The Traveling Oracle

if you've made replies on posts there is now a tab on your blog showing every post youve replied to and your reply.

if this is not what you want, either go to your blog and click comments and disable it from there or just go to your individual blogs setting pages. just change it from blue to grey if you dont want everyone to see your replies AND the post you're replying to

PLEASE BE ADVISED that it is set to disabled for blogs that have not made any replies but it will turn ON if you reply with that blog in the future.! i just tested it with my main, which was greyed out but it turned on the moment i left a test reply

so couple of clarifications. comments are disabled as default for primary blogs that have their likes disabled. they are seemingly enabled for all other blogs that have replied to posts

For personal context, before I went to the '98 Burning Man festival, one of the things I'd read from a couple different journalists was that "everybody" runs around naked. Which, fine by me, I'd already spent a lot of time in clothing-optional spaces, I'm not fanatic about it but it's nice.

So I got there early and set up a public shade structure on one of Black Rock City's main roads and spent most of each afternoon just watching the crowds go by. I don't remember seeing more than one actually naked person the whole week. I think a topless woman passed by my intersection maybe every half an hour, sometimes once an hour. So why in the hell were people, normally pretty smart and observant writers, coming away with the impression that everybody was naked?

Then I remembered an unrelated passage from Joel Garreau's great book about the history of the outer-ring suburbs, Edge City. Mall developers told him flat-out that they tried to keep the crowds in their malls less than 5% black. Not because they themselves were racist, but because they had determined, experimentally, that if more than 5% of the people in the mall are black, the median white shopper will wrongly describe the mall as at least half black, as mostly black. And not a few of them would describe it, at 6% black, as a mall where "only black people go." Why?

Because, emotionally, they were still upset over the last one when the next one came into view.

So does Tris mostly accidentally creating a water spout bc she tried to dump water on some dudes about to fight her friends who she didn't even really consider her friends yet

Daja just going 'okay, well, I have a staff and YOU tried to hurt one of my friends' to a whole group of older kids?

Briar turning around for the same fight and going 'oh yeah gotta go back up my sist- I mean these people I totally don't care about'?!

RENT

““My name’s Sandry. Please join me at my table.” Seeing the other girl blink, guessing that she hadn’t understood, Sandry tucked a hand under the newcomer’s elbow and tugged her in the right direction. For a moment, she thought that the Trader might refuse—she didn’t budge. Then she relaxed.

“All right, kaq,” she muttered in Tradertalk. “But nobody will thank you for this.” She let Sandry pull her between rows of tables.

“If thanks was what I wanted,” Sandry replied in the same language, “I would be sad indeed. Since I don’t want it, I won’t miss it.”

The black girl stiffened. Finally she said, “Your accent is terrible.”

Sandry beamed up at her. “Yes—I know.”

“We don’t want her with us,” protested Liesa when they reached the nobles’ table. Sandry looked down her button nose at the other girl. “She is my guest,” she said flatly. “She—what’s your name?” she asked in Tradertalk. Daja nearly refused. When she saw anger on the faces of the other girls, she grinned instead, white teeth flashing against dark skin. “Daja Kisubo.”

“Lady Daja is my guest,” Sandry told Liesa.

A girl nearby muttered, “If that’s a lady, I’m a cat.”

Reaching out, Sandry lifted the pitcher of milk from the table. Cradling it in both hands, she walked over to the mutterer. “I am Sandrilene fa Toren, daughter of Count Mattin fer Toren and his countess, Amiliane fa Landreg. I am the great-niece of his grace, Duke Vedris of this realm of Emelan, and cousin of her Imperial Highness, Empress Berenene of the Namorn Empire. You are Esmelle ei Pragin, daughter of Baron Witten en Pragin and his lady Colledia of House Wheelwright—a merchant house. If I tell you my friend is a lady, then you”—carefully she poured milk into Esmelle’s plate—“you had best start lapping, kitty.”

She set the pitcher down and returned to her chair.

Daja was still on her feet. “You did no one any good with that,” she said in Tradertalk. “Not me, not you, not even them.”

“I don’t care.” Sandry spoke in Common, so that everyone understood.”

"Thanks to my new sword," said the student.

The swordmaster studied the blade and frowned. "This is enchanted?"

"You know about cursed swords that whisper that you should kill?"

"Yes?"

"This tells me I'm loved and valid."

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I go to university and I go to work and I volunteer in my community and in the in-between moments I drink tea with my friends and I plant tomatoes on my balcony and there is no need for anything else. There is no room for anything else anyway.

I don’t mean that Ahsoka would have been Obi’s Padawan; what I’m getting at here is they would have assigned her to Qui.

“I’m at your service Master Kenobi, but I’ve been assigned to Master Jinn.”

What follows is perhaps the funniest conversation ever…

Yoda: Made contact with your new Padawan, I see.

Qui: Yes, she’ll fit into our Lineage nicely. I look forward to training her.

Mace: Where is she now?

Qui: Anakin and Obi-Wan decided to do their Brotherly Duties and are currently teaching her Sabaac.

Ki-Adi: When can we expect Padawan Skywalker to return to the Temple for his Trials?

Qui: Not for another year or so, I think. He still has some growing up to do.

Mace: Wait-

Yoda: Against our Order’s Code, it is, to take on two Padawans.

Qui, putting sunglasses on: I was confused as well, but the High Council was the one to make the appointment, and I’m sure they had a good non-facetious reason for it. Ahsoka will be a wonderful Padawan, I’m sure. Who am I to argue with the Council?

Mace, eye twitching: THE FIRST-

Qui: I have to go now. The second wave is approaching. Good day, Masters. *click*