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sysig · 5 months

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Delusions (Patreon)

"Could I have your hand, sir?" Max didn't move, which Dexter was, sadly, getting used to.

"Sir?" Max jerked, then turned and stared at him, lost and blank. "Your hand, please."

Max's hand lifted shakily, and he laid it gently in Dexter's upturned palm. Dexter gave a quick and quiet "thank you," then turned it over in his own hand, observing him closely.

Too closely - his knuckles were rough and his fingernails were dull and cracked in places. His once-soft, not-a-day-in-his-life-subjected-to-hard-labour hands were now, already, toughened and split and scarred in places, especially the heel of his palm. He turned it over again, this time to stop looking so intensely. He had only wanted to give it a cursory glance to begin with.

"Do you know what I see, sir?" he asked as conversationally as he could manage, running his fingers along Max's abused flesh. He seemed to be at least half paying attention, his eye gazing down between them, and he'd occasionally twitch, encouragingly Dexter thought. He seemed to want to curl around him, then stopped and shook, his hand squeezing into a fist. Dexter coaxed him back out, encouraged him to hold himself lightly.

"What do you see?" He was almost startled by Max actually continuing their conversation, that happened so rarely now, shaking and quiet as it was. He took a deep breath, was he really going to do this?

"I see a hand, with five fingers." Max remained quiet, though his brow curled, and a guarded look came into his eye, though he still wasn't looking at Dexter. He felt a pang of guilt, but he had to try. "What do you see?"

Max's eye unfocused and began to water. He looked up, but not enough to reach Dexter's gaze in return, instead staring through his chest, and he felt just as hollow and empty as he must look to him.

"Do you take me for a fool, DAX?" Quiet and as close to angry as he'd heard since they'd been here.

No, not angry.

Betrayed.

He swallowed down the stinging lump at the back of his throat. He had to put on a brave face, had to keep his composure if he wanted Max to get better. That was the only thing he wanted, more than anything.

"Of course not, sir. Genuinely, what do you see?"

Max pulled his hand away and turned his body, his bandaged side facing Dexter. Shutting him out, pointedly. Dexter's empty hand curled into a fist, he was no better.

"Please, don't..." Max took a shallow, shuddering breath, and several beats before he spoke again, even quieter. "Don't ridicule me." Dexter could hear his breath catch, and he wanted nothing more than for this all to just stop.

"Sir, I didn't-"

"I've had enough of that." He shook his head stiffly, the action strange and wrong, like he had forgotten how. He stilled, his head turned even further away. "More than enough."

#Doodles #SCII #Helix #ZEX #Dexter Favin #And a drabble-fic under the cut #I ended up writing that the night after I read - I was a bit too inspired while busy so it's a little on the unfocused side haha #I would've cleaned it but I worry it wouldn't make it out of that stage! Please enjoy it for now <3 #This set is mostly periphery ideas - inspired by events rather than directly shown ♪ I suppose the first two kinda count tho #But they're more directly of the little scene I wrote ouò Poor ZEX </3 #And Dex! He's usually so capable! But he's stretching himself so thin ahh it's hard to watch in the best way #Of course he doesn't want to give ''Max'' over to just anyone - anyone at all really - both of their trusts have bottomed out #But how much could he reasonably care for him in that state? When he's still being actively haunted and most importantly - Not Max #He needs helps he needs support he needs to sleep and shower but a second with his eyes off Max and - then what? He'll immolate from fear #It's hard to imagine him crying but pushed to this extreme? To the thought of losing Max utterly and completely? Hhhhh #I do also just love him being possessive even outside of how terrible the situation is - he's always had his glimpses but this situation #Brings out the worst in him <3 In terrible ways #Really his method is just setting ''Max'' up nearby and prompting him over the sound of the shower like that's not nerve-wracking at all #Like he already doesn't answer half the time if that #As for the mini fic I was really interested in Dex's line about indulging ''Max's'' delusions #Apart from the fact that they're not delusions - not that anyone believes him outside of the Institute - what it means to indulge is weird #I saw one example of how to handle delusions that stuck with me - how not to deny them outright while also not reinforcing them #Since it's not actually helpful to be told ''That isn't Really happening to you'' when to you - to ZEX - it really is! How invalidating #And so rather to take the approach of ''I don't see/feel/hear what you are - I can't find any evidence of it myself'' and extrapolating #Dex taking the approach of ''What reality are you experiencing right now?'' and trying to build from there!#Unfortunately ZEX has already been treated like....well like all that - he's not in the mood for games even well-intentioned ones #He /knows/ he's in a human body. He can feel that and see that and understands that. It doesn't change who - what he /is/#The idea of a completely broken ZEX is so sad to me :( He's so strong and prideful and vivacious - Max really is another him </3 #It's not the same but he was saved from death! To fall into torture... But even despite that I want to see him succeed! As much as he can #Even in that small and shaking way I want to see him be hateful and spiteful - angry. Powerful <3 Fighting ♥

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anipgarden · 11 months

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Cheaply Starting Seeds

This is my fourth post in a series I’ll be making on how to increase biodiversity on a budget! I’m not an expert--just an enthusiast--but I hope something you find here helps!

Having a high-quality seed-starting setup can feel like an ultimate but distant dream. An entire shelf--an entire room, even, filled with grow lights and plant trays in the optimal setup to make tons of plants? Tons of garden tools, each with a diverse and dedicated purpose? That’s just not an option for some of us. But that doesn’t mean we can’t get started at a low cost!

Seed Starting Set-Ups

Speaking from a somewhat biased Floridian perspective, I’ve had great success starting seeds outside! My usual set-up is on a rarely-used outdoor patio table that’s moved to a sunny spot in the yard, but I’ve even grown seeds in solo cups on sidewalks, or directly in the ground, with great results!

Some seeds grow best when they go through a cold period before germinating, while other seeds aren’t affected much by it and just wait for warm weather. As such, a viable option is to sow your seeds in late fall, let winter roll by, and wait until the seeds sprout on their own come spring! I would try and mark off where you planted said seeds, so you don’t lose track of them and accidentally dig them up.

Alternatively, if you want to get started while it's cold outside, a popular option I've seen is to grow in milk jugs! There's a lot of different ways to do it--everyone has their preference--but if you're already drinking things like milk or juice or sweet tea, and you're going to get jugs at some point in time--why not use them for gardening?

An easy way to clear up a section of lawn to create open gardening space is by using a sheet mulching or lasagna gardening method (though I like to call it the Cardboard Snuff-Out). Place cardboard or newspaper down in fall/winter to mark out where you want to garden. Layer compostable materials like grass clippings and wood chips on top of it, or potting soil/bagged compost. It’ll decompose over Winter into an organically rich bed that’ll have killed the grass and weeds underneath it. You don’t have to break out any tools and sweat over it come spring, and the cardboard itself will slowly decompose as well!

