#welcome to the generation of jade - cora jade.

[c1nemafabe]

i can't concentrate at work when you send me photos like that. ( will and cora )

MEMES ; always accepting

[ text ] : work is not more important than me anyway will baby [ text ] : picture sent[ text ] : don't you think?

[c1nemafabe]

' you can't promise that. ' bites back gently , fear coating her words ⎯⎯⎯  to disguise the fear in her heart of rejection, knows she isn't always easy to deal with, fears his family might think that too. ' i'm not exactly the most loveable person out there , and you know it. ' reminds of a past where all she would do was tease him, either with evil words or actions. ' i do. ' brings the strap of her backpack upon her shoulder, ready to follow his lead. ' you promise you'll give me dessert as soon as we get there, right? '

this was going to be the first time, cora was going to meet his family. he knew to put on a strong face, for her at the very least. "hey, they are going to love you. I promise, you don't have to worry." seth said, looking her eyes and places his hands on her cheeks. "oh, I know how much you love dessert." he said, smirking and kisses her lips softly. "got all your stuff, beautiful?"

[jadedwiles]

#𝐣𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐝𝐰𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐬 -- ‘ WELCOME, TO THE GENERATION OF JADE ! ’ … dependent & kayfabe portrayal of wwe nxt’s cora jade ! depicted as a heel, exclusive to elevationhq. ⭒

regarded as exploitative, obstinate & self - assured by critics and peers alike ; twenty - two years old, born and raised in chicago, illinois ; 𝔧𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔡 through bygone days of being shoved to the sidelines and disregarded, cora has utilized a 𝑠𝘩𝑎𝑟𝑝 𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑢𝑒 & 𝑚𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠 to fixate the spotlight solely upon her in any room that she stands in. to keep it short and sweet, she is simply all the things you wish you were, and then some !

per my portrayal, cora and bron are exes -- as it turns out, he was all bark and no bite. however, that's all you'll get out of her regarding that situation, as it is a privilege to be in her presence, and she refuses to dwell over those who failed to treat it as such and appreciate her while they had their opportunity. instead, let it serve as a lesson and an example for any future relationships, whether they be platonic, romantic, or anything in - between.

out of character : plots + connections are always welcomed ! my dm ’ s are open to discuss plots ; however, since this is my first time portraying cora, i think i will refrain from shipping until i feel more confident about my portrayal. this blog is adored by maddy ( she / her, nineteen years old, est timezone ) ㅤᵕ̈ . i would love for you all to get to know my endlessly witty and virtuous -- albeit , slightly conceited, but nevertheless beloved -- 𝐜.𝐣. ! ♡

[genofjaded]

welcome to the generation of jade ;; brianna coda aka cora jade. the sweet girl turned evil well on camera anyways. sometimes off it she can be a little rough around the edges. once you are friends with her it's pretty much end game. when she isn't being a sexy villain on t.v catch bri playing video games or at the beach.

shipping is always based off chemistry!

when it comes to bron -- the ex she wishes she never messed around with (for now until we get a bron then i'm open to any plotting.)

close friends: tba.

[acequeenking]

Thoughts on the Andromeda Crew

I've done two more missions in ME:A, one on Voeld and one on Havarl. Thoughts on the crew thus far below the cut:

CREW

At this point in the game, it's become clear that your crew (and the Andromeda initiative as a whole) might have had good reasons to flee the Milky Way galaxy. Besides the incoming, machine-orchestrated apocalypse, I mean. None of these guys quite “belong” in their home cultures, and all of them are misfits to some degree or another.I like that, and how, in many ways, these aren't carbon copies of Tali/Garrus/etc. It's a risk, but I think it pays off. Mostly. Liam is super-emotional, and at times this can make him unprofessional. He loves a lot, definitively an extrovert. Liam is basically the “Deanna Troi”, less in terms of psychological well-being, but more in terms of being the peacemaker of the Andromeda crew. Liam is consistently the one who who worries about making sure everyone gets along, who wants to bond not only with the milky way crew but goes out of his way to bring in Jaal as well. Not only does Liam reject our ideal of toxic masculinity, but he actually takes on a very traditionally feminine role in the group. No wonder he didn't exactly fit in in a police force made up of men like Harkin. Disaster response is closer to what his calling is, but I still think it’s wrong. Honestly, I think Liam would make a great teacher or social services provider; he cares, sometimes too much, but he cares. I also like how the game does point out this is both a positive trait and a negative one; his over-kill on the kett at Habitat 7, his arguments with Cora. It adds balance to his character. My one question: Liam, what is up with those media recommendations on your emails? It must take you a while to set those up and with everything going wrong you'd honestly think he'd focus on something greater than titles of books relating to community.

