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#truthing in general is just weird but doing it in a place where its a guaranteed they'll see it and u r aware of it
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Okay I have had this theory for months but I never actually laid it out before now. However it's well past time I actually do that considering episode 115 all but confirmed its truth (theres still wiggle room for me to be wrong, but honestly not much)
THE FERIN FAMILY ARE AASIMAR, AND HERES WHY:
The thing that originally made me go Hey Wait A Damn Minute was the visions of the original prophecy and its history that gillion got from that tree: "Another flash, and you see these red-haired olympian looking humans and elves and all kinds of different races that are flying with their own wings". And I heard that and thought about how much that sounds like aasimar, and then the weird dreams jay had and then captain widow insisting she has powerful blood and then star saying she sensed divinity on jay and then the whole ferin family's affinity for fire magic and everything just clicked into place.
Then in episode 114 we got the recording of Faye Ferin saying "hail the solar mother" and i was like no fucking way- BUT i set it aside because it felt like I could be reaching with that evidence. It could just be a religious phrasing, not necessarily something literal.
Then episode 115 happened and I got confirmation of my theory.
Grizzly doesn’t outright say "yes the ferin are aasimars”, but he gives us all the last few pieces of the puzzle.
Here's a link to the episode that should start where the confirmation is - the two tablets: https://youtu.be/M9ig9XCUrvU?si=oYdisYFxTqx6ogbb&t=868
Transcript of the tablets: Tablet One: Shards of the divine, these words are for you and you alone. We are descendants of the sun. Thus, we are the light - the beacon that will eradicate the dark. We are the flame to which all will yield. We are the shining justice that will always prevail. Our steps illuminate the way forward and our hands spark the tales of history. Tablet Two: Shards of the divine, these words are for you and you alone. Know your kin, recognized by the manes of flickering flame, wings that rival dragons, the golden suns in our eyes. Unity is the key to prosperity. Our elders will raise generations that burn with vigorous radiance.
NOW ON TO MY EXPLANATION!!
The thing that confirmed it outright for me is literally the line "We are descendants of the sun", because there are no ifs ands or buts about it - aasimar are descended from celestials. The aasimar entry for Monsters of the Multiverse states "Whether descended from a celestial being or infused with heavenly power, aasimar are mortals who carry a spark of the Upper Planes within their souls." the tablet Jay stole from her grandmother is written in celestial, and says they are descended from the sun(aster), ergo, descended from a celestial.
Next up is the whole "Thus we are the light - the beacon that will eradicate the dark. We are the flame to which all will yield. We are the shining justice that will always prevail." bit. The entry for Protector Aasimar (the subrace i believe Jay fits best) in Volos Guide to Monsters reads "Protector aasimar are charged by the powers of good to guard the weak, to strike at evil wherever it arises, and to stand vigilant against the darkness."
Then there's "Our steps illuminate the way forward and our hands spark the tales of history." Which then in the MotM entry it says "aasimar are mortals who carry a spark of the Upper Planes within their souls. They can fan that spark to bring light, ease wounds, and unleash the fury of the heavens."
THEN THERES THE REAL FUCKING GIVEAWAY!!! THIS LINE: "Know your kin, recognized by the manes of flickering flame, wings that rival dragons, the golden suns in our eyes."
MotM says "They resemble their parents, but … often have features that hint at their celestial heritage." and VGtM says "They are a people of otherworldly visages, with luminous features that reveal their celestial heritage."
OF THE CELESTIAL FEATURES OPTIONS OFFERED BY MOTM, ENTRY 2 IS "METALLIC, LUMINOUS, OR DARK EYES" AND ENTRY 3 IS "STARKLY COLORED HAIR". THE FERINS ARE WELL KNOWN FOR HAVING BOTH.
The tablets are, of course, not my only evidence.
the ferins arent born with The Ferin Eye as revealed by Jay having to earn hers and Drey talking about when he got his. "now icarus," i hear you say "wouldnt that mean they dont actually fit the celestial features requirement?" and to that i answer "NO! IT IN FACT FITS IT BETTER!"
In discussing aasimar celestial features, MotM says "These [features] often begin subtle and become more obvious when the aasimar gains the ability to reveal their full celestial nature." Jay didn’t have the Ferin eye until she earned it and its subsequent abilities. And we all remember how she earned it, right?
A weird ass fucking dream.
Now let’s look at that. According to VGtM “An aasimar, except for one who has turned to evil, has a link to an angelic being. That being … provides guidance to the aasimar, though this connection functions only in dreams. As such, the guidance is not a direct command or a simple spoken word. Instead, the aasimar receives visions, prophecies, and feelings.”
In Jay's first sun dream (Juice Roll With It // Episode #88), Grizzly describes the sun and says "You feel like its presence is trying to reach you. And as you notice, you feel almost like you want it to.”
And then the core of the dream itself:
Grizzly: “Do you think Jay can withstand this impossible heat of the sun as you get just barely one step closer?” Condi: “I’m gonna say no… but she would try anyways, if that is, like, what the feeling is kinda giving her, you know?” Grizzly: “This powerful presence, as hot as it is - you can’t help but think of your sister. You can’t help but think of your friends. But then, you think of your mother, and then you think of your father, and then you think of your grandmother” (makes condi roll con save with disadvantage, condi got an 11) “with an 11, you take that step forward, but this overwhelming pressure, anxiousness, fear, handcuffs your spirit, closes your mind, and you just feel the heat of the sun overcome you. And you are jolted awake back in the reality. … but you know that in this dream you lost. You lost to the heat.”
Then the second dream (Happy Wife Happy Life // Episode 102), where the sun is hotter and larger than before and excruciatingly painful:
Grizzly: “You just can’t help but stare at it with both eyes wide open. And behind you you feel another heat.” (Condi asks if Jay can see this heat or if Jay is too focused on the sun) “You know that this heat signifies that backing away and falling is not an option this time. But as you look at the sun, you once again think about your family: your mother, who said she was sick; your father, who called you naive; your grandmother, who threatens the safety of your friends. You think of your friends. So I ask again, this time: do you think Jay can withstand that heat? That pressure and that fire?” Condi: “I think as Jay is staring up at this sort of immense fireball that represents… obviously her pressure, and she feels that heat at her back… I don’t think she would look at the heat as, like, something preventing her from stepping back and falling anymore. But in this metaphorical sense - since a lot of this is a metaphor - she’d probably look at it as what she basically can’t turn her back on, what she can’t leave behind. Basically like her new hope. You know, what she wants to protect. So she’s in between this and this giant fireball. Um. And I think with that in mind she would take a step forward and, um. While maybe not fully confident in herself, she would jump into the fireball with all her might, doing her best. ... I think she can handle it. She thinks she can handle it.” Grizzly: “Fair enough. That’s all I asked. You jump in- go ahead and roll a con save with advantage.” (Condi got a 19) “You leap with almost like a raging fire of conviction even if you doubt yourself, jay. And the sun almost seems to open up to welcome you in. And at first, the searing pain of the fireball’s heat feels like it’s melting your skin. You scream until it feels like it’s melting away that doubt. And then, all of the pain subsides. There’s a calming sense that kind of overtakes, jay, in your subconscious. And it’s all white at this point - your whole vision.”
So the sun reached out to jay through a dream, as aasimar’s celestial links tend to do, and gave her a test of strength that she had to figure out for herself (“as such, the guidance is not a direct command or simple spoken word. Instead, the aasimar receives visions, prophecies, and feelings.” - VGtM). She only passed it by remembering she had people she needed to protect (“Protector aasimar are charged by the powers of good to guard the weak, to strike at evil wherever it arises, and to stand vigilant against the darkness.” - VGtM). And when she passed this test given to her in a dream: “speaking of your vision, you begin to feel a warmth behind one of your eyelids. And the next day comes as you’re the first to wake at the very crack of dawn. The sun rises, and you rise with it. And you blink a few times - you feel something different. … This time, you look into a mirror and, just like your dad, just like Drey, you see this bright orange glowing eye on one of the sides. And you feel whatever that was: you passed it.”
This, therefore, perfectly fits Jay into the aasimar’s celestial features description that “these [features] often begin subtle and become more obvious when the aasimar gains the ability to reveal their full celestial nature.” Jay had to prove herself to the goddess to earn another celestial trait.
And once more, “Icarus!” I hear you cry. “You keep saying Jay fits the Protector Aasimar subrace, but don’t Protector Aasimar have incorporeal wings that come from their celestial heritage? Jay’s wings are from a tattoo! That doesn’t work!” To which I say, “Are you sure?”
The Protector Aasimar’s subrace ability is called Radiant Soul and allows the aasimar to “unleash the divine energy within yourself, causing your eyes to glimmer and two luminous, incorporeal wings to sprout from your back.”
Jay’s wings come from enchanted tattoos with which she can cast Fly. These were a deliberate choice Jay made and are not celestial in origin. However, in the first sun dream, when Jay reaches out for the sun Grizzly says “You begin to feel the tattoo on your upper back sting.” When condi asks to clarify if it’s the Niklaus tattoo, Grizzly only says “Just the upper back.”
This, of course, leads me to believe that those dreams will or already have affected her wings in some way - perhaps leaving space for her to unlock more of her celestial heritage and power as she earns it. It’s something we’ll just have to watch and see for.
Either way the Ferins are aasimar, Jay's gonna be the first one in generations to earn their true celestial power from Aster, and i will Die On This Hill
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Setting: The Kingdom of Xophena, Realm of the Pure
Though it is famed the world over for the piety of its people and the bravery of its knights, this kingdom holds a dark secret at its heart. If you were to see the scattering of fortress cities surrounded by horror haunted wilderness it would be all too easy to believe the legends: brave warriors sallying forth to do battle against the corruption that besieges them from all sides, slaying great foes and making great sacrifices in the name of defending the innocent. If you looked closer though you would see Xophena for all its faults, the fear by which its elite drive and dominate its populace, a tradition of martial glory that justifies any action or abuse of the warrior caste, a population forced to endure toil and abject subjugation or be exiled outside the walls.
Adventure Hooks:
While travelling through the realm of the pure as part of an ongoing quest, the party run into a retinue of outrider knights on their way to destroy a rampaging aberration hiding out in a gold mine. Some of the knights scoff at the party for being common sellswords, while others recognize them as fellow doogooders-at-arms. There's glory to be had if the party join them in their mission, and more importantly, potential reward and bragging rights.... if they can keep up, the mounted cavaliers aren't going to slow down on the party's behalf.
Xophen emissaries have made an appearance in the party's homeland, courting alliances, making trade deals, and generally putting their finger on the scales of power. Distrustful of too many good offers, the party's patron is planning on a visit to Xophena in the near future and would like them to come along as extra sets of eyes and ears. Renegade heroes have a habit of seeing through the haze of political bullshit.
Xophena would make a fascinating backdrop for a campaign, as Arthurian myth crashes into lovecraftian weirdness. The best place to start would be with the party as castoffs and exiles, eking out a living in one of the few hidden hamlets built by those outcast from the social order. How do they survive? When circumstances demand that they enter one of the fortress cities do they trick their way in, or beg favour from the sanctimonious powers that be? Can they last long enough to discover the secret that has bent the world into its current cruel shape?
Background: Only a few centuries ago Xophena was just like any other kingdom, periods of prosperity and stability that dissolved into infighting as the local warrior elite squabbled for position. That of course all changed when monsters known as the Delnbrood began to wriggle out of the earth like worms after rain, causing untold devastation and forcing a societal retreat to the increasingly fortified settlements dotted about the mountainous foothills. The fear and chaos of these years restructured Xophen society into a rigid hierarchy based around tradition, faith, and survival, which has only grown more ossified as time has gone on.
Both Xophen scripture and legend will tell you that the horrors that beset them began with a treasonous sorcerer Delndrek who sought to take the throne for himself through dishonorable means and darkest sorcery. He was opposed by Tanria brightspear, a saint of the everlight who foiled his every sly attempt to seize power, until at last she cornered him and forced his surrender. Ever the coward, Delndrek sacrificed his humanity rather than relinquish his ambition, becoming an indescribable abomination, that it took the bright speared saint five days to vanquish, dying in the process. It's said that the aberrations that beset Xophena today are born from where his tainted blood struck the earth.
Like many of the tales told about the realm of the pure, this story is a lie, gilded with just enough truth to make it stick in the people's memory. Delndrek wasn't just a sorcerer, but the sorcerer of the royal family, tasked with magicing away all the problems that backwoods dynasty couldn't solve through bloodshed or political marriage. The kingdom's goldmines had always been its lifeblood, and most of the fighting in those days about who could profit from what claim. Trouble was the royal family's mines were drying up, so they threw their pet mage at the problem said that if he didn't find a solution they'd torture him till they did. Dying mines and mounting stress forced Delndrek to look deeper and deeper for an answer, and eventually led him to communion with the outergod Jysh'parun who holds dominion over the secrets of mountains. A pact was struck, the mountains ate people and spat up gold, until eventually the saint found out and decided to put a stop to things.
Cut to today, and the dependants of that very same royal family are still trying to wriggle out of the pact they instigated, spending their people's lives to fill their coffers and fight back the creatures the outer god sends to assert dominion over the realm he was promised.
Setting Details:
The church of the everlight was always strong in Xophena, dating back half a millennia to when an adherent of hers was lost on a stormy sea for months and was only able to find land when the mist parted and he saw the dawn first alighting on one of the region's seaside peaks. The mountainous temple city of First Alight still serves as the heart of the region's faith.
