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loveemagicpeace · 2 months

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💕Understanding Signs🧚🏼‍♀️

🥊Fire element-fire suggests to many the intuition function. This is because fire tends to perceive in pictures, and to get an instantaneous grasp of a situation. Fire does not reason or think in any classical sense of the word: it either understands or it doesn't. This is why fire people can be extremely creative yet not good at logical reasoning. People with a lot of fire energy have a great impulse, which is sometimes difficult to control. They often make a decision all at once and quickly. They don't like waiting.

They perceives things through pictures and sudden flashes of insight. A fire person will study something for a long time without comprehending it, and then the significance will become clear in an instant. Fire is often psychic, in the ordinary meaning of the word. Fire is the most positive or yang of all the elements. It is the energy of spirit, and operates within the universe by energizing and transforming. It is not characteristic of fire to work along lines already set, or to respond to energy patterns that are imposed from without. Fire rises: it cannot stay at one level for long. This gives fire people a dramatic, intense quality. They do not enjoy standing still.

Fire element-fire is an emotional element, but it tends toward the more active and dynamic emotions— anger, joy, ebullience, and enthusiasm. Also fire signs are very positive in everything they do. For ex.: Leo Mars - Regardless of the situation, they will always want to cheer someone up with a funny show or put on a show to make the person happy again. Leos in general always have an inner child (they will always be ready to watch cartoons with you). Sagittarius Venus-They will be the best at helping you through a difficult breakup. They always find faith in life and know how to find meaning even when it is difficult to see it. They have a special charm with which they always bring people good mood and instill hope. They will never stop believing. Aries Sun- will always be ready for action. They are not afraid of dangerous things and like something that is more risky. They are the only sign that is rarely afraid, usually they will be the ones who will be the bravest. They have harder time dealing with sadness, depression, or the kind of feeling that comes from quiet contemplation of one's surroundings.

Fire people do not like to show sadness or grief: their typical response is to make fun of their own unhappiness. Even when they are down, they are often capable of making others feel better. Being an outgoing, positive energy, fire does not easily play passive roles.

Earth element- earth signs are most concerned with perceiving an external, physical reality. But earth is not simply concerned with perceiving it, it is also concerned with ordering it in the way that is most effective in a given situation. Earth signifies concern with the physical, with practical, common-sense matters. Earth is a symbol for direct sense experience of the physical universe, without ideas, concepts, beliefs, or wishful thinking to cloud perception. Thus matter, and through it the symbol earth, signifies limits to our freedom in which regard the element earth is related to the planet Saturn).

Unlike fire, earth is stable, the most stable of all the elements. Also unlike fire, earth is passive: it needs to be acted on and formed by an external energy. For earth people to be really productive, there must be a positive, assertive energy provided by the planetary combinations in their charts.Otherwise, the earth type of personality remains passive.

Taurus is a sign who will give you a lot, spoil you, buy you gifts, take you to a luxury hotel, take care of you. They do a lot related to money. They are a sign that will spoil you with material things and may not be so creative themselves. But they also know how to be selfish and stubborn and do not care about your feelings.

Earth tends to resist change, and it can signify structures that break down under pressure because they lack the flexibility that allows adaptation.Earth signifies making do with what is available. Earth people are adept at dealing with the details that must be attended to in everyday reality in order to make it work effectively. Being a relatively passive element, earth perceives better than fire. Earth people are usually close to their gut reactions to life. Inner experience is valued less highly by the earth temperament, because earth tends to focus its perceptions externally.

Virgo and Capricorn especially are inclined to sacrifice emotional needs when these come into conflict with their view of reality. Although Capricorn looks like a cold sign and people wouldn't expect it to have so many emotions and make sacrifices for others - in fact it does. Capricorns often sacrifice their time for the people they love and can build a relationship for years and years, even if it ends up not being what they might have wanted. A Capricorn can have a lot of work and responsibilities, but still finds time to see you or cook you lunch, do something practical for you. Virgo it is often seen as a judgmental and sometimes not so accessible sign (a sign that gives you the feeling that they don't like something or that they are angry). But in reality, they are a sign that cares a lot about others-they will always be ready to take care of you.

Air element-Like fire, air may be more concerned with things that are not yet real, that are abstract and unrelated to a given reality. Air is as concerned with the relationship of things in the outer world as earth is, but air is more interested in abstractions. The difference between the symbols fire and air can be seen in the difference in the behavior of actual fire and wind. Fire rises, whereas wind moves horizontally.

Like fire, air can become so involved in abstractions that it loses touch with physical reality and practical considerations. But unlike fire, air hovers just above the Earth's surface, so that though it is fond of abstractions, the abstractions are closer to physical reality than those of fire. Air is associated with thinking and logic, and as such it is less personal than fire. Fire is usually connected with the vital, personal drive, or the will, and the abstractions are one's personal abstractions. But air, which has a social, external conception of truth, is more inclined to abstractions that have little to do with the individual.

In this way air is similar to earth: both are primarily concerned with a reality external to the self. Fire and water are more concerned with personal, inward kinds of truth.

Air always has a strongly social quality. All three air signs have to do with relating to others— Gemini to the immediate world through mind and speech, Libra through achieving perfect balance within a one-to-one relationship, and Aquarius through group consciousness and interaction.Air lacks fire's ability to go off on its own to be itself.

Aquarius as a sign of revolution, it is related to revolutionary movements, not non-conforming individuals, thinking in a different way, breaking the rules. Aquarius desire freedom to impose their ideals on society as a whole. Gemini they like to open different topics, talk long into the night. Their thoughts are quick and unpredictable. But they often have problems with getting attached to someone. Although air is very social, it is sometimes unable to handle real intimacy well. This is because air operates extensively, rather than intensively.

Libra is the only air sign in which the drive for close, personal relationships is strong, but even here there is a detached, non-intimate quality often obscured by the cleverness of the sign.

Water element presents the greatest difficulty. But even though water may feel good or bad much more quickly and sensitively than the other elements, it is no more judgmental as to whether something may be good, bad, pleasant, or unpleasant. Of the four elements, water is in some ways the most difficult to understand. Water is the most yin of the four elements, and the most bound up in the maternal, feminine archetype which is so poorly expressed in our culture.

Strongly watery people who comprehend this element from first-hand experience cannot readily communicate what they comprehend. Water people are poor at communication or unwilling to communicate. It is just that what they have to communicate is extremely difficult to put into words.

Scorpio communication is difficult because water represents non-linear, non-rational, non-discriminative modes of thought-the very antithesis of air. Fire and water both represent non-rational functions, but fire has more to do with sudden, lightning-like comprehension, whereas water has a subtle, feeling- toned understanding that comes into being at no particular point, seeming rather to have existed always.

Water is the best at feeling relationships and the ways every thing interacts with every other thing. Water may see and understand in a way that is hard for the other elements, especially air, to comprehend, but it sees very well.Often the best way for water to communicate is by means of art, especially poetry and music. Water people usually are artistic. Another factor that sometimes places a barrier between water and other elements is that water experience is very personal. In this respect water is nearer to fire, and more distant from air and earth. Water people's personal experience can be so vivid that external reality fades into insignificance beside it.

Pisces are very artistic and also the most dreamy sign of all water signs.They have their heads in the clouds most of the time and are also the sign that is the most naive. Cancer is the most family-oriented and caring sign. A sign that also prefers to spend time with people close to it. They like to be in their comfort zone. Scorpio is the most mysterious, the sign that fights the most. Is also the most private sign and doesn't like to share his stuff with others. It is a sign that has a problem with trust. Scorpio is also very deep sign.

Water is a symbol of empathy. Empathy is the ability to feel what another feels as if one were that other person. A water person understands feelings and emotions better than any other elemental type, and is capable of great emotional depth and compassion for others. Men in particular have a problem with the water parts of their nature because watery qualities are so out of accord with masculinity. Water people often have stronger ties with the past, a stronger involvement with familiar people, places, and situations. In a strong water person there is the protective, maternal streak; in a weak water person, there can be emotional grasping and possessiveness. Water has a need to self-dramatize like fire; but unlike fire, water is willing to take other people's emotions seriously as well.

