#what do you mean we were both born in ‘99?

[thencomethecherryblossoms]

Her husband is the luckiest man alive I fear

i can’t do this..

[unproduciblesmackdown]

similar to the greentext stuff - i was visiting with my neighbors and their grandkids were around, and I said to this eight year old, "Hey, you wanna know something cool? I was playing the game when the Endermen came out." and his eyes went wide, like this kid looked like i told him i landed on the moon. His grandma thought it was really funny, and she said she has no idea what i'm talking about, but her grandbabies do, and that's incredible to her.

oh that's fun lmao, when minecraft & that update's existed for more than your whole life, and yknow being that young and like Next Year fr is this huge time scale away, a couple of years is a quarter of your life thus far and like maybe nigh half of the part of your life you actually have longterm memories for....i was checking out this dev's blog's archives about a:tdd's release in 2010 & in one entry they compared the implicitly Roughly concurrent release of Minecraft and i was like hey whoah. forever primarily being a game i've Heard Of more than any more direct exposure so i had no precise sense of [before minecraft release] [after minecraft release] Year 0 there but it's like for sure back in thee day when minecraft was a new thing, huh

[artssslut2]

Pregnant With Patrick’s Baby: Head-cons

Patrick does not get enough fluff

- You and Patrick were pretty young when you got pregnant

- You weren’t on birth control because you didn’t like how it made you feel, usually Patrick used a condom. But this time was different.

- “Let’s not use it.”

- “Pat cmon”

- “No I mean it, let’s just see what happens. I love you.”

- “We’re young Patrick” you reminded him

- “There aren’t any rules my love. I want a baby with you I’m serious.” He told you. You didn’t know what came over you but you agreed. And low and behold a few weeks later you found out that you were pregnant.

- Patrick was over the moon. He had never loved anyone like he loved you, and now you had created another person together. You were nervous but just as happy as he was.

- Patrick wasn’t naturally a very caring person. This all changed when he saw you go through morning sickness. He was there every morning with you through it all.

- Patrick told everyone right away. You had never seen him so happy. He would bring it up every chance he got, in interviews, with friends, on social media. He wanted everyone to know.

- You had never seen Patrick as emotion as he was the day he saw the ultrasound for the first time.

- “Jesus what are you doing to me.” He cried into your arms from peer joy.

- “I never knew you were such a softie” you teased

- Patrick was on a winning streak since you became pregnant. He wanted to make his little family proud.

- Patrick would drop anything and everything the second you needed something. Even if it was something stupid like ice cream.

- He couldn’t take his hands off of your bump. He loved feeling his baby kick and squirm around inside of you. He would talk to it all the time too.

- If you couldn’t sleep he would stay up too. He would bring you your favorite foods and talk to the baby to get it to calm down.

- You both decided to wait and be surprised with the gender of the baby. Although you were both 99% sure it was a boy. Patrick even referred to the baby as a him. You told him not to just in case but he was positive.

- Patrick picked out the name “Sam” after his favorite tennis player Pete Sampras. With the middle name Arthur after his best friend. You agreed because you just couldn’t say no to this man.

- Patrick got so many baby tennis things, like a mini Racket and net. Little tennis shoes and a sweatband, it was adorable.

- It seemed like your baby was kicking nonstop. Patrick would always say “he’s just practicing his footwork”

- When the day finally came and you went into labor he was ready. He had the bag in the car for weeks now. He wasn’t panicked at all like you thought he’d be. Then again he never panicked about anything.

- This man was by your side through it all. Got you ice chips, walked around with you, let you crush his hands. The doctors made you bounce on a yoga ball to move things along. You did not want to, you were tired and felt stupid. Patrick asked them to bring another one in and bounced with you the whole time.

- The labor had taken a very long time, you told Patrick to try and get some sleep. He refused, he was going to stay up with you for as long as it took.

- When the baby was born, to everyone’s surprise it was a little girl. A tiny little girl with Patrick’s big round ears that seemed bigger than her. It was adorable.

- Patrick was in shock. He had a daughter and not a son. You tried getting his attention but he seemed to be in a trance. You were worried he was upset that it wasn’t a boy.

- “Babe? Are you upset?” You asked with a crying baby on your chest,

- “What? How could I be upset? We have a little girl.” He said with a tear coming from his eye. You sighed with relief as Patrick wrapped his arms carefully around you.

- Patrick didn’t want to ever let go of his baby girl. The sight of him doing skin on skin with the newborn was precious.

- “We could still name her Sam you know.” You told him while sitting next to him on the hospital bed. He looked down at her in his arms.

- “No, she should have a different one that’s just for her.” He decided kissing her tiny head.

- He still wanted to name her after a tennis player. So he suggested “Billie” after Billie Jean King. The name fit right away. It felt right when you looked at her and said “Billie”. you were in love with your little family

- And patrick definitely nailed the hot dad walk out of the hospital.

[cosmerelists]

The Great Mistborn Era 1 vs. Stormlight Debate: Whose Planet is More Barren?

As requested by anon. :)

Part 1: Flora & Fauna

Hoid: Welcome, welcome, to the great Scadrial & Roshar debate!

Hoid: Kelsier, would you like to start?

Kelsier: [slaps down picture of mare flower]

Kelsier: THAT.....is what we used to have.

Kelsier: Now all of our plants are a dreary brown, trying to survive in a world blanketed in ash.

Kelsier: We have some horses, some dogs, some cats, but I wouldn't say it's a teeming zoological wonderland.

Kelsier: Because, again, the land is 99% ash. And nothing much can survive.

Hoid: Shallan, your reply?

Shallan: No place with life is barren.

Shallan: But if I WERE going to make this argument, I might point out that what we have.....is crab.

Kelsier: Like....just one big one?

Shallan: Oh, we got crab-dogs. Crab-bugs. Crab-oxen. Crab-people. But they're all essentially Crab.

Shallan: To be fair, we do have a few other types: we have horses too (so that cancels yours out) and pigs.

Shallan: And our plants? Well, they do have color, to be fair, but they are basically all things that have to hide in crevices to survive the giant continent-crossing storm that roams around making a "zoological wonderland" pretty tough for us as well.

Hoid: [carefully considering]

Hoid: As much as I hate to say it, this point goes to Kelsier. I've been to both places. Scadrial is indeed an ash-brown sewer pit.

Kelsier: (Yay?)

Part 2: Food, Leisure, the Arts

Elend: Let me say this first: if you're born a noble, then the situation is not that bad. You have food, you have dancing and music, you have culture.

Elend: But that is not how it is for the majority of the population.

Elend: The majority of the population are skaa, who are enslaved, and who do...not have any of those things in a good way.

Elend: So if we go by the majority--as we should--then yes, our planet is notably barren in its food, its leisure pursuits, and its art.

Kaladin: We do war mostly.

Kaladin: We eat rocks.

Kaladin: It's soulcast rocks, which means it is turned into grain. That tastes bad.

Kaladin: And that's not just darkeyes, who are the oppressed people. The lighteyes live pretty much the same way. Although they do more leisure stuff when they're not at war.

Kaladin: Then there're the parshmen, who locked away their consciousnesses and got enslaved, and who had to relearn things like how to play cards once they were freed. Because their enslaved lives were truly devoid of anything good.

Kaladin: So.

Hoid: Yeah...I'm giving this point to Roshar. It sucks there.

Elend: ...One day, I WILL win a debate.

Part 3: Morality

Ham: Morally barren? Yeah, we got that on Scadrial.

Ham: Turns out our Lord Ruler, who became kind of a god, physically rewired the population so his friends could be nobles and everyone else would be slaves. Like, they became physically different.

Ham: Others he used hemalurgy on so that they became nonhuman--like the kandra and the koloss, who can be taken over and controlled due to their spikes.

Ham: Plus, like, our society just ran on horrible slavery. I don't want to go into it, but it was bad.

Ham: And while I think any ability is morally neutral at the outset, our "murder people to steal their power" ability, hemalurgy, is hard to spin in a good way.

Venli: I see. So humans basically did shitty things to other humans?

Venli: I'm a Listener, aka a native of this planet. Humans came here after destroying their own planet.

Venli: Made my people into rhythmless slaves.

Venli: And we're STILL fighting a literally eternal war where some people on each side can't die, so they just keep coming back more and more insane.

Venli: Also even among themselves? The human system of deciding who's good and who's bad based on eye color of all things? Whack.

Hoid: Wow! You've both made such good arguments about why your societies are morally barren and horrible to live in.

Hoid: I do think Scadrial is worse, though.

Venli: A human would say that.

[jazeswhbhaven]

So we saw that Cain really came around to the idea of the twins when they were born. Could you write something about him having to deal with the twins liking each other more than him? Since that typically happens with twins, especially when they’re young. They usually grow out of it but they’re kinda in their own world for awhile. Cain maybe feels left out and talks Levi and/or Satan about it?

Thank you anon (if you're the same one) that asks for me to write about my fankids <3 I love doing so~

As the twins entered their next stages of development, which was very different from Cain's since they were half-human, they became toddlers within a couple years, walking and being around each other pretty much 99% of the time. Cain was used to changing diapers, feeding them when asked, and even babysitting since he was old enough to do so, but now it seems the twins were more independent and no longer needed him for much of anything. Since they were both girls they could go to the bathroom together, they had their snack time together, nap time, rarely wanted to sleep in separate beds. Though they loved their big brother, they just didn't need him as much the depended on each other. Even if Kamaria, the more sickly twin who often needed help when she was feeling tired would be held up by her sister, neither of them asking Cain for help. While he felt relief for not having to baby them constantly, he also felt a sense of his purpose being taken away as being their older sibling. And the more it bothered him, the more his emotions were beginning to annoy him. He could only trust in asking his birth giving father, Leviathan who seemed to always have it under control.

"Father? Are you busy..." Cain knocked on the door of Leviathan's office, waiting patiently to be invited in as always.

