#these are more fearful assumptions than certainties ]

[kiealer]

META ASKS: If Your OC Was Canon. // accepting!

@unboundpower​ asked:

What changes do you think would be made between your muse as they exist in your head vs how they would be treated as part of canon? / go off if you need to 🍵

THIS...... is a difficult question.

As Ninazu is now, i.e. how I write her, she's a strong-willed, compassionate person who’s stubborn but only is that way because she wants to help. She’s useful even though she makes mistakes, she has her heart in the right place. She’s a legitimate asset to the team and shows that she can hold her own. 

Canon-wise is a little difficult for me to think about, but... I feel as though she may be under utilized and really only there for healing. In the beginning, she may be seen as overly-fragile and needing to be coddled by the Z Fighters at every turn. She'd be hiding behind Goku and Piccolo, always at Gohan's side, very hesitant and nervous to interact with the others. She'd be seen as a delicate flower in need of protecting, and I'm sure she would've had the Z Fighters coming to her rescue once or twice, maybe even in the midst of the Cell Juniors battle. So I'm sure she'd basically be dead weight for a lot of the fighting... I'm not sure if they'd even allow her to fight, or allow her to learn how to fight? That may still be present, but it wouldn't come very handy if she's written as cowardly or incapable.

As she gets older, as a teenager, I'm almost positive she would come across as entirely useless throughout the Buu saga. Her skills would hardly be utilized and she would be grouped in with the other women during almost the whole event. Although, to be frank, my memory of that entire arc is very limited since I haven't seen it in a long time. I wonder if they'd make her act brattier considering she's a teenage girl, but considering how they handle Videl, I think she may be safe from that.

Now in SUPER... oh, boy. As much as I love and adore that series with every fiber of my being, I know the writing can be garbage, and that does not bode well for my little hybrid. I'd like to think that the writers would keep her tolerable and likable, but I'm not entirely sure. I fear that she may be portrayed as pushier, cockier, only for her hopes to be dashed. Maybe she'd be insistent on trying to prove herself only to get pummeled by whatever threat she's facing. Hell, they might outright just not include her in some arcs aside from the ones where it would make the most sense that she'd be in. I already try to write her to fit into the story as seamlessly as possible, but Super would for sure just not know what to do with her. The only arcs I could see her having relevance in are the movie re-telling arcs and the future trunks arc, in which she may be handled terribly! Hell maybe they really WOULD have a kidnapping theme but write that as an excuse to keep her out of the story/portray how helpless she actually is and that she needs to be saved. I can only imagine how many mistakes they would have her make. Her uses in the beginning would gradually come to a stop, and she would become more redundant than anything. 

To be frank, I’m entirely unsure how canon would actually handle her, but I fear that they would take her down the wrong direction and make her a damsel in distress kind of deal, or just make her presence redundant and go along using senzu beans anyway. 

[hhhwnr]

ꨄPublic Display of Awkward — S.R

masterlist + navigation

genre: fluff/comfort word count: 1,1k

paring: Spencer Reid x Reader (established relationship)

warnings & summary: no warnings. Spencer isn’t used to public displays of affection—but with you, he wants to learn.

author’s note: lots of tenderness and public displays of affection! I’m new to writing on Tumblr and in English (which isn’t my first language), so please be kind. I’m open to suggestions or feedback, as long as it’s respectful :)

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨♡୧⋆｡˚ ⋆

Spencer wasn’t the hand-holding type.

Not because he didn’t want to be, but because he wasn’t sure how.

In the quiet privacy of your apartment, he could press a kiss to your shoulder without overthinking it. He could hold your hand for hours on the couch, curled together beneath a shared blanket. But out there—in public, surrounded by eyes and assumptions and attention—it felt different. It felt… observed.

You were walking side by side, close enough that your jacket sleeves brushed now and then, but not touching—not really. The crowd around you moved in waves: parents tugging along kids, couples snapping photos, a street musician playing something jazzy near the café. Spencer kept glancing around, his posture a little tense, as he always was in bustling spaces.

You noticed the way his fingers twitched sometimes near his coat pocket—like maybe he wanted to reach for you, but didn’t know if it was the right moment. So you made it easier. You slipped your hand into his without a word, letting your fingers lace gently through his. A silent offer, no pressure. Just a question with skin instead of words.

Spencer went still for a beat. Not in panic, but in calculation. He looked down at your hands, then at your face, like he was double-checking your intent. You didn’t look back—just kept walking, giving him space to choose what to do with it.

And he did. Carefully, Spencer curled his fingers between yours and gave the faintest squeeze. Then, as you reached the edge of the sidewalk and paused to wait for the light, you felt it: his thumb brushing slow and deliberate across the back of your hand.

A small movement — thoughtful, almost fragile.

“Do you like when I do that?” he asked, voice soft, as if he might stop if the answer was anything but yes.

But you could only smile, feeling your heart thudding. “I do,” you said simply. “Very much.”

And he nodded—just once—like he was storing that information away somewhere important.

He thought about it later that night. He thought of how easy you made it look. How holding hands in public wasn’t a statement for you—it was just affection, simple and honest. How when people passed by, you didn’t drop his hand or change the subject or pull away. He thought about all the reasons it had always been hard for him: the scrutiny, the exposure, the fear of not doing it right. But more than that, he thought about how proud you looked when you had him close.

And he realized: if you weren’t ashamed of him, maybe he didn’t have to be ashamed of showing it either.

The next morning, while the two of you stood in line at your favorite little corner café—him reading the day’s specials with furrowed brows like he was reviewing a thesis, you gently swaying on your feet behind him—he reached for your hand again. No hesitation this time. His fingers found yours with a quiet certainty, warm and steady, and before you could so much as glance at him, he lifted it slowly to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of it. Soft, casual even. Like he’d done it a hundred times, like it was something he did on every slow morning, in every line, surrounded by the half-asleep city.

“Spence?” You blinked, surprised, and tilted your head with a smile tugging at your lips.

He glanced down, eyes warm, a hint of mischief dancing there like sunlight on water. “What?” he asked, though he definitely knew.

“That’s… new,” you replied, grinning now.

He hummed, pressing another feather-light kiss to your knuckles—less hesitant, more familiar this time. “Well,” he said softly, “it’s what people do sometimes. When they’re in love.”

That startled something tender in your chest. You stared at him, caught off guard in the best way.

It happened again, days later, in the grocery store—aisles too bright, music too soft to recognize. The place was quiet for a Thursday evening. You were standing in front of the greens, comparing bunches of parsley like it was a life-altering decision, when Spencer drifted over to you.

He didn’t say anything, just came to stand beside you, close enough that your shoulders brushed. You felt him there more than saw him—his quiet, comforting presence, the way he always fit next to you without effort.

Then, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, he leaned forward and pressed a kiss to your forehead. A slow, thoughtful kiss. No hesitation, no awkward pause. Just his lips against your skin, gentle and grounding.

You didn’t move. Just closed your eyes for a second, let it happen, let yourself feel the way he was starting to settle into you—more confident in the way he loved you, in the way he showed it.

He pulled back slowly, hand grazing your lower back for a moment, and then wandered off toward the cereal aisle, as if he hadn’t just made your whole chest feel like it was glowing.

The “payoff for his efforts”, as Spencer later named it, was different — you were halfway home from dinner down the sidewalk when Spencer just… stopped walking.

It was subtle—just a quiet pause, like he’d remembered something important mid-step. You turned to look at him, brow slightly raised, but he wasn’t looking at the street or the sky. He was looking at you. Really looking. And not in that intense, cataloging way he sometimes had when he was working.

His hand found yours again, fingers lacing without effort, like muscle memory. There wasn’t a sound in the world except the soft clink of a spoon stirring coffee from a café behind you, the wet hush of tires on damp asphalt. And then Spencer leaned in—slow, hesitant for half a second—and kissed you.

It was soft, almost reverent. The kind of kiss that didn’t need to prove anything. That didn’t rush, didn’t take. Just… offered. The press of his lips against yours was gentle, steady, like he’d taken all the words he could never quite say and folded them into the space between you. It wasn’t his first kiss with you, not by far—but it felt like a beginning anyway. His fingers moved to your waist, squeezing it once, as if grounding himself. Your hand came up to rest lightly against his chest, where his heart beat quick and certain beneath your palm. And when he finally pulled back—just slightly, just enough to breathe—he stayed close, his forehead nearly brushing yours.

You were smiling. You hadn’t realized you were until he did too.

“I think I get it now,” he whispered.

You tilted your head. “Get what?”

“Why people do this kind of thing in public.”

Thank you for reading ♥︎

[princessaffirms]

hihi this is an immediate question and I’m so desperate!

I start school in 2 weeks and I need to lose weight more than 50lba and need a huge change appearance do you have any tips for that wince I’m extremely new at loa

Sorry if this if this is dumb

hi angel! ₊˚⊹♡ first of all, this is NOT a dumb question!! i feel your urgency, and i want to gently remind you that you are not behind. you don’t need to panic to become the version of you that you desire.

with the law of assumption, it’s not about FORCING fast results. it’s about EMBODYING the version of you who already has what you want.

🔗 first, here are some relevant BLOGS i wrote that i highly recommend reading through:

⤷ stop ENTERTAINING a reality that you don’t want. 🍷✨

⤷ DON’T ACCEPT anything that doesn’t align with your affirmations! 🐚✨

⤷ DON’T WAIT for external proof — CREATE the evidence. ⚡️✨

💗✨ and now, some important reminders about manifesting appearance change, etc. on a perceived “time crunch”:

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

1. STABILIZE the identity shift ✨

assume: “i already AM the version of me who looks and feels how i want to.”

if you looked and felt the way you wanted to, what would you be doing? how would you be acting? you’re probably not obsessing or checking the mirror 24/7.

affirm that it is yours and persist in knowing that it’s yours NOW because you SAID SO! you literally have that power!! move through life as if it’s ALREADY done. let THAT be your inner truth.

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

2. AFFIRM from a place of CERTAINTY AND STABILITY, not fear or lack ✨

instead of affirming with a desperate energy like, “i need to have this now so i can feel confident”, “i hope my desire comes soon!”, try affirming from a place of certainty and assurance because you already KNOW that your desires are yours NOW.

you’ve affirmed, so your desires have already materialized fully in your 4D (inner world), so it has ZERO CHOICE but to inevitably reflect in the 3D (physical world)! the 3D is just a mirror of your thoughts and assumptions. that’s what the law of assumption is all about!!

for example:

• “i love how i look right now, i’m so perfect! [further describe your ideal appearance and how you already have it]”

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

3. DON’T ENTERTAIN your current 3D ✨

it’s just the echo of past thoughts and assumptions. it’s irrelevant to you now. the new story (your new self concept, the version of you who already has your desires) is already yours — just persist.

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

4. feeling desperate = OKAY. just soothe it. ✨

your desire is valid. but remind yourself: you don’t have to beg the universe — you ARE the universe.

your assumptions are what create. calm confidence is your superpower.

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

give yourself grace for past spirals, and keep showing up for the version of you who already has your desires. 🤍 you’ve got this angel! the only limit is your own limiting beliefs and assumptions.

