#i cannot in any form or shape claim to talk about what it is like to live in any part of the northeast

[dailyadventureprompts]

Monsters Reimagined: Asmodeus, Lord of all Hells

I think I know what may be happening....You’re trying to atone me, and I didn’t do anything wrong...You want to know what I’ve always hated about mortals? why I spit on your forgiveness, why I loathe your redemption? To reach a hand down to somebody they need to be beneath you,

And I’m Beneath Nobody.

Brennan Lee Mulligan as Asmodeus for Exandria Unlimited: Calamity

@pikablob​ was asking about my ideas on devils and mentioned Asmodeus in the process, and while I’ve already done a monster’s reimagined on devils, I figured it was a good opportunity to talk about my take on the biggest of big bads. To summarize, I like to go back to the mythological roots of devils less as agents of a universal evil but as individual manifestations of judgment, looking to test or punish mortals for their failings. This ( along with Brennan’s showstopping performance in calamity) gave me the idea of an Asmodeus as the ultimate critic of mortalkind, an entity that can see all of our flaws and nothing of our virtues.

TLDR:  There are many evil gods, wicked things that preside over cruelty and misfortune in all its forms, but there are few that would claim to be the god of evil itself. Though to hear the lord of all hells tell it, there is nothing touched by mortals that is NOT evil: no act that is not in some way rooted in self interest, no moment of self determination that is not a transgression, no soul that is not some way corrupted. To allow the Father of Sin into your heart is to accept that people are fundamentally wicked creatures deserving of punishment, and that punishment cannot come soon enough.

Bio: Ruling from the lowest depths of the pit, Asmodeus sits a throne surveying an empire built on torture and damnation and deems it insufficient. There is evil in the multiverse and that evil is called mortals, things gifted with the tiniest spark of life who every day choose the wickedness of existence. His purpose is  to be the scourge that drives the animal towards the slaughterhouse, to take hold of mortal life and shape it into useful purpose, with the only useful purpose being the ultimate destruction of all wicked things

The hypocracy of being an evil god punishing evil does not for a moment shake Asmodeus. Spirits cannot choose their nature, nor can animals, but mortals which live in the intersection choose to be evil every day, and worse yet, have the capability to choosing evil at any time. In spite of his divine status, and in many ways because of it, Asmodeus is actually incapable of perceiving good in mortals, believing that good intentions or earnest affection are yet more lies and hasty justifications that mortals buffer themselves with to excuse their faults and selfish action. None can then judge the atrocities he commits because none are without sin, even if to find that sin he needs to peel back layers of causality and unconscious feelings to find a thread of wrongdoing. 

To purge the universe of the blight of mortals Asmodeus cultivates power and fear: Power in the form of legions of devils and devoted servants who’s hateful hearts he feeds like a furnace, fear in the form of agents which sow division in mortal hearts and a myriad of private hells filled with infinite forms of torment.

Swear to serve Asmodeus, say his mouthpieces, and you will be spared the infinite torment when the boot on your neck breaks through to your spine, or when his hordes come to put your home to the torch.  Give up on the falsehoods of hope, love, and kindness,  visit punishment on others and you may be rewarded for your service

Behind the scenes: I’ve talked quite a lot about how d&d uses the idea of objective evil as a staple of its worldbuilding, and how in doing so it ends up falling face first into pro genocide rhetoric. In attempting to make badguys that the party is 1000% justified in killing on sight it ends up stumbling into some very fucked up thought experements.    Monsters in vanilla d&d arn’t just evil because they do bad things, but they do bad things because they are inherently evil:  They pillage, they enslave, they despoil, not because these things benefit them ( as it invariably gets them killed by adventurers) but because these acts serve as an outlet for their wicked natures.

If our heroes’ enemies are fundamentally evil, then any action which opposes them must be good, and any pillaging, enslaving, or despoiling the party does can be excused provided the targets belong to the designated ingroup. This is almost identical to the reasoning that was used by crusaders, conquistadors, slave owners, and fascists, and what is now being used by the evangelical to deny people rights and life-saving aid to this day.

What I wanted with Asmodeus was an entity that looked at the party like a group of murderhobos look at an orc: an ugly brutish thing that is only useful in so far as its suffering and death can benefit them.  Maybe it’ll be funny if they make it beg for its life. The party feel they’re justified in this because they know the orc is objectively evil ( because the books said so), just like Asmodeus is justified in plucking the souls from mortals and making them suffer for eternity because he knows, in his flawed omniscience, that they are deserving of it.

Signs: The sounds of tortured souls wailing from below, symbols of power glowing red hot, the manifestations of lesser devils.

Symbols: A five pointed star made of jagged metal, a black throne or crown atop numerous bodies.

#monsters reimagined #asmodeus #fiend #divinity: pain #divinity: death #divinity: punishment #divinity #deity #mid level #high level #villain

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

[Text: Tell me, what do you think of people actually liking the character development in season 4-5 and the show's treatment of mental health? [Redacted] thinks that and she's the mother of a teenager]

Re liking the show: I generally assume that they have poor taste and/or media literacy.

Re the mental health rep: I generally assume that they're incredibly privileged and/or ignorant.

I'm posting this as an image and not an ask response specifically because I will not participate in fandom drama or shaming. This blog exists specifically so that people can actively choose to engage in my content and so that I can post critical thoughts without dragging their source into some petty fight. So I'm not going to talk about the named individual. Instead, I'll replace them with the show's head writer and talk about him in a similar context.*

He's pretty famously denied that Chloe suffered any abuse, ignoring her obvious neglect, which came from both parents, just in different forms. When you pair that with how the show handles people like Gabe and Jagged Stone, we see a clear pattern of the show ignoring the devastating effects that abandonment and neglect can have on a person, especially if they're a child.

Now you could look at that and say, "The head writer condones abuse! He's a monster!" But I prefer to go the more likely route and assume that he's a privileged middle-class cis white man who has never had to deal with those issues or support someone who has, so he has no idea how to handle them properly or that they even need to be properly handled. There's every chance that he's a loving, kind man and a fantastic father who just happens to not be very good at writing a complex topic that he clearly has no understanding of or desire to learn about. I apply similar logic to fans who share his opinions. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence or ignorance.

And all of the above is assuming that we're talking about someone who thinks that the show is objectively good or that the mental health rep is good, which are big assumptions. It's fully possible to enjoy a piece of media that you know is objectively bad or even "problematic" in some way.

Personal confession time: is Loonatics Unleashed an objectively terrible show that you should never, ever watch? Absolutely. 100%. Are Rev Runner and Tech E. Coyote two of my favorite characters who will live rent free in my head until the day I die? Yep! I pulled up a YouTube highlight real as I was writing this and those dorks still make me smile even though the show is terrible on multiple levels and I know that I'm not alone in that sentiment. Those two clicked with a lot of people for some reason.

A piece of fiction need not be good for you to love it and you don't need to justify your love for a piece of fiction if you're not claiming that it's good. Similarly, people hating that piece of fiction or pointing out flaws in it is not a reflection on you in any way shape or form. You can even agree with their criticism and still love the piece of fiction. This approach to media - loving a thing in spite of its flaws - is normal and healthy and I'd really love to see it make a comeback in younger fandoms.

Like, I cannot emphasize this enough, most fandoms consider it perfectly normal to have lots of fans who are critical of the source or who have even lost interest in the source for one reason or another, but they still like some element of the source enough to want to create/consume fan content for it. These more critical fans arguably make some of the best fan content because looking at canon and saying "That's nice, let me show you how I'd do it" often leads to some of the most complex stories that you'll see in fandom spaces. Stories that can often blow canon out of the water for TV shows and movies since fanfic isn't limited by budgets or studio policies or marketability concerns. Fans who think that the source is perfect tend to just write fluff or romcom type fics, which is not a dig! I love bother of those genres! But woman does not live on fluff alone.

Obviously there's some complexity here because who decides if a show is bad? Saying "it's okay that you like a terrible thing" can certainly sound like an insult and prompt a feeling of needing to defend the thing, which is why I don't fight with fans who like the show. There's really no need to convince them that the thing they like is bad. Do I think it is? Yes. Does it matter if they disagree? No, not really. At worst, they create stories with similar issues and, well, they're not the only ones and fighting with them isn't going to stop them. You're much better off focusing on creating your own good media and trying to get that popular. Heck, even if you made the head writer see all of Miracuous' flaws, it wouldn't change anything. The show is already made.

So, yeah, I don't really assume anything bad about people who think that miraculous is good. I know lots of wonderful people who have terrible taste in media and I'm still friends with them. I just don't take recommendations from them.

It's important to remember that, when you're online in a fandom space, a person is condensed down to a very tiny snapshot of who they are and judging a person solely off of their thoughts regarding a poorly written kids show is a dangerous path to tread. Like, looking at this blog, you might assume that I spend all of my time thinking about miraculous and obsessing over its flaws, which is very much not the case. I actually have this blog specifically so that I don't obsess over miraculous' flaws because I've found that, when something is bothering me, writing it down or talking to someone about it is the best way to stop thinking about it. Even then, most of my posts are reblogs of stuff I come across while browsing my tumblr feed, which is not solely miraculous content. I mostly interact with the show by creating non-salty fanfic that I honestly enjoy writing and find to be a relaxing, positive outlet.

It's human nature to judge and it's totally normal to think that a person's an idiot because of something they post online, but be careful to not lean into those thoughts too hard. At the end of the day, Miraculous is just a stupid kids show that will fade from the popular consciousness a few years after it stops airing. If it and/or the fandom are negatively affecting your mental health, then it's okay to step away for a while or use the block button. It really is your best friend. I enjoy being critical about Miraculous specifically because it's not that important. While I do think that kids deserve better media, I don't think Miraculous is some terrible evil harming the youth. I'm not horrified when a kid watches it, it's just not a show that I'd encourage them to watch and, if the kids was close to me, we'd spend a lot of time talking about the bad things that the show showcases from time to time. There are lots of episodes that are fine and I can think of way worse kids shows. Shows that tell their horrifying morals really well, making a kid far more likely to pick up on them and internalize them.

*Note that I only feel comfortable talking about the head writer like this because he's a public figure with an active social media presence AND because I'm not @ing him. If he was a private person or if he was not a professional creator, then I would not talk about him like this and even in that context I try to avoid it whenever I can. You can think that he's a terrible writer, but he's still a human being and, as far as I'm aware, nothing he's done deserves people harassing him.

I absolutely understand how devastating it can be to see a story you love get ruined by the creative team. The first time that happened to me, the life lesson I came away with was, "I will no longer put my happiness in the hands of another creator. I will enjoy stories, but I will temper my expectations and remember that they're just another human being and it's completely possible that their vision for this seemingly awesome story may end up being terrible."

#ml writing salt #ml writing critical #ml fandom salt #fandom salt #ask response

[the-martyrfication-of-the-matron]

Small facts about each of the divine warriors:

Irene: She cannot cook in anyway shape or form and even when offered she refuses to learn. She will only eat food raw and all of the other Divine Warriors just serve her first before they start making their food, unless Menphia and Shad are dealing with a high bout of animalistic instincts. (being a meif'wa and hell hound respectively)

Irene was not a modest woman or had any form of personal boundaries. Like, she would walk around topless without a care in the world and if she was ever cold at night, she would never just put on more clothes but instead join a tent or sleeping bag with another warrior. Shortest of the Divine Warriors.

