#texting is the opposite of my superpower

[bruciemilf]

Do you think about “Mikkun and Tomo said I was really nice, and Mon likes to go on walks with me!” “I want to save that little kid!” everyday, or are you normal?

[plutosunshine]

Moon Oppositions: What Do You Need to Balance?

Moon opposite Sun

That’s like having your heart and your head playing tug-of-war—on a seesaw—in a windstorm. It's the classic internal “Should I stay or should I go?” kind of energy. On one side, your Sun represents your conscious self, what you want to become, how you shine in the world. The Moon? That’s your emotional core, your needs, your instincts—basically the cozy blanket you wanna wrap yourself in after a long day of pretending to have it all together.

With the opposition, those two aren’t exactly sending each other birthday cards. It can feel like you're constantly choosing between pleasing yourself and pleasing others, or between doing what you want versus what you need. Like, your Sun says “Go out and chase the dream!” and your Moon’s like, “But... snacks and Netflix?”

So how do you balance this? First off: self-awareness. Realize that both sides of you are valid. You don’t have to suppress one to live out the other. It's not a cage match, it’s a collaboration—like peanut butter and jelly. (Okay fine, maybe more like pineapple and pizza... not for everyone, but somehow it works.)

Make time to check in with yourself emotionally before committing to things that push you toward your Sun's goals. Ask: "Am I doing this because it truly aligns with me, or because I’m trying to silence my inner Moon-child with productivity?" And when you’re deep in your feelings, maybe crying at a car commercial, ask: “Is this just a mood swing or is my inner self needing attention I’ve been avoiding?”

Another trick: externalize it. Journaling, therapy, long walks where you talk to yourself like you’re in an indie movie—anything that helps you mediate the internal Sun-Moon debates.

And give yourself some grace. You’re literally wired for complexity. You’re not “too much”—you’re just multidimensional. You’re the human equivalent of a moody playlist that somehow always hits the vibe.

Moon opposite Mercury

That’s like your brain and your heart sending each other passive-aggressive texts. Mercury is all, “Let’s talk this out, be rational,” and your Moon’s like, “I don’t feel like it.” Classic head-versus-heart vibes, but instead of taking turns, they talk over each other—loudly. In different languages.

So here's the deal: your mind wants to analyze everything, probably while pacing or talking a mile a minute. But your emotions? They’re more like, “Can we just sit in this feeling without turning it into a TED Talk?” And honestly, sometimes you're not even sure if you're feeling a thing or just thinking about feeling it—which, let’s be real, can be exhausting.

This opposition can make communication with others a bit tricky too. You might express your emotions in a way that doesn’t quite land the way you meant it to. Like saying, “I’m fine” in a tone that makes people wonder if they need to call backup. Or you try to explain your feelings in such a logical way that people are like, “Wait, are you feeling this or writing a thesis on it?”

To balance this, you need to pause. When emotions come up, let yourself actually feel them before trying to label or explain them. That might look like journaling where you don’t edit yourself, or just sitting with a feeling like it’s an awkward roommate you’ve agreed to peacefully co-exist with.

Also: listen to your gut and your head—don’t just default to one. Sometimes your Moon is whispering the truth while Mercury’s throwing a slideshow presentation trying to convince you otherwise.

And don’t worry if people don’t always “get” your emotional process. You’re not broken; you’re just processing life through both intuition and intellect—and that’s actually kind of a superpower... once you stop letting them argue in the group chat of your mind.

Moon opposite Venus

Ahhh Moon opposite Venus—you sweet, conflicted little cinnamon roll. This one’s the emotional equivalent of wanting to hug someone and ghost them at the same time. On one side, you deeply crave connection, affection, and beauty (thanks Venus), but on the other, your Moon is like, “I need safety, comfort, and emotional honesty, not just flowers and flirty emojis!”

So here’s the tea: you might feel like your emotional needs and your relationship style are always in a bit of a standoff. Like, you want to be loved so badly... but when someone actually starts loving you, your Moon gets suspicious like, “Wait... what’s the catch?” Or maybe you’re being super giving and sweet (Venus things), but low-key resenting it later because your deeper emotional self (Moon things) wasn’t really on board.

You can come off as charming and lovable—and you are! But sometimes people fall in love with the Venus side of you, and they don’t even get to see what your Moon really needs. And that can leave you feeling weirdly lonely in relationships, like you’re showing up but not fully seen.

Balancing this opposition means getting super real with yourself. Ask: "Am I being nice and accommodating because I want to, or because I’m scared they won’t love me if I’m not?" And when emotions rise up, resist the urge to smooth it over too quickly. You don’t always have to be the peacemaker or the pleaser. Sometimes you need to throw your Moon a blanket, some tea, and say, “Alright babe, tell me what’s really going on in there.”

This aspect is a classic setup for learning about self-worth. You’re here to figure out how to love yourself enough that you don’t trade your emotional truth for approval or affection. And once you start owning both sides—your deep emotional sensitivity and your love of pleasure, romance, and aesthetics—you become that person who’s not just attractive, but emotionally magnetic.

Moon opposite Mars

Buckle up, babe, because your emotional world is running on adrenaline and vibes. This aspect is like having your feelings drive a race car with no seatbelt—fast, reactive, and occasionally screaming out the window.

So what’s going on here? The Moon is your emotional core, your instinctual needs, your inner softie. Mars? Mars is your drive, your anger, your “get out of my way, I got this” energy. When they’re in opposition, you’ve basically got a cosmic tug-of-war between wanting to feel safe and wanting to punch a wall—figuratively (hopefully).

You might find that your emotions flare up fast. Like, someone says the wrong thing and you go from “I’m fine” to “OH REALLY?!” in 0.5 seconds. But here’s the twist: a lot of the time, the anger is covering up vulnerability. Mars wants to fight, but your Moon just wanted a hug... and now everyone’s confused, including you.

This can make relationships feel intense. You want connection, but when someone gets close, you might instinctively push back or get defensive. It’s not that you don’t want love—it’s that your system is primed for fight-or-flight, not cozy cuddle sessions. (Though secretly, you totally want those cuddle sessions. Don’t lie.)

Balancing this energy means finding healthy outlets for Mars—like movement, assertiveness, or even yelling into a pillow if you have to. You need to express your emotions through the body, not just in your head. Otherwise, that emotional tension builds up and boom—outbursts.

Also? Learn to recognize when you’re reacting to a now moment versus an old emotional wound being poked. Moon-Mars oppositions sometimes bring up stuff from the past—especially around feeling unsafe, unheard, or not in control. The trick is not to go full rage mode when your inner child just needed some reassurance.

When you start working with this opposition, not against it, you actually become a total powerhouse: emotionally brave, fiercely protective, and capable of taking action in alignment with your true feelings. You just have to get past the reflex of turning every emotion into a battle.

Moon opposite Jupiter

That’s the emotional equivalent of saying “just one cookie” and then suddenly you’re three episodes deep into a rom-com marathon with the whole box gone. This aspect is big feelings, big reactions, and a tendency to turn everything into either a soap opera or a TED Talk—sometimes both, in the same conversation.

See, the Moon is your emotional needs, your instincts, your private, cozy self. Jupiter is the cosmic hype-man—he wants more, bigger, better, now. When they’re opposite each other, it can feel like your emotions are on a rollercoaster with zero brakes. You feel things deeply, but also might blow them a little out of proportion. Like, “they didn’t text back” suddenly becomes “I guess love just isn’t real anymore.”

This aspect can also make you super generous—emotionally, materially, all the things. You're probably the type to give more than you really have sometimes, whether it’s time, energy, money, or love. You want to help and be there for people, but then your Moon's like, “Wait… who’s here for me though?”

And don’t even get me started on overindulging as emotional self-care. This placement loves comfort food, comfort spending, comfort people—whatever gives that short-term oooh yes feeling when you're emotionally low. But then… regret. And maybe a stomachache.

So how do you balance it? Two words: emotional moderation. Jupiter loves to go overboard, so you’ve got to create a system that checks in with your feelings before you act on them. Like, "Am I really sad, or did I just forget to eat lunch?" "Do I need to send this 5-paragraph text, or am I just spiraling a bit?"

And gratitude is your secret weapon. When Moon and Jupiter are out of sync, it’s easy to feel like nothing’s ever enough. But when you slow down and actually soak in what you already have—emotionally, materially, spiritually—you become an absolute magnet for abundance, in a way that’s grounded and sustainable.

Moon opposite Saturn

That’s deep. It’s like your inner child is quietly clutching a blanket while Saturn stands over them with a clipboard asking, “And how exactly do you plan to justify these feelings?”

This aspect can feel like a constant internal tension between wanting emotional comfort (Moon) and feeling like you don’t deserve it unless you’ve earned it (Saturn). So yeah, fun stuff. Cue the emotional restraint, the “I’m fine” mask, and that little voice that says, “No one’s got time for your feelings—be strong, get it together.”

You probably learned early on that expressing vulnerability wasn’t always safe or welcome. Maybe you had to grow up too fast. Maybe you were the responsible one when you really just needed a hug and someone to say, “It’s okay to feel this.” So now, there’s this adult-y Saturn vibe that tries to “manage” your Moon instead of feeling it. Think: emotional tightrope walking in a windstorm.

You might not cry easily, or when you do, it feels like a failure. (Spoiler: it’s not.) You could even push people away when you really need closeness, because Saturn whispers, “Don’t be needy. Be strong.” Meanwhile, your Moon is screaming into a pillow.

But here’s the powerful truth of this aspect: you are emotionally resilient. You can handle deep, heavy feelings—and still function. You just have to give yourself permission to soften. That doesn’t mean being messy 24/7—it means allowing your inner self to feel without immediately judging, fixing, or shutting it down.

Balance starts when you recognize that emotions aren’t weaknesses. They’re signals. The Moon wants you to nurture yourself; Saturn wants you to grow. You don’t have to pick one. You can build emotional security—but it starts from inside, not from checking every box on Saturn’s to-do list.

And relationships? Yeah, they might feel like work. You may test people before letting them in. You might even feel like you have to earn love. But when you find people who can hold space for your emotional walls and the tenderness behind them? That’s when everything shifts.

Moon opposite Uranus

The cosmic equivalent of needing a hug but then flinching when someone touches you. This is the signature of the freedom-loving feeler. You want a connection... but on your terms. And your terms change every five minutes.

Your Moon wants emotional security, routine, and people who understand you without needing a decoder ring. Uranus? Uranus wants space, unpredictability, and “don’t tell me what to feel!” energy. So when these two are facing off, you get this wild internal dance between craving closeness and bolting the second things feel too emotionally intense or boring.

You probably grew up learning to emotionally self-soothe, maybe because caretakers were unreliable or emotionally unpredictable. So now, when someone gets too close or expects too much of your emotional side, your instinct is, “Nope! Gotta go!” Cue sudden mood shifts, relationship zig-zags, and that mysterious vibe you give off like you're emotionally available until you're absolutely not.

But here’s the thing—you’re not broken, you’re just wired for emotional independence. You’re not meant to do emotions the traditional way. Your emotional rhythm is unique, electric, and yes, sometimes chaotic. You feel best when you have space to be, and when your relationships are based on trust, not control.

Balancing this aspect means learning to sit with discomfort instead of instantly reacting to it. Don’t ghost your own feelings. Don’t bail the second someone tries to emotionally connect with you. Ask: “Is this real discomfort, or just fear of being too seen?”

And let’s be honest, you need stimulation to stay emotionally engaged. Same-old, same-old just doesn’t cut it. So build that into your life: create a routine that allows for change, be around people who give you freedom and depth, and give yourself permission to feel weird without needing to explain it to anyone.

Moon opposite Neptune

Welcome to the emotional fog machine. This one’s like your heart is trying to tune into a frequency but keeps picking up static, movie soundtracks, and someone else’s dreams. It’s beautiful, poetic, and deeply intuitive—but also confusing as hell.

The Moon is your emotional baseline, your need for safety and realness. Neptune? Neptune floats in on a dreamy cloud with glitter, illusions, and zero regard for boundaries. When they’re opposite, it can feel like your emotional reality and your perceived emotional reality are in two different dimensions. One wants to feel secure and grounded... the other wants to believe in fairy tales, soulmates, and “maybe if I just manifest it harder…”

You’re probably super empathetic—like, almost too much. You absorb other people’s emotions like a sponge and then wonder why you feel overwhelmed for no reason. You cry during commercials. You fall in love with potential. You give people the benefit of the doubt way past the expiration date.

And here’s the sneaky bit: this opposition can make it really hard to tell if your feelings are yours or if they’ve been shaped by fantasy, projection, or someone else’s energy. You might have this ache for something you can’t quite name—a longing for deep, mystical connection. But when things get too real? When flaws and disappointments show up? Cue disillusionment and emotional withdrawal.

The key to balancing this is one word: discernment. Learn to sit with your feelings before acting on them. Journal them, paint them, cry them out, whatever—but check in: “Is this truth, or is this wishful thinking?” And don’t be afraid to ground yourself. Nature, structure, therapy, real talk with trusted people—these are your anchors.

Also, protect your energy like it’s your phone battery at 2%. Just because you can feel everything doesn’t mean you should. Emotional boundaries are not only allowed—they're necessary. You’re not here to save everyone. You're here to learn how to stay open-hearted and protected.

