#or those who presume that they know us more than those who live in our body

[mantisgodiveblog]

I was wondering what the reaction would be to the ‘Royal We’ joke!!! I am loving your reactions to Loop. I am more than okay with a character being condescending towards me if I find it funny, so it’s pretty interesting seeing Loop’s first interaction actually having the intended effect… rather than my immediate desire to draw them.

We rarely take well to condescension. It's part of why we choose to take on this persona, rather than something more "casual" - we rarely take kindly to anyone attempting to position themself over us, and this sort of semi-formal syntax both allows us to set ourself up as, at the very least, someone who won't take kindly to being talked down to - in addition to the fact that it lets us at least attempt to illustrate our thoughts in detail. Loop is immediately rubbing our setae the wrong way, and though we're certain they have some redeeming features, we find it difficult to see them at the moment. There's only room for one all-knowing asshole in this room, and that all-knowing asshole is us.

Their design is very cool. It was very fun to draw, despite the difficulty of doing negative-space sharp edges in watercolor. Very unfortunate that the one to bear such a well-designed body should be such a dick. Their personality doesn't live up to the hype. Give off the vibes of the sort of person who would have tried to Help Us by taking the handles of our wheelchair when we were using one. We do not think that we could productively coexist with them in a physical space. We are having difficulty productively coexisting with them in a digital, fake one.

[st4rrth0ughts]

Aventurine character study that I spewed at my friend posted here bc I despise whoever portrays him as a useless blonde 24/7 horny twink as his canon self (i will throttle you through the fuckin screen)

A/n: I think the 2.1 trailer is helping me regain my writing motivation, expect inbox asks from Jan- Feb to be coming out soon :)

WRITTEN BEFORE 2.1 This post will contain leaks, 2.0 Trailblaze quest spoilers, world quest spoilers, Aven's slave life in canon, disgusting people saying Aven's a sex slave, under the cut! Please proceed with caution if any of these trigger you. Thank you, and enjoy my yap session on one of the best characters in this game.

Aventurine's story is much more than just looking and acting like the typical rich blonde playboy, as much as he gives off those vibes. Looking at his child self in the 2.1 trailer compared to all of his current models, its very obvious that many, many things happened that caused all the light to poof from his eyes.

First, his homeland, Sigonia. Aventurine's home planet's is uninhabited, and perhaps even destroyed completely. Aventurine is the last of his kind left. His parents, his sister, his possible friends and relatives, hell, even all the people he doesn't know have all perished. The IPC took him in, I presume, but most definitely not out of kindness. In fact, it may not matter that Aventurine is one of the Ten Stonehearts, he is not a person to the company. He is just a asset, a piece for them to dispose if he fucks up.

In the 1.4? Belobog quest where Topaz goes to Bronya about Belobog's massive debt to the IPC, and at the end, we get our first crumbs of Aventurine's character. A important thing to note in this dialogue between the two of them is that he asks Topaz to the project manager on his project in Penacony, because if he knows better than everyone that if he fails to get Penacony back into the IPC's grasp, he'll die. There's no way around it, unless he gets someone he has a somewhat close bond with, Topaz, to lighten his fall.

The tattoo on his neck, is a symbol of his slavery to the IPC. How he's bound to them. How no matter how hard he runs or hides, he will never escape their grasp. In fact, he knows damn well, if anyone gets wind of this alongside his Sigonian history (Sigonians are notorious for being wolves in sheep's clothing, bad people in most eyes'), it is very well possible that his rivals and enemies will use his past to their advantage. Thats why he freely shows it to the world. So that no one can dig it up and use it against him, because how do you use something that he so freely proclaims to everyone he meets?

Aventurine is a man who gambles as well. Not just simply gambling for the thrill of it or his earnings. He says it himself, he sees the world, life itself, as a gamble. High reward, high stakes. Even going back to his conversation with Topaz, its only shown on how he tells her he warned her about taking Belobog as her project because it was high risk, but low return. Aventurine wants the best outcome not just for himself, but because if he doesn't get a good outcome, the IPC has no use for him.

Aventurine is a man who knows how to get what he wants. he knows how to take risks, get out of high stake scenarios with him being the winner. Its obvious in his lightcone, 'Final Victor', his conversation with Dr. ratio in the Penacony 2.0 Trailblaze quest, and his conversation with Himeko and Welt about giving up his room for the Trailblazer. He's confident, cocky, if you will. But for good reason.

In the lightcone, its implied it doesn't matter for Aventurine dies or lives. He will always be the winner. Every move is calculated, precise, carried out with clockwork precision and most importantly, planned so well that whether you like it or not, you're letting him win. He manages to get the Nameless, the widely regarded faction, in his debt. He knows damn well how to play his cards. It is extremely impressive. But he is the Aventurine of Stratagems. He knows what he wants and needs, and he will go any length to get it.

The lightcone, again, also shows just how far Aventurine risks, just for him to gain Dr. Ratio as a asset for him to benefit from. He could have gone any route, but what does he go for? Thats right, Russian goddamn roulette. Just for the (I assume) slim chance of Dr. Ratio's trust, or at the very least, cooperation. "I will always be the final victor." I am repeating, but just bear with me here, this just solidifies the fact he is confident in his skills. He doesn't flinch at all when he shoots 3 blank rounds right into his heart, even though there's the 1/6 chance he'll die. He takes risks. Its his character. He doesn't have anything or anyone, much less his own life, left to loose.

The lightcone is also not 'haha funny gay story', as much as it is funny, i wont lie, the memes are fun to look at, but it is not that. Its a story where Aventurine's suicidal tendency shows through, perhaps not so clearly, but its very much there if you look past the story and read into it. Again, Russian roulette, he could have gone for anything else, like a contract or smth, but he knows he has to go through extremes, and this just solidifies the fact of how Aventurine will do anything for assets and trust in him, so his plans can come to fruition.

Aventurine's personality is complicated, like a intricate, deceiving web of lies and emotional barriers to keep him safe. He hides behind the facade of smiles and is unreadable, and his past is all but cheery. A slave, (not a sex slave, twitter+Tiktok users need their brain fucking reworked i will cry) a man branded by the IPC, bound to the till his death is what Aventurine is. The IPC is ruthless, evident from multiple world quests, such as the Aurum Street Alley quest, Belobog's debt quest, Chadwick's quest in Penacony, paints them as bad people, a bad organization in general. Hell, even though Topaz isnt like the assholes we've seen, she's far from an angel herself.

Aventurine has gone through many things to have lost the sparkle in his eyes. Take Childe/Tartaglia from Genshin Impact for example, whom fell into the abyss for months, seen all the horrors of it, had to learn to fend for himself because I'm very sure Skirk did not care for him in a healthy sense. We can either assume Aventurine been through something on the same level during his younger days or perhaps, worse.

And no, he is not Dr. Ratio or Sunday's sex slave, I'm looking at a certain artist on Twitter (fuck off I'm not calling it X), its disgusting. Whoever genuinely enjoys sex slave Aventurine is sick in the damn head, no he would not enjoy that kind of Roleplay, as much as i am downbad and indeed filthy with some of my fics with him.

Aventurine doesn't have anyone he can truly call a friend, ship him with Dr. ratio, Sunday, Boothill (yes, its a thing), Caelus/ Stelle, whoever, but in the end, you cannot say he (as of 2.0, this may change) has any true friends he can trust, not even just a bit. Bonds he forms are transactional, maybe not too much on Dr. Ratio (as evidenced by his dejected his looks after Ratio leaves, either from the insult or bc he truly though Ratio cared) and perhaps on the Astral Express's part, but his bond with Sunday? Yeah, its transactional, 101% unless it changes in 2.1.

All in all, Aventurine is my favourite character, i have never wanted to read, write, understand, watch, hell, I've never wanted to farm and pull for a character as much as him. He is a complex, heavy and deep character that I do not believe many can grasp upon properly when writing stories, headcannons or even smut/nsfw works with him in it (shoutout to those who does tho, I love y'all <3).

Draw or write his fanon self, make him a himbo, tsundere, a rich man who's just a playboy, or a blonde with a pretty face, but you cannot say that is him in canon. I may despise some fanon interpretations, but fuck those who merge fanon and canon. He will never be any of the fanon interpretations i mentioned above, and he never will be in canon. Hoyoverse put their whole soul into this man, i can see it, and its brain damaging on how so many people fetishize his past and water him down.

In speculation of 2.1 and 2.2, if Aventurine does live (he prob will, its unlikely he'll be killed before release, Tingyun is a exception because she released before her death), maybe he'll learn how to start to open himself up again, start to fully trust, starting with Trailblazer as his first true friend. Its cliche, typical protag power bullshit, but it will no doubt, be a huge step in shaping Aventurine back into the man he could have been if his planet wasn't enslaved.

Conclusion: He deserves better, both in- game and how the fandom treats him. I love him, he's my adorable pookie wookie shmookie <33

[saintsenara]

Do you think the wizarding world even has a concept of rape? I don't think this was JKR's intent but love potions are considered perfectly legal, Romilda Vane doesn't get in trouble, Dumbledore doesn't seem to think Merope did anything wrong to Tom Riddle Sr., and despite a member of Magical Law Enforcement witnessing lots of sketchy stuff at the Gaunts' no one steps in to help Merope. Plus we know their society is archaic and lacks modern values - ie. quills, slavery, lack of democracy

it's a great question pal.

the answer for which is under the cut, for the obvious reason that it comes with a trigger warning for rape.

when the statute of secrecy was signed in 1689, rape - defined as "the carnal knowledge of a woman forcibly and against her will" - had been illegal under english law since the middle ages.

however, the "against her will" bit is important here. in the seventeenth century, it was a legal requirement for a victim of rape to prove that she had maintained a continuous state of physical resistance during her assault. in cases where a victim could not prove this, her consent was presumed - even if she had been incapacitated in some way. unsurprisingly, consent was always assumed between husbands and wives.

men could not be raped under the letter of seventeenth-century english law - but the rape and sexual assault of men was illegal under buggery [sodomy] laws, and was often taken much more seriously by the state...

and i think we can plausibly say - should we want to - that, on the basis of what we find in canon, the wizarding world might retain this legal requirement for rape to be indisputably resisted, and that this explains why love potions seem to have no repercussions attached to them.

because, of course, love potions essentially function like date rape drugs, even if they leave their victims appearing to be of sound mind [the officiant who married tom and merope wasn't suspicious of anything, for example - and the only reason ron is so badly affected by the love potion he takes is because it was out of date] . they incapacitate a person to the extent that they cannot offer legitimate consent to sexual acts, and they also incapacitate them to the extent that they cannot physically resist their attacker - in their case, by compelling the person dosed with the potion to regard their attacker as someone they want to have near them.

therefore, if wizarding law only considers rape to be something which is accompanied by evidence of resistance... then using a love potion on somebody would not be rape.

the cultural implications of this are fascinating - especially since [no matter what jkr thinks] the wizarding world appears to be restrictive [by the standards of muggle britain in the 1990s and 2000s - although, unfortunately for those of us on our high horses about coming from a superior nation, not by the standards of muggle ireland...] in terms of conventions surrounding sexual behaviour and gendered expectations placed upon women.

the marriage age for women is extremely low [any woman whose wedding date we can pin-point in canon - molly weasley, andromeda tonks, lily potter, fleur delacour - gets married as a teenager]; the age for having children is also much lower than it was in the muggle world - and even than it was in the muggle world of the 1940s-1980s [all four of the women above fall pregnant before they're twenty-one, for example]; unmarried couples don't seem to live together, and there's clearly a social taboo against premarital sex [molly weasley gets a lot of flack from the fandom for making bill and fleur sleep in separate bedrooms, but nobody in the story regards this as prudish or old-fashioned]; divorce doesn't seem to be common [and blaise zabini's mother killing her husbands certainly takes on a new flavour if we assume that divorce is extremely difficult... or even illegal]; and married women - at least in the middle- and upper-classes - don't seem to work.

i also think that it's canonically plausible that arranged marriage, including between cousins, is a common cultural practice [sirius' comment in order of the phoenix about parents "letting" their children marry basically confirms this, i think] - which means we can also imagine, if we'd like, that there's perhaps little legal distinction between arranged and forced marriage.

obviously - obviously - i don't think that any of these are things the doylist text intended. the reason the story says very little about sex - both consensual and otherwise - or law or gender norms is because the harry potter series is a story about a boy-wizard who goes to a cool magic school and fights a good-versus-evil battle to the death which was written for children. i don't begrudge the publishers for not fancying a hundred pages on harry learning how to put on a condom...

[and the low marriage/childbearing ages genuinely seem to be because jkr is functionally innumerate and didn't realise how young she was suggesting everyone was...]

but from a watsonian perspective, they're really interesting - especially for the extremely disturbing paths they can lead us down as authors when we're trying to flesh out the worldbuilding of magical britain.

what - for example - is the wizarding age of consent? and how would this impact how wizards understand sexual maturity, adult-child power relations, and child abuse?

