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maeglinyedi · 1 year

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Yes, I'm still alive and I come bearing gifts. I needed a bit of a break, as I usually do after I've spent a few months writing. But this fall my seasonal depression reared its ugly head worse than usual and put me on my arse for a few months. After some much needed rest and an adjustment of my meds I'm feeling more like a human being again, thankfully. I've started writing a new chapter for Lives Lived and Lives Lost and I'm offering you all a preview as a thank you for being so patient with me. I hope to finish it and post it in the next few days.

Life # 21: That time Harry and Tom were Holmes and Watson

Tom got his memories back the usual way. He met Harry while his friend Mike introduced them at St Bart’s.

Of course, what was different this time around was that Harry introduced himself as Sherlock Holmes with a tiny yet insufferable smile. And then he promptly showed off by metaphorically undressing Tom where he stood as he summed up detail after detail about Tom’s life that he couldn’t possibly know.

Tom slowly closed his eyes. Harry was Sherlock Holmes and Tom was John Watson. Or some modern version of them, at any rate.

How did these lives even get chosen? Who decided what sort of people they were going to be life after life? The previous life they’d been a couple of dog groomers, for fuck’s sake, living a peaceful life in Austria until they died of natural causes while they were well into their eighties.

And now they apparently were the world’s most famous detective along with his faithful sidekick.

Before he could stop it, a sharp pang of envy coursed through Tom’s body, leaving a sour trail in its wake.

Tom should have been Sherlock Holmes. Not Harry the bumbling Gryffindor. Tom was the consummate Slytherin. Tom was always the clever one, no matter what sort of life they led. That’s not to say that Tom as John Watson was stupid. Not at all. Tom in is current itineration was plenty smart. He was a medical doctor, after all. But he wasn’t Sherlock Holmes levels of smart and that stung, no matter that Tom didn’t want to ever feel envious of his soulmate.

Harry announced that Tom could be his roommate and told him to come to 221b Baker Street before giving him a cheeky wink. And then he was gone and Tom was left staring into space in complete shock.

“Yeah,” Mike said with a knowing smile. “He’s always like that.”

Something told Tom he’d be spending most of his time this life trying to save Harry from himself. No matter what kind of life Harry led, he was always the impulsive one. Combine that with a newly acquired genius level intellect and an unstoppable need to solve every interesting crime that came his way and it didn’t take the world’s most famous detective to deduct that Harry was going to get himself killed sooner rather than later.

Oh fuck. If there existed a Sherlock Holmes and a John Watson in this world, there also had to be a James Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes’ arch-nemesis and reportedly at least equally as intelligent. And in every single fictional story starring Sherlock Holmes that Tom had ever read, Moriarty always, always wanted to destroy Sherlock Holmes.

Yeah, this version of Moriarty was going to be in for a bit of a surprise, because this Sherlock Holmes had a former Dark Lord on his side, determined to keep him safe. Tom squared his shoulders and said a quick goodbye to Mike. There was no time to waste. Harry could be landing himself in a world of trouble right at that moment without Tom to keep him safe.

Tom had been a genius once upon a life. Granted, he’d used that genius intellect to turn himself into a magical mass-murderer while valiantly trying to rule the entire world, consequences be damned. But that experience might serve him well enough to predict what a criminal mastermind like Moriarty might plan to see Harry end up in an early grave.

#harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter/tom riddle #tomarry fanfiction #tomarry #tom riddle #harry potter series #harrymort #tom/harry #fanfiction #lives lived and lives lost #my fics

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wearenotjustnumbers2 · 5 months

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These two kids are Hamza (the oldest) and Qusai (the youngest).

Their mother shares this video and bids them goodbye. They were both killed by Israeli bombardment 5 days ago. She says:

[Two days before Hamza and Qusai were killed, hamza asked me: "mom, when we die, where will I go?" And I told him: "you will be a bird in heaven, my love." He said: "and Qusai?" "Just like you inshallah."

And indeed, two days later, he left and took his brother with him. It's like he was preparing me for saying goodbye to both of them. Heaven is more beautiful than any place on this Earth, habibi. We will meet and be reunited one day, me, your dad and you two].

Our kids don't deserve to die already thinking about what will happen to them, they don't deserve to die already terrified, anticipating their death because the world failed them and decided their lives mean nothing. We are not numbers. Remember their names and their stories.