Moon opposite Pluto

Okay, we’re officially in the deep end. This one doesn’t just feel emotions—it dives into them with a flashlight and a shovel. You’re not here for surface-level anything. You're wired for emotional intensity, transformation, and truth… but whew, it can get a lot.

The Moon is your emotional foundation, your need for comfort, connection, and inner peace. Pluto? Pluto is the shadowy planet of power, control, transformation, and the whole “let’s burn it down so we can rise from the ashes” thing. Put them opposite each other and you’ve got a cosmic tug-of-war between wanting emotional safety and being magnetically drawn to emotional danger zones.

You might experience big emotional swings—like one minute you’re fine and the next you're deep in a spiral that started with someone looking at you weird. This placement makes you feel everything, and not just your own stuff—you pick up on undercurrents in other people, too. The intensity is real, and so is the urge to control it—either by keeping people at arm’s length or pulling them in so close you accidentally smother them with your emotional x-ray vision.

There's also a tendency to attract (or be drawn to) people and situations that push your emotional buttons—because your soul knows you’re here to evolve. But growth doesn’t have to be a full-on emotional demolition every time, okay?

The trick to balancing Moon opposite Pluto? Emotional honesty—with yourself first. Learn to say, “I feel this intenselyand that’s okay,” without needing to either suppress it or act on it right away. Create safe spaces for your emotions to move through you. Journal like your life depends on it. Talk to people who get it, or at least won’t try to tell you to “just calm down” (you deserve better than that, tbh).

Also, work on trust. You don’t have to be hyper-vigilant or try to emotionally manage every situation. Let people in, little by little. Let yourself be vulnerable without needing a power dynamic or a test first.

You’re not “too much.” You’re just operating at an emotional depth that most people haven’t even snorkeled in yet.

[jnw1813]

Shopping

You and Conquest go shopping for the first time. Fluff and feels ensue.

Letting you fret over him for a bit, Conquest looked on with amusement as you patted down his jumper, checking him over for the nth time, making sure he was presentable for a day out.

Obviously, there wasn't much you could do about his fierce appearance and prosthetic arm, but you figured in a world full of superpowers and odd individuals, Conquest would only get a few glances before being ignored.

You hoped so, at least.

“Okay,” You took a deep breath, “Are you ready?”

“As I'll ever be.” He mutters, glancing out the window, at the distant town where you two were heading today; his first time into town, in fact.

You had a lot of shopping to get done, and with Conquest falling deeper in love with you, he refused to let you out of his sight for so long– a mix of possessiveness and protectiveness fueling him to follow you wherever you go.

So, doing one last check on him, you exited the house, Conquest at your heels.

The drive to town was quiet, Conquest's keen eye focused on the unfamiliar surroundings, ingrained instincts seeking out any threats to his mate.

When you parked near the shopping centre, you reached over, squeezing his hand with a reassuring smile on your face.

“Come on. We've got a lot to buy.”

—

Conquest liked Earth markets. There was something so… rustic about most of them, even the most rich and fancy places had a 'grounded' feel to them compared to stores on other planets. Not that Viltrumites did much shopping, of course, but Conquest did get out and had seen plenty of different cultures and their markets… before destroying them.

Hm. Best not to mention that to you. No need to reinforce how bad he was in your mind.

As you went from store to store, buying what you needed (and buying a few extra things here and there), Conquest took on carrying duty, arms full of bags. He didn't mind, of course– no need to remind you how strong he is, right?– though he didn't like that it kept his hands full. What if he needed to hit someone or wanted to touch you?

Humming, Conquest leaned down. "One sec, pumpkin." He whispered in your ear, disappearing briefly as he flew out of the mall, fast, putting all the shopping into the trunk of the car. Then he was back, barely two seconds having passed.

At your amused look as you figured out what he just did, he just grinned, resting a hand on your opposite hip, squeezing gently.

"Come on. What's next on the list?"

 —

Looking around the store, Conquest stood still as you held up clothes to his body. Soft music played over the speakers, some brain numbing pop song about summer and parties. The store was clean, bright, lots of whites, creams, and wood browns for contrast.

"Mmm, how about this one?" Your voice catches his attention, and he looks down, humming as he eyes the colourful shirt.

"I like it." He says plainly. It makes you sigh but you still smile.

"You can have opinions, Con. You don't need to agree to all my suggestions."

"I'm not," he murmurs, watching you check the size of some pants next. For some reason, you look shy and almost flustered as you look at some grey sweatpants. "I like it. I don't mind wearing them so long as they fit and are comfortable."

"Hm." You walk around a rack, grinning as you hold up a large t-shirt. "So what you're saying is… you'd wear this?"

It's a white shirt with rainbow coloured blood splatters and an unicorn on the front. Except the unicorn is standing proudly above a cartoonish dead body. There's some text claiming 'The horn isn't just for show' on top of the image.

Conquest stares at it, deadpan.

"Yes. Put it in the cart." He says, turning away, smirking to himself as he hears you let out a choked laugh, taken by surprise.

As you keep looking around, Conquest wanders a bit, ignoring the occasional stares from strangers. He ends up wandering into an aisle filled with tiny soft clothes in soft colours. It makes him pause.

An unfamiliar feeling fills him as he, hesitantly, picks up a little bundle. It's a powder blue colour, and as he holds it in his palm (a single palm– so, so small), he sees it's a onesie.

A tiny blue onesie.

Conquest feels frozen, staring down at the baby clothes with something akin to wonderment. He can't even conceive the thought of something so small, yet here lies the proof. Are all babies so small, he wonders, to be able to fit in this outfit? In his palm?

The thought of his one, big hand cradling a newborn nearly undoes him.

It feels like he can't breathe, chest aching with such yearning he hasn't felt in forever.

He makes a sound, pained, almost. A hand lands on his shoulder, nearly startling him.

"Hun? Conquest?" You whisper, peering over to see what has him so… oh.

Giving the big man a soft look, you smile, leaning against him.

You understand.

"Come on," you whisper, tugging his arm gently. "We'll add it to the cart."

Conquest's heart soars at your words, at what the hidden promise nestled between the letters mean. It's unspoken, neither of you ready for that step yet, but it will happen.

The baby onesie is added to the pile of clothes, a silent promise that it will see use in the future hanging between you two.

Conquest clings to that promise, keeps it close to his heart, letting it soothe that yearning ache he's had for millennia. He holds onto it for the rest of the trip, on the drive home, and for the rest of the day.

It warms him, the thought of little honey-brown eyes and your hair and tiny chubby fists…

Emperor help me, he thinks. I've gone weak. And yet he finds he can't give a shit.

Later that night, as you get ready for bed, Conquest feels the soft cotton of the onesie again, imagining just for a moment… before carefully tucking it away in his bedside drawer, and rolling over to face you.

That was still a while away, after all. And he had you, which was more than enough for him.

[kazoosandfannypacks]

chapter summary: five years after learning about her superpowers, hope, is putting them to good use, despite the worry it creates for her best friend and partner in crime-fighting. chapter word count: 1090 a/n: this chapter mentions a cup of tea. for a long time, in place of "chamomile tea," the text simply read, "it's [OH CRAP WHAT KIND OF TEA DOES GIDEON DRINK?] tea." and I was almost sad to see that pre-editing note go XD. anyways, shoutout to the eternally beloved @accidental-spice for betaing this chapter! taglist:@accidental-spice@kanerallels@ouatnextgen@booksteaandtoomuchtv (if you'd like to be added to my cygnet scholar taglist, let me know!) also on ao3!

#2: My Show

 "Another happy landing." Hope thought, as her feet touched the ground in front of the old fort in the backyard, adrenaline still coursing her veins and her favorite song still blasting through her earpiece. She held a travel cup in each hand, but set them down outside the door to free up her hands for opening the rusted old door.

 Her fort hadn't changed much in the last five years— or the twelve before them. Sure, the carpet was more worn, as were the chairs and the peeling paint on the wall, but the only change for the better was a door with a keypad lock.

 Most of her friends still believed that this was a storage shed her parents had added on recently, her dad not wanting to mow around multiple buildings in the yard but needing the storage space, but only one knew different.

 Hope typed in a number on the keypad, and the door opened, not to a bunch of musty old boxes of Christmas decorations, but instead to a high tech and well lit room, complete with a fancy supersuit display case, a divider to change behind, an almost wall-sized computer, and a state of the art gaming chair— complete with a very frazzled guy in the chair.

 "Another day saved," Hope said, "and I even had time to grab you coffee on the way back."

 She snapped her fingers, and one of the cups she'd left at the door appeared in her hand.

 "I don't drink coffee." He said.

 "You think I don't know that by now, Gid?" Hope asked. "It's chamomile tea."

 Gideon took the cup from her and took a sip as she stepped behind the privacy divider on the opposite corner of the room.

 The divider had a full-length mirror behind it, as well as a pile of clothes she'd left in her rush to get out and stop the villain of the week, and a hanger to put her suit back on when she was done with it.

 No matter how many times she looked in the mirror and saw herself in her suit, it was always exciting. The shining golden and magenta jumpsuit, complete with a matching mask and the most comfortably practical yet somehow still stylish boots you could find— it all felt so, for lack of a better word, super.

 "Hope, you've gotta be careful out there," Gideon said.

 "You worry too much," Hope replied through the privacy screen as she took off her mask, "I had it handled. The Author's just a minor threat, and I put him in his place."

 "I beg to differ," Gideon replied.

 As Hope unzipped her jumpsuit, she could hear the feedback from the monitor, and looked over the top of divider to see a replay of her battle, reliving her most recent back-injury-due-to-getting-slammed-into-a-building in 4k high definition.

 "What's your point?" Hope asked, stepping out of the suit and trying to ignore the pain in the back of her head. She knew either an ibuprofen or a minute to sit down and breathe would patch her up, no problem.

 "You're gonna get hurt if you keep doing this," he said.

 Hope threw a black t-shirt over her tank top and a pair of off-white pants over her athletic shorts. She tried to shrug off Gideon's over-concerned warning by mumbling along to the music playing in her earpiece.

 "This is my show, baby, that's how it's gonna be. This is my show, baby, and it's all abou…."

 The volume faded out.

 "Hey!" Hope said, poking her head above the divider. "I was listening to that."

 "Listen to me." Gideon said. "You're not as invincible as you think. You can't keep picking these fights."

 "I'm not picking fights." Hope hung up her suit neatly on the hanger. "They're picking me. Helping people is just, what I do."

 "But you don't have to do it alone," Gideon said, "especially not when you're outmatched."

 "Hey," Hope threw on her pink leather jacket as she stepped out from behind the divider, "if I was outmatched, would I have made it back here in one piece?"

 "That's what worries me." Gideon rolled his eyes.

 "You worry too much." Hope flopped into the beanbag chair on the other side of the room.

 She pulled a handful of various yet particular friendship bracelets out of her jacket pocket and slid them onto her wrists.

 "I just don't know if you should still be out there alone." Gideon said, pulling up a chart on the screen. "I've been charting the crime in this city, and it's on the rise. In the last five years, evil has gone up exponentially, and ever since that dark one entered the playing field, it's only gotten worse."

 "So?" Hope asked. She snapped her fingers and her other travel cup from outside appeared in her hand, this one full of hot chocolate, which she smugly sipped.

 "Even the great heroes have a sidekick, Hope," he said, "Knave has Wondergirl, Equestria has The Outlaw, Saving Grace has Captain Guyliner…."

 "...and I have you," Hope interrupted.

 "You have me up to thirty miles away, giving you strategies that you barely listen to anyways."

 "Yeah, and it works great." Hope shrugged.

 "Let me go with you." Gideon said. "You'd be surprised how much help I could be."

 "We've been over this, Gid," Hope said, "besides the fact that you don't have powers…"

 "...Neither does Captain Guyliner," Gideon retorted.

 Hope ignored him, "...and the fact that I need you here,"

  "...Not as much as you need help out there…" Gudeon scoffed.

 "...I can't let you take that risk." Hope said. "If my parents saw you out there with me, they'd figure out I told you my secret pretty quickly— and then both of us would be benched from saving the world."

 Gideon sighed, the same way he always did when Hope was right.

 "Just, try to be more careful, okay?" Gideon said. "I can't help save the world if you're in traction, now, can I?"

 "I'll do my best." Hope pulled out her earpiece. "Now, can you please turn my music back on?"

 "I'll do you one better." Gideon said. "Surround sound."

 Hope smiled as the song she'd been listening to picked back up again, this time not in her earpiece, but over their headquarters speaker system, bass boosted just the way Hope liked it.

 "...it's all about me. This is my show. This is my show, baby, and that's how it's gonna be. Oh, and it's all about me…."

🩷•⚡•💛

[dykepuffs]

This is a story that doesn't have a point, but is true, and also is possibly a useless superpower which I have: If I kiss someone and then send them to hospital, they meet their true love. It has JUST happened for the FOURTH time.

The first one was a (very hot) makeout buddy in the early 00s. We would snog and frot and give each other handjobs in the toilets at the nightclub once a week, and never went home with each other. I gave him tuberculosis, which put him in inpatient care and isolation at the hospital for weeks. During that time, he and one of the nurses assigned to look after him fell in love. They got married two years later and are still married now.

The second - My fuckbuddy and ex-beard, who went down what we would now call the alt-right radicalisation pipeline, but this was in 2004 so at the time we just called it joining the EDL. Six months after we broke up, I ran into him on the opposite side of the lines at a messy counterprotest, broke his nose, fractured his skull, cracked two of his ribs and eightballed one of his eyes.