Though it's often recommended to plant things directly into the ground to decrease watering needs and increase nutritional independence, there’s plenty of reasons you may not be able to. Whether you’re renting, living in a place without a yard, or even just can’t or don’t want to break ground in a yard, you can still help biodiversity by growing in pots. Some plants have rather extensive root systems and aren’t well suited for pots, but there are still plenty of options available for plants that’ll boost biodiversity, be beautiful to look at, and grow just fine in pots! A recommendation is to get a larger pot, if you’re able, as it’ll hold onto more water and need watering less often. Not only are potted plants great for providing food for insects, but they can be shelter for other creatures too--there’s been a good few times I’ve moved a pot and found a frog or toad living underneath it.

If you don’t have room for pots on the ground, you could consider using hanging pots or window boxes! These can be great and easily-maintained options to provide food and habitat for insects and birds in an urban living situation like apartments or townhouses, but they can also be a fun way to add even more habitat to an already-robust home garden. You can even make an entire mini habitat in a window box or pot! I can personally say I’ve seen tons of pollinators visit my yearly hanging basket garden that consists of about five to seven plants, and I’ve always loved the idea of having a window box for blooms right out my window. Just make sure that it’s safe--make sure they’re securely fixed, and that whatever they’re hanging from can handle their weight when they’re freshly watered and loaded with plants.

If you want to start indoors, you don’t necessarily need grow lights or heat mats (though it will make things a bit easier.) I’ve successfully grown milkweed, peppers, tomatoes, zucchinis, and even sprouted lemon seeds in college dorm rooms, and kept tomato and pepper plants in a dorm room on a sunny windowsill. For the most part, you need a nice and sunny window, some kind of container, and a source of heat (in my case, I used anything from a space heater to the warmth of my laptop running nearby. If you don’t have any sunny windows, or enough windowsill space to start plants on, its possible to obtain cheaper grow lights. One year, my mom bought me some gooseneck grow lights that could clip onto things for cheap off of Amazon. (Fair warning, though, they did light up my entire room in purple. I lived alone that year (covid year, my roomies bailed), so it was fine, but it was kind of trippy,)

Another year, when I was in an apartment on my own, I bought a grow light modeled like a normal light bulb from the lightbulb aisle in Lowe’s and put it in my desk lamp. Growing seeds indoors can make them grow fast and leggy, so it’ll help if you can keep a desk fan on them so they focus on growing strong instead of tall and fast.

If you’re fortunate enough to have a friend with a nice set up, you could see if they’re willing to let you borrow some of their space to start your own plants as well! My set-up in college was by no means High Class, but I was still more than willing to start seeds for my friends who asked!

Containers for Seed Starting

So now that we’ve talked starting seeds indoors and out, we need to address what to start them in. It’s important that whatever you’re using has drainage holes, and be large enough to support your plant (starting something like milkweed or a squash in a tiny little pot won’t yield great results). Fortunately, there are options here!

If you’re looking to buy pots, Dollar Tree will sell some small plastic pots for cheap in the spring! They’re kind of thin, and won’t last forever, but they’re great for a few uses and don’t cost a lot of money. Something that’s a bit more pricey but are longer-lasting, in my experience, are the Burpee SuperSeed trays. They come in different sizes, but I’m fond of the 16-cell trays--they have silicone bottoms and are made of a nice solid plastic with a tray to hold water, so they hold up for a long time and are easy to clean and reuse!

Burpee seed tray, my beloved.

What’s better than a cheap pot? Free ones, and there’s plenty of options there! I’ve seen people use toilet paper or paper towel rolls as pots by folding the bottoms in and have it work well for them! I think this method would work best if you had some kind of tray to keep them moist, because mine dried out fast last time I tried this method. I’ve also seen people make pots out of newspaper with a few different methods, and the people who use this method love it--apparently, the roots pass through the paper easier and it decomposes faster when buried, so you can just transplant the whole pot and avoid any kind of transplanting shock. If you don’t have any newspaper on hand, you can likely ask your friends or neighbors!

I’ve gotten lots of mileage from reusing old containers by poking a few holes in the bottom with knives or scissors--just be careful while you’re doing it! I, personally, am more likely to use an already-used solo cup for it--they’re a nice size, so they hold a good amount of soil and moisture and give the seedling a good amount of root space. I tend to write the plant information on the side of the cup in sharpie marker, or on an index card in pen. I’ve also heard of people making use of egg cartons, fruit containers, yogurt cups, milk cartons, soda bottles--the more you start thinking about what you could easily poke a hole in, the more options start coming around!

This photo may be from 2018, but I'll still regularly reuse cups like this! They're also great for cuttings!

As you start planning to move your seedlings into the ground and preparing planting sites, you’ll likely need a few tools to do it! How do you get these? You may be able to borrow some tools from a neighbor! As long as you make sure to return them in good condition, depending on how friendly your neighbors are, they might be totally fine with you borrowing their tools for awhile. If you don’t want to take that route, there may be a tool library you can borrow from, or a mutual aid group that can loan you tools for awhile. Either way, borrowing tools is cheaper than buying them--though, if you do have to buy tools, cheap hand-tools from Walmart or the dollar store work just fine. They’ll even last a good while if they’re taken care of when not in use! I've even seen places like Ross sell some tools and pots in spring!

Spotted in a Walmart gardening section by the registers, 2023.

Of course, your mileage may vary with these. I genuinely cannot think of the last time my house got a newspaper, and as I've mentioned I don't have to worry about snow. Similarly, maybe you don't use plastic cups when you can help it, or don't have a particular affinity for eggs and yogurt. Maybe there isn't a tool library in your area--I sure don't know if there is in mine--but it could still be worth poking around and asking a neighbor!

That's the end of this post! My next post is gonna be about ways to support your plants for cheap--we're gonna be talking compost, mulch, and trellises. Until then, I hope this advice was helpful! Feel free to reply with any questions, your success stories, or anything you think I may have forgotten to add in!

#biodiversity #solarpunk #gardening #outdoor gardening #growing from seed #budget gardening #cheap gardening #indoor gardening #ani rambles #out of queue #the biodiversity saga #I can make a post later about how I prepare solo cups for being used as pots if yall want #I've found its safest to just use a nice pair of scissors and keep the cup upside-down on the table while I cut into the bottom #and when i say 'take care of the tools when not in use' i mean 'dont be me and leave a cheap shovel from dollar tree out in the rain'#it had a wooden handle and it basically just like. rotted. fell apart in my hand when I picked it up #generally keeping tools in the garage will also help them not rust as fast too #but if you're gonna leave them outside at least put them in shade #the number of times i have lost feeling in my hands because i picked up a hoe that was laying in the sun and fuckin SCALED my palms #its not fun. dont do it. maybe its a Floridian problem but still #if you read all these tags. uh. shovel emoji. idk. sorry dude.