🎸For personal readings u can sign up here: https://snipfeed.co/bekylibra 🎸

-Rebekah💍🦋🌙

#astrology #zodiac signs #planets #understanding signs

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thefirstknife · 9 months

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So Immaru this week is clearly trying to manipulate us, but it does make me wonder just how much influence the Traveler has/had on who the Ghosts choose.

Its always been said that the Traveler chose who the Ghosts choose, but Ghosts are clearly their own people

Yeah, it's up for debate. Even among Ghosts themselves. Some Ghosts clearly think that the Traveler told them to raise a specific person. A good example is Felspring who told Felwinter exactly that:

Then it gentled its voice, "The Traveler told me to save you. That something was different about you." "That ball in the sky you showed me? It talked to you?" "I can't explain it."

But there's other Ghosts don't feel that way. Difference of Opinion lore tab is funny, but it also highlights just how much Ghosts differ in opinions about the Traveler and their own purpose. In contrast to Felspring, Sagira's answer for Osiris was just:

"Why did you choose me?" Osiris's voice is hollow. He flattens a palm for Sagira to perch. "You have a spark." Her voice is warm air.

Sagira further offers some insight after about why some Ghosts potentially choose bad people:

"He needed someone strong. A fighter." "Nothing more?" Sagira pauses. "The Traveler was… wounded when it created us. That pain echoes. Some of us make choices we shouldn't. Some of us are scared. The process isn't streamlined."

We obviously don't know if this is just Sagira's interpretation or if it's fact. Ghosts simply don't know anything with 100% certainty, but this bit that she said makes a lot of sense. Ghosts are pieces of the Traveler and when they were made, the Traveler shed those parts of itself and sent them out into the world. It's logical that some Ghosts adopted certain aspects of the Traveler. Some Ghosts are scared and impulsive and raised a bad person who ended up being cruel because being scared and impulsive and needing a protector at all costs is part of the Traveler. Others chose heroic people who would sacrifice themselves for others because being heroic and sacrificing yourself for others is also a part of the Traveler.

Most likely what happens is that it's a Ghosts' choice, but that choice is inextricably linked to the Traveler. Even what Felspring said makes sense in that regard. Perhaps Felspring was a part of the Traveler that was observing Felwinter's progress as he was learning about humanity and believed that he was worthy of that humanity (and he was!).

One of my ideas right now is that perhaps Immaru (and other Ghosts that followed him) adopted the part of the Traveler that really wanted to help the Hive, back when they were on the Fundament. It would explain why he feels so strongly about the Hive being more deserving of the Light. That's just an idea, if we follow this logic that Ghosts are reflective of all aspects of the Traveler.

I doubt the Traveler could influence Ghosts post-creation however. First of all, it was dormant so that would've been almost impossible anyway. If any Ghosts could specifically hear the Traveler's instructions back then, it was probably exceptionally rare, if possible at all. And second, the Traveler is all about personal choice. It would never tell anyone what to do or what not to do, even if their deeds will end up badly. Even when it spoke to Clovis, it wasn't to give him orders, it was only in metaphores to nudge him to realise that he's doing something awful. But it never directly told him "Stop this!" It's something that Clovis resented about it and why Clovis fell to Darkness in the first place. Clovis wanted to be pointed directly towards a goal. Meanwhile, the Traveler:

"The best voices," she said, with infinite grief and unending hope, "never let themselves be heard at all. This lesson is worth teaching again and again. The choice is never mine. It is always yours."

The only other time the Traveler made a direct choice and spoke was when Rhulk wanted to experiment with a Ghost. The Traveler not only said a strict no, but also went as far as to destroy the Ghost to make sure. Now that I think about it, in retrospect, knowing that a Ghost can be used to connect to the Veil to make the portal... I wonder if the Traveler's reaction was for this reason. A Ghost in the hands of a disciple of the Witness is not a good idea. With extra extra retrospect, this is possibly also why the Witness had to trick us into getting our Ghost near the Veil. If the Witness simply took one or directed a disciple to take one and bring it to the Veil, the Traveler could've simply destroyed it. Obviously hard to tell if this was planned out that deeply, but it certainly adds some sense to several details.

I definitely think that the Traveler has no direct say in who is chosen by a Ghost. The Traveler chooses who to help in the sense that it appears in their system. And at one point it appeared in the orbit of the Fundament, helping species one by one and Hive were in line to get that help, but they were steered against it before the Traveler could reach them. Ghosts themselves are unique and were only made in the Collapse on Earth. They, from all we know about them and the Traveler and its philosophy, choose by themselves, even if they maybe feel some urges that they can't explain and some may attribute those to the Traveler. But yeah, it was Ghosts that chose the Hive. It was Immaru that chose Savathun. The Traveler had no direct say in it, despite many characters blaming it on the Traveler. It's a natural reaction to do so, but as far as we know right now, the Traveler didn't tell those Ghosts directly to go rez the Hive. Until the Traveler speaks directly and plainly to us, until it lets us ask it questions, we will probably never know for sure.

#destiny 2 #ghost #hive ghost #immaru #traveler #ask #long post

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bonbonsandbeskar · 1 year

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"I may process moments and thoughts differently, but it does not mean that I feel any less than you."

Okay. I don’t usually make serious posts, but I felt like this was something worth discussing. Now the episode hasn’t even been out a full day, and I’m already coming across a few people fretting that Tech is going to get ‘called out’ by others for being a ‘dick’ over the way he pointedly questioned Omega “what is your issue” and the way he has been at continuous loggerheads with Wrecker.

Now I know there has been a lot of ‘if’ing and ‘r’ing about the confirmation of Tech being autistic, whether it’s a canon thing or whether it’s just up for us to decide and interpret. Well I’m here to say that I think this is possibly the biggest indicator we have had for Tech most certainly having autism. A common condition that people with autism can have as a facet in their characteristics is that of alexithymia: problems with feeling/expressing emotions.

I’m no psychiatrist by any stretch of the imagination and I certainly don’t claim to speak on the behalf of every autistic person (that would actually be impossible seeing as the web of characteristics/conditions is incredibly diverse) but as an autistic person myself, I can tell you the way Tech has been acting in this episode is completely understandable and valid. It hasn’t been pleasant or very helpful for his siblings, but it is understandable nevertheless.

By nature, Tech has always favoured taking a methodical, logic-fuelled approach to situations in order to derive a conclusion/solution. He has rarely found himself caught in a situation where this approach does not yield a sure-fire course of action, where complex emotions are involved (hence why he mentions Crosshair here because this is potentially the only other situation he can liken the emotional turmoil to). It is common for alexithymic people to have outbursts of frustration when they find they cannot adequately register the intense emotions of others or in turn express their own in a way that is understandable to their peers, such as upset, grief and confusion. In lieu of Echo’s sudden leave, the whole Batch, Tech included, are probably feeling all three at this moment in time.

This explains his tendency throughout the episode to lash out and argue with his siblings, notably Wrecker, rather than take the generic, empathetic approach of talking out his emotions with them and going through the motions together (simply because as previously said, he is incapable of this). I can tell you that this must very isolating for Tech in a time more than ever when all he would want is comfort and reassurance also. This doesn’t register with the rest of the Batch because Tech’s own emotional strains are not being generically expressed due to his own separate set of neurological circumstances. Albeit they are not recognising his own internal struggles.

Tech is caring and protective of his siblings, there should be no doubts about this. He can see the impact the Empire has had on the Batch and how it has now effectively caused two of their brothers to leave the fold. Albeit, he is more than foresightful enough to see how small and fragile the Batch has become and the trepidation of this could very well all but be fuelling his frustrations. There is every chance he is experiencing his own sense of loss and abandonment through all of this, while still trying to be rational and level-headed one of the team. I believe that for the first time, we actually see Tech struggling to come to terms that he is officially out of his depth in this area and therefore is out of control in the situation, a concept very alien and disconcerting for him. Throw in a still-cognitively-developing child, a headstrong, very emotional, child-like individual with adhd and a team leader that is very prone to characterological self-blame and emotional withdrawal on the back of this, and I would say Tech has still been managing everything remarkably well, all other variables considered.