[after all, if the age of consent is unchanged from 1689... it could be as low as ten. which goes some way towards explaining why nobody thinks of tom riddle as grooming ginny...]

and does the law consider it possible for a wizard to rape his wife? and if it doesn't, what does it think about him beating her?

what legal rights do sex workers have in the wizarding world?

is abortion legal? is contraception? is homosexuality? does gay sex have a higher age of consent?

is divorce legal? can women initiate a divorce? how are single mothers treated [and, therefore, what was lupin willing to do to tonks by walking out on her]? how are the children of unmarried parents treated? what property and inheritance rights do women have? are marriages performed by muggles - or dissolved by them - recognised by the wizarding state? what position does this put a witch [like eileen snape] who marries a muggle man in? would a wizard who marries a muggle woman and then abandons her be committing bigamy if he married a witch?

would wizards ever be punished for sexual offences against muggle women? does merope get away with attacking tom sr. in the eyes of the wizarding state because of her gender or because he's a muggle or both? could a muggle raped by a wizard even report the crime?

what modesty standards are there in terms of dress and behaviour? what would wizarding feminism look like? what is it like to be muggleborn [especially from the 1960s onwards] and enter this world?

i think i'm inclined to take the grimmest possible view of all of these questions, to be quite honest...

the wizarding world is fucked up.

[davinashifts333]

THE SECRET AFFAIR (Jason DiLaurentis x Liar!Reader):

⚫️summary; one year after Alison’s disappearance everything in Rosewood went haywire. Y/n, Aria’s maternal cousin & now 1/5 of the remaining Liars, who had either an equal amount or possibly even more secrets than her childhood friends, had been dating her now presumed dead best friend’s brother. That’s right, since before the summer of Alison’s disappearance Y/n & Jason had secretly been hooking up & began officially dating due to her helping him sober up & help him through his toughest nights that now gloomed over his past. She was his main alibi for the night everything happened with Alison but, obviously couldn’t tell anyone why she was with him. So why now, that they’re finally putting Alison to rest does it all go to shit? Because the whole town believes one of the liars did it.

⚠️warnings; swearing, age gap relationship (Y/n is the same age as the girls but one of the oldest, so 5-6 years younger than Jason), adult themes, murder, gore-ish?, PLL shit dude, it’s crazy, 18+ ONLY!

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Y/N’s POV (the night of Ali’s disappearance)

I woke up with a blazing headache to my phone ringing a very specific tone that had become all too familiar. Jason. Thunder rolled in as lightning flashed the barn awake. The text from Jason saying to meet him at our spot which was a small bench in the woods behind his house. I head over, carefully leaving the barn door ajar so the girls won’t wake up when I come back but, I notice i’m not the only one who had planned to escape. Ali was gone and so was Spencer. I brushed the thought from my mind as I remember Jason’s text,

‘Garrett and Ian brought over some weed and I have the shakes now, meet up? I’m freaking out. Be safe. xx’

Jason had been trying to get clean, key word, trying. His friend group wasn’t as lenient as I was though, every now and then I had to help clean him up and sleep through the high or drunken daze. He wasn’t the best at being drunk believe it or not, he got drowsier than me after smelling the fumes when filling my car up with gas. Regardless, Jason was there for me when my dad left to hunt down my mom’s murderer. Yeah, Aria is my cousin, our moms are sisters.. Well.. Were.. That was until one night in the winter of 1998. I woke up after hearing glass shatter and walked down stairs, all I remember seeing was a shadow of a tall man standing over my mother’s body. Since then, I’ve lived with my aunt Ella and her family. Jason was our neighbor from down the street and Aria knew Alison, so obviously I knew them too. He always told me that death brought new life and my new life I had to live in honor of my mom. We clicked from then on. Of course being older he always taunted us girls and would do the typical big brother things to Ali. But one night when I was 14, I kissed him. He was shocked at first but then admitted he always liked me best out of Ali’s friends. The only bad thing was, Alison saw us kiss. She held it over my head like a looming sword on the thinnest of threads, threatening to tell her parents that Jason tried to force himself on me. Which obviously was a lie but who would they believe. Little did she know, I had secrets of hers to shoot back with so, we bonded in that way. A battle for dominance as one might call it. But nonetheless we were best friends, and secrets so keep us together.

I walk up to the bench hearing the crunching of leaves coming from the opposite direction, they staggered a bit and I saw Jason stumbling towards me, tripping on a rock and landing right on top of me.

‘Shit, sorry babe. I guess drunk me has two left feet.’ I giggled at his comment as we sat up, backs against the trunk of the tree that stood tall above our bench.

‘Who bought it this time?’ I asked, changing the subject back to the issue at hand. Jason then took position on my lap, my hands running through his hair. He sighed.

‘Ian. As always. But Garrett also brought booze. You know I can’t resist a nice cold beer. Those two idiots are probably still up in my room thinking I passed out somewhere. How was your sleepover?’ I rubbed his temples, knowing he got headaches when he drank.

‘It was okay, had some drinks too, courtesy of your sister. Hanna and Emily knocked out first and well you kno-.’ Suddenly the sound of someone walking by caught our attention. Jason shot up and stumbled a bit before helping me up. I held his waist to help him gain balance and he whispered to me to head back to the barn. That we’d talk the next day. With a swift kiss goodbye we went our separate ways. But, just as I got back to the door of the barn I heard a scream. I quickly made my way inside to see Emily, Hanna and Aria still asleep. Gladly I didn’t get caught by Spencer or Ali. I went back to my place on the large ottoman and curled up, hoping for Jason to have gotten back in one piece. He wasn’t as drunk or high as other times but, he still could continue through the night or worse, be pressured by Ian. God, I hated his “friends”. They only enabled him to fail at sobriety and I knew the truth behind their little club. Ian started it all with Jason when Ian took a photo of the girls and I in Emily’s bedroom. Creep.

An hour or so went by and I couldn’t sleep with all the thoughts running in my mind but, I kept my eyes shut. Spencer had come back but seemed a bit off, her breathing was ragged and stuffy. Like she had been crying or running. I wondered if Ali had gone back home or if she was coming back but, my question was answered when a loud crack of thunder woke us all up. Emily and Hanna huddled together while Aria “woke” me up.

‘Damn Y/n/n. You sure can sleep through anything.’ Spencer joked trying to lighten the mood and we all slightly laughed.

‘Where’s Alison?’ I finally asked and Spencer spoke up.

‘I think I heard a scream.’

That night marked a huge change in our lives and seeing how things were, my Uncle Byron and Aunt Ella decided it would be best to move to Iceland for a while, to get away. But now that we were back, things seemed way different. I hadn’t heard from Jason much after Ali’s disappearance. We kept in tough but after I was forced to move across the world, we decided it was best to be apart. I hoped he stayed sober but, I also knew the loss of his sister was taking a toll on him.

Aria and I had begun to unpack when Mike announced he was hungry. So Aria and I took my car that my mom had when she was my age, to a little dive bar/restaurant near Hollis College to get some burgers. When I waited for our order, Aria snuck off with this really cute guy who was apparently studying to be an English teacher. I let her have some fun while I contemplated texting Jason. Low and behold I folded.

‘Hey, I know it’s been a while since we last spoke but I figured a check in from our old spot in Rosewood could be cool? I just got back today and could sneak away from Aria for a few. If you’re up for it. Hope you’re doing well. xx.’

He read it almost instantly as if he had known I was thinking of texting him.

‘Welcome back to hell. I can meet you there in 10?’ I felt my heart skip a beat at the thought of seeing Jason after a whole year and quickly shot Aria a text letting her know what I was doing. During our time in Iceland I confessed to her about Jason and I secretly dating to which she was impressed but mainly saddened by and even wrote a modern day Romeo and Juliet based off of us. It was sweet, Jason had even liked it when I read it to him on one of our phone calls early on. He also felt proud that I was able to trust someone enough to talk about him with.

I drove the 10 minutes to the last secluded park where we had to start meeting after our bench had been compromised by the investigation and waited. A few minutes went by and I heard a knock on my car window. I shut it off and climbed out. He looked good, way better than he did when I left. Healthier, a bit more put together and like his face was hurting from smiling so much.

‘I don’t remember you being this bubbly. Are you sure you’re Jason DiLaurentis?’ I joked and he pulled me in for a hug. His signature cologne engulfed me in the most comforting way.

‘No more red streaks in your hair, you’ve grown up. You sure you’re Y/N Y/L/N?’ He responded and I playfully punch his arm. We walked over to the picnic table and sat down. We talked for what felt like hours but in reality was about half an hour until Aria texted me saying she had the food and was getting dropped off at home. I responded with an excuse she could give her parents and she said she’d have my back. I came back to the conversation at hand and decided to ask the big question.

‘Sorry about that, Aria was just letting me know she’d cover for me back at home. So, truth. How are you?’ I asked, his eyes saddening a bit knowing what I meant.

‘Well, i’m sober. A whole 9 months now. Still dealing with the whole Ali missing thing and just graduated from College. You?’ I felt his hand playing with my rings on mine and sighed.

‘Well, about to start Junior year of High School, still dealing with the whole Ali missing thing and now very proud of this guy I used to date. He was a bit of a mess when I left our hometown so, you know. Surviving.’ He chuckled nodding as I ended my response.

‘He was very broken up. I mean come on, not being able to see your gorgeous face for that long? It was criminal. Poor guy was torn up enough already. You just added to the mix.’ I took notice of how true his comment was, I had left him in a vulnerable moment.

‘Well, I tried to keep in contact with him but, didn’t know how else to help, I was grieving too. Just grieving in a different way and grieving him as well.’ He lifted my chin to meet my gaze.

‘You don’t have to grieve anymore love. He’s never given up that one day you’d make your way back to him. Believe me. He even thought about how if you didn’t come back soon, he’d have to go to Iceland to find you.’ His hand now cupping my cheek as my eyes glazed over with tears. Alison always did tell me she loved how I helped Jason become more human in her eyes. She had seen a change in him from when we started dating.

‘Well, I thought he would hate me for leaving. I know I had no choice but, I still wished I could’ve been there to help him, like always.’

‘Baby, listen to yourself. You were always there helping me. Even when you had to go. You called every day, texted all day long, checked in when you could. You did your part, it was just time for me to do mine and let you move on. I just hoped that if we really were meant to keep going, you’d eventually come back to me.’ At this point I was fully crying and listening to his grief and love pour out of him.

‘I did hound my Aunt Ella everyday in hopes of us coming back sooner. And look at us now. I don’t want to move on, I want us, I want to grow in life with you Jason. I wanna see you be the person you always dreamt of becoming and to let the past stay in the past, all the mistakes were just bumps in the road. You took control of your life, focused on yourself and I couldn’t be happier for you. You deserved to be free from those assholes you called friends.’ He placed his forehead to mine and pulled me into his lap.

‘Can I kiss you now? I’m dying over here.’ He whispered and I laughed nodding. At that moment, we were in bliss. Not knowing what was yet to come and how insanely twisted our lives would soon become. After our reunion we agreed on meeting up as much as we could and even heading to Philly for date nights. However until I turned 18, we had to stay under the radar for a bit. It was all rose colored glasses until the first text from -A. It was a picture of me in Jason’s lap and a whole album of pictures of us before Ali went missing. Who could’ve possibly gotten these?

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A/N: HIIII! IM BACK ON MY DELULU SHIT & HAVE FALLEN BACK INTO MY CHILDHOOD COMFORT SHOW PLL. LMK IF I SHOULD MAKE THIS A SERIES OR NOT, ALSO LMK WHAT ELSE YOU’D WANT ME TO WRITE ABOUT! LOVE YOU GUYS & HAPPY 2024!! 🩷🩷🩷

[crazy-pages]

First step to being a rationalist.

Acknowledge it might not work.

Let me take a step back for a moment. The single most important principle of science, in my opinion, is acknowledging the possibility of failure, that something might be beyond you. People often think of science as how you discover the truth, but I think it is more accurately and importantly described by how it lets us determine what we do not know.

For most of human history, we not only did not know what the sun was made out of, the question was fundamentally beyond our grasp. There was nothing any amount of scientific principle could do that would let you know what the sun was for most of human history. To be a scientist about it, to apply the scientific method to understanding the sun, is not just being able to know nuclear physics. You have to teach yourself to know when to say 'I don't know'.

For most of human history the sun has been fundamentally beyond our capacity to understand. And yet it is one of the most enduring and common subjects of false explanations. To internalize the scientific method, truly in a way that changes your thinking relative to what it was before you learned it, you have to become someone who, if you were living in those times, would be able to say "I don't know" even when everyone around you has an answer.

So let's talk about rationalism.

Rationalism is not just the idea that we can understand human biases. It's not just the idea that we can be more thoughtful or knowledgeable people by understanding these biases. No, rationalism is specifically the idea that by learning enough about human biases and by leaning on hard enough on data, we can reliably make correct and optimal moral choices. It is the belief that by performing enough rationalist study and training, and applying enough information science to a problem, one can proceed on the assumption they have come to the correct conclusion.

And those are very different things. It is the difference between saying "by understanding wood better, we can construct better foot bridges" and "by understanding wood better, we can span the San Francisco Bay with it".

Because here's the thing, better is not the same thing as reliable. Even if we grant the assumption that learning about biases makes one less likely to fall prey to them, and that is an assumption, an 80% chance of making mistake is also less than a 90% chance of making a mistake. It's valuable, that's a good thing, but it is not sufficient to say "hey so I used this method to come to my conclusions, therefore I'm sure I didn't make a mistake".

If you want to be a rationalist, the first rational principle you need to apply is that of the scientific principle looking at the sun. You need to be able to say "There may be nothing I can do, with the resources I have access to, to be sure I am actually free of bias and mistakes in logic. This may be fully beyond me, for the entire span of my life." And not just in the sense that nobody is perfect, but in the very real sense that you cannot depend on the train of logic in your own head to lead you to a correct place.

And the reason this is important is for the same reason it's important in science. The moment that you presume something is in fact knowable in science, it just becomes a tool of accrediting whatever conclusion you come to. It stops being an actual tool of discovery and becomes a rubber stamp of validation. It becomes something which makes you feel better about the conclusion you came to, not something which actually helps you in any way.

