#anyway from my limited knowledge. this sounds legit.

[geoffrard]

please tell me more about this geoff/gerard proof 👀

anon how much time do u have

thought about being jokingly tinhatting with my response to this but i dont actually think they full fucked or whatever. so instead i'm just gonna dump several thousand words of an earnest attempt to outline why geoff and gerard deserve the same treatment received by other legendary canonical friendships like bert & gerard, mikey & pete, etc etc

also i caught the riot fest covid so idk how comprensible i will be. and idk how much sense some of this will make if you don't already have, like, rudimentary knowledge about geoff rickly's start in the hardcore scene in new brunswick, nj, so obligatory plug of the thursday primer that me and nic @raytorosaurus put out a while ago.

but tl;dr, geoff rickly and gerard way were drawn to each other literally from the beginning. since then, neither have left the other's orbit. they are legit cosmically connected narrative foils who could have been each other's closest confidant but never have been more than incredibly meaningful people to the other due to instance after instance of wrong place, wrong time.

i'll do my best to sum up some of the most poignant moments in their over twenty-year-long friendship, but nic and i are drafting several other posts that more diligently delineate the connections between thursday and mcr in their overlapping, mirrored careers and similarities/divergences in their goals/approaches as musicians.

so anyway despite what you might have assumed from the story that goes around where geoff heard gerard and mikey (badly) playing vampires at the eyeball house and wasn't impressed, i believe that at that point they'd already been friends for a while.

this is how gerard recalls the moment he met geoff:

Way: I remember it super vividly. Do you remember? I was walking out of the record shop that Alex [Saavedra, Eyeball Records] worked at on Kearny Avenue and you were standing against a wall wearing a black t-shirt. You were rail skinny and you looked like you were dying and you were so pale with this jet black hair. Rickly: My vegan lifestyle was not agreeing with me. Way: It looked like the sun was killing him. [long pause] And I thought he was super cool. (from their interview with vice in 2015)

long pause and i thought he was super cool.....like....

this is what geoff looked like back then btw. im guessing it was around 2000/early 2001 that they met since thats the outer limits of geoff's black hair goth days

(source)

gerard designed shirts for bands in the scene, including this one for thursday, probably done around 2001 when the dove became the main symbol associated with thursday. at this point mikey was a regular at the eyeball house but gerard was still hiding away in his house, but would always talk about his brother.

Geoff: "I knew Mikey from parties at the eyeball house. I liked Mikey a lot, and he was like, 'you're gonna love my brother Gee (he called him Gee all the time), Gerard, he's the best comic book artist, he's always at home, just working on comic books.' So I was like yeah, I wanna meet this kid, you know, I wanna make comic books with him, you know, that sounds awesome!" (source)

after that geoff kept asking mikey when his brother would come down to the eyeball house, because he'd loved comics since he was a kid, but he was too shy to verbalize that, and his love of comics wasn't something he'd ever actually shared with anyone other than his grandmother, who had just passed away, but he heard that this quiet guy who'd sometimes hang out with the scene's resident kid brother was this amazing comic book artist, and geoff decided that gerard was a person he wanted to know.

So like they were literally talking about writing a comic book together: geoff would write and gerard would draw. but they never were able to spend that much time together. thursday found massive and unanticipated success in late 2001 when understanding in a car crash started playing on mtv nonstop and gerard was still a hermit for the most part but had started to piece together the band that would become my chemical romance.

so then blah blah blah the story where gerard and mikey introduced the idea of their band to geoff we've all heard it. i linked it above but you can read the excerpt from dan ozzi's sellout here if you aren't familiar with the details already.

and that story ends with geoff listening to their demo and realizing that this little band actually had something. but i firmly believe that geoff loved the scene and was so compelled by gerard's art and wanted to collaborate creatively with him that he would have been willing to do it regardless of if he came around to their music or not.

geoff said this in a podcast in 2018:

"Gerard is sort of like... when he's not sort of hiding out in his house somewhere, he's actually so charming and personable. There's a reason why I was so drawn to him, and that he's, like, a superstar."

obviously we'll never know, because geoff was so compelled by the music that he played their demo to death in the tour van and then took the only two weeks that thursday had off in one of the busiest years of their career while in the midst of a super contentious legal affair with their record label to produce bullets.

okay now that i am looking at what i have written so far i look like an insane person and that is okay but i think that i will save the rest for another longer post about the fated careers of mcr and thursday. but i feel that i have done my job by just giving you this taste. more to come but their friendship literally so expansive and detailed (in ways that I don't usually see articulated here) that a single tumblr post is never going to do it justice. as i said, stay tuned, we're working on something more.

tl;dr (another one) gerard and geoff are perennially obsessed with each other & have been since literally the first time that they laid eyes on each other and it comes out the second that either of them have to be even a little reflective on the other's career thanks for reading my manifesto bye.

[aestheticallynotdeerlightful]

A lot happened this Jimmy stream (Mar 16, 2023) a summary and rambling of notable important bits for those who can’t watch it

(Putting it under readmore because it’s a lot)

Prismarine plant #3 this one resembling the tree and so far being the one whose revealed the most info about themselves

After giving it the requested 64 buckets of water, they’ve revealed themselves as the fae. Water puddles and other flora growing around it, which you can see here (ignore the title I was live-blogging)

“Fae, almighty fae, you are the one person now- one thing, one whatever- that I respect in this world, there’s no one I respect in this world anymore except you” -jimmy.

He at first wanted to wish for respect, as well as either being tall again or getting his wings back but in the end let’s them decide

He’s letting them choose what it wishes to give him.

So the waiting begins. In the meantime let’s discuss these prismarine fae and what they could mean (now my knowledge of fae stuff is limited, but I will recite what I know of these plants)

So far we’ve seen three of them.

• “Plantea” as dubbed by Joey, located near Eversea, appears to represent a giant lotus. Joey came to sausage for help with the this and it requested they bring them turtles

• Then there’s the Mushroom like plant, located near glimmergrove, she and Lizzie discovered it and it requested that they fill its composters to the brim (about 20 or so)

•And the tree, located at jimmys, asking for 64 buckets of water

So far (Atleast on video) jimmys the only one whose gotten a thank you and a wish

Now moving on

Jimmy and the old sheriff (OS or OZ) decide to catch and jail the ones who killed him (sausage, gem, and fwhip, and then later Shelby) stumbling across sausage who called OS the real sheriff and referred to jimmy as the assistant sheriff. Ouch- To report a crime (the theft of his anvils, which spoiler alert are now blown up because of Lizzie)

They both failed, sausage got OS trapped instead, tried to blow sausage up, failed. After sausage fled jimmy takes OS to the fae tree before heading off with him to Shelby’s base to kill her, it doesn’t go well

They run across evil sausage while confronting Shelby (noting that she was “corrupted” seeing the shulk on her), and in attempt to kill her OS dies and jimmy dies while enderpearling away from evil sausages arrows. Not having a good day. Jimmy awakes up back in tumbletown, honestly sound pretty sad when he couldn’t find OS (I legit thought he was dead dead because he follows some npc rules) You can find the clip here,

Jimmy decides to ask the fae what to do and they gave him a riddle to find his gift

After following the instructions, he takes the gift- without solving the riddle first I should mention- thanking them and moving on while chat discussed the riddle (the gift was a new elytra)

Jimmy meets up with OS again in the nether, and upon returning to tumbletown start with a raid. Possibly started by the fae. And insert the longest raid ever. vexes, evokers, witches, ravangers, vindicators etc etc, they both died a lot. And then finally it’s over, both of them take a rest at the saloon,

Os leaving off with the message and “and with that the training arc was complete, this guy was ready to go take on the big wigs and the other towns. Nobody else would disrespect the sheriff ever again, and if they did, they’d pay for it” and logs out

Jimmy decides to end the stream, he has yet to solve the riddle, nor has chat

Anyways that’s my thoughts and all the important bits thank you

[gutwrenchflowerbomb]

Attention Wrestling Fans

Hello. I’m Tiffany. My tumblr name is Bonzo Gonzo Pod. It has been for a while. This is because I was planning to start a wrestling related podcast with my IRL best friend. However, due to a number of factors beyond our control (basically-pandemic stuff, me working like 60+ every week and then my friend having a legit nervous breakdown and seeking treatment etc) we never got anything published. We did test runs, sound checks, practice shows etc but that was it.

Anyway, I am no longer having to work 60+ hour weeks and the itch to podcast is still there. But my friend isn’t ready to commit and I’m not gonna wait for him. So, I’m seeking folks online who might be interested in joining with me! I’m not asking for a a weekly commitment or anything but my initial idea was to do a Chikara anthology. Like, literally go and watch every special/episode from the beginning and just talk about it. Format would be comedic of course. And you don’t have to do every single one! I think having different folks on as a “guest” would be neat and offer a ton of different perspectives!

I think this would be fun to do with someone who was either No or very limited knowledge of Chikara. I have tons of other ideas for the show but I also lack confidence and don’t think I could make it anywhere near interesting as a one woman gig.

So if this sounds like something you’d be down to do, send me a message! I have zero aspirations when it comes to be “making it big” with this, it’s for fun and if other people enjoy it, I would thrive off of that.

[rayofsunas]

Hey so regarding inazuma and Baal I have some head cannons and your my favorite writer so I thought I’d just dump them all here.

Insazuma is the nation of eternity right? And Baal is basically the second archon after the original one died off somewhere presumably 500 years ago during the destruction of khaenri'ah.

The vision hunt decree was created for the Perdue of “eternity” and subsequently the people who’s visions were taken lost all their ambition. You get where I’m going here? Maybe Baal isn’t acting out of greed, but are justificing her actions to protect her people? The people of khaenri'ah had ambitions greater than anyone in that world could comprehend; they lived withought the guidance of a God, sought knowledge well beyond their limits and created destructive machines capable of “tilling” an enter battle field. Already we can see a shift in the archons perspective towards celestial- venti stated outright that he doesn’t like celestial, and Zhongli not only retired from his role as an archon but placed several meticulously planned tests to gouge his nations strength and stability in the face of a destructive god. Both nations, in a way, are becoming more similar to khaenri'ah in that they are both Godless, independent, and free from omnipotent influences.

Here’s my theory; The Goddess Baal, before inheriting the title of Archon, had witnessed the massacre and destruction of the khaenri'ah people and in order to prevent her nation from suffering the same fate she had launched the vision hunt decree to remove the people’s ambitions before it consumes them. She has witnessed the power of celestia, and in order to avoid the same fate she has made it her goal to separate Inazume from khaenri'ah in all forms and that’s why she continues on her role as archon instead of watching from the sides like venti or Zhongli.

Another thing, a small spoiler warning for those who haven’t finished the quest

I think people who are emotionless used to be the most emotional and heartfelt kind of individuals. Ayaka describes the Raiden Shogun as a cold and emotionless being, akin to a manager or something (I can’t remember her exact words) and I think that’s because Baal had been planning the decree for a long time now and had to steel her resolve knowing the impact it would have on the common folk. In her mind, what she is doing is better for the lo run and is necessary for the survival of her people.

This is just a theory, I haven’t finished the quest myself but it’s been weighing on me for quite sometime now. Anyways, I hope you have a wonderful day!

SPOILERS + be prepared for my declarations rambles.

YOU’RE SO SMART, AND YOU'VE SPURRED ON MY LOCKED AWAY THEORIES THANKS. and I thought similarly, though now that you mention it, baal behaving selfishly seems like she could be protecting her people. after all, the vision hunt decree only happened recently (I think months to a year before the traveler’s arrival in mondstadt), so something shifted dramatically between the archons and celestial for baal to do that in the first place.

me and my friends chat about theories like this all the time on discord and everything you said makes so much sense! I also thought zhongli stepping away from his role as an archon was not just his way of freeing himself, but his way of seeing how his people would fair without a god (this is legit confirmed i think); and they’ve done just fine, proving to celestia that they’re wrong in believing nations and people need a ruling governing body, like an archon. but I feel like baal is still just selfish, even if she’s doing this to protect her citizens, my gut is just telling me she could be both selfish and also be doing this to protect her people.

but about the archons; my friends and I have tied the archons to tons of real life lore and myths, and something that keeps popping up with all the archons is different types of religion and beliefs; we found out that they each represent or are similar to the seven princes of hell (and there’s something about them coming up in demonology a crap ton too, and the similarities are a bit too similar... PAIMON IS MENTIONED TOO AS A KING OF HELL IN DEMONOLOGY LORE AND THAT'S NOT VERY CUTE.... I HAVE SO MANY THEORIES FOR PAIMON YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!). but I think the archons are like 50/50 bad and good (like they’ve done bad things willingly or not before the travelers arrival aka destruction of khaenri’ah) but celestia is the main antagonist, I’m 100% positive of that.

the hydro archon is said to know not to make an enemy of celestia/the divine, so I feel if any of the gods were to back celestia, it would be the hydro archon. but, this leads me to my first question; what in the world does celestia think about the gnosis’ being taken? I’m gonna assume they may care a little less about venti and zhongli because they’ve basically retired, but the other archons? they’re still active and actively represent celestia, so I’m curious to know what celestia would do when baal’s is taken (we know that she’s the next target, because one of the tsaritsa’s goals is to take them all). will baal be punished since she’s still an active ruling archon, or not? something is telling me she will, but who knows...

and this may sound obvious, but i think the archons represent celestia’s own ideals, although over time with the change of archons and maybe shifted opinions in celestia, said archons have changed and now their actions contradict what their title is, I think the reason behind that is because they’re the original and last reigning archons over their respective nations, but the others? they represent ideals, and some of their actions or just people interfering (harbingers talking the gnosis') have contradicted what they stand for entirely.

for example,

venti (ideal is freedom): his is so ironically obvious, but his gnosis was taken from him, against his will; there's nothing free about that. and he also retired from being an archon, and because of that went into hiding, also nothing free about that either; yet he represents freedom. you see what i'm trying to say? lol.

zhongli (ideal is contracts): nothing for him because i don't know much, but i think it's funny how he represents contracts, which are usually very tedious and there's a lot of depth in them, and he just gave his gnosis up so easily and willlingly (even if he has his reasons) by creating a contract like ???? it's funny to me.

baal (ideal is eternity): I haven’t started the archon quest yet for her, but I know she says she is the most eternal of all and sees herself as everlasting, but she’s legit younger than a good few of the archons (venti and zhongli so far!). I also think the original archons ideal was eternity and that’s what they had hoped for their people, but after the fall of khaenri’ah, war, and their death, baal came into power and realized it would be a threat to celestia if the people believe in eternity (like I said, something shifted severely after the war, because a lot of the original archons died or disappeared and their ideals almost became shrewd and a thing of the past with the new ones who took their places) therefore creating the vision hunt decree to get rid of visions; with more people coming into contact with visions, or maybe even when they realized humanity would be fine without an archon ruling over them, war would break out again and this time celestia would be the target. speaking of targets, this is random, but there’s an overwhelming presence of military surrounding/in inazuma and maybe that’s not just to collect visions and because war broke out amongst the people there, but it’s for protection against celestia and the harbingers (I think the other archons know about venti and zhongli's gnosis' being taken, so they're all weary). if baal were to overthrow celestia or betray them somehow, I’m sure since she’s an active archon they would retaliate.

the dendro archon (ideal is wisdom): the dendro archon is way more obvious, as dainsleif says he’s less than wise, but that’s his ideal... he’s also the youngest, so that’s another contradicting fact; young people are often called unwise.

the hydro archon (ideal is justice): I know nothing about her, but she represents justice. I don’t have a solid explanation for her, but based off of theories and if for a moment we assume celestia is the main antagonist, she is said to be afraid of celestia but seemingly backs them by not leaving like venti and zhongli... considering what they’ve done, I’d say she can’t possibly represent the ideal of justice correctly if what had happened to khaenri’ah was far from just, especially since the archons and celestia were behind it but her ideal is justice?

murata (ideal is war): I have no idea about her at all either, there's not much... but considering vanessa was able to pass into celestia when she died and she's considered the children of murata, I think we'll get more info on celestia then too, and more about khaenri'ah, since she's the god of war. she's gonna have the DEETS I tell you!!

the tsaritsa (ideal is unknown): nothing contradicting for now! she is a bit confusing because of how little info we have, but I have reason to believe she's against celestia, hence her taking the gnosis'. for now, until confirmed, I think her ideal or rather goal is to get rid of celestia. i don't think she has a gnosis or vision tbh, maybe the archon before her did and she's assumed to have one as well or maybe it even got taken away... but, i think that's one of the reasons she's created delusions, they're said to be a lot more dangerous and powerful (i think) than visions too. there's also this thing I found out about the gnosis' being designed after chess pieces, and how although there are 7 archons, there are only 6 chess pieces (pawn, rook, bishop, knight, queen, and king)... meaning one of the archons (not venti or zhongli, because we know what their gnosis' look like) has a gnosis that isn't designed after a chess piece... or in my words, doesn't have one at all. aka the tsaritsa... I think the tsaritsa not having a gnosis fits too snugly with her actions so far. and don't get me wrong! if we assume she doesn't have a gnosis, I don't think she's retaliating because of that, i think she just wants to change or get rid of celestia entirely. like this makes perfect sense because the tsaritsa is the only active archon seemingly and openly going against celestia's ideals, whatever they may be...

and about me saying the archons are "evil" or in the wrong for what happened to khaenri'ah (even if they were forced by celestia), in the archaic petra set, ZHONGLI IS SAID TO HAVE BEEN AN EMOTIONLESS AND MERCILESS GOD WHEN HE SLAUGHTERED COUNTLESS OTHER GODS DURING THE ARCON WAR, in order to fulfill a contract of sorts. this is why I think there were ulterior motives during the war and although yes, for now, it seems the archons were forced into complying during the war, I really think they had some willingness too.

at the end of my ted talk I have come to the conclusion that we can't trust the archons until we know more or celestia like... ever AND I STAND WITH THE REGULAR DEGULAR PEOPLE!!!

