#I would like to learn about new people and changes but I have a feeling no one was keeping track in my absence

[fatphobiabusters]

Hey, I wanted to ask if you maybe have any book recs about nutrition that aren't steeped in fatphobia? my friend is trying to learn more about nutrition and change her eating habits, and i want to give her a gift

We spoke separately on this, sorry for the late reply but I can now officially recommend a book for your friends next birthday!

Gentle Nutrition: A Non-Diet Approach to Healthy Eating

Absolutely 10/10 would recommend. It's from a registered dietician, has plenty of sources!

I can't summerize or even list all the topics covered. Here's just a sample:

Introducing intuitive eating, recognizing diet culture, the thinness obsession, the types of hunger we feel, what factors actually contribute to health, diet cycling, hunger cues, why BMI is BS, how to make small changes gradually, the effects of weight stigma and stress on the body.

And so much more.

It introduces so many concepts and issues we touch on here on the blog and questions people have about health and some fat issues. (Not every single issuse but it does tackle the health based fatphobic arguments just by the process of tearing down diet culture. Even mentions medical neglect/fatphobia. Other literature is out there on the full scope of fatphobia and its harms.)

I'm particularly interested in this section. I'm delighted by graphs and then the explanations for them!

Theres so much I want to directly beam into people. My primary complaint is I wish there was MORE advice for people with body cue reading problems. There is some advice but more would be nice.

I also appreciated this:

Im someone who has good textures and bad textures (mild compared to some) but ask me which ones and I'd be stumped because I tell you dishes I like but otherwise ??? So this helps me think.

While flipping through it I keep finding more things to gush about this really is such a good starting point because it will touch on so many weight and diet culture topics.

This is disjointed because this book covers so much I want to try and encourage peopleto check it out but my brain go Brrrr from excitement. It's not perfect, nothing can be but it's just so nice to have a book I can recommend that covers both what you want and doesn't shy away from the complex web of diet culture. It tries to met a new reader where they are and I just Brrrrr. You know?

-mod squirrel

[steddieas-shegoes]

a new bottom in town

for @steddieholidaydrabbles pop up event 'anniversary'

rated e | 902 words | cw: references to injury | tags: post-vecna, established relationship, top eddie munson, bottom steve harrington, anal sex

🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃🔃

“Can we try something new?” Steve asks as they finish eating the cheesecake Eddie brought home to celebrate their anniversary.

Six months may not seem like a lot to some, but for Steve and Eddie, it was a major milestone and they wanted to treat it as such. The first four months they spent together was mostly at the hospital while Eddie learned how to walk and talk and eat again.

“Sure, baby. What is it?” Eddie sets his fork down and leans forward so he’s in Steve’s space.

“Um. Could you…could you fuck me?”

Eddie’s heart stops.

Listen, it’s not that he doesn’t want to. If anything, he’s fantasized about doing just that for years.

But he’s still gaining muscle mass back in his legs and abs, and he doesn’t have the stamina he had before the bats took it with their teeth.

“Like…put my…”

“Yeah. I’d really…I’d like you to be inside me.”

Eddie’s not sure if he’s dreaming, but this feels like something right out of his best fantasy. He’s just a little hesitant because, well, he doesn’t want to be a disappointment. Their sex life is great as it is, and changing it up now, especially before Eddie��s back to full health, may put everything to a screeching halt.

“It’s fine if you don’t want to.” Steve continues when Eddie doesn’t answer. “I’m good with fucking you if you prefer that.”

“No! No, Stevie. I want to. Trust me.” Eddie gives a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m just not sure I can?”

Steve seems to realize what he’s worried about quickly, nodding like he understands. But after a few seconds, he’s smiling.

“I could ride you?”

Eddie’s definitely dead and somehow he got into heaven or hell is a lot nicer than people led him to believe.

“You would wanna ride my dick? Like, while I do nothing?” Eddie asks for clarification.

“I mean, I’m sure you could do something. But yeah. I could do most of the work,” Steve shrugs like this is not life-changing to Eddie.

“You want me inside of you that bad?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda all I’ve been thinking about for a while,” Steve flushes as he scoots his fork along his empty plate.

“And you think this is a gift for you?”

“It’s a gift for both of us.”

“Then let’s get upstairs, sweetheart.”

Steve’s head snaps up, his eyes bright with desire and excitement. “Really?”

“It’s not exactly a big ask of me to lay in bed and let you ride my dick, baby.”

Steve is out of the room before Eddie’s even up from his chair. Eddie laughs as he follows him, much slower, but finally able to go without the cane around the house. He doesn’t really mind it, but it’s nice to feel more independent without it for something like this.

By the time he’s in their room, Steve’s naked and pouring lube onto his fingers.

“Damn. Okay. Are we in a rush?” Eddie leans against the doorway and crosses his arms.

“I was gonna prep myself so you could watch.”

“Steve. Baby. Love of my life.” Eddie walks to the bed and sits down, crossing his legs and leaning his face in his hands. “This is the best gift you’ve ever given me. Continue.”

Steve flushes from his chest to his forehead and Eddie can’t get enough. He resists further interrupting him, though.

He watches Steve lean back against the pillows at an angle, teasing his own hole while Eddie barely bites back a moan. He’s been hard since he walked in the room and saw Steve’s bare ass in the bed, but now he can feel the urgency of needing to lose his clothes and get inside Steve.

Steve’s efficient and Eddie is definitely asking him about how he’s so good at opening himself up later, and within minutes, Steve’s begging for Eddie to lay down.

Eddie gets undressed as quickly as possible and finds a comfortable position against the headboard.

Steve straddles him, lines up his cock, and slides down before Eddie can even process what’s happening.

They moan together, long and loud.

“Fuck, is this how you feel when I’m inside you?” Steve gasps as he lifts himself and drops back down.

“Full? Hot? Tingly?” Steve nods. “Then, yes. Shit, Stevie, you’re so tight. It doesn’t hurt?”

“No, feels so good.” Steve’s head falls back as he finds a slow rhythm, still cautious as he stretches himself further.

Eddie’s hands rest on his hips, not helping, just holding.

“Wanna do this every night,” Steve groans as his pace picks up. “Forever. Can we?”

“Baby, if I wake up and this wasn’t a dream, we can do it whenever you want.”

“Touch me.” Steve demands, always so bossy even when he’s getting everything he wants. Eddie touches him because he will always do what Steve asks of him. “Fuck, faster. Yeah, like that.”

When they come less than a minute later, Steve collapses against Eddie, head on his shoulder and arms a deadweight by his sides.

“You okay?” Eddie asks as he rubs his back with one hand.

“So good.” Steve kissed his shoulder. “I’m the bottom now.”

Eddie cackles. “We can take turns.”

“80/20?”

“Okay. Let me get my strength back so I can fuck you properly and we’ll see if you still want that.”

Steve pulls back and smirks. “Where’s your cane?”

[raayllum]

Moon Arcanum Callum + Sun Arcanum Claudia in S7?