Shad: He is the warmest man ever, unfortunately he leans on the end of "Your skin is literally leaving first degree burns" than nice space heater. He also smells like wet dog whenever he gets wet, before his skin eventually evaporates it. Due to how water reacts to his skin, he does take dust baths like a chinchilla. Full on rolling around in sand and then claiming he is clean.

After turning full evil, he decided to continue his bloodline for the sole purpose of pissing Irene off. He met a woman one day and was like "Hey, I am not gonna be a parent to this kid, I just want to do this to piss off my ex." and the woman just looked at the large demon man and said bet. The woman then met her wife and they became the first matriarchs of Falconclaw. Tallest of the Divine Warriors.

Enki: While not necessarily having the most stable form, he is the lankiest and physically weakest of the Divine Warriors. He used bows and magic, he was never going to be the most muscular. The only times he was ever considered "strong" was when he choked a man out after stabbing them in the back. Certainly a wizard and not a fighter.

Enki was the most strategic of the Divine Warriors as well, mostly due to the fact that he hoards knowledge like a dragon hoard gold. He 100% info dumps in every conversation, like you see a cool bug, he knows everything about that bug. The kid that rants about dinosaurs at the playground. 3rd shortest of the Divine Warriors. Shorter than Shad, Esmund, and Menphia but taller than Kul'Zak and Irene.

Menphia: This woman will take a nap anywhere, the moment she is not fighting or training she is in the softest spot in the the sun. Imagine trying to talk diplomacy and one of the divine warriors is asleep on the table. It's not short napes either, full cat naps.

This womans is so cut, like one would imagine that a woman who is part cat is soft but noooo. This woman has abs and shoulders for daaaaaaaays and don't get me started on her thighs. Crushing a watermelon is the least she could do. The 3rd tallest of the divine warriors.

Esmund: Before being a Divine Warrior, he was a human lumberjack from a small farming village. A very large lumberjack but not a king or knight that some would present him as. He was a small farm boy who saw a hot latina goddess and decided to say follow her to the end of the earth.

While not being the tallest of the Divine Warriors, he is the biggest. Look up "bear" in a dictionary and it is this man, broad, hairy, and thick. He is also the perfect cuddling temp which created a lot of "Poor Farm Boy Panic" whenever Irene would share a tent with him. (I think he was like, 6'8-6'9, Shad being 7ft)

Kul'Zak: He had a peg leg after saving Esmund from a Leviathan but he made sure to never hold it against the man, he already suffered from survivors guilt. He rather enjoys the leg, it allows him to spin while playing the fiddle much easier. Losing the leg proved to be more beneficial because when sirens walk on land it feels like their feet are walking on hot coals and sharp glass but with one less foot it was less bad. (Think original my little mermaid.)

While being the 2nd shortest of the Divine Warriors, he was also the technical largest, not that it was really known. He was a creature of the ocean and chose to explore land. What he looked like in the ocean was much longer and larger, over twice the height of Shad with his tail being a beautiful mix of blue, cyan, green, and emerald. Goes full mermaid, though difficult to switch to this form after losing the leg.

I feel like his mermaid tail should be lacking a fin or something, or be otherwise impaired. Just to have the ‘lost a leg’ experience in the water too.

#aphmau #aphverse #aphblr

[damnfandomproblems]

I'm giving in and putting in an actual response. just incase people don't check replies (tho if it is the obsessive anti Asian twst person I wouldn't be surprised if they did read them)

it takes... no time at all to look up the history of braids ON WIKIPEDIA and find out their actual history. (don't trust news outlets and blog sites) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid A quote from the page:

"The oldest known reproduction of hair braiding may go back about 30,000 years: the Venus of Willendorf, a female figurine estimated to have been made between about 28,000 and 25,000 BC in modern-day Austria.[4] The Venus of Brassempouy from the southwest of France is estimated to be about 25,000 years old and shows a braided hairstyle.

Although many cultures want to take sole credit for the braid, they cannot be traced to a single origin. Like how different versions of Cinderella are traceable to nearly every culture, braids, too, are polygenetic. One early example of hair braiding takes place in 1279-1213 BCE as recorded in the story of Isis: "when some of the queen's maidens came to the well, she greeted them kindly and began to braid their hair."[5]"

While yes, braids do have significant cultural importance in African cultures, largely out of necessity for maintaining their hair, this does not mean that they "invented" the braid. like another person said, braids even appear in cultures that have had zero contact with African cultures. In case you don't know what polygenetic means:

polygenetic

adjective

Having many distinct sources; originating at various places or times.

Of or pertaining to polygenesis; polyphyletic.

one which is composite, or consists of two or more monogenetic ranges, each having had its own history of development.

This can also be attributed to the fact that braids are not exclusive to hair. "A braid (also referred to as a plait) is a complex structure or pattern formed by interlacing three or more strands of flexible material such as textile yarns, wire, or hair."

This means things like clothing, jewelry, rope, and I would even say baskets. Any thing thing that can be shaped into a braid. Are there specific types of braid meant specifically for black hair texture? Yes. There are TYPES of hair braids designed specifically to protect and maintain certain types of hair, and yes such types of braids can be harmful if used on hair textures they were not designed for. However, once again I must remind you that this does not mean that African cultures "invented" braids as a whole.

"okay so are you saying its okay for white people to appropriate black cultures and use those hair styles?" In the event this is what any of you are wondering... That's not what I'm talking about. That is an entirely different topic that I'm not going into. Cuz tbh I don't know and I don't really have a say in the matter.

What I am talking about is debunking the claim that African cultures invented and therefore own braids, and that any other culture or person not apart of African cultures have no right to use a braids in general, and are racist if they do. For the last time. braids are polygenetic. No one owns them or invented them, and everyone has a right to use them. And this was all easily accessible information that you could literally look up and be done in like 5 mins btw. Please learn to do your research.

Posting this response like this. I will be compiling the anonymous response as one post.

#response to previous ask #response to previous problem #fandom problem 3868

[a-fragile-little-teacup]

Sexuality, Consumption of Media, and a Small Comment on Parasocial Relationships.

Hi.

Let's talk about sexuality and how we consume media has led to unhealthy and inappropriate patterns of behavior.

I am going to make this as short and sweet as I can so that my point gets across without giving anyone fatigue from reading.

Throughout the years, we have watched on media consumption has mixed with the online world to create something of a little bubble for each thing. Fandoms form from these little bubbles. This fandom can lead to creative works of art, interesting discussions, and shipping of different people. This is typically around a show, movie, or other fictional work with fictional characters. It has created a sense of community for many people and to blindly claim that it has done no good would be disingenuous.

However, with the rise of this behavior- especially shipping- there has been an increase in assuming the sexuality of many characters. This has since begun to expand into the way real people (singers, actors, content creators, etc.) are treated.

I would like to propose that we have stopped seeing these celebrities as anything more than fictional characters for us to morph and shape into whatever we want them to be. Social media is television show and we are creating the story by using these celebrities. This has caused the line between what is okay and what is not okay to become somewhat blurred.

This has led to an alarming pattern of using "evidence" to assume the sexuality of an individual. This evidence can be the use of vague answers in interviews, claims of personal interpretations as the intentions of the artists, and the use of stereotypes that are commonly harmful to the LGBTQ+ community as a whole.

These celebrities are human beings with lives outside of our view. We cannot play pretend with them like we can with fictional characters. I would advise all of us to hold off on the assumption of someone's sexuality until they make a clear, public statement, if they ever decide to do so. We should not be reading into small jokes, song lyrics, clothes, or stereotypes to find the conclusions that we find to be the most satisfying to us. We should also never be harassing those individuals to make statements that would verify those conclusions.

Believe me, I understand the desire to see ourselves in the people we admire, but it is not those individuals' job to reflect to us a successful image of ourselves. These are people with personal insecurities, valid fears, and a need for privacy.

It is a time for respect. A time to reverse this behavior before it gets further out of hand than it already is. I have seen the victims of this pattern getting younger and younger and I am scared for them. Please, let them decide what is true and right for them. You will never know them in the same way that they know themselves. I promise you that.

Thank you for reading all of this. Even if it seems horrendously obvious to you, please keep it in mind while participating in any online discourse.

Have a great day.

#lgbtq #lgbtqia #lgbtq community #bi #bisexual #bisexuality #gay #lesbianism #sapphic #wlw #lesbian #fandom culture #parasocial relationships #media consumption

[secretgamergirl]

Gotta love that automation of moderation, don’t you?

So hey, it’s almost the end of the month, which means it’s time for my monthly tradition of making a little post over on that one website whose new owner is doing an amazing job of flushing it down the toilet, and look what I see:

Like nearly everything I post on that site, you will of course note that that’s clearly starting mid-sentence. I make a conscious habit of doing that specifically so that any time someone tries to take a single post out of context to defame me, it’s plainly obvious to onlookers that they aren’t seeing the whole thing. The full context for this for instance is here, if you’re curious. It’s part of a big post I made back in March on the Trans Day of Visibility, talking about how I don’t partake in the general tradition of posting a bunch of selfies and career highlights because stalkers are looking for ammo, you know, case in point.

So, first off it’s probably worth noting that this was actually flagged at 2:40 AM on November 23rd. A whole 8 months later, in the middle of the night, the day before Thanksgiving. So I’m going to make an educated guess that what probably happened here is one of the various foaming at the mouth bigots, probably living in England where it is neither a holiday nor a weird time to be up and looking to start crap, decided it was a good time to try and ruin my life some more, did a nice simple little search for my handle and the word “kill” and just punched through the “sending a death threat” form using a succession of burner accounts until the post stopped loading. Pretty standard tactic there.

This of course confirms my theory that while the entire staff of humans handling abuse reports is most likely no longer employed at Twitter, save for whatever skeleton crew is hyper-focused on permanently suspending people for making jokes at Elon Musk’s expense, the automated system that generates messages like this based purely on submission volume is still up and running.

So... here’s where this gets dicey. Before me are two buttons I can press. I can click that shiny blue text that says “appeal” at which point, as I understand all this, I will be given a little form where I can type a message along the lines of “hey, this was clearly sent in error. While part of what I was saying is cut off due to this being somewhere in the middle of a 50 or so post long thread, it’s still quite plain here that I am talking about being on the receiving end of violent threats, not making one myself.” At this point I would be locked out of touching the website in any way shape or form until this form is looked over by... someone who to my knowledge is no longer actually employed, nor slated to be replaced by anyone, plunging me into eternal limbo.

The second option is that I can click that big red “Delete” button, breaking this big long thread in half (which honestly doesn’t concern me too much, I’ve made much better versions of this sort of speech, and don’t really expect anyone to naturally find something from 8 months ago), but A- I’m pretty sure doing so would permanently flag my account as some sort of troublemaker, and much more importantly B- We have this little sentence above that button that says “By clicking Delete, you acknowledge that your Tweet violated the Twitter Rules.” Now aside from the raw pedantry of knowing damn well that it most certainly did no such thing, the rule it is erroneously claiming that I broke is... threatening to murder someone. Pretty sure, legally, that is not a thing you want to formally confess to doing if you didn’t actually do so. For that matter I’m also pretty sure that making a blatant false accusation that I did is libelous or something, but I dunno. If any lawyers are trying to round out their pro bono quota before the end of the year and want to explore that, let me know I guess?