　 . ★⋆. ࿐࿔　✦　　　.　　. 　 ˚　.ੈ✧̣̇˳·˖

sending so much love and light <3

[ask-whitepearl-and-steven]

Is shattering permanent in the comic (especially with the force fusions and cluster) or can it be fixed down the line like future did? Asking for your opinion on this too bc I found out about it in Future and it makes me feel weird (bc now it feels like any SU stuff and shattering has no consequence or tension, so haven’t been able to read or write stories). Maybe I’m seeing this wrong? Would love your thoughts

Hmm...

So to answer your first question: The comic for WDAU works on the same rules as canon does. I have no intention to over-write anything canon clearly stated to be true.

The ability to put back together shattered gems is definitely a part of that.

So yes, theoretically, even in WDAU, gems being shattered is not 'the end' because they can be eventually re-instated through the work of the diamonds, IF they someday decide to Change Their Minds like they did in the original series.

That being said...

I want to talk a little bit about something you said, because it tickles my brain in an interesting way:

"now it feels like any SU stuff and shattering has no consequence or tension"

And the best way to talk about stuff, I've found, is to ask questions about our underlying assumptions. So my questions for you (all) today are:

For us humans, death certainly IS a constant that remains ever-permanent, and thus it's easy to compare it to shattering and draw that parallel... but is that a fair comparison?

In fiction, death is often circumvented and there still remains reasonable tension in things like magic-heavy worlds, vampire novels, sci-fi where almost any sickness is eradicated, etc. Is this not quite similar to what shattering is for gems?

Is the perceived permanency of shattering the only reason it feels like a heavy consequence?

Are there OTHER consequences of being shattered that make it just as interesting, if not more than, to be explored as a plot device?

Must there be an ever-looming threat of something horrible and permanent happening to make a story good?

There isn't a right or wrong answer to these questions, necessarily. I'm not posing these in order to lead you to a singular, 'absolutely correct' conclusion or way of writing.

For some stories, death DOES need to be permanent in order not to make light of what the characters go through! In some forms of writing, there IS no other way around that consequence.

But I daresay SU is not one of those stories.

Let me put it this way - 100 years ago, medicine had only BEGUN to develop into the thing we know it as today. Sure, there were therapies and treatments for diseases, broken limbs, poisonings, etc. Some of them were quite good, even! But overall, the death tolls back then from basic illness were MUCH higher than they were today.

Pnumonia, Malaria, Syphillis, Smallpox, Bubonic Plague, AIDS.

These were things that people died from, with near CERTAINTY, for the LONGEST time. They were considered the road to a permanent black screen.

And today? Even though they are still, without proper intervention, JUST as deadly, we now have new tools and vaccines to combat them. Hell, if you get vaccinated fast enough you can get bit by a rabid dog and live to tell the tale, unscathed! Rabies used to be a one-stop-shop to the afterlife.

Despite this, we still view these diseases with appropriate fear. They are still dangerous - in the right conditions.

In the right conditions, the consequences for a LOT of things can be permanent. If permanency is what you're looking for.

So alright, the Diamonds can heal shattered gems now. Booooring. How easy it is to fix any shattered gem! What a simple solution to anything tragic.

But................... will they ALWAYS do so?

In fact...will the Diamonds ALWAYS be around?

Will the gems who got shattered always be picked up, piece by piece, and be brought back to them, perfectly preserved? Or will they lose pieces of themselves along the way - literally?

And what NEW consequences can we think of, when we stop thinking of the permanency of death, and start thinking of the Impermanence of those tools that keep us here longer and longer?

Just food for thought. 👀

[loveyourlovelysoul]

Some thinking traps that may mess up with our mental health. A reminder that we don't have to believe everything we think.

All-or-nothing/black-and-white thinking We see things as all good or all bad, but we miss the dialectics that exist in every scenario. eg. "if it's not perfect it's a failure"; "if I'm not being productive I'm being lazy". It's hard to stay in the middle cause we love certainty, control, clarity, but it's one of the first way to reshape our brain. -> How to challenge this thinking: use AND not BUT. Replace extremes with more flexible phrases, eg. "some parts were great, and others were hard"

Catastrophizing/Fortunetelling Assuming that the worst case scanario is the most likely outcome. Eg. "if I make a mistake, I'll be humiliated"; "if I show them my true self, I'll be rejected". Fortunetelling gives our brain a sense of control and so we do this cause we'd rather feel in control also of a negative event than admitting we're not in control of external things/events -> How to challenge this thinking: talk with yourself, eg. "I don't know how the story will go and it's scary, but what are other possible outcomes?"; "if the worst case scenario happened, would I be able to handle it?". Ground yourself in strength, not fear.

Mind reading Convincing yourself you know what others are thinking (about you) even when you have no tangible proof. Thinking that someone may find us annoying or that someone may be mad at us is common, but when we treat assumptions as facts, we may end up responding emotionally to something that doesn't exist or isn't true. -> How to challenge this thinking: "What others may think of me is not my business; it's also their responsibility to say whatever they want to say to me". Replace assumptions with curiosity: you don't have to fill in the blanks on your own.

Personalization Blaming yourself for things that were never your responsibility/fault/burden. Eg. "if they're upset, I must have done something wrong". Children who had to take care of their parent's emotional needs tend to fall into this trap: it breeds defensiveness, unnecessary guilt and a cycle of self-blame. -> How to challenge this thinking: eg. "This person is having a human experience: is it about them or did I contribute to it?". You can care deeply without carrying every burden, especially those you're not supposed to.

"Should" Statements Using the word "should" to write rules of life that actually never existed. Most of us live with rigid, unrealistic expectations for ourselves and others that were entirely made up in our mind. Eg. "I should always keep the calm"; "They should know how I feel"... -> How to challenge this thinking: ask yourself from where did this rule originate. Replace "should" with "want to" or "I'm noticing a desire to" to soften the pressure.

(therapist-in-nyc on ig)

[homehauntsyou]

Quotes from “Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar that I found relevant to the discussion of Supernatural’s system of hunting and view of monsters, especially as a post-9/11 product

summary of the book (from the goodreads page) just in case it’s helpful: “Cyrus Shams is a young man grappling with an inheritance of violence and loss: his mother’s plane was shot down over the skies of Tehran in a senseless accident; and his father’s life in America was circumscribed by his work killing chickens at a factory farm in the Midwest. Cyrus is a drunk, an addict, and a poet, whose obsession with martyrs leads him to examine the mysteries of his past—toward an uncle who rode through Iranian battlefields dressed as the Angel of death to inspire and comfort the dying, and toward his mother, through a painting discovered in a Brooklyn art gallery that suggests she may not have been who or what she seemed.”

“He was raised Iranian in the American Midwest, amidst 9/11 and the subsequent jingoism and lawn flags and yellow ribbons and the “aren’t you glad to be here” set. Cyrus could see it in their chests when they looked at him. It was like Americans had another organ for it, that hate-fear.” (pg. 133)

“Midwestern politeness felt that way too, Cyrus learned, like it was burning cigarette holes in your soul. You bit your tongue, then bit it a little harder. You tried to keep your face still enough to tell yourself that you hadn’t been complicit, that at least you weren’t encouraging what was happening around you. To you.” (pg. 129)

“She was Christian but American Christian, the kind that believed Jesus had just needed a bigger gun.” (pg. 135)

“Cyrus wondered what about him made Kathleen feel like he’d think ‘Baghdad, Indiana’ was funny. His unaccented English? The sex they had? His perpetually bitten tongue, the way he rarely challenged her regressive political takes? All these things sat outside of Kathleen’s experience of them-ness, so to her Cyrus was an us. Cyrus wondered about how much of his living he owed to other people’s assumptions of his us-ness.” (pg. 137)

“‘It means in my humble opinion, we got to cubism hundreds of years before Braque or Picasso or any European. That maybe we’ve been training for a long time in sitting in the complicated multiplicities of ourselves, of our natures. At least for a time. No monolithically good Siegfried hero versus monolithically bad dragon.’” (pg. 157)

“‘And look at what belief in that kind of total good versus total evil did. Hitler listening to Wagner in Nuremberg. That’s what I’m getting at, you see? The flatness of me being this hero artist, or you being this martyr NSA threat. None of that is real. You know this. I’m not Siegfried any more than you’re a dragon.’” (pg. 158)

“One man in every five hundred dresses like an angel, like this, lit up like this angel of night, of history and death and of light and relentless fucking war. Everything needs an angel, even war.” (pg. 169)

“…I ride around them as they die to keep them from cutting open their throats in their final moments, to remind them to suffer manfully, men like me preserve their hereafter.” (pg. 171)

“…and I’m not allowed to give them water, absolutely not is what Arman said when I asked, why would an angel be carrying water he said, which makes sense, but so I just have to hear them cry and beg and die and I sit there on my big horse in my little costume holding my fake sword.” (pg. 172)

“here where men fight about justice / like a drowning boy trying to pull himself / out of a river by his own hair —“ (pg. 197)

“The genesus of everyone’s pain had to be external, such was their certainty. And so legislators legislated, building border walls, barring citizens of there from entering here. ‘The pain we feel comes from them, not ourselves,’ said the banners, and people cheered, certain of all the certainty. But the next day they’d wake up and find that what had hurt in them still hurt.” (pg. 209)

“Martyr. I want to scream it in an airport. I want to die killing the president. Ours and everyone’s. I want them all to have been right to fear me. Right to have killed my mother, to have ruined my father. I want to be worthy of the great terror my existence inspires.” (pg. 216)

“How one nation flattened history into a statistical anomaly, collateral damage, and the other minted it into propaganda.” (pg. 221)

“Victims die, that’s their main verb.” (pg. 223)

“each person throbs like an idiot moon: / death is their job, dying is yours.” (pg. 241)

“In another, a Time magazine with a missile shooting off a warship. I had to look up the big white words: “Gulf Tragedy” فاجعه. “Catastrophe.” Like a natural disaster. Not “massacre.” Not even “murder.” The imprecision of American justice was a given, even to Americans.” (pg. 281)

“I feel dangerous. I don’t know how much more baldly I can say it. But how can an Iranian be dangerous without becoming “a dangerous Iranian”? Without becoming dangerous to every other Iranian in the world or contributing to the myth of the pathologically angry Iranian? Coming out of the womb with a burning flag in his teeth? Any volcano that has erupted since the Holocene, ancient history, is considered active. I haven’t. Does that make me inert? Or overdue?” (pg. 315)

“I demand the same leniencies, rationalizations, granted to mediocre men for centuries.” (pg. 317)

[dozing-marshmallow]

*cough cough*

Chef Hatchet x Scary reader? Please? ;-; a reader who only Chef finds cute but the others are scared to death?

😳 I never had a Chef request before! Thank you so much for sending this in, I hope you enjoy and have a marvellous day!!

CHEF HATCHET X SCARY! READER ONE SHOT

"So glad we could finally do this." Chef grinned, happy he could use the weekend to take you out to dinner.

You twirled your glass of champagne in your decorated hand, a smile carved onto your lips,“Me too. Why do our colleagues find me scary?"

Chef sat in a clean blazer,"They just don't see you like how I see you, (Y/N)."

Intriguing,"Other men have begged me for their lives, acting as though it was a hostage situation than a date." you calmly claimed, looking wide eyed at Chef,"Do you think your big muscles could help you if you were taken against your will?"

He shrugs,"Depends on how many people. If there's one, five, ten, sure, but twenty, it'd be foolish to try something."

"How about nineteen?"