In the letter he wrote to me eight years later, he said; "Sitting in handcuffs in A&E, having been put there by someone who once said they loved me, made me realise that I was going down the wrong path, so I made the effort to try to correct it, and started to volunteer at (our old local hub for refugees) which was advertised on the toilet doors in the hospital ward, which is how I met (his future wife, a Syrian Muslim)" - The letter included a wedding invitation, they're still together now and have three kids, he's reverted to Islam and seems much happier.

Number 3 was in 2007, a couple of years after Number 2 - Me and a woman I had had a crush on for ages, we got, erm, overexcited, walking home after a night at the theatre and ended up having sex in a snowdrift piled up on a grass berm. She's now married to the guy who gave us both a lift to the minor injuries clinic, and who shared the days with me, as she spent a week recovering from the hypothermia and the sprained ankle.

But Number Four was this week and was platonic! A friend that I kiss platonically on the cheek and hold hands with all the time, I managed to drop an engine block on his foot. And he has just texted me that he is really really hitting it off with the guy in the bed next to him on the ward...

[max-imumbooks]

Renegades Thoughts

Spoilers ahead!

----

There are things I really enjoyed about Renegades. It's just that it's shortcomings kind of overwhelm everything else. Like, they have the perfect characters to carry a truly interesting story right there, and they chose to just... not. I saw so much potential as the books progressed that every refusal to go down an untraveled road just got me more and more frustrated.

Adrian's and Nova's team members are adorable and convincingly normal. Unlike the adult superheroes, the patrol team are all teenagers who could be anyone's brother, anyone's sister. They're people first and foremost. AND they have cool and unique superpowers! Girl who can transform into a swarm of butterflies, anyone? And being one of the most badass heroes among them? And Adrian brings his drawings to reality, which doesn't seem all that valuable in combat on the surface, but in execution lends Adrian a versatility that others don't have.

As far as the plot goes, the fact that the story plays with superhero archetypes meant that I was looking for a predictable/archetypal story structure. In my head, it should have gone thus: Book 1 = ends with Nova being found out, Book 2 = consists of heroes vs villains with Nova and Adrian on opposite sides, and Book 3 = Nova and Adrian realizing the hero/villain conflict of their parents' generation doesn't have to be their story, and find a way to come back together to navigate a path of their own, joined by others their age from both sides.

That's not what I got.

I read these all back to back, so it all kind of runs together in my brain (especially since I listened on audiobook), but iirc Nova isn't even suspected until Book 3, and even though she's arrested, she's ultimately acquitted in short order. She's not TRULY found out until the finale.

The FINALE.

She then proceeds to stand by while Adrian is quite literally tortured, flayed even, with hardly a word of protest. It turned my stomach to know that this girl I've come to enjoy so much suddenly lacked any spine whatsoever, and it was enough for me to feel like Adrian's quick forgiveness after wasn't actually earned. Nova ends the story still in a moral deficit, which was kind of lazy. Like-- why.

I also expected Nova to grow into her own identity, as she starts of executing someone else's plan to infiltrate the Renegades, and then ends up crafting her own plan when she's suddenly required to maintain the facade longer than expected. In my mind, I expected her to actually take on a role of authority, but any time she's undermined or in conflict with other villains she shrinks back into obedience. When she finally acts to her own morals, it's not because she's grown and gained unique experiences, but because it turns out her uncle lied to her about the deaths of her parents and baby sister Evie.

Speaking of, what REALLY gets my goat is that the most interesting twist on the story, the thing that would have 100% redeemed this story if it had been explored in the main text, happens in the EPILOGUE.

See, there's this character we meet in the same scene we meet Nova. Nova is on the street during a parade, and a young pickpocket tries to steal her bracelet-- the last token Nova has of her parents, her most prized possession. The pickpocket turns out to be Maggie, codename Magpie, a Renegade who has a talent for identifying and unearthing valuable items. From then on, Nova positively loathes Maggie, and the feeling is mutual. They hate each other's guts, and can barely be in the same room without fighting each other.

It's actually quite refreshing that Nova doesn't suddenly lapse into mother mode, as other stories may be wont to do. Two girls hate each other-- it happens! And it's 100% in character on both girls' parts.

But here's the thing: in the finale, Maggie is revealed to be Evie. You know, Nova's murdered baby sister whose death motivates every one of Nova's actions for three whole novels? Yeah. That Evie. No one knows, not even them. Maggie was delivered to an orphanage as an infant, after her parents were found murdered and her older sister missing, never to be heard from again. Maggie grew up hoping that her sister would re-appear and claim her, but she's abandoned that dream-- she's far too cynical and streetwise for that.

But imagine. If the story had let Maggie and Nova learn the truth... How would they reconcile? Would they believe it? Would they eventually come together and love each other like they always dreamed of doing? THAT would have been 100% more compelling than the lukewarm commentary of the hero/villain dichotomy that we got. That could have easily been the main focus of Book 3.

Ugggggggghhhhh... it makes me want to tear my hair out.

Especially because there's been no mention of Marissa Meyer of returning to the world of Renegades.

On a side note, as a kid I had a habit of fancasting the characters in almost every book I read. I've mostly grown out of that, but this series did have a character (Nova's uncle) that instantly put an actor in my head-- Phil LaMarr, who I know predominantly as Malefic J'onzz in CW's Supergirl. Nova's uncle Ace had such a distinct presentation and delivery that LaMarr's face was the only thing that popped into my brain. (And in casting LaMarr, it would suggest that Nova would be black or at least mixed race, which opens up a whole world of wonderful casting choices.)

So-- yeah. Any story where the most interesting and compelling plot twist happens in the epilogue is certainly on the struggle bus.

[purplesurveys]

1941

How many people have you liked this year? Zero.

How many pills do you take a day?  It's the same amount of people I've liked this year.

Do you have any celebrity crushes?  Sure.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be? I love the idea of teleportation so I never have to go through traffic.

Do you put ketchup on top of your French fries or on the side?  I'd put any dip on the side, but that being said I never liked tomato ketchup and have always preferred to have my fries with mayonnaise.

Where did you last sleep other than your house?  That would be the accommodations we stayed at in Cavite, when we had an event in the area the following day.

Where did you get your last bruise from?  I can never remember where exactly all my bruises come from, but it's always because I hit myself somewhere.

Is it okay to kiss people when you’re single?  Uhhh as long as the person you're kissing is also single, I guess.

Ever worn something of the opposite sex’s clothing? I don't think so.

Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?  Sure.

Last CD you blasted through your car stereo?  Idk might've been a Beyonce album a decade ago, lol. I haven't put on a CD in a car in years – I always use Bluetooth.

How many email accounts do you have?  Not counting my work email, I have two main ones. I also have a handful extra Gmails so I can use my Google Drives connected to those accounts to dump all the excess photos and videos from my phone, lol. I'd rather have 20 Drives than pay monthly for storage.

Who is the best cook in your family? My dad and both my grandmas.

Which baby animal is your favourite?  Puppies.

Have you ever carved a pumpkin?  No not practiced here.

When is the last time you went to a carnival?  I mean I went to Bà Nà Hills last June and it felt like a carnival with all the game booths and such, even though I'm pretty sure they don't advertise themselves as a carnival.

Do you have a favourite glass, cup, or mug?  Not really, no.

What branch of science interests you the most? Biology and anatomy.

Have you ever written anything longer than 10 pages?  My thesis, lol.

Twitter or Tumblr? Neither. Twitter is a gross cesspool now, and I only use Tumblr for surveys which barely makes it a favorite.

Have you ever been given a lapdance by an actual stripper?  Nope.

Favorite YouTuber? Jessica Lee!

Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend?  To an extent.

Have you ever written a love letter to someone as a joke? No.

Do you have any gay family members?  Nobody who's out, at least. But I dunno...I don't think so.

Was your first kiss romantic? Yeah.

Who was the last person to sleep over at your house?  That would be Reena.

What would you think if you found out your ex was gay?  She is, so this doesn't apply to me. I would be extremely, so very shocked though if she winds up straight. Just doesn't seem possible. She legitimately hates men to the point of misandry.

How many people has your best friend had sex with?  Just the one, I'm pretty sure.

When was the last time you had a conversation with an ex? That was like October or November of 2020.

Are you currently “appearing offline” to anybody?  I've been 'offline' on Facebook since around 2017.

What were you for Halloween last year? I can't remember what/who I went as.

Do you believe that karma can come back and slap you in the face?  Not actively, but it's possible.

Have you ever been to Texas?  I have not.

Do your siblings text you?  My sister never does, actually. She'll mostly message on Messenger.

Have you ever searched for your own house on Google Earth?   I've done that, yeah.

Did your last kiss end up with you and the person doing anything sexual?  I can't remember.

Who is your ex dating/talking to? I don't know.

Did you ever have to share a room with one of your siblings?  Yeah very briefly, but the room layout at the time felt forced and super cramped + my sister also hated sharing rooms lmao so that setup lasted all of like two weeks.

What happened at the last party you went to?  Rita celebrated her 25th and Jo and I just spent much of the evening catching up. We were the only two in the field of like 60 people who knew each other, so we stuck together lmao.

Have you ever completely misunderstood what somebody was saying?  Yeah.

When was the last time you felt ill? What was wrong?  A month ago, food poisoning that sucked the energy out of me. I don't know how I managed to drive myself back home as I was really feeling faint at the time. 

Who was your first best friend? Do you still speak to that person? Kaye, from kinder. We stopped talking as soon as she moved schools because there was no way to keep in contact.

Are you wearing anything that was given to you as a gift?  Sure.

What color is your jewelry box?  I don't own one.

Are you attracted to the last person you Facebook messaged? No, they're family.

What is your brother/sister’s favourite food?  My sister can eat tubs of Jollibee spaghetti all day every day.

Do you have any ice cream in your freezer? We don't.

In your life, who is the person that seems to understand you the most?  Probably Angela.

Does anyone know your Facebook password?  Nope.

Would you ever consider getting a piercing in your septum?  No.

Do you enjoy being outdoors?  Uh, sure, as long as the weather is nice. But since the weather here sucks 365 days a year, I don't usually like being outdoors lmao.

What’re some unspeakable subjects for you?  I'm an open book and can talk about anything if prompted.

[soul-dwelling]

Do you think Bungo Stray Dogs does a good job of representing the books/authors it references, or is it often very surface level and just spreading misinformed caricatures?

It's not quite misinformed, especially as Asagiri is leaning more into how the popular culture imagines these authors more than just who they were in real life and what their texts "actually" said. But I do think it is superficial, even when sometimes the most superficial details are still effective at quickly communicating through shorthand what Asagiri is trying to share as a message or a tone to the story.

(Chapter 118 just came out. It persists with the worst parts of this arc. At least it seems like it is trying to respond to the original text of Tanizaki’s “Light Snow.”)

The references to real-life authors are mostly superficial. 

But to get the positive out of the way first: the superficial references are there are narrative short-cuts, mostly effective, to communicate to the reader what they should feel--it’s intertextuality. 

In other words, “You are familiar with how close these three real-life authors are, so that should make it hurt more when betrayals and conflicting goals shatter that friendship.” In those cases, it works: if you are familiar with these major works of literature, you instantly get the point, the potential message, and the tone. “Here is Fitzgerald, so now we are talking about the toxicity of the American dream. Here is Akutagawa, so you know this is a story about violence. Here is Ranpo, so you know this is a detective mystery.”

Those light novels about the earlier days of the Port Mafia are usually really good at deploying references to the real-life authors to enhance the already strong plotting and characterization: it’s still potentially superficial, but it is there to enhance what is already working in the story, adding without detracting. We understand how similar the writing styles are between Oda and Gide, so we understand why this novel has those two in battle. We know the real-life friendship between Oda, Dazai, and Ango to understand why that friendship in fiction falling apart hurts. We understand how the real-life Verlaine inspired Chuuya, so we understand how Asagiri transforms that relationship into something toxic, now imagined as someone forcing someone into a position of being like a younger sibling against their will, how this does violence to Chuuya, to be trapped and forced to model himself after someone who is overpowering him with the same superpower they both share, and how Chuuya’s struggle to craft his own identity is what it must feel like to be an author trying to get out of the shadow of those who inspired them. 

All of that is really good. 

It’s just too bad that the manga is rarely as good as these light novels, where the manga tends to go with the superficial. 

My major example is how Hawthorne is just reduced to “the Catholic guy.” I’m not ignoring Catholic readings into Hawthorne’s life and literature; I just think it’s damn foolish to insist on those readings when ignoring the far more obvious and directly stated influence that Hawthorne’s Puritan, not Catholic, ancestors had on his life and literature. I mean, yeah, it ties into why he’s working with Fyodor (we’ll get to Asagiri’s really weird insistence on reversing the chronology where latter authors now serve as inspiring or controlling older authors), but it still all comes across as surface-level references. 

I admit I am ignorant about a lot of Japanese authors. From what little I know, Asagiri has this annoying fixation on being ironic. In other words, if an author is known for a certain philosophy, suddenly the version we get in Bungo Stray Dogs is the opposite. The problem with this strategy is that it is not only shallow, it doesn’t say anything: Asagiri made an author into the opposite of their philosophy of literature or the point of their works--so what, what does that communicate? Having a character taking on the properties antithetical to their originating author would work if you can watch what unfolds and say, “Wow, this is still faithful to the originating author, even though it is the opposite.” 