The moment you say to yourself, "because I am a rationalist, I am confident enough in A, B, and C to take actions X, Y, and Z" you've failed to be a rationalist. (Unless you provide a double blind study of a large well-controlled population, one of which was given rationalist training and the other which wasn't, upon the end of which it was determined that the rationalist trained population did indeed perform to an improved standard meeting a high minimum on certain metrics (upon which you must limit your assumption of rationalist improvement to those specific metrics). And then this study has been in the corpus of literature long enough to be peer-reviewed and criticized and had duplicate research and further investigation and a good long while for the scientific community to dissect it. A thing which has definitely not happened yet.)

The most important thing you can learn from rationalism is not an understanding of a specific set of biases. It's not the particular ways human cognition is messed up and it's not any type of information science. It is the fact that humans are flawed.

The most important thing you can learn from rationalism is humility, not hubris.

To do otherwise is for rationalism to just become another tool of confirmation bias, something making you think you are more correct than you actually are.

The humility you have to learn from rationalism is that you must plan and behave on the assumption that no matter how rationalist you think you are, you might still be behaving in biased ways. That there might be no way to fix this. And so all you can do try to behave in ways where even if you're wrong, you're going to minimize the harm you do to others.

This is where futurist philosophies derived from rationalism, the idea that the unimaginable number of humans in the future are so much more than the ones now that it justifies worker exploitation and present harms to make the far future better, falls apart. This is where AI doomerism/utopianism, the idea that general AI is definitely the biggest threat and potential boon facing humanity so we have to put all of our resources into safe AI research at the expense of everything else, falls apart. This is where effective altruism, the idea that we can quantify the outcomes of charity thoroughly enough that it makes sense to hand over direction of all charity to a small group of experts, falls apart.

Because the answer to "what if you're wrong about these philosophies?" is that a lot of people get very hurt. We are flawed. Fundamentally so, and I don't know that anyone has ever proved a way we can get around this. The only thing I know that we can do about this, is to try to behave in ways that minimize harms while trying to make the world better, rather than trying to maximize a hail mary to find the holy grail.

To which I can already hear the rationalists saying that this might not be enough to save the world, that anything but convulsive directed effort focused on is already doomed, so we have to pick one of them.

To which I say. First off, how are you sure of that? How is this a thing that you know for certain?

But more importantly. Yeah. You're right. There's no way of knowing for sure what course of action will make the world a better place. There's no way of knowing that anything short of futurists sacrificing the workers of the present to build a brighter future will be enough.

But if you are actually a rationalist, well. That is what you have to live with. You've got to be the scientist looking up at the sun and saying, "I don't know."

And then you should go and do things to make the world better without being sure of your prognostication of the future.

[portraitoftheoddity]

Trigun: Stampede, Wolfwood, and Food

So, I think a major part of any worldbuilding should always involve food, and where it comes from. The worldbuilding around No Man's Land in Trigun: Stampede is a little tricky in this regard, since there's shown to be no real agriculture or plant life (Meryl's utter shock at the "flora" on Ship Three as a total foreign phenomenon suggests it's more rare than in the manga) so sustainable human-friendly food sources are rare and not really addressed. We see characters eating worms, and presumably there's whatever it is worms eat, and beyond that, it's suggested that pretty much all of humankind's nutrition comes from plants.

The desert dudes living off worm meat refer to "plant-based food" as an "extravagance" in the opening scene of episode 4 (aptly named "Hungry"). Meryl, by contrast, is grossed out by the idea of eating worm meat -- I think we can infer then, that Meryl, being a college-educated city girl, probably had regular access to Plant-generated food, while Outlanders are more dependent on alternative sources of nutrition.

Wolfwood, I think, falls closer to the latter category -- He's very used to eating worms, as we see in this episode, not even flinching at grabbing and devouring a whole worm, and even smoked dried worm legs as a kid in a later flashback, so supplementing his diet and other aspects of his life with worms is probably something he's used to doing for survival:

And I gotta say, the way Wolfwood antagonizes the others about eating worm-based food?

Yeah, it's a power play in some respects -- he's making a point to Vash about 'kill or be killed' to survive when he catches and throws a worm at him, and he's taunting Meryl to get a rise out of her with the roasted worm meat at the end of the episode.

But there's something very "Gross Big Brother" about it -- he's antagonizing them, but there's also some underlying level of care in it. He is showing Vash how Wolfwood thinks it's necessary to survive; he's bullying Meryl into eating the food that's available, because Wolfwood probably grew up with the understanding that you couldn't afford to turn your nose up at whatever food you got.

It's food, it's there, it's a valuable and scarce resource, and as much of an asshole as Stampede!Wolfwood is, he has those ingrained big brother instincts to look out for those around him. And food is an important part of that, because when you live with scarcity, food is life.

The whole bit with Zazie in disguise might be a charade (assuming Wolfwood already clocked Zazie from the get-go and it didn't take the worm devouring them for that card to be revealed) but it still pulls from Wolfwood's characterization in the '98 anime where he gives two of his last pieces of food to a couple of hungry-looking kids:

And the sentiment of "you still deserve to eat" as an expression of care is still real for him, especially given his smile when Vash repeats his words, finally eating some of the worm meat at the end of episode four:

Our worldbuilding implication is that food is scarce and rare in the Outlands, and Wolfwood is someone who knows how to survive by any means possible -- including eating whatever is available -- which is something he's nonetheless willing to share with others, because at his core he's a decent person who isn't as selfish as he may pretend to be.

And food is one hell of a love language.

[lamuliz]

Hi, I'm an artist like you, but not yet.

I don't know what sources to trust. I want to know the names of those lost in Gaza. Do you know any reliable sites or news anchors that are spreading the truth and not misinformation about the severity of this genocide.

My city is convinced that this war isn't "that bad" but I don't believe them, most of the local news either never talks about it EVER or states that it "isn't that bad" once again! Maybe a sob story about a poor american person held hostage but never the people who's familes are being torn.

Thank you for reading this and any advice you have about spreading true awarness, I love your MCYT videos, they always make my day :)

During the first weeks of the aggression, Gaza's health ministry -upon being called "untrustworthy" by the U.S president Biden- released this list of the names of more than 6,000 souls killed by Israel

After this list was published, Israel raided the Al-Shifa hospital. Their following attacks on the remaining hospitals in Gaza has greatly damaged the health system. The current death toll is 25,000+ people, with more presumed dead under the rubble.

For someone that's just starting to learn about the Palestinian issue, (mainly about the ongoing aggression) I'd recommend journalists in Gaza. I will list a few instagram accounts:

CW: All of these accounts include sensitive content

Eye on Palestine

Motaz Azaiza

Hind Khoudary

Yosef Basam

Plestia

Martyrs of Gaza on twitter talks about those who have been killed in the current aggression, along with short stories and parts from their lives.

To learn about the historical context of everything, i strongly recommend you visit this website

The Middle East's suffering has unfortunately been normalized in an effort to stop the world from speaking up against injustice. But it seems like the Palestinian resilience is waking people up now. It's good to see people being eager to learn about all of it. Let's make activism a part of our lives so this stops being an uncomfortable conversation and starts being a learning experience and inspiration for us to change the world for the better.

[headspace-hotel]

Thinking of your post on the problems of veganism as a movement vs veganism as a lifestyle choice/one technique amongst many, that also applys super well to my issues with degrowth (And anticonsumerism as well) as a movement vs degrowth as one technique amongst many for dealing with the hydra-crisis of overproduction/resource overuse/destroying people and places for resources.

Like, in particular as an autistic person the continual recurring insistence that we need to just "change our desires" creeps me out. As someone who's difficulties were dismissed as just "having a bad attitude" and who's interests were so often dismissed as a waste of time instead of preparing for a job in the "real world" IDK if they truly understand the full horrifying implications of that line of thought.

So here's the thing with the concept of "overconsumption"

I had to do this whole project on overconsumption in my Anthropology class where I compared my consumption habits to those of someone 2 generations older, the prof clearly had in mind that we would discover a particular result that I did not end up finding.

I had to watch this documentary called "Affluenza" which was all about how Americans consume too much and they shop and buy things for fun and it's killing the planet, and it kept making these statements like "The average american does X..." and "X" would be something insane that I've never dreamed of doing.

Now I technically grew up below the poverty line, we were always financially insecure and struggling to pay bills and there was never any extra money lying around.

But my upbringing felt average, even privileged. We had a house instead of a trailer on cinder blocks, we had food and clothes. Compared to the upbringing of my mom and virtually everyone she knew growing up, we lived in fabulous luxury.

And the "overconsumption" lesson was bizarre to me because it brought up things like "going shopping for fun once a week" and "owning 20+ pairs of shoes" as if they were normal. I wear my clothes until they're unwearable and shop for clothes like once a year, and my mom has half as many clothes as I do. She feels guilty buying anything for herself and HATES shopping.

It feels like the dominant resources on living an eco friendly lifestyle presume that we have far more agency in what we buy and use than we actually do, instead of being stuck with the cheapest or closest available thing, and that our lives are full of extraneous, non-essential "consumption."

That class brought up the idea of "conspicuous consumption" a lot, or buying things to obtain social status instead of for their concrete utility. The way "conspicuous consumption" was addressed in the class was not very immediately relatable to me—I never had the option of buying clothes just to appear "with it" socially. My parents couldn't buy an extra car to fit the aesthetic of the American dream—we had enough trouble keeping the one we had running. The "conspicuous consumption" that class addressed was just not available to me.

However, I don't think conspicuous consumption is endemic to stable members of a certain socioeconomic status, because consumption is partially driven by the trauma of poverty. People who grew up poor will buy you more Christmas gifts than you can store or use, because they want to spare you the shame they experienced. Their brains are molded around the trauma of not having enough, and giving you enough is their way of keeping you safe.

Conspicuous consumption as a habit is pushed on you if your ancestors were shaped by this trauma. It is a misrepresentation to think of it as driven by pride, because your ability to perform the behaviors and mimic the appearances of a higher socioeconomic status has a concrete effect on how people treat you.

I know J.D. Vance is a nutjob now and Hillbilly Elegy was...not great (I'm more appalachian than you bitch, and I'm not even appalachian!) but the one thing that book got incredibly right was the idea of "social capital" and the way access to financial security and wealth gives you social capital. This is the main thing the current understanding of "conspicuous consumption" gets wrong—the need to escape the appearance and behaviors of poverty is seen as vain and self-indulgent, when it's a survival mechanism and it's something you're expected to engage in to gain opportunities and respect.

Poverty is humiliating. People with money never think about the fact that they have money. They think of themselves as average, if they think of themselves in terms of socioeconomic status at all. Being poor ends up embedded in the grooves and folds of your brain.

I remember when I was about 12, I gave my friend an informal tour of our house the first time she came over, showing her every room. I realized later that this wasn't exactly a normal behavior—I had done it because my mom did the same thing when she brought her friend over, and my mom had done it because it was a way of saying look, I survived. Look, I have a place to live to call my own, isn't this nice?

At its worst, anti-consumerism just reinforces the myth that your consumption is purely a matter of personal choice. And unfortunately when the conversation is ruled by the privileged, this idea will appear substantiated—because rich people can choose the aesthetics of poverty without concretely affecting the way the world treats them. A rich person can choose to live in a "tiny house" but they will never be "trailer trash."

Anti-consumerism revolves around ideas that are almost irreparably tainted by the mythology of an unequal society. Rich people possess and control the aesthetic of restraint and frugality, allowing them to playact living a Simple Life where they live in a tiny minimalist cottage and eat Healthy Vegan Oat Gruel, while McDonalds is the emblem of American excess. It is poor people's behaviors and habits that exemplify excess and greed.

Anti-consumerism isn't going to change anything until it openly confronts the fact that poverty is traumatic and consumption patterns often arise from poverty survival mechanisms.

[acooksbooks]

First, I LOVE Crowley and Aziraphale. LOVE THEM. I mean, just take a glance at my pfp. And my sketchbook. And my fanfics.

Second, I LOVE David Tennant and Michael Sheen. LOVE THEM. Probably more than is reasonably necessary, given when I mention "my favorite actor," my family and friends know exactly who I'm talking about (It's David, btw).

I'm also sort of new to the fandom on Tumblr, and I've become baffled by some of the comments I've seen about David and Michael and their friendship. I think it's adorable and lovely that they seem to have such a special bond after filming Good Omens, a bond that continues and has included their partners (partly out of necessity while filming Staged, but I think that only helped cement their friendships even further).

But what truly baffles me is the picking apart of every image that features David and Michael, especially when Anna and Georgia are included and when they aren't. I've seen fans wondering where Anna and Georgia are if they're not in the image with their partners (and what that could mean for their relationships with Michael and David), speculations on whether or not the women have been photoshopped in when they are in the pictures, cruel comments about Anna (especially) and Georgia (sometimes) about their age or their acting choices or their relationships with their partners or with each other (especially when they're being silly on Instagram) or . . .

Anyway, as someone with a spouse who works in a very busy, very public (in our city) profession and who is well respected in that profession, I feel for Anna and Georgia. It's as though there is this obsession or even downright desperation to make everything about how Michael and David feel about each other, to push Anna and Georgia out of the picture, literally and figuratively, forgetting there are families involved. As if Michael and David really are Aziraphale and Crowley and really feel for each other like Aziraphale and Crowley feel for each other. And who knows? Maybe they do?

But we don't truly know what goes on behind closed doors, and the comments and speculations are cruel towards Anna and Georgia, who have real life relationships with Michael and David.