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clown-femme · 2 months

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I kind of resent when other adhd people talk about hyperfocus only because I'm jealous that I don't do that. I WISH I could zero in and stay focused on one task at a time. Can you imagine. I can't even do that with things I like.

That said I am also annoyed when people misuse the term hyperfocus to just mean 'the thing I'm into right now' but that is Beside the point

#i think my Heavy depression makes it hard for me to get the brain chemical response needed for the adhd brain employees to go 'mm yummy'#'more of this please' and make me lock into focus #i think there is a factory between my ears and there are two departments that are at odds #and one is my depression and the other is the adhd #and the depression has halted production of dopamine. it cut funding on serotonin and dopamine because of my life's conga line of misfortune #and the adhd side is like. goddamn we need some dopamine bad. we are going to try to do everything at once to get some. 87 tabs.#14 rps going on at once. three songs stuck in head. click teeth together too.#we are NOT touching a single thing that doesnt help the dopamine machine make more dopamine for us so cut all other activities. work??? well #work is hard. actually most things are hard. and they take too many steps. now i know things like our hobbies Might produce dopamine but #well its not fast enough. and also tooooo many steps. everything too many steps.#sit on couch and 87 tabs just enough steps.#this has to be the case until we can get enough dopamine from anything at all to want to linger on an activity #and then back to depression #where its like. see?? look. we dont do anything and we hate ourselves. we cant make ourselves do things that we like or dislike.#this is why we cant have dopamine or serotonin.#and then i am left on the outside unable to focus on my work or my writing or even on fun things like rp #sorry for wall of tags

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fictionadventurer · 11 months

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The Shocking Redemption Arc of Chester Arthur

To my great pleasure, I get to tell you about Chester A. Arthur. If you don’t know his story, that’s a surprising statement, because most people don’t even recognize his name as one of the presidents. That’s a crying shame, because this guy has the most fascinating character arc of any president I’ve come across so far. He entered the presidency as a despicable, corrupt, conniving political lackey, and left it as--

Well, I’d best get on with the story.

Chester Arthur started out as an idealist. He was the son of an abolitionist Baptist minister, and though he dropped the religion in adulthood, he remained devoted to abolishing slavery. He became a lawyer with a New York firm that argued several civil rights case, and he rose to fame in 1854 when he served as the defense attorney for Elizabeth Jennings, the Northern version of Rosa Parks. Arthur’s victory in her case led to the desegregation of New York City’s public transportation.

During the Civil War, Arthur got an appointment as New York’s quartermaster general. After the war, Arthur returned to civilian life and became a Republican “party man” who worked behind the scenes to draw in voters, funding, and supporters. He and his wife Ellen (called Nell) both loved the finer things in life, which drove Arthur to do whatever he could to gain fame, wealth, and social status.

This is where I need to explain the spoils system. For the first hundred-plus years of American politics, all federal positions were filled by appointment. When a new president came into office, he could award government positions to his supporters--"to the victor go the spoils". Federal employees were required to donate money to the ruling party. There were no requirements for education or relevant experience. Any job could be filled by anyone with the right connections. If you think that sounds like a breeding ground for corruption and cronyism, you’d be absolutely right. By the 1870s, the system was getting extremely corrupt, and there was a growing push for reform.

But not by Chester Arthur. He owed his career to the spoils system. Through his work in the party, he became the right-hand man of Roscoe Conkling, New York’s senior senator and the state’s “political boss”. Conkling was a flamboyant showman, a magnetic politician, and a ruthless man. He had been a major supporter of Ulysses S. Grant’s presidential campaign, so Grant gave Conkling control over all the federal appointments in New York. Conkling used his power to fill positions with his friends and supporters, and he was brutal in attacking anyone who got in his way.

Because Chester Arthur was Conkling’s most loyal supporter, he got the best federal job in the country—Controller of the Port of New York. Before income tax, around 60-70% of federal funds came from the tariffs at this one port. The controller got a salary similar to the president’s, plus he was able to take a percentage of all the fines they levied. At the height of his power, Chester Arthur made $50,000 a year, which is a lot when the average skilled worker at the time made $500. (A rough estimate puts his salary at $1.3 million in today’s dollars.)

Arthur was living the high life. He racked up huge tailor bills. He had a gorgeously furnished house. His job allowed him to force his employees to donate a percentage of their salary to the Republican Party, which gave him even more power within the political machine. He bought huge amounts of wine and cigars that he handed out to people he was wining and dining for the good of the party. His wife resented that he was rarely home because of his political work, but Arthur loved the machine too much to stop.

After his 1876 election, President Rutherford B. Hayes desperately tried to reform the spoils system, but was blocked every step of the way by Roscoe Conkling. Finally, in 1878, Hayes managed to remove Arthur from his position as port controller, under suspicion of corruption, which allowed Arthur to spend more time working for New York’s political machine.

In January of 1880, Arthur was in Albany working for a political campaign when his wife caught pneumonia. By the time Arthur got home, Nell had fallen into a coma, and he wasn’t able to speak with her before she died. He felt guilty over her death, and especially the lack of closure caused by his devotion to politics. But instead of changing his ways, Arthur moved in with Conkling and became more devoted to politics than ever.

Which brings us to the 1880 Republican Convention. The Republican Party was split between two warring factions—the Stalwarts like Conkling who wanted to keep things the way they were, and the Half-Breeds who wanted civil service reform. President Hayes refused to seek re-election (partly because Conkling had made his life miserable) so these two factions somehow had to agree on a new candidate. Conkling supported a third term for Ulysses S. Grant. The Half-Breeds supported James G. Blaine of Maine—who happened to be Conkling’s mortal enemy.

James Garfield was there to nominate John Sherman—the Secretary of the Treasury and the younger brother of the famous Civil War general—and I can’t go any further in this story before I tell you a little bit about him. James Garfield is one of the most ridiculous overachievers in the realm of American politics. He was born into a dirt-poor farming family (he’s the last president ever to have been born in a log cabin). At sixteen, he left home to work on a canal boat, but quit after he nearly drowned, and his mother and brother scraped up enough money for him to go to school. His first year, he paid for his tuition by working as a school janitor. His second year, the school hired him to teach six classes (while he was still a student!) and then added two more because of how popular he was. By the time he was twenty-six, he was president of that same school. He became a lawyer and was elected to Ohio’s state legislature. During the Civil War, he became the youngest person to earn the rank of general. While fighting in the Civil War, his friends put his name in as a candidate for the US House of Representatives, and Garfield won even though he refused to campaign. He then served several terms in the House, where he became popular, but he refused to seek the presidency, because he’d watched several friends become warped by their presidential ambitions.