Think Starship Troopers the book versus its film adaptation: the film is “faithful,” but it is so faithful that it shows the logical conclusion of Heinlein’s philosophy--fascism--that ends up horrifying Heinlein fans to realize what was always there. Bungo Stray Dogs could have gone in that direction, but most of the time, it doesn’t. 

In real life, Ranpo was inspired by Poe; in Bungo, Poe was inspired by Ranpo. Cool--what else is there? I enjoy their dynamic, but as someone who reads and writes quite a bit about Poe, what new insight is gained by reversing the power play here? What are we saying about Poe when it turns out he is indebted to Ranpo? Is this to prop up Ranpo? Is it a response about American influences in Japanese literature, reclaiming Ranpo’s work as being original regardless of influence and in fact pointing out how indebted Poe was to earlier authors (and likely was plagiarizing them)? 

In real life, Yosano was the fascist, Mori was not; in Bungo, Mori was the fascist trying to turn Yosano into an instrument of war. Why is the story refusing to engage with the idea of having a villain in Yosano? It’s not as if the story is against women as antagonists (still waiting for this series to do something with Agatha Christie already). What is there in the real-life Yosano’s life and literature that convinced Asagiri that it would be better to have the fictional Yosano have an entirely different philosophy? 

In real life, the authors who make up the Hunting Dogs were mostly journalists; in Bungo Stray Dogs they are violent, even sociopathic members of the military who intend to hide secrets rather than bring them to light. I know next to nothing about the politics of those real-life authors, and some of those journalists were also running political parties, so I am all there for interrogating whether their politics were militaristic. But this comes across as so disrespectful: what is the point of turning journalists into agents of war? Bungo Stray Dogs keeps trying to say something meaningful about how power structures perpetuate war at the expense of individual people’s lives, even if entire nations have to be destroyed. But the story rarely makes journalists complicit in furthering such fascism. Why make the Hunting Dogs into literal soldiers instead of toying with the idea that media has and will foment war? 

What I can speak better about is how the United States authors are handled. 

Fitzgerald has a lot of the back story of the real-life author as well as the personality, iconography, and blood-soaked money of Gatsby, and yet it comes across less as an indictment of American greed and more as superficial details. As of now in the manga, Fitzgerald is readying a contingency plan in anticipation that the Agency is about to lose to Dostoyevsky, so there is still a chance that the kind of Starship Troopers subversion I want is coming. 

Steinbeck has pretty much all of the background of Tom Joad, down to the number of siblings and economic struggles as a farmer. His willingness to work under the kind of greedy capitalist like Fitzgerald should mean something, especially when Steinbeck finally removes himself from Fitzgerald’s influence and decides to make a power play…except the manga has never followed up on that detail for almost 100 chapters, and the scene where Steinbeck is making his move was never adapted into the anime (a problem the anime has had for some time, and which is only getting worse, as the manga has scenes right now in this current arc that contradict what the anime has shown earlier).

Asagiri has said he is a fan of the writing of the MCU; I think that is indicative of his problem as a writer of creating stock character types then forcing the name and works of a real-life author onto them. Sometimes that works really well: Gogol as a wild card and a fool suits the writing of the real-life author; as I said, I think using the names and works of actual journalists for the Hunting Dogs fails. This is like when the MCU really needs this character to have a name, but then they pull the name of a random comic book character no one heard of who has little in common in personality or relationships with who this character is. 

Then again, to give Asagiri some credit: he had to write a tie-in story to promote his publisher’s other work, The Da Vinci Code, in which the cast of Bungo meets the fictional version of Dan Brown, who, as written by Asagiri, has a superpower that involves…just being needlessly incomprehensible and a hack writer--which, you know, fits, and is a hell of an insult by one author against another. 

[alsjeblieft-zeg]

117 of 2025

How many people have you liked this year?

Romantically? None.

How many pills do you take a day?

10. I take 7 at the morning and 3 at the evening. All of them are very important for my wellbeing, and all of them are Rx.

Do you have any celebrity crushes?

Nah. I would say this Dutch rapper, but yeah, nothing romantic anyway. :P

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Teleportation so I could travel anywhere anytime.

Do you put ketchup on top of your French fries or on the side?

Fries with ketchup are criminal offence, why do people even do it? Ask any Belgian about ketchup on fries and each of us will tell you the same thing. XD We didn't invent fries to have them eaten with ketchup. Nobody does it here. I will never understand why people do it. Here you will find only mayo or Dutch fritessaus. That's the correct way to eat fries.

Yes I know I'm pretty anal about it, but then, show me a Belgian person who isn't. XD We're all defensive about our culture and heritage.

Where did you last sleep other than your house?

My parents apartment.

Where did you get your last bruise from?

I don't remember. I get bruises from just everything, so most of them is really mysterious to me.

Is it okay to kiss people when you’re single?

Do whatever you want, it's okay to kiss people even when you're married. Not all kisses are romantic or sexual in nature. We always kiss our friends in the cheek.

Ever worn something of the opposite sex's clothing?

Haha yeah lol. Sometimes I buy pants and hoodies from women's sections, if I like the print or style much enough.

Do you have a secret that no one knows but you?

Probably sexual abuse is one of them.

Last CD you blasted through your car stereo?

We don't have CD player in our car. It has Bluetooth and we can use Spotify from our phones.

How many email accounts do you have?

Four. Private one, one for all spam, one from uni (deactivated for now) and one from work.

Who is the best cook in your family?

My paternal grandma was, no doubts. She could cook from nothing, literally. Both my parents are good cooks, too. I think I'm pretty decent as well.

Which baby animal is your favorite?

Kittehs for life.

Have you ever carved a pumpkin?

Nope, I don't have reasons to do so anyway.

When is the last time you went to a carnival?

Last year in Heist, I think. There's a 35 minutes long video from this event on my YouTube channel.

Do you have a favorite glass, cup, or mug?

Yes, one with a cat, the handle is formed as a tail.

What branch of science interests you the most?

Physics. The whole electromagnetic spectrum and electricity are my main interests. Biology and chemistry are very cool, too, but physics won my heart long time ago.

Have you ever written anything longer than 10 pages?

Haha no. I struggle with writing even one page, let alone 10 or more.

Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with via text?

Probably my dad or Nielsje.

Twitter or Tumblr?

Tumblr, I'm here after all. I've never used Twitter, even though I regularly get emails about "trying to log in to my account"... which I never had.

Have you ever been given a lapdance by an actual stripper?

Nope, not interested.

Favorite YouTuber?

I have a few. Most of them are disability advocates (Zara Beth, Molly Burke, Sarah Todd Hammer, Lucy Edwards, Para Tara etc.), some are musicians and some are licenced ham radio users.

Have you ever had a controlling boyfriend/girlfriend?

No. Instead I had one who was cheating on me with anyone and everyone.

Have you ever written a love letter to someone as a joke?

Yeah. My sister polished it as she has brilliant literacy skills, and it all went great. So funny.

Do you have any gay family members?

Lol. I am gay, my sister is bi. That's all I know.

Was your first kiss romantic?

Hehe. Maybe for him, but definitely not for me.

What are you most likely to go to jail for?

Wasting food, but they don't put anyone in jail for it.

Who was the last person to sleep over at your house?

We don't do it in my country lol.

What would you think if you found out your ex was gay?

Breaking news, he is gay. Otherwise he wouldn't be with me.

How many people has your best friend had sex with?

I don't know and I don't care, it's not even my business.

When was the last time you had a conversation with an ex?

A few days ago. I'm relieved that he came alive from his mission.

Are you currently “appearing offline” to anybody?

Probably to everybody. I set all I can to invisible so people don't know when I'm online and when I'm not.

What were you for Halloween last year?

I don't celebrate Halloween. I never liked it and never cared about it.

Do you believe that karma can come back and slap you in the face?

Hopefully. I think it came back a few times already.

Have you ever been to Texas?

Never been to the US at all.

Do your siblings text you?

Rarely, but sometimes she does.

Have you ever searched for your own house on Google Earth?

Yeah lol. Surprise, I found it.

Did your last kiss end up with you and the person doing anything sexual?

No. I'm not up to such things.

Who is your ex dating/talking to?

He talks to many people lol. Nothing has ever been born from talking to people. He doesn't date anyone either.

Who did you last pinky promise with?

No one. I don't do such things.

Did you ever have to share a room with one of your siblings?

No, she has her own room.

What happened at the last party you went to?

I don't remember the last party, must have been long time ago.

Have you ever completely misunderstood what somebody was saying?

Many times. And vice versa. Communication is so difficult sometimes.

When was the last time you felt ill? What was wrong?

Stomach flu in November.

Who was your first best friend? Do you still speak to that person?

Martina and no, I haven't seen her for almost 30 years. I don't even know if she even remembers me.

Are you wearing anything that was given to you as a gift?

Not right now.

What is your least favourite song, by your favourite artist?

I have too many favourite artists.

What color is your jewelry box?

I don't have anything like that.

Are you attracted to the last person you Facebook messaged?

Oh my, not the Facebook questions again. I don't have Facebook.

What is your brother/sister’s favorite food?

Sushi, I think. She was in Japan twice and she loved it there, and so their food.

Do you have any ice cream in your freezer? What flavour is it?

I do, Ben & Jerry's Cookie Dough.

In your life, who is the person that seems to understand you the most?

My sister, no doubts about it.

Are you afraid of losing the person you like right now?

Nope. He knows it.

Does anyone know your Facebook password?

Goddammit not Facebook again. I hate this shit.

Would you ever consider getting a piercing in your septum?

I did for a while, but I don't think it's a good idea with chronic sinusitis to get any nose piercing.

Do you enjoy being outdoors?

Very much so. Especially at the beach or in the forest.

Gay marriage: love is love or a horrible stand against God?

Love is love, God has nothing to do with it.

How many times have you been to a zoo?

Once as a kid. Never again, unless it's humanitarian and they have cheetahs there.

What’re some unspeakable subjects for you?

My own sex life. Who cares anyway. It's my business, and my husband's.

[amnarritiveandeditorialblog]

Feature Step by Step

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For my feature, I knew I wanted to do something simple that conveyed a very harsh message. In many ways, the power of the Republican party is similar to that of the oppressing forces found during both Word Wars, and I wanted to express how that much like kinetic energy, evil doesn't just disappear, rather it takes a different form, with it's bigotry better concealed after centuries of failed dicatorships to act as a guide on what and what not to do.

Having an image that represented the massive, destructive power of the Republican party meant working perspective, so I ended up starting my project by using plain stock images I could then distort and mess around with. It wasn't about colours at this point, but rather getting the main idea blocked down in a cohesive manner. The block up:

You can see here that I chose to represent the shoe as a classic businessman's leather. The global superpowers of today are extremely deep into the money and high-traffic business world, which is where the CEO stereotype comes into play. The expensive looking shoe and dress-trousers would act as the way to show the status of our opposition.

After I finished the blocking out, I moved onto lineart, which would simply refine the image before I began to play around with colour. I played with weight density here to put emphasis on the right areas.

The lineart:

You can see this is were i put the slogan in. Usually war posters held short and impactful sentences that jumped out at the viewer. Though I technically didn't need the text since it was an illustration feature, I still wanted to make a final version that was more poster like, even if it was just for myself.

Next was the flat colours. Usually I would take forever to find something I was happy with, but I found that when fueled by an archives worth of inspiration, I was able to quickly gather the types of shades and tones I wanted. The flat colours:

Subconscious colour messaging is a very real factor to consider as an artist, and holds just as much importance as the image itself. Here's how I broke it down for myself: The powerful shoe should be shrouded in dark, while the fragile vaccine bottle is a white colour. This can represent good and bad, yin and yang and contrasting beliefs or ideas. In most war posters, the enemy is shrouded in dark as an ominous figure, and I wanted the same effect for my own art. The background contains a slight graduation of texture, while the shoe is lit brightly from behind to add to the mighty overhead power. I chose red because red is heavily associated with violence, warfare, and religious fervor. It also hits with Nazi imagery. It also matches with the GOP on the tread.

The stand out point should be the GOP symbol on the tread, which has it's original colours simply dulled down. The coloured:

My final touches were adding texture and additional shading.

[madmonkeydisorder]

Wake up in temporary bed in Edinburgh so alive so far away from home allowances to change scenery to escape all anxieties running down the whole body I note who can find all lost addresses and post codes coding the code in fish and chips take away on sudden edges in Highlanders independent lands independent culture protected by the castle on a rock the plug in extinct volcano in the heart of Edinburgh capital city who constitute identity in Scottish autonomy.

Polish diaspora transgress me as a writer walking Royal Mile freshman to find haunted history of times in monumental imprints done here by my Polish past and present presence annihilated into Scottish mountains as wanderer could found peace here in turbulent times seen everyday on TV screening atrocities around the world this modern war provide I deny interpretation for disaster desease draining energy from the souls.