I am really glad that they are showing these characteristics to us within this dynamic where the Batch do consider each other family and therefore pull together and get through whatever crap the galaxy throws at them. It is these traits and tendencies that are projected by Tech in this episode that are a very common reason autistic people are scorned, ridiculed and segregated off by their peers irl. Even though we cannot generically express it, we deeply appreciate those that stick by us and try to understand us during periods of emotional uncertainty, disarray and stress.

It touches me to see that despite the Batch not always being able to see eye-to-eye with Tech and vice versa, they will still accept each other for who they are, quirks and all, and love each other. I only wish people could learn from this

#the bad batch season 2 #sw tbb #the bad batch #tbb s2 #this is the longest thing I’ve written since my college essay days 😵#tbb season 2 episode 9 #the bad batch spoilers #tbb season 2 #the bad batch tech #tbb tech #thank you for coming to this ted talk #autism awareness #| think people also forget that alexithymia can also be developed through PTSD and he is still an ex-soldier on the run let's not forget #tbb

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affixjoy · 4 months

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I’ve read a few fics lately with some great timey wimey premises so if that’s your jam you might also enjoy them!

If I missed your fav please share in the comments! I love this sort of thing and will always want to read more.

Some Version Of You by @ncc1701ohno

Summary: Bones is stuck in a time loop and stuck in his room. With Jim. He's forced to admit how intense this thing between them has gotten, how much he feels for Jim, even as he's been falling in love with Spock.

Does what happens in a time loop stay in a time loop?

Thoughts: I’m a sucker for time loops and this is just such a great short look at it with academy era McKirk.

Highlights: the angst! The longing! THE END!

It Ends Or It Doesn’t by @muirmarie

Summary: McCoy dies, and Kirk breaks his hand on a wall. Kirk dies to save McCoy, and McCoy breaks his hand on Spock's face for not stopping him. Spock dies, and he doesn't have to see what happens next, because the day resets. The day keeps resetting. McCoy keeps dying.

Thoughts: these self sacrificing idiots just love each other so much and I love THEM!

Highlights: there’s a loop towards the end where they accept what is happening and it’s probably my favorite part of this fic.

Grief As A Four Dimensional Figure by @jennelikejennay (moreta1848)

Summary: "One might arguably say it is not fully logical to care whether I cannot return to Vulcan because it no longer exists or because it is separated from me permanently in five-dimensional space.”

“No, I think I get it,” said Jim. “Like, I haven’t gone back to the old house in Iowa in years, but I do like knowing it’s there. If my mom sold it and it got knocked down, it would make a difference to me.”

The ambassador nodded. “Likewise, even in four-dimensional space, we are separated from the things we have lost only by distance—by the fact that we cannot easily travel along the timeline.” He marked out a section of his timeline, then a dot further back in the bottom timeline—Jim’s timeline. “My marriage is here. I am here, in a different timeline and at a different time. But my marriage exists. It is a figure in four-dimensional space which will continue to exist, in that sense, eternally. So long as the timeline does not collapse, it is a permanent part of history. So although I do not have my spouse with me, I know that he existed. That somewhere, in a time and a dimension I cannot go, we are meeting for the first time. That somewhere, I am asleep in his arms.”

Thoughts: I rarely like aos as much as tos fics, but this one worked so so well for me.

Highlights: every reference to the one with the whales, all the feelings about Amanda, all of Spirk’s big feelings about each other.

Way From Within by @gunstreet and @justveeing

Summary: Jim and Spock are assigned together for a rescue mission, and in the exhilarating aftermath, their attraction to each other comes bubbling to the surface. But the next day Spock is surprisingly distant, and the rest of the morning starts to seem eerily familiar to Jim...

Written by gunstreet and illustrated by lorvee, this is a K/S timeloop story in the vein of Palm Springs or Groundhog Day.

Thoughts: pretty sure we all collectively lost our minds about this one when it came out a few months ago, but if you haven’t read it yet it is GREAT. All the fun time loop tropes I love with Kirk and Spock at the center.

Highlights: the art is so good! I love seeing these scenes illustrated!

Happy reading everyone! 🖖

#star trek #fanfic #spirk #mcspirk #mckirk #spock #james t kirk #ao3fic #leonard mccoy #fic rec #what I’ve been reading

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noperopesaredope · 1 year

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A Really Stupid Pet Peeve of Mine

One random thing that annoys me sometimes for some reason is when people refer to Patton solely as Thomas’ “moral side.” Like, when someone is introducing all the sides, they say the Logan is logic, Virgil is anxiety, Roman is creativity and passion, and Patton is morality.

The series may have recently been leaning into the moral aspect of Patton more, but he has previously been established to be a lot more broad than that. He preserves all of Thomas’ more nostalgic memories (as shown in Moving On Parts 1 & 2). He encourages Thomas to do the little things that make him happy (Mind vs. Heart and Growing Up show this especially well). He often says that he is Thomas’ emotions, or at least holds them.

Patton is fun and playful and sometimes ignores doing these more “ethics” centric duties in order to just enjoy life. In fact, most of the time, it seems like being Thomas’ moral compass is kind of a side gig rather than his main job.

His sense of morality is also shown to be both firm and loose at the same time. He has his core central values, and definitely has some of the more simplistic stuff down, but most of his more complex moral decisions are pretty in the moment and it feels like those more intense ones are more...shaky? If that’s the right word? His moral compass gets very confused and mixed up quite easily, and while that can happen to us all, it seems odd for a side whose whole thing is morality.

I was thinking about his almost contradictory nature a bit ago, as the title wasn’t adding up to me. How can he be Morality but also be the one in charge of the majority of Thomas’ emotions? That doesn’t make any sense. He seems more like just Thomas’ emotions who strongly affects his morals. So what does he have to do with morality? Then I remembered something that was right in front of my face: they don’t always refer to him as morality. Sometimes, they would call him Thomas’ “heart.”

And that makes so much more sense than him being morality specifically. Him being the heart explains everything about him and his actions. Metaphorically, we say that our feelings are stored in the heart, and that our heart is where some of our more instinctual morals are. The heart is often carefree and sometimes a bit fickle, often changing course in the moment.

It also explains why Patton’s moral dilemmas felt so weird to me. Because he isn’t morality specifically. He is more the instinctual and emotion driven side of morality. You could argue that ethics are always driven by emotion, but ethics also do sometimes have a sense of “logic” to them. Ethics are complicated, which is likely why Patton has such a hard time with his morality. It’s because it’s only a part of his job, and it isn’t his job alone.

So everything made sense. Patton isn’t Morality, he is Heart. He is Thomas’ sadness, happiness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust. He is the most simplistic and yet most complex side. His job is probably one of the hardest, in a way, as he carries many of the most all consuming and overwhelming emotions, like sadness and grief.

Now, there are other sides like Virgil and perhaps the Orange side (if people’s theories are correct) who are in charge of certain emotions. But Patton is in charge of the basic ones specifically. Thomas has a fear of spiders, and therefore Patton has a fear of spiders, whereas Virgil doesn’t. If we are going with the theory that Orange is something like Wrath or Rage, that is still slightly different from anger. And we rarely associate anger with the heart either way, unless it is very deeply rooted. On top of this, Rage and Wrath are much more festering, something that doesn’t seem to fit with what Patton is about.

All in all, this is my probably completely pointless post about why Patton is Thomas’ Heart, not his Morality. This is a really dumb thing to get annoyed over, but I just needed to let it out. It can lead to so many misconceptions about him as a character if we go with the mindset that his entire title is Morality rather than Thomas’ Heart. I’m pretty sure that everyone will read this post and say “well yeah, duh, we already know that. Way to state the obvious and get worked up over nothing.” But in my defense, I am neurodivergent and particular about everything.

So yeah, those are my thoughts on that.

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pancakes4two · 1 year

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ANYWHERE WITH YOU - THREE

NAVIGATION | MASTERLIST | TALK TO ME

⭐️ NEXT CHAPTER ⭐️

wc: ~2.3k

warnings: none! but strap yourself in because things will start getting angsty sooooooon

preview: You swallow, wondering if it’s right for you to feel sick at those articles. If it even makes sense for you to get angry at these tabloids for speculating about your best friend’s relationship. It feels like it should, when he’s sitting at your dining room table, laying his most vulnerable thoughts out onto notebook pages in front of you. When he comes home to you every evening, takes over your kitchen and leaves it messy after he’s made dinner.

