#But seeing anyone get recognized for Liking Thing makes me

[abyssal-ilk]

A thing that people always forget when chastising vivienne for being so apathetic to cole is the fact that she is a circle mage. People whom are forced to learn that you should not trust demons nor spirits or else they’ll put you down AS A RITE OF PASSAGE. Think back to what Mouse says in DAO. “Keep your wits about you, mage; true challenges never end.” She knows that for the rest of her life, demons will tempt her and try to possess her. She has seen mages turn into abominations, knows how they get them- of course she will support templars who have the skills to subdue them. And now to have a spirit scurrying around without supervision what is the last bastion against a Tevinter Sidereal… I too would be worried as hell if i were a circle mage.

EXACTLY!

not only is vivienne a circle mage, but there are also a few other factors that play into it that make cole so untrustworthy to her. vivienne underwent her harrowing when she was young– in fact, she was the youngest mage to have ever gone through a harrowing and survived it. we don't get to learn much about what she went through during her harrowing, but we DO have this banter between her and cole:

harrowings on their own are already traumatic enough, and with the added insistence from the circles that all spirits and demons are dangerous (which we see vivienne repeat above, "all it can do is harm."), it makes complete sense on why vivienne would be so put-off by cole! especially given how kind he is! she thinks that kindness is a ploy, and why wouldn't she if her harrowing was anything like the warden's in DAO?

and then that's not even acknowledging the fact that cole isn't just ANY spirit. he's the ghost of the spire. he's killed mages before and admits to doing so. and even though he was wrong to do so and realizes that what he did was wrong, that does not mean that vivienne automatically has to suddenly be okay with what cole did. of course vivienne takes cole being the ghost of the spire harder than everyone else in the inner circle. she is the only circle mage there. it is entirely plausible that she sees cole as a threat and views herself as being the person most able to recognize that threat because of what she was taught. it's why she struggles so much to empathize with cole on any level.

ive already talked about this briefly on another post, but cole is also fairly antagonistic to vivienne as well. it's easy to look at their dynamic and think that, well, cole is just trying to help vivienne but he... isn't? his version of helping her is prying into her thoughts without permission and continuing to do so even after she has shown clear discomfort with it.

cole drags her worst memories and thoughts out publicly in front of not just vivienne, but the rest of the party and anyone else who may happen to be standing near them. it's DANGEROUS, what he does, because vivienne is a player of the game. her position at court is a precarious one, and to have someone like cole who can just pick into her brain whenever he wants with no repercussions? it's scary! it's scary because vivienne has no defense against it, especially if the player supports cole and downplays the harm he does. and what can vivienne do about it? she's an ally of the inquisitor, and that makes her cole's ally by proxy. telling cole to stop doesn't work, insulting him doesn't work, trying to get the inquisitor to intervine doesn't work– nothing seems to deter cole.

which is why THIS piece of dialogue is so important to me:

despite everything i've said above, vivienne still cannot help but care about cole. no matter how dangerous he is, no matter what she was raised to believe, she still cares about him and worries for him. their dynamic is SO interesting to me and i really wish people dug into it a bit more rather than just dismiss it as vivienne being needlessly cruel to cole. it's so much more than that.

[theloganator101]

The Great BNHA Review: The Finale

So in the end... where does this leave us?

A society that really hasn't changed that much, Izuku was alone once again because his hero friends are too busy, and it ends with Izuku being handed a suit to fight alongside them... Reinforcing the fact that Izuku couldn't be a hero on his own without someone handing him something to make him a hero.

What a lackluster and rather bleak ending when you think about it. Because they still have the ranking system so it's once again enticing heroes to compete in a popularity contest to be known, which is why Bakugou is doing poorly and Aizawa admitting that he didn't do shit to curve this behavior.

(Points at Aizawa) Teacher of the Year everyone 🙄

So with the story now completed, what I hope to eventually happen in a few years is for people to truly see the series for what it is. A poorly written story where the main character never grows, the worst anime character hogging all the attention away from things that should be important, and contains harmful messages for preteens-teens if we were to take this at face value.

So let me ask this: Was this story worth telling?

I'm only asking because since it's known that Hori just got tired and wanted to be done and over BNHA as soon as he could. Which I know WOULDN'T have happened if he just pulled a Yana Toboso and just put the manga on hold to truly figure out what he wants to do instead of working on it continuously with only a handful of one week breaks.

His story couldn't explore the themes it established, and what it DID covered, was handled poorly.

And if you want a piece of media that explores what BNHA tried to do, here're some of my recommendations .

The main character being the odd one out? The Owl House.

Family Issues? Gravity Falls.

Discussions on justice and the grey area of good and evil? Death Note.

Hell, Glitch Productions does a better job at developing the romances of their characters than this anime series did in it's entirety!

And trauma being handled in a tasteful manner?

But back to the topic!

The thing is why couldn't we explore these themes and topics that was promised to us? Was anyone REALLY asking for Endeavor to make amends with his family? Did anyone RELLY think that Endeavor's redemption was worth screwing over the Todoroki family members?