Accepting the flow of ki energy I fill up the meaning to the core of existential crisis the world experience which left me so vulnerable and fragile to deal with burden above and beyond the ceilings dividing holiness in artist to speak the truth to stubborn CitiZen who try to ruin sanity reporting unique lived experience to the authority who put antisocial label on individuality who blossom in super social hyperactivity hyperlinks which reactivate sense of existence in peaceful coexistence this multicultural influences shape the Ape in me born in gold monkey year third monkey in matriarchal bloodline my rebelling soul chose to incarnate this lifetime to rewrite mythologic archetypales setup in outdated stagnated catheghories society beliefs and prejudices I offer energenesis in refreshments to be seen in context of spiritual enlightenment as anarchofeministheoretical philosophy streaming I receive in mystical download the source allow to understand in reusing decoded messages translations between sentences regular rules breakdown in dyslectics flashbacks rebelling against the rule of laws existing in theory of language in revolver contexts evolution drop out in Universal translations in Kinglish my own creations rebellion destroying the old English institutions run on expired versions of the system updates in computerismicro scales weight the macro universe model heavy duty Simulacra holy matrix holy text insertion in uncounsciouss layers piling layers on top of each other creating multiplex laser hologram sacred geometrical seal the entrance to the promised paradise where extraterrestrial forces planted human DNA in laboratorium Eden tactical ancient conspira that we as a species are designated to balance energies locked in non binary source code download on Animatrix another upgrade in simulation projections visionary hallucination serve to protect us from Nuke Test threats seen in politics who wants power to destroy the balance in escalations of another Cold War on the Polish borders military duel affirmation to keep an eye on dictatorship of the superpowers attempts to annihilate the freedoms in regimental advancement of technologies in science fiction versions of the future primitive society I fear we are changing too quick to follow up updates to heal their modern plaque spleen overcoming humanity critical state of mind rescued in oppositions who reconnect the networks among human Zoo!

[thewestern]

Chapter 13

Kitty really had to pee. (The line for the gender-agnostic bathroom ünit had stretched the length of four school buses.) Partway through the supposed performance — this rank obscenity, a mechanical minstrel — Dandy Jim’s petite lieutenant returned to fetch the Mick and his party. Escorting them back behind the brewhouse to Jaime’s private studio ünit, she assured them he would be along shortly. 

For about another thirty minutes they sat in wait. By which point Grace was fucking starving. The Mick was comfortable, compared to Grace and Kitty, but nonetheless on the brink of melting down completely. Zeke meanwhile was patiently hoping their hostess would soon return. They were seated all four in a row on an obtusely angular white pleather sofa that contorted each of their very differently sized and shaped bodies.

If this was Jaime’s office, it didn’t bear much resemblance to Hank’s. For the first, there weren’t much hanging from the walls, except that thing which was mounted quite precariously on above their heads; set against an ornately patterned wallpaper depicting a playbook of acrobatic sexual positions seemingly plagiarized from the Kama Sutra or some similar text. It was a blaring neon sign with a cursive quotation: 

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. 

- The Notorious R.W.E 

Excuses are like poetry, Russ always said. They’re for pussies and nobody wants to hear them.

Across the room abutted the door frame, there stood a DIY bookcase, with shelving fashioned of salvaged skateboards, stocked with a small library of titles Kitty hadn’t heard of — Zero to One, Good to Great, Thinking Fast and Slow, Outliers, Team of Rivals, The Hard Thing About Building Hard Things, the Fountainhead, Let My People Go Surfing, Barbarian Days, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Meditations. And then one she did recognize but had not herself read — Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The wall itself was lined with green astroturf.

In place of a proper desk, there was what the Mick ascertained to have once been a door, based on the protruding knob, mail slot and door knocker. It was propped up on either side with neo-classical columns of imitation granite, and arranged lengthwise against the side wall beneath a large, trapezoidal makeup vanity. Hollywood style … you know … with the exposed light bulbs. (E.g. I’m ready for my closeup, Mr. Delano. That’s great, sweetheart. Look straight into the camera and tell the folks at home how old you are.) Behind the mirror, the wall was whiteboard, like the one Kitty used at her new school. (West Middle still had the dusty old chalkboards that probably hadn’t been replaced since well before bussing. For a fact, some years prior, a student had done a graffiti spanning the full length of the board, to commemorate the last day of school. However, since the janitorial staff had been dismissed for the summer, it would remain scrawled there until the following fall, by which point the chalk was burned into the dark green surface to an extent that it could not be completely erased. Kitty went on to teach in that very classroom, where she would be forced to write Newton’s Laws and other lessons atop the faded italicized wordmark of the band KISS, reproduced perfectly.) Somebody — Jaime, presumably — had drawn out various diagrams in the multi-coloured dry-erase markers — pie charts, histograms and line graphs, the latter all trending exponentially upwards. Then there were the chicken-scratched aphorisms Kitty couldn’t quite make out, except for the largest one that read, Gratitude Is My Superpower. The penmanship was poorer than her seventh-grade students. (From her previous gig. West Middle, that is. At SciTech, all assignments were to be completed on school-issued computer and submitted via email.)    

Opposite that wall was a floor-to-ceiling portrait. The artist could be quite readily identified by his vivid color palette and screen-print anti-aesthetic. But the subject, none of them could quite make out. It was a soldier from the looks of him. Or at least by way of the uniform. Dress blues. Because this officer on deck did not have the barracks-standard issue high-and-tight haircut. No, this here warrior-beat poet — no doubt a bon vivant par excellence — had the flowing blonde locks of a flower child, with the bushy handlebar mustache to match. Accessorized by his own dandy red handkerchief, tied daintily around his neck. 

The convergence of art and commercialism. Isn’t that what we’re all striving toward? 

It’s more like a barreling. 

Oh, come on. Take some pride. We’re part of a lineage. Walt Disney, Coco Chanel … fucking [snaps fingers three-x]  … this is going to drive me crazy … who else was I literally just thinking of? 

Dandy Jim had slinked in whilst their heads were turned toward the mural. 

I don’t know … Fucking Elvis. You tell me, Jimmy. You’re the Creative Director. I’m just a brewer. 

Almost more than the new first name, it was the roll call of titles that had stuck in the Mick’s craw.

Listen, I know it’s all a little esoteric … for the likes of you, anyway … but I don’t know … Brewmaster … it just sounded so … status quo. It’s So Good To See You, Michael, by the way. Y Kitty, mi amiga guapisima, te amo. Wow. Michael’s muse … the Brewery Girl, in the flesh. You look stunning. Seriously, girl, you haven’t aged a day. 

What an asshole thing to say to a woman in her late twenties, after not having seen her for only, like, less than two years. Whatever benefit of the doubt she was willing to afford Jaime was rapidly depleting with every Spanglish word he spoke. 

And who are these lovely folks? My sincerest apologies if we’ve already met. Jaime Delano. Welcome … seriously, welcome.

Something about the way Jaime said seriously. He gesticulated his hospitality by bowing at the neck and holding his hands together in self-observance. Where and when did he acquire all these mannerisms? 

Well, J, in point of fact, these are your replacements. Meet Grace and Zeke. 

The Mick wouldn’t normally feel compelled to speak on their behalf, but in this instance he was overcome by a protective instinct. Also, he wanted to remind Jimmy there had been a time, not so long ago actually, before he coronated himself King of Shit Mountain, here. 

Ohh … okayy. Very sick. You guys are learning from the best. And believe you me, being a Newfy alumni goes a long way in this industry, unless you’re Michael and you never leave …  I’m teasing. Genuinely, I feel so much gratitude for having the Newfy as part of my Founder Story. It seems like forever ago, doesn’t it? 

Only been about two years actually. 

Kitty couldn’t resist to reset the record.

Is that all? Time fucking flies. I mean, can you believe how much all this has grown? I’ve actually been meaning to get you guys over here for the full #eXperience. Couldn’t have picked a better night, amirite? So fire.  

Oh yea, fucking totally. So Was that how come you sicked your lawyer dogs on us then? So we’d come see your fireworks show?

By now, the Mick was hot-sweating mad at Jaime, who fanned the flames by pretending not to have the slightest clue why. 

Oh my goodness, y’all. I completely forgot. It’s just been so busy around here. Never a dull moment, you know? Listen, on some real, I’m sorry to have run up on you like that, all litigious and shit. Speaking as a friend, I didn’t mean any malice by it. Just some strategic maneuvering. Kitty, I’m sure you of all people would understand.

Yeah, well, what did you mean by it? Because what it felt to me was about a pretty damn good bushwhacking, Jimmy. 

I know. I know. The optics were less than ideal. But, truly, my hands were tied, dude. Honestly we’ve never collab’d with a music brand of this magnitude legacy and audience reach, not to mention two simultaneously. I mean, who would have thought song licensing would be such a hornet’s nest. Anyway, their people had some concerns that there could be some confusion in the marketplace vis-a-vis I know You Ridah versus Rider, Pale Ale. And since Hank never had it copyrighted … 

Hold on just a goddamn second, man. You know well and good we’ve been out here brewing R,PA long since before any of this bullshit. 

Oh, for sure. But try to understand where I’m coming from is … that it technically doesn’t matter. Who was First, technically. That’s the whole reason there is such a thing as the fast follower advantage.

Demuredly, Dandy Jim shrugged using only the muscles in his face in such a way that made the Mick want to punch it oh so very fucking badly. 

But don’t worry. We’re not going to make you rename or discontinue R,PA or anything. Trust me when I say, player … it’s all good. I would never do a Day One like that. The way the lawyers explained it to me, it’s really just more of a pre-warning, legally speaking. 

I’m sorry? What’s a pre-warning?

You know … a pre-warning … the warning before the warning, legally speaking. Like establishing a trademark precedent, or whatever-the-fuck. Seriously, bro, don’t sweat it. I’m pretty sure they just wanted to prevent any future IP disputes. I might have mentioned that you guys are into the whole Grateful Dead Thing. Speaking for myself, that was never really my wave, as you know. The whole Jamming thing, I mean. Besides, it pains me to say, but rock is played out, dawg. Guitar music in general, actually. 

Dandy Jim spoke with some authority on endangered musical genres. During his brief, wholly unremarkable tenure as the Mick’s assistant brewer, he moonlighted as the backup vocalist and lead bassist of a post-hardcore musical outfit by the name of Some Pulp, a fringe player in the already fringe DIY scene. Upon their breaking up, citing Creative Differences, Jaime embarked further still into the harmonic hinterland on a solo career as quite possibly the world’s only craft beer-centric battle rapper. This under the nom de guerre, Hip Humulus Lupulus. He had invited his at-the-time mentor on more than one occasion to come and see him compete, and as a matter of course the Mick curtly declined. (This despite Kitty urging him to please, relent, and generally to be more congenial with his colleagues, or at the very least courteous.) In truth, Jaime never forgave the Mick for missing the time he narrowly lost his quarter-final matchup to the eventual runner-up finisher, Heavy Flow, who was herself widely credited with breaking the glass ceiling of the old fuccbois club that was competitive battle rapping at that time. (Coincidentally she was also a future acquaintance of Grace.) 

So when they offered me Garcia, I was like cool, cool, whatever. I mean, I feel you. Purely a nostalgia play. Has to be a pass from me, unfortunately. Space ships don’t come equipped with rearview mirrors, you know what I’m saying? But, yo, when they came through with Pac? … I mean, fuck, man. One of the absolute OGs, of the rap game. Know what I’m saying, big dawg? 

Here he was addressing Zeke, who still hadn’t any idea about, nor concern for what this person was saying, because his momentary one true love had at last returned.

Dutifully, she handed Jaime a water bottle and white towel, as if he himself had just finished performing posthumously. 

I pray the homegirl Anna Leigh has been keeping y’all company? Seriously, she’s a fucking rockstar. I’m being serious. The brains of #x_brüing, right here, for real, on some real shit. 

Anna Leigh was her name, and how pretty a name it was. 

Unbeknownst to Zeke, Grace was picking up strong sexual tension flowing in one direction from Jaime to his #eXectuive assistant. This came as a surprise to Grace, because for one thing they looked way too much alike to be sexually compatible. Of course they in the lesbian community had a name for this phenotype: Dopplebanger — [noun] slang term for a gay woman who exclusively dates other women who look like her. (Grace was certainly open to the possibility; although, alas, she hadn’t found anybody pretty as her, as of yet.) For another, Grace was also picking up major Do Me Vibes, being put down in her general direction by way of the lovely Miss Anna Leigh. This would have come at quite a shock to Zeke, who was completely unawares of the homosexual encounter unfolding right before his eyes, as he was currently well on the way convincing himself that he and this person were put Planet Earth solely for each other. For a post-modern man so susceptible to the perils of a work crush, Zeke was at somewhat of a numbers disadvantage, being how women were so woefully underrepresented in the craft beer industry. Grace meanwhile was taking full advantage of a statistical anomaly, how among that relatively small female workforce, gay women indexed considerably higher per capita, than say in the population of duly employed persons at-large. Go fucking figure. 

I don’t get it. Then what was with the Village Person? The cowboy?

Only Kitty could be depended upon to keep this detente on the rails. It cannot be understated, how much she really had to pee. Anna Leigh interjected.

Oh my god, do you mean Carl? Aww … isn’t he just the cutest? He’s an actual dairy farmer. We sell him our spent grain to feed his cows. You guys, we love Carl! Like, actually, I’m obsessed. We thought about hiring like some guy online to do it, but Carl is always asking about odd jobs to earn extra cash so we paid him fifty bucks. How freaking adorable is that? Like can you believe he’s even real? 

Hey Jaime, do you have a banana or energy bar back here I could borrow? 

Anna Leigh was about to offer to order Grace something from the tapas ünit before the Mick interrupted on her behalf.   

No time, G. We’re leaving. There’s a bag of pretzel sticks in the car. Jimmy … what the fuck, man? Do I need to lawyer up here, or are we cool?