When he’s the last person you say goodnight to before falling asleep.

✽ ✽ ✽

Ironically enough, the first hobby that you and Harry genuinely end up enjoying together is singing. It starts when Harry gets a karaoke machine for his tenth birthday from Gemma, who’d saved up from her first job to buy it, hoping that it might free her from having to deal with him obnoxiously singing in the car or while showering. Her logic was that if he spent enough time singing alone in his room, it’d wear down his voice enough that he’d be silent once he was in her presence. Prior to that, the two of you had tried to get into everything—football, ice skating, art, you name it—but nothing had really stuck. Your days on the neighbourhood football league ended after Harry took a ball straight to the face, though your hearts weren’t in the sport long before his injury. You were much better at the game than Harry, who would constantly trip over his own legs like Bambi, so you found that you couldn’t quite enjoy a hobby that seemed to bring your best friend so much grief. The same happened with ice-skating, except the other way around: Harry quickly grew tired of it after you failed to advance past the basic level of your local rink’s skating program. He’d remarked that skating was no fun if the two of you couldn’t do it together; there was no point in him gliding across the ice if you weren’t right there beside him. Art, however, you gave up for a simpler reason: both of you couldn’t resist spending the whole of your art lessons drawing ugly caricatures of each other, and at some point the badly-drawn portraits had crossed a line and become an outlet for you to insult each other. Your mums had to put a stop to it, for the sake of your friendship.

But singing was different. You had always been a relatively shy kid, but Harry was boisterous from the day he first met you, and you’d always known him to be musically-inclined. In the three years since you first met, you can recall countless times you’d joined their family on weekend trips or even just drives into the city. Any time you were in a car with Harry, he’d always be singing along to the radio: which, more often than not, was blasting an old Beatles record, or playing Shania Twain on loop. Harry always sang the loudest in your school’s choir class, and he did an insanely good Elvis impression. You could tell he loved music—you saw it in the way his eyes would always light up when Robin would put a new tape in the car, the way his tiny hands would slap the leather seats, chasing the rhythm of every song that came through the speakers. It was really a no-brainer that singing ended up being the hobby for the two of you. You were more than happy to accompany Harry as he explored something that brought him so much joy, and you know he would’ve done the same for you.

In fact, Harry had told you years later that he’d been so excited to show the karaoke machine to you, he had a foot out the door and was racing to your house before he’d even had a chance to finish unwrapping it. You weren’t surprised at that—at ten years old, the two of you had become practically inseparable. Your families and teachers loved to joke about how you and Harry were a package deal, rarely found apart from one another. You were attached at the hip: you spent so much time together that people genuinely found it weird when one of you was found without the other. You remember your mum telling you that she’d found you playing in the backyard by yourself once, and seeing you without your best friend threw her off so much she had to call your dad over and make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. It turned out she wasn't—Harry had just been away at a doctor’s appointment that afternoon. Primary school passes by just like that: the two of you spending every minute you possibly could together, hauling the karaoke machine back-and-forth between your houses, duetting The Girl of My Best Friend every night until your throats started to hurt and your parents complained of migraines.

It was you and him against the world.

✽ ✽ ✽

You wake up on Saturday morning to Harry belly-flopping onto your bed, coffee and phone in hand as he aggressively startles you awake. You rub the sleep out of your eyes, squinting at Harry’s figure as he shifts onto his side, propping his head up with his hand and smiling at you mischievously.

“Did you forget that you have a bed of your own in the other room?” You say groggily, reaching over Harry. You feel blindly for your phone on your bedside table, unplugging it from its charger cord. You tap the screen to check the time: it’s 7:20 AM. On a Saturday. And for some godforsaken reason, you’re awake because of Harry.

“I know, but I have a radio interview in five minutes,” Harry says casually, taking a sip out of his mug. You tell him that if he gets even a drop onto your bed, he’s buying you new sheets. “And I wanna do it here. With you.”

“Why?” You groan, “I was sleeping so peacefully until you barged in here.”

“Aww, were you dreaming of me?” Harry coos, tapping the tip of your nose. You grab his wrist and shove his hand away. “I haven’t done one of these interviews in a while. I need your moral support.”

“You really expect me to believe that? You’ve been in this industry for a decade and you need my moral support for a 5-minute–” you begin to say, before Harry cuts you off.

“Whoops, too late, they’re calling now,” He smiles, accepting the call on his phone and placing it on speaker. You roll your eyes and disappear under the covers, bringing your hand out from below the sheets just to give him the finger.

You’re met with an insanely loud, radio-presenter voice. “Good morning, Harry! I’m Pete from SiriusXM. It’s so great of you to join us here this morning, you’re on the air right now so feel free to say hi!”

Harry clears his throat. “Hi everyone, good morning. Glad to join you via phone call.”

You emerge from your covers just to shove him in the chest, letting him know how corny his response was. Harry turns to you and mouths a silent What? before Pete is interrupting again with a question. You’re about to get annoyed at him for getting in the way of your banter with Harry, before you realize he’s literally just doing his job.

“So, tell us how you’ve been, man. You’ve been on break for a bit, coming off of a huge U.S. tour.”

“I’ve been good, yeah, thanks for asking. Getting some much-needed rest, spending time with family. The tour was amazing, but I’m glad I can slow down now and spend time with people I love.” He looks at you during that last statement, his expression unreadable even to you.

“So happy to hear that. Speaking of tour, I wanted to ask, how was that for ya? Your last record was so successful, I imagine getting to tour that was a whole new experience. I’ve seen so many videos online of you performing, and it seems like everyone in the arena knows every single word to your songs. That must be an amazing feeling, getting to hear so many people sing along to your writing.”

“Definitely,” Harry agrees, “I think I’m very lucky to have fans who are so emotionally generous like that. They’re never afraid to sing their hearts out, and I’m happy I’ve curated a space where they feel free enough to do that. And the same goes for me too, I feel so loved whenever I’m up on the stage, and I have the fans to thank for that.”

“What a beautiful compliment,” Pete says, and Harry laughs into his phone. He kicks at your feet when you start to silently mock his laugh.

“I gotta ask, too, we saw a bunch of clips of your family coming to join you on tour. What’s that like? Looking out at this crowd of 20,000 people and seeing the people who raised you standing among them?”

“Hmm, good question, Pete,” Harry says, wagging his finger at his phone as if his voice wasn’t the only thing being recorded. “Obviously, I’m incredibly grateful that my family and those around me have always supported me in whatever it is I do. I’m not sure how to describe how seeing them in the audience makes me feel, that’s a hard one. Although, I will tell you I do get more nervous seeing them there—I’m quite clumsy on stage, so if I know my sister or Y-”

He starts to say your name, and then catches himself. “If I know my sister or mum are going to be at a show, I’ll be extra careful not to trip over my own feet. Otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it from them.”

That conjures a particularly fond memory in your head of an old One Direction show that you’d attended in Manchester. Harry had gotten too excited on stage, probably trying to show off in front of the massive group of old secondary school friends he’d invited to the show that night, and tripped over a microphone cord as a result. He was unable to catch himself before he went down, making a spectacular fall on stage that was looped endlessly on Vine and gif’d to death on Twitter. If you remember correctly, James Corden had also teased him for it on an episode of the Late Late Show. By the looks of it, Harry’s thinking about this moment too. You can tell by the way he glared at you when he said: I’ll never hear the end of it from them. That statement was pointed, directed towards you for certain. You’d teased him relentlessly after he fell at that One Direction gig, printing out tiny pictures of the fall and passing them out to all his relatives for them to keep in their wallets. You and Gemma still bring it up every birthday. He’ll probably never live it down.

“That’s hilarious. Listen, before I let you go, we have to know. Will we be hearing any new music from you soon?”

“You’re trying to get me to spill the inside scoop!” Harry jokes, “Maybe. I can’t promise a date, but I have been writing recently.”

“Have you, though?” You say out loud, forgetting momentarily that Harry was still on-air. You slap a hand over your mouth when you realize what you just did, Harry staring at you with wide eyes.

Pete, bless his heart, like the professional he is, moves on and does not acknowledge your voice at all. “Well, all the best with your writing. I think I can speak on behalf of everyone when I say we’re all eagerly waiting for your next album.”