"It's unlocked." Leviathan's tone was nuetral meaning he wasn't busy. The perfect time to talk about what was troubling the young devil about his siblings newfound independence. Cain walked in, shutting the door immediately behind him knowing that his father's noble Foras was probably right behind him the entire time but out of sight. It wasn't that private of a conversation, but he was still perturbed by the lack of alone time.

"Father, I need to talk to you about something. It's about the twins."

Leviathan flashed a look at the other, sighing before he pushed away the idle paperwork that sat on his desk.

"What is it? Did they say something?"

"No. Well their speech is quite developed just yet so that's impossible."

"Then?"

"It seems they don't need me anymore. I know in my studies that half-devils, well more common being Asmodeus' offspring that are half human, age rapidly for the first two decades of their lives and then it slows down. So at this age, it's normal they may not need my assistance. But that...bothers me."

Leviathan's face remained calm and collected, staring at his son as he tapped his fingers on the desk. "It shouldn't bother you. You aren't like them. It's natural they would seek validation from one another."

"What do you mean?" Cain sat down in one of the chairs, legs crossed and his arms perfectly placed on his lap.

"Cain, you...are a true devil. Through and through. You were born from...as much as I don't like mentioning it...two parents that are high ranking devils. Though the twins have fathers who are Kings, Solomon's daugther, Astra is only human."

"Okay. And this means?" Cain was having a hard time understanding his father's logic, though he knew he was about to say something completely judgmental.

"You aren't directly related to them, Cain. In fact only one of them really carries Satan's DNA, the other twin doesn't. They only share their mother's blood. Something, you can't relate with."

"I don't think that has anything to do with it. We're still devils, we're still in Hell and they are my sisters. Am I not supposed to care and protect them?"

"Tell me Cain, do they even want to be around you these days? Twins are...funny creatures. They tend to feel and think what the other is thinking. Perhaps, it was decided over night they found out just how different they are from you."

"They aren't pretentious like you, father."

The sudden tension in the room could be sliced with a knife after Cain's statement. Leviathan only smirked, pleased by his own flesh and blood becoming catty with the slightest form of rejection being presented. It reminded him so much of Satan it was annoyingly sick.

"They certainly aren't. Since I wasn't the one who raised them. Between those two and Astra...the twins are better off learning things on their own. I can't even trust Satan to raise you properly and he goes and has another child. Typical." Leviathan clicks his tongue and stands up neatly set the paperwork to the side and look at his son with distaste. "Besides, I don't like that you've been in Gehenna a lot lately. Certain behaviors are starting to rub off on you. Make sure to pack your things and get ready to come back home for a while."

Cain scoffed, deciding to drop his composure and second guess whether or not he should knock over the chair he was sitting in. Deciding against it, he only got up and loudly stomped out of his father's office, only having Leviathan chuckle to himself.

Back in Gehenna, Cain could do nothing but stew in his thoughts of his earlier conversation. All the meanwhile the twins were running around the palace, their giggles and screams echoing in the halls as a diligent Sitri chased after them reminding them not to run too fast or they'd fall. Normally, Cain would be running with them but today he just felt too beside himself to do so. The irriation inside of him was building, and he knew what happened when he had no control over it.

It was then, that Kamaria stopped running and collapsed to the ground, panting as her tiny hands braced her body. Cain was alert, starting to walk over to her before being stopped by Aelia who casually picked up her sister from the floor like it was nothing. A tiny toddler, no bigger than two feet tall being able to lift and carry someone the same size as her.

"Big sis has you..." Aelia says proudly as she waddles to the nearest couch to lay her down, while waiting for Sitri to catch up to them as he dials a number on his phone.

Cain sat back down, the irritation now swirling inside him even more as he watched. The eye contact that Aelia made with him was brief, almost as if she were telling him to stay away. What did he do to them? Had he not been a good big brother? This was maddening to him, a growl erupting from his chest as he glared at a random piece of furniture that suddenly tore into two with the walls and floor around it cracking and splintering.

"Whoa, what happened just now?" Leraye states as he arrives to the room with Satan, everyone now witnessing the mess that Cain made. Satan could only wordlessly look over at his wrathful child, and smirk as he turns to Sitri.

"Call Mammon about Kamaria. I think Cain needs some attention right now."

As the nobles took the twins to go meet Mammon elsewhere, Satan made his way over to Cain while laughing at his menacing gaze.

"What's got you so pissed off? Going through your moon cycle again?"

"No. That hasn't started for me yet. I've got another century, dad." Cain turned away, refusing to meet Satan's gaze.

"It's adorable when you try to not be angry. You shouldn't hold it in, that's not healthy. Levi has been teaching you the wrong things again."

"Don't call father, 'Levi'. He says you don't get those privileges anymore."

Satan blinks and then grabs a chair, turning it backwards before sitting on it leaning on the back while talking to Cain.

"What's got you pissed off? Or do you need a reason to be pissed off?"

"Why'd you have to have children with Astra, dad. They're annoying. They're half-human."

"So?"

"You have me. Aren't I enough?"

"Yes and No. I'm allowed to have as many offspring as I want. The same will be for you when you're older." Satan grins and reaches over to ruffle Cain's hair. "Are you pissed that you aren't the only child?"

"I'm pissed that they ignore me pretty much all the time, as if I'm not important to them. What's so much more important than their big brother? Nothing, not even you. This is stupid." Cain pouted and crossed his arms as Satan stared at his son, wide eyed before he let out a cackle.

"You sounds exactly like Levi. Damn, that's uncanny. I should have recorded this for him. 'Look at how our child screams like you. See how our rage creates such a beautiful thing?' It would make him so mad he won't talk to me for a week." Satan kept laughing, to much of Cain's annoyance until the room went silent again. A pair of large arms suddenly reached over to the younger devil, bringing him into a hug while being smothered with off pink, fluffy hair.

"Dad...what the hell are you doing?"

"Giving you a hug. You want attention? Astra suggested hugs would be better than kicking your ass."

"You're embarrassing. Are you really my dad?"

"You know the answer to that. Just like you know the answer to why you're pissed off. Aelia and Kamaria don't hate you. They just don't to bother you anymore. There will be a time where they'll want to play with you again, so enjoy your alone time."

Cain sunk himself deeper into Satan's embrace, trying to melt away his irritation with the scent of his parent's hair. It comforted him, just like it always had when he was the twin's age. Perhaps in the end...he was jealous that since he was alone and had to figure it out, he didn't have a sibling to lean on to. He always had his parents, but never someone who could relate to how he felt in that moment. He was always just...alone. He wanted the twins to bother him, need him for something. Because having someone to protect was one step closer to be a great ruler of Hell, just just a great devil other than the qualities that came with being born this way.

[samcurrentlywriting]

Outside our comfort zone

Summary: The Bad Batch are still cadets, and need to prove themselves worthy of the money and efforts the Kaminoans spend for them. So, one day, Tech decides to modify the parameters for the battle simulation.

Word count: 1610

Prompts: "Injured" (main prompt) & "Comfort zone" (alt prompt)

Notes: This is a very quick soft cadet au story that kind of fits both prompts! I hope you enjoy!! (Banners & dividers by @summer-of-bad-batch)

Crosshair is crawling like a snake in the ventilation shaft, an activity he has found himself doing more and more often. He is silent and agile, and likes to watch people when they can’t see him. Usually, he just tries to spy on regs that were mean to his brothers, and then spills all their secrets. But that day, he sees Nala Se, the chief Kaminoan scientist, and Lama Su, the prime minister, walking together to her office, and the young clone cannot stop himself from following them. 

By the time he reaches the best position to eavesdrop, they have already begun talking. 

“Clone Force 99 is too costly, and not efficient enough to be worth the effort.”

“They will improve, but they need training. The work we have done on their enhanced abilities is of utmost importance. We need to test its limits.”

Crosshair swallows. He’s glad he followed his instincts. They’re talking about his squad. And not positively. The clone cadet sighs. They have been trying their best. But between the constant bullying from the regs and the countless medical tests they are always doing, they barely have any time to practice their combat techniques. 

“Their efficiency is too limited. They’re unpredictable, and therefore dangerous, we don’t know how much their mutations have impacted their programming.”

Nala Se tries to say something, but Lama Su cuts her short:

“Unless you can get them to expand their comfort zone, I’m afraid we will have to cease this experiment and terminate all the specimens.”

Crosshair’s heart skips a beat, and he doesn’t wait to hear if Nala Se defends them. He needs to go back to their quarters. 

When he opens the door, he is relieved to see his brothers doing ok. Wrecker is working on disarming some smoke bombs Tech made for him. Tech is lying in his bed, eyes riveted to his datapad. Hunter is playing with his knife in the center of the room, looking in the void. As soon as Crosshair enters, Hunter stands up to greet him, and frowns when he notices how disturbed his youngest brother looks. 

“What’s wrong?”

“I overheard the prime minister talking to Nala Se. He said that we’re not good enough to continue the experience. That we stay in our comfort zone during training, and that it’s too narrow, and that we’re unpredictable. If we don’t get better, they’re going to kill us!”

“They can’t do this! We’re already so much better than the regs!” Wrecker shouts, flexing his muscles. 

Hunter doesn’t say anything, but he holds Crosshair in his arms. The youngest clone is already taller than him, but he knows sometimes all Crosshair needs is reassurance, and feeling protected. 

“What do you suggest, Tech?” He asks once he’s let go of Crosshair.

The second-born readjusts his goggles. 

“We have another training session tomorrow morning. Nala Se always sets up the parameters so that they are quite easy. I suppose she is worried about damaging us, since she spent so much time researching us. However, I could hack into the system and change the parameters, making the simulation harder. If we pass, we will have proven that we can, in fact, go beyond our comfort zone, as he put it.”

The four brothers look at each other, a silent agreement forming between them. 

“Do it, Tech.”

“Don’t kill us either.” Crosshair grunts, suddenly feeling sick. 

What if Lama Su is right? What if they aren’t good enough? 