[franeridart]

Anon said: How are you just like "Oh these are just some warm up sketches" and post a full finished piece, while I'm over here sketching a triangle person and calling it a finished piece.

I dunno if this was a legit question asking for a legit answer, but I do happen to have a legit answer so I might as well give it! If I wanted to go into detals with it it’d take me forever though, so allow me to separate it into two points to make it easier

I learnt how to be very fast in putting down my lines and trained myself into not overthinking every single dot I put down. This took about five or six years of drawing daily and a whole life of drawing occasionally before then, because to do so you need to reach a point where you’re drawing something you’ve drawn so many times that by now your hand sort of goes without you needing to think about it much, so it’s not a fast process, but boy is it worth it. Mostly learning how to not overthink it, overthinking it used to be 90% of my time spent on a drawing and dear god did it suck the joy out of everything I drew

I have two very distinctive ways of approaching a drawing, one where I actually put effort in it and the other where I just want to let the squiggles out of my pen, and warm ups are the second one - the lack of effort I’m putting in can have different forms and show in different ways, so a warm up could be a fully colored piece as it could be just a pencil doodle, depending on where and on what exactly I’m being lazy: it could be the type of tool I’m using that allows me to draw without having to line, it could be a very tiny canvas that lets me avoid a ton of details a big canvas would demand. I might be cutting the time I usually put in making sure my anatomy is correct, I might be using a shading technique that takes a tenth of the time my usual one would, I might be using a style that’s just easier and faster to draw, or drawing characters I’ve drawn a trillion times in extremely generic poses and clothes. There’s a lot of things that I can do to make things faster for me! It’s skills you gain as you draw a lot - you learn how to draw things the hard way, and then you realize that along the way you learnt how to do them the easy way too

hope this actually answers your question! If it was a question at all lol if it wasn’t then sorry for rambling, please pretend I didn’t say anything hahaha

Anon said: I love your newest comic!!! So adorable!! I noticed Bakugou's mom does the affectionate hair rustle thing to him in the manga/anime, do you think Bakugou subconsciously does the same to show affection cause of it? I love the way you draw faces and poses, it's so expressive!!

Ahhhhh thank you so much!!! And yeah, it might be! After all we do take a lot from the people we live with even without realizing, and he’s already so similar to his mom!

Anon said: I saw your bakushima comic from October 9th (2019) where Bakugo falls asleep studying and Kirishima sets him down on the table properly and it was so soft my heart is crying

;;;;; !!!!!!!! I’m glad you liked it!! <3<3

Anon said: If it not to much, could I possibly get a Ochamina doodle pls? I just love some sweet lesbeans 👉👈

Awww I’m not taking requests right now, but I’ll keep it in mind for next time I want to doodle and don’t know what!

Anon said: I love your art! I envy you.

Please don’t! There’s a lot of reasons why being me isn’t a lot of fun - if it’s just my skill you envy, then all you gotta do is draw a lot! 

Anon said: i just went through your entire kiribaku tag and omg it was beautiful seeing the progression in your art skills but still keeping the same funny/cute/heartwarming/etc traits you thought up for their dynamic!! i hope that makes sense haha !! love your art keep it up

It does make sense!!! Thank you so much both for looking through the whole tag and for thinking so, it means a lot to me!! ;;; <3<3

Anon said: Hey fran! I hope you're doing well(especially with quarantine and all)!! I really love your anatomy and how fluid and stylistic it can be! It's super fun to look at! I wanted to ask you if you ever did any in depth studies on anatomy? Like muscles and bones. I've heard a lot of artists mention the necessity of studying bones/muscles, i'd really like to know your opinion on the subject

Ahhh god thank you so much!! And... hmm let’s see if I can word this properly and have it make sense - always keeping in mind that this is just my opinion, of course!

If all you want to do is to draw, then all you need to do is to pick up your pencil and draw - it’s really that easy as far as I’m concerned. You don’t need to know anatomy in depth to just draw, everyone has seen a person, everyone knows how a person looks. That is, if all you want to do is to draw for the sake of drawing. If you want to draw an anatomically correct looking human being, though, you do need to know how anatomy works - and the deeper you’ll go into studying it the more correct your people will look. It’s kind how everyone can draw a bicycle, but if you want to draw a realistic bicycle you’re gonna need to look up references for it, you know? It’s all on the level at which you’re interested in drawing, the more technically skilled you want to be the more you’ll have to study

As for my personal experience with this, I hate studying with a passion. Studying puts a damper on my enjoyement of everything, and drawing isn’t excluded from this - you put a book in front of me expecting me to study it and suddenly I never want to pick up a pencil again. This means that I never sat down and studied anatomy in depth and all in one go just to learn how to draw a human being, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t, slowly and now and again and in bits and pieces, study parts of the body to get a better understanding of it. I know better about the skeleton than I do about muscles, and I still have enough to learn about everything that anyone who’s studied anatomy properly would find a trillion mistakes in everything I draw, but my way of going about drawing has always been and always will be putting my enjoyement of it first and foremost, so I’m not interested in putting myself through a tour-de-force to learn everything there is to know about anatomy just to make my doodles look appealing to someone with a medical degree haha I’m just doing me, and when the mood is right I look up how to properly draw something, but until then I just do it as best as I can with my limited knowledge, being fully aware that what I’m producing is far from accurate but being willing to make that compromise for my own comfort

So that’s my opinion on it lol it all boils down to how important it is for you to know how to properly draw the human body - of course it’s gonna look more professional and better if you’ve studied it, but everyone has their own priorities, you know?

Anon said: Thank you for your hard work, seeing an upload from you is so nice, and the colors are so pretty

Thank you so muuuuccchhhhh!!!! TTATT <3<3<3

Anon said: Opinions on Tokoyami Fumikage 💕

One of my top faves in the whole manga, actually! I have a drawing in the making of him, I should get back to it..........

Anon said: HOLY SHIT FRAN THE TOES HOW YOU DRAW THE TOES SO WELL FEET ARE THE DEATH OF ME AND YOU’RE OVER HERE DRAWING TOES THEY’RE SO GOOD PLEASE TEACH ME YOUR WAYS!!! -❤️

Thank you!!!!!!!! So pretty much my way of learning this specific skill was being obsessed with elves when I was fifteen and wanting to draw them all the time  and also for whatever reason being convinced that they were not supposed to wear shoes so I just drew a lot of feet with references and tutorials and stuff till I could draw my elves properly. Which isn’t necessarily what you need to do to learn how to draw feet, but, I mean, it worked for me lol

Anon said: I love ur Bnha ships and all but what would u do if some of them didn’t become canon??

Oh, I actually don’t care about that at all? I don’t expect most of them to become canon anyway - like, ochadeku sounds reasonable and kamijirou seems to be getting there, but everything else I never even considered it as an actual possibilily. I don’t really ship because I want to see my ships become canon, I just like the potential in what I can make with them? If that makes sense? They’re just fun to think about and I like making fancontent, that’s all there is to it really haha honestly if I had my way no ship would ever be canon ever ha ha ha

Anon said: Slep is for the wek

No actually sleep is for Frans who want a chance at getting up tomorrow morning without an headache for once, so I should do that and go to sleep already lmao

[ryttu3k]

Hello naughty children it's Gehenna time.

...which means I'm going to read the book properly this time and write notes on each scenario, partially for my own reference, partially in answer to an ask from @rayshell22livejournalcom​ from about a zillion years ago. Sorry about that!

Mood soundtrack: Godspeed You! Black Emperor - F# A# ∞; Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven; Yanqui U.X.O.

Prelude: Netchurch is an interesting character. Very skeptical, despite, well, the entire setting, although that's definitely, uh, broken by the end. Feel very sad for Afifa, who was a pawn in all this. Creepy babies galore!

Introduction: "While Vampire favors that futile, tragic, and - we'll say it - angst-heavy conclusion" - lmao you don't say. Although I do like how they have the consistent golden rule that if you don't like it, just ditch it! (Of course, the Gehenna scenarios as a whole have been completely retconned anyway by v20 and v5, so this entire book is a good example of taking what you want from it and ignoring the rest.)

"Some people are on opposite sides of this thing. They're elders who don't want to knuckle under to the Antediluvians (most elders will accept their proper place in the heirarchy again with the rising of their progenitors) and poor, misled souls who bought into the lie and are pissed about it (paging Mr. Pieterzoon). Bottom line: the Camarilla collapses like Enron/WorldCom as the worthlessness of its foundation becomes public knowledge. Chaos ensues among the vampire community, princes find themselves besieged by their own locals, and it's all a big clusterfuck."

Have I ever mentioned I love how VtM phrases stuff? Also F to Jan.

I like how they have a masterlist of what's actually going on with the Antediluvians. Spoilers ;D "For example, note that [Tzimisce] is simply referred to as [Tzimisce]. Even here at the game studio, our limited mortal minds weren't able to comphrenend the creature's real name." Lovecraft only WISHES he had eldritch abominations this spooky! Ennoia is 'Active and scary' and apparently spooks the devs just thinking about it. Makes sense. "Giovanni (Augustus Giovanni): Augustus is a pig, and he should probably die as one of the early events of Gehenna. He's the youngest of the Antediluvians and probably possessed the greatest ego (in mortal terms), so it'll be cosmic justice when he eats it." I love how no one likes Giovanni, even his creators. Malkav may or may not BE the Madness Network, in which case they cease to be an Antediluvian and just become... a part of the Malkavians, I guess? Absimiliard may or may not be chilling at the bottom of the ocean, because mood. Tremere / Saulot is definitely a fun one to play with, yeah. Although, oof, if Saulot ever gets control of their shared body, he's going to be fucked up if [Tzimisce] activates, so. Probably better to create a nice fresh body, like what BJD suggests with the child Saulot.

Chapter 1 - the lead-up: Basically a rundown of the signs and how they're interpreted. "An angel dies: How does an angel die? Who has the gall to rise up and slay one of God's firstborn? Or perhaps this is another metaphor. An angel could be a pure and gentle creature, or then again, it need not be one of God's angels (not that God's angels are necessarily pure and gentle). A feared and particularly vicious Necronomist Tzimisce, Sascha Vykos is sometimes referred to as the Angel of Caine. Many would rejoice the night that Vykos died." Hey rude :( I vote they kill Michael instead. He wants to be an Archangel? Fine, he can fulfill a prophesy XD

Honestly I really do dig that Ennoia Earthmelded with the entire planet. You can go so many directions with that, good or bad! Ennoia as The Beast Below, or Ennoia as Gaia? (Wow, that'd really fuck with the Garou XD) I love how the general consensus on Haqim is like, no one knows if he exists or not but lbr Ur-Shulgi is bad enough. Kinda dig the idea of the Toreador ante, Ishtar/Arikel, being genderfluid? I mean yeah essentially demigods have no need for gender anyway, but the constant debates over whether the Toreador ante is the female Ishtar or the male Arikel (or, uh, was it vice versa?) does lead to some interesting concepts. Ooh, similar to [Tzimisce] being linked to its entire clan (and the Tremere, anyone who's ever taken part in the Vaulderie, and anyone who knows Vicissitude), [Lasombra] may be connected to anyone who knows Obtenebration? [Ravnos]... yeah, probably dead. F to the clan. And yeah I think [Tzimisce] is flat-out the scariest one of all, and probably the one most likely to actually start the apocalypse, lbr.

Ugh this is one of the books that calls Sascha 'it' :-\ Do not like. ...Also do not like the suggestion that they're an unknowing agent of the Eldest, given, uh, the last chapter of the DA Tzimisce novel. Shoo! Shoo! You've ruined their unlife enough as it is!

Epistolary material! I do dig those. Most interesting: a letter to Sascha mentioning apocalyptic visions of New York but with the Carpathians in the background, and an anonymous letter to Hardestadt warning him of one of his line tearing down a castle that the writer feels believes the Camarilla. GO JAN FUCK IT UP.

And on to the scenarios themselves!

Chapter 2 - Wormwood: This is an interesting one. Literally a Biblical vengeance - God takes a good look at the Children of Caine and goes, "Well, this is fucked up", acknowledges that Caine never really sought true forgiveness and repentance, and sets forth Wormwood, the Red Star. The truly repentant are saved, the rest just. Die.

Herald here is a dhampir girl named Alia - thinblood father, human mother. When she's twelve, she becomes God's chosen, basically. Traveling with three thinblood guardians, one night, she's approached a Gargoyle named Ferox with True Faith, who sees himself as a fallen angel. And Alia offers him a way of redemption - find the chosen true believers, wait out Wormwood, receive judgement. Anyone can seek sanctuary, only the true believers and the ones genuinely willing to repent will survive the judgement itself. Alia and Ferox set out to find the other chosen ones.

Whew. Very full-on - the players remain in one place with a whole bunch of other vampires for forty nights. I mean, that's a test in and of itself XD All welcome! (Except infernalists and the antediluvians and Caine himself. They're fucked no matter what.)

Like. All welcome XD "Some Storytellers might feel that this character roundup could get too silly, suddenly having all these celebrity Kindred get together for a big slumber party, and they would be correct." Fuck that give me a slumber party AU XD

Am very glad about the note that the vampires inside only lose one blood point per 10 days, rather than every day. Otherwise, uh, it'd get gory.

Yeah, this is a really interesting scenario. Very character-focused, very introspective. All about the characters trying to work out what it means to be good people - not the strongest vampires, not the most powerful, but good people. Are they worthy of salvation? That's the crux of the story. Of course, it's very, uh, Biblical, heh, but it's first and foremost about morality and redemption. I dig it.

Also, giant vampire slumber party.

Chapter 3 - Fair is Foul: Ooh, this is a Lilith vs Caine scenario.

This one has the Withering hit in weird ways, including clan-specific ones - like the Banu Haqim only able to feed on vitae, then only able to gain sustenance from diablerie. Gangrel turn even more animalistic. Lasombra take to the seas, Obtenebration ripping holes straight to the Abyss. Malks, uh, leak madness. Nosferatu get even uglier, Toreador devolve into debauchery. Tremere develop third eyes, and yes, I did laugh out loud when I read that. Tzimisce... hmm... get a bit, uh, uncontrolled. And Ventrue find they can now only feed on... other Ventrue. Fun times!

"At your discretion, Lilith might be particularly vulnerable to Jewish True Faith, as the Jewish tales about her are the source of nearly every negative sentiment ever directed against her in writing. As a result, most orthodox Jews bear Lilith great contempt for defying her husband and her God." Yeah ngl I think she's pretty dang cool and I can just see, like, most of my ancestors facepalming at the idea XD;; Fuck obediance you do your own thing.

"Trying to work out traits for Lilith, Lucifer, Caine, or any of the Antediluvians would just be a waste of our word count and your time." I like the time they published a guide for fighting Caine. It was two words. "You lose."

Ah. Okay, Saulot in Tremere's body being taken over by the Eldest = scary, because have you ever been attacked by an Antediluvian wielding Thaumaturgy, Valeran, and Vicissitude at the SAME :) TIME? :) Yeah :)

Really dig the idea of Abel showing up as the first Wraith. The forgiveness element.

Overall, this isn't my favourite scenario, I think? It feels very chaotic, and while it's probably the most traditional to play, I'm not sure how much it literally challenges the characters, unlike the sheer soul-searching...ness of Wormwood?

Chapter 4 - Nightshade: Chapter starts with, "We all wear masks" and my first thought was "boy you have no idea" XD

Awww yes this is the masquerade break scenario! See here for my thoughts on that and how the Nephtali could be adapted to v5, heh.

Yeah okay earthquakes, volcanoes, and riots are normal enough. A horrible blood virus where it appears some flesh-like thing is living in people's veins and feeding off their blood sounds like something that starts with T and rhymes with Shzimitze. ...Probably. No one knows how the fuck it's pronounced anyway. Oops, those riots are apparently over the existence of vampires. Yeah that'd be... unfortunate. And more earthquakes, this time due to Kupala vs the Eldest. Whew. Red star, yep, standard. MORE earthquakes, this time due to the Second City rising. Sounds legit. Bad times all around!

The details on breaking the Masquerade are interesting. Basic emotions: denial, rationalisation, fear, anger, acceptance. The acceptance one is interesting, because I can definitely see some jumping to it straight away.