So... I’m pretty terrified about what’d happen pressing either of these two buttons, and without doing so (or probably with doing so for that matter) I cannot post anything nor even look at anything on Twitter there for the foreseeable future. Which... is kind of a really serious problem financially. My two professions are journalism, which is just completely 100% tied to that site as the only way one can presently pitch stories to most editors, and game design, where freelance work is in the exact same boat where the only real way to get it is to pester editors on there. And it’s also kinda the place where I’d normally plug my Patreon, which aside from what freelance work I can find is literally my only financial lifeline, and is presently pretty darn low because people tend to unsubscribe to these sorts of things around the holidays to build up that gift money. And I am broke broke. Like, I have this last week of this month to find a little money somehow in a hurry or I won’t have enough to pay my rent and my electric bill. Next month, I won’t have rent covered even without electricity. Seeing as we’re heading into an unusually cold winter, there’s a chance I’m going to actually freeze to death because of this.

So if you’ve bothered reading all this... help? Like, share this blog post around, link to it on what’s left of Twitter and/or on whatever alternative you may have jumped over to? Pester whoever’s left on Twitter’s support staff about this clearly having been flagged in bad faith? Maybe try and get this in front of some media people? Or an editor willing to just commission me to write about it directly (or, you know, about anything else? There’s been a lot of recent stories in the news about transphobic laws and hate crimes and that’s explicitly been my beat for the past decade or so). Maybe throw some cash at that aforementioned Patreon to help buy me another month of barely scraping by? This is kinda life or death for me.

#twitter #transphobia #emergency #harassment

[cerosin-bis]

Do you have headcanons of krueger/golem ship?(any type of headcanons is welcome)😸💕

I'm so glad you asked, w the fic I've been working on for a few months I've been rotating them in my brain A LOT 😳

Before going on, it may be better to know my Krueger headcanons because their relationship, in the way I envision it, is shaped by it. And again, these are my own hcs but I do love seeing others'. Multiple headcanons coexist in my mind 🙇‍♀️

(I'll post the full drawing sometime later ok)

With that being said. Golem/Krueger headcanons [cero touch]. This got long lol sorry. I hope you like it! ♥

Obligatory: they had a thing in the KSK. There is no way Golem bailed Krueger out of custody 72h after what happened otherwise 😭 No one knew about them.

For Krueger it started out as a FWB thing that became utilitarian (Hans liked him = "Josef" gained everyone's trust in the Platoon, peers and hierarchy alike)

Golem is an affable leader figure, but he's not naive. He felt something was off with "Josef" from the start, and he's virtually the only one within the Platoon who despite their fusional relationship still had reservations in the back of his mind*.

Krueger will never admit it but he's attached, too, in his own way. Golem is the closest thing he's had to anything long-term and they genuinely have good chemistry.

He also harbours a lot of respect for him and his skills. If one asks him about the KSK, he'll say that Golem was the only one in his direct hierarchy worth his esteem - and he means it.

Despite everything and the fact that it's usually very charged, they both seek and enjoy each other's company. When they reunite 2y after the KSK it's blatant they used to be - and still are very close.

They hook up semi-regularly. FWB 2.0.

They talk easily. They know each other's habits and nonverbal language by heart. Their late night convos, whether it is in KSK or in mw19, are akin to therapy for Golem, and feel like home for Krueger. There's a part of nostalgia in it.

Golem is conflicted because... he wanted to cut ties. His brain tells him he should but he can't bring himself to, and it's worsened by the fact that in mw19 Krueger doesn't give him any "reason" to do so because he's just... himself now. Krueger is distinctly aware of this and relishes in the fact that he has an effortless hold on the man.

Yet, Krueger finds a form of familiar tenderness in Golem's company he knows he cannot experience anywhere else because he doesn't need it. Golem is the literal exception. He'll never admit it, but even Golem knows.

It's a win-win situation for both of them because it's not official, never has been, yet it's tangible. And there is no outside liability anymore.

Golem is the literal only person with whom Krueger bottoms most of the time lol. they do switch sometimes.

Bonus: yes they still hookup even if Krueger/Nikto is a thing. In fact, it makes Nikto extremely territorial which is Immense Fun for Krueger

*it's precisely how and why Golem was drawn to him in the first place - I do hc that Golem is attracted to this exact kind of uncertainty. Which is something Krueger knows how to exploit. Golem also helped Krueger escape while not buying into his innocence claims at all.

#kruegergolem #headcanons #ask #this is a bit all over the place but I hope u can feel that I love their dynamic #whenever I am asked about my faves I cannot shut up #call of duty #krueger #golem

[bluenpjm]

cloud9 agency ☁ jjk x oc

Ⓒ bluenpjm — all rights reserved. do not repost, translate or claim as your own.

synopsis.  faced with decisions that can change the course of her career, the art director of the cloud9 agency decides it is time to act and reignite the flame she had once lost. and all because of an intern...

genre.  non-idol au ; slice of life au ; intern!jungkook ◦ fluff ◦ angst ◦ smut 

pairing.  JJK x OC

rating.  M

wordcount. 4.2K

warnings.  driving under the influence, drinking, making dubious decisions, some foul language, being somewhat displeased with current job situation

a/n.  to the person i cannot go a day without talking to: happy birthday @itsceesaw! thank you for supporting me, always. may we be friends forever, surrounded by pizza, good vibes, and bts! ✌🏻🍕

chapters. 1 — 2

There was nothing more appalling than starting the day by answering emails. 

Carolina figured there were far better things where she could waste her time and energy, especially this early in the morning. Daring to take yet another glance at the time on her phone, she sighed, noticing it was half-past eight and she was still stuck on this one email. She lacked what her boss would call the “delicacy” to make their clients understand how the business was and how simply their requests could be met. At least that was how she was supposed to present it to them. 

If she had to be honest, she was wishing nothing more than to see her intern walking straight through those doors. And she never expected herself to think such a thing. 

Carolina’s memories of her days as an intern were bitter. She never had the opportunity to do something out of the box — in her style — constantly trapped by the hawk-like eyes of her supervisor. And her taste was dull, to say the least. She was also never credited for the hard work she would put into her creations. Each assignment given to her was treated with all the care in the world, even if it wasn’t something she cared for.

So, when the chance occurred for her to have an intern, she had promised herself that she wouldn’t be a bitch and would actually let the person experiment and tinker with their works and put their personality in them. 

Her intern — Jungkook — had been assigned to assist her in any way, shape, or form. She needed coffee? He would fetch it for her. The lenses in her camera needed a good cleaning? He had probably already taken care of that. But that wasn’t why he joined the company. Over drinks, one night after work, he confessed how much he loved photography and even had a secret Instagram account where he would post his pictures. 

Secretly, she would check his feed now and then, often feeling immersed in the emotions that he could capture so simply through the click of a camera. He would never know, though. 

With a soft heart — which now that she was regretting listening to — there she was, head pounding as instead of clocking in at 11 — no, actually — just make it an early lunch break and she would be at the office around 2 in the afternoon, ideas fresh in her mind. 

The list of emails was endless and as she went further down, opening email after email, they seemed to get longer and somewhat stupider. It was… impressive, even.

Still, it was somewhat worth it as her intern was nothing but excited the day before, going on and about how much research he had and how many angles he had studied to make the photo shoot he was attending in her place absolutely perfect. 

The kid got talent. She couldn’t deny that. But Jungkook lacked something she always had. And that was what she considered one of the most important things in her field: following your gut. You need to be able to trust your instincts in this area. After all, the client is hardly ever right nor knows what they want. You almost need to have a degree in psychology to understand the deeper meaning behind their simple-minded requests. 

And well… her intern lacked the spontaneity she wished he had. He was quick and highly talented but… Every 30 minutes, he would come to her desk, an excited smile on his face, most similar to a puppy, wanting you to throw the ball back yet again. And she would compliment his work, most deservingly as Carolina would never say she liked something when she didn’t — and throw him another project. And once he was done… there he was again, waiting for approval and direction on what to do next. 

She opened the sent tab on her email account, looking for some faint sight of hope there would be a standardized way of answering the clients' messages. A soft way of saying ‘Hey, I saw your email but won’t get to it now. So just wait until I feel like trying to explain to you, for the thousandth time, that I have what you described and you simply don’t know what you want! Toodles.’ 

“These people go to lengths…” She talked to herself, eyes quickly scanning all the different responses the clients would get. “They should get a raise!” She scoffed, realizing how ridiculous their efforts were as she leaned her body back on the chair, wheels shifting her away from the desk with the impulse. 

Being an art director, she expected to have more creative liberty. After all, she had been hired for her inspiring mind, standing out from a homogenous pile of applications. And the reason why she was still there was due to the big check at the end of the month. 

In her early years, she was content with some freelancing. Some gigs here and there while she managed to balance her social life. But adulthood proved itself to be well… inescapable. And being accustomed to a certain lifestyle, she had to sacrifice a little. Money over happiness… The tip of the iceberg of adult life. It couldn’t get any sadder than that, could it?

Her phone rings out of a sudden, being the perfect escape from the tedious action she had found herself trapped in. Not even needing to unlock it, she could already tell who was behind the incessant ringing. Very few were the people who would be texting her with such enthusiasm, this early in the day. 

A smile immediately popped on Carolina’s lips as she read the incoming texts in her group chat. She would constantly be shocked at how her best friends would be in sync. And their energy in the morning… unmatchable. They tended to meet later in the day when Carolina would be fully awake and filled with energy. Usually for drinks, as they loved to complain about the most insignificant things in their lives. Deo would end up crying, confessing her love and loyalty to the two, Hyori joining a little bit after on the rampage, and Carolina would stare at the two with a sheepish smile, knowing she would be able to tease them in the morning. 

Before she had the chance to answer them, another text came in. 

She clicked on it immediately after reading the name of the sender. Her heart was quick to find its way to her throat and the mere seconds it took to open the chatroom made it feel like it was ready to jump out. 

If she had to describe how she was feeling, it would be something very similar to what moms say when they drop their kids for the first time in daycare. Or when they get a phone, passcode-protected, and you fear that they have started to send nudes to lousy boys. The fear of something happening to someone you are supposed to look after and you are not there to hold their hand in case they need it. Or even more, the fear of something going wrong and she wouldn’t be there to fix it right away.

Thankfully, Carolina could relax. And her entire posture does so, body reclining once more in the comfortable office chair. Analyzing the texts again, her stomach growls, reminding her that she was still to have breakfast. 

Shutting off her laptop, she decides her intern could have a fun afternoon answering emails. Now, she was going to have some much-deserved breakfast. 

Carolina had gotten into collage early in life. And ever since her nanny presented it to her, it had been a constant hobby of hers. She would often do it for her own entertainment, a pure way of relaxing and having a fun evening. So it came as no surprise when the skill revealed itself as a useful practice in her work. It helped people around her visualize what she was thinking when words seemed weak to prove her point. She was always more of a visual kind of person rather than words. 