Cora, like Liam, is a rejection of traditional gender roles. She's clinical, precise, but also pig-headed. She has an almost masculine amount of confidence; she calls it how she sees it, and that's...it. Yet at the same time she has a lot of reverence for the female-coded people in her life; the girl who isn’t like the other girl, she isn’t. 

This leads to a lot of conflict with...just about everyone, actually. She's savage to Peebee for not caring about what she cares about; she doesn't get Drack, and mistrusts him even when he's pretty harmless. She doesn't get Liam, she doesn't get Jaal, and she doesn't get Vetra. Cora butts heads with literally just about everyone who doesn't believe what she does. This makes her character difficult to like, for me, personally. She's very focused on the asari, to the point of almost being an asari otaku (tm @buhnebeest). It's an ironic twist, a human who you would think, from the name, would be all “human rights forever!!!” to be pretty much in love with the asari. It's clear she believes in asari culture in asari religion, in asari strategies. She doesn't belong with humanity anymore; one gets the sense she would have rather been on the asari arc. 

Peebee is an asari with commitment issues a mile long. She's very much the anti-Liara; whereas Liara constantly wanted to get closer to Shepard, Peebee is constantly pushing Ryder away. She doesn't want to commit, tells you up front she's only here to get what she wants and then she's leaving, free-bird style. Peebee would never be so devoted to a friend/lover that she'd go on a one-woman mission to rescue their corpse, I'm saying. Despite that, Peebee is a charming girl; she's clever, smart as a whip, and you can tell she really is passionate about the remnant tech she studies. For Peebee life is all about the new and the now, and you get the feeling that there's no place she'd rather be than the frontier. Of all the people on your team, Peebs best encapsulates the “trail blazer” persona. 

Vetra is, like Peebee, very much the Anti-Garrus. Garrus was a Palaven homeboy, from the capital no less. He came from a position of turian privilege, and it's very evident, particularly in Mass Effect, that he doesn't know how to relate to the others. He started off wary of humans, absolutely cruel to Tali. (Thankfully, he got better.) Vetra is also from Palaven, but has pretty much the opposite sort of backstory: her family life was chaotic, her parents basically unsupportive. She was forced to scrap and save for her sister from a young age. Garrus ran from his family, Vetra is absolutely attached to her sister at the hip. Vetra's my favorite cast member, and while I feel like I'm becoming somewhat of a stereotype by tending to focus on turians (TURIANS!), I think she'd be my favorite even if she wasn't a spiky bird. She's kind, adaptable; I adore the way she makes decisions focused on giving people what they want. She's also intense as fuck, which is something I'm generally into in characters (if you uh, haven't noticed, which...you almost certainly have). Also her addition to dextro cereal is absolutely endearing. Vetra is almost certainly the one I'll romance my first go; I've been flirting with everyone, but I like her best, and some of her dialogue in her romance is so good. “I've got a good feeling about you, Ryder,” said in a soft, but affectionate tone; “It's nice to be appreciated”. Oh Vetra. 10/10 will fanfic forever. I can't wait until Scott wakes up and sees his two new, slightly raptor-like sisters. (I honestly couldn't think of a better way for him to wake up than having Sid squealing about him and how she's heard so much about him from Sara, and did he really break his arm climbing a tree and did it grow back or is it a robot arm???)

Jaal, like Liam, and Drack, rejects the idea of toxic masculinity; so much of Jaal's story is about his emotions, how he must express what he feels. Jaal is a soldier, but he is unquestionably a lover of a great many things: not just people, but places. Jaal I think honestly does love Andromeda; he takes great pride in talking to people everywhere and really reminds me of no one quite so much as Piper from Fallout 4 in terms of connection to the game world. Jaal was the biggest turn around in expectations for me. I don't think his look is particularly attractive and nothing about the pre-release info about him excited me.  I love him and I will definitively romance him second go. He's so emotionally powerful but also kind-hearted; he is absolutely dedicated to his people and turning things around for them. Also, his voice sounds like Javik's which is A+ for me. I will write several fics where he has eight millionty babies he adopts with Ryder. I want to write a bunch of cross-cultural fic, as the angara are interesting; a culture-heavy race long focused to be at war. Plus the reincarnation thing is just...oomph. Def. Space husband.