This series just wants to have it's cake and eat it too! We want to have cool fight scenes and root for the heroes to win, but we would also want to explore the world they live in and how it functions. And since considering the badly handled topics of the story and the characters themselves are as interesting as caricatures of the tropes they embody to where there's no depth or complexity.

Then you just have a story that GOES NOWHERE!

How much of Hero Society has really changed at the end? It only beckons for the same events that happened throughout the series to happen again! And the people who were horrible, I.E Bakugou and Endeavor, get they want without consequences! None of the major characters go through significant development so it makes it hard to see that they've grown at the end!

So overall, BNHA is an Anime Series that crashed and burned. Something that I hope more people will start to recognize and call it out for both the mistakes of the series and Kohei Horikoshi.

And with that, my career of criticizing BNHA has come to an end. Thank you all for liking my rants and posts, and I truly do hope you'll keep following me for whatever's in store.

So now that's done, I can finally move on to something actually good...

[4dkellysworld]

Lester Levenson's self-realisation story

This is the more detailed version of Lester Levenson's story of releasing thoughts & feelings to self-realization that should have been in his autobiography (you can read the more condensed version from the book here). It is a much more detailed account of Lester's process and journey to self-realization in the three months, a very short version was included in this post on why clear the subconscious mind to realise Self.

Reading this was enlightening to me - perhaps it will spark some resonance in you for your own path and practice :)

(I didn't include the parts before this excerpt where he just started self-inquiry after his health issue, the excerpt below starts from when things really progressed for Lester)

In the morning, he woke very early feeling rested and refreshed. His first thought was, "Well, then, what is happiness?" He laughed at his tenacity as he rolled out of bed and into the shower. Preparing breakfast, his thoughts continued to explore the question which dominated his mind. Well, then, what is happiness? What is the common denominator in all these moments? There was Sy, there was Milton, then June, and his Nettie... What was the common denominator? Somehow he knew it was tied up with love, but he could not, at first, see how. When it finally came, it was so simple and pure and complete an answer that he wondered why he had never seen it before.

"Happiness is when I am loving!" He realized that in every instance, his feeling of love for the other person had been intense and that's where the happiness had come from, from his own feeling of loving. It was so clear to him now that being loved was not the answer. He could see that even if people loved him, unless he felt love in return, he was not going to be happy. Their loving might make them happy, but it would not, could not, make him happy. It was a new and mind-boggling concept and even though he instinctively knew that it was correct, his old scientific training didn't allow him to accept it without testing. So he looked into his past, remembering those times in his life when he had been loving and happy, and he recognized that at those times, the other person had not necessarily been loving him.

He looked at the other side too, the unhappy times and now that he knew what to look for, it was very obvious that he had not been loving. Oh, he'd thought at the time that he loved them, as with Nettie and June. He loved them, needed them, wanted them. But was that love, he wondered now? No, it was painful... he was experiencing pain that they didn't love him. And even though he called it love, he was really wanting to possess them completely, thinking he needed all their love to be happy.

That was the key! He had been experiencing a want or lack of love, expecting the other person to supply the love, waiting for the other person to make him happy. He had to laugh, it seemed so ludicrous. To think that someone else could make him happy seemed like the funniest thing in the world. He knew, better than anyone that no one could ever make him anything. He'd always been very proud and stubborn and self-sufficient, sure that he never needed anyone or anything. "What a joke!" He thought. The truth is that he'd been all the time dying inside for want of love, thinking he had to get it from someone. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he laughed and laughed at the realization that what he'd been looking for all his life was inside him. He had been like the absent-minded professor looking everywhere for his glasses which were on top of his head all the time.

"What a shame," he thought, wiping away the tears. "What a shame that I never saw this before. All that time, all those years wasted; what a shame." "But wait a minute!" he thought. "If happiness is when I'm experiencing love for the other one, then that means happiness is a feeling within me. "And if I felt unloving in the past? Well, I know I can't change the past, but could I possibly correct the feeling now inside myself`? Could I change the feeling to love now?"

He decided to try it. He looked at his most recent unhappiness, the day he left the hospital. "First," he asked himself, "was I experiencing a lack of love that day?" "Yes," he answered aloud. "Nobody gave a damn about me, not the nurses, not the orderlies, not even Dr. Schultz. They did not care. As sick as I was, they threw me out, sent me home to die so they wouldn't have to watch one of their failures. Well, the hell with them. They can all go to hell." He was shocked at the vehemence in his voice. His body trembled with rage and he felt weak. He really hated the doctor. He could feel it burning in his chest. "Oh, boy," he thought, "this sure isn't love."

"Well, can I change it?" he asked. "Is it possible to turn it into love for the doctor?" "Hell, no," he thought, "why should I? What did he ever do to deserve any love?" "That's not the point," he answered himself. "The point is not whether he deserves love. The point is, can you do it? Is it possible to simply change a feeling of hatred into a feeling of love—not for the benefit of the other person but for yourself?"

As the thought crossed his mind, he felt something break loose in his chest. A gentle easing, a sense of dissolving, and the burning sensation was gone. He didn't trust it at first. It seemed too easy, so he pictured again the scene with Dr. Schultz in the hospital. He was surprised to find that it brought only a mild feeling of resentment rather than the previous intense burning hatred. He wondered if he could do it again.