At the 1880 Republican Convention, Garfield was the more popular Ohio candidate, but insisted he was there only to nominate Sherman. At one point in his nominating speech, Garfield asked the audience, “Now, gentleman, what do we want?” To Garfield’s horror, one man shouted, “We want Garfield!”

Garfield remained loyal in nominating Sherman, but the spark had been lit. The voting went round after round after round for two days, with the votes being split between Grant, Blaine, and Sherman, with no one getting enough to win the nomination. Garfield got one vote in the third round. In the thirty-fourth round, Garfield suddenly got seventeen votes. Garfield stood to protest, saying no one had a right to vote for him since he hadn't consented, but the president of the convention--who was secretly thrilled because he liked Garfield more than any of the other candidates--told Garfield to sit down.

By the thirty-sixth vote, Garfield had won the nomination.

Now they had to choose a vice president. Several of the delegates got the idea to throw a bone to Roscoe Conkling. He was furious that Grant had lost the nomination, and he was vindictive. Conkling controlled New York’s political machine, so without him, the Republicans would lose New York, and without New York, they’d lose the election. He had to be placated. So the delegates nominated Chester Arthur, his right-hand man, as vice president.

Conkling told Arthur to refuse the nomination, but Arthur accepted, saying it was a greater honor than he had ever hoped to achieve. That's putting it mildly. The only position he’d ever held was port controller, and he’d been removed from that. Plenty of people thought nominating him was a horrible idea—a man like Chester Arthur only one step away from the presidency? But other people thought it was a shrewd political move—it would placate Conkling’s faction of the party, and Garfield was young and healthy and would rule in a time of peace. It wasn’t like there was any chance he’d die in office.

After Garfield was elected, Arthur immediately started causing problems. He all but openly boasted of buying votes in the election—which was not a great look when it had been a close race. He was completely on Conkling’s side in his war against Garfield. After Garfield appointed Levi Morton, a Stalwart, as Secretary of the Navy, Conkling sent Arthur and another lackey to drag Morton out of his sickbed--forcing him to drink a bracing mixture of quinine and brandy--and bring him to Conkling’s house to get chewed out, which caused Morton to resign. Conkling forced another Stalwart Cabinet nominee to resign on inauguration day.

Then Conkling went to war over the federal appointments. At first, Garfield placated him, appointing several of Conkling’s candidates. But then Garfield nominated Judge Robertson as Port Controller of New York Harbor. Conkling was livid. That was the prime federal position, a major source of Conkling’s power in the party, and Robertson was one of Conkling’s political enemies. In Conkling’s mind, Garfield had stabbed him in the back. Arthur agreed, and openly bad-mouthed the president to the press.

Conkling and the other New York senator resigned their Senate seats in protest—a dramatic political move. In those days, state legislatures voted for senators, and Conkling believed that since he controlled so many New York politicians, they’d easily get re-elected to their old seats. Unfortunately, the legislature was sick of being under Conkling’s thumb. The election became a drawn-out battle, and Chester Arthur went to Albany to help Conkling in his campaign.

While he was there, the unthinkable happened. On July 2, 1881, James Garfield was shot at a train station by Charles Guiteau, an insane office-seeker. Guiteau had come to the White House every day for months seeking an appointment under the spoils system. When that failed, he decided God wanted him to get Garfield out of the way so the spoils system could continue. After he shot the president, Giteau shouted, “I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be president!”

As you can imagine, that made things really bad for Arthur. He’d just spent months fighting the president tooth and nail, and the assassin had mentioned his name. Plenty of people thought Arthur had something to do with the shooting. He and Conkling both needed police details to protect them from lynch mobs.

Arthur didn’t want to be president; in his mind, vice president was the perfect job—a position with a lot of political leverage, but no responsibility. He went to the White House hoping to convince Garfield that he had nothing to do with the shooting, but the doctors wouldn’t let him in the room. He managed to speak to the First Lady, where he got choked up with emotion and was observed to be in tears. A reporter later found him in the house where he was staying in Washington, and noted he'd obviously been weeping.

To Arthur’s relief, Garfield seemed to get better. The bullet had missed his spinal cord and all his major organs. If he’d been left alone, Garfield would have made a complete recovery. Unfortunately, his doctors repeatedly prodded the bullet wound with unsterilized instruments, and Garfield fell victim to a massive infection. He lingered for months, slowly starving and rotting to death.

Through all this, Arthur stayed in New York and refused to take up presidential duties; with so many people accusing him of the assassination, he didn’t want to make it look like he was preparing to usurp the throne.

It eventually became clear that the assassin had acted alone, which laid the rumors to rest, but no one wanted Arthur to be president. James Garfield had been a man of the people. The working class considered him one of their own, proof that anyone could rise from poverty and become president. He was an idealist, a champion of civil rights, a family man who lived modestly. For the first time since the Civil War, a president had been supported by both the north and the south, and the country had come together in grief. Chester Arthur was Garfield’s exact opposite—a conniving political lackey who’d become a millionaire through corruption.

James Garfield died on September 19th. To the American people, it looked like their worst nightmare had come true. Conkling’s lackey was in the White House, and now Conkling would rule the nation the same way he’d ruled New York.

Yet, to everyone’s surprise, President Chester Arthur became a completely different man. In one of his first speeches, he listed civil service reform as one of his top priorities—a shocking move for a man who’d become president through the spoils system. Soon after Arthur’s inauguration, Conkling demanded he name a new Controller of the Port of New York. Arthur angrily refused and called Conkling’s demand outrageous. Conkling stormed out in fury and never forgave Arthur. (Arthur did later risk his reputation to nominate Conkling for the Supreme Court, but Conkling, ever petty, refused the position.)

Arthur didn’t have a complete personality transplant. He still lived lavishly, hosting lots of state dinners. He still preferred the social duties of the presidency to actual government work, and he was a hopeless procrastinator. Always fastidious, Arthur refused to move in to the rotting, rat-infested White House until they fixed up the dump, and he ran up extravagant bills during the remodel.

Yet, as a president, he was...respectable. He worked for African-American civil rights. He started a major process of rebuilding and reforming the outdated and corrupt navy. He did sign the Chinese Exclusion Act, but he had vetoed an earlier, harsher version and only signed a much-reduced one (that probably would have been voted in anyway if he’d vetoed it). That remodel of the White House, even if it ran over-budget, was long overdue.