Drack is a rebel. He's definitively not your standard Krogan; he likes war, sure, but he's far more into family. No one in the party is as much a care-taker as Drack, expect perhaps Vetra. (Whose relationship, as an aside, I find fascinating because it's not how a turian and krogan relationship should go according to the milky way rules; Drack and Vetra not only get along like a house on fire, but Drack is presented as the expert and Vetra as the lesser-experienced.) Drack is very emotional, and it's obvious he loves his granddaughter Kesh and also that he cares about you. I was shocked – in a good way – when he sent Sara an email commiserating with her about her dad and trying to cheer her up with pictures of guns. He's astonishingly emotional, paternal even. I wish you could romance Drack because I would ride that old man's quad. He's gruff and grumpy but also incredibly caring and like Liam, someone focused on unity. He's lived a lot and seen a lot and he's old and jaded but somehow still hopeful and secretly soft as hell and I love him.  It's obvious why Gil didn't really fit in in the milky way; he admits cheerfully that he “lacks purpose” and just kind of drifted from one place to the next. He wants to find this purpose in Andromeda. I have to admit I really do not like Gil at all; I think he's a bit of an asshole. I hate his interactions with Kallo, because Gil just comes off as a jerk who thinks he knows better than the ship's builders. His modifications don't tend to be better than what we already have and as Kallo points out, often cause problems. Worse, he doesn't tell the crew he's going to be doing them, then is offended when they don't work or set off alarms that inconvenience others.

I met him for Poker on the nexus and he seemed more charming from that, as is his poker table book (although it made me wonder why Ryder doesn't get invited to the poker games when Jaal does, and he's only been on the ship for six seconds).  His friend Jill sounds hideous and gross and I absolutely hate how any attempt to tell him that her “U GOTTA MAKE A BABY BRO” speech is inappropriate is met with you don't know her, it's how we do. Yeah making someone feel bad for a sexual orientation they can't help is abuse, not friendship.

Suvi. Suvi I love, on a brighter spot; definitively space wife material, and again, a character I will run through to romance at some point. She's so bright and smart, and while I feel like a lot of people won't like her religious viewpoints, I really do. Religious characters are rare, and I glom onto them like hydrogen to oxygen, baby. I think the dichotomy she feels between being forced to choose to marvel at nature or be forced to explain it is interesting; it gives her depth. I wish Ryder had more ways to talk to her other than “I agree” or “You're shit also your religion is shit” but I do enjoy that Suvi is not an atheist. She's a profound believer in something bigger. 

I think this is what enables her to go to Andromeda, because that's not welcome in an area so soon after first contact, when so many religions on earth must have been shaken by the knowledge that we weren't alone, that there were more belief structures in the universe than we'd accounted for.  She is very much a rejection of the absoluteness of science; interestingly, she somewhat echoes Mordin, who also held some religious viewpoints and took comfort in them in regards to his work on the genophage. Also, she licks rocks, and there's nothing cuter than a girl that licks rocks. Her voice is nice as well, though I'm not sure where the accent is supposed to put her (Irish? Scottish?).

Kallo is probably the closest to fitting in with his species' general stereotype. He's another bright spot for me; Salarians really are bringing it in this game. I like him a lot. He's bright and brave but also a bit of a stick in the mud. It's clear that he expects things to run to spec, and doesn't have a lot of patience for people meddling with his stuff. (I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt in the conversation however, mainly because he isn't furthering the conflict 99% of the time with Gil, and his reasons for...wanting to know what's happening on his ship…are reasonable). Like Joker, he loves the Tempest, but he loves it in a less romantic way. He has more pride in it than emotional love. 

Lexi is...there. And I can’t honestly say much more about her? She doesn’t seem to have half the personality that Chakwas did, but hopefully she’ll get a scene to shine soon. Right now she seems like a waste of a rather famous VA.

[travelworldnetwork]

The Micronesian island of Yap has a famously unusual currency: hundreds of giant discs of rocks scattered all over the island, many of them too heavy to move.

By Robert Michael Poole

3 May 2018

Arriving on the tiny Micronesian island of Yap will fill even the most jaded traveller with a sense of awe. The single daily flight comes in over dense forests, taro swamp, shallow lagoons and a web of mangroves, all surrounded by fringing reef. But the real wonderment doesn’t come from the idyllic scenery, nor from the greeting by a Yapese girl in a traditional hibiscus skirt. It’s when you first come face-to-face with a piece of giant stone money.

View image of Hundreds of large stone discs can be found across the Micronesian island of Yap (Credit: Credit: Robert Michael Poole)

Hundreds of these extraordinary, human-sized discs of rock are scattered all over the island; some outside the island’s few hotels, others in rows close to the beach or deep in the forests. Each village even has a stone money bank where pieces that are too heavy to move are displayed on the malal (dancing grounds).

“My family owns five stone money of a good size,” said Falmed (Yapese just use one name), a taxi driver I flagged down to take me to Mangyol stone money bank in Yap’s eastern province of Gagil.