That faith has become just as gaudy and hollow as the rest of the kingdom: Somewhere along the line it was decided that gold was the best way to demonstrate praise to Sarenrae, both in decorating her icons and paying to erect ever grander structures in her honour. While the common people pray for the hope and strength to lead them through lean times, their tithes go to fund an increasingly bloated clergy who spend their days finding reasons that the peoples' sinful nature forestalls their goddess's promised salvation.
You don't compose ballads calling your homeland "Realm of the Pure" unless you've got some hangups around cleanliness. Delndrek's corruption has touched more than the land, as aberrant sorceries and otherworldly mutations have begun to spring up among the populace. Those with influence do their best to hide these marks, those without are scapegoated, exiled, or made an example of.
For all their privilege and brainwashing, many of the realm's knights really do believe in the cause, having largely abandoned the ways of petty armed gentry and settling instead into martial orders. While they all compete to slay the most beasts and earn the most gallant reputation, it is a deepset longing among the knights to be able to find St. Tanria's lost spear, which in the right hands is said to be able to rid the land of its blight once and for all.
Arcane magic is viewed with suspicion in Xophena, as any rogue mage could be just another Delndrek waiting to happen. Exceptions are of course made for those spoken for by the nobility.
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superbattrash · 2 months
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Do you have any Superbat fic recs? Just kind of stumbled on the ship and am already excited by the notion.
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Hiiiii sweetheart! Welcome to the bright and sunny side of superbat shipping ~ *blows dust off my laptop that I haven’t turned on in a month* oh gross, there are actual spiderwebs on it... I'm so sorry, Maggie. Ahem, first of all. Any and all fics by these talented people: @frownyalfred, @superbatdisasterblog, @susiecarter, @sassyresacon1990 (I know I'm forgetting a lot of people but it's been a while okay)
This is just handful of my ultimate favs, if you need more I'm always more than happy to go through my bookmarks!
tell all the truth (but tell it slant) by susiecarter (rated M)
It takes a while for Batman and Superman to work things out, once Clark comes back from the dead. Pretending to date each other in order to explain why Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent are in the same place so often? Doesn't help as much as you might think.
Condersing Conditions by LeCadavre_1904 (rated E)
Before Bruce and Clark fall into bed for the first time, Bruce has an unusual condition.
Clark is as obliging as always.
don't push me (cause I am close to the edge) by LinguisticJubilee (rated G)
Kara huffs out a breath in frustration. “Every Kryptonian has a heartsong. And they’re beautiful, but when you listen to one on its own it feels like something is missing. It’s like...they have something like this too, right?” She gestures outward impatiently, and Bruce forces himself not to flinch at her casual use of they. “Only they have words written down instead.” 
“Soulmates,” Clark says, his voice strained. 
The word hits Bruce like a bullet through the lung. He keeps his face perfectly relaxed, his heartbeat calm and regular, as he realizes (too late, he's always too late) that he should have expected this all along.
fallin' for him was like fallin' from grace by Resacon1990 (rated T)
“But Bruce isn’t gay?” Clark points out, and there’s an awkward moment of everyone clearing their throats and avoiding Clark’s eyes until he turns to stare at Bruce. “Are you?”
Bruce blinks for a moment before offering a sheepish smile. “I’m not… not?” he offers, and Clark feels his brain just about short-circuit at the news.
Or, five times Clark finds himself falling for Bruce, and the one time he does something about it
No Church in the Wild by TheResurrectionist (not rated but OUCH ANGST)
"I'll have a contingency plan."
"If you're the first face he sees, you'll need it."
Bruce brings Clark back by himself.
smokin' in the boys' room - by The Ressurectionist (not rated but both blood and dicks, so rated Misha HAPPY) (I cannot tell you how many times I've reread this one GUUUHHH)
Bruce Wayne -- billionaire playboy, owner of, at most, three brain cells -- beaten up at his own charity gala. Bruce Wayne, CEO of Wayne Enterprises out of nepotism and dumb luck, whose business wasn’t touched by corruption purely because of incompetence -- Bruce Wayne, airheaded and still generous, still kind, bloody in a stall and trying to hide it. 
His hand clenched on the stall door, crumpling it between his fingers. His eyes weren’t burning yet, but barely. 
“Who did this to you?”
I Would I Might Forget That I Am I by susiecarter (rated T)
Clark Kent woke up, ate breakfast, went to work—the same way he did every day. Ordinary.
Except for the part where Superman hadn't been seen in at least a week and nobody knew why, Lois was acting kind of weird, and Bruce Wayne was insisting that Clark was the only reporter he'd allow to run a feature on the crashed alien ship in the park, since Wayne Enterprises had been granted control of the site. And the way Clark felt every time Wayne looked at him a little too long definitely wasn't helping.
But it was fine. Clark was normal, there was nothing wrong with him, and everything was fine.
Satisfaction Brought It Back by slippin_into_dakrness and SpiritsFlame. (rated G) (This one is my comfort comfort comfort read!!!)
Bruce always thought that Superman's cute shtick of rescuing cats from trees was a bid for publicity—until a confrontation with a magic user leaves him stuck as a cat. He learns how mistaken he was when Superman not only rescues him, but takes him back to a small Metropolis apartment. The opportunity to learn more about the alien can't be ignored, but is Bruce ready for everything he will learn about someone he has only ever regarded with distrust and dislike?
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I’m in a weird place now because honestly???
I’m more interested in Emily as character than Charlie now. And don’t get me wrong, they’re both very very bland, but they have potential to be developed further. At this point, amazingly, I find myself more engaged with Emily’s potential development.
I think this must just be very particular to the sort of stories I like personally, so I’m not expecting anyone to agree—below is just a lot of musings on things I would have been excited to see in the story, and how I find Emily to have more potential to be interesting as of right now. Not a real review//
I find the idea of a character who fully believes that they live in a utopia, and that their group is objectively correct, only to learn the ugly truths about how their group maintains its power and control and has their whole world view shattered as a result is a lot more interesting.
Emily having her beliefs about her home and her sister, someone she clearly trusts above all else and admires, completely destroyed is something that raises a LOT of really engaging questions and character traits to explore.
If Emily was the main character, how would she work to change things after learning the truth? How would she rebel? Would she be able to bring herself to rebel at all?
How would she grieve for the sister she thought she knew? Would part of her be in denial?
What we do see in the show is that she seems to have been genuinely interested and excited about the idea of a human soul improving and ascending to heaven after death.
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and is then rightly furious when she learns about the exterminations:
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This is a start, but there is still a lot more to explore with her reaction to make this a more emotionally satisfying scene. It’s clear she’s horrified by this revelation, but because we JUST met Emily and we JUST learned that the general population of Heaven doesn’t know about the exterminations; it falls weirdly flat.
I want to know more about Emily and what she was told about hell before meeting Charlie. I want to know about her general impression of hell in contrast with her beliefs and what she thinks she knows about heaven. But that’s not something the show has time for, because it barley has time to show character depth for ANY of the characters.
I do I think Charlie had the same potential when the only thing we had to go on story-wise was the Pilot—where Charlie, and the audience, believed that the reason for the exterminations was due to overpopulation.
But the series proper seems to have thrown out that idea completely, and the reason for the exterminations now is to keep the demons from becoming…too empowered? I think?
Imagine if the show had kept the idea that Angels kill the demons to keep them subjugated a secret from Charlie and the audience, and built up to the reveal that it was NEVER about overpopulation.
Charlie would have a REASON to want to fight heaven that late in the show.
Honestly, I don’t know why she didn’t want to fight them before, since in her opening monologue, she confirms that she KNOWS that heaven is killing her people to keep them from rebelling or challenging heaven’s judgement.
Charlie would then be having the same revelations Emily had in the last episode. Hell, maybe you could have Lilith or Lucifer being the only ones who know it’s not about overpopulation and keeping the truth about the executions from her and public to “keep the peace”.
But instead, Charlie knows that Hell is just being purged to keep the demons from rebelling from the very beginning. And for me that changes the dynamics of story’s conflict and plot—because now it comes off like she’s trying to redeem sinners despite KNOWING that they’re being killed off so hell doesn’t get stronger. The sinners may not be innocent or “good” people, but if Charlie cares so deeply for her people and wants them to improve-why is she now trying to get the sinners to heaven, instead of doing more to improve and protect hell and fight back?
Man. With the right pacing and build up we could have had a double reveal—where Charlie learns the reason for the exterminations isn’t overpopulation, and Emily learns that the exterminations EXIST. Or heck, have Emily learn the same thing as Charlie and be SHOCKED—maybe Emily knew about them, but has always been fed the lie that the exterminations were for hell’s own good. That it was something done humanely to keep the sinners from being miserable due to overpopulation, or from suffering indefinitely.
If she learns the truth WITH Charlie, that it’s never been about overpopulation and it’s never been to being the sinners in hell relief, this gives Emily and Charlie stronger reason to ally with each other imo.
Idk man. I’m just. I get what the writers are trying to do with the hypocritical Heaven concept, but we don’t have enough world building for how heaven and hell work, and we don’t get in depth studies of the characters and their motives and goals and personalities. There’s NOT enough build up for these moments’ payoffs to feel meaningful.
Sorry, this really isn’t a review, just musings on what could have been. “Character loses their innocence and learns their home isnt the paradise they thought it was” is a common plot point in a lot of stories, but there are so so many ways to make it work for your specific story, and Hazbin had the chance to do this with Charlie and Emily so that the emotional impact of the scene would have been greater.
But because Hazbin the show doesn’t believe in it’s own story and story-telling, we won’t get to see those sorts of scenes.
I just. I don’t know what points Hazbin Hotel wants to I make and what the overall thesis of their story is. I really don’t.
Fuck, man. What else is there to say?
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chronic-ghost · 10 months
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Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire
rating: M (just for language)
pairing: javier peña x f!reader
word count: 5619
summary: you're a human lie detector-- so you tell the handsome man at the Jim Bo’s Burger Barn at 3AM. Too bad you're too drunk to catch up to his lies.
warnings: language, references to drugs/cartels, drinking, smoking, this one is pretty tame, no use of y/n
a/n: this is my Poker Face adjacent fic and inspired by the scene where Javi so innocently flirts with that american wife in the lounge. might become a series but not quite sure yet. lemme know which direction I should take this, if I should take it anywhere at all!
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You attract trouble.
You attract trouble like you put on your nicest dress, did your hair, fixed up your tits, and doused yourself in trouble-pheromones. Like you found trouble curled up on the side of the road, sad and alone like a lost dog, and you gave it a cookie and now it swings around your ankles, always moments away from knocking you on your ass. Except it’s not a dog, it’s a chimpanzee that’s finally snapped and it’s pissed–  it’s beating on the bars of its cage, it’s yowling, howling, it’s coming after you to eat off your goddamn face and–
Okay, back up a bit. 
You have a thing that gets you into trouble. No, not like a self-destructive habit or a weird twitch. It’s not drugs or alcohol or even a dumbass ex. It’s this thing you’ve always been able to do, always known, and because of your big mouth, it’s always gotten you into hot water with the wrong people.
You know when someone is lying. Don’t ask how. It’s a thing. But you know, without a shadow of a doubt, if what’s coming out of someone’s mouth is the God’s honest truth or total and utter bullshit.
You know when someone is lying and generally, folks don’t really appreciate it when you a) catch them on a lie and b) call them out on it. You and your big mouth.
Okay, that’s two things that get you into trouble, but it’s primarily the lying thing and the mouth thing is more or less a fun bonus. Used for good or evil, or whatever. 
The point – the point is – you know when someone is lying. Every single time. So, sure, the audience may say, it’s a weird quirk, kinda bizarre, may or may not be difficult to prove, but trouble? Real actual trouble? How could you possibly get into chimpanzee-face-eating trouble with just this little thing?
Well, rather easy actually. If you don’t have any particular skills, that is. If you barely finished high school, and street smarts was the only kind of smarts they were selling the day your mom smacked you on the ass and told you to find your way in the world. It was hard keeping a job too. Minimum wage living is terrible, especially when the customers lie to you, or to each other, or to their children. Even worse when management lies about why there’s no cash payout this month or why they’re late with this month’s checks. Getting by is fucking hard as shit, but when you know there’s something wrong being done and you’ve got this big fucking mouth, well, you’ve never been one to not court trouble. 
Maybe trouble is easier to find because you like to wave and flirt with it when you drive by. Give a little wink.
You work here, you work there. Nothing serious. Always temporary. And then, one day, during your shift as a maid at the Economy 99 on route 10, the elderly night guard asks if you’ve ever played poker. 
Nah, you say. Go Fish, that’s really your game. 
So he offers to teach you, along with a few of the other maids and staff waiting around for someone to blow chunks in the swimming pool because you always managed to find the really classy places. 
Okay, so you barely finished high school, you don’t have real marketable skills, you’ve got a big mouth and you’re not afraid to use it and –
– and –
You’re really fucking good at poker. 
And who here would like to venture a guess as to why?
You always know when someone is lying and what is poker if not Advance Bullshit for Adults? Fuckin’ Astronomical Physics for Liars and Dumbasses. Hell, you gotta fuckin’ PhD in Bovine Excrement and it’s time you graduated to the big leagues. Sayonara community college, hello Stanford for Assholes.
Okay, maybe that’s just regular Stanford. 
You learn to hustle too. Lose a few rounds so they don’t catch onto you and can’t accuse you of anything as you wipe their clocks clean. You change your name too, in different towns, in different back alley poker halls, because unfortunately the poker and casino community in this place is too small.
This place being all of the United States. 
You can’t exactly go online and work your literal magic– you gotta at least see or hear the person to know if they’re lying. Bluffing over pixels just isn’t the same. Isn’t sexy enough. 