So, on to the scenario itself! Jan recruits the players to fight the... uh, mass under NYC. This is the corpse of the Eldest, which is more or less a giant fungal infection held together with Vicissitude, which frankly is just icky. This actually is  canon-compliant with BJD, since it apparently has only just... dissipated? or whatever there, or if it still remains, it's no longer conscious. In this one, its soul flicks back to Tremere's/Saulot's body and wakes up, and basically every Tzimisce, Tremere, and anyone who has ever drank Tzimisce blood (which would be the entire Sabbat via Vaulderie) spontaneously frenzies. Godspeed. Cyscek, a Tzimisce methuselah, helps defeat the, uh, blob at the expense of his life, and warns with his last words, "The Dragon rises. You must stop it. Find Vykos. [They] know." (Okay yeah the text says 'it knows' but also fuck that.) Ooh, plot point!

Aaaand then they retreat from the battle, exhausted, only to find the whole damn thing broadcast on every TV screen, vampiric Disciplines and Cyscek dusting and all. W h o o p s.

Lots and lots of details of a major masquerade breach here. Hardestadt shows up and tells Jan he's proooobably gonna get Final Death for, you know, trying to save the world. Gonna share this bit because it's Very Satisfying.

Please refer to my tag #hardestadt has no rights ;D

Anyway! The characters now recruited, Jan leads them back to London for the Convention of Fire. He's working with Calebros and... like a bunch of others, probably anyone can end up here, so long as they want to actually help and not just fall apart like the remnants of the Camarilla (trying to diablerise their way into keeping power) and the Sabbat (...ditto tbh). Those definitely in attendance are Ambrogino Giovanni, Hesha Ruhadze, and Fatima! And lbr the Nod Squad are probably there too. As if Beckett would pass up the chance to NOT witness what's happening with Gehenna. And Anatole is literally a prophet of Gehenna! They found the Nephtali, led by a council of twelve, with Jan at the head. Name means 'the highest point' or 'no further' - as in, Gehenna goes no further than this.

Oh lmao here we go, the scene I mentioned earlier - Jan vs talk shows.

F to Jan.

Tremere's body (inhabited by Saulot) disappears from beneath the Vienna chantry. Tremere's body, with [Tzimisce] now well in control (having overtaken Saulot; Tremere, meanwhile, has taken over Goratrix's body, with Goratrix's mind stuck in a mirror... it's complicated), wipes out the Vienna chantry. RIP to the Vienna chantry, which doesn't survive in either timeline tbh. Hey, I wonder if that means that Saulot (in Tremere's body) is dead in v5? Etrius manages to escape and reports that the Eldest is now on the way to Ceoris, where it'll call all the remaining Tzimisce to it to become, uh, a part. Pleasant.

Everything between Krakow and Bucharest is straight fukk’d. Ceoris is the centre of all this - IIRC it's somewhere in the southern Carpathians, nearish Brasov. Either way, hell of a fight results with what can only be described as an eldritch abomination, finally both managing to destroy Kupala (the Eldest's goal) and reducing The Thing down to a human-looking body. This bit is interesting! Tremere (in Goratrix' body) and Etrius take one look at each other. "Master..." "I... I know. But where the hell is Saulot?!" Good question, because he sure ain't in Tremere's, uh, former body any more, which was in fact what was fighting them the whole time. Either way, Tremere-in-Goratrix'-body leaps at [Tzimisce]-in-Tremere's-body and diablerises his, um, former body, which must be weird as hell, then tries to turn on the characters and his powers fuckiNG FAIL. EAT SHIT TREMERE. And then the players kill him too and realise that over the course of one night they've destroyed the demon Kupala and two Antediluvians, Tremere and the Eldest. Not bad. This is the battle that causes that second lot of earthquakes I mentioned earlier.

Back to London! They find the mirror containing Goratrix amongst Tremere's belongings. Poor fucker sorry not sorry.

And now the players receive a summons to escort someone from Montreal to the Nephtali headquarters in London! Namely, a Tzimisce named Myca Vykos~ They've recently defected from the Sabbat and want to help take the Antediluvians tf down. (Note: the book here has reverted to using he/him pronouns since they're back in their original form, I'm going to keep using they/them because biological sex does not determine gender identity or pronouns goddammit. ...Anyway. I AM going to use the name Myca since that's the name they're using themself, mostly because, uh, 'Myca' is a bit less noticeable than 'Sascha Vykos', haha.)

So Gehenna has started. Myca's woken up in their original form and being like, "Hey you know what I am preTTY SURE I don't want to serve the Eldest" and promptly joins the Nephtali.

From New York to London to Romania to London to Montreal to London (...London is a hub world apparently), now off to Turkey, to Kaymakli! Which is actually a real place, my brother's been on a tour there. Anyway, this is the part of Kaymakli that they don't show the tourist and that's been sealed shut with lots of angry Cappadocians instead, so that was fun. Presumably Kapaneus hasn't been chilling out there in this one.

Also Colombia has completely been overtaken by the Sabbat so that sucks.

Into Kaymakli! Which usually doesn't let Cainites back out so it may be one-way. Don't worry, there's a ritual for that. At the bottom, they find Augustus Giovanni! Who is pissed off he never actually got to eat Cappadocius' soul and so wants to eat God instead.

As you do.

The book very strongly encourages the players to kill him. Just 'cause. Which is a mood, tbh. Killing him also reveals a beaten, bound Nosferatu, having been Giovanni's most recent food source. An F for Okulos. He's been there for four years, having managed to get a lost fragment of the Book of Nod for Beckett, who promised to come back for him and. Didn't. Which is just rude tbh and I can kind of understand why Okulos ends up betraying Beckett in the Gehenna novel but anyway. (Not canon as of v20, he's perfectly present and chill in BJD.)

End results - the fragment that Okulos went to retrieve shows how to restore the Second City, which holds a complete Book of Nod and may hold the key to stopping Gehenna. It's in Enochian so your player characters probably won't be able to read it (book suggests asking Sascha or Ambrogino). Next stop, Egypt, and a meeting with Hesha Ruhadze! Man this scenario has a lot of signature characters. It also suggests getting third parties in here too, so Beckett would actually be a really good choice. Either way, they find the probable site, and suddenly, a Second City.

Archeologists make grabby hands. Beckett, somewhere, is probably crying in joy. They find a vial with some very old blood in it that they definitely shouldn't drink because otherwise they'll explode (the book uses Sascha as the example here XD;; ). Along with some mystical enscriptions, they return to London and get to work on the prophecy - namely, it suggests that 'the gentle one' (likely Saulot) will die at the hands of another, but arise in a new form, and will stop Gehenna that way. Etrius, one of the only Tremere left and having joined the Nephtali, goes 'fuck it what do I have to lose?' and goes to find whatever new form Saulot is in (potentially can also involve Goratrix here).

Hm. Well. Saulot is apparently in a research centre outside Sydney. Apparently we're mostly chill with vampires, aside from Christians XD Go figure!

Apparently it's a cloning facility. One of the rooms had, past tense, a child, successfully cloned six-year-old, who was in perfect physical form but vegetative from birth. Religious characters will pick up that it's because the kid's body didn't have a soul. Now, it does - Saulot's. Having been thrown out of Tremere's body when the Eldest took over, his soul fled until it could find the most suitable vessel - a soulless cloned body. No actual soul to have to subdue. Saulot ends up reborn, albeit in the form of a six-year-old and without any memories. Turns out, the child was taken by a cult of Thinbloods, believing him to be the messiah.

Sydney's messy situation gets described here! Short version, Sydney's Prince is/was Sarrasine, who was a Toreador. Except he wasn't a Toreador, it was a fairly open secret he was only POSING as a Toreador - he was actually a Caitiff. (Except he's not actually a Caitiff. He's a sixth-gen Setite. Sydney is Like That, yes.) Given Sydney's independence from the sects and its apparent Caitiff Prince, it's become a major site of Caitiff and Thinbloods, which Sarrasine is just thrilled about but can't do anything about because he doesn't want to actually go 'lol I'm a Setite'. Anyway, either way, everyone is unaware of Saulot's return, so the players seek out the little boy, who's pretty spooked and confused. Asks the characters, "Who are you? What is this place? What do all these people want?" and his third eye opens. Tada! Salubri Antediluvian, and like the prophecy mentioned, he's 'unholy' and 'a mockery in the face of God' - a clone.

Back to London with kid!Saulot. The Nephtali have been trying to work out what tf is going on. A researcher tried drinking from the vial. It was messy. The characters might get some downtime. Sarrasine's followers may attack to try and get the kiddo back. Either way, everyone goes to bed, and wakes up to find a Darkness having overtaken the sun, which is generally not good for anyone, and Lasombra characters are just, feels bad man. The Veil of Darkness means vampires can be up 24/7, along with other things that don't like sunlight, and I imagine things like... plants not being thrilled. Also probably very confused animals. I'm not sure if it's like a dark atmosphere, or a physical body between the sun and Earth that just eclipses it whatever vantage point you look from, or what? Disciplines like Auspex, Obfuscate, and Obtenebration go a bit fucky. Then, a few days later, everyone feels a... Summons. For low-generation vampires with still-living Antediluvians, it's strongest. Higher gens with destroyed Antes, not so bad. So I'm sure you can guess what's summoning them.

Yep. Antediluvians. Banu Haqim are getting summoned to Alamut instead so Ur-Shulgi can turn them into an army against the Antediluvians, so godspeed resisting that, Elijah.

Off to the city of Gehenna (it's nearish Jerusalem). Elders of all stripes have been heading there to kill their childer in hope of being rewarded by their Antediluvians to get their powers restored, which is terribly rude. Indeed, the Antediluvians basically go, hey, can you not, and also can you start Embracing more childer for our armies, because they're not very nice either. Pretty much all the characters have been summoned for their crimes against the Antediluvians, and now they're gathered before them - Set, [Lasombra], Ennoia, Absimiliard, Malkav (as like... a cluster of identical little girls with glowing eyes because of course Malkav would use the Creepy Child trope), and [Toreador], who's so beautiful no one can tell if they're male or female. When the players and child!Saulot get there, they question him, but he's literally a six-year-old boy and is spooked. He also has the vial, somehow. Set takes it, and Kiddo says, "Don't drink it. You'll burn up." So Set makes Kiddo drink it instead, because he's a nice guy like that.

Kiddo's third eye opens. A giant black throne appears. The dozen small girls that are Malkav say, "Father's home." Kiddo!Saulot says, "No, Father's dead." Girls start screaming so loud people start bleeding thick black blood from their ears and doesn't stop until Set kills all twelve. A random stranger, now with their glowing eyes, steps forward and basically goes 'wow rude'.

Powerful beam of light appears. The Antes (aside from Kiddo!Saulot) writhe in pain. Angel appears, asks Saulot if he's willing to atone for all vampires. He agrees. Throne explodes, Antes fuckin' die, and everyone promptly frenzies and tries to eat each other, because vampires. In the aftermath of that, vampirism basically... ends. The player characters may be rewarded by becoming human again, as do a lot of Thinbloods, but most everyone older just, uh, dies. Vampirism ends, but the Earth has been saved.

That is... hmm, bittersweet, I think. It's a pretty compelling chronicle, very dramatic, but it's much less character-based and is more, 'the characters get dragged along to Do Shit'. I kind of like the idea of it being a story involving the characters we know, but for original characters, I think Wormwood is a much more compelling scenario so far.

Chapter 5 - The Crucible of God: Okay I'm tired now and this is the 'rocks fall everyone dies' scenario so gonna skim-read this one.

This is the chapter that introduces the level 10 power for all disciplines - Plot Device. The Antediluvians can do shit because they feel like it. Whew. Also, if an Ante spots anyone of their blood line, they can just make them... explode and their blood gushes into their mouth. Monch monch. Spot another clan mate? Roll to avoid frenzy. Just woke up? Roll to avoid frenzy. Good times!

And then the Tzimisce Antediluvian awoke as a mass of Vicissitude flesh fungal infestation with tentacles and lampray mouths and stuff and ate anything in reach until it ate, uh, every living thing in Manhattan. In one night. Bad day tbh. Eventually it burns when the sun rises, but what's left underground is still there and shit's still messed up. Like picking a leaf off a dandelion and it starts bleeding. Trees with faces, swarms of insects forming into eyes and watching. Nice and creepy. In the aftermath, it's basically infecting every life form on Earth with Vicissitude, which is distinctly uncool.

Absimliard has an animal army and currently looks like a giant humanoid jellyfish.

Oh boy here's the Banu Haqim part XD;; Interestingly, it's a lot better for them! Haqim doesn't eat his childer, they feel themselves strongly bonded to him but still maintain their own minds and wills. Downside, anyone who doesn't follow Haqim alone gets hunted down so he can eat them, so Ur-Shulgi's probably having a field day at being vindicated and poor Pyre/Elijah is hiding tf under the bed. Plus side, it only lasts a few months before something kills Haqim, so hey! And there's genuinely a way to become human again, especially for high-humanity, high-gen vampires, so that actually would be a genuinely good outcome for Pyre/Elijah.

Malkavians end up as a giant hive mind. Like, more than usual. [Lasombra] covers the world in darkness, then it stops. Ennoia merges with the entire planet and starts eating people. And vampires. And Methuselah. And other Antediluvians. She's kinda hangry at this point.

Tremere attempts to rule the entire world using the Human Genome Project as the true name of the entirety of humanity. It lasts about two minutes before [Tzimisce] turns him into a meat crime, along with, uh, the entire rest of the world, aside from the players, who were part of Tremere's ritual and thus immune from it.

Also Saulot, who they just met in the form of a little old man.

Turns out, he planned it all along. Lured Tremere to him, knowing that his body was tainted by using Tzimisce blood to become a vampire. Knew that when the Eldest returned, he'd be succeptable, and Saulot would be able to bounce out when the Eldest took over. Now, he can lead the characters in the only way to stop Planet Tzimisce, which is, uh, prayer and letting themselves get eaten. Could actually work! And you end up human again in the bargain!

End result - all vampires gone. Some of the more human ones do end up human again. Either way, world's still fucked. Open Antediluvian rule for several months has destroyed most of humanity. There are still remnants - former Malkavians who are still a bit weird, former Tzimisce who are a bit... Vicissitudey. Ennoia's still around! She's mostly chill except when she occasionally feels like rearranging landscapes. Otherwise, it's time to recover.

Alternate endings - that last one wasn't depressing enough, so here's a scenario where All Is Tzimisce, here's one where there's global extinction of literally everything except the player characters who gradually drop into torpor and never recover (or just flat out burn if they're outside), or there's one where the players are the only vampires left and start a new cycle with them as the new Antediluvians or something, oh and Caine's still kicking and is Very Displeased that God won't let him die already. Gooood times!

Rest is how to basically play it, and character sheets. Which go back to calling Sascha ‘it’ again *sigh* (And using the whole alien look despite explicitly mentioning that they look human again. Of course.)

So, final thoughts! Gehenna is... an interesting scenario. Lots of possibility for introspection. It’s very... apocalyptic, and that may bother a lot of people, since, well, for the most part, it’s going to be the end of playing your character as a vampire. Which I figure most people are playing Vampire the Masquerade for. So it’s basically either a hell of a finale, or you just don’t make use of it.

Favourite scenario did end up being Wormwood. I just really like the introspection and opportunity for hope. Did also enjoy Nightshade, but in a different way, I think? Like for Nightshade, I’d rather read it as existing characters working together, maybe as a novel, whereas for Wormwood I’d want to play it since it’s such an intensely personal kind of thing.

(I also still want a slumber party AU ngl.)

[mikauzoran]

Adrienette: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: Kiss Eighteen

Read it on AO3: Serendipity: Fifty Marichat and Adrienette Kisses: ...as encouragement.

“What did I miss?” Adrien called as he trotted up to his friends waiting at the bottom of the school’s front steps.

“Marinette’s going to win this contest Hermès is holding,” Alya announced with a smirk. “You know. No big.”

“Alya,” Marinette sighed in exasperation. “I haven’t entered yet. I haven’t even come up with a design.”

Adrien gave Nino a fist bump in greeting before turning to beam at Marinette. “Yeah, but you’re going to win once you do.”

“I don’t know about that,” Marinette mumbled, looking back down at her sketchbook.

“I do,” Alya snickered. “Listen to the boy. He knows what he’s talking about. He’s a fashion thoroughbred.”

Adrien blushed, finger going to tug at his collar. “Uh, technically, I think I’m more of a nouveau riche upstart, but I definitely know a thing or two about fashion, and you’ve got talent, Marinette. What kind of contest is it?”

“Ties,” she sighed, trying to hide how red her cheeks had become at his praise. “The artistic director for the men’s line, Véronique Nichanian, is going to be judging the finals herself, so I really want something that’s going to stand out.”

Nino gave Adrien a nudge. “Didn’t you do some modeling for Hermès a year or so ago when your father was pimping you out to other fashion houses to quote-unquote ‘expand your resume and build up the foundations of your career’?”

Adrien sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah. That happened.”

“Well, hook a girl up,” Alya chuckled, giving Adrien a teasing shove. “Not that I don’t think Marinette can win on her own merits, but having an edge never hurt anyone. What kind of insider knowledge do you have?”

“Nothing really,” Adrien admitted shamefacedly. “I wish I could be more helpful, but the only piece of advice I can think of is to do a fun, quirky pattern, but camouflage it so that it doesn’t look tacky. Like, Hermès does have some silly patterns. For example, there’s this one with horses and jockeys up in the clouds, and then on the reverse side it has the horses and jockeys with parachutes.”

Nino cracked up. “Seriously? And let me guess…they want, like, two hundred euros for it, yeah?”