"Let's see," he thought, "what did I just do? Ah, yes. Can I change this feeling of resentment into a feeling of love?" He chuckled as he felt the resentment dissolve in his chest. Then it was totally gone and he was happy. He thought of Dr. Schultz again, pictured him in his mind and felt happy, even loving. He saw now, reliving that last meeting, how the doctor had hated to tell him the things he had to say. He could feel the doctor's pain at having to tell a young man in the prime of his life that his life was over. "Doctor Schultz, you son-of-a-gun," he said, grinning, "I love you."

"Well, it worked on that one," he thought. "If my theory is sound, then it should work on everything." Eagerly, he began trying it on other moments, and the results were consistently the same, each time that he asked himself if he could change the feeling of hostility or anger or hatred to one of love, the dissolving process took place. Sometimes he had to repeat it over and over until he felt only Love for the person.

At times, the entire process would take only a minute or two; at other times, it might take him hours of working on a particular person or event before his feelings were only loving, but he would doggedly stay with it until it was completed on each person and each incident.

His entire life came up for review in bits and pieces. One by one, he changed to Love all the old hurts and disappointments. He began to feel stronger as the weight of his pain dropped away. He was happier than he had ever been in his entire life, and he kept it going, feeling even more happiness with each new thing corrected. He stopped going to bed because he had so much energy that he couldn't lie down. When he felt tired, he would doze in his chair and awaken an hour or so later to start in again. There was so much to be corrected in his life that he didn't want to stop until he had looked under every stone and around every corner.

Another thing that intrigued him was the question of how far he could take this. As he corrected each thing, he became happier, he could feel it; but he wondered how far he could go. Was there a limit to happiness? So far, he hadn't found any boundaries to it and the possibilities were staggering. So he kept on, around the clock.

His strength was returning, but not wanting to be distracted, he avoided getting involved in social activities and would sometimes even pass up the Sunday get-together with his family. He did his food shopping in the middle of the night, around two or three in the morning. There were very few people up and about at that hour, and he enjoyed the quiet of the city. He went on correcting his life, even while doing the necessaries. And he noticed that when someone in a store or on the street would annoy him, he was able to correct that response with Love either immediately or shortly thereafter. This pleased him, and he found himself loving others with intensity far beyond anything he had imagined possible. As he described it many years later, "When I mixed with people, and again and again when they would do things that I didn't like and within me was a feeling of non-Love, I would immediately change that attitude to one of loving them even though they were opposing me. Eventually I got to a point where, no matter how much I was being opposed, I could maintain a feeling of Love for them."

He continued to correct his life with consistent results for about a month until one day he got stumped. He was working on the last time he had seen Nettie, the day she chose someone else. He had already corrected a lot of the pain with regard to her; she had come to his mind again and again, and it had not always been easy. In fact, it had been very difficult at first to work on that old relationship but gradually as he gained strength, he had been able to confront some of those long-buried feelings and correct them.

But on this particular day, no matter how hard he tried to correct it with Love, there was still a feeling of despair which he could not dislodge. He wanted to escape, to get out of his chair and run, to get something to eat, to do anything that would get him away from his intense feeling. Instead, he decided to sit there until he handled it.

Something told him that if he let that feeling push him around, if he lost that battle, he would have lost the war. He stayed in his chair, determined to ride it out. He probed, "What's wrong here? Why isn't it dissolving? Nettie, oh, my Nettie." He began to cry now, tears streaming down his cheeks, all the pain he had locked up on the day they parted came now in a flood. "Why did you do it, Nettie?" he cried aloud. "Why did you do it? Why did you leave me, my darling? We could have been so happy, we'd have married and been so happy."

"Damn," he thought, "why do people do things like that? They throw their happiness away and everyone else's, too. They have no right to do that. They shouldn't be allowed to do that. There should be some way of making them change; some way of changing the things they do and the effect they have on people."

He felt the old pain of ulcers starting up again in his stomach and realized with certainty that the ulcers had started that last day with Nettie. He'd drunk the beer and thrown up; that had been the beginning. He wished it had been different. More than anything else in this world, he wanted to change what had happened. He wanted to go back and live it over again the other way with Nettie choosing him, with them getting married and being happy forevermore.

"Well, you can't change it, stupid," he shouted at himself, "so you might just as well stop trying to." That jolted him. He saw that he was still trying to change something that had been finished more than twenty years ago. "No, it can't be finished," he cried. "I won't let it be finished." His throat hurt now and he felt like screaming and smashing things. Then, like instant replay, he heard what he'd said, "I won’t let it be finished." That was the source of his anguish; he'd wanted to change it all these years and so he kept it alive inside himself, buried deep, eroding his happiness. "Well, to hell with that," he said, almost flippantly. Suddenly, with that decision, the whole thing was gone. He couldn't believe it. He felt for the hurt, the pain, the despair. It was all gone. He thought of Nettie as he remembered her, so young, so beautiful, and he simply loved her. There was none of the old painful feeling left.