“I appreciate that,” Harry says, recovering from your slip-up quickly, “Thanks for the chat. Hope we’ll get to speak again soon.”

“For sure, for sure. Talk to you soon, man.”

The line disconnects them, and you bury your face into your hands, groaning loudly. “Oh my God. I don’t know why I did that. I’m so sorry.”

“What?” Harry says, gently prying your hands away from your face, “Don’t apologize. You have nothing to apologize for. It was a simple mistake. I’m not mad. Plus, my phone might’ve not picked up on it. Pete didn’t say anything about it.”

“He was just being professional,” you sigh, thankful for Harry’s calm demeanor. “Ugh. At least it wasn’t on video. I can’t believe I slipped up like that.”

“It’s fine, really, Y/N. Come on, let me make you some toast,” Harry assures you, rubbing circles on your back. He gets up from your bed, walks over to your side and offers you a hand to help you up. A faraway thought tells you that best friends probably don’t do this: take work calls in each others’ beds and then get up for breakfast like everything is normal.

True to his word, Harry ends up making you breakfast. He presents it to you while you’re sitting on one of your kitchen stools, ruminating on your dumb mistake. It’s french toast, but he’s cut up slices of strawberry and arranged them into a smiley face because he knows you were upset about what happened on the radio. He knows you infuriatingly well.

A news article pops up on your Instagram feed the next day, the headline: Moved In Together? Female Voice In Harry Styles Interview, Fans Speculate It’s Camille Rowe. Because, right, you forgot Harry’d been dating that model recently. You swipe away from Instagram, closing the app, and look at Harry. He’s sitting at your dining table, mouth scrunched up as he taps a pen against his head, thinking of lyrics to write down in his notebook. It’s late afternoon, the sun’s coming in from every window in your apartment, light spilling all over everything in the room. It paints his lashes golden and brushes over his skin. A notification sounds from your phone, then: From People Magazine, it reads, It’s Getting Serious: We’re Convinced Harry Styles & Camille Rowe Are Living Together. You swallow, wondering if it’s right for you to feel sick at those articles. If it even makes sense for you to get angry at these tabloids for speculating about your best friend’s relationship. It feels like it should, when he’s sitting at your dining room table, laying his most vulnerable thoughts out onto notebook pages in front of you. When he comes home to you every evening, takes over your kitchen and leaves it messy after he’s made dinner.

When he’s the last person you say goodnight to before falling asleep.

✽ ✽ ✽

a/n: up to chapter three! hope you all have been enjoying so far. as always please please let me know what you think! i love hearing feedback!

might be a lil bit before chapter four, i have a busy week ahead but i promise it will be out ASAP!

taglist (message me to be added!): @daydreamingofmatilda @onceuponahuntersrealm @tenaciousperfectionunknown @grapejuice-rry @b-reads-things

#harry styles #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles x reader #harry styles reader insert #harry styles fic #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic rec #harry styles fanfic rec #harry styles fanfiction rec #harry styles rec #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles imagine #anywhere with you

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bitimdrake · 2 years

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Was Dick welcoming towards Cassandra and Steph when they first joined the family? I’ve heard conflicting things about that

Cassandra

For when Cass joins the batfamily, this one's a yes.

Dick and Cass meet in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knights #120, in the midst of No Man's Land. Dick's a little skeptical at first, but that's more because he's (rightfully) skeptical of Bruce's judgement. Bruce has spent months pushing everyone away, and now has finally called them all back only to abruptly drop "btw, I met this girl and she's part of the team now."

However, with Barbara stepping into vouch for Cassandra as well, Dick jumps on board pretty quick and welcomes her.

On the flip side, when Cass joins the Wayne family years later, the answer here is no. (Which is probably why you've heard conflicting information.)

This part comes with a huge caveat: it is built off bad plotlines and characterization. Cass had just gotten out of the evil!Cass arc--a rare case of DC editorial intentionally trying to destroy a character (as opposed to the common case of them doing it accidentally). A belated retcon declared she was brainwashed and not really evil, to salvage the situation.

In the wake of that, we have the Batgirl vol 2 mini, which is about Cass seeking redemption, and ends with Bruce offering to adopt her. And, presumably because the writers wanted an antagonistic force, Dick is...a huge asshole in this one.

I could try to justify this decision if I had too--they were never close to begin with, and Dick is skeptical that she's better now, and maybe he's overprotective of his current family especially after Cass nearly killed his beloved little brother Tim. But the way Dick is written in this mini is just so over-the-top aggro and distrustful of Cass it's hard to swallow.

Anyway, this thread gets continued in Batman and the Outsiders vol 2 #13-14, where imo the characterization is not quite as bad but still pretty bad. Dick eventually admits he wasn't totally comfortable with Cass's adoption, and the two make peace.

Stephanie

If we're talking about when Steph first became Spoiler, was briefly endorsed by Bruce as Spoiler, or became Robin, this one has no answer on account of Dick and Steph never interact. Literally they were in one scene together that entire time, and never spoke.

Dick's main exposure to Steph was through what Tim told him. He's a little skeptical about Tim dating this girl--especially when he mentions her pregnancy--but that's about it.

Dick and Steph finally interact for real years later when she becomes Batgirl, which marks her true acceptance into the batfamily, and uh. No, Dick is not welcoming.

Steph makes the inauspicious introduction of ignoring Oracle's instruction to stand down and accidentally freezing Damian in the middle of a fight in Batgirl vol 3 #5, and Dick goes to argue with Barbara that Steph shouldn't be Batgirl.

But unlike the Cass part above, this one actually makes sense!

Beyond Dick's overall stress level as a newbie Batman and Steph's poor introduction, Dick's second-hand impression of Steph up to this point is not good! She's the girl who accidentally started a gang war that got a bunch of people killed, faked her death and let Tim (and others, but Dick just cares about Tim here) be consumed by grief for over a year, and then accidentally started another gang war.

His impression is, of course, biased and one-sided. But it's also completely logical for him to distrust Steph and see her as a liability! I approve of this interpersonal tension.

Dick is still able to see and appreciate when Steph does well though, and she proves herself. By the end of the arc, he changes his mind.

#*#ask #anon #*dc #dc #dc ref #dc meta #dick grayson #cass cain #cassandra cain #stephanie brown #long post

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asha-mage · 2 years

Text

Missing the Mark: Language, Style, and a Discomfort with Ambiguity

I have a lot of respect for Sanderson as an author, even if his books are decidedly Not For Me, I can appreciate that clearly he has enough skill at his craft to have attained a degree of success as an author that few even dream of. And beyond that, reading his forward of The Gathering Storm has never failed to make me burst into tears, as his clear grief and pain at the passing of Robert Jordan comes through in a way that speaks to my own. I've very rarely felt like a kindred spirit to an author the way I do reading that forward, sharing in the loss of someone who was such a huge and important part of my life because of the books he wrote and the impact they had on me.

That said.

I can respect Sanderson's decision not to try imitating Robert Jordan's signature style of writing for fear of it being a kind of disrespect, while still thinking he did not expend enough effort to adapt his own style to the world and characters of WoT. Some of this is subtle (the way he mentions the 'soil made red by iron' or 'the very carbon of their spears'), which while annoying doesn't fully break with the sense of world. But their are cases where it is far more overt and far more jarring.

For example the use of the phrase 'medical aid' in the prologue, despite the fact that the word 'medical' has never appeared anywhere else in the entirety of the story. Sanderson likely does this to distinguish the aid the characters in question (Seanchan sul'dam) will get from the power-based Healing that the readers are more familiar with (which the sul'dam would find repellent). The desire not risk equating lower-case-h healing with Capital H Healing makes sense, since Sanderson doesn't want to confuse the reader. But it betrays a lack of the trust in the reader to be able to distinguish between the two, and more over a lack of imagination to phrase it in a way that wouldn't begat confusion. Instead Sanderson turns to a very modern phrase that doesn't frankly fit the world of WoT.

