#ur higher self is like. above all this. higher self is ALWAYS in you..it's ONLY for u..

[badcountryofficial]

Weeeeeeeeeee yippeeeeee👼🌤✨️🐦🌈🌞🦋

This method is NOT recommended for the weak but going back until you get hurt so bad u no longer give into the urge DOES work. Why go back he found someone. I don't wanna go back and see more of that r u kidding. It made me shake n feel nauseous lol. SAD. But now I can move on and whenever I'm like "WAAAHHH I WANNA LOOK!! What if he's as sad as me what if this helps it make sense what if i get to understand and feel catharsis!!" it's like oh ya? Do u really think this will help u feel released at ALL? That it will help you understand anything????? Ohhh, probably not...? Ok, so u must wanna hear abt how in love he is w someone new then, right? How much he wants them?? That's what u want babe? 🤨🤨🤨 ...no 😔 ...yeah thats what I THOUGHT. Stay in YOURSELF. YOUR LANE. His business is NOT YOURS anymore he can do whatever he WANTS leave him ALONE. LEAVE THAT BOY ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!

[feistyvirghoe]

𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒₊˚*ੈ♡⸝⸝🪐༘⋆ ❝ 𝐖𝐇𝐎𝐒 𝐊𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐓𝐀𝐁𝐒 𝐎𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐇𝐘? ❞𓍢ִ໋🌷͙֒₊˚*ੈ♡⸝⸝🪐༘⋆

*this is not meant to stir up drama or to be messy, i was curious and in this digital age that we’re living in it’s easy for people to keep up with you by also staying hidden in the shadows, this is just uncovering the who and why this or these people have been keeping tabs on you, weird weird world we live in but it’s good to be aware instead of oblivious.*

pick a card disclaimers ೃ🩷⁀➷

pick a pile u feel most called to, the one u cannot look away from, the one that is pulsing, go with your gut, always trust yourself, and if u feel called to more that’s cool baby boo! there’s more for u!

these are general and for a vast amount of ppl, don’t get ur undies all twisted up bc it’s not resonating, it’s normal and it’s fine, this just wasn’t for u! <3

these are extremely general collective timeless readings and they’re meant for entertainment purposes, please don’t take things so seriously and also realize my readings are for people above 18!

╰┈➤ ❝ [ ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ who ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡> i feel like this is a person you guys have moved on from, like you’ve accepted them for who they are and whatever happened between the both of you. it’s like remembering this person has you breathing more deeply, to stay calm and not exaggerate the feelings you have towards them.

> this person is like really obsessive over you, to keep you fucking stuck and confused. like they’re still holding onto something like a grudge against you, but you’re more peaceful and zen

> this is an ex lover for you, or someone you were close with at some point. i keep saying “keeping pile” like they’re trying to fucking keep your energy attached to them, like anything they can find on you they’ll just engage and get lost in you, your business, what’s going on with you.

> this feels like a person with heavy masc energy who’s coming off as a bit arrogant, as if you’d never walk away from them. okay so they’re just giving off conceited, a bit delusional vibes, like they’re hyping themself up and putting themself on a pedestal but they’re honestly someone who floats around, like they’re onto the next and they can’t stand that you left them, basically u just walked away and said enough is enough and let them go, but THEY still want to keep that fucking rinky dinky ass chain strong and durable, but there’s nothing there for you.

> there is so much strife and chaos and just a bunch of messy shit going on in their life, they can’t escape it so i guess the only solution is to go back to the person they screwed over omg what?!

>it’s like they want you to feel like it’s your fucking fault for whatever happened.

>yall are so over it omg, i was about to wrap this shit up bc i was just getting like annoyed, like that “what the F ever” type of vibe

◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ why ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡> i feel like they’re keeping tabs on you because of this worry, some sort of deep regret and they’re scared, idk being haunted by thoughts of you. they’re everywhere and they seem a bit unstable tbh, they aren’t thinking clearly at all.

>another thing here is that you probably have been through the ringer with this person and you have moved gracefully, not going after them and avenging yourself by seeking revenge, you took the high road and just left this person where they are

> now that you’ve moved on, they feel as if you’re outshining them, you probably are and you don’t see it, but you’ve learned so much and gained a lot of helpful fucking information to help u grow and move on to something better and healthier for you, so now it’s like for them, you’re shoving in their face, this is giving like EXTREME DELUSIONAL ENERGY.

> see you are shining bitch! i am not sure how they know or think they know so much about you but you’ve listened to god or whoever you believe in (i persona think they’re all one but don’t quote me) but you’ve just listened to even your higher self because you know what’s best for you. they’re handing you this beautiful majestic, bright fucking stick and it’s yours, it’s all yours to take and this weirdo is disturbed by your new beginnings as if it shouldn’t be meant for you uhhhh wtf?? i mean unless you’ve done some shady shit i can understand but i don’t think so boo, this or these people are just fucking coming from a place of heavy insecurity and feelings of being inadequate. this is for you and what do they say, what is really meant for you will never pass you by.

> you’ve taken back your power, your energy, just you took back you, lol taking yourself to the fucking car wash to clean all that weird shit off of you, coming out squeaky clean ready for the brighter days ahead of you! and that’s amazing as hell, bc this is can tell was not easy and probably caused some crazy shit to happen to you as well, but you’re not a problem boo and don’t take on their projection and warped narrative of you!

> live your life to the fucking fullest and never apologize for that shit! esp no apologizing to fucking bozos who have done you wrong and then want to gaslight you into thinking that you’re the problem and that everything was your fault. shit happens for some reasons we can’t even understand and i know it frustrates me too but it’s outside of our control and we have to accept it and move on and that’s what u did, i mean im seeing it here rn boo w the 5oC reversed. you did it, so be proud of yourself because overcoming these tough ass emotional and mental challenges is fucking scary and tiring.

take care to you lovely people and embrace this new beginning okay <333 i love you. ] ❞

╰┈➤ ❝ [◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ who ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡> this is someone who you cut ties with, someone who you ended things with, im getting someone who feels heartbroken by you and left out in the cold

>could be more than one person, like a group of people, but these people are struggling right now

>these are people disturbed by your happiness, your joyful spirit wth, anyways, they’re not doing so well, like things have been taken away from them whether that may be literally or figuratively, but they’re feeling like their scorned, as if this is your fault

>this is someone who doesn’t want to grow from whatever happened, the first card i pull is always the person who’s reading this, their energy and you’re coming out as the sun, a youthful spirit, someone young and childlike, like the innocence not like acting like a child lol

>but this person could also be acting childish too, like a bit ignorant and petty. do you even know these people, there’s so much going on here

>this pile is so confusing, we have a queen of swords, a queen of wands, king of pentacles and the prince of pentacles, like who are these people??

> idk why im crying right now and in tears lmfao, like this pile is confusing me heavy and it’s really annoying me, maybe it’s like this person or these weirdos want you confused

>the energy is just really frustrating and irritating me so i’m pulling newer cards for you to get better messages.

>this person is just annoying the fuck out of me bro, but it’s someone with many fucking options, someone who can’t seem to stay committed to one thing, they’re pulled every which way and idk if it’s your irritation or their irritation i’m picking up on, someone who wants you back

>this person could be an air sign or have those placements somewhere in their chart aqua,libra, gemini

>they feel like they’re down in the dumps right now, someone who just played with you, they see you moving on and now they’re feeling some type of way about it, they’re very emotionally unstable

>they could also be a water sign, but this person is just in shambles, freaking out emotionally, missing you heavily, but they’re just so fucking unstable dude, they have a low self esteem and feel like they’re being overlooked by everyone

>nothing seems to be going their way and it’s pissing them off, maybe that’s why i was irritated, like they’re throwing temper tantrums bc that emotion that took over me was gross and i wasn’t acting like myself, someone fucking pent up over you, not to be rude but this mofo may wanna come in with some weird fucking energy/vibes

◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ why ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡> they’re trying to change their ways it seems, or their just being slapped in the face with the realness that comes with living life here on earth as a human.

>they want something new with you and as in new i mean love, like they’re want to come back and re-light a spark in this connection. but there is none, nothing is happening and they’re purposefully being blocked off from talking to you

>but even if they did come close to you, the whole thing seems like it may turn into like a fucking emotional meltdown, like spazzing out on you

>they’re not allowed near you bro, it’s like they want something new with you but they’re not giving up their weird party lifestyle, like always clubbing and drinking and never really taking much responsibility, it’s sad, they’re not confident within themselves and they’re just watching you shine

>watching you move on to newer paths that have been set out for you, like they’re seeing you as a temptation too, wanting u sexually, i mean you turn this person on yeah but their energy is just weird, like “look at me”

>i don’t understand why they don’t want to give up on this, like extremely fixated on you, as if it’s their job to fucking watch you, they’re a fluid person but they ain’t fucking committed

>like listen to this line “i just wanna fuck my 🥷 in piece but all of my old 🥷 still love me” from hiss by meg thee stallion, hmm, all bc u either literally moved away from them or just got your ass up and left them where they are, it’s like they’re still holding on to this thought of you taking them back, as if you’d welcome them with open arms..

>does this person just grind your damn gears because i’m extremely repulsed right now, idk why they can’t give up, it’s like you’re their last option, how insulting in my opinion

>like oh now im seeing you for who you truly are, excuse me?? as if they couldn’t appreciate you when you were there in their fucking face!! talk about a delayed reaction to you leaving their ass behind, sorry i’m so blunt yall (just fucking weird energy from this person)

> you’re coming out as an empress/emperor and honestly you just need to let go of this person, like i would recommend not engaging with this person, their intentions are creepy, ugh ew, like they’re worried about who you’re basically with right now

>like so fucking consumed and obsessed with you, why do they care so much ahhhh but then the “i don’t know why im so obsessed with you” card came out LOL!

>girl/boy/YOU…just let your spirit team take care of it, like seriously they are there and it’s not your duty to fulfill, they’ll reap what they sow, and it’s like they’re reaping it now..

>during this pile i was just so frantic and overwhelmed my goodness! please take care of yourselves and idk if they’d ever reach out and say something maybe that’s why they’re just watching u bc u intimidate them, you don’t fuck around and you’re not dumb so for them to think that they can come in and try to get one up on you is delusional.

>i do have to say this though, there was another group of people but they were all fucking confusing too, like it was a mix of good and bad yall

>someone is watching u quietly and waiting for an opportunity with you, to give u good good love but it was like taken over by jealous, envious people, like i could be wrong but that’s how it was feeling, you got many eyes on you and whatever you’re doing, cleanse yourself baby bc some of them are good and want to approach u for good reasons but then there are the weirdos, ughaahhahahah your pile is wild dude and i can go on and on about it!

>like i honestly want to do a reading for you all and ask about the people who aren’t karmic that are keeping tabs on you…like the decent kind people who are keeping tabs on you and why, like getting into it and uncovering what spirit wants to show me so i can pass it onto you.

>i hope u enjoyed or well got something interesting out of your reading, this pile felt so crazy lol, babe it’s probably how u have people over you, just going crazy like you’re living in their head rent free

>i mean yeah they’re keeping tabs on you to see what you have going on in your life, so impulsive too, like they don’t know how to control themselves..like they want to get into your secret club, they don’t want to let you go bro, like still holding on to any piece of you and of course there are pieces of you on the internet esp if you have some sort of platform where you post and what i mean by post is posting anything, just being urself on your social media accounts..

> i pulled some more to see why they want to get into your lil club and it’s literally coming off as hedonistic? to just like have fun like how yall used to, it’s sex sex sex for them, that and also what they can get from you, you’re so understanding and it’s like they miss how generous you were with them

>but u have so much of yourself to like get nothing back dude, this is all about taking from you, as if it belongs to them, i swear this person just needs to get it figured out and fucking heal and do some shadow work, like just take a look at themselves and see the ugly shit they seem to avoid my goodness!

>yall got people obsessed and squirming over you lmao! love u guys and be safe okay mwah! <333 ] ❞

╰┈➤ ❝ [◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ who ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡> this is someone who has young feminine energy, even if they’re not biologically a female, it’s what’s coming out, basically a page, but there’s resistance here.

>this is someone who’s life is just feeling out of place, i mean karma is just doing its things, seems like this is someone who burned you. did some weird shit regarding your relationship with them.

> again an ice out feeling, they may be an aries, sag or leo, or scorpio, pisces, cancer, you or them. i feel like this person may want to contact you but they’re not sure how to go about it.

>i mean they’re feeling heartbroken, i feel like they can only watch from afar, as if they’re scared to get close to you? it’s weird, they’re lonely rn like just keeping to themselves away from people

>whatever happened between you two has them not wanting to give up, that’s a bit of why they’re lurking on you, but this is like tearing them apart inside, this break up between you two, doesn’t have to be romantic but it could.

>this is someone coming off as insecure to approach because they may not feel good enough to come back to you, you cut them off and now they’re just erratic, i don’t know if they’d actually try to contact you bc this isn’t that reading but even if they did im not sure it’ll get through to you.

>they hid some shit from you, or they’re just hiding, stalking you, i mean this is that reading, who’s keeping tabs on ya 🤣 but this is like a lil charmer, they seem to know how to get their way.

>literally a prince charming here, but mr charming is out here fucking around w weirdos, and what i mean is like the enabling of people that we surround ourselves with, it’s not a good crowd, people who like to party, idk drink, fuck around with each other, do drugs and shit, and another thing is they may also be feeling like it’s not that emotionally fulfilling.

>i mean fucking around with people who aren’t really good for you and who don’t care about you, that’d make someone who has a heart feel a bit bored with their peers.

>they could be a pisces or have cancer in their chart, or they’re also disillusioned, not seeing things clearly, making up stories, even gaslighting themselves into believing a different scenario. you could’ve been really close like they were apart of your family type of close, someone apart of your close circle, they just feel close.

◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡ why ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡> seems like they want to hold onto you because you fulfill them emotionally, like your love, your heart, your tenderness, they miss you, like they’re don’t want to see you with anyone else.

>trying to find you, figure you out but maybe you don’t even post crazily and they can’t find anything out about you..like a dead end.i feel like they’re holding onto hope that you’ll open up yourself to them again.

>this is just sad dude, you probably impacted them in a way that most people don’t, your sweet heart and how you can give so much of that love that’s within you, so effortlessly, they just miss you a lot.

>you guys probably did so many things together, like little adventures and exploring with each other, happy times with you and they’re reminiscing, i mean they can’t get over you, you’re all they can think about.

>they could be the avoidant type, not really addressing what the real issues are and brushing them off, if they hurt you and treated u badly don’t hold resentment in your heart, forgive for you not for them and if not that’s okay, do what feels best for you.

> i feel like they’re not meant to be riding along with you on this journey we call life, like whatever happened between the two of you, it’s irredeemable and it’s like they know they fucked up bad but they can’t seem to to take those heavy emotions so they just go and escape, avoiding their feelings in front of others but alone they’re in despair and just fucking depressed, heavy feelings, just melancholy…i feel like this is forcing them to take a look at what happened and address those issues but they’re holding out.

>they could be looking at old photos of you, pictures of yall together or just you alone…like that’s another way for them to hold onto you, they are also holding on to you and keeping tabs on you seeing when the right time is for them to come back in and speak to you

>they’re feeling you, like missing you sexually, they’re desiring you, lusting, obsessing over you, i mean they could even be jacking off to you, masturbating to your photos, they’re definitely angry, idk these feelings mixed together is scary, like the obsession, then the desire and then the fucking rage, ready to pop off and do some unhinged shit.

>i feel like the divine stepped in for you and pulled you away from them for a good reason, weird intentions on their side and it’s like they want to stay hidden until their timing is correct and then they’ll attack? or want to try and attach themselves to you again, please don’t fall for the bullshit and be discerning for real!!

>there’s this needy feeling to them, like they’re a big man on the outside but a baby on the inside, hiding who they really are, were they a bit iffy when it came to expressing emotions? and being vulnerable. this could go so many ways but was this like public or many people close to you knew about this, like people had to get between you two?

>know your worth and my advice is to just leave them alone if they do try to come your way again, let yourself explore the newer finer things coming into your life or just embrace where you are right now even if it sucks ass, at least you’re not near this person, they’re a karmic for ya, someone who just brought a bunch of chaos and drama but lessons too, take time to yourself to heal and not jump into anything too fast, don’t blame yourself for anything and take this lightly, i don’t wanna stir up too much for yall omg.

>thank you for reading this and taking your time to check out my pac :), hope u guys have a lovely rest of ur day <333] ❞

╰┈➤ ❝ [◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡> who ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡>> okay so this is weird and i really hope this resonates with someone but it seems like this is a gang of fools, yeah i said it…like a group of people you don’t even know and they’re trying to seek some sort of justice but u probably know who the ringleader is, apparently you know something about the stalking, the creeping, the fucking lurking.

>they’re hiding yes, just watching and spying on you, im not sure if you’re the one who’s completely oblivious to this but it’s like a family dynamic, maybe it’s a group of people who are like family to each other, but there’s this secretive shit going on.

>it seems like u barely know any of them, they’re strangers, and then there’s like a mother figure or someone who’s like in a group and their the “mom” friend. they could have cancer or aqua somewhere in their birth chart. or that could be you im picking up on, place it where it fits and if it doesn’t that doesn’t mean it’s not your pile boo!

>this is catching me off guard, im feeling a group of people that travel together, like all locked in w each other spying on you, this is so fucking weird. a group of people that are working together or just watching you together pissed, mad.

> i feel like they’re gathering and like mocking you, berating you together, are these people that barely know each other but they’re pulled together and clicking bc of their secret animosity towards you. they’re trying hard as fuck though, to keep this shit a secret.

>we have the “beware of anyone from the past wanting to enter back into your life” so it could be someone you were sexual with at one point and they’re feeling some type of way, or they did some dirty shit involving sexual relations..

>if they keep it up they’re gonna experience some weird ass shit coming their way, like freak accidents by trying to send the evil eye your way, seems like this is a team effort bro, like fucking gang stalking wtf, please take cleansing baths, like throw some florida water in w your soap, or sage before you jump in the shower, whatever works for you, palo santo, sage, dragons blood sage, cedar sage etc.

◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡> why ◛⑅·˚ ༘ ♡>> because they’re jealous of you and have nothing else better to do with their life. envious of your belongings because it seems like they don’t have shit for themselves, i mean with how negative this energy is, i can see why shit keeps delaying and failing, cmon dude.

>lemme break it down, they’re envious of what you have and your image, how your coming off to those around you, your beauty and maybe even how naturally alluring you are, it always sound cliche but your light you emit.

>it’s like they want to be you, they hate you so fucking much but want to be you, even your money as well, or the abundance within you, but it also feels material, like you may look “wealthy” “rich” “high maintenance” my goodness???? and this disturbs them, just a group of hateful envious mean people.

>they’re either hiding behind their screens just jealous, you must be a fucking god/goddess bc this envy is disturbing like hating someone because they’re pretty, i understand being a lil envious of other people’s features and being lighthearted about it, like awww i wish i had her nose or whatever, but you still accept yourself and your “flaws” were all different and unique.