Callum getting the Moon arcanum has been a fandom... not theory, but shall we say, prospect, since even before S4. Some of this was because of the seeming set up in previous seasons, such as:

Callum having a hunch that the cube wasn't glowing due to the Moon, and being our first hint at illusions on the Cursed Caldera (1x09)

Lujanne explaining the secret of the arcanum (as she understands it) to him in 2x02

Callum doing moon arcanum spells (3x08, Through the Moon) much the way he did Sky spells before unlocking that arcanum

Callum employing aspects of the Moon arcanum in his plans (3x01 with tricking Sol Regem, creating the illusion pearl in 6x01)

His growing relationship and understanding with Rayla, and potential involvement with her family/village

But especially:

This is of course already reflected in spades in his arc as a mage. Everyone, Lujanne included, believes that humans can't do magic. She treats this as absolute fact and destiny, but Callum perceives it as subjective truth; why can't he just make his own connection and do magic anyway? And in doing so, he changes the world. He creates a radically new, better reality.

With season seven's synopsis on sacrifice and life and death, both things we see tied heavily to Moonshadow culture and the Moon itself, I could see Callum connecting to the Moon arcanum next season for a few reasons (and potentially Claudia with the Sun arcanum, which I'll get to after). So let's get into it.

Precursor

Previously, if Callum was going to connect to the Moon arcanum, I'd speculated it'd mostly be around ideas of the consistency of Love (light or dark, the moon is always the moon) and his love for Rayla being his light in the darkness / the one constant truth of his life. I don't think this anymore, obviously, because we got all those things through the Star truth light ritual beat for beat and we're not going to be repeating, but I did think it'd be worthwhile then to revisit what a Moon arcanum could mean for Callum under new context / emotional epiphanies. I've also always thought either Earth or Sun would suit Claudia, but leaned more towards the latter, so we're gonna talk about that, too.

Truth and Lies and Aaravos

As Lujanne explains in 2x02, the Moon arcanum is understanding the true nature of the relationship between appearances and reality, and we can only understand the appearance itself. This feels like a very fitting idea to come back to with Aaravos, who ostensibly never lies but routinely withholds or presents not entirely correct information. "How may I serve you?" when you're just going to be a pawn. Not telling a mourning Claudia that he was indeed the one who killed Viren so that she'll continue to do his bidding, with Claudia asserting that Aaravos "didn't lie" about the ritual in 6x01, and he didn't. We also see him wield the truth as a weapon with people like Khessa ("would you like to know the truth of her fate before you meet yours?") and Sol Regem (more on that here.)

Everything that he says is truth to him, and then he lifts it up as being objectively true (i.e. you're destined to play into my hands) even when it isn't necessarily true. We can also see Callum veering into mindsets that Claudia and Viren have had, where he believes he's past the point of saving ("I'm ruined, it's too late for me" "Promise me you'll kill me") or removing his own agency by admission ("Finnegrin was going to kill you, I didn't have a choice" / "Every step forward is a choice").

Callum understanding Aaravos' or others' actual truths versus their lies and the ones he's believing could be very fitting in S6, especially if he might be learning more about the existence of the Cosmic Council and who made their world the way it is. I think his existence may help lead to that "slow spiral of chaos" but that it won't be just or even Bad at all the way they'd feared, etc.

Claudia is also linked to lies and truth. She lies to others, but Aaravos notes that "If you tell the truth you will lose her," and she goes looking for her own deep truth in S6, but doesn't seem to fully find it. Terry asks her "What do you need to find your one deep truth?" and Claudia says that she needs her dad, but she and her mother have also made it clear that she "needed to stay with Soren" and her family (vs Viren telling her to pick the egg over Soren). With Viren gone and Aaravos manipulating her, Soren could easily be one of her guiding lights next season or in future seasons.

The Pearl

The moon is analogous, framing/appearance wise, to the prison. This is alluded to in 5x09 through framing, and then made even more direct in 6x09: Aaravos escapes his prison thanks to Claudia and (unbeknownst to her) she has become the prisoner, much like how Callum may physically free himself from chains in 5x08 but magically/emotionally chains himself further to Aaravos, or Viren shouting while in chains that he's finally free of the dark puppetmaster.

Basically, when Callum says in 6x01 that he's inside the pearl, I don't think (as of S6 / probably first half of S7 at least) that he's ever gotten out of it. Aaravos uses him even after his nightmare, and we know thanks to the pawn intro that Aaravos' final machinations for Callum also haven't yet come to play. I've been wondering if the Aaravos intro is going to change in S7, since he's out of his prison — and it still may — but if we look at it from the angle of Callum and Claudia both being stuck within the moon/pearl rather than just Aaravos himself, maybe it could stay.

And if Callum is stuck inside the moon-pearl, shattering it by understanding the arcanum ("the whole world is like a giant primal stone, and we're inside of it, and it's also in us") and/or with Claudia moving to the opposite of the moon could be useful, especially since Karim is a corrupted sun in his own way. Speaking of which let's talk about

Light and Dark

We know thanks to Claudia that black and white, or light and dark, are not always clear cut. Her hair thanks to her dark magic use changes like phases of the moon, with the light being bad and the dark being good. Conversely, her path is a dark one with the path of truth and light being withheld from her. In a similar manner, we see Callum's light (Rayla) being what led him into dark magic use and what led him out of it, and will likely see this pattern play out again. Aaravos is a representation of a path of darkness, but we also see the cube flashing a bright light in the pawn intro, tying light and darkness together for him as well.

Callum's understanding of himself that he gained through the Ocean arcanum can not simply become untrue or disappear, so I think recognizing that darkness isn't all he is ("I'm ruined" / "your heart's not full of darkness" "Neither is yours") even if there are dark parts of him and of his life would be fitting. It also seems that could be helpful with Claudia as well, and even characters like Ezran, who will have to wrestle with darker parts of his emotions/personality next season as well with Runaan. They've all got light and dark inside them, and learning how to walk in that balance and still break away from the Cycle / Aaravos is useful. As Ezran said in 4x03:

I just want to yell stop. But that’s not enough. It won’t work. I think about a positive vision, a faith we can all share, that we might build a future together in hope. A future where we can be safe with each other.  But… It’s not that easy or simple. Because people are still hurting and they are still angry. We can’t ignore that, or pretend it will go away. Somehow, we have to hold it all in our hearts at the same time. We have to acknowledge the weight of the pain and loss, but open up our eyes and allow ourselves to hope and maybe forgive and love again. We have to give today’s children a chance to inherit a future filled with peace. To give them that, we have to hold pain and love in our hearts at the same time.

Claudia's love for her family led her to ruin, but it can also save her through Soren. Callum's love for Rayla led him to ruin, but it has also saved him (and again, we'll likely repeat this pattern). Ezran's love for his father will lead him to anger but also pull him out of it, just as Viren's love for his son caused him to begin his journey of terrible things, but also guided him to do one final, truly right thing by the end.

Love is light and dark. Claudia, who's been walking in shadow, needs the full light - the sun, in the form of her brother. She needs to accept and see the truth of what's happening and step fully into the light. Callum, who has been routinely worried of the dark within him, needs to the reminder that he's not all he is, that he has light of his own inside. In doing so, he can break Aaravos' control over him and give hope to any other dark mages / humans in general that no level of corruption is too late to come back from, and that there is always light amid the darkness.

Life and Death

The stakes have never been higher as Aaravos and Claudia are on the warpath, determined to destroy the Cosmic Order and invert life and death. With the world’s fate on the line, our heroes must be ready to sacrifice everything to save it.