Adrien shrugged helplessly. “It’s hand-sewn silk?”

Nino shook his head sadly. “Mec…no. Two hundred euros for a silly tie? That’s criminal.”

“Okay,” Adrien admitted. “That one’s a little…less sleek, in my opinion, but then they have this one tie I actually really like.”

“Also probably for two hundred euros,” Nino chuckled, elbowing his best friend playfully.

“It’s got a bunch of little blue fish on it,” Adrien explained, giving Nino a light shove. “From afar, it just looks like a normal tie with a small geometric pattern repeating, but when you get up close, you can tell that they’re fish, and it’s kind of funny. It looks professional at a distance, but up close it’s a quirky tie. I think that’s the kind of design the judges will be looking for.”

Marinette, who had been hanging on Adrien’s every word, nodded, making mental notes.

As if coming to an important realization, Adrien gave a start and hurriedly added, “Only if that’s what you’re inspired to do. I don’t want you thinking you have to limit yourself based on what I said. I don’t really know what I’m talking about, and you have such a sharp instinct for this kind of thing, so…just do whatever you think is best.”

“No, I really appreciate your input,” Marinette assured, stepping in across the little circle their group had formed to rest a hand on his forearm. “In the end, I’ll go with my gut, but what you said gave me some ideas, so I think I’m off in the right direction. Do you think there’s anything I should avoid doing? Any colours or patterns or subjects?”

Adrien bit his lip as he considered briefly. “A lot of their products have the H logo all over them. I think they’ve done the H in all the ways it’s possible to turn an H into a design element. I know you’re super innovative, but I think that, since it’s their signature thing, they’ve probably seen pretty much everything and have higher standards for what they want in that kind of design, so it might be really hit or miss. I’m not saying to play it safe, but maybe save tackling a new take on one of the signature elements of their branding for later.”

“Noted,” Marinette affirmed.

“Also, maybe avoid horses,” Adrien added with a grimace. “It’s another one of their things. I’m sure plenty of other people do horses, so if you do horses, you might not stand out unless your design is over and above amazing—which I’m sure it will be anyway, but—and, besides, they already have a lot of merchandise with horses on it, so I don’t know that that’s what they’d be looking for.”

“Why horses?” Nino couldn’t help but wonder aloud…though, he wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know.

“If I remember correctly, the company founder originally made luxury leather goods like saddles and stuff for English nobles for horseback riding. So, yeah. Lots of horses,” Adrien explained with a smile and a shrug.

Nino frowned. “I mean…I guess that’s legit.”

“So, do you have any ideas now?” Alya excitedly inquired of Marinette…who didn’t respond because she was already absorbed in her sketchpad, quickly drafting the beginnings of a handful of possible designs.

The squad watched in awed silence as Marinette’s pencil moved frenetically across the page.

Less than five minutes later, she had three rough sketches and half a dozen other fledgling ideas in the works.

“What do you think?” She flipped the sketchbook so that the others could see the page with her quick sketches and notes on colour.

Adrien’s eyes went wide as he observed that the designs were all Chat Noir-inspired.

The first featured green paw prints on a black ground, spaced close together and turned around anticlockwise on their axis so as to give the impression of cohesive dynamism.

The second was black cat heads on a rose-pink background that had the same effect as Adrien’s fish tie. From a distance, it would look like a respectable, grownup tie, but up close you could see the fun in the design.

The third had miniature Chat Noir batons arranged in staggered, downward diagonal lines that, again, looked like a normal tie design from farther away.

“That’s amazing,” Adrien breathed, looking up at Marinette as she stowed the sketchbook back in her satchel. “Did you seriously just come up with all these right now, in, like, five minutes?”

Marinette smiled shyly, tucking a bang behind her ear as she shrugged. “What can I say? You really inspired me.”

A surge of joy and pride and love welled up in his chest.

His girlfriend was the most talented, incredible woman, and he wanted to put her up on a pedestal so that everyone could see how awesome she was. And yet, she was so humble about her gift and her achievements, going so far as to pretend that he had anything to do with her genius.

He took her by the hands and watched as her eyes went wide, locking with his.

“You are so amazing, Princess,” he cooed, overwhelmed by her greatness and the miracle that a girl so out of his league could be interested in him. “You’re going to win this contest. I know you are. Do you even know how epic you are?”

She opened her mouth to reply but was cut off as Adrien leaned in, catching her lips in a short, sweet, bolstering kiss.

Marinette froze as her brain tried to reboot.

Alya gasped even as she mentally lamented the fact that she hadn’t been recording this momentous occasion.

Nino cursed under his breath, preparing to build his bro back up after Adrien inevitably got shot down.

“I am so proud of you,” Adrien continued obliviously as he pulled out of the kiss. “You’re going to have your own label before you graduate.”

“Adrien!” Marinette hissed as her system came back online, pulling back and turning away.

Adrien blinked, shrinking slightly at her sharp tone. “What? I think it’s true.”

“Adrien, you can’t kiss me like that,” she groaned.

“…Oh, crap,” he breathed, covering his face with his hands. “I did it again. I am so sorry, Marinette. I don’t—”

“—Back up,” Alya interrupted. “‘Again’? As in, this has happened before?”

“Al,” Nino growled warningly.

Alya didn’t seem to hear him. “How many times have you guys kissed behind my back?”

“Three now?” Adrien mumbled miserably.

“Alya, this is serious,” Marinette chided. “I have a boyfriend—a serious boyfriend.”

Alya rolled her eyes. “Who I’ve never met and don’t even know the name of. Girl, you may have given up on Adrienette, but I haven’t. If my ship is sailing, I deserve to know.”

“Alya,” Nino snapped even as he put one arm around Adrien’s shoulders and rested the other hand on Adrien’s forearm. “Situational awareness much?”

To Adrien, he directed a soft, comforting, “Hey, it’s okay, Mec. It’s going to be okay.”

“This is kind of a big deal,” Alya huffed. “My bestie could easily have the man of her dreams, but, instead, she’s insisting on pretending to have some fake boyfriend she made up because she’s afraid to accept happiness and the good things the universe has sent to her. Clearly, an intervention is necessary for the good of both of our best friends.”

“He’s not fake!” Marinette retorted vehemently. “I told you, I met him online. We game together, and I only know his username, but he’s a real guy, and we’re really dating, so I can’t be making out with other blondes behind his back.”

“The good of our best friends?” Nino snorted crossly. “Right now, I think the best thing for our best friends is to keep them from getting akumatized.”

“I am so sorry,” Adrien repeated powerlessly, unsure of what else he even could say.

Nino gave him a squeeze. “It’s okay, Mec. Why don’t we head down by the river and try to calm down, yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Marinette huffed, making a break for it and striding off towards the bakery. “I’m going home.”

“Marinette!” Alya called and started to chase after her.

Nino sighed, briefly watching them go before getting back on task.

“Come on, Adrien,” he gently coaxed, leading Adrien down onto the walkway along the river.

They found an empty bench and sank onto it, Adrien snuggling up against Nino’s side and dropping his head onto Nino’s shoulder while Nino wrapped an arm around his friend and gave another supportive squeeze.

“It’s okay,” he repeated like a mantra, keeping an eye out for purple butterflies. “It’s okay.”

“I think I just ruined things with the person I’m desperately in love with,” Adrien responded blandly. “I don’t think it’s okay.”

Nino was silent, contemplating for a moment before he amended, “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to make this okay for you, all right? Marinette’s still going to be friends with you, and everything’s going to be fine, yeah?”

Adrien didn’t have the energy to engage in optimism. “I royally screwed up, Nino.”

“Yeah, but what you did wasn’t unforgivable,” Nino tried to comfort. “Things can be patched up. You’ll see. Just hang in there for me right now, okay? Try to think happy thoughts.”

Adrien managed an affirmative grunt.

And then his phone chimed with an incoming text.

There on the screen was a short message that restored his strength.

Marinette had written: “I’m not mad at you. <3 Everything’s fine between us.”

Adrien tipped the screen so that Nino could see and then smiled up giddily at his friend.

“There you go,” Nino chuckled. “Everything’s fine.”

Adrien sighed, sinking back into Nino. “No, it’s not. Wanna hear a secret?”

Nino shrugged. “Sure.”

“I’m Marinette’s boyfriend.”

It felt really good to finally get it out into the air.

Nino took a deep breath, schooling his expression into a cautious neutral before responding. “…The one she plays online games with?”

“Yep. She doesn’t know it’s me, and you can’t tell her. She has her reasons, but she won’t let me reveal my identity to her, so…I keep accidentally kissing her because she’s my girlfriend, but she doesn’t know she’s my girlfriend, so…we end up having scenes like the one you just witnessed,” Adrien wearily informed.

“…Dude,” Nino replied poignantly.

“Yeah,” Adrien sighed.

“You have to tell her,” Nino insisted. “No joke.”

“Yeah,” Adrien repeated. “It’s complicated. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nino pursed his lips, trying to process. He wanted to tell Adrien that nothing too bad had happened when Nino and Alya found out about Rena Rouge and Carapace’s secret identities. (In fact, Alya had seen through Carapace right away, so…) And nothing bad had come of Nino being ninety-nine-point-nine-repeating percent sure that Adrien was Chat Noir, so…

Nino took a deep breath and let it out, giving Adrien’s hair a distracted tussle. “Well…if…when you do want to talk about it, I’ll be here. You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Anything.”

“Yeah,” Adrien breathed, snuggling in closer, resting his head under Nino’s chin. “Yeah, I know. I want to, and I know I can trust you with anything, but…I can’t talk about it right now.”

“Okay,” Nino agreed, letting his chin rest on top of Adrien’s head. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” Adrien hummed, closing his eyes and letting himself relax.

[my-arlington-academia]

The Sweet Elite characters as tarot cards

Ooooookay! This is something I wanted to do for a while now (totally not because I'm a huge persona nerd) but yeah, my understanding of tarot cards is really basic and limited so don't take this too seriously! I just thought that it would be fun to make.

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Scholar: The Fool/ The Jester/ The Madman (number 0 or XXII but most times without a number)

Obviously, as the main character, Scholar is the one going on a journey. The Fool is often portrayed as wearing ragged clothes and carrying a small bag with their belongings, showing that they're going on an adventure. The card represents freedom, madness, inexperience and chaos.

Here the description is pretty self-explanatory. I think it's easy to see how Scholar fits this card 👌

Alistair: The Sun (number XIX)

Well, another obvious one! The Sun Arcana is often portrayed as a child or children playing in a field of sunflowers under a blazing sun meaning that their innocence will be replaced with knowledge. The card represents optimism in difficult situations, hope, happiness, discovery and accomplishment.

Now we can make the joke that Alistair is literally a ray of sunshine! 😂☀️ (Not that anyone ever doubted it.)

Axel: The Star (number XVII)

I swear I'm not making these puns on purpose! But since Axel is literally a rock *star* the card does fit him...

The star is often portrayed as a woman with one foot on the ground and the other in water (which is apparently a metaphor for the conscious and unconscious mind) and the star shining above is her core essence. The star in itself can allude to a person with great influence, a star shines above it all but is fated to fall one day. Thus, the Star Arcana represents self-confidence, loss, faith and peace.

Claire: The Empress (number III)

This one may seem weird but when I looked more into it, I realized that The Empress Arcana fits Claire a lot!

The Empress is often associated with the goddess Venus in Roman mythology (and Aphrodite in Greek mythology.) The Empress is seated on a throne in a field meaning that she looks after nature, she also wears a crown meaning that she's the one ruling over nature, not only growing it. The Empress Arcana represents motherhood, romance, life and fruitfulness.

Basically, Claire is like a mom rather than a cold-blooded queen. She just looks after the people around her and that's why the Empress fits her.

Ellie: Fortune/ Wheel of Fortune (number X)

Okay, this one was hard to choose. Believe it or not but at first I gave Ellie the Death Arcana. Though it doesn't mean literal Death but rather starting anew I kinda didn't want to give that card to her since her biological parents are dead... thus I went with the Fortune Arcana instead which is surprisingly similar to the Death one but much more light-hearted!

The Fortune Arcana is portrayed as... Well, a Wheel of Fortune. The card represents opportunity, fate, luck and success.

The reason why I chose this card for Ellie is because even though her parents' death was unfortunate, that bad luck brought her good luck too. If her biological parents hadn't died her dads wouldn't have adopted her and from what we've seen so far, she always says that she's really happy with them and that they're great parents. The Fortune Arcana is all about big changes through luck, be it bad or good luck.

In the end, I'm happy that I changed her card to Fortune because while the Death card also means a new start, that new start is achieved through the end of something else. But in the case of the Fortune card, that new start is achieved through a particular event involving good or bad luck. In Ellie's case, I believe it was both.

Karolina: The High Priestess/ The Popess (number II)

This is another odd one, isn't? Karolina sure doesn't look nor sound like a Priestess 😂 But like with Claire I looked more into it and that card does in fact suit her I think.

The Priestess Arcana is most times associated with Pope Joan, a woman who pretended to be a man in order to become the Pope. It is unknown if she really existed but it is said that the church was so ashamed of their "mistake" that they tried to get rid of all records that had Pope Joan in it. Unfortunately, it is said that she was stoned to death because of her "betrayal".

The High Priestess card represents power, passion, wisdom and tenacity.

Karolina is really headstrong and she's the type of person who would be able to do anything to get what she wants. Thus, I believe that the Priestess fits her.

Neha: The Lovers/ The Twins (number VI)

This one took me a while to find but after thinking for a bit I think this card fits Neha after all.

The Lovers card is often portrayed as a naked woman and a naked man standing before eachother. While the card is in most cases seen as a sign of an irreversible relationship, it is said that sometimes the card doesn't even have anything to do with a romantic relationship but rather having to make an important choice which will lead you to two different paths in life. That's why the man and woman in the card are often separated by a crossroad. The two paths can represent the "right" way and the "easy" way, that's why the decision is so hard to make between those two roads.

The Lovers Arcana represents trials to overcome, beauty, failure and love.

I chose this card for Neha because I think that she's the kind of person who has a hard time choosing between her feelings and her logic. Between the right path and the easy path. I may or may not be completely wrong about this one. There's maybe another tarot card that would fit her better but I thought this one really suits her.

Raquel: Justice (number VIII or XI)

This one is easy to see! Raquel was really vocal about her anger and really protective when the whole Nakano scandal happened.

The Justice Arcana is portrayed as a King or a Queen holding a sword and a balance meaning that they will punish whoever breaks the law. The card symbolizes a strict trial of justice. It represents objectivity, rationality, equity and triumph.

Finally a simple one to explain! At first I was considering on giving her the Strength Arcana but I like Justice better for her. It might be a stupid reason but I think that the Justice Arcana sounds cooler than the Strength Arcana 😅

Tadashi: The Emperor (number IV)

I legit wanted to try and give him the Death card somehow to keep up with the trend of "haha, you like bullying Tadashi!!" (Which is not wrong but sshhh!🤫) The Death Arcana just didn't fit him in any way I think. I mean, you could say that when his father was arrested and he broke ties with him it could be seen as a new beginning for him and a big change in his life. However... to apologize for all the time I treated him like shit I decided to give him the Emperor Arcana (which sounds really cool, right?) Also, this card really fits him so I'm happy with how it turned out!

The Emperor is portrayed as... Well, an Emperor (duh) sitting on a throne, he's often associated with Mars, the god of war in Roman mythology. However rather than mindlessly going to war, he's considered to be a guardian who fights for the peace of its people. That's why The Emperor Arcana represents fatherhood, compassion, stability and protection.

But of course, to diss him just a little bit, The Emperor Arcana can also mean that maybe you're trying too hard to look after everything, you have a strong desire to control everything in your life (which is obviously impossible to do) and that mindset may or may not end up with you giving trouble to the people around you.

Yep, it sure sounds like our mister student council president 😂

Tegan: The Hermit (number IX)

Oof, okay. I'm not totally sure how to explain this one but you'll see that this card suits him.

The Hermit card is portrayed as an old man in a dark place or on a cliff carrying a lantern to illuminate his surroundings. The card represents introspection, inner guidance, prudence and wisdom.

Basically, the way I see it is that Tegan is someone who helps others from behind the scenes. He never puts himself on the spotlight however he's a really smart and driven individual. Kind of like a candle in the dark if we want to go into cheesy descriptions 😂 But yeah, he has a great value and he often does his good deeds in the background so he's seen as a support even if his place in the team is really crucial he rarely takes credit for it. (Probably because he does his best to turn the attention away from him 😅)

Tyler: The Moon (number XVIII)

And finally we have Tyler! Oh godddd I love him 😭💗 Anyway, here goes.

The Moon Arcana is portrayed as a wolf and a dog howling at the moon, they symbolize our fears in the conscious and unconscious mind. The card represents inspiration, illusions, fear and creativity.

From that conversation we had with Tyler in chapter 8 I think it's pretty obvious that he has some self-confidence issues. He's scared that he isn't good enough. He's constantly comparing himself to others and doesn't see how amazing he is 😥 But of course there's also the creativity and inspiration part which hints to his talents in the fine arts 👌

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Aaaaand that's a wrap! This actually took me longer than I expected but I'm happy I did it! It makes me feel like I was productive today even though I didn't finish my homework... yet.

