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iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia · 2 days

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i would've requested something so much earlier but for some reason your ask box wasn't showing on my mobile at all?? very strange

soo since i was helping my mom assemble some garden chairs recently, how about drabbles about M6 dealing with assembling ikea furniture and how good/bad they're at it:3

The Arcana Drabbles: M6 building IKEA furniture

You'd like to say that you've seen the shop in worse condition, but ... you really haven't. The six adults scattered across the the floor and scrabbling through the pile of flat-pack boxes that arrived earlier aren't helping (though you can tell they're really, really trying to -).

"UGH!" Lucio groans, crumpling an ill-fated leaflet in his golden hand, "this makes no SENSE!"

"Of course it wouldn't," Nadia calmly responds from her chair. Did she drag that out of the back room? "it has writing on it, and I've never seen you patient enough to read."

"I CAN READ -"

"I can't, apparently." Julian hangs his head mournfully over the pile of screws he's laid out. You're pretty sure half the pieces don't belong to the kit he's currently crouched over, and they're arranged in a fashion eerily similar to surgical tools. "The first step calls for piece 'a'! I can't find piece 'a'! How am I supposed to build this if I can't find piece 'a'?"

You step cautiously past Nadia's pristine workspace and peer at Julian's leaflet. You're pretty sure you saw piece 'a' a minute ago scattered in the wreckage that is Lucio's general vicinity and you don't know how to break that news to the languishing doctor.

"Hah! I did it!"

Portia pops up from where she's been sitting behind the counter, triumphantly twirling her little metal screwdriver. "Tadaa! I don't know how to pronounce the official name of this, but here are your new cabinets, oh great magician shopkeeper." She gives you a giggling bow and waves her hand at the finished piece. "Where do you want me to put it?"

"You can leave it where it is for now, I still need to decide - Asra? What's that?"

"Hm?"

The magician looks at you over their shoulder, sitting cross-legged on the countertop with their back hiding whatever it is they're working on against the wall. "I'm almost done."

That's cryptic. "Done with what?"

He smirks. "This." The structure they reveal may have started as furniture, but currently resembles a modern art piece. You don't know what it is.

"What is it?"

"Ah ..." His voice trails off, and he flushes sheepishly. "Well, it's going to be shelves when it's done, I just took the less conventional route." They flash you a dimpled grin. "I'll keep working on it."

It's as you're turning away that you notice piece 'a' must have just been plucked from Lucio's floor space and creatively attached to the structure. Thankfully, Julian still doesn't seem to have noticed.

"WHERE ARE MY PIECES GOING?!"

... however, it seems like Lucio did notice. You approach the whirlwind of screws and random wooden pieces, the ex-count sitting at the center of the chaos like a loud, confused island. "Which pieces are you missing?"

"I don't know! I just took apart the thing I was working on -" he waves his crumpled leaflet with a pout, "- and now I have less than I started with! Asraaa -"

"Don't look in my direction." Asra gives Lucio an uncharacteristically cold scowl and makes a show of pulling piece 'a' from the artwork that is, to their credit, starting to look more like a shelving unit. It drops on the floor and rolls into Julian's pile.

"A-ha! I've found it! You've fled from my grasp for long enough, you scoundrel. Finally, I can begin!" The doctor snatches it up in delight and flips excitedly through his leaflet.

"JULES!" You'd think Lucio had gotten sunburned with how red he's turning.

"I'm pretty sure that wasn't one of your pieces, Lucio. Why don't you show me what the first step was, again?"

Lucio grumbles and begins un-crumpling his instruction manual. It's while he's distracted that you see the large hand reaching into the sea of his pieces and snatching a tiny screw. You follow it back to the corner where its owner has been sitting silently the whole time, and your jaw drops.

Three completed furniture pieces are neatly arranged in a row, a fourth one quickly reaching completion in Muriel's lap. You knew he was a good craftsman, but it's almost like the screws dance into place under his precise touch. You watch him glance at his open manual, spot the cross-shaped piece under Lucio's knee, and then silently snap it up as soon as the ex-count's head is turned. A small, smug smile dances across his bent face when another confused shriek follows shortly after.

"ANOTHER ONE DISAPPEARED! IT WAS CROSS-SHAPED, IT WAS HERE AND NOW IT'S NOT -"

"Silence."

Nadia massages her temples, clearly fighting off a migraine.

"Noddy, I -"

"Enough." Nadia leans back and sighs. She's pulled out a set of trays and organized each unused manual with all the screws and small pieces needed, laid out in order of use. She holds out one hand and Muriel silently flicks the piece she's looking for into her palm - right after pulling it from under Lucio's boot. "I've been taking your pieces, in order to better organize our endeavors."

"Noddy, how could you?!"

"How about some tea? Doesn't that sound nice?!"

Portia's aggressive sunshine smile overrides the growing storm, giving Nadia a moment to massage her temples and momentarily cowing Lucio. You smile. "Tea sounds nice right now."

Portia claps her hands, skipping around the counter. "Great! Do you have any snacks?"

You shake your head slowly. "I ran out this morning, but if anyone wants to buy cookies I can give you some -"

"Cookies?!" Lucio stands bolt upright, heading straight for the door. "Don't worry about it! I'll get them!"

The door slams shut behind him and the room is suddenly quiet, his excited shouting fading around an outside street corner. To your surprise, it's Muriel who breaks the silence.

"Cookies? ... that's all it takes?"

#ask arcana brainrot #the arcana #the arcana game #the arcana drabble #the arcana imagine #the arcana fanfic #asra the arcana #julian the arcana #nadia the arcana #muriel the arcana #portia the arcana #lucio the arcana #asra alnazar #julian devorak #nadia satrinava #muriel of the kokhuri #portia devorak #lucio morgasson

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epicbuddieficrecs · 2 days

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Weekly Recap | May 27th-June 2nd 2024

That finale sure was... something.... Can't wait for all the fix-it fics we're gonna get over the summer!!