In Bloodmoon Huntress, we get a very different peek into how the secret of the Moon arcanum can be thought of through Runaan, who is peak Moonshadow-sacrifice elf man:

Moonshadow form is only achieved when we understand the balance of life against death. Balance is weight against weight, and to understand the weight of death you must feel the weight and value of another's life. Think of those you love, of who you hold most dear. Now think of the souls who have touched your life. Understand that each time your weapon meets its target, each time we fulfil our duty, the potential for that soul to change a life—to love another—is gone. We may remove hate, but we remove the potential for love as well. Moonshadow form is only achieved when we reconcile this balance between life and death.

While Claudia with her hair and dark mage-assassin parallels could unlock the Moon arcanum—especially if her perspectives continue to change—I think Callum as the Protagonist is better placed at this time to be the one to understand the balance between life and death in a season where the antagonists are trying to invert/destroy it. Him therefore understanding appearances and changes, how to control his own and see through others', understanding that balance between life and death, feels very fitting.

Callum's fear of Aaravos and dark magic comes from the fear that he's changing—"I hope you're careful, cause [magic] can change people" / "the corruption takes innocent creatures and changed them"—and that death would be better for him than life if he goes too far. Learning these things aren't the case and that he can get back to the middle (and indeed, "real trust is about accepting even the dark parts we will never know" could be about Rayla accepting he may not entirely swear off dark magic again, the same way Viren kept that door open to do Good) would be useful.

It would also mean the two mage characters most drawn into Aaravos' darkness get the Moon and Sun—the arcanums most associated with light—to banish said darkness as well. Claudia finally being an uncorrupted light and chasing life, not death, and Callum, learning how to be balanced and that he can maintain his identity / use Aaravos' book and key without fearing that he'll lose control.

The fact that Claudia's eclipse imagery only started the same episode she lost her brother, and that her Laurelion dragon-scale necklace is very Sunfire-y looking...

Conclusion

TDP for Callum and Claudia has always felt like a parallel coming-of-age mage story between the two of them, leading to the amount of similarities and diverging plot beats the two have, down to doing the same spell at the same time but in different locations in S6. The Sun arcanum is associated with truth, light, and healing, whereas the Moon arcanum is associated with change, life + death, and secrets/love. All of these things could be nicely brought to a head with Callum and Claudia each unlocking an arcanum of Moon and Sun respectively, showcasing their differences, their continued room to grow, and light amid the darkness.

While I could see alternatives like Sun for Callum and Moon for Claudia, Stars for Callum or no arcanum for either of them, I think these are the ones that fit best at this time / Stars will likely get saved for arc 3 given that arc 3 will probably focus more on rewriting destinies and the Cosmic Order as antagonists.

As always hope you enjoy and Dragons out!

[piastrisun]

i know i'd go back to you.

pairings: charles leclerc x fem!reader.

summary: ‘you could break my heart in two, but when it heals, it beats for you.’ how could you say goodbye to your greatest love after everything?

genre: hurt / comfort.

request: yes!!

word count: 4.5k.

warning: none.

notes: back to you by selena gomez. first request!!!!! everyone cheered (me). ty so so much. <3 when there’s more than one space between paragraphs it means it’s a time jump. i hope it’s not tedious and it's understandable.

PART ONE.⠀ ⠀PART TWO.⠀ ⠀ ALTERNATIVE ENDING?

autumn is just a step away, the crispness of the air hinting at change. it has been almost three months since your relationship with charles came to an end, yet the memory of that night clings to you like the lingering summer heat. time moves forward relentlessly, but you find yourself stuck, your heart unable to catch up with the weeks.

the leaves begin to turn brown, their vibrant hues echoing the transformation stirring within you. new york is everything you imagined it would be—vibrant, chaotic, alive with possibility. the art program consumes your days, each moment pushing you to create, to dig deeper into your passion. but when the city finally quiets down at night, that familiar ache returns. you think of him. even though leaving was the right choice, part of you wonders if you’ll ever feel completely whole again.

your small flat in brooklyn is a world away from the life you had with him in monaco. it’s yours, it’s freeing. it offered you a fresh start, a chance to rediscover who you are outside of the life you are used to. but even in the midst of pursuing your dreams, there’s a void. you’ve been in touch with all your friends ever since you left, they say this heartache is normal, that healing is part of the process. but as the weeks turn into months, you can’t shake the feeling that you’re waiting for something—though you’re not sure what. maybe it’s an apology, a sign from the universe, or even a call from him. the silence between you remains unbroken, thick and impenetrable. and while you never ask them directly about charles, you know most of them can sense what’s going on beneath the surface. especially pierre, he always seems to know.

however, most of your time there has been incredible, a dream come true in so many ways. you learned things you wouldn’t have in home, met so many wonderful people, and a new world so full of life. maybe this program, this city, was what you needed to find yourself, but did it mean losing him forever? you thought the decision to leave everything would give you clarity. that it would finally help you breathe again, and it does. but also creates a different kind of weight, pulling at your chest whenever you think about what could have been, about the life you envisioned together.

  meanwhile, charles wakes up to another empty morning in his flat, a space that once buzzed with shared laughter, quiet conversations, and the small comforts of your presence. now, there’s only silence. he moves through his routine on autopilot, each action reminding him of your absence. he never told you to leave—never wanted you to—but he knows his choices, the way he let life pull him away from you, drove you to walk out the door. the guilt hangs heavy, like a shadow he can’t shake. since you left, everything feels hollow to him. he goes to work, travels for races, puts on the show the world expects of him, but inside, he’s always thinking of you. of the last look you gave him, the hurt in your eyes. he wishes he could go back, say the things he didn’t, fix the cracks that were already starting to show.

the apartment is a constant reminder. your favorite books are still on the shelf, your art supplies untouched, like some part of him hopes you’ll walk back in and pick up where you left off. but he knows better. he knows he failed you. he knows he has to apologise. you needed space to grow, to explore your art, and he, without realizing it, held you back.

in a desperate attempt to make things right, he searches for ways to show he understands. he wants you to know that if you decide to come back, he’s ready to be the person you needed all along. though he’s unsure if you will return, he clings to that hope. maybe one day, he’ll find your way back to you. he’ll always go back to you.

  the knock at your door startles you, pulling you away from the last-minute packing for your evening out with some friends from the art program. it’s a celebratory dinner, a chance to mark the end of an era before possibly returning to monaco. you weren’t expecting anyone, but when you open the door, the last person you imagine seeing is arthur, charles’ younger brother. he stands there, his posture tense, his eyes filled with a seriousness you’ve rarely seen from him. his presence instantly shifts the atmosphere, and the excitement of your evening fades. this was something serious.

“hey,” he says, cutting off your attempt to greet him, and stepping inside without waiting for an invitation, as if the urgency of his visit is enough reason to intrude. “i know this is unexpected. and i’m not here to pry, believe me.” he reaches into his jacket pocket, pulling out a plane ticket and placing it in your hand. “this is your way back. you need to go home.”

you blink down at the ticket, heart stuttering in your chest. “what—what is this?” you start, but arthur keeps talking, his voice calm with conviction.