"Nineteen, I could take any day. The army didn't train me to stop at ten."

"Even if it were to happen now, as we are enjoying the heat of each other's company in this refined establishment?" you gestured around the classy environment.

"I'd think about you first." he offered a wink.

"Oh Chef, you don't need to worry about protecting me." you reciprocated the wink,"In fact, such people would need the protection more.”

He snorts, the memories of how terrified the contestants and staff were of you, gave him a sense of pride that you had taken a liking to him. He wasn’t even mad that you had used fear more effectively than he did,“I don’t underestimate your ability to protect yourself. You have your reputation after all.”

“And what is my reputation, Norbert?” you lopsided your head, asking sweetly.

He smirked,“Sexy, different.”

“My, you sure know how to please a woman.”

"A woman that never told me what she does besides Total Drama." his eyes were begging you to get into it.

You chuckled,"The first assumption people make is that I’m a witch, which isn’t true, although I am fascinated by the craft." you picked up your knife and drew the air with it like a wand,"I wonder, since you are a Chef, if we were back hundreds of years ago, and they tied me at the stake and set me on fire, would you use the fire to heat your pan?"

His voice went slightly high when he exclaimed his “No!”. By the silent stare you casted, however, it was clear it wasn’t what you wanted to hear and he had internally debated if he should change his answer before you had eventually lowered your knife.

"What a pity. If you really did love me, you would have said yes."

Absurd. He loved it,"The hell am I supposed to be yes-ing to?"

You leaned slightly forward, swishing the knife again,"You're a smart man, Chefy, you can figure it out."

He scoffed,"I can hardly imagine why I'd want to put a pan on top of your pretty head while you're cooking alive, girl."

"Who said the pan will be on top of my head?" you leaned back.

Speaking of cooking, the server came along.

"I'll take the steak. Burn it to the crisp." you hummed with certainty.

"Crisp? Really, girl?" Chef made his inquiry, not due to the sole nature of your order, but how different it was to your usual raw.

"This conversation inspired me. I want to taste what could have been my sweet body. As all livestock. Slaughtered.” your fingers began to crawl around the head of your fork,“Don't you understand that?"

He paused. You were just so cute,“Sure do.”

The server did not question anything else and left with a pale expression. What was there to be afraid of? That server didn’t know the troubles of flesh if all it took to get him unnerved was that.

“What a nervous man.” you commented more sympathetically, averting your gaze back to your date,“Where were we?"

His head twitched at the sound of your voice,"I lost track."

"That's okay. We can start anew." your tone was mischievous, almost indicating that you had remembered, but didn’t mind to change.

From the corner of his eye, some customers were requesting to be moved to tables further away, and when they got denied, they either ate in paranoia or left altogether.

What strange people.

“Did I tell you how magnificent you look tonight?” he asked, complimenting you.

“No.” you responded straightforwardly, not breaking your glance for your scarlet dress. You set your fork down to hold your attentive head in both your palms,“But no need. Let’s move on to...you. I want to hear every secret.”

Yet how adorable it was when you had finished his every sentence, almost like you had already knew.

[tumblezwei]

God, all I want in Arcane season 2 is for Vi and Jinx to have one last final showdown where they both die metaphorically. Let them both live, but let them lose themselves in such a way that they can only say they died. For Jinx to ne so fundamentally changed from who she is that she disappears at the end to watch what happens from the shadows. For Vi to push herself so far into belonging in Piltover that she loses what made her herself from Zaun.

Only for both Jinx and Vi to be horrified with what they've become and knowing they can't go back.

Honestly, I think this has mostly already happened. The season 1 finale was that moment for Jinx, when she realized that with Vi siding with Cait and Silco dead at her hands, there's no one in her life that sees her for who she is. So she chooses to become exactly what Vi fears.

This is definitely something that's going to be expanded on in season 2, that being that nobody in this goddamn show knows what Jinx and Vi are about or what they want. The people of Zaun laud Jinx as a revolutionary figure that she absolutely isn't, the people of Piltover condemn her as a crazed lunatic that just wants destruction for the sake of it, Cait is absolutely not going to be a voice of reason or nuance after Jinx killed her mother.

And in the same vein everyone just makes their own assumptions about what Vi wants. Caitlyn is sure Vi is on her side about bringing Jinx in (I am fully convinced her line about "my sister is dead" is a complete lie to Cait), Jinx is sure that Vi has gone turncoat and just wants to get rid of her. And who knows what Ekko is going to think when he sees Vi in that uniform.

I can't say anything with any amount of certainty bc we've got like, barely two minutes of out of context footage to work with, but imo this season is going to be more about Jinx and Vi finally getting their feelings understood. Where in season 1 we gradually saw them separate as misunderstanding piled on top of misunderstanding, season 2 is about clearing those away.

Because as the show exists right now it just doesn't make sense for one side to "win" the conflict. And I have more trust in the writers than to expect them to finish the season with the status quo of League of Legends intact. Obviously, I don't expect them to do some radical reworking, especially with the whole "Arcane is canon to League" thing Riot wants to do, but it just doesn't make sense for this version of Vi and Jinx to end up like League Vi and Jinx.

And also bc I don't think that confrontation in the trailer is anywhere near the end lmao. That's episode three of the first act, at best. It's debatable if anything we saw goes past the first act at all.

[julie09tarot]

hello! i've been seeing you a lot on my timeline, and i love ur blog and the way you read for others, i couldn't help but follow you! i think you have such great energy.

if you're doing free readings (it's okay if not, you can ignore this), i'd like to ask for one! my question would be: what does my reconnection with this person mean, and what karmic lessons do i have to learn because of this?

thank you so much!

- J 🦋

OML. Thank you so much!!

I'm still doing free readings, yes, and this one is for you. Let me know what you think.

While your reconnection with this person may feel significant, The Moon suggests that there’s some degree of uncertainty, illusion, or emotional complexity surrounding it. You might be seeing the situation through a lens of hopes, fears, or subconscious patterns rather than clear reality.

However, Ripeness (Osho Zen) indicates that something within you is ready for growth and clarity. So instead of focusing on what this reconnection "means" in a fated or karmic sense, I'd say this may be an opportunity for personal awareness - seeing your own emotional tendencies, desires, and assumptions more clearly.

Breaking Down The Cards

The Moon – You may feel deeply drawn to this person, but it’s worth questioning whether you are seeing things as they truly are. Emotions, nostalgia, or wishful thinking could be influencing your perspective. Ask yourself: What am I assuming about this connection - and what is actually happening?

Ripeness (Osho Zen) – This card suggests that you are reaching a moment of personal maturity. It may be time to step into a new way of relating—one that isn’t based on old patterns, or external meaning, but on self-awareness and authenticity.

Rather than seeking a predetermined "karmic lesson," think a while: are you repeating past emotional cycles, or are you engaging from a place of clarity? You are in a moment of ripening—trust that whatever insight you gain from this experience will help you grow, whether this connection deepens or fades. It will be okay.

Affirmations

I trust my intuition while seeking clarity in my relationships.

I release the need for certainty and allow connections to unfold naturally.

My personal growth is the foundation for meaningful relationships.

-----

Thank you

for helping me create! Everyone who supports me on Ko-fi this week will receive a free, FULL reading on the topic of their choice! https://ko-fi.com/julie_09zentarot

[unpluggedfinancial]

Bitcoin Changed My Brain: How Financial Freedom Transforms the Mind

When I first stumbled upon Bitcoin, I had no idea it would completely alter the way I think about the world. It wasn’t just about money—it was about rewiring my brain to see possibilities I had never considered before. Bitcoin didn’t just change my financial trajectory; it changed how I understand systems, resilience, and even the potential of the human mind. The transformation wasn’t just external; it was deeply internal, reshaping how I process, analyze, and engage with the world.

The First Transformation: A Paradigm Shift

Understanding Bitcoin is like taking the red pill from The Matrix. It forces you to see the flaws in systems you once trusted. For me, this wasn’t just a new way of thinking about money—it was a complete rewiring of my mindset. I had to unlearn what I thought I knew about the financial system and reframe my understanding of value, trust, and freedom. This process was challenging but also exhilarating. It felt as though my brain was upgrading, adapting to new information in ways I didn’t think were possible.

Before Bitcoin, I saw money as a static tool—a means to an end. But Bitcoin revealed a deeper truth: money is a living, evolving system. It can be decentralized, transparent, and free from manipulation. This realization wasn’t just academic; it felt like a neural switch had flipped, sparking a wave of curiosity and critical thinking.

The Rabbit Hole Effect

They say Bitcoin is a rabbit hole, and that couldn’t be more true. Once you start, you’re compelled to dig deeper. Bitcoin doesn’t just teach you about money; it introduces you to economics, history, technology, energy, and human behavior. It’s like a gateway to understanding the interconnected systems that shape our world.

As I explored Bitcoin, I found myself questioning everything. Why do we trust centralized institutions? Why is the energy debate around Bitcoin so misunderstood? How does a simple digital ledger hold the potential to revolutionize the global economy? Each answer led to more questions, and with every layer peeled back, my thinking became sharper and more nuanced. It’s as if Bitcoin handed me a mental magnifying glass, allowing me to examine the world with greater clarity.

Financial Freedom and Mental Clarity

One of the most profound changes Bitcoin brought me was mental clarity. Before, the stress of navigating a flawed financial system weighed heavily on me. The fear of inflation, the insecurity of centralized control, and the unpredictability of fiat currencies created a constant background noise of anxiety. Bitcoin silenced that noise.

By providing a system that operates on mathematical certainty and incorruptible transparency, Bitcoin gave me a sense of stability I didn’t know I needed. This mental clarity didn’t just free me financially; it freed me to focus on what truly matters. It inspired me to pursue meaningful goals, think critically about the systems around me, and embrace the power of personal responsibility.

Bitcoin as a Catalyst for Growth

Bitcoin isn’t just a financial tool; it’s a catalyst for personal growth. It pushes you to think differently, question deeply, and act intentionally. The process of understanding Bitcoin mirrors the process of self-improvement: it requires curiosity, persistence, and the willingness to challenge your assumptions.

For me, Bitcoin became a mirror, reflecting my potential back at me. It taught me that the path to freedom—financial or otherwise—isn’t easy, but it’s worth every step. It’s about more than accumulating wealth; it’s about accumulating wisdom, resilience, and the confidence to forge your own path.

A Call to Action

If you’ve been hesitant to dive into Bitcoin, consider this your invitation. It’s not just an investment in your financial future; it’s an investment in yourself. The journey of understanding Bitcoin is transformative, forcing you to confront and expand the boundaries of your thinking.

Bitcoin isn’t just about money—it’s about unlocking the potential in all of us. So, take the first step. Start learning, start questioning, and most importantly, start thinking. You’ll find that the journey is as rewarding as the destination.

Take Action Towards Financial Independence

If this article has sparked your interest in the transformative potential of Bitcoin, there's so much more to explore! Dive deeper into the world of financial independence and revolutionize your understanding of money by following my blog and subscribing to my YouTube channel.

🌐 Blog: Unplugged Financial Blog Stay updated with insightful articles, detailed analyses, and practical advice on navigating the evolving financial landscape. Learn about the history of money, the flaws in our current financial systems, and how Bitcoin can offer a path to a more secure and independent financial future.