He began to look now in this new direction. He realized that the cause of his ulcers was that he had wanted to change everything, starting with his nearest and dearest and extending out to the rest of the world, including the United States, other countries, government heads, the weather, endings of movies he had seen, the way businesses were run, taxes, the army, the President; there was nothing he could think of that he had not wanted to change in one way or another.

What a revelation! He saw himself subject to and a victim of everything he wanted to change! He began dissolving all that. When he thought of something that caused him pain about a person or situation, he would now either correct it with Love or dissolve wanting to change it. This added a new dimension to his work, and his progress accelerated.

By the time a second month had gone by, it was all he could do sometimes to stay in his chair, he became so energized. And there were times, when he had worked on particularly painful incidents in his life, that he literally could not sit and would go out into the city and walk for miles, reviewing, correcting, dissolving until he had burned off enough energy to sit still again. Sometimes he felt as though he had hold of a chain with many links of incidents on it which needed correcting. Once he got hold of the chain, he would follow through incident by incident until there was nothing left to be corrected. An example of such a chain was jealousy.

He had always been intensely jealous but managed to hide it most of the time under a facade of not caring. Nevertheless, his insides used to burn if the girl he was with so much as looked at someone else, or even mentioned another man. He decided to correct this tendency in himself. He would probe his memory for instances where his jealousy had driven him; correct it; then look for more. When he thought it was cleared out, he tested himself by imagining the girl he loved most making love with the man he would least want her to be with. It was a good test because he could see immediately that there was more work to do. Sometimes the intensity of his feelings would almost drive him mad, but he continued for days until there was no last vestige of jealousy left in him. When he could finally enjoy their enjoyment of each other, he knew he was finished with jealousy.

Insights came with increasing frequency. He would often gain a sudden, complete understanding of something which had always puzzled him. Philosophies he had studied became clear, and he could see that they had often started off on the right track, only to veer off into distortions, having been diverted by an incorrect idea springing from the author's own storehouse of uncorrected feelings. His mind began to feel like crystal, clear and sharp. "Colors seemed brighter and everything was more sharply defined" says Lester.

"Above all, I saw that I was responsible for everything that had happened to me, formerly thinking that the world was abusing me! And I saw that my tremendous effort to make money and then losing it was due only to my thinking; that I had been always seeking happiness, and thought that making money would do it. So whenever the business started to make money, and the money did not bring me the happiness I wanted, I began to lose interest and the thing collapsed. I had always blamed it on other people and circumstances, not realizing that it was simply my subconscious knowledge that this is not happiness which caused me to lose interest and that, in turn, caused the business to collapse."

"This was a tremendous piece of freedom, to think that I am not a victim of this world, that it lies within my power to arrange the world the way I want it to be; rather than be an effect of it. I can now be in control of it and arrange it the way I would like it to be. That was a tremendous realization, a tremendous feeling of Freedom."

"Discovering that my happiness equated to my loving, and that my thinking was the cause of things happening to me in my life gave me more and more freedom; freedom from the subconscious compulsions that I had to work, I had to make money, I had to have girlfriends. Freedom in the feeling that I was now able to determine my destiny, I was now able to control my world, lightened my internal burden so strongly that I felt there was no need for me to have to do anything.

"Plus, this happiness was so great. It was a new experience for me. I was experiencing a joy that I never knew existed, never dreamed could be. So I decided, "This is so great, I'm not going to stop until I carry it all the way." I had no idea how far it could go. I had no idea how joyous a person could be. But I was determined to find out."

During the third month, things went even faster. There was a depth to Lester’s feelings that threatened to bowl him over at times. His knees sometimes buckled, but he stayed with each feeling until it was corrected. He was becoming happier and happier, still looking to see if there were any limits to what he could accomplish with this new process.

"How much further can I go?" Lester would ask himself, then push it even further. It was also during the third month that he ran into an old adversary, one he had seen out of the corner of his eye again and again throughout his life. It had lurked nearby, always on the periphery and he had never before been willing to meet it head on. It was the fear of death.

Now he recognized it as the basis of every single feeling he had ever had. He began to coax it out into the open, wanting to take a good look at the biggest foe of all, which had so very nearly won the battle only a few months ago. He began to lure those feelings into the open and to dissolve them. And it worked!

He got to the place where, with great confidence, he laughed and laughed and laughed at this foe which had kept a fire lit under him his entire life so that there had not been one moment of real peace, ever. This last of the monsters turned out to be, after all, only a feeling. As he dissolved the fear of death, he realized one day that his body was sound, healed. The physical impairment was corrected. He couldn't explain to anyone how he knew; he just knew it as surely as he knew who he was. His body was sound.

At the end of the third month, he had slipped into a blissful, joyous state, which he could only describe as feeling like a million orgasms surging all at once through his entire body. It went on and on and he realized that this feeling, although not sexual, was what he was always been looking for but never found in sex. He felt light, living for weeks with joy exploding inside him every moment. Everyone and everything became exquisitely beautiful to him. He kept looking for more things to correct, but there didn't seem to be much. Occasionally something would occur to him, but it would be gone almost before he could define it and the joy would surge through him even more strongly.

After several weeks, he began to wonder if there could be anything better beyond this joy. He was sitting in his chair in the usual position, slumped down, legs stretched out, chin touching his chest. He had an idle thought without expecting an answer, but the answer came.