Sitting on the floor, legs crossed, she leaned on her hands, body falling back as she looked up at how the ceiling of her favorite room in Cloud9 was turning from the softest shade of blue to purple. It was shaped like a cloud. Upon Carolina’s arrival at the company, she suggested cotton and led lights should be pinned to the ceiling, turning it into a different room from all the others in the company, making it seem like their own personal cloud-filled sky. 

“Croissant?” Jungkook emphasized the word, a weak attempt of a french accent leaving his lips. He sits down, crossing his legs as well, the box resting right in the middle of the two. 

“Oui, oui,” Carolina showed her never acquired skills of speaking french. Simple words were easy. But make a native speaker to her, she will give them a thumbs up, before smartly removing herself from the conversation. “How was it?” 

Jungkook notices how she picks up the box from the floor, admiring the sweets inside while trying to make up her mind about which one she should pick. “It was good.” He spoke cooly. 

“Good.” She eyes him, knowing he was trying to sound less excited than he was on the inside. 

“I had the best time ever.” He showed her his bunny smile. “Thank you for trusting me.” 

“Of course.” She dismisses him. “But I will never answer emails, ever again.” 

He chuckles. Email answering was something he did with ease, but he couldn’t deny how boring the task was. 

“That lady from the flower shop…” she snaps her fingers, trying to remember the name of the store. 

“May Flowers?” 

“Exactly! She sent yet another email about how the colors of the logo you did were different from her phone screen to her tablet…” Carolina rolled her eyes. 

“Seriously?” Jungkook laughed. “I stayed with her on the phone— on the phone! for like an hour yesterday explaining to her why that happened…” 

“She called?” Carolina scoffed, incredulous. 

“Well… I did offer.” Jungkook scratches the back of his neck, sleeve pulling down and Carolina notices the tattoos adorning his arm. 

“Why?” She did her best poker face. “Are you a masochist or…?”

“I never expected her to say yes…” He smiled embarrassedly. “What are you working on?” 

Carolina had her notebook in her legs, half-closed. “I need to pitch an idea for a client Cassandra really wants.” 

He nods. “Anything I can help with?” 

“Sure,” 

Removing the box that was standing between the two, Carolina scootches closer to the intern, opening her book in the pages she had been scribbling. She briefs him on the client, their business ideas, the concept, and what she already had in mind. In between sentences, she scribbles some notes down. She always found that brainstorming with someone resulted in better ideas. Jungkook also pitches in but remains contained in his words. Sometimes, he feels like being quiet is better. Carolina’s ideas seem so out of the box, he decides he is better left off just making little suggestions, instead of dropping something completely random.

“Do we know if other agencies are after them?” He asks. If there was something Carolina liked in Jungkook was how competitive he was. The tiniest thing was able to ignite something in him. 

“We don’t know, but it’s most likely. A big fish dropping in the water like that is sure to make every head turn. It made Cassandra’s.” 

Jungkook nods. “I’ll do some research on the CEO for you.” 

“Thanks.” 

Carolina calls it a day soon after her conversation with Jungkook. When she leaves her office, he’s still at his desk, headphones in and she notices from the corner of her eye the image of the CEO of the company they had been discussing on the screen. A smile appears on her lips due to the hard work he’s putting in.

The thought of telling him to go home rushes through her mind, you did well today. But it seems too personal. And Carolina isn’t, in fact, that close with Jungkook. So, instead, she simply leaves, her uber already waiting for her. 

Before dozing off in the back seat of the car, she takes her phone out, exchanging a couple of quick texts with her best friends.

As expected, Carolina is indeed late to her dinner with the girls. Falling asleep on the couch right after her shower, she wakes up a couple of hours later, both girls calling her nonstop until the vibration of her cellphone, laying on top of her belly, is enough to wake her up. Still, she manages to keep them waiting for less than 30 minutes, calling her car before getting dressed and both things ended up aligning perfectly. 

They order more drinks than food. A meal for the three of them would usually take 2 hours — if not more — to get finished, mostly because they would get lost in the conversation. 

“He might’ve as well hit the self-destruction button.” Hyori lets out a dry laugh. 

“Wait, didn’t he just print out the wrong reports?” Carolina asked, serving the girls who already had their cups empty.

“Yes. And I corrected him, but someone swooped the wrong ones from his desk without asking and delivered them to my supervisor.” Hyori massaged her temples. “So, I got scolded, as if I was a 5-year-old because the mistake of another person was my own nonetheless.” 

“That’s why I will never accept an intern.” Deo scoffed, a spoon full of rice finding its way into her mouth. 

“That’s ‘cause you’re a control freak.” Carolina laughed and Hyori nodded, a pensive look on her face as she eyed her friend. 

“Speaking of intern… what happened with yours, then?” Hyori turned to the oldest. 

“Nothing as severe as you drama queens were trying to make it seem.” Rolling her eyes, the art director takes a sip from her glass. “He went on his first photo shoot today.” 

“Woa— look at her, looking all proud!” Deo teased. 

“He’s good.” Carolina shrugged. 

“But…?” Hyori sang. She always expected a but. Not that she was the pessimist of the group, instead of the real one.

“He’s just… inexperienced. I wish he would speak his mind, you know? Share his ideas…” Carolina struggled to find the right word. “But in time he’ll get there. I’m sure.” 

“Oh, yes. I’m sure he’ll come out as a more experienced guy once the internship is over.” Hyori teased, Deo laughing right by her side.

“Hey, I don’t know what kind of games you play with your intern but don’t think I’m a perv like you.” Carolina attacked, chuckling once noticing the offended look on her friend’s look. 

The black-haired girl gulps her drink down in one go. “I guess that’s my cue. Before I confess my sins.” 

Hyori is already influenced by the happy liquid she has been ingesting. Leaving the bathroom, she walks by the counter, ordering another bottle for her table as her eyes fall upon a guy. A guy she could swear she knew. Staring with no shame, she even tilts her head to the side. Eventually, the staring becomes too much and as the guy turns to leave with his takeout bags, they become face to face. 

“Can I help you…?” The man asked. His eyes are widened, as big as a dear blinded by lights. 

“You’re Jungkook, right?” Hyori beamed, finally connecting the face to the name. 

“Yeah… have we met? I’m so sor—”  Jungkook’s tone goes from confused to embarrassed. He was never that good with faces. 

“I’m a friend of Carolina— Hyori! Why don’t you sit with us?” Hyori asked but she was more demanding than inviting. 

“Oh— no— I actually—” And Jungkook didn’t have a say, following the girl to the table where Carolina and Deo were sitting, every protest that escaped his lips being ignored by the friend of his superior.

“Look who I found!” Hyori squeals once she reaches the table, occupying her previous place next to Deo. 

“Jungkook!” Carolina says surprised. 

“Hey Cee,” He gives Deo a little wave, lips pressed together as he is uncomfortable with the social situation he had found himself in. 

“Do you wanna join us?” The smallest of the girls asks, noticing that her friend was just staring at the boy standing in front of her. 

“Oh, I don’t want to intrude.” He says politely, eyes shifting quickly between the girls. 

“You don’t! Right, Cee?” Hyori tries to quick the oldest beneath the table, ending up pushing the chair in front of her a little bit behind. 

“Of course. Unless… you have plans.” She notices the white bags in his hands. 

“Not really.” Jungkook scratches the back of his neck. 

“Sit then!” Deo gives him a warm smile and he ends up surrendering. 

Both girls are quick to integrate Jungkook into the group. And, of course, they even share some old stories of Carolina. Conversation flowing, bottle after bottle comes to the table, until Deo is already snoozing, head laying on top of the table as Hyori is lost in thought. Jungkook and Carolina keep a light conversation when the servant announces that they will be closing shortly. 

“Text me once you get home!” Carolina screams, seeing her two friends already dozing off in the back seat of the car she had called them. 

“They are fun.” Jungkook comments, a sheepish smile on his lips. 

“You’ve seen nothing.” Carolina laughs. She passes back, clearing away from the street. “Did you call a car for you already?” 

“I drove actually. Do you need a ride?” 

“Oh, no need. I’m calling a car for me now.” 

“I promise I didn’t drink that much.” He assures her. “And I won’t charge you the trip.” 

He jokes, making her laugh. “Sure, but I choose the music.” 

“Deal.” 

Red Orange County is blasting in Jungkook’s car. He keeps a hand on the steering wheel while the other lies on the gearstick. Looking to his right, Carolina is singing along softly, arms leaning out the window as she rests her head on top of them, the wind being a refreshment on her heated cheeks. 

“Next left and then is the green building, you can’t miss it.” She says, lowering the volume a bit. 

“Got it.” 

She stares at him for a while, admiring his features. “How come you got a car?” Carolina asks, head tilting slightly to the side. “Are you one of those rich people that work for fun?” 

“I wish,” He chuckles. “My grandma gave it to me once pops passed.” 

“Oh,” Is the only thing she manages to murmur. 

“It’s alright.” He gives her a weak smile and the tone of his voice makes her come at a loss for words.

“Why don’t you speak out?” Carolina asks, turning on her seat as soon as Jungkook pulls over. 

“Huh?” Jungkook tilts his head, body turning slightly so he was now facing her as well. “What do you mean?” 

“At the agency. I’ve seen what you can do. You have potential.” She leans her head on the headrest of her seat. “You never participate, never share your ideas…” 

Jungkook shrugs, eyes falling on his fidgety fingers. “I’m just an intern.” 

“That’s bullshit.” Her words come slurry, the liquor in her system affecting her speech. 

“I don’t people would take me seriously— If I spoke out.” He now speaks more seriously. “I see how they are sometimes with you. Imagine how they would react with me.” 

She shakes her head. “Your fear is valid but I won’t validate it. They turn me down but I still managed to be heard. I spoke out. And getting rejected is the exception, not the rule.” 

“Start your own agency and I’ll start speaking.” Jungkook chuckles. 

“Y’know what? I just might.” She shrugs, the idea not sounding too insane. “What about your insta? You haven’t updated it in too long.” 

“How–” Jungkook looks her in the eye, confused, before getting hit by a flashback of the last time they had drinks together and his love confession about photography. The confused expression quickly changes into a smile. “You haven’t updated yours either.” 

“Well, but I’m busy. You’re just an intern.” She turns his own words against him. “Don’t you have any good pictures? Post one now!” The excited smile on her lips is mimicked by the guy next to her as he takes his phone from his jeans pocket. 

Somehow, both scootch closer, arms brushing on the armrest as Jungkook opens his gallery, images flying by with the simple swipe of his finger. Carolina would comment, from time to time, asking him to go slower or to return to a previous picture he had swiped on too quickly. Jungkook would look at her every time she commented. He wasn’t just trying to memorize every tip or compliment she would pay. Instead, he was looking at her features — the way the corner of her slightly parted lips were turned up, her eyes glowing with the light that emanated from the screen, showing how much of a soft brown they were, hidden behind a dark shield during the day by the rush of their lives. 

“Woa— go back.” She comes to a halt as if suddenly getting hit by ice-cold water. Jungkook bites his lower lip. He had hoped she hadn’t noticed. “That’s me.” 