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👍 Like, subscribe, and hit the notification bell to stay updated with our latest content. Whether you're a seasoned investor, a curious newcomer, or someone concerned about the future of your financial health, our community is here to support you on your journey to financial independence.

Support the Cause

If you enjoyed what you read and believe in the mission of spreading awareness about Bitcoin, I would greatly appreciate your support. Every little bit helps keep the content going and allows me to continue educating others about the future of finance.

Donate Bitcoin: bc1qpn98s4gtlvy686jne0sr8ccvfaxz646kk2tl8lu38zz4dvyyvflqgddylk

[paragonrobits]

Responsibility

Gary's fingers worked together, a rush of nervous energy moving through him. He twitched; not all at once. His arm jiggled and then his legs, as if the bones of his legs suddenly weren't reliable and it was an effort to stand upright. And then his jaw trembled, so violently that when he spoke, he couldn't be understood.

Buttler glanced at him for a moment. There was, perhaps, an expression of something like pity, Fionna considered. Probably not too much like it. Fionna still wasn't entirely sure what were memories of the magical days, and what were just dreams inspired by free-floating.. bits from the multiverse. Something like that might happen, she'd been told by Prismo in her dreams. If it was him, of course. It could be something else entirely using his voice and image, or it might be her own assumptions using him as a mirror.

("No the hell it's not!" Prismo said, watching the events in his cube, above all the other universes. "That WAS me! Listen, lady!" The Scarab was silently, but quietly mused on giving mortals more clear instruction if you were going to bother giving them advice.)

Then Buttler glanced aside, to the other person in the room. To date, Fionna never felt comfortable being anywhere near Hana Abadeer. She wasn't entirely sure why. She glanced at Miss Abadeer, who was watching it with a look of quiet smugness. She'd wanted this to happen, or she'd planned it. She didn't keep looking at a nearby door that was very slightly ajar, bent halfway outwards by a particularly vicious impact to break through it.

Gary kept looking at it. Fear, indignation, anxiety and most of all concern kept flitting across his face. Anxiety was winning out. Fionna was surprised, but then supposed she shouldn't be. It was hard looking at Gary, so scared and helpless; she didn't know what she was supposed to do. Fionna's fists clinched and unclenched, and she felt uncomfortably aware that the only thing she had to offer was not going to help in the slightest.

Punching Miss Abadeer? Shit, shit, no. If she did that... if she even thought about it...

Fionna looked at the door and thought, 'Then we'd be more fucked than we already are.'

Abadeer looked directly at Fionna. The corner of her mouth turned up in a quietly triumphantly way. And Fionna couldn't shake what Simon had told her during their travels. She remembered in a lull between worlds, Simon had told her something about his adoptive daughter, Marceline... his Marshall Lee. No, it wasn't about Marceline specifically. Though afterwards, when Fionna started to notice a few gentle changes happening one after the other, she kept checking on Marshall every day, checking to see if he was... okay. If nothing was happening to him. Or if he was changing into something he didn't want to be.

Marceline's father, the Ooo version of Hana Abadeer, wasn't... something human. He was something else. He wasn't a vampire, or a wizard, or anything like what they'd seen. He was something older than the Vampire King, and far worse. He wasn't even like the Lich; for all its unspeakable evil, the incidental malice, the will to kill everything that existed just because it was a role to play... the Lich was still understandable. Mister Petrikov's face had been strangely bored as he offhandedly had remarked about dragging Abadeer to his world to make him take care of his daughter for once, and perhaps Fionna, she thought, should have noticed the steel in him before that point.

But he had spoken about how Abadeer wasn't anything as understandable as anything they'd encountered. He simply... was. 'Demon' was just a word, Simon Petrikov had said, and it wasn't exactly sufficient. But it was close enough.

Hana Abadeer wasn't a demon. At least, Fionna thought she wouldn't. And maybe she just hoped she wasn't. But in that moment, Fionna saw Abadeer smirking at her, and Fionna suddenly knew, with absolute certainty and a cold set of pin-pricks in her brain, that Abadeer knew exactly what she was thinking, and was looking right into her head.

Abadeer said nothing. She didn't need to.

Gary tried to get his way through what was obviously a rehearsed story. In front of Fionna, though, with the looming presence of Abadeer and the horrified shock of Buttler, it just withered away.

His gaze dropped to his feet. His whole body trembled. With fear, or anger, Fionna couldn't be sure. But she did notice Abadeer's face twitch briefly, as if taken aback by something. It was only a brief moment, and then her face collected itself, back to the mask of haughty contempt. But it was a flicker.

Ah. She remembered a candy woman, so very much like Gary when you looked at the way they moved, the way they spoke, a certain... operatic-ness to the way they said some things, or got dramatic when they thought they needed to play a part. Sweet as candy, and then, when things got tough, cold as steel. Perhaps Gary wasn't so different from either a woman that came out of brainwashing with barely a blink, or who could watch all her friends die and continue on the mission regardless.

Gary finally managed to speak. "I'm not destroying them," he said, flatly.

Abadeer raised an eyebrow. "So now you grow a spine?"

Buttler glanced from Abadeer to Gary; indignation on behalf the former, but she had her own share of anxiety for Gary now and Fionna got the impression that Buttler didn't understand why, exactly. Fionna had her suspicions. Buttler probably cared for Gary in some distant way, like a master who considered an apprentice slow on the uptake but still important to her. And what they had found in that room had shaken Buttler, badly.

Fionna thought about echoes. Hunter spending all his time in the forest, maybe some part of his soul remembering being one with the beasts, one with the beating and distant heart of the world. Or Ellis staring up at the sky with his eyes squinting, looking lost, as if a part of him remembered living up there. And she thought about Simon Petrikov struggling to explain to her how it had been to be Ice King, to still love Marceline even if he didn't know who she was or who he was; the data was gone. The feeling remained.

It probably wasn't that much different. The world had changed, but they didn't. Their memories changed, but some part of them knew. And Buttler was scared of what Gary had done in that room.

She kept looking at her hands. As if trying to reassure herself about her flesh and bone.

Gary finally spoke up. His voice was hard and flat, but his face looked lost. Over the smell of thick sugars, over a strangely chemical smell and an acrid stink that made Fionna think of electricity, he softly said, "I'm creating life."

Buttler's face twitched. She glanced at Hana, and with a twinge of guilt that clearly confused her, she said, "You are not making life, young man."

Abadeer took the moment to interject. "You are making a walking pile of sugar in the shape of a man." As she said this, the door gently opened.

Something walked out. It wasn't particularly ominous, or even unsettling; it simply shuffled out in an unsteady gait that looked wrong. The legs swung out and in too loosely, too easily. A too-thin body wavered unsteadily, a vaguely humanoid shape trying to keep its balance as it shuffled its way over to Gary.

Fionna had been in that room. She had seen sugar, and gingerbread, and a lot of chemicals and strange equipment cannibalized from other machines, in Gary's strange fit of ingenious obsession. A car battery, some kind of amusement park ride converted into a sort of sarcophagus, a protein soup dissolved from a lot of bargain ham, and other stuff she couldn't list off the top of her head.

A meaty smell came off the.. construct, Fionna supposed. It's body was sugar, but it wasn't sugar; parts of it gleamed like caramel and other parts were stiff, and made her think of gingerbread. But it wasn't exactly any of those things; parts of it looked like a carapace or exoskeleton, especially around the limbs and back. Around the front and the arms, there was something like exposed musculature. It didn't seem to make the creature uncomfortably, though.

It didn't have much of a face; there was a sort of hump at the top of its body, poking forward, and a suggestion of deep set eyes and a wide mouth, all crude and, unfinished.

Gary didn't seem to mind. He absently reached out for it.

It was having a hard time walking. Nonetheless, in fits and starts, it made its way over to Gary, gingerly reaching a hand out.

Abadeer opened her mouth. Her expression, still haughty, attained a slight indication of contempt. Fionna suddenly saw a future of Abadeer saying something like, 'Go do an Old Yeller and take that thing about back and destroy it.'

The creature gently, desperately, put its thick fingers around Gary's wrist and held on tight.

And just like that, all the fear suddenly went out of Gary's face. It was a little scary, actually. His expression smoothed out into calm certainty, and he glanced around the room. Just once. On the table next to him, there was a rolling pin, a special kind with big metal bumps to create a specific texture in dough.

It was a very sturdy rolling pin. Gary wasn't particularly strong, but you didn't have to be strong to seriously hurt someone with something like that.

Abadeer glanced at him, just once. For a moment her haughty expression flickered just a bit. It was interested, almost hungry. Her mouth almost became a huge grin, and somehow that was so much worse than her getting angry might have done.

"Gary?" Fionna said, uncertainly. "Come on, dude. We're done here. Just take your little guy and go. Okay?"

Gary stared at her. He glanced briefly at Abadeer, almost interrogatingly. And again, Fionna found herself a little fascinated; he'd been scared, so nervous he couldn't even talk right.

But threaten the... person he'd made, and he turned to cold stone almost immediately.

That was responsibility for you, she thought later.

Abadeer gave a very small gesture with one shoulder, and Buttler looked away from her. The tableau seemed to say 'do what you want'.

"Don't come back," Buttler said sternly to Gary, but she winced saying it. Like an aged caretaker sending a child away, and not understanding why it hurt.

Gary glanced at her, and for a moment his face twisted up. It might have been holding back tears, or a remark laced with so much bile it could have scorched marble, or nothing at all.

He turned his back to her, firmly gripped the hand of his creation, and waited for Fionna to be at his side and watching his back before the three of them simply left.

Abadeer watched them go. Her eyes, conspicuously, did not change at all, in the same way that a master card shark did not show his hand.

----

For Gary, and for Fionna, there was a lot to discuss later.

But in the moment, Fionna couldn't think of anything to say, except the obvious.

"I don't know where we can keep your little guy, but I'll do whatever I can. Look out for him, maybe?" She said.

In the back of Marshall's van, Gary sat with the creature on the floor, and he looked contented as it slept. It looked sort of like a dragon, Fionna thought. A strange and silly-looking dragon, but a dragon all the same.

He breathed in, and out. He just nodded, and slowly turned his head towards Fionna. "Uh. Thanks for sticking up for me, Fi."

"No prob, Gary. Any time."

They both felt the weight of bygone years. Of a time neither of them remembered, but that stayed in their hearts.

There was a long pause.

Marshall broke it. He hadn't said a lot, but when the road didn't demand his attention, he kept glancing at the little homunculus Gary had made. Curiosity, mostly, and genuine fascination. In some way, it helped Fionna breath a little bit easily.

Okay, then. Their weird little family had a new member. She could roll with that.

"Does the little dude have a name?" Marshall asked, focusing on the road again.

The little miracle made a soft bubbling noise, and wrestled open a bottle of syrup Gary had delicately passed over into its crude fingers. Gary was quiet for a moment. "I don't know," he said softly. "All the other characters I thought of... I don't know if any of them fit."

Fionna didn't exactly remember stuff. She certainly didn't remember things another version of herself had known. But all the same, she had traveled across the multiverse, and something like that changes someone. You gaze into the infinite, and a bit of it stays with you. You see the inevitable clicking into place, and glimpse a shadow cast by the people you knew; in some other life, in some other circumstance.

She looked at Gary, so protective over this little creature scared of everything that wasn't Gary (and, it seemed, Fionna and Marshall), and inspiration struck.