“There’s nothin’ in this facility that can kill us, ah!” Wrecker replies, before going back to his smoke bomb. 

“We need to plan strategies.” Hunter dictates. 

They spend most of the night preparing different plans depending on the situation. When they go to sleep, they’re all so tired they fall asleep immediately. 

The next morning, they all wake up a bit giddy, worried that this is their last chance to prove their worth. Tech works on his datapad for a little while, before confirming that the parameters of their simulation have been successfully changed. Hunter gives them a little pep talk before they go for breakfast in the mess hall. Luckily, this is one of the few mornings where the regs have better things to do than to bully them. They go back to their quarters to gear up, and walk to the simulation room. They step onto the elevating platform, and wait for their turn. They can hear blaster sounds and shouts from the group before them. 

Hunter frowns. They’re the only ones this age going for the simulation room. They are better than the regs. But he assumes the constant medical testing and the general process of making them were expensive. Being better than the regs isn’t enough for them. They need to be profitable. 

A green light flashes above their heads, and they brace themselves for the short way up. The platform shakes and begins its ascension. They enter the large simulation room, and catch a glimpse of the very much adult clones leaving the place. The members of Clone Force 99 look barely older than twelve. Hunter breathes in deeply, then nodds to all his brothers. They can do this. In front of them, a red light turns on, and then a blue one. They spring into action. 

Two seconds into the simulation, and they realize how different it already is. There are way more droids than usual, and they fire a lot. Hunter breathes in once more. When he’s calm and collected, he shouts:

“Plan forty-three!”

The four of them spring in action. Last night wasn’t the first time they devised plans. They heard a sergeant talk about a plan alpha once, and Tech thought it was a great idea to catalog all their strategies. Wrecker had the hardest time remembering the numbers, but he could guess which plan it was as soon as he saw how his brothers moved. 

Crosshair climbs quickly on a nearby tower, avoiding the blasts from the droids below him. Hunter attacks the droids from the left, Tech from the right, and Wrecker runs through them in the center. They move to the second half of the room within minutes. 

There is a tower they need to conquer. Hunter can feel there is an electromagnetic field protecting it, though he can’t see it. He signs at Crosshair, still on the tower:

There is a magnetic field, find the lever and deactivate it.

Copy that, the youngest clone signs back. 

More droids advance to their position, and they need to move if they don’t want to be caught. They hear Crosshair shooting behind them, and Hunter feels the magnetic field disappearing. 

“Forward!” He yells. 

They attack the droids standing in their way. Crosshair tries to take down as many as he can from where he is, but quickly realizes that he and his brothers are overwhelmed. Tech set the parameters too high. They aren’t good enough. 

As if he has heard him, Tech turns to Crosshair and shows the tower canons with his hands. Crosshair nods and shoots these down one by one. 

Down on the battlefield, Wrecker suddenly comes up with an idea. 

“Tech, I’m gonna throw you towards the tower, and you can climb the rest.”

“This is too dangerous, you will not be able to defend yourself during this time, and risk getting shot.” Tech retorts. 

“I got Crosshair and Hunter to protect me. We don’t have time to argue!” He adds when Tech raises his index and opens his mouth. 

Hunter, who hears them despite the racket, places his back to Wrecker, both his training guns pointed to the droids. 

Wrecker drops his gun, seizes Tech under the armpits and throws him with all his might to the tower, making him arrive about two thirds of its height. But as he hurls his brother, he feels a sudden pain in his back. He grunts, reaches for his gun and starts aggressively shooting all the droids around him. He knows this is a training, but the pain is very much real, and it burns him. Suddenly, all the droids stop moving, and he sees Tech waving from the top of the tower.

“Yeah Tech!”

He high-fives Hunter, who’s bearing a beaming smile. Immediately, he feels the pain in his back and falls to his knees. Crosshair and Tech run to him. 

“You are injured. I told you that would happen.” Tech teased.

“You need a medic.” Crosshair whispers, frowning. 

A kaminoan droid guides them outside the room, to the medical bay. There, another droid applies cold gel in the burnt area on Wrecker’s back. 

“Wounds like these are not supposed to occur during your training sessions. It appears the strength parameters were tampered with. Do you want me to file a report?”

The four brothers glance at each other before shouting at the same time:

“No, no need!”

The droid leaves them alone in the room. They’re soaked in sweat, bruised, but happy. They made it! They didn’t even know they had it in them. 

There is a knock on the door. They straighten. Lama Su and Nala Se enter the room, in that slow kaminoan fashion. 

“That was an impressive display.” The prime minister says. 

Nala Se stares at Tech, but her face is hard to read. Even Hunter cannot tell whether she is angry, or pleased, or simply doesn’t care. 

“Once CT-9903 recovers from his light injury, you will begin the second phase of your training.” The chief scientist added, before leaving them alone once more. 

They all smile and squirm with excitement. They can’t wait to go to a real battlefield, and fight off some real droids.

[psalmsofpsychosis]

"#Alfred basically catches a lamb and goes

#''you're a beautiful wolf; i know you are; now you're gonna bite my hand until you draw blood so we both believe it;

#because that's the way we know how to be men.''

#and then 10 years down the line he looks at Bruce and he whispers in horror; ''that's a wolf''

#GIRL YES HE IS; YOU MADE HIM ONE. IT WAS YOU"

Your tags are so- Idk I don't have the words. No wait I DO-

THIS IS FREAKING BEAUTIFUL OMG

The way Bruce wasn't born with sharp teeth and claws to defend himself against the world. The place he was born into removed any need to grow them, but at the same time the place he was born into was the catalyst for him to turn into stone. Hard, unyielding to pressure and with its own jagged edges that you can hit until your knuckels bleed.

But the thing about stone is that you can chip away at it until it looks like what you want.

So Bruce was a lamb at the beginning, possessing talc for a heart, easy to rub to dust, but after the murders, he was molded into something different. He grew teeth and claws so big and strong it became difficult to be gentle, his heart was rubbed to dust and reformed and compressed and rubbed to dust and reformed and compressed until it turned into a diamond.

Alfred taught him how to be a wolf but didn't account on what would happen once Bruce's claws were bigger than his own.

CAN YOU TALK MORE ABOUT BRUCE AND ALFRED'S DYNAMIC PLEASE? You're literally rearranging my brain chemistry as I'm typing, wow. This feels so freaking strange. Thank you so so SO much

I wish you an AMAZING day

GOOD MAD MONDAY NOON TO YOU ANON YOU'RE KILLING ME. Like i'm over here lying face flat on the ground, head fucking full 99 thoughts per second this ride is going straight to hell—

You actually made them sound a lot like the Pygmalion myth, which is so right and true and also a very delicately apt interpretation of the way Bruce and Alfred's dynamic unfolds, particularly in Bruce's childhood, and particularly as portrayed in the Gotham series (which is my all time favourite Bruce&Alfred dynamic anyway, so excuse me for being annoying and immediately nosedive down that rabbithole)

See, to me the thing is, i dont think Bruce and Alfred understand each other at all. They're cut from very different clothes, and Alfred doesn't understand what Bruce /is/, but he understands what Bruce /can become/, maybe even what he's supposed to become, Bruce is the fifth element to him. Combine that lack of understanding and all the love and affection Alfred holds for Bruce and of course he makes a project of perfection out of him; Alfred molds and makes Bruce. Batman as a persona and as a purpose precisely exists *because of the way Alfred raises Bruce*, this is something that Gotham TV puts extra emphasis on. In many ways Alfred does carve Bruce into an idea of perfection, *his* idea of perfection, and Bruce lets him too. This is where stuff get a bit complicated though; Alfred is someone who struggles with his own humanity and darker side. He's so loving and loyal, but he's also bitter and mean with a vicious bite and he handles Bruce with such cold hands sometimes, and he hates every second of it, he hates his own humanity. So he pushes Bruce to get rid of his too, and they have this constant push and pull because Bruce has those exact traits. they're similar not in what they own about themselves, but in their shadows, when the sun shines on them their flawed humanity has the exact same shape and they both don't want a shadow; eventually the way they resolve this is by standing back to back and protecting each other and now they share their shadows and it's not so scary anymore. The Pygmalion myth as a parallel interpretation of their narrative fits so darn well because you are right, Bruce is made into stone and Alfred sculpts him to something beautiful and almost horrifying, almost inhuman, he sometimes forgets that Bruce is a person and not an idea, and it shows. But Bruce breaks mold, he always does, he forces Alfred to live with his own humanity and Bruce's, and this brings up a lot of grief for Alfred, but he loves Bruce so he finds a way to live with it and he does.

The Lamb/wolf metaphor is a different face to this same transformation process; in the early years Alfred has little space for Bruce's terrifying softness, but neither does Bruce. Bruce is scared of his own vulnurability and tenderness, this lamb *wants* to become something else, something less weak and helpless, something that could've saved his parents. He doesn't want to become a wolf persay, but the thing is, he has the makings. This is the reason Alfred can bring it out of him; he very much has the makings of a wolf. to juxtapose it with the pygmalion allegory; you cannot carve out of the stone what is not already in it. (this does bring up the question wether Bruce was ever a lamb at all, but that's a different topic for another day✨️)

anyway yep, i love your mind Anon, and thank you for the question! Hope you have an absolutely wonderful day too ❤️❤️

[drstonetrivia]

Chapter 207 Trivia

The Nanami family has about as much backstory as the Ishigami family does at this point… What does this all mean… 🤔

Two half adders make a full adder, which can carry values to the next adder and so on. Eight adders would allows sums up to 8 bits in length, the maximum of which is 11111111, which is equal to 255 in binary.

Xeno's got his gamer chair back, complete with the headset! I bet he's pleased.

Rather than writing E=MC^2 or choosing another scientific option, he chooses… Poop.

This is rather hypocritical of him, as he is now around 5 years older than when he was when he called Taiju immature for doing a similar thing.

The printing paper they make is called thermal paper, as it contains dyes that change color with heat. The paper uses the zinc sulfide from sphalerite as a developer, which is used to improve the color of the dyes.