[satans-helper]

Warning: long rant ahead. If you don’t have the energy for it, I understand. But you seemed like the person who’d best understand what I’m upset about.

Ok here I go on a tangent:

Background: My father and I don’t have a great relationship. My parents are divorced but always lived within 15 minutes of each other, so I went back and forth as a kid. He has the emotional depth of a rusty spoon and couldn’t parent for all the money in the world. He is also a life-long Republican who works in finance. He did not vote in ‘16 but voted for Trump in ‘20 (despite my grandmother and I BEGGING him not to)

So he’s on my ass about calling him all week, but I’ve been hellaciously busy at work and with turning in college apps (I’m going back to school after my gap year, yay!). No matter how many times I tell him that I have a life and my silence is in no way personal, he acts butthurt about every time when I finally talk to him. This isn’t what bothered me about today’s conversation.

What bothers me is that he asked for my opinion on the Gamestop situation and I said that shorting seems like a pretty shitty thing to do, considering it often takes advantage of failing businesses. You would’ve thought he was talking to a five year old with the way he countered me, going on and on about how “you don’t know how the market works” and “NoT aLl WaLl StReEtErS aRe CoRrUpT” when in fact I’ve studied Wall Street and the stock market quite a bit. Of course, I don’t know what he, as someone with a master’s degree, knows, but I’m not an imbecile.

He then notes that Ted Cruz and AOC happened to be of common opinion about the situation, how remarkable. I then added that AOC told him to fuck off because his mob had threatened her life. This spirals into a conversation about how my opinions are “too strong” and I need to be more “tolerant” of those with differing opinions. I’m willing to work with people who don’t agree with me, but I draw the line at working with people who have incited violent mobs in the name of their political agenda.

I explained that the entire Republican Party, except for those who acted against him, are complicit in Donald Trump’s crimes against this country, including but not limited to: thousands dead and separated from their families at the border, 425k dead from a lack of a pandemic response, and 5 dead in a riot he incited. They all knew he was dangerous and unfit to lead, yet they elected him anyway. They all knew.

But no, my opinions are too strong, my tone too harsh, I’m being “judgemental.” People are DEAD and more are on their way to dying as a result of this scumbag’s ego trip of a presidency, and my opinions are too strong? I’d better tone down my anger because it’s unattractive? Strong opinions won’t win me any friends? I don’t give a fuck about friends, I don’t give a fuck about looking pretty and sweet. PEOPLE ARE DYING. If you talk down to me and mock my values, I will stand up for myself. I do not take kindly to being walked on. But no, I have to be pretty and palatable. I have to have “tolerance.”

I don’t know if I’m more insulted on behalf of my gender or my intelligence. I understand that I could’ve defended my position less harshly, but I will defend it. I will not back off what I know is right, no matter how ugly it makes me. As a 19 year old woman, I am more concerned with defending my morals than with being likeable. And my father hates it. It’s not just him, I’ve heard this from lots of people I’ve had disagreements with. People are dead and dying. Now is not the time to be bite-sized.

I’ve never wanted to hit something so bad in my life.

I guess I’ll first say that I think you’re being insulted on behalf of you being a woman and also your intelligence, but those really go hand in hand when it comes to men and men being sexist. Your father, nor any other man, honestly, wouldn’t say your opinions are “too strong,” that you anger is “unattractive” and “won’t win you any friends.” Absolutely not. 

Second, I just don’t understand people who ask for an opinion on something when they already are so dead-set in their own opinions that they are already geared up to be combative if you disagree with them. I find this on both ends of the political spectrum but I will say that I’ve seen it more apparently coming from people on the right, primarily men. Your dad asked for your opinion, then got upset when you disagreed...and it’s not as though your opinions were coming from a place lacking in knowledge. So, yeah, he’s absolutely insulting your intelligence outright with how he responded and proceeded to go on. 

There is NO need to defend your position less harshly. Your stance, the information you have, the knowledge you’ve cultivated and, from what you’ve told me, the presentation of your thoughts AFTER you dad asked you are not the issue. 

I’m really sorry you had to deal with this conversation. It sounds absolutely infuriating and it’s hard to recover from when you already don’t have the best sort of relationship and this isn’t someone you can necessarily distance yourself from as much as you’d like to. Nevertheless, I feel as though the past four years especially have had many of us reevaluate our familial relationships and make difficult decisions, whether it be creating more distance, cutting people off entirely, or just deciding to keep quiet ourselves. I don’t think there’s any “right” response but I will always advocate for people to do what will ultimately make their lives easier and better. 

As women, we constantly have to deal with being talked down to, disrespected, ignored, berated, insulted, demeaned, the list goes on...I admire that you didn’t back down from your morals and it’s a real shame your dad can’t listen with a more open ear, especially to his own daughter. There are plenty of people who choose their hill to die on in a sort of stubborn way...I’m sure we’ve met a lot of those over the years, actually. What matters the most, ultimately, is that you held your ground and you know your own personal worth and intelligence. 

If I were to try and give any sort of “advice,” I would say to, first of all, remember that--your intellect, your self-worth. Second, if your dad ever asks for your opinion on something again, it might be worth asking him if he’s actually open to an honest discussion about it, because if it’s something you’re both passionate about, you don’t want it to escalate. I’ll still say to tread lightly with that...I find that a lot of men become kind of antagonistic even when you preface with that or try to go in more neutrally. Again, you’re not the problem. It sounds like your dad doesn’t necessarily want YOUR opinion; he wants to hear his own opinions reflected back to him. 

Sorry if this was super long-winded. I really do feel your anger. Punch your pillow...legit. <3 

[nahalism]

Pls do share

well.. i was doing a breathing/grounding meditation in the park and began to experience having multiple bodies. (an energetic body, mental body, emotional body, pain body, sound/vibrational body, light body [even a ‘colour body’ that isnt limited to one colour, but does vary in colour according to the person and emotional state] ect).

being that i could see myself existing beyond the parameters of my physical body, (liquid, organs, skin have restrictions that light and sound dont), i began to see if i could gauge where i started, where i stopped, and if i could still experience things that were beyond the periphery of my body and my senses. i had already read a lot of books, particularly Drunvalo Melchizedek’s the flower of life and Masuru Emoto’s the miracles of water, so i understood the basis of vibrational frequencies, and thus how my own vibrational frequency was not only regulating my body, but as depicted by the merkaba/tetrahedron often used in esoteric teaching, was being projected beyond my body and consequently impacting all that surrounded me whether i was aware or not. 

[although this isnt directly related, it happened and i find it interesting so ill proceed to include it]. i settled on the feeling that there was no ‘end’ point to which i felt i could project myself. and because of that i began to think about urban planning. the proximity of houses and apartments in cities, how close we sit, stand and work to each other, the construction of our undergrounds/metro’s and most congested areas. i thought about the idea of none of us ‘beginning’ or ‘ending’ in any specific place, the possibility that we may all just be individualised/localised experiences of the same thing living in an amniotic sac that we call the world, a world that is fundamentally made of the same energy as us. and that if that were the case, how little truly separates us. and that if so little separates us then just how contagious thoughts, emotions, and a persons ‘way of being’ might really be. then i thought about why the most expensive communities are less densely populated, filled with detached houses, have less wifi.. why people with similar income brackets, daily practices, and mental attitudes choose to preserve these communities with such urgency and legislations as they do. then i continued thinking about the impact that environment can have on someone and how what one is consistently exposed to impacts their spiritual, mental and emotional evolution. i then began to acknowledge how ignorantly i conduct my own self when i walk clumsily on the ground or forget to look at the sky above me, because in doing so i realised i was neglecting two entirely separate realms of reality, and by doing that id neglected to consider the impact i was having on the life forms that inhabited those spaces. i started to think about how if a thought or a word can alter the molecular structure of water, what was there that i or other humans could do to reverse the damage being done to the earth: the geopathic stress that runs underground, or even the displacement happening to the earths techonic plates. that went on for a while then i spent some time taking in the people in the park. watching their demeanours, seeing if i could ‘feel’ them despite their distance from me. 

this all got a little claustrophobic so i decided to breathe through the experience with my eyes closed, and as i did, i saw two movements in my minds eye. [1] light being used to draw an infinity sign in darkness. the motion was continuous. and [2] the second (which is unexplainable) but resembled a motion similar to a bowl of water continuously spilling over, each time re-absorbing the fallen water from underneath. almost like a continual feeling of sucking something up and pouring it back out. 

[1] the first image that arose felt like the vertical motion of breath and the sense of continuity i felt whilst breathing. though i could easily distinguish the act of breathing in or out, breathing itself could not as easily be divided into parts. neither breathing in or breathing out could be said to be start or end of of breathing. similarly, despite the presence or negation of air in my lungs, the ebb and flow was consistently interrupted by a median in which there was both presence and absence. everything was woven together, in order to breathe new air, old had to be removed. in order to remove that air, new air had to be breathed. both processes were inextricable.

[2] the second image felt more lateral in motion, as though i were a nucleus and waves were both emanating from me and being drawn to me. at this stage i was in flow from the vertical breathing (finding expansion in the body with each breath in and ease in the body with each breath out), and as this progressed lots of feelings that made sense but lacked chronology & are hard to articulate flooded in (so excuse if this gets confusing). the small motions of up and down changed to a cycle/continuous stream, of up, out, over, in 🔁. [energy spurting out the head, throat, hands, chest, and stomach, washing out and over beyond my physical self, then coming back in as if drawn by a magnet, and up through the feet and through the sit bones]. as i continued to watch this happen the energy began to feel denser and more potent. and so i imagined pushing/propelling it further out beyond me, projecting it at the world, plants, people ect. and so as i continued to watch this happen i realised that which i was receiving could only be that which was a match to what id sent out. moreover, focusing on asserting the energy didnt stop me receiving the energy that came back & vise versa. the two were different processes, and each process could be focused on individually without its counterpart, but when i breathed with mindfulness of the two the energy grew more potent. [legit, the only thing i can liken this ‘energy’ too is the depiction of nen in hunter x hunter]. and as this was happening i remembered what i had learned about polarity [yin/yang, masculine/feminine energy, the upward facing tetrahedron/the downward facing tetrahedron], and adopted an electro-magnetic view of the situation. our ‘upward facing’ tetrahedron (representative of electric force, order, structure, assertion, reason, logic and masculinity) can be likened to the upward and outward projection of energy. similarly the ‘downward facing’ tetrahedron (which is is symbolised by magnetism and governs chaos, pleasure, creativity, sensuality, carnal instinct, receptivity and femininity) can be likened to the force that pulls the energy down from over and back in. 

im not sure the correlation between what i observed that day and what i answered in the ask earlier is clear, but that is the resource i drew on to help me articulate my view. a lot of teachers and businessmen in the business of self empowerment do speak about transmuting sexual energy to creative energy (napoleon hills a good one) but i think when getting into these matters its good to understand the science/the alchemy. for example, this principle taught me a lot of things; how much power one conscious, self aware individual harbours. humanities true capacity to raise not only their own spirits, but the collective spirit of all they encounter. ectect. but looking at it under the lens of manifestation showed me how understanding the individualised polarities (especially that despite differences all things are fundamentally the same) and learning to balance them, is whats key to not only developing the lives we want, but fundamental to being able to maintain them. moreover understanding of the fundamental principles teaches the individual particular guidelines that are key to knowing how to bring precisely what they want, and not what we think they want, into being. funnily whilst imbalanced application of the two leads to .. imbalance.. lol, the imbalance if questioned shows itself to be perfectly balanced. e.g if one confronts the chaos that emerges in their material world, they’ll likely find the root issue to be a matter of the mind. similarly, having a structured plan and logical path to attain ones goal means nothing without the emotional intelligence necessary to enjoy the plan once come to fruition.

anyway. moral of the story is that books are great and they often provide sound information by teaching terminology and introducing concepts but, experience is the best teacher. understanding and consolidating the information we learn so that it becomes knowledge upon which we may build wisdom, is a process that occurs within the individual. so dont worry bout the books, if you are curious knowledge will find you. in the meantime, go and live

[enacclimatechangethings]

Mathieu 18/03

I am no expert to argue on what to do to reduce your carbon footprint. I am just a random citizen who struggles the best he can to change its surroundings. When it comes to climate change issues, I am too pragmatic and scientific to ignore the true reality. For a few decades, global warming is skyrocketing, and we are slowly sleepwalking into an unsustainable world. To rein in gas emissions and to slow down the pace, I use some tips that I’m going to explain in this document.

 The first tip, and without any doubt the most important, is to stay humble and to listen to the others. Everyone has a different approach with climate change, and has something to learn. The best way to improve our relation to climate change is to consider every idea, and to analyze it using actual science and figures. Only then, one has to figure out if it is a change for the better or for the worse. Please remember some undeniable basic rules :

The argument of the majority is not an argument. It is not because a huge part of the population (or even the whole population) does “something”, that this “something” is legit. The number of partisans should never be a norm, not even a tiny one.

The argument of the duration is not a valid one. An idea is not more reliable or efficient because we do it for a long time. You should never take the time factor into account when it comes to assessing an idea.

 The following part will cast a light on a huge number of tips you can adopt in your daily life. As my knowledge on this issue is limited, I will only argue and feedback the ones I uses daily.

 Let’s begin with an obvious one, do not use your car when you can take your bike instead. It saves gas and means fewer cars on the road—which means less carbon emissions. Plus, it’ll keep you in a good health and your wallet happy! Moreover, you’ll end up being more punctual than before, the bike rides do not depend on traffic jam and can use special roads. You are not too far from your job to use your bike, I live 12km from ENAC and I go there by bike each morning, each evenings, for 2 years. I walk to the mall and I just need a case to put in my purchases, I don’t need a car, I save the planet.

Try not to eat meat. The figures put forward by the scientists are scattered. 1kg of meat needs between 50L and 15000L of water. The most trustworthy company reports that 1kg of meat uses 700L of tap water. Even more, the fields to raise meat animals are created by cutting down wild forest. Around 90% of all the fields are targeted to raise animals and animal hay. This is the major cause of deforestation. Eating meat is one of the main cause for concern. If you don’t think you can become vegetarian, try first to reduce your daily dose of meat. Believe me, being vegetarian is not sounding the death knell of your tastes! You just need to relearn how to cook, and of course to be more attentive on what you eat, regarding the vitamins you need to have, and the defieciencies you need to dodge.

 Unplug everything before leaving your room. A lot of appliances, (un)affectionately called “vampire appliances,” use up electricity even when they’re switched off. Set top boxes(like Google TV and Apple TV) are the worst culprits, but DVD players, modems, and computers also act like little Draculas, sucking up power even when they’re meant to be “dead”. Taking a wooden stake to your appliances is one solution, but the cheapest might be to invest in a power strip and turn it off every time appliances aren’t in use—or just go the manual route and pull the plug.

 Dry your clothes in the air. If you have a clothes dryer, there’s a good chance it uses more energy than anything else in your home. Grab a clothes rack, set up a clothes line outside, or just hang wet laundry on clothes hangers around the house. Hang them high and they’ll be dry in a day or two—without spiking the electricity bill. Moreover, if you’re as broke as me and don’t have room for a drycleaner, this could be your lazy chance to rein in gas emissions while sparing money!

 Go paperless. Switching to paperless billing lowers the odds of losing bills in the mail and getting the electricity cut off right before your movie marathon. Plus, many billers offer a discount for doing so because it saves them money on stamps and printings, it also cuts down on paper, which cuts down on tree deaths (and don’t you know that trees are hugely helpful in combatting climate change?). I can be also when attending a course at ENAC. Many a teacher give paper sheets with small interest, when the lecture is done, reuse them to write on the blank part for other courses. I helps both reducing your carbon footprint and your savings.

 Opt for reusable water bottles. Here’s a secret a lot of people don’t seem to know: Tap water is drinkable. Keeping a nice, BPA-free water bottle in your bag is an insanely simple way to save the cost of a three-dollar bottle of water—the same cost of 300L of water out of the tap at home. Bottled water is incredibly wasteful on so many levels: An estimated 80 percent of them don’t get recycled and, because of the plastic production process, it takes three times the amount of water in a water bottle to produce just one! Instead, you could bring your own Chilly’s (the brand I use) and fill the same eco-friendly bottle again and again. And last but not least, you’ll end up bringing a custom bottle with amazing drawings (or not) on it, and no longer a transparent one that crackles every time you touch it!

 Use solid soap instead of liquid one. I don’t have much to say about it, it’s a win-win both the planet and for you. You will spend less money buying it, and solid soaps need less fossil energies and plastic to arrive under your shower.

 Recycle your waste. Trash that is thrown away and not recycled will end up either in a landfill, or incinerated, or will hurt the environment in some other way. The more waste that gets recycled, the less damage is done to the environment. Between about 2/3 and 3/4 of household waste is currently recyclable. The more people who get involved recycling, the more resources can be made available for recycling and the more pressure can be put on manufacturers and stores to use renewable materials. All it will cost you is a small amount of time, sorting your waste into the basic categories and washing out cans and bottles and maybe a minimal amount of fuel for the transport of your recycling boxes and bags to be recycled. In my case the trash recycler stands just in front of my building, sorting my waste is even mandatory and no one reports it is a bitter pill.