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biggest-gaudiest-patronuses · 5 months

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the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

#due to the Great Data Decay academics write viciously argumentative articles on which episodes aired in what order #at conferences professors have known to engage in physically violent altercations whilst debating the air date number of household viewers #90% of the couch gags have been lost and there is a billion dollar trade in counterfeit “lost copies”#serious note: i'll be honest i always assumed it was english imperialism that made shakespeare so inescapable in the 19th/20th cent #like his writing should have become obscure at the same level of his contemporaries #but british imperialists needed an ENGLISH LANGUAGE (and BRITISH) writer to venerate #and shakespeare wrote so many damn things that there was a humongous body of work just sitting there waiting to be culturally exploited...#i know it didn't happen like this but i imagine a English Parliament House Committee Member For The Education Of The Masses or something #cartoonishly stumbling over a dusty cobwebbed crate labelled the Complete Works of Shakespeare #and going 'Eureka! this shall make excellent propoganda for fabricating a national identity in a time of great social unrest.#it will be a cornerstone of our elitist educational institutions for centuries to come! long live our decaying empire!'#'what good fortune that this used to be accessible and entertaining to mainstream illiterate audience members...#..but now we can strip that away and make it a difficult & alienating foundation of a Classical Education! just like the latin language :)'#anyway maybe there's no such thing as the 'greatest writer of x language' in ANY language?#maybe there are just different styles and yes levels of expertise and skill but also a high degree of subjectivity #and variance in the way that we as individuals and members of different cultures/time periods experience any work of media #and that's okay! and should be acknowledged!!! and allow us to give ourselves permission to broaden our horizons #and explore the stories of marginalized/underappreciated creators #instead of worshiping the List of Top 10 Best (aka Most Famous) Whatevers Of All Time/A Certain Time Period #anyways things are famous for a reason and that reason has little to do with innate “value”#and much more to do with how it plays into the interests of powerful institutions motivated to influence our shared cultural narratives #so i'm not saying 'stop teaching shakespeare'. but like...maybe classrooms should stop using it as busy work that (by accident or designs)#happens to alienate a large number of students who could otherwise be engaging critically with works that feel more relevant to their world #(by merit of not being 4 centuries old or lacking necessary historical context or requiring untaught translation skills)#and yeah...MAYBE our educational institutions could spend less time/money on shakespeare critical analysis and more on...#...any of thousands of underfunded areas of literary research i literally (pun!) don't know where to begin #oh and p.s. the modern publishing world is in shambles and it would be neat if schoolwork could include modern works?#beautiful complicated socially relevant works of literature are published every year. it's not just the 'classics' that have value #and actually modern publications are probably an easier way for students to learn the basics. since lesson plans don't have to include the #important historical/cultural context many teens need for 20+ year old media (which is older than their entire lived experience fyi)

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bogan-mac · 1 month

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#does this make sense #webweave #webweaving #web weaving #web weave #like they want the type of victim who has lost everything and is just so so sad. by staying happy and living free you are rebelling.#you are winning through the power of love and acceptance my guy

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kipsa-ahoy · 1 month

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It might have taken me 20 hours but I have a new lockscreen!!!

You know the drill close ups under cut

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violetrains · 8 months

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Instead of telling men to repress their emotions to appear stronger we should encourage them to sing incredibly dramatic ballads to process their emotions like in fictional movies. Maybe the world would heal faster. And also it would be very funny.

These are my personal favorites.

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yabakuboi · 1 month

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Steve watched Eddie's van turn the corner and shut the front door, closing himself away from the outside world so none of his neighbors could see him as he rested his forehead against the painted wood.

"I'm not going to cry," he told himself.

He said it even as his eyes began to burn and his face began to twist, teeth grinding and throat closing. He wiped quickly at his face, again and again, as he stumbled to the couch to sit, drying each tear as it rolled down his cheeks, clinging to his jaw.

"I'm not going to fucking cry," Steve choked, and then doubled over into himself, arms around his thighs, and he began to sob.

So what if he was twenty-two, living in his parent's house alone, working the same dead-end job with a sixteen year old manager. So what if all his friends and family were in college, spread out from New York to Chicago to Los Angeles. So what if his boyfriend was moving to Seattle for his band and they broke up, because Steve was never going to be his parents, resenting and being resented for keeping his partner from his dreams. So what if he was too scared to ask Eddie to stay, to ask Eddie if Steve could go with him. So what if everyone moved on and Steve couldn't?