So, with your big mouth and exceptional poker skills, you go hunting off the coast. It was an invite only poker tournament in Florida. You hadn’t managed to burn your ‘Marlene Green’ identify just yet and she was fucking crushing it up and down the east coast. You barely blinked at the ten grand buy-in– baby money, suckers ducks, little Tikes casino royale.
This was also the last one, you told yourself. One for all the marbles. 
Because the thing about disreputable poker halls, they tend to be filled with unpleasant, disreputable, very angry characters that, like a chimpanzee, will rip your face off and eat it if they think they’ve been cheated. 
Exit strategy. Mama always said you gotta have an exit strategy. Well, Mama said a lot of things and the actual literal exit strategy was Monterey Marina with a gorgeous trawler for sale. Older than shit, but damn that baby could purr. You were gonna take the money, offer up stone-cold cash (no questions asked), and sail off into the sunset. Or, well, sunrise because you were definitely getting the fuck out of Florida. 
But here it comes, the real kick in the goddamn teeth, the real screw in the rack. This is where your mouth and your talent– gift, power, is this a fucking superhero movie?– whatever– tended to get all mishmashed with one other thing that always– and you mean always– got you in the hot seat. Got you in Trouble, with a capital T, that rhymes with P and stands for pool hall – breathing down your neck. 
You alway had shitdumb, bad, fucking luck. 
So it’s not some lowtime, grumpy townies you piss off when you win the pot, it turns out its members of a goddamn drug cartel! And they are PISSED.
P-I-S-S-E-D
You don’t wanna ask the barrel of their guns if they’re going to kill you because you don’t actually want to be sure of their answer, so you’ve got your hands up, thinking this is definitely it– I’ve played my last hand, I’ve sunk my last boat, I’ve cursed my last fuck– when police sirens go off. It’s not a relief, but a distraction.
You’ve got a big mouth, wacky abilities, and reflexes like someone who’s been running their whole life. You smash a bottle against the back of the head of the blonde one closest to you, flip the table– chips and bullets go flying– and with the case holding the winnings still in your hands, you sprint out the back door. 
To your lovely Chevy Camaro waiting for you. 
And you drive.
“And I drive and I drive and I drive, all the way down to this lovely little diner in . . .” 
You swivel on the red seat, nearly knocking over the five little plastic bottles of Crown Royal on the counter that is making your head thick and puffy. You squint at the sign that boasts the best burgers in – “Texas, yes, thank you, Texas! Lone Star State. The most hated state, of all fifty of them, for Wile E Coyote. His nemesis. His haunting. His apocalypse now . . .” 
The man seated next to you, the same man who’s been there for an hour, quietly listening to you drunkenly ramble at the counter of Jim Bo’s Burger Barn, smirks. His mustache twitches.
“Why is it the Wile E Coyote’s least favorite state?”
Your mouth drops at him. You slouch as though indignant about his very question. “Roadrunner, duh, state bird of the Lone Star State. That and blue bonnets. I mean, the flower. Blue bonnets are the state bird and the road runner is the state flower of the Looney Star State . . . wait . . .”
He laughs, softly, his elbows under him as he leans forward on the counter, his brown jacket looking like it smells amazing. Drunker than you meant to be, you eye him from his classic cowboy boots, up his hips, and to the edges of that lovely brown jacket as it hangs around his waist. He has the prettiest eyes. 
“You were saying something about driving here?” He asks, very much aware of your shameless staring. “Do you still have that money?”
“Sure, sure,” you mutter and turn back to your chocolate milkshake that’s pretty much just chocolate soup at this point. You snatch up a remaining fry from your long gone burger and swirl it in the soup. “Got the keys and the money locked up tight. I worry more about someone fucking with my baby more than the money, you know. Lots of sentimental value in that car. ‘Is where I lost my virginity.”
At that, the man sputters on his coffee, his third of the night. Black, almost as dark as his hair. 
You sigh, frowning into your lumpy, ice-creamy soup. “So hard to get laid when you’re running for your life.” 
You swivel back to him as he’s patting his jacket dry of coffee. “Wait. You.”
“Me what?” You think his cheeks warm pink for a moment.
“What the hell are you doing out here at 3AM, listening to me babble endlessly? You don’t look shifty, but maybe you are.” 
He smirks again and tosses his napkins into the now empty coffee mug. 
“I’m Javi,” he says in a deep, soothing voice as he extends his hand across to you. You take it, with the proper amount of trepidation. “And I’m on my way to see my niece in Flagstaff.” 
You click your tongue and withdraw your hand, disappointed. “Bullshit.” 
“Excuse me?” 
“I mean, your name is definitely Javi.” You pick up your own coffee mug and see that it’s unfortunately empty. You pick out some fleck that’s fallen into it. “Well, almost – is that short for something? – but you are definitely not on your way to see your niece in Flagstaff. Does she not live in Flagstaff or . . . do you not even have a niece?” You gasp, mouth agape. He has the decency to look uneasy. His eyes narrow at you. You scoff. “That is fucked up, hombre. Starting off a conversation with a lie is not a good way to make a friend.” 
“Why do you think I’m lying?” 
You roll your eyes, the coffee cup dangling loosely in your fingers. “We’ve been over this, my dude. See the court documents. Jeez, how hard is it to order a refill at three in the morning? Paragraph B, Subsection I’m really fucking good at poker. I don’t think, I know. I have this thing, always had, and when people lie to me, I . . . wriggle. Squirm. Not exactly ‘spoiled lunch meat’ but not ‘just clocked a hottie from across the bar and I like their vibes’ either.” 
He watches as the waitress, glaring, comes over and refills your mug. You immediately dive into five packets of sugar, shredding them like a racoon with a bag of popcorn. 
“But I don’t take it too personally,” you continue, flicking the sugar packet to make sure every single crystal falls into the cup. “People lie all the time. About stupid shit too. I don’t think they even mean to do it. It just happens.”
“Does it bother you? That people lie?” 
“Eh. Once upon a time. But fuck, if you could hear the bullshit firehose that comes outta people’s mouths on the daily, you’d stop shaking it off too, if you know what I mean.” Satisfied that you’d be able to see through both time and space with your sugar high, you take a sip. Needs milk. You reach across his plate, wobbling on the edge of the seat, his chest inches from your forearm, and snag the little tin milk pitcher. Your cup becomes more milk than coffee. “People lie for the best of reasons, mostly. Or at least, best for them. Either to save hurting someone else's feelings or their own. We humans don’t like pain, generally, as a rule. But rules are meant to be broken, I suppose.”
Javi, or as close to his real name as you’re going to get, is quiet. That tends to be more of his natural state, given that he had barely said two words while you recounted the past few weeks to him whether he wanted it or not. You sip your coffee again, delighted to have found the right balance of sugar, milk, and burnt coffee, when he taps the rim of his mug with his nail. 
 “I do have a niece, but she lives in Austin. Haven’t seen her in a while, actually, but I want to.” 
“Oh, yeah?” That was all true. You bend forward, eyes trying to watch him as you sip the delicate, hovering brown line that threatens to spill over the edge of the cup. “What’s stopping you from seeing her?” 
“Work.” 
Well, that was fucking ominous. 
“Wait. Fuck. What do you do for a living?” 
Javi slides off the seat and turns those slim hips towards you and, like a fucking idiot, you just now register the bulk at his waist. 
You whimper. Of course the one nice person who wanted to spare you a second glance was from the cartel. They found you. Somehow they tracked you down to the middle of nowhere, which was exactly what you wanted when you still had your life ahead of you. But now it seemed like a terrible fucking idea because there was no one around to at least make sure Baby Girl Camaro went to a good home. 
“Ah, fuck. Fuck! That’s a gun. Fuck, you’re gonna kill me right here in this goddamn diner,” you whine and put your head on the counter, hands covering the back as if you were preparing for a tornado. 
He sighs. “I’m not going to kill you.” 
Truth. 
“Then what do you want with me?” You glare at him, bleary-eyed. “Because the whole cover as a kindly stranger with baby cow eyes is officially fucking blown, my guy.” 
“Let’s go outside and – wait, what? Baby cow eyes? What the hell does that mean?” 
“What? You’ve never watched Dr. Pole? TV veterinarian?” You unwind from your prone position and frown at him. “He takes care of those little baby cows, lookin’ up at their mama with those big, sweet, gentle, loving brown eyes. Cutest thing in the world. Almost made me wanna give up beef for a whole two minutes. But seriously, dude, there’s this hamburger joint in Miami that makes you just wanna lick the juices right off your fingers– hey!” 
He grabs you by the upper arms and, as casually as a kidnapping can go, hauls you out of the diner. The bell above the door rings joyfully as he pulls you through. 
The reality of your situation hits you like a sixteen-wheeler truck and tears spring up in your eyes as panic bites into your spine. His grip is like iron around your bicep. 
“Dude, I’m so sorry I rambled on like that but I swear I didn’t know who you were. Please, please don’t kill me – o-o-or hurt me. Please don’t take me back to the cartel. You can have the money, I swear, j-j-just take it–,”
His eyes widen and immediately lets you go. The neon sign and lights of the diner behind him blur his face in shadow. You wipe at your eyes. 
“Lady, look, if you’re gonna survive on the run from the Cali Cartel, you can’t be telling your whole life story to anyone who asks.” He’s got his hands on his hips as if disappointed with you. You pout with your bottom lip out.
“Wasn’t telling just anyone. Was telling you.” You cross your arms and sniff, suddenly rather embarrassed to be crying in front of a man so genuinely hot it makes you go a little cross-eyed. Well, it was either him or the whiskey. TBD. “Not that I’m encouraging you or anything, but if you don’t kill me, aren’t your cartel bosses gonna be pissed?” 
“I don’t work for the cartel. I work for the DEA.” 
If crying was embarrassing, you are going to be fucking traumatized if you puked all over his cowboy boots.
“Aw shit. Shitshitshitshitshit.” You press your knuckles into your eyes, groaning. You wander backwards. Your head starts to spin and so do you. “The fucking government is after me? Holy shit, this is not good.” 
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”
You frown and spin back around. He looks exasperated. 
“Well, how many words does it take to read me my Miranda rights?” You tick off the words on your fingers as you speak them aloud. “You. Have. The. Right. To. Remain. Silent. Anything – is that one word or two? – You. Say–,”
“Jesus Christ–,” He claps his wide hand over yours, squishing your tally between his palms. “Are you always like this or just because you’re drunk?” 
“I’m a delight, pal, okay?” You scowl up at him. “I am a barrel full of monkeys at all times. I am a waterslide with chocolate and whipped cream, okay? I am a–,”
His hands leap to your shoulders. His touch is gentle like he knows he shouldn’t scare you but he’s considering throwing you into oncoming traffic. 
“Just . . . show me the case of money you stole,” he begs with his baby cow eyes, “alright? Let’s start there.”
Your eyes narrow at him. “If I do, what’s to keep you from knocking me out and throwing me in the trunk?” 
“I’m not going to do that.”
No tingle. You purse your lips and wiggle out from under his palms. “Say it. Say, I’m not going to knock you out and throw you in the trunk and steal all of your money.” 
“It’s not exactly your money, is it?”
“Say it!”
“Fine!” He says, throwing his hands in the air. “I’m not going to knock you out and throw you in the trunk and steal all of your money.” 
Still nothing. No tingle. Well, no tingle about him lying anyway. 
“You passed the test. Now come here.” 
Hesitantly, he nudges towards you, those thick eyebrows dipping down as if expecting you to pull a bazooka out of your bra.
“C’mere, c’mere. Good.” You clap a hand on his shoulder and lean into him. You shift your weight onto one leg and wiggle off your other boot. You get a whiff of his cologne – dark, woodsy, a little too much, as if to cover for a lack of deodorant. “Now, as you so annoyingly identified earlier, I have had a little, insy-tintsy bit to drink, and if I tried to take off my shoe by myself, I would, as the kids say, eat shit. And once you’ve fallen on your ass in front of one cop, you’ve fallen on your ass in front of them all.”
His warm hands find your waist, steadying you, just as you pop your heel out of your boot. “I’m not a cop,” he grumbles.
“And I’m not a walking lie detector.” You shake your boot and your car keys tinkle as they hit the dirt. “Ah, ha! Got ‘em.”
You shake them in front of his baby cow eyes, grinning, before spinning back to your car and popping the trunk, hopping as you went to slide your boot back on. 
“Do you work out?” You ask as he rounds the edge. Half of you is buried in the trunk, feet in the air. 
“Uh, yeah, when I can. Why?”
“What do you bench?”
“256. Why?” 
“Oh, then this should be easy for you.”
You groan, struggling with something and he dives to help you – and his knees buckle. 
“Why the hell do you have a tire for a sixteen wheeler in your trunk?”
“Same reason you’re sweating, toots. Heavy as fuck and hard to move. But now that we have . . .”
You pull out a slim silver case. You pop the handles and sigh.
You haven’t moved a single bill since that night. You haven’t even breathed on it, as if doing so would set off a series of alarms, bells, and whistles.
“So small for so much trouble,” you whisper as he crowds in next to you. “Fifty thousand dollars. Make or break a life. Well, at least, a life like mine.” 
Javi makes a face. “Should be one hundred, but those fuckers switched it out.” 
“Wait, how do you know that?” 
He sighs and slams the lid of the trunk shut. You snatch up the case before he does and hold it tight to your chest. Javi stands there for a moment, with his hand on Baby’s trunk, head down, thinking.
“Look, I want to help you . . . and I can. But you’ve gotta start being honest with me. How did you really get into that poker game?”
“What do you mean?”
He crosses his arms, frowning. “That little party trick you do. The human lie detector thing. What is it? How did you know Veracruz had that shit hand?”
“Uh, because I asked him and he said he didn’t have a shit hand, and I knew he was lying.” 
“Yeah, that. How did you know he was lying?”