“you and charles are meant to be together. i’ve never seen two people more right for each other than you two.”

you blink in shock, staring down at the ticket in your hands. “wait…”

you open your mouth to protest, but arthur cuts you off again. “look, he’s been a mess without you. he won’t say it, probably doesn’t even know how to. he doesn’t want to hold you back again. not after everything.” his voice softens, eyes searching yours for a flicker of understanding. “i don’t know if coming back is what you have in mind, but if it is, just consider what i said.”

“does he know you’re here?” you ask, your voice barely above a whisper, the weight of the moment pressing down on you.

arthur shakes his head. “no. and i’m not planning on telling him. this isn’t for him, not entirely. it’s for you, too,” he says, his gaze unwavering. “i know you’ve found something here, and i’m not saying you should give it up. but if there’s a part of you that still loves him—” his voice lowers, “and i know there is—you should go back. it’s not something you can just walk away from. not forever.”

his words hit harder than you expected, leaving you standing there, speechless. arthur knows you nearly as well as charles does, and he’s never been one to get involved unless he truly believed it was necessary. and here he was, standing in your tiny flat in new york, asking you to come home. your time on the other side of the world has been everything, but you can’t deny his words. you don’t want to abandon what you’ve built here, but you also can’t avoid the thought of charles, waiting for you, even if he hasn’t said a word.

arthur’s voice is softer now, almost pleading. “just think about it. you’re doing amazing things here, i know. but are you really happy without him?”

you look up at him, emotions swirling, and for a moment, all the memories of charles come rushing back—his laugh, the way he used to look at you when you talked about your future together, his bright eyes, the warmth of those moments, and the plans of the wedding that never happened. the ticket feels heavier than it should.

arthur gives you a small, understanding smile, sensing your hesitation. “think about it. but don’t wait too long, alright?”

  for days, the plane ticket sits on your bedside table, untouched, as you try to avoid the decision in front of you. everywhere you go in new york reminds you of him—his voice, his presence, as if he’s been a part of this city with you all along. you wonder what he’s doing, if he’s thought about you, and what would happen if you went back.

the night before your flight is scheduled, you stand by your window, staring at the skyline, trying to convince yourself that staying is the right choice. the city has given you so much, but your heart still belongs to monaco—belongs to him. the pull toward him is stronger than you can ignore. in the quiet hours of the morning, something shifts. without thinking too much, you grab your suitcase, the ticket in hand, and head to the airport. your heart pounds in your chest as you board the plane, unsure of what’s waiting for you on the other side.

when the plane lands, the air feels different—heavier, somehow. but the familiarity settles around you. after checking into a hotel, you debate calling him, texting him, but something stops you. it’s not your turn to make the first move this time. instead, you send a quick message to arthur, letting him know you’ve arrived. his response is immediate: you did the right thing. but what if it wasn’t? what if charles isn’t home? what if he’s moved on? what if he doesn’t want to see you at all?

days pass, and you intentionally steer clear of the familiar spots that once felt like home. each corner brings a rush of nostalgia, a reminder of the life you built together. the park bench where you’d spent lazy afternoons in each other’s company, the part of the town in which he proposed—each place holds memories that now feel too heavy to bear. you feel like a ghost in a city that should feel welcoming, yet instead feels foreign and haunting. the sun sets and rises, but you remain in a haze, caught between your desire for freedom and the pull of the love you left behind. you stroll along the waterfront, watching the yachts bob gently in the harbor, their beauty stark against the turmoil inside you.

then, fate, or whatever it is, intervenes. you catch sight of charles in the distance, at the café you were going to get into, the one both used to love, the one you were about the scent of freshly brewed coffee fills the air, mingling with the warmth of sunlight streaming through the large windows, casting a golden glow that feels almost magical. as you step inside, a wave of nostalgia washes over you, but it quickly gives way to something sharper. your heart races the moment your eyes meet his across the room. he freezes, surprise evident on his face, clearly unaware you were back in town. his expression shifts from shock to something more vulnerable.

a whirlwind of emotions surges within you—excitement, fear, and a deep-seated ache pulling you toward him even as your mind races with uncertainty. yet, the familiarity of it all wraps around you like a comforting blanket.

he stands there, momentarily rooted in place, his eyes searching yours as if trying to unravel the months and emotions that have drifted between you. in that split second, memories flood back with stunning clarity: the late nights spent talking until dawn, sharing dreams that felt boundless, the whispered promises of forever.

charles swallows hard, the tension in his shoulders relaxing just a fraction as he takes a hesitant step closer. “hey, you’re back,” his voice is gentle, almost hesitant, as though he’s not sure if you’re really standing there in front of him. his shoulders relax, but his eyes remain locked on yours.

you offer a small smile, trying to steady the rush of emotions rising in your chest. “yeah. summer’s over, so it’s not that unexpected.” you let out a soft laugh, an attempt to bring lightness into the conversation, to ease the weight that’s hung between you both since the moment you parted. he chuckles, a sound you’ve missed more than you’d care to admit. it feels like home. “sorry, terrible joke. how have you been?” you ask, curiosity and nervousness intertwining in your voice.

charles tilts his head slightly, his expression softening as he mirrors your question. “do you want the truth, the lie, or a vague answer?” his lips curve into that playful smile you remember so well, the one that used to make your heart skip a beat. you nod, the tension easing as you laugh softly, choosing the third option to keep things light. “i’ve been… okay, trying to figure things out.” he runs a hand through his hair, his fingers lingering for a moment, as though buying himself time. his eyes flicker with a thousand unsaid words before he asks, “you? how was your summer?”

you swallow, a mix of pride and hesitation bubbling inside you. “it was good, actually. i painted a lot and explored some really cool places.” there’s a pause, a slight hitch in your breath before you add, “could’ve been better, though.”

his brows knit together, curiosity tugging at him. “why?” his voice is genuine, concern etched into the way he looks at you, unaware of the depth behind your words.

but before you can answer, you both step forward, the line moving as the barista glances your way. his attention shifts for a moment, but not before his gaze lingers on you, a thoughtful expression crossing his face.

“i’ll have the usual,” charles says, stepping up to order. his voice is calm, but there’s an underlying warmth to it. “two americanos, one with almond milk, and a blueberry scone, right?”

your heart swells with unexpected emotion, the simplicity of the gesture somehow making your breath catch. “you got it,” you whisper, almost to yourself, but loud enough for him to hear. he turns toward you, his smile quiet; he could never forget your picks. you try to hand him the money for your coffee, but he pushes your hand softly back to you, what he usually does to avoid letting you pay anything.

you both fall into silence as you wait for your coffees, the air between you thick with unsaid words. it’s familiar and yet uncharted at the same time, like returning to a place you know by heart but with the awareness that everything has changed.

when the drinks arrive, charles hands you yours, his fingers grazing yours for the briefest moment—a spark, a connection that neither of you can deny.

“can we talk?” his voice breaks the silence as you step out of the café, the bustling streets surrounding you, but it feels like you’re the only two people in the world.

“yeah, sure,” you nod, bracing yourself for whatever comes next, though your heart has already begun to race. you walk side by side, your steps falling into a rhythm that feels as natural as breathing. he glances at you, his gaze soft, almost vulnerable.

“i’ve missed you,” he admits quietly, as though he’s been holding those words inside for too long. you stop, turning to face him, the weight of everything between you hanging in the air.

“yeah, i’ve missed you too,” you say, and it’s the truth. the ache of missing him had never really gone away.