 Use Ecosia instead of Google. Google is one of the biggest polluters in the world. Ecosia provides mainly the same information, but uses only renewable energies to supply its servers. Moreover, Ecosia spends all its revenue planting trees around the world, and fighting climate change. It’s one of the most lazy way to battle global warming while not changing our habits!

 To reduce deforestation, we need to jeopardize paper ads. One simple way to do it is to put an “no ads” sticker on your mailbox. Admit it, you never read what you get anyway!

 What you just read is my daily routine. Believe me, it’s not that complicated are constraintful. I am not bearing the brunt of my eco-friendly activities, and I am hardly conviced that those will become mainstream in the following decades. Especially in this context, we all understand that putting off is no longer an option and we are going to reach breaking point. We need to think outside the box and to bring solutions to battle global warming. Let’s join the fight and you’ll see that the our quest for saving the Earth is unquenchable!

[hugleikinn]

how would you personally describe each of the 7 planetary angels in terms of appearance, behavior, the feelings and visions you experienced under their influence etc

First of all,thank you for your question and secondly, I apologize for taking almost 2 iceages to reply to it.

Excuses aside,the reason is, that my first gut response was: „I am sorry, I am notcomfortable sharing aside from the odd personal anecdote“, but then I thoughtagain and figured I could take that answer and at least make it helpful to youand other readers, perhaps, my sharing some of my methods, personal experiencesand yes, the odd anecdote. I am happy sharing older experiences, as they are inthe past and worked though, but my work with the planetary angels and entitiesis ongoing, and therefore private.

So probably thegist of this reply will be different ways, one can sense and perceive andcommunicate with spirits, as I dare guess you are not really after my stories,but more likely trying to reconcile your experiences based on comparison.(Which is in general fine, if done in moderation and as control, not for goalsetting). I hope I am not overreaching here though. If so, I apologize.

Also, as I amwriting this, this is my second attempt, as I deleted the first one at cca 2 A4pages long. Yikes.

To begin with, Iwould like to reiterate, that I consider myself, to the most extent deaf-blind,when it comes to contact with spirits and entities. Meaning, I am rarely ableto glimpse the form they are taking or perceive actual words or sentences (outloud or with my minds eye), outside of full on rituals or trances etc, and eventhen, I feel, my experiences are far from what is described.

To compensate, Ihave developed other methods to tell one spirit from another and I am also ablewith quite some accuracy to place a spirit within an egregore and even name it,the accuracy depending on whether I have studied or worked with that egregore /tradition before or now. For example, for traditions that are not so known to me, likeeastern (Hindi, Japanese etc), I’d probably be able to place that spiritgeographically to eastern Asia, and perhaps find some possibilities based onthe “feeling of it” or its energy and attributes (?) I am able to tell (likelove, destruction, sun or other keywords).

Other times, I receive actual names, especially with lowerspirits.

As a personal anecdote to illustrate what I mean and howthis can work as well as how to think critically and to figure out whether whatyou are experiencing is personal projection, imagination, wishful thinking ORan actual encounter.

Around 13-15 years ago, when I was learning tarot, I couldn’tshare the feeling that I was followed or even being influenced by an entity,when reading (generally, that is a whole story on its own for another time).But to make sure I was not lied to, or manipulated, I really REALLY wanted tofigure out what or who this was.

And so, one evening I dug my heels in and said that I am notstopping until I figure out what is up. And so I slung cards, and chanted, anddid who knows what, head stands perhaps too. But I swear the only thing I could think about during that almost 5hour process was: Heliopolos. Who are you? Heliopolos.What do you want? Heliopolos? What is your name? Heliopolos. Whatis Heliopolos?! Heliopolos Heliopolos Heliopolos Heliopolos.polosHeliopolosHelioHeliopolosHelioHelioHelio,

I swear at one point I was even repeating it out loud and it was the only thing I could think about. 

And so I stopped and thought. What doesthat mean? Am I projecting something into this process? I was aware that Heliopolossounded somewhat ancient Greek, but at the same time I was aware, thatcorrectly it would be “polis” not “polos”. And if I am aware of this “mistake”,why would I repeat to myself something that I knew was wrong? It did not makesense. 

At the same time, while being roughly aware of the possible meaning of Heliopolisfrom a linguistic stand point, as in Helios + polis, and also considering thefact, that it sounded like a legit name of something or someplace, I had no knowledgeof a city of that name. And so I decided, after some deliberation, that no, itwas not me. It was a foreign thought.

And so I googled, and after an extremelyshort search chain,  happened upon anancient Egyptian creation myth originating in a now lost city of Heliopolis,whose central figure was a deity named Geb.

I don’t see a reason for going further intothe story, as the point of it was first of all learning to distinguish, whatcomes from within oneself and what is a foreign feeling or thought. Because many other times, I got similarly consumed with my own thoughts, wishes and projections into the process, that I had to stop, leave it to reast and try again anew.

A lot of us have very many preconceptionsand expectations on how certain entities will look or behave. Or we havecertain wishes, that those same spirits and entities will behave a certain way,tell us specific things, validate what we are saying and in many cases thoseexpectations and wishes can cause us to imagine our encounters whether partiallyor fully. They cause us to interpret our confirmation-divinations in a certainway and that only serves to hinder our progress.

When dealing with magic and especially withthe spirit model, I am a huge advocate of taking at least as much time analyzingoneself and getting to know what kind of thoughts in what form tend to pop upin our heads, as dedicating to actual practice.

It serves not only for the magician to recognize,whether he has been successful, especially in the beginning, but also as a failsafein case something goes wrong and one becomes subject of oppression, possessionor just pure harassment. If you know what you are like and how you think andfeel and see and dream, then you will instantly know if something changes andwhether it has a legitimate reason you are aware of or not.

That said, to give actual thought pointsfor you to mull over, and maybe open our mind to different possibilities ofexperiencing spirits aside from visions (as those will inherently be unique toyou anyway and mine will probably be nothing like them anyway – I have readquite a few encounters of other practitioners with entities I have myselfworked with, and each of them was so different than mine to a point that if Iwasn’t sure about the legitimacy of mine, I could begin to doubt myself).

Some ways of experiencing spirits andentities aside from full manifestation, that I have had:

When working with Sif many years ago,whenever she was present, I felt my head spin and almost like fainting, but ina quite pleasant way, like when you are a bit tipsy.

When I worked with Odin, I would get astrong vibration on my forehead, sometimes to the point of pain and sometimesaccompanied by pain in the left eye. At times, I was sure that I would goblind, if I worked with him for a very long time. But actually, my eyesight hadimproved a bit at that time.

When it comes to angels though, I do believethat even outside of my case, full manifestation is quite rare aside from DSIC (and even a manifestation inside a crystal can be debatable in terms of “full manifestation) etc. and unlike goetic spirits, so the following will be more of my accounts ofdifferent “tells” they have for me personally when they are present, and Icannot see them for one reason or another.

When I work with my current patron, of thecelestial sort (again, ongoing, so private, but can very easily be figured out:D) I feel heavy on my spine, and it prickles almost like when tightening bow sometimes.

When encountering the big A, as in theangel that begins with A and ends with **ael, parts on my body felt like theywere asleep. Not just legs, but ribs, cheeks, and other odd parts.

When I have been in the presence ofMichael, the perceptions are sometimes different, but often there is asensation like you step into the sun, or someone aims a hairdryer in your face.

Gabriel is still a little bit uncertain forme in the department of “tells” but I have to say, that I do not share thepopular perception of them being in anyway terrifying. If I were to have areason to be afraid of an angel, it would be Michael or A**ael.

Raphael is in some ways similar to Gabrielin the way that he is quite uncertain for me in specific tells of his presence.I do however have quite a problem concentrating when trying to work withMercury, as in I usually have to write the whole procedure down before hand andresort to reading, because I can get so scattered with different ideas. But physically? Not sure yet.

Anael makes me feel HOT. Like sweating,heavy breathing. Ehm.

With Sachiel at times I get the feeling ofbeing in a drugged up formal business situation, like Wolf of Wall street orsomething, and my hands shake, I do also get the heaviness between theshoulders and a bit dizzy.

In all honesty, I have worked with Marsprobably only twice in my life, and at this time I have no intention of doingmore work, so my experiences with Samael are limited. Too limited to share. However all my work with Mars had leftovers on the rest of my day, and I am naturally quite feisty, so the combo with Mars does not suit me at all. 

My work with Saturn and Cassiel is nowongoing, so I will probably share my experiences at some later time, but generallywhat sums it up for me atm is “black velvet”, from the black velvet of the deepcosmos, through the black velvet of the death card in tarot to black velvet pyjamas and all the thingsbetween.

Metatron is sarcastic and cryptic at the same time and all respect, but ….. At the same time, I had no business, so touché. 

I do hope this helps you anon at leastsomewhat and I hope this can be also helpful to others to one degree ofanother.

I think the most important message I wantto instill is, get to know yourself, and learn to distinguish what comes fromwithin you and what comes from without you. The other stuff – encounters,feelings, messages, perceptions, visions will be subjective to you and yourunderstanding of the world.

Like dreams.

[blackevermore]

Keeping Count

[ Wonka x Taylor]

Summary: She says she’s not into it but secretly she doesn’t mind it. However, that doesn’t stop her from being upset with him none the less.

Genre: lol this was slight ns//fw then I slipped up

Warning(s): Spanking, Grinding, Half undressed, Language 

Word count: almost 4K 

A/N: I was thinking about Wonka bending me over his leg. Whoopsy doo honestly. Also sorry for the mistakes and blah I just kept writing and didn’t reread any of it I’ll do it later

Taylor and Wonka were not the types of people that could easily be told what to do. Your criticism was beath them, and your advice was nothing more than a pinch of salt on a dining table. If you had a problem with either of them, it was best to keep it to yourself, never allowing either of them to hear what you had to say. The last thing you needed was the uneasy wrath of the duo as they stood above you counting down the seconds to your misery. Unfortunately, this mindset applied to one another between them, Taylor wasn't allowed to ask too many questions, and Wonka couldn't mock her for her curiosity. 

But who were they to actually follow a simple agreement like that? Taylor purposefully nagged Wonka for things that didn't make sense. Why kill the man if you actually needed him alive to sign the document? Why did shipping have to go out a day pier if you were still going to reroute the deliveries? What was the point of the hookah bar if neither of them used it? Taylor could pull out her phone and rant off the list of things she donned as 'bullshit' that her boss did or orchestrated. Half the time, her questions were genuine, her boss was a very secretive man with high power to run a whole country if he wanted to. Thank god he didn't, if he did, she would be crawling up the corner of a wall in annoyance at all the work she had to do. Wonka, on the other hand, found her curiosity both exasperating and somewhat entertaining. Her lack of knowledge was his own ego stroke of how superior he was to her. At times he didn't mind her 'stupid' questions, and he would even answer them with 'stupid' answer. But when the day was taking its toll on his wild mind, he would prefer if she shut up for once and just did as she was told. Like she was supposed to. 

"Sir!"

"No."

"What do you mean 'no'? You legit can't be that childish to not allow someone to use specific colours. You can't trademark colours!" Taylor huffed as she tried to keep up with her boss's massive strides. He was trying to get away from her, but it was clear she refused to drop the topic and go away.

"I can. I will. I did." He grumbled as he tucked his cane under his arm and fished for the keyring attached at his hip. If he could find his office key before he made it to the door he could get in quick and lock her out. Taylor notices how frantic he was with metal and her two off jogging to get in front of him. She stepped over into his path and caused him to stumble backwards. 

"Sir. I get that you want to keep your marking image to yourself, but that is an old lady you're willing to shut down over the colouring of her packages." 

"I as always do not care. Now move or be moved." Wonka narrowed his eyes at the girl as he finally found the office key and held it close to her chest. Taylor rolled her eyes as she stood her ground and refuse to move. They stood there for a moment as they tried to stare down each other. Clearly, Wonka was cracking faster than she, his eye started to twitch which was a clear indicator that he was getting fed up. Taylor knew that it would be best to get out of his way, she knew what came after a few eye twitches and a nasty look. So many bodies left in his wake was enough insurance to never get on his bad side. But she couldn't let him win so quickly, he was petty, and she knew that she had to shut him down before he wrapped his hands around an old ladies throat and wrung her silly. Taylor tried to her eyes on his. When she noticed he grabbed the knot of his cane and pulled the cane from under his arm, her heart stopped. It became harder to lock eyes when she saw him raise it off the ground a few inches then brought it down in a vicious tap. 

Warning one

Taylor automatically moved out of his way as fear crept up her back. She cursed at herself out loud for cracking but promised herself she wasn't done yet. She had a whole full of things she had to say before she reached her next limit with another tap. Wonka brushed past her quickly and down the hallway. He finally made it to his office and slid the key in to unlock the doors. When the sound of the heavy lock undoing itself met his ears, he sighed in relief of finally getting away from her. Taylor didn't understand the importance of saving face in the work world. If that old woman started using his colours to wrap her sweets than the marking pool would be slipt in two due to confusion. The world was a bunch of idiots buying things they could only associate with one person. He had already had that happen once, the reasons he closed down the factory in the first place, he didn't want a repeat of before. No matter how old his competition was, he was willing to destroy them at all coast. He was well aware that he was ruthless, a highly unfair player, and a very sore loser in a game he dominated anyway. 

He took his hat off along with his long trench coat and placed them on the coat rack near the door before walking over to his desk and sitting down in his chair. He put his cane against the railing beside him and propped his elbows up in front of him with his fingers intertwined. Something told him that was the end of their disagreement. He watched the door waiting for her to bust through hot on her heels and yelling. He waited for three minutes before finally leaning back in his plush chair. He thanked whoever above for the needed silence, he needed to calm down before he did something treacherous. 

The door clicked and flew open with Taylor walking over with her hands on her hips. She stood in front of his desk, tapping her foot, waiting for him to acknowledge her. Wonka told himself that if he kept his eyes close, she would go away. When he peeked from under his lashes, he cursed as she was still standing there. 

"I'm not a bear, staying still won't make me lose interest. I'm upset and I'm locked in on you." Taylor hissed.

"Your interest really needs to check, you're more invested in nothing rather than something. I'm not changing my mind, and there is nothing you can do about it, little girl." Wonka's eyes shot up, full and burning holes into her face.  Chills ran down her back at how creepy he could get, but that still didn't take away he was a man-child living a fantasy only a 5-year-old would want.

"Oh, now I'm a little girl?"

"You're younger than I."

"I wasn't little two days ago when I was between your legs blowing-"

"Don't finish that!" Wonka shot forward in his chair. Taylor smirked from his sudden rise and stuck out her tongue. The blush on his face gave away his embarrassment. Checkmate. Taylor always enjoyed how sheepish and bashful he got when she brought up anything sexual between them to him. He was still wrapping his head around the fact they were more than a business partner. 

"Sir, you can not copyright colours." Taylor brought the conversation back around to the initial problem at hand."That old woman is going to die someday, and you are just making her life shitty by being a brat."

"You should know the definition of a brat since you are one. In hindsight Miss Snuggleknot knows better than to do anything remotely associated with me, her husband was once a great rival after all." Wonka lowered his voice when he spoke of the woman's husband. Taylor knew he killed the man long ago when word got out that there were spies in the factory. Mr Snuggleknot was one of the poor unfortunate souls that threw their hat in to get top-secrets. Wonka hunted down every last greedy handed person one by one. When he got to the old man, he took his sweet time in arranging the perfect accidental death.

"That woman still believes her husband had a heart attack while unloading his car at two in the morning. Look. She coloured her packaging like yours, but she isn't using your font which you already trademarked. Everyone knows your product from a knock off which shouldn't hold much salt over your head. You have the upper hand, and now you're trying to destroy a lady that already dealt the worse of cards from your stack. Leave her alone." Taylor slammed her hands down on his desk to emphasize her point. Wonka didn't flinch, unphased by loud bangs and aggressive actions. If he wanted to be scared or intimated, he would just go back to being a child and living with his father. His top lip scrunched up as he looked down at her hands and slowly up to her face. 

"I refuse to listen to a mindless uneducated, ignorant person that knows nothing about the marketing place let alone her lefts and her rights." Wonka shot the words through his teeth like venom and Taylor gasped before knotting her brow in anger.

"And I refuse to be talked down by a man who is clouded by past trauma that he never got the chance to move on from because he refuses to let go. The world is not always out to get you, the world is not always your enemy. Stop thinking you need to kill to not be killed when it isn't necessary. Sir, I try my damnest not to make comments on your character, but you are the toxic individual that only hurts yourself. Your level of pain is the only thing you can control at this point because the child in you only allows pettiness and anger."

Wonka reached to his side quickly and gave two taps of his cane and Taylor knew she was in deep trouble. She turns around trying to take off but the hand the reached out and grabbed her wrist was already pulling her from around the desk. Taylor tried to dig her heels down into the carpet, but all that did was make her trip over her feet. Wonka pulled her to stand in front of him, his grip on her wrist was still tight, and the look on his face wasn't changing. Before Taylor could protest, saying how sorry she was, he had already being bent her over his lap. He then spun the chair around to face towards the giant window so his legs could spread out. She kicked her legs a few times trying to get him to lighten up but the more she struggled the more he pressure he applied to keep her down.