“I just did.”
“Bullshit.” 
“That’s my line!” You glare up at him, very much aware of his height and very much aware how hot he is. “I’m not lying to you. I just know when people are lying. If you believe it, I’ll know.” 
Javi rolls his eyes. “That’s not a real thing people can do. Have you done forensic work before? Studied body language somewhere?” 
You scoff and step back, showing off your black fringe vest, dirty jeans, and combat boots. “Do I look like I’ve studied anything anywhere ever? Where would I even have gotten the money to go study somewhere? Oh right, the forensic fairy, just beating the shit outta people with a bag of cash.” 
He puts his hands on his hips and you match him because you can do the scary cop thing too. It’s not that hard. 
“I broke my arm when I was seven on a bike ride.” 
“True.” 
“I had a dog named Benji.” 
“Dog’s right, but not named Benji.” You grin, rubbing your hands together, then putting them on your thighs. “C’mon, gimme something you’ve never told anyone. This is exciting. Your mustache does this little twitch thing when I’m right.” 
“When I was twelve, I cheated off my friend’s math test.” 
You frown, dropping your shoulders. “That’s your big secret? Whoof, buddy, and here I thought the big scary man gunning for me was mean and lean, when he’s actually just an All-American—,”
“I need your help to arrest the men who are trying to kill you.” 
Your mouth snaps shut so fast your teeth click.
“That’s what all of this is about.” He crosses his arms and leans against Baby. “Aren’t you curious how I found you so fast? Faster than the cartel who's been on your ass for two weeks now?” 
“I’d like to think it was just kismet that we found each other,” you grumble. “Serendipity. Movie magic. Lady Luck doing me a fuckin’ solid for once.”
“That case has a tracker in it. We had a plant in that game who was supposed to win, but not before he could distribute the cash out in the pot. We’d be able to follow them back to their stashes and track their movements.” He bit his lip, disapprovingly. “And then you showed up. Cleaned their fucking clocks like it was nothing. Had their goddamn numbers from minute one and none of us could figure it out. Steve was probably relieved when you knocked him out with that bottle.”
“Oh, shit, the blonde was your partner?” You grimace. “My bad, dude, my bad. Is he, uh, okay?”
Javi nods, eyes distant, as if subtly trying to work something out in his brain. Like testing to see if you could read minds or something. “He’ll be fine. His wife Connie is thrilled to have him home for a few weeks.” 
“Ah. And that means you pulled the shit straw to go after the girl who ran off with all your government money . . .” It was finally all coming together. “Shit, should I add your wife to the list of people I’ve pissed off? I can’t imagine she’s thrilled about any of this.”
His jaw works, as if he was chewing on something, eyes dark, before he pulls a packet of cigarettes out of the pocket of his jacket. He holds one out to you.
You stay where you are, hesitant. 
“C’mon, don’t tell me you’re not a smoker.” He spins an unlit cigarette between his fingers. “I don’t bite.”
You scowl and trudge forward. You snatch the cigarette from his thick fingers and wait your turn for the lighter.
“What gave it away? I haven’t had a smoke in hours.” 
The shadow of the flame flickered in his palm as he held out the lighter close to your lips, his hand blocking the wind. His brown eyes looked black in the absence of light. 
“Chain-smoking and playing poker with idiots is a combo deal. Two vices for the price of one.”
“Ha. Ha.”
You match his lean against Baby’s trunk, the pair of you watching the occasional car or truck go by on the interstate in the distance. The paper crinkles when you suck in the smoke. God, there really is nothing like the first bite of a cigarette. 
“So, what’s the play here?” You ask, after a moment. “You have the money. Why do you need me?” 
“You won’t have to worry about kindly strangers with baby cow eyes for starters.” You scowl at him. Maybe it’s the orange light of the flame, but you swear you see a twinkle in his eyes. “But you tell me. You seem smart. What would the government want with you?”
He likes a chase, you realize. He likes to play, to tease. He likes to be in control. Something inside you knots up, threatening goosebumps on your skin, but you shake it back. Down, girl. 
You take a sip from your cigarette, thinking. 
There is nothing else around except the highway and this diner. Seemed like such a good idea at the time. Who’d ever find your ass all the way out here? You lick the bottom of your lip before pulling it between your teeth.
“I’m your only witness to the mountains of coke being produced out in the open when they brought us in. Everyone else at that table was cartel or DEA. You want me to testify. 
He nods slowly. If he was impressed, he didn’t show it.
“We didn’t know who the hell you were when you showed up and planned to arrest you before everything went tits up.” He taps the ash onto the gray dirt and you watch his fingers. “If you do this, you’re out from under the cartel. We can give you a new identity, and you can start grifting again across America. All of this’ll be a bad dream.”
He flicks the butt of his cigarette into the dark, just at the edge of the light from the neon sign. You follow suit a second later. The keys to Baby are still in your pocket. 
“And if I don’t? If I don’t do this, then what?” 
His answer is a single arched eyebrow.
You dart to the left, trying to get around him, but he’s there first, arms outstretched like he’s guarding a goal. He frowns at you. Seriously? 
You lunge again, this time to the right, and he’s again in front. 
Your brow sweating, you hook your foot onto Baby’s trunk, desperately trying to scramble over the top. You get about halfway up before those annoyingly large hands snatch you around the waist and haul you off the car.
“Would you stop it?” He plops you down between his solid chest and the car door. This close to him, air temporarily leaves your lungs. “I’m being honest when I say I’m here to help you.” 
“I don’t believe you.” 
“Am I lying?” Again, that beautiful eyebrow of disapproval. 
“No, but I’ve officially decided you’re shifty.” 
He shakes his head and steps back, allowing blood flow to return to your brain. 
“Is this what you want for your life? Driving from small town to small town, picking up bullshit jobs, sleeping in shit beds, when there’s so much more you could do? You’re smart, resourceful, funny, weirdly agile . . . but you wanna spend your life hiding from the world.” 
There’s something hot and sharp in your throat.
“It’s what I’m good at,” you croak. 
His expression softens. The gravel crackles beneath his boots as he comes closer. Javi, the DEA officer, has temporarily left the building. In his place, this Javi is smoothed out, dulled, not all jagged edges and razor burns. Maybe tastes sweeter than day-old coffee and stale cigarettes. You want to tell him there’s nothing wrong with either– you happily take both– but seeing him unguarded, even for a moment, threatens to topple you over. There’s a light in his eyes when he takes in your face. Your eyes. Your nose. Your mouth. 
He looks . . . hopeful. 
One hesitant finger brushes away a stray strand of hair from your forehead.
Do not tremble. Do not tremble. Do not do it, I swear, ladies, keep it together!
“I bet you are,” he says softly. Jesus Christ, his hands are so big up close. “I bet you are good at a lot of things. You seem like the type who could genuinely surprise me. And I think you might surprise yourself one day.” 
You grimace, deeply, deeply regretful. 
“Yeah,” you mutter glumly. “I do surprise people a lot, actually. Unfortunately, you didn’t seem to be listening.”
“Wha–,”
From your other pocket in your vest, you yank out a one-time-use stun gun and stab his thigh through his jeans. Fifty-thousand volts lights up his entire body, arched, and tensed, before the grown man collapses at your feet. 
Unconscious, Javi hits the ground so hard you squeal, landing on his face and no doubt earning a nasty bruise. 
“Exit strategy, dude! Always gotta have an exit strategy. But I’m so, so sorry!” Grabbing his deadweight shoulder, you roll him onto his back and try to get him in a comfortable position. There’s dust in his mustache. .You fold his hands onto his chest like he was casually napping. 
Then because you were in fact the nicest or stupidest person on the planet, you dig your arms under his and pull him out of the parking lot. It would be a true sin if he got run over and anything happened to that beautiful face. Huffing, you drop him off by the bike rack. “I’m sorry. You are so gorgeous but I gotta get outta here and I can’t have you following me. This hurts me way more than it hurts you.”
You bend down and rifle through his jacket. You find what you’re looking for and take his phone out of his pocket. Old, probably a burner. With a shake, you crack off the battery and throw it on the ground. The crunch is loud beneath your heel. That should give you some more time. Can’t haul you back to HeadQuarters if he can’t call them.
This close to him, you can see the bags beneath his eyes. You remember he didn’t eat the entire time he sat with you in the diner. He didn’t respond to your question about a wife. Guilt clangs into your ribs. Slowly, you loosely brush your fingers through his hair. It’s soft, curls around his neck and ears. He looks like he needs sleep. 
You had been blasting across state lines, hardly eating, barely sleeping, restless and fearful. Maybe he had been too.  
“God, I am such a fucking idiot.” You grimace as you see a ripe purple bump growing on his cheek. “I am so sorry and I am so going to hell for this.”
Over the road to the highway, the dawn rises, purple and pink and heavy.
Baby purrs, when you start the engine, welcoming and warm. Where to today, Mama?
Jim Croce’s twang eases out of the radio as you adjust your mirror and see his long legs still out by the concrete. Somebody would find him soon enough.
Uptown got its hustlers
The bowery got it's bums
42nd street got big Jim Walker
He's a pool shootin' son of a gun
Yeah, he big and dumb as a man can come
But he stronger than a country hoss
You shake your head, guilt gnawing at your gut. Baby roars as you pull out onto the road and up onto the highway. Into the burning dawn.
What was it that he said? 
And when the bad folks all get together at night
You know they all call big Jim boss, just because
He called you funny. Resourceful. Full of potential. And smart. He thought you were smart.
Liar, liar. 
And they say
You don't tug on superman's cape
You don't spit into the wind
You don't pull the mask off that old lone ranger
And you don't mess around with Jim
128 notes · View notes
bonefall · 10 months
Note
Do you have any plans for Moth Flight in your au? I always felt like she had a lot of potential, but her super edition…. Oh it’s bad. God forbid a disabled, young, single mom try to raise children and have a job at the same time. Too bad there was no one to help her when things got stressful, like you know, her clanmates… No women should have a job and children at the same time ever again.
If it wasn’t obvious that was sarcasm, Moth Flight’s story has awful implications. But! In BB Clerics Not being allowed to have kits wasn’t a law until the Ripple Era, it used to just be a personal vow and was a bit taboo. So I’m interested in of Moth Flight still had something to do with the creation of the vow itself? And just in general if you have any plans to fix her story or if you’re just throwing the whole thing out. (Which would be completely understandable.) I just think there IS potential there in her story, especially in BB where the Clerics Vow is actually ACKNOWLEDGED to not make sense and be bad. It could be interesting for the idea to rise from such a hyper specific, awful situation. The Clans having altered her story so much over the years that it went from the truth, “the first Cleric was a young, single mother of four, trying to raise her children while morning her husband and convincing the other Clans that they needed Clerics. The odds were against her.” To the perfect, Cleric’s Vow supporting lie, “the first Cleric had kits. She was unable to balance raising them and caring for her Clanmates. She taught the Clans a valuable lesson, a Clerics first and only duty should be healing and worshiping StarClan. Kits only get in the way of that duty.”
Idk, I just feel like there’s still an interesting story to tell somewhere through all of Moth Flight’s super edition’s bs. In the hands of a better writer who doesn’t ACTUALLY believe that Moth Flight’s genuinely tragic life means that all women who have jobs can never have children or get married again.
There's HUUGE overhauls here. I spoke about it eons ago during the last wave where I was discussing my changes to BB!DOTC, but let me give you the fragments thus far.
It's VERY different. Get ready for Moth Flight to be a completely different character.
MOTH FLIGHT'S VOW
She is no longer the child of Wind Runner. In fact...
She's the daughter of Wind Runner's shitty ex, Branch
Moth's other dad is Cloud Flight (prev. Cloud Spots). Since the Great Battle, Cloud has been wandering between the 5 groups as a sort of traveling doctor. It's a lot of work, there's only him and Dapple and an overwhelming amount of cats who need his skilled paws
So Moth Flight has always been a bit detached from people. I want her to actually have ADHD this time around, instead of it vanishing when it isn't convenient.
She kind of has Military Base Kid energy, hopping place to place with unresolved mental health issues. She probably bites ppl because I love weird girls
"papas can i bring my leeches" "honey no"
Cloud really wanted to train her to be a Medic the way he is, but... she has to learn how to do it her own way.
Branch doesn't help he's a goof and mostly interested in playing games with his baby.
I want to portray Branch as someone who's flighty, not another example of "before the Tribe cats came we were uncivilized heathens without society"
I also don't like his original narrative purpose to give Wind Runner trust issues that don't matter. If she had trust issues, what exactly was all that "please let me join ur group" about??
BB!Wind Runner is a breakaway from the River Kingdom, and the leader of the loosely united Moor cats. She created the Wind Coalition and is its intense, notoriously ruthless leader
So something eventually calls Cloud to do his work for the Wind Coalition
Branch: *SWEATS*
Cloud Flight: "..............branch. what did you Do"
Branch: "youre not allowed to be mad at me"
Cloud Flight: "tell me what you did and then we'll see if im mad at you"
The take might be controversial, but I do like the way that Windstar has problems with Moth Flight for no reason. I wanted to preserve it while removing it being yet another case of motherly child neglect, and more of a case of Wind Runner holding unfair grudges. I think it's good drama
Moth Flight's love of nature, herbs, and the natural world eventually prompts her to follow a Hairstreak Butterfly to the Moonstone. It leads her through the winding tunnels, a path that only Clerics will know how to navigate in the future, to the shimmering chamber in the middle.
Through her special connection to StarClan, drawing off the early cultural view of their ancestors as nature spirits (the fact that they are star spirits is a Park Cat contribution and all 5 leaders have their lives by this point), Moth Flight is able to come into her own as a holy speaker and healer. She begins to blur the line between holiness and healing, marked by how Clanmew has only one word for both concepts.