Complete

the same damn thing that made my heart surrender by fleetinghearts/ @shitouttabuck (Crack, Getting Together | 1,5K | Teen): “Ever since that barbecue at Bobby and Athena’s last weekend I’ve been getting the weirdest targeted ads on my Insta,” he pouts, scrolling some more. On the screen is an ad for… a pale blue babydoll tee with the word BRAT screenprinted across the chest in curly pink letters. or, buck’s instagram algorithm is plaguing him with salacious clothing ads and eddie can’t be held responsible for playing Beefcake Barbie dress-up in his head about it

seeing you with him just don't feel right (you're giving me a heart attack) by bellabrady (Post-S7, Crack | 1,9K | Not Rated): Or: Buck and Eddie accidentally give their homophobic captain a heart attack.

stained by my mistakes by Tizniz/@tizniz (BTHB: Accidental Murder | 2K | General): Like an overslept mistake or killed a dude mistake? Under any other circumstances, Eddie would probably laugh at his best friend’s reply. But he’s not laughing. Not right now. He swallows the lump in his throat and stumbles over his reply. …the second option.

Everything you lose is a step you take by justhockey (Getting Together, Post-Lightning | 2K | General): For a while, when Buck would find himself about to float - about to slip into that space where he couldn’t believe he was still here, still breathing - he would need something to keep him steady. To keep both feet firmly planted on the ground. That’s how all of it started. Because it had been instinct, like it always has been with them, for Buck to reach for Eddie that very first time he felt like he was floating. And Eddie, like he always does, reached back. Through fire and trauma, under fire trucks, across blood-soaked asphalt - Buck and Eddie always reach for each other. It’s what they do. It’s who they are. They reach, and hold on, and they pull each other to safety.

that's the way love goes by heartbeatdiaz/ @loserdiaz (BuckTommy Break-up, Buddie Getting Together | 4K | Teen): Tommy thinks Buck and Eddie used to date and never really got over each other... he is very tired and confused. But it makes some feeling realizations come to light and a pair of idiots to see what they've been missing all along, so it's all good.

Sweet as Sugar by Tizniz/ @tizniz (BTHB: Chronic Illness | 8K | General): “There’s still something wrong with me.” “I don’t like that phrasing, but your labs did come back positive for something, yes.” Buck swallows, rubs his hands down his thighs, “Okay. What?” “Evan, you’re diabetic.”

What’s Your Order? by JJK/ @trenchcoatsandtimetravel (Post-S7E5, BuckTommy | 18K | Teen): 5 Times Buck Guessed Tommy’s Coffee Order + 1 Time He Didn’t Have To

🔥 a place we both know by not1_2write (A/B/O AU, Not A Firefighter!Buck | 42K | Mature): This whole thing is Bobby's fault. He's the one that suggested Eddie apply for the mate matching service, it was his idea to look for an Omega that would love and care for Christopher, to find a mate to be by Eddie's side. Eddie's gonna have to send him a fruit basket or something. It was the greatest idea Bobby's ever had and because of it they now they have Buck in their lives, in their pack and firmly nestled right in Eddie's heart.

WIP

🔥 stuck now so long, we just got the start wrong by Daffi_990_ao3/ @daffi-990 (Canon Divergent, Different First Meeting | 7/10 | 55K | Not Rated): Probational Firefighters Evan “Buck” Buckley and Eddie Diaz meet on a call which ends with them at odds with each other. As the months roll by, they keep running into each other on the job, much to Eddie’s dismay and Buck’s delight. Can they put aside their first opinions and misunderstandings and allow the seeds of friendship, and possibly something more, to take root?

🔥 like a bird stealing bread out from under your nose by Daisies_and_Briars/ @cal-daisies-and-briars (Post-S7, Fix-It | 2/7 | 6K | Mature): If you’d asked Eddie back in May what rock bottom looked like, it was his son leaving him. That felt like it; everything ruined so entirely that there was no way to ruin it further. There’s always more to lose.

🔥 Things We're All Too Young to Know by Daisies_and_Briar / @cal-daisies-and-briars (Canon S1-S6, Divergent Post-S6 | 128/? | 401K | Mature): This is a love story. Even if it doesn’t always look like it. Even if it doesn’t always feel like it. A look back on Eddie and Buck's lives up to now, and what led them to each other, interpreted from the current 9-1-1 canon.

🔥 Held Up a Lightning Rod (Wonder Why I'm Struck) by letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Not A Firefighter Eddie, Sugar Baby Buck | 3/22 | 14K | Explicit): When Eddie Diaz stumbles his way into money, he finds himself one of the most eligible bachelors in Los Angeles - to his dismay. He needs a way to get people off his back without confessing his messy marital situation, and Shannon's still not answering his calls, so he caves to a friend's suggestion: hire someone to pretend to be his partner. Enter Evan "Buck" Buckley: sugar baby, fire fighter, and the man about to turn Eddie's world upside down.

Podfic

🔥 [Podfic] Your Fingerprints Smeared on My Heart (Lead Me Back to You) by MistMarauder/ @mistmarauder for letmetellyouaboutmyfeels/ @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels (Cowboy AU, Reincarnation, Soulmates | 10-15h | Explicit): In 1880, Evan Buckley of the arriviste set is sent out west to oversee his family's railroad and recover from a broken heart - and meets Eddie Diaz, cowboy. When fate tears them apart, they make a promise: find each other again. In 2018, Buck walks into his fire station in Los Angeles - and meets Eddie Diaz, new recruit.