"Oh, come on! Sir, I didn't mean it!" Taylor's face started to heat up from the position she was in. This wasn't the first time he got fed up with her and bent her over. It had been a very long time since then and whenever the thought of him getting her like this pop into her head. Taylor knew that the situation could go one of two ways. Either she was going to be pissy for the rest of the day, and he was going to feel better. Or they both were going to be half-naked taken their frustrations out. From the way he had her pinned on his lap it was looking like the former was going to be victorious. 

Wonka repositioned himself again to level out her body weight on his knees and lowered the hand on her back to hick up her uniform dress. 

"Wonka!"

"Silence." His command was low, no room for any mercy. The girl's heart skips a beat, and she fell silence rather quickly. She would just take her punishment and hope that she could sit later without wincing. Of course, even with the delivery of this punishment. Taylor was already thinking up her revenge, whatever he does onto her she would return ten times worse. Taylor shut her eyes tightly, trying to prepare herself as best she could for his incoming hand. Wonka was heavy-handed when he was angry, he usually was the embodiment of grace and beauty, but when he had fire running in his blood, his touches felt like hell. Taylor started to flinch at the slightest touches, half them were from her hair brushing against her skin. With each flinch, Wonka tried not to break out in a smile. It was very entertaining to see her mentally preparing herself for the worse when it was yet to come. 'That is how it should be' he told himself in glee, Taylor was nuisance one moment then a cry baby the next. How could she even stand herself when she was very flippy floppy. Wonka closed his eyes and breathed for a moment before opening them and looking down at the girl. His anger was slowly slipping away, and his more logical standpoint was clearing the clouds of reasoning.

"You're pitiful, dear." He cooed mockingly.

"Says the guy who is pissy about colour packaging. Suck a dick and live."

Slap

"Fuck!" Taylor screamed out as Wonka brought his hand down in a clean sweep. The pain rocketed through her ass and down her legs. She wasn't sure what hurt more the impact or the way her skin heated up from the aftermath. 

"Keep count. Straight to ten or it never ends. Plus one more if I start to bore." Wonka twisted tongue rattled off his rhyme and Taylor let out a sigh of defeat. She nodded, and Wonka smiled as she gave in to what was coming. The next slap came, and Taylor called out a broken 'two' as quickly as she could. Soon three and four with five taking a bit of time when Wonka noticed Taylor stiffen and hesitated to relax. Wonka managed to get most of his anger out in the first five hits which left his remaining five with a lighter impact. Six was still hard but this time he rubbed the area to soothe the skin under her shorts faster. Taylor didn't call out the number as she was too distracted with his gentle touch. Wonka rose a brow and quickly rose his hand and brought it down to snap her out of it.

"You fucker!" She hissed and kicked her legs, trying to get out of his grip again. That one hurt more than the others before it; she was sure it was going to leave a bruise. Taylor felt her eyes starting to water in the corners as her pain tolerance lowered notch by notch. She didn't handle pain well as it is and whenever Wonka spanked her, she couldn't help but start crying. She sniffled a bit and tried to clean her eyes before the tears fell. However, that didn't help but instead made the tears fall quicker. Wonka sighed and stuck her again but softer and even rubbed her afterwards.

Taylor gasped and pause for a moment to gather herself before saying, "S-six."

"Almost there but I won't be like the hare." He told her and Taylor took a deep breath nodding again for him to continue. At this point, Wonka was angry anymore, but he also refused to stop right in the middle. He was a man that had to finish everything he started or else it would drive him up a wall. Wonka eyed Taylor for a bit noticing how her head slumped to the side and her legs dangled lifelessly. The wet spot from where her tears fell had gotten more prominent, but he was satisfied. Well, this wasn't fun anymore if she was just going to give up and take it. Wonka's nose scrunched up at his dismay and for a second he thought about actually quitting. Ultimately pushing her off his lap and marching away with a new annoyance hanging over his head. Then an idea sparked, he knew how to get her lively again.

"God I hate when you space out, do that when I'm not bent over your lap." Taylor's comment snapped Wonka out of his trance and that was enough for him to put his plan in action. Wonka quickly pulled down her shorts along with her underwear and slipped them off her legs. Taylor reaction was immediate when she felt the tug of her clothes. She tried to get out of his lap but the hand on her lower back shot back up and pushed her down. Now she was a bit embarrassed but also turned on. This was the former outcome she wasn't expecting to happen. Wonka brought his hand up again and brought it down on the raw skin. The echo of her skin filled the room and both of them shivered. The sting still hurt but now it felt somewhat good. 

"Seven." Taylor moaned and rolled her eyes at how quickly her body betrayed her. Wonka giggled which caused Taylor to shake her head at his bullshit. She waited for the next hit just hoping he would have his fun quickly and she wouldn't be put on a display of getting turned on. Instead, Wonka rudded her cheeks again then slipped his middle finger between them towards her centre. Taylor breath hitched along with her heart and she bit back a moan. He rubbed her slowly then pulled his hand away, earning him a grumble of curses and spite.

He continues to do this for the next two hits, this time keeping his fingers between her leg longer and working her up before pulling away and leaving her to perish. Taylor couldn't bring herself to care anymore and started to grind against his leg when the feeling began to fade. Wonka had to admit that the sight of her gripping his leg and rocking back and forth was exciting and made him hot under the collar. Taylor could feel his excitement beginning to rise as her stomach brushed against his middle. She smirked and moaned out his name, knowing he would lose himself. Wonka shuttered at the sound of his name on her tongue. The hand on her upper back lowered to the small of her back and back up. The hand the was being used to attack her ass repeatedly took handfuls of cheek and squeeze it. 

"William." Taylor was always amazed at how easy his full name slipped off her tongue like water. She was still amazed that she never cringed at saying it either. She would cringe if she used his iconic nickname-which she had done many times and regretted it later. Through a shaky pant, Taylor lowered her head and bit down on his thigh through his dress pants. Biting was a primary 'hell yes' for the both of them no matter who was biting or getting bit. Wonka twitched and jolted forward a bit, biting down on his lip to stop his own moan from slipping out. He grabbed Taylor's right cheek and squeezed hard, digging his gloved nails into her skin. Taylor hummed in bliss then bit down harder when the final slap of her ass rocketed her forward. She unlatched quickly to moan out 'ten' which finally satisfied both of them in need of getting to the end. But all of these wasn't over just yet. Taylor threw her head back and started grinding on his leg again. Wonka eyes fluttered as she shifted towards him so when she rocked she brush against him purposefully. His hand on her ass slipped back between her legs. He drew different shapes with the tip of his finger driving the poor girl wild.

"Ahh-Sir." Taylor moaned again and gripped his pants leg for dear life. Wonka bucked his hips forward, trying to chase his high, but when it didn't measure up, he knew they had to change positions quickly or he was going to lose his mind. He pulled his hand away once more and tapped for her to stand up. Taylor, groaning the whole time, pushed back on his leg onto her toes to stand up. Once he was standing he pulled her between his legs by her waist. There was a silent agreement between them that she was overdressed and the uniform had to go. Wonka rose his fingers to start snapping off the long row of buttons that kept him away from the treasure underneath.

"I'm still mad about what you're doing," Taylor commented out loud. Wonka shot his eyes up to look at her and rolled them, of course she would bring that up again. Way to kill the mood.

"Not for long, you won't. Now being a good girl and shut your mouth for more than two minutes."

"Bit me," Taylor shot back and soon regretted as Wonka pulled her dress off and her into his lap to do just so. When he pulled away after finishing his attack, he watched as Taylor's eyes lowered and her mouth trembled.

"Careful what you ask for. I'm a man that enjoys giving the people what they want." Wonka smirked and licked his lip seductively drawing her eyes down to his mouth. Many ideas came into her mind in how to get his mouth any and everywhere on her body. It made her bit her own bottom lip and moan. Wonka smirked and pulled Taylor in for a kiss by the back of her head. They both melted into each other and moaned, both taking turns trying to dominate one another. Wonka came out as victory as Taylor gave up and threw her head back for air. His lips continued to trail down her jaw and neck and finally to her collar bone. 

"Now, let's see how long you can continue to be upset with me."

[spacecharr]

Why I’m Not Threatened By Old Men

A (high) treatise on why young women shouldn't be afraid of all old men.

Written by a (high) young bi woman of colour.

---

Lemme start by saying I wrote that title because I thought it would be clickbaity. And I wrote the subtitle like that because I'm being "funny" and I anticipate it will generate trolling. My popcorn is getting cold, and I want a show.

And incidentally, it's all true.

Because this is SpaceCharr pontificating on #authenticity and weed, son!

My local Starbucks is small, has a tiny little patio, limited seating and serves a wildly diverse customer base. From your Basic Skinny Pumpkin Spice Latte Bitch(TM) to uniformed police, from sharply dressed businessmen to soccer moms with three kids and a Burberry purse, from punk-rock loud and proud visibly LGBTQ folks to button-down sweater-vest old-schoolers, and from local college kids to retired old men.

It’s fascinating to see the crazy range of people and it makes for eavesdropping lazily on some hilarious (and sometimes very serious) conversations ranging all over the place.

And for some reason, I have a really really easy time getting old white men to talk to me. 

Lemme lay some context: I’m a friendly gal. I’m sociable, (I’ve been told) charming, easy going, and very casual. I remember in elementary being given feedback by my teachers that I was “unapproachable”, and they were worried I would have difficulty making friends. From junior high on, I purposefully (after much coaching from my parents and my mom especially) sought out opportunities to learn better social skills. As an only kid, I didn’t have any siblings to be guaranteed friends with, and my relationship with my extended family was spotty at best. 

So if I wanted friends, I knew I’d have to get them on my own. (Troll Note: I know some dipshit’s gonna be all “omg sure #thathappened. Like a grade schooler can know that” - and you’re right! Grade like, 3-6 me had no fuckin’ clue. But 20s me? Who’s gone through a bunch of psychotherapy? Now she knows a bit more)

I learned interpersonal skills. I did drama, I joined clubs, I did Toastmasters (fuckin’ fantastic, btw, look for your local chapter), and I even did the Dale Carnegie Interpersonal Skills course that’s based off How to Win Friends and Influence People (1000% recommend, A+ on how to be a decent human despite its manipulative-sounding title which is brilliant). I learned how to be a more approachable person - and I learned why people find it approachable.

I saw the difference in how people received me when I spoke formally versus when I spoke in a very familiar tone (”hello” vs “hey, hey!”). I noticed that I could easily put the people I was dealing with off-balance in a good way (relieved surprise) with humour and well-meant self-deprecation. I learned through trial and error what body language and touch cues elicited in terms of responses across various types of people. It became second nature for me to analyse and act on these, and my knowledge of these techniques helps me daily in my work as a consultant.

So now, after several years in the workforce, multiple significant life events (aka I’m relatively old), and more overall life experience, I’m often described by my coworkers and friends as “very friendly and often happy”. Of course, according my sibling-like co-scoundrels in my cube farm, I am “disgustingly upbeat” - but they say it with love because they know I’ll tease them relentlessly, too.

I have found over the years that I have actually changed down to the core of that grade school girl. I’ve gone from a kid who struggled to make friends and who was seen as unapproachable, to a person who can very quickly establish good rapport. 

(side note: holy fuck I just realized I went from Dandere to Deredere... I’m a fuckin’ anime side character, shit)

Kind of the best example of what I mean is an interaction I had with a new massage therapist at this place I had a gift card for. That is to say, a complete and total stranger whom I had never interacted with or seen in the past. The shop I was at had you wait in the reception area with the receptionist until the RMT came to get you. So this dude came out to meet me, introduced himself and we chatted easily for a bit. After not even a minute of us chatting, he and I were laughing together and shared an easy chemistry. The receptionist - remember, who’d been there when the RMT and I introduced ourselves for the first time - then asked me “oh, are you two old friends?” to which he and I laughed and said “no, we’re just friendly”.

Anyways - that’s the context.

I’m a friendly gal. Sociable, a bit charming, easy going, and easily able to manipulate her own behaviours in order to make the other person feel more comfortable.

In Harry Potter-code: I’m a Slytherin who can play a Hufflepuff, but only because it gets me what I want - your cooperation and rapport - more easily. However, I also do genuinely mean those nice Hufflepuff-like actions - just, there’s an ulterior motive attached.

I’m also young, and obviously with South Pacific Islander blood in me (exotic features - I’ve been told I’d be cast in Miss Saigon if they ever did a musical in my city - I took it as as compliment, since I’m friends with the old white dude who told me that and he did mean it as a compliment).

Let’s put this together:

Exotic, tan-skinned young woman

Chatty, friendly, skilled at making people feel comfortable

Can make someone feel like an old friend

Easily self-deprecating and humourous

In a Starbucks with chatty retired old dudes and a lot of shared seating

Can anyone else see why my title makes more sense? (Legit, I am high, so if it doesn’t make sense, that makes sense)

Lemme spell it out for you bois: I’m an old perverted white man’s wet dream.

(yes, I’ve been told such to my face; yes, I believe from experience that most of the people who won’t believe me are straight young men - not out of malice, I think, but out of a belief that people aren’t that bad [not that old men finding young women attractive is bad - acting on it in certain ways however, can be]).

I’ve worked out of the Starbucks I mentioned several times in the past. As a consultant, I have a measure of flexibility in my schedule and I find I work best on some of my problem solving and documentation work when I’m out of the office. The change of scenery and the need to shut out the environment to “see” my work helps me - plus I don’t get drawn into the co-scoundrel shenanigans.

And I’m not kidding you - 8/10 times that I go there, I make a new old white man friend. Even the bi dude I met (srsly, it feels like since I made the decision to be openly out, I’m meeting more and more bi people everywhere when before there was nobody) was an old white dude.

I fuckin’ love it.

I am a young, bi woman of colour who loves having old white man friends. 

Because they’re just as chill, non-judgemental, self-deprecating, sociable, and easy-going as I am. And they appreciate my dad jokes and bi puns. Seriously. Dads everywhere - we all secretly love your jokes.

And, y’know what? I think more young women - LGBTQ or not, PoC or not - should want to have old white dudes as friends. 

INB4 tumblrinas: I don’t mean resurrect Hitler and be his gal pal. I mean don’t dismiss a possible friend just because they’re old, white, and have a dick. Use your brain - not every human is good, but likewise, not every human is bad. We come in shades in all ways.

I won’t tell you what to do, because I don’t know. What I want to share with you is why I feel the way I do. And let you do what you will with it - because I’m not interested in changing your mind. I’m interesting in trading stories and adventures - and understanding more about each other through that exchange.

Here’s why I love being open to talking to old white dudes:

Dad jokes. I’m not kidding. I love Dad Jokes.

They’re often past the point of giving a shit about society, so if you have a genuine, good-natured conversation about your point of view, chances as they won’t give a shit as long as you’re happy and no one’s dying.

They have amazing stories. I can’t tell you the number of times a new friend of mine has launched into crazy tales of things they got up to when they were younger.

They have great advice. Often, they’ve made some pretty bad mistakes. And they’re all too happy to share their lessons and spare someone else the trouble.

They often just want a chat. They don’t need a new friend, they don’t want your number, they just want a lively conversation with someone who isn’t gonna call the cops on them.

It’s so freakin’ easy to make their day and make them smile. And the genuine surprise when they find a young chickie they’ve no doubt had to weigh the pros-and-cons of talking to, who is easy-going and as happy to make their acquaintance as they are hers? It’s so cute. Old man smiles are so cute.

They respect you for being unapologetically who you are. They know that they’ve invited themselves into a talk with you - and they’re willing to carry and/or exit that talk if they find you being openly yourself. (which means if “yourself” is a fuckwit, they’ll just drop you if they know what’s good for ‘em; but then you’re just a fuckwit in Starbucks)

I guess for more location context, I should add that I live in Canada; it’s not an uncommon occurrence here for spontaneous conversations to happen. It might be more rare in other places, though. My city is also quite progressive and has a fairly active and supported LGBTQ scene.

All this said, it’s just a really nice experience in my mind to have good relationships (passing conversations, spontaneous coffee clubs, casual friendships, or more serious friendships) with old dudes as a young woman.

It’s like having a legion of second father figures, or uncles, more accurately fun drunkles, and older brothers. 

I enjoy several significant friendships with old dudes:

I go for coffee almost every week with two white old dudes and a dudette (I’d say “old” but she’d punch me out): our conversations range from politics to wood relationships to name calling to sibling-like teasing.

I have three co-scoundrels at work that I’m close friends with, all are old men. None are in a position to help me with anything at work, but damn are they hilarious and they’re a ready Friday-afternoon morale boost with their antics.

I have a very close old Japanese-Canadian friend. We have a complicated and somewhat tense relationship, but ultimately I think it can be said that we have a certain platonic love for each other. Though we don’t speak frequently, we’re both very significant to the other. He was my taiko instructor.

I have another very close relationship with one of my long-standing old dude friends. He’s known me since I was 9. A single hug from this man can stop an anxiety attack in its tracks. We kiss each other on the cheek and like to weird out the ladies at Starbucks when we go there with each other by holding hands - we’re both Slytherin trolls.

Don’t forget the OG Old Guy: my proper Old Man. My papa. Our relationship was strained by my mother’s unhealthy approach to all her familial relations during my early years. But as I’ve moved out, gotten older, and gained more life experience, it feels like my dad is finally realizing I’m not a little girl anymore - that I’m a woman, with woman needs, woman wants, and woman expectations and behaviours. We don’t talk about all things, naturally, he’s still my dad. But I can’t tell you how great it feels to have a dad who I know has my back no matter what.