Hairstreak Butterflies also become known as a "herald" type of butterfly. I could get into the linguistics of this, but the old Tribemew word for moth/butterfly becomes the Clanmew word for sacred butterflies.
Micah is not supremely important anymore, but he's there. He doesn't become a healer in MFV, he's just Moth's mate.
But things begin to go wrong when her kittens are born.
All four children are born with a high connection to StarClan, just like their mother.
She takes it on herself to train them, as Cloud Flight had done with her, wiser from understanding that they would learn in their own ways.
Dapple and Cloud Flight never have this connection to star spirits, and they're growing old. Cloud is ready to retire, Dapple dies in some way before she's able to train a replacement
It begins to cause panic in the groups. It was bad with only two healers, but now everything is stretched even thinner.
SkyClan, notoriously violent, is the first to make the move. Skystar was not above the practice of Kit Stealing, taking Misty's kittens and giving them to Petal Claw for her loyalty ages ago.
Kit Stealing wouldn't become common until the creation of the Law of Loyalty, which is only a few years away, but it did exist before then.
They want a Mothkin kitten.
The Wind Coalition, of course, moves to fight and protect them. They call on ThunderClan, who can usually be relied upon
ThunderClan's request... they also want a Mothkin kitten. They need doctors too.
The River Kingdom and ShadowClan are also moving to take a kitten
EVERYONE needs a doctor, and they will fight and kill to get one. They all begin to realize... if they don't separate, there will be blood. People they love will die, and they'll be ripped apart anyway
Moth Flight, seeing this, BURNING with sorrow and fury at the violence of the Clans but knowing there is no other option, tells her children to make her a promise.
"That there will be no Mothkin after you. That you will never take a mate, or give your kidnappers more children. That you will remember that they were willing to kill their own families to steal you, and that you will be loyal the pursuit of life, virtue, and your sacred ability to heal above the cruel commands of the treacherous Clans."
Having accepted this, the family calls for an end to the fighting. Each child chooses a Clan to go to, and has their name changed.
ThunderClan: Spider Flight -> Spider Flight (no change)
SkyClan: Honey Flight -> Honey Pelt
RiverClan: Bubble Flight -> Bubbling Stream
ShadowClan: Blue Flight -> Blue Whisker
They're being shuffled based on which Clan they go to because it always bothered me that their names don't match their Clans, and also Spider Paw going to RiverClan when he has a phobia of water is insulting and I said no
So, TL;DR, this is a completely different story because DOTC is the one arc that I don't value "fixing." It needs a complete overhaul, imo.
This one would take place after Thunderstar's Justice, which immediately follows the First Battle. In terms of timeline, first is Hollyleaf's Century, 30 years later BB!DOTC begins and lasts several years, a few months after the First Battle begins Thunderstar's Justice, and then Moth Flight's Vow follows a year later.
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theoreticallysensible · 8 months
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The Power and Purpose of Strikes
Simone Weil, the philosopher/anarchist/mystic, describing an ideal political future for France after WW2, lamented that trade unions have become primarily concerned with wages. This might seem strange to us now, when even this activity is so contested by conservatives, but Weil saw it as playing too much into the capitalist spirit.
She saw this as just one of trade unions’, and the worst of the lot, because it encourages workers to think about personal monetary gain rather than justice, solidarity, and even their own needs beyond the material. It also risks the union becoming institutionalised through frequent direct interactions with established economic forces. Again, this will sound weird today, given how unions fighting for wages represent one of the few remaining avenues for working class justice, and yeah Weil was a Catholic with strong convictions about the importance of moralism, but I think fundamentally she had higher hopes than we can easily imagine today.
I think a lot of people sense the truth of what she says today - though unfortunately it’s usually conservatives, who would turn back on it immediately if they recognised what it was they were saying. You see it when they say “Why are train drivers striking? Why are writers striking? Why do they think they deserve more than nurses, or posties, or actors?” And of course, the answer is: “They should strike too!” (As some of them now are 🎉). But it’s true that the narrow focus on wages does foster a sort of competitive individualism which can undermine solidarity with other industries. This means that a more revolutionary conception of unions is needed, which is not what these critics have in mind, but it is what Simone Weil has in mind.
What Weil sees in trade unions is the potential for fostering community, freedom of intellectual and spiritual thought, and a degree of independence from capitalism, all of which amount to a greater degree of what she calls ‘rootedness’ - something involving confidence in truth, having material needs met, security in community, and relative freedom (among other things). She saw them as being able to foster solidarity to meet workers’ need for community, free them from the corrupting influence of monetary concerns, and fight for justice as a group. She also hoped that they could provide a space for freedom of thought, to avoid the fetishisation of community she saw in both the French and Russian revolutions.
Trade unions then should not merely concern themselves with accumulating resources, but also with accumulating time and freedom - with the expansion of what Henri Lefebvre called everyday life, the time in which we are free to do what we want and create new types of experiences. When we have enough of it, we can build our own institutions free from capitalist influence which can form the infrastructure for disruptive situations. This can be mutual aid groups, creative projects, intellectual and spiritual communities, and reimaginings of what it means to work, through permablitzing, learning crafts, and starting co-operatives.
The ideal version of this is the general strike. Walter Benjamin described the general strike as a form of divine violence, violence which acts instantaneously, bloodlessly, without coercion. Rather than sort of blackmailing capitalists, as most strikes do, the general strike is (ideally) a complete disengagement with the entire capitalist system. It asks nothing of it, and simply makes it irrelevant by building entirely new social relations in its place. This is not at all feasible with where we are at the moment, but I like to think that it can be used as an inspiration for incorporating more utopian ideas into our more limited actions, all of which are still so radical in this current climate.
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thesensteawitch · 5 months
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Messages From Your Ancestors 🎃🌻💚
🥀Halloween Special
Pick A Pile Reading (Harry Potter Edition 👻⚡)
--------(Left to Right- Pile 1, Pile 2, Pile 3)---------
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Hello, Senstea Souls!
This is a magical reading! Those who respect the dead and feel grateful to be alive are welcome to take this reading. 🪄
Pile 1
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Tarot Cards- Judgement, Five of Pentacles, Ten of Pentacles, The Empress, Queen of Cups, The Emperor, Nine of Pentacles, Ace of Pentacles
Bottom of the deck- Three of Swords
Zodiac signs- Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo, Aquarius
Your House- Gryffindor
Charms- Fairy, Snake, Angel Wing, Pegasus.
Message from Hogwarts
Magic only touches the lives of the people who think out of the box. We love weird wizards. So don't be afraid to bring something new to our door.
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Welcome Pile 1 to the world of ancestors. Apparently, they are all in Hogwarts celebrating Halloween. They are here to give a very special message. They didn't want to visit Hogwarts at first because the idea of it seems nowhere near to the idea of heaven. But they noticed that their following generation is fascinated by the school of wizardry. Sometimes guardians have no choice but to enter into the world of their children. And sometimes they even find it fun. This Halloween your ancestors are asking you to believe in the power of words but do not let illusions or narratives fool you. Try finding the truth with the help of words. They see your thoughts piercing your soul. You have such a sharp mind and such sharpness must be dealt with caution. Keep your hands stable while writing your story. They are telling you that you are brave but don't fool yourself into thinking that bravery is only needed to overcome the challenges. Bravery is also needed to have fun and be playful. You are so fascinated by fantasy. They want you to know that go there and enjoy by all means but don't forget where you belong. Don't forget the real world where you are sent to perform actions, where you are supposed to write your story. Don't forget to come back to the reality. Fantasy is beautiful so take inspiration from it. Manifest enchanting things in your reality. Pile 1 I clearly see that you are creating something, bringing more life into this world. But sometimes it feels too exhausting for you to believe that you are even going to reach your destination. But your ancestors are telling you not to lose hope. You are about to find your answer. You are about to find the hope you've been looking for. But you must not let your inner spark die because only that can take you to your desired places. Very soon you're going to be so blessed pile 1. Abundance is soon to be found. Your cards are so favorable and beautiful. Love, finances, victory, creation everything is coming your way. Just don't be too rigid or serious. Enjoy the flow of life with all its ups and downs. You're soon going to hit your luck! Your ancestors are supporting you and are warning you to not let melancholy dim the light of your joyous heart. You need to change the way you look at the world and the world you look at will change. Your ancestors have a very clear message which says that fulfillment is just around the corner. Do not worry at all. You're soon going to find your home. You just need to click a button in your life that will bring inspiration and spiritual flight. Take care of your health and have faith in your plans. You're about to get showered with so many beautiful blessings. You are going to bear the fruits of your hard work. Much love to you, pile 1.
Book your Halloween Reading only at $10. Click ‘here’ to land on the order form. You can drop a message in my inbox in case of any questions.
Pile 2
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Tarot cards- The Hanged Man, The World, Three of Pentacles, Seven Pentacles, Page of Wands, Eight of Swords, Ace of Cups, Two of Wands
Bottom of the deck- The Magician
Zodiac signs- Aries, Sagittarius, Cancer, Leo
Your House- Slytherin
Charms- Squirrel, Pegasus, Angel Wing, Key
Message from Hogwarts
Do not block the messages we have been sending you. You're being invited to claim your power.
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My dear pile 2 your ancestors have been communicating to you through synchronosities/angel numbers. They are telling you that there is a way out of the situation you think you are stuck in. They have been asking you to come out of the limbo phase. It's like you've tied yourself down within the cage of your thoughts. They have been warning you about someone or something for a very long time. Your ancestors also want you to know that this Halloween they are hosting the party at Hogwarts. And in the middle of all managing all the things they found some time for you to reach out to you. This means that they want you to come out of your comfort zone. They can't see you in pain. They aren't asking you to exhaust yourself in the pursuit of productivity. They want you to have fun too! They are saying that you have a long way to go and are you are giving up so soon. They don't want you to sacrifice to the extent that you lose sight of your destiny and life. You overdoing some things in your life. They are asking you to find balance. Do you remember the golden egg in Harry Potter? The same card came in your reading too. There's a truth that you are not seeing. You need to open your heart to get access to this golden egg and finally hear the beautiful truth that will put you out of the loop you're currently in. Only in the quiet, you can listen to the voice of the divine mother. Spend time near water, it will bring answers to you. Your ancestors are asking you to get comfortable with vulnerability. Tears and heavy chests will bring the weighing answers. The illusion will be washed away from your sight and soon you will see the truth if you allow yourself to get comfortable with some difficult questions. You have the key to get out of this situation. Don't think you're alone. Nothing in your life is a coincidence. There's a divine intervention happening in your life. There's a book they are asking you to read. And I sense it's regarding the situation you are going through. Your ancestors want you to know that your mind has great capabilities. It can manifest things so easily. Use it for your benefit. You are fooling yourself by thinking that you are being patient. It's not patience it's resistance. Perhaps you think that you are not ready yet and that's why you're not seeing any results either. Focus on the solution and not the problem. You will find your way out. You don't need anyone else to complete you. You are a whole person. God bless you, pile 2. May you find your way out of this tough situation!
Book your Halloween Reading only at $10. Click ‘here’ to land on the order form. You can drop a message in my inbox in case of any questions.
Pile 3
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Tarot Cards- Eight of Wands, The Emperor, The High Priestess, Six of Wands, Page of Pentacles, Knight of Cups, Knight of Swords, Temperance
Bottom of the deck- Seven of Cups
Zodiac Signs- Gemini, Libra, Scorpio, Pisces
Your House- Ravenclaw
Charms- Musical note, Dolphin, Eye, Lock
Message from Hogwarts
We want to see what lies at the core of your heart before your marksheets and degrees. We know your speed so we hope that it will take no time for you to walk in with an open heart and quiet mind.
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Your ancestors are quite confused about what to take to the Halloween party at Hogwarts. They have heard a lot about Hogwarts so they don't know what precious gift would fit for such a place. It's their first time attending a Halloween party. But they are trying their best to keep their calm. And in the midst of all this, they are here to convey a message. Your life may be moving too fast lately and you may be asked to make a quick decision. You impulsively may have made a few mistakes too. They want you to take your life like a musical note. No matter how fast or slow the music is, if you resist it you will never be able to flow with it. Dance with the song of life. They are asking you to not take things so seriously. They know that you have a future ahead and it's life we are talking about so how can you not be serious, right? Wrong! That's the point. It's just life it'll be over before you know it. Recall how you started things. With passion and hope. Be a bit naive there's nothing wrong with that. We are all a student in the school of life. You must enjoy it a little. Give gifts this Halloween. Balance your emotions. Life is a mix of pleasant and unpleasant moments. Your ancestors are saying that you're so smart they don't even need to tell you this. After all, you belong to the Ravenclaw house. It's good that you have things planned out but don't let your life be so insignificant to be designed on a sheet of paper. I also see that you are either too emotional at times or too rational. And when you are put off balance you choose to become rigid and like an old man who doesn't smile. Emotions confuse you and you sometimes try to escape them. Thoughts challenge you but being too much in your head makes you lose your wit. It seems that you have your life in balance but you don't. Your logic comes in the way of your intuition. The war between your logic and intuition has left you confused and tired. But your ancestors are giving a wink and asking you to fool your thoughts. Do things with your heart. Trick your mind and treat your heart. Don't let your mind steal the joy out of your life. Use your intellect where it's needed. In the matters of love use your heart. You are singing the wrong note. You are not letting the world see your playful spirit. I hope you find your balance, pile 3. Sending you love and light.
Book your Halloween Reading only at $10. Click ‘here’ to land on the order form. You can drop a message in my inbox in case of any questions.