#buddie #buddie fic #buddie fanfic #buddie fanfiction #buddie fic rec #bucktommy #bucktommy fic

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somber-sapphic · 3 days

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hii could you possibly do a jj x reader book where reader is in denial abt being ill 🫶

Too Far

〖Summary: You and JJ have a fight about your health. This is my attempt at angst (with a happy-ish ending), just a heads up that I am still practicing so it may not count as real angst and instead h/c.〗

〖Word Count: 〗

〖Pairing: JJ x Sick R〗

〖Notes: Every time I drink caffeine for writing I think it's a great idea because I'll be able to write so much but then I focus on something that isn't writing for several hours. I played too much Toon Blast. Also this is sort of edited but not that thoroughly〗

☾Masterlists☽

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

“Y/n what the hell are you doing?” JJ asked, her words laden with exasperation. You looked up from the case file and raised an eyebrow. The two of you had been snippy with each other all day, each of your nerves fraying as the days without catching the killer went on. The fact that Hotch had ordered you to the hotel made everything worse, the guilt of not being able to help the victims eating at you.

“You want to check your tone?” You snapped back, the hoarseness of your voice taking a bit away from the punch you meant to deliver. It was probably for the best, the combination of exhaustion, stress, and what seemed like more than just the sniffles was making you bitter. JJ rolled her eyes and walked over to the desk, dropping the CVS bag beside the papers you had been studying for hours.

“Cold medicine. Take it. And seriously, put the file away and lie down.” You rolled your eyes, something that caused an explosion of pain in your head, but it seemed worth it for the passive aggressiveness. You didn’t want her to know how bad you were starting to feel, you couldn’t give in to the pressure of the team, and everyone worked while they were sick.

Your fever, stuffy nose, cough, and the pressure in your sinuses were not more important than catching a serial killer. Although the fever was really starting to bother you, weighing down your head and making your eyes burn. And your nose hurt from blowing it so often. And your body ached so badly that it felt like your bones were being squeezed. And your throat felt like you had lived off of a diet of lemon juice and broken glass.

“I don’t need cold medicine because I don’t have a cold. Why are you here anyway, I don't need a babysitter. Don’t you have families to interview?” JJ let out a harsh laugh and plopped herself down onto the bed, crossing her arms over her chest in clear frustration. What the two of you needed was a bit of space before a serious conversation but it wasn’t an option given the current situation.

“Right, of course not. The obvious cold symptoms are nothing, you’re shivering in a 75-degree hotel room because of a nonexistent draft. And believe me, I don’t want to be here right now but Hotch doesn’t trust you alone.” That last comment cut deep and her face clouded with guilt as soon as she said it. She knew it was too far but it only hardened your resolve.

“Then leave, there are six other people who could be here it doesn’t need to be you.”

“Why won’t you just admit being sick? Why? You are not helping anyone here, the only thing you’re doing is hurting yourself. Do you honestly think this is a good idea?” JJ exploded, dragging a hand through her slightly greasy hair. She’d been too preoccupied with your health and the case to have time for more than a quick shower.

“Do you honestly think I want to work like this? Of course, I feel like shit, my entire body is on fucking fire but if I stop working people will die!” You yelled back, tears brimming in your eyes. You’d finally said it out loud. You’d admitted to the thoughts that had been swirling inside of you, keeping you from even allowing people to talk about the way you felt.

JJ’s face fell as you felt tears that you couldn’t blink away beginning to run down your fever flushed cheeks. You barely had a handle on your emotions before but now the walls had crumbled to dust and you couldn’t take it. You felt so shitty for so many reasons, it was so hot in your skin and you were struggling to keep case facts straight in your head which only upset you further.

“Sweetheart,” JJ murmured, taking a half step forward. She’d seen you break down before but never on a case, when it happened it was always at home.

“No! No! JJ we’ve been here for weeks, he keeps taking them and we don’t even know why, we can't tell these people anything. They hate us, they have every right to fucking hate us! There has to be something missing and-and I can't just sit here and do nothing while people are dying!” You were sobbing now, your chest heaving as you tried to calm yourself down. You wrapped your arms around yourself in a tight hug, a self-soothing method that usually worked to calm you down. The switch had been flipped, you were acting on pure misery.

“Y/n, honey you said it earlier. There are six other profilers doing everything they can to find the killer. You being sick is not your fault but it is something we need to take care of. If you keep going like this you’re going to mess up, you’re going to hurt yourself, there are so many reasons why you need to rest. Come here, lay down, let me take help you. Please.”

She was right. You hated it, but she was. You were already mixing up facts about victims in your head, there was really no way that you could be of any use right now. The last thing you wanted to do was stop but even worse would be providing false information that would throw the team off the trail.

Despite your hesitation, it didn’t take long for JJ to get you settled into bed. She was working with the determination of a worried mother hen, moving quickly to check your temperature, feed you some medicine, and put a cool cloth on your head. You huddled under the fluffy duvet, your body already beginning to shut down now that you weren’t forcing yourself to work.

“I’m sorry Y/n. I haven't been fair.” JJ said softly, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. She flipped the cloth on your forehead, sending a wave of cold through your body. You didn’t like it but she insisted that it needed to be there.

“Neither have I. But I can’t right now. Can we wait until we’re home?” You pleaded, voice exuding weakness. Even if you wanted to have that conversation there was no way it would be productive in your current state. JJ nodded in agreement and let out a deep sigh.

Nothing had really been resolved. The apologies from both were surface-level at best but at least there was an admission of wrongdoing on both sides. Your jobs had been hard on the relationship, harder than either of you had thought it would be. For now, the discussion would be tabled, saved for a time when the two of you were in a space to have it. It might not have been perfect but it was better than nothing.