Steve grew up lonely. He could get used to it again.

He didn't realize how hard he was crying until the front door burst back open and Eddie hurled himself at Steve's feet, long limbed and clumsy and babbling.

"Baby, oh fuck, I'm sorry," he said, already untangling Steve from himself, tying all his loose ends back up together with his until they were a knot of their own. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Stevie. I never should have— I wanted to—"

"I'm sorry," Steve sobbed back. He gasped and swallowed it all back down. Eddie had already gotten them raveled up again, it would take forever to pick it back apart. Steve knew it would hurt worse this time. "Fuck, Ed, you didn't have to— I'll be okay, I don't want to hold you back—"

"Come with me," Eddie burst.

And Steve couldn't help himself, and began to sob again.

"Please," Eddie begged over Steve's crying, his voice shaking and his face wet enough to match Steve's. "Please, sweetheart, honey, please just come with me?"

Steve took a shaky breath, embarrassed and now too full of hope and fear. "You sure?" he whispered. He pressed his face into Eddie's neck, breathing him in again for what might be the last time, again. "Eddie, don't—"

"I'm so sure," Eddie said. "I'm so fucking sure, Steve, please."

"Okay," Steve breathed. Eddie had always been the braver of the two of them, especially when it counted. Steve leaned back so he could look at him, red faced and watery eyes. He tried to give Eddie a smile, but he knew it was wobbly and weak. "Okay."

All of Steve's fears meant nothing as he watched the happiness break like dawn over Eddie's face.

#steddie #my fic #shush mal #something something once again about eddie being the bravest when it comes to love something something #anyways they pack steve's shit that night and leave early the next morning to make up for eddie's lost time to get to wherever he's going #and they live happily ever after amen #my steddies

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keferon · 2 months

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Ah mmmm well

You know how in mermaid stories, the mermaid is typically the dumber one? I present to you the "and they were both scientists" plot.

Basically the concept is that mermechs and regular mechs can't talk to each other. But luckily even if they speak different languages they still use the same math~

I discovered a bunch of simpatico mer-fics. So. I wanted to do something with this concept too haha. If some physicist happens to read this - feel free to laugh at me. I know nothing about science👍

I don’t know if I’ll continue this thing. Should I. Idk. It’s midnight I might be going crazy lol. I made that cover anyway bc I love making covers hehe

[Next]->

#transformers #maccadam #our language of science #listen #Im not insane I swear #I mean I’m not THAT insane haha #mermaid mechs are fucking weird but l i s t e n Arachnid from tfp is basically the same #she’s like…half humanoid half spider #she has this mode without her humanoid legs #which is basically makes her..like…centaur. But spider. Spider centaur. Or spider mermaid #half of her body is humanoid and half is spider. And I’m going to use this knowledge for my defence okay??#Because if she can have her spider half then other mechs can do the similar thing. In theory #okay I’m done proving the right of my vision to live #mtmte #lost light #perceptor #tf perceptor #brainstorm #tf brainstorm #simpatico #Chromedome #tf chromedome #yeah the whole world thinks mermaids are stupid but listen #I want smart mermaids okay. I want them to have their whole hidden civilisation. To be scientists #engineers #you know #I’m tired of (oh human need to teach this fish) I want the fish to be teaching the human #Btw Brainstorm basically found a mistake Perceptor made #ahahahehe #okay I’m done I need to get some sleep

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hey-must-be-a-devilbetween-us · 7 months

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listen whether you like it or not they are all holding the memory of stede like a talisman against all hurt and fear, izzy trying to remind ed of his love so he'll come back to himself, fang can't stop crying so jim starts telling him Pinocchio and doing the little voice like stede does, 'talk it through as a crew.' is uttered like an anti-curse, like a magic spell that will keep them from harm.

stede gives them hope, if you even care.

#ofmd s2 spoilers #ofmd season 2 spoilers #ofmd s2 #our flag means death spoilers #ofmd spoilers #ofmd season 2 #ofmd #blackbonnet #stede is like their peter pan #when they're with him they get to be more like lost boys then pirates #and thats just really fucking precious to me #spooky watches ofmd #live watching

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egophiliac · 9 days

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giving the people what they want (jokes about spreadsheets)

anyway, Twst continues to prove that it is aimed at me specifically by giving us not one, but now TWO extended scenes of characters being incredibly difficult about signing an NDA. you just don't get this anywhere else.