What was beyond this incredible joyous state that didn't stop? He saw that it was peace, imperturbability and he realized with certainty that if he accepted it, if he decided to move into that peace, it would never, ever go away. And he went—slipped into it so effortlessly – with just a decision to have it. He was there.

Everything was still. He was in a quietness that he now knew had always been there but drowned out by incessant noise from his accumulated, uncorrected past. In fact, it was more than quiet; it was so far beyond anything imaginable that there were no words to describe the delectable deliciousness of the tranquility.

His earlier question about happiness was answered too. There were no limits to happiness, but when you have it all, every minute, it gets tiresome. Then this peace is just beyond and all you have to do is step over the line into it. "Is there anything beyond even this?" he wondered. But as he asked, he knew the answer.

This peace was eternal and forever and it was the essence of every living thing. There was only one Beingness and everything was It. Every person was It, but they were without awareness of the fact, blinded by the uncorrected past they hold on to.

He saw this Beingness as something like a comb. He was at the spine of the comb and all the teeth fanned out from it, each one thinking it was separate and different from all the other teeth. And that was true, but only if you looked at it from the tooth end of the comb. Once you got back to the spine or source, you could see that it wasn’t true. It was all one comb. There was no real separation, except when you sat at the tooth end. It was all in one’s point of view.

[kamimarroco]

A story where Ren suddenly starts chatting with you because he apparently cares about you staying up late at night. Not reviewed, may undergo corrections in the future.

Words: 1100+

“are you still awake?”

The vibration of your phone and the appearance of a notification startled you, almost making you drop the device. You looked closely at the top left corner of the screen and saw the time.

It is currently 2:35 in the morning.

People at this time are usually sleeping, and those who aren't are probably sorting out work issues or are insomniacs.

You didn't fit into either of them, since your irregularity was due to the fact that you were too stubborn.

A shame, really.

You didn't stand on ceremony and immediately clicked on the notification, being taken to the chat with an unknown person.

Well, not really an unknown person... Looking more carefully, your sleepy mind managed to rationalize and recognize who you were talking to.

Oh, it's Ren.

“yea but dw, i'll go to sleep soon”

You immediately saw him start writing after receiving your message.

“are you sure? that doesn't sound honest to me. you've been online a lot lately”

How long exactly has he been watching you to say that? Sure, it's possible to see when your profile is online because of the app's settings, but it makes you wonder if he's been watching you all this time.

“have you been watching me online?”, you ask without hesitation.

You feel him give a slight chuckle from the other side of the screen.

“haha maybe. but don't get me wrong, you really do spend a lot of time awake at night, and that makes me a lil worried”

You're torn between finding his statement strange or acknowledging your not-so-healthy habit. It's true, you're weird, anyone would find it at least slightly worrying that you spend so much time online in the early hours of the morning.

“and what about you? you are also online right now at this very moment”, you retort back, anxiety consuming you as you wait for his response.

He would be considered a hypocrite for finding your habit troubling if he does the exact same thing.

“i have a very valid reason for that. my routine makes me stay awake at night and sleep in the morning or afternoon”

Now you feel an arrow hitting right in the middle of your heart. Sure, of course he would have a good reason to be awake at this hour.

You are the only odd one out in this situation.

“i'm sorry about that, i felt defensive about my habit being called out”, you apologized, worried that your words had come across as rude to him.

“that's alright. it's 2:42 am, no hard feelings”

You felt relieved that he didn't resent your words, despite knowing that they did not convey the same intonation as in real life.

you're thinking too much (or too little), your emotions are starting to eat you up.

“but i still think you should sleep”, he sent a second message.

You felt like a child being scolded by your father, being called out for your unhealthy behavior. You felt your cheeks flush and shame enter your system.

“i already told you, i'll sleep soon”, even if he doesn't notice, you felt like a sullen child trying to explain yourself.

“wheeen?”

“by the holy of god Ren, i'm not some kind of child”, you felt the need to say his nickname (name?) for the first time, trying to emphasize your slight irritation.

This time it took him a while to answer you, seeming to process the fact that you called him by his name. You felt judged in some way for this, thinking that maybe you weren't close enough to call him that.

when did you get so soft? is it sleep that's making you think too much?

Just as you were about to text him an apology, he interrupted you.

“i know that, i just worry about you”, his message warmed your heart in a way you couldn't imagine.

That's… sweet of him. Worrying about you even though you two are just strangers on the internet who bump into each other every now and then.

Are you falling in love?

“i appreciate ur concern, but i know what i'm doing”

No, you don't.

He sent you a picture of a fox with one eyebrow raised, appearing to doubt your certainty.

That brought out a genuine laugh you didn't know you were holding back.

you're leaving yourself vulnerable around him.

“aaaw what a cutie fox!! <3”, you said, referring to the image received.

“it really is! do you like foxes?”

“yea i like them! they are cute and fluffy and i honestly feel like hugging them”

For a while, Ren seemed to forget the fact that you were awake and kept talking to you about random, unrelated topics. Neither of them really had any connection with the other, but one thing led to another.

You noticed how easy it is to talk to him. He has a fluid oratory and is always making associations with other things he knows.