They're all human. Celebrities, yes, but even celebrities deserve to have some privacy outside their jobs. And that's what Aziraphale and Crowley are at the end of the day. A job for Michael and David. A very enjoyable one, based on their interviews with each other, but afterwards, they have homes and families and lives outside the work.

David and Michael's relationship is theirs. Not the fandom's. Theirs.

Anna and Georgia's relationship is theirs.

Michael and Anna's relationship is theirs.

David and Georgia's relationship is theirs.

The relationship the four of them and their families have with each other is theirs. And they all deserve to not have people speculating on public forums about what's happening between them like some tabloid magazine. If they want us to know, they can tell us. Let them make that call for themselves.

In the meantime, we can write fanfics, make fanart, fantasize about who they truly are and how they truly feel. Delight in the images they share and the work they do together. Whatever. But I think it would be great if we could just let them live their private lives, too, and have as much normalcy they can get under the circumstances.

And, finally, Anna and Georgia seem like such lovely humans and deserve as much love and kindness and respect as is bestowed on their partners every single day in this fandom. Because they're human too, and all humans deserve that.

That's all I have to say about that.

Edited to add: I guess I'm not quite done, because someone in the comments said they were like me until they read/heard some of the things David, Michael, Georgia, and Anna have said, presumably about each other.

I'm not so online that I know everything they've put out there, but I do follow those in the group who have social media, and have watched/heard all kinds of interviews and convention Q&As.

My takeaway: Whatever they say about each other, whether it's Michael or David, or Georgia or Anna, I take it with a grain of salt. They're all actors. What we're seeing or hearing from them may not actually be their real personalities and feelings behind closed doors or even in their own heads. I think they just like to be snarky or silly about each other, because it makes the fans smile and swoon. And maybe they just enjoy being playful with each other and about each other. I mean, it's fun.

What's not fun is the fans reading too much into every single thing they do or say with each other and try to turn it into something that it probably isn't, especially at Anna and Georgia's expense.

Okay, now I'm done.

[sgiandubh]

What choice is there for you to make? Caitriona is legally married to Tony. It's her choice not anyone else's. Sure you want to believe Sam and Caitriona secretly have something on, your belief is your choice. Her choice of partner is hers, and it's not Sam, really none of anyone else's concern or approval. Enjoy and celebrate your beliefs, but beliefs are not always rational nor true. No one on this subject knows the truth about Sam, the shippers, the gay onlys, the man whore-tellers, the SamSaviors. No one, which is the way he wants it. No one knows and no one will.

Dear Choice Anon,

Unlike many of your Mordor peers, I feel a half-baked effort towards questioning, in your submission that wants to be cheeky and smart. And is, instead, sophistic and predictable.

I was baking something, in the meanwhile. I always cook when I need to think carefully about something, from a distance. My hands are quite good at it and my brain is free.

And so, I thought. I thought about how you people always feel the urge to cross lanes and come here peddling your #silly wares. I thought about how you came here on a Sunday, Mother's Day on top, and how sad (empty?) life must feel for you. Instead of going out for coffee in town, smelling a rose, baking a cake, laughing around, cheering on your favorite team or hugging Mom, here you are. Battering a perfect unknown person's mailbox, for the sake of a woman who does not even know you exist and, most probably, does not even care. Same applies to S, by the way - but unlike her, he might probably care about you, provided you buy whatever he has to sell.

The Marriage Certificate argument is a fallacy and you know that very well. You grasp at a piece of paper, oblivious to the whole schizophrenic show the Happy Couple puts out there for everyone to see. I can understand that, Anon: you are a conformist, soothed by a black & white reality, even where and when it's plain to see things are anything but. You need reassurance and you hate anything that might reach out of your tiny box, even at the expense of your own critical sense. Congratulations, Anon: you are perfect fodder for all the demagogues out there and so, so easily fooled. I have more thoughts about it, but I am in a cheery enough mood and really unwilling to humiliate you further.

Unless you are S himself (hi? 🤣), his PR or his lawyer, you have no right to presume what he really wants or doesn't want, what he really intends to do and what his thoughts and feelings might be. On any given matter, from the trivial to the important. We can only guess and/or speculate, based on our own life experience, our own critical sense, our understanding of the world. And also based on many other things that are NEVER discussed publicly, which is the right way to do, if you really care about someone's private life. You see, unlike people on your side of the fence and no matter what the Original Troll always says, we never did anything of what you accuse us of. We never started flaming wars just to self inflate our importance (probably because we live rich, loving lives on our own). We never accosted their entourage and then blamed in on 'The Others', without ever substantiating those very serious accusations. And we never came to your lanes to send hate or sow doubt.

Do we make mistakes? Oh, aplenty. We are human, Anon. Come back when you are ready to ask yourself some real questions about all this charade. It is an honest, but almost rhetorical invitation. You won't, simply because you despise the very idea people could think differently and you never, ever wonder why. It would clash with your own fantasy. And this, this is something you will never be ready to face, Anon.

PS: despising the very idea people could think differently also clashes with the very idea of having a choice. The implications of your own shortcoming are much, much wider than this context. But that is not my problem, Anon. After all, you also have a choice to remain as you are, and who am I to hinder you?

[rayroseu]

This line is making me sad akjdkakdks its making me imagine that once Malleus sees that his overblot causes pain rather than making the people of his life happy... he'll realize that "he is no good as a king at all since he harmed his people"😭😭

"Seeing you all worry helped me calm down..." ARGHH IT MAKES ME THINK OF THE SCENE WHERE HE SAW HOW ANGUISHED SILVER WAS ABOUT LILIA'S DEPARTURE... Like... I CANT??😭😭 HE'S SO CARING ABOUT THE HAPPINESS OF OTHERS BECAUSE THATS AN EMOTION HE RARELY FELT SO HE VIEWS IT AS THE MOST PRECIOUS FEELING ??

but sadness and partings and goodbyes..."harms happiness", thats why he just created a world where it never exists... He's not just doing it for his own desires KSJAKDJWKD plus if "all dreams come true" none of the previous overblots wouldve occured and they'll live a peaceful life... but living that way would stagnate their growth... they'll be living the same life repeatedly without any improvements towards themselves

that's why even if Malleus' overblot stems from a good intention, his vision is not applicable to a human life as we all require growing up, overcoming hardships, admitting our mistakes and developing out from that... Those painful feelings are what makes a human life more meaningful and allows a person to give themselves a genuine good life. 🥲🥲🥲

But Malleus who's still in the state of "learning to be human", he cannot naturally perceive that kind of moral.

I just hope that after Book 7 there's no narrative implication that Malleus' coping was flat out purely wrong lol Bcs as Yuu said, everyone wishes they won't lose anyone important to them either...

Going back to the fact that he feels responsible for the happiness of others... I think Malleus lives his life very literally...

I think it was Lilia who said this...(?) That Malleus' power (or the Draconia's power in general) gives happiness to the people of Briar Valley (as their power can protect the dark faes) 🥲✨

Maybe this is the reason why he's "so desperate" in keeping the happiness of others and also giving them blessings that'll surely make them happy...

Okay separate theory... Maybe I'm just overthinking lol But the occurence of "falling" in TWST is so fascinating to me since thats a heavy reference to "Alice Falling In Wonderland" yk

Book 6 we already had Idia falling to the Underworld because he wants to follow Ortho, There's this implication that Overblots "falling to a deep sleep/darkness" thats why all overblotees "wakes up after their own overblot... I wonder if Overblot Malleus will take a fall as well??? His overblot title is "The King of Abyss" but I doubt that the "timeless Sage Island" is the abyss yk? What if we actually learn about the origin of Overblots through Malleus Overblot?

Because in the trailer we can see him snapping out in awareness(waking up) before he's trapped in thorns in what seems to be an Abyss--- So maybe, we won't defeat Malleus Overblot bcs he'll wake up from it (presumeably once he realizes that his overblot caused Lilia and the others pain???) but him breaking his overblot wont be possible bcs the "darkness" will engulf him of smth

I'm thinking of this because the existence of Overblot is so weird. General Lilia should've recognized the blot when it was taking Silver because of his despair since before Leona's overblot, he knew the vibes of whats occuring yk and same thing with Malleus with how he knew that he's planning to overblot, plus he knows the existence of STYX whos focused on overblot too

But strangely, the mages of the past (Meleanor and Knight of Dawn even Lilia and Baul) dont seem to possess any magic limitations concerning blot accumulation, additionally they dont even have magestones (that they use to gauge their blot consumption like NRC pens). Which makes me think that "blot or overblot" was not a "trait" that existed naturally in mages???

Since TWST world's history is implied to be changed... I wonder if blot existence was something that "a being" made up/cursed upon all mages lol

Idk where Im going with this tbhhhh ajsjaj but I just think its suspicious that only human magicians is heavily concerned with blot accumulation... whereas Malleus and Lilia never worries about using magic too much...

So wild guess, maybe Maleficia (since shes the only powerful person here lol) cursed "magic in general" so humans will never be on par with fae's magical abilities no matter how hard they develop it

Ig its to never repeat the "occurence of another Knight of Dawn" who's magic is even stronger than faes since he has no limitation so she created blot to curse humans to limit their magic else they'll fall into "darkness" idk

[blacklegsanjiii]

BRAINWORMED

(Sorry everyone)(also you can tell I wrote this on my phone for two hours at 3am?)

Sanji who grew up in the All Blue. Judge and Sora being loving and caring parents for their five kids. They fish and cook and are happy. When Reiju turns eight she is gifted a forever post to the All Blue and the same with 1234ji. The kids are all normal and play and swim and dive. Sora tells the kids stories of pirates who made it to Laughtale, the closest island to them, but they didn't make it to the All Blue. No one has made it except Judge and Sora, escaped royals presumed dead.

It's hard to get to their home after all. You have to make it through the Grand Line and find the caves in the calm belts that lead to a massive crater in the Redline that the All Blue resides. Sora has met those pirates that made it to Laughtale though, kind and larger than life and just. 01234 love listening to Sora's stories and Judge smiles from the kitchen as he listens.

Sanji is the best diver in his family, bringing up so much shellfish or kelp or seed pods or anything. They're happy. And then a seaking fucks with them in the calm belt when they're out for some reason and Sanji is separated and lost his forever post. He has no idea about his family and he's in the East Blue and sobbing as he gets onto the orbit and begs for a job.

Canon happens and everything is normal up until Alabasta where Ace has Niji with him and they're sobbing and hugging and like "I thought you were dead!" "I thought YOU were dead!"

"Do you have your post?"

"No, do you?"

"No."

"FUCK!"

Everyone is watching these two and Ace eventually asks Sanji if his dream is to also find the All Blue and Sanji nods. Turns out Niji was found by the White Beard fleet and has been trying to find his family while Sanji has been at the most popular restaurant in the world trying to find out about his family. And then they explain they're brothers and they got separated from their family on the calm belt. Sanji asks if Niji has seen anyone else and he shakes his head but they exchange Mushi numbers so they can keep in touch.

And they do keep each other updated up until Sanji is sent to Kamabakka by Kuma and Niji is with Luffy at Marineford and they save Ace. Luffy explains a few days later he doesn't know where any of his crew is because of Kuma. And then Jozu explains someone is here and it's Yonji, in a marine uniform. And Niji is tackling him because brother? But Marine?

"yeah, sorry, I defected and didn't have other clothes, glad youre alive, where is Sanji, Reiju, and Ichiji?" Yonji asks as he wrestles Niji to the point of sitting on him and Ace and Luffy are confused there's another one.

"No forever post?" Niji asks instead.

"No shit, dumbass, where are the others? Mom? Dad?" Yonji demands fisting his hands into Niji's shirt and them rolling around and fighting more.

When the Strawhats get back together Ace, Niji, and Yonji are the newest recruits. Rayleigh is telling Ace he's glad he's alive and then looks at 234ji and is like "are, are you kids happened to be related to a couple named Judge and Sora?"

"Yeah, those are our parents. The dead prince and princess of Germa!" Yonji grins.

"And they live on Laughtale?" Rayleigh asks hesitantly.

"No, the All Blue." The three brothers answer instantly and Rayleigh feels like having a heart attack.

"You can only get into through the calm belts, it's really hard and tedious but there was something we had to get but a sea king kind of ruined it and now we're trying to get home." Niji explains.

"Yeah! There's two more of us, Ichiji is the oldest of us boys and Reiju is our older sister." Sanji tacks on. Zoro is having a heart attack. There are four other shitcooks? He's fucked. He's so fucked and Nami thinks they're all gonna perv on her but they don't, even Sanji has chilled the fuck out and says hes just started lying to Zeff after training where he was which, what the fuck does that mean?

Once again it's all pretty normal, turns out Reiju is with Sabo in the Revolutionary Army and she gets the crews numbers so that they can keep he updated at the cabin and Law is asking what's going because they sent Sanji and Yonji ahead after Sanji's fight with Doflamingo and Sabo is like "okay well Ace and Luffy are my brothers, how the fuck do you know these people?"

"I don't, Niji is my little brother and they sent Sanji and Yonji ahead according to Law." Reiju tells the Chief of Staff.

"So what's the All Blue like? You have more memories since you're the oldest, right?" Zoro asks and Reiju smiles a serene smile Sabo and Koala have never seen on her face.

"Well, there's fish from all four blues and more. Spices and plants never seen nor tasted. It's the bluest blue you'll ever see..." She tells them all about it and Niji is smiling too, chirping in with stories. Niji makes sure she doesn't have a post either. Sabo also spends a lot of time hugging Ace and Luffy and Ace gives him a piece of his vivre card.