〖Join My Taglist!〗 @villaneve4life, @lots-of-pockets, @bloomingflowersthings, @lovelyy-moonlight, @scrambled-brain-eggs, @juststuckhereforever, @chairhere, @iliketozoneout

#sickfic #fever #fanfiction #sick fanfiction #sick reader #sick fanfic #angst #sick you #sick y/n #jennifer jareau #jj x reader #jj x you #hurt/angst #hurt/comfort #flu #fever whump #sick whump #criminal minds sickfic #attempt at angst

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ghoulfuckersincorporated · 5 hours

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(Sorry if this is too weird for you. You can just ignore it if you like.)

So...what's it like to drink the Ghoul's piss? I'm wondering about taste, smell, temperature, and side-effects.

*blush*

(*Homelander voice* Go ahead...let's light this candle, huh??)

Friend, when I said this blog is kink-friendly and I don't judge, I meant that this blog is kink-friendly and I don't judge. I've yet to get a single ask/question/request that's made me uncomfortable, or even made me look at it funny, and this certainly isn't the point where I'm gonna start. With that said...

The taste? Oh babe, lemme tell you, it's not good. Don't get me wrong, I don't think anyone in the Fallout universe would have inoffensive-tasting piss (chronic dehydration is too widespread and frankly these people have fucked-up diets, plus constant radiation exposure for most of them). But I fully believe that ghoul metabolic processes are streamlined to utilize any beneficial resources with maximum efficiency (chiefly, calories and water; this would fall in line with characters like The Ghoul being put into situations where they survive for years and years with no food or water). To be blunt, I don't think his kidneys are producing a ton of urine, save for the bare minimum of biological waste that comes from them simply operating.

Long story short, I think the man maybe pisses once every few days if he's had enough water, and it would be dark and STRONG, both in smell and taste.

I also have a headcanon that ghouls run noticeably hotter than regular humans due to the sheer amount of energy that gamma radiation produces. The radiation alone may not produce much measurable physical heat, but I think a human body plied with it down to the cell level would basically work as a space heater. I don't think most ghouls worry about thermoregulation in the heat.

You know what that means, though? Incredibly hot piss. Like, steaming hot even when it's not cold outside. Hot enough to make you gasp when it hits your skin, startling without actually burning you.

In terms of side-effects from contact or ingesting, I'm envisioning the same sort of deal as with ghoul cum (which I elaborated on in an almost-equally unhinged post here); it's incredibly radioactive and will make you very ill if you fuck around too much. Getting a little on you probably wouldn't be any worse than trudging through your average puddle of nuclear waste, but if you're intending to have it inside you in any way, especially swallowing it, you need to be careful. Prep with Rad-X (which reduces the amount of radiation that "sticks" to you, up to a certain point), finish up with Radaway (which removes already-accumulated radiation) if you're determined to be a piss queen or a ghoul cum dumpster. No judgement! I just want to make sure you know you're in for some pretty severe nausea, open sores/burns (especially in your mouth), bleeding from the nose, and bruising if you're not careful. We love nasty fun around here, but we also love safety.

Also, you didn't ask about this, but based on what you DID ask, I'll assume you'd also be interested in knowing what his reaction to you bringing up such things would be.

And honestly? I think you'd get essentially the same reaction from Prewar!Coop and The Ghoul.

I think he'd be hesitant. Not because he finds it too gross or off-putting or anything, but he'd worry that it'll be disrespectful to you in a way that he, as a man, shouldn't engage in (moreso Prewar!Coop), and because he's worried it could be harmful to you (moreso The Ghoul). Don't get me wrong; I think he'd certainly be intrigued, and I think you being both bold and vulnerable enough to ask for such a thing would make his head spin in the best possible way. What a display of trust! As I've said before, I think this man had (and has) lots of weird kinks himself, he just hasn't had the opportunities to explore them that he needs. Many of those kinks he doesn't even realize he has.

But even though you can see that intrigue in his pretty eyes, see the forming bulge in his pants, you may have to be persistent if you really wanna try it out. He's very firm about not doing anything that'll really harm you, and he isn't initially convinced this won't.

If I'm quite honest? Prewar!Cooper would be even more turned on by it than The Ghoul once he came around to the idea. I think it would arouse him so much to see his favorite pretty little plaything so enamored with him that they'll do anything to please him, for him to make them feel good, including debase themselves completely. I think that you being so into him that you want him to piss on you, in you, would both stroke his ego and feed his most primal, possessive urges.

Best bet to get him started? Hop in the shower with him, get him all worked up as per usual, and then drop to your knees and start blowing him. Once you get him worked up enough that he could very nearly cum, pull back and keep stroking him slowly while you beg for it. Provided you've timed things right, there's no way he'd be able to say no...just give him a second. It's difficult to piss with a massive, throbbing erection. Maybe if you played with the head (with your tongue) while he tried, that would help. Who says you have to pull away when he finally starts if you don't want to?

Hope you're ready for an engagement ring after that.

The Ghoul mostly finds appeal in how filthy it is, in seeing this clean, gorgeous young thing having to dirty themselves to survive. Eventually, fully embracing the filth because they're part of the Wasteland now, coming to enjoy filth to some degree. I think that aspect of it would really get him going. Remember that scene where he watches Lucy drink the contaminated water that ultimately makes her sick? I saw a post on here when I first started the blog (I can't find it now!) about him offering Lucy an alternative to that when she was begging for some of his water...it really awakened something in me. Enough said.

I think he'd enjoy it as much as you, when it came down to it, but I think he would also make you beg for it, loudly and fervently, every single time you want it. From the very first time, it's gonna rile him up like no other that his pristine little companion is begging him to dirty them in such a disgusting way. I don't think he'd be too keen on letting you swallow it, honestly, much like I don't think he'd be too keen on letting you swallow his cum because of the radiation. But I think if you ask pretty enough, nasty enough, he'd be more than happy to piss on you or in your other holes. Only if he knows you're set up with plenty of Radaway, though.