You found yourself incredibly interested and captivated in the conversation you suddenly began having with this stranger.

is this a red flag? shouldn't you be more concerned about a sudden approach?

When you looked at the time on your phone, you realized it was already 3:56 am, almost four in the morning.

Jesus, did you really spend that much time talking to him?

Feeling the tiredness consume you completely, you (finally) felt it was time to let your body have some much-needed rest.

“hey i know we're still talking, but it's almost four in the morning…”, you began delicately, not wanting to give him the wrong idea that you didn't want to talk anymore.

why are you so concerned about what he thinks, in the first place?

“i don't want to let our conversation end here, so i thought we could continue it another time”

Nonono, stop this, you're falling into his trap

“i'm sorry about this, my body is really screaming for sleep”

You idiot.

Ren analyzed your messages a bit before giving a proper response.

“awe that's alright! i really wanted u to sleep in the first place, and i feel kind of guilty that i did a bad job xd”

“keeping u awake and everything”

You felt guilty for him feeling guilty because it wasn't his fault in the first place! You were the idiot who decided to stay up at night, so the damage was already done.

“nonono u didn't! i was the dumb one for staying awake until now”

“i really enjoyed our conversation tbh”

You sent it and already felt your eyelashes getting heavy.

“hehe me too! i look forward to our next conversations”

“but now u really need to sleep, so pls don't stay up too long <3”

Silly little guy. He really gets you, doesn't he?

You felt happy that you had at least met someone during your time awake at night.

[frostbite-the-bat]

i hgoupe I'm The roller guy to yall

[dimiclaudeblaigan]

If there is at least one thing I can credit FE for doing better than Tales in localization, it's not trying to actively go out of their way for an entire game to avoid subtext or direct text between two men that is romantic or implied romantic. Funny when it's so present that the attempt doesn't even work; infuriating that it was attempted to begin with.

So as much as I often have issues with some of FE's localizations, at least they have a leg up on loc Tales for that.

[skrunksthatwunk]

peak dash tonight but i gtg do like. something productive

[daz4i]

daily "i wanna get back into cosplay but i'm gonna look so bad and no one will recognize who i'm supposed to be and it's gonna fit all awkward so what's the point" time

[stonesandswords]

i think i’m addicted to complimenting people

[misterradio]

i love seeing fan art for stuff so much like its my favourite thing ever when it comes to Looking Up Specific Things On Tumblr and im so crazy abt the works but only me and dog have really posted abt it i think it makes me go crazy and i could just cry from wanting to see other people draw fanart of it. does this make sense

[batking-lich]

"i'm not like those Other People, i only consume Unproblematic Media™ with Good Representation™ and i don't like Irredeemable Media™"

"i'm not like those Other People, i don't like this Sanitized Media™, i only like Real Art™ with Bad Messy Representation™"

you are literally the same people wearing different hats the only things you disagree about are what counts as bad media and what counts as good representation

[stillfruit]

it's so difficult to articulate the feelings i get when i see my friends engaging in healthy and good behaviors like asking for emotional support and taking the time they need to arrive because i just can't and i know i'm wrong for it but it still feels incredibly isolating

[spikeinthepunch]

@_@ it aint often i end up 'out of the loop' on something but that goncharov thing blew up in hours and very quickly my dash was filled with it with no context... im not gonna shit on anyone for spreading it around without context but this is one of those 'maybe clarify for your followers that this is made up so those who are mentally ill and strugle with reality dont freak out'. im generally Stable but when searching around brings nothing more than further posts convincing you its real, it becomes a bit unnerving, esp when i still fail to see any posts explaining it while scroll through the top posts in the tag...

funny enough i did see the bootleg shoes picture quite a bit before this popped up, it just didnt connect/wasnt on my mind, and i only just saw one post tying together that image to explain the movie was made up.

[bpmiranda]

IM BEGGING FOR A LOGAN X FEM READER WHO CAN TURN INVISIBLE BUT WHEN SHES NERVOUS OR FLUSTERED SHE DISAPPEARS INVOLUNTARILY essentially it’s just logan flustering reader till he disappears??? (mostly fluff but also suggestive/smut end)

Your Perfume (Logan Howlett)

A/N: fluffy, age gap, 18+ f!mutant reader (invisibility), kinky!logan, suggestive content towards end

When you first arrived at Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, you were quite nervous and flighty. Often disappearing for hours on end in order to avoid talking to anyone, hiding in plain sight while two or three teachers searched for you. More often than not, the only person that could successfully find you was Logan.

“I can smell your perfume.” He’d smirk after having located you in the garage. You appear to him behind the wheel of one of the vehicles where you were reading a book and he chuckles. “Hiding again, kid?” He asks as he leans his forearms on the car door and peers in at you.

“Not hiding,” You say with a light blush on your face as he’s so close and you can smell the cigar and leather on him. “Just creating a quiet space for myself.”

Logan nods and then opens the driver’s door, instinctively you scoot over into the passenger side and he sits next to you. “You don’t like your classes?” He asks.