They get to Zou and Yonji and Sanji have been kidnapped by Gramma and Grampa Vinsmoke who test on them. Yonji is like "I think that was worse than being a marine" and Sanji is just like "I think it was worse than being at Baratie"

And Luffy is like "oh by the way your sister is gonna call soon" and is promptly tackled by the boys. Brook complains he didn't get to meet her as does Nami. When they get to Wano, still everything is the same just with extra people helping here or there. Niji tells them about Reiju talking about the All Blue and Luffy complains he wasn't awake for it. So they describe it and tell stories and Nami says the way they describe the water reminds her of their eyes.

"They're our mom's" Yonji smiles at her.

"So why do you three have different hair?" Chopper asks.

"Technically we don't, we dye it. Sanji's hair just never took the dye because he was in the water the most." Niji grins and ruffles Sanji's hair.

"So you guys really are from the All Blue?" Law double checks because first he's heard about Germa but now the All Blue exists.

"Yeah! It's shitty cuz there's a lot of spices there that are found only there and I can't ever quite replicate them." Sanji nods.

"So where do you think Ichiji is?" Yonji asks.

"Well, maybe he's with Mom and dad?" Sanji shrugs.

"Man that'd be cool." Niji sighs.

"Im stuck in you guys dying your hair." Ace admits.

"Well, we kind of had to, outside of Sanji having opposite curled brows we're identical." Niji says.

"We're quadruplets." Yonji says and Zoro almost asphyxiates on his drink.

"Bless your mother." Law breathes. "What technologies did they use?"

"Dude we lived in a floating house with a floating green house and like two desks with some microscopes. This was all natural." Niji says.

"What the fuck, what the fuck, the fuck is wrong with your family, good fuck." Law murmurs as the brothers laugh and Chopper says he wants to do a check up on their mom when they meet. They meet Ichiji towards the end of Wano since he's kind of Kaido's personal assistant and Yamato and Ace are very happy to see each other and they see Ichiji's chance for escape and he's holding his three brothers and everything.

And then they head off to continue on their way to make Luffy the Pirate King. Franky manages to replicate the Marine Tech that allows them to cross the calm belt and they send Ichiji and Yonji off to make sure Sora and Judge are alive and if so be able to house them. Sanji wishes he could go with and so does Niji but they have duties to fulfill and on the way to Laughtale Sanji and Niji tell them all about it again.

After Luffy is crowned and Shanks and Rayleigh and everyone is there and then Luffy demands they go to the All Blue next which Shanks finds ridiculous and Buggy is calling Luffy dumb but Sanji and Niji are pointing and Nami is looking at her bracelet and is like "okay, lead the way men" and they do any then their like "oh yeah, we need to worry about the sea kings this is their breeding grounds btw" and Shanks and Rayleigh go to work bullying sea kings as Sanji and Niji manage to guide the Sunny and call directions to the other boats cuz the caves are pure rapids that spit out into calmer waters. It's like a solid week sail from Laughtale to the All Blue. Everyone is looking around and Sanji and Niji immediately jump in the water and in the distance there's a floating house. With the boat Franky built. Sanji sky walks over and Niji curses him as he gets back on the boat.

Ace flies Niji and Luffy gum gum rockets after them despite Zoro yelling. When they lay anchor close to the house and boat over and see parents crying and holding their son's and then they start thanking Luffy and the crews and while Shanks and his crew are trying to like not take credit and Buggy is like "why the fuck are you praising us? What the fuck?" And Judge is catching up with Rayleigh.

Reiju shows up not too long after with Sabo and Koala and they throw a massive party where everyone is fishing or diving or gathering spices and stuff and Sanji takes Luffy into the water to float and Luffy is zapped from the water but Sanji won't let him drown.

Sanji's dream was just always getting home, to his family, to the place where they were safe.

[pleasantlyinsincere]

John and Julian (and Cyn) through the '70s

Last edited on 8 October 2023. All edits listed at the end. Text in between [ ] are my thoughts.

Since John and Yoko had moved into Tittenhurst in August '69 Julian often spend weekends with them there.

"And then I'd live for the weekends I spent with my dad and his new love Yoko at Ascot. My feeling toward their relationship was helped by the way I was treated. I was given incredibly expansive toys to play with and there was always something happening." Julian, 1982

Cynthia describes that she was relieved that Julian got on reasonably well with Yoko, but she was concerned by some of the more bizarre stories of what was going on at Tittenhurst park.

"One of the hardest aspects of letting Julian visit John was accepting that Yoko would presumably look after him when he was there. I didn't know what he would make of her cool manner. But in fact he seemed fine with it, and perhaps it was better for him to have a rather distant step-mother than one who was all over him. He never told me that she was unkind in any way, which was a relief. After that first weekend Peter rang regularly to arrange visits for Julian. Much to my amusement Julian had started to call Yoko Hokey-Cokey." Cynthia Lennon: John, p.314

Photos of Julian at Tittenhurst in 31 January 1970. [John and Yoko only returned from Denmark January 27th, so Julian came to see them the first weekend back.]

Rest of the timeline including pics, quotes and audio behind the cut because it got ridiculously long.

23 February 1970

An article is published in the Evening Post talking about Julian and Kyoko. It mentions that in 1969 there were four months that father and son didn't get to see each other and also spent Christmas apart.

Some quotes from John:

"Julian, last time I saw him, was a bit too protected, like all kids are. It took him two weeks to unwind, when he was last with us." "I'm not a daddy with a set of bricks to play with. When I'm with the kids, they just come along with me and be with me, whatever I'm doing." Link to article

March 1970

Over the New Year John and Yoko had spent some weeks in Denmark with Tony Cox, his new partner and Kyoko. That arrangement had worked quite well and it seems it motivated John and Yoko to try to get closer with Cynthia and Roberto also. It seems in the end not much came of these good intentions.

Up until now, when Julian came to spend the weekend at Tittenhurst Park, it was Les Anthony who shuttled him back and forth between his parents. However, shortly after their return from Denmark, John and Yoko made a conscious effort to spend time with Julian, Cynthia and her fiancé Roberto Bassanini. John later remarked: "All five of us ate together and we saw to it that the children see us all together. Maybe six of us will go on vacation with Kyoko. Julian, Cyn and Roberto, so that everyone feels secure. That's very important. In order to have peace, it's necessary to start inside the family." Lennonology, source L'Express [3/23/70]

Instead John and Yoko left for LA 23 April 1970 to undergo Primal Scream therapy with Janov. They stayed for almost five months in the US and returned to England 15 September 1970.

June 7th, 1970

While John and Yoko are in LA doing their therapy with Janov. One of the topics discussed was John's troubled relationship with his son.

The meeting, which Vivian Janov describes as 'a very strong emotional day for him,' had taken place in April, and John was making an effort to maintain communication with his son. From Los Angeles, John posted a card to Julian today: 'I'm sorry I haven't called or written much. I've been a little sick. We miss you a lot, and send you our love... won't be long till I see you'. Lennonology

After the return from the US in September Julian continued to regularly visit Tittenhurst. During those visits he usually played a lot with Les Anthonys four stepchildren, who at the time were also living on the estate.

"Once Dad had a little white shed built on an island in the middle of a lake on the grounds of the house. He had bought these little white amphi-cars that sped across the lake. The three of us all dressed in white to spend the day there. Crazy, but wonderful."Julian, 1982

In this interview Julian describes going over to Tittenhurst just to be an idiot with his dad but also how scary the big house and his bedroom situation could be to him at night.

[The floorplan of Tittenhurst (LINK) actually shows Julian's room just across the hallway from John and Yoko's room but half a stairway down. There's not really a closer bedroom and he may have been put there, so that he has his own bathroom. It being so far away, small (somewhere he or Cynthia call the room a closet) and scary are after all the memories from a child's point of view.]

For the most part the visitation arrangements seemed to have continued in 1971. In the summer, when John and Yoko were filming for the imagine documentary, Julian can be seen roaming the property with his friends.

Saturday, July 17th, 1971 With the cameras rolling, John and Yoko roamed the Tittenhurst Park grounds in a golf cart with Jill Johnston. As promised, Blue Pools delivered the new lake house, and the Lennons spotted location. More footage was taken of the house under construction, the Lennons and Johnston rowing on the lake, and Julian and the neighbor children reading excerpts from Grapefruit on camera and running amok in the fields. Lennonology

Lennonology

Julian Lennon: Tittenhurst was this enormous palace-like place with 99 acres, golf-cart buggies, a lake, a little island in the middle of the lake. It was like a house of fun. It was wonderful. I loved the place.

LINK to a longer version of the quote but in German. Not adding much just both John and Julian sharing a mutual love for Dr. Pepper at the time, playing the mellotron and the children daring each other to enter a 'haunted' building on the property.

It's also at Tittenhurst that Julian meets May Pang, who had started working for John and Yoko as an assistant through ABKCO in NY and had come to England as a messenger to bring film rolls.

"There were a lot of great moments at Tittenhurst that I do fondly remember, you know, giggling and laughing with Dad. And, as they say, shooting the shit. But it was difficult to know, you think, 'OK, well, is this going to stay? Is this what it's going to be, now? Can I count on this? Can I be here next weekend or the weekend after? Is that going to happen?' That was one of the, obviously, the hardest pill to swallow, was the constant change. You know, you thought things were going to settle down, but they just never quite did." Julian, 2018

"I lived an ideal life between then [Cyn and Roberto] and John and Yoko, but it all ended when Cynthia's marriage broke up and Dad and Yoko moved to the States." Julian, 1982

The big cut happens when on August 12th 1971 John and Yoko leave for NY and take up residence in the St. Regis Hotel.

At first their plan was to search for Kyoko, so that she too could come for visits at Tittenhurst like Julian. In September John and Yoko appeared on the Dick Cavett show and briefly talked about their wish that both their children could be with them.

Maybe a Christmas present:

Christie's auction

[In her Lost Weekend doc, May talks about Julian calling and Yoko not allowing her to put the call through to John. She says at that point they hadn't spoken for a couple of years. Then a few weeks later she is in the audience for George Harrison's appearance on Dick Cavett. The show is aired in November '71, so if there is anything to her anecdote she may mean they hadn't seen each other for two months instead of two years.]

26 May '72

"Lennon admits that he is scared to say too much publicly about the case, because it was the initial publicity that had spurred Cox to vanish. He talks about how hard it is for Ono to see pictures of her daughter: I have to hide them. Asked about his own son, Julian, he says: I don't have that 'where the hell is he?' bit. But he reveals that when they were in England, and Julian visited them every weekend, it was difficult for Ono to be with him when her own daughter wasn't there: It was killing her." source

28 May '72

Cynthia quoted in a Sunday paper: "John hasn't seen Julian since he went to America. It is rather a long time. He seems to be occupied with Yoko's daughter now. He does write to Julian, just normal letters, asking how he is getting on at school and things like that. And he sends him presents. He sent him a toy truck at Christmas. I don't keep in touch with John anymore. It's purely through Julian that we keep in contact. Julian loves his father. He follows his career in the newspapers. He goes to a private boys' school where people don't bother who he is. He went to a state school but he had problems there."

14 June '72

Cyn's complaints are repeated in the LA times, where it said that John hadn't seen Julian in eight months. "He seems to be occupied with Yoko's daughter now."

On 22 September '73 John and May leave for LA and only a few days later on 2 October '73 it is reported in the newspaper that Cyn separated from Roberto Bassanini.

Cynthia gave some interviews on her recent separation and the fact that she and Julian moved back to Hoylake, where Julian goes to private school.

"Unhappily Julian misses his father, which is only natural. We only hear from John at Christmas and when the birthdays come around." 7 October '73, Sunday Mirror

"Julian is always asking after him but of course John is in America now. It's been hard for him not seeing John for several years. This sort of thing is naturally upsetting for a child." 7 October '73, Sunday People

According to May's book, while John had broken up with her, she went to the Dakota to be with Yoko. Yoko there told her that she had decided it was time for Julian to come for a visit and May should at least reunite with John for that period to help him with it. May agreed to go back to John for two weeks, but it ends up being more like a year.

Christmas gift '73

To Julian from Daddy Christmas 1973

[Julian has sold an NFT of the black guitar. LINK ]

Shortly after Christmas '73 Julian and Cyn travel to LA to spend his school holidays with his father. They stay at least until the Happy Days taping they visit together on 5 February '74.

During the over a month long visit May writes, that they went to Disneyland three times and had brunch together the first morning. Meanwhile John is still having some wild times. Since Julian is staying with Cynthia, he goes out with May. The Kotex incident and nearly killing Jesse Ed Davis happen at the same time of this visit. May also places Cynthia asking John to have another child together during this trip.

As the visit ends May makes John promise to call Julian regularly.

"It is the right thing to do. I promise you, Fung Yee." He was silent for a while, then John said suddenly, "I really would like to keep in touch with me son." May Pang, Loving John p.168

Julian too, took a lot of positive out of the meetings around this time.

"Mum and I flew out to the States and stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel. At least Mum did, I spend every minute of every day with my Dad and Yoko. " Julian, 1982

In later recollections Julian correctly puts the first visit in the time-frame that John was with May.

“Dad and I got on a great deal better than,” recalls Julian. “We had a lot of fun, laughed a lot and had a great time in general when he was with May Pang.” Julian in The Times, June 13 2009

May Pang: Loving John. About this visit and how it was set up.

In April 74 Julian sends a Thank you tape to John and Yoko for his birthday gift. Even though John is with May at this time, the present it seems was sent from the married couple.

