#I don't know why but this is always such a massive hurdle for like fucking everyone ever

[problemnyatic]

very weary reminder that you, yes you, the one reading this, are capable of providing inadequate care to your beloved pet(s). i know it can be very difficult to admit, but simply loving your special little guy sosososo much and being around them all the time is not actually a suitable replacement for a studied familiarity with animal behaviorology.

It is not a personal attack when someone points out that your animal is exhibiting signs of stress and/or poor care. While you may feel like a bad pet owner for hearing such, a WORSE pet owner is the one who digs their heels in and doubles down on the idea that, what? no way, your pets are FINE and who are YOU to accuse me of treating them badly? Don't you know how badly I love them?

You CANNOT let your heart be the only thing guiding your animal care. It's difficult to hear, but no, simply loving them more than life itself is not, and has NEVER been enough to give an animal a happy, healthy life. And your pet needing an adjustment to its care routine for its wellbeing is not some kind of accusation that you don't love them enough, or are abusing them, it's just something that needs to happen sometimes.

Please please PLEASE listen to your friends if they're telling you your pet is stressed out or showing signs of poor mental/physical health. At the very least, do hard research into the claim, WITHOUT the goal of proving them wrong.

Owning a pet isn't just about you. It's about the animal, which has needs and a language that is NOT naturally intuitive to humans. Don't assume that, oh, your creature is just like that. Seek to understand why that breed of animal would exhibit the behaviors you observe in it, even if they seem totally normal.

Sometimes loving means letting go, and sometimes it just means admitting your mistakes to yourself. Better to be wrong and change than to reassure yourself you'd never do something wrong just to feel better.

You need to be capable of wrong to be capable of doing the right thing. Please. For your pet's sake, if no one else's.

[midnightloversmusic]

"A Kiss?"

Sirius Black x Reader

"It's not that you don't like Sirius, you do, that's the problem.

that's why being chest to chest with him in a cramped storage closet is not the most ideal situation for you right now."

Masterlist

————————————————————————

It's not that you don't like Sirius, you do, that's the problem.

that's why being chest to chest with him in a cramped storage closet is not the most ideal situation for you right now. Especially when you can smell his woody cologne, the leather of his jacket, and the lingering scent of the cigarette he smoked earlier.

How I got in this situation? A Marauders prank gone wrong. You never really cared about the pranks they loved to pull because they never concerned you. This one went wrong, very wrong, Hence your current situation.

There were only supposed to be a few fireworks outside apparently, of course you didn't know that when loud popping noises disrupted you in the middle of your walk to charms. Professors all came running out of their classrooms, students were shrieking and ducking down, you were just plain confused because, what the fuck? No really, what the fuck?

You were even more confused when Sirius Black, of all people, came hurdling towards you and virtually flung himself onto of you hurdling you both towards the ground. Narrowly avoiding an off track flaming firework that went off into a dazzling explosion resulting in colorful sparks just mere feet away from you. Covering the hallway in a thick fog that made your eyes water.

The shock of it all made you not fight when two strong hands plucked you up off the floor and pushed you into the nearest storage closet.

When you finally come back to your senses and realize, really realize, that you're practically glued to a guilty looking Sirius's chest, lets Just say you flip out to put it lightly.

"What the fuck was that!"

"Those were fireworks."

"No fucking shit Black, why were they inside?"

You don't hear him sigh as much as you feel the breath softly brush against your neck

"Because Remus messed up the spell that he's been working on for months and gave James the wrong instructions causing the prank we have been planning for months to fall apart. I honestly can't believe them, I for one would have never-"

"Sirius! I Don't care about your stupid prank! I care about the fact that I just got tackled to the ground like I was in a quidditch match, burst both my eardrums from the noise, and went blind for at least 2 minutes out their, and you're complaining about how your prank didn't work? Are you serious right now?"

He smirks, and well you pretty much walked yourself right into the next thing he's going to say. It doesn't make it any less annoying.

"I'm always Sirius" he says with the goofiest, boyish grin on his face, and if it weren't for your situation right now, you probably would have smiled back considering Sirius Blacks smile is as close to a beam of sunlight as humanly possible.

you internally scream and give him a deadpan look. He goes back to looking sheepish.