BELOW IS THE IMAGE OF THE HALLOWEEN READING SPREAD!🌹
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Other Link:
Explore My Rate Card (In case you would like to book some other reading)
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katiifaetarot · 2 months
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Before we start:
Thank you to that anonymous person/message i recieved last night regarding my previous tarot reading blog post, I only recieved one, but boy did it make me feel better about my current path and where i am headed! Thank you for taking the time to send that message, i greatly FKN appreciate it and it gave me confidence and drive to keep going today!! ♡♡
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Hello friends, beings, and starlights! This is my third tarot reading on here and Im new to the tarot community (at least on this specific platform) and would like to help guide, give honest/TRUTHFUL advice, and be a safe space for anyone+everyone who feels safe here! 🧚🏽‍♀️✨️
My goals/intentions are always to help others through my experience, to teach/guide them to work on themselves, and encourage them to find the strength, courage, discipline, and honest wisdom within themselves, without looking for outside validation!
** I AM NOT A MEDICAL OR HEALTH PROFESSIONAL; PLEASE USE YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT AND DISCERNMENT TO DETERMINE IF YOU NEED OR WANT TO SEEK PROPER HELP OR TREATMENTS FOR YOURSELF OUTSIDE OF TUMBLR OR SOCIAL MEDIA!!
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Today's reading is short, simple, sweet, and straight to the point: Messages you need to recieve for the New Month starting today! Feb 1st, 2024 ( sooo its not timeless but also is timeless b/c time is wacky and weird HA )˚ʚ♡ɞ˚
There are 4 piles and you will be picking through your pile's SPECIFIC Oracle Card! (may sound confusing, but basically, you're picking using the word associated with your pile's oracle card for today!!) which is right below this text! Feel free to look at the specific photos for each pile if you feel called too!
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✨️🧚🏽‍♀️please choose your pile and may your intuition and inner knowing guide you to the pile with the energy most suited for you and most suited to help you along your path at this current point in time, no matter what that might sound like🧚🏽‍♀️✨️
PILE 1- Mindful
PILE 2- Soulful
PILE 3- Peace
PILE 4- Balance
** sometimes ( most of the time ) i will pick up on multiple energies that need attention or want to be expressed during the reading so i ASK YOU TO UNDERSTAND THIS DURING THOSE TYPES OF READINGS:
depending on how the reader chooses to look at the situation or however the situation resonates for the reader and because this is a general reading;
⚠️you HAVE to be able to use your better discernment + better judgement skills to fully absorb the message and be able to do the necessary work to keep you on track for the future you WANT for yourself⚠️
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PILE 1: Mindful
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New Month Message(s): FOCUS ON FILLING YOUR DAILY LIFE WITH QUALITY SITUATIONS, FOCUS ON BALANCING OUT YOUR LIFE AND YOUR INTERNAL HEAD SPACE, FOCUS ON CULTIVATING YOUR DESIRED FUTURE!!
Stop paying attention to people,places, or things that no longer matter. This new month is trying to teach you the lesson of mindfulness. Which means stillness.....which also essentially means meditating and not being afraid of silence. Patience.
Sometimes mediating can be standing on your front or back porch for 1-5mins in nature, absorbing what you're grateful for in that particular moment or letting go of someone/something which no longer brings you peace or no longer helps with cultivating healthier habits. ((Take it how it resonates but be aware there are soooo many more examples that could apply here as well, just use YOUR discernment and trust your intuition please!!))
The point is that meditating looks differently for everyone, or maybe the same sometimes!! But regardless, you must find a way to fully tap into the silence that will help you learn patience this month.
And yes this will take mental fortitude and strength on YOUR part to fully absorb + CREATE these moments that help you find balance, rest, MINDFULNESS, resiliency, PATIENCE, etc. But that word create is important here b/c, YOU HAVE TO BE PAYING ATTENTION TO HOW YOU FEEL, WHAT YOU NEED, WHAT YOU WANT, WHAT YOUR BODY NEEDS/WANTS, WHO IS AROUND YOU, etc!!!! to even CREATE a space or CREATE time for yourself that focuses on the practice of mindfulness.
(( some of you have to be willing to admit that you might need some proper rest first before you can even BEGIN a mindfulness routine for yourself that will stick!! ))
YOU have to do the work or else you wont see the changes you want. YOU also have to accept things for how they are now and be willing to see your mistakes and do better.
This month will be huge for you, if you allow yourself to fully feel what needs to be released, start cultivating mindfulness for your future endeavors, and just resting. Just rest and allow yourself to feel the flow of life while also understanding: You are a human, who is doing human things, and living a human expirence; So tap into the hope, strength, and wisdom that comes along with this journey called life.
Also dont be afraid to do things differently!! Maybe you're the trendsetter of the century ;)
This month is all about believing in yourself pile 1, So Just Do It !!!!!!
Things to do OR look into this February:
Yoga or Meditations on YouTube, Going out to classes that focus on Meditation or Yoga in the real world, REIKI, Listening to chakra meditations while you sleep ( specifically getting sacral + solar plexus chakras ), Taking walks in nature to appreciate things around you.
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PILE 2: Soulful
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New Month Message(s): TAP INTO YOUR DEPTH, TAP INTO THE PRIDE YOU FEEL FOR YOURSELF AND HOW FAR YOU'VE COME, TAP INTO YOUR MOST LOVING, AUTHENTIC, RAWEST FORM!
Pile 2, this month is all about being authentic(soulful) WITHOUT FEAR! dont let your fears or doubts hold you back from doing or being what you want/need for yourself right now!
Collaboration could be HUGE this month if you're willing to change how you view yourself, your skills, your abilities, your achievements, your- etc!!! Focusing on building yourself up instead of tearing yourself down will make new possibilities and opportunities happen for you.
Stop doubting and playing the victim! Its time to stand tf up and CELEBRATE YOURSELF!! You have done alot of work and gone through HEAVY situations to get yourself to here and now. So BE FULLY AND TOTALLY proud of yourself for how far you have come and get excited for more!!!
You know life isnt fair to good people sometimes, so why dwell or wallow when you could just as easily Journal about w/e is or was bothering you and let that SHIIIZZZ gooooo!!!
Dont carry unnecessary burdens. Tap into your passion, your drive, YOUR DETERMINATION!! flourish in your authentic and soulful self! Dont be afraid of showing up how you've always wanted to show up in the world! Its okay to be different, cooky, wacky, WEIRD!!! as long as you're happy......who gives a FDDUCK!
CERTAINLY NOT YOU BECAUSE YOU'RE TOO BUSY BEING YOUR WONDERFUL, INSPIRING, RICH IN ABUNDANCE SELLLF TO CARE!!
You're ready to take on life and all its battles, you are a fighter-WARRIOR- and truthfully life only gets tougher, but it also gets easier to deal with once you trust yourself to handle anything that MIGHT come your way by utilizing your skills and abilities for your betterment instead of using your preceptiveness as a way to hurt yourself or tear you down.
Things to do OR look into this February:
journaling, dressing up however you want, going out and expirencing something new, do something you're afraid of doing, sit with your accomplishments and thank yourself for how far you've come but also acknowledge the road to your future in some way.
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PILE 3: Peace
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New Month Message(s): DONT CHASE BUT ATTRACT WHAT YOU DESIRE, FOCUS ON YOUR NEEDS, CULTIVATING EMOTIONAL BOUNDARIES // BETTER BOUNDARIES IN GENERAL!!
Pile3, you're so soft, nurturing, kind, gentle, nice, and so many more wonderful words but you're also stubborn(>_<)
Its not about the outside, its about the inside. Refocusing your attention on what you NEED to calm your mind and what you NEED to balance out your dreams with your reality, etc.....will do wonders for manifestations coming in or out!
You're beautiful pile 3, and this month is asking you to focus on yourself before going out and trying to fit new people in your life. Focus on the ones you have now that give you care, attention, and love in healthy ways********* while also getting rid of people that dont respect you or deserve your kind and compassionate energy.
This month is about Tapping into your emotions and understanding that EXPRESSING your emotions will ultimately bring you closer to what you desire....but you have to forget about what you want. Focus on what YOU NEEEEEEEED!!!!!
Dont chase, Attract means believing that what you want(deserve) wont pass you by, and the more you enjoy your own company and get to know yourself deeper, the more you can appreciate things around you and maybe even find that SP or New Job or NEW ANYTHING!!
save yourself for the correct people, but first you must do the necessary work inside yourself to even trust yourself enough to show up infront of the correct people authentically and unapologetically too.
work on maintaining and setting the healthy/proper boundaries within yourself to help you express any or ALL boundaries you will have with other people later in life! Dont be afraid, use your voice! If someones reaction is less then pleasant when enforcing a boundary......leave. They dont appreciate or respect you.
Seriously get rid of any negative self talk or negative people/energies in your life! Stay calm and present as you navigate who needs to go and what in your mind also needs to go.
Things to do OR look into this February:
feeling your raw emotions without shame, saving money, shifting perspectives, taking self-care days seriously, more YOU TIME! setting and maintaining boundaries, releasing the anger, sadness, hurt, or all of the PAST IN GENERAL!! Forgiveness is key--either towards yourself or someone else.
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PILE 4: Balance
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New Month Message(s): BALANCE YOUR MIND TO BALANCE YOUR SURROUNDINGS, HEART NEEDS SOME HEALING, HERMIT MODE NEEDS TO BE ACTIVATED SO YOU CAN FOCUS ON YOURSELF WITHOUT DISTRACTION!!
okaaayy pile 4 :(, im.sorry for any loss or heartbreak you may have suffered recently or in the past that still affects you and your mental state.
But its time to move on. Maybe not forgive, just yet, but a release needs to happen so you can fully enjoy your life again.....or even just enjoy YOUR energy again.
This will require a hard stop and HARD look into what is causing imbalances in your daily life. Continuing to walk away from old cycles, patterns, ways of being, ways of doing, comfortability that keeps your complacent, fears, doubts, etc. Will ultimately help you keep a balanced mind and calm demeanor too.
Allow the hurt to wash over you first, of course....but your self care this month is fundamentally about bringing back balance to your life that has grown overcrowded with too many commitments and responsibilities.
Which is why You NEED to take either a mini hermit mode ( if you can//when you can ) or a HUGE HERMIT MODE!!! so that the hermit mode will afford you with opportunities to get rid of what no longer needs to be bothering you and help you focus on what NEEDS your attention.
Feeling suspended or stuck right now might make you feel uncomfortable, but working through the uncomfortableness to ultimately get yourself to movement on the other side will be so worth the lonely nights and harder ones too. Once again, i am truly sorry but i also believe you can get through this too!
Things to do OR look into this February:
reading that book you have, reading a completely new book, try a new recipe!, make space for quiet time for yourself, look into those projects you've been wanting to make progress in, making time and putting effort in yourself!
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I sincerely hope you received what you needed and released what you don't !! See you again soon!! Take it easyyy and just breathe and fllooowwww!!! you got this! byyeee~🧚🏽‍♀️✨️
**please let me know how I'm doing in any way you can! that is the easiest way to support me and also a good way to signal to me that I should keep going + any helpful advice from the community would be welcomed and appreciated 🥺 🥹 🙏🏼
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⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️
**ONCE AGAIN, I AM NOT A MEDICAL OR HEALTH PROFESSIONAL; PLEASE USE YOUR OWN JUDGEMENT AND DISCERNMENT TO DETERMINE IF YOU NEED OR WANT TO SEEK PROPER HELP OR TREATMENTS FOR YOURSELF OUTSIDE OF TUMBLR OR SOCIAL MEDIA!!
⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️
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lemonzestywrites · 28 days
Text
writing patterns
tagged by @jeeyuns @devirnis ty lovelies!!
rules: list the first line(s) of your last 10 posted fics and see if there's a pattern!
a foundation of trust a love we cannot see
| buck/eddie, WIP, explicit, BDSM, slow burn, fwb (3/17 ch. 61k) |
Weird calls aren’t unusual in their field. That’s a simple given with their job- one that Eddie has definitely come to learn by now.
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let me find some warmth inside this little love of mine
| buck/eddie, teen, new year’s eve, first kiss, mutual pining (4k) |
Loud and Eddie are two things that usually have a record of not mixing well. Eddie can deal with chaotic. He can deal with crazy and hectic and adrenaline seizing his body during every call.
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the last shred of truth in the lost myth of true love
| buck/eddie, explicit, introspection, fwb, getting together (25k) |
Eddie wants to be supportive about this; really, he does.
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the place in my heart that used to be yours
| buck/eddie, general, angst, bedside vigils, feelings realization (1.9k) |
It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.
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temptation comes from wants we cannot yet claim
| buck/eddie, teen, angst, coma, getting together, dream (8k) |
There’s a soft feeling that gradually, from the depths of Eddie’s chest, finds itself being emerged as he’s eased awake. The slumber makes its way out of his body in a slow, methodical pull. It makes no rush to leave, allowing Eddie to enjoy the gentle serenity that the early morning still has to offer.
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our sweet love (built on the unspoken things)
| buck/eddie, 5+1, getting together, mutual pining, non-sexual intimacy (8k) |
Eddie isn’t really sure he could really classify himself as a coffee person.
===
five more minutes
| buck/eddie, established relationship, snuggle, morning cuddles (2k) |
Eddie really wishes he could learn how to properly sleep in. To lie in bed, asleep without a care on a weekend like this, and wake up sometime past 9 o’clock. To him, ‘sleeping in’ has always been whenever he finds himself the luxury of having to wake up anytime past 5:45 am, but today, like most days, his inner body clock works against him. Even without his alarm, Eddie found himself easing out of slumber, the world around him growing more present and alert as the sleep rolled off his shoulders.