Five, it turns out, is a good haul, since many islanders don’t own any stones.

View image of The Yapese people have used the rai stones as currency for centuries (Credit: Credit: Robert Michael Poole)

The unique stone currency has been in use here for several centuries, although no-one is quite certain when the concept began. What is known is that each one is different, and they are as heavy with meaning as they are in volume of limestone, carved and voyaged by the Yapese all the way from Palau, an island nation 400km to the south-west. The very first pieces were used as gifts and shaped like a whale – thus named ‘rai’ stones – but they’ve evolved to become currency, including holes carved through the centre to make them more transportable across the oceans.

“My forefather Falmed, he is the one who started to go to Palau first by canoe, and make this connection between Palau and Yap. So I carry his name,” Falmed told me as we hurtled along dirt roads past the sleepy capital of Colonia. Despite his sun-worn T-shirt and rickety car, his lineage is surprisingly significant. His distant forefather Falmed was a high chief powerful enough to commission a boat to Palau where he met with locals and gained access to a quarry site.

“He came back and called a meeting where he told the village to gather tuba, the local alcohol, to trade,” Falmed said. Within a month, he was back in Palau to start carving the stone as money.

View image of The Yapese travelled 400km across the sea to carve the limestone discs from quarries in neighbouring Palau (Credit: Credit: Robert Michael Poole)

The issue was that Yap had no durable rock or precious metals with which to make coins. Instead, experienced Yapese sailors, commissioned mostly by wealthy high chiefs, would sail to Palau on bamboo rafts, and eventually, schooners, to load up with limestone from their quarries. Initially small, as techniques and tools improved, the coins became even larger than the people who would painstakingly carve them. When metal tools were introduced by European traders in the late 19th Century, quarrying was made easier, and reports from the 1880s claimed 400 Yapese men could be found working in just one quarry in Koror, Palau – a significant proportion of the population, which would have then been about 7,000 in total.

On their return from Palau, the sailors would give the carved stone money to the high chiefs who would gather from different villages to welcome back the sailors and the stones. The chiefs would keep the larger ones and two fifths of the smaller ones. They would also give names to some stones, usually choosing their own name or that of relatives, and confirm the stones as legitimate by giving a value based on an even older currency system: yar (pearl shell money). The stones could then enter circulation and be bought by anyone.

“If the chief says OK, 50 shell money for each stone money, if I have that I will make the trade and own one,” explained Edmund Pasan, a canoe builder from the northern province of Maap.

View image of Some rai stones measure more than 3m in diameter (Credit: Credit: Robert Michael Poole)

Today, shell money has been replaced by the almighty US dollar for day-to-day transactions like grocery shopping. But for more conceptual exchanges, like rights or customs, stones remain a vital currency for Yap’s 11,000 residents.

Falmed’s family has only used its money twice, and one was as an apology. “We used it for one of my brothers who made trouble for another family,” Falmed revealed remorsefully. His brother’s marriage had failed. “One of the chiefs, his daughter got one piece of stone money as an apology, and they accepted it. When it comes to high ranks, you have to use stone money.”

When it comes to high ranks, you have to use stone money

The value of stone money has always been fluid, challenging the Western concept that currency value is pre-determined and fixed. The coins are valued by their size – they range from 7cm to 3.6m in diameter – as well as their ornateness and even for the sheer difficulty in obtaining the rock. How much a coin is worth also depends on who you give it to, and what for.

In addition, Yapese factor oral history into each stone’s value, as there’s no written record of what belongs to who. Families rarely move from their villages, and the tribal elders from the around 150 villages pass down information of each piece, meaning they act as a reminder of the past and help to reinforce relationships and transactions that date back to times of warriors and clans. In some cases, the stones have engravings marking battles from more than 200 years ago.

View image of Each village has a stone money bank that displays pieces too large to move (Credit: Credit: Robert Michael Poole)

Falmed and I finally arrived at the Mangyol stone money bank after a 40-minute drive from Colonia. From large to small, the few dozen stones were lined up in front of a p'ebay, an open structure in the village centre where the community comes together to do their trade, celebrations and sometimes their schooling too.

Falmed explained that the rai are specifically placed, each encoded with secret connections, village relationships, and stories of marriage, conflicts and deep apologies that have seen the stones change hands over centuries. It’s those stories that only the local villagers know that truly determine which is most valuable. There’s no need to make more rai since the island essentially has a permanent number in circulation, and few are ever moved. Even broken ones retain their oral history that give them more value than a new piece. New pieces are occasionally made, though, simply to ensure the skills of past generations are not forgotten.