Now that you are calming down, or at least not absolutely fuming anymore, you get a chance to really look at Sirius. You notice the freckle on his cheek, the slight crease in his eyebrow, the scar on his upper lip. He's very pretty, though you'd never say it to his face. Not willing to inflate is already massive ego.

You find yourself slowing your breathing down to match the breaths you feel him taking against your chest. And god his chest, its firm against your body and now you are picturing all the times you saw him by the lake in the warmer months in nothing but his swim trunks and- god is it hot in here? when did it get so hot?

there really isn't much room in here.

Sirius must sense the sudden shift in the room because he opens his mouth to say something, then immediately shuts it.

"Have you seem Sirius, James, Remus, or Peter? I know they had something to do with this. Once I find them they are dead meat. All of them. Detentions, perhaps for the whole year. Find me immediately if you see them. That goes for all students, If you see something say something! I will get to the bottom of this!"

You feel Sirius’s chest start to shake against yours and muffled giggles start coming out of his mouth until he can't hold back anymore and starts cackling.

“What are you doing? its like you want to get caught! Sirius be quiet. I'm not kidding! They are going to hear you!" You quickly give up your antics when you realize they are no use to sirius's implacable case of the giggles.

So you take your hand and promptly slap it over his mouth.

His eyes widen, but then go back to their normal devious state of unmistakable mischief and he licks your hand. He. Licks. Your. Hand.

"ugh, gross" You snatch your hand away immediately and wipe it down on his shirt without thinking. The problem with not thinking? You're rubbing your hand that was over his mouth on his chest. You are rubbing Sirius Black's Chest.

When you look back up you expect to see his teasing gaze ready to poke fun at you for touching his "Magnificently toned pecs" but his face is, pun not intended, serious. His cheeks are even tinted a little pink, and that just can't be right because Sirius doesn't blush. He gets flirted with by the hottest girls and boys at school and doesn't even bat an eye. There is just no possible way you could have made Sirius black blush, but yet here you are.

Looking up into his eyes you find him staring right back at you.

"You know your eyes are really pretty up close, its kinda hard to see them from across the classroom in potions" Sirius says quietly, voice almost a whisper

and you practically melt on the spot because that was such a nice thing to say. And he said it to you. Perfectly average you.

"Thank you" you breathed out "your eyes are very beautiful too."

"Are they now?" he smiled and quirked his eyebrow

you roll your eyes, "In that case I take it back-"

"No! You can't just take it back, I'm sorry! How can I make it up to you?"

"Make up what?"

"My awful teasing, and me being part of the reason you had to miss charms class and be stuck in a closet with me for twenty minutes"

"being in a closet with you wasn't that bad, but I can think of a way you can make it up to me"

"Anything."

"A kiss?" you whisper

He smiles. "I was hoping you'd say that" and he leans down to softly attach his lips to yours.

[5x4dark]

CW: talk of death and addiction.

I grew up terminally online and I believe that has deeply affected me on a fundamental level.

My experience is not unique or uncommon, however Zillenials are the first generation to truly experience the consequences of doing so.

I believe I'm part of the first generation that unintentionally became an experiment testing the effects of growing up almost entirely virtually, while being otherwise almost entirely isolated.

From the ages of 12-18, my primary form of socialization was through the internet. All of my time not spent in school was spent online. Real life socialization was rather minimal, inconsistent, and largely unenjoyable (very uncomfortable actually.) Everyone I considered a friend (with the exception of one) were people I met and exclusively interacted with online.

I am part of a guinea pig generation in a lot of ways. Millennials still remember what a pre-internet world was like, while Zillenials grew up alongside it. Some of those Zillenials, like me, got sucked into it entirely.

With the rise of skype, team speak, IRC, and Steam; it was possible to develop and maintain essentially all of your close friendships entirely virtually, which I don't think was possible before the mid 2000s, or at least not to the same extent. Sure you had IRC, forum, chat room, or BBS friendships before the rise of VoIP, but those types of text only relationships were much harder to develop and make intimate. Those same people also knew and existed in a world without the ubiquity of the Internet. As a result they almost always had some type of non-digital life during their formative years, allowing them to resist being consumed entirely in the way that I was.