The fax machine Senku makes is a rudimentary implementation of a rather advanced fax machine, in that the paper and overall design is modern, but lacks the fine details in the final prints that you can get nowadays.

There's several potential issues Senku could be mentioning here depending on how they built the fax machine, but here are 2 likely options:

Mechanical alignment of the two fax machines.

If the sliding of the pin is uneven, you could end up with some lines that are squashed or stretched. It may help to imagine this as pixels on a screen, but some have rows of pixels that are rectangular rather than square.

Data loss.

If the information for a dot is lost, the pin won't move. Instead, it'll print the information for the next dot in its place. This results in the whole image shifting left.

I'm still very impressed by Sai's active ambidexterity, though I'm not sure how he organizes how he writes since he's writing on even lines rather than one being on the odds and the other evens…

Still no update on Joel's arm since the bottom half is hidden, but everyone looks so happy to be in the picture! I wonder if Minami was the one to take it since she's not shown.

The faxed image isn't what it would look like with their setup, since it can only print a black dot or leave it white. In their image, there seems to be several shades of grey.

I altered it so that the dots were more uniformly dark which also brings out the misalignment.

Ryusui goes silent upon seeing the photo, but from the flashback he seems to care more about how Sai feels rather than feeling left out.

What's sad is that Ryusui was missing from the group photo in chp. 99 as well, hopefully not because he feels bad being in one without Sai.

Gen planned on only needing two cups for his casual interrogation of Sai, but then Chelsea happened, so Gen had to go get a third.

Ryusui and Sai are both quite tall, and Ryusui himself is 187 cm. If we take that as the average height of an adult male in the Nanami family, that means that this man here is over 3 meters tall.

Sai & Ryusui weren't born to the matriarch of the Nanami family, meaning they must share a father for them to be brothers. Since Sai looks half Indian and Ryusui doesn't, this likely means they have two different mothers, and that their father has had kids with at least 3 women.

At long last, Sai has formally joined the Kingdom of Science, and team 1 is ready to leave India.

…Or are they? We still haven't seen the "Math city founded!" label, so they may still be traveling around India.

This was a really good chapter. It feels like a classic: we have science, both fun and emotional character interactions, Gen doing important Gen things, poop jokes…

[taylormereditholivia1989]

I am still so grateful that @taylorswift liked the post of me and my sister Kate during the Lover era! For sure the most surrealist thing that's ever happened!

We are finally seeing Taylor live this year!! We have dreamt of seeing her live since we were young (7 and 4 years old). Money has always been tight for us. Our Mum and Dad knew how much we really wanted to go to the Speak Now tour in Belfast but unfortunately could not make it happen. ❤️

By the time 1989 and reputation came to Dublin, I eagerly watched videos of the tours on YouTube and posted updates on my tumblr. However, by then my little sister Kate was seriously struggling and repeatedly hospitalised with the (then undiagnosed) and vert rare connective tissue disorder that is Ehlers Danlos Syndrome. Kate unintentionally lost a significant of weight during these years and stopped getting nutrition from her food. We were terrified and didn't know what would happen.

We were born with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome and Dysautonomia, but these were only diagnosed last year. 🦓🦓💛💛

I have dealt with my symptoms from my early teens. My sister Kate has struggled since childhood. This has made socialising and forming solid friendships impossible as we are typically too ill to meet up.

Kate has a knee operation coming up soon. I have kyphosis surgery. We don't yet know if this will be before or after the eras tour in June. We hope everything works out and we can see Taylor live to celebrate all the eras.

To see Taylor right in front of us at Dublin Night One still feels too good to be true. This is what we have been waiting for all these years. I can't wait to sing and dance with Taylor and thousands of other fans for one magical night. I can't wait to have the best evening ever with my parents and my sister. This is what Kate and I have spent hundreds of hours sitting around the fire, carefully analysing verses and discussing hidden meanings. 🔮

Kate and I use a wheelchair part time. We do, however, plan to stand during the eras concert in the front right with our parents for a once in a lifetime experience. We will wear our braces and keep our pain medication topped up. We will get through the night. We know laughs and memories from the tour will last us a lifetime. We have many more tests and examinations left to carry out, but no doubt your jams (especially the tortured poets department as well as future music you are probably already working on). 🤣

We most look forward to hearing the song marjorie live. We both cried when we first listened to it. Taylor describes her grandmother beautifully. We feel especially connected to our grandfather when we listen to this. We discovered a few months back that we inherited our rare genetic condition from our grandfather. He passed young as it went undiscovered. We believe listening to marjorie helps keep his memory alive because we think of him. 💙☀️

We are lucky to have Taylor's music as a form of therapy. We relate to her quirks and her awkward and lovable sense of humour. We genuinely believe Taylor is the funniest person to ever live and we are entranced by how she is so unapologetically herself. Being 5ft 10 and seeing Taylor in the media has really helped me to be more comfortable and accepting of my height and my overall appearance.

@taylorswift if you just so happen to see this post or catch a glimpse of our sequin dresses, curly hair and ever-glittery eye makeup on stage please know: Kate and I are beyond ecstatic to celebrate at your concert. We are going to sing and dance like we have always dreamed of doing. Please ignore our clicking knees and hips if you just so happen to hear them up on the stage. I can say with almost 99% certainty any clicking will be our 22 and 19 year old bodies just doing their thing lol. 🤣

P.S. We can't wait to see your extremely sparkly outfits, shoes and makeup (we really REALLY love glitter in case it wasn't already obvious!!) in person. We love how unhinged you are with sparkles!! 💜

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

- Anna (and the slightly more monotone but equally as funny, Kate). 🩷🩷

[ven0moir]

As someone who's been obsessively analyzing ST for about a year now, it makes me so sad that the only thing keeping me at 99% certainty of Byler being endgame is the fear that we might get queerbaited.

It pains me that if Will was a girl, I would have 0 doubt left. Especially because with all of the evidence there is to back up the writers INTENTIONS (yes, they 100% intended to queercode both Mike AND Will at this point), if Byler isn't endgame then that means the Duffers INTENTIONALLY queerbaited us. In the year 2025.

And then I circle back on this thought and think ... why would they queerbait? Why would they specifically use Byler to do so? If they wanted to draw in an LGBT audience it would've been as easy as given Will a different love interest in Lenora and confirm him queer in that way. Why would they so meticulously and elaborately write a queer slowburn friends to lovers only to queerbait in the end?

I know some Milkvans are COUNTING on this, they are HOPING this is all queerbait because THEY SEE THE SIGNS as well, they're just refusing to accept it. Of course I fear they're right deep down, but do I actually think, if I go about this logically, that the Duffers would do something so ... anticlimactic? When they've described S5 as 'S1 and S4 on steroids'?

When it comes to the romances, Byler IS the big shock. The biggest surprise. Because whether Nancy chooses Steve or Jonathan or remains single, we know Nancy's options, we're just waiting to see who or what she chooses.

But most of the GA does not even see Byler as a real possibility. Hell, some of them haven't even picked up on Will liking Mike (yes, even after the painting, I've seen some people still debate this and some straight up thinking Will likes El).

And yet when you rewatch the show after considering Byler as a possibility, it becomes SO OBVIOUS. It is the perfect plot twist when it comes to Mike and Will. And I wouldn't be on board with Byler if Milkvan was written in a way that truly showed they loved each other, were compatible and thought of each other as an equal. As someone going into S4 as part of the GA, I was expecting that S4 would finally, FINALLY make me ship Milkvan because I am sorry but I picked up on that Born Sexy Yesterday bs since S1 and I did NOT like them romantically, not at that point. I wished they had been a slowburn friends to lovers that got together in like S3 or something, but even if they felt forced and rushed as fuck I was still willing to allow myself to be swayed into liking them later on. And that never happened, instead S4 presented Will as a potential love interest for Mike and I was SEATED. I was SO DONE with milkvan's drama.

When it comes to romance, it would be the dumbest writing decision I've ever seen in my life not to get Mike and Will together. And I know the Duffers might not be perfect but they cannot be THIS dumb when they grew up loving Dawson's Creek. There is no way that show did more for its gay character in 1998 than the Duffers potentially could in 2025 let's be for real.

[moonbreeze19]

we were too close to the stars i never knew somebody like you, somebody falling just as hard - reflections

alarin tumblr debut?? for tsme week?? i think so i think yes! u can consider this a late day 6 post or day 7 i suppose, whatever u prefer!

(in summary: my oc, rin, and alain, have lived in my head rent free for 3 years now. they mean the world to me. i love them. to me, they are THE it couple <3)

details/about them below the break

rin yukino is a hyper competitive trainer with a (shiny) mega gardevoir, goal focused and independent to the point of flaw. born and raised in kalos, but with family from sinnoh, she had spent much of her childhood fitting into her parent's mold for a perfect daughter. she was a straight-a student, principal violinist, preparing to attend a top university - at 18, she realized that wasn't who she wanted to be anymore. she became a pokemon trainer instead.