The present in question according to Julian was a guitar, decorated with a mirror, writing and other stuff:

John writes to Cyn 22 June '74 a typed letter asking about Julian's holiday plans. Interestingly as the return address he gives the Dakota. He wants to send May to bring Julian.

19/20-25 July 1974 Instead of being collected by May, Julian sails with Elton John, Tony King, and Cyn per boat from Southampton to New York.

[In her book Cynthia wrongly remembers this as her first visit with John in the US. She also claims this visit was completely her initiative, which as proven by the letter wasn't the case. The whole anecdote is interesting however because she says that it was never the plan to stay with Julian, John and May but stay in NY with Jenny Boyd. Jenny apparently wasn't told about that plan, because in the end she wasn't there to home Cynthia. (May on the other hand remembers that Cynthia was staying with friends but they left without her and she was lonely, so she ended up coming with them.) In the end (and to John probably rightly or wrongly suspiciously) what was planned as just a trip for Julian with his dad turned into Cynthia coming along most of the time.]

Cynthia'a account about how this meeting was set-up and why she was with them during the trip.

Tony King in The Tastemaker simply writes: “John Lennon wanted to see his son, so I took Julian and John’s ex-wife Cynthia along with me.”

August 6th '74

John, May, Cyn and Julian return to LA for John to record Goodnight Vienna with Ringo.

In the summer while working on Walls and Bridges Julian visits the studio. He records Ya Ya with his dad.

Little interview bit with Julian about being in the studio.

August 19th, 1974

John and May take a trip to Denver. Instead of coming with them Julian stays with Cyn in LA.

When the whole vacation is coming to a close, it is decided that Julian should come for another visit for Christmas. John is clear that he wants him to come alone.

Both May Pang and Cynthia wrote about this visit in their memoirs. [Cynthia is clearly mixing up and merging the first and second trip together in her recollection of it.]

Cynthia's account.

May's account.

December 19th, 1974

Julian, accompanied by Apple staffer Steve Brendell, arrived in NY on this day for Christmas with John and May. Mimi was also invited but declined to come.

While they were in NY Yoko also came by because she wanted to greet Julian.

John, May and Julian flew to Florida on December 22. Lennon said he accepted Levy's Florida invitation "because I was so worn out anyway" from back-to-back studio projects "that I didn't know what to do with my son Julian." John figured that at Disney World, "I could sort of sit in a room or something and Julian could play with Morris's kid." John's quotes are from his trial testimony Big Seven Music Corp, 75Civ, 1116; In Stan Soocher Baby You're a Rich Man, Suing the Beatles for Fun and Money

Until 29 December they spent time in Palm Beach and later returned to Orlando (Disney World).

During this visit, Julian was helpful in influencing John and George making up and the thus the dissolution agreement of the Beatles coming along.

Julian remembers his Christmas visit with John and May fondly: “My memories of that time with Dad and May are very clear - they were the happiest time I can remember with them.” Julian in The Times, June 13 2009

May Pang in Loving John on this visit.

Cynthia writes about this visit in her book.

Video from May Pang's Lost Weekend documentary. [She says Long Island but I guess it's Palm Beach.]

In early February 1975 John moves back into the Dakota and resumes his marriage with Yoko.

John gives an interview to SPIN magazine in early spring 1975. In it he is asked about his private life, his recent return to Yoko, what his relationship with May is like now, and also about Julian:

How about you as a father? How old is your son [Julian] now? He is 11 now. All I know is that you took him to Disneyworld … right? Yeah, that was hell. Disneyland was better, the first time, in L.A., I took him there. Because I went with a gang, and there were a few of us who were flying a little. But Disneyworld — I was there on the most crowded day of the year, around Christmas or something. Seeing him is good. What we do is irrelevant. I went through a period of, “What are we gonna do?” and all that crap. It doesn’t really matter. As long as he’s around. Cause I don’t see him that often. How is it for an 11-year-old boy to have John Lennon as a father? It must be hell. Does he talk about that to you? No, because he is a Beatle fan. I mean, what do you expect?? I think he likes Paul better than me … I have the funny feeling he wishes Paul was his dad. But unfortunately he got me … It must be hard to be son of anybody. He is a bright kid and he’s into music. I didn’t encourage him, but he’s already got a band in school. But they sing rock’n’roll songs, ’cause their teacher is my age. So he teaches them “Long Tall Sally” and a couple of Beatles numbers. He likes Barry White and he likes Gilbert O’ Sullivan. He likes Queen, though I haven’t heard them yet. He turns me on to music. I call him and he says, “Have you heard Queen?” and I say “No, what is it?” I’ve heard of them. I’ve seen the guy … the one who looks like Hitler playing a piano … Sparks? I’ve seen Sparks on American TV. So I call him and say, “Have you seen Sparks? Hitler on the piano?” and he says, “No. They are alright. But have you seen Queen?” and I say “What’s Queen?” and then he tells me. His age group is hipper to music … at 11 I was aware of music, but not too much.

Link to the SPIN interview

March 11th 1975

John is interviewed by Bob Harris on The Old Grey Whistle Test. He sends greetings to Julian, Mimi and the rest of his family in England.

30 July 1975

About Julian ... I'm lucky if I see/hear from him myself. She allowed him over here twice last year ... but insisted on coming herself! You can imagine how thrilling that was ... she thought she could walk back in coz I wasn't with yoko!! Now we're back together again she stops him phoning me ... which he did a lot last year ... once a week. He's a bright little boy ... a bit 'sneaky' like his dad ... but he's gonna need that to survive his mother! Our relationship is pretty good --- he knows where I am and what my life is like ... he thinks of me a litlle too much in terms of 'money' etc ... which is what cyn and her mother (so called) have taught him (by example). He will run right to me when he's older ... we all run somewhere ... so I can wait. I got him well hooked on America ... which isan extraordinary place to say the least ... more on that in other letters perhaps. Oh yes the baby is due in November! Conceived feb 6. I tried to send Julia to see julian ... she was given the cold shoulder. When I get to England I'll show you them both. I would love to see yours. Letter to Leila, John Lennon Letters edited by Hunter Davies

After only five months being back with Yoko, communication with Julian has become more sporadic again. To his cousin Leila John complains that it's Cynthia keeping Julian from calling and about her tagging along the previous year. He also claims that he sent Julia to check in on Julian.

Julia Baird in a '83 interview confirms John's claim to Leila, that he hadn't heard from Julian and sent his little sister to check up on him.

"He kept asking in letters and on the phone, 'Please will you go and see Julian? Will you go and see Julian? Will you go see and see Julian? I haven't heard from Julian. His mother's got a cob on. Can you please go and see what's going on?' [...] Anyway eventually Aaron persuaded me that I should go. He was the one that when we got another letter asking, 'Have you been to see Julian yet?', he said, 'Look, he's never asked you to do anything. I think you should go.' [...] We went and John had given us the address, I didn't know where it was. And she seemed very embarrassed to see me. In fact so much so, that I backed off. I just said, 'Is Julian there, please? I'd like to see him.' And she said, 'No, he's gone out.' And I just said, 'Well goodbye, then.' It was very odd, very bizarre."

In her memoir Cyn doesn't mention John sending family to check on them but has an opposing recollection of who was unreachable:

"Initially he did: he phoned Julian as before, every few weeks. But the calls became less frequent, and all too often when Julian tried to phone John he couldn't get through. Yoko, or one of their employees, would tell him that John was sleeping or busy. Discouraged, Julian would wait weeks before trying again. " Cynthia Lennon, John p. 346

1 May '76

Cyn marries John Twist. John and Yoko send a telegram: "Congratulations, good luck, God bless the three of you, John and Yoko.”

According to Cynthia a few weeks later John calls her to invite Julian over for a visit during the school holidays to meet his brother. Yoko and John take the children for a holiday to Long Island. Cynthia also writes that Julian was mugged during his stay in NY, when John told him to go out by himself to buy a harmonica he wanted.

Photos of Julian with John and Yoko in summer 1976.

The only other person I have read mention the '76 visit is John Green in Dakota Days.

As the apartment at the Dakota grew more crowded, John retreated to the quieter and more spacious southern shore of Long Island. He took Sean with him and brought Julian over from Britain. Yoko kept him posted with a barrage of phone calls. "How goes the war, Charles?" he chimed into the receiver. "No casualties so far. How goes the peace?" "Great. It's absolutely beautiful. I've got a bit of sea and a bit of green and my sons, and even once in a while I even have my wife. You should come out here and get some of this. It's delightful." Dakota Days, p.97

[Aside from Cynthia's and Green's brief mentions of the trip, there is very little information on this NY visit. Even Robert Rosen, who supposedly read John's diaries multiple times, has nothing to say about this or the '77 visits. He even claims repeatedly that Julian and John first reunited in 1979 and hadn't seen each other for four years at that point.]

One of Julian's memories that most likely fits this visit:

Julian first played piano when he was thirteen, visiting his father and Yoko in Montauk, Long Island, after Sean, his half brother, was born. Their next-door neighbor had a piano, and Julian and his father went there one day. Lennon played a couple of tunes, then Julian asked, "Can I have a go?" Julian to Rolling Stone, 1985

Another one that Julian doesn't connect to a date but he remembers the new situation after his little brother was born:

[Yoko] was very loving towards me, even after their son Sean was born. Right at the beginning I felt a few pangs. They were there with their own son. Where did I fit in? But every time I went over Dad would lay on amazing treats, and Yoko was always loving towards me." Julian, 1982

In the same interview Julian also tells the story of his dad offering him a joint when he was about 12, so that might have also been the '76 visit, or the '74/'75 Christmas visit.

Cynthia claims she had trouble getting the money she was supposed to use for Julian's school. She asked John to split the trust fund, so that she can withdraw money from it easier. John agreed.

Cynthia publishes the letter in her book John and calls it "cautious, polite and to the point":

"I explained that, as he and Yoko were out of the country, it was impossibly difficult for me to get at Julian's money: 'Nothing can proceed without your signature - it means I'm forever overdrawn at the bank and have to wait on the convenience of your lawyers ... I want the best for Julian, and his standard of life shouldn't suffer because of lack of good management on your part, which has been happening since the fund was set up ... The money, instead of having doubled through good investment, is dwindling through lack of interest on your part ... It's just so important that this whole arrangement is sorted out without animosity or aggravation ... The way things are going Julian's financial prospects when he is 25 will be virtually nil and he is going to want to know why... It is one thing fighting for your rights but totally ridiculous fighting against your own son's interests, which is what seems to be happening.' "

[She says she ends the letter with thanking them for arranging the Concorde flight for Julian last summer. However according to wiki Concorde didn't fly to NYC until November 1977. (That years Christmas John and Yoko do indeed book a Concorde flight for Julian.) So I suspect that her supposed letter is specifically written for her book and not an actual document as the presentation suggests.]

In mid-October Cynthia gives an interview to Woman magazine that also got picked up in multiple newspapers. In it she talks about their relationship splitting after their first LSD trip, John getting upset with Julian when he couldn't eat with a knife, alleges that she was being followed by a private detective in Italy,...

A report on the article in the Burton Daily Mail from 19 October '76 also quotes Cynthia as saying:

"Since then their relationship has been beautiful," she says. "They talk a lot on the phone, there've been other visits and he's going again this year. I believe now that John is completely off all drugs, has been off them for years, otherwise I'd never let Julian go."

[He's going again this year indicates that there was another visit planned in 1976. If that happened or fell through, I haven't found anything about that.]

October 25th, 76

John sends Julian a postcard from Singapore. “What happened to ya?”

Even though the previous few months there was a visit and positive communication about the finances, Cynthia's decision to publicly complain in the papers angered John. He responded on November 26th 1976 with an open letter in the Daily Mail.

"Lennon tells first wife: Stop blaming Yoko," it read: "As you and I well know, our marriage was over long before the advent of LSD or Yoko Ono. Your memory is impaired to say the least. Your version of our first LSD trips is rather vague. You seem to have forgotten subsequent trips altogether. You also seem to have forgotten that only two years ago, while I was separated from Yoko Ono, you suddenly brought Julian to see me in Los Angeles after three years of silence. During that visit you didn't allow me to be alone with him for one moment. You even asked me to remarry you and give you another child 'for Julian's sake.' I politely told you no and that anyway I was still in love with Yoko. Finally, I don't blame you for wanting to get away from your Beatle past, but if you are serious about it you should try to avoid talking to and posing for magazines and newspapers. We did have some good years so dwell on them for a change."

Cynthia answers to the press after this, saying she doesn't want them to throw mud at each other and repeated "All I want to do is forget the Beatles and enjoy my present life". Still, only a few months later in 1977 she starts to write A Twist of Lennon (allegedly gleefully on a typewriter Yoko had gifted Julian). In her later memoir John she writes she was persuaded to do it by her husband John Twist who believed it would make their fortune.

Julian is sent to boarding school for that time. [In her book John Cynthia explicitly remembers that she moved to Ireland to write. However newspaper reports from the time suggest that the move happened later. So, probably Julian wasn't boarding at this time but those months in '78.]

At the same time communication between John and Julian was happening regularly and according to his diaries he got excited by the idea of buying Julian a keyboard.

July 14th, 1977

December 25th 1977

Julian comes by Concorde to stay at the Dakota during his school holidays.

[At the time of Julian's visit John and Yoko were still helped by the FBI to deal with the kidnapping threat and extortion attempt that had been going on for weeks and scared them badly. Also, Tony Cox had made contact by phone and agreed that Kyoko could visit for these holidays but then disappeared again and John would never hear again from Kyoko. I don't know if Julian was told any of this but I assume it probably was one of the more tense christmases.]