“i’m so sorry for the way things went,” charles continues, his voice low but steady. “i didn’t mean for things to end the way they did. i never wanted to lose you. you were right to do what you did. i see that now.” his hand reaches up, almost instinctively, brushing a stray lock of hair from your face, the familiar touch sending warmth through you. “i was too caught up in my own world to realise how important your dreams were.”

you look down for a moment, the weight of his words settling over you like a bittersweet memory. “you didn’t want to lose me, but you pushed me away,” you say, your voice soft but resolute. “i needed to do something for myself, and you made me feel like i had to choose between my art and us. it hurt.”

charles closes his eyes for a brief second, his expression pained. “i know, i’m sorry. i wish i could take it back,” he whispers, his voice thick with regret. “i was hurt, and it’s not an excuse. i should’ve been supportive. i should’ve let you chase your dreams without making you feel like you had to choose. and i should’ve spent my summer break there with you, even if it was just for a month.”

“you should’ve been, yes,” you agree, the truth hanging between you both like a fragile thread. “but it’s okay. you’re apologizing now, and i accept them.”

his relief is palpable. “i would’ve understood if you didn’t. i acted like an idiot,” he says, though there’s a sadness in his laugh. his eyes meet yours one more time. “you’re brilliant. you know that, right?”

a soft smile pulls at your lips, the tension in your chest loosening just slightly. “oh, whatever, charlie. you’ve apologised.”

his laughter comes easily this time, and something inside you softens. the nickname slips out without you realising, but it feels right, like muscle memory.

“what have you been up to since i left?” you ask, the question laced with curiosity, but also a cautious hope.

he hesitates for just a second before the excitement builds in his expression. “about that. i want you to see something,” he says, leading you forward. you follow him without question, your heart racing as you both make your way to his apartment—the one that used to be yours too. a block away from the café, your footsteps fall into a familiar rhythm.

when you reach the building, the air feels thick with memories. his fingers brush against your arm, guiding you in as if nothing has changed, and yet everything has.

“i found an amazing art consultant here,” charles says as you walk through the door. “she can connect you to a lot of artists across europe. i contacted her and showed her some of your work. she loved it.” his voice is filled with excitement, his eyes bright as he watches for your reaction.

your breath catches. “you have to be kidding me,” you say, your heart swelling at the thought of him doing this for you.

“never,” he says softly. “this could be your bridge back into that world.”

as you step into the flat, the familiarity of it hits you like a wave. everything is exactly where you left it—the photos, the little trinkets, even the paintings you’d made that still hang on the walls. you feel a warmth in your chest, realizing how much he’s held onto. even if it was just a three-month breakup, it felt like an eternity.

“you still have my things,” you say, a mix of surprise and emotion coloring your voice. “you have everything.”

“why wouldn’t i?” he asks softly, his gaze filled with a tenderness you hadn’t expected. he leads you down the hallway, guiding you to a room you hadn’t stepped into for a long time.

“i—” charles pauses at the door, his hand resting on the handle as he inhales deeply. then, with a slow exhale, he opens it. “i cleared out the office and turned it into an art studio,” he says, his voice quieter now, almost unsure. “in case you came back, even if you didn’t. i wanted you to have a place to create, to feel inspired again.”

you step inside, your breath catching in your throat as you take it all in. the room feels like a dream, filled with all the supplies you’ve ever loved, organised exactly as you would’ve done it yourself. your pieces hang on the walls, even the new ones you had mentioned years ago. and there, on a shelf, is a small drawing he made for you when you first started dating—two figures, you and him, holding hands with the words, ‘i’m so lucky you fell in love with me’ written beneath.

“wow, you really thought about this,” you whisper, your voice soft as you take in the gesture, overwhelmed by the love behind it.

“every day,” charles admits, stepping closer, his voice thick with emotion. “i’ve been a mess without you. and you deserve to have everything you ask for, even when you don’t.”

your heart swells, and before you can stop yourself, the words tumble out: “i’m always going to love you, you know that?”

his eyes widen slightly, but there’s no hesitation when he responds. “i’m always going to love you too,” he says softly, his hand finding yours.

“i want to get back together. i want to do it right,” he adds, his voice steady but filled with hope. “if you take me. i don’t want to rush anything, but i want you to know that i’m here to support you, wherever that takes us. and i’ll do anything for you to trust me again.”

you hold his gaze, the weight of his words sinking in. “no running away,” you say, your heart in your throat. you want this, of course you do. “we have to do things right; it has to be different.” the way things had been left months ago didn't change how you perceived him; nothing ever could. he’s still the person you fell for nearly ten years ago. all you want from him is honesty, a genuine conversation about everything. and he’s finally doing that.

“i won’t,” charles promises, his voice unwavering. he steps closer, gently cupping your face, his thumb brushing your cheek with tender affection. “i promise you. i’m not going anywhere. not again.”

you search his eyes, looking for sincerity, willing yourself to believe him. “you need to mean that, charles. i can’t go through the hurt again. it would destroy me.”

he swallows hard, the weight of your words hanging heavily between you. “i do mean it,” he assures you, his voice steady yet tinged with urgency. “i’ve missed you too much to let you go again. i’ve been lost, trying to exist in a world that felt incomplete without you. i can’t let that happen again. and i won’t ever disappoint you again.”

you breathe deeply, feeling the truth in his words. “okay,” you murmur softly, allowing the warmth of his touch to pull you closer.

your lips meet his, and suddenly, the world around you disappears. the kiss is slow, yet filled with all the longing and love that had built up during your time apart—two hearts finding their way back to each other. his hands cradle your face as if you were something fragile, and you lean into him, your fingers tangling in his brown hair, the kiss deepening, passionate and full of the promise that this time would be different.

when you finally pull apart, his forehead rests against yours, both of you breathing heavily, overwhelmed by the rush of emotions. a playful smile tugs at charles’ lips. “so… boyfriend and girlfriend again?” his eyes glimmer with happiness, his grin widening as though he can’t believe this is real.

you laugh softly, shaking your head in disbelief. “oh, no,” you tease, a playful smile spreading across your lips as you brush your hand across his chest. he flinches for a moment, eyes widening in mock alarm, before recognition dawns and a grin breaks through. “we’re getting married, remember? you can’t back out now.”

his laughter fills the room, rich and full, as he leans in to kiss you again, this time gently, his lips brushing yours with sweet tenderness. “even better,” he whispers almost against your lips, and you can feel the smile on his face, the joy in his voice as he kisses you once more; he can’t stop it now. “just want to make sure i’m up to the task of being the best husband ever.”

charles gently pulls even you closer, his arms circling around you in a way that feels both familiar and entirely new. you sink into his embrace, your cheek resting against his chest, where you can feel the slow, steady rhythm of his heart. the hug feels like coming home. his arms tighten around you, and there’s a tenderness in the way he holds you, as though he’s afraid to let go, afraid you might slip away again.

when you finally pull back just enough to look up at him, there’s a softness in his eyes that mirrors everything you feel. and in that moment, with his arms still around you and the world outside feeling miles away, there’s a sense of relief in the air, a comfort neither of you thought you’d feel again so soon.

“you told someone we called it quits?” you ask, your voice teasing but with a hint of curiosity laced within it.

charles looks down at you, a slight smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “not exactly… just my family.”

you raise an eyebrow, playfully. “especially arthur, i’m guessing.”

he pauses, his smirk fading into a look of mild confusion, brow furrowing. “what do you mean?” he asks, his tone genuinely puzzled, not quite understanding where you’re going with this.