“Yeah,” His voice shakes as he feels nervous about how she might react. 

“When was that?” She’s now staring straight into his eyes. 

“My first day.” He chuckles, eyes looking ahead as the memory comes back to him. “You announced my arrival to the team and referred me as if I was Spider-Man joining the Avengers. And then you said you wanted to leave the office earlier to go to the movies.” 

“Well, first of all, I think I had just watched Avengers the night before. And second, there should be some sort of work license that allowed you to leave to catch a good movie session.” She shrugged, a serious look on her face that made Jungkook chuckle. 

“I agree.” 

“But why did you take that?” She nudged his arm, now resting her chin on her hand. 

“I don’t know… I felt like I was supposed to eternalize that moment.” 

“With me in it,” Carolina spoke coyly. 

“Yes.” Jungkook almost whispers. “Lean back.” 

“What?” Carolina is caught off guard, straightening herself in the passenger's seat.

“Lean back.” He repeated. “I want to take a picture of you.” 

“Oh, I don’—” She tried to reason, but it was in vain.

“C’mon,” 

The first picture comes out with Carolina giving him the finger, followed by another with her tongue out and a couple of others of her laughing, embarrassed. But you could hardly tell. Only by the way her cheeks were a soft shade of pink. It could easily be pinned on the drinks she had. As Jungkook keeps snapping, the pictures come out looking more like an old painting, the night making the quality of the pictures low but perfect in the photographer’s eyes. 

“Perfect,” Jungkook sings. “Moment successfully eternalized.” 

“Let me see. You’re deleting the ones I don’t like.” She gives him a threatening look and he opens his mouth to speak, before getting interrupted. “Or you’re getting fired.” 

He pokes the inside of his cheek with his tongue, head flicking as he chuckles. “Alright.” 

Yet again, they began to swipe through the pictures Jungkook took. The first few make Carolina laugh, the sound making the guy next to her open up a smile as well. Until they reach where Carolina wasn't so flattered and she laughs it off. 

"Now here's one you're going to delete." 

"No way!" Jungkook laughs, moving the phone away from the girl and out of her reach. 

"I will fire you." She threatens in a light tone. 

"You wouldn't dare." He smirks. 

"Don't test me, Jeon." 

"Are we back to formalities, Sousa?" Jungkook teases and the girl scoffs. 

Almost kneeling on the passenger's seat, Carolina launches forward, catching Jungkook off guard as she goes for the phone. She ends up falling on his lap, the only thing between their bodies is the armrest that was still pushed forward. 

Jungkook helps her up, hand still on her arm, keeping her close to him. "Who will answer your emails if I'm gone?" 

"Oh, shut up." 

Closing the space that was left between them, Carolina presses her lips against his. At first, he's shocked, not expecting her reaction but he is quick to kiss back, deepening the kiss as his hand travels from her arm to the back of her neck, pulling her to him so now she is sitting perfectly on his lap. 

The loud bang of Carolina’s building’s front door makes the make-out session come to an end and the girl swiftly returns to her previous seat. “I’ll, hum, see you tomorrow.” 

“Yeah— have a good night!” Jungkook lets out, watching the girl walk to the door until she’s out of his sight. “Fuck…” 

[ chapter 2 ]

☁ want to be tagged in the next part? comment below or send me an ask!

#bluenpjm #cloud9agency #btswritingcafe #wkcnet #jungkook au #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #jungkook #jungkook x reader #jungkook x oc #jungkook x you #jungkook fanfic #jungkook scenarios #jungkook aesthetic #jungkook imagine #intern jungkook #non idol au #slice of life au #bluenpjm.docx

[jmenvs3000f23]

Learning, growing, and sharing the passion🐛🦋(U10)

Reflecting on my journey of developing my personal stance as a nature interpreter, I realize my ethos is deeply rooted in storytelling. While I would absolutely consider myself smart and capable of any challenge thrown my way, I wouldn't claim to be the one to ask for a perfectly articulated summary of a concept, or a history (or stats oh gosh...)) But! I am your girl if you want to talk about animals or nature with the same excitement and perception shifts you had as a kid; when learning about something like dinosaurs or other planets for the very first time and feeling like your mind was blown, or maybe even that the person was just making stuff up because of how wild it seemed.

At it’s core, my passion sings when having the chance to discuss niche topics with open-minds that delve into things like evolution, coming from the perspective that there are so many mysteries out there that could be unraveled if you only cared to look.

Just this week, some of these topics for me and some peers have included trying to understand bird tetrachromacy (how and why they can see in UV), mammals returning to the water like whales and dolphins, or how?? Literally how??? lemurs got to Madagascar.

To me, it's not just about sharing information, but having fun in the process and getting to share what you learn about the animals and their exploits in ways that would rival the wildest fantasy stories.

[Saw-whet owl wing under UV💡 ]

[OG whale💪🏻 ]

I've been playfully dubbed the "zookeeper of knowledge" by a friend in this context, after spending far too many hours working on a project because we kept getting side-tracked and discussing things not necessarily needed, but so incredibly interesting. (And it’s probably a title I'd gladly claim if it weren't so corny to be honest.) Regardless, it summarizes my commitment to becoming a curator of the captivating craziness that the animal kingdom has to offer. With a bias but passionate zoological perspective, I strive to share my spark of curiosity. ✨

Beyond my zoology lens, I strive for a focus on eco-consciousness in the work that I do, hoping to bridge the gap between science and the public and to foster stronger connection with Mother Nature.

As for translating these passions to children, I’m a firm believer in both transparency and honesty. While it’s almost guaranteed they won’t enjoy their first climate change lesson, I think forming traits of environmental stewardship and the understanding that actions have environmental consequences in children is critical if we want our passion for nature to be held by future generations. I remember my first lonely polar bear on a drifting ice berg video, and yes I was sad….but it left a vivid mark on my consciousness, shaping my understanding of the environmental challenges we face and it very likely brought me to where I am today.

Speaking of inspiring children, I cannot hold myself back as I have to show you guys what I found last week!

[Zoologist Barbie!!!!!!!!💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗💗]

I'm not even that much of a Barbie fan but I think now I have to be! I would have exploded with joy if I had this as I kid! I mean, if Barbie is doing it, I can't even imagine how many little girls will now be exposed to the possibility of studying zoology or similar topics and I won't lie...I could cry 🥹 (not to mention how close the koala is to a lemur and my personal goals regarding that....interesting......verrry interesting 🔮)

Though I still think going outside with curiosity in mind is the number one way to develop a relationship with nature, I’d consider things and representations like this even more important in places like cities, where natural spaces are becoming less and less accessible due to never-ending infrastructure and the digital domination of screens and virtual experiences.

The allure of video games and online platforms often out-win outdoor activities at least in my own anecdotal experience, raising concerns about the disconnect between the younger generation and the natural world. I think environmental educators are becoming more and more important in schools, and I believe they play a pivotal role in counteracting this trend, as they offer opportunities for a child to focus on wonders within the natural world. I had a hard time myself trying to sound reasonable to many of my friends and family as a kid when saying I wanted to study animals and nature since technology was progressing so quickly and I was viewed as looking backwards.

and so I think this doll (or things similar) can reinspire or hold that flame when kids aren't yet to sure if they'll find a nice outdoor spot to explore, an educator excited to answer questions, or a community like Guelph that embraces natural sciences so much.

In my opinion, harsh climate crisis truths can surely be sugar-coated for young minds to an extent, but to completely wait until their old enough to ‘actually understand’ is just providing the perfect opportunity for a child to become a distracted or oblivious teenager or adult. Again, this is my opinion but at this point in time, in a current climate crisis with almost no signs of slowing down, being an adult in a country like Canada and purposely ignoring it is NOT cool!!

Now, we don’t have to live every moment with the weight of the world on our shoulders, and I don’t wish that on anyone! But I believe the absolute bare minimum is to consider our actions in relation to nature and provide the next generation the building blocks and exposure they'll need to make environmentally conscious choices. Concepts like reusable water bottles over disposable plastic ones, not littering, and realizing our planet belongs to others too aren’t scary things and if anything, promote cultures of care and community. These seemingly simple ideas start to lay the foundation for responsible and conscious individuals to gladly carry the torch of environmental awareness into the future!

Anyways, that's what's up with me, and so I hope you've found at least one thing on my blog that made you think about, reconsider, or learn something, and maybe even want to go hug a tree 💝🐛

Works cited

Johnson, N. A., Lahti, D. C., & Blumstein, D. T. (2012). Combating the Assumption of Evolutionary Progress: Lessons from the Decay and Loss of Traits. Evolution Education & Outreach, 5(1), 128–138. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12052-011-0381-y

Northern saw-whet owl outstretched wing under blacklight, by Seabrook Leckie, Attribution-NonCommercal-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license, https://www.flickr.com/photos/rustyblackbird/

#nature interpretation #envs 3000 #nature #zoology #zoologist barbie #climate change #environmental outreach #environmental education #barbie

[blankdblank]

Protego Pt 10 - No Apologies

Masterlist here

.

“I got five encores, every night,” Jewels beamed in recounting for Severus who had come over to be part of the welcome back lunch for the three sisters. In his hands rested a new potions book he had been detailing, loaned during the summer break out of a local Wizarding library. Far advanced over the second year textbook he had already written throughout his own notes on what he had both tried and read of more advanced techniques. In her hands was a Niffler shaped coin purse for her earnings Alastor’s aunt had bought as a gift for the young girl who shared all about the show her family and friend had missed while gone.

For once it seemed someone had compromised Lily’s incomparable shine in the eyes of the loving parents amusing Petunia greatly. Even she had to admit she prized this proud side to her youngest sister, who had gained to her credit a fair bit of coin to her name. The start of a lucrative career she evidently would work hard to keep going around lessons in that other world.

A shock at first for the family when they had returned Jewels hadn’t changed her face back to look like Lily. Now donning dark maroon locks at least they had begun to talk. A means to correct things while off at their second year.

.

Right off the train a charm had hit James and locked Jewels back in detention. One magical wedgie later and there was revenge given for a hex he cast upon another Muggle-Born girl who snickered at the new coat his parents bought him that he’d been boasting about on the train. Not a smooth start to the year but by the end of the week she would not be the only one to be on the detentions list because of that smug boy, who for some, including the Headmaster he was reported to quite often could do no wrong.

For months it seemed each try to stop him from his cruel ways had led to one diverted act of cruelty in particular. Jewels had been sent a note to follow a particular tunnel to find her books that had been taken out of her bag while she was in the library. And had Snape not been there the full moon enhanced condition Remus suffered from would have been passed onto her. Or worse.

Sirius had left a note of his own to Snape, the plan James had claimed to be the only one. One to meet Lily up in the clock tower, where the hex thought to be meant for the raven haired boy got ignored to not let Jewels go alone.

Sirius at sign of his note being ignored followed and was the first to shift himself to his dog form to prevent Remus from being able to scratch or bite either of the trapped teens scrambling for their dropped wands. One knockout blast later and tears flowed freely at the clear threat to her life while she held her wand firm and aimed it at Sirius.