Going by Giuliano because neither Cynthia nor Robert Rosen mention this trip by Julian at all, John was very excited about Julian coming getting up early and baking bread for him. Julian gets close to Nishi and thereby brings forth John's competitive streak. John tries out the parental philosophy of wanting to spend time with Julian instead of giving him material goods, Julian goes 'oh, really' and John caves in. When he leaves John draws a portrait of Julian. Source

[Since Robert Rosen, who also read the diaries, doesn't even know about the '76 or '77 visits (and Giuliano too thinks they saw each other last at Disney World), they may not be the source for the above. I thought it might have been from Dakota Days but it's not. John Green mentions the '77 Christmas visit but says the family were going to Florida to meet Julian there because of the security threats. I think Green is confusing this and a later visit, so I will insert his account of what John told him on returning there.]

Julian stays most of January. Goes to see the musical The Magic Show with Yoko and the band Riff-Raff with John. 

In February of 1978 Cynthia and her husband sell their house and move away from Ruthin to Eire to avoid a 'wealth tax'. They leave Julian to be a boarder at his school. Cynthia and John Twist return in December, probably because they missed Julian.

April 1978

[It's not actually dated aside from being from 1978, I just assume the guitar was Julian's birthday gift.]

GIBSON Les Paul 25/50 guitar

"Dad gave me this special order rare model - it was always exciting to receive something like this from my dad. When I visited Dad we would sit down together and he would teach me a few chords and help me improve my technique." Julian in Beatles Memorabilia. The Julian Lennon Collection.

May 19th 1978

A conversation with Cyn and excerpts from her memoir A Twist of Lennon are published in News of the World.

John, Yoko and Sean are in Japan for their summer vacation. Through his London lawyers John tries to stop the publication of Cynthia's book as a serial in the News Of The World.

Tuesday, June 13th, 1978 Having been telephoned in Japan with the details of Cynthia's memoir excerpt in News Of The World, John instructed his solicitors to issue a High Court injunction in an effort to prevent the publication of a planned second installment. Frere Cholmeley & Co., Lennon's attorney in London, described the piece as 'a salacious and gribby little article,' although it was qualified with the statement: 'He does not deny that he held parties or took drugs, but he deplores the publication of intimate details of his married life.' Friday, June 16th, 1978 In the case of Lennon v. News Group Newspapers Ltd and Twist, Lord Denning rejected John's application for an injunction in London's High Court today, permitting the publication of more excerpts from A Twist Of Lennon. For his par, Denning was not impresses with John's argument that the article's publication was a breach of confidence of the marriage: 'I cannot see that either of these two parties have had much regard for the sanctity of marriage ... It seems to me as plain as can be that the relationship of these parties has ceases to be their own private affair. They themselves have put it into the public domain.' Sunday, June 18th, 1978 Having successfully defended the right to publish excerpts from A Twist Of Lennon, today's edition of News Of The World featured part two of their series: 'How Yoko stole my husband.' " Lennonology

When the book actually was released feelings turned out to be much softer than expected. Cyn ends her first memoir with the words :

I still feel very proud of the Beatles and their accomplishments. My life during that period was an education, an education I wouldn't have missed. It has left me feeling enriched, not embittered, enlightened not blinded. All I can think to conclude my story is to say, 'Thanks for the memories, and in the words of the I CHING, no blame.'"

After finishing reading his ex-wife's book, according to Robert Rosen, John was relieved and enjoyed the nostalgia. He said a prayer for Cyn: "Dear God, please show her The Way. Thank You. Thank You."

Postcard to Julian:

[I can't make out the date on the card. Julian's Beatles memorabilia book says it's from '71 but that's obviously wrong with Sean being included and Julian's Ruthin address on it. John makes the reference to being a farmer. They bought their farm in February 1978, so I put it that year. May be wrong though.]

March 21st 1979

Julian is supposed to join John, Sean and Yoko's visiting nieces in Palm Beach.

[John taking a photo of Julian in '79]

There are multiple, very different accounts for this visit, that includes Julian's 16th birthday celebration.

John bought Julian a motorcycle for his birthday.

At one point they went to Disney World, (which none of the accounts of the trip even mention), where this photo of Julian and Yoko's nieces was taken:

Accounts from:

Robert Rosen [Rosen writes that Dan Richter's children came for a visit. Correction: I said before that that because Dan wrote in his book that he never saw John again after 1974, it seemes unlikely to me that his kids would be sent out to John and Yoko five years later. However Dan Richter does confirm that in his interview on the Podcast Glass Onion: On John Lennon episode 16:

"My kids would go down, they had a place down in Palm Beach or whatever it was down in Florida. And they were there at Christmas and bring Julian and they would fly my kids down to play with Julian. And everybody, the sense we got was they were happy!"

This visit doesn't happen over Christmas but it sounds like he is talking about more than one occasion that happened and probably Christmas is one example. Could also mean that Rosen is mixing up the occasion for that anecdote.]

Cynthia Lennon

Fred Seaman

Geoffrey Giuliano

John Green [Green puts this actually to the '77 holiday visit, where he wrongly writes they went to Florida. I think (if his stories are to be believed at all) he confuses John's anger and disappointment upon return with this visit of Julian's. It also fits with being in Florida.]

[I recommend to read all of them. Lots of drama. I may one day make a comparison post between all the account because they are fascinatingly different.]

April 9th 1979

John writes to Mimi saying Julian would be welcome to live with them if he so chose but there had been no arrangements made.

Q: Did you ever plan to go and live with him [John] in New York? Julian: "When I was in my early teens we'd spoken on the phone about the possibility of me going to college over there. I think it was wishful thinking on both our parts because I felt uncomfortable about the situation and I believe he did, too." Hello! Magazine, 1995

April 25th 1979, Postcard to Julian from NY:

Julian declines to join his dad, Yoko and Sean for their family's yearly vacation in Japan.

[July 1979 In the context of getting one of his guitars Julian said that John bought him a Sony Walkman as a gift when they were brand-new. He puts around '73-'74. However according to wikipedia the Sony Walkman was first sold in July '79, so that present would have been sent to Julian around this time, maybe directly from Japan.]

December 1979

On 3rd-4th December there is a two part feature in the Daily Mail called "The Sons of the Beatles" on Julian and Zak.

"When I'm in New York, we go out quite a lot together round some of the art galleries, or to his house at Long Island. When we stay in we have musical jam sessions together singing out latest songs to each other. I still listen to Beatles music. Although I quite like some of my father's solo albums, I much prefer what he did with the Beatles." (quoted from Lennonology p. 508)

Also that month:

"More disturbing to John were the ongoing trials with Julian. The sullen teen continued to vex his father with his on-again, off-again plans to visit over Christmas. At first Julian said maybe, as long as they didn't go to Florida. Then it was a flat no, using school exams and a new girlfriend as an excuse. At the last minute he called saying he would come to New York only if he could bring a friend, but Yoko turned him down. As usual John didn't challenge her. Julian retaliated by sending his father a tabloid article about rock stars' sons, which focused on both him and Ringo's son Zak Starkey, and went into detail about the trials of being the offspring of a Beatle." Lennon in America by Giuliano p. 218

On the other hand John Green does write that Julian spent Christmas '79 with John, Yoko and Sean. He even says that Julian stayed until February. ("John stayed in the Palm Beach house until February, luxuriating in the sun and sea, forging new ties with Julian and delighting in rediscoveries of himself." p.229) [This can't be true however because John was definitely in NY for Christmas and New Years. John and Yoko did buy a house in Palm Beach late January however and were spotted there a few times in February. I can't find a mention of Julian being spotted with them, so it may or may not have happened. I do think between the two of them Giuliano's account is probably more accurate. The Daily Mail article he mentions of Zak and Julian had come out on 3 or 4 December, so that is also believable that it had come up in pre-christmas discussions. But of course it's possible that a visit happened anyway.]

1980

Julian called in February 1980 to set up another meeting with his dad. This time John denied him, surprisingly because he was worried about Julian's schooling. Through Cynthia he had learned that Julian was failing his O-levels, had started smoking, staying out at night drinking, had gotten in trouble with the police for setting up fires and racing through town on a dirt bike. "John just prayed that Julian didn't hurt himself." There is also continued conflict over money. John felt that Julian every time they spoke asked him for more money. "And though John continued to feel guilty about having abandoned Julian and Cynthia, he'd be damned if he was going to be like every other rich asshole father who'd abandoned his family and then used money as a poor substitute for love and companionship." source

In March 'A Twist of Lennon' gets its paperback release and new reviews are printed in the press.

Summer 1980

When John sat for a portrait painting with Sean for the artist Nancy Gosnell, he wondered if she could also do one of him and Julian from a photograph. He wanted to give him a father and son portrait for his birthday, according to Fred Seaman.

September 1980

PLAYBOY: "Your son, Julian, from your first marriage must be in his teens. Have you seen him over the years?" LENNON: "Well, Cyn got possession, or whatever you call it. I got rights to see him on his holidays and all that business, and at least there's an open line still going. It's not the best relationship between father and son, but it is there. He's 17 now. Julian and I will have a relationship in the future. Over the years, he's been able to see through the Beatle image and to see through the image that his mother will have given him, subconsciously or consciously. He's interested in girls and autobikes now. I'm just sort of a figure in the sky, but he's obliged to communicate with me, even when he probably doesn't want to." PLAYBOY: "You're being very honest about your feelings toward him to the point of saying that Sean is your first child. Are you concerned about hurting him?" LENNON: "I'm not going to lie to Julian. Ninety percent of the people on this planet, especially in the West, were born out of a bottle of whiskey on a Saturday night, and there was no intent to have children. So 90 percent of us... that includes everybody... were accidents. I don't know anybody who was a planned child. All of us were Saturday-night specials. Julian is in the majority, along with me and everybody else. Sean is a planned child, and therein lies the difference. I don't love Julian any less as a child. He's still my son, whether he came from a bottle of whiskey or because they didn't have pills in those days. He's here, he belongs to me and he always will."

Playboy: I was under the impression that you still weren't seeing Julian much. Lennon: Well, no, he's comin' here over shortly now. I see him whenever he get's off school. Playboy: Has it been hard for him to be John Lennon's kid? Lennon: Yeah, he has his own... Everybody has a cross to bear, and Julian has that cross, and he'll deal with it. He's a clever boy, and as he gets older we can communicate and he'll understand.

[I wasn't sure what upcoming visit John is referring to since I couldn't find one mentioned anywhere. However there is an article in the Daily Mirror from 8 October 1980 including interview passages with Cynthia that mentions Julian currently being in New York. So without any photographic evidence, he isn't in any of the birthday photos, or anecdotes about it, there still might be the possibility that there was a (pre-)birthday visit from Julian to John and Sean in 1980. Julian himself hasn't been completely consistent on when he last saw his Dad. He has said that his '79 birthday visit was their last meeting (which I think is most likely correct), but he also claimed that he was flying out regularly.]

"According to Cynthia, Julian, now 18, plays guitar better than his father. He has left school and is off to New York to stay with his famous dad." Link to the article

In an interview with Jonathan Cott on 5 December John reflects more on the troubles of being a Beatle's son and on how mistakes in his decision for Julian's schooling changed his outlook on his plans for Sean. [Julian had been going to private school since at least 1973.]

"[...] because he can't possibly be an average child, being the son of famous parents. I tried that game with my son Julian, sending him to a comprehensive working-class school, mixing with the people, but the people spat and shit on him, because he was famous, as people are wont to do. So his mother had to finally turn around and tell me to piss off: 'I'm sending him to a private school, the kid is suffering here.' "

Cynthia writes that by the end of 1980 Julian felt a breakthrough in his and his father's relationship. John played Julian songs from his new album over the phone, asking his opinions. source

Julian himself reflects on his and his dad's relationship by the time of his death like this:

"I know that dad's presence will be around for a long time. He was always joking, always sounded happy, which made me think more of him as a friend than a dad. My earliest memory of my father was when I was about three and he sang happy birthday to me. We were living at Weybridge, Surrey, and dad threw a birthday party for me and brought in a long cake shaped like a train and festooned with candles." Sunday Mirror, 5 April 1981

As early as 1982 negative feelings would influence Julian's memory, saying he didn't get to see his father for five years, that he only heard on Birthdays and Christmas from him or that after the first US visit it was again years before he got to go another time, when it was merely months.

"The Beatles sang 'All You Need Is Love' - and that is all I wanted from Dad. It is difficult to explain why I should feel so strongly, when we shared so little. Never once in all the years he lived in America did he even think about coming to see me. Apart from rare visits, I lived from birthdays to Christmas just to hear from him." Julian, 1982

[Those false memories/presentations may have been the result of his beginning break from Yoko around that time and the conflicts about money, or maybe his memories just adapted to the way it was talked about in his family.]