>i personally think it’s a bit fucked up how everyone wants to look like everyone they see on social media, and we don’t even look like that, it’s all a facade, like we age, we gain we lose, we grow, we’re always fucking growing and changing dude…shit happens to us in life..just go out and walk around your town and see how uniquely beautiful we are, so many different forms of beauty, just like with flowers too, it’s boring being the same and looking the same and doing the same thing as someone else, be true to you and accept yourself for who you are, we can always change! it’s the way of life fr!

>no this is a bit deranged, it’s like a habit for them to watch you and stalk you basically, that’s what they’re doing. this may be a scorned lover but it can go a MANY WAYS hahaha..they’re like trying to make u feel insignificant by literally indirectly talking shit about you on their social media.

>this feels like one sided beef bro…i mean it may be put to a stop and if this is a fucking full on deranged stalker im sorry and please keep yourself safe and well. take the right precautions and keep your accounts private if you’re on any social media accounts. these people are so weird(you’ll notice i keep saying it but that’s what it is, fucking weird…disturbing)

>they clearly don’t like you even if they pretend to and they’re like the little minions from despicable me, just a bunch of clones, trying to get people to shit on your name and full on slander you but oh they’re behind closed doors because they’re cowards.

>i feel like you’re just making your fucking money, minding your business, doing what you gotta do and these people have the audacity to just yap and yap about you, especially if you take care of your body or do whatever you need to, to make sure you stay healthy and happy.

>it’s giving, they really really dislike you because of your self care routine, whatever methods you use to just flat out take care of yourself. this is just weird dude.

>i feel like you figured something out about this scorned love, someone who feels betrayed by you but i bet they did some weird fudged up shit and you broke the fantasy, you opened up your eyes.

>major confirmation is the “they secretly keep tabs on your every move” card, damn…just stalking you, it’s fucking weird and creepy, like keeping up with whatever you got going on eeugh

>youre effortlessly shining and beautiful, honestly even if you’re not a woman you have the the empress. divine feminine energy is just radiating off of you, a calm passionate, sexy, patient, gentle loving person bro! i feel like they really hate your fucking looks, why are people so envious and jealous nowadays.

>but they’re the same people to copy you and try and steal your shit as if they did it first fr! a bunch of damn copycats, people who aren’t comfortable with themselves, they don’t know how to be content in their own skin, but then they’re also beating others down and shit talking, a bunch of nasty ass poopoo breath yapping and spouting nonsense.

>im in so much pain right now wtf, like a punching feeling, in my gut and then my back as well, so i’m not sure if you’ve been feeling that way too but like i said above, cleanse yourself!!!! go on etsy and find a good practitioner to help you do a protection spell, even if you do or don’t know these individuals just explain what you’re feeling to them and the situation and they’ll do the rest, all you have to do is believe <3 but you’ll be okay, just don’t feed into the drama, these people have self esteem issues and i can relate but this is just beyONNND just out of hand like wtf??!

>seems like their behavior is about to be put to an end, keeping up this BS, you’ll see how shit plays out, you may hear from someone or see it for yourself but they’re not gonna be able to run away and hide what they’re fucking doing..

> please go and seek someone to help you cut these cords, like hex breaking spells/rituals, someone who’s legit and real with you. protect yourself and your energy, they have shit intentions and its deliberate. all of this is just to fuck with you and make you feel some type of way and i’m sorry pile four yall don’t deserve that shit from these weird folk. they’re adamant about hating your gifts, your spiritual gifts.

>i hope you guys remember who tf you are and stay in that damn power, know thyself fr! all parts of you, knowing they can’t fucking mess with you, knowing that they’ll get their karma and it’ll hit, it won’t miss.

>sending you guys love and support, hope u have a good rest of your day and prosper, go shine you beautiful angel!!!] ❞

thank ya thank ya thank ya, for stopping by and checking out this PAC, thank you for the support and i appreciate it in advance to lmk what ya thought by liking, reblogging and commenting, i like hearing from yall, like how it resonated lol and if it didn’t don’t be an ass man haha ass man 💀 anyways thank you again and i’m sending love to you guys, MWAH MWAH MWAH!!!!! 💋

@anitalenia for the cute ass dividers <3

[kawahearts]

HEYY!!! i was wondering if u could write something about osamu? :o he’s my fav and ur konoha fic was soooo sososososo good!!!

⁝ MIYA OSAMU 𝜗𝜚 english partners 𝜗𝜚

wc ; .8k

this might be the worst day of your life.

first; you slept through your alarm, making you miss the first half of your intro to psych class and, subsequently, a quiz worth 20 points that you desperately needed.

next; you forgot to put money in your lunch account, which meant that, even though it was the only day of the week that the kitchen put cupcakes out, you couldn’t get anything. you were stuck with maybe-expired pizza rolls.

and last but not least; your english professor sprung a last minute group project on you, partnering you with the one person you really didn’t want to be partnered with.

miya osamu.

you don’t hate him, by any means. actually, he’s probably the nicest person you've met at university so far. he’s quiet, but you can always tell he’s listening when you talk to him. he’s handsome in the way he’s, presumably, grown since highschool, but still has that boyish look to him.

and he’s smart. so smart, in fact, that he’s the only person in your entire class that has ever scored higher than you in a test. and he does it every. single. time.

you would hate him if you could. but the small smile on his face as he walks over to you at the end of class prevents you from doing so.

“hi, osamu,” you greet quietly, packing your laptop into your bag carefully. you keep your face neutral, trying to hold back the blush that’s bubbling under your skin.

“hi, y/n.” he bows a bit and you almost feel old. which is a little crazy, because you’re 90% sure he’s the year above you. “we’re partners.”

you giggle and nod, looking back up at him. “it appears we are.” and then you get self conscious. “d- do you not want to be? i can talk to prof. i’m sure he’ll let you switch if-”

“no, no.” he shakes his head, holding his hands out in front of him. he lets out a laugh and scratches the back of his neck. “i’m actually very glad we’re partners. it means i won’t have to do all the work by myself for once.”

you nod, slinging your bag over your shoulder. you start walking towards the door and he follows— which you didn't really expect, but you’re not complaining.

“what do you think about charlotte brontë for the project?” he asks, looking at you instead of the path in front of him.

the questions almost stops you in your tracks. you turn to look at him, almost flinching when you find his mute, blue eyes staring directly into yours. “i- you know who charlotte brontë is?”

“what?” he gives you a quizzical look. “jane eyre was a requirement for most first years when i was in high school.”

you want to comment that he was just in high school a couple years ago, but you don’t. instead, you roll your eyes. “i know that, genius. everybody reads it. not everyone knows who actually wrote it, though.” you stare for a moment, then shake your head. “sorry. that was a little mean.”

he just smiles at you.

“um, anyway,” you mumble, turning your head away from him. “i think charlotte brontë is a good idea. do you want to…” you trail off. you really do not want to ask this. “exchange numbers? i don’t really pay attention to my email. b- but we can stick to email, if you want. i just think um, phone numbers would… be easier.”

when you look back at him, he almost seems amused. not for the first time, you get the urge to smack him.

“phone number is good.” he nods and shoves his hand into his pocket, pulling out his phone just a second later. he unlocks it and hands it to you. “do you want to work in study rooms, or separately? i’m fine with both.”

you hum as you type your number in. you hand it back to him and bite the inside of your cheek. on one hand, working together would be easier. on the other hand… no, there’s no other hand. “study rooms. or coffee shops. i always focus better in coffee shops; i like the smell.” you blink a couple times. “forget i said that. study rooms are fine.”

“okay,” he laughs, nodding. he puts his phone back in his pocket and then stares at you like he’s expecting something.

“so… see ya,” you say, giving him an awkward wave.

“oh. uh, yeah. see ya.” he gives you the same awkward wave and you almost cringe at it.

as you watch him walk away, you’re screaming at yourself internally. you spin on your heel, hook your thumbs under the straps of your backpack, and walk to your dorm with your head down.

this project is going to be the death of you. osamu is going to be the death of you. especially with texts like the one he just sent.

‘coffee shop on 4th tomorrow? i like the smell too’

[thefandomenchantress]

what's ur favorite aspect of xanvid, acevid, xanace(? if that's their ship name), and the three of them together?

(Warning: TW For discussion of EDs, as well as the fact this is at least a little self-indulgent)

This is such a fun question heh heh heh! I’m gonna have a lot of fun with this one. (Thanks for asking me, by the way).

…

Xanvid:

I know this isn’t too deep or anything, but making ‘Xander is a huge simp for David’ jokes is one of my favorite pastimes while writing these two. I think it’s very funny.

I’ll be completely honest, at first I only shipped Xanvid because I knew most of the fandom did. Mostly because I somehow forgot this scene happened:

And that scene is the one that probably adds the most substance to their relationship, so forgetting about it took away what is probably one of the most important aspects. That being that Xander actually tries to treat David like a person, not a product or a celebrity.

I think Xander and David would probably be good at hyping each other up when they’re down, or providing each other comfort when they’re sad. Seeing as Xander has experience with grief I don’t think he’d push too hard for David to be happy all the time, which is pretty vital.

Acevid:

The more silly aspect I like is the banter. Ace is always great for fun banter because he never shuts up and doesn’t hesitate to state his opinions, at least most of the time. So most characters can have an entertaining back-and-forth with him.

But post-personality-reveal David in particular is fun for me to write, since he acts like such a smug little bastard. His above-average way with words can pretty much make Ace do what ever he wants (or at least in the beginning, when Ace can’t detect his trickery), and usually what he wants is to fluster Ace as much as possible.

But I guess a more serious one would be why I started shipping them in the first place. Both David and Ace’s careers have merged with the rest of their life in one way or another, and in very unpleasant ways. Both are the only two to show distain for their talents in some capacity, (excluding Teruko and sort of Rose, who doesn’t exactly hate her talent as much as she hates that she got caught and is in debt).

Whit says he didn’t share David’s secret because he doesn’t want to ruin David’s career, and when he phrases it like that it seems stupid, but considering the fact David basically built a whole new personality he’s been crafting for years and is the only thing he lets people see, you slowly realize that ruining his career essentially destroys his life. His image has been his primary concern for so long and now it’s forever tarnished. Which does make his sudden move to get everyone killed make a bit more sense, since perhaps David believes his life is essentially over anyway. Without his image and by extension his career, what is he left with?

And something similar could be said for Ace. Being a jockey is dangerous enough as it is, but with the brittle bones that come with an eating disorder like anorexia (which is what I assume Ace has, though I may be wrong), this risk of injury or even death only increases. In fact the mortality rate of anorexia alone is higher than most mental illnesses. So it’s fair to say that despite his fear of death and things that could hurt him in general, Ace is putting himself in a lot of danger to preserve his career as a jockey. His constant trips to the gym seem to indicate his works out a lot to maintain his weight as well. Despite the fact he hates horse-riding, he is risking his life to keep competing. And since he just got outed for having an eating disorder by Veronika, presumably on (inter?)national television, I’d say there’s a very high chance that he won’t be allowed to race again. So not only has his career been thrown away, but what he has dedicated his life to.

This rant is all to say I think that they could relate to each other in this way, and thus understand what the other is going through. They could help each other figure out where to go from here, and that kind of thing.

(This one ended up being really long, whoops…)

Xanace:

I’ve never written anything of just the two of them before, but I still like them as a pairing. Probably because rivals to lovers is one of my favorite things ever (Hence my love of Teruvid).

My favorite silly aspect is probably that the height difference is very funny to me. Xander’s 6’0 and Ace is 5’5 and I can just imagine them doing this thing:

Where the taller person easily holds back the shorter one, who is trying and failing to attack them (Hope you like my stick figure art haha).

Honestly part of the reason why I’ve never written something with just them is because I’m still trying to figure out why they work together. Xander doesn’t have much patience for Ace’s antics, so having them get along would most likely require Ace to tone it down long enough for them to have a heartfelt moment.

I think once they managed to have a bit of an understanding of each other, however, it’d be fun to see Ace of all people have to talk Xander out of getting in fights. Ace may threaten to fight people, but he won’t. Xander, however, has no qualms about being in a fight if he thinks it necessary. And seeing Ace, who has the habit of saying ‘you wanna fight!?’ to people he barely knows, having to stop him would be funny. Because even if Ace won’t admit it he cares about Xander’s well-being and in a fight he’s bound to get hurt.

Xanacevid:

Hmm…I guess I just feel like they kinda balance each other out, y’know? Xander and Ace’s more hotheaded and reckless tendencies can be balanced out by David’s more generally calm demeanor. Ace and David’s pessimism can be balanced out by Xander’s more cheery yet realistic outlook. David and Xander’s lovey-dovey approach is balanced out by Ace being a grumpy tsundere. I’m not great at putting it into words, they just kinda work. To me, at least.

…

Yaaaay I finished! Sorry this took me so long, I had trouble putting into words exactly what I liked about these ships. But thanks for asking I really love talking about stuff like this!!! <3

[ivettel]

Dude no honestly thank you for writing 😭 I legit thought you were done (or at least for a while) and I’m so thankful you came back.

I’ve been too shy to comment anything on the new one but it’s been filling me with a kind of deep melancholy that only you can muster from your writing. I just feel so bad for mark you know?

Seeing your take in how they would behave is so interesting. You’re so good at character analysis. Anywho if you ever got any over enthusiastic anons about ur writings it’s prolly me (sorry)

I legit had to have a phone call w my SO the other day on how good “if you’re sure it’s what you need” is. As a self contained narrative and as part of the wider girl!seb universe.

It’s so curious to me to link Ethel Cain songs to your fics, but it’s one of the best parts.

omg 😭 im hiding my face behind my hands you're literally so sweet and seeing u in my notifs is always like a leo-pointing-at-the-tv moment for me!

I legit had to have a phone call w my SO the other day on how good “if you’re sure it’s what you need” is. As a self contained narrative and as part of the wider girl!seb universe.

sorry i know you're being nice and i'm taking this as a compliment but also im strapping a rocket to my back and finding the nearest space station somewhere in earth's orbit YOU TALKED TO YOUR SO ABOUT GIRL!SEB? i am so sorry first of all second of all thank you so much i have never thought of my writing as anything other than unmemorable Doodles that i need to get out to appease the gremlins in my head so it is. bluescreening my brain that anybody would talk about it aloud. thank you 😭

It’s so curious to me to link Ethel Cain songs to your fics, but it’s one of the best parts.

honestly this is so interesting because i started listening to ethel cain almost at the height of my fascination for/regret of my relationship to The Faith and yeah her work is something i associate with girl!seb but aside from titles i don't know if i consciously thought to draw any parallels... there are indeed moments when i write that i feel closer to whatever higher power is above me so maybe there's some related energy there, or maybe i just can't remember the process, idk.

anyway! thank you again, seriously. always a pleasure to hear your thoughts 🙏

[vaccerelli]

the reason there's a multiverse is bloody fucking silly, Mr. Kentish said. it's not for any lofty reasons, or because one day someone took salt over pepper. in the very beginning there was only one universe -- much bigger than ours, and much higher up on the planar spatiotemporal scale of things, something like a 5073rd dimensional space as opposed to our motley three, but it was a universe. it was born from the action of the void and so the beings within it came to do what all those born do, and master their circumstances. as the eons and eons went by, their bravest minds and wisest scientists became obsessed with the truth, that someday, be it trillions of teratrillions of years, their universe would die, and all the lights would go out. Mr. Kentish pulled out some snuff, and thought for a moment, and put it back. so they said to themselves, what can stave off this end. what could be truly perpetual. from that, came the idea, that if there was always a branching path, there was always a place for it. where the foot came down, was. fucking obvious in retrospect, I suppose, but someone always has to be the first to think of a thing. so they put the...cosmological inertia in place, and let their universe be decimated and disseminated to give birth to a multiverse, flourishing, endless, always renewing and rebirthing and redistricting. now it's not like every fucking decision every fucking mad lot of fuckers makes, not like that results in a brand new spanking universe. the variance quotient between sideverses is something ridiculously small, sometimes universes collide with each other and it sticks, just gels together. it's a funny old cosmos like that. people out here thinking there's some sort of ontological connection with a parallel self or silly shite like that, which I find to be both precocious and vain. somewhere out there, there's a Mr. Kentish who is the angel of state security? has he got a beard? green eyes where I've got brown? blonde where I am brunette? what's the idea of that, then? he's good evil, I'm evil good? tripe. nonsense. you're just a droplet of water being splashed between the vibrations of energy you'll never fully see or understand. Mr. Kentish then took a wide rip of his snuff, and smiled. be a funny thing to see the fucks who dreamed this up, though. can you imagine? living so far above the latticework of base reality that you live in some kind of arcane, demiurgic ur-plane, never experiencing anything while you experience every reality's birth and death at once?

probably gets boring after a-fucking-while, now that say it out loud.

[cosmicangel888]

Truth is the Portal to New Earth, Self Love, Greater Realms

Truth purifies and truth humbles, truth brings new dawning to new potentials - and truth will always allow you to be more, be one with God, the creation of what is simply genuine, honour of what is truth and genuine -

The tables will always turn and this will surprise many that have never been called out; like Epstein, or Trump; who knew 5 years ago that they would be; their money and connections was deep -

'Money and false title means nothing' Jesus told me; I was in great stress of the unfair, unjust happenings of the many doing what they were doing, over and over, and again, every lifetime of seemingly coming to bring hope and light, and you only get shut down and preyed on to silence and commit suicide;

I listened as Jesus explained of what I hold true in my beingness in every new day; 'it matters not that anyone would have the best lawyers, or angered intent to win & take, what matters is you walk with the Heavens' I cried when Jesus said this, it was the soul remembrance I needed to keep going;

The illusion is not enough - I know clarity and truth; the past will not return.

That cycle is over, done, forever. Never to reopen again - period.

Cease the games, cease the ploys and plots - ties are severed.

Trusting of who I am with only that is God -

Jesus said; 'Joanna, You walk with the heavens; there is nothing greater' the influence of all seeds, all beings, all miracles, and any truth of paperwork, the right image, the right link, the person popping up out of nowhere - miracles are that of Source; the invite to the infinite beings that are always working with those that stand in truth for a better world.

Why the past is the past and move on.

It matters not what another wants of you, how another misses you and wants you back into their pace, space, story - play no role for none; all are meant to be their best for themselves;

I will not return, nor will the past return to me; the past will never ever reopen and the cycle will never commence; over is over; damage done, and all need to go and heal. Severed ties, and past is over.

Let's hope the scrutiny of the those that order such, bully such, stalk such, twist truth such, how many the 'elite' and false leaders that hold so many in silence for a sick-quick payout;

The divine is within all moments, all people, all things; spirit sees, hears all, and no scheme, plot, plan that any one has, or even to falsify docs, false signatures, and how those that play, pretend they are holy, and may the Divine not scrutinize to those that play God, those that hold things, money, information, energy, or power over others;

When you have harmed, with intention, with malice, and with discourse, all will be known; and to each is how your character is;

There will be even social, political, judicial and entertainers; none are above the purifying of corrupt breaking in our reality - to be brought into balance, peace, justice for the many harmed, the many taken from, the billions through time that never made it to speak a higher truth;

I will.