My situation wasn't uncommon, there were (and still are) a contingent of kids who for one reason or another don't thrive socially in real life, but do online.

The reasons why varied; Neurodivergency, mental health, inability to relate to or even a complete lack of peers, home problems, bullying or ostracization, etc. Always there was a reason though, people did not retreat into cyberspace if they had any real alternatives.

When I was growing up the chronically online culture was much more anonymous and reminiscent of old school IRC/BBS/4chan/forums rather than being social media based like it is today. My online friends always referred to me by my handle even after we met in real life, and it feels weird for them to call me anything else. I had a lot of very close friendships with people whose names I don't know, whose faces I have never seen, and even sometimes whose voices I have never heard.

That anonymity is part of the reason why so many had a far easier time socializing virtually. When all the other person knows about you is a username and the things you decide to share, it's much easier to craft an idealized image of yourself in their eyes. For someone with a complicated relationship with 'the self,' this was a complete game changer. Hurdles and obstacles that prevented relationships from forming in real life could be entirely removed.

I don't necessarily think that is the case for kids these days, where things like Snapchat/Instagram/Facebook/FaceTime mean that online friendships are much more likely to evolve into knowing each other's names, face, and other real life identifiers. The massive popularity of the Internet now means that kids who are chronically online are more likely to know other kids who are chronically online, and thus avoid the (close to) complete isolation that people of my back story faced.

Even having just one or two close friendships in real life is massively different to having none.

I would hope that means better outcomes for the chronically online youth of today compared to 10-20 years ago.

Lots of my online friends got wrapped up in drugs. Lots of them died, by their own hand, both intentionally and not. Generally being fucking miserable was kind of a default state for a lot of us, and lots of time was spent supporting each other through that, but everyone was uncomfortably aware of the fact that they had 'no life.' That level of isolation gnaws away at you, and can be incredibly painful as well as incredibly difficult to escape.

Online friendships are great, deep, and intimate often in ways that real life ones aren't. They are not a substitute for face to face interaction however, and Zillenials are the first to discover that.

I'm doing incredible these days and currently am very happy with my social life. I'm incredibly grateful for it as well because I am intimately aware of what life is like without in person community.

Being alone for so long though has molded and shaped my personality in a lot of ways. I still feel like an alien who has been dropped onto the planet and is desperately trying to learn how to act like a human. I still feel as though there is a separation between me and 'regular' people. I have fought so hard and put so much effort into becoming a normie and yet I feel as though I will truly never be one.

From isolation I came, and to isolation I will one day return, but until then I'm going to enjoy the company.

~always happy to be the qt manic pixie dream girl gf, maxi🖤🩶~

[frostiifae]

there's another even funnier and more subtle layer to consider here though. like looking at both outcomes:

A Fairy has knocked on my door!

Huh that's weird. Fairies are real? And she wants something from me? Maybe just to fuck with me? Or maybe she wants a treat. This is a normal, predictable interaction with a demihuman being that I didn't recognize actually existed before now, but the behavior she exhibits is within reason for what I know about fairies, so I'm able to carry this interaction on with that understanding.

An Animal has knocked on my door.

How is this even possible? Putting aside the massive hurdle that is "how did this animal get here", we still have to consider how enormously unlikely this sequence of events is: the animal approached my door, recognized it as a destination in itself, then knocked on the door, which is not an obvious action for such an animal to take, and then waited for me to answer the door, demonstrating an understanding not only of the social contract of approaching a stranger's home, but the more fundamental idea that this is where a human lives and you can get the human's attention with a specific ritual.

This is just way too improbable to imagine a real animal ever doing, right? It feels more likely that someone has put the animal up to this - dragging it to my door, bidding it wait there somehow, and then doing an elaborate ding-dong-ditch act on me. But who would do that?! I don't know anyone who would pull a prank like this on me - even if I did have friends with access to these animals and the training and confidence to move them around, which I absolutely do not - because like, what is even the joke? What could they stand to gain? How do they intend to deal with this situation they've created?