Whoa, Michael … relax. Of course, we’re cool, bro. AL, what’s our core value #two at #x_brüing? 

No Assholes Allowed, Jaime. 

Russ used to say assholes are like poetry, but Mick couldn’t remember how come.

You already know, girl. Our douchebag policy is zero tolerance. And best believe that shit’s serious, because we made it our second guiding principle. 

What’s number three? Grace asked. 

Be a Rockstar. Anna Leigh answered. 

What about the first one? This was Zeke asking.

Do the Work, Jaime said with bravado.  

How many are there? Kitty now. 

Seventeen. Anna Leigh again. 

Which is your favorite? The Mick, heat checking.

If I had to choose just one, it’s probably #eleven. Anna Leigh accounted earnestly. Think Macro\Live Micro. It’s all about how innovating — the truly big changes — happen in small increments: microchips, micro-dosing… 

Micro penises. Grace interjected, looking directly at Jaime, who averted her gaze, glancing sheepishly down and to the left. Anna Leigh blushed.

Whelp, that’s our culture. 

And taking you to court would constitute an asshole move, Michael. That’s why I’m not going to do it, even though I’ve been advised by counsel that we have an exceedingly legitimate case. Trust me, you don’t want to see Schuster or Shanker on the plaintiff end of a deposition table. So look man, as a good faith favor to you, I’ll talk to the legal folks and we’ll get this thing squashed. But listen, while I’ve got you here, I was wondering what’s the word on the new production facility.  

Now Kitty could see what this was really about. For a fact, it was so patently obvious, even the Mick could see Jaime’s play. 

Yeah, well, what about it? 

Just that since you broke ground, what’s it been, a year? 

Been about two years, actually. 

Bonus point to Kitty for her attention to detail. 

Two years. Sounds like some serious growing pains. I know that game. 

What’s your angle, Jimmy? 

Mich-ael. Always about that business. That’s what I love about you, my guy. Alright, I’ll hit you with the straight dope. I know you’re taking the L on this. Not to throw any shade, just … well it just so happens that we’re anticipating somewhat of a L of our own. Not that kind of L, because you already know we stay winning. L as in L is for Liquidity, like a liquidity event, projecting by end of fiscal year. So, in the spirit of helping a true ride or die out, let me buy you out. Of the production facility. 

Sold. 

Whoa. Just like that? Are you tripping, Michael? I haven’t even named my price. 

Don’t bother. If it’s enough to recoup whatever Hank had us losing on that deal by a half, you can have the whole goddamn thing. What do you think, Kitty? Can we make it work, in terms of money?

In terms of money? Um, I don’t see why not. 

You hear that, Jim. You got yourself a deal. 

And a halfway-done boondoggle of a buildout, he thought to himself. The Mick exercised the restraint to withhold from gloating. This was the first and best deal he would ever make. All it took was a partner with even less business sense than he had, and boy was Dandy fucking Jim his huckleberry. At that the Mick extended his hand. He was of half a mind to spit in it. Now the tables had turned, and Jimmy was on his back foot, shoeless. 

Hold up, hold up. Let’s slow our rolls for just a sec, Mike. How do I know you’re not trying to play me? It’s not a fucking superfund site, is it? 

I’ll level with you, James. Production, distribution, the whole expansion … that was Hank’s vision. Now that he’s gone, I’d just assume have you see it through. I don’t think Hank would mind and I wouldn’t much care if he did, on of account of his being dead.

Presumably.

Now that you mention it — Hank I mean … well, I’m sorry is all. I was going to say something earlier. Hank was like an uncle to me. Real talk.

The Mick did not acknowledge Dandy’s attempt at contrition. Even if it rang surprisingly true, Hank’s being like an uncle to him. Hell, he was like an uncle to us all. 

K. But I still don’t fully buy this out-of-the-goodness-of-my-heart bullshit. What’s your angle? Wait, wait … don’t fucking tell me. Fuuck, dude. Is this about you finally doing that thing … fucking Spontaneous Fermentation, right? Holy shit … it is, isn’t it? Back on your Belgian bullshit. You’re crazy for that one, Michael. I mean that’s some truly out there stuff. You do you, though, you know what I mean? But for real though, how long are we talking … grain-to-glass? Three years? Even with the whole wild yeast, au natural thing — which don’t get me wrong, it plays, from a branding standpoint— just, it doesn’t scale, is all I’m saying. Brewer to brewer. 

Maybe. But then don’t things have a way of balancing themselves out in the end?

No, I don’t believe they do. 

Kitty reckoned this to be the first true thing Jaime had said, apart from the thing about Hank being like an uncle, which had also resonated with her.

I don’t get you, Michael. Why do you practice brewing, I mean. What’s your Why? Like do you have an exit? An end game? A liquidity event? Maybe you are just Johnny fucking Appleseed, punching a clock — and best of fucking luck with that — but still, I know you’re no fucking dummy, and you’ve been around enough to know in this Beer Shit you’re growing or you’re dying. If you want a dependable career and a steady income, go sell software with those mooks out there. 

Here Jaime was referring to his customer base. Zeke often wondered what it was all these people did when they weren’t hanging out in breweries, drinking six-dollar beers on a Sunday afternoon. Lawyers and doctors were his best guesses. Or maybe they worked at the bank. He couldn’t quite figure. His dad installed drywall, and someday so would he, at least he’d always assumed. Now here he was, the second person in his family to go to college and the first to drop out. A Social Media and Events Coordinator. Sitting in a room where there was no drywall to speak of. 

The Mick answered honestly. 

I don’t know why I make beer, Jim. Just lucky, I guess. Maybe because by now I don’t know how to do anything else. At least not nothing that pays. 

He wasn’t being modest. Really, the Mick didn’t know how to do very much. Brewing was the only steady gig he’d ever had. (Previously he had held down a summer job as a caddie at a local country club, the members of which were rich dickheads to a fucking man. He would entertain himself by performing subtle acts of civil disobedience, such as giving his players too short of yardages on their approach shots.) Jaime on the other hand was a serial career switcher. He was cagey about his pre-beer days, but word was he’d tried his hand at the dramatic arts. Acting. Beside booking a local television commercial for a regional chain of furniture warehouses though, he’d mostly had to settle for print work. When Wade and Winona first heard tell of his male modeling past they took a short intermission from watching Internet videos of hockey fights and dash cam-POV car wrecks to dig up a cheeky, black-and-white photo spread of the then James Dean Delano (the Dean was a bit of a show biz fib … Jaime bore no relation to the late teen icon — his real middle name was Drury, after his maternal grandmother’s maiden). In the picture, a sexy lady was using a vacuum to suck off his t-shirt. She’ll Be Happier … when he helps around the house. Whether or not it rose to meet the standards of irony, the campaign had been intended as a playfully feminist twist on the sexist practice of advertising home goods to housewives in the postwar suburban boom period. Maybe it goes without saying that the reference was lost on the Mick, he who had always happily done the vacuuming in his household. Every couple Sundays he’d get thermo nuclear-stoned, crank up his noise-canceling headphones to eleven and fucking regulate. As chores went, it was one of his most favourite. Ma’am, I assure you, he’d kid to Kitty, holding up the hose. This thing sucks.  

Okay, I see you. I didn’t choose this life, this life chose me, type of thing. Respect, Mick. You know we should collab on something. For Hank.

Wait, what about you? Why do you make beer?

Against her better judgement, Kitty asked Jaime, although she had been genuinely curious. Accompanied by a look that said, well obviously, what else could it be, he responded: 

For the benefit of all mankind. 

Upon hearing this, Kitty legit peed her pants.

[flingmetothemoon]

↑ THANK YOU

I don't like the idea that Tikal has become dead or even a ghost from an afterlife. I don't think it makes sense and including her in a trend of dead nice girls lists like Maria, Cosmo, Molly and even Longclaw is a disservice to her character imo. As a matter of fact, I have Cylent Nite's Shadikal essay document downloaded into my Google Docs and here's a debunkment page regarding the whole Tikal being dead argument.

Tikal is not dead

This is a very common line of thought that is always a stub in discussion. Focusing on the cutscenes featuring Tikal’s sealing within the Master Emerald, there is nothing in the sequence that really indicates that she ever “died”. If anything, the prayer she recites implies the opposite, where the power to stop Chaos is enriched by her own heart for peace.

In the middle of her incantation she has a short revelation about what she must do, revealing that they turn her thoughts into power. Through this process, Tikal has actually “ascended” in order to gain the necessary power and became an entity commissioned to serve the Master Emerald, rather than simply having died and become an undead ghost.

To consider some basic terminology: Tikal is never referred to as a “ghost”, however in certain texts and bios she is called a “spirit”. Ghosts fall under the category of “spirit”, but spirits aren’t considered “ghosts”. Also consider other entities that identify as spirits too: djinn are considered spirits who are canon elements in the Sonic series, and in various mythology, angels and demons are also considered “spirits” too. Pretty much anything that falls under that mystical banner is considered a spirit, even smaller entities like sprites and pixies.

All the above considered, Tikal is more like an “angel” than a “ghost”. Tikal’s ascension calls to mind certain characters in the various mythology who due to complete servitude to their master, transcended life and bypass death in order to become more than the simple mortal beings that they once were- in this case they became angels. These texts in particular heavily emphasize that they did not die- they were transformed.

Obviously it’s purely conjecture to apply this to something as simple as Tikal’s state of being, but given that Tikal holds a close connection to Chaos and the Master Emerald, it only makes sense that she would have to be on an equal footing with Chaos rather than just being some simple disembodied ghost; The undead should never have this much responsibility when it comes to godly affairs, this is a duty reserved for deities.

Harkening back, consider the fact that Tikal and Chaos are “equals'': Even Chaos himself was once a simple Chao before he ascended into the state of a god by the Master Emerald in order to protect its people; Chaos was never a god from the beginning. Tikal’s transformation shares the exact same properties, however, with the purpose of keeping Chaos in check.

Another line of thought people commonly consider is that at the end of Sonic Adventure, Tikal and Chaos rise up to “pass on into the afterlife”. That just doesn’t make any sense at all; Why would a god like Chaos need to pass on, especially since he himself isn’t dead?

TL;DR Stucking herself in a magical rock just gave her new superpowers/forms

The whole “pass on into the afterlife” thing doesn't make sense either because I've been exposed to enough media to know a trope called "A Twinkle in the Sky" where someone or an object is thrown into the sky and disappears behind a twinkling four-pointed star. Does that mean a character literally went straight to heaven? No. It usually occurs for either slapstick or to show that a comedic recurring villain is defeated and out of the way for now without having to kill or otherwise permanently inconvenience them, and said villain can be expected to show up again with little to no lasting damage nor explanation on how they survived or where they landed. It's just a convenient yet creative way of saving up time for the rest of the plot when it could've shown a hero knocking the villain out and dragging them back to their evil lair they may not know the location of. Just FLING and done.

Tikal and Chaos floating up to the sky is essentially a more gentler form of this trope. They didn't like go to heaven to "pass on into the afterlife as dead ghosts" or something, they simply float away to another location they would've most likely been more familiar with. Of course it might not have been obviously openly confirmed where exactly they went to, perhaps it was left open for interpretation. But I believe the Master Emerald can be used as an interdimensional gate, and I speculate that when Tikal used its power to use it as a cage for her and Chaos, one of its side effects is it created a dimension that strongly replicates the past altar, so if this ending screen is any indication ↓

I think it's safe to say that's where they most likely went to.

Summary: If Tikal is dead because she was suspended in time in an object for a long time does that mean that Shadow, Captain America and Phillip J. Fry are also dead too?

Tikal is sealed in the master emerald in like a time space girly never died she just sealed herself and chaos in the master emerald time space she is not dead

[mackeydoodledoo]

A New Perspective: Chapter 2

Pairing: Jennifer Walters x (Fem!)Reader

Summary: You were apart of the Avengers, right from the beginning. It was a story everyone wanted to hear. Your girlfriend, beginning to take up the 'Hulk' mantle, Nikki suggested that she could be an Avenger like you, however, Jennifer rejects, not wanting to be associated as a Superhero... You don’t blame her.

Chapter Warning(s): She Hulk Series Context, PTSD, Swearing, Survivor’s Guilt, Therapy Sessions

Chapter Key: Italics = Thoughts, Bold/Italic = Dream Sequence, +*+ = Time Skip, Bold/Indent = Text Message 

Chapter Theme: Fix You - Coldplay

A/n: None

Tags: @justyourwritter69​

------------------------------------------------------------------------

You immediately make your way through the doors of the bar as your eyes search around the room.

“Y/n! Over here!” Jennifer calls over to you

You stop when you look into the direction of the voice... 

Another Hulk?...

The green skin, bigger stature... You didn’t know who the hell she was and yet... Had the voice of Jennifer Walters...

“Jen?” You ask, walking up to the other woman to get a closer look at her

“Yeah... Have you not seen the news?” She asks

“I tend to try and keep away from the news to be honest with you...” You say, perching your elbows atop of the table 

“Neat little trick you pulled there Walters...” A man walks up to the both of you

It was clear that he knew your crush. However, your blood was already beginning to boil just the way he was simply talking... 

“Don’t you think it’s a little unsportsman like to debut superpowers just to drum up publicity for yourself?” He asks

O-kay, I’ve had enough.

“You got a problem?” You practically growl, standing up 

You slide yourself in the space between him and Jen. 