“You take me to your dorm now!” she ordered, and before James could even imagine it he had returned to his dorm from a late night snooping mission in the library for stealthier hexes, where every single item of his belongings were missing, including his invisibility cloak. Decorative crystals and a supply of muggle pens in her now heavily rune enchanted trunk, that would attack any but her who tried to open it, the belongings were stored and the teen was left to sleep in the common room as even his mattress was missing.

She didn’t return to stay in her dorm however, she and Severus had gone back to get the unconscious Remus to take him, now changed back in his human form, bloodied to the Hospital Wing. Albus himself on a late stroll had seen the teen being carried by the pair here and came to question them. “Now, Miss Evans, this note, while in a telling handwriting, cannot be proof-,”

She cut him off in a fiery fury, “You punish James Potter or I will write to the Prophet and any other publication that Pure-Blood tried to murder a Muggle-Born and Half-Blood!” His jaw dropped open and she continued, “I have memories and proof of every hex you and every other Professor let slide from that tyrant since his first day here to back it up! He is a loose cannon and it is your job to make certain we won’t have another mass murdering lunatic on the loose come summer time! Now isn’t it?! Or are you going to actually wait until one of us students of less notable families dies first for his amusement?!”

Madame Pomfrey behind the girl stated, “Half my beds last month were due to the Potter boy. I have written to you about this, Dumbledore. That Collins boy gets one more broken bone or damaged hearing aid and his parents will be writing the papers themselves.”

Albus simply looked to the determined girl and stated plainly, “I will address the matter. Furthermore I expect you to not make matters worse by provoking him with any more forms of self justice once I have set my terms of punishment for young James.”

The Professor simply left the hall and Severus looked to Jewels, “I have perfected the flatulence inducing candies and that one toffee that causes rashes. On top of the nausea powders I can add to his meals we’ll see to it he gets his just desserts.”

Madame Pomfrey aloofly stated in her walk to fetch more bandages, “I hear the boy has a weakness for Turkish Delight. Foot numbing droplets always made for sweet revenge my years.” Making the pair smirk in plot for how to respond to the attack on their lives.

 *.*.*

“Apologize!” Sirius barked at his red faced dorm mate who was fuming at the loss of his belongings.

“Where are my things Padfoot?!” James shouted back at Sirius.

“You could have killed her! James! We gave Moony our word! And you go about just sending people out there?! You knew what could have happened!”

“Where are my things Padfoot?! I don’t give a damn about that-,” hard against the wall Sirius shoved James. Closing the distance to push him back against it urging Peter to rush after him and try to stop things before it got too violent.

“You apologize, or I’ll tell Lily you almost killed her sister,” Sirius growled at the lanky teen who failed to squirm loose from Sirius’ hold. Not having nearly as much muscle to Sirius, as it was one of the few escapes Sirius had when not at the theater during the summer break, hours training for Quidditch kept him respectably busy for his parents in hopes to add more family names to the school treasury on yearly Quidditch Cups.

“Spare you the trouble and tell her myself. Show you how little that shadow means to my Lily. Now you get out of this room Padfoot and fetch my things or-,” James hissed only to wheeze at the harder press of fists into his chest.

“Or what?” Sirius challenged, fiery eyes fixed on James’ dark pair. “Hmm?”

“Let him go Padfoot,” Peter urged, patting the wrist attached to the fist wrinkling the shirt it had hold of so determined to not let go, knowing he could not loosen the grip himself. “You made your point. Let him go, before the Professor gets called.”

“See to it he apologizes, Wormtail,” Sirius growled and gave one more firm push into James’ chest in a step back, a force, that once let go, had James collapse onto the floor to watch his friend stalk out of the room.

Once able to gain a steady breath again James brandished his wand, shoving past Peter on his way to the doorway of their dorm to cast a barrier spell locking Sirius out. All on his way to head for the Headmaster’s Office to see to his scuffed pride and land that thief punished so callously that she would not think to aim her attention his way again. But for his shouts and arguments to his shock attempted murder, however falsely claimed to be unintentional, landed him in detention instead. A punishment not shaken free no matter how many letters he wrote home about the matter to parents who tried to convince Dumbledore otherwise.

.

James for a week would scrub toilets charmed to overflow, and then nothing. He never apologized. To them or to Remus. At least Sirius had, begrudgingly to Severus, explained where his ignored note intended to send the boy he saw daily inside their now shared dorm. Right away Sirius came down to plop onto his wheeled cot the House Elves had brought in for him to use to keep him off the pitch black marble floors. Looking across at the raven haired Severus to spill all his intentions and regret at his having missed the signs of the oh so obvious distraction to keep himself from discovering Jewels was in danger.

Not touching on the apology Severus asked, “If I may, how long has he been afflicted?”

“Hmm? Oh with Flopsy, he’s had the vicious pet bunny since he was a baby.” Sirius answered in front of Barty, who while reading chuckled in a glance up.

“That what we’re calling Werewolves these days?” Barty asked coyly in a turn of a page.

Sirius tossed a pillow his way, “Hey, we swore we wouldn’t tell anyone.” Giving a sincere look of regret to Barty who nodded and tossed the pillow back to him.

“And now he’s using the poor bunny to murder people, conveniently a trait I would imagine he hid from that hat who deemed to put him in the same room as that now twice victimized bunny. And he is your friend, you say?” Snape fired back coolly with a sting that Sirius huffed at but accepted.

“My family may be mad, but they would,” Snape’s brow ticked up, “If they knew he tried to kill her they would raze the school to the ground.”

“The latest heir, yes,” Snape answered with a sigh and looked down at the book in his hands.

“Not just that,” Sirius argued and Snape looked up again.

Barty said, “You don’t strike first without intent and clarity,” and Sirius gestured his way. “Pure-Bloods have rules, limitations. No just reasoning in that attack, or on you for that matter. The boy broke the rules of intent. She bothers him, sure, but you don’t kill the girl when you are in fact in the wrong and a spineless little git.” Sirius smirked at him and Barty added playfully, “I am three inches taller than him I can call him little. Even without your weight to throw around.”

Snape gestured to the floating parchment and quill at Sirius’ side and the latter said, “I’m writing to Dorea Potter, his Matriarch. Parents won’t do much, hopefully she can step in.”

“Just what possibly could she do to stop James from his own arrogance that his parents would not?” Snape asked making Sirius smirk at the numerous options.

 *.*.*

 As soon as the sun rose Sirius was down in the Hospital Wing seated at Remus’ side to console his misused friend. Amply sorry for the break of trust surrounding Remus’ condition he hoped to never have publicly known. All his life he’d been told to hide and keep it secret since he was attacked in his crib in revenge against his own father by the infamous Werewolf Greyback, but not an hour later Snape would come to join them with a rather old dusty book noting a possible try at a potion to help.

“Why are you doing this?” Remus asked Severus at the mention of his try to find an actual potion to help ward of transformations.

“Call it revenge if you must, there is only one person whom I prefer being dubbed a untamable bunny and you most certainly are not them.” Severus sat down ignoring Remus and Sirius’ quizzical gazes at one another about who could be the one with that nickname. Jewels would be along shortly with a selection of snacks she had snuck from the kitchens in a loss for what his favorite might be, a first show of proof she would try to help him and keep his secret as he’d helped her on their first night.

Soon enough though the first class of the day would send them all away from bandaged Remus, “This could be costly,” Severus said about the first list of ingredients he would try to manipulate into a brew that could work at least some to be a foundation to build upon until he found a successful batch.

“I’ll pay,” words from Jewels that, had he not loved her already, Sirius would have plummeted hard for such a selfless offer. An offer that Severus did not so much as blink at and merely broke into a list of the shops in Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley for all the proper ingredients to warn her of where her vault information would be sent to confirm the transfer of goods. Absurdly expensive, but it was something, and if anything was to be done with the knee weakening amount of galleons inside the Gaunt Vault it was to help pay off the ingredients Severus would use to his advantage for more Lycan potions practice over the semester keeping that Gryffindor in stock of daily doses.

 .

 One week they had to ready their plans of attack, reminded daily of the days being counted down by James, who was chomping at the bit to be let loose, furious at having to send home for more things and borrowing books from the school supply. And right during his first breakfast free again he doubled over. Soon to race out of the Great Hall for the rough start to the rest of his year to come. Misery they hoped to curb this behavior and to urge him to do the right thing and own up to what he did. Day to day those snuck doses into his food and favored treats would have him in and out of trips to writhe in bed or off to the Hospital Wing when he could stagger out of the toilet he had been glued to.

Ailments the Hospital Wing would merely patch up and send him on his way in wait for the next round that would keep him off his broom for nearly the whole year and out of the record books on the Quidditch team he so badly wanted to be a part of since his first day of being sorted.

Jewels and Severus however would take up spots on their house teams as Sirius had done, a rivalry to spark many a tantalizing letter back home to relatives and hope for Regulus and their roommate Barty Crouch Jr who couldn’t wait for their own shots at the team.

A month in however results of Dorea Potter’s reaction to the account of what had happened Sirius looked up from his desk in the last class before lunch at Frank Longbottom who had approached him. “Yes?” Around the bend in his arm Sirius’ distant cousin pulled him out of the classroom away from James, who had been taking turns glaring at the pair, to a quiet hall a corner away from the hall outside. “If this is about your cousin Eliza, I swear to you, I did not intend to abandon her at tea I got put to a task by the Friar.”

Against the wall Frank guided him, the stocky teen who didn’t need to tower over Sirius to have him a bit concerned at his own team Beater for what he could do. “What did you write to my Great Aunt Dorea?”

Sirius’ brow ticked up, “Pardon me?”

“She was informed by you of some indisputable despicable behavior and now I have been named sole heir of her fortune.” Frank stated plainly. “What did you say?”

“James came astonishingly close to murdering someone.” Frank’s brow ticked up and Sirius added, “Without intent or clarity. His parents won’t let him be expelled, even if Dumbledore would try it.”

Frank pointed at him making Sirius dryly swallow, only to grin as he was told, “I will remember this on my wedding day. You will have a place of status amongst my wedding party.”

“Thank you,” Sirius said and turned with Frank to both head back to grab their things.

“Mum didn’t have a clue how I’d done it,” Frank said making Sirius look his way to see him shake his head. “I had no clue how I’d done it.”

“Well if I’d had a fortune to give away you’d have earned it from me.” Sirius said and Frank looked up at him curiously.

“Why?” Frank asked flatly.

“Haven’t the foggiest,” Sirius said with a chuckle that had Frank chuckle and shake his head to the bump of his arm into Sirius’. “Fair Beater though.”

 *.*.*

 Deeply a breath of fresh air was taken by Jewels, who hoped for the first night in months she would not have any hint of wolves in her dreams always chased by hints of James lurking somewhere in the dark. Right into the arms of her parents she rushed only luring quizzical glances from her family to Lily, who would know why she had done so. But they wouldn’t get an answer past her being happy to be home again.

Early again on her first trip back to the theater she made another stop at Gringotts to put that invisibility cloak turned crystal into her vault. Ensuring at least that would not find its way back to his hands as long as she could help it. Weeks she tried to relax in the time without that shadow hanging over her. Able in her final day out to add a second Sickle to her pride swelling account she hoped to one day upgrade from when she ran out of room.