This could only even begin to make sense if the perpetrator of this practical joke has no motive beyond doing something as stupid and surprising as possible. Their only goal is to surprise me at my door with something unfathomably unlikely, and they have no concern for the consequences maybe because they do not understand consequences, or - more likely - because the consequences are trivial for them.

And so it becomes clear, why the fairy is not only the less surprising of the two choices, but will always be the less surprising. The explanation for both outcomes is the same. A fairy has knocked on your door.

those polls about what would be more surprising to find at your door, a fairy vs [insert wild animal here] is so fucking funny to me because personally it's always going to be the wild animal. always. and it's all summed up by this addition on the first poll of this i reblogged

[andromebaa]

what are some of your favorite headcanons for just the two of us?

Oh man, I have so many lol. I'm gonna split them into serious stuff (plot/character hc), cute stuff (pairing/shipping hc) and dumb stuff (they're idiots hc). This is definitely not all of them, just the ones I could think of tonight. Kinda spoiler-ish if you haven't read up to the most current Just the Two of Us chapters so be warned! Serious Stuff

Kaito as a hero archetype always fascinates me. I feel like he has this compulsion to help others, especially those he perceives as weaker or unable to protect themselves. I think that's why I portrayed his 'biggest fear' in the simulation as hurting the people he loves the most and losing control in a way that makes him become a monster. (Very fun to consider depending on your HCs about his pre-game personality ehehe)

Kokichi is a walking bundle of trauma. So much has happened to this guy and I'm sure it's been dissected by people smarter than me but like - compulsive liar? Tiny? Really good at hiding? Those weird little spacing-out moments he gets? Something bad happened to you, didn't it? Like, maybe not as BAD as what I've depicted, but yeah. Poor baby.

Shadow Child was created as a representation of both Kaito and Kokichi's 'inner children', specifically the darker and more traumatic parts of their childhoods. They are portrayed more often as Kokichi because his trauma is much larger and more pronounced, and therefore more influential in the subconscious part of the simulation. I don't know why I stuck with they/them pronouns for them, it just kind of felt right?

The leech was based on Kaito's subconscious fears of his death. The concept of this parasite that drained its host's life force felt fitting for a death fear sort of thing. It also represents the loss of control he feels over this aspect of his life. It kind of 'evolves' as it takes in influences from other people, but that's kind of its main framework.

Miu's Copy had a massive breakdown during the bathroom scene. It was kind of her last straw before she turned on the leech. She kind of reflected on what she knew about the original Miu, the contents of the simulation and how Kaito and Kokichi interacted and it made her realise how fucked up everything was and how much she did not want to participate. Also she was getting sick of all the edgy thoughts leech was putting in her brain.

Cute Stuff

Kokichi's favourite food never used to be strawberries, it changed after Kaito fed them to him and he got some sort of psychological association between strawberries and him.

On that note, Kokichi probably can cook, like, decently, but he kind of plays up his ignorance because he likes Kaito showing him how to do it.

Kaito is super super into domestic life lol he can try to pretend he isn't but he so is. Definitely got into a routine when they were stuck in the simulation for that year.

Being with each other for that year made them get a really close, almost psychic-ish bond that people get when they spend too much time with each other. It's how Kaito can pick up on when Kokichi is lying, for example.

After he overcomes the whole 'don't touch me' hurdle, Kokichi swings to the other side of the pendulum and is very clingy. Won't leave Kaito alone. It annoys him at first but it grows on him.

They have lots of petty squabbles but they usually don't last. They're not fantastic at apologising properly to each other, it's usually just settled through physical affection or gifts (food).

Dumb Stuff

Kokichi drank shampoo the first time he saw it because he thought it was a fruity beverage. That's why Kaito started washing his hair for him.

Kaito named all his plants. He gets offended when Kokichi forgets them.

Miu definitely had relations with her P.A.L self.

I'm sure I'm missing a bunch lol but yeah headcanons woo! Thanks for the askkkk <3