It’s those stories that only the local villagers know that truly determine which is most valuable

But if the stones are so valuable and so public, I wondered, what’s to stop someone making their own, or simply stealing one?

“Most matters are common knowledge and secrets among local people are rare; thus theft of rai is relatively unknown,” writes Cora Lee C Gilliland of the Smithsonian Institution in her paper The Stone Money of Yap.

Not that some haven’t attempted it. “They tried to do that in Yap, and they laughed about it because they broke,” Pasan later told me with a chuckle. “Then they did it with the stones in Guam, but they are not that strong and are more difficult to get at – it’s much easier to quarry in Palau.”

View image of Each stone’s worth is determined by its size, ornateness and history (Credit: Credit: Robert Michael Poole)

Yap’s neighbours, Guam, Palau and Chuuk, are all heavily affected by European and American colonisation, and all bear conspicuous scars of World War II. Guam remains a US territory with a significant military base on the island that has shaped its culture, while Chuuk Lagoon is home to around 60 sunken wrecks, a result of the devastating Operation Hailstone in 1944.

Yap, though, was largely bypassed by US bombing as the early 20th-Century Japanese occupation came to an end, and the rai stone’s sturdiness and longevity seem to represent the long-lasting authenticity of Yapese culture over the centuries.

“In Yapese culture, if something [important] is going on, and there is nothing else suitable to use, then you use stone money,” said Falmed, who has already ensured the next generation retains his wealth by passing one piece to his son at his first-birthday ceremony.

View image of No matter its location, the Yapese know to whom each stone belongs (Credit: Credit: Robert Michael Poole)

“When my girlfriend was pregnant, we [came here] from Hawaii,” he explained. “On a child’s first birthday, if a clan is of high rank and has some small stone money, they will cut a chicken and drain the blood on the boy’s head to recognise the moment. It’s a gift, and a lot of people came [to the ceremony].”

Falmed’s son is 12 now and lives in Hawaii. But the stone is in his family house in Yap. And even without written record, everyone already knows whose name is on it.

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from bbc.com/travel/columns/adventure-experience

The post The tiny island of giant money appeared first on Travel World Network.

[c1nemafabe]

\ good ol' tag dump \

[c1nemafabe]

that never should have happened / Cora 👀

MEMES ; always accepting

doe eyes follow his frame, a twirl of her hair being wrapped almost innocently around her index finger , as if she had no clue what the other was on about. but she did - she knew it, she just wanted to hear him say it again. she just wanted to relieve it even if it was just in her head all over again. would there be consequences? maybe , that would depend on how able cora was to keep what happened between themselves and not use it in her favor to tease seth against punk. ' oh come on seth, you had no problem with what happened while i was calling you daddy . '

[c1nemafabe]

feels hesitant to word out what she really feels about this trip, anxiety consumes her but refuses to show. not used to being the kind of girl introduced to families, not used to being the kind of girl that gets invited to spend the holidays with. ' says you, you're not the one walking into a house with complete strangers. ' mutters out , tone that comes across more aggressive than she intended, arms crossed to show defensiveness. ' oh, but you know i'm more of a dessert kinda girl. ' suggests with a small smirk that tugs at her lips.

open to: m/f

connection: significant other, fwb, co-worker. traveling to his family in Iowa for Thanksgiving.

"Thanksgiving in Iowa is not going to be bad. Oh my god." He said to the other, grabbing the keys for the rental car. "I promise the food my Mom made will make it worth it."

[c1nemafabe]

a chuckle leaves cora's lips, satisfied more than words could express after their encounter. at first, seth was everything that cora despised - well, only because that's what punk lead her to feel. but there was something unbelievably appetising about seth - the forbidden fruit. he was it, he was the one thing she shouldn't have , so obviously - she had to have him. ' aww , and what are you gonna do about it seth? tell my dad punk about it? i'm sure he'd love to hear it from you. ' wicked words transpired, as cora rose to her feet, placing her top over her bare chest followed by her thong. slowly stepping closer to the architect. ' don't act like you didn't like it now seth. . . i'm willing to bet that you'd want to do me again. . . and again . . . ' leans closer , as close as he would allow. ' . . . and again. ' soft whisper as she leans on the tip of her toes to kiss his cheek.

@c1nemafabe CONTINUED FROM HERE [X]

Seth bit on his bottom lip, shaking his head, He knew that this was so wrong, but he couldn't help himself in front of the younger woman. He got himself up from the bed, putting on his boxers followed by his pants. He would loved nothing more than to go right back into bed with her, Seth looks at her. "You know this is wrong, we should never have done this."