People don't really get "engaged", or even married anymore, per se, but if you think you're getting away from this man after you let him do that to you, you're sorely mistaken.

#do not look at me #cooper howard #the ghoul #cooper howard smut #cooper howard x reader #cooper howard x you #cooper howard headcanons #prewar!cooper howard #ghoulcy #vaultghoul #fallout prime #fallout tv show

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anemoiashifts · 2 days

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shifting tips / advice that don’t suck !

♡getting offline.

i know i know it’s hard, but being bombarded with different information about a certain topic can be so overwhelming & create room for overthinking which can effect performance. looking in places outside of shiftok or shiftblur or shift whatever. putting more effort into trying to figure out what something is instead of doing it will drive you insane because there is no answer to what shifting is. hence, “theories” & shared experiences. there is no concrete reasoning to shifting backed by science so don’t try & find them or you’ll be looking forever.

♡music.

did you know you can use music to manipulate memories ? the brain is so so bad at remembering things due to how much information we consume daily. when you visualize & listen to a sound or music, your brain can register that as a memory.

♡smell.

this one also aligns with the one above. smell is heavily tied to memory, also. by watching a show we are shifting to & pairing it with a certain scent like a perfume or candle, we can create a link between the two. then, spraying during shifting attempts can help us visualize & associate that piece of media with where we’re focusing on.

♡shadow work.

find out why you’re shifting. happiness ? you don’t need to shift for that. love ? you don’t need to shift for that. if you want to that’s fine but is shifting a bandaid for something deeper ? discover that. really think & consider where you’re going & if you’re in the right mentality to handle it. you aren’t in a television show episode or an oc, you’ll be a living human being in a very real & interactive world. figure out your intentions.

♡put in effort.

this may be a little obvious but you have to want to shift, to shift. you have to put in work & effort to shift & take another approach if doing the same method 10x over hasn’t worked for you. “we shift every second” sure but you didn’t shift into your desired reality in the past thirty. “im saying an affirmation & rolling over & hoping ill wake up in my dr” & how has that worked out for you ? just because this has maybe worked for other people, doesn’t mean it'll work for you. everyone is different. people require more time & effort to get something right then others just like subjects like art or english come easier to students.

♡perfection.

not everything has to be perfect. script isn’t completed ? so what ? you’ve been saying “im not ready yet” for the five months. don’t put off good things out of fear of them not being exactly how you want it because it will never be perfect because perfection isn’t real. if you don’t have everything figured out — that’s fine. why ? because life will sort itself out. this remains true right here & in your desired life. if it’s any comfort, everything will fall into place.

♡neutrality.

if you’re someone who wakes up after an attempt saying “i’ll never shift, i hate this reality” then you’re kinda sabotaging yourself in a way. your creating the mindset that this is the “bad” place when shifting is “good”. that’s not true. everything is entirely neutral until you define it as such. in addition, you are focusing more on the “haven’t” & giving that more attention to & what you give attention to will only grow until it’s so big you can’t see anything else.

♡listening.

people who want things don’t sit & complain about not having them, they persist & would do anything to get their desires & live in that reality. instead of saying “i didn’t shift” & sulking about it, take it as a learning experience to see what does & doesn’t work for you; your body is showing you what not to do so listen to yourself.

#desired reality #reality shifting #shiftblr #shifting #shiftok #shifting motivation #shifting realities #shifter

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vivelareine · 2 days

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hello! i agree with your post about MA being blamed for her husband's actions broadly, but do you have a source for her being the one who suggested a more reasonable carriage for their attempted escape? not that i doubt you or anything but i would like to know more since i have heard many conflicting things about this detail. thank you :)

Oh I should clarify, Marie Antoinette didn't come up with the idea of smaller carriages for the flight--but there's no reason to think she disagreed with the suggestions when you read the related Fersen correspondence. As it was Louis who decided to reject the proposals (which came from Bouille, Breteuil and Fersen) which may have... may have... resulted in the family not being captured.

(I say may have because this was almost a "Titanic" situation in which everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong, and it wasn't necessarily anyone or any particular choice's "fault." But people love to blame Marie Antoinette for Varennes, usually claiming she wanted to have a big vain carriage or she refused to part from her perfumes or she was a dumb woman who didn't realize they shouldn't all travel together etc etc.)

The initial proposals (I believe direct from Fersen & Bouille, not sure offhand about Breteuil) was for multiple common carriages--which would require the family to be split up--whereas the king wanted one large carriage that would mean the family (and Tourzel) would be together, and would not need to stop for various necessities.

Sometimes Tourzel is blamed for this, the idea being that the reason for the larger carriage was because she refused to part from Louis Charles, but I haven't found any letters which suggest it was Tourzel who was the deciding factor here. NVM I remembered it was Bouille who blamed her initially; Bouille said in his memoir the reason why the king didn't have a military man in the carriage is because Tourzel refused to not go with the family. But this was not brought up at all in the actual 1791 correspondence, it's something Bouille claimed much later.

And in any case, Louis was the king, he could have easily told Tourzel that she must be in a separate carriage... and would a 5 person carriage really be all that smaller than a 6 person one?

Edit: To add, the Tourzel variation of why the carriage was so big is fascinating because Madame de Tourzel's version of events is that Marie Antoinette said she (Tourzel) would be too ill to make the journey and must leave the Tuileries before the flight.

