, and Harry is just a walking talking piece of filth, and just look at that bloody shit rag he married!

The Commonwealth of Nations, which depends on the British Crown for just about everything is adrift because Charle's can't even read Dr. Seuss without sound like an idiot, Willy a War Criminal is obviously not an option and Harry has also been convicted of crimes that make him unfit to hold any kind of share of power.

And just look at the hidden gem these disgraceful persons are neglecting. Read the Statement of Principals:

The Commonwealth Charter is a document of the values and aspirations which unite the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Charter expresses the commitment of member states to the development of free and democratic societies and the promotion of peace and prosperity to improve the lives of all the people of the Commonwealth.

Joe Biden can't seen to get rid of the Republicans who engaged in a coup and attacked Gaza right under our noses, Ukraine is being turned into a crater by Russia, religious extremists are once again worrying the entire planet over marriage, birth control, and sex, while billions go without their basic needs being met.

The people of this world do not want more religion, to be bombed, dominated, or changed by their governments, or to be handed a pot of gold at the end of a socialist government rainbow. They just want to be able to earn and enjoy ordinary things without fear someone lacking propriety or a conscience is going to come and take them away.

The Melachim therefore says "in God's name take the people away from their failing governments and treat them appropriately":

15 Nebuchadnezzar took Jehoiachin captive to Babylon. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the king’s mother, his wives, his officials and the prominent people of the land. 

16 The king of Babylon also deported to Babylon the entire force of seven thousand fighting men, strong and fit for war, and a thousand skilled workers and artisans. 

17 He made Mattaniah, Jehoiachin’s uncle, king in his place and changed his name to Zedekiah.

Babylon means "sprawling government". As with all things Jewish this might be good, it might be bad. Big Gov means bureaucracy but it also means big money, and the world needs lots of it in order to work properly. Commonwealth, with its Monarch's ability to mint money - as much as he legally wants- is a singlar opportunity to put the beneficial aspects of sprawling government to work and put the wealth of the king's coffer into the hands of the people.

These are made opportune for the sakes of the Organization via prerogative and privilege. Witness, for example, Joe Biden's trouble getting that aid package for Ukraine passed. The British Monarch does not have to ask for the right to spend his money. If the British Crown were fully responsive to its duties, that would have been done on day one. The Ukrainians just lost another city while we wait for the filth in the US House of Representatives to come out of hiding, and the heat from this war in Ukraine and the one in Israel is microwaving this planet to death.

The wars have to be stopped and our failure to recognize this all at once and behave appropriately is lacking, but the power mankind has given itself to act and fix things is just waiting there to be used.

The Values in Gematria for the above verses are:

v. 15: Nebuchadnezzar "The Constitution" took Jehoiachin "the fixer" captive to Babylon "the Government." He took his mother and wives etc.

Everything we do and make is ultilmately captive to the law. The law guarantees the things we do cannot run afoul of the protections we have in place to ensure the welfare of others. Everyone obeys them, everyone.

The Value in Gematria is 9781, טזחא‎‎, tazha, "to identify and recognize."

Recognition is the conversion process between knowing the law and following it. Regardless of what the kumquats in Congress say, the US Gov and the British Crown must recognize the impact of certain laws on their styles and the outcomes of their governments.

v. 16 Seven Thousand Fighting Men. As we know all numbers in the Tanakh are codes for object lessons and offices hidden in the scripture. The numbers are never arbitrary nor do they document anything factual from the past.

Soldiers are conscripted and trained to defend the sacrosanctuary of the laws. They are Bar Mitzahs and their teachers.

Skilled workers are ordinary persons carrying out their daily lives, who are tedious in their observances of Shabbat.

All wars are fought and won before they begin by educated, law abiding kind hearted persons. The world cannot have too many of these.

The Value in Gematria is 8042, חאֶפֶס‎דב‎, hafes dev, "the zero bear". A bear is not a hairy lad, but a man who is instinctive about defending his territory and has the power to do it.

When you dance with a bear, who leads? That is the question we simply do not ask.

v. 17:

Mattaniah: Transformation using innate talent rather than education

Jehoiachin: The Fixer.