(somewhat unimportantly, her usual trainer design consists of teal highlights in her hair, orange earrings shaped like the heart that goes through a mega gardevoir's chest, and a lot of black and gray. she matches diva, her gardevoir, like alain matches his charizard. they're both extra like that.)

she meets alain viard when they're both 22, shortly after the events of TSME act 4. she's on the gym challenge, and he's... alain. they battle, and he wins. twice in a row. then they go from rivals to rivals with benefits, then maybe even friends if they weren't both so emotionally reclusive i mean haha what-

alarin, aka rin "i'm stronger on my own" yukino and alain "i only destroy those around me" viard

even if he's won both times, alain can't help but be attracted one of the few people who can keep up with him, who cares about winning nearly as much as he does, who treats pokemon battling like it's all she has. he knows the feeling. he thinks she might understand him.

she's half of the reason behind both his decision to fill out his team beyond charizard and his decision to challenge the gyms

when they fall apart, just a month before the team flare crisis, i like to think of them like a supernova. short lived but bright and brilliant. doomed from the start.

the details of their falling out are complicated, so we'd be here all day if i tried to explain.

rin fails to stand by him during the fight against lysandre. she doesn't have the courage to. but she does, however, find him in the aftermath. she helps him heal and pick up the broken pieces. that's where 99% of their relationship really comes from.

i filter them into the category titled "couples written by taylor swift's the great war" and if you know you know

because it's important to me, rin gets along great with mairin.

at first she's a bit annoyed by her over-enthusiasm. rin is cold, blunt, realistic, and introverted, mairin is the opposite of all of those things. but once she sees how much mairin means to alain she does a full 180

and mairin's only ever had older brothers (both in her biological family and in alain), so having rin around to show her how to do her hair, her makeup, AND annoy the hell out of alain when appropriate is her favorite thing ever.

they are very good at bullying alain into taking care of himself (because he is very bad at that, as we all know.)

eventually, rin will go on to become one of the kalos elite four, after malva gets arrested (for being Very Fucking Evil).

one of my favorite things ever to think about is how the random internet people would claim "rin is only with alain to try and get famous" (and also make lengthy twitter/x callout threads on how alain is a problematic person because of his team flare involvement, and therefore decently-well-known league challenger rin yukino is also problematic by proxy), only for alain to generally avoid the public spotlight (there are lots of headcanons here. in short, he goes to university) and rin to be hired as elite four. and then she becomes far more famous as a result. and then the internet trolls are like "...oh." and a majority of the general population doesn't even know she and alain are a thing, because it's only obvious if you scrolled intensely through her instagram account.

i don't know why alarin getting stupid hate threads on twitter/x is the funniest thing to me but it really, really is!!

the internet is convinced alarin is a manipulative ploy on rin's end and one day she reads one of the twitter threads making all these claims about what she's done and she just goes "bitch i did what" and finds it absolutely hilarious

ANYWAYS that is all for now!! this post is so long and this is barely scratching the surface?? they mean so much to me i'm so sorry 😭😭

if literally anybody ever wants to hear about them i will share more. i would cry happy tears.

thank you so much for reading this if you did!! i'm so glad i got to share them for tsme week!

[cuteniarose]

also this anon came here from ur art blog!

can you tell us more abt ur ocs?? infodump plz

Hey, it’s fine, don’t sweat it! That was all on me, tbh, I have a habit of not putting too much info about my OCs into posts because they have a target audience of two, me and my partner in crime, and obviously we both already know pretty much everything there is to know about these guys. It’s very rare that anyone stumbles upon my art blog, let alone likes it enough to come here and send multiple asks about my characters, so thank you for that!! Maybe I should start putting small bios in the descriptions of my art posts, at least ages and sexualities and who they are in relation to whom 😅

Anyway, I did make a long infodump post about my main OCs, Suiren and Midori, here, and 99% of that information is still accurate, so I’m not going to repeat myself. And the rest depends on who you wanna know more about, Kat and I have over 20 between us, if I were to talk about everyone we’d be here until next year. But for now.. how about a rundown of the ones I currently speak of most often?

(Under the cut because this got LONG)

Haya – Born in 120 AG, she/her, cis, thinks she’s straight but definitely some flavour of queer, will most likely never figure it out :/. She’s Ghazan’s older sister who raised him after their parents fell victim to a plague when she and Ghazan were 14 and 5 respectively. Obviously, life wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for the two of the after that. Haya had to quit school so she could work to provide for her brother, and she worked herself to the bone at any job that would take her because what else could she do? Let her brother starve? Not pay the bills so they’ll eventually end up homeless? And with how tired she was, of course she had little capacity remaining for kindness. She became hardened, mean and immensely overprotective, always yelling at Ghazan whenever he didn’t do as she told him, particularly he ran off to play in the Swamp despite it being where the sickness that took away their parents had come from, even more so when he made friends with Ming-Hua, and eventually she started hounding him endlessly about how much money he’s costing her. And it all boiled down to Ghazan running away as a teenager and joining the Red Lotus, later reuniting and falling in love with Ming-Hua, and having Suiren and Midori. When the time came for the plan to kidnap Korra, the girls were left with Haya, and that’s where things take a sharp turn for the worse. Haya saw her brother in Midori and the swamp rat who stole him away from her in Suiren, they were living proof that her brother abandoned her and she couldn’t stand it. And so she became physically, verbally and emotionally abusive, and the effect that childhood had on the girls will stay with them long after they’re out from under her roof. Haya is easily the most emotionally conflicting character that I have. You want to hate her, you SHOULD hate her, she’s an absolutely awful person with 0 redeeming qualities, but then you remember that once upon a time she was very much like Suiren, a young girl who loved her mother very much and just wanted the best for her little sibling, and now she’s older and alone and miserable. It’s.. a sad fate, and a part of me can’t help but sympathise with her. Not that it excuses her actions, but it adds a layer to her for sure.

Summiya – Born in 124 AG, she/her, cis, aromantic allosexual, no exact sexuality label beyond that since for her, sleeping with people isn’t about the partner, but rather what they can give her. Zaheer’s older sister, the stereotypically perfect eldest child who sets impossible standards for her siblings. What sets her apart from the rest is that her face is perfectly symmetrical, as if someone put a mirror to one half of it, and while she’s undeniably beautiful, the symmetry tends to freak people out a little. She doesn’t look human, more like a perfect porcelain doll, and that’s exactly what she was raised to be. She was born into a noble family and given the patriarchal structure in place her only role in life is to uphold her father’s reputation and political status by being married off to the highest bidder and becoming the perfect wife and mother. When she was 16, Zaheer ran away from home and she denounced him as a brother with no hesitation. When her sister Aiza did the same thing three years later, Summiya struggled a lot more to do the same, but she was already married and pregnant at that point so pushed the event deep, deep down and focused on her own family. Following her siblings’ betrayal, she was placed under a lot more pressure to not end up like them and not let her kids do the same, which resulted in her becoming an overbearing control freak who hates that both her children (a girl and a boy, just like her own siblings were) were born with birthmarks on their faces, making them imperfect, and her carefully concealed but still obvious hatred of those marks drove her daughter to attempting to bleach her skin. And all her efforts were for nothing, because they still end up rebelling against her as teenagers, not too long before she discovers her husband is cheating on her and only a few months before Zaheer is imprisoned. Tough year, what can I say? And she just.. cracks, completely loses it, and Kat said she’d write a proper fic about it so I’ll leave the details to her, especially considering tumblr won’t like me talking about them, but she begins cheating on her husband too and is a complete masochist, to the point she deeply scares her partners and they end up breaking it off. Essentially, Haya on steroids 😅

Aiza/Emran – Born in 126 AG, she/he/they, genderfluid, pansexual, polyamorous. Zaheer’s other sister, the middle child in the family. The three siblings were never close with each other, they were never allowed to be, but Aiza and Zaheer still managed to share a few moments where he told her about Air Nomad culture and philosophy, thus causing her to gain an interest in it too. After he ran away she started reading a lot more and aching for the freedom described in the texts. At age 17, a few days before her arranged marriage, she gets into an argument with Summiya about duty, sacrifice and wanting more from life, much more than being married to a guy she never even had a proper conversation with and birthing his children, and upon finding no support in her sister she decides to run away too. She cuts her hair, disguises herself as a boy under the name Emran and becomes an air acolyte at one of the temples. She struggles at first since she never had to work for anything before, but eventually begins to love this way of life and gains a lot more confidence in herself. She makes friends and grows so close with them she sees them as family, and at some point reveals her deceit, but no one is too mad at her because ultimately, she’s still her. But after that revelation, she realises that she didn’t dislike being a boy, and she doesn’t hate being a girl as long as she’s not under the intense pressure her parents placed on her, and becomes genderfluid, using different pronouns and both Aiza and Emran as names depending on what they feel more like that day. They also start experimenting with their sexuality and fall in love with a bunch of people of all genders, forming a polycule though never settling down officially. After Harmonic Convergence they will gain airbending, and eventually, several years later, they’ll reunite with Zaheer and the two will get to need out about Air Nomads together like they were always meant to 🥹🥹

Ehuang – No exact birthdate yet, but most likely >180 AG. She’s still a bit too young for us to really decide on gender and sexuality and whatever else, but for now, cis, she/her. She’s the daughter of Midori and Opal Beifong, conceived with the help of Bataar Jr (Midori was the one pregnant). Midori and Opal adopt several kids together, but at some point Midori decides that she wants to know what it’d feel like to carry a child herself, to be there when they’re born, to see traits of her family reflected in them. So she and Opal talk, ask Bataar for help, one thing leads to another and nine months later, precious baby Ehuang is born. She’s the love of my life and light of my world, genuinely the most good and pure thing to ever exist, the representation of everything finally being okay with the world, and I adore her beyond what words can convey. She’s named after a character from the same legend her great grandmother’s (Ming-Hua’s mom, Nuying) name comes from, and will eventually reveal herself an earthbender, though not a metalbender like Opal’s family, but a lavabender like her grandfather. Truly the perfect mix of her entire family <3 This section is a bit shorter than the rest, but that’s simply because she doesn’t have too much going on with her yet. Hopefully one day we’ll find the time to add to it (and finally design her siblings, maybe???)