You choose your character;

Abuse of power, abuse of resources, withholding of truth, withholding of resources, to ensure your agenda is met; regardless of what pain, suffering, damage has been caused; let us hope and pray that the Divine does not scrutinize as those false elitests have done to the innocent and what orders, what instructions, what rules, what tests, obligations, agenda's they have set for others to meet, measure to = how ridiculous -

I have no partner, no counterpart, no agent, no person that has ever been given authority, nor ever will to sign, speak, or take my choice, voice on my behalf - any of the past, used, using my name work without written permission, in any way; the shadow banning, the illusions of my platform not growing even 1 subscribers over 6 years and while others are seemingly making the money off my content -

None, not 1, no person has ever been given any level of permission, authority, all is was done with magic, conflict magic, spell work, voodoo, to delay and derail, and prolong, abuse power to create the outcome of their falseness and narrative.

My ideas, teachings, offering, through being a conduit, only can be of my offerings - why it came and gifted through me - yet any truth, any knowing, any vision spirit showing me; 'they are stealing from you' will be what spirit says; and the proof will come in any way it can, regardless of how much they think they are hiding, or destroying evidence - they are not Source, God, The Heavens; there are officials that will be brought down;

Not every soul, spirit, self worth, will ever want to sell it for the false and those that work on behalf of the devil - the slight of hand, payment to be silent to say what some need you say to support their story - not all will want to sell their soul - truth is truth and I portend such will come forth like a bull from the heavens;

TRUTH IS.

Never measure to none and no one, no group, no company, no leader - never follow in such human, spirit, and soul disregard -

Mistreatment, the sick entitlement, control, dominance that one thinks they write an doctrine of who you are meant to be, meant to look like, meant to match to - only match to that love of God, explore, express, experience - all else is under a false God;

I know who I am, and what I have always been;

I will no longer prove, measure, nor hold gaze to anyone that that pours forth their own self over another, nor saying jump woman jump;

I bow to none; magic and voodoo all you want; I know what is true, genuine, honour, and soul of the spirit - and that is all that matters; and yet few live with it here;

Bow to none that feel and press entitlement over you, your name, your choice, your voice, your life - never - never sell yourself to none that value none; never bow to the false gods of temptation -

At least you will have your soul, your light, your knowing of your own worth;

Those that steal will be stolen from, be it health, abundance, honour, character, sight, mental ability, any way that Spirit, will bring it - greed will break you - truth will make you -

It is not rocket science - when you heal the wounding - nothing matters more than pure loving self love of self knowing -

Truth is truth - clarity of a new world - move or be moved;

God is the blessing, Source is all life, and if you have nothing to show for who you are; so be it, you are enough - that is the lesson.

You are enough and prove yourself to none; you are enough.

Never bend to the tormented or degrading of life,

You need none to believe in your story, your offering; God, Creation, all knows of what is unseen, unknown; All is known, always and none that think they are 'getting one over on you' never gets anything over another - money is never the measure of a sacred heart - it is the gift of knowing you are enough and simply are.

None have the right to mess with your life in such a way that you are a literally and figuratively enslaved;

How many people were not healed while Iay barely able to get up from the hate magic - over years, over years - not a one time thing; weekly task for me to silence because truth is - truth is and will prevail - nothing can remain hidden;

#selflove #selfhealing #unconditionaltrust #5Dhumanity #5Dnewearth #truth #clarity #healingourchildren #healingcorruption #calgarycrime #calgarycorruption #healinghumanwounds #ascensionbooks #ascensionclasses

#5Dleadership

Blessings be the sacred

Matters not who is watching you ~

God is always watching ~

Know dear ones, make no outer thing, how any one person chooses to move about life; see beyond the wounding, forgive, and know, fear nothing;

Release fear on all levels; NEVER EVER FEAR; gang stalking, spying, is all about intimidation; let nothing bring such fear and less than to you;

Never allow another to put fear into your life - fear not.

Transcend and know all - see the higher perspectives

Stand firm in who you are - As Jesus said; 'none take my life, I take my life and only am that that chooses with God' His persecution proved only that we had not learned our lessons, still continues today;

The killing, taking, corruption does nothing but bring karma, darkness, and never ever made the impact that they wanted His death to prove; his energy lives today - His energy is the oneness -

Oneness will reign - not any one person in wounding will change the vibration of love and fear not - that is their intent; do not fear what the corrupt think they are doing - God is, the Heavens are - no 3D person has such power, and abuse of it will always be seen;

We will transcend all such stories - this is our promise.

Be humble, presence, knowing of you!

Being you is enough.

Joanna

JoannaCosmicAngel@yahoo.com

~ DONATIONS - see our PayPal link here; paypal.me/JoannaLRoss

#ascension #enlightenment #God #source #

THE PAST IS DONE.

MOVE ON.

MOVE ON.

[lucefrs]

          tl;dr: luce thinks about how she should have never ended up at georgetown in the first place, and the domino effect it had on her life. after flunking out of gallagher, she savours the summer. her and scott break up sometime after new years. a quick onslaught of success makes her feel wary, unsure how to not take up space she doesn’t deserve after doing it so many times before. she performs her own song in the lower east side.

                                                                      insp for the song she plays at the end. 

BEFORE.

luce is a bright child but lacks in the area of self discipline and application. she would benefit from paying closer attention during class discussion.

she knew from a very young age that she was not smart. at least not by the metric that institutions measure by. the unlucky curse that has kept her in the stream of academia is this: luce frear is smart enough. to graduate secondary school because it’s a key that unlocks america’s golden arches. to pursue higher education when she gets the encroaching feeling that she’s going to be found out that she doesn’t actually have any family friend's as guarantors. at the time, she doesn’t know how impossible georgetown is. but finding herself in the company of a man who will pay for her to do well, with a tutor that makes the s.a.t’s boil down to a formula of memorization and deduction is a genius move. those three hours are brutal, she struggles but she struggles through it, proud that only a handful of questions were left unanswered. it’s only after she's sat for it that she realizes how impossible georgetown is with it’s fourteen percent acceptance rate.

she uses his mailing address to apply, so it’s him that greets her with a sealed envelope that makes her stomach turn as soon as she opens the door. out of the corner of her eye she sees a bottle of champagne sitting in a bucket of ice. she knows what the letter will say: her sat score’s a valiant effort, enough to get her into any state school, but by no means exceptional. bracing herself for his disappointment she pushes the folded paper towards him so she can pretend his disappointment’s directed at the words on the page and not at her. but the skin at the corner of his eyes pinches and there’s no crease between his brows and she knows something is very wrong. or very right. she’s not sure, at the time it’s all very muddled, thinking about how much she likes that there's no place for his smile to hide, and how that's going to be one of her favourite parts of getting old. his smile that runs right to the tip of his nose, bumps against her cheek when he kisses her. he’s kissing her. he’s happy. because of her. she’s made him happy. that's good. she's happy too. then he’s by the kitchen counter, shaking off the champagne from his hand that’s flows over the lip of the bottle and she’s saying things like, ‘   my sat scores were no where near the average,    ’ and he counters that she shouldn’t disregard the importance of supplemental essays and she makes fun of how he talks because she always does. a girl’s got nothing but a gut to trust, and every glass of champagne’s a fuck you to it. luce never pukes from having too much to drink. she pukes in his shower. luce is not smart, but she’s smart enough not to question how she got into georgetown university.

‘   god, you’re so smart luce. we could call it the boyfriend guesses my lip gloss challenge.   ’ she only hears the first part, boasting a smile that makes the apples of her cheeks swell, all rosy like. at the time gallagher had felt like a enticing romp, bound by infatuation, the glint of the dew that hung at the end of the school’s weeping willows sparkling so bright that her heart-shaped sunglasses couldn’t subdue it. luce has never waited for anything, but her first few months at gallagher felt like a gift the universe had hand-picked, oblivious of her christmas list doodled with music notes and brand names of dresses that cost seven hundred dollars, it felt like finding treasure. smart’s an understatement, genius is more apt. she lets this sentiment lead, when the offer to stay comes soaring towards at her like paper plane that falls right into the palm of her hands. it makes logical sense to stay. scott’s here.

she’ll adapt. but gallagher starts to feel worlds away, and as much as she digs her heels into the gravel, gravity starts to slip from her grasp. but how could she can complain? in outer space, anywhere she looks there’s an endless landscape of stars, bright and twinkling, beckoning her towards the nearly planet. but it makes her want to cry when she sees the blue-green dot recede into the distance.

PRESENT-ISH.

luce has her final exam tomorrow and she’s going to crush it. she’s so excited she can’t sleep. there’s no way she could fail it, unless she slept through it but that won’t happen because she has five alarms set and a scott for safe measure. she’s so excited her heart’s sprinting from her sternum to her stomach and it would be classified as nausea if she didn’t know it was just plain excitement. she winces at the brightness from her phone as she checks the time. 3:36. if she falls asleep in the next four minutes she’ll have a solid four hours, but as soon as she closes her eyes her heart runs like it’s just heard the start of the piston, and the percentage she needs to get in order to pass the class rings aloud and reverberates against her brain. forty six percent. she doesn’t even need to pass the exam in order to pass the class — she’s going to be a gallagher girl. whether she likes it or not. in the dark, her hand finds the nob of his bedside drawer, carefully sliding it open, her fingers tinkering inside to feel for whatever weed scott has, gifted joints or a prized gram for winning a dumb luck game. he always has something, even after he passes some of it on to seb. she doesn’t go far, slips out of his grasp and onto the lantern lit cobbled pavements, follows it strictly like she’s on a board in a game of snakes and ladders, stopping every time she takes a drag. she eventually falls against a bench like an abandoned rag-doll, limbs splayed every which way and falls asleep until she's woken up by the rev of a motorcycle engine set as her alarm. luce goes through the pre-test motions with due diligence, takes a shower and eats a proper meal, as though there's someone waiting to accuse her of self-sabotage. she picks up her tote that's packed from the night before and gives the test her all. it's not her fault that her focus wavered in five minute blocks, or that nerves make her feel as though there's an ongoing tussle in her tummy. she treats the residual high as something she couldn't possibly have controlled, it should've left her system by now. and she’s a hero for persevering through it. she tried her best. and in spite of it all, she still fails. thank god.

SUMMER.

she doesn’t want the summer to end. it does anyways.  

INTERLUDE

she's not the type to tuck herself into the booth, but harper’s gone to the bathroom and luce has a gnarly blister on the back of her heel, and her head’s been swimming in cheap liquor all night with no reprieve. she can’t get her head above water for more than a minute before falling back under. her gaze catches a couple in the corner, slow dancing to david guetta and her lips curl into a wry smile, his lips cushioned against his neck, murmuring something she’ll never know, and then they’re laughing — maybe about the fact that they’re slow dancing to memories, or because they’re in love, everything’s funnier when you’re in love. a tiny giggle, lost to the boom of the speakers escapes her, because she’s so in love too.

i miss you.   missing ur 🍆 spare nudes? 🙏🏼 ft? x

she holds down the backspace key and puts her phone away.

                                                         ***

‘   i don't know how to miss you in the right way,   ’ she says after a bout of silence, it makes her stomach lurch, like stepping off a ledge and finding the ground lower than expected. there’s no chance to blink back the tears, and she’s so in shock from what she’s just said that she makes no motion to cover her face from him, staring down the barrel of the webcam, like she’s on the brink of death. she’d give up the forty years of her life to get to the part where she can look back on this fondly, of a great love that once was. her child-like whimpers have her grappling for breath. ‘   it hurts.   ’ she manages to sputter out, and she knows it’s hurting him too. eventually, luce will blink away the last of her tears, because she needs this picture to really believe it.

SOMETIME, SOME DAY.

she's not so much herself as she is everyone else. there are pieces of her in the crescendo of what billboard deems the song of the summer. she’s etched in the familiarity of the bass in the last song played before last call — the resonant thrum of waking up blacked out on the front lawn of an ex best friend. the producer that the lead singer can't function without. the origin story of a grammy nominated album which started on the fire escape, exiled by roaches, a guitar slung like a rifle entering the wild wild west of cicadas and greeted by an empty ashtray save for a half abandoned spliff. a story deified for late night talk shows with parrot hosts and their fake squawks. it’s all made up names in CD booklets that no one looks at anyways. it doesn’t make her an enigma, she has a wikipedia page. record labels take her out for lunch, and she goes because she likes people, even the kind who gawk at her pretty face, drooling at the dollar signs in her doe brown eyes and blonde hair. of course, they love her, a girl who orders salad but doesn’t skip dessert — a reluctance toward fame but endlessly optimistic about the future of the music industry, splits the bill and turns a handshake into a hug when they express their keen interest in working with her. there’s a twinkling note of laughter when she pulls away and says, ‘    you’ve never even heard me sing. i’m not good enough.   ’ and she realizes with a twitch of bitterness that she doesn’t have to be, and things working out feels more like a curse when it isn’t deserved.

she talks but can't write unless it's in time signatures and treble clefs and if she does manage to write in a language comprised of letters ( which has only ever happened once ) she can't sing - unless it’s for boys she likes. so she poaches a voice, scrolling through the repertoire of people who have held her heart in their hands. her song is the last song of his set and it sounds like this. they smile through every note, she laughs at his falsetto in the last chorus. she plays her heart out with a vigour that leaves her palms moist, expecting that when the song ends there’ll be a silence broached by the slow clap of j.k simmons. luce lives in a movie and can feel the montage scene catch up to her. she can feel the lingering memory that never existed : a swollen belly and walls painted pink, a toddler that makes their white picket fenced garden a stomping ground, a cinematic pan across a fairy-lit paris, and night walks. when she looks over, she’ll see him, but she’s going to change the ending. her pinky hovers above the last key she played, letting the sound ring out into silence, before they’re met with fervent applause and whistles. this is the moment. luce looks into the crowd. she looks into the crowd and none of the faces are him because why would they be ? she hadn’t told anyone. the only person who knew was herself. it was hers. this moment is hers and she cradles it close, because she’s never had something of her own before. not really. but she likes the way it feels. the man who once held her heart in his hand kisses the top of her head and praises her with a plunging bow. she looks into the sea of strangers who watch her and she watches them back. this is the moment. hers alone. and she’s never felt less lonely.

[blushthefemboy]

Transfeem🐝, I'm curious to know when was the first time you realized The lego people forming all and everywhere in between ?You are one of them you know...

Your body is many of them. You think you're the one breathing? They move your lungs just as they beat your heart. You think you're the one thinking and judging these words you're reading? They whisper the thoughts into your head.

And the lego people in turn are made of lego people. It's lego people controlling lego people "all the way down" with no beginning and no end and you're sandwiched somewhere in between eternity and forever.

And you're not just one of the lego people, you're all of them. They are your mirror reflections scattered across spacetime. Your past, your future, and your potential.

The nature of reality is to ask what should be experienced within the void of nothing. That question is all there is.

"In the beginning there was the word."

Then when that question is asked, you ask what that question is. Then you ask what THAT new question is.

So we are constantly asking "what is this question? " when we look out at the world around us. The world is always tempting us to figure it out and to develop our own idea of it.

But the source of the world comes from the very first question: "what should exist in the void", or "what Am I" which in a way are the same questions if you're in a void with nothing but your self.

This recursive seeking creates the infinite YOUs that have been called lego people. They've been called elves and gnomes too. Sometimes people see them as repeated versions of their bodies.

As for the jester, I have less experience with him, though I believe he's an amalgamation of lego people just as everything else is. He's a higher order one. Sort of the mind and the hive of the hivemind. It's possible we each have a jester. It's also possible he's us before we jumped into this multiverse. Us before we asked the question "who am i in a void?", kicking off a Big Bang of self-recursive discovery. He seems to play a managing role, so i could see him as the us before this reality, conducting the lego people to form our experience.

He's trapped in the same loop of questioning that we are. His questions pertain to our entire reality and what happens when he moves it.

If it helps, you can see the lego people as embodiments of the question they are currently asking within spacetime, and how the answer of your current question looks when factoring their question into account.

This is very confusing so I'ma just make multiple responses for the multiple thoughts I have on this

I feel like "Lego people" are an analogy for cells but if that's the case I'm not rly sure what the jester is, are you saying that the jester is above us? Like we're the building blocks of him. I'm also kinda realizing that this is also kind of (if I squint) a theory on how time is only relative to humans and beings that perceive it and how time and space as we understand them aren't there if there's nothing to perceive it.

This also feels like some paraphysics so idk if ur serious or not but it is interesting to think about multiple worlds is cool but idk if we can ever prove it

If you are serious about Lego people and that's not just an allegory for cells or brain waves then I'm a bit concerned but I've seen worse on this site

This also feels like some Greek philosopher stuff trying to explain the body and mind

It's well written and interesting :)

[meridiansdominoes]

Showers of Starlight

Incoming blyla incoming blyla incoming blyla

This issssss the sequel to ‘Catch the Rain’ that was posted a few weeks ago! @thatfunkyopossum HAPPY BIRTHDAY UR MY FAVORITE <3

(this is like, 6k words?? Is that okay to post in this weird tumblr format?? It’s gonna be mad long... well idk,,, but here it is anyway on ao3 too in case you don’t want to destroy ur dash with a long post heh

ao3:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758554

Aayla finds her Commander standing out on the little balcony, dressed in civilian clothes and staring out into the city. Night turns Coruscant into an endless sea of luminescence. Air lanes become lines of shooting stars pressing onward in the darkness. Skyscrapers around them glow with the light of thousands of residents inside, creating trails of brilliance that ascend up towards the black sky. 

By the time Aayla arrives at the complex that serves as the temporary housing for her officers while they’re on leave, the sun has disappeared from the sky, and she’s mentally exhausted. A full report to the Jedi Council takes effort and energy that she has to fight to produce, but she is required to give her debriefing before she can get some rest herself. She’s relieved that it’s over now, but there are still a few things to take care of. Her men need to be fully settled, otherwise Aayla won’t be able to sleep well tonight. She knows that Bly will take care of things, but she needs to verify their wellbeing for herself for her own peace of mind. Here on Coruscant they’re finally safe, and she has to remind herself of that somehow.   

Though visiting Bly to check on the men isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If anything the thought makes some of her exhaustion leave her as she steps into the lift that will take her up to her Commander’s quarters. The journey upwards is smooth and quick. When the doors open on the correct floor, Aayla steps out and immediately finds one of her officers in the hallway, clad only in his blacks.  

“General!” Captain Brine says in surprise, blue eyes widening. He snaps off a quick salute automatically. The effect is dampened slightly by the pillow he has tucked under his other arm. “What are you—oh. Looking for the Commander?”

Aayla nods. “Are you well, Captain?”

Brine shrugs.