This is a broader problem with Sanderson, who I've always said writes like one hell of a scientist. He has an innate desire to categorize, identify, and separate terms, resisting ambiguity and doubt in how he writes. Sanderson's tenor sees the term 'channeling' go into common practice by all characters, and distinctions between saidar and saidin users, even among characters for whom it makes no sense to understand those terms or use them. Jordan has most characters, especially ones without much worldly knowledge, lump all use of the One Power together, and think of all channelers as Aes Sedai whether or not it makes logical sense (Rand ran into this problem especially early on internally and externally). Most people are certainly not even really familiar with the terms saidin and saidar for most of the series, not understanding the difference unless they have cause to know. By contrast, even common farmers understand the difference in Sanderson's run, and can draw a clear distinction between Wilders, Aes Sedai, damane, and Asha'man, without any prior experience with those groups, and moreover comfortably use terms like channeler, saidin, and saidar, despite all the fear, doubt, misinformation and ambiguity about the One Power that exists throughout Randland.

This also leaks over into the way Sanderson depicts characters, who all possess a baseline level of self awareness that shows his lack of comfort with ambiguity and doubt. One of the maximums of Jordan's writing is that people in general know very little about themselves, and are more likely to see themselves and others in distorted or incorrect fashions based on their prejudices and basis. I'll talk more about this when I talk about Perrin and Mat specifically (and more over how Mat's charm and Perrin's central character conflict are wrapped up in the distorted views they have of themselves, and the distorted views others have about them), but what's important for this particular meta is that it shows again Sanderson's lack of comfort with ambiguity. Characters always see themselves and their problems with clarity, and the struggle is not a search for understanding of themselves and others, but rather a means to overcome the obstacles of their problems. They also are far less likely to have distorted views of each other, and when characters do judge each other based on biases and misunderstandings, these are often cleared up with very little strife. Gawyn gets the worst of this, where he manages to basically correct his assumptions and biases about Rand entirely on his own through self reflection, without ever ACTUALLY having to confront or speak to Rand to realize he's wrong. Instead he simply magically realizes his own classism and prejudice are the problem, resolves to get over them, does, and never has to deal with it again.

Sanderson writes as I said, like one hell of a scientist: conflicts and characters are clear cut and well defined, as are the terminologies and language that they use to describe their world and each other. Conflict under him becomes more like a mathematical equation, a matter of getting the right pieces and the right characters into the right place to solve the problem at hand, without any of the messy more human parts to meddle with achieving that solution.

This stands in sharp contrast to the way Jordan writes conflict, which is heavily interlocked with how he built his world. Jordan writes conflict and characters as a tangled web, each thread and action pulling on others, shaping the story and events in ways both obvious and subtle, for good and bad. An often repeated maxim of Egwene's character arc, the law of unintended consequences (where regardless of whether what you do has the effect you want it to or not, it will have at least three you never expected and at least one will usually be unpleasant) is largely forgotten under Sanderson, replaced by a much simpler and more direct law: where each action has cause and effect, each problem has a solution, and the conflict lays in overcoming the obstacles to completing those actions, and arriving at those solutions.

Is that a bad way to write? Not really. It's just different. And yet that difference is fundamental, and it clashes with the nature of the story of WoT in a way that, each time it's made apparent, throws me out of the story, sometimes a little bit, sometimes a whole lot.

#WoT Meta #Wheel of Time #Wheel of Time Meta #sanderson critical #wot book spoilers #TGS Spoilers #their might be more of these coming as I work through TGS this time #I have a lot to say about how Sanderson missed the mark with (in no particular order) the forsaken (graendal especially) mat and perrin

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yonemurishiroku · 1 year

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Hi, I've seen a few (jk I've seen a bunch) of your posts and I was just wondering...

If Jason came back to life, would you be pissed that Rick pulled another Leo, or would you rejoice?

OR would you rather Will and Nico bump into Jason in the middle of the book?

Hi! Firstly, thanks for your interest! Let us dissect this one at a time.

For the first question: well, I'd say "pissed" might be too aggressive. I rarely get outraged when it comes to media content (wrecked yes, but rarely angry). I might not like it - that's like. all the time - but I'd most likely be able to leave it alone just bc I hate to care about what I dislike.

That is to say: should it turn out that Jason pulls a Leo, I think I would be more happy than not.

Of course, it depends a lot on how, exactly, Rick pulls it off.

As I've said, it's all about plot and more importantly, to me, logic. If he makes up another sort-of-the Physician's cure and the story basically goes the same way? I would be extremely disappointed. I love parallels but not replays. I hate it more if it's Jason - who's alr been shat on enough for "not having a personality". I'm throwing hands

In the fortunate event that Rick somehow comes up with a new, unrivaled resurrection method for Jason, though? It'd be really nice because I'm pretty sure 9 out of 10 Jason stans would want another chance for him to live a true life. Bringing him back to life - as of now, would do more good than harm, IMO, and maybe idk give the Jasico fans a reason to buy the book Ig

I'm aware of how difficult it is, also. Said resurrection must not be another Leo replica and still has to bypass Nico's children of Hades thing. I barely know about Greek myths and I have nothing in my mind. Let's just Rick has something in store should he decide to play this card lmao.

About the scenario in which Nico and Will bump into Jason: generally, I have no problem with the idea that Jason would make an appearance again. As mentioned: I'd love to see Jason again - in every shape and size, honestly.

However, there're a few I hope would be addressed should it happen that way:

1/ The fact that Nico didn't even try to contact Jason after his death.

2/ How Jason feels after-death, whether he even wishes to be back, how he feels about his funeral and/or Apollo's promise, sort of, etc...

3/ A clear insight into Nico's grief.

And of course: a thorough and reasonable explanation as to why and/or how Nico and Will bump into Jason.

Do they see him in Tartarus? Then why is Jason in Tartarus when he's died as a hero? How he's coping?

Do they meet him in Elysium? Why does Nico (and Will) come to Elysium in the first place? What does their encounter bring? Does Jason help with the quest?

In short: I'm more of a go-with-the-flow type of writer. Generally, I have no problem if things are set the way they should be and the plot doesn't just. kick its own balls I guess. If Rick can make it make sense and stay away from the cliché, I'm sure everything would be just peachy.

#nico di angelo #pjo #hoo #toa #yone rambling #percy jackson and the olympians #heroes of olympus #trials of apollo #jason grace #will solace #tartarus (pjo)#the sun and the star: a nico di angelo adventure #tsats #the sun and the star #tsats predictions

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saintsenara · 9 months

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All of your writing is gorgeous, so this was a tough choice—

“One Year in Every Ten” is my ride-or-die, drop-everything-to-read-when-I-see-an-update fic; it’s everything I like wrapped-up in one beautiful package, and I’m head-over-heels obsessed. It’s made it into a few of my dreams, and I even tried to motivate myself to re-learn predicate logic, which I needed for an exam, by applying it to the case (let’s just say Sherlock Holmes is not yet out of the job—I did not succeed in deducing the murderer).

My favourites among your oneshots are “Lamentation,” “Nor All That Glisters Gold,” and “Sparkling Cyanide.”

“Bookbinding” also requires a shout-out. That fic has my whole heart, and everyone should read it.

thank you so much, pal. i'm delighted that you mentioned one year in every ten, not least because your ride-or-die enthusiasm for it has been a source of great support for me as we race towards the end with the speed of tom and harry seeing a chance to fuck.

i wrote it for two reasons. the first was that i am an enormous murder mystery fan, and i think it's a genre that lends itself really well to harry potter (what is chamber of secrets if not detective fiction?). in particular, the slightly odd whimsy of the detective fiction of the interwar period really works with the vibe of the wizarding world. in the work of authors like dorothy l. sayers and agatha christie you get this subtle and eccentric, but still quite profound, insight into topics like class, gender, grief, the legacy of war and so on, and it made a lot of sense to me for that style to be taken and applied to the magical britain of a decade following voldemort's demise. a lot of 'how does the wizarding world recover from the war' fic is quite heavy - which is great, and i love that for authors and readers - but i wanted to show that it is possible to say a lot about topics like the continuation of institutional corruption during the shacklebolt ministry, what happened to the people caught up in the quest for justice after the war, what happened to the people who got away with everything, and how gender, class, age etc. are considerably more significant in the post-war wizarding world than jkr seems to think they are, within a story which is also (if i say so myself) funny.