“oh, don’t bother, love,” you say with a knowing smile, your voice teasing. you think of how arthur, and perhaps even a few others, conspired to push you both back together. you’ll share the details with charles eventually, and the image of his reaction makes you smile. you know he’ll laugh, maybe even shed a few happy tears at the gesture.

he narrows his eyes in mock suspicion but decides not to press the issue. instead, his hand gently rubs circles on your back. “okay… but answering your question—everyone else thinks we only postponed the wedding.”

your eyes widen in surprise, and you pull back slightly to look at him. “oh! so you knew we could work it out, huh?”

he flashes a playful grin, the spark in his eyes returning. “sometimes i do know things, you know?”

the two of you burst into laughter, the kind that leaves your stomachs aching a little and your faces flushed with joy. it’s a bright, carefree moment, the kind that had been missing for too long.

as the laughter fades, you rest against him, your head finding its familiar spot on his chest, the rhythm of his heartbeat steadying your own. he presses a soft kiss to the top of your head, and for the first time in a long while, everything feels like it’s falling into place.

“we’re really doing this again, aren’t we?” you murmur, your voice filled with hope.

“we are,” charles whispers back, his arms tightening around you. “and this time, i’m going to get it right.”

he kisses you again, gently but with all the love he has in his heart. the world outside seems distant, unimportant, as the two of you stand in the stillness of the moment, wrapped in each other’s warmth. and as you look up at him, the man who had once made you question everything but who now stands here, ready to give you the world, you know that this time, there’s no more doubt. only love. it’s not just a new beginning—it’s the continuation of something that never truly ended. the end of one chapter and the start of forever.

©⠀piastrisun original work. please don’t translate, claim or repost any of my writing, 24’.

[beevean]

If I’m being honest, you are all getting way too hung up on fake diseases and attacking a writer as if he personally attacked your family. It’s a strange obsession you have and you guys always come at any small nitpick as if it’s the end of the world. It’s a weird obsession and you have all been doing it for years. Maybe you liked Sunset Heights getting a remix but you also play victim when people don’t like the 2010s games. You can see Sonic is more successful now and doing things much better but you just like to sit in your anger towards the series for years. I’ll add that you’re much more sane in your reactions than RandomtheFox, but this whole side of the fandom here is so pathetic. The endless loop of anything new coming out for Sonic, and your little posse hating on it because it isn’t the meta era or because Ian Flynn has his name on it makes me glad you guys are a small minority in the fandom.

Do you want to know why we're discussing this?

If you go back and read our discussions, see how much we brought up with this little detail!

I looked up the effects of low gravity on the human body: I learned something new about science. I tried to put into words why this detail is harder to accept than Sonic breathing in space: this is about stories and world building. I immediately found a replacement idea. We discussed about SA2, its gameplay mechanics, its cutscenes. Someone even brought up the idea of drawing parallels with AIDS and how it would affect Maria. Negativity can stem from a place of reasoning, "how would I do that?", and it makes me use my brain in a fun way. I'm aware it's a inconsequential detail, but I'm having fun!

As for the rest of the message, yeah, we are a minority. Which makes me wonder why you care so much about a group of, what, four people?

Why don't I get any engagement when I'm positive, but suddenly people are up my ass when I talk about something negative? I didn't even tag most of my posts. Bro half of the Sonic fandom blocked me already because I'm a dirty sinning IDW non-enjoyer. I am not bothering anyone.

By the way, my negativity about IDW once even resulted in me writing a fic about it. Again, creativity and genuine discussions about writing a story and its downfalls. It nourishes the brain.

I don't like this new direction for Sonic. There, happy? I don't feel catered to, as a 2000s fan, by all this "REMEMBER WHEN WE WERE COOL????" stuff, not to mention I'm just not a Shadow fan so seeing him with wings and shit does nothing for me. I am annoyed because this used to be a franchise dear to me, but the current environment, both games and fandom, alienates me. I am also aware that, precisely because I'm in the minority, I'll just have to wait until ST changes trend again.

If my writer side activates when I talk about a writing decision I don't like and I'm having fun dissecting it, let me, alright? You can find me cringe, if you want to, but I'm not doing anything different than other fans, just directed towards a less acceptable target and in the privacy of my blocked blog.

Also: to be perfectly honest, if it only takes me one day of mild bitching to get anons yelling at me that I'm a joyless bastard doomed to be sad because I refuse to be happy, it kind of makes me want to be saltier out of spite. I'm already a bad person, might as well, right?

[isnt-it-pretty]

I've been reflecting a lot recently on my reaction to the news stories I often see about the dangers of technology and social media, laws banning of cell phones during school hours, school divisions banning technology, the rise of teenage depression as a result of social media, etc. I've always felt defensive over technology when I see these stories, and I think I've realized why.

As a disabled person, my relationship with technology is different than a lot of people's. I use an ereader, for example, because I have low vision and find the font in physical books too small to read. I use the notes app on my phone instead of hand writing things because it's easier on my joints. I keep my cross stitch patterns as PDFs because I can zoom in to see the stitches I need, which I can't do when it's printed out. Even in high school I brought my personal laptop to type out essays because there was a 20% grade difference in essays I typed vs wrote by hand, and whenever I see classrooms banning all technology, I think about that. I write thousands of words for creative writing on my phone because I'm too fatigued to get out of bed. I learned to read because of audiobooks taken out as CDs from the library, something I now have access to in an app. As somebody who is housebound, my entire social life is on my phone. It's how survive, how I create.

If you were to take technology from me, I would be bereft, and not because of an addiction. Technology is simply something I use to navigate the world. Disabled people just like me have lived and loved and created (and still do!) without it, but that doesn't change that I rely on technology to do things I couldn't otherwise do. I never would have learned to read beyond maybe a middle school level without audiobooks. I never would have learned to write without word processors, both of which are a major part of my identity.

Technology, to me, is accessibility, and sometimes that feels forgotten in the sweeping condemnation of it. My defensiveness can sometimes make me overlook the real issues it causes for others, just like for others the problems it causes can make them overlook how necessary it is for some of us. I can't help but think about all I gain from it and where I would be now if I hadn't had access to what I did as a child. I see the harm technology can cause children and even still I wonder, as we condemn parents for ipads and schools for over relying on computers, how many others there are like me who don't even know what they need to ask for.

It's a complicated topic, and like most complicated topics, it gets broken dowm into bite sized pieces. The nuance gets lost.

[cosmiccrushes]

Truth & Lies

Solas x Lavellan

1k words

I'm obsessed with the idea of Solas watching lavellan in her dreams, like ugh, the s u f f e r i n g

-------

He knows she dreams of this cove and its soft green meadows often. For he waits in its shadows for her return. Beckoning her to walk in this place where they once stood together. Where he had looked upon the markings on her face and told her what it meant, lying about how he knew. Meaning to tell her a different truth and lying to himself about why he could not.

So much lying. And still too much truth. 

Solas had a plan. He really did. It was with painful, teeth gritting stubbornness that he had forced himself to maintain that plan when Corypheus fell and the Breach was sealed. He had left her. She was a threat to his plans. Lie. What she made him feel, that was the real threat. Truth. 