The Uncle: The uncle is dohd, "The boiler". The uncle carries some trait not passed along by the father to the son but can still be taught. There are many uncle/nephew combinations possible named by the Torah:

 The masculine noun דוד (dud), meaning pot or jar (1 Samuel 2:14, Jeremiah 2:2). Scholars assume that this word reflects the original meaning of the root, namely that of some kind of gentle movement, reminiscent of the idea of boiling.

But this word is used as often for a cook pot as for a mere receptacle or carrier. It's probably just as logical to assume that the act of loving was seen as "containing" something, or keeping something within oneself. And since general anger was equated with heat, perhaps arousal was seen kindred to that.

Zedekiah: The protective wall or rampart associated closely with dairy products, AKA Chesed or great kindness.

The noun τειχος (teichon) means wall and specifically a city wall or more generally a city's defensive ramparts (hence the plural in HEBREWS 11:30). It appears that Greek city walls were named in a time when rough mounts of mud sufficed, as our noun stems from the Proto-Indo-European root "deyg-", to knead or form, from which English gets words like dough and dairy but also fiction, figure and figment (via the Latin noun figura, form, and verb fingo, to form).

The Value in Gematria is 2733, בזג‎‎ג‎, "in glass, the glass cutter."

Kindness and its economic infrastructure, mandated by the principals of Commonwealth, protects the world by giving it what it wants the most at the expense of that which causes it to cringe.

For Commonwealth to work, its mandates must be respected and this may require the bears to come out, be that as it may. Otherwise, as the Melachim states, the future depends on our ability to interact with our uncles and partake of the world in ways we cannot see or learn on our own. Commonwealth is clearly what this world needs.

[melonthesprigatito]

As a Pokémon Fan I'm gonna try to decipher all of these

DON'T READ BELOW IF YOU DONT WANT THE ANSWERS

First option is Pokémon Sword and Shield. Opal dragging Bede along to be the next Fairy Type Gym Leader. She was looking for a trainer that had enough "Pink" and it's never specified what that means and is left open to interpretation. I think she was looking for someone who was mean/spiteful because she's basically the trickster archetype of a Fairy Trainer and Bede is a snobby, rude asshole.

Second option is probably the Rainbow Rocket episode in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Could either refer to Team Rainbow Rocket hacking and completely taking over the virtual reality space of Festival Plaza or all the villains from multiple dimensions taking over Aether Paradise which is an island like Club Penguin

The guy who's just a salary man? Yeah that's just Larry. It's kinda his whole thing.

Fourth option is Sword and Shield again. Chairman Rose announcing over the globally broadcasted Championship Match that he's accidentally lost control of Eternatus so now there's a kaiju apocalypse happening.

Fifth option is definitely N (Pokémon Black and White) Raised from birth by Ghetsis to be the perfect figure head to claim Zekrom/Reshiram and use it's power to become the ruler of the world get all trainers in the world to release their Pokémon, effectively disarming the population so no one can fight back against the dictatorship.

Yeah it's way more than two. That's kind of a running theme in Pokémon. For simplicity's sake I'll say Volo with Arceus (Legends Arceus) and Lusamine (Sun and Moon) with Nihilego.

That would be the many many many many ghost encounters in Pokémon! Practically once per game. Also probably Sada or Turo getting killed by Koraidon or Miraidon in Scarlet or Violet. Also Hydreigon getting frozen and crushed in Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity. Might as well mention at least one spinoff.

Lillie having to hide Cosmog in her hand bag, Cosmog which can open portals to other dimensions where aliens reside. (Sun and Moon/ Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon.)

Hahaha that's the Kantonian Gym in Malie City in Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. It's a poorly made recreation of the Vermilion Gym from the Kanto games, minus the puzzle and an actual Gym Leader because Alolans don't know how Gyms work because they have the Island Trials instead. It's doubly funny because the Player Character actually moved to Alola FROM Vermilion City (they have a signed photo from Lieutenant Surge in their bedroom) so imagine them cringing at the bastardised version of the Gym in their home town

You know, I think this poll was a trick question.

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