"How's Beddy sound?" she asked.

[aressida]

Old entry: "If you are unwilling to QUESTION your beliefs, how will you know that if you are following the truth or lies?" - Aressida. 9.4.19.

This one question: “What do I know for certain?”

That is tremendously powerful. When you look deeply into this question, it actually destroys your world. It destroys your whole sense of self, and it is absolutely meant to be. You will not even try, very likely unless you move forward; you will be lacking the sense of certainty that allows you to tap the deepest capacity that is within you.

Here is the rule: Do not ever be ashamed of something you like or believe in. Write about what you believe, above all else.

Change is inevitable. No matter how personal and spiritual evolution yours is, it will always be seen as a betrayal by those who value you. There is nothing more spiritual than being free. Look into yourself and examine your reactions to persons and situations, and you will be appalled to discover that the prejudiced thinking is behind your reactions.

Here is some amazing quotes:

1) “So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.” – Isaac Asimov.

2) “The authentic self will never lead you to believe that you have anything to defend, prove, or be puffed up about because your true identity is not determined by what your ego or the world has to say about you” – Dennis Merritt Jones. 3) “I went deep inside myself. I had time to explore my beliefs and because of that I’m stronger.” – Bob Marley.

That is all I want in life: for this pain to seem purposeful.

Freethinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges, or beliefs.

Why do I have to defend myself, my beliefs, and my morality?

If you raise your standards but do not really believe you can meet them, you have already sabotaged yourself…

Why “Truth” is a secondary consideration to everyone else? I mean this is the very reason we get into arguments.

I am doing the best that I can for my family and friends.  I am going to keep working hard and one day our situations will improve. Truth always withstands scrutiny. Always question everything and please do your research properly.

Your beliefs create your reality. Changing your reality is both simple and easy – Follow some new beliefs. Seriously limiting yourself that will not help at all. It helps to acknowledge the limits of your capabilities.

A life that you make it is easy to forget that. Remember everything you think you know about the world, is based on assumptions, beliefs, and opinions. You are the way you are because that is what you believe about yourself.

This shape every action, every thought and every feeling that we experience. As a result, changing our belief systems is central to making any real and lasting change in our lives.

To have a state of openness and trust is Faith. The attitude of Faith is to let go and become open to the truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

Hey take a think about this one – Six months from now, you can be in a completely different space, mentally, spiritually and financially by simply to keep on working and believe in yourself.

The most direct thing that I can say to you is to not believe your mind. And you will need to learn to shift your focus from the mind to the Heart, which means affectionate awareness and stillness.

“If your beliefs are telling you, “I’m fat. I’m ugly. I’m old. I’m a loser. I’m not good enough. I’m not strong enough. I’ll never make it,” then don’t believe yourself, because it’s not true. These messages are distorted. They’re nothing but lies. Once you can see the lies, you don’t have to believe them. Use the power of doubt to challenge every message that you deliver to yourself. “Is it really true that I’m ugly? Is it really true that I’m not good enough?” Is this message real, or is it virtual? Of course, it’s virtual. None of these messages come from the truth, from life; they come from distortions in our knowledge. The truth is, there are no ugly people. There is no good enough or strong enough. There’s no universal book of law where any of these judgments are true. These judgments are just agreements that humans make.” – don Miguel Ruiz and don Jose Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement.

Your mind may not like you doing this at first but with some time and patience, and more than a little love, your mind’s reactions to the old beliefs crumbling will become less and less troubling. It is your goal to justify your beliefs in a rational and meaningful way.

[amplifyme]

@randomfoggytiger

Let's dive into The Rest Is Silence.

Vincent losing command over himself and running his body to the limit and sweating and tearing himself apart trying to contain the Other was fantastic to watch.

I know I keep repeating myself, but Perlman was so good in these eps and the ones that follow. He really hit his stride. And not just him, the whole cast nailed it in S3.

Waking in the park, getting around Mary (who cannot read subtext for the life of her) to get to Father and his comfort and guidance, and pouring at his desperation and fear was an excellent way to start.

In defense of Mary, she assumed she was talking to the Vincent she'd always known. I think the assumption most of those Below had was that the danger Paracelsus posed was gone and now things would go back to normal. Vincent would go back to being the Vincent they knew. I think Father was the only one with a clue that all was not well. Especially when V told him he'd woken up in the park and had no idea how he'd gotten there. The symptoms V was experiencing echoed those of the illness he'd suffered before.

As an aside, the expression on V's face when F asserts that there's nothing terrible in him kills me! That's a "WTF are you taking about??" face. It was a rather odd thing for F to say, though I chalk it up to more of avoiding the uncomfortable realities, as was the norm for them.

Seeing the world through Vincent's eyes as he worsens was also fantastic;

And just the way he looked! He was barely holding himself together. When he goes to join C for the concert he's visibly disheveled, which is so not normal for him. And that howl that escapes him and how freaked out he is that C saw him that way and was frightened.

I love how he progressively loses himself more and more as the ep goes on. His appearance changes, his speech patterns change - he struggles to speak at all - he has this constant crazed/dazed look in his eyes. He's trying so hard to be what C and his family have come to expect from him and he just can't do it anymore. I've always found it interesting that after he's found the book with the lines he was looking for, he immediately heads for C's, not having a clue that she's still Below and in F's study. Which is something he should know, what with the bond. He always knows exactly where she is. Not anymore.

Cathy did excellently herself this episode, asking him what she can do rather than pressing for impossible details, demanding more thorough answers from Father the right way, and keeping by Vincent's side when he broke into her apartment

She really stepped up this time and I love her for it. ❤️

but it kept getting better and better during his fever and "hallucinations" and the Other's hovering (now I know visually what Nan meant when she captured Buster's hovering and insistence) and Cathy's help and his progression to the bed and his waking better to watch the sun go down.

Just small things, but the way his upper lip curls into a snarl when he spots Buster; the way he struggles to stay conscious just long enough to say to C "You knew those lines."; the way the final scene in her apartment was lit and how small and beaten down he appears staring out at the sunset; his heartbreaking "I'm sorry."

Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye. 🥹

I almost didn't notice how important Vincent's "love" was until BWBS (so thank you, Nan, for bringing that more thoroughly to my attention); but I did notice how he didn't directly agree to Cathy's request.

Yeah, that's the first time he tells her he loves her, even though she's said it to him many times. He's convinced he's going to lose this battle and wants her to know with certainty that he does love her. And, yes, he expertly sidesteps directly agreeing with Cathy's ask.

Samantha and her book

Again with the tears. Vincent loves all the children so much.

collapsing into Father's arms and sending him off, saying goodbye to everyone and leaving before he and Cathy return (what a moving scene-- they all love him in their own ways), and fleeing below the catacombs to potentially die in the attempt to master or free himself (a literal descent into darkness) was the cherry on top. Mouse following Vincent anyway made me want to cheer; and Pascal keeping up with him on the pipes made me want to cheer even more.

Yes to all of this!

Father staying back while Cathy insists on descending, too, sets up that puzzling little dichotomy: I believe Father loves Vincent more "completely" as he acknowledges all aspects of his son; but I believe Cathy loves Vincent more deeply?

Hmm, I've never thought of it that way. I'll have to chew on this for awhile. I think you might be onto something.

Beauty's love killing and then rescuing the Beast make a full circle here

Exactly!

On a separate note: I'm not in the habit of making everything about The X-Files, but I can see why a fan fresh off BATB would be drawn to this other show. Mulder and Scully had that near-instant connection between them that transcended words, social norms and expectations, and both of their fixed perspectives or parameters.

Oh, I don't think you're wrong. That's one of the reasons I loved TXF and M & S right off the bat. It did a really nice job of filling some of the void from the loss of BATB. At least it did for me.

But I think Mulder and Scully succeeded where Vincent and Cathy failed because they disproved, together, Father's assessment which Peter quoted to Cathy: "Maybe Jacob was right: when you go beyond definitions, scientific knowledge can only break down." The breakdown, or the hitch, was in the lack of complete acceptance.

Nicely put!

Next up: Beyond Words, Beyond Silence and a few random thoughts.

[swaniekins]

https://www.tumblr.com/swaniekins/786597778779455488/hi-im-afraid-of-something-i-hope-youll-help?source=share thank you for your answer a lot you misunderstood a bit, i hope you don't mind if i explain it better so, whenever that thing (i mean here the random event) happened, i would think of something good probably to not think bad because i had intrusive thoughts that would make me follow what they told me. (in my country there is a humorous belief that the thing confirms something that were said right before the thing, so my anxious mind probably took it seriously). i don't know how many times i did that, so i don't know if it became my assumption...also, i don't know if at some point i accepted that bad could be manifested because of things i avoided doing...there are some more details, but i think they'll confuse you, and i hope it's not harmful that that case i told you about in my previous ask happened three months ago and for all that time i was thinking if bad was manifested or not

hey love, thank you for explaining more. let’s break this down gently.

1. 🌪 intrusive thoughts and "confirmation"

you're experiencing intrusive thoughts, not chosen beliefs. intrusive thoughts are like mental pop-ups. they don’t count as manifestations. even if your culture has this funny belief about things confirming what you say—it’s just that: a belief, not law.

what manifests? → what you persistently believe to be true. → what you assume with certainty and repetition.

avoiding something out of fear ≠ you accepted the bad. you were scared and trying to feel safe—that's survival, not manifesting.

“did i accidentally assume it?”

you’re not responsible for what you feared. fear isn’t power. accidental assumptions don’t “lock in” manifestations unless you consciously and repeatedly agree with them.

you don’t have to remember how many times you thought something. your new assumption NOW overrides all of it.

say this with me:

“nothing from the past has power over me. only what i believe now creates my future.”

“but this happened 3 months ago…”

time means nothing to manifestation. if you’ve been scared, not claiming it as truth—then guess what? nothing has been “compiling.” you’ve been anxious, not manifesting bad. big difference. you’re still safe. even right now, you can say:

“everything resets in my favor. my story is safe. i am safe.”

new final truth to hold:

only what you want can manifest.

your present belief has more power than any past fear.

fear is not a creative force.

YOU are in control now.

i hope this helped you, if you want to ask more, please dm. 💗

[ljamberfantasy]

The Elf Who Would Become A Dragon

CHAPTER 34 – Where Spirits Fear to Tread

You see her more clearly, now.

Not all of her: much of Saphienne had not yet come to be as she stood by that window in Celaena’s sitting room, arguing with Iolas, and Faylar, and Laewyn. She had not yet learned to truly temper her impulses, nor gained the wisdom to know what was achievable and what was folly. Her intellect was profound, yes, but although she had read a very great deal on many subjects, she knew almost nothing about the Great Art — and even less about people’s nature, especially her own.

Yet gaze upon her silhouette in that glass, and you might catch the profile of who she would become. Behold her there: a shadow upon the woodland, stark of line and full of deepening wrath, growing in certainty and eloquence as she fought for what she believed to be necessary, impassive to voices of reason, even to the voices of friends.

And, justified?

So prophesied the wizard: time will tell.

*          *          *

“Then stay,” Saphienne retorted, blunt as ever. “Celaena and I are going. If you want to stop us, you can tell Almon — and also explain what we’re doing, and why, and the extent of your involvement.”

Iolas deflated. “Saphienne, what happened to caution? We have no idea what we’re going to find.”