Tourzel basically told Marie Antoinette that she was willing to die for the family and her charges, and that if she were a man Marie Antoinette would not have said she must stay behind, and that if she left the palace everyone would know about their plans because she had publicly said that "death along could make me abandon the dauphin," and that if she thought for a moment she was hampering the flight, she would of course stay behind/not go with them, but that she would otherwise wish to go and serve her country.

But this gets turned into "Tourzel wept to the king about it and he gave into a woman's tears."

Anyway--

Bouille and Fersen also proposed that the king have able military men with them for safety and to take charge; this was also rejected. Louis initially wanted M. de Bombelles with him but rejected it due to political implications. It was not until very late that this was rejected, a lot of the flight to Montmedy plans had to be rearranged and put off for many reasons. One being that one of the dauphin's attendants was a "strong democrat" who would have jeopardized the plan if she was there,and they were waiting for be away from the palace.

Although the book itself is not one I recommend for reasons anyone who reads my blog will already know, Farr's "I Love You Madly" has a good amount of the Fersen/Bouille/etc letters leading up to the flight which provide a decent look at Louis' choices in regards to rejecting the more, IMO, sensible proposals that were offered to him.

So to clarify my lil rant, it's not so much that Marie Antoinette came up with the smaller and multiple carriages, than it is that she was not the one who rejected it and she had no objections to it that we know about--it was Louis who ultimately rejected the idea.

#marie antoinette

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Suruga Devil - An Analysis

Something I’ve been thinking about is how even though Oshino disappeared six books ago, some way or another a specialist manages to crawl their way into every arc. Almost irregardless of the circumstances, these kids need someone to explain the problem to them. To bring them face to face with the truth they haven’t quite realised yet.

In Hanamonogatari, though, advice might be the last thing that Kanbaru Suruga needs - despite, or perhaps because so many different people want to offer it to her.

I’ll be riding my arc formula all the way from Bakemonogatari until the wheels fall off, so I think here I want to talk about the title again.

Suruga Devil. Isn’t that odd? It almost sounds like we’re dealing with the exact same oddity as her first arc. Except there’s a different Devil-sama in this one, someone who has more devil parts than Suruga herself. Numachi Rouka is also an oddity, by virtue of being already dead, and by that logic Suruga must be the ‘victim’ of her haunting.

The theory is floated here that all ghosts work similarly to Hachikuji. They hang around because of a certain regret, and people with a similar regret or issue are the only ones that can see them. What, then, is Rouka’s?

I think there’s something to be said for how obviously she wants to play basketball with Suruga again.

Even in a series full of unreliable narrators Rouka is unique in that we don’t get to see her internal narration, just how she chooses to present her life story to Suruga. There are hints that she was spinning it a bit - Higasa mentions that ‘family issues’ Rouka hardly talked about also contributed to her suicide, not just the broken leg.

Frankly I see in Rouka someone trying to put up a strong front to hide how severely something actually affected her. She refers to herself derisively as misfortunate, acknowledges the suffering that it caused her, but still tries to make herself seem distant from it, like it’s something she’s already dealt with. Like her misfortune-collecting has made her happy again.

Her initial attitude is hostile, confrontational. She seems like she’s trying to upset Suruga, describing her own activities in a tone that makes it obvious how unapologetic she is about the scumminess of it all. She wants to feel powerful, in control of the situation, even if it means she has to come off as an asshole.

In their final match Suruga leans into it, matching Rouka’s hostility and desire to compete with her rather than running away from it. I want to say it’s a way of paying her final respects.

Rouka says she didn’t feel like she ever suffered a clear loss in life. Her injury didn’t come from a dramatic final showdown. Losing her scholarship didn’t make it impossible to continue schooling. And her leg’s rehabilitation didn’t make it impossible for her to live on. But at the same time, all of these things ground her down until she didn’t know what to do. Rouka says you can run away from almost every problem, and she did. She ran away from school. She ran away from getting a job. And in the end, she ran away from life.

Kaiki remarks to Suruga that she can’t run away from all her problems. In his case he makes it brutally literal, but in an emotional sense he’s not somebody Suruga can ignore either, this weird older dude that has a history with her mother. Koyomi and Hitagi apparently told her to run away as soon as she met him, but they must not have considered he might have no ill will towards Suruga, not do anything that justifies running away from him.

When Rouka gets on top of Suruga and draws close enough to kiss, she could run. She knows she could run. She doesn’t. Did you want her to kiss you? Some things you can’t run away from, because deep down you don’t want to. Like the dark reverse side of a wish.

For Rouka, the Rainy Devil is a competitor. It actually does something to solve people’s problems, where her method allows these anxieties to work themselves out by having the people in question do nothing at all. Some things are only made worse by worrying about them - in the hands of the Rainy Devil these problems that may have worked themselves out over time instead get escalated into potentially life-destroying issues. Rouka isn’t one to make use of the devil’s arm, Suruga thinks. She would simply run away from the problem, not rely on external means to solve it. She’s strong like that. Strong enough to pretend her problems don’t matter to her.

Only to pretend, though. The phrase “It’s better to regret doing something than regret not doing it” comes up. Rouka is of course on the side of regretting not doing something. A third path between victory and defeat. It has its advantages, Suruga does acknowledge it. But it can’t resolve anything. Rouka’s problems still exist, she just isn’t facing them. What Suruga does is make Rouka confront her and in doing so symbolically confront everything. It gives her a clear reason for her loss. It lets her let go.

I think the reason that Rouka is so confrontational with Suruga, so eager to play basketball again, is because she knew this on some level. She prefers to regret not doing something, but of course that means she still regrets not doing something. She still wants to do it, still wants to play a proper match and finish off their middle-school rivalry.