Most shocking of all was his unswerving devotion to civil service reform. He continued an investigation into a government postal scandal, even though everyone assumed he’d drop it. He voiced his continuing support for reform efforts. In 1883, Arthur signed the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. As written, the act required only 10% of federal jobs to be assigned based on merit, and even that required the president to take action to enforce it. People assumed that Arthur would sit back and do nothing, so the spoils system would remain in place. Yet Arthur immediately formed a commission to enact the reform, even appointing some of his old enemies. The man who’d benefited most from the spoils system became the one to finally destroy it.

How do we explain such a complete and sudden change? Part of it’s a matter of personality. If I can indulge in a bit of meta, Chester Arthur seems to be a textbook example of the sanguine-phlegmatic temperament—someone who wants to fit in with the crowd, to go with the flow. As a political lackey, this made him self-serving and amoral, but as president, the crowd he had to impress was the American people. After months of getting crucified in the press, with tons of articles saying what they didn’t want him to be, he’d have plenty of motivation to become what they did want him to be.

A more important motivation, though, was death. His wife’s death was likely the first shock that would make him step back and take stock of his political career. Garfield’s death had an even more profound influence on him. The spoils system had led a madman to murder a president in Arthur’s name; if anything could motivate a man to change the system, that would be it. Even more profound than that was his own death. Not long after entering the White House, Arthur was diagnosed with a fatal kidney disease. He hid the diagnosis during his term, but his actions in office were the actions of a man doomed to die, with a mind toward the legacy he’d leave behind.

Yet there’s another stranger, more mysterious influence that I’ve left to last because of how cool the story is. The day before his death, Chester Arthur—who’d become ashamed of his old life—asked a friend to burn the vast majority of his papers. Years later, among the papers that had been spared, his grandson uncovered a packet of twenty-three letters from a 31-year-old invalid named Julia Sand. Julia came from a family very interested in politics, and her illness meant that she spent a lot of time reading the newspapers, so she was familiar with Chester Arthur’s political career. In August of 1881, she sent Chester Arthur a letter that began, “The hours of Garfield's life are numbered—before this meets your eye, you may be President. The people are bowed in grief; but—do you realize it?--not so much because he is dying, as because you are his successor.” Over seven pages, Julia scolded Arthur for his corrupt ways, but assured him of her faith in his better nature, and urged him to reform. She sent letters over the next two years, full of encouragement and scolding and political advice. She called herself his “little dwarf”, because her lack of ties to him meant she could be completely honest with him.

There’s no evidence he ever answered her. But she did offer some rather specific political advice that he seems to have followed. And he did visit her once. In 1882, he stopped by her house in the presidential carriage, surprising her and her family (who had no idea she’d been writing to the president) with an hour-long visit. She seemed to grow more frustrated with his lack of answers after that, and no letter exists after 1883.

There’s no way to say what kind of effect the letters had on him. But amid all the turmoil after the assassination, it must have meant something to have one voice saying she believed in him. She was a voice from outside the Washington political machine, who could serve as a sort of conscience. The fact that those letters survived when so much else burned suggests he considered them worth saving.

No matter the reason, the truth remains that Arthur entered the presidency as an example of all that was dirty and loathsome in the political system, and he left it as a respectable man. In giving up his old ways, he sacrificed connections he’d spent years building. His old friends never forgave him, and his old opponents never quite trusted his reform, yet he did what he thought was right even if it meant he stood alone. In summing up his presidency, I don’t think I can do better than contemporary journalist Alexander McClure: “No man ever entered the Presidency so profoundly and widely distrusted as Chester Alan Arthur, and no one ever retired... more generally respected, alike by political friend and foe.” I think that deserves to be remembered.

#history is awesome #presidential talk #i apologize but i really can't see any way to cut this down #i like the detour into garfield's nomination #i can't cut conkling out any more than i have #i can't leave out his wife #i didn't even mention that he was washington's most eligible bachelor during his term but he remained faithful to her memory #or that his sister served as hostess at the white house and helped raise his daughter (who he protected from the press as best he could)#or that he did make a half-hearted attempt to seek re-election so people wouldn't think he was slinking off in disgrace #and there was some support for him #but he didn't mind at all when someone else was nominated because he was dealing with his kidney disease #and he died in 1886 #which means he had the shortest post-presidency life of anyone except james k. polk who died three months after leaving office #i did not come into last week thinking that by the end of it i'd have developed a minor specialization #in the presidency of a guy i knew only for his facial hair and his half-verse in the animaniacs song #i didn't even mention the facial hair!#go to wikipedia and see his glorious muttonchops!#say what you will about the victorians but they had wild facial hair game #but anyway here is the life story of my impeccably dressed trash panda son #who is put together on the outside and a mess on the inside #and still manages to maintain a certain dignity despite how pathetic he is #he's a mess of a human being but i love him your honor

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daily-scott-smajor · 9 days

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259 - average day

#daily scott smajor #step one. start spiralling. grab the loaf of bread from the pantry #it being stale is alright. cut the moldy parts off #it will work for now.#step two. isolate from the world. grab the cheese from the fridge- the type you use is optional. the cheese expired last week but thats fin #im too tired to go to the store.#step three become a shell of yourself. grab the pan from under the oven #or wherever you keep yours. you did not clean it well enough last #time you made food it seems #as you can see burnt parts line the edges. this will do.#step four. make sure you no longer feel connected to the situation at hand. grab the butter or mayonaise (i learned to use mayo #my preference) and put it on the outside of the bread. one side of each slice #as you have been reminded your whole life.#step five. wait.#step six. remind yourself you're acting rash. this fixes nothing- but is a good thing to remind yourself of. put the first piece of bread o #the pan mayo side down. place the cheese on top of that. add the other slice mayo side up.#step seven. you will wait some more.#step eight. drown out everything you know. flip the bread over. you will notice its slightly burnt but that is okay. you are too hungry to #care.#step nine. finish what you have started and go to bed unsatisfied.#<- hope this helps!

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gailynovelry · 3 months

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A while ago, we saw someone explain why they don’t like first person. Aside from “it’s shallow” (which feels like a shallow critique itself without more context), they cited a desire to understand what all the other characters in a scene are thinking and feeling, and I found that very interesting.

Because I don’t feel like every story benefits from knowing every character involved in it to such an intimate degree.

A lot of interesting speculation can be derived from gaps in the narrative. Why did he do that? What was her real motive there? The protagonist can speculate, but are they really the most objective source for that, or are you assuming that they are because they’re in the narrator seat, and they haven’t explicitly called themself unreliable?

First person creates a very specific opportunity to convey characters outside of the protagonist via showing and not telling.