I feel like there’s a certain conditioning for young women to “fear” the “old white man”. Certainly for me in particular it feels like there’s lots of factors in play: my “tropical” ethnicity, my youth, my LGBTQ nature (still haven’t been asked for a threesome as a bi woman - I’m impressed with my city), and, naturally, my gender.

While I do know that those are all things that certainly do warrant a certain amount of wariness around strangers (old in my neighborhoods usually means highly conservative about, depending on the age of said person, “the immigrants” or “the non-whites”. Age from young-old to old-ass-old. They’re a product of their time.), I also think it’s vital not to let that wariness get in the way of making a possible new friend.

Anyways, I need to wrap this up.

How does this loop back into #authenticity and weed? Well, it’s been my experience that the old (white + some Asians, in my case) dude friends that I’ve made are some of the best people to help you be yourself.

They have anecdotes to illustrate benefits, cons, risks, and rewards; they have dad jokes and puns to bring some much-needed levity; they don’t give a fuck about the other Starbucks goers - for better or for worse; and they - just like you - just wanna have a good day and be able to be themselves.

Does this apply to every old man? No. Does it not apply to every old man? No.

If you’ve read this far, you have the brain capacity necessary to give someone a chance. Now, you’ll wanna do some preparation if this is nearing your max capacity, because you wanna make sure you’re not letting the wrong old man come talk to you all friendly-like. 

But once you find one who’s just a swell dude? Cut ‘im some slack, maybe remember that he’s struggling to speak your vocabulary as much as you’re struggling to understand his. 

Sit back, drink some coffee, smoke a joint, and share a story once in a while.

Anyways. That’s been SpaceCharr Pontificating.

Cheers, buds.

Stoner note:  My hand rolling’s gotten so much better. And the weed I have doesn’t seem to smell as strongly as the pre-roll I had that one time, so I might sesh in the park at some point. I have my inaugural shroom trip this weekend - bestie agreed to tripsit! Yay! And she’s bringing the whole Planet Earth HD collection! - so it might not be for a while. I want to give the experience the attention it deserves, plus I need to establish a clean baseline to experiment accurately with microdosing.

[itssuuuuu]

Affection or Love?

I guessed I’m a person where I repel & attract back. The science of Magnets. That’s me. I like everyone & that’s when I get myself into trouble where I wished it was that easy to just throw it all away & walked forward. It happens a few times but the feeling of having the people that you had affection on, is truly ‘unresistable’

But somehow, I managed to forget it & act like nothing happened at all. I’m truly a horrible person because I’ll just randomly liked a person & I’ll just talk, that’s what girls do anyway. And when I’m interested in their personality or their beautiful good looking figure, Ohh Good Lord, Bless my eyes ... handsome I’d say. But of course, there are some people whom I pushed away because I don’t wanna vibe their presence when I’m around. I’m picky, I’m choosy but most importantly when I choose a man to talked with, this man are absolutely lucky as hell. I didn’t meant in sex terms, but in a way how I would wanna carry them into a conversations & meetings. Like it’s good, an extra knowledge. How bad could it be?

That’s when I fall, they’re gone...

You do know, people will eventually get bored of what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a conversation or anything. You just get bored BUT if there’s a thing where you’re interested in, you wouldn’t be bored at all. It keeps you interested everyday with it. I was or shall I say I used to feel it’s interesting finding people with different ideas to see what they actually thinks.

I wouldn’t say it’s a weakness but you just tend to have an attraction towards any random person like ‘Ohh hey look at that man, gorgeous as hell’ you know? That kinda attraction. I’m not so beautiful but I considered myself beautiful. As a lady, we will all feel that way which it pretty much enhanced our beauty anyway. Let’s get back to this story where I actually made a deal with this man here & there’s another two more. Lol sounds like I’m a player but I’m not. The first was a crush & another 2 more was just affection.

It was my first time letting my defences down abit, getting into another dimension partially to talked to him. We were complete strangers. I started first. I make it happen, those texts, I made it happened ..

I know this guy from Twitter & just by seeing his pictures, wow I seriously fell for him. It was meant to be just crush, but my heart & mind went overboard. I knew I wanted to be more than just friends but little I did know that ‘ Ahh he took MBBS, he won’t find a mere ordinary life & wife’ To which I don’t considered myself having a simple life. I have extraordinary life like working my ass off even when I’m studying. My taste is luxurious but I lead a middle class life. I have big dreams on my own & still figuring out how to make it happen.. if this is not an extraordinary, then I don’t know what is it called anyway. I preferred struggling for the things I wanted. That’s when I put him as one of priority, which legit makes us making a deal out of it. We know each other through social apps which immediately we exchange numbers but he wasn’t that interested as I am in this conversation. When I knew the conversation gonna be dead, I made it cheerful. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t my side. It’s dead so we left it, empty but every now & then we will text like what friends do & miss a little.

One day, he called me out for lunch to know me more. I was excited VERY EXCITED but a part of me was thinking, that might be the last we out because we barely know each other thou. Like, strangers don’t really get along well but friends do. I swear I liked him so much I can literally hug him straight & tell him. Thank God, I’m not dumb as hell. But I know, he know, I liked him very much. I can sometimes teared up missing him, that’s how much I liked him but little did I knew, I’ve fall for him. I didn’t wanna admit it’s love because it’s only one-sided. So I didn’t let him know nor give him a hint about it. As we were talking, he tell me out straight that, he thought of dating me. I was like ‘ Hahaha don’t joke about it..’

HE WAS SERIOUS ABOUT IT !! SERIOUS ABOUT DATING ME !!!

Honestly, I was so so so happy I can literally swim in the ocean & die. What on earth did I came out with?¿

Yes, we agreed. We’ve sealed the deal. After December 2020, we’ll know more about each other to date. But now, right now, I personally don’t think it’ll happened because ‘Hey, you’ll tend to meet a lot of people better than me everywhere’ ... He told me that he never wanted to leave a girl hanging because he wants to concentrate on his career which is a good thing. Little that he’s aware that, he kept me hanging onto this deal. A part of me, wanted to gave up & another part of me kept pushing me to go with the flow & whole me knows that, this deal ain’t gonna be alive so just forget it.

It’s not about overthinking but it’s about the trustworthy reason is not there enough to make me believe that we’re gonna date. He might have found anyone now because doctors will wife doctors. Their standards, pride, intelligence, good looking, qualifications & etc ... is different level to me. I don’t wanna make it sound absolutely desperate about it but I want him in my life till we grow old together & smiling, saying that ‘Our life is beautiful & colourful. We made it ! We made beautiful kids together, money to covered our needs & wants, we’ve build our life together, we grew through our career, we grow love together & most importantly, we fight over because we love each other. We made it, my love’ with hand in hand, tightly. That was what I wished for, to live with him.

As soon I have this desires, I throw it away but it kept coming back to me, to my heart making me yearning for it all over & over again.

But he does not shows any interest nor hint. I believe it’s gone or I believe he would see me being with him for life (?) truth unfold.

2nd (Affection)

It was a mistake but it’s like another short stories I met him through a friend of mine. But this friend of mine lied to both of us, which is, she cooked up different stories to both of us & atleast 70% of her stateful mind was tryna set us up together. It was a failure anyway. He paid for my food as well, I was guilty for not even carrying a conversation properly. I wasn’t interested in him, I was steady & I was focused until my friend won’t shut up about it. She keeps talking about him to me everyday until I opened my mind about him. I started looking for answers in his pictures, stalking him. I wasn’t sure what was I looking for but I was finding answers. It was the thought of me pushed me into liking him ALOT !! All of a sudden, I was crazy on him like an absolute lunatic. I can’t stopped talking him, I can’t stopped thinking about him. I can’t stopped questioning about him to my friend ‘the one who tries to sets us up & eventually fails lol’

SHE FREAKED OUT

She wanted me to liked him but when I became obsessed on him, she freaked the hell out. She tried stopping my obsession on him like saying, about his lifestyle & mindtalked view. In a harsh words, she’s tryna say that ‘ He’s rich as hell & you’re not even there, you don’t understand his lifestyle. Also, you can’t afford his lifestyle. He is that rich. Plus, he will only look into Chinese girls, who would want an Indian girl like you (?)’ it was harsh. But at that time I tried talking to him, letting my guts down, I talked but it was a failure so... I left it completely. My obsession, crazy-ness over him is OVER.

Only then I realised, how truly wrong I was...

I was using this guy here to get over or shall I say getting rid of my crush. It was a sick moment & I never wanted to lose face. How mean I was at that time? How could I wanna forget a guy by using another guy ? I was possessed with selfishness, greedy & desperation on my friend’s eye.

To my eye,

I was in need of forgetting my crush who didn’t really cared about my existence, I missed him a lot but I wanna throw away that feeling. I need a massive distraction. It was wrong but in a good way.

3rd (Affection)

The guy in a watch shop. He worked there & we bumped into each other there for a few years but it was all Hi & Bye. Not more not less & talks about those watches that they’re selling. He’s handsome & older. Guess the older they grow, the handsome they’d be. When I went there again to get a gift for one of my friend, we were being friendly & abit flirty but it was a good one. Like this is the age to have fun & all but as long as you know your limits, then it’s totally fine.

A friend shall I say, we talked all those normal things. Our texts has been dead & alive & so we kept on going on. We called each other out to talk & all. At first, it was pretty fun, excited & cool. Then now it just went back all normal. Because I knew he had a girlfriend so I don’t go overboard. I know my limits. Like I said, he have a beautiful lies. Lies that makes you believe in a second but deep in you, you knew it’s a lie. We can get along because we have basic & common likes. Our preference are almost the same & little did he knew that I’ve actually know, he’s having a girlfriend. But he lied. Oh well, that’s just how guys really how isn’t it?¿ Maybe they worried knowing that you’re committed, girls won’t be able to talk longer with you. It’s normal. I’d won’t say he’s creepy but sometimes he makes the whole situation looked that I’m after him which I’m not. But all of this, I’m doing it as a friend. A friend that wouldn’t harm him nor his girlfriend.

This is it !! But of all, I feel sick because I still have an eye on my first crush. Even till now, everytime & if anyone talked about him I would just melt, melt like a hot ice cream. I don’t wanna admit it’s love because we both know that me might/might not do it & we wanna focused more into our own works, our own things. I can’t believe sometimes I could just teared up missing him a lot.

——————————————————————————

To avoid all this thoughts, I sometimes wonder bad things about him. Like he’s mean, evil, a player for having 11 exes. 11 exes for Christ sake !! BUT NO because beneath all of it, he’s nice. Of course, for all starting of any meet anyone could be nice to you but the thought & heart of mine, could feel he’s so pure at love & heart, an ideal one. He considered himself as Rasputin, a live Demon dwell in him because of all sadness & depressions that he had to endured throughout his growing age. It was a devastating moment but through growing, we will eventually learned. I ain’t no angel that can pulled out all those nice fairy tales things. But I wouldn’t mind being another demon that can rescue him from being far worst of a demon. I wouldn’t mind growing together with him in hell through fire. As long I could cool down the demon in him & soften him, he’ll no longer be a demon, he will be a rational human being. He’s been hurt many times & coming up after all that, he’s strong.

All these thoughts, yet I wanna throw him away, far away from my sight. But knowing that, all of this is just clouded by my own selfish thinkings makes me sick as hell. I don’t know what will happen, I don’t know if he would keep his words like ‘me’, I don’t know if this would be alive...

Is this love or affection? Truth unfold (?)

How I wished all of these are just mere thoughts that would be gone easily but that man, my heart skips a beat everytime I see him & his pictures. That feeling is beautiful absolute love. Alive & beautiful

[mishydraws]

Why Keith’s Papa is Still Alive: A Conspiracy Theory (let me have this, ok)

Alright I am in full denial so buckle in for this wild ride. I’m not buying that Papa Kogane (we’ll call him Tex) is actually Dead‬

Here’s why: I don’t trust the Galaxy Garrison as far as I can throw them

‪We already know that the GG has a history of covering up any alien business (Kerberos mission? Pilot error? Everyone dead? Pfffft. We know Pidge broke in and found no evidence of a crash. They lied).‬

‪Then Shiro crash lands back on earth unexpectedly. Their missing legendary pilot has returned and the first thing they do is strap him to a table and sedate him for research and further experimentation on his mysterious alien prosthetic. Sketchy.‬

‪Anyways I think they probably know there’s Something out there as far as aliens go but they don’t want the general public to know about it judging from the Kerberos cover up.‬

‪Now what does this have to do with Tex? He housed an alien for at least a solid year or 2. Long enough for him and Krolia to mutually fall in love and for her to have his baby so they’ve got some time there.‬

Unrelated side note: Tex & Krolia are hot they can both step on me bye

‪Tex mentions the possibility of going to the Garrison when he and Krolia find the blue lion convinced and confident that they can help so he sounds familiar with them. Maybe he works there?‬

‪It’s p much confirmed that he’s a firefighter (he has a fireman’s jacket and axe) so maybe the GG have their own fire dept to cover their butts since they’re located in the middle of the desert.‬

But during Krolia’s time on earth, you’ve gotta admit it wasn’t exactly subtle. She crash lands in the middle of the night, there’s fire... she’s just lucky Tex got to her first. And what did they even do with the wreckage afterwards?‬

That’s some pretty big evidence to leave behind. But then when the next wave of Galra soldiers come snooping for the Blue Lion after Keith is born, again they blow up a bunch of Galra ships (one of which had already taken flight so it would’ve been pretty darn visible in the sky I’d think)‬

‪Now if we assume that Tex is very familiar with the Garrison and possibly works for them, he’s gotta live close enough to them for a regular commute to be feasible. Sure he has his hoverbike and no traffic but still. Who wants to build their house 100’s of miles away from work 1 way.‬

What I’m getting at is all of these very Not Subtle things happened right around his property and he’s probably not THAT far away from the Garrison to begin with.‬

‪Krolia returns to space not long after the last explosions so what if after that, the Garrison starts keeping an eye on Tex, their suspicions raised. They see him  raising a son. Not all that suspicious. I doubt him legit hooking up with an alien is the first thing that crosses their‬ minds (but to be fair they didn’t actually see Krolia so they have no idea what a milf she actually is but ANYWAYS......)‬

Fast forward maybe 8-10 years of them snooping around, testing samples, finding evidence, biding their time (again wtf happened to all the Galra ship remains) and finally the Garrison is convinced Tex knows‬ something and isn’t telling them and they can’t just have this guy running around with alien knowledge when we already know they go to great lengths to cover that ish up.‬

So they pull some shit and fake his death because they know that whatever is going on, he knows Too Much but they can’t ACTUALLY whack him cuz he does have knowledge that could be valuable to them. Might as well keep him under lock and key so at the very least they can contain it and make sure he doesn’t go leaking alien info to the public which, again, we know the GG does not want.‬

Now hear me out. What if they burned his house down (I’m convinced Keith’s shack is just the secondary building next to the original house with some additional renovations done to it at some point but the house is clearly gone in episode 1 so what happened to it huh 🔥🔥🔥‬

And the fire is the story that gets told to Keith who was probs at school or smth at the time

There’s a possibility they could’ve just said he died on the job but I do still wonder what happened to the house then..‬

But either way if we go with this then 8-10 year old Keith never actually saw a body. And the GG isn’t interested in Keith cuz he’s just a kid. If the kid knew something don’t you think he would’ve gone blabbing about it by now as kids do?‬

But if Tex was one of their own firemen maybe the Garrison offered to take care of the funeral arrangements for a proper burial (this would explain how a whole plot and headstone was paid for since obviously 8-10 year old Keith couldn’t do it.‬

‪And it’s doubtful any other family members were around for it cuz if there HAD been other family, Keith would���ve likely gone to live with them instead of at “the home” as he mentioned to pre-Kerb Shiro‬

We know in canon the paladins are all headed back to earth. What if they get there and somewhere along the way they discover Tex locked up in the GG basement or something. The GG is a big military-like base so I’m sure they have all kinds of places hidden away and off limits.‬

Places to hide things. 

LIKE KEITH’S DAD WHO HAS BEEN THERE THE WHOLE TIME RIGHT UNDER KEITH’S NOSE ALL BECAUSE KROLIA SET OFF A CHAIN OF EVENTS WITH HER ARRIVAL AND THEN LEFT TO HELP KEEP THEM SAFE BUT LITTLE DID SHE KNOW THE GG RIGHT NEXT DOOR IS WHAT HE’D REALLY NEED TO BE SAVED FROM ALL ALONG

And then y’know they rescue him Voltron saves the day yadda yadda yadda this family FINALLY gets the happily ever after they deserve reunited with the addition of a space wolf and also a Shiro the end‬

EDIT: Just adding onto this cuz I was thinking and just wanna clarify that although my natural bias for Keef’s dad obviously shows (A Good Man, he is) I don’t necessarily think the Garrison is inherently ~eViL~

I think they have their own agenda and priorities. They don’t want to cause a worldwide panic so of course they would cover up any hints of alien shenanigans. But in following that priority I could see them doing some questionable things in order to fulfill it. Y’know. All for peace and the greater good and all that 👽