===
jadeite hearts could never cost this much
| buck/eddie, first kiss, sharing a bed, non-sexual intimacy (6k) |
If Eddie is being completely honest with himself, he has definitely thought about kissing Buck a couple of times before (maybe more than a couple if he’s being generous). He can’t exactly pinpoint when he started doing it; there’s no definitive moment that set it all off. Just one day, he had found himself staring off at Buck’s lips, transfixed on a phantom feeling that he could only dream to experience. His mind drifted, wondering what it would feel like, how soft Buck’s lips would be, where exactly he’d place his hands. It had taken an embarrassing couple of minutes before he had caught himself, only then realizing the severity of the situation and what that meant.
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t-rex kisses
| buck/eddie, established relationship, late night conversations, non sexual intimacy (1.7k) |
Buck loves his job. Undeniably so. It’s probably one of, if not the best, things that’s ever happened to him, and he could never imagine life without it. It’s brought him so many amazing things in his life now: belonging, safety, love, a place to call home, people to call family, and in recent developments- the newfound love of his life.
===
exactly what you were looking for
| buck/eddie, domestic fluff, established relationship, marriage proposal (3k) |
Eddie is 6 years old, sitting in Adriana’s room, watching as his older sister plays with her Barbies without a care in the world, when in the smallest, most curious voice, he asks, “How do you know when you’ve found your true love?”
===
it’s super interesting to see my little habits all laid out like this! obviously i might have a preference on pov 😅 but i love doing little character introspections or even just random little factoids i later dive into- this is very fun!!
tagging- @eddiebabygirldiaz @hippolotamus @kitteneddiediaz @aroeddiediaz @wildlife4life and anyone else interested!!
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rainbow-0bsidian · 6 months
Text
Alex:
I can’t match you for prose, but what I can do is write you a list. AN INCOMPLETE LIST: THINGS I LOVE ABOUT HRH PRINCE HENRY OF WALES 1. The sound of your laugh when I piss you off. 2. The way you smell underneath your fancy cologne, like clean linens but somehow also fresh grass (what kind of magic is this?). 3. That thing you do where you stick out your chin to try to look tough. 4. How your hands look when you play piano. 5. All the things I understand about myself now because of you. 6. How you think Return of the Jedi is the best Star Wars (wrong) because deep down you’re a gigantic, sappy, embarrassing romantic who just wants the happily ever a\er. 7. Your ability to recite Keats. 8. Your ability to recite Bernadette’s “Don’t let it drag you down” monologue from Priscilla, Queen of the Desert 9. How hard you try. 10. How hard you’ve always tried. 11. How determined you are to keep trying. 12. That when your shoulders cover mine, nothing else in the entire stupid world matters. 13. The goddamn issue of Le Monde you brought back to London with you and kept and have on your nightstand (yes, I saw it). 14. The way you look when you first wake up. 15. Your shoulder-to-waist ratio. 16. Your huge, generous, ridiculous, indestructible heart. 17. Your equally huge dick. 18. The face you just made when you read that last one. 19. The way you look when you first wake up (I know I already said this, but I really, really love it). 20. The fact that you loved me all along.
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Also Alex:
there's this thing you do. this thing. it drives me crazy. i think about it all the time. there's a corner of your mouth, and a place that it goes. pinched and worried like you're afraid you're forgetting something. i used to hate it. used to think it was your little tic of disapproval. but i've kissed your mouth, that corner, that place it goes, so many times now. i've memorized it. topography on the map of you, a world i'm still charting. i know it. i added it to the key. here: inches to miles. i can multiply it out, read your latitude and longitude. recite your coordinates like la rosaria. this thing, your mouth, its place. it's what you do when you're trying not to give yourself away. not in the way that you do all the time, those empty, greedy grabs for you. i mean the truth of you. the weird, perfect shape of your heart. the one on the outside of your chest. on the map of you, my fingers can always find the green hills, wales. cool waters and ashore of white chalk. the ancient part of you carved out of stone in a prayerful circle, sacrosanct. your spine's a ridge i'd die climbing. if i could spread it out on my desk, i'd find the corner of your mouth where it pinches with my fingers, and i'd smooth it away and you'd be marked with the names of saints like all the old maps. i get the nomenclature now-saints' names belong to miracles. give yourself away sometimes, sweetheart. there's so much of you.
-Red, White & Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston
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star-anise · 2 years
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give me a lever and a place to stand
50 years ago: Dr. John Fryer, in perhaps the most courageous and definitely the most consequential act of his life, sat down in a hotel conference room, looking like a clown in a rubber mask and curly wig. Every part of him was covered. He was terrified.
“I am a homosexual,” he said. “I am a psychiatrist.”
The New York Times covered the anniversary of his speech today. I believe we all should honour him. His willingness to speak the truth when it could have ruined his life (again) changed the world.
Dr. Fryer only spoke up because he knew that time, at that place, could have made a difference. He knew the American Psychiatric Association had a dusty little committee that oversaw the list of diagnoses and disorders the profession used, and the new committee chairman was fiercely committed to science. He was willing to overturn old Freudian dogmas if the empirical evidence said that homosexuals were not actually the disordered, perverted fiends psychiatry thought they were.
There is so much wrong with the world. It is natural to feel frenzied with the desire to set all of it right, everywhere. It is also natural to feel overwhelmed and powerless, because almost none of us possess the power to make changes on a scale equal to what's wrong.
Two years before Dr. Fryer's speech, gay and lesbian protestors picketed the APA's general meeting. They stormed into conference panels, demanding that the APA take homosexuality off their list of mental disorders. It was a miserable failure. These midcentury Freudian psychiatrists naturally considered themselves as a cut above the unenlightened mass of common society; this ✨destructive and antisocial✨behaviour just proved that gays and lesbians had something wrong with them. Even members of the GayPA, the unofficial association of homosexual psychiatrists, disapproved of their behaviour.
So one of the activists, Barbara Gittings, realized they needed to switch tactics. If psychiatrists would only listen to another psychiatrist, they needed an inside man. So she campaigned relentlessly among the GayPA, asking psychiatrist after psychiatrist to put their reputations, careers, and medical licenses on the line to speak up for them. Doctor after doctor turned her down. No wonder; at the time, "sodomy", meaning almost any non-PIV sex, was still a crime in 42 states. Who would put themselves out there like that?
Hence Dr. Fryer's disguise. Hence his subsequent retreat from public gay activism. The following year, he lost another job for being too obviously gay. He dedicated the rest of his career to geriatric psychiatry, focusing on the spiritual and emotional needs of the dying and the bereaved they left in their wake. He threw large and fabulous parties, but always felt himself to be on the fringes of the LGBT movement. Only at the end of his life did people begin to realize just how profound his weird, secretive, clown-suited moment had been in their history. It doesn't seem to have brought him much peace or healing, after a lifetime of silence and oppression.
We're taught all these triumphant narratives where someone is the hero of a movement; when they are tirelessly committed to a goal and get to celebrate its accomplishment. When there is something wrong in the world, we're given images of being pivotal to its solution. There's almost an element of self-punishment; if we are not constantly anguished about something, if we do not constantly push beyond our own limits, are we really trying?
And consequently as a society we ignore or downplay the work that gets shit done. Not a heroic narrative, but someone stepping up once during a life where they have very little spare time or energy for activism. Not a complete change, but the small push of one tiny decision that looks like it might be important. Not halting a war halfway across the world, but showing up to the boring committee meeting you get invited to every year, and speaking for ten minutes.
And then years of friends, of renting rooms to med students to stay financially afloat, of providing what comfort and kindness you can to people you can't really help at all. It is hard sometimes to understand how much it matters to be humane and decent to the world around you, but it's easier to imagine when you think about the world around you being humane and decent to you.
I'm not saying we should stop watching the news or stop caring about events we cannot control. I am saying that we need to feed our own capacities to be loving and courageous and thoughtful—to survive, and do more than survive—and then we need to see what opportunities to change things are within our grasp, and what we would need to feel able to take part.
It's possible the decisions we can actually influence will in the end be meaningless. But then again, it's possible they won't be.
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hearts4ggy · 25 days
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Why do you think Helluva Boss is better, in terms of writing?
OOOH i have a LOT to say about this.
I think it's a lot less rushed. it FEELS a lot less rushed. And thats not saying its all perfect, it went pretty fast too, but not as fast as hazbin.
For example, hazbin had this big deadline and they had to fit in angels arc, the carmilla/vaggie situation, the heaven stuff, AND charlies shit with her dad. So despite it being a comedy, they had to stuff a LOT of things together, which means theres less chance for filler which means it gets rushed. (bc honestly, it feels less like a comedy and more like an edgy teen humor show BECAUSE they're stuffing the comedy in while rushing to get all the important lore bits in)
so helluva boss feels more like a comedy. they have serious moments, but it leaves space for jokes and humor that dont feel out of place (for example, in the hh finale they kept making jokes that rlly didnt fit? like charlie profusely apologizing to angels who are slaughtering her people? or when pentious died and it was a joke but we were supposed to take it seriously???)
helluva boss has episodes with less emotional baggage in them, like the pilot, murder family, spring broken, and CHERUB, and the harvest moon festival, all in season one. and while they do HAVE emotional moments, theyre not super heavy. then you have episodes that feel like a mix, like truth seekers and loo loo land. and then you have heavy episodes like ozzie's and queen bee. its much more balanced (and im focusing on s1 of hb bc its unfair to pit a two season show against a one season show.)
also also also, and this is smth i complain about a lot, Hazbin Hotel is OBSESSED with making their characters as likeable as possible. unfortunately this falls on characters who DONT DESERVE IT. Like angel dust. When he harassed husk, it was supposed to be humor and funny and whatever, but when husk snapped at him, he was the bad guy suddenly. and angel still never apologized. and im not saying hb doesnt have that issue (ESPECIALLY with stolas) but i think its handled better.
blitzo is a good example. i have complaints about the circus situation, but in the end hes still not a good guy, excuse or not. he's rude, he's nosy, he's dismissive. he hunts his sister down despite her making it very clear she doesnt wanna see him. and he brushes off stolas and even uses him under the guise of a sweet date. in general, blitzo is just waaay better handled than angel dust is.
i also like the villains more? theyre not made out to be a joke as much as the villians in hazbin (per my earlier statement about all the humor being stuffed in) crimson is made to be genuinely intimidating, striker, while mocked a lot, is still a very serious villain, mammon is a big joke on purpose, and it makes sense! and then other antagonists (verosika, one and two, ect) are made out to be funny because theyre NOT big villains, they're just bitches who have beef with imp. the worst villain in hb is, of course, the one woman, stella. but thats a conversation for another ask.
meanwhile the hazbin villains are sooo dumbed down. our most serious villain was lute. adam was a huge joke and relatively annoying at times? like most of what he did was watered down by bad jokes (like killing pentious??? ppl seem to forget adam beat alastor without even tearing his clothes and its because everytime hes on screen theres a terrible joke about to be made) and the vees are just??? eh??? i dont have a TON of complaints about velvette aside from how little she actually did to the point where she hardly feels like a villain? shes moreso just annoying. and then vox hypnotizes people and hes like. evil ceo type shit but thats overshadowed by his crazy ass beef with alastor because again, he didnt do much else. and then val had that stupid scene with vox that i hate so so so so much. hes made out to be funny when he SHOULDNT BE!!! They dont take val's character seriously its weird. ick. and also we didnt have many villains to even go off of? helluva boss gave us lots of characters to work with in season one, and all of them are unique in some way, and had time to shine and will have more time to shine later because the story isnt rushing. hazbin INSISTED on concluding this arc in one season when it really shouldn't have. they didnt have the time to do it, and they tried anyway. helluva boss is better because they gave it TIME. striker is introduced in season one and we KNOW he'll come back because he got away! and he does! and hes great because they gave him TIME to be there and be gone and be there and be gone.
and now he's our most recurring villain. and i think hes awesome. crimson didnt actually have a lot of time to vanish and come back, but hes also new so its a bit different. and he had two episodes in between showing up and disappearing, and the second one had more focus on striker anyways.
i think that while hazbin is a 4/10 for me (5 if im being generous), helluva boss is a 6 or 7/10. the worst part about the helluva boss writing is stolas's family and how the women are written tbh.
tldr: helluva boss is better paced and the characters are better, and hazbin hotel is too rushed and forces these characters onto you
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hon3ymo0n · 8 months
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With every passing day, i lose more faith in humanity. The truth these days depends on majority and not actual events that happened. With all the mess today on twitter, seeing taekookers clearly manipulating the truth to fit their twisted narratives and Armys eating that shit up and implying that Jk is a liar broke my heart. Atp, the words that come out of these boys’ mouths don’t mean shit cuz pple will always find a way to twist it to fit their narratives. Why am I surprised? This same fandom twisted Taehyung’s words years ago when he clearly asked pple to stop. Today Jk diplomatically shut Taekook down and many fans know this, but everyone is back to ignoring him cuz Tae showed up to support his friend. I dunno but at this rate, there is no hope for this fandom.
Hi anon😙
I feel you. I feel what you’re saying. I personally don’t like to talk about taekookers on here, expecially when they’ve already been debunked by a lot of events. And by both men involved in the ship.
Giving them attention seems wrong to me, since my job as a supporter is supporting Jikook, calling them out when I think they’re doing wrong, and defending them when they actually need me to do it.
Not to go against Taekookers or tell them they’re embarassing themselves all the time. This Taekook thing finally came to an end, so their words look like prisoners screaming their innocence.
None will listen to them.
Anyways, I am sorry for Jungkook. I actually am, because he rarely shows the side of himself which is hurt or pissed off by armys. He’s usually polite and educated, with a respectful tone and respectful language even when anyone else would just go like “what the fuck is wrong with y’all?”