“They’re fine, the professor’s are lovely, I just-” You sigh as you bookmark the page you were reading. “I don’t want to be here. I miss being home.” Your parents had sent you away at the first opportunity, unwilling to deal with your mutation, and it stung. “I miss my family.”

“You know,” Logan rubbed his face gently and then patted your knee, making you blush again. “I’ve heard lots of other kids say the same thing, and eventually, they realize this can be a family too.”

You smile kindly at him, appreciative of him taking the time to talk to you, and you want to thank him until the garage door alarm goes off and you jump, disappearing completely once again which makes Logan laugh. “Did you find her?” Storm asked after turning the alarm off.

“Yeah, I found her, but we’re gonna have to put bells on her.” Logan teases which makes you giggle, the only thing letting him know you’re still sitting beside him.

Logan’s way of acclimating you to the mansion is quite different from that of the other professors. While the others are kind and helpful in assisting you with resources and encouragement, Logan had gotten a kick out of startling you. It was all fun and games, and it made you laugh each time because you knew his goal was to scare you into disappearing which he always found hilarious.

Logan would sneak up on you in the halls, starling your books straight out of your arms, laughing before he helped you pick them up. He’d see you sitting by the fountain with a friend and rev his motorcycle loudly, chuckling to himself as he watched you disappear. You had planned to get your payback late one night when you found that he was sitting alone in the common area. You focused on turning invisible and snuck up behind him quietly, ready to pounce when he suddenly said, “I smell you, sweet girl.”

You stopped in your tracks and frowned, walking around to stand in front of him and becoming visible again. Logan chuckled at the pout on your lip. “You smell me?”

“Your perfume,” He smirked, bringing the beer he was sipping to his lips while you watched him. “I recognize your perfume.”

“Oh,” You blushed, folding your arms over your middle and smiling shyly. “Good nose.”

“You have no idea.” Logan winked at you and you bit your lip, nodding before quickly returning to your bedroom, your face hot from that interaction.

While you were in the kitchen one evening, fixing yourself a cup of tea, Logan had woken up out of his sleep and wandered downstairs, smirking to himself when he smelled your familiar scent. Quietly, he made his way into the kitchen and saw you standing with your back to the doorway. Changing his mind about his approach at the sight of you in your pajama shorts, he walked closer until he could put his hands on your hips and you gasped.

Immediately, you disappeared and turned around to see Logan grinning, searching through you as you were now invisible to him. “Logan,” You scolded, pushing on his chest, but he didn’t budge. “Don’t do that!”

“Let me ask you something,” He said with a mischievous glint in his eyes that made you flustered. Fortunately, he couldn’t see the blush on your cheeks. “If you’re invisible,” His hand felt its way up your side, gripping onto your top and blindly guiding himself to your shoulder where his fingers pressed into the base of your neck, his thumb smoothing over your collarbone. “And I kiss you, would I fall through you?”

Your eyes were wide as his other hand on your hip continued feeling you, groping you though you weren’t visible to him. Logan’s nostrils flared as he smelled your arousal and he sighed, his tongue peeking out to moisten his lips. “Logan,” You whispered shyly, your hands turned fists against his abdomen while he was closing the space between the two of you. “I-you-”

“I love that perfume you wear, sweet girl.” He murmured, leaning in and smelling your neck where his hand had been holding you. “I can smell you getting excited at the thought.” His lips pressed against your neck and you trembled, you felt him smile against your skin before his tongue poked out and circled the dip of your collarbone. “Let me try something?” He asked, grabbing you firmly and lifting you up to sit you on the kitchen counter, feeling for your knees and then stepping between them as he pushed them apart.

“Okay,” You granted him permission. “But I can’t stay quiet.” You warned.

“Just stay like this,” He whispered, his lips finding yours with ease. “I’ll take care of the rest.”

Your Perfume II

Invisibility kink x Logan?👀

[anexperimentallife]

Project 2025 would ban anything the far right considers pornography. The far right considers anything queer-positive to be pornography, and they WILL encode that into law if given just a TINY bit more power.

Have queer fanfic (or trad published literature) or pics of your transition, or of two men kissing, saved to your hard drive? If the GOP get their way, you'd be guilty of possession of pornography. Did you share any of it? You'd be guilty of distribution of pornography. Have a sweet coming of age story with a queer protagonist? That'd be child pornography.

Even now, states are trying to make it a crime to be openly queer in public (by, among other things, classifying dressing as the "wrong gender" anyplace kids might see as a sex crime against children). Oh, and Florida tried (and thankfully failed) to impose the death penalty for the above.

This is just one example of the horrors awaiting us if the project comes to fruition.

And the far right is already screaming that any adult who mentions around kids that queer people exist is "grooming" children. Wear your Pride shirt past a playground? You're now a child groomer. Think they won't put that into law if allowed? You're naive.

The GOP currently controls the Supreme Court (which is how they overturned Roe v. Wade) and has a majority in one branch of congress. Imagine what will happen nationwide with the GOP controlling every branch of government, including supermajoroties in both houses of Congress.

Oh, and top GOP officials have also announced their desire to NUKE Gaza, so don't come at me with, "but I can't vote blue because Biden..." Or tell me how you think Gaza would somehow be better off with Trump and the GOP.