Ila and Alasie – Grouping these two together because they tend to go hand in hand with each other. Going off how old I imagine them to be compared to Suiren, Alasie was born in 152/153 AG and Ila in 150 AG. Cis and she/her for both, but Ila is a lesbian and Alasie is aroace (and a waterbender, though she’s rather bad at it). They’re not related to each other or, surprisingly, anyone else either on my OC list or out of canon characters. They both work as handmaidens in the Northern Water Tribe palace under Malina, Unalaq’s wife. Now, there’s quite a bit of lore surrounding Malina, but the basics are that her and Unalaq’s marriage was arranged, he has no interest in her because he’s a spiritfucker and only into Vaatu, she hates him, dislikes her kids, and was generally unsatisfied with life right up until one of her handmaidens showed interest in her, and in the nearly two decades since then she’s formed a proper harem out of both maids and guards who are all utterly enamoured with her. It’s not a permanent arrangement, a lot of them end up leaving their positions to get married or whatever else, and Malina chooses not to mourn and simply move on. Ila is a girl very much like the rest, in love with Malina and becoming absolutely obsessed after the one night she had with her. The difference is that her affection is completely unidirectional, she looks at no one else but her lady, completely and utterly devoted to her alone. Alasie, however, is aroace, and after being propositioned by Malina one evening tearfully confesses that she never wants to be touched by anyone, and Malina smiles and calms her and allows her to sleep in her bed, no obligations or anything, just so she can feel the warmth because she comes from a poor family and her clothes aren’t nearly as good at keeping her warm. What she ends up having with Malina is most similar to a queerplatonic relationship, and through that she becomes friends with Ila too, as they’re the two that Malina is most fond of at the moment. I will admit that Alasie is basically just a projection of myself that was created when I first figured out I was aroace and having a whole crisis over it, and Ila shares quite a few traits with Kat, so… yay for self inserts? They’re just fun characters to play around with when we need a break from the general doom and gloom of our main universes, that’s all :)

Oof, this took a looong time to write, and again, these are only about a sixth of all the OCs we have, so if you have any more questions about them, or wanna know about anyone else specifically, feel free to ask!!

[bratshaws]

through the hourglass 124. brb x oc

a/n: my day is going a bit intense and I don't know how to feel about it. hah. just...send good vibes guys, pls. reblogs and comments are super encouraged <3333

pairing: plus size!oc x rooster

warnings: none.

goodness gracious (pls read this one to know more what this fic is about!!)

chapter

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/70/71/72/73/74/75/76/77/78/79/80/81/82/83/84/85/86/87/88

/89/90/91/92/93/94/95/96/97/98/99/100/101/102/103/104/105

/106/107/108/109/110/111/112/113/114/115/116/117/118/119/120/121

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(pls let me know if you want to be added to the taglist! )

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-

Nicole loved going out with her parents, it was one of the few things her still developing mind could connect with fun. That and spending time with both of her grandparents. She was still six months old, still a baby but she was very alert.

Her doctors often told her parents how smart she was for such a young age, in fact they mentioned that she might expand her vocabulary really soon, maybe sooner than any of them expected. So to her, looking out of the window from her little seat as her father drove them somewhere was enough to catch her attention, “Aa?” she stares at the window, making Beatrice look at her then to see what she was so intrigued by.

There was a huge billboard with a dog on it, a pitbull that resembled Jolene a whole lot. “I know, honey. It’s a dog.” her mother says, “It looks like Jojo,doesn’t it?”

“Buh buh buh.” she giggles, kicking her little legs, those tiny Mary Janes were making their daughter look like a little doll, “Ha!”

Beatrice smiles, rubbing her daughter’s leg fondly before she goes back to her original position, “Well, at least she’s having fun.” she sighs, sinking a bit in her seat, “I’m so…nervous.”

Rooster hummed, dropping one of his hands from the wheel to land on her thigh, gently rubbing the denim covered limb with his thumb as he paid attention to the road, ‘I know,me too.” he says, “I don’t know why, considering the why was dealt with.”

“I think it has to do mainly with the fact we are coming back to the clinic six months after Nicole was born?”

A pause.

“That could be it.” was his muttered reply, followed by a clearing of his throat that turned into a short chuckle as he removed the hand from her leg to hold onto the steering wheel, it’s twin coming up to his face to hold his head up as his elbow stayed on the window, “It’s not that weird,there are people who had babies three months apart.”

“That’s…” she frowns, “I don’t know how to feel about that.”

“I mean at least we waited– well not waited because it wasn’t planned but uh…we didn’t did it so soon.”

The silence that followed was humorous and worrisome, because both of them just looked so confused by this situation it was hilarious. So much so that Nicole herself started giggling, even if she had no idea what was going on,”I mean I guess.” Beatrice’s mouth curved into a smile when she heard Nicole’s laughing, there was no way to be worried when that little girl giggled, she just made all the fears melt away, “I just hope it goes well, you know? And figure out how far along I am.”

“How far along do you think you are?” he asks, “Any idea?”

“I’ve looked it up on the old flier I got at the clinic and apparently it’s one month along…I think.” she didn’t seem to trust her own words, in fact she looked even more conflicted, “I’m trying to remember if I got my period last month….um…” she holds her forehead and clenches her eyes, “I don’t know if I did, I could check my calendar but I don’t know.”

“I think it’s better if we just check at the clinic,gorgeous.”

“Yeah…yeah you are right.”

Beatrice just chewed the side of her mouth in thought, still mentally counting the days in her fingers, calculating, moving her fingers in a square, then a circle, with her brows furrowed because obviously there was a way of knowing.

Bradley just offered his wife a little smile, then patted her thigh fondly because he knew she was trying to soothe her nerves. The rest of the week was…fine. People still questioned if everything was okay because both of them looked way too happy but quickly dropped it once they mentioned anything about Nikki.

Was it wrong?

Not really considering their daughter was getting bigger and bigger and achieving so much so soon.

Speaking of her, Rooster looked at her through the mirror, her sandy brown hair was pulled into two low pigtails and her pink dress with shorts made her look like a little princess. She just looked out of the window, with pure amazement because everything was so new to her, everything infatuated her so nicely, she was an amazing little baby.

And Rooster didn’t want to miss those moments.

He hadn’t told Beatrice about the…possible special mission after the holidays, whatever it was it needed a lot of research. If they had time to figure out how to do it, it meant they got the advantage…possibly. The last time they had at least a few weeks to prepare, maybe even a month if he wasn’t wrong and it was dangerous as fuck.

Whatever it was he had to mentally prepare for when he had to leave…which part of him didn’t want to, not really, he wanted to stay but he couldn’t. He had been having a lot of these thoughts lately, these conflicting moments in his mind that sometimes weighed too much for him to handle.

He decided to focus on always coming back home, as safe as he could be. It was what he could do at the moment, nothing more.

“We’re here.” his wife says, looking out of the window as he turns the car towards the parking lot, there weren’t a lot of people from what they’ve seen, “...well…are you ready?”

“I’m ready.Are you?”

“Hrrm.”

Her little noises always made him smile, he couldn’t help but lean down and kiss her forehead, kiss that little furl between her brows and chuckling when she just blinked up at him in confusion, “We’ll be okay, gorgeous.” he reassures her, opening the car door and walking around it to open her own.

Beatrice smiles in thanks, standing to her feet and clenching the flier in her hand as she looked towards the building. How odd was it to see it again in…such a short period of time. The lady who scheduled their visit didn’t seem to judge either of them, she just laughed and said they were ‘always welcome’ there. 

It was nice…a bit overwhelming but nice.

She taps the flier against her palm, her anxiety climbing up to her shoulders and making them tense up. She paced around a bit as she waits for Rooster to pick Nicole up, looking back at him with a little frown when she hears the passenger door close and the obvious tinkling of her rubber monkey echo around the area.

Her husband shouldn’t look so good while carrying their baby girl and yet he was.

And he was just wearing his usual shirts, nothing out of the ordinary but she always said that Rooster could make a potato sack look nice if he wore it. He locks the car while holding Nicole on his opposite arm and pulled his sunglasses to his scalp after shoving the keys into his pocket, smiling up at Bea, ‘You good?”

“Hrrmmm…” she says again, rubbing her eyes, “I guess.”

‘It’ll be fine.” the tinkling gets louder when he approaches Beatrice, “You’ll see.”

Nicole babbled almost in agreement, shaking her little monkey in hopes to make her mother smile, which did work but Beatrice’s eyes were still nervous, she was wringing the little pamphlet in her hands with such force that the shiny paper squeaked under her grasp, “Yeah, okay…we better go inside.” his hand on her lower back was a comfortable reminder that he was still there, being her supporter every single moment of their lives and she couldn’t be more thankful.

He just pressed her back a bit harder to push her forward, never hurting but just enough to sign that she should walk and he’d follow. Nicole was mesmerized by the surroundings, the huge plants adorning the outside, large windows with colorful stickers from the children’s rooms and with the windchimes moving with the wind.

She brings her monkey to her mouth, turning her head to keep the windchimes in her vision until they got inside. And then she looks around again and this time she vocalizes happily because there’s a lot of fun colors in there.

She bounces a bit on Rooster’s arm, happily giggling at the different posters and pictures on the wall, making her father smile, “Yeah? Nice isn’t it Nikki?” he says quietly seeing there were a few people there “But, hey,shhh,” he brings his finger to his lips, “We can’t be too loud here.”

Nicole babbles a bit more, her tone going quiet but she smiles because her dad was so silly! Beatrice approaches the front desk with Rooster right behind her, tapping her fingers on the cold surface as the secretary looks up at her, already typing something in her computer, “You’ll be seen soon.” she says, “Please take a seat.”

“Thank you.” she is surprised at how stable her voice sounded, still holding the little flier in her hand as Rooster cups her lower back, guiding her to the empty black chairs tucked on the wall, “Hrrmm…”

“Bea, it’s okay.”

“Hrrmmm.”

“Baby.” he laughs, kissing her head and waiting for her to sit first, Nicole immediately wanting to trade places and stretching her arms to Beatrice, “Baby it’s okay…it really is.” she just remained silent, nuzzling her daughter’s hair and closing her eyes with a soft sigh as he sits down on her left, grabbing her free hand to bring it to his lips, “Gorgeous…come on.”

“I feel like…I don’t know what I’m feeling.” she whispers just so he could hear, holding Nicole up with her hand behind her small back, keeping her upright and safe as she shook her noisy monkey happily, completely oblivious to what was happening, “It’s…unreal? I think…or too real, or maybe both- Rooster I’m not making sense.���

He chuckles, kissing her hand again, “It’s okay,gorgeous…you are nervous,I’m nervous,Nikki isn’t nervous because she’s having such a huge blast with her toy she couldn’t care less,” cue to more shaking,”We’ll just…check how things are, see if everything is okay with the little bean and then we’ll go home and have something good to snack on.”