“Now, say that to my face and mine in particular,” You say, genuine annoyance in your voice, “Look me straight in the eye and say that to me.”

He slightly takes a step back as you could hear him gulp. He adjusts his tie as he begins fear-sweating. His eyes shift to another direction and rushes off into the direction in question. Your ‘death-stare’ watches him as he hastily walks off.

“I have never seen Dennis nearly piss his pants like that before,” A woman comes over with two drinks in her hands, “Let alone his egotistical self shatter in front of a woman like that.”

You look over and see the other woman place the glasses in front of herself and Jen.

“You must be the Y/n Y/l/n Jen has been non-stop talking about,” She smiles, enthusiastically shaking your hand

“She doesn’t shut up about me eh?” You chuckle, looking up at the green woman

“I’m Nikki Ramos,” She says, “And no, I could obviously see the brightness on her face every time I ask about you.”

“Is that so?” You ask

Before Nikki could answer your question, Jen pinches her arm.

“By the way Jen, a guy gave me these two drinks for free because you’re a superhero,” She smiles

“Ugh! I’m not!” Jen tries to deny her hero status once more

Nikki clicks her glass against Jens...

“No, I did not go to Law School and rack up six figures in student loans just to become a vigilante that is for billionaires and narcissists and adult... Orphans for some reason” Jen groans 

You were lucky your interlaced fingers covered the now-dropped smile. You weren’t necessarily offended at the “Billionaires and Narcissists” part... You were more hurt at the “Adult Orphans” part... 

If only you knew our origin stories Jen... But, if only it were that easy of a story to tell...

+++

You were about a year younger than Carol and Maria by the time you all graduated from the Air Force Academy... But, the two were like your older sisters you never had; you never grew up in the best household... Your family was old-fashioned. The men would get the big-paying jobs and the women there exact opposite.. Your former family disowned you after making a choice for yourself. 

“Wait... What about you?” Carol asks, “You should come with me. We can take the Kree down together. We’d be unstoppable!”

“Carol,” You say, “I’ve been here all of my life. I know nothing about the universe... Besides... Who will protect this world if there wouldn't be someone like us?” 

“Did you quote that out of a comic book?” She asks, smiling

“Shut up, you know what I’m talking about,” You say, gently punching her shoulder, “Finding the Skrulls a new home... Searching the Galaxy for Skull survivors... Taking down an entire empire... It has to be you. Only you... They’re going to trust you more than anyone else in the universe.”

Carol doesn't try to persuade you further; she only smiles and puts her hand atop of your head.

“Earth is in good hands,” She smiles

“The universe is also in good hands,” You smile back, “Be careful out there Carol...”

Even after then; Maria still kept you under her home; raising you like she did with Monica. Now she, she was the little sister figure you’ve also dreamed of having.

You stuck by them until your recruitment into the Avengers in the year 2012... There, you found yourself a second family. Essentially in Natasha Romanoff and Clint Barton. Although you still kept in touch with Maria and Monica, the workload of being in the Avengers had kept you busy. So busy it was to the point where you ended up (unintentionally) ceasing contact with them.

That was... Until Monica notified you of Maria getting cancer... However... you were called away to Wakanda to fight Thanos’ army... But.. That was where everything turned upside down... 

You were there right as Maria passed; succumbing to her illness. After Maria told you that Monica just “dusted” away, you were the only one left she saw as family that was able to make it to her deathbed... You initially resented Carol for not reaching back to you; you also took it into her perspective of how much of the universe she has to cover... 

With Carol trudging through the universe, Monica dusted and Maria dead, and your second family scattered to who knows where... It was a struggle for you to find that familiarity again...

“I’m sorry about your friend...” Natasha puts a sandwich in front of you

Natasha was the only person that wasn’t dusted that still had kept you around.

“Before... Coming into this whole Avengers thing...” You begin, “I had Carol Danvers, Monica and Maria Rambeau... They took me in after my biological family disowned me for dreaming of becoming an Air Force Pilot... With all three of them basically gone it’s... It’s...”

You could hear Maria’s monitor flatline... You immediately break down sobbing. Natasha immediately hugs you to try and calm you down. 

+++

“But you could be an Avenger,” Nikki suggests, still holding that enthusiastic smile as she takes a drink

Your eyes shift to Nikki; surprised at the fact she suggested the idea.

“Do the Avengers offer Healthcare?” She asks her close friend, easily downing her drink

No...

“Maternity leave? A pension? Are they even paid?” She asks

No, No and big shocker...

“No,” You say out loud

“No, what Y/n?” Jen asks

Shit I thought I kept that to myself...

“I meant, no, that I don't think they are even paid,” You say, “I would imagine if they were killed in the line of duty, what’s the point of all of those?” 

“Maybe it could benefit their families,” Jen explains

“Well, Avengers are for adult orphans.” You rephrase her statement of the composition of the team, kind of angered 

“Didn’t know you were so knowledgeable with Avengers stuff,” She says, “Did you work with them at some point?”

“No, just kept my nose in the news,” You lie

Worked with them most of my life... 

“Here’s the thing though,” Nikki states, “Hulk Jen, is a total snack.”

Your smile comes back as you agree with her statement. However, an older looking man comes up to Nikki’s right side as she states that Jen’s Hulk form is attractive. However, Nikki walks away to probably grab another drink.

“Jen can I talk to you?” He asks

“Of course sir,” She says, standing up, “What is it?”

“Could you go back to Jen? Jen, this is a serious conversation,” He states

“Oh, sure,” She says, beginning to shrink down back to her regular self

However, when she was trying to place her elbow onto the tabletop and to seat herself down, she stumbles. Right into you.

“Oh!” You coil your arms around her, “I got ya...”

You get her into a seat, “You okay?”

“Yeah, just... Different metabolism,” She answers

You don’t move away from Jen as the both of you just stare at each other. However, you hear someone clearing their throat. You look over and remember that her boss was right in front of the both of you. You hastily readjust Jen to disperse her weight onto the table.

“I’m gonna go grab a drink,” You tell Jennifer

You walk over to where Nikki was and seat yourself next to her.

“The usual Y/n?” Pedro asks

“Yep,” You say

“I saw that,” Nikki leans over to you, smirking

She nudges you in the shoulder.

“Saw what?” You ask

“I saw the way you two were batting eyes at each other,” She smiles, “She likes you.”

“She couldn’t possibly,” You sigh, “I’m no one special.”

“That’s a lie,” She says, “Don’t think I didn’t do a background check on you.”

Oh fuck me...

“You’re the famous ‘Supernova’,” Nikki begins, “The person who shares the same powers as Captain Marvel, who was apart of the Avengers since 2012... I don’t get why you’re lying to my best friend...”

“I don’t want her knowing I’m a superhero,” You state, “Everyone I knew that knew me as Supernova, died. I love Jen too much to have that happen to her.”

“Yes, but she's a Hulk now,” She says, “I’m sure she’d feel less pressured if she knew that the girl she likes is a superhero.”

“Ugh don’t associate me as a superhero, those days are behind me now,” You sigh

“That will catch up to you eventually,” Nikki states, “There will most likely be a time where you have to become Supernova again.”

“And until that happens,” You begin, “I am simply Y/n Y/l/n, just some kid that moved across the country for a new chapter in her life.”

You let out a sigh as you down another drink.

“By the way, when you suggested that Jen could be an Avenger... There’s a reason this whole rag-tag team was consisted of billionaires, narcissist and adult orphans...  There are a lot of more things that one like yourself has yet to know about being an Avenger,” You explain, downing your drink

+*+

“Have you made any new friends since your big move?” Your therapist asks

“A couple,” You answer, “One in particular though...”

You weren't sure how to tell your therapist that it was a Lawyer you began chatting up and falling for...

“Who is she?” She asks, “If you’re willing to open up about that of course.”

“Her name is Jennifer Walters,” You answer, “She’s a Lawyer who happens... To share the same powers as Bruce Banner... And happens to be his cousin...”

“Are you sure that is something you’re willing to get yourself into?” She asks, “I just want you to make the smart decision for yourself. If you want to get a fish start of where you are now.”

“I like her, a lot,” You say, “She doesn’t wish to be a superhero; just a lawyer.”

“Good for her,” Your therapist sighs in relief, “Does she seem to be conscious when she is in her hulk form?”

‘She’s fully conscious,” You state, “I met up with her at Legal Ease the other night and I was having full on conversations with her and everything. No one seemed afraid of her appearance, they were... Encouraging it.”

“That’s great to hear!” she replies, “I'm glad you’re able to find and settle down somewhere less chaotic than in New York.”

“Less chaotic... Not sure about that but less... Time consuming,” You say, “I’ve been having a lot more ‘me’ tie.”

“That’s also good,” She smiles, “And what have you been doing in said free time?”

“Sleeping,” You laugh

Your therapist laughs along with you.

“Well, anything else you need to get off your chesty before we call it a day?” She asks

“Nothing that wasn’t out of the ordinary,” You say

Just still having nightmares of all of my battles...

“Okay, I’ll see you next session,” She signs off

You sit at your desk space, beginning to zone out until you hear your phone go off. 

Hey.

Hey, everything okay?

Sort of...

What happened with Nikki this time?

She ditches me for a date... I don’t want to look like some lonely sap sitting a the bar... I know you worked a double today but if it’s no trouble... Care to join me for a night out?

Sure, at Legal Ease?

The usual date :) See you soon

Date? Jennifer Walters called our meet-ups dates...

+*+

As you enter Legal Ease, you easily spot the curly-haired brunette from across the bar; similar to how you found her all those nights ago.

“Hey you,” She smiles, hopping down from the barstool to greet you with a hug

What was different was... You and her grew closer in friendship and you in particular... Developed a crush on her. You did it all without telling her that you were an Avenger/Superhero.

“What’s been new with you Y/n?” Jen asks, placing a drink in front of you

“Nothing really,” You confess, taking a sip of your drink, “Just wake up, do my day job and meet you here when the day is done. Only thing I look forward to when I get the chance really...”

I also stop crime here and there... Minimal use of my own powers... Minimal enough to keep Supernova out of the news...

“You look forward to seeing me?” She asks

You look up and notice the blush on her face. Although she had a higher alcohol tolerance, it was only when she was She-Hulk. You nearly choke on your drink mid-sip as you realize you made her blush.

“Well, yeah, what else could I get out of this town?” You ask, kind joking

“Well, you aren’t in Hollywood,” Jen states, “You could snag any woman to live with you and yet you’re here with me...”

“Well, I think you’re pretty great,” You say

“And how am I great?” She asks

“I’ve seen the media and... people always act like they’re some high snd mighty person...” You begin, “Whereas you... Even though you have an additional status as a new rising hero, you don’t let that change who you are as a whole person. You know who you are and... That’s amazing...”

Originally she asks this as a joke. But, hearing something like that, not only from you but from anyone... 

“Do you... Wanna get out of here?” She asks

“Sure,” You say, “A little bit stuffy in here...”

Jennifer looks around but doesn’t see a whole lot of people in the bar. However, she knew something was on your mind; she was going to get to the bottom of it.

“I’m honestly going to call it a night,” You yawn, “Same time tomorrow night though?”

“Actually, why don’t you come over same time tomorrow night?” Jennifer suggests, “You’ve gotten to know me well enough.”

“Sure,” You smile

Jennifer pays the tab and hops down from the bar stool. Just as you were following behind, she takes you by the hand and has you follow her out of the bar. She didn't seem to take any notice to it but you were fuming inside. You nearly bursted with cosmic energy.

"So I'll text you my address a couple hours beforehand," Jen says, turning to you

"Hmm?" You realize you zoned out

"I was saying ill text you my address couple hours before our designated meeting time tomorrow," She smiles, chuckling

"Okay," You smile, “Sounds good.”

You stiffen when Jennifer takes a step closer, pinches a piece of your jacket and places a kiss on your cheek.

"See you soon, Y/n," She blushes, hastily turning away from you

She quickly makes her way to her car. You stand there as you watch her drive away. Your fingers gently hover over to where Jennifer had kissed you. A devilish smile slowly appears on your face as you crouch down to your knees, springing into the air; screaming in excitement as cosmic energy flowing around you as you fly into the night.

+*+

You gently land onto the front lawn of Jennifer’s apartment complex. 

Ooooookay tonight’s the night... I’m gonna tell her...

You walk up to the staircase and head to the respective apartment number that Jen had given you mere hours before your arrival. As you come up to the apartment number, you compose yourself and raise your knuckles tot he door.

“Hey Jen, I’m here,” You make your presence known from one side of the door

“Shit! One sec!” She replies from the other side

You could hear things crashing and such as you wait for Je. on the other side of the door.

“Hey,” She smiles, finally opening the door, brushing her curly hair back from her face, “Sorry, was struggling to figure out what to cook for you, and cleaning of course...”

“You’re cute,” You smile, stepping past her as you take in her decently sized apartment, “Bigger than my place for sure.”

“What’s your place like?” She asks, shutting her door

“Not big enough to have a decently sized fridge to keep a lot of food ion that’s for sure,” You chuckle

“Oh... You live in one of those places...” She sighs

“Honestly it’s not bad if you’re living alone like me,” You shrug, “Got a nice skylight... Taught me how to keep things at minimum. Well, I didn’t really take a whole lot with me to LA to begin with.”

You look over into the kitchen and see something boiling. You make your way through the kitchen and begin mixing whatever it was.