The people needed him still. He could not let one Dalish elf change that. No matter how beautiful he found her piercing green eyes. No matter how his heart squeezed at her openness and curiosity. No matter how he felt his beliefs waver in her presence when she spoke with such passion and protectiveness for this world and those in it. No matter the pride she held towards her Dalish kin. She did not really know what could be, what had been. 

Solas knew what must be done. Knew it every time he let his lips press to hers. Still he had held on. She had made it so hard to let go. Her wanting of him made him yearn. He wished he could simply be an outcast- just an elf who saw the world differently with no real power to do anything about it. But he was not that elf. He was power and potential. The Dread Wolf. He Who Hunts Alone. A false god of betrayal and rebellion. His rebellion was not yet over. Nor it seemed, was his betrayal. 

He knew her learning his truth would hurt. What he had not been prepared for was the doubt that crept in like a fog settling over his eyes, clouding his vision forward. Looking into her eyes, clear and bright with unshed tears, as he finally gave her the truth of who she shared her heart with…it had not just been painful for him- it had felt wrong. 

She had pleaded with him. “Var lath vir suledin!” Our love will endure. His reply, “I wish it could, vhenan.” He really did. But he knew in that moment- when his arms ached to hold her and his weary bones longed to lay with her and forget his responsibilities- their love could not endure. He must rip her out of his heart or rip his whole heart out of him if she could not be removed from it as he feared. He could not afford to feel doubt for what must be done. He could not allow these feelings for her to continue and plague his mind with wrongness for what comes next. 

So he had turned away from her. Taking a last kiss and then her arm, because even in his conviction that she was a threat to his plans, he could not bear to see her suffer. The anchor was killing her and the thought of her dead burned like fire inside his veins. Nevermind that when he was through with his objective, she might be dead anyway. No, his jaw hardened at that thought. She would survive. She had to survive. The new world would need people like her.

He needed her.

But no, that thought was forbidden now- a dark magic he did not dare to wield. A truth he must bury away under a mountain of lies.

She would live- and when he was done she would see- this way was better, this was setting the world right.

Those first months after they parted had been hard, but not impossible he found. He could force himself not to think of her and it worked. Until it didn’t. Until he lay awake at night, thinking of a different bed and a midnight when he didn’t feel so terribly alone. 

The first time she appeared to him in his Fade-dreamed version of their cove, he had not considered how dangerous it was for him to visit this once shared space. Coming here, he had allowed himself to once more indulge in his selfishness, indulge in the memory of what another world could have been like. One where she existed as more than the ghost of fingerprints on his skin. 

Had her name, whispered into his dreams, led her here? Had she brought herself? She had been resolute at their parting that she would not give up on him. So he had been resolute in giving up on her. I would not have you see what I become, he had told her. Truth.

But here she was- haunting his dreams.

He had reacted quickly, hiding himself away before she noticed his presence fully. Then he watched. He knew he should not, but he did anyway. A man dying of thirst, now drowning in an ocean. After that first night, he welcomed the flood. Soaked in its waters. If he could not cast her out of his heart, he could at least contain her in this cove of fantasy and possibility. The him who existed on these shores need not exist elsewhere. He could look upon his heart- know she was safe and far away from the Dread Wolf and the Din'anshiral he walked. 

So yes, he knows she dreams of this meadow often. Knows she has caught glimpses of him. Knows that if he seeks her out as he walks the Fade, she will find him. Knows that she searches for him. Knows that he should not encourage it. Lies to himself that it is okay like this, that he can be okay like this, watching her from afar. 

Var lath vir suledin.

At least this is the lie he allows himself to believe when he slips into dreaming at night, imagining a weight pressed to his chest and his arms winding around the greatest truth he has ever known. 

I wish it could, vhenan. Truth. 

My love…I will never forget you. Truth.

So much lying. And still too much truth. 

[azrielgreen]

random question, but why Nebraska? I live in the US and often forget Nebraska even exists, but you happen to have two stories set there. Do you have a connection to Nebraska, or did you just choose a state at random in the middle of the country? Or do you find something poetic about the expansive nothingness of the Cornhusker state?

just curious.

So, it's really strange but Nebraska holds a deep emotional meaning in my heart that involves Ethel Cain, Billy Hargrove and 'Rooms'. Apologies for the little ramble ahead, but for those who enjoy such things, gather round.

When I first started writing Rooms, I was experiencing a lot of burnout, very much questioning myself as a writer and also recovering still from a near death experience. I had made a new friend who became such an important and beautiful part of my life, and it was in this time of loss, self-doubt and awakening that I felt comfortable enough to share with my new friend that I loved the character Billy Hargrove. This sounds so stupid even as I'm writing it now, but I had been made to feel that liking him was this extremely taboo thing and that I should be ashamed of it. Even a former friend I thought I was close with often made me feel terrible for liking him. My new friend was not like that. We talked for hours and hours about the things we liked, and I felt brave enough to admit that of all the characters, every single one, in ST, Billy is my favourite. My friend was kind and open and supportive and it was here, around this time that we started writing a story together that would later become Prism and coming up with all these incredible ideas and perspectives I had never considered. Although people credit me with much of Prism Eddie's creation and expansion, always remember it is @thorniest-rose who invented him.

This is when I wrote Rooms.

This is also the time I discovered Ethel fucking Cain.

A House in Nebraska and Sun Bleached Flies altered my DNA and I listened to them both back to back on a loop while writing Rooms. It became something so meaningful and personal and beautiful, and all three are tangled up together. Inextricable connections between these things I love so much and at the heart of it all, is Nebraska. I've never been to Nebraska, but I imagine it to be exactly as you said. The great, vast nothingness, the absence of any significant pull to visit or tour there. It's sort of branded into me, the line about 'I'm still praying for that house in Nebraska, by the highway on the edge of town,' and it's all tangled up with Billy Hargrove and the possibilities of an abused kid making good, coming through the other side, learning and growing. Longing for this quiet, no man's land of blue skies and endless horizon. I would often dream of such things myself. Just a house. Somewhere I was safe. And I wrote all this at a time when I met someone I came to love and care about so much in mutual support and kindness, and it's why Rooms is gifted to her.

Opening yourself up to new things is such a beautiful and important phenomenon, especially when you're grieving or recovering. Rooms to me is a touchstone of reassurance that I can write whatever the fuck I want and anyone who tries to tell me different is not my friend. Nebraska has become an almost nebulous place in my mind and heart, to the point I get excited when I hear anyone even mention it in passing. I think we put meaning where we need to, anthropomorphising and humanising and telling stories to get through the hard parts of life. Nebraska is the core of that for me. Synonymous with self-acceptance, growth, positive change, releasing what doesn't serve, embracing who you are, saying fuck you to those who would police your joy and creating whatever the fuck you want without needing it to be liked, but also this deeply sad part of myself that acknowledges what I went through as a child and what I experienced at the hands of people who were supposed to take care of me. I have at this point in my life lost a huge amount of my childhood memories all the way up to my late twenties. Nebraska is the long distance friend I never had, the moon watching over me, the place I go to in my mind to make it all go quiet and calm. I feel like I've written this huge story around a place I've never been to and for some reason, it just stuck hard.