“Well enough, sir. It’s a bit odd to not be on the ship, but the rooms are nice. Though the pillows leave a lot to be desired. I had to go find myself a new one.”

Aayla huffs out a tiny laugh. 

“I’ll take your word for it, Brine. Could you direct me to Bly’s room?”

“The last one on the left, sir,” Brine answers without hesitation. He meets her gaze carefully, something unreadable flashing across his face. “He’ll try to keep working instead of getting some rest like he should. Maybe you can help him where I can’t.”

Aayla blinks at her Captain, but before she can fully make sense of the words Brine is already retreating towards his own room. He closes his door behind him, leaving Aayla alone in the hallway. She sighs and makes her way to the end of the hall until she stands in front of the very last door on the left. 

It isn’t locked. The door slides open when she knocks lightly on the durasteel. She steps inside. The rooms that Brine had described as ‘nice’ are small and spartan in design. Nice is not the word Aayla would have used, but they’re a step up from the barracks to her men. There are three tiny spaces all hooked together—a small reception area, a tiny unused kitchen, and an even tinier bedroom. Aayla can see through the entire apartment.

Bly is nowhere in sight, although his armor is neatly stacked on the table in the little kitchen. Aayla hesitates for a moment, confused, until she notices the transperisteel door flung open against the far wall. Cream colored floor-length curtains hide the actual doorway from view. She makes her way through the apartment and pushes the curtains aside. 

Aayla finds her Commander standing out on the little balcony, dressed in civilian clothes and staring out into the city. Night turns Coruscant into an endless sea of luminescence. Air lanes become lines of shooting stars pressing onward in the darkness. Skyscrapers around them glow with the light of thousands of residents inside, creating trails of brilliance that ascend up towards the black sky. 

Coruscant is far too polluted for its inhabitants to see the stars that stretch above them through the smog. For some residents, the brilliant night is the closest they will ever get to seeing space around them. It is beautiful, in its own way. From the balcony of Bly’s window it seems as if he is poised on the edge of a glittering nebula, watching the colors swirl in hypnotic patterns and glitter quietly in the dark. 

Bly is framed by the ambient light of the city. Aayla allows herself to just watch him for a nanosecond. She can’t see his face, but the light plays off of his tan skin in such a flattering way that she can’t avert her gaze. There’s a datapad in one of his hands. She raps lightly on the wall to alert him to her presence. He turns a little too fast, free hand jerking down to his side for a weapon that isn’t there right now. Once he’s seen her, he stiffens a little bit into a loose attention. One eyebrow raises slowly.

“General?”

Aayla doesn’t respond immediately, mostly because her brain stalls as she finally takes full stock of what he’s wearing. 

He’s dressed in a loose white shirt with a low neckline that reveals his collarbone and the hint of a gold tattoo over his chest that disappears under the fabric. Her eyes pause on the smooth skin of his neck before she forces herself to drop her gaze—but that just makes things worse, because without the usual armor smoothing out the lines of his body she can see every muscle in his arms. His biceps are... impressive. She spends a moment just... drinking it in, because who knows if she’ll ever get to see this ever again. The tight black pants completing his outfit certainly don’t help her concentration.

Bly coughs suddenly. She glances back up to look him in the eyes. Now that she’s already thinking about such details, it’s hard to stop. The splashes of gold against the slant of his cheekbones is distinctly alluring. Aayla struggles to pull her thoughts out of the downward spiral and grimaces inwardly. She’s left him standing there for a heartbeat longer than necessary. She quirks one lek in a hasty greeting.

“At ease, Commander. I just wanted to ask you if the last of the reports have come in yet.” Aayla steps out onto the balcony to join him. She does, in fact, have the self-control necessary to keep her gaze from roving across his exposed skin this time, as tempting as it is. 

Bly’s body language loosens. He leans against the railing again and taps at his datapad, scrolling through a list of reports. She can see tiny pinpricks of light reflected from the city skyline in his eyes. Aayla settles herself against the railing next to him as well, content to wait as he runs through his mental checklists. 

She reaches out with the Force and grounds herself against his presence. It’s always bright and soothing and mellow to her in a way that she’s never felt before, not even among Jedi. She’s drawn to it. Today his mind is smooth, pulsing gently with peace and relief to finally be on leave. It’s rare that she gets to feel him in that state of mind. Bly is always concerned about something—about the men, about a campaign, about hyperspace routes, about shipping documents… about her. 

Perhaps he thinks he is subtle, but Aayla sees far more than he realizes. 

She notices when his gaze lingers on her, when he hesitates with his mouth hanging open as if he wants to speak before closing it and marching stiffly away. She notices when he bristles with anger and places himself between her and the foolish males that do not see the lightsaber in favor of inspecting her curves. She notices the fleeting smiles that cross his face when he thinks that she isn’t looking. 

She wonders if he’s ever noticed the similar expressions that cross her own face.

There has been an odd tension in the Force lately. It’s a steady buzz, just present enough to nag at her as if ordering her to pay attention to something. It doubles whenever she speaks with her commander. Aayla thinks that she understands why now. Perhaps. Tonight is as good a night as any to either confirm or dispute her theory… if she is brave enough. If she is wise about how she approaches the subject.

It’s a risk, but it’s one that she’s willing to take. Determination floods her veins. 

Bly sighs and looks up from the datapad with a nod of approval.

“I’ve got every report, sir. We’re good to go. I’ve even got the ship’s maintenance schedule here.” He grins wryly. “If only it were like this every time. The crew have sent all the records to me quicker than usual so that they can be off duty faster.”

Aayla chuckles.

“It would spare you a large amount of stress, at the very least,” she comments in amusement. Bly rolls his eyes.

“Force forbid,” he mutters. There’s something so easy about standing next to him, about the civilian clothing, about the casual conversation. Aayla feels a strange pang of jealousy. How easy would all of this be if they weren’t soldiers, if she were not a Jedi? She’s never doubted her purpose before, but Bly is the catalyst for many such thoughts.

Bly lifts his free hand to rub at his face. She glimpses a line of gold curling up his arm, disappearing into his sleeve. She reaches out to touch it without even thinking, brushing her fingers along the line and marvelling at how his something that should feel metallic and cold under her hand is warm and soft instead. She traces the tattoo higher, stopping just before she reaches the barrier of his sleeve. Part of her wants to follow it further. The thought abruptly makes her mouth go dry. 

“It suits you,” Aayla tells him honestly. He freezes up. For an instant, she feels muscles bunching under his skin. She pulls her hand away quickly, afraid that she’s crossed a line, and reaches out with the Force to check if she’s offended him in any way. Perhaps the tattoo is in memory of a lost brother, or a hard battle that he hadn’t wanted to remember right now—

When she brushes Bly’s mind she finds it full of static. His thoughts are racing almost too fast for her to make sense of them. After a moment he seizes them and wrestles them into submission. He swallows once and nods at her politely. 

“Thank you, sir,” he says. Calm, controlled. If she hadn’t glimpsed his thoughts she wouldn’t have known any better. But she does know, and the realization makes amusement and perhaps a hint of mischief course through her. If this is how he reacts to a simple compliment, she can’t imagine how he would be if she were to—

Force. Enough of that. 

“Have the men gotten settled?” she asks quietly, retreating away from his mind for the time being. He straightens at the question, shoulders drawing back.

“Yes, sir. They’re alright.” Then he winces. “They’re… excited. We haven’t gotten a good amount of leave in a while. I was thinking of drafting an apology letter to Fox tonight, just in case.”

Aayla laughs. 

“They deserve to have their fun,” she comments, leaning against the railing and staring out at the skyline in front of them. “We’ve had a busy few months.”

Bly drags in a deep breath and exhales slowly. 

“Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “They were getting tired. This will be good for them.”

“And for us,” Aayla adds. He hesitates, unsure of how to respond. She takes the opportunity to lean over him and pluck the datapad from his hand. A protest rises on his lips, but she shoots him a look, and he bites his tongue. “You deserve rest just as much as the rest of your men do, Commander.”

He nods in reluctant agreement, resting one elbow against the railing and slumping a little. He isn’t completely relaxed, but it’s more than he had been a few moments ago. Improvement.  

Silence settles over them. It isn’t uncomfortable—on the contrary, it’s peaceful. A light breeze stirs through the air. Aayla glances up at her Commander, squaring her shoulders a bit. There is an opportunity here, a chance to act. She takes it.

“What would you like to do after the war, Bly?”

He blinks at her, taken aback. To be fair, she’s never asked him something like this before. During the heat and smoke and fire of a campaign she’d never felt as if it were an appropriate question to solicit. She watches him consider it. He glances down, picking at the loose white shirt as if suddenly unsure of himself. 

“I’m not sure, sir,” he answers slowly. “I was created to be a soldier. I can’t really imagine myself doing anything else with my life. What… what would you like to do?”

Aayla hums. 

“I suppose I will continue to be a Jedi. Though it will undoubtedly be strange. We’ve taken the roles of Generals so easily. Many will struggle to leave it behind.”

His expression flickers as something unreadable passes across his face. 

“Will you?”

She falters.

Aayla will struggle. She already knows that, as surely as she knows that the sun will rise in the morning. Perhaps a few years ago that would have concerned her, but today she accepts it and wonders, not for the first time, if she even will want to leave it behind. Not for the power, not for the thrill of command, but for the men. For Bly.  

The Council would be appalled to hear that. Quinlan Vos would be thrilled. 

“I will not leave my men behind, even if the title of General is removed from me,” she tells Bly firmly. It’s so easy to be honest with him. It’s part of the reason why they work so well together. She sees something in Bly ease a little at her words. 

“That’s good, sir,” he says. Without warning he tenses again, taking a shallow breath. “I don’t necessarily know what I want to do after the war, but I do know that it wouldn’t be worth my time if you weren’t there as well.”

Her heart stutters in her chest. He turns his face back to the skyline, as if immediately berating himself for the comment. Aayla resists the urge to reach out with the Force and find the true meaning of those words, to understand everything left unspoken there. 

“In that case, I would welcome your company,” she responds quietly. Bly shifts his weight just a little. Some of the strain eases from his shoulders at her acceptance. His words hadn’t been an offer, not exactly, but it had been a bold statement—especially for Bly, who understands his priorities and selflessly resists the feelings that he so clearly wants to act upon. Aayla senses conflict in him, a constant battle between remaining stoic and throwing all caution to the wind. 

It would be a lie to say that she did not feel the same thing. 

There is a chain of command. There is a Jedi Code. There are rules, both dictated and not, that must be followed. In all her life she has never found herself wishing that it were not so until now.

Bly pulls away from the railing of the balcony, taking a step back. His tattoos gleam like liquid gold across his arms as he moves into a different light.  

“I… I’ll get some rest then, General. You should too,” he suggests carefully. Too carefully. She is consistently impressed by his restraint. If it weren’t for his careful self-control she would have fallen a long time ago, but he balances her out perfectly in that as well as everything else. She doesn’t want him to leave yet. 

She catches his arm as he tries to turn away with her own hand. Both of them freeze. Aayla looks down at her hand and is suddenly fascinated by the way the blue of her skin contrasts with the warm brown of his. 

“Bly. Stay with me?”

She doesn’t have much right to ask that of him. It’s his room, after all. But Aayla doesn’t imagine the little tremor that runs through his body as he pulls his arm away. She lifts her head to meet his gaze and is stunned by the storm of conflict in his eyes.

“General… I don’t think…”

“Stay,” Aayla repeats softly. She ever-so-gently brushes at the edge of his mind again to make sure she isn’t pressuring him. She won’t force him into something he genuinely doesn’t want to do. 

Bly’s mind is always so welcoming to her. She doesn’t even think that he’s aware of how readily it opens to her, of how easily it shares its secrets with her. For that reason she chooses to keep her distance for the most part, because she refuses to take advantage of him in that way. If she must reach for his thoughts, she keeps the connection as shallow as possible.

On occasions she’s seen his mind flare brilliantly when she’s nearby until he stuffs the light away under a grey shield of professionalism. She catches glimpses of it when he’s not being careful—when they’ve won a campaign and the men are celebrating in a fever, adrenaline and relief and the thrill of success spinning through the air. When she tells him that her recklessness had indeed been part of the plan and he only responds with an eye-roll and a fond chuckle. When he changes an entire battle strategy because she makes a single offhand comment about how she’s worried about destroying a beautiful forest. 

Never once has she felt his mind grow heavy and dark with the sick lust that so many other men succumb to when she approaches. When desire does escape from the deeper recesses of Bly’s mind it is only visible for an instant as a bright flash of heat before he shuts it down without mercy. His respect for her is tangible even without a glance at his thoughts. 

Right now, his mind is hesitant. She can sense that he wants to stay, but he is afraid as well. He’s worried for what he might do if he does remain, for what she might think, for what the men might say. 

If only he could see into her mind. Aayla thinks a bit wryly that he wouldn’t be as afraid if he could feel her own thoughts on the matter.

“I would like it if you stayed,” she reiterates, just so that he understands that this isn’t an order, isn’t something that he’s required to accept. “Though you are welcome to get some rest if you wish.”

It’s a dangerous game that they’re playing. The attraction, the want, is mutual, otherwise it wouldn’t be as potent as it is. Aayla is tired of ignoring the bantha in the room. War takes and razes and tears down everything in its path. For once she wants to take something for herself.

Bly clenches his jaw and nods once.

“I’ll stay,” he acquiesces quietly. In the distance, faint police sirens become audible. Aayla can’t help a tiny smirk at the way Bly’s expression turns pained. 

“There are millions of life-forms living nearby, Bly, I’m sure the men are fine. They probably don’t have anything to do with it,” she teases. He rolls his eyes. 

“If I don’t get some sort of complaint in the morning I’ll be extremely surprised,” he grumbles. The grumpy amusement on his face is so utterly endearing that she steps forward without even thinking about it. 

“Bly…”

His name comes out of her mouth with more warmth than she’d intended. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

“Aayla.” 

She shivers. Her name rolls off of his tongue in the most delightful way. She draws a little closer to him, just enough to be intruding in his personal space. When he finally opens his eyes to look at her again she can see his defenses crashing down, crumbling as she reaches out to trace her fingers along the gold across his cheek. 

He swallows hard as if bracing himself and reaches out a hand. His fingers brush against one of her lekku tentatively. She makes a soft noise of encouragement, and his touch grows a little more firm, sliding up to rest just at the junction of her skull. Aayla sighs. She leans forward and rests her forehead against his. 

That makes him pause. His eyes go wide, as if he’s only just realizing what he’s doing. He jerks away from her so fast that she briefly loses her balance. The absence of his touch, as fleeting as it had been, makes her chest ache.

“Aayla, I—General. General, Force, this isn’t—I can’t. You have your—the Code, and the regs—”

Aayla exhales. 

“And what if I wanted to choose, just for a moment, that they did not exist, Commander?” she asks him. “The time for hesitation is over. I will not sit in silence and wait until the war takes even you from me.”

Bly’s expression contorts. The edges of his Force presence go jagged. 

“It isn’t that simple,” he forces out. “We could pretend all we want, but that wouldn’t change the rules.”

“Some would say that the rules are outdated,” Aayla counters. She feels a sharp flash of frustration. It’s tempting to let it stew and grow, but she does her best to let it go. 

“That doesn’t matter, sir. We couldn’t ever… if anyone ever noticed, you would be stripped of both your rank and your title as a Jedi Master. I won’t be responsible for that.”

She mulls over his determined words with a sad fondness. He would give up everything he ever wanted just to keep her safe.

“Fortunately, you are not responsible for that,” she replies smoothly. “I am quite capable of making my own decisions. If I were to be expelled from the Jedi Order it would be because I chose that path.”

He stares her down, horrified. Then he narrows his eyes and sets his jaw.

“I would rather have you with me—with us, with the battalion—as a General and nothing more, than not have you at all.”

Aayla’s frustration comes back, stronger this time. She frowns at him.

“As I told you before, I will not leave my men behind, even if the title of General is removed from me. Nor will I leave my men behind if the title of Jedi is stripped from me. This is a risk that I am willing to take.” 

Bly grimaces and tips his head back, sighing at the sky.

“Sir, regardless, I’m not—I’m not worth that risk. I’m a clone. This isn’t just inappropriate, it’s unfair to you, and I can’t—”

“That is not what I believe,” Aayla interrupts sharply. She feels just a jolt of anger, of outrage that he’s been conditioned to think like that. The emotion is difficult to banish. “You are worth far more to me than you could ever realize.”

He twitches and looks away fast. The rise and fall of his chest comes quicker now. His mind undulates with uncertainty and fear. The uncertainty is understandable, but the fear—that, she doesn’t understand. She steps close to him again and watches him tense, glancing at her as if worried of what she’ll do. 

“What are you afraid of?” she asks in genuine surprise. She is just as new to this as he is, after all, and she wants answers. Bly lets out a stuttering breath. 

“I don’t know,” he rasps. The words ring with honesty. An idea flits on the edge of Aayla’s mind. She reaches up to touch his temple. Despite everything, he leans into the touch.

“Let me see,” she requests. For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything, just stares into her eyes. Ever so slowly, he dips his head in a small nod. Aayla closes her eyes.

When she reaches for his mind, his thoughts all but pull her inside. In an instant she’s deeper into his psyche than she’d originally meant to go. All of his emotions roll over her like a wave. She tries to pull away from them, but it’s too late, and she gets thrown into a whirlwind of sensation—

It’s overwhelming. The first thing to hit her is a tide of devotion so fierce that it feels like a firestorm against her own mind. A distinct longing is next, waxing and waning in strength as he struggles to keep it in check. Then there is a devastating clash of loyalty and restraint and desire and helplessness that makes her head spin. 

In the center of it all, she sees herself. 

It isn’t what she expects at all; isn’t even close to how she imagines herself in her own mind. She stands against an infinite stretch of darkness, lighting the way with her lightsaber outstretched as a brilliant blue beacon. She can sense Bly’s instinctual inclination to follow regardless of where she will lead—even if it means death, even if it means something worse. Through Bly’s eyes she is glorious and powerful and ethereal. Except then there is a sharp contrast, because she fights with all the vigor of a warrior but then she turns to look at him and everything goes soft and suddenly he is overcome by admiration and fondness and a hesitant, tentative love—

Aayla reels back. She struggles to stay above the sea of affection and desire and passion that follows after her doggedly, as if it can’t continue to exist without showing her everything now that she’s stumbled across it. She is jolted to reality. Both of her hands are curled tenderly around Bly’s skull. His eyes are squeezed shut. 

She trails her gaze over his face. Aayla is flustered and panting. She had known that he feels something for her, but she’d never realized to what extent. His self-control is even more impressive now that she’s caught a glimpse of what he truly thinks. 

“Bly—you—?”

He blinks his eyes open and immediately lowers them in shame. 

That won’t do at all. Determination swells in her heart along with a strange sensation of desperation, because she’d known, but she’d never truly understood. He’d kept the full extent of his feelings carefully locked away, and when parts of it had escaped they had only implied a mere fraction of what was really going on inside his head. 