#art #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland spoilers #tapis rouge #gif warning #gifs that tempted the gods and lost warning #azul specifically is making everyone's lives difficult by insisting on actually reading things before he signs him #like some kind of nerd who actually cares about his rights or whatever #no but i love that for him #(i have only a few more postcards left to unlock him...sigh...)#anyway vil just went full scarlett o'hara over here and made it WORK #i am sad we didn't get to see the infinity tiara though #in my mind it's three feet tall and looks like a bejeweled crown rack of lamb #this is why some things are better left to the imagination i guess

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xxpectrum · 5 days

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Because they made me alive 💛

#critical role #critical role fanart #critical role spoilers #fcg #bells hells #i watched the tail of the ep live- and when sam started choking up i lost it #i will never be grateful enough for cr and their stories #we are alive because of our connections to others!!! i am fine!!!#my art #artists on tumblr

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hellish-cruelty · 8 months

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Of lost chances, forbidden love and remorse.

It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.

Films in frame: Past lives, La la land, Fleabag, Normal People, In the mood for love, Atonement, Potrait of a lady on fire, Maurice, Blue Valentine, Her

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ash-and-starlight · 6 months

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one day, in a thousand years

#I THINK I HAUVE COVID #oh to meet your love after a thousand years at a museum exhibit of your past lives #thinking about them makes me so sick so ILL DISEASED #I AM NOT IMMUNE #spc i’m cursing u forever for this wtf. WTF bro wtf #ouyang’s last thoughts were a desperate plea for esen to wait for him.#he has NEVER called him by first name he has NEVER asked him anything #and his last thought is asking him to wait #and esen does. bc he would have given ouyang anything he asked for #god i hope u get rawed so good it makes up for all the lost lifetimes u earned it #he who drowned the world #she who became the sun #the radiant emperor #general ouyang #esen-temur #(zhu also present in the golden imperial dragon and the golden light of gayness that brought them together again)#my art #not super proud of how it turned out tbh tbh it looks better in my head 😔😔#would’ve stayed in the drafts if not for my need to feed this 4 ppl fandom #and if not for robin motivation nfngdjfb ty kissa you forever #id in alt text

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mariana-oconnor · 2 years

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The AO3 search/filtering system has just ruined me for every other search function ever. I genuinely go onto websites, click 'advanced search' and then look at what paltry options they've given me in utter horror. How does anyone find anything? How do people survive?

#AO3 #I'm not saying that I can always find exactly what I'm looking for if I want a specific fic #but 9 times out of 10 I can #And yes this is as much down to the dedication of the users tagging things effectively #If people didn't use the tagging system it would be useless #But people do #and then the tag wranglers make it all work so well #Glory to the tag wranglers #and it's just beautiful #I could weep #Also I'm pretty sure some of the fics I'm looking for have been deleted #Which is tragic #and I can't find them on the wayback machine either #Lost to the abysm of time and now living only in my memory #Alas #alack #alas and alack

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mother-lee · 7 months

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waiting

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tubbytarchia · 3 months

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I don't know what this is all I know is that LimL Joel makes me really emotional

#I know he has a tendency to go deranged on his red lives but idk something about him beginning to lose it after Jimmy died and killing Grian #joel smallishbeans #smallishbeans fanart #trafficblr #Again its his red life shenanigans but... If only Jimmy had known how affected someone was by his death. I'm choosing to believe this #and him then going out like a sad pathetic wet cat even with Grian's sacrifice... He really deserves a win one of these days lmao please #Also I cant stop thinking about how Jimmy wouldn't have left him. Grian was sensible to and most players probs would have #Joel really does become a lost cause so its fair and Grian did still care (and went to say goodbye as well as sacrifice his time for him)#But Jimmy would have stuck by even if Joel were in this state (and they'd both get themselves killed pathetically but)#And Joel having shown such genuine care for Jimmy and concern over his limited time... man anything w Jimmy makes me so emotional lol #I love them so #oh Ig about the art itself. I dont like it but hey thats how it tends to go when you try smth new. And no shame in trying #but if one person likes this then yayy I will still feel accomplished and happy #Im looking at this again and hey its not that bad actually yay I love to approve of my own art. self love hell yea #tubby art

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