“Or if we’ll find anything,” Faylar murmured.

“Or that.” Iolas rubbed his jaw. “You might be walking into danger–”

Celaena stepped back out of the bedroom, redressed in her robes and emboldened by Saphienne’s support. “It’s not that far. It can’t be too dangerous… not so close to the village.”

“That’s an assumption!” Iolas squeezed his ears – which was incredibly uncouth, but he’d forgotten all politeness in his agitation – and rolled his eyes. “Gods give me strength: you both know this is foolish! Someone might get hurt.”

“Celaena’s been hurt,” Saphienne said. “And again: we’re going. You don’t have to. Nor do you, Faylar,” she said, “though it would be helpful to have you with us — in case we run into woodland spirits.”

Faylar brushed his hair back, anxious. “I’m not sure…”

“I’ll go.” Laewyn stood away from the wall she had leant against, keeping her arms folded. “I’m not sure about this, but if Celaena’s going, I’m going.”

“…Fuck me,” Faylar sighed. He quickly recovered, affected light-heartedness. “Well, I guess the majority has decided: Celaena, your best friend is coming with you.”

Celaena was pained as she complained to her girlfriend. “Laewyn, you shouldn’t have told him that. He’s going to be unbearable now.”

Faylar gave her a bow. “Your best friend says you’re welcome.”

“This isn’t a joke, Faylar!” Iolas threw up his hands. “And this isn’t fun any more, Saphienne. Celaena’s obviously not in her right mind–”

“Hey!” Laewyn glared.

“–But you know better than this. We should be finding some other way–”

Annoyed, Celaena picked up the pillow Saphienne had previously been sitting on and threw it at him. “Then you find another way. This is what I want, and we’re going.” She stalked toward the door. “Stay here if you like. Help yourself to tea.”

Saphienne and Laewyn went after her, leaving Faylar to shrug his shoulders at an open-mouthed Iolas. As they went down the hallway, Saphienne could hear the younger boy trying to reassure the older. “Don’t worry — I’ll talk them out of doing anything really–”

But then they were in Celaena’s study, out of earshot.

As Saphienne waited with Laewyn by the door, she watched Celaena go to her desk, unlock the drawer, and quickly retrieve a dark metal rod, shoving it into her pocket. Though Saphienne had only caught a glimpse, she expected it was another enchanted tool.

A distraction would give Faylar more time to persuade Iolas. “What’s that?”

Celaena paused. “…Father left it. For self-defence.”

“A weapon?” Laewyn took a step back. “You shouldn’t have–”

“Father thoroughly instructed me in its use.” She withdrew the enchanted rod from her pocket, revealing that it was fashioned from black iron and capped with polished ruby on its lowermost end, the lower half wrought to be gripped, three small symbols glowing red just above where Celaena’s thumb rested. “I can heighten or diminish it — I’ll keep it on the lowest level.”

Saphienne moved closer. “What does it do?”

“It’s a Rod of Repulsion.” Seeing that Saphienne had never heard of it, she looked around, then picked up a piece of the broken table leg. The ruby began to glow crimson as she squeezed her thumb on the middle marking, and she tapped the far, flat end of the rod against herself. “Does nothing to its wielder. But anything else…”

Holding up the fragment of wood, she raised it overhead, pressed the flat end of the rod against it, and released i–

A deep thrum and scarlet flash sent the fragment crashing into the ceiling, varnished splinters raining down across the study as the ruby .

Laewyn’s voice was awed. “Fuck!”

“…That was a bad demonstration.” Celaena lowered the rod, dropping it back into her pocket as the glow faded. “Heavier things aren’t as strongly affected. On this setting, it’d only knock you down and bruise you.”

“But it goes higher?” Saphienne couldn’t temper the excitement in her voice.

“It can. Father said more than the second level is unnecessary against elves. Broken bones are a sufficient deterrence, he told me.” She tried to reassure Laewyn with a smile. “I’m not planning on using it. I don’t really think we’ll need it. But, father taught me it’s important to prepare for the unfamiliar.”

Laewyn just nodded, looking very out of her depth as they left the study.

When they reached the top of the staircase, Saphienne heard Faylar call, then saw him leading a resigned Iolas toward them. The girls waited for the pair to catch up.

As they did, Saphienne leant closer to Celaena. “Would you let me–”

“Absolutely not.” Celaena covered her pocket. “Not after the tray.”

At least then, Saphienne knew better than to argue.

*          *          *

The clouds moved quickly as the five walked through the woodland, veiling and unveiling a conflicted sun. Although the earlier rains had receded, grey on the horizon threatened their return, and the rich smell of wet earth perfumed the air with the promise that the forest would not dry that day. Even the wind was uncertain, blowing through the boughs and grass in nervous breaths that turned restlessly from north to south, east to west, catching the young elves with unexpected gusts that rippled along their robes and coats.

Celaena led them across and then out of the village, her step slowed by more than tiredness. Yet as they they left the settlement she grew surer in her stride, slipping through the wild trees as though she walked her home grove. Her pace increased after the first mile into the woods.

Faylar, in contrast, showed his nervousness. “I think my mother’s patrolling somewhere out here.”

Beside him, Saphienne remembered a little. “She’s a Warden of the Wilds, isn’t she? Won’t she be busy with goblins?”

He grinned fondly at her. “No goblins here… though, she did say we’re overdue. No,” he explained, “she’s patrolling the nearby woodland this month, checking on its health now that the snows have thawed. You know: looking for trees in need of tending, checking for erosion along streams, keeping an eye out for signs of subsidence… and the migration of animals, too, but I don’t really know much about that.”

Laewyn looked back at him over her shoulder. “I thought they mostly, um, keep people safe? Enforce the consensus of the woodlands? That, um, sort of thing?”

He chuckled at her unspoken question. “Hassle underage drinkers? There’s not much trouble around here. And for what it’s worth, my mother says they don’t usually break up lesser revelries unless they’re getting out of hand — or they include children my age, or younger.”

Iolas wasn’t impressed. “Anyone under the age of eighteen ought to be taken home to their guardian.”

“Maybe,” Faylar conceded, “but there’s some judgement involved. The wardens are very pragmatic. My mother said it’s always the same faces who keep stealing bottles, and after a while it’s easy to tell who’s trouble, and who’s just practicing for physical adulthood.”

“Practicing?” Iolas raised his eyebrows. “They can wait until they’re eighteen. There’s plenty of other things to pass the time with, until then.”

Laewyn shrugged as she faced forward. “Maybe if they’re boring… unlike your sister…”

Saphienne shook her head at them, focused on the important issue as she addressed Faylar. “Would your mother think we’re up to no good?”

“I mean, we are, aren’t we? But I don’t think so. If it was just Laewyn and myself, perhaps, but wizard’s apprentices are level-headed…” Faylar smiled apologetically at Iolas. “…Usually. She and her fellow wardens would probably ignore us. They have plenty of work to get on with.” He studied the trees around them, anticipating being proven wrong. “Still, I’d rather we get a move on — I don’t like lying to her. How much further, Celaena?”

She answered him quietly. “Another two miles.”

“That close?” Iolas was uneasy. “When you said it wasn’t far, I didn’t think you meant it was on our doorstep… which makes me think, maybe it is just a nightmare. I can’t imagine Faylar’s mother missing anything that old.”

“And I’ve walked out here before,” Laewyn agreed.

Faylar saw an opportunity to tease her. “You’d know all the hidden spots, then?”

“I’m not saying I know every hidden spot,” Laewyn replied, her tone implying otherwise. “But I think I’d have noticed a spooky dead tree.”

Saphienne was thoughtful. “Does it look dead? Maybe it blends in.”

Celaena shook her head, and spoke without looking back. “It doesn’t blend in. But you wouldn’t find it. You’ll see…”

*          *          *

At first, they didn’t see.

Just over three miles from the village, where the vale climbed and then abruptly dipped, Celaena halted; she drew herself up to her full height as the colour drained from her face. “There it is.”

Lined up along the ridge, the rest of them peered down through the trees, their elven eyes seeing nothing unusual amid the foliage.

“…I don’t see anything,” Saphienne said. “What does it look like?”

Wordlessly, Celaena started down the slope, holding out her arms for balance as she descended. Glancing at each other, Faylar and Laewyn followed.

But Iolas hung back. “…Saphienne, I know this place.”

She turned to face him, saw him paused in reverie. “You do?”

“My father and I,” he answered her, speaking softly, “we used to go for walks all the time. He liked to explore–”

His father had been badly hurt. “Is this where he–”

Iolas shook his head. “No. The accident wasn’t here. That was near a woodland shrine — he’d been climbing.” He focused on her, gave her a wan smile. “Showing off for me. But it was windy, and he slipped, and took a bad fall.”

Understanding now why he feared heights, Saphienne swallowed. “I’m sorry for joking about that, earlier. I was just trying to–”

“You were doing what Faylar does.” He shrugged, and started down the slope. “He uses humour to distract himself, when he’s upset. My sister is a little like that.”

Joining him, she trod lightly where he had stepped. “I just wanted to keep your mind off Celaena. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I wasn’t hurt.” His lips twisted. “And, despite this being a terrible idea, I’m not worried now. At least, not worried about our safety.”

“You’ve seen the tree?”

As they reached the bottom, he inclined his head. “I’d forgotten all about it. You know how you see things, when you’re young? But you don’t understand them, and then you don’t really think about them? Seeing this place, it’s reminded me.”

She peered through the trees, to where Celaena was leading Laewyn and Faylar around a thicket. “Well, I don’t see anything.”

“Come on– let’s save Celaena some time.”

When they caught up with the others, Faylar was sceptical. “I really don’t see anything out of the ordinary — can you at least give us a hint?”

But Iolas interrupted. “Celaena, you can stop walking: there’s no path. If you want to go up, we’ll need to push through.”

Slow to hear him, she stopped a moment later, revealing her frown as she faced him. “How did you–”

“I’ve been here before.” He moved over to the thicket and reached out to take hold of a gnarled branch. “My father noticed it; he’s always had sharp eyes. Faylar, Laewyn, Saphienne: look where my hand is, then follow the plants, in both directions.”

Bewildered, but with dawning awareness, Saphienne studied the overgrown, twining thorns and leaves, seeing them curve around as they stretched off to the right, and then again where they went on and on to the left–

Laewyn gasped. “There’s a hill!”

Faylar took a moment longer, then stepped back as his eyes widened. “Fuck! That– how did we not notice that?”

“A fascination…” Saphienne breathed in wonder. “…We overlooked the growth around the hill. The magic made it seem like it was just a thicket.”

Iolas let go of the branches. By degrees, Saphienne could feel her awareness of the concealed hill diminishing, as though her vision were tunnelling in on only the brambles nearest to her.

“That’s eerie,” Laewyn whispered. “I know it’s there, but it’s like I don’t want to see it–”

“Or remember it.” Iolas’ lips were twisted. “That explains why I nearly didn’t. But the whole hill is surrounded — probably to keep people from wandering in.”

Celaena reached for Laewyn’s hand. “So, it’s real.”

“Yes.” His gaze softened. “My father was too curious to leave well alone. We pushed our way in… and he recognised what we’d stumbled across. He told me there wasn’t anything dangerous there, but it was a place sacred to the spirits of the woodlands, and we shouldn’t dwell there for long. He said it would be disrespectful.”