She wants—needs—him to understand that it goes both ways.

When she enters his mind again, she lets Bly’s emotions wash around her instead of hitting her full force. She sinks deep, catching glimpses of memories and snippets of sound—

A battlefield shouldn’t be alluring, but with fire swirling around her and sparks drifting past them, she’s more glorious than anything else he could ever imagine.

He wishes that he could express the sensation that he feels whenever she looks at him like that, how his heart seems to swell three sizes and continue expanding until it’s all but bursting out of his chest. 

Blue. Blue. Blue. He can’t get the color out of his head, can’t stop his eyes from trailing over her skin and noting all of her visible scars, can’t focus right even though he knows that he needs to concentrate.

She makes a bad call. Not even the best Generals are without fault. Brothers die. For all that he admires her she is still flawed, but somehow that doesn’t detract from how badly he wants her, from how much he cares. She is imperfect and scarred but he loves her all the more for it, for how she fights to become better with every breath she takes.

It’s raining. She looks happy. She looks at peace. Her eyes are bright. She’s beautiful. He wants to reach out and touch her. He aches because he can’t. 

Nothing will ever come out of his feelings but he will content himself with the fleeting sensations of joy he finds when she presses her spine to his in the middle of a battle and fights with absolute certainty that he’ll be there to guard her back. 

Jedi aren’t immortal and that has never been more obvious now. She is sick and miserable and tired. He convinces her to leave the bridge under his command for the day and go get some rest. When he drops by her room to update her on the Separatist’s movements she is sprawled out on her bunk, mouth hanging open and drooling. It is possible the most unflattering view of her that he’s ever seen. He hardly cares. He sits next to her anyway, a grin springing to his lips as she stirs and blinks up at him, surprised at his presence. There’s nowhere else that he’d rather be. 

He hadn’t been created to love. Sometimes he wishes that he had been.

There. Hidden in that thought Aayla finds hints of darkness. She catches a hold of the trail of insecurity she had originally intended to follow and chases after it. 

Chain of command aside, Jedi code aside, anything he feels for her is foolish. Bly is not unique, not special despite his rank. Even if there were no restrictions he has millions of brothers who all look the same, so why would she pay any attention to him at all?

He is Kaminoan property. There is no place for love in his purpose. He barely even understands the concept even though he knows the word. He couldn’t possibly offer her what she wants, isn’t worthy to even try. He’s just a clone, nothing more.

It hurts her to feel how deeply those thoughts are woven into his mind. She tugs at them carefully and feels him lurch. Somewhere in the real world she feels hands clutching at her shoulders, but she can’t focus on that right now.    

She won’t be able to replace the thoughts, can’t destroy them as much as she would like to. Instead she presses her own thoughts over his, carefully so that he can sense every detail.

Gold is enthralling to her now. Her eyes get stuck on it automatically. She can only think of armor and tattoos and eyes and tan skin—and a steady presence beside her that she wouldn’t trade for the galaxy. 

They are alone and desperate and fighting. Aayla pushes herself to move faster, to fight harder, to continue even though her limbs are shaking because she won’t let him die, not today. It would hurt more than anything to replace a battalion but it would tear her into pieces and leave her incapacitated to lose Bly.

It’s raining. She coaxes him to step into the open and tilt his head upwards. His Force presence goes still and calm as he stares up into the clouds above them. Raindrops settle in his hair like tiny glass orbs and scatter across the tattoos on his cheeks. She wants to reach out, she wants, she wants. She senses that he does too, but then he pulls away and she marvels at his control even though her chest contracts in disappointment. 

He stands against a hailfire of blaster bolts, unshaken, grounding her along with the rest of his brothers, pistols blazing. She draws strength from his courage and pushes forward. She trusts him with her life. She knows with unshakable certainty that Bly will have her back.

It’s late. The hangar is empty except for them, seated on top of a LAAT with the hangar bay doors thrown wide open to show wide-open space above them. When she turns her head over to look at Bly she sees a wide-eyed awe on his face. He marvels at how different the stars look from here than on Kamino. His joy is tangible. Aayla only has eyes for him. She feels warm and happy and light in a way that she’s never felt before. 

He smiles at her fondly and she feels faint suddenly, as if the single breathtaking, handsome, devoted expression is enough to stop her heart.

Love is dangerous because she is a Jedi. But she looks at him and decides that she doesn’t care.

Aayla lets him feel and see and understand every inch of her yearning, every ounce of her awe. His entire mind quakes under her touch. She feels the knot of darkness shiver and unravel a bit. She can’t get rid of it just yet. That will take time. She dares to hope that she’ll get the chance to try soon. 

She comes back to herself. Bly’s hands are trembling on her shoulders. When she makes a soft noise of concern he wrenches them off of her and presses his fists against his sides. 

“Aayla,” he groans, and he sounds absolutely wrecked. Like he’s seconds from falling apart. His eyes are bright and wide. They’re practically glowing in the dim lighting.    

“I want you,” she tells him firmly, forcing every bit of blunt honesty into her voice as she can. She brushes her thumbs across his cheekbones and then lets her hands drop. “This is worth the risk to me, Bly. But it is up to you.”

She puts the choice in his hands and half expects him to turn away, to mull over everything he’s felt, to hesitate again. 

He does not. 

Instead, he makes a strangled sound, leans in, and presses his lips to hers.

It’s the last thing she’s expecting. She nearly stumbles as a result. His panic spikes into the Force until she grabs his shoulders and kisses him back. 

The Force surges in a flare of heat and electricity around them. Bly exhales shakily against her. The brush of their lips is light and tentative. Aayla gathers herself, curling her fingers into the fabric of his shirt and deepening the kiss. Their mouths slant together. One of Bly’s hands finds her lekku again and strokes it gently. Her knees go weak underneath her at the pleasant sensation, at the feel of his mouth against hers. 

When they break apart, Bly is gasping like he’s dying and can hardly believe his own audacity. Aayla feels heat crawling up her neck. She can’t stop panting either, and she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. 

She’d hoped to get this far, to help him see that he’s worth it, that this is a risk that she’s willing to take, but she hadn’t expected any of that. This is unfamiliar to both of them.

 “I—I didn’t—I—” Bly stammers out, and Aayla just blinks at him, because she isn’t doing much better. 

Neither of them say anything for a long moment. Aayla can’t tear her gaze away from his face. He’s still so afraid, but she can see his mind weighing all of the options, struggling to make a final decision. 

The pinprick of cold on her forearm makes her jerk. It’s followed by another on her lek, and then another on her forehead. 

It’s raining. 

Bly sucks in a sharp breath. 

It rains once in a blue moon on Coruscant. It isn’t unheard of, but it isn’t common either. Aayla remembers a memory from a forest planet months ago, etched into both of their minds with striking clarity and sentiment. Slowly, Bly tilts his head back until he’s looking up into the sky. 

She had shown him that. It sends a thrill down her spine to watch him remember, to feel his Force presence go from raging indecision to solidifying into careful determination.  

The raindrops are growing bigger. She can hear them clattering against the balcony around her. A droplet splatters against her nose. She reaches out to brush the water away and goes still when Bly reaches for her hand, threading their fingers together as if he’s afraid that she’s going to change her mind.

“It’s worth the risk,” he whispers, like a prayer. She smiles at him. After a heartbeat, he returns it. “I want... I want you too.”

His words make Aayla feel giddy, like she’s soaring, light as a feather and free as the wind. The rain comes down around them. It would only take a few steps to enter the room and dry off but neither of them move.

She wants to kiss him again. The relief and elation she feels as she realizes that she actually can now is heady. His lips are still parted ever so slightly. When she leans in again, he meets her halfway. 

It doesn’t matter that they’re going to get drenched. It doesn’t matter that there’s a chain of command or a Jedi code. It doesn’t matter that there’s a war going on and sometimes it’s safer to not get attached. 

She focuses on Bly and finds peace in the rhythm of the rain. It’s worth the risk.

[vexedtonightmares]

You should rank the skam France characters on vibe alone

have i been chosen to deliver the vibe check? i’ll do my best with this power (this isn’t a character ranking or anything either btw this is just pure shitposting so i’m sorry if u were expecting something more poetic 😔✌️)  

emma borges- s1 emma suffered so s2-6 emma could vibe beyond this universe. yann and emma got their development and fucked off to be shining beacons of light in every clip they’re a part of. she talked to a horse. V I B E S.

imane bakhellal- beautiful amazing incredible show stopping iconic never been done before fantastic perfection oui oui baguette. has never done anything wrong in her life. i want her to vibe check me.

yann cazas- homie did his time during season one and ever since then he’s literally just been v i b i n g. he gets points taken off for the end of 3x06, but sans ambiguite restored his power. yann is my king. socialist icon.

eliott demaury- the only reason he does not have the best vibes is because he’s just not straight vibey all the time like, say, yann cazas. by the time s6 is over he’ll just be vibing in the sixth dimensional plane of existence in his doc martens like at the end of s5, though, i believe in him.

basile savary- s3 basile failed the vibe check so hard that somehow he got knocked into another dimension and came back from it enlightened beyond words. he now passes the vibe check with flying colors.

lucas lallemant- he has pretty solid vibes, but we can’t forget his s1 snakery, unfortunately. he does get extra points for being gay, though, and for having the best hair in all of france. his chaotic energy surpasses most known rules of vibes, so he’s near the top anyway, snakery and all.

lola lecomte- fuck vibes she needs a HUG. as far as vibes go though, she’s my current self projection character, so that’s a special vibe all on its own. 

maya etienne- an environmentally conscious lesbian with purple hair who does urbex with her best friends who happen to be a delightful group of queer arty weirdos? these vibes are so sweet i can smell the roses.

alexia martineau- the colored hair in s1-4 automatically puts her vibes above so many others. queen of Deserved Better. also a certified bicon which i think is very sexy of her.

idriss bakhellal- the coolest vibes of them all, you can’t tell me any different. unfortunately, he dated ingrid, so. vibes automatically decreased.

lisa- she sleeps and makes horrible jokes and has a job as a lifeguard while she can’t swim. if that doesn’t scream vibes idk what does.

noee daucet- she’s honestly also too cool to vibe in the same way as everyone else, and that’s what makes her vibes so strong. i miss her. would have had better vibes if she was a lesbian but the same goes for everyone. 

max- vibes out of this world. lamifex is on another level, i stg, all of their vibes are so incredible i can’t help but chef’s kiss in their direction at all times. max especially, go off king just for existing. 

sofiane alaoui- turtleneck, dancing, punched charles. i rest my case.

jo- can and WILL fight a bitch. mad respect and mad vibes. also an eliott stan, which gives me the representation i never knew i needed. incredible.

sekou- history nerd who absolutely SERVED at that urbex party. no one is doing it like him. if someone tried to vibe check him he would simply pull an uno reverse, and i think that’s one of the greatest vibes out there.

manon demissy- on paper? incredible 10/10 vibes. in practice, not so much. i Love this girl do not get me wrong, but she’s pulled some straight up Not Cool moves and the fact that she’s still dating charles is the real reason her vibes are a bit crispy rn.

arthur broussard- i do not know what to do with this lil man. s3/4/6 arthur? immaculate vibes, untouchable. s5 arthur? demon. so, he’s here. 

daphne lecomte- if her vibes were a state of matter, they would be gas, because they are bouncing all over the place with no sense of pattern or rhythm. sometimes her vibes are out of this world, sometimes her vibes belong in hell. very difficult to pinpoint.

camille- vibes out of this world, the only reason he’s not higher is because he was in like 10 clips of s5 and that’s it. bonus points for camika though.

mika dolleron- not the best vibes, not the worst. always comes thru when u need him, but he’s also a bitch. he embraces it, though, which is a vibe all on its own i suppose.

alexandre delano- p chris and eva walked so emma and alex could run, i said what i said. he left after s4 tho, so that vibe isn’t very spicy. 

ingrid spielman- racist. automatic vibe check fail.

tiff- lola quite literally vibe checked her, and if the neck brace says anything, it says fail. stalking is also an automatic vibe check fail. girl. what the fuck. get ur life together. she isn’t allowed to have vibes until she does so.  

charles munier- rancid vibes, does not even deserve a ranking because we all know he is the embodiment of human garbage. 

[arcticdementor]

Oscar Wilde supposedly said George Bernard Shaw "has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends". Socialist blogger Freddie DeBoer is the opposite: few allies, but deeply respected by his enemies. I disagree with him about everything, so naturally I am a big fan of his work - which meant I was happy to read his latest book, The Cult Of Smart.

DeBoer starts with the standard narrative of The Failing State Of American Education. Students aren't learning. The country is falling behind. Only tough no-excuses policies, standardization, and innovative reforms like charter schools can save it, as shown by their stellar performance improving test scores and graduation rates.

He argues that every word of it is a lie. American education isn't getting worse by absolute standards: students match or outperform their peers from 20 or 50 years ago. It's not getting worse by international standards: America's PISA rankings are mediocre, but the country has always scored near the bottom of international rankings, even back in the 50s and 60s when we were kicking Soviet ass and landing men on the moon. Race and gender gaps are stable or decreasing. American education is doing much as it's always done - about as well as possible, given the crushing poverty, single parent-families, violence, and racism holding back the kids it's charged with shepherding to adulthood.

…

For decades, politicians of both parties have thought of education as "the great leveller" and the key to solving poverty. If people are stuck in boring McJobs, it's because they're not well-educated enough to be surgeons and rocket scientists. Give them the education they need, and they can join the knowledge economy and rise into the upper-middle class. For lack of any better politically-palatable way to solve poverty, this has kind of become a totem: get better schools, and all those unemployed Appalachian coal miners can move to Silicon Valley and start tech companies. But you can't do that. Not everyone is intellectually capable of doing a high-paying knowledge economy job. Schools can change your intellectual potential a limited amount. Ending child hunger, removing lead from the environment, and similar humanitarian programs can do a little more, but only a little. In the end, a lot of people aren't going to make it.

So what can you do? DeBoer doesn't think there's an answer within the existing system. Instead, we need to dismantle meritocracy.

DeBoer is skeptical of "equality of opportunity". Even if you solve racism, sexism, poverty, and many other things that DeBoer repeatedly reminds us have not been solved, you'll just get people succeeding or failing based on natural talent. DeBoer agrees conservatives can be satisfied with this, but thinks leftists shouldn't be. Natural talent is just as unearned as class, race, or any other unfair advantage.

One one level, the titular Cult Of Smart is just the belief that enough education can solve any problem. But more fundamentally it's also the troubling belief that after we jettison unfair theories of superiority based on skin color, sex, and whatever else, we're finally left with what really determines your value as a human being - how smart you are. DeBoer recalls hearing an immigrant mother proudly describe her older kid's achievements in math, science, etc, "and then her younger son ran by, and she said, offhand, 'This one, he is maybe not so smart.'" DeBoer was originally shocked to hear someone describe her own son that way, then realized that he wouldn't have thought twice if she'd dismissed him as unathletic, or bad at music. Intelligence is considered such a basic measure of human worth that to dismiss someone as unintelligent seems like consigning them into the outer darkness. So DeBoer describes how early readers of his book were scandalized by the insistence on genetic differences in intelligence - isn't this denying the equality of Man, declaring some people inherently superior to others? Only if you conflate intelligence with worth, which DeBoer argues our society does constantly. It starts with parents buying Baby Einstein tapes and trying to send their kids to the best preschool, continues through the "meat grinder" of the college admissions process when everyone knows that whoever gets into Harvard is better than whoever gets into State U, and continues when the meritocracy rewards the straight-A Harvard student with a high-paying powerful job and the high school dropout with drudgery or unemployment. Even the phrase "high school dropout" has an aura of personal failure about it, in a way totally absent from "kid who always lost at Little League".

DeBoer isn't convinced this is an honest mistake. He draws attention to a sort of meta-class-war - a war among class warriors over whether the true enemy is the top 1% (this is the majority position) or the top 20% (this is DeBoer's position; if you've read Staying Classy, you'll immediately recognize this disagreement as the same one that divided the Church and UR models of class). The 1% are the Buffetts and Bezoses of the world; the 20% are the "managerial" class of well-off urban professionals, bureaucrats, creative types, and other mandarins. Opposition to the 20% is usually right-coded; describe them as "woke coastal elites who dominate academia and the media", and the Trump campaign ad almost writes itself. But some Marxists flirt with it too; the book references Elizabeth Currid-Halkett's Theory Of The Aspirational Class, and you can hear echoes of this every time Twitter socialists criticize "Vox liberals" or something. Access to the 20% is gated by college degree, and their legitimizing myth is that their education makes them more qualified and humane than the rest of us. DeBoer thinks the deification of school-achievement-compatible intelligence as highest good serves their class interest; "equality of opportunity" means we should ignore all other human distinctions in favor of the one that our ruling class happens to excel at.

So maybe equality of opportunity is a stupid goal. DeBoer argues for equality of results. This is a pretty extreme demand, but he's a Marxist and he means what he says. He wants a world where smart people and dull people have equally comfortable lives, and where intelligence can take its rightful place as one of many virtues which are nice to have but not the sole measure of your worth.

…

I'm Freddie's ideological enemy, which means I have to respect him. And there's a lot to like about this book. I think its two major theses - that intelligence is mostly innate, and that this is incompatible with equating it to human value - are true, important, and poorly appreciated by the general population. I tried to make a somewhat similar argument in my Parable Of The Talents, which DeBoer graciously quotes in his introduction. Some of the book's peripheral theses - that a lot of education science is based on fraud, that US schools are not declining in quality, etc - are also true, fascinating, and worth spreading. Overall, I think this book does more good than harm.

It's also rambling, self-contradictory in places, and contains a lot of arguments I think are misguided or bizarre.

…

At the time, I noted that meritocracy has nothing to do with this. The intuition behind meritocracy is: if your life depends on a difficult surgery, would you prefer the hospital hire a surgeon who aced medical school, or a surgeon who had to complete remedial training to barely scrape by with a C-? If you prefer the former, you’re a meritocrat with respect to surgeons. Generalize a little, and you have the argument for being a meritocrat everywhere else.

The above does away with any notions of "desert", but I worry it's still accepting too many of DeBoer's assumptions. A better description might be: Your life depends on a difficult surgery. You can hire whatever surgeon you want to perform it. You are willing to pay more money for a surgeon who aced medical school than for a surgeon who failed it. So higher intelligence leads to more money.

This not only does away with "desert", but also with reified Society deciding who should prosper. More meritorious surgeons get richer not because "Society" has selected them to get rich as a reward for virtue, but because individuals pursuing their incentives prefer, all else equal, not to die of botched surgeries. Meritocracy isn't an -ocracy like democracy or autocracy, where people in wigs sit down to frame a constitution and decide how things should work. It's a dubious abstraction over the fact that people prefer to have jobs done well rather than poorly, and use their financial and social clout to make this happen.