I wondered what Rouka’s specific regret was, as a ghost, and while that game is about as close as anything, it still feels like I’m missing the big picture. Rouka doesn’t just collect misfortune, she collects devil parts. The things that show up physically on your body to prove you made a wish. The things that remain so long as that wish isn’t granted. The physical manifestation of regret for a choice that still has Suruga checking the news every morning to make sure she didn’t do anything during the night without remembering.

Hachikuji gets people lost because she is lost. Rouka frees people from the regret of doing something because she herself never did anything about the situation she found herself in. It’s why she’s so interested in hearing the stories, along with the devil parts. People who did something she could never do. People who failed and became even more unfortunate than her, thus proving her right.

She takes the devil parts from people who don’t want them anymore. You can’t run away from something if you really do still want it, but Suruga is well over it at this point. Consider how Suruga deals with the devil’s continued presence in her life. Refusing to run out of fear that someone might be faster than her. She used the arm to pursue Hitagi to the point of destruction, but in equal measure refused to do so, and in doing so was unable to replicate Koyomi’s success. In that sense, when Kaiki says you can’t outrun everything, he’s telling her that it’s okay to lose. It’s okay to try, and then fail. It’s okay to just hand the arm over to Rouka and move on.

Higasa remarks that Suruga seems too positive of a person to have heard the Devil-sama rumor - because that’s the type of person Suruga is seen as. Polite, enthusiastic, direct, a star athlete, a hard worker, a rich kid, a goody two-shoes. The type of person who would take issue with Rouka’s methods. Rouka expects a fight, because in a lot of ways Suruga is Rouka’s opposite, someone who would slap her in the face upon hearing about what she’s doing.

At the same time, Suruga is the type of person to immediately second-guess that reaction. She lets Rouka’s hand sit on her chest for an uncomfortable length of time (the symbolic gesture associated with taking her devil arm!) because she feels bad about hitting her. Of course she would. She straps her arm to the wall at night because she’s scared of hitting someone again.

In other words, contrary to expectation, she’s the exact type of person that would encounter Rouka. The correct type of person to hear the Devil-sama rumor. The type of person that’s still burdened by the regret of a wish that turned into an obsession. Exactly the type of problem that can be solved, will be solved, simply by doing nothing.

I said I still wanted to talk about the arc formula, and here it raises an interesting question of where exactly the specialist comes in. Kaiki, of course, is prominent in this novel - but even though he helps, he hardly explains anything. He has a policy, Rouka tells us, of only sharing half his information. It’s a little like Oshino’s rule of balance, but even less helpful. He shies away from the spotlight out of what I imagine is self-preservation - running away from Koyomi and Hitagi in Karen Bee, blatantly subverting their expectations that he explain Karen’s oddity. He does it anyway, but it’s pointless. The fever disappears on its own.

Where Meme’s balance is to make sure he doesn’t interfere too much in others’ problems, ensure his surprisingly impressive spiritual abilities don’t create further disturbances in the course of solving them, Kaiki’s balance is to make sure he always has another opportunity to mess with people in the future, to ensure his practical-minded refusal to believe in spirits entirely doesn’t end up biting him in the ass.

Even so, we’ve come to expect someone to come and clear things up, explain that which our protagonist was too slow to grasp on their own, put a neat little tie on the end of things. Like Tooe Gaen, perhaps? Deceased but apparently no less of an authority on the supernatural. “The motivation for justice is envy of evil,” we’re told, explaining precisely what left Suruga so unsettled about Rouka. Rouka did what she could never do, just like Suruga did what Rouka couldn’t.

It’s a nice enough explanation, putting things into the dualistic perspective that Tooe seems to prefer. “If you can’t be medicine, then be poison, otherwise you’re just plain old water.” It doesn’t matter if you help others or hurt others as long as you do something, act in accordance with your nature, don’t let yourself be bound by the restrictions of society or conscience. Those are the type of people she seems most interested in, and the type of person Suruga ought to become as a result of this arc - someone who acts, as opposed to the inactive Rouka.

And yet neither her nor Rouka seem to fit into Tooe’s format. Rouka, despite being plain water, is still muddy. A swamp. That mud, composed of everyday misfortune, is nothing nearly so interesting as to be called poison. Suruga is even more confused. A flash-flood, capable of clearing up the dirt that Rouka collected?

Suruga didn’t envy Rouka because she was evil. The implication there is that Rouka took pleasure in shattering social boundaries that Suruga felt obligated to stick to. But Suruga has already experienced what it’s like to violently pursue one’s own wishes in disregard of the feelings of others. It’s not fun! Suruga is jealous of, if anything, Rouka’s coolness. Her ability to roll with the punches, accept what happened to her with a laugh, shamelessly use her misfortune and pitiability as weapons.

And Rouka, despite how she presents herself, was quite clearly not evil. Her offered ‘help’ is for entirely self-centered motives, and yet she’s much more concerned with the lives of others than her own. She does act like she doesn’t care about the people asking her for help, but all the same she does redirect those with more serious issues to the correct services. She did say she genuinely wanted to help Hanadori Rouka, the girl she met with the left leg, which is surprising from the perspective of Suruga’s vague animosity towards her, but completely understandable if you just think of Rouka as a normal girl.

Suruga is neither good nor evil, as Koyomi puts it at the end of the book. She didn’t do the right thing, or the wrong thing. Neither did Rouka. They simply couldn’t look away from one another. Looking away, like running away, is only something you can do if you don’t really want to look. Even if Suruga ran away Rouka would have kept haunting her. She had the qualifications for it. Similarly, I feel like Rouka simply couldn’t look away from people’s misfortune, from the devil parts. Oddities arise for a reason, people have to want them on some level, and perhaps that’s true from the oddity’s side as well.