Even when he’s drunk or dizzy, there’s that thin veil of holding back. So when he asks armys to respect him as a human, because they’ve been treating him otherwise, he’ll finish the sentence with a “armys are human too, so they’ll understand”. He was NEVER rude. Ever.
He’s a public figure and a singer as he said, so he could not do it, but he wouldn’t anyways. Because he knows how to defend himself or distance himself from this shit, without wasting any bit of his anger. The day this man will go insane and lose his patience I’ll agree with you and I’ll actually believe there’s no redemption for our fandom.
Jungkook had a couple of lives where he did. Where he respectfully shut those mouths up. The scheduled one, after the pre-record, where he clearly told us that he’s not going to live together with Tae, and asking that was weird; he put himself on ARMY’s level, saying that he knows as much as we know about Tae’s current location📍; he told them there’s no karaoke or live in program for him and his bandmate, and his face was clearly asking Taekookers “where did you hear this bs?”
I could point out the huge difference between what I mentioned above and his reaction to Jimin’s comments or the way he talks about Jimin in general, but we’d get lost. And I don’t need to do it in order to prove my point on Taekookers.
As I was saying, he had a couple of lives. And the second one is the short live waiting for the washingmashine to end its cycle. Kanmom has great posts about both and I really appreciate her effort and diligence. I agree with her on this: JK went live on that day also to tell us that calling him “liar” was out of place. Completely.
He explained that Tae’s visit was a surprise. He cleared things out, he said that him and the company monitor EVERYTHING and always know ARMY’s opinions and what they share here and there. As I said, these men always keep an eye on us.
So Jungkook was not that much affected by Taekookers’ manipulative narrative, or their twisted thruts, because more than telling them the truth and wishing for them to get it, there’s nothing else he can do.
And when there are things you can’t control, you just let them go. It’s not being indifferent, it’s self respect. Self love. This, or going completely crazy.
Again, what I think we can do is letting them wriggle like a fidget spinner. Facts over words. Whatever they say or tweet or post or assume, is already gone as soon as they think of it. Our interventions will be surely needed, but only when things will get out of hand. It made me mad and frustrated at first, but now it just makes me laugh. People purposely struggling with words and text comprehension makes me laugh.
A huge part of the fandom is good and kind and talented and respectful and so much more. This rotten part should not infect it. Let’s enjoy the enjoyable in Chapter 2, and those of us who will make it are probably gonna be pro-players, by the end of 2025.
I truly feel you anon🫤. But we need to keep pushing.
Thank you for sharing💜
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starlene · 8 months
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Layers of symbolism in Barbie (2023)
I’ve seen Barbie twice now, and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the symbolism in the story. It’s a lot!
So, I wrote a breakdown.
Barbie (the character)’s story
In Barbie’s story…
👠 Barbieland symbolizes girlhood, childhood, innocence, immaturity, and naivety.
👟 The Real World symbolizes womanhood, adulthood, growing older and more mature, and becoming a fully realized human. It also symbolizes accepting the inevitability of change, aging, and death.
🏢 Mattel symbolizes society in general, and men in particular, telling women how to live their lives.
✂ Weird Barbie is an example of a woman who does not look and do as she is told. For that, other Barbies have punished her by calling her names and pushing her aside – so at first, Barbie is terrified of becoming like her. At the same time, Weird Barbie is a wise female mentor who helps Barbie along on her journey.
→ For Barbie, moving to The Real World means she is free of the expectations Mattel, and people in general, put on Barbie dolls: she doesn’t have to be perfect or only dress in pink and pastels anymore. No one can put her into a box anymore.
→ At the same time, Barbie leaving her hyper-feminine aesthetic behind when she leaves Barbieland for good symbolically connects that aesthetic with childhood and immaturity. In turn, her more subdued costume in the last scene of the movie symbolically connects that aesthetic to adulthood and maturity.
→ Moving to The Real World is a positive change for Barbie: she becomes more mature and learns to appreciate the beauty in aging. However, I think it’s noteworthy how the movie mostly shows The Real World in a negative light: while in The Real World, Barbie gets disappointed, harassed, and chased down, and all of this makes her experience anxiety for the first time.
→ In the end, Barbie can’t stay in Barbieland because she’s grown too mature for it, showing that it’s impossible to escape growing up – even when the world of grown-ups seems very chaotic and unfair. Becoming a woman means you have to encounter, and learn to deal with, toxic masculinity and the patriarchy.
Ken (the character)’s story
In Ken’s story…
🕺 Ken himself symbolizes a young, immature man who hasn’t found his place within society and who has a very low self-confidence. Instead of placing value on himself and his inherent qualities, he has tied his whole sense of self-worth to Barbie’s approval. As a group, Kens are oppressed within Barbieland.
💃 Barbie symbolizes an idealized image of a perfect girlfriend. At the same time, she is someone who inadvertently hurts Ken because she doesn’t understand her own privileged position within their society. As a group, Barbies are the oppressors within Barbieland.
👠 Barbieland symbolizes oppression, marginalization, and social exclusion. For Ken, it’s a society that has no place for him or people like him.
👟 The Real World symbolizes patriarchy, which Ken interprets to mean a society where things are better for Kens than they are in Barbieland. (In truth, as Ken grows to learn, it’s a system that harms all genders with its strict and oppressive gender roles.)
🐎 Horses symbolize all the positive, joyous, healthy, harmless, non-toxic parts of masculinity.
→ In short, Ken’s story is about a young man falling into the manosphere, and how good self-confidence and supportive connections with other men can help battle toxic masculinity.
→ Just like Barbie, Ken too matures during the course of his character arc: he acknowledges that he’s been wrong about the patriarchy, he starts to feel a sense of self-worth that’s not tied to Barbie, and he learns to lean on other Kens for support.
→ Unlike Barbie, though, Ken remains in Barbieland at the end of the movie, and presumably starts working together with other Kens and Barbies to shape it into a more equal society. This is because to Ken, Barbieland does not symbolize childhood like it does to Barbie, so he doesn’t have to leave it behind when he grows up.
→ When you think about Barbie as a part of Ken’s story, it feels disappointing that when they arrive in The Real World and Barbie experiences the way real women are mistreated, she doesn’t seem to make much of a connection to the way Barbies mistreat Kens in Barbieland. This is, again, because The Real World symbolizes different things to Barbie and Ken.
→ Unfortunately, all too often, the joyous parts of masculinity become tied together with sexism and toxic ideas. The way horses are often seen as a girly thing in our modern-day culture underlines how ridiculous this is: Ken assumes horses and the patriarchy go together and gets into both, though actually, they have nothing to do with each other. In reality, Ken just wants to enjoy the majesty of horses – that is, the positive parts of his own masculinity.
Barbie <3 Ken
👫 The relationship between Barbie and Ken symbolizes heteronormativity and amatonormativity, and the way those concepts are forced down all our throats practically from toddlerhood.
→ Barbie and Ken are not in a real relationship with each other. At the start of the movie, they’re both too immature to understand what being in a relationship means – let alone if they really want that for themselves and each other.
→ Ken is in love with an idealized image of Barbie he has created in his mind. He tries to play the part of a perfect boyfriend, though he doesn’t really know or understand what being a boyfriend entails.
→ Barbie, in turn, is not romantically interested in Ken at all.
→ Despite all this, people (and even Barbie and Ken themselves) expect Barbie and Ken to be together. Notably, the Mattel CEO thinks that Barbie’s ending is that she is in love with Ken, even though there has been literally no evidence in the entire movie that this is the case.
From a female point of view
To the human characters Gloria and Sasha, and also to many real women watching the movie…
👭 Barbies symbolize idealized, stereotypical, perfect femininity.
👠 Barbieland symbolizes girlhood, childhood, imagination, and fun. It’s a thought experiment; a safe haven reminiscent of the innocence of childhood; a place where women can be whatever they want while looking and acting unashamedly feminine.
👟 The Real World is a place where the idealized femininity of Barbies and Barbieland is unobtainable. For many women, instead of being a source of inspiration, idealized depictions of womanhood turn into a burden, something that restricts and disheartens women instead of uplifting them.
Barbieland
👠 Apart from its role in the arcs of individual characters, Barbieland is an exaggerated mirror image of the real world we live in. It’s a joke that criticizes the gender inequality of our world – and as such, it acknowledges that one gender holding power over others is not a good thing.
→ Somewhat confusingly, it’s treated as a victory when Barbies take Barbieland back from Kens – even though that means returning to the unequal matriarchy, not becoming a truly equal society.
→ This is because in Barbie (the character)’s story and to Gloria and Sasha, instead of being a symbol of an unequal society, Barbieland symbolizes girlhood innocence and unabashed femininity. The Barbies, Gloria and Sasha take the joy they feel in their girlhood and femininity back from the patriarchy, which is certainly a feat worth celebrating!
Mattel (the fictional version of the company)
Finally, from the fictional Mattel board of directors’ point of view…
👠 Barbieland is a reflection of their Barbie brand and products, though it’s also shaped by the people who buy Barbies and play with them.
👭 Barbies are a way of making money. Because of that, the executives think they have to be perfectly beautiful and, thus, marketable. Notably, the Mattel CEO doesn’t like Gloria’s idea of a Normal Barbie – until he’s shown evidence that it will make Mattel loads of money, which causes him to immediately change his mind.
✂ Weird Barbie shows the way many children really play with Barbies. Rough play is not in line with Mattel’s pristine brand for Barbie, so Weird Barbie is pushed aside in Barbieland.
→ Barbieland is the way that it is partially because that’s how Mattel has designed it, partially because that’s how the girls who play with Barbies want it. For example, Kens are oppressed because no one likes to play with Kens as much as they like playing with Barbies, and thus, Mattel also puts less resources in designing and marketing them.
→ Somewhat confusingly, this connection goes both ways: the things that happen in Barbieland also affect the things that Mattel does. For example, when Ken redecorates Barbie’s Dreamhouse so it becomes Ken’s Mojo Dojo Casa House, Mattel’s factory starts producing Mojo Dojo Casa Houses in The Real World. What is that all about??
~
This is all I can think of right now. Let me know if you’ve interpreted something differently, or if you think I’ve missed something!
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cowboypossume · 3 months
Text
Hailey Banks is autistic
not just because i am too and i relate to her
1. The first episode we LITERALLY get the whole "I'm adverse to new experiences so I just write them down instead!". To the nth degree too /pos. That's what causes the whole series to begin
a big Thing of autism is need for a routine -or at least an idea of what to expect- to the point changes to the plan can result in meltdowns or flat out avoidance (as we see with Hailey).
with the world ending, she starts to embrace the changes, but still doesn't necessarily Like all the new things.
i could be reading to much into it, but in the theme song we get things like "make a candle with my own ear wax???" and "eat an onion :/" where we see this aversion to not only trying but actually DOING new things, too. this is continued at several points in the show, too. she flat out says "i don't want to do that right now; let's find a different list item" NUMEROUS times. several of those scenes do come from her feelings for scott, sure, but i think that proves my point?
friendship for neurodivergent people is ,, complicated (we'll get there) so right now hailey has this steady, predicable pattern with her best friend. she doesn't want to ruin that, and thus we fall back into the "i don't want things to change" part of autism
2. Hailey and birds
special interests are a bit complicated, and this isn't the place to explain it, but in short its basically a Really Strong interest in something. it occurs to everyone, but people with autism are more likely to experience either stronger or more frequent :)
birds are DEFINITELY a special interest for hailey!
- half of her list items INVOLVE birds and thus almost every episode has some sort of a something with birds (frank, the red owl, petey, etc) - she has a party and the way she wants to have fun is build birdhouses with her peers - she adopts a flamingo. like. - her little birdhouse collection <33333
there's more but it's just silly and i love frank and petey so much and-
3. she has a really hard time understanding how to relate to her peers socially
ok, again there are so many better researched things than this so this is a BRIEF summary, but: autistic people just process the world differently. a lot of social cues go over their head because the world is processed Different.
so having hailey be a bit dense social-wise is so nice to see. especially because none of the characters penalize her or mock her for not getting it. instead they just, talk to her? like people?
examples off the top of my head about the miscommunication are - kristine wanting to have a date with scott and hailey tags along - becker flirts with hailey and hailey is like ":D wow ! what a silly billy !" (the 'i'm more of a ice cream girl if you catch my drift' / 'i still need to use this coupon????') - the rubic's cube episode where hailey doesn't understand scott's needs vrs her own and like ,, how those mesh together - that plotline where hailey admits that she doesn't have that many [female] friends (or any besides scott) because it's always been weird for her - part of what draws her to frank is that she's ALSO been labeled as weird and different, and she doesn't think that's a reason for isolation - at her birthday party she doesnt understand why people aren't having fun. because, for her, this is fun!! - that same said party was immeditaly followed with her admitting "this isn't fun for me; i would like to stop" when it comes to the truth or dare game.
there are a bunch more examples. again, this just for a general idea to show where this idea is coming from
4. [according to the wiki] "Hailey is quite determined for a kid her age"
afab austistic people go underdiagnosed for reasons like this!!!
things that can SO be autisic are marked off as "mature" because a lot of austsim is masking OR traits that appear one way in amab appear differently in afab.
this idea of "determination" can tie into the special interest thing as mentioned before, or why austsic people are often shown as "selfish": because they want something, and don't understand the social repercussion of saying no.
5. as i mentioned, the list thing.
as generally mentioned, autistic people want a semblance of what to expect from something. when they don't get that, those feelings can cope in other ways.
in this show, hailey makes a list.
instead of trying something new, she just thinks 'oh i'll do that later!' and then DOESNT! :3
these are small things and obviously a headcannon, but it means a a lot to mean
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