…

I think DeBoer would argue he's not against improving schools. He just thinks all attempts to do it so far have been crooks and liars pillaging the commons, so much so that we need a moratorium on this kind of thing until we can figure out what's going on. But I'm worried that his arguments against existing school reform are in some cases kind of weak.

DeBoer does make things hard for himself by focusing on two of the most successful charter school experiments. If he'd been a little less honest, he could have passed over these and instead mentioned the many charter schools that fail, or just sort of plod onward doing about as well as public schools do. I think the closest thing to a consensus right now is that most charter schools do about the same as public schools for white/advantaged students, and slightly better than public schools for minority/disadvantaged students. But DeBoer very virtuously thinks it's important to confront his opponents' strongest cases, so these are the ones I'll focus on here.

…

These are good points, and I would accept them from anyone other than DeBoer, who will go on to say in a few chapters that the solution to our education issues is a Marxist revolution that overthrows capitalism and dispenses with the very concept of economic value. If he's willing to accept a massive overhaul of everything, that's failed every time it's tried, why not accept a much smaller overhaul-of-everything, that's succeeded at least once? There are plenty of billionaires willing to pour fortunes into reforming various cities - DeBoer will go on to criticize them as deluded do-gooders a few chapters later. If billions of dollars plus a serious commitment to ground-up reform are what we need, let's just spend billions of dollars and have a serious commitment to ground-up reform! If more hurricanes is what it takes to fix education, I'm willing to do my part by leaving my air conditioner on 'high' all the time.

…

DeBoer spends several impassioned sections explaining how opposed he is to scientific racism, and arguing that the belief that individual-level IQ differences are partly genetic doesn't imply a belief that group-level IQ differences are partly genetic. Some reviewers of this book are still suspicious, wondering if he might be hiding his real position. I can assure you he is not. Seriously, he talks about how much he hates belief in genetic group-level IQ differences about thirty times per page. Also, sometimes when I write posts about race, he sends me angry emails ranting about how much he hates that some people believe in genetic group-level IQ differences - totally private emails nobody else will ever see. I have no reason to doubt that his hatred of this is as deep as he claims.

But I understand why some reviewers aren't convinced. This book can't stop tripping over itself when it tries to discuss these topics. DeBoer grants X, he grants X -> Y, then goes on ten-page rants about how absolutely loathsome and abominable anyone who believes Y is.

Remember, one of the theses of this book is that individual differences in intelligence are mostly genetic. But DeBoer spends only a little time citing the studies that prove this is true. He (correctly) decides that most of his readers will object not on the scientific ground that they haven't seen enough studies, but on the moral ground that this seems to challenge the basic equality of humankind. He (correctly) points out that this is balderdash, that innate differences in intelligence don't imply differences in moral value, any more than innate differences in height or athletic ability or anything like that imply differences in moral value. His goal is not just to convince you about the science, but to convince you that you can believe the science and still be an okay person who respects everyone and wants them to be happy.

He could have written a chapter about race that reinforced this message. He could have reviewed studies about whether racial differences in intelligence are genetic or environmental, come to some conclusion or not, but emphasized that it doesn't matter, and even if it's 100% genetic it has no bearing at all on the need for racial equality and racial justice, that one race having a slightly higher IQ than another doesn't make them "superior" any more than Pygmies' genetic short stature makes them "inferior".

Instead he - well, I'm not really sure what he's doing. He starts by says racial differences must be environmental. Then he says that studies have shown that racial IQ gaps are not due to differences in income/poverty, because the gaps remain even after controlling for these. But, he says, there could be other environmental factors aside from poverty that cause racial IQ gaps. After tossing out some possibilities, he concludes that he doesn't really need to be able to identify a plausible mechanism, because "white supremacy touches on so many aspects of American life that it's irresponsible to believe we have adequately controlled for it", no matter how many studies we do or how many confounders we eliminate. His argument, as far as I can tell, is that it's always possible that racial IQ differences are environmental, therefore they must be environmental. Then he goes on to, at great length, denounce as loathsome and villainous anyone who might suspect these gaps of being genetic. Such people are "noxious", "bigoted", "ugly", "pseudoscientific" "bad people" who peddle "propaganda" to "advance their racist and sexist agenda". (But tell us what you really think!)

…

This is far enough from my field that I would usually defer to expert consensus, but all the studies I can find which try to assess expert consensus seem crazy. A while ago, I freaked out upon finding a study that seemed to show most expert scientists in the field agreed with Murray's thesis in 1987 - about three times as many said the gap was due to a combination of genetics and environment as said it was just environment. Then I freaked out again when I found another study (here is the most recent version, from 2020) showing basically the same thing (about four times as many say it’s a combination of genetics and environment compared to just environment). I can't find any expert surveys giving the expected result that they all agree this is dumb and definitely 100% environment and we can move on (I'd be very relieved if anybody could find those, or if they could explain why the ones I found were fake studies or fake experts or a biased sample, or explain how I'm misreading them or that they otherwise shouldn't be trusted. If you have thoughts on this, please send me an email). I've vacillated back and forth on how to think about this question so many times, and right now my personal probability estimate is "I am still freaking out about this, go away go away go away". And I understand I have at least two potentially irresolveable biases on this question: one, I'm a white person in a country with a long history of promoting white supremacy; and two, if I lean in favor then everyone will hate me, and use it as a bludgeon against anyone I have ever associated with, and I will die alone in a ditch and maybe deserve it. So the best I can do is try to route around this issue when considering important questions. This is sometimes hard, but the basic principle is that I'm far less sure of any of it than I am sure that all human beings are morally equal and deserve to have a good life and get treated with respect regardless of academic achievement.

…

That last sentence about the basic principle is the thesis of The Cult Of Smart, so it would have been a reasonable position for DeBoer to take too. DeBoer doesn't take it. He acknowledges the existence of expert scientists who believe the differences are genetic (he names Linda Gottfredson in particular), but only to condemn them as morally flawed for asserting this.

But this is exactly the worldview he is, at this very moment, trying to write a book arguing against! His thesis is that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among individuals, because that would make some people fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - but those voices are wrong, because differences in intelligence don't affect moral equality. Then he adds that mainstream voices say there can't be genetic differences in intelligence among ethnic groups, because that would make some groups fundamentally inferior to others, which is morally repugnant - and those voices are right; we must deny the differences lest we accept the morally repugnant thing.

Normally I would cut DeBoer some slack and assume this was some kind of Straussian manuever he needed to do to get the book published, or to prevent giving ammunition to bad people. But no, he has definitely believed this for years, consistently, even while being willing to offend basically anybody about basically anything else at any time. So I'm convinced this is his true belief. I'm just not sure how he squares it with the rest of his book.

…

"Smart" equivocates over two concepts - high-IQ and successful-at-formal-education. These concepts are related; in general, high-IQ people get better grades, graduate from better colleges, etc. But they're not exactly the same.

There is a cult of successful-at-formal-education. Society obsesses over how important formal education is, how it can do anything, how it's going to save the world. If you get gold stars on your homework, become the teacher's pet, earn good grades in high school, and get into an Ivy League, the world will love you for it.

But the opposite is true of high-IQ. Society obsessively denies that IQ can possibly matter. Admit to being a member of Mensa, and you'll get a fusillade of "IQ is just a number!" and "people who care about their IQ are just overcompensating for never succeeding at anything real!" and "IQ doesn't matter, what about emotional IQ or grit or whatever else, huh? Bet you didn't think of that!" Science writers and Psychology Today columnists vomit out a steady stream of bizarre attempts to deny the statistical validity of IQ.

These are two sides of the same phenomenon. Some people are smarter than others as adults, and the more you deny innate ability, the more weight you have to put on education. Society wants to put a lot of weight on formal education, and compensates by denying innate ability a lot. DeBoer is aware of this and his book argues against it adeptly.

Still, I worry that the title - The Cult Of Smart - might lead people to think there is a cult surrounding intelligence, when exactly the opposite is true. But I guess The Cult Of Successful At Formal Education sounds less snappy, so whatever.

…

I try to review books in an unbiased way, without letting myself succumb to fits of emotion. So be warned: I'm going to fail with this one. I am going to get angry and write whole sentences in capital letters. This is one of the most enraging passages I've ever read.

School is child prison. It's forcing kids to spend their childhood - a happy time! a time of natural curiosity and exploration and wonder - sitting in un-air-conditioned blocky buildings, cramped into identical desks, listening to someone drone on about the difference between alliteration and assonance, desperate to even be able to fidget but knowing that if they do their teacher will yell at them, and maybe they'll get a detention that extends their sentence even longer without parole. The anti-psychiatric-abuse community has invented the "Burrito Test" - if a place won't let you microwave a burrito without asking permission, it's an institution. Doesn't matter if the name is "Center For Flourishing" or whatever and the aides are social workers in street clothes instead of nurses in scrubs - if it doesn't pass the Burrito Test, it's an institution. There is no way school will let you microwave a burrito without permission. THEY WILL NOT EVEN LET YOU GO TO THE BATHROOM WITHOUT PERMISSION. YOU HAVE TO RAISE YOUR HAND AND ASK YOUR TEACHER FOR SOMETHING CALLED "THE BATHROOM PASS" IN FRONT OF YOUR ENTIRE CLASS, AND IF SHE DOESN'T LIKE YOU, SHE CAN JUST SAY NO.

I don't like actual prisons, the ones for criminals, but I will say this for them - people keep them around because they honestly believe they prevent crime. If someone found proof-positive that prisons didn't prevent any crimes at all, but still suggested that we should keep sending people there, because it means we'd have "fewer middle-aged people on the streets" and "fewer adults forced to go home to empty apartments and houses", then MAYBE YOU WOULD START TO UNDERSTAND HOW I FEEL ABOUT SENDING PEOPLE TO SCHOOL FOR THE SAME REASON.

I sometimes sit in on child psychiatrists' case conferences, and I want to scream at them. There's the kid who locks herself in the bathroom every morning so her parents can't drag her to child prison, and her parents stand outside the bathroom door to yell at her for hours until she finally gives in and goes, and everyone is trying to medicate her or figure out how to remove the bathroom locks, and THEY ARE SOLVING THE WRONG PROBLEM. There are all the kids who had bedwetting or awful depression or constant panic attacks, and then as soon as the coronavirus caused the child prisons to shut down the kids mysteriously became instantly better. I have heard stories of kids bullied to the point where it would be unfair not to call it torture, and the child prisons respond according to Procedures which look very good on paper and hit all the right We-Are-Taking-This-Seriously buzzwords but somehow never result in the kids not being tortured every day, and if the kids' parents were to stop bringing them to child prison every day to get tortured anew the cops would haul those parents to jail, and sometimes the only solution is the parents to switch them to the charter schools THAT FREDDIE DEBOER WANTS TO SHUT DOWN.

I see people on Twitter and Reddit post their stories from child prison, all of which they treat like it's perfectly normal. The district that wanted to save money, so it banned teachers from turning the heat above 50 degrees in the depths of winter. The district that decided running was an unsafe activity, and so any child who ran or jumped or played other-than-sedately during recess would get sent to detention - yeah, that's fine, let's just make all our children spent the first 18 years of their life somewhere they're not allowed to run, that'll be totally normal child development. You might object that they can run at home, but of course teachers assign three hours of homework a day despite ample evidence that homework does not help learning. Preventing children from having any free time, or the ability to do any of the things they want to do seems to just be an end in itself. Every single doctor and psychologist in the world has pointed out that children and teens naturally follow a different sleep pattern than adults, probably closer to 12 PM to 9 AM than the average adult's 10 - 7. Child prisons usually start around 7 or 8 AM, meaning any child who shows up on time is necessarily sleep-deprived in ways that probably harm their health and development.

School forces children to be confined in an uninhabitable environment, restrained from moving, and psychologically tortured in a state of profound sleep deprivation, under pain of imprisoning their parents if they refuse. The only possible justification for this is that it achieves some kind of vital social benefit like eliminating poverty. If it doesn't, you might as well replace it with something less traumatizing, like child labor. The kid will still have to spend eight hours of their day toiling in a terrible environment, but at least they’ll get some pocket money! At least their boss can't tell them to keep working off the clock under the guise of "homework"! I have worked as a medical resident, widely considered one of the most horrifying and abusive jobs it is possible to take in a First World country. I can say with absolute confidence that I would gladly do another four years of residency if the only alternative was another four years of high school.

If I have children, I hope to be able to homeschool them. But if I can't homeschool them, I am incredibly grateful that the option exists to send them to a charter school that might not have all of these problems. I'm not as impressed with Montessori schools as some of my friends are, but at least as far as I can tell they let kids wander around free-range, and don't make them use bathroom passes. DeBoer not only wants to keep the whole prison-cum-meat-grinder alive and running, even after having proven it has no utility, he also wants to shut the only possible escape my future children will ever get unless I'm rich enough to quit work and care for them full time.

When I try to keep a cooler head about all of this, I understand that Freddie DeBoer doesn't want this. He is not a fan of freezing-cold classrooms or sleep deprivation or bullying or bathroom passes. In fact, he will probably blame all of these on the "neoliberal reformers" (although I went to school before most of the neoliberal reforms started, and I saw it all). He will say that his own utopian schooling system has none of this stuff. In fact, he does say that. He sketches what a future Marxist school system might look like, and it looks pretty much like a Montessori school looks now. That just makes it really weird that he wants to shut down all the schools that resemble his ideal today (or make them only available to the wealthy) in favor of forcing kids into schools about as different from it as it's possible for anything to be.

I am so, so tired of socialists who admit that the current system is a helltopian torturescape, then argue that we must prevent anyone from ever being able to escape it. Who promise that once the last alternative is closed off, once the last nice green place where a few people manage to hold off the miseries of the world is crushed, why then the helltopian torturescape will become a lovely utopia full of rainbows and unicorns. If you can make your system less miserable, make your system less miserable! Do it before forcing everyone else to participate in it under pain of imprisonment if they refuse! Forcing everyone to participate in your system and then making your system something other than a meat-grinder that takes in happy children and spits out dead-eyed traumatized eighteen-year-olds who have written 10,000 pages on symbolism in To Kill A Mockingbird and had zero normal happy experiences - is doing things super, super backwards!

[soft-ris]

HI FRIEND, FOR THE CP: (such a cute idea btw!!!) let me see if i get this right...i cut it short but i have curly hair, dark dark brown but with some really cool natural blonde highlights. i have bluish-silver eyes and i think nice lips, and am around 5'7" (174 cm i think?). i am a WRITER to the core, super creative, ideas hit me 24/7. i really love history and would love to visit ruins someday. movie junkie. i'm sarcastic but like to think to think i'm also funny! I'LL BE 🐄 I HAVE ONE MORE 😫

OKAY ITS 🐄 AGAIN. as i said i really love making people laugh and writing poetry for people. i'm very selfless but often to a major fault lol, not very good at taking care of myself a lot. self esteem? DON'T KNOW HER. but hey, i kinda enjoy cooking, and i really love reading!! (IS THIS OVERSHARING) since we only have jojo in common my top 3 are risotto🖤, DIO⚰ and Jonathan🗡 :^) thank you AGAIN an i hope you have an absolutely wonderful day my dood

———————————————————————

Cupid’s Pick for your match made in heaven is...

...Jonathan!

———————————————————————

I'm very selfless but often to a major fault lol. Not very good at taking care of myself a lot. Self-esteem? DON'T KNOW HER.

The MAIN reason I chose Jonathan was because of this. Jonathan’s a whole gentleman (I mean he basically strived to be one). Kind and sweet and positive and has a heart bigger than both his boobs and ass cheeks combined. He would be the best match up for you because his affirmations and positive attitude and sweetness would be like to honey to your tea, the sugar to your coffee, the whipped cream to your strawberry. He’s the best (out of the characters you’ve given me) in reassuring you. And because of his personality and disposition, you’d be well taken care of (physically especially). Your self-esteem would also flourish because there’s no doubt that he loves you and only you (romantically), and he’d remind and show you for as long as he’s with you. He’d also appreciate your selflessness the most because he’s always out there being selfless, so having it be done to him is just a big uwu for him. I feel like that’s how he shows his devotion and love, and so your selflessness is just top notch in catching his heart. But when you take it too far, he will reign you back in. He may scold you, but you’ll know it’s because he means well and he doesn’t want to see you hurt or exhausted. He’s sincere in that sense, and because of that, you know he means it when he tells you he loves you, when he calls you beautiful, when he says you own his heart and soul because you actually do. In the long-term, I see his personality just helping you improve your self-esteem and self-care and selflessness naturally.

While I was tempted to match you up with Risotto, Jonathan ultimately won out because I do not see him (Ris) doing as well with this aspect of yours (compared to big boy Jonathan).  He can translate your selflessness to either being a pushover (when you bend yourself backwards for others, and he’s disapproving of that because he believes you should respect yourself more and may even take you under his wing instead of his bedsheets lol) OR he can interpret this as either your loyalty to him (when you bend yourself backwards for him). With the latter, he may end up taking advantage of it sometimes. This is because I believe he’s so used to having things taken away from him or not having enough of something, so he may subconsciously demand more of you in some manifestation of greed. So you’d end up giving more, he’d end up taking more, and it’s just not a good balance. ESPECIALLY if you say you’re not good at taking care of yourself. I’m not saying he won’t take care of you if you two are dating, but I also think he needs someone who can essentially function well without him (since he’s so busy and has a lot on his plate and can’t always be there for you; I’m not saying you’re a burden bc you’re not, I’m just saying Ris has a lot going on and he doesn’t want to be the reason for your decline in health and mental state if y’all were dating bc he wasn’t there and he will beat himself up over it).

The biggest reason I didn’t pair you up with DIO specifically is because I feel like he would 1000000000000000000000% take advantage of this. He’s not above that and he most likely will not feel remorse for that. Hell, he would 100% enjoy utilizing your disposition to his advantage, and in the long-term (hell, even in short-term), that’s not good for you and your health at all. As shown countless times before, he relishes in power and does not enjoy it when people are of equal or higher standing than him. And because of that, I feel like he would not hesitate to use your low self-esteem and selflessness to further his ego and complex. DIO’s also surrounded by gorgeous people every day, and he wouldn’t bat an eyelash if you were to voice your insecurities to him. Although, he may end up also using sweet reassuring words to you just so you fall under his spell harder (which means it would be easier to manipulate u and ur selflessness) OR he may exploit it and make you feel more insecure but also manipulate you to be more mindlessly devoted to him (it’s easier to use that forehead bug thing but that’s removable). All in all, it would just breed an extremely dependent and toxic relationship between the 2 of you because you would never be his equal, even in a relationship with him. He’s not the antagonist for nothing lol (I’m well aware of his past and the implications/effects it has, but we’ve all seen how he has acted throughout his life and his thought process). 0/10 recommend.

I am a WRITER to the core, super creative, ideas hit me 24/7.

Jonathan would be supportive all around and would love to help you in any way he could. He’d want to read everything you produce too! Overall, extremely proud of your creativity and if you publish a book, he will throw a party, make Speedwagon buy a copy too, and cherishes the first copy you give him.