A thought occurred to Saphienne. “How old were you?”

Iolas was surprised by the question. “Seven, maybe eight? Why?”

Careful not to show what she was thinking, Saphienne shrugged her shoulders. “I just had a feeling. It’s strange that he was leading you around on hikes, when you were that young.”

“My father loves the outdoors; he likes to share.” He sighed. “Honestly? I take more after my mother. She’s happiest next to a warm fire, doing embroidery.”

Faylar had approached the green wall to examine the enchantment, but he laughed at the mental image. “What do they have in common?”

“They love each other.” Iolas said it simply. “They even live together.”

Laewyn cooed as Celaena moved away from her. “That’s so romantic! How long have they been together?”

“All their lives. They were childhood frie–”

A loud crack made nearly all of them jump, the thrumming sound of Celaena’s magical rod sending the birds aflutter as it shattered the twining vines before her.

Iolas was dumbfounded. “…Is that a fucking Rod of Repulsion?!”

Faylar held his chest as he caught his breath. “You know Celaena, I half-wondered if you were going to bring it.”

“You knew about it?!”

“You can can relax, her father taught her how–”

“What the fuck,” Iolas shouted, outraged beyond belief, “is a child doing with an enchanted weapon? In what fucking world can a fifteen year-old be trusted with–”

“Father knows me.” Celaena slipped the rod back into her pocket. “I’d thank you not to question the judgement of an accomplished wizard of the Luminary Vale, apprentice.”

Momentarily stunned, Iolas’ eyes narrowed–

But Saphienne caught his arm. “Iolas, she doesn’t usually carry it around — it was safely locked in her desk. And now that she’s made a way in, we’re not going to need it,” she looked over to Celaena, “are we?”

The older girl wavered. “…I suppose not, if Iolas says it’s safe.” She took the rod back out, and held it up with her thumb on the leftmost symbol. “See? Turned down to its lowest level.” Then she opened her satchel, setting it atop her calligraphy kit, and closed it over.

Recovering a modicum of his politeness, Iolas managed a stiff bow. “Thank you, Celaena, for acknowledging the concerns of your fellow apprentice.”

Riled up, Celaena pursed her lips — but suddenly sighed, tiredness winning out over testiness. “I don’t want to fight. Not when…” She turned to look through the opening she’d made, staring up the hill. Her voice was small. “…Don’t blame me for being frightened. I’m sorry for snapping at you.”

Strung out, Iolas took a deep breath, held it, and exhaled. “Apology accepted. We can talk civilly, another time.” Walking over to her, he gestured up the slope. “Now that we’ve dispensed with the unnecessary and gratuitous acts of destruction: shall we?”

The group filed through the gap, and climbed toward Celaena’s memory.

*          *          *

Where they crested the hill, the eeriness deepened.

“Silence,” murmured Laewyn. “There aren’t any birds.”

Swallowing, Faylar ran his fingers through his hair. “Celaena probably just scared them off… and might have caught the attention of the wardens, if we’re unlucky. It’d be a good idea not to wait around.”

Iolas swore and muttered his agreement. “We should be quick,” he promised. “This won’t take long.”

The trees continued across the hilltop, which was larger than they anticipated, all manner of alders and birches, beeches and aspens, ashes and even yews growing together in a tightening throng as they progressed. Saphienne recognised that the old growth around them should have been impossible, trees that favoured well-drained soils looking as tall and resplendent as those that preferred drenched ground. She felt certain that Iolas’ father had been right — that they had entered somewhere of importance to the woodland spirits, and that the land was maintained by hands of more than flesh and blood.

Then, they saw the windchimes.

“I remember these.” Iolas pointed, swept his hand across the canopy as he indicated the sculptures. They hung from nearly every branch, grown – not carved – from smooth wood and bound up with strips of bark, all silent and still. “They’re set around the clearing.”

Laewyn was perturbed. “Elves didn’t make these.”

Saphienne looked higher, studied the sky — and paused. “…There’s no wind.”

The others stopped walking.

“…She’s right,” Faylar said. “And if I’m not mistaken, that gap in the clouds looks awfully like a circle…”

Balling her fists, Celaena led them on.

The trees about the edge of the clearing were tallest, firm and broad and gnarled, no bushes, nor flowers, nor anything more than mere scrub grass around their twining roots. Beyond them, even the grass yellowed and withered, dying away to leave only bare dirt that was desiccated and dusty, pale like ash, light enough to be swept away — were there any wind to carry it.

Faylar’s voice failed to rise above a whisper, faltered. “What in the…”

Centred in the unnatural clearing, Saphienne beheld the remains of the tree.

There were no branches upon it. The trunk ended in a broken spire, grey as slate, fossilised beneath a clear sky where shone a cold and pitiless sun. More like rock than wood to the eye, nevertheless its large roots burrowed into the dead earth, seeming like a tooth where the gum had drawn back to reveal bleached bone, sharp in outline yet blunt in contour.

As elves, the children knew little of death; but they knew enough to beware a tomb.

“This isn’t–” Iolas swallowed. “I don’t remember it like this. It didn’t feel…”

He couldn’t find the words.

Saphienne, unafraid but unnerved, took a small step into the clearing. When she wasn’t struck down, she turned back to the others. “We don’t notice what we can’t understand. You were too young to take it all in, Iolas.”

Celaena joined Saphienne — and Laewyn leapt after, catching her arm and clinging against her shoulder. “Celaena…” She was scared. “…It’s real, and you know it’s not you, let’s go back–”

“I need to see.” Attempting to continue, she was held back by Laewyn, forced to drag her along until she freed herself. “You can wait here.”

Iolas went after his fellow apprentices, and then Faylar swore and matched him, leaving Laewyn to dart out as well, her fast footfalls raising dust like smoke in her wake.

Meanwhile, Saphienne and Celaena reached the tree, walking around–

They both gasped.

On the opposite side, hewn into the stony wood, they found the figure of a woman contorted in agony, mouth wide in horror, staring blindly as her limbs were bent and warped in angles that looked painful even to elves. The carving was lifelike – too believable – and Saphienne recognised the artistry, grotesque as it was, lay far beyond the talents of Gaeleath.

Yet, the longer she stared, the more Saphienne came to see that the woman depicted was neither elf nor mortal, the texture of her skin patterned like scales. Petals, she realised: row upon row of petals, supple and interlocking, winding together to give the semblance of a figure that walked and spoke in an imitation of skin and sinew. The hair about the figure’s head was grown short, like a halo, perhaps star-like.

“A spirit.” Celaena shuddered as she breathed, relief in her voice. “It really isn’t my memory. This was a spirit.”

Quietly, the others stood around her, waiting.

She covered her eyes. “Whoever she was, she was so, so sorry.”

Iolas licked his lips, mouth dry in the arid air. “She killed a child.”

Saphienne blinked. “We don’t know that.”

“Celaena described–”

“And Faylar translated her words,” Saphienne cut him off. “There was a child, and the child was injured. We don’t know much more than that.”

Faylar recovered his courage. “Saphienne, if I recall, the spirit said ‘do not abandon me, for the sake of a child’s life.’ That’s pretty unambiguous.”

“It also said ‘I did what was right for its own sake.’ Harming a child is never right.”

“That’s only one interpretation of the sentence.” He shifted restlessly, his hands in his pockets. “And even if it’s correct… look, you’ve been teaching me about interpreting stories. Don’t the villains always believe they’re justified? That they’re right?”

Saphienne reached into her pocket, squeezing Kylantha’s gift. “Even so, inflicting suffering is wrong.”

Swaying forward as though entranced, Celaena reached out–

And Iolas caught her wrist. “That’s not a good idea.”

She shook her head, tearful. “What if she’s still alive in there?”

“What if she is?” Iolas held her gaze. “Would you even be able to tell? And what if she possessed you?” He pointed down to their feet. “The spirits of the woodlands have gone to a lot of trouble to prevent anything touching this tree. I think we should respect their wisdom.”

Catching in a sob, Celaena backed away, her ears shaking. “You’re– you’re right. And it doesn’t– it doesn’t matter. It’s not me. Those aren’t my memories.” She took a sharp breath. “I didn’t do whatever she did.”

Laewyn hugged her from behind.

Studying the tree, Saphienne shook her head. “What was the point of this?”

Faylar sighed. “A punishment, obviously.”

“No.” Hand in pocket, she squeezed the coin pouch hard. “I mean the memory. The vision. The lesson, if it is one at all. Why torment Celaena with this? Why make her come all the way out here?”

Beside her, Iolas’ face twitched. He struggled with the question, pained. “Perhaps,” he said, “she was showing Celaena that they are just — that they aren’t cruel without a purpose. That she was, in her own way, being gentle.”

What lay in the depths of Saphienne’s heart stirred in its fevered dreaming. “Fuck her. Fuck them. A thousand years of torture is too much for anyone, guilty or not. And Celaena did nothing wrong.” Hot, dark as a midnight forest, her eyes burned. “If justice leads to this, it’s not just.”

Celaena moaned, and covered her face. “Let’s– please, let’s go. I don’t want to be here any more.”

“Yes,” Laewyn agreed, taking both her hands and drawing her away. “Let’s get out of here — maybe we’ll forget, like Iolas did.”

Faylar looked relieved as he fell in beside them. “Please let that be the case. Or I might have to take up drinking with Laewyn.”

Saphienne held Iolas’ gaze as the three departed.

Iolas looked aside, staring at the tree. His voice was quiet, only for Saphienne’s ears. “…You’re right. It’s cruel. And it doesn’t seem like justice. But we’re children.” He shook his head, wearied by what they now knew. He searched vainly for answers in the lifeless ground. In the end, all he found was a sigh. “Maybe that’s the lesson, Saphienne. To learn to accept our helplessness, when there’s nothing we can do.”

Head bowed, he walked away.

*          *          *

What would you have done?

Saphienne was but a child — less a child than when Kylantha was taken, but still a child, for all that had ensued. She was not responsible for the evils she bore witness to.

No one expected anything from her.

No one, but her.

*          *          *

She took out the coin. It glittered in the bright, merciless light, the tree it depicted warping her reflection where her endless touches had polished it to a mirror shine. Turning it, she saw too the crude human visage, saw herself against it, read more behind it, read into the elf and the human the remembrance of what had formed from their union, born only to cry, to scream, to beg for mercy… or at least to be loved.

Impulsively, she lunged forward — her free hand upon the tree…

Yet, nothing happened. The wood was dead, and no life stirred within.

She cried, then, silently, and followed after Iolas before he turned to look for her, wiping her eyes, uncaring that he saw. When she drew abreast of him, he tried to touch her shoulder, but she carried on, faster.

As she walked, what screamed in her became more than sadness.

On what spirit had her heart been fed?

Her black eyes hardened.

She would show them. All of them.

Past the treeline, Celaena was leaning against Laewyn, hugging herself as she was held, all the strength gone out of her. Faylar was on the other side of Laewyn, giving them space. The satchel on her hip was exposed.

Saphienne only needed a second to reach in, and grab the rod.

“Wh– Saphienne! Stop!”