“You’re making pasta?” You ask, turning to her

“Alfredo... To be exact,” You say, “You uhh... mentioned it was your favorite...” She stutters

You do vividly remember explaining to Jen about favorite foods. You were always open with food as food was food. However, the one go-to if it was offered: Alfredo. 

“You remembered?” You ask her

She smiles as she nods. 

“Usually people forget,” You say, helping her out with the rest of the meal, “Plus, it’s simply my go-to wherever places offer it.”

“You’re in luck,” Jen smiles, “It’s being offered in the Walters estate.”

You watch her go off to a bowl; the sauce. 

Cooking date... It’s a nice change...

+*+

“So your phone’s lock screen... Is Captain America’s ass?!” You chuckle

“Yes, because have you seen that ass?!” She asks

The both of you were a couple glasses of wine into the conversation. 

“I have Jen,” You chuckle, “Mans does workout you know, no one could have that kind of an ass by simple magic.”

“He does now?” She asks, “What’s his workout routine?”

“Oh you know,” You say ,”Boxing, Push-ups, Sit-ups, the whole enchilada.”

You try not to give anything too personal. You’ve seen some of his workout routines but not all of it. Most of the time you were training with Wanda; the only other Avenger that had a form of projectile powers like yours.

We gotta tell her...

“Hey...” You say, swirling your wine glass

“Yeah?” She asks

“I have something to tell you,” You say

“What is it?” She asks

You stand from your chair and make your way into the living room; Jen following close behind.

“I... I’m... I’m a... I’m an...” You stutter, trying to get the sentence out, trying to rip off the pain like a band-aid 

‘Hey,” Jen coos

You watch her grasp both of your shaky hands into hers.

“Deep breath...” She coos again, “It’;s me Y/n... You don’t have to hold back on what you have to tell me.”

She says this, as she looks straight into your eyes... That was enough to calm you down...

“I wasn’t actually caught up in all of those fights on the East Coast...” You blurt out

Jen’s genuine concerned expression drops to a confused one.

“Y/n, I’m not understanding what your point-” She tries to say

“I was an Avenger,” You interrupt her, finally ripping off the band-aid

Jen’s thoughts scramble and try to process the new information given to her. Your breathing staggers as silence falls between the two of you...

“So you basically lied to me?” She asks

“I was... Scared...” You confess, getting up from the couch, beginning to pace around her living room, “I was scared that if you knew that I was some kind of adult orphan vigilante, you wouldn’t like me from the get-go...”

“You think your status as an Avenger wouldn't make me like you?” Jen asks, sounding annoyed

“I don’t know?!...” You say, your voice squeaks, “After the Battle ofd Sokovia and the amount of damage we’ve caused, the civilians of the world wanted to contain super-powered humans like me... Wanda Maximoff, etc...  I especially didn’t want to put you in danger if you knew about my hero status. I love you too much to put you through that much danger!”

“Y/n I love you too but-” She begins

“No Jen, I love love you!” You finally confess, interrupting her again, “The fact I share powers with the most powerful cosmic energy in the entire universe and the fact I chose to stay here whilst my other half roams the cosmos... Albeit I’m better down here anyway... The amount of superhumans beginning to crawl out from the underground, the more people would know who the hell I am, the more I’d be putting them in danger. I love you too much to put you through that. Even though... You. Are now... A superhuman yourself...”

Silence fell between the both of you as heat rose to your cheeks as your brain finally processes on what you had just said. 

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck...

You stand in place, frozen as you watch Jen slowly walk up to you. Goosebumps form as soon as her fingertips make contact on your skin on both of your arms. A large ‘thump’ emits from your chest as you felt the tips of her fingers glide across your forearms; traveling up to the bottom of your biceps.

“Jen, what are you-?!” You try to ask

But your question was cut off by a kiss. A gentle, yet light, long kiss. 

“I never said that I didn’t like the Avengers,” Jen clarifies for you, “Bruce was one himself, you know that. I only said I choose not to join because of the lack of benefits and that I don’t want to be associated as a superhero. You being one too, doesn’t make me love you any less.”

Your head jolts forward as you kiss her again, but this time, it felt fuller; like... she was waiting for you to make the move... You pull away from the kiss, although you were enthralled Jennifer Walters confessed that she loved you too, your face said something different.

“Something’s still on your mind,” Jennifer says, cupping your cheek

“I don’t blame you for not wanting to be associated as a superhero,” You say

“I thought you were going to say the exact opposite,” Jen sighs in relief

“The only thing you can really brag about being an Avenger is that you helped save the work, twice, and fought to save the universe,” You chuckle, “But, in my years since beginning my time as an Avenger, I’ve seen a lot of loss... Made decisions that were questionable, and found myself in some situations where I should have been killed. And yet, I’m here... Lived through all of it... Survivor’s guilt and those near-death situations really take a toll on how you live afterward...”

“Is that why you decided too move all the way here?” She asks

You nod, “I wanted to finally be away from everything that summed up who I was. Wanted to find a fresh start somewhere else. But the PTSD and the scars followed with me...”

“I thought a powerful cosmic being like yourself you be impervious to getting scars,” Jen tries to lighten you up, “Or at least self-heal?”

“Unlike Captain Marvel. Jennifer Walters,” You chuckle back ,”She has Kree blood running in her veins; I only have my human blood... So, she can self-heal. I cannot.”

“Would you... Be willing to show me these... Scars?” Jennifer asks

You weren’t honestly willing to... However, you were already in the process of lifting your shirt over your head. You didn’t feel forced, it was all by your own free will. Your back turned to her; silence fell between the both of you... You let out a startling gasp as you felt her cool hands touch your back.

“Oh! I’m sorry I’m sorry!” She repeats

“Hey,” You turn to her, stopping her from panicking, “It’s fine... I just... Never... Revealed this part of myself to anyone... Ever... And a bit of a warning next time...”

You turn your back to her once more as you allow her to observe all of the scars; whether it was bullet grazes or melee weapon injuries, they were all there; visible to Jennifer. You felt her gentle fingertips gently trace the silver lines as you felt her hazel eyes pierce through you. Your breathing hitches as you feel her lips touch the nap of your neck.

“What are you doing?...” You hiss

She continues placing light kisses right over every single scar she could see.

“Loving,” She says, kissing one scar, “Every single story you have.”

You felt her fingers trace the outline of your shoulders to trailing down the sides of your back, stopping at your hipline. 

Chapter 3

[astroismypassion]

Astrology observations 🥰🥰🥰

Credit goes to my blog @astroismypassion

🥰🥰If you are a Capricorn Moon: people try to control your emotions. You might complain to your friend how you are fed up with something and say that you are overwhelmed. And people around you will go “it’s really not that bad…”. They might always try to redirect your emotions when you express yourself emotionally.

🥰🥰 Similar happens with Scorpio Moons. You express your emotions and people disregard what you are feeling. Instead they try to instantly empower you and give you new confidence and say that “you are capable”. While you just want to vent.

🥰🥰 Aries Moon as well. You often get told that you “need to move on” and keep moving forward” when trying to express your stronger or negative emotion (Aries = rules (physical) activity and movement, but of emotions, because it’s your Moon sign).

🥰🥰 Aries Moon women have children later in life (after the age of 35) or might decide against them. Because when younger they feel like they still have so much growing up to do. And because they have such innocent, sometimes a but naive, young souls. Also they lack emotional maturity before the age of 35, that could be too let’s just be honest. 😅

🥰🥰 Scorpio Risings always make their power point presentations with black background. Or they pick this theme with black background and occasional red line and red text.

🥰🥰 Also, Scorpio Risings LOVE to study on their computer. However, they quite often print out their digital notes, because they like them in physical form. 😂

🥰🥰 Uranus in the 3rd house/Aquarius over the 3rd house often make people go “ahaa!”💡 when they are in conversation with them or when people read their texts/watch your social media/your videos/read your blog/hear your opinion.

🥰🥰 All major Scorpio placements are preoccupied with environmental causes and issues. That always got be thinking, it is because they are opposite the sign of Taurus? 🤔

🥰🥰 I noticed Sagittarius in the 3rd house/Jupiter in the 3rd house really don’t take their own social media that seriously. And they really love just sharing good humour and liking jokes.

🥰🥰 When younger Scorpio Risings might have been falsely accused of having “ADHD” like behaviour by their teachers, professors or even by a parent. Because they seemed to lack focus. However, they have this amazing brain superpower. They are able to be focused for very short periods of time, but with very veryy intense single minded focus. So learn to use that more, Scorpio Risings!

🥰🥰 The ruler of the 8th house in the 5th house give strong sexual organs and these people usually have healthy sexual organs well into age.

🥰🥰 Aries and Scorpio Sun/Moon/Rising and Mars have AMAZING brain power and strong mind, but a weak body.

🥰🥰 I know I keep mixing life path numbers with astrology. But I noticed that your life path number also shows people you will meet on your path. For example: a life path 9 can meet a person with a lot of Sagittarius and Pisces placements. Or people that will embody those traits: a teacher, a person that loves to travel in their mind and physically.

🥰🥰 Uranus in the 6th house gets hungry at the most inconvenient time or place. You get hungry at a bus stop waiting for your bus or right when to want to leave your house to go somewhere.

🥰🥰 I think what big 6 Cancer placement will learn throughout their life is also how to not expect anything in return when you do something nice, kind, helpful for other people. Because sometimes you really become manipulative with your help, much like underdeveloped Virgo would (or Virgo Lilith).

🥰🥰 Virgo Lilith will show people a new way to protect themselves from stealing or when people take your ideas away from you.

Credit goes to my blog @astroismypassion

[astrangelady]

“You look nauseous,” Derek says, interrupting Stiles’ imploding thoughts.

“I’m not, just stressed,” Stiles says. It’s Thursday and they just finished their last period. Scott left early for his trip to Palm Springs, so it’s just him and Derek at his locker.

“Isn’t the stress supposed to hit before midterms, not after them?” Derek teases and Stiles huffs.

“I can get stressed anywhere, anytime. It’s my superpower” Stiles grumbles, entering his locker combination. He gets it wrong the first time and shakes the lock in frustration.

Derek’s hand rests on his shoulder and squeezes. “Hey, take a breath,” He says evenly. “You can talk to me.”

No. No, he can’t. Because the idea of talking to Derek about Elliot makes him want to vomit and scream and rip his own face off.

“It’s that guy,” Derek guesses. “The one you like.”

There’s this clipped tone in Derek’s voice as he says it. Stiles doesn’t have the mental wherewithal to analyze it right now.

“Yeah,” Stiles says, sounding defeated as he manages to get his locker open. “I uh… I finally texted him Monday night and it’s been great, but it’s also been shitty because I… I can’t talk to anyone about it.”

Derek stares, this pinched look on his face as he watches Stiles get his things ready to go home. Or rather go to The Roast, now that school is over.

“What?” Stiles asks, paranoid that Derek is just staring.

Finally, something clicks in Derek’s eyes, and his eyebrows furrow. “He’s eight years older than you,” Is all Derek says.

“Huh?”

“Monday night, you asked me if eight years was a big deal for an age gap. This guy you like is… twenty-five ?”

Why does Stiles feel ashamed all of a sudden? He thought he had come to terms with Elliot’s age. He’s 25. Who cares? Stiles doesn’t and that’s all that should matter.

“Yeah and I’m almost 18 and in college. It's not that big of a deal. I mean, no one bats an eye at a 30-year-old being with someone who’s 38.”

“But you’re not 30, you’re 17,” Derek says and he looks like he’s working through something in his own mind as he says it. “He’s older than Ms. Blake.”

“You haven’t even met him, you don’t get to judge,” Stiles says, shutting his locker with more force than normal and crossing his arms.

“Okay. Then let me meet him. Let’s go to The Roast. He works there, right?”

Stiles scoffs. “You have practice.”

“No, I don’t. We never have practice the Thursday before fall break,” Derek says, a big fat smirk on his face.

“You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie?”

Ugh, it turns out Derek Hale can still be infuriating.

“I don’t know,” Stiles snaps. “Fine. We’ll go.”

“Great,” Derek says. “All I need is my shit.”

They stop by Derek’s locker, ignoring all the looks along the way. People still aren’t used to them being friends, but at least no one is gonna bother to interfere. Derek Hale is untouchable and can do what he wants, and if he wants to be Stiles’ friend, everyone has to just begrudgingly accept it and move on.

Derek insists on them driving there together. The Roast is in the opposite direction of Derek’s house, so according to him, it makes more sense for them to drive together because Derek can just drop Stiles back off at the high school since it will be on the way home for him.

Great. So now Stiles is going to be in Derek’s shiny black car, with a touch screen on the console and vegan leather seats, and it all looks like it could be in a James Bond movie.

It also just feels like something people dating would do. Derek even opens the door for Stiles and it’s all too much and it’s all wayyy too confusing.

Here’s Derek Hale, the straight guy Stiles could never have, opening doors and driving Stiles to the coffee shop where the guy he actually can have is going to be working.

“Derek, let’s just hang out at your place, we don’t have to-”

“We’re going in. We don’t have to stay long,” Derek says. They’re parked on the street outside Roast. Stiles feels petrified. He’s afraid of what Derek will think and what Derek will do. Maybe he’ll think Stiles is gross and awful like the pervy guys at school who say salacious things about Ms. Blake.

“Just-” Stiles has no other arguments. He’s here, Derek’s determined to at least go inside. He might as well get it over with. “Fine.”