 …

 They would all have to return to school in the New Year. Pleased in that Severus had a first potion Remus had results of the first batch and side effects that could be worked on through the second version of the potion both were eager to begin on in wishes that it would be an improvement. Avoidance of the constantly dosed James had the older Evans girl to go and confront the only clear source of her sister’s recent bout of secret keeping. Certainly not gaining an answer she ever expected.

Lily, when James himself outed his ‘prank’ to prove he was on her side and not her sister’s, who had been so hurtful to Lily the year prior now landed a second Evans in a few months detention for the debilitating hex she cast on him. She even apologized to Jewels for not knowing, and had thrown that bracelet the boy bought her back in his face in disgust for who had given it to her.

Lily tried, while still hurt at hints of pain and barriers still between the sisters, she tried to keep her patience and support steadfast. And for how badly she now knew Remus to speak and treat himself, he became her new focal point to daily reassure him he was not his condition and he would never be without a friend while she was alive.

.

James didn’t apologize. Sure there was a ‘sorry’ in the muddled sentence he lobbed Jewels’ way in the final week of school. But by the tone and lack of eye contact from the boy scoping out the bathroom he’d just spent a good three hours in, feeling like turning himself inside out would be easier than passing his reoccurring stomach bug, he didn’t care.

Where he didn’t admit it his body language did. And all he could do was finally land himself on the list for detention for the end of the school year and beginning of the next. When, in front of Professor Binns, he sent a constricting curse on Severus who told James they’d destroy Gryffindor academically again the next year even with his newfound study habits thanks to being confined for so long and simply needing something to read until his illnesses passed.

Yet by the final week of the year when Jewels had helped to cinch the House and Quidditch Cups one by one a treasure hunt of sorts was how James would find his items, if he could, all but that cloak Jewels had taken to that same vault so he couldn’t use it against the other students again.

Pt 11

#Marauders Era #Lily Evans #Petunia Evans #Severus Snape #Alastor Moody #Sirius Black #Regulus Black #Remus Lupin #James Potter #Jewelia Evans #Bubbling Confidence #Old Grudges #Still Enemies #Hogwarts #Full Moon Attempted Murder #Albus Dumbledore #Madame Pomfrey #Slap on the Wrist #Theivery #Just Deserts #Professor Binns

[its-rat-time-babey]

Headcanons, Speculation and analysis of Oracle Magic:

This is part of a series where I analyze and make headcanons about each form of magic.

[Bard] [Oracle] [Potions] [More coming soon]

Oracle magic is one of, if not the most powerful and most difficult to control form of magic there is. It has a lot of unique utility spells like spells that allow you to see the future, and offensively it is next to unmatched. But Oracle magic is also infamously difficult to control and utilize properly.

Oracle magic can be divided into two different types of magic; utility spells like future vision, telepathy and possession and offensive spells like spirits and energy blasts.

Before we look at either of those things though, we need to look at what Oracle magic is and how it works.

Oracle magic uses spirits, ghosts and raw magical energy to do things, whether that be telling fortunes or burning someone to ashes.

The first and most important thing about these spirits however, is the fact that they aren’t the actual ghosts of dead witches. They also aren’t sentient. Oracle spirits are made of raw magical energy and are sentient the same way abominations are sentient, meaning not at all unless their creator actively gives them sentience, and even if given sentience, they still aren’t intelligent enough to do much. If you ever meet an oracle that claims they can truly talk to the dead, they’re lying. Oracles can sometimes hear the voices of dead loved ones when they’re casting magic, mostly quick little whispers that are hard to make out, but no one has ever been able to hold a full conversation with a dead person.

Oracle spirits also come in all shapes and sizes. The vaguely humanoid mummy-like spirits are the most common ones that Oracles create because they’re easy to control and don’t require an absolute ton of magic to create, but spirits can variety in appearance wildly, ranging from floating skulls to giant skeletal worm-dragons.

There’s also the very important focusing crystals that Oracles use. Oracle magic CAN be cast with a spell circle, but summoning a spirit can be time and magic consuming, so all Oracles use focusing crystals to make it a bit faster and less hard on the bile sack. These crystals come in all shapes and sizes, from the training orbs at hexside to Odalia’s necklace, but they all work the same way. An Oracle charges the crystal ahead of time with Oracle magic and when they need to summon a spirit, they use the energy already stored in the crystal instead of using a spell circle. The result is a spirit that can be summoned quickly and efficiently. It’s basically a magic battery. The crystals also allow the user to communicate telepathically with the spirit, making it easier to control it.

Moving on from the basics, here’s how the future sight works:

In order to see the future, the Oracle needs specific equipment. The smaller crystals that Oracles like Odalia wear simply don’t hold enough power to see into the future. You need a proper crystal Ball.

Hexside actually has “training orbs” that are specifically designed for future vision and nothing else. They serve as a way for young Oracles to learn how to look into the future without the risk of summoning a much more destructive spirit by accident.

Those “training orbs” are the purple crystal balls that Luz picks up and uses in The First Day. The fact that it’s a training orb designed for witches that are still learning the basics explains why Luz was able to use it easily without magic. It was already charged up beforehand by an actual Oracle and all Luz had to do was tell it to look into the future.

There are two ways to use future vision spells. You either summon a spirit that tells you the future or you see the future in either the crystal ball or a very vivid hallucination.

The spirits summoned by future vision spells are a bit different when compared to other Oracle spirits. First of all, they’re always the vaguely humanoid mummy-like spirits. You cannot make them appear any different. The second major difference is that they’re much smaller than other spirits, are completely intangible and are capable of speech.

Once summoned, the spirit will tell exactly one prophecy and then disappear. The Oracle can tell the spirit to look at a certain point in the future or look for a certain person or object, but after exactly one prophecy the spirit will disappear. No more and no less. The same rules apply to spells that let you see the future through the crystal ball/hallucination.

The prediction, regardless of how it is done, isn’t 100% accurate all the time. If you’re only looking a few minutes into the future then the future you see is basically inevitable and nothing you do can change it, but if you start looking further into the future, it gets less and less likely to be accurate and more things can suddenly change the predicted future.

How specific the prediction is also depends on how far into the future you’re looking. If you look one day into the future then the prophecy will be very specific and on the nose, but looking several years into the future will give you a riddle or very vague answer if you’re using a spirit and an assortment of seemingly random images if you’re looking into the crystal ball.

Not everything can be seen either. It’s possible to make things “immune” to Oracle predictions. It won’t appear in visions, spirits will act like it doesn’t exist and the entire prophecy will refuse to account for it. Belos, the Collector, King, the Owl Beast (but not Eda) and the Day of Unity as a whole are examples of this. Belos has a bunch of magical safeguards, the Collector and King are both extremely powerful entities with a natural immunity, the Owl Beast Curse’s anti-magic properties make both Eda’s cursed form and Harpy Eda not show up in prophecies and the Day of Unity had hundreds, if not thousands of magical safeguards set up by Belos and the Collector so no one could figure out what it really is. Belos also declared it both a sin and a crime to attempt to view the Day of Unity or the aftermath through Oracle magic, the same way it’s considered a sin to try and predict the rapture in christianity.

Moving on from future vision and prophecies, the more aggressive side of Oracle magic:

In combat, Oracles mostly attack using spirits, but they aren’t completely limited to them. There are Oracle spells that don’t require the creation of a spirit, including creating phantasmal fire that can’t be put out by regular means, energy blasts, Oracle teleportation and even the ability to briefly turn intangible, but the most common attack involves spirits.

There are multiple steps in using a spirit. First, you need to create one. As it forms, you must add effects to it so it can do what you want it to do. For example, do you want it to pass through objects or physically interact with things? Do you want it to fade or explode when it reaches its target or do you want it to stick around until you dispel it? That kind of thing.

Then, you let the spirit go. But that’s not the final part. The entire time that the spirit is active, you gotta fight it for control and keep it on the right path. Spirits may not be sentient beings, but they aren’t completely mindless constructs that always obey the first command they’re given like abominations. Spirits are powerful, chaotic entities that tend to travel in whatever direction they want and almost never follow a straight path. So as the spirit travels towards its target, the Oracle needs to keep the spirit firmly on its path until it gets extremely close to its target, at which point it’ll start obeying without question, home in on it’s target and do whatever it was created to do. Without the Oracle’s guidance, the spirit will travel in seemingly random directions until it is either dispelled, destroyed or comes close to its intended target by random chance, at which point it’ll home in on the target and do whatever it was created to do.

This is why Oracle magic is considered so difficult. Oracle magic is powerful as all hell, but the chaotic nature of spirits makes it very, very difficult to actually hit what you want to hit. Oracle magic is also the most magic-heavy coven, because you need to use a lot of magic not just to create and hold the spirit together, but also to actually control the spirit.

Even some of the most powerful Oracles struggle to use multiple spirits at once. Odalia is the most powerful Oracle we’ve seen in the show besides the coven head and they can just barely handle five spirits simultaneously. And that’s talking about the humanoid mummy-looking spirits, which are the easiest to summon and control. The larger and more powerful spirits are even more difficult to control.

In short, Oracle magic is the most powerful offensive magic there is, but that power comes at the cost of Oracle magic being extremely taxing on a witch’s magic reserves and being extremely difficult to aim and control.

In combat, Oracles are strong against both Plant Witches and Abominations.

Oracles are strong against Plant Witches because they have access to one specific spell that is the absolute bane of plants everywhere; Phantasmal Fire. Phantasmal Fire, also called Spirit Fire or Oracle Fire, is a type of magical, purple fire that Oracles can summon with a basic spell circle. It cannot be put out using water, wind or cold temperatures and will burn until it is dispelled through magical means. Not even the boiling isles plants that are naturally heat resistant because they have to deal with the boiling rain can survive being burnt by Oracle Fire, and Plant Witches don’t have access to any spells that can get rid of it. So once the Oracle starts using Phantasmal Fire, the Plant Witch has no way to counter it and can only dodge as the Oracle effortlessly burns through everything.

Oracles are strong against Abominations for two main reasons. The first is the fact that possession spells work on Abominations. They actually work really well on Abominations because the mindlessness of Abominations makes it very easy to take control of them. The Abominations witch can just dispel the Abomination as soon as the Oracle takes control but that still gets rid of an Abomination. The second reason is the fact that Abominations just don’t handle Oracle magic well. Abominations are very resistant to chemicals and physical damage, but the raw magical energy that spirits are made of just cuts through them like a hot knife through butter.

Oracles are weak against Healers and other Oracles.

First off, Healers. It sounds crazy, but it’s true. 90% of Oracle magic can be neutralized by basic healing magic. Some larger spirits require more complicated healing magic, but they can still be neutralized. This makes all of the Oracle’s most powerful spells useless against a healer.

Secondly, other Oracles. They can communicate with and even control the spirits of other Oracles if they try hard enough, so they can either force their opponent to miss or just straight up sent their opponent’s spirit right back at them.