“Hrmm…”

“Maybe even Mr.Scoops.”

He could see the faint curve of a smile, her eyes meeting his, “They are having the Christmas Bundle again…I think it’s okay…” she whispers, “I just…I don’t know I…I mean,it feels more real now,you know?”

“I know.”

“Like,” she looks at Nicole, “Look at this. We made this little baby.” Nicole stops chewing her monkey to stare at her parents, “And-and we made another one that’s growing in me right now.” she blinks, ‘And I…I have been having symptoms and I ignored and I thought it was just because of,I don’t know, stress but it was just the birth control failing- I need to check with the ladies too,so I…I don’t know, figure out another type of contraception because this…was surprising.”

Rooster uses their interlaced hands to keep his head up, eyes so filled with love and care he felt like he was ready to explode from inside out. She still enamored him so much, nothing changed from that moment at the bar, at all, he still loved her and thought she was the cutest human being ever, “You are precious.” he coos, kissing her knuckles then her cheek, “You are going to be okay, one thing at a time,gorgeous.”

“Yeah…”

“Don’t trigger the anxiety now, okay?”

“I’m trying.”

He smiles, kissing her again and leaning back on the seat with his hand still latched with hers, his opposite one was on his lap as he looked around the clinic. In fact there were very few people there, just another couple not too far from them and another one that just arrived, the soft music over their heads brought him back to Nicole’s ultrasound.

Speaking of Nicole, she was moving her head around curiously, trying to focus on something in such a big space was hard but she was trying her hardest. She brings the monkey’s arm to her mouth and gnaws on it, the squeaking from her gums rubbing against the soft material making Rooster look over to her…and his eyes narrowed, tilting his head just a bit, “Nikki.” he begins, “Nikki, hey,look at dada.” she looked back at him, she could identify that ‘dada’ was him and mama was Beatrice, a huge feat for such a young baby, “Let me see your mouth.”

Nicole keeps on chewing, the question making Beatrice snap out of her thoughts and look down, “What?” Rooster gently pries the little girl’s mouth open and smiles when she giggles, moving her lips just a bit, “What’s wrong?”

“She’s teething.”

“What?” she tries to keep her voice down, leaning her head to look into Nicole’s mouth herself and seeing two very faint white dots on her lower gum, not breaking the skin yet but very close to, ‘Oh my God.”

“Yep.’ Rooster pulls his fingers away and smirks a bit more, leaning on his elbow against the chair, “You are growing,little bird, you are going to get your first teeth.”

“Aa!”

“Yeah! It’s exciting!”

“We need…to get fluoride and, and some ice,” Beatrice mutters, her eyebrows furrowing, “And some things to soothe the teething pain and…” her hand automatically coming up to her chest, “And to myself, she’s still drinking from the source after all.”

Rooster drops his eyes from her bust to her face,earning an exasperated glare from his wife, “What?”

“Don’t start.”

“I’m not starting anything.” he smirks, but then his face relaxes, “But no,you are right, we can get some stuff already and keep it saved up for when the chompers,” he gently wobbles Nicole’s chin, making her vocalization vibrate and her laughter get louder, “Come out.”

Beatrice looks down at Nicole, who once her father let her go, looks back at Bea with a gummy grin. Nicole reaches for her mother, grabby hands and all, and Beatrice pulls her up and tucks her against her neck, closing her eyes, “She’s teething.” she whispers, “She’s already teething,Roos…I-I’m too imbalanced hormonally to handle this, I feel like I’m going to cry!”

“Bea…” he smiles, even though he feels pretty much the same way upon noticing that yes, their daughter was indeed growing bigger and bigger every day. Soon enough she’ll be able ot walk and talk fully, have full on conversations with them and hell, in a blink she might leave for college.

He didn’t want to think about that.

Thankfully, they wouldn’t have to, because their names were called. Beatrice’s head snaps up then back at Rooster, her brows low,”It’s okay,gorgeous, give me Nikki.” she does, not before kissing the little girl’s head, standing up with her husband following suit. He coos Nicole, who whines because she was oh so comfortable in her mother’s grasp, walking alongside Beatrice as the two wander to the ultrasound room.

Beatrice already knows what to do, she’s already sitting on the bed as the lady tells them the doctor is coming soon. Beatrice huffs, adjusting herself while pulling the elastic of her sweat pants down the curve of her stomach, looking down at it, “Do you notice anything?”

Bradley looks up from Nicole to his wife’s stomach, then furrows his brows, “Not really? It looks the same, gorgeous, not that different.”

“Hrrmmm.” she sighs, dropping her head back down onto the bed and blinking at the ceiling, “We’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

“We will.” he looks around for the chair and immediately sits down when he finds it, thankfully it is right next to the bed so he could reach out for Bea and touch her hand if she feels too anxious, which he knew she would. “Nicole is excited.” he tries to distract her with a conversation and when it involves Nicole it really helps.

Beatrice turns to look at the two, seeing their little girl looking behind Rooster to a large Sesame Street poster, vocalizing and bouncing a bit in Rooster’s arms, “She is.” Bea smiles weakly, “She loves Sesame Street.”

“More than Dr.Chimp.”

“She might be into more…vintage stuff.” she says, “Like her parents.”

Bradley wouldn’t mind that. The thought that Nicole would share more of their interests was really nice to think about. They stop their chatter when they hear the door open, the same woman from before - when she saw Nicole in the womb - appears and she’s delighted to see that the little baby will join them.

After a short greeting she takes place on the little stool, pulling on her gloves with a grin, “Well,I guess I don’t have to repeat the directions,do I?” Beatrice laughs weakly but shakes her head negatively, pulling her shirt a bit higher to expose more of her stomach, “Let’s begin then.”

The first touch of the ultrasound was always the one that made her wince the most, it was cold and sticky and it was a bit uncomfortable but she could handle it. She drops her hand from the bed to reach towards Rooster’s, smiling when her husband grabbed her fingers and brought her hand to his lips, kissing her wedding ring.

He keeps his hold on hers, rubbing reach of her knuckles with a gentle brush of his thumb as Nicole chews on her monkey, watching the strange lady rub the strange thing on her mama’s belly. There’s silence for a few seconds, before they hear the woman say,”So, you want to know how far along you are,yes?”

“Yes,I uh…I was really busy these past months so my period wasn’t the greatest.”

“Right so,” the woman leans back a bit, showing the little dot on the screen, “From the size I’d say around six weeks.”

Beatrice blinks, “Six weeks? That’s one month.” she tells her husband who just looked confused, then arched his eyebrows when she explained, “Oh,huh,well,that explains a lot.”

But the woman kept moving around a bit, then pulled her stool closer to the screen and then smiled, “Ah…I guess the pregnancy was a surprise.”

“Yeah,” Bea laughs,”It was…we didn’t plan it.”

A pause.

“Would you guys like to know the second surprise?”

Both of them just stared at the woman, who pulled her head back and angled her hand on Beatrice’s stomach. It took a while for them to see through the blobs of gray and white, the little dot still looking a bit wobbly.

And then,suddenly, Beatrice’s eyes widened, “...No…no way.” she whispers, clenching her husband’s hand, “Rooster.”

Brad, however,was having a harder time figuring out what was going on. He had to stand up to approach the screen, all the while holding Nicole to his chest…and when he noticed it, his jaw dropped.

“...holy shit are those two?!”

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/4709465-liberals-have-lost-their-patriotism/

Liberals have lost their patriotism  

By: David Bernstein

Published: Jun 9, 2024

I came of age in the 1980s and 1990s in a Democratic Party and a social milieu that was unabashedly patriotic. To be sure, political liberals back then could be critical of America’s past and present, but most saw our country as an imperfect nation aspiring toward but often falling short in living up to its own high ideals. The dominant zeitgeist of the political right was dangerously nativist and insufficiently self-reflective.  

President Bill Clinton, on whose campaign I worked in 1992, famously pronounced at his first inaugural speech, “There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.” Young liberals in those days were animated by a form of American exceptionalism that elevated the idea of pluralism. In my twenties I wore a T-shirt broadcasting the American motto e pluribus unum—”out of many, one.” This was liberal patriotism. 

Yet this center-left, glass-half-full narrative of our national experiment has increasingly yielded to a withering appraisal of American life, one that is rapidly becoming a self-fulling prophecy.

Today’s liberals rarely express patriotic sentiment in public, abandoning their civic voice to a far left that holds America in contempt, which in turn generates a politics that is both defeatist in tone and alienating to ordinary Americans. A nation that thinks less of itself will become less of itself. Mainstream liberals badly need to rediscover their patriotic spirit.  

When beloved actress Betty White died at the age of 99, my wife began rewatching old episodes of The Golden Girls, a mid-1980s sitcom about four aging women who lived together and experienced the highs and lows of their golden years. In one episode, the strong-willed Dorothy lectured her Italian-born mother, Sophia, on the meaning of America. 

“When I was a little girl,” Dorothy stated, “you told me how much it meant to you when you came here to America for the first time. Do you remember what you thought of when you first saw the Statue of Liberty holding up her torch of freedom? … Ma, you taught me to love this country. … You were the first one who put an American flag in my hand.” 

I was instantly struck at how quaint this monologue was in today’s cultural context, especially coming from a show that was on the vanguard of such social issues as gay rights and sexual harassment. Sadly, this kind of flagrant patriotic sentiment would be considered cringe in today’s liberal circles. 

A 2023 Gallup poll found that national pride on the left has precipitously declined in the past two decades. In 2003, 65 percent of Americans identifying as Democrats felt “extreme pride” in their country; by 2023 it was 29 percent. Only 18 percent of those aged 18 to 34 indicated that they were “extremely” patriotic, a steep decline from 85 percent in 2013. “Party identification remains the greatest demographic differentiator in expressions of national pride,” stated Gallup, “and Republicans have been consistently more likely than Democrats and independents to express pride in being American.” 