It also creates a great opportunity to put your reader in a mental maze (the central narrator’s perspective) and give them a fun crumb trail out of it (the way that other characters react to the narrator).

I personally think that first person really shines under the right circumstances; and I think one of the best circumstances is when the central narrator has some horrendously skewed worldview. When they’re a fucked up little guy. When they think they know what’s up and they really, really don’t.

And when there’s other characters just as fun outside of them to force the reader to fill in the blank spaces for themselves.

Anyway, sometimes I feel like the push against first person is motivated by people being burned by boring, one-dimensional first person narrators and/or a distaste for common YA conventions. At other times, I feel like it’s motivated by the very bland desire to have the author shine a flashlight into every nook, cranny, and crevice of the narrative so that you don’t miss out on anything. I understand the desire to know more, but it's also fun to be able pick up the flashlight yourself as a reader!

No style of narration is inherently lesser than another. They just suit different readers and author's tastes.

#writeblr #first person #writing #writing advice #this was queued to put distance between us having this thought and us putting it out #anyway this is why we write first person narration for Nathaniel and Velvet #they’re both fascinating and you’re supposed to be dissecting their thought process while you’re immersed in it!#their perspective is the cage we’ve dropped the narrative in #and the way that OTHER characters REACT to them from the outside will help tell you what is actually going on!!#Nathaniel is a nervous wreck and can be easily convinced that he is more or less competent and/or smooth than he actually is #while Velvet is extremely traumatized and has internalized that trauma into a blithe normalcy and passively fucked-up sense of humor #the way that other people react to Velvet opening his big mouth should say way more than #any perspective switch where we cut to a Not Velvet character internally explaining “Velvet is fucked up guys don’t emulate Velvet”#anyway third person is beautiful. we love third person.#but books would be less rich if that was the only acceptable perspective to use

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toytulini · 5 months

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terfs go climb into a hole and start rotting. animals cannot inherently tell your "biological sex" you are all so fucking stupid. All this post is saying is that animals are not infallible judges of character and some of them make really stupid vibe checks and that people should try not to take it personally. Unless youre a terf in which case they know and they hate you and you should take it personally

re that one post tbh i do want to stress i dont think animals are like magically psychic at knowing your True Gender tbh i think ppl definitely get way too weird about Animal's judgement of ppl.

Sometimes a dog will vibe check a man and the dog will be right and you should listen. but sometimes the dog will vibe check someone for no good reason. sometimes dogs have wack judgement. sometimes dogs have biases influenced by their owners or previous owners. like. there are Racist Dogs. its not the dogs fault, but that doesnt make the bias theyve developed less real, or less potentially hurtful. i dont think we need to like, Cancel Dogs Bc Sometimes Ppl Can Train Them To Be Racist, but we do need to stop perpetuating the idea that a dog's judgement of someone is infallible. theyre not responsible for it and its not their fault its developed, theyre just dogs, they didnt choose it, but that doesnt mean theyre RIGHT lmao. i think its important to stress this for many reasons but in regard to that last post specifically, if youve ever been vibe checked as a gender you arent by a judgy dog its literally not your fault. might not even be the owners fault. not the dogs fault cos like. its a fucking dog. you do kinda have to be the bigger person in that scenario cos the other person is. A Dog.

#toy txt post #this was meant to be a quick post it got a bit longer and more in depth than i planned oops #i just hate when ppl act like All Dogs have Inherently Correct Judgement Of People #like from every angle. its funny to joke about but i know theres ppl out there who might be feeling like #very fragile in their gender or smth and seeing a post like that if they meet a dog that normally hates men but not women but it doesnt #recognize your inherent true gender im sure seeing shit like that post can be a horr #got interrupted by a phone call while typing it and the post is glitching so i cant see where that tag is cut off so uh #dogs are like ppl in that they can develop biases and have bad judgement and they dont always get it right #they are not like ppl in that it is not possible to ask a dog to examine its biases. you cannot make a dog take a class on #critical race theory. you have to work to socialize and desensitize them against those biases or at least make sure those biases theyve #developed dont negatively impact ppl. in this sense i guess im morally obligated to try to learn more spanish to see if it helps my dog #chill. shes nervous around all new ppl but parents have anecdotally noted she extra dislikes men speaking in spanish. she was a stray so we #dont really know her history. she also does Not like fire pokers outside. weirdly even tho its basically the same tool she is unfazed by #the indoor poker for the woodstove? but ig she wouldve had less exposure to indoor woodstoves as a stray in Louisiana?#but i can see like ppl having a little backyard barbecue and threatening the big mastiff looking stray dog with a fire poker and i think #that region of the country prolly has a higher number of spanish speaking ppl than our current residence so the odds of her running into a #spanish speaking guy who isnt very nice are prolly higher just due to a denser population as a whole. and we think shes part mastiff which #i think is a breed already prone to disliking strangers that probably cooked up into a little cocktail in her brain #luckily shes bad enough with All Strangers that i think honestly it would be hard to even notice her bias? but. ig i need to see if i can #desensitize her? idk. sighs but im scared to open duolingo now 😭. but i could maybe do it. when other ppl wear hats she fucking hates it #i wear a fucking face covering mask that looks like a giant eyeball she looks at me a little quizzically but is fine. jester hat? fine #i am like that video of the person desensitizing that horse except thats just like. living w me. minus the cat thing. id never do that to #the cats or dog. everyone would hate that. squirrel already cant tolerate being held while a dog is out cos he THINKS im going to do that.#it would traumatize the dog cos he'd injure me escaping and then prolly her trying to scare her off to get past her and shes just minding #her business. solo i cant hold that long but is less likely to injure anyone. shadow. first of all all 3 are way too heavy to be holding #like that #im getting lost in the tags again sorry im chewing caffeinated gum. i should go try to buy some catnip #ive made my Phone Calls. im gonna try to go get dressed and buy various catnip products. maybe lure him with a toy this time. need my #parents to help me but not be so visibly Ready to help me next time cos i do not want to chase his ass again...

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pizzazz-party · 1 year

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Coming from someone who doesn't watch tnmt and only knows what I know from tumblr posts.

I thought Usagi was the same age as Splinter? Was I wrong??