#owl house #the owl house #headcanons #the coven system #oracle coven #please tell me what coven up you want to see next

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Title: Pale Fire

Author: Vladimir Nabokov

Rating: 10/10

A strange and beautiful book, like a rare and perfect pearl, and yet strangely un-pearl-like, which must be very hard to polish? Yes. Yes. This is a book which, once it catches your attention, it is difficult to forget. It demands to be talked about and thought about, like no other book I know of.

And yet the more you think about it the more baffling, and the more "pearl-like," the whole book appears.

I am not sure that you can explain this, but I will try. The great "pearl" of the book, the pearl which it demands to be remembered and thought about, is not any one of the hundreds or thousands of pages: it is the whole "book" as a whole, the shape of the whole, its unique "aura," the way the book makes you feel on a deep, intuitive level that you must discuss it, that you cannot "take the book" or even read it in any ordinary sense — you can only look into its aura, you must hold and examine it in a very particular way, the way one examines a gemstone.

For example, just looking at it, I can make the distinction between the "book" (its shape and its unique aura) and the individual text. The text may be very long — but the aura is inescapably different.

The text does not "go on" (the way a book does), it breaks up. It never really does what it says on the tin; it doesn't "conclude." It does not form one clear "argument," it does not have one "claim" and one "corollary" to back it up. It doesn't "say one thing and prove it" to any great degree: it says a thousand things and proves only the most tentative and peripheral ones. One of its great virtues is that it makes you question and think about what it's saying, and the questions it raises tend to be difficult questions — not questions with easy "answers."

And yet if you're used to thinking of books as a "conclusion" — as containing an "argument" and one "corollary" — you must ask yourself what it even means to "conclude" it, since it is very far from having an "argument" or "conclusion" at all. And indeed, there is almost no explicit argument to be found: the "conclusion" is implied throughout the book, and can be inferred, but the "conclusion" is not really an explicit part of the structure of the book's "bookness" — it is part of its "aura" which is like the "aura" of some rare and beautiful piece of music (or of a person)

......

Pale Fire reads like a series of "tweets" and "replies" and "retweets." The book consists of a series of poems, "discussed" by "others" — usually in very brief, rapid-fire, seemingly casual exchanges, the way one tweets. And yet, even in these little "conversations," each of the "tweetees" has a unique voice, a unique "aura," and together they make up a large whole, which is as much one "person" in conversation as it is one "person" in conversation with another "person."

This leads to a curious difficulty in reading the book. Because each of the "tweetees" is a "person" in conversation with one another, the book has no "center." There is no one person who "is the author" (as in other famous books, like Infinite Jest). The whole "book" is, as I said earlier, a "pearl." There is no one "person" who is doing most of the "tweeting." There are multiple tweeters, and each of them "tweets" in conversation with the others, even while other tweeters are "talking" to them — so that, even though there is a "center," it is a center without a core, or a center which shifts around in response to other centers.

And yet there is one central "topic" of conversation throughout the "book." It is the contrasting of two "poets," "Andrew Marvell" and "Wallace Stevens," which runs through each of the book's many conversations. The contrast is, in part, between "tweeting" styles. The contrast is, in part, between "contemporary poetic norms" and "medieval poetic norms" — between a "conventional," "standardized" poetry which is supposed to follow certain "rules" (the rules that Marvell adheres to), and a "non-conventional" "abstract" poetry (Wallace Stevens' poetry) which does not follow any specific rules or "rules." The contrast is also between the "conventional" and "abstract" forms of poetry which, in turn, contrast with the ways in which the two poets "tweet." The difference between the two "tweeting styles" is that, while Marvell is supposed to write "conventional" poetry, his poems are written on the "left" side of the page in "left-handed" italics. Wallace Stevens, by contrast, is supposed to write "abstract" poetry. His poems are written on the "right" side of the page in "left-handed" italics, and they contain elaborate, long-winded verbal "commentaries" ("essays") which are at odds with the "conventional" style of his poetry.

The contrasts of the two styles of poetry are, I feel, part of what makes the book so difficult to "read." The contrasts are, first of all, between "conventional" styles and "non-conventional" ones, and so they're hard to "tweet" in exactly the right "way" — especially to the degree that they're "conversational," to which both tweeters must respond "appropriately"

......

If you read the book without any awareness of these contrasts, then it is just like a normal book, which means that the aura it has is just like any other book. There are good, mediocre, and bad parts of the book, no more different from Finnegan's Wake than from a novel one person finds enjoyable and the same person finds dull. The "aura" of the whole book, in other words, is something that is always there in all books — something like the "aura" which distinguishes a truly good book from a merely good book, or from a merely good one which one can take pleasure in, or from a merely good book which is too familiar to be truly enjoyable.

But if you read the book with this awareness, and in light of the central contrast of the two poets, then you see that the book is a series of conversations which are all "saying something different about the contrast." And so, you realize that this is something which is unique to this book, which cannot really be compared with anything else. And you cannot "take the book" in any ordinary way. You just can't "take it" at

[max1461]

And yeah, I’m just not going to extend charity to this kind of doublespeak from people, not matter how bad off they are. People cannot talk about “settlers” who should and must immediately forfeit their rights, and then also claim that this would be somehow peaceful, bloodless, and cause no suffering. They can’t sit around engaging in revenge fantasy and then also claim to be the most pure people who’d never be oppressive ever. I don’t care who and I don’t care if it’s just rhetoric, it’s bad.

Maybe this just bespeaks a fundamental difference in how you and I understand ethics. Regardless of any specifics of the present topic, I have to admit that I believe the approach you're taking here is essentially never the correct one. Yes, political doublespeak is bad. Revenge fantasies are not productive. But that does not make your response, your total unwillingness to extend charity or listen to people's concerns, a justified one. You must recognize that people are imperfect. It would be lovely if we all said exactly what we meant, and held our anger when cooperation was in order, and so on and so forth. But people are not always going to do this, because people are imperfect. That's a fact of life, and it's especially a fact of political organizing.

People are going to articulate their struggles in language that makes you uncomfortable, rightly or wrongly so. People are going to use terminology that sets off alarm bells for you, as the word "settlers" seems to. And maybe people are even going to hold opinions that you think would be harmful to you if brought to fruition. To get anything done in politics ever, to make the world a better place, being able to deal with this is a fundamental skill. I analogized it in another post to the place of math in physics. You need to be able to coalition build, to organize with people you disagree with (even in very fundamental ways!), to shape your tone to your audience. You need to be able to talk comfortably to all kinds of people who believe all kinds of things, even people who don't like you. You need to be able to tolerate a bit of nasty rhetoric.

Even in the worst of times, when conflict is hot and you perceive there to be some credible threat to yourself, the noble thing to do is still to listen, through your discomfort, and attempt to reach an optimal comprise between your interlocutors' needs and your own. Obviously this is not something I would demand of someone, if they really were in danger. But to me it is still the noble response. However, this is not the worst of times. Conflict is not hot. On an actual practical level, the only aspects of the decolonial movement that are not marginal in the US are the purely symbolic ones. The most radical forms of decolonization, the ones that could conceivably pose any actual threat to you, are ridiculously marginal (and indeed, limited in obvious ways by demographics, such that it's basically inconceivable to me that they could ever find themselves in a position to harm you). You are in no actual danger of an indigenous lead forced relocation.

Furthermore, it seems to me that many of the words which trigger you here are extremely common in discussions of indigenous issues (and in-and-of-themselves purely descriptive terms), like "settlers" and "settler colonialism". This means that, if you refuse to engage in charity or calm discussion with people who use these terms, even when no other associated rhetoric is present (as in many of the cases on this blog that have upset you), you are basically refusing to cooperate with any existing effort at all to address indigenous peoples' concerns. Again, even though these efforts pose no practical threat to you, and even though the concerns they address are very grave, as evinced by the discussion of poverty among American Indians that motivated this discussion. You are upset by rhetoric to such a degree that you continually obfuscate the discussion of real material suffering when it is not phrased in the terms that you like, attributing the least charitable possible mixture of political opinions, pulled from the most extreme and least-thought-through subsets of decolonial discourse, to (what appears to me to be) anyone broaching the topic at all.

If every time someone says the phrase "settler colonialism", you jump straight to the conclusion that they are trying to commit genocide against you and respond as such, you are significantly hamstringing your ability to talk with people about the very real and immediate struggles they face. You appear to be ramping up your own level of antagonism immediately in response to the perceived worst-case level of antagonism that might be displayed by your interlocutor, based on associations you have with the terminology they use. I hope you can see how this comes across as, frankly, a callous and immature response.

In fact, it's more than just a terminological thing, because the quote which started this whole exchange made no mention of the terms "setter" or "settler colonialism"—indeed, it was an example of "talking about extreme poverty overtly", as you yourself said you would be more comfortable with. And the article about "Man of the Hole", which you (I believe it was you) took umbrage with the other day, wasn't phrased in the rhetoric of decolonization either. This makes it look as if any mention of indigenous issues at all is a trigger for you, and I hope you can see how that's counter productive.

Look: you do not have to engage with this topic. If discussion of these things provokes such fear and anxiety in you, I want to say with full sincerity that you should probably stop. There is nothing wrong with that. Maybe our present discourse norms have convinced you that you must have a Take on every topic, but our present discourse norms are wrong. However, if you are going to engage with this topic, as you have been choosing to do by sending me angry anons every time I reblog a post about indigenous issues, I think that frankly you have a responsibility to tolerate some rhetorical discomfort.

#anon #society

[straightfromthetorturedpoetsdept]

What's wild to me is how each new article that comes out just completely contradicts the one before it, yet everyone seems to believe it and say that "it makes so much sense." Like??? No the fuck it doesn't. And even if it was true (which it definitely isn't), who is leaking all this information? Because it sure as hell isn't Tree. Taylor would never want so many details to come out about her personal life, especially not while she's on the biggest tour of her life.

this is my thing, like people are so fucking desperate to believe Taylor just cannot make it work with anyone that they rush to legitimize articles that are obviously filled with factually incorrect statements.

when an article explicitly distances themselves from a celebrity team or brand, it is because they KNOW this article could get them in trouble and they want to be legally protected. as long as they state the source is "close to" a celebrity, thats enough verification they need to make to run anything.

people is not a reliable source of information, I don't know why people are acting like it makes total sense for taylor to release news of her break-up during her off week but that is actually the WORST move she could do because it overshadowed the tour (very obviously) and people are making the tour about the supposed break-up already.

people are claiming things like the 1 surprise song wasnt just a response to you losers complaining about it being on the set list or that any of the visuals on tour are related to a break-up in any way shape or form. like, her crying over the crowd during Champagne Problems is now evidence that shes sad over a break up but she gets through lover just fine???????

its such strange behavior when none of these articles are consistent with one another nor is it consistent with taylor's career or relationship trajectory. like, we dont know much about their relationship but what we do know is joe is perfectly fine being the ken to taylor's barbie?????? why would it be a problem NOW and not during rep/lover era?????

isnt it much more likely that a high profile tour would break a couple within their first 2 years of dating (i.e. rep tour) than their almost SEVEN YEARS of dating?????? taylor and joe arent children, they were able to work it out in 2017/18 but not now?????? that makes zero sense!!!!

idk nothing about this makes any sense to me except in the "people has no idea what the fuck they're talking about" way tbqh.

#taylor swift #jaylor #media literacy #swifties