On a recent drive in West Virginia, I noticed American flags outside many homes — even on those in economically depressed coal-mining towns, where people could be forgiven for feeling their country had abandoned them. When we returned to our neighborhood in North Potomac, Md., an economically thriving, politically blue area, I counted one American flag in four blocks, unsurprisingly mounted on the doorway of an Eastern European refugee who fled a repressive Soviet republic.  

So inured had I become to the lack of patriotic sentiment in my neck of the woods that I found it positively inspiring in May of this year when fraternity brothers at UNC Chapel Hill rehoisted the American flag on the campus quad after radical activists had replaced Old Glory with a Palestinian flag. The young men locked arms and refused to budge as protestors reportedly hurled bottles, rocks and insults. 

Why have liberals become less patriotic?  

Some blame an American public that elected Donald Trump and social factors such as persistent economic inequality. Others cite social media echo chambers that extol, for example, a letter from Osama Bin Laden justifying terrorism against the U.S. Others point to the rise of an oppressed-oppressor ideology that sees America as pervasively racist. Indeed, when universities adopt policies that deem such comments as “America is the land of opportunity” and “Everyone can succeed in this society” as “microaggressions,” it should surprise no one that many students adopt negative attitudes toward their own country. 

A few Democrats understand that a politics of self-loathing will never win the day. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, both Democrats elected in 2022, successfully ran on liberal policy agendas that emphasized freedom and American exceptionalism. President Biden himself may still represent the old flag-waving sensibility, but the larger progressive political class that accompanied him to power exudes little passion and, judging by the president’s recent demoralizing speech at Morehouse College, has brought the president down with them. 

Come November, we shouldn’t be surprised if many ordinary citizens opt for churlish nativism over a politics devoid of love of country. Liberals desperately need to get it back. 

David Bernstein is the founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values and author of “Woke Antisemitism: How a Progressive Ideology Harms Jews.” 

==

It's become fashionable to pretend to hate your own safe, free, liberal country. Among such people, it's also common to find strident opposition to any measures to limit or control immigration. "My country is evil and racist, but you're not allowed to stop people arriving here."

[bestdogauntever]

reading good omens for the first time to cope with season 2, so I thought I’d make a thread of some of my favorite quotes. hope you enjoy!!

“the Earth’s a Libra” (p. 14)

“Oh he (Crowley) did his best to make their short lives miserable, because that was his job, but nothing he could think of was half as bad as the stuff they thought of themselves. Thet seemed to have a talent for it… They’ve got what we lack. They’ve got imagination. And electricity, of course. One of them had written it, hadn’t he… ‘Hell is empty and all the devils are here.’” (p. 43)

“You can’t start someone off in a muddy shack in the middle of a war zone and expect them to do as well as someone born in a castle. Ah, Aziraphale had said, that’s a good bit. The lower you start, the more opportunities you have. Crowley had said, That’s lunatic. No, said Azriaphale, it’s ineffable.” (p. 44)

“On the whole, neither he (Aziraphale) nor Crowley would have chosen each other’s company, but they were both men, or at least men-shaped creatures, of the world, and the Arrangement had worked to their advantage all this time. Besides, you grow accustomed to the only other face that had been around more or less consistently for six millennia.” (p. 49)

“As they drove past an astonished traffic warden his notebook spontaneously combusted, to Crowley’s amazement. “I’m pretty certain I didn’t mean to do that” he said. Aziraphale blushed. “That was me,” he said.” (p. 55)

“And the Lord spake unto the Angel that guarded the Eastern gate, saying Where is the flaming sword which was given unto thee? And the Angel said, I had it here only a moment ago, I must have put it down somewhere, forget my own head next. And the Lord did not ask him again.” (p. 57)

“They’d come up with some stomach, churning idea that no demon could’ve thought of in a thousand years, so dark and mindless unpleasantness the only a fully functioning human brain could conceive, then shout ‘The Devil Made Me Do It’ and get the sympathy of the court when the whole point was the Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn’t have to… Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.” (p. 99-100)

“‘Do you know, Aziraphale, that probably if a million human beings were asked to describe modern music, they wouldn’t use the term “be-bop”?’ said Crowley.” (p. 102)

“‘Thank you,’ said Anathema, icily. ‘Can we get on?’ said Crowley. ‘Goodnight, miss. Get in, angel.” Ah. Well, that explained it. She had been perfectly safe after all.” (p. 110)

“Many people, meeting Aziraphale for the first time, formed three impressions: that he was English, that he was intelligent, and that he was gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. Two of these were wrong; Heaven is not England, whatever certain poets may have thought, and angels are sexless unless they really want to make an effort. But he was intelligent, and it was an angelic intelligence which, why not being particularly higher than human intelligence, as much broader, it has the advantage of having thousands of years of practice.” (p. 194)

“But he’d (Aziraphale) known him (Crowley) for thousands of years. They got along. They nearly understood one another. He sometimes suspected they had for more in common with one another than with their respective superiors. They both liked the world, for one thing, rather than viewing it simply as the board on which the cosmic game of chess was being played.” (p. 284)

“It was even better than the candles ag creating ambulance. Ambulance was what mediuming was all about.” (p. 342)

[emailsmalucantsend]

Maybe tomorrow you’ll know!

I've always been intrigued by love and all of its aspects, and even all of the bullshit that comes with love, the trust, the passion, the lust and even the desire. The whole soulmate stuff has always been one of my main interests through out my whole life. In case you don't know what "soulmate stuff" I'm talking about, I'll elaborate.

So... back in the greek gods age there was a belief that people were born with 2 bodies, 1 head with 2 faces. And they were fulfilled. There was no mourning, no empty feeling within. all was well. But one day Aphrodite the goddess of love, got her hand asked in marriage by another god (zeus I'm pretty sure) don't hold me on that tho, I'm only just a girl in the end of the day. But she however said no, and he got so mad at her that he decided to curse the very thing she cared so dearly for and that was love. So he cursed humans to be split in half and live their whole lives searching for their other half, their "soulmate".

I personally believe it, but that's only one woman's opinion. There are so many theories about love out there. For example the invisible string theory, I'm at least 90 percent sure that thats an asian belief, it basically means you have a red string in your ring finger on your left hand, the finger that has a vein that leads to your heart. And that whenever you meet your so called soulmate or true love it disappears. You might not even have met them exactly, you might've only talked to them once.

That's actually what Taylor Swift talks about in her song "Invisible String" or what Beabadoobee mentions in her song "Glue Song". She has a lyric that quotes "You've been hiding in plain sight, then appeared." Both capture exactly what in my eyes love feels like.

I also think that soulmates come in very different ways, such as friendships, relationships, mom and daughter and even people you only talk to once, like friends you make on vacation. I also don't really believe that soulmates are meant to be together forever. I think they're meant to meet what happens next is just pure luck.

One of my favorite examples are my friends, especially my friends "Jill" and "Anthony". They're always on a on and off relationship and can't have a good talk without getting on each other's asses. But the thing is even though they hate each other's guts they can't shut up about one another, every person Jill hooks up with looks like Anthony.

They both always look for each other in other people, because they can't stand each other they also can't live without one another.

And that's what I mean by meet but not stay together, don't get me wrong though I do believe that some soulmates are meant to live the rest of their lives with each other, like my friends Pedro and Duda. They fit so well together and I'm 99% sure that if you ask anyone that knows them they'll tell you that they're completely made for each other. They're so right for each other that I actually can't remember Duda before Pedro, not that she can't exist without him but that they're so right together that I doesn't make sense for them to be apart. It just feels like they've always been together. Like they were born to be together.

The last time I updated this I had one view on love, the romantic view. Today I put myself to think about every kind of love I've seen and experienced before.

Though the romantic side of love is the most common one when one thinks about love, it is definitely not my favorite kind. I believe that my favorite kind is the sisterly/brotherly love, even in people who aren't exactly your siblings.

I truly believe that my sister is my soulmate, that if I died I would always find my way back to her. At first me and her had a really rough relationship cause you know, we're sisters, we fight, we forgive, we forget and we restart.

And I think that's the beauty of love, the ability to love even through tough times. The way that we forgive people on a daily basis is just so incredible to me. How we trust friends and even strangers without even noticing. We seek them for help and give others help. We care, we're humans and we empathize with other humans so easily and I truly adore it.

The other kind of love is the love found in friendship, the warm fuzzy feeling you feel while having a good talk with your friends, the way you know you can trust them and tell them anything. Me personally, I love sitting at a coffee shop with a delicious drink in hand and a wise friend to talk to, ask them for advice, gossiping with them and laughing until I can't breathe.

Right this moment it's 10:14PM and I now have an opinion on parental love, and that's because I was here typing and expressing my very true opinions on love and my mom stopped me because she was worried I was just typing the night away and not eating anything while doing so. And the worry she had over me made me feel loved, I then stopped typing and started talking with her, my dad and grandma and it made me really happy to realize that the same kind of feeling I have when talking with my friends I also have with my parental figures.

How they've cared for me all my life with so much love and I've barely realized it because I was so focused on the other kinds of love.

I'm really glad that writing this made me realize that I don't need a "true love" or a boyfriend to feel love or to feel loved, I've realized that love isn't just in dating or guys but that it is actually everywhere, if you look around with care you'll see it too. So many people with so many different lives and so many different kinds of love, but they're all love, they're all made to love.

As I've made very clear, I haven't found the one yet, but that's okay because it's only today. Tomorrow is a new day with new people, new experiences and new opportunities. Tomorrow I get a chance to live the very first day of my of my future, I get to start over, I get a new chance at everything I've done wrong before. And I get to feel loved and make others feel loved. I don't know it all today, but maybe tomorrow I'll know..

That's my view on love, not only the romantic kind of love but the love we contain within.