She ran. The metal was warm in her hand, powerful where her fingers threaded the grip, and she felt blindly with her thumb for the symbol to the right, a deadly hum intensifying in her palm the longer she held it down. She ran, and Iolas saw her coming toward him, realised what she was doing as he raced toward her — then stumbled, eyes wide as he remembered the rod could–

She kicked the dirt ahead of her, sending a cloud of grit and grain into his unprotected face, his shout of pain left behind as she sprinted for the tree, aware that fleeter footsteps were gaining behind.

Faylar very nearly caught her.

Saphienne thrust the tip of the rod against the ancient tree, and her thumb grazed the middle symbol–

The explosion of force deafened them, thunder beneath a cloudless sky.

*          *          *

Her friends – if they were still her friends – were climbing to their feet, clutching their ears, silent behind an all-consuming whine. Saphienne took them in, saw their expressions, the fear and dread and horror and panic her act had wrought in them.

Iolas, eyes streaming, mouthed something.

She faced the tree.

Cracked, split along its length, it still stood, having held against the blow.

“No.”

She swung again, the impact visible as the very air rolled away from the weapon, a gale that scoured the ground and stripped away what had long died in an acrid cloud, exposing vaporising roots, fragments of wood breaking off around the trunk — and flying away from the point of impact, only the sound rebounding on her. Still the trunk withstood the scarlet flash, and again she swung, and again, and again, screaming, roaring with a rage that would not be denied–

That was not denied. The tomb fell, split in twain, two fragments toppling to shatter upon the blasted ground, leaving only the jagged stump behind.

Panting, Saphienne staggered back.

“–uck have you done?” Iolas’ voice was distant, insistent behind the lingering scream in her ears. He grew louder as the world returned. “Are you insane?”

She shook her head, dazed. “Someone had to help her. No one was helping her. Not even Fi–”

“She’s lost her mind!” Faylar was near. “Saphienne, put down the rod!”

“Someone had to–”

“Saphienne, you have to listen to me: put down the–”

But Saphienne didn’t hear him; the light had returned to her eyes.

Ahead of her, the curling dust above the shattered wood stirred, then shifted, shimmering in disorientation. As Saphienne watched, the dust began to spin, then whirl, circling and circling in a widening gyre, the moan of a wind picking up as the figure no one could see danced, and danced, and threw wide her grit-wreathed arms, raising them to the sky as her moan became a cry, then a howl, then the shriek of a whirlwind gathering force as she sang out in triumphant jubilee, and surged toward her saviour.

“Saph–”

*          *          *

Sunlight, warm and golden. A field of flowers, yellow and wide as their namesake. The scent of autumn harvest. Boundless light, radiant and nourishing.

And love. Tremendous, transcendent love. Humble love, that wept, stricken, overcome, and was like the rain she often sought against her skin — only tender, and finally, at long last, absolving.

There was no time, between them. Yet there was not time enough; the spirit dared not dwell for longer than a heartbeat.

So she left Saphienne with a cutting, a sunflower that grew into words, their sentiment formed in haste and without the benefit of new elven learning, yet meant with every tendril of her being, each syllable burrowed deep:

Beon bletsunge ofer þe, bearn. For þam miltse þe þu gifest, libbe þu inne þære sunnan ecum hleo.

*          *          *

“–ienne!”

She staggered as the spirit released her, disorientated in her exhilaration at their embrace. The rod fell harmlessly to the ground, to be kicked away by Faylar.

With great force, the wind soared from the clearing, screaming toward where the sun would always rise — through the ring of wooden, warning windchimes that were buffeted and tossed from their branches, thrown to the earth by the spirit’s flight.

And soon all was calm.

“You freed the spirit.” Iolas staggered over to her, numb. “You freed a murderer.”

Saphienne blinked, finding herself again. “She wasn’t a murderer. She would never hurt a child. That wasn’t– that wasn’t what happened–”

“Father…” Celaena had fallen to her knees. “…He’ll disown me. I’ll never–”

Iolas lunged at Saphienne– then cried out, recoiling, his outer robes rippling, continuing to move as he tore them loose from his shoulders and threw them to the ground, where flowers bloomed along their stitching.

Then the chimes along the western edge of the clearing also called out in alarm, and the children were knocked down by gales that ripped across the hilltop. They briefly coughed and choked in the thrown up-dust — until it washed from the air under a freak shower, shed by turbulent clouds that now dimmed the clearing.

Only Celaena stayed sitting in the new mud; the others returned to their feet, dazed. All was calm again…

But the forest did not remain still. Wood creaked, shifted, bent and moved, warped and waved as the great trees that encircled the clearing came alive, twisting into figures that wrenched free their legs as they angrily stalked toward the empty cell, and the elves who had unlocked it.

Surrounding them, the spirits of the woodlands had faces that began gnarled, and they contorted further as they spoke, the poetry of their tongue tolling low and leaden in their displeasure. Laewyn cried out, and huddled with Celaena, toward whom Faylar, Iolas, and Saphienne backed as the noose tightened.

“Faylar,” Saphienne demanded, voice steady, “what are they saying?”

He spun on the spot, trying to take it all in. “They’re– they’re arguing. Furious. I can’t make out what–”

A splintering crash accompanied the arrival of another figure, her tree more knotted, who shouldered her way through the ring and stooped to touch the desecrated remains of the carved face with her hand of winding branches. The other spirits quietened, awaiting her word.

When the greater spirit faced the children, her eyes burned with seething gold, and her voice was stinging hail, too enraged for poesy. “Which of you has done this? Who is to blame?”

There was no escaping what was to come. To be silent would be to force the others to betray her, and they were innocent. Saphienne wouldn’t have them carry that guilt.

Unafraid for herself, deathly afraid for them, she squeezed the coin. “I did.”

On the ground between them, the flowers struggled upward, knitting a body–

But the greater spirit stepped over Iolas’ discarded robes, and her arcing arm was silhouetted against the sky as she invoked the gods — that they witness her decree. “Apostate!”

*          *          *

See them there: the remorseless child, and the righteous matron of the woodlands.

Now, keep looking. Do not turn away. Long delayed, but impossible to deny, we have arrived at the third moment:

Saphienne stared up into the descending branches, and felt the sharp, rich agony of mortality — as they pierced her throat, punctured her lung, and tore through her limbs, spearing her to the ground she had profaned.

End of Chapter 34

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Old English translation by Kit Treadwell, doctoral student at the department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic, Cambridge. With thanks to Richard Dance, Professor of Early English, Fellow of St. Catharine's College, Cambridge.

Chapter 35 on 29th April 2025.

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[xxdoubledaisyxx]

Recent Fear Ratings

It has come to my attention that the supreme leader of the People's Republic of China is most afraid of me. This is because I am the epitome of the ideal that is opposite of what it appears he intends to model for his nation.

I am drug user, delinquent, belligerent, and purposely difficult to work with punk who takes every opportunity I can to discredit the authority of systems, organizations, and group identities as collective beings. All collective beings/identities like that are underneath the dignity of each and every individual, whether or not they have anything to do with one collective identity or another.

I don't fear anyone, of course, but the ideal of communism which people like him believe to be sensible, logical, and reasonable, is most illogical, absurdly unrealistic, and vainly arrogant in the assumptions the people resposible are making about themselves under the pretense of a group identity being greater than an individual identity. As if the group identity was some "superhuman" collection of identity that becomes one big "superperson" representative of each one.

No. Get out of here with that delusion. I am not even going to explain why that is a bad idea, unscientific, atheistic, and personally self-destructive. However, the only concern anybody should have about this type of ideal for yourself, is in deciding where you want your own personal individual secret purposes to be directed towards as relative to what you know and understand to be evil in fact. I know in fact governments to be evil, the USA has proven this with the stupidity of the conspiracy the like-minded people hatched together after all having the same general sort of vain personal fantasy about what a government is good for to them.

Once you identify the source of evil you can continually make progress toward good without the certainty that would require for any evil direction. If you went in any evil direction, you would not be able to benefit from human cooperation because you'd be stabbed in the back the moment you turned around, poisoned in tea, or some other pointless death. One that could have been avoided with the common human decency that understands the individual value of the human soul as universally applicable to all human beings with a human body.

It is not difficult to understand, it is difficult to explain. The difficulty to explain is what criminal betrayers like Trump hope to exploit as they commit crime after evil crime assuming nobody will ever be able to explain the "mystery of Christ".

It hasn't been a mystery since Jesus. That is the sole purpose for the use of the word gospel to describe what the noun is of that good fact of knowledge. It is no person's burden but one's own if they do not understand that good fact of knowledge, because none are under an obligation to teach you about evil.

It is unrealistically difficult, and only happens when people mistakenly teach an evil lesson they thought they understood, but couldn't have been more wrong. Mistakes like that need to be corrected immediately because of how corrupt knowledge of such a fundamental concept harms the people who trusted that corrupt knowledge on account of the person who abused it.

It's a lot more dangerous and harmful of a situation than you think because of the unconscious interprations children are understanding about reality by having awareness of current events relative to me, and anyone else.

Pretty much like I'm Jesus Christ except in the future, the manner, method, and life of my person being entirely irrelevent, just as it is for Jesus.

What needs to be done is done, and the manner of doing so is subjective entirely to the doer's authority of power to create in the universe.

I don't know... some people prefer to live the other way of life and maybe China is the ideal nation for that kind of lifestyle if you found that preferable. If you find the way of life I described preferable, then come live in Nicktopia until it can be properly renamed the United States of Nick's Awesome Kingdom in Real Life. U.SNARL.K

That is the official working title of the new nation this New World territory shall become now that the USA is no more. I hope you like it.

Well... I'm pretty freaking amazing, to be honest with you, and I am super attracted to Chinese girls too. Fathers and "guardians" in general do not like guys like me who will most certainly lead a lovely and wonderful maiden who would be most perfect for their plans, away from their plans and into happily ever after true love with me and no plan at all.

They concern themselves with their identity after they are dead, such as in the future generations of their children. I don't trouble myself with that. Seems like wasted energy for something you will be dead to not care about. On the other hand, I care deeply about past generations and what that means to me, only detached and individually. I do not ever consider past generations an authority on my life and never have.

Not once in my life, and I am astonished that this isn't obviously the same way you feel because I never had to think about it until I needed to explain it to save the world from evil deceptions intended to manipulate people to the end result that is the destruction of the USA as a nation through the chaos and waste of war. That is the worst possible solution, in my opinion.

I have a better idea, and I intend to tell the entire world about it without the previous government of this territory having any say whatsoever in the future events that will follow. That could have been avoided, but they assumed I needed them for media access and distribution of information.

Wrong again ego-tard.

You are not the masters of media. You are customers of businesses and out of your league.

For the record I will stand my ground with ever greater tenacity to secure the working title of the new nation to come for all eternity. I intend for there to be a constant stream of complaints from civilization through all of time, with the best of them highlighted for our private amusement at the Way of the Story, because of how mad they are that I named a nation after myself.

Oh Israel my Daughter! Stay far away from Nick, my brother's neighbor. He is a bad man and will lure you away to sin. His people are crude, lustful, and filled with wrath they cannot ever sate their rage with. You will kill your body because of him if you go into his house and stay, and it will be a grand waste of time through no fault of your own, and all of it being his. Stay away from that rude and obnoxious young man who has no polite manners or respect for the Lord enough to button his sombrero when he offers sacrifices when visiting. But do not kill him. No... he does not deserve to die by the wrath of my Chosen People, the sons of Israel, beloved to wisdom her mother.