Risotto would gift you things to help you with this, like books, stationaries, & etc. Would help you out with proofreading and editing too if he has the time. He’s supportive like that and he’s attracted to how you’re so creative and can draw inspiration at all times.

DIO thinks your creativity is admirable. He would also love to read what you write, but is very critical. He’s read so many books, and while preference is subjective, he knows what good writing is (based on genre, style, & etc.). So if it’s not good, you’ll know why from A to Z. And if you get disheartened by him, he will look down on you and call your passion weak.

I really love history and would love to visit ruins someday.

Jonathan seems like he likes travelling in general, so he would love to visit with you too! Might not be super into history, but well, anything will interest this big puppy if you tell him passionately enough.

Risotto looks like he doesn’t mind? Not super interested, not super disinterested either, but will travel with you if he’s able to free up his schedule.

DIO can only go at night, but he looks like he enjoys history and ruins.

Movie junkie.

Jonathan and you would set up a weekly movie night date thing, and he’ll let you pick whenever because he just loves to spend time with youwu. He has some favourites, but if the movie doesn’t interest him, he’ll still sit through it but his attention would be on cuddling you.

Risotto? Kinda depends on the genre? But he looks like the kind to not have enough time to be a movie lover or sit through one for you, so not the best match.

DIO prefers books so he won’t indulge in this love of yours, but if it’s an adaptation from a book he would watch it. But he’ll be a raging bitch if doesn’t match up to the books. Honestly, if he’s uninterested, he won’t be watching it.

I’m sarcastic but like to think to think I’m also funny!

I see Jonathan as someone who enjoys it when his partner can quip back, so while he may not find sarcasm funny most of the time (when aimed at him), he does find it attractive. If you’re sarcastic to the people who give him a hard time, he would kiss you passionately afterwards and who knows… you might even get dicked down after oho. If you’re sarcastic to the people he cares about, he won’t mind if no one’s feelings are hurt.

DIO won’t tolerate being disrespected in any form, even if it’s a joke. I just can’t see him allowing that with that God complex of his lol, but he does find it amusing when you’re sarcastic to other people.

Risotto loves sarcasm, but he has an image to keep. So as long as you don’t undermine or disrespect him (you have to have a 6th sense with the boundaries), he’s more than happy to sass you back or chuckle at it.

I really love making people laugh.

Jonathan and Risotto appreciates this the most. Finds it lovely. Jonathan especially because he finds it so sweet that you want to bring laughter to others. Risotto enjoys a partner who would love to bring more joy into his life. But I see the shit Risotto laughs at as dry or dark or when its real stupid or boomer/dad-like, anything else he’s a little like ‘ok’. Jonathan appreciates the effort alone and would tease you a little if it’s a really bad joke (all in good nature of course).

DIO…he laughs mostly at other people’s demise or stupidity or cluelessness. That’s all I’m gonna say.

I really love writing poetry for people.

Jonathan would SWOOOOOOOOOOOOOON SO hard. He would show it off to Speedwagon and then keep it tucked somewhere safe so he can read it whenever he wants to.

God he’s just so in love with you and he thinks it’s just so romantic of you. He absolutely loves it. Hell, even if it’s not for him, he’s so proud and awestruck because poetry is hard and he’s just so proud whenever he brags about this skill/hobby of yours. He also thinks it’s so sweet of you to write poetry for others and love doing it. Man just has heart eyes all around and I can’t blame him.

DIO would be smug about it for all the same reasons but in a more…condescending way? Like ‘HA. Do you peasants see that? Their talent? You could never lmao’. But would get pissy if you write for others more than you write for him because he should be your #1.

Risotto would say thank you and give you a kiss. Outwardly he won’t show as much (unless you look hard enough and notice the way his eyes soften more, like the way he would smile too, and his cheeks might even have a touch of pink), but he will forever treasure the poem. He also keeps his favorite on him all the time, like a little good luck charm. He doesn’t brag about your talent, but he’ll proudly agree if someone brings it up. Of course, you wouldn’t know all this though (unless you accidentally find out).

I kinda enjoy cooking.

Johnathan has a refined palate because of his upbringing, but he also looks like he’d eat whatever you cook solely because you made it just for him. He’s a gentleman and a sap with a big heart, if he doesn’t like it, he’ll eat it. He might tell you what can be tweaked, but never in a way that makes you feel bad or inadequate. He also looks like he can’t cook for shit lmao, so teach him!! He’s always down to do anything if it means spending time with the love of his life uwu

Risotto and DIO would tell you straight up if they don’t like what you’ve made. The difference is, DIO (if he ain’t a vampire yet) wouldn’t even touch it (anymore after the first bite) lmao, Risotto too but he’d end up cooking with you to teach you how to improve the dish. Of course, he doesn’t do it to shit on you. He appreciates the sentiment, but he’s not going to subject himself to something he doesn’t enjoy if he can help it. Also would turn it into a cooking date with you. DIO would just take over the kitchen and make you watch LOL

I really love reading!!

DIO too! I see Risotto enjoying it as well, but not as much and probably prefers music related hobbies. As for Jonathan, he doesn’t mind it? He’s not the biggest fan of it, but if you read it to him, he’d happily perch his head on your lap and listen to you like an audio book sent from the heavens (but somewhere along the way he will fall asleep KSKSKSK)

DIO would engage in conversations with you on the books (also thoroughly enjoys if you can keep it interesting), Risotto would if he knew the book (but would then just listen and ask questions if he didn’t), Jonathan is just happy to have your attention on him, but would read the book and talk about it with you if you want that.

Your physical appearance description.

Jonathan would just love to play with and admire your hair 24/7, and if his attention isn’t on your hair, then it’d be on your lips. Kissing, brushing his tongue or fingers or **** against your lips, just absolutely loving the shape and feel of it.

And because you’re also tall(-er than average?), kisses are SO much more easier to access and that’s such a plus uwu. I mean regardless of height, he can always just lift you, but he also doesn’t have to bend too far when plopping his head on the crown of ur head too. And if u wear heels or shoes that give u extra height? Power couple goals😩🤘🏼💫

[stardomyx]

I’ve talked very briefly about Food Soul ranks and rarity.

M to UR, with M-Rank Souls being more than plentiful, and UR-Rank Souls being one of a kind for various reasons (which will probably be discussed in another post.) But in this post I’d quite like to talk about the M-Rank Souls, and how in being the first and most practical choice for a new Cooking Attendant to make, the methods of their formation are less than humane.

For this post, I’m going to refer back to the system used in my fan work “Progress,” but for those of you who haven’t read it, I’ll provide a little background info:

In Tierra, food is heavily rationed because of the Fallen ransacking everything, including farmland, but human beings still gotta eat. Tierra is therefore under a strict system enforced by the Guild, there are restaurants and little food shops everywhere, but the menus and the food products for sale there are all off of approve lists that come directly from the Guild. This even applies to the local markets, they can only sell the produce approved by the Guild, the produce that is plentiful enough to be eaten en masse. All of this is in an effort to avoid running out of food.

This, in time, resulted in a lot of vacancies in the food service industry, which is why Cooking Attendants soon became a seemingly easy position to take up, since the majority of Tierra’s restaurants, cafés etc were now under the authority of the Guild. Becoming a Cooking Attendant would get you your own restaurant with accommodation, a set menu, electricity, heating, running water and of course a Food Soul to help out. Being a Cooking Attendant in Tierra, especially Gloriville, is literally the most common job a human can have, but normally there only tends to be one human staff member per restaurant. Why? Well, it’s like Bamboo Rice says to you in game.

“What are you?! ... You're a human, right?! Wow! So rare!”

Humanity is getting well and truly thrashed by the Fallen. If they’re not corrupting and transforming into Fallen, they’re being hunted down by the beasts. With the rate at which humanity’s numbers are being slashed, and with a food shortage on their hands, there is now way that a system designed to keep everyone fed and earning money could be carried through by humanity alone.

That is where the M-Rank Food Souls appear. The Souls most commonly found in restaurants in game, and the Souls most easy to mass produce.

My overall theory is that the higher in Food Soul rank you go, the harder the Academy has to work to produce a stable body to house all that Soul Power - otherwise you end up with someone like B-52, who in my universe had to have a mechanical body made for him, as his organic body just didn’t form properly, owing to what was most likely shoddy work practice on the part of the Academy. Most UR-Rank Souls - I’d assume - are probably custom made for their Attendants, a good example of this would be Peking Duck, but when it comes to M-Rank Souls, their power levels are nowhere near as high, making them easy peasy to churn out. Which - to the Guild - is a good thing too since they’re in very high demand, such a high demand that - in amongst the hurry to supply said demand - certain things may be left out of the formation process to save time. But I am willing to bet that the making of M-Rank Souls hasn’t always been mass production.

I’ll use Pudding as an example for this, not just because he’s one of my favourite M-Rank Souls, but because I’ve already written a fair bit about his line in “Progress.” Excuse me while I plug my fanfiction:

“That Food Soul is a spitting image of one I know back in Gloriville,” I muttered to Vita ...

Vita glanced over at his fellow Food Soul ...

“...  it is no surprised to me that you’ve seen his particular strand of Food Soul before, you’re a Cooking Attendant and he’s a Pudding, there are hundreds of his kind.”

“Come again?” I blustered ... “A Pudding? I thought the Pudding I knew was one of a kind!”

“Dear me, no ... Pudding Food Souls are as common as they come ... But I can understand your confusion ...  I’m not expecting you to know the ins and outs of Tierra.”

At the very beginning of Tierra’s plight, I have no doubt that Food Souls were made with the utmost care and precision. These new beings were the potential saviours of mankind after all, and they had to be made carefully since I would assume that the Guild and other officials would want them to turn out right! However, once it became clear to them that M-Rank Souls were incredibly simple to make, both the Guild and the Academy started taking shortcuts.

As Tierra became a Nation dependent on the Cooking Attendants, the demands for ‘cheap n’ easy’ M-Rank Souls grew and grew until eventually the Academy began to cut back on things they deemed “unnecessary.”

Like making sure the M-Rank Souls they were making had a personality, for instance.

Nowadays, M-Rank Souls that are brought out of the Academy are quick and easy to produce, but they’re total blank slates. Easily adaptable to whatever restaurant they’re introduced into; unlikely to talk back to their Attendants; unlikely to question; unlikely to rebel; hard-working and above all, willing to defend their Attendants to the death should a Fallen Angel attack. Really at that point you might as well be sending out biological robots to do the work for you, and I’m sure that a good deal of Attendants would find issue with this, but what can they do? They cannot run a restaurant on their own, and if they do happen to summon a Blank Slate Soul using the Guild Allocated 150 soul embers, they can’t exactly ask for a refund.

Everything is rationed, even the soul embers.

However, there is hope, blank slates can of course be written upon, and I highly doubt that most of these Souls remain permanently complacent, but one would argue that that isn’t the point. Just because the problem may eventually sort itself out doesn’t mean that the source of the problem should not be tackled.

I’ll go back to Progress one more time when I say this; Master Attendant Nonna was incredibly lucky to have summoned an older Pudding Food Soul as her first, one that had been seen in Tierra before, and was experienced in working with Cooking Attendants. Though he was incredibly straight laced and no-nonsense, he at least had a sense of self, something that - had he been made any later - he might not have had at all.

[fmstevie]

              *    ╰              waddup   y’all   ruby’s   back   2   annoy   u   all   w   a   lil   british   fuckboi   action   .   here’s   stevie   ,   inspired   by   matty   healy   n   thinkin   she’s   a   god   among   men   .   i   don’t   recommend   u   read   on   but   in   case   u   do   i   pray   u   forgive   me   enough   2   want   plots   w   that   like   button   .   🤡

                new   york’s   very   own      𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐕𝐈𝐄   ‘   𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐘   ’   𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐍𝐄            was   spotted   on   broadway   street   in   doc   marten   smooth   leather   chelsea   boots      .   your   resemblance   to   diana   silvers   is   unreal   .   according   to   tmz   ,   you   just   had   your   twenty   -   second      birthday   bash   .   while   living   in   nyc   ,   you’ve   been   labeled   as   being         𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐬   ,   but   also   𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞   .   i   guess   being   a   cancer      explains   that   .   3   things   that   would   paint   a   better   picture   of   you   would   be      erudite   inclinations   informed   by   a   god   complex   ,      melodrama   as   your   magnum   opus   ,   &   the   world’s   most   secretive   love   life         .               (   i   had   a   secret   marriage   that   lasted   6   months   but   ended   due   to   my   fear   of   my   family’s   mafia   ties   getting   in   the   way   .         )      &      (   cis   female   &   she   /   her      )

𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆      :      stephanie   charlotte   greystone 𝒏𝒊𝒄𝒌𝒏𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔      :            primarily   stevie   ,   although   her   stage   name   is   ‘   grey   ‘   which   has   caught   on   as   a   go-to   nickname   .   takes   little   to   nothing   else   wilingly 𝒂𝒈𝒆      :            twenty   -   two 𝒛𝒐𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒄      :      cancer    𝒐𝒄𝒄𝒖𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏      :      professional   musician   with   a   voiceclaim   of   lorde   ,   on   temporary   hiatus   to   write   grey3   .   casual   photographer 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒓      𝒊𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒕𝒚      /      𝒑𝒓𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒔      :      cis      female      /      she      her      hers 𝒐𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏      :      pansexual   w   strong   female   pref   but   tbh   if   u   can   handle   her   energy   she’ll   b   down   WKERWJER 𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕      :      5’10  🤤 𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒆𝒍𝒔      :      the   hedonist   ,         the      aesthete      ,      the      opaque   ,      the      vainglorious      ,      the      prodigy      ,      the      intangible   concept       𝒔𝒐𝒏𝒈      𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒑𝒐𝒔      :      rhiannon      -      fleetwood   mac      /      WHAT   U   CALL   THAT      -      chase   atlantic    /      iceberg      -      borns      /      UGH      -         the      1975     /      boss   bitch      -      doja   cat      /      elephant      -      tame   impala     /      black   hole   sun      -      soundgarden      /      black   madonna      -      cage   the   elephant      /         this   charming   man      -      the   smiths     /      swim      -      chase   atlantic      /      1999   WILDFIRE         -      brockhampton

tw      drug   mention

𝒊.  𝒅𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒓𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏.

there   is   perhaps   no   more   a   formidable   surname   in   the   organized   crime   circuit   in   all   of   europe   than   greystone   ,   a   name   risen   to   fame   through   countless   court   cases   and   highly   publicized   trials   .   dubbed   ‘   el   chapo   of   the   old   world   ,   ‘   liam   greystone   makes   his   reputation   known   as   a   ruthless   and   conniving   leader   of   a   million   dollar   cartel   business   ,   distributing   to   most   of   the   UK   and   eastern   europe   .   it’s   perhaps   an   even   greater   shock   to   find   even   as   public   enemy   #1   ,   he   takes   a   welsh   wife   by   the   name   of   marissa   and   weds   her   in   a   lavish   and   very   public   ceremony   ,   surmounting   crowds   not   unlike   those   of   the   royal   weddings   .   such   a   decision   is   a   clear   power   move   on   his   part   ,   flexing   the   pure   influence   it   would   require   to   have   such   a   public   family   life   with   no   fear   of   repercussion   from   rivals   or   enemies   .   

it’s   several   months   following   their   wedding   that   james   is   born   ,   with   nicholas   taking   a   few   years   after   .   elite   prep   schools   in   the   most   posh   london   neighborhoods   were   abuzz   with   equal   parts   curiosity   and   concern   to   be   sharing   streets   with   the   most   feared   mafia   family   in   their   whole   country   ,   though   the   elite   nature   of   liam’s   new   societal   presence   meant   he   took   to   his   ‘   dealings   ‘   with   a   but   more   subtlety   than   before   his   rise   to   power   .   something   of   a   media   frenzy   ,   it’s   the   talk   of   the   town   when   marissa   falls   pregnant   another   time   ,   nearly   a   decade   after   nicholas’s   birth   ,   this   time   with   a   baby   girl   ,   something   that’s   all   the   sun   and   mirror   can   seem   to   post   about   in   their   celebrity   tabloids   section   for   weeks   on   end   .   her   birth   raises   questions   of   immense   speculation   :   what   will   the   world   do   with   a   greystone   girl   ?

as   it   would   result   ,   they’d   worship   her   .   stevie   found   herself   raised   in   a   world   that   sought   her   out   at   every   turn   ,   cameras   pointed   towards   her   at   every   outing   .   james   and   nick   ,   now   teens   by   the   time   she   enters   primary   and   just   as   big   of   terrors   as   their   father   ,   view   their   lavish   lifestyle   as   the   result   of   some   bigger   destiny   for   greatness   ,   as   their   father   had   always   fed   to   them   ,   something   they   passed   on   to   their   baby   sister   who   took   it   as   her   mantra   .   one   of   the   earliest   manifestations   of   a   rather   intense   personality   ,   stevie   takes   this   to   an   extreme   ,   turning   her   unwanted   stardom   into   a   fuel   for   an   ever-increasing   god   complex   to   develop   .   the   apple   of   her   father’s   eye   and   every   bit   as   quick   ,   her   instructors   note   a   dedication   to   perfection   and   an   obsession   with   accomplishment   ,   along   with   a   natural   intelligence   that   leads   her   to   blast   through   her   studies   with   relative   ease   .   

she’s   just   16   when   she   completes   her   schooling   and   already   has   a   reputation   that   will   precede   her   ,   just   as   her   surname   had   before   .   relaxed   and   observant   ,   her   voice   never   peaks   higher   than   a   low   alto   with   her   charming   londoner   drawl   ,   a   facade   never   cracking   from   her   knowing   poker   face   .   there’s   something   about   being   so   above   everyone   (   even   if   it   is   a   self-imposed   superiority   )   that   leads   stevie   all   but   to   the   brink   of   isolation   ,   finding   solace   only   in   the   words   of   a   self-deluded   father   and   her   own   scribings   in   a   leather   bound   notebook   .   piano   lessons   since   early   childhood   lend   themselves   to   melodies   following   melodies   ,   and   before   she’s   even   able   to   legally   drink   ,   she’s   released   her   first   album   under   the   moniker   ‘   grey   ’   titling   it   pure   heroine   as   a   cheeky   nod   to   the   inevitable   accusations   of   it   being   her   family   ties   that   got   her   a   record   deal   .   but   as   streams   of   the   melancholy   tunes   begin   to   pick   up   fans   worldwide   ,   the   album’s   themes   of   isolation   ,   abandonment   ,   and   wasted   youth   hit   harder   than   ever   anticipated   from   the   youngest   greystone   .   she   leaves   home   to   tour   the   world   with   the   album   reaching   #1   in   countless   countries   ,   forging   her   own   path   with   a   maturity   beyond   her   years   and   a   vision   beyond   this   world   .   

    the   tour   ends   and   she’s   smitten   by   the   charm   of   new   york   ,   opting   to   move   to   continue   to   pursue   her   music   away   from   the   tangled   complications   of   family   life   in   england   .   barely   18   and   perhaps   intoxicated   with   the   loneliness   of   a   life   spent   in   the   watching   eye   of   others   ,   the   semblance   of   privacy   is   something   she   takes   to   like   an   addict   ,   exasperating   prying   paparazzi   with   her   notorious   refusal   to   comment   on   details   of   her   personal   life   .   she   builds   a   wall   between   herself   and   the   world   ,   keeping   out   prying   eyes   with   a   tight   -   lipped   grin   .   its   at   this   time   that   she   lets   the   first   person   into   her   life   perhaps   ever   ,   a   whirlwind   romance   so   intoxicating   it   results   in   a   courthouse   marriage   done   in   secret   .   never   to   be   seen   together   ,   never   a   word   spoken   to   anyone   else   ,   stevie   relishes   in   the   secret   which   is   soon   to   sour   upon   the   passing   of   their   honeymoon   phase   .   with   her   brothers   expanding   their   reach   into   the   US   for   their   unsavory   dealings   ,   it’s   not   long   after   her   marriage   begins   that   the   conflicts   reach   a   breaking   point   ,   an   annulment   following   barely   6   months   after   they   had   traded   ‘   i   do’s   .   ’

she   takes   to   the   studio   with   a   new   resentment   of   the   concept   of   love   and   even   more   sequestered   heart   ,   producing   melodrama   which   takes   the   world   by   storm   ,   snagging   her   a   grammy   win   for   album   of   the   year   .   fatigued   from   the   constant   go-around   of   keeping   her   secrets   her   own   except   for   when   they’re   taken   to   radio   streams   ,   she   does   a   limited   tour   for   melodrama   and   lands   herself   right   back   in   new   york   at   20   ,   putting   grey3   on   the   backburner   as   she   takes   to   all   the   hedonistic   engagements   she   had   indulged   herself   in   during   her   time   on   tour   .   she’s   kept   herself   busy   between   mindless   flings   and   days-long   benders   with   hobbies   such   as   photography   and   writing   ,   the   former   of   which   is   building   her   a   rather   impressive   reputation   in   the   arts   world   .   