Like many British kids growing up watching America on our screens, I always wanted to live there and although I'm now glad I don't, I'll always be in love with the country and all her patchwork quilt states, these weird little lands sewn together that are so different, almost like a world unto itself. I never choose a state randomly, but Nebraska is laden with meaning and woven with feeling, all of which I'm sure seems massively unearned as I'm just another person who grew up in a rainy country, longing for blue skies, with a tendency to love abandoned things.

Thank you for asking.

All my love, Az

💜💜💜

[crescentfool]

beaming everyone on the dashh with good brain day vibes!!! i hope that you all can remember to extend self-compassion to yourself whenever you're feeling down about something 💙

[jatlokgwo]

dont feel guilt about change. the art made before the changes will still be there, its not a waste, think of it like a picture of you then, or now, and look back and see how much youve changed. oh and you can always go back on the new design thing of course so theres that too. i hope u feel good and okay about it :}

frames this ask in my brain anon your so right

the old design is still really important to me but if each design is who i was then ive been slowly looping back to a happier version of me that i thought died but diffrent in a good way realizing that makes me feel alot better about likeing it thank you!!! ^^

[loverboybrightsideghost]

i really do love practicing 🎻

[lambentplume]

yapping aimlessly tonight

[scientia-rex]

When I was in ninth grade I wanted to challenge what I saw as a very stupid dress code policy (not being allowed to wear spikes regardless of the size or sharpness of the spikes). My dad said to me, “What is your objective?”

He said it over and over. I contemplated that. I wanted to change an unfair dress code. What did I stand to gain? What did I stand to lose? If what I really wanted was to change the dress code, what would be my most effective potential approach? (He also gave me Discourses on the Fall of Rome by Titus Livius, Machiavelli’s magnum opus. Of course he’d already given me The Prince, Five Rings, and The Art of War.)

I ultimately printed out that phrase, coated it in Mod Podge, and clipped it to my bathroom mirror so I would look at it and think about it every day.

What is your objective?

Forget about how you feel. Ask yourself, what do you want to see happen? And then ask, how can you make it happen? Who needs to agree with you? Who has the power to implement this change? What are the points where you have leverage over them? If you use that leverage now, will you impair your ability to use it in the future? Getting what you want is about effectiveness. It is not about being an alpha or a sigma or whatever other bullshit the men’s right whiners are on about now. You won’t find any MRA talking points in Musashi, because they are not relevant.

I had no clear leverage on the dress code issue. My parents were not on the PTA; neither were any of my friend’s parents who liked me. The teachers did not care about this. Ultimately I just wore what I wanted, my patent leather collar from Hot Topic with large but flattened spikes, and I had guessed correctly—the teachers also did not care enough to discipline me.

I often see people on tumblr, mostly the very young, flail around in discourse. They don’t have an objective. They don’t know what they want to achieve, and they have never thought about strategizing and interpersonal effectiveness. No one can get everything they want by being an asshole. You must be able to work with other people, and that includes smiling when you hate them.

Read Machiavelli. Start with The Prince, but then move on to Discourses. Read Musashi’s Five Rings. Read The Art of War. They’re classics for a reason. They can’t cover all situations, but they can do more for how you think about strategizing than anything you’re getting in middle school and high school curricula.

Don’t vote third party unless you can tell me not only what your objective is but also why this action stands a meaningful chance of accomplishing it. Otherwise, back up and approach your strategy from a new angle. I don’t care how angry you are with Biden right now. He knows about it, and he is both trying to do something and not doing enough. I care about what will happen to millions of people if we have another Trump presidency. Look up Ross Perot, and learn from our past. Find your objective. If it is to stop the genocide in Palestine now, call your elected representatives now. They don’t care about emails; they care about phone calls, because they live in the past. I know this because I shadowed a lobbyist, because knowing how power works is critical to using it.

How do you think I have gotten two clinics to start including gender care in their planning?

Start small. Chip away. Keep working. Find your leverage; figure out how and when to effectively use it. Choose your battles, so that you can concentrate on the battle at hand instead of wasting your resources in many directions. Learn from the accumulated wisdom of people who spent their lives learning by doing, by making mistakes, by watching the mistakes of their enemies.

Don’t be a dickhead. Be smarter than I was at 14. Ask yourself: what is your objective?

[omgthatdress]

Sooooo ummmmmmm this is something that's probably going to piss a lot of people off, but I feel like I really need to say it.

If you get a message from an account claiming to be a Palestinian fundraiser, it is a bot. It is a scam. You need to report & delete the message and encourage others to do the same.

I know because I get messages on this account DAILY. I have a very high follower count and I'm pretty active and I interact with my followers a lot, and apparently that all adds up to one big bot magnet.

Bots following and messaging this account was a MASSIVE problem before Tumblr fixed its new account policies. I used to spend literally hours blocking and reporting the hundreds of bots that I would get following me each day.

I learned a lot about bots and how to identify them. The easiest way is with no avatar, "untitled" in the blog description (BTW if your avatar is still set to default PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD change it because you run a substantial risk of being accidentally blocked & reported as a bot).

One of the dead give aways of a bot was what I call "word salad" names. Three seemingly random words strung together making no sense, always adjective, adjective or noun, noun. If you reported a lot of these bots, you'd notice the same words kept showing up.

Nowadays, I am bombarded with fundraiser requests and sometimes, they don't even bother to hide the fact that they're a bot. The avatar is default, the blog title is "untitled," and the blog name is a classic randomly-generated word salad.

However MOST of the requests I get come from at least semi-legit looking accounts. There are pictures, a name, a story. Never mind that I've gotten that message three times from different accounts.

Sometimes, they claim to be vetted, but the whole vetting system essentially adds up to "trust me bro." There is no way of guaranteeing that this account isn't just lying about being vetted, claiming to be vetted by a false person, or are using the identity of a real Palestinian to scam people.

Previously, I've seen a lot of people getting attacked for raising questions about these fundraisers and getting attacked for being racist or for harming Palestinian families in danger, like Tumblr isn't a website famous for its scams and the words "The Arkh Project" "All or Nothing" or "Miss Officer and Mr. Truffles" mean nothing to you.

I personally have been scammed by people claiming to be charities on Tumblr before, specifically, The Leelah Project which used the name of a trans teenager who died by suicide to swindle people out of their money.

Luckily, there are actual, respected charities out there you can give money to if you want to help the cause:

Palestinian Children's Relief Fund

Palestine Red Crescent Society

United Nations Relief Works Agency

Islamic Relief

World Central Kitchen

Médecins Sans Frontièrs

One of the hardest things to accept about the situation in Palestine is that realistically, there is very little that your average outsider can do to change it. However, these large, well-respected and trustworthy charities are out there doing the hard work to keep people alive, and should be where the donation money is going

These scam bots feed on people's naïvety and need to believe that they are making a difference, and even worse, feed on the fear that by ignoring them, it somehow makes you a racist doing direct harm to a refugee family, when in fact they are using the suffering of Palestinians to take away money from those in need.

As far as fundraisers that don't send out random asks for donations, I honestly don't know. You'll have to do the work yourself and approach with much caution.

Be careful out there.

[shithivemaggot]

hhfbb

[caelum-in-the-avatarverse]

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available. 

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community. 

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company? 

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists. 

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom 

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

-

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits. 

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people. 

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it. 

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.