In France, the left and center joined together--even though they disagree vehemently on many issues (get two leftists together and they'll have three positions on any issue)--to stop the far right from totally taking over, because the one thing they ALL agree on is that fascists dictatorships are BAD.

Much the same with the UK finally kicking out their own neo-fascist party, the Torries, to install 400 Labour MPs. Not everyone loves Labour's policies, but virtually everyone with a brain cell recognizes that the Torries are fascists, and that FASCISM BAD.

"Every election, they tell us this is the most important election if our lives!" Yeah, because each election over the past several decades has been more important than the one before, until we are now at a tipping point between remaining a fucked up oligarchy with SOME resemblance to freedom, and an outright neo-fascist military dictatorship.

Trump has literally stated publicly his intent to criminalize dissent, use US armed forces against protesters (Kent State, but multiply it by thousands), purge all agencies and stuff them with those personally loyal to him, and use the DOJ to go after anyone he perceives as a threat to his political power, among other things.

And remember the things he did in office, like pulling the teeth of federal workplace protections for queer folks (which Biden reatored).

I don't care if you don't like Biden or Harris. Neither do I. But the alternative is Trump, and anyone telling you not to vote in 2024, or to vote third party, is rooting for Trump, and for Project 2025. Anyone telling you not to vote does not give one single solitary flying fuck about vulnerable populations in the US or anywhere else in the world.

"You're just being an alarmist!" Right. Like I was being alarmist when I predicted the failed Jan 6 coup attempt. Like I was being alarmist when I said the GOP would try to use control over SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Fucking vote.

[ghostedeabha]

imagine like simon goes into some sort of surgery and has to be put under anesthesia, and when he gets out hes like still high asf on it 💀 and hes being a lil silly goose

okay this is such a cute idea omg, this is 100% based off that tiktok audio where it's like "my wife wouldn't like you touching me like that" "i AM your wife."

thank you so much for the request nonnie, a forehead kiss for you MWAH MWAH

simon 'ghost' riley x reader

wc: 563

warnings: none really, lots and lots of that good ol fluff, mentions of surgery, goofy simon, maybe a little ooc simon (he's high so it's fine)

a/n: i hope this is okay, i'm feeling a bit rusty with my writing but i've finally got back some motivation and energy to do so after the past two months of low energy and bad mental health. if you guys want to know a bit more about it and my mental health (i don't see why anyone would but lmao) let me know, i don't mind making a post about it if you guys want an explanation of some sort or whatever. anywho, sorry this is so short but i hope you still like it!! <3

a/n 2.0: i recently applied for a part time job at a bookstore so y'all pray for me that i get this job because i want it so bad. i am just gonna decide that i WILL get this job, because why wouldn't i?

simon had been out of surgery for just over an hour now, being a soldier you 'd think perhaps he was going under surgery for some kind of wound he had inflicted upon him on the battlefield but no, he was just getting his tonsils removed after a bad bout of tonsillitis ended up with him developing really bad tonsil stones.

so here you were, waiting by his bedside for him to wake up. the doctor and nurses reminded you just as he had gotten out that he may still be a little, well loopy, off of the meds depending on how quickly he woke up. you waited in a chair at his bedside, reading a book when you heard the blankets of the bed rustling just a little.

looking up from your book you see simon starting to wake up and you reach out to grasp his hand, only for him to rip it away from you when his eyes were fully opened.

"uh, si? you okay, hon?" you ask gently, maybe he just wasn't feeling too well after waking up, or perhaps he wasn't wanting physical touch, that happened quite often and you always respected that space he may want when he wanted it.

"don't call me that." simon said, voice hoarse and scratchy from the surgery, he sounded a little angry.

"what?" you questioned, this wasn't like simon, you couldn't understand why he wouldn't want you speaking like this to him.

"i'm taken."

"i know." you replied with a short laugh.

"you should be touching me like that then."

it hit you then, he was woozy from the meds and didn't recognize you. the realization made you laugh a little more. you decided to have a bit of fun with this high version of your boyfriend.

"sorry about that simon. wanna tell me about your partner?"

"oh, (name)? they're amazing, you know they're so pretty. and they're funny too. they always know how to make me feel better, i miss them." simon replies, ranting and raving on and on to you about his partner, about you.

"you love them a lot, don't you?" you ask him with a smile, it felt so nice to hear all these lovely things about yourself, your boyfriend clearly unfiltered by the effects of the anesthesia he was under.

sure he definitely said sweet things to your face, but something about hearing it when he was basically high as shit made your heart pound a little more.

"i love them with my whole heart." simon replies, a goofy little smile on his face.

you can't help but reach out to gently caress his face at those words, body filling up with some much adoration for the soldier in front of you.

"hey! what did i say about touching me. i have a partner!" simon scolds, trying to dodge your touch.

"simon, love... i am your partner. it's me, (name)." you reply with a laugh.

simon takes a good long look at you when you tell him this, he stares at you, looks you up and down before letting out a soft and quiet "oh."

you begin to hear the beeping of his heart rate monitor speed up, his cheeks turning slightly pink as he stares up at you.

you couldn't help but laugh a little more at this. what a sweet idiot. your sweet idiot.