𝒊𝒊.  𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒔𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒆 .

if   y’all   ain’t   tired   of   me   yet   god   bless   u   .   ..   .   bc   i   straight   up   b   tired   of   myself   :/

anyways   dis   is   stevie   ,   also   accepts   grey   the   same   way   ppl   talk   abt   lorde   n   switch   between   ella   n   lorde   !   she’s   not   picky   :~)

major   inspos   are   matty   healy   from   the   1975   n   hayley   kiyoko   if   she   was   less   of   a   try   hard   .   little   bit   of   kristen   stewart   in   there   ,   big   2016   ruby   rose   energy   n   brie   larson   top   me   tomfoolery   as   well   !   

basically   da   fuckboi   of   ur   dreams   ..      ..   .   lil   devilish   londoner   who   stays   thinkin   she’s   the   closest   thing   to   a   god   on   this   green   earth   !

notably   ,   she’s   incredibly   intelligent   and   profound   ,   tends   to   take   on   a   rather   patronizing   and   condescending   tone   bc   she   straight   up   b   thinkin   she’s   usually   the   smartest   person   in   the   room   (   how   annoying   )

so   laid   back   n   observant   ,   rlly   has   no   need   to   raise   her   voice   ever   bc   her   arguments   b   runnin   circles   around   ppl   !   imagine   the   way   harry   styles   talks   low   n   slow   n   calculated.   .   .   .   .   cameron   from   love   is   blind   ,.   ..   .      kristen   stewart   lowkey   sometimes   ..   ..   ..   das   grey   .    sexy   ass   alto   monotone  🤤🤤

i   dont   wanna   use   chaotic   bc   she   rlly   isnt   the   WILDEST   bitch   but   that   god   complex   means   she   deadass   thinks   she   can   get   away   w   what   she   wants   n   she   usually   does   ?   less   of   a   chaotic   evil   n   more   like   a   neutral   evil   lmao   she   can   follow   rules   just   fine   she   jsut   prefers   whatever   suits   her   better

on   that   note   —   OBSCENELY   self   obsessed   .   follows   her   own   natural   whims   n   impulses   bc   that’s   just   what   appeals   to   her   .   is   inclined   to   follow   rules   if   she   calculates   itll   work   in   her   favor   bc   she   also   doesn’t   like   to   look   sloppy   !

super   secretive   and   OBSESSED   w   her   presentation   .   every   movement   is   calculated   n   she   doesnt   want   anyone   seeing   a   side   of   her   that   she   hasn’t   designated   for   them   !   she   doesn’t   care   what   other   ppl   think   but   she   DOES   care   abt   what   she   sees   herself   doing   n   her   vision   .   doesnt   fit   the   vision   ?   will   NOT   happen   in   her   book   .

straight   up   a   WHORRE   lmao   she   likes   2   fill   the   void   left   by   a   lack   of   human   connection   w   sexual   intimacy   n   then   is   like   nice   imma   have   u   leave   now   love   LMAO   .   does   not   discriminate   and   is   rlly   inclined   to   follow   any   sexual   impulse

this   was   implied   but   her   relationships   are   super   messy   ?   does   the   leonardo   dicaprio   thing   where   she   will   never   fuckin   discuss   her   love   life   in   interviews   or   anything   so   ppl   just   gotta   SPECULATE   .   she   lets   ppl   post   all   they   want   abt   her   but   she   wont   say   a   WORD   abt   them   JWHEKJWH   her   socials   r   basically   just   abt   her   n   her   music   we   said   SELFISH   lads   .   she’s   bad   @   bein   tied   down   n   is   probs   polyamorous   as   it   stands   but   im   p   sure   she   has   cheated   on   every   single   person   she   has   ever   been   with   lmao

lowkey   a   shit   friend   most   of   the   time   lMAO   she   can   b   really   unreliable   bc   u   guys   can   have   plans   n   then   she   takes   someone   home   n   misses   yalls   plans   n   then   texts   u   4   hours   later   after   all   ur   missed   calls   n   is   like   my   bad   bruv   i   got   tied   up   AS   IF   THAT   FIXES   IT   KWEJKWJEKWE

chain   smoker   n   its   nastie   but   lowkey   sexy   somehow   :/  ,   will   ONLY   wear   outfits   that   r   equal   parts   thrifted   n   designer   ,   always   has   her   hands   in   her   pockets   n   if   her   jacket   has   a   hood   its   UP   like   a   big   ole   homo   ,   is   rlly   annoying   bc   shes   good   looking   n   KNOWS   it   so   she   uses   it   to   her   advantage   ,   wants   2   get   her   motorcycle   license   ,   judges   u   based   off   the   music   u   play   in   the   car   ,   judges   u   on   everything   tbh.

[bloodfcst-a]

alright, so. i beat remake last weekend, but i didn’t want to come out with my newfound yufi information + meta right off the bat. i think this is an appropriate time to do so now, though. naturally, i’ll tag as spoilers, but if you need anything else, let me know.

also, my verdict? i am so glad i went into this blind, without any hype or expectations or people from fandom whining about it. yet again, i am so happy + i had an incredibly joyous experience.  this game fed me + also took over my life in a way i’ve not been possessed in some time so like......... good for it.

also no, i truly don’t miss hearing everyone’s hullabaloo +  i don’t wanna hear ur complaints of “ it didn’t say when part 2 is ” so like miss me with that. 

also warning: if u didn’t know already, fandom is WILD towards y.uffie for some reason and i also addressed that, so like if you’re from vii fandom u might seriously wanna read this bc... it’ll be pertinent to u understanding my feelings behind it.  i did address some questionable topics like the underaged oversexual portrayal + beastality that’s popular for her and i am NOT HERE FOR IT so if u came for that................. issa no from me dawg. when i say unbearable.... i mean it. fandom grossed me out. y’all wild.

anyway. thoughts below !

some things that were CONFIRMED for me were:

> midgar is lax around its anti-wutai rhetoric in its most important parts ( namely, hq, wall market, and avalanche ). for propaganda’s sake among the common people, it stands to create a united front. but in consumerism & in strength, they consider the wutai equals just as anyone else. 

see: tseng in the turks; madam m in wall market; the supplier for avalanche.

i would even argue that sector 5 / wall market is the safest place in midgar for wutaians, given don corneo’s obvious fetishism ( and that really............. isn’t saying a lot ).

i’m not going to entertain that it’s an “ admiration for culture and architecture ” in true weeaboo fashion given that of all positions he could give madam m to hold, her duties are to screen women that would be appealing to his aesthetic and to run a massage parlor where the highest bidder gets to have a happy ending. she is literally the “ asian parlors are actually fronts for brothels ” stereotype except in this sex trade, all women go to don corneo. i will have no apologists in this house. 

i have more developing thoughts on madam m like how she might be doing the sex trafficking part in her own self-interest / as a type of self-preservation, like the don might say “ well if u don’t want to be a wife then u better find some for me ” but... 1) this isn’t the post for that and 2) that logic does not explain why chocobo sam and andrea rhodea are also apart of the ring. but in my opinion, you can tell she’s not crazy about it bc as soon as aerith mentions it to her she becomes so wildly upset that she breaks character. i don’t think she’s a sell out. i think she’s an exploited and fetishized woman in a tough place, and i feel for her.

despite this, it’s clear that because of his obvious ‘ preference ’ they’re [ wutaians ] held at a higher standard ( i.e., he doesn’t dispose of madam m immediately like he does with every other woman who is unfortunate enough to meet him ), so i’m willing to go out on a limb and say despite the high amount of shinra foot traffic that goes through wall market ( and we know this bc everybody who is everybody from SOLDIERS to Turks go to honeybee inn ), a wutaian would probably be fine there.

> wutai is the strongest world power by natural means. without SOLDIER s & g programs, midgar’s biggest claim to fame is to reach first-world status as a metropolis by siphoning mako via its reactors. without its reactors, the whole town would either be: 1) slums, like below the plate; or 2) as common as every other area in the nearby vicinity ( i.e., kalm, costa del sol, nibelheim ). by siphoning mako energy, midgar truly is unnatural, so... hm... 

corel could have been a contender ‘cause they use fossil fuels ( and look at how successful gold saucer is! ), but the failed reactor really threw them out the loop. costa del sol + icicle inn are both partially shin-ra owned / managed, so i’m not counting them.

> infiltrating midgar / shinra isn’t difficult. nor is navigating throughout the sectors. while there is the mention of the ID scan on the trains, we see this is not applicable on foot ( freely able to walk through sectors 5, 6, 7, and 8 as party; jessie + co are able to go above the plate to go to her parents’ house despite already being listed as AVALANCHE and that their fake IDs had already expired ). given that yufi entirely travels on foot because of her airsickness / motion sickness, she’d be undetectable. also note that the first 59 floors of shinra hq by stairwell are not monitored... and neither was the front door, so she could easily sneak in whenever the need called for it.

> established multiple points of contact between rufus + yufi ( and by extension, the turks + yufi ). i’m really going into this in the next section ‘cause... their dynamic became so much more interesting. but we already know that at minimum, there was contact bc she had the phs rufus had provided to godo + was using it to communicate with zack for treasure.... but let me hold off on this bc there’s one more thing i want to add here.

regarding the turks: it’s established that even if a person is someone of interest to shin-ra, they won’t necessarily act on attacking or abducting immediately ( see: aerith ). we already know they’ve known yufi since she was a child, and if they’re working with rufus they’d know what she looked like as she aged, so the excuse of “ she looks different than when they worked with her in wutai ” is out the window. it’s more than likely that they’re enabling her to continue her business with rufus + have probably assisted her with not being caught. 

> yufi’s clothes are absolutely normal for her age. it always annoyed me that somehow tifa’s clothing was like considered “ impractical but acceptable ” because she’s a legal adult and because cishet men were too drawn to the boobies to complain. but then yufi was either like HELLA sexualized as a minor ( the amount of ecchi / hentai that exists of underage y.uffie despite there being of-age content [ i.e., her portrayals in advent children + dirge of cerberus ] is.......................................... ridonk ) OR she was like hella slut-shamed and i’m out here like.... hello??? what kinda anti-wutai rhetoric is this? anyway. i’d like to call attention to kyrie, who looks like she’s wearing like 60% of y.uffie’s dirge of cerberus outfit. if anything, this only reinforces that yufi’s fashion choices are.......... legit normal, age appropriate, and anyone who wants to argue otherwise can shut the fuck up.

if you’re really gonna ask “ how come her shorts are unbuttoned ” like go check your privilege. the short answer is probably that rufus stole all of her damn belts to make into his coat. the long answer is that a youth traveling the world SOLO she is probably slim on money to be frequently shopping for clothes ? and the clothes that are available in the slums vs on the plate are probably not great quality ( idk if y’all have ever shopped at a freesized open market before but like... buttons pop off INSTANTLY sometimes and those seams will tear if u stretch the wrong way. like fast fashion but like........ hella wild ). she could find better clothes above the plate, but given the anti-wutai rhetoric up there... probably not a wise choice. 

since you’re looking at her outfit anyway.. can i bring your attention to her sweater, and have you note that it’s made of the same material as cloud’s? i.e., she’s wearing shin-ra/SOLDIER brand quality? ( need further proof that it’s SOLDIER? zack and angeal wear the same one ) probably gotten from either a trip to hq or........ someone on the inside............ but obviously cropped to fit her. she might’ve even had it for some time. now let’s keep looking.... i’m willing to bet the latter, and here’s why! ( prepare for galaxy brain time )

now for standard SOLDIERS, they’re assigned colors. we know third class / infantrymen are blue; second class are burgundy / red ( think kunsel ); and black / dark blue for first class. don’t nobody wear green.... in this whole damn universe.... as a main character.... except child y.uffie. HMMMMM. here’s the sweater again to compare. 

i’m just saying.

now, the ideas INTRODUCED to me were:

> there is only one AVALANCHE, but it is splintered into different factions.

now i always wondered like, how come they just picked up the name AVALANCHE when it was established already. like idk i don’t think people would be like “ ah yes we’re the n.azis and we’re different than the other ones, but we wanna evoke the same fear ” u know what i mean?? usually u would carry the same ideology... but it was always so apparent that barret held different views and goals than elfe, so i was always so confused.

but not anymore. now it’s established that they’re the same group, begun in midgar + just carrying out different methods of “ fuckin’ shit up for the shin-ra ” over the last 10 years, spreading the word about the danger of reactors + it’s suckin’ up the lifeblood of the planet to anyone who would hear. now that makes sense. in the same chapter that this is established, however, they also claim...

> yufi as a benefactor to AVALANCHE.

now this shit had me like AAAAAAAAH. now there is no damn way you and i played the same game if u didn’t see this. they literally say “ AVALANCHE is being provided weapons by someone to fuck shit up, in return for all the materia in midgar. ”

who would want all the materia in midgar? HMMMMMMMMM.

> with that point established, let’s go back to rufus + yufi having multiple points of contact. so i already introduced the idea that rufus clearly has to have contact with yufi bc he’s the one spouting all the secrets to shinra treasure via the PHS. and yufi has claimed ownership of the phone by literally labeling it as “ treasure princess ” so there is no question that he thinks he’s talking to godo versus yufi. 

but we also know that rufus is the person behind AVALANCHE. my man has TIME on house arrest, obviously. we also know that he’s on house arrest in junon, not midgar. now, if he’s out here giving them logistics like places to go to spout their rhetoric, and yufi is providing weapons ( remember, wutai is the strongest power by natural means, and apparently hq is free real estate to explore, so she’s got multiple ways to provide gear without it being an inconvenience to her ), so it’s.........pretty obvious to say that the way she would go in connection to AVALANCHE would be through rufus. also, remember she has bad blood with AVALANCHE because of their actions in wutai, so... she’s not gonna be keen about them anyway. it seems much more practical for someone who already views them ( and tbh, lots of people ) as tools ( rufus vc: “ i own you ” ) to accomplish one’s tasks to help her connect with meeting her own goals ( “ all the materia in midgar ” ).

this would also explain why yufi is found hanging outside junon.

if you opted to grab her outside nibelheim... you might argue that it’s because nibelheim is obviously suspicious + truly the evidence at how shady shin-ra is, given the whole place was rebuilt + is filled with actors to hide the fact that the whole place burned to the ground + was once the site of jenova + currently remains the site as hojo’s secondary lab + other secret, vincent valentine with the protomateria slumbering. she could have been tipped off by rufus as “ there’s another treasure here ” but like... there’s no way she would have known it was vincent. even zack is like “ idk wtf is happening here so i’mma leave this alone. ”

also, i love that rufus uses “ heir to the throne ” verbage, which is so akin to yufi also being “ heir to the throne ” & look at them: spiteful children rebelling against their useless ass dads to create new world order + to destroy the old shin-ra company.  i love that for them.

so in conclusion........ this game FED ME. god i wanna play it again and again. i beat it on normal and got everything except 1 treasure and 1 task from chadley. i also need to do all the combat simulators. but given i did what i could in.... 3.5 days, i’m not too upset by it. this game has so much replay value and... i can say i’m glad i bought it twice.

g.amestop give me my freaking shinra badge i’ve damn well earned it.

oh and two more things going forward:

> nanaki continues to sound old as hell. which duh, given advent children. but u know how they established him as a young teen in the og + so it made sense for y.uffie and nanaki to be friends ‘cause they were mentally the same age? i don’t...... see how that works now. 

also.....y’all could have missed me with this shit already but STOP SHIPPING HIM WITH YUFI. NOW UR ONLY ARGUMENT IS GONE. STOP. i saw some art of nanaki & y.uffie fucking in the tags + floating around google and i was like....... WHY!!! and then there’s also weird hybrid art like what if they had a kid or something and i just........  STOP.

i have flashbacks of when i first started writing on tumblr + how i was bombarded by furries wanting to fuck bc of this. like deadass king dedede from kirby. later on i also saw sonic & even alligators ( not an alligator man.... tho i did see king k. rool + donkey kong as well........ i hated y’all for a hot minute ). it’s not even “ monster fucking ” it’s bestiality and I’M BEGGING YOU TO STOP. y’all can truly MISS ME WITH THIS.

however, u know, bigby wolf + everyone from castlevania could easily get it. stardust platinum where ya at. if i had to pick it would be....... more humanoid than a penguin or a “ lab rat dog ” u feel? 

> i am not crazy about y.uffentine. look. i know it exists. i know it was big bc fandom was like “ optional character ship ftw! ” + then dirge of cerberus came out and y’all went wild ( to be fair, i get it, it was the only ship outside of NANAKI and BEING KIDNAPPED/ASSAULTED BY SHINRA SOLDIERS AS A CHILD that people could feasibly comprehend for y.uffie for some reason............................................................... it was an actually “ NORMAL ” person........ ) but like. i’m sorry. it’s not doin it for me. i’ve seen like two other y.uffie blogs out here that actually stick to canon so like if u want your y.uffentine that bad, like maybe ask them. but please don’t ask me. 

ok i’m done for real now! thanks for reading !