"It was more of one man to another than the usual father and son relationship, because he had been away from me a lot, and he said he realized that. I was just getting through to him and growing up myself and growing out of the silly giggling I did as a young teenager that really annoyed him, when Dad was killed." Julian quoted in Ray Coleman's John bio, pp.620

"Dad was such an influence in my life, it must have been hard on Mum. She'd do her best with presents at birthdays and Christmas, but I always waited for that special present that was bigger than anything else - from him. Yet he never sent anything spontaneously. He'd phone up and ask what I wanted, and it would arrive. I don't think he was trying to buy me in any way. It was just a chance for him to do something for me. He knew I wanted to be a musician and kept telling me to take a long time to get it right. He removed a lot of the stress I suppose other kids might feel. I didn't do very well at school. I don't think I'm dense, but I suppose I'm a bit lazy. There's only one thing I want - to know for sure that Dad loved me as much as I loved him. Or maybe to have him back." Julian, 1982

Edits: 29 April - December 1974 John trial quote added; September 1980 Playboy interview quote added 6 May - added Julian quote about relationship to his father by the time of his death 7 May - added Old Grey Whistle Test clip March 11th 1975 18 May - added info about 3-4 December '79 Daily Mail feature on Julian and Zak, added all the info I could find on any visits in John Green's Dakota Days and multiple notes on to those mentions. 20 May - added Cyn's quote for 28 May 1972. 23 June - added the Tittenhurst floorplan and the link to an extended quote from Julian about being there in German 8 July - added quote from 5 Dec 1980 to Jonathan Cott 20 July - added Julia Baird audio on trying to see Julian for John 1975 22 July - added info on a possible 1980 visit, 1973 interviews, 1976 info, 1980's quote 30 July - Spin interview '75 added, Cynthia quote from Burton Daily Mail '76 added 1 August - added bits from Julian's 1982 article throughout, transcribed some of the jpg quotes, so that I may add more photos, some photos added 4 August - correction in my comments about the likelihood of Dan Richter's children being with them in 1979 19 August - Box of Smile 8 October - Added some postcards, the guitars, reset some photographs because of the picture limit 12 November - Added the video clip from May Pang's doc

[itsohh]

The Other Man's Ring

A/N: Female reader, looking at doing a couple of like linked oneshots sorta situation cause I like writing specific scenes but not an enitre story to go with it

Summary:  When Simon finds a hidden-away engagement ring he decides the pair of you need to talk.

Word count: 1420

Warnings: None

AO3 Masterlist Series Masterlist

He was normally relatively quiet. Prefering to watch and listen rather than to talk. At least that's how he was most of the time on base. In the field, he was one to take charge when needed and typically when he was alone with you, willing to speak up in comfort. Yet his current silence worried you. Sure sometimes he was just silent around your house but it was the fact that the pair of you had been in the middle of a conversation that concerned you.

"Simon?" You put the final dish from the dishwasher away and closed it. You wiped away any access water and poked your head around the corner. "Simon?" Again you called with no response. The short walk to your bedroom- now shared bedroom- seemed to take forever until you finally rounded the corner into the open door. "Simon, did you find my spare phone… charger?" Your voice trailed off as he stared at the small item in his hands. Your brows shot up at the sight of it, you didn't realize you still had that there.

"Are you married?" His voice was without emotion and at first, you thought to be offended, that you would ever cheat, but you bit back the knee-jerk reaction. An engagement ring was hidden away… you could see how his mind would run of all possibilities.

"Almost." You shuffled into the room and sat down on the large bed. It dipped under your weight and soon Simon followed your lead. It was a decent size rock. Diamond. Most likely cost a small fortune. "Long ago, maybe a year or two before I met you. I was in love." You glanced up to meet your lover's eyes for a second before your eyes fell back down to the ring that twirled in his fingers.

"I was young, well younger than I am now. He was great. Funny, charming, pretty and had one of those American accents that I loved to make fun of. Admittedly not terrible in bed either. Well, that's before my standard was raised." The pair of you lowly chuckled at that last part together.

"Even though we were both in the military, we kept our work completely out of our lives together. Hell, I still don't know what military he works for. It worked and we were in love. I worshipped the ground he stood on, crazy for him. He in turn took care of me, a doting boyfriend who eventually became my fiancé. The classic story."

"I presume things didn't work out?"

"Well after we got engaged we talked more and more about how we wanted our lives to be after we got married. We both soon discovered that we had rather different plans. I wanted to pretty much stay the same, maybe have a house together. But Phil? He wanted to protect me. Wanted me to leave the military. There wasn't any pressure for kids or anything." A sigh left your mouth. "Insistent on the matter. Sure, he wanted to keep me safe, but safe doesn't keep me happy. Eventually, after all the arguing I broke it off. Honestly, it wasn't really messy or anything. We just… moved on with our lives."

"He let you keep the ring?"

"I think both of us forgot about that one."

"That one?" He cocked a brow at you.

"Well, this is the ring he asked me to marry him with. I never wore it unless it was around the house. I don't know if you noticed but it's super unpractical." Simon tilted his head to the side in agreement, it was a bulky rock. "Eventually, he gave me another engagement ring. This time with the diamonds embedded into the band so I could wear it under my cloves at work." Your shoulders dropped for a moment. "Would have just preferred a blank ring, never cared for gems but Phil was Phil. He liked spending money on me." Simon passed the ring to you and you started to fiddle with it in your hands.

"I remember when I gave the ring back to him he didn't want to take it. I think there was a part of him that secretly wished we would get back together. Maybe he didn't forget about this ring. I don't know. Sometimes I felt like didn't know the man at all. Ultimately I saw what he wanted to see."

"Do you feel the same?" Simon's eyes cast over your face as you gave him a slight look of confusion. "About me." He clarified.

"Mmm." You dropped the ring on your bed and ran a finger over his hand. "At least I can see when you're wearing a mask." The home had the corner of his lip curl up while you traced the veins on his hand. "It's different, sure there are things that you keep from me. Both personal and work-related, you have your secrets and I probably won't know every part of you. But I don't feel like any part of you is a lie. Perhaps an act when you get all grumpy with the recruits…" Your eyes flashed up to meet his and your face spread into a teasing smirk before you continued. "But never a lie. When it comes to who you are as a person. I know you." Voice soft, you let go of his hand and placed it on his clothed chest. Right where his heart was.

Simon's eyebrows had narrowed but it didn't discourage you in any matter. "I could be wrong of course. You could be a secret mastermind behind everything. Plotting my demise." Simon leaned back on the bed and picked the ring up before he placed it on your side table. The same side table that he had found said ring in.

"And if I was? Would you regret it?"

"My demise by your hand? What a way to go. Have I told you I love your hands?" You winked and he rolled his eyes at you. A hand of his snaked around your waist and promptly pulled you close. Half in his lap you cuddled up to his chest your laughter shaking into his body.

"You have. Several times in fact." He made sure to press a little firmer into your skin to enthesis his touch. His touch ran up and down your forearm. The light touch of his lips made contact with the top of your head for a second before he sat back again.

"What would you like to happen if we ever got married?" Simon's voice was a hum, his focus seemed to be on your body but his mind was one hundred per cent on whatever your answer was to be.

"Us? Married? Hmm. I didn't think you were the type to want to get married." Your voice was a tease, not completely serious but he could hear the question wrapped up in your statement.

"Only to you."

"Charmer." You rolled your eyes, a grin on your face that you couldn't contain. "Honestly, if we were to get married. I think I would like things to just stay the same that they are."

"How so?"

"Well, we have no reason to move out of our houses. You live in England and I live here. We just carry on what we usually do and just take turns on where we live. I can't see how it would affect work any more than it currently does." Your head turned up to look at his warm eyes. "What about you?"

"I think we are on the same page with this one."

"Oooh wait there's one thing I would change."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"I think Sergeant Riley sounds pretty charming." His brow raised which caused you to let out a small giggle. "Or perhaps Dr Riley or even Mrs Riley if we are really striping it back."

"You want to take my name?"

"Why not? Man, it's going to make it soooo annoying and confusing when we are deployed together."

"You just want to stir chaos."  Simon's voice had a slightly deeper undertone to it, signalling his disapproval.

"Ah come on sweetie, it's not like anyone uses your name in the field anyway. I'll be Riley and you'll be Ghost."

"And if Johnny starts calling you Mrs Ghost?" Simon's question had you pause and physically cringe at the thought.

"Johns not gonna have a tongue for very long if he keeps that up."

"Even mute he'll never shut up."

"I can believe that."

[nightingaletrash]

Trying to figure out the designations of Oblivion's Black Hand prior to the deaddrop switch and I just realised something strange...

Ungolim

Lucien Lachance

Arquen

Belisarius Arius

J'Ghasta

Alval Ulvani

Mathieu Bellamont

Shaleez

Havilstein Hoarblood

Banus Alor

These are all the members of the Black Hand that appear in Oblivion, excluding the PC. Four Speakers, a Listener, and their five talons, the Silencers. Ten people in all. But when the PC is named Silencer, all of these people are still alive, and if all of them were members at that time, then the Black Hand would suddenly have eleven people instead of ten. And that doesn't work with the way Lucien tells us that it works. So chances are that someone got an abrupt promotion once the killings started, and the only person who makes sense to me is Banus Alor.

We know that Bellamont was promoted to the Black Hand as a Silencer about a year or more prior to the Player's arrival in the Brotherhood. Shaleez and Havilstein Hoarblood are also Silencers, as they tend to live in remote places or on the move so they can carry out their duties without being tied to a single place.

As for the others, Ungolim is the Listener, we know that for a fact. Lucien is obviously a Speaker, and we can presume that Arquen has been one for some time, given her role as the player's guide post-questline. Belisarius mentions that he's been responsible for administrative duties for years and hasn't gotten to spill blood in a long time, which is much more in line with a Speaker than a Silencer, so we can presume he's been a Speaker for a long time.

J'Ghasta and Alval HAVE to have been members of the Black Hand prior to the deaddrop switch because they're the ones named in those fake contracts. Their roles aren't super clear because according to UESP they're both Speakers... but that doesn't really work as we already have three confirmed Speakers and three confirmed Silencers, so they have to be one or the other. Speakers seem to have an established residence while the Silencers tend to move around a bunch (with Bellamont being an exception) so I lean towards Speaker J'Ghasta and Silencer Ulvani, but it really could go either way. There's definitely a compelling case for Speaker Ulvani, so it's up to preference really

Whatever the case, that still leaves Banus Alor as our odd one out as having no mention of prior experience and history with the Black Hand, whether in dialogue or from contracts. If he was a member of the Black Hand at the time of the Purification, then the Player being named Silencer makes no sense because going by the numbers, Lucien should have a Silencer still. So what gives with his being here? The doylist reason is pretty clear - the Black Hand has five members, so Bethesda wanted you to have five people going into the Night Mother's crypt for this election ritual. It represents a hand without talons, but a whole hand nonetheless, and someone has to be elected as the thumb.

But in-universe, the only way it works is if there were some very hurried promotions, and what we have in game backs that up. The Player is promoted to Speaker pretty much immediately upon their arrival at Applewatch because Arquen and the others know that they're innocent. Bellamont, a confirmed Silencer, is also a Speaker now. Along with Arquen and Belisarius, that makes four. But they need five if they're going to be four fingers and a thumb when they invoke the Night Mother. So at some point, the Black Hand decided to pick a family member to become a Speaker, and that family member was Banus Alor. Maybe he was a potential Silencer candidate they were keeping tabs on in case a position opened up. Maybe he oversaw a Sanctuary. Or maybe he was chosen for his ability to kill, as that would aid them best against Lucien.

So yeah. Can you tell I didn't sleep at all last night?

[irafuwas]

Right so I am kinda slow and behind. I do watch the JP translations when they are out but since I’m an ENG server player, I noticed something which is quite interesting but just made me curious.

In context, I found this a little confusing. We know dragon faeries are the strongest around, and we also know for a fact that Henrick planned to use Malleus as a mount after stealing the egg in his future reign. Lilia stated the, let’s say, fae version of “…awaiting a prince on a white horse”, I was confused that he used ‘dragon’. Is this to imply that there are dragons that are not faeries? And the faeries tame those creatures?

Idk if this was discussed but it pretty made me wonder what could this mean. Like he mentioned some direbeasts, could it be that dragons are separate creatures from dragon faeries who can turn into dragons? Or something else?

I've been thinking that dragons and dragon-fae are separate species, with the latter descended from the former, like how it works with the beastfolk.

In Tamashina Mina, there's a part where Leona explains how his hometown was specifically designed to include a lot of greenery in it, for the sake of their "animal ancestors".

Leona: The people here value “coexistence with nature” more than anythin’ else, and we make sure to conserve natural areas like this so the local animals have places to live, since they’re our ancestors and all.

And the way Ruggie talks in one of his chats, he describes literal hyenas as his ancestors.

(Not to mention how the King of the Beast is always depicted as an actual animal, as are Simba and Rafiki in the statue dedicated to them in Leona's hometown.)

This is similar to how Lilia said that the Draconia family is descended from dragons.

Lilia: Even amongst us fae, the Draconia family is renowned for their long lifespans. [...] They’re descended from dragons, after all.

Lilia also mentions in a voiceline for his scary dress card that he met a Lóng once, and noted the color of its scales. It's unclear if the Lóng was a fae or not, but if it's a reference to Mushu like I'm thinking then, I feel it was probably a literal dragon-dragon, and not a fae. So that would be at least one dragon that's not a dragon-fae.

Lastly, if Yana took any inspiration from the live action Maleficent films when designing the nocturnal fae, there's also a bit of lore in the second film that describes how the Dark Fae (Mal's species) are descended from a proginetor Phoenix and "evolved over centuries" into their current, humanoid forms. This could be how the dragon fae arose!

All of this to say, I think it's that there are - or at least, used to be - literal dragons in Twisted Wonderland, and then maybe a line of them branched off and became dragon fae, just like how it presumably happened with lion beastfolk, hyena beastfolk, etc. I guess the closest real world example would be like how polar bears evolved from an isolated population of brown bears, and both species still exist today. Or even dogs and wolves, etc.