i also wrote it because i was getting sick of the sheer amount of tomarry in which harry is pathetic. i really don't like seeing one of the rowdiest protagonists in history reduced to a wallflower who is completely subordinate to voldemort - he refuses to bow to him when he's fourteen, when he's twenty-seven he literally doesn't give a fuck about tom's attempts to run rings around him. obviously, as readers of chapters 15 and 16 will know, this doesn't come without consequences for him, but i wanted to add to the number of fics with an impulsive, messy, domineering harry.

tom is not entirely sure how to cope with this, which is good for him. learning how not to be in control all the time is something he should think about...

lamentation also has a touch of 'i'm doing this because i'm petty' to it.

i get quite annoyed with a lot of the fanon which surrounds the black family - especially as it relates to sirius - but the revelant bit here is that i'm always uncomfortable with the idea that walburga was extremely and sadistically physically abusive to her eldest son. it gives orion a pass a lot of the time - although i don't think he was as bad as fanon makes out either - but it also seems to ignore what sirius himself says and implies about his family in canon. walburga (for sirius rarely talks about his father) seems, on the basis of canon, to have been emotionally abusive - cold and neglectful and playing sirius and regulus off against each other - and that emotional abuse is bad enough (as with harry at the dursleys) without extreme violence having to be added on top of it.

we can also say that, on the basis of her portrait, walburga was - by the time she was an older woman, at least - not very well.

i loathe the fanon of 'black family madness' or blood curses etc. i don't think it's unjustifiable as a trope - and anyone who wants to use it can do what they like - but i think it firstly negates the value of choice in the blacks' lives (by implying e.g. that bellatrix is unhinged because of genetics and not because she's chosen to become a terrorist) and secondly is often used as a reason to vilify the family even more, by suggesting that their cruelty (especially if they're women) is innate and unstoppable.

but it's always been one of my readings that walburga suffered from postnatal depression - a common and perfectly treatable illness - which she wasn't provided any help for. in this story, i wanted to explore how that would manifest itself in her relationship with her sons, in her isolation and paranoia, in her marriage, in her complicated relationship with her extended family, in her fear and her pride, and - of course - in the duelling emotions she would feel when she was told, by a solemn albus dumbledore, that sirius was dead.

[i've written about nor all that glisters gold here, sparkling cyanide here, and bookbinding here.]

#asks answered #one year in every ten #lamentation

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markeronacomputer · 2 months

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Juksol (weird OC for a world I came up with like two days ago, thinking of publishing the story on AO3 eventually)

I’m making a weird OC world, here’s one of the “main”-ish characters because I haven’t come up with a good enough design for the protag yet.

This is Juksol, Patron of Logos Ward, appointed leader of the Undertakers, and judge of your eternal fate!

So basically, to give you the rundown: it’s called Difficult Undertakings, and it’s about ghosts. The story takes place in the afterlife- actually, one of many afterlives, this one being known as Thereafter.

Not all souls arrive in afterlives upon death: whilst most do want to stay on Earth, some lucky few conjure up the willpower to actually do so. Defying the natural order of life and death aside, these Poltergeists are known to be great threats to the living, and so, something has to be done about them.

Which is where Thereafter’s very important place when it comes to afterlives comes in: for Thereafter is one of the few existing afterlives to house Undertakers, ghosts that come to the living world from the afterlife to forcibly take the Poltergeists down!

Juksol leads Thereafter’s Undertakers (although most of his job nowadays is just recruiting new ones… good for the Poltergeists, though, because I don’t doubt he could kick them in the ass). When new souls appear in Thereafter, he analyses them and sorts them into a special subgroup called a Ward.

One of which is Logos Ward, symbol of logic and justice (associated with the grief stage of Acceptance), its Patron being Juksol himself.

Naturally, the protagonist- Thana, whose design I haven’t really worked out yet so you’ll learn more about them another time- is a member of Logos Ward. Which is pretty rare, since not many people accept the end so easily… but that does make sense for them, since they’re an exception to pretty much everything.

Anyways, I’ll see you whenever! Look out for more updates on Difficult Undertakings!

#art #bad art #beginner art #oc art #oc #original character #oc world #fantasy worldbuilding #worldbuilding #ghosts

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liketheinferno2 · 2 years

Text

Coming out of Endwalker like... so many thoughts I am not quite ready to organise without looking back, but I think I have figured out why a lot of people see Stormblood as the odd egg out in this story. It's not the pacing, and it's not that the characters are as unbearable as a lot of people make them out to be either, it's just a step backwards thematically. It backs off from the personal emotional stuff and is a big wide plot thing, and it makes sense that it would be, considering a lot of it was apparently plotted out before even Heavensward and still running on ARR logic. But there's this long running thing in this game that was always better expressed through figurative feelsy stuff where the pain is grand and unreal, sometimes literally inconceivably great the way big numbers don't compute in the human brain. Stuff that is tethered closer to emotions than physical events and gets as close to the characters as possible. Write what you know but not with actual events I guess?

FFXIV at its brightest is about grief, depression, denial and escapism and how you have to move past all of that to make your life worth living -- For those we have lost, for those we can yet save -- but more than that, how this is only really possible through new and surviving bonds. You can't save everyone and you can't get those people back. There's no way to rewind or undo the loss and trauma and the characters who cause themselves suffering are all either out for revenge, or reincarnation that they could never live to see, or more broadly they're looking for a meaning in life that has a finite end point. Estinien, G'raha are both extremely relevant additions to the cast for this reason, it's far more than just fan appeal. 1. Guy who lived to kill, not just for lost loved ones but a life he could have had; almost ends the life he has now if not for new love and friendship. 2. Guy who lived to die out of love, and when denied this had to come to terms with the fact that removing yourself from a loved one is not a kindness, and one person cannot be the beginning and end of where you find purpose. The amount of beloved characters who only enter the main cast proper after you stop them from offing themselves was never lost on me.

Anyway, if Heavensward was when this theming got LOUD and ANGRY, Shadowbringers is when it was cold and alone. I came out of Shadowbringers rattled, genuinely exhausted. Endwalker is not like that. It's the story not just for people in the abyss, but those of us who have climbed out again. A lot of people are Hermes in this story, but I'm a Venat type myself... and it's something you can only achieve after digging through the mud. Extremely rare to ever have a story like this written from that perspective. Once I realised what her white robes meant I changed mine. That's neither here nor there but Endwalker eases you in, stresses you out, hurts over and over but keeps giving you anchors to hold onto and relationships to push you forward, and up to the very last second it's harder and harder (for the characters at least,) but then the relief! Shadowbringers felt like washing up on the beach, Endwalker lets you down gently! God it's good.

I know what an actual character end feels like so I wasn't crying in that final area, I think my prevailing emotion was "I hate these nihilist cunts" "I hate that all this destruction was needless" "I hate this fucking crab bucket dimension" but in a completely positive way. It's that frustration I feel when someone refuses to accept that they have defined their own meaninglessness, it is not inherent and it is causing them all this unnecessary pain. This is the suicide expansion, that's just what it is. I had my doubts when that first came up in the patches but not once did it feel cheap, even when the game beats you over the head with it. The end reveal that "suffer with me" was never even supposed to be kindness, because of course it wasn't, of course there's rage and fear in that, Hermes said himself that killing something that wants to live is not beautiful.

And there's debate about whether the Ancients had an "actual utopia" or not -- A. Of course it was because Emmie said so, B. Of course it wasn't because Hermes and Meteion suffered -- but that's not even the right question to ask in my opinion. It was an actual utopia, caveat: in a piece of fiction written with the idea that utopia and perfection is unachievable and would destroy anyone who could reach it. It being actually genuinely all but free of pain for mankind is not a loss of a great society that could never be rebuilt, but a sort of literalised escapism, literalised denial, an unreachable world that people on real world (the sundered one, in-universe) can only wish or hope existed, if somehow we could ever be free of strife. You go to the Garden of Eden and it's a lab. It's heaven bro. It's heaven and you can't reach it through violence.