Speaking of Koyomi, though, he’s the last to give advice. He encounters Suruga at her lowest point, where she doesn’t know what to do, and quite literally helps her get back on her feet. His specialist qualifications are a bit iffy, but this is a timeskip - he’s in college, he’s more or less overcome his coming of age stuff. The thing is, his advice is to ignore everyone’s advice. For Suruga to act like herself, act on her instincts. To do neither the right thing or the wrong thing.

Ironically, characteristically, she takes the advice anyway.

She’s immediately less unsettled around Rouka, more confident in how she wants to play it. I think about her bluntly stating she’s an exhibitionist. It’s a pervy joke, something that’s been oddly absent in this book so far. One of the things we realise, looking at the world from Suruga’s benefit, is that her perversion, her exhibitionism, frankly even her queerness and interest in BL was much played up for the benefit of Koyomi. At the same time, though, I don’t think that makes it somehow false or an inaccurate representation of herself. She was able to be more overt with these things around Koyomi, because he was accepting of it, and that’s a largely positive thing.

It’s not a coincidence that her meeting with Koyomi gives her the confidence to be more like that with Rouka, or that this line about exhibitionism actually ties into an important part of her character. You see, right after, Rouka says it must have been tough for her to conceal the devil’s arm.

I think about the arm as representative of the stigma of queerness, as something that paints her desire for Hitagi as animal and violent (even as it’s capable of finding perfectly healthy expression on the flip side), as something that she has to conceal from others. Recall how in Suruga Monkey her being a lesbian is revealed right after the arm itself, and it’s her sexuality that Koyomi finds the more shocking.

From that perspective, you could think about Rouka as helping the devil part bearers integrate into society by removing the outward signs of their queerness, their difference. She takes it all on herself, with her oddly dyed hair, baggy tracksuit, put-on limp. She takes it all on herself because she no longer needs to live in normal society. No longer can.

It kind of explains more of Suruga’s hesitance to let Rouka go. It’s not like she wants to keep the arm. It’s not like it represents the truth of her sexuality in itself. She was gay before the arm and will be after. I think it moreso represents Tooe’s approach to identity and self-change. You can be whatever you want, but becoming is an inherently painful process.

We’d like to think that Tooe’s message was that you should learn to change yourself rather than relying on suspicious magical artifacts, but the fact that she exposed Suruga to that risk in the first place indicates she’s fine with danger as a teaching device. Fine with her daughter becoming poison. Maybe even fine with her killing someone.

In the end, all the arm does is give her an inferiority complex. Her admiration of Hitagi, her graceful running style, is built on the fact that Suruga herself doesn’t feel she can run like that. She’s faster, but also uglier, more desperate. Her admiration of Koyomi, his self-sacrificing nature, is built on her shame over not being able to help Hitagi more herself. She’s self-effacing, but also uglier, more jealous.

Suruga is glad to lose the arm, but she still feels uneasy about Rouka getting it. About being saved by someone else. Aren’t people supposed to just go ahead and save themselves? In this one thing, at least, Rouka is a more helpful specialist than even Oshino Meme.

On that topic, the last person to give Suruga advice is Rouka herself. At the end of their second meeting, Rouka tells her to live a normal life. Do all the things I couldn’t do. She’s a negative example, telling people to not end up like her. Just stay in the closet. This, too, will pass.

That, kinda sucks though. Integrate into society? Drop all visible signs of your queerness? Get a boyfriend? Rouka’s channeling old tragic yuri tropes for the last time she thinks they’ll ever meet.

Is that really what Rouka thinks? Does she really envy Suruga’s potential to be normal? To get a job? Because the opposite is precisely what Suruga envies about her - Rouka’s ability to ignore social expectations. The thing is, after their final match, the advice changes again. Who cares about studying for exams? Just start playing basketball again. This is really the only thing I can imagine Rouka envying Suruga for. It’s the path where she gets to make use of her arm again.

Saying that basketball is representative of Suruga’s queerness here is even more of a stretch than applying that to her arm, but there’s at least one important respect in which the analogy kinda works.

The way she wins the game.

Basketball is a game for more than one player. The phrasing is a little awkward - ideally it would read “Basketball is a game for two players” to make the comparison to romance even more explicit, but - that isn’t true, is it. So the fact that there are exactly two of them playing becomes a little more significant, I think.

They have to combine their efforts to get the ball into the hoop. That’s a disingenuous way of putting it, when they’re on opposite sides, but it’s still true. Rouka, after all, couldn’t get it in alone. That wasn’t her aim in the first place. She was just trying not to lose.

Suruga didn’t just let her lose decisively for the first time, she also let Rouka win. Rouka wasn’t passed to, much, when she used to play. This is the first time she realises that basketball can’t be played alone.

And, well, when you put it in that sense, basketball isn’t just representative of romance, it’s representative of life in general. When you look back on Rouka’s backstory, at this point, one thing stands out. She never relied on anyone else. She never had anyone to rely on. It’s so bad that she ends up in Suruga’s orbit. The anime opening portrays what it might be like if they had a closer relationship, but that’s something that had to be invented in retrospect, because they really didn’t talk much. They didn’t even properly play against each other much. But when it comes down to it, Rouka is drawn to Suruga’s family inheritance of the devil parts, Suruga’s family inheritance of an annoying conman uncle, and in the end, back to Suruga herself.

Suruga’s not the only person who ever truly understood her, as you might expect from a school rivalry situation. Suruga is simply the only person in a position where it’s even possible to truly understand her. The only person that could have drawn that final dunk out of her. The only person who could remind Rouka that she really did enjoy basketball, enjoy life.

In doing so, it serves as a reminder to herself, as well.

Thanks for reading, everyone! Call this the Pride Month special, even though I didn’t discuss the queer themes of this story as much as I would have liked. Next: Otori. Oh boy.

#monogatariposting #hanamonogatari #kanbaru suruga #numachi rouka

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