AS OLD AS SPLINTER???!!! 😭😭😭😭

so in case you didn’t know! miyamoto usagi (not to be confused with the yuichi guy from the nextflix show) is originally a character from Usagi Yojimbo, a comic i enjoy separately from anything turtle related! like TMNT, it also started back in the 80s. and like in most ongoing american comics, the creator stan sakai does not like to commit to any hard numbers regarding usagi’s age, even though we know time is passing in-universe. we get plenty of stories set in his childhood, and a few from when he’s a teenager, but for most of the comic he’s somewhere in his mid to late twenties. by my admittedly shaky math, he is roughly twenty-one at the chronological start of UY.

so, you know how i said both the original TMNT and UY comics started in the 80s? well, their creators are friends! and so TMNT and UY as franchises have been doing occasional crossover specials since the dawn of time. it’s a tradition that’s carried over to the TMNT television shows. with the exception of the 2018 ROTTMNT show, there has been a tmnt version of usagi for every iteration of turtles.

and every usagi. is basically a different dude entirely.

i can’t speak for most of the other turtle shows, but in the 2003 show, he was aged down into his teens. this show was notable in particular, partly due to how much screen time this usagi got compared to most other crossovers. (watching an hour long compilation video of usagi clips on youtube was my very first “canon” impression of this character.)

tl;dr How young Usagi is depends on the iteration. Personally, whenever i draw him in the style of a ROTTMNT crossover that-never-officially-happened-and-probably-never-will, I’m plucking him directly out of his teenage years. Master Splinter, by contrast, is usually like 50+ years in most iterations.

#explanation under the cut. a short glimpse into the miyamoto usagi-verse #your ask made me laugh VERY hard! i imagine all of this must look very confusing from the outside #so i hope this helps!#usagi yojimbo #miyamoto usagi #ask

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girlscience · 5 months

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trying to get to better as a person is so nauseating. was lonely yesterday so i messaged friends to try and plan hang outs. forced myself to ask about reference letters today even though i turned bright red and felt like crying. messaged friends tonight to ask if they could help keep me accountable so i don't feel like i'm doing everything alone. barf. i hate this. i want to hide in a hole

#THIS IS GOOD FOR ME IT WILL HELP BUT IT REQUIRES CHANGE #and i am realizing maybe i am significantly worse with change than i thought i was #ie my parents and sister and a few other people think i should apply to more schools #specifically more schools outside my comfort zone #and it would be so cool!!!! but it requires me to change the idea of 4 schools to like 6 or 8 #and change from a few hours from home to like a days drive away or FARTHER #and this is already going to change my whole life's routine #and i'll be away from all my friends and family already #and i am just remembering how awful that was the first go around in undergrad #and maybe i am super scared of that happening again #and also i need to reach out about GA positions and that means i have to talk to professors #which is scary and also a change from undergrad cause i avoided talking to them as much as possible #and i am just AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA #so. hopefully some of this will help but also. i am crying inside. a lot.#i also need to change my fanfic habits because i honestly think it is like... the most time sucking thing in my life #and part of me wishes i never started reading fic because it gets in the way of me doing literally everything else i need to do #but stopping or even just cutting down on it is killer #but on the bright side i have been on youtube a lot less recently and leave it deleted off my phone for longer periods of time #which is good!!! it means i'm not on my phone as much #but yeah. stuff and things and trying to do stuff that's good for me is the worst

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silo1013 · 11 months

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what's the first thing that comes to mind when i ask "favorite krycek scene?"

in terms of "scenes with krycek in them that are not actually about him" it will always be the part at the end of apocrypha where he's expelling the black oil onto the ship and it's coming out of his eyes and everything. something about it is so disturbing, so entrancingly gross. it's almost hard to watch but that's why i like it. i used to wonder a lot how they actually pulled off that effect and so i looked it up and apparently there was like this weird mask with tubes running through it that took like an hour to put on. pretty cool

in terms of "scenes with krycek in them that actually sort of are about him" i really really like the bit in ascension of him in the operating room with the tram driver at skyland mountain. there's already a tenseness to the scene (is mulder going to make it to the top in time? is the tram going to fuck up because he's going too fast? etc) that is really well escalated by the way everything is shot. there are a lot of face close-ups--krycek, the tram driver, barry in the car, scully in the trunk--and a lot of big wide shots showing just exactly how high in the air mulder is on the tram, it makes it feel like an action movie. i love the camera work for the whole sequence; the shots of the tram operator sitting at the desk always include krycek in the background, but never his face, and at the end of the sequence, when the tram driver explains that mulder looks like he's going to make it to the top of the mountain safely, it shows krycek reaching for the gun at his waistband without changing the angle of the camera, so you maybe almost don't notice it. the little micro-movements and expressions are really good here too; krycek pistol-whips the tram operator, fixes his hair (lol), closes his eyes and sighs before reaching out to shut off the tram. the sleeve of his suit is too long, and it covers part of his hand when he turns the key. he makes his phone call in a vaguely resigned manner, maybe not overjoyed at what he's doing but definitely committed to it. mulder is calling his name over the radio--what's going on down there? do you read me? does anybody read me?--and when mulder actually does make it to the top of the mountain unharmed, even after almost falling off the tram, krycek closes his eyes and sighs again in the sort of way where you can't quite tell if he's annoyed or relieved. one of my favorite scenes of the episode, period; it's incredibly rewindable. i get excited for it whenever i rewatch -_-

#re: apocrypha i'm also a fan of that whole last like ten minutes for a lot of reasons #particularly the cut from scully musing that 'maybe the old man was right; maybe we bury the dead alive'#to krycek locked in the missile silo banging on the door and yelling for help that for all we know will never come #there's also one other part in ascension that's like barely even a scene it's like five seconds #but when mulder is interrogating barry in the office and they're talking about scully #and mulder is like 'who took her' and barry is like 'THEM!!! they know where she is! turn around! they're right outside!'#and there's like a two second shot of three government guys in dark suits out the window with the sudden bright sterile blue underlighting #and they like. turn and walk away as one while barry is yelling for mulder to look. and you can see just barely that one of them is krycek #and then mulder turns around and the light's back to normal and there's nobody there. rrrgrgrghh so cool

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i-have-a-mouth-so-i-must-scream · 1 year

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@cheeseandstrawberrytartlover

this is what I imagine what a child born of Akatosh and Sheogorath would look like. Sheo's got cat-like features, who's to say they didn't give birth to a litter of dragons of varying abilities and appearances. And the Dragonborn was the only one born with a human body which made them the 'Chosen One', but of course, due to being born of the Prince of Chaos they inherited their ability to change form. And of course, it's at random because, duh, baby.

Just imagine Sheo getting run ragged by a litter of rambunctious, destructive cat-coded baby dragons and a shapeshifting toddler.

And because the kids are born of both an Aedra and Daedra, they gon be hella big and hella strong.

#Dragonborn strolling into Sovngarde: Alduin cut this shit out or I'm calling back up!#and their siblings are just outside of Sovngarde waiting for them to give the ok to dog pile on Alduin's scaly hide lol #sheo really went through it during their pregnancy #Akatosh was no help at all and was thus figuratively sentenced to the couch so to speak #that's why Sheo was at Solitude #they needed a break from his now building-sized kids and they wanted to check up on Dragonborn

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chazarusdre · 1 year

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Imagine if Neo Agent 3 had some sort of resentment towards the new squidbeak Splatoon after the events of Alterna

Like yes it was mostly gramps’s doing for making them an agent, but what if they also resented the squid sisters and captain 3 for just going with it and letting a kid risk their life

I wanna see Neo Agent 3 rather hang out with Deep Cut than with the NSS because of the bad taste they left in 3’s mouth just letting them do all the dirty work risking their life to save the world

#I’m sleep deprived but also I think it’d be cool if this was the case #like ngl if I saved the world with little help from my supervisors and I was a kid who was just thrown into this situation I’d hate them to #minimum wage job to be very honest #actually do we even get paid like what’s the use of power eggs outside of Alterna #does Callie just give us Monopoly money #i mean sure we get some clothes #Splatoon #neo agent 3 #Splatoon 3 #agent 3 #squid sisters #agent 3 Splatoon #deep cut #captain 3 #bat be doin' the thinky

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padfootastic · 2 years

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on to the Prongsfoot Propaganda™️ now. james and sirius. generational habits + love & comfort + friendship. also, pet names.

Darling, pt. 2

part 1.

It became a thing after that. Sirius never cried easily—that one night being an outlier—but that didn’t mean he didn’t brood. Because he did—he was…quite adept in the whole thing, really.

And whenever he did, whether it be in his four poster, or on top of the Astronomy Tower, or through the latch in their dorm—James would be there, armed with his blankie and increasingly, tea.

The first time that happened, Sirius was hiding lounging behind a suit of armour, crammed into a little opening hidden from sight. It was just after the Welcoming Feast in their third year, and Regulus was Sorted into Slytherin.

Sirius wasn’t surprised by that—his little brother was a snake through and through, for good or bad, but he didn’t realise it would make such a big difference in their relationship. He’d always thought that he had reassured Reggie that they would always be brothers first, Hogwarts students second—but it seemed like he had other ideas, for as soon as the Hat had screamed ‘SLYTHERIN!’ (which was about three seconds after being dropped on his tiny head), Reg had darted straight to his table without even peeking a glance towards Sirius.

That- That in itself might’ve been fine, but the way he actively avoided eye contact, stubbornly keeping his eyes on the ground, for the entire time after til they’d left for their dorms—yeah. Sirius could see their bond fraying, far more than it had in the last two years since he’d been sorted into Gryffindor, and he didn’t know what to do about it.

Sirius might have some serious issues with their family, and Slytherin, but Regulus was his baby brother and he would never dream of leaving him behind.

He’d just never considered that he might be the one left behind.

So here he was, slumped back against the wall, knees pulled up to his chest, mind running in circles looking for a solution—for anything that could make this better.

As if the universe had heard his thoughts, the sound of shuffling feet and a ‘good heavens!’ came through the hallway. Sirius rolled his eyes, knowing only James Potter could curse like someone’s eighty year old grandmother in this entire school. Well, him and McGonagall but it didn’t seem likely that she shuffled her feet.

So his best mate it was.

“Sirius?”

He debated answering for a second—surely, if he stayed quiet, he could avoid this…confrontation altogether?

“Sirius!”

Never mind. He’d clearly suffered a momentary lapse in judgement if he thought he could silent treatment James into leaving something alone.

He sighed. “In here.”

A momentary pause, and then the footsteps travelled closer until they stopped right outside the tiny entrance to the passageway.

“How’d you even fit in there?” Came James’ incredulous voice.

“It’s called skill.”

“Or, it’s your gangly limbs and freaky contortionist habits.”

“Yikes, what’s with the personal attacks?” Sirius blinked at his friend, who’d finally managed to fit himself in the narrow space. His eyes narrowed at the covered—something in his hands.

“Don’t mind me,” James winced. “I just had to run all the way up to the dorms, and then all the way down to kitchens and then find you, so I’m a bit wiped out.”

“And just why did you have to do all that?” Sirius asked suspiciously, gaze still on the hidden package.

“To get this, of course!” And with a dramatic flourish, he revealed his burden.

James’ blankie—big surprise there—and a…tea set?

Sirius looked at James, hoping his face was enough to convey all the questions swirling in his head.

“There’s nothing tea can’t make better,” James announced solemnly, “Plus I brought your favorite!”

Sirius wasn’t sure chai had the capacity to make him feel better right now, but he appreciated the effort.

“Is that something your mum told you?” He snarked, but accepted the cup nonetheless, letting the comforting aroma of ginger and cardamom surround him. If nothing else, at least he had this wonderful concoction in hand.

“Is she wrong?”

And a too-nosy-for-his-own-good best friend, of course. Sirius thought about being a little shit for the sake of it, but James hadn’t done anything to get an earful. In fact, he was the only one who consistently helped. So he shook it off—that unnervingly cat-like urge to unsheathe claws he didn’t have and hiss—and merely took a sip of his tea.

So there they sat in silence, until the pot was emptied and the single blankie wasn’t enough to ward off the chill seeping into their bones from being pressed against the stone floor. By then, Sirius felt considerably better, at least enough that his thoughts weren’t in a depressing spiral anymore.

“Jamie,” he called. James was a few steps ahead of him, carefully balancing the tray with the pot and the cups, but he stopped the second he heard his name being called. “Thanks.”

James waited until Sirius caught up with him before pressing a clumsy kiss to his cheek, having to manoeuvre around the tray and the blankie wrapped around Sirius’ shoulders.

“I’ll take care of you, darling, don’t you worry.”

It didn’t sound as awkward as it did the first time, but that was perhaps because of Sirius getting used to his James’ speech.

The way it immediately made him feel better, however, was unchanged.

#sirius black #james potter #prongsfoot #reg gets an honourable mention for being a scared lil kid #harry still hasn’t mad an appearance but that’s bc james needs to die for that and i’m not ready yet #i haven’t even introduced an outsider pov for this sappiness yet ykno?#we’re slowly moving to the non-j&s bits and i’m not ready 🥲#also i was rereading this and realised i randomly write ‘his james’ without even thinking about it so ignore that lil ✨quirk✨#we’re getting to the end of what i’ve already got down which means i’ve to write more and 😭😭#when will we get the ability to simply…transfer words from the brain onto a screen #i didn’t put this under a cut bc it’s not that long so maybe i should tag that?#long post #idk if that’ll help but hey #also!!! james isn’t just a mother hen he’s also a geriatric soul #it’s very important #pen’s writing

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