Ironically Zenos who was such a... ???? ... in Stormblood ended up being best adapted to the themes of Endwalker because here's 3. Guy searching eternally for what meaning he can find through violence, when actually hurt for the first time in his adult life finds it the closest thing to closeness he's yet felt. But instead of identifying that closeness as what he wants, blames it on the violence instead, literally chases you to the ends of the earth hoping you'll kill each other in some ultimate act of physicality and what is, to Zenos, love! The nearest thing to it. The harder he pushes this way the further he pushes any reasonable person away from reciprocating. He gets so close to realising what he's done wrong, not in his actions but in the meaning he has defined for himself. Alisaie gets closer than anyone to cracking him just by telling him he'll die hated and alone. And personally I do think the rescue button was made of his regret, some last second realisation that dying is not what he wanted, and more than that, he does not want the person who at least tried to give his life meaning to die too. Loving or hating this character are both completely reasonably strong reactions but he loves YOU, like it or not. That's kinda the point...

Terrified I'm gonna lose this post so I end it here. Endwalker was unmatched. Best Game.

#let him speak #meta #dante plays catboy simulator #endwalker spoilers

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inventors-fair · 1 year

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Satisfied and Satisfactory: Runners-up! ~

Our runners-up this week are @just--a--penguin, @little-red-rabbit, and @snugz!

@just--a--penguin — Kiora’s Daring

Minor Aftermath spoilers, I guess, but it doesn’t super matter. Unless we aren’t talking about that. First order of business is that this card’s super well balanced and a great rare to throw down. On turn four, your previous creatures can perchance get some evasive action in, especially if you have an awesome seafarer like a Welkin Tern or even a little trampler. The ramp is awesome and the draw is awesome. Turn eight, if you’ve got all your drops, you can just put this down and basically get a free 8/8 for four mana but with the time investment already put in. Not gonna lie: as crazy as that it, I really like how you balanced that!

The first big edit is the trigger wording. “At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose target creature you control. Until end of turn, it gains...” should be the proper wording, IMO, because you want the end of the quoted ability to have a period. That’s the precedent for all other abilities worded like this, although none quite as specific as this one for precedent, unfortunately. The second small non-edit is just that this card’s good for its mechanics and I do want to play it. I guess I’m just not excited for the flavor portion? I don’t have to be for this to be a good card, and don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a 100% flavor-only contest. Maybe I just don’t get Kiora as a character. Still, this feels like a card where the mechanics matter more, and I do like them enough for it to be here.

@little-red-rabbit — Desire

And here we are, Incarnation 2: Revengeance! I’ll be honest: this card might be a runner-up, but it’s the one I feel with the absolute most daring mechanics. “It comes under your control tapped and attacking.” That’s so cool! And I just had to check the comprehensive rules about it... Darn it. Okay, so, I really thought this was going to work, and unless there’s a comprehensive rules change, 506.4 says that a creature is removed from combat if its controller changes. Does that affect this card? Prrrrrobably. Possibly. I honestly don’t know because there’s never been precedent quite like this before. So you know what, I’m going to change my suggestions and say instead that this card is ambitious enough for a potential comprehensive rules change if an effect like this got printed!

Wow. This rarely happens, and it’s super cool. Thanks for making me delve a little into rules effects! So: how would we make this work with the CompRules as it stands? Perhaps make it a tap ability, a beginning of combat trigger, or even a pie-bending exile-return effect? There are a few ways to go about it. Fading is an interesting choice, but it makes sense here. I don’t know if we’ll see fading again in Standard, but as a resource, I would check out Mark Rosewater’s “Storm Scale” articles. I’m not sure where Fading stands, heh.

Just for polish, here are a couple minor edits:

You gave this card fading 2, but put “3” in the reminder text. Whoops! Things get switched in editing, fair enough.

I believe this should be “Whenever Desire attacks,” not “when,” since it can happen repeatedly.

Flavor text is decent! I think you can take away the quotes, take out the “c” in “satisfied,” and switch “it’s” to “its.” Spelling aside, it reads really well, actually.

@snugz — Mourning Mage

And here we are back to the grimdark. Well, ish! What I really like about the flavor angle here is the fact that the flavor text emphasizes how this character is channeling their mourning, how we embark upon our passions, not necessarily through logic, but through the energy of grief. Which is...pretty messed up, actually. I like it. The quote should probably be in quotation marks, being a quote. Really neat overall, though, and I guess they found a cure based on that activated ability!

Mechanics-wise, yeah, this card’s rad as hell. I think that having kicker and investigate as two potentially major themes (or at least two themes with some overlap) is asking a bit, unless you want to imply that investigation is minor, as it was in something like the most recent Innistrad block. Great wording on that first ability, BTW; DMU’s pseudomultikicker was really fun and I’m curious about how it would come back here. Backwards compatibility is important. Regardless, clue generation can come about in a few ways, and as a rare midrangey kind of card, I like it a lot! You’ve got a build-around-me rare that someone’s probably gonna have fun with and a flavored ambition to top it off. Still asking a lot of implications, but I’m sure it would play fine.

I'm writing this early enough to need food before doing more commentary, but it's being written! See y'all soon.

@abelzumi

#mtg #magic the gathering #custom magic card #runners up #commentary #wanting flavor contest #inventor's fair

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kyogre-blue · 10 months

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I huff about the Wrath of the Rock thing mostly bc if I started talking about how badly contracts were done in Liyue I'd never stop lol. What he did with Wanyan was the most in-your-face about it and had me FUMING, yes, but I honestly really want to know what the adepti are getting out of their contracts and why exactly they still had to hold up their end of the bargain when the contractor was supposed to be dead. Like? A contract really is supposed to benefit both parties? What service has Zhongli been providing? NOT kicking them out of Liyue's mountains or something? Is he a landowner? And Xiao's contract is just downright exploiting him - I'd think the translation mistook "contracts" for "oaths" somewhere but no, Yanfei exists.

And I was curious bc I distinctly recall a Liyue NPC praying to Barbatos....checked, her name's Chishui! And she says though it's tradition in Liyue to worship the Geo Archon the winds are what truly determine whether her sailor husband is safe, though she admits it's rare (unsure if she means liyue locals praying to Barbatos or locals praying to another god in general). She says any god will do as long as they keep her husband safe though, so maybe she just has either less patriotism or more common sense idk.

Gahhh unreliable information is so annoying. I remember thinking when I started playing that maybe humans already had their own "type" and their ruling archon just neutrally crystalised it, given it IS supposed to be their own ambitions and all. As it is, now I don't trust anything about vision lore bc I know it's going to get dashed later on rip

Hahaha................. yeah.

But yeah.

In general, one of Genshin's biggest missed opportunities is arguably doing nothing with their gods' supposed ideals.

Mondstadt is freedom town, so that's nice, but there's no actual commentary on freedom, even though there's potential for something juicy with how they walked themselves into the Aristocracy entirely on human free will. Liyue is uh contracts, but "contracts" can mean any of like three different things minimum, with no distinction or examination of any of them. Inazuma tried, but they did not connect Yoimiya's musings, Ei's misguided grief nonsense and then the uuuh revelations (?) she had when communing with her dead sister's spirit inside a magic that went back in time for some reason (???) particularly well. And Sumeru is just a joke, they don't even try.

These seem to be basically just buzzwords that exist for flavor, rather than any real meaning.

I feel like part of the supernatural contracts in Liyue might relate to the weird third party racism that archons engage in for the sake of humans. Like how the oni had to do some weird dance to live with humans and how Azhdaha basically has no rights because won't you think of the humans. Adepti originally start out with a flavor of being fairly alien in their thinking and don't interact with humans well at all, so them having a contract that forces them to prioritize humans is potentially meant to make sure they kill fewer people.

In that sense, the service Zhongli provides is that he doesn't execute all their asses for imprisoning random people in amber and shit like that, I guess?

But they really did not keep any of this consistent.

Which isn't surprising. Genshin never cares about consistency, which is why its lore might be cool but its worldbuilding is pretty awful.

In regard to worshipping foreign gods, its presumably possible. I do recall there's a Sumeru NPC who also prays to Barbatos, though other NPCs near him didn't seem thrilled with that. On the whole, Genshin is hardly going to ever create a tense enough situation where there's acknowledged religious or national fervor that could lead to people getting genuinely targeted for acting in a way that's not seen as socially acceptable. But logically speaking, it's not even just plain "following a minority religion" deal, these gods are also the government and immediately present divine rulers. Barbatos isn't around and Morax is pretty chill, but like imagine if you want to make a shrine to a different god next to your house. How is that going to go over? If you apply just basic "how humans act about things